Prostho Plus (21 page)

Then how, she wondered sharply, was she able to hear and comprehend the Monarch's present speech?

"My dear," he remarked, "your thought processes are so delightfully open. The phase applies to the translators too, but only for you and me. We cannot communicate with the creatures of this time, or indeed make ourselves known to them in any way. I heard no more than you did, just then."

"Oh," she said, more perplexed than ever.

A thick-bodied, furry antennaed drab moth arrived on foot. It gazed out over the parapet a moment as though envious of the aerial ceremonies beyond, then lowered its head to the wall. A tremendous tongue uncurled and brushed the tight strands that formed the parapet and all the castle/palace. She saw with shock that its wings had been partially clipped, so that it could not fly.

"The menials come out at night," the Monarch murmured distastefully. "We don't associate with them, of course, but we recognize that they do have to clean the grounds
sometime."

"The moths? They do the work?"

"That is the natural order, since they are basically inferior. We merely relieve them of the onus of making decisions. No doubt they are happier than we are."

The moth hardly looked happy. It seemed resigned, feeling no frustration, apart from that one glance outside, because it had no hope. She started to voice a protest at this callousness of the Monarch, but he spoke first: "We'll return to the throne-room. You shall instruct me on caring for my teeth."

That was right—the Monarch had teeth now! This was one thing she was qualified to do. "Suppose I clean your teeth while I explain about the procedures?"

"Excellent." He settled on the throne and opened his mouth. His teeth were surprisingly similar to those of a human being: twenty four of them, divided into incisors and molars, sixteen and eight respectively. No cuspids. Normal occlusion. That, as galactic dentition went, was practically, identical to her own set.

She brought out her instruments, set up the sterilizer, and tied a protective cloth about his furry neck. This was awkward, because his head was not attached in a familiar manner, but she had learned not to let such details interfere. She lifted a sealer and began to check.

"Your teeth are not in the best condition, I'm afraid," she remarked. "There's a good deal of erosion, and the gums—"

"Ouch!"

"Are a trifle tender. You need the attention of a dentist."

"Allow a moth to touch my royal teeth?" he demanded incredulously.

Oh-oh. "Don't you have any butterfly dentists?"

"Certainly not. No butterfly would soil his dignity by learning a trade."

"Trade? Dentistry is a profession."

"Kingship is a profession, my dear. I would have any subject who fell so low as to practise a manual art put under the lights."

The lights?"

"Executed, to employ a euphemism. You would not care to know the details, my charming alien hygienist." Then he fathomed her thought. "No, there is no such restriction on aliens; we understand that the ways of the galaxy differ from ours peculiarly. No stigma attaches to
you.
You are not at fault for having been hatched on a barbarian world."

That did not allay all her concerns, but she let it pass. Judy was beginning to appreciate the full extent of the problem. No wonder the Monarch had lost all his teeth.

"Well, I can show you how to extend the life of your teeth, but it's already pretty late. Too much damage has already been done."

Ten years is not far enough back?"

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, it isn't."

"Explain anyway."

She continued to work, cleaning away the immediate residue of what appeared to be years of neglect. "Oral prophylaxis is much more than just cleaning the teeth. The whole mouth, the entire habitat has to be considered. The food of primitive species tends to be hard, tough and gritty, and it cleans the teeth naturally. But civilized foods tend to be soft and sticky, and many essential nutrients are refined out. And sugar—processed saccharine—well, it's best to stay away from it, if you value your teeth."

"But I love sweet foods!"

"Your teeth have already informed me of that. If you insist on eating sweets, at least keep your teeth clean at all times. A truly clean tooth cannot decay. And it is important to disturb the natural bacteria in your mouth regularly, for some of these attack the enamel of your teeth. You can't eliminate all bacteria, but you can rout them out and keep them uncomfortable, so that they never have a chance to multiply and mass against your teeth."

"You are beginning to make sense," the Monarch said. "But how do I keep them clean?"

"You brush them, for one thing." She brought out a toothbrush, one of the few remaining from her original supply. Well, when they were gone, they were gone. "I'm sure you have better instruments and better systems at Lepidop, but the principle is constant:
get them clean.
Now I'll demonstrate the best way to clean off the surfaces, then you can do it yourself after every meal."

"But—"

It was her turn to divine his thought. "This can't be considered manual labour. It's
hygiene.
Only the most finicky and enlightened persons practise it. Clean teeth are a mark of, er, nobility."

"Naturally," he replied, having known it all the time.

"But brushing isn't enough." She brought out a spool of dental tape, "This is more difficult but more important. You have to pass the tape
between
your teeth, like this—"

"Ouch!"

"Now that didn't hurt, Your Majesty! You just expected it to. You pass it between your teeth and pull it back and forth a little, and it polishes the surfaces the brush can't reach. Darn these inexperienced adolescent fingers of mine! There. And right there, in the crevices between the teeth, is where food is most likely to collect, and where the undisturbed bacteria will feed and multiply in their own contented microcosm. You no more want to ignore these places than you want to ignore an assassin in your palace. Bacteria
are
assassins to your teeth."

"Suddenly I understand you very well! Give me that tape!"

His digits were much stronger than they had been when he was old. Before long he became proficient in both brushing and taping.

"Now," he said, "I begin to weary. Take my hand."

She took it, thinking he needed help, but as the vertigo passed over her she realized that they were jumping forward again in time.

She was twenty-six again, her clothing fitted snugly, and the Monarch was back at forty-two/eighty-odd. His wings were bleached, his antennae sagged.

"But look," he gasped before she left. "Teeth!"

He was right. They were so dilapidated as to be almost useless, but they were there and they seemed clean. "You took care of them!" she cried, delighted.

"For ten (breath) long years." He flopped on the throne, exhausted. "Dismissed."

It was several days before the Monarch summoned her again. "It is very tiring, revisiting the past," he explained. "And tedious, following your instructions. But it saved my teeth for five years longer than they lasted before. You gave good advice."

"I tried to," she said, but the whole business amazed her. How could they really have travelled back in time? But if they
hadn't,
how had the Monarch recovered his teeth? They were not good teeth, but they were genuine.

Ten years were not enough to grant me perfect dentures," he said. "Would twenty years do it?"

Twenty years were equivalent to forty in his life, she remembered. He would be half his present age—Hardly past his prime. "It might."

"Take my hand."

She obeyed while protesting. "But your Majesty. The strain—"

The dizziness overcame her, worse than before.

When she regained equilibrium, things had changed drastically. The Monarch was tremendous—twice his original size—and the throne had expanded to match. His wings were brilliant orange delicately veined, bordered on the fringes with a double row of white spots set in black. His torso was full and strong, his antennae were long and firm. He was a splendid figure of an insect.

And his teeth, as he smiled, were fine and even. He had done it: he had taken them back to the time before dietary dissipation and dental neglect had damaged his teeth irreparably.

But Judy was in trouble. She looked at herself. Her clothing hung upon her in gross festoons, her shoes were like boxes, and her dental case was impossibly heavy.

She had lost two decades. Physically, she was six years old.

"Come fly with me, my dear," the Monarch said. "This is my time of power."

"But I'm not
dressed
!" she wailed.

"Neither am I. Does it matter?"

What use to debate with a butterfly about clothing! Her blouse was now as big on her as a dress, and far less neatly shaped. She belted it around her middle with a strand of dental tape and discarded much of the rest of her apparel. It would have to do.

They went to the parapet, its outer bulge now swollen into a large balcony. "But you said equipment wouldn't work for you here," she protested, remembering what he had said ten years later (three or four days ago, subjective time). "How can you fly?"

"You jest, my dear," he said benignly, and hooked four hands into the back of her blouse-dress. She screeched as the dental tape snapped and she had to scramble to avoid complete
déshabillé.

The Monarch flexed his handsome wings. Air blasted down, and then they were aloft. By the time she managed to knot her outfit securely about her, the palace had fallen away and the ground was already awesomely far below.

Now she was glad she weighed so little. Her blouse was good nylon, but...

"Material power," the Monarch said as they flew. "It has been claimed by sages on my world and perhaps even on yours that this can not bring happiness, but assuredly it can. At this moment in the span of my reign I control seventy systems, each with one or more habitable planets, and I hold a virtual monopoly on the distribution of Ra radium throughout the galaxy. I have phenomenal wealth, and even the lowliest of my subjects live in ease. Look there?"

She peered as he swooped low. There was a silver city with minarets and flying buttresses, each structure bedecked with scores of bright green butterflies. It was as beautiful a municipality as she had ever seen.

"Is this your capital?" she asked.

He laughed resoundingly. This is Luna—the slum-city of Lepidop. Every occupant is a moth. See the ugly spots on those wings."

The spots were not ugly to her. "Luna moths," she murmured.

"And look there!" he said, moving on.

It was a forest, but like none she had known on Earth. Each huge tree was barrel-shaped, its foliage on the outside, its fruit hanging inside. She learned that when the fruit became ripe it dropped so that more could be grown on the same stem. There was preservative gas within the hollow centre, so that the tree gradually filled with its own fresh fruit, a natural storehouse. There was enough stockpiled in this one forest to feed several cities for months.

"And there!"

Now they came upon an ocean of water-colour-paint water. Geysers plumed from its sparkling depths into the sky, forming ambient vapour-scapes of every lovely hue. Swallow-tails spun within these falling mists, spraying rainbows from their wings.

"This is my empire," the Monarch said. "This is power, this is beauty, this is joy." And Judy had to agree.

They returned to the palace. "Why don't you build a dental clinic in this time," she inquired, "so that no citizen needs to have lived without proper care: The best food is wasted if your teeth are poor, and no one can be happy when he has a toothache."

"What I do now can only affect myself," he reminded her. "And you, to a lesser extent. But in our normal time I shall build a clinic for the future."

She checked his teeth. "There is some damage, but I'm sure that proper care will preserve these for the rest of your life," she said. "Brush them after every meal, and brush the rest of your mouth too, to disturb the bacteria. Use the dental tape, don't eat any more processed carbohydrates than you really have to, and have your mouth checked every six months."

"But who will do the checking?"

That moth problem again! And of course the Monarch could not summon any off-world dentist to work on his teeth, in this flashback status. "I suppose you'll just have to do the best you can by yourself. That isn't ideal, but it will certainly help."

Then she cleaned his teeth carefully, though her tiny six-year-old hands were clumsy at so specialized a task. She reviewed him on the techniques of dental-prophylaxis until she was satisfied that he knew exactly what to do.

Finally they returned to the present. There was some awkwardness about her tangled clothing that amused the Monarch, but he was too fatigued to laugh long. He collapsed almost immediately, frightening her. Twenty years seemed to have been a terrific strain on his system.

The Monarch was old again, but did seem to be in better health than before, as though his attention to diet had helped more than his teeth. And his teeth were improved; he was still able to chew most foods without discomfort.

If human beings had the ability to impart their knowledge to their younger selves, as the Monarch had done, they might all have superior teeth, she thought wistfully.

Months passed. Judy was well treated at the palace, and from time to time (figuratively) the Monarch summoned her for conversation. He was inordinately proud of his preserved teeth, and gave her full credit for the advice that had in effect restored them. But her service to him had ended; she could leave Lepidop at any time she found somewhere better to go.

Yet there was a certain lingering dissatisfaction. His teeth were not perfect, and she knew that he concealed occasional pains, not wanting to admit this flaw in the gift. It would have been so much better for him to have had the regular supervision of a dentist (even a moth dentist!), for the patient simply could not do everything for himself.

She was increasingly nervous, too, because she had not heard from the University. Trach was long gone and she had no idea how to reach him. She might have placed an interplanetary call, but this was expensive and she did not have a planet to reach. He could be anywhere in the galaxy.