by Derek Haines
FEBRUARY THE FIFTH
By Derek Haines
February The Fifth
Copyright © 2010 by Derek Haines
All rights reserved.
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‘I suffer fools badly. Makes it difficult to live with myself.’
List of Characters
August the Eightieth
The Supreme Potentate of the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth. Even in the later years of his life, he was an imposing figure. Tall, ruggedly handsome and maintained a fetish for carrying an ancient sword on his hip at all times. His only real weakness was in HR.
February the Fifth
The Supreme Potentate of the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth after his father’s demise. A deft backgammon player and avoider of anything resembling work. Although chronically lazy in his youth he does become somewhat of a fast learner.
Pope Gregory XIII
Did a lot of very tricky technical things with years and calendars in the 16th century as well as leading the Catholic Church. Ported a longish grey beard and liked wearing all the different hats that came with being Pope.
March Gregorian
Never happier than when on extended holidays and skiing hot lava flows. A real ladies’ man, as all handsome heirs should be.
October Gregorian
Clever, bright while somewhat prone to laziness. Another great vacation taker and socialite, happy to know that as second in line to his father’s throne, he really had nothing better planned in life.
April Gregorian
Highly intelligent and absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. A touch bossy but no one ever dared to complain.
May Gregorian
Exceedingly beautiful and a very good cook. Well renown for her tea drinking binges though.
June Gregorian
Stunningly attractive but prone to saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.
December Gregorian
Nasty, spoiled little brat who tended to cry, kick and scream a lot when he didn’t get his own way. His mother had hoped he would grow out of it, but by the time he was eighteen she had given up all hope of any improvement.
Atoth Gregorian
Tall, dark and handsome. Brilliant, articulate, polite and all things good and right.
Giovanna Gregorian
Petite and gracious with a brilliant business brain. Particularly gifted in fish marketing.
Grendaglod Gregorian
Social butterfly and professional name-dropper. Married well but her luck ran out when she had children.
Lefroy Overload
The Puissant of Croonumble and President of the Grand Council. Known as Lefty to his friends, he tired of all things political after getting in with the wrong crowd towards the end of his illustrious career.
OderlyKerth Dagnion
With tight curly grey hair that contrasted with his abundant freckles and rotund shape, he was certainly no Adonis. He made up for this by cheating at everything. Quite successfully too. Ended up with quite a cushy job as personal assistant and advisor to the Supreme Potentate.
TylonilicArundaplast
A quiet achiever and under deputy vice assistant to Oderly Kerth Dagnion. A no noise type who always goes unnoticed when getting everyone else’s work done.
Commander Gorr G. Glutz
Commander of The Royal Gregorian Guard. Hard military man who does everything by the book. Has a secret passion for pressing and drying flowers.
General Durrgan Dirrth
Commander of Glothic High Command. Efficiency plus. Known for his assertiveness and keen sense of being able to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.
PurtStringley
Known as Stringley because he hated his first name. With a physique that made him look like he was made of wire, he was aptly named.
Snurd Humped
Meticulously efficient civil servant. Menaced throughout his life by severe dandruff and the need to wear dark suits.
HerglaStringley
PurtStringley’s mother and efficient broadcaster of gossip.
MiglaMuchlli
House cleaner extraordinaire. Known for her amazing work with carpet stains.
Major Snerlic
An old school friend of Oderly Kerth Dagnion, who helped in getting him a decent job. Not the brightest candle on the birthday cake, but somehow managed to keep his job by shouting at people a lot.
Sergeant Sipply Snikkle
James Bond material with a touch of green scaly skin and a flashing long red tongue.
Lieutenant Hibril Likklet
Tall, green and handsome as all inter-galactic cruiser co-pilots should be.
HadlianKortek
A nasty little man with an even nastier little moustache.
AlsiatiousUmblicat
A very big man when in the company of his inferiors.
Greedilli Covetous the Third
Chairman of the Musciadantropica Standard Bank. So rich, he could buy planets. Money maker on a monumental scale.
Sergeant Clufferdikk
Although in the military, he would have been better advised to have followed a career in flower arranging.
Lieutenant Grubbilli
Loyal, hard-working and honest. Rare on any planet.
ChronnlycBiastrall
A sorry frozen salmon packer who lost his prized Q’muniktor when he quit his job.
HeggixConcurian
A cargo co-pilot with a pot belly and very fishy body odour.
FlaximossXylocram
A first class pilot who would have preferred to be flying something else other than a fish transporter, but was content that it kept him away from his nagging wife and four noisy children for most of the time.
Greg-Greg Gregory Gregorian
Although his real name is Twosome Sniddleydoop, brother of Singular Sniddleydoop, he changed his name when his father gave him the responsibility as the ‘Keeper of the Key’.
Adiddle
A manservant who was obviously cloned from the stolen DNA of Inspector Hercule Poirot.
Cruiser Commander Cruddlic
A clinical follower of orders.
Multiply Sniddleydrump
Known universally for his unique, traditional TerraTunTun cuisine.
Singular Sniddleydoop
Very efficient manager of one staff member. His younger brother Twosome.
Sub-lieutenant Crabblic
A junior officer with very few prospects of promotion. Quite good with mundane and routine matters.
Attack Commander Fitchfatlic
A man who likes shooting things with very big and noisy weapons.
Gloth
As far as planets go, Gloth is definitely one you could classify as your relatively average habitable planet. It’s got three moons, although only one is actually big enough to see most nights, as the smaller two have been mined for so long they have been reduced to nothing more than small, reflection free, orbiting rocks. Somehow the third moon was lucky enough to be resource free and thus able to carry on reflecting and shining brightly at night – like moons are supposed to do. Gloth’s climate is quite nice, and it is only in the upper reaches of its poles that it gets a bit chilly in the mornings. Being well known for having attractive pink oceans and uniformly pale mauve rivers with remarkably few twists and turns, it’s the
abundance of extremely high waterfalls that really attracts the tourists. Particularly the honeymooners – even given the aforementioned dead moon or two problem.
Being the sixth planet from the sun in a system of twelve planets called Sun System One, it is conveniently located and benefits economically from being the central hub that lured the headquarters of literally thousands of multi-planetary and multi-galactical industrial monopolies and is a tax haven for hundreds and hundreds of banks and lenders of last resort. It is also famous for having been quite a war monger earlier in its history.
This was brought about because a few million years earlier, Gloth discovered that it wasn’t alone and had to cease with its petty little civil wars, quickly sign a few peace treaties and start fighting wars with these newly discovered planetary neighbours. Then just when things were settling down and two relatively equal alliances had been formed that conveniently counterbalanced each other and an ongoing war was possible without too many people getting hurt, a neighbouring sun system was discovered to be populated, and quite obviously needed fighting. So with a new war starting, the two alliances of Sun System One amalgamated to fight the war against the new threat that logically came from Sun System Two, as they imaginatively called it.
To cut a long story short, this process carried on for roughly a million and a half years as every now and then, the discovery of a new sun system meant that new alliances, treaties, amalgamations, coalitions and strange bedfellows were needed to fight these new and essential wars. As luck would have it, after the twelfth sun system was discovered, and of course needed fighting and conquering, no more sun systems were close enough to be discovered. This didn’t necessarily mean everyone was happy, but it did stop the need for full scale wars and the following few hundred thousand years have seen only minor skirmishes between the odd planet here and there that doesn’t like another planet for some silly reason.
As a result of all the major wars, which Gloth won of course, Gloth has become the centre of its own little universe of twelve sun systems. All of which are located in a very small area in the very far bottom left hand corner of a long outer spiral arm of a galaxy called the Milky Way. Luckily for the rest of the Milky Way, the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth are so far away from any other viable sun system, that it is unlikely they will ever know that anything or anyone else exists. So as far as really major wars go, they have probably fought as many as they possibly can. All that is left now is to bicker amongst themselves in their tiny little outer patch of the universe.
Of course the good people of Gloth believe that they are located at the centre of not only the Milky Way, but of the universe itself. This was brought about because all of Gloth’s astronomers, astro-physicists and quantum physicists wanted to keep their research funding, so they fine tuned their findings to suit the political and theological beliefs of the fine people of Gloth. And of course the various Glothic institutions and multi-galactical industrial monopolies that supplied the money.
From the very first civil war between the ancient tribes of Gloth however, one family began to dominate all spheres of political life, and through their history of conquests during the long years of civil wars became the Royal Family of Gloth, and then in time, of the entire Twelve Sun Systems. Although history is rather vague about their tribal ancestry prior to the civil wars of Gloth, it has been well recorded that since that time some two million years ago, the Gregorian Royal Family has always been in charge of everything, with the first recorded Supreme Potentate of Gloth being January the First.
The following story is about one of January the First’s latter day ancestors. February.
A Dead Day
Any day there is a death in the family, one knows it probably isn’t going to be the greatest of days. When this particular day accounts for three lives and those lives are of your father and two elder brothers, there is good reason to expect a pretty rough day ahead.
Late morning saw the news arrive by way of a council secretary knocking at the door a little after eleven. A less than inspiring fellow who not only needed a haircut and a better anti-dandruff shampoo, but also a new suit. His nose was too long for his face and his mouth formed a downward arc that looked like it made smiling a physical impossibility. Grey sad eyes set in black hollows didn’t help at all in expecting anything other than a depressive attitude from the poor fellow. It would have been clear to anyone that he had missed his true vocation as an undertaker by entering the public service after leaving school.
‘Very sorry to disturb you sir,’ he said after the door opened. Without any intonation whatsoever, he gave the distinct impression that he was certainly not sorry, and had probably not volunteered for the task of delivering his next utterance.
‘Yes?’
‘I have to inform you that your father and two older brothers are dead,’ he announced in the same un-intonated tone of voice.
‘What?’
‘Dead sir.’
‘I understand that bit. But what about how and where?’
‘I don’t know sir.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘The Grand Council will see you at four this afternoon in the Grand Council Hall.’
‘To tell me what happened?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know sir.’
‘So what am…….?’
‘I must be off. Have a pleasant day sir,’ he said in his now familiar monotone flat, almost b flat tone, and hardly seemed surprised when the door slammed in his face just inches from his over length nose. He made a humpfing sort of sound before turning on his heels hoping that his cup of tea had not gotten too cold while he had nipped out of the office on his errand.
Feb leaned against the inside of his front door, which he had just slammed shut. Frontwards. His forehead rolling from side to side on the door as he processed the flatly delivered bad news. This news certainly had the potential to affect his royal allowances and liking for doing as little as possible. As the third son and sixth and youngest child of August the Eightieth, the Supreme Potentate of the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth, he was supposed to live a quiet life and leave all the ruling of an empire stuff to his father and oldest brother March, who was, or more the point now, had been in serious potentate training. His next oldest brother October had been in less than serious potentate training, but even this was a long way ahead of Feb. He had had absolutely zero lessons in ruling anything, except for a few lines in his exercise books at primary school with a ruler and red pencil.
He resumed a fully standing position, turned and decided to go back to his breakfast. Having only been awake for a little over half an hour, this was all too much to digest on an empty stomach. On his way back to his kitchen table he did make the decision that he would probably need to have a shower today, and dress in something other than his favourite green hyper-floccus, all-in-one, anti-perspiration, gamma protecting track suit. Not that he raised a sweat very often or indeed stayed outdoors long enough to be affected by gamma rays, but he did like the fact that it was easy to slip into in the morning while he was still half asleep. He also liked it because it had a rather useful and fashionable hood.
Feb was a member of the Gregorian Royal Family. The family that had ruled the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth for almost forever. Or at least as long as anyone could possibly remember. It was a confusing family in a number of ways, but most of the confusion was caused by the limited number of names available to family members. With only twelve official names to choose from in a family numbering quite a few hundred it was extremely difficult to really know who was actually who in the family zoo. February wasn’t a bad name to get as it was one of the least popular. However Junes, Aprils, Augusts, Mays and Marches really had an identity problem. He wondered if his three sisters, April, May and June, had been told the news.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello April, it’s Feb.’
‘Have you heard about father?’
‘Yes. That’s why I called. Do you know what h
appened?’
‘No. I just had a man from the Grand Council knock at my door a little while ago. He just told me father, October and March were dead.’
‘And you need to be at the Grand Council Hall at four?’
‘Yes.’
‘Seems like we got the same information then.’
‘Or lack of it.’ A short silence followed.
‘Are you alright Feb?’ April asked.
‘Umm. Yes April. I think so.’
‘You know you can always talk to me Feb. Remember I’m your big sister.’
‘Yes April. Um...Eh…’
‘What is it Feb?’
‘What should I wear this afternoon?’
April arrived an hour later with May and helped Feb clean up after breakfast. They also tried to clean up the last week’s or more of lunches and dinners as well.
‘Where are your house maids Feb?’ May asked.
‘Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell them to come in, but they normally come very early in the morning. So I tell them to go away and come back tomorrow. When I’m awake.’
‘Did they come this morning?’
‘Umm. No April. I think they’ve given up. I got a note from their supervisor yesterday saying I should call him if I want them to come back.’
‘Feb?’
‘Yes?’
‘You do realise that you’re going to be the next Supreme Potentate of the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth, don’t you?’
‘I’ve been trying to avoid that thought since that charming man arrived this morning April.’
‘But you’re the next in line Feb. Father would expect you to do what you have to do – your duty,’ May added.
‘I was five years old the last time I saw father for more than an hour! And since then only once a year at the dinner table when we all have to get together and celebrate the Day of the Supreme Supremacy of Gloth and do a lot of stupid saluting and silly song singing. What sort of preparation is that to rule over twelve sun systems populated by zillions of different races and people with extra arms and heads? Let alone the ones with the creepy reptilian skin. You wouldn’t catch me in the same hemisphere as those slimy dirt bags. Then there are the trips to boiling hot planets with new lava ski slopes to open and cruises on sulphur lakes with diplomats from the outer reaches who don’t speak. Just impregnate your brain with thought waves and….’
