The VMR Theory (v1.1) (31 page)

“Car salesmen, too?”

“Even such as they.”

“Gee,” I said, unwillingly impressed by anything that could reach that far down the food chain.

“I speak for them and for every toadstool and roundworm. All is Gaea and all are equal in Gaea, except that some are more equal than others.”

“This sounds like it could violate zoning ordinances. Have you worked out a campaign slogan?”

“Four legs good, two legs challenged.”

“Oh, right. Well, what’s up?”

“I have come to this world to save you.”

“Swell! Great. Good timing, too.” Then I remembered that I was still down on one knee. “Well, almost good timing.”

Wild spoke with a calm serenity. “Gaea has spoken to me. I am the bearer of a message to you. I am to protect you. You are in great danger.”

“No shit. Excuse me. Ah, what did you have in mind?”

“The only safety for you lies in Gaea.” Felicia’s face grew intense. “To save yourself, you must pour your essence into the Gaea, reverence all, become one with her, and add a codicil to your will making her sole beneficiary. Only in this way can Gaea preserve you, but know, too, that nestled to Gaea’s breasts, you will never need doctors or hospitals again.”

“Sounds great.” I looked at Catarina. “What do you think?”

She nodded. “Prozac is wonderful stuff.”

“Ah, Felicia—you wouldn’t happen to have heard from Gaea in the form of a very large cat?”

She gasped. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.” I stood and dusted off my safari outfit.

“Thanks a lot for coming by, and especially thank Gaea for me. Just leave your number with my secretary and we’ll be in touch shortly.”

When Felicia departed, I asked Catarina, “Why didn’t we ever think of starting our own religion?”

“Most of the best ones are taken.”

“This leaves us where we were before. We could, of course, break our promise and make a run for it.”

“We gave our word. Not to mention the fact that Fowl and Xhia will bombard the planet unless Bucky gives us up.”

“Well, any ideas?”

She smiled. “We still have an hour or two to ourselves.”

After we ate the lunch that Clyde and company put together, we found Smith’s vehicle, an ancient white Ford Bronco, gave some truffles to the big, three-headed guard dog, and aimlessly drove around the volcano to kill time. “We couldn’t have backed out of our deal with Fowl,” Catarina said.

“Well, we could have if we had really wanted to,” I argued. “I mean, we have most of Fowl’s troops locked up. He can bombard the planet, but most Plixxi live underground, so there’s a limit to what he can do without a fresh invasion force.”

“No, we couldn’t have backed out.” She pointed at the shuttle, which was bobbing out to sea. “You forgot to engage the parking brake.”

“Oh, well. Poor Clyde. Still stuck with Harry.”

“I’m sure Cheeves will come look for them eventually.”

Wipo showed up with a few dozen shock troops to collect us a few minutes later. Mercifully, he ferried us up to Fowl’s flagship in silence.

Fowl was waiting. “Know t’at if you return tee battle cruiser you purloined, tee agonizing fate t’at awaits you when I return you to my world in triumph will be a quick and merciful deat’.”

“Dear me,” Catarina said. “Ken, do you remember where we left it?”

It was time for a curtain call. We’d had a good run for our money and caused our share of consternation before our luck ran low. “Sorry, Fowl. Tell you what—

“Bah! Surrender yourselves to me, abject and suppliant, as you become sickened by tee futility of your acts and by your paltry failure—”

“I’ve always kind of enjoyed poultry failure,” Catarina quipped, and I loved her for it.

The proceedings ground to a stop. “Off wit’ her head!” Fowl screamed, mauve with fury.

Wipo tugged at his sleeve nervously. “But your lordship, we can’t execute them until we get back.”

“I don’t care! Off wit’ her head! I want it done
nowl
“ “But we already sold tickets!”

It proved an unanswerable argument. They tossed us into separate cells in the flagship’s brig. Bucky and Cheeves sent up food for us, but for me it was still a rough ride back to Alt Bauemhof. Because of the abuse my body had taken and a possible delayed reaction to overindulgence in
Daube Avignonnaise,
I was in pretty bad shape. I cycled through hormonal surges and mood swings—one minute I felt all-powerful and wanted to bite somebody’s neck, and the next I felt like crawling under a pillow to die. It took me a couple of days to pull myself together. After that, time passed interminably, especially after I borrowed a deck of cards and the guards who were watching began buzzing me to put the seven of clubs on the eight of diamonds.

When we finally reached Alt Bauernhof, even I could see changes. Guards were everywhere on the space station and appeared nervous. When we touched down, more guards were waiting to haul us to Special Secret Police Headquarters in separate sealed vans. When we got out, I could see tens of thousands of Macdonalds gathering a few blocks away. At a guess, either they were into huge, Nazi-style Nuremberg rallies to whip up war fever, or country line dancing was making a comeback.

Always a sentimentalist, Wipo threw me in my old cell, where time dragged even more interminably than it had aboard ship. I prayed a lot, which ate up dull hours and really spooked the guards, and kept hoping that Captain Tskhingamsa of Army Intelligence would show up again for a rescue attempt. Around the end of the first week, I taught myself to use the hologram projector in Lydia’s ring to make shadow puppets: elves, dwarves, pixies, and Richard Nixon.

As I was putting my twentieth scratch on the wall to count the days, Wipo came to visit. “Ah, Mr. Bond!”

“Will you stop calling me that? Hold on a minute.” I made the appropriate motions. “I call this one ‘Elf on a motorcycle.’ What do you think?”

“I do not understand tee—”

“It’s supposed to be a female elf, damn it!” The strain of prison life was taking its toll.

He let it pass. “Tee board of ephors was enraged at you and Miss Lindquist for blabbing our preparations for building up our navy and conquering tee galaxy all over tee place. However, t’ey disagreed as to tee appropriate response. To avoid enraging tee Confederation, tee moderates wished to hang you, break you on tee wheel, and draw and quarter you. Tee hard-liners wanted to make your execution lengthy and painful.”

“So what did you all decide?”

“T’is morning we received a reply from tee Confederation. T’ey apologized for victimizing us such t’at we felt compelled to resort to building weapons of war to assert ourselves, and agreed to disperse tee Confederation fleet to avoid giving us provocation. So, after careful deliberations, tee ephors have decided to execute you and Miss Lindquist tomorrow in a particularly gruesome fashion t’at I am not at liberty to discuss. T’ey want it to be a surprise.”

“I hate it when the Foreign Office is allowed to participate in foreign policy debates. So tomorrow, I suppose hundreds of millions of people will get to see us die.”

“Only t$e rich. We scheduled it on pay-per-view. I should also mention t’at for her efforts in molding public opinion in tee Confederation, your ex-wife, tee being Gwen, has been given tee Planetary Order of Star and Comet with Diamonds.”

“How nice. Other than that, what brings you here?”

“In a touching gesture, I have brought your spiritual adviser to confer wit’ you ere you perish. But if you will excuse me, I have a check to cash before tee banks close.”

I expected to see Father Yakub. Instead, the ladder descended and Cheeves came down. “Cheeves! Good to see you! What are you doing here? I thought Wipo said that he was sending me my spiritual adviser.”

“I informed the chairman of the board of ephors that I was your stockbroker,” Cheeves said stiffly. “On most planets this has the same connotation.”

“And Wipo’s check? I assume it came from you, and I hope you arranged to stop payment.”

Cheeves shook his head. “Dear me, friend Ken, how unsporting!”

“Just a thought. What brings you here to comfort me?”

“Poobah Bucky directed me to come here and undertake to extricate you and Miss Lindquist from the situation you find yourselves in as a result of actions taken on our behalf.”

“How much gold did you bring in your luggage?”

“Approximately 150
quanats,
which is, I believe, roughly 14,120 kilograms.”

I blinked hard. “Pardon me, but where did you and Bucky lay hands on that kind of loot?”

“Gold, although valuable in craft applications, does not enjoy the same fiscal significance on JPlixxi* that it does here.”

“But didn’t you use that gold to secure the development loans you and Bucky took out to upgrade Plixxi’s economy?”

“Initially, this did present a problem. I believe that we had approximately eleven billion in loans outstanding, so to free up this gold for shipment, it became necessary to repay these loans.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no.”

“As it turned out, bank officials on Brasilia Nuevo learned from Confederation diplomats that Mordred’s invasion was imminent, and immediately contacted us. They were justifiably worried that cousin Mordred would repudiate the loans if he seized power. As I recall, that was a plank in his party platform. Inasmuch as there was no provision for recalling these loans absent default, I offered to redeem the loans at a modest discount, and they were kind enough to accept the amount I was able to offer in full and final satisfaction.”

“What did you give them, ten cents on the dollar?”

“I believe that the final figure was thirty-two percent.”

“You didn’t mention to them that Mordred’s invasion had already come and gone.”

“They appeared to be in something of a hurry, so I did not burden them with the information. Although a man from the Merchants’ Guarantee Trust later described the transaction as ‘the worst deal since the Red Sox peddled Babe Ruth to the Yankees,’ the representatives appeared quite pleased with the result at the instant the deal was struck.”

“You’re telling me that you diddled the banks out of eight billion.”

“The loans were partially secured by the Confederation Government Development Loan Bank, which will ultimately make good on approximately half of the losses sustained, so the ultimate loss to the banks involved will be much less. Fortunately, virtually all of the machinery and technology purchased with the funds has already been shipped, either here or to IPlixxi*, which obviates the potential for bothersome legal action by disgruntled banks or shareholders.”

I stared at him in utter horror. “Hold it. Half the stuff you bought must be on the list of items that the Confederation doesn’t allow companies to ship to Alt Bauer-nhof. You’re breaking your licensing agreement!”

“Dear me, friend Ken, may I disagree with you on this? The agreement merely specifies that we cannot resell indexed items to non-!Plixxi* firms. There are now several !PIixxi*-owned companies on this planet, indeed, several more than there were last week. Indeed, my niece, Minnie, particularly asked me to mention to you that one firm we purchased was engaged in the manufacture of a beverage known as White Zinfandel, which we have taken off the market pending a scientific examination into its apparently deleterious qualities. Early indications are that this has had an immediate and remarkably beneficial effect on this planet’s population.”

I sighed. “I hate to say this, Cheeves, but all of the effort you’ve made is in vain. Wipo just told me that the board of ephors plans to execute me and Catarina tomorrow.”

“Oh, dear! Did he say that?”

“Our only real chance was for a preemptive strike by the Confederation Navy, but Wipo just said that they’re dispersing the fleet, which makes absolutely no sense.” Cheeves was silent for a few seconds. “A Klo’-klotixag-built warship suddenly appeared over Brasilia Nuevo and landed a war party which sacked the pornographic bookstores of the city of Rio. Because of the manner in which the raiders were dressed, the citizens did not pay them any attention. There is an unconfirmed report that the raiders also struck the zoo and freed the turtles held captive there.” Cheeves paused. “Bowing to public outcry, the Confederation government decided to disperse its fleet to prevent similar outrages.”

“Oops! I guess when I screw up, I do it in style.”

“Actually, your handling of the situation has won high praise overall. Your co-signing for the loan of $147 million that my niece and nephew took out was a stroke of genius in that your creditors on this planet feared they would not be paid if the government executed you, and they have been exerting pressure on the board of ephors to prevent this.”

“Well, it wasn’t enough. Say good-bye to Bucky for me—”

Cheeves pulled out his pocket watch and examined it. “Friend Ken—”

“—and Minnie and Mickey and the rest of my crew. But the person I’ll really miss is Catarina.”

“Friend Ken—”

“Is there any chance you can talk them into letting her go?”

“A fairly good one,” Tskhingamsa announced from above us. He began letting the ladder down. Bucky and Catarina appeared beside him. “Tee board of ephors fled, moments ago, and a new provisional government is being sworn in outside tee capitol building, which is under repairs.”

“As I was about to say to you, friend Ken, the information you, received was slightly outdated,” Cheeves explained.

Bucky and Catarina came down the steps to join us. “Friend Ken, you’re looking well. As Bucky says, ‘The health of a friend is like an endless stream of pennies from heaven,’ “ Bucky exclaimed.

Catarina was whistling the theme song from
Bom Free.

“I suppose that this is one of those ‘a new era has dawned’ things.” After I hugged Catarina and shook Bucky’s paw, I looked at Cheeves. “All right, I’ll bite. What’s
your
angle on all of this? Don’t tell me you used all that gold to finance a coup d’etat here.”

“Oh, no, friend Ken. Dear me, no! That smacks of illegality. We purchased the planet instead,” Bucky explained. I needed to sit down. “You did what?”