Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe (12 page)

I had a close call the other day. I was taking a walk in the woods and started to feel a little weak so I sat down. I didn't realize it, but my oxygen mask was broken and was not feeding me with enough oxygen. I fell asleep right there in the middle of the woods and would probably have died if one of the scientists who is always prowling around in the woods hadn't come across me. He put his own mask over my face until I revived, and then shared it with me until he got me to the medical center that has been set up in that church. Apparently the little forest was producing just enough oxygen that I had been breathing its thin air without noticing my mask wasn't functioning. (The scientist and I have been dating ever since! His name is Leonard and everyone calls him Leo.)

While I was asleep or passed out I had a really amazing dream. I dreamed I was walking through the woods with my sister and I was crying and telling her she had to help us. I was showing her how sickly the trees looked and pointing out the carcasses of some dead dogs. Then I dreamed we were walking on top of the atmosphere and I was showing her how the ozone layer was almost all gone. We were looking down at the desert, which had once been the Brazilian Rain Forest, and the next thing I knew we were in a very beautiful forest. ---Oh, the dream had been in black and white until the part of the beautiful forest.--- The forest we were in was very strange. The birds had no feathers, and these forsythia bushes were slyly following us as we walked. Somehow, the forest told me his name was Zollocco and he would talk to his older sister Saemunsil about our problem. Then I dreamed the forsythia jumped us and tried to kill me by squeezing my chest so hard I couldn't breathe.

At that moment, I came awake to find this very worried face peering down at me, and an oxygen mask being firmly pushed over my face. I guess after all of these years, I'm still not over the loss of my sister. The funny thing was, my sister was so alive in the dream. She lived in that funny forest. The feeling I had after the dream was she was really going to help us, and that we can save the world if we look after the trees. I have to say the dream impressed me so much that I signed up for an internship with the foresters. I've decided to become a tree pathologist. I'm feeling really good and hopeful. I feel like I've found my purpose in life.

Well, enough about me. Write and let me know how you're getting on. I wish I could instill in you some of the hope that my dream gave me.

Love, Your Cousin

CHAPTER FIVE
The City of Ichloz

Upon my arrival in Ichloz I followed all of Neighteeha's instructions. I changed into the Ichloz navy blue velvet tunic and balloon legged trousers while still inside the "Space Wave." I thanked and took my leave of Neighteeha's cousin, being careful that onlookers saw the exorbitant tip I gave him. My status as nobility established by my use of the dialect and the size of the tip, porters thronged around me, desirous of earning a similarly large tip. I selected one to flag down a cab for me, and when the cab came, gave him the tip the tourist book Neighteeha and I had consulted said was appropriately generous.

The cab was the most ostentatious vehicle I have ever seen. Most of it was roof, being powered by solar energy. It had small wheels painted silver with a yellow floral trim done in glitter. The body of the cab was painted yellow with the floral design of the wheels repeated as silver glitter edging for the door and windows. I put on my sunglasses. Inside, the cab was just as ghastly. The cushions were bright pink with yellow and silver glitter flowers. Holographic images of yellow and silver flowers in vases glittered beneath the two passenger windows. I kept my sunglasses on. The cab driver wore a silver tunic with a plastic, glitter encrusted silver flower in his yellow belt. The porter helped me into the cab and gave the driver the address I wanted. The cabby belonged to a guild and so no tip would be asked for, but the price for a cab, being set by the guild members, was always exorbitant, the tourist book warned. I covertly reread some of the book's information as the rolling piece of bad taste and glitter took me to the apartment building where I was to meet the proprietor I had spoken with on the telephone before leaving Gretern. Of the five advertisements Neighteeha had circled for me, two responded with a recording, one had no more vacancies, one wanted a cash down payment which was slightly higher than I could afford, and one, extolling the virtues of `Salsmeade House,' had vacancies, a price I could afford, and a proprietor eager to do business.

My glittering cab rolled to a stop in front of a large white stone building that bore a sign done in fancy script that read `Salsmeade House.' I quickly pushed the tourist book to the bottom of the bag before the cab driver saw it, and I fumbled out the bills and change necessary to pay him. The cab driver carefully counted the money, gave a small nod, a smaller smile, and assisted me out of the cab. I climbed the stairs to the huge doors covered in a thin sheet of brass, which was pressed or embossed with a geometric design. I buzzed the buzzer and announced my noble presence to Commander Wriku, owner-proprietor of `Salsmeade House.' I was admitted and greeted by the Commander who wore the civilian long tunic with the addition of his space fleet's jacket, medals, and cap. I was judged by his quick and money-hungry eye to be an appropriate tenet, ushered into an elevator walled with more of the embossed brass, and guided to apartment number twenty-three. Major Wriku unlocked the door and showed me around the apartment.

"These apartments have been specially designed for single ladies," he said in a brusque attempt at a sales pitch. Every room was double-carpeted. The bottom rug was wallto-wall, thick, and of a solid, muted brown. The top carpet was always oval with floral designs. All the main room walls were papered with floral-design velour. Each room was "designed"--very self consciously so. The living room was done in burgundy and purple with fluffy cushioned, velvet furniture. The wood of that room's furniture was of a deep red, birdseye grain type wood. Pictures of flowers adorned the walls. Ivory lamps, with floral lampshades lit the room. Everything was ornately trimmed with gold threads. Even the lamps had fringe. The bedroom was done in yellow and greens with a brass double bed, brass light fixtures, and lamps. The lampshades were hand painted with scenes of lovers scampering behind bushes. The ceiling bore a mural of the same scene depicted on the lampshades.

The Commander strode through each room commenting very matter-of-factly in his gruff voice. "The place is furnished well, everything you could need is here. These cupboards in the hallway contain all the crockery, linens, and cleaning utensils. If it suits your needs, I have the contract right here, and you can pay me directly."

As I signed the contract, the Commander took a cigar out and lit it. "If you need any help, there is a caretaker. If you need to get in touch with me, write my secretary." With that, he gathered up his money, and strode out the door. Since I had now spent all of my money on rent, on the Ichloz outfit I was wearing, and on all of the tips I had paid I decided I had better go steal something to eat. Theft was, after all, the alternative economic system in this city. Wandering along the clean, white streets, I took my time deciding which shop to go into.

I finally selected one. I went into a store that had noodles hanging in the window. The store was filled with different kinds of pastas. I looked at a plate of spaghetti set on one table. Hungry, I wanted to taste the sauce. I stuck my finger at it, and the spaghetti jumped up six inches and scampered away from me. The store was not a pasta store. It was a store that sold housecleaning animals. The spaghetti that had run away from me was a duster and it ran right for another customer. To my amazement, an another duster peeked its head out of a pocket in the cloak of the customer, a woman, and the duster I had startled climbed up into the pocket to nuzzle the other duster. The woman gave me a wink and sedately sauntered out of the store. I had just seen my first "legitimate" thief.

I left the store and came upon a stand containing free newspapers. The newspaper was the
Noble Gameship News
, which chronicled the week's more interesting heists. A statue had been stolen from a private collection and the victim of the theft had nothing but praise for the cunning and skill of the thief and promised to marry the thief to his heir. It seemed the victim had an idea who the thief was and that the heir was enamored of the suspected thief. It seemed the theft was a way of proving the thief's value as a suitor. There was a little article about numerous animals being stolen from shops, and the animals later turned up retrained for more complex duties and fetching big fees for their services. It seemed the thief trained the creatures to work more suited to their natural inclinations, and so again, the thief received plaudits. I could feel my eyebrows going up; was it the woman I had just seen stealing the marsupial duster? Somewhat heartened that theft here was not considered in the light of moral repugnance, I found a bread store that actually sold bread. I shoplifted a few loaves, hiding them folded inside the large coat I carried. I took them home, ate them, and then, suddenly emotionally exhausted from my first day of crime, I fell asleep.

Nights are quite long in Ichloz; therefore, it was still dark when I awoke the next morning, driven out of sleep by fearsome nightmares. These spaghetti dusters kept chasing me; I would just think I had gotten away from them when I would come upon four huge, wounded loaves of bread. The bread would start screaming, "Oh my Forests, she's back! Help! Help!" Then the bread crumbled all over the sidewalk.

To see the sunrise I went out to the common near my building. I sat on a bench and listened to my stomach roar. Shoplifting really wasn't up my alley. It made me too nervous. Maybe being a pickpocket would be better. Then I would have hard, cold, cash. Everyone carried their money in a poke tied to the belt of their skirt or tunic. If I could get a suitable knife to cut the strings...

The birds set off a gleeful cacophony of song in salutation to the sudden swelling of dawn light. Oblivious to birds and light, I continued worrying about where I would get a knife. Or better yet, scissors. I promised myself it would be the last bit of shoplifting I would do.

Then I saw exactly what I needed. I don't know if there had been another sharp increase of light, or what made me look in that direction. Right across the street from me was a store specializing in laser appliances. I went into the store and asked to see the pocket-lasers.

"These are our pocket-lasers," the clerk pointed to four of the gadgets in the counter display case.
"What are their beams like?" The salesman removed the lasers from the case and demonstrated. Two of the lasers had two settings, very long and weak, and very short and strong. The third only had a range of about a yard, but it had six different settings for the length of the beam within that yard, and for intensity of the beam. The fourth laser had a range of only a foot, but had twelve different settings. All of the lasers had sterling silver handles engraved artfully with wildlife motifs. I chose the laser with the range of a yard. Its design was that of a tree.
"A very good choice, Miss. This particular model is much better crafted both artistically and practically. For what purpose will you use your new pocket-laser?"
I was quite thrown for a moment. Then I put on my best PR smile and said, "For all those little needs and uses women come up with."
The salesman laughed, "Yes, I have a wife, two sisters, and four daughters all living with me. They use these lasers for everything, from cutting paper dolls, to trimming hair, to sending secret love messages---except my wife of course."
I wrote a bad check on my defunct Gretern bank account, thanked the man, and left. The rest of the day I spent trying to learn the skill of cutting pokes from people's sides without burning a large hole in their clothing. By the end of the day I had a few pokes, and a lot of handsome young men had great big holes in the seat of the their skirts.
Home again, my sleep was disturbed by dreams that had me going from one place to another. I woke up several times thinking I was someplace else, and feeling very confused.
The next day I introduced myself to the neighbors. In one apartment on my floor, lived four women, all about six years older than myself. When they opened the door to me, I thought I was staring at four clothespin dolls come to life. They invited me in for tea, which we all drank standing up. I never did see them sit down. They told me they all worked in a "nurturing factory" (whatever that was) and once a week attended "The Society for Moral Service" meetings. As a result of their social concerns, they wore their prim and wellstarched Moral Service uniforms on their time off. I was looking for people withmoney who could introduce me to people with more money so that I could find some victims. These four with their dollar-store eyelashes probably wouldn't be able to lead me to big money.
The other apartment on my floor housed a family consisting of an elderly couple, their grown daughter, and two hobble-de-hoy sons. This family was delighted to find a mysterious, wealthy, (as they thought me) unattached woman living next door. A lot of money could be made in matchmaking, and this family enjoyed money, and took every opportunity to seize it. I used the Regal dialect; the dialect of nobility, and the father licked his chapped lips at the idea of presenting an unmarried noblewoman to Ichloz society. The daughter did her familial duty and invited me to come with her to a party; the sons stood stiffly by, stifling leers; the mother wrung her hands. The father beamed at my acceptance of the daughter's invitation and said how important it was for ladies to be out and about---how it kept them happy until the day when they chose family duties.
Before I knew it, the family, in the course of just a few weeks, had launched me into the full swing of the high society. I was out late most nights, attending parties until the wee hours. This scandalized the clothespin girls (as I thought of them). They stopped speaking to me, but literature from the Society for Moral Service clogged my mail.
At the parties I combined business with pleasure. I would strike up conversation with those who were dripping in jewels. I would particularly keep an eye out for those wearing saitha-- long scarves made of gold and silver threads and entwined in long hair. Saitha indicated an honored rank of wealth. During the course of conversation, I would learn my would-be victim's address and find different ways to ask their friends to refresh my victim’s drinks until the individual was quite drunk. After the party, I would go to the victim's house and break in. Usually the jewelry was lying out in plain sight. I had learned to walk soundlessly in the woods, and that skill helped me enormously.
The only flaw with this system was that I would forget their names or crucial parts of the addresses. I got names and addresses terribly jumbled up. I therefore only found the right place about a quarter of the time. This was a blessing in disguise because it gave me a randomness in forays that made it impossible to lay suspicion on me. The value of the pieces I actually managed to steal was high enough to make it worth wandering lost down dark streets three nights out of four.
Once I had the jewels, the next step was to sell them immediately before I got caught with them in my possession. This problem was easily solved by looking in the newspaper at the classifieds under “Gems Bought and Sold."
"Ichloz has two governments," I remembered Neighteeha briefing me, "that continually vie against each other to get the most seats in their Parliament; one a corrupt government based on honesty and justice; the other `The Alternative Government of Ichloz an honest and fair government based on the organization of non-violent crime."
The daily newspaper provided coverage of both organizations, and in fact a little more coverage of the more popular Alternative Government. To dispose of the jewels, all I had to do was look in the classifieds for dealers who asked no questions. So, the morning after my first break-in, I cut this ad out of the newspaper and made an appointment: