Tom Holt (18 page)

'No,' said Jason, 'that's fine. Just so long as you lay off the jokes, that's all.'

'I don't make jokes, actually,' said Gelos wistfully. 'In fact, sometimes I wonder what a sense of humour is like. I'm disqualified from having one, you see.'

Jason nodded weakly. The risk of internal combustion, he supposed. Nasty.

'I wouldn't want to rule the world exactly,' Gelos was saying, 'not the world the way it is, you see. It's too -- well, completely and utterly and irrevocably fucked up for my liking. All I could do would be take people's minds off it all, and I suppose that's better than nothing. It's what I do now, more or less. But that wouldn't be right, would it?'

Wouldn't it?'

'No,' Gels said. 'You see, I'd be making people forget about all the horrible things in the world, and that would mean they'd never do anything about them. And then, of course, something terrible would happen -- a plague or a disaster at a power station, that sort of thing -- and everybody would be so busy laughing about it that they wouldn't get around to actually doing anything to put it right, and then where would we be? In fact,' he added, 'that's exactly the possibility curve that I've calculated. You know about possibility physics and all that, do you?'

'A bit,' Jason said. 'But let's not get bogged down in all that theory stuff. What you're saying is that you want the world set right before you take over.'

'More or less.'

'And in the meanwhile, you just want to stay where you are and not be bothered by anyone?'

'That's it, yes,' said Gelos. 'People think I came down here, where it doesn't actually exist -- you know, not as
such
-- to hide from old Jupiter. Not a bit of it.'

'Really?'

'Really. You see, I'm a bit like radiation. I leak. If I was anywhere else in the world but down here, where it isn't actually possible to be, then great excess doses of laughter would sort of seep up through the ground and get into everything, and that would cause absolute chaos. As it is, enough of the stuff gets out to keep the world ticking over more or less, but it never reaches a critical level. And I think that's how it should stay, for now.'

'I see,' said Jason, nodding. 'So where's the problem?'

'Jupiter,' said Gelos. 'And all those other idiots too, of course. They want to kidnap me. Now they don't scare me, not one bit; if they were to come down here and try throwing their weight about, I could make them laugh so much they'd bust their heavenly guts. The trouble is, I'd have to release so much laughter it'd be bound to get out into the Topside and mess things up for people. That's why it's essential that things are kept under control, do you see?'

'I think so,' Jason said. 'You need someone to keep the gods off your back for the time being.'

'That's it,' said Gelos, nodding. 'Really, it's a case of making sure they don't get to me. That would have been all right, except that they've been looking for me a lot lately --I think the Betamax world where I don't exist is reaching critical level -- and it was only a matter of time before they did their calculations and found out I was here. That's why I got Prometheus to bring you here.'

Jason raised his eyebrows. 'What can I do?' he said.

'Diversion, said Gelos. 'You can fight the gods for me.'

Jason stared.
'Me?'
he said. 'You must be kidding.'

'I'm deadly serious, said Gelos, 'if that's not a contradiction in terms. I want them to think you've rescued me or abducted me, and you've somehow got hold of me and want to take over the universe. Then they attack you, and you give them a good hiding, and...'

'Excuse me,' said Jason, 'but is that certain? Likely even?'

'Absolute certainty,' said Gelos. 'You see, I shall give you a secret weapon.'

'Oh good,' said Jason. 'I was hoping you'd say that.'

'Well,' Gelos added, 'more sort of lend, really. I was thinking of lending you one of the Three Jokes.'

'Three Jokes?' Jason's face must have fallen slightly, as if he had been expecting something a bit more tangible, like a tank. Gelos smiled.

'Let me explain,' he said. 'As any comedian will tell you, there are only Three Jokes. All other jokes are minor variants on the Three, they have to be diluted right down before people can take them, otherwise -- well, they'd be fatal.'

'That funny, huh?'

'Oh yes. Now the first Joke, the strongest of them all, is called the Great Primordial. If you were to tell the first Joke, you would make the sun laugh so much it would trip and fall onto the Earth, which would be so cracked up with laughing it would fall into the sea.'

Jason nodded. Would that be the one about the three Scotsmen and the reel of cotton?' he asked.

'No,' said Gelos, 'though I know the one you mean. That's actually one of the Lesser Arcana of the Triple-Bodied Zephyr, and if properly told it can crumple up sheet steel like paper. The Great Primordial is rather better.'

'Wow,' Jason said.

'The second Joke,' said Gelos, 'is called the Celestial Labarum and involves an Englishman, a Pole, and a Goth. You've heard of the eruption of Krakatoa?'

'Yes.'

'My fault,' confessed Gelos. 'I have this habit of talking in my sleep sometimes, and one night the punch line --just the punch line, you understand -- must just have slipped out. By the time it got out past all this nothingness and found its way through the magma layer to the South Seas there wasn't much left of
it,
I can tell you, but...'

Jason shuddered. 'Hot stuff, eh?'

'You could say that,' said Gels. 'The third Joke,' he went on, 'is the weakest of the three. It's known as the Mighty Cloud Spirit Joke, and it's more of an anti-personnel joke, really. Knocks out people, leaves buildings standing, that sort of thing. And that's the one I'm going to lend you.'

'Um...'

'I know what you're going to say,' said Gelos. 'Too risky, you were going to say. You're quite right. That's why we needed the dog.'

Jason looked blank. 'The dog?'

'Quite so,' said Gelos. 'You see, what I propose to do is tell half the joke to you, and then send you out of the room. I shall then put two of the dog's brains to sleep while I tell one-sixth of the Joke to the remaining brain. And so on, until each of the dog's brains knows one sixth, and you know all the rest. It's a sort of failsafe system, really.'

'Well...'

'I know,' said Gels, 'it's still a hell of a lot to ask, but I wouldn't take the risk unless I thought it was absolutely necessary. Trust me.'

'All right,' said Jason.

'Thanks,' said Gelos. 'You remind me a lot of me when I was younger,' he added.

Jason blinked. 'I do?' he said.

'Not surprising, really,' said Gelos, smiling. 'We are related, after all.'

'Are we?'

'Oh yes,' Gelos said. 'You see, although I am Gelos, spirit of Laughter, I wasn't always what I am now. Before I was Gelos, I was... well, never mind that. Here, doggie.'

Cerberus jumped forward, wagging his tail. Gelos made a slight gesture with his right hand and the dog was suddenly fast asleep.

'I put a long joke in his minds,' Gelos explained. 'Good as an anaesthetic, I always find.'

'A long joke?'

'Shaggy dog story, I think they're called. Now, are you ready to receive your half of the Joke?'

Jason nodded and braced himself. Although he was very frightened and not a little confused, he knew that the three dots in his mind had become words now, and the sentence was complete at last.

'Right,' said Gelos. 'There was this guy who went into this bar...'

CHAPTER NINE

Pluto reached out. Eventually, to his initial relief, his hand connected with something. It was wet.

'Yuk,' Pluto said, and reached for his handkerchief. After a further period of exploration, however, he arrived at the conclusion that beggars can't be choosers, and set out to follow the series of damp, smelly patches on the walls of Nothingness to their eventual conclusion. If the dog came this way, he reasoned, Derry can't be far behind.

He had been feeling his way in this manner for perhaps ten minutes when he felt something that wasn't wet and smelly. If anything, it was rather worse.

'Don't mind my asking,' said a voice, 'but why are you holding on to my ankle?'

Pluto considered the cold, scaly surface he had just made contact with and shuddered. 'Beg pardon?' he said.

'My ankle,' said the voice. 'You appear to be holding on to it. Why?'

'Because it's there?' Pluto suggested. 'Whoever you are, might I trouble you for some light, by any chance?'

'Light,' the voice said thoughtfully. 'I may be able to manage that. Just bear with me for a moment, will you?'

A moment later there was indeed light. 'You've just missed him,' said the voice. Pluto blinked. The same could not be said for the piercing eyes of the colossal obsidian statue, which seemed to be trying to see through the back of Pluto's head.

'Have I?' Pluto asked.

'I imagine so,' said the statue. 'He went that way.'

'Did he have a dog with him?'

Gelos made a show of thinking about this, and then replied, 'I believe he did, yes. And a man, too.'

Pluto drew his brows together in a frown. 'Did he indeed?' he mused. 'What sort of a...'

'Ah,' said Gelos, 'there you have me. Lets see.' 'Late middle-aged,' Pluto suggested, 'friendly looking, big smile, probably in dressing gown and slippers.'

'Now you come to mention it,' Gelos said, 'I think you could be right.'

'Thanks,' said Pluto. 'Er, how about the light? Do you think you could fix it to stay on for a bit, only I get a bit jumpy in the dark. You know how it is.'

The statue nodded its head. 'I'll do my best,' he said. Pluto turned to go and then looked back. 'We've met before, haven't we?'

'No,' Gelos lied, 'I don't think so.'

'Ah well,' Pluto said, 'I've got a rotten memory for faces. Occupational hazard, I suppose. Thanks anyway.'

'My pleasure,' said Gelos. 'Go carefully, now.' Pluto waved and soon was lost to sight among the shadows. For his part, Gelos sighed and shook his head. Of his three nephews, he considered, Pluto was probably (though only by a short head) the dimmest. He reflected for a moment on the fact that these same three nephews, idiots all, had castrated his brother Cronus, imprisoned his sister Rhea and made him, Thing, the greatest of the three, hide out at the end of a sleazy underground railway line for most of the history of Creation. Fool's luck, he said to himself; or something like that.

There is an old accountant's proverb that it's no good the meek inheriting the earth if they end up having to pay tax on it at 40p in the pound. For his part, Thing (as Gels should properly be called) didn't really mind being cheated of his inheritance just so long as none of the other members of his family got their grubby paws on it. Having reassumed his true shape, therefore, he reached out his mind into the World and made contact with his oldest and best ally, presently suspended from a number of mountaintops in the Caucasus.

'Pro?'

'Is that you, Gel?'

'How are things your end?'

A flicker of a shadow passed across Prometheus's thought-waves. 'I don't know,' Prometheus replied. 'I have a feeling something's going to happen.'

'You're right. Apollo is coming to get you.'

'I know
that,'
Prometheus thought back. 'The eagle told me. I've told it to lie low for a bit. Any suggestions?'

'None that spring immediately to mind, Pro. I'd send you the boy, but I need him here. Mars is on his way, and Pluto's just come through. I need the dog, too. Sorry.'

'That's fine. I'll think of something.'

'Look, Pro, if things get out of hand, call me, will you? I might be able to help out, you never know.'

'What was that? It's a very bad line.'

'I said I might be able to help,' Thing replied.

'Don't worry about me,' Prometheus assured him. 'But send the boy when you can spare him, I'll stall them till then, all right?'

That's the spirit.'

Thing let the mental link subside and made himself a cup of Ovaltine; but his mind still moved on his comrade's dilemma. It was a pity he couldn't send the boy.

Of course, he said to himself, I could always send the next best thing.

At the very end of the corridor there was a door.

Like most doors in the Underground it had a very silly notice above it. It said
No Exit.

Extremely silly. After all. if you couldn't go out of it, what was the point in it being there? Jason shrugged and tried the handle. It was locked.

'What do you think, dog?' Jason asked. It was a rhetorical question really, as he knew that the reply would be Woof, but asking gave him time to weigh up the pros and cons of the move he had in mind.