Omega

by Bradley Stoke

  Chapter 5

  Endon was imposing but most of all frightening, I decided when the humming, buzzing, squawking and shrieking of its denizens compelled me to open my eyes. Anna remained asleep, unconcerned by the appalling noise. We had been sleeping under a dandelion more than fifty feet high, and the long palm-like leaves beneath us belonged to a species of moss. There were monstrous buttercups, several times taller than me, and towering above everything were the long shadows of daffodils extending in the morning sun.

  If the flora was of a scale completely beyond my previous experience, so too was the fauna. When I warned that the borough of Endon was inhabited by giant arthropods, I had not been prepared to see two-foot long ants and termites, wasps half my size flying overhead, butterflies as large as hand-gliders, centipedes whose legs and body stretched on and on, and snails the size of small cars. Fortunately, none of them were particularly interested in our presence, as we lay wrapped in our recently obtained gowns: now so thoroughly soaked by dew they were best forsaken.

  This was Anna’s opinion when she eventually awoke, throwing her gown off disdainfully and exposing a pair of tight white shorts and a singlet that bared all her midriff. She wore rubber-soled boots at the end of long bare legs which were altogether reasonable for long walks such as we’d had the previous night. She raked her fingers through her beaded hair and viewed the landscape with some amazement.

  “It’s jolly astounding! I just didn’t believe there was so much disproportion in such a small borough. It’s a mystery these insects are content to remain here and not take over the world! At least not everyone here’s an outsize creepy crawlie...” she pointed to a tiger chatting to a merman under the shadow of a toadstool, “...but there are still too blooming many of them for my taste.”

  We abandoned the cloaks on top of some smaller mushrooms and followed the path as it wound past clumps of enormous daisies and knee-high moss, and crumbled under the strain of cabbage-sized algae. The path had lost all its rectilinearity and now wandered hither and thither, past interminable columns of termites, beneath colossal spider-webs and past the capsized body of a tank-like beetle whose companions were trying to righten. Anna chatted as we walked along, now much more cheerful. She intended to go into the Subterranean City of Endon, which she was sure was somewhere round here, and catch a train back to Lambdeth. She’d had enough of travelling for the moment, and would be glad just to return to her friends and relax.

  The entrance to the City resembled the doorway to an underground railway station and was heralded by immense neon-lights. Outside were long lines of ants and other small insects hanging around and seemingly without very much to do. There was a general buzz of excitement, but no sense of actual achievement. Gadflies were selling newspapers, ladybirds were selling snacks and soft drinks, and a tiny stall attended by a woodlouse was selling lottery tickets. A tiger reading a newspaper sat nonchalantly by a family of mayflies. The tract was paved by tiny haphazard paving stones. It was very peculiar to find such a portal, mostly enveloped in vines and grass leaves, resting otherwise alone in the middle of such dense jungle.

  A mermaid sat decorously and unclothed on a bench, just by an advertisement hoarding for underarm deodorant. Beside her were several ants, one of which was particularly agitated and was arguing with a six-foot high green grasshopper in a green top hat and frock coat, who was gesticulating his four gloved forearms, while supporting his body on long spindly hind legs. His antennae were waving as excitedly as his several mandibles. The grasshopper appeared to be in dispute about something, but whatever it was he settled by cuffing the ant curtly across the face and strode away leaving the smaller insect in humiliation and pain. He had a newspaper under one forearm and a cane in another, leaving two buried in the pockets of his waistcoat. He saw us and deliberately strode towards us.

  “Did you see that Damned ant?” he exclaimed. “The fellow had absolutely no Damned respect for his betters. He was trying to tell me - Sir George Greenback! - that I had no more Damned rights than he. He was trying to extort more farthings for the services he supplied in carrying my Damned bags. These ants: they claim to work hard, but in truth they’re nothing but lazy idle sluggards! I don’t know how anyone can stand their Damnable impudence. What do you think, my lad?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, but Anna had no such problem. “It takes all sorts make a world.”

  “It does indeed! Too many Damned sorts, if you want my opinion!” He viewed us through the countless lenses of his green eyes, his antennae twitching restlessly. As he spoke his mandibles moved sideways as well as up and down. “You’re not from these parts are you?”

  “Not at all,” I replied. “It’s the first time I’ve visited the borough.”

  “Ah! An exotic stranger!” chuckled the grasshopper. “And you, young lady, I’d fain believe that you too are new here.” Anna admitted so. “In that case, may I have the honour of showing you around the City of Endon?”

  “That’s jolly kind of you!” Anna remarked.

  “It is that,” Sir George admitted, “but I consider it my duty to extend such hospitality to mammalian visitors such as you. Furthermore, I deign that I can protect you from the unwanted attention of the Damnable ants, termites and other scum who would offer to guide you through the labyrinthine roads of Endon for nothing more than pecuniary advantage. I heartily despise such opportunist trade.”

  The grasshopper’s eyes scanned the gathered mass of insects. “Endon’s a Damnably complex city for those who have never visited it before. A newcomer could easily get lost in its tunnels, and the unwary is easy prey to predatory wasps or mantises. But if you know your place, you shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “And you know your place, I believe,” guessed Anna.

  “That I well do. I’m no proletarian or peasant like these Damned ants. Grasshoppers are of the highest order: cultured, sophisticated and courteous. Only butterflies compare with us in exaltation. Below are all sorts from dragonflies to slugs, from locusts to worms. And in this great city you encounter people of all orders and genera. There are the industrious bees, who keep themselves apart from everyone else in their own suburbs, and worms with which nobody would wish to associate themselves. But when we enter Endon, you’ll see for yourselves what the city has to offer. Follow me.”

  Sir George strode ahead on his incredibly long hindlegs, while Anna and I hurried to keep pace with him. The door led to a precipitous escalator that descended down through the earth to a small square of light at the bottom. Alongside the escalator were posters advertising perfumes, films and financial services. The whole was lit by the soft glow of neon tubes which extended along the roof of this tunnel and every tunnel through which we subsequently passed.

  “You need to know your place in Endon, for sure,” Sir George commented as we descended. “People from outside, I’ve noticed, have scant regard to social position. Here everyone has his own status and standing, and woe betide those, like that Damned surly Ant, who treat those such as I with less respect than we deserve. But even though the mores and standards of strangers such as yourself are totally alien to the good citizens of Endon, we respect you and only require you to reciprocate in kind.”

  At the bottom of the escalator, the city of Endon opened up to reveal a vast neon-lit cavern spreading out in all directions to form a broad plaza scattered with huge statues and tall monumental buildings. The statues featured insects, spiders and snails in full splendour and regalia, brandishing swords, seated on giant beetles or standing in pride of their municipal glory. All about were small groups of insects with their heads bent back to admire the monuments. I was particularly taken by the statue of a tiger with its lower half composed of a large fish’s tail.

  Anna gasped. “You just wouldn’t believe there’d be so much blinking Art beneath a flipping forest!”

  “It is Damnably impressive,” proudly admitted Sir George, raising his top hat dramatically. “The citizens of Endon have always prided themselves
on their æstheticism. You mammals never suspect that arthropods can produce so much splendour.” He pointed towards a grand building in the near distance. “That is the Municipal Art Gallery, and if we had the time I would take great pleasure in showing you round. There is so much to see of Endon Art: its paintings, sculpture and architecture. You have nothing in the City to compare with this!”

  “I wouldn’t be so jolly certain!” laughed Anna.

  “Pah! You mammals always think that you have the best of everything! But, God’s Wounds! most of it is just foolishness. So much of what your chordate Art Critics call Art has no essential value at all. There are travesties of Art in your Art Galleries which could be produced by children or imbeciles. And that which is not merely amateurish and incompetent is Hellishly obscene.”

  “So what is it that defines Art then?” challenged Anna.

  Sir George strode purposefully towards a grand statue of a heroic millipede raised on its hinder legs clutching a large cross in several of its limbs and a mitre perched on its head. We scurried behind him.

  “Here, for instance, is Art serving its primary function which is to instil virtue in its beholders. Art - Good Art, that is - should inculcate good Christian values, respect for authority and order, a good life and a ceaseless striving towards new greatness. What can Art be if the viewer isn’t uplifted by it? Simon Peter Wept! Art should galvanise the spirit, fill one with aspirations of greatness and instruct the proletarian and peasantry in proper awe of the society they also serve.”

  “Surely, that’s not jolly well all that Art’s about.”

  “It most assuredly is! It certainly is not for preaching amorality and disharmony; as do the disgusting pruriences that masquerade as Art in vertebrate culture which so unsettle the aesthete. Why should I choose to rub my face in the excrescences of the world? There is already quite enough filth and scum!”

  “I’m sure there’s more to Art than that,” Anna disputed. “Surely all this stuff - impressive though it is - shows just a small part of what there is in the world. Shouldn’t Art do more than simply show the higher and more refined things in life?”

  “Perhaps Art should show excretion, poverty and disease,” scoffed Sir George. “I think not! Art should elevate the Soul. Not oppress it. Art is to instruct not revulse. And to do this it, venerates the more splendid things in the world. Art should be of recognisable things. Objects that one can grasp, that reflect the physical reality of Animal existence. I know that in the City and elsewhere, there are Artists - as they mockingly entitle themselves - who produce misshapen paintings, who eschew form and structure altogether to cover canvasses in wild, random doodlings. Charlatans who abandon the noble materials of canvas, paint and stone, to flaunt their insanity with the most unimaginably gross materials. These people do nothing more than decorate the walls of Hell, and I imagine damnation is precisely what is waiting for them.”

  “That’s a bit jolly harsh!” Anna replied good-humouredly. “I’m sure the Artists who dedicate their lives to producing the sort of Art you don’t like aren’t doing it just to tempt damnation.”

  “You may laugh, but I’m most Damnably serious. I am convinced that one reason why mammalian culture is so decadent and reprobate is precisely because of the tolerance it shows towards Art that subverts the Social Order. I have heard that there are boroughs that even finance these unholy execrations with taxpayer money. I would greatly object to know that what little of my income my accountant permits the tax man to collect should be squandered on something that serves only to spread revolt in the lower orders and dissent in the middle classes. Art is not, or should not, be seen as nothing more than an excuse for the indulgences of a self-appointed élite who want me and my kind deprived of their justly earned wealth and position. God’s Wounds! Do you envisage Sir George, knighted for his Services to Industry and the Social Order, would for one moment condone the very rubbishing of all that he stands for?”

  Anna must have concluded that this argument was becoming too impassioned, so she pointed at a group of troubadour ladybirds performing at the foot of the statue of a large butterfly in a suit of armour. “Shall we listen to them? They sound jolly good!”

  Sir George turned his head in the direction of the music, but made no attempt to move towards them nor indeed to change his subject of conversation. “Performing Arts, whether theatre, film or music, serves the same function as Visual Art. It must enlighten. It must enhance the Social Order. And it must tell a story. However, I’m not a prude. I enjoy music hall and comic opera just as much as the next man. I like to go to the theatre with my companions, to sit in the box and watch the Thespian entertain. But significantly seating arrangements of the theatre reinforces the Social Order and affords the lower classes the opportunity to reflect on the inherent superiority of those who by virtue of birth and effort (in both of which I am a sterling success) are necessarily of a more elevated position.”

  Anna was biting her lower lip, to restrain herself from criticism, so I politely remarked that Sir George was evidently very passionate about Art.

  “And Art is not all I am passionate about, young man. I have studied the Sciences as well, for which I have the greatest regard. And is it not curious that the Sciences have again and again reinforced my views concerning natural order and the probity of honest effort? Is this not proved by the Theory of Evolution which has shown how advanced Animals such as Grasshoppers and Butterflies have ascended over lower orders by virtue of the Survival of the Fittest? I keep myself very fit, I can assure you. Has it not demonstrated that the pivots of the Universe are the larger, brighter spheres, which resemble Her Maphrodite and the Aristocracy who shine from the centre of the Social Universe? And even now the Science of Economics is resolving those great eternal questions relating to the generation of crowns, shillings and groats: the very oil which drives the wheels of Commerce and Industry and ensures the generation of Wealth! If Art always aspired to the expression of virtue as Science does to describing and explaining it, then I would never have cause to complain about the abominations pretending to such an elevated station.”

  We left the main plaza, past more municipal buildings, to where a number of tunnels were radiating away in all directions. Some of the tunnels were quite high and wide, sufficiently so to contain rows of houses and apartment blocks. Some were only wide enough for a single car to drive along. All were lit by the same neon glow that permeated the plaza.

  “And what would you like to see? Where would you like to go? Endon has everything you should wish to see; all that a body might wish.”

  “I wouldn’t mind finding a railway station,” volunteered Anna. “I’d like to catch a train to Lambdeth.”

  “That should be no problem. Endon has a very impressive station, as befits a city of its population and industrial significance. And you, young man? Do you also wish to catch a train?”

  “I’ve got no particular destination,” I admitted. “I’m quite happy to see more of Endon.”

  “And that you will! God’s Wounds! He who tires of Endon, tires of life itself! There is more to see than you could ever hope to find in Lambdeth.” He strode along one of the medium-sized tunnels which had shop windows glazing its walls, with clothes, white goods, computer software and locally manufactured honey tastefully displayed inside. The clothes shops had the models of some very various arthropods accommodated by an astonishing variety of fashions and styles. Clothes that flattered the thorax, the abdomen and carapace of any insect or arachnid. Anna was evidently less impressed by the shops than I, but her eye was caught by a very prominent poster almost completely obscuring an empty shop window.

  As my attention was distracted from the sight of insects, tigers, spiders and other shoppers, I noticed many other posters plastered about, and most were connected with the General Election. The one that had attracted Anna’s eye featured simply the face of a koala wearing a broad-rimmed hat looking benignly out at the world. Underneath was the single word Illicit, w
hich I recalled was the name of one of the political parties contesting the Election.

  “Who’s the koala?” I asked naïvely.

  “Don’t you know!” exclaimed Anna, raising her eyebrows. “Golly! You Suburban people are so jolly ignorant. It’s Chairman Rupert, the leader of the Illicit Party and president of his own country which he’s renamed - modestly I’m sure! - as the Illiberal Socialist Republic of Rupert.”

  “The Damnable imposture of the Marsupial!” Sir George assented. “How can a classless four-thumbed Animal like him claim so much self-importance that he should name an entire country after himself? Even I haven’t arrogated my power and influence to the extent of renaming my land the Sir George Estate, but there are those for whom pride knows no bounds!”

  “So, what do you think of the General Election?” Anna wondered. “Are you going to vote Illicit? Or have you got better options?”

  “Are you an Illicitist, young lady? Are you one of those who want to merge this proud nation with the Illicit Republic and replace Her Maphrodite by a eucalyptus-eating mammal?”

  “Goodness, no! As if I jolly well would. But everywhere you go there are more and more people switching their allegiance to the Illicit Party. It’s like some sort of fashion.”

  “Simon Peter Wept! For an antipodean dictator!”

  “I think it might be to do with general disenchantment with the established parties. After all, it’s the only major party that doesn’t name itself after a colour...”

  “And what’s so Damnably wrong with that! It’s the way parties have always been identified, and I see no Godly reason why this proud tradition should not continue. But, you’re right, my dear, there is great disenchantment. And can you blame the people when there are candidates such as these standing for election.” He gestured a long spindly forelimb at a poster featuring a very sincere looking ant above the slogan The Red Party - Working for the People. “These scum who claim to represent the interests of the poor, downtrodden and the workers. All they wish to do is replace the rule of Law and Order, enshrined by status and tradition, by nothing better than the rule of the mob. They would see this nation run by ants and termites. They would destroy art, enslave the aristocracy in concentration camps and thoroughly ruin the nation’s economy. It is not only self-interest which decides my opposition to these peasants, but also concern for the interests of industry. Capital would flee these shores were the Red Party to gain power and it would be an unparalleled disaster for all those who have worked so hard to make this nation great.”

  “Would you support the Green Party, then?” Anna asked.

  “They are little better than the Reds! Perhaps they have some ideas I agree with, preserving many of the traditions of our nation, but all they would do is reverse the thrust of Progress. They would demand unacceptable restrictions on industry. Profits would plummet, economic growth would be stifled, capital would flee, and we would all have to become vegetarians.”

  “What about this lot, then?” Anna indicated a poster featuring a very heroic figure looking into the far distance carrying a sword with blood dripping from its blade. The poster was mostly composed of bold black lines on a dark blue background, with the slogan The Voice of Reason. “Do you think the Black Party is the one you’d support?”

  “They are no more the Voice of Reason than the Red Party. In fact, the two are equally Damned, I believe, because they both wish to subvert the natural Social Order. They are a Party that takes good honourable policies and perverts them with a doctrine of hatred and xenophobia. They would also replace Her Maphrodite by a Damned president and would frighten off capital as assuredly as the Red Party. They have some very strange opinions regarding insects. Their wooing of the arachnid vote is extremely worrying: I wouldn’t like a hairy eight-legged individual telling me what to do.”

  Sir George gestured at two other posters high above the shops on a hoarding. One featured nothing more than a blank space, with the words Vote White - You Know It Makes Sense. The other featured a mixture of apparently contented arthropods over the slogan Continuity, Tradition, Happiness, and by the side was a box with a blue tick in it. “The White Party has never stood for anything I have disagreed with. Nor have they stood for anything I have ever really believed in at all passionately. But as always my vote will go to the Blue Party.” He pointed a forelimb at the poster of contented citizens. “It is the Blue Party that most assuredly represents the Voice of Reason, and it is to them I have donated party funds and it is they who, God Willing! will triumph in the General Election and at last this nation will be steered gently and firmly to the betterment of industry, commerce and greater weal.”

  Anna smiled and made no comment. She addressed me. “So you know nothing about the Illicit Party at all.”

  I creased my forehead. “I’m afraid so.”

  “I’m no expert, but I’ve got friends who are jolly interested in it. Mostly because they oppose it. The name Illicit is a kind of contraction of Illiberal Socialist, I believe.”

  “Damnable socialists like the Red Party!” snorted Sir George. “How can any right-thinking individual support a party associated with socialism?”

  “I don’t know that they are any more socialist than the flipping National Socialists, but it’s their name and I suppose it explains some of their appeal for the working classes. But the party is one which has grown very popular in a very short time. Five years ago, no one had even heard of the Illicit Party or Chairman Rupert. Now the party is one of the biggest in the country.”

  “The Damned bounder Rupert has lied his way to power and influence in a way that even Machiavelli would find dishonourable. In his own country, he has made his way from the leader of just one of countless fringe parties to becoming its dictator. The people there must be of the damned to endorse him.”

  “I’m sure his rise to fame had something to do with the blinking mess his country was in. Far worse than this country...”

  “That would be Damnably hard to believe! This, so-called Chairman, Rupert takes power by devious and fiendish means, and then suppresses all free discussion and imprisons anyone who’s ever disagreed with him...”

  “I don’t know what his does in his own country, but some of the tales of book-burning, concentration camps, forced labour, purges, pogroms and persecution ... It sounds flipping horrid! And he looks such a harmless creature. You wouldn’t blooming imagine that such a cute looking koala could be the author of anything like that!”

  “Nothing you Damned mammals do surprises me!” Sir George strode on, and we again had to nearly run to keep up with his long elegant strides. “Just look at the marsupial! He wears a hat like Napoleon, a collarless dark suit, and shakes his Damned paws about like some insane lunatic.”

  “I’ve heard his political addresses are very inspiring,” commented Anna, “but I’ve never met anyone who could give me a good explanation as to what Illiberal Socialist policies actually are.”

  “Isn’t that just like the White Party?” I asked.

  “There’s nothing remotely sinister about the White Party. Nobody could object to better street-lighting, more public libraries or wider car-parking spaces. But the Illicit Party has some jolly odd ideas on a whole host of things, and a lot of them seem to contradict each other...”

  “He seems too Damnably fond of mites and spiders, I woot. But he does have some progressive views regarding Art...”

  “You mean the Art you like. A lot of Artists have had to emigrate from the blinking Illicit Republic...”

  “...Coming over here with their Damned decadent and amoral work. The Art he encourages is at least inspirational.”

  “He is jolly keen on his own image, though,” Anna commented. “If you like huge statues, paintings or posters of Chairman Rupert looking heroic, then the Illicit Republic is the place to be. He has even had arches modelled from his furry limbs, castle ramparts modelled on his tufty ears and his head is on all the currency.”

  “He has certainly sti
mulated the economy of his country...”

  “...Only at the expense of the trades unions,” countered Anna. “He has been very kind to businessmen - slashing taxes and lavish with state subsidies - but he’s not been very kind to women, the poor, the unemployed and, I gather, to what was left of the Aristocracy...”

  “His Damnable treatment of his social betters is an international scandal,” agreed Sir George. “He exiled all the princes, dukes and barons of his country and confiscated all their wealth, so that he could finance his grandiose schemes...”

  “It was jolly popular with the natives...” remarked Anna untactfully. Sir George declined to comment. “The Illicit Party is getting to be jolly popular in this country too. There are already several Illicit Party town and village councils. I imagine they’re fairly popular in Endon as well...”

  “Mostly with the Damnable Arachnids!” snorted Sir George. “I have little doubt that good sense and reason will prevail and this borough will reject the swine. I would not have thought it likely that the citizens of Endon would surrender sovereignty to a mere pouched mammal!”

  The tunnel widened as Sir George led us past the shops, houses and office blocks lining our way and the ceiling now arching high above us. It was generally busier as insects ran back and forth on their business. Termites pedalled by on specially designed bicycles. A small trolley was pulled along by four disgruntled cockroaches. A spider sat in an enormous web high above us as houseflies, the size of dogs, flew gingerly by. A tiger moth swooped down and brushed Anna with its dusty wings before gliding off into the distance.

  Anna was not amused as she brushed off the dust that had scattered over her. “Uughh! I think some of it’s got into my mouth!” she cursed, rubbing the back of her hand over her thick lips. “Some of these insects are utterly disgusting!”

  Sir George laughed at Anna’s discomfort. “God’s Wounds! Don’t think that the people of Endon aren’t similarly disgusted by you endoskeletal, furry bipeds.”

  “All I can say,” countered Anna, “is that I’m glad that not everywhere is like Endon.”

  We arrived at another junction of tunnels by which there was a large subterranean lake in which mermaids were frolicking with water boatmen and caddis flies. The gleam of neon tubes reflected off the water’s still surface, on which floated enormous waterlilies while immense reeds towered overhead. Sir George escorted us to a car ferry which took us gently across the dark waters to some more tunnels on the other side. Anna and I leaned over the ferry’s side to look at the dragonflies swooping above in the distant heights of the reeds, while Sir George chatted amiably with the ferry’s skipper, a moderately bulky green beetle.

  “I don’t think I’m so enamoured by all these creepy-crawlies!” Anna confided to me as the ferry ploughed through the dark viscous waters. “I mean, Sir George is alright. But his funny face and those eyes! You don’t know where to jolly well look! And you can’t be sure where he’s looking either. I’m dying to get away from here to more human company.”

  “So you’re returning to Lambdeth?”

  “You can come too, if you like,” Anna offered. “It’s a lot more fun than Endon and I’m sure I can show you many more interesting things than you’ll ever find with all these scaly monsters. It’s quite an arty place, what with the University and all the students. And it’s got at least as much history as this place... Oooh! Look!” She pointed at a couple of mermaids jumping in and out of the water in the near distance. They then disappeared under the surface and totally out of sight.

  “I’m not sure...” I said dubiously, not wishing to offend Sir George who was waving at us cheerfully with one of his arms. He strode towards us, holding his top hat in two of his other arms.

  “We’re very close to the Station,” he announced. “You can see it there on the shore.” And there indeed, just by a quay where some boats were gently bobbing in the quite still water, was the entrance to another tunnel with timetables, maps and posters outside and the words Endon Central over the top of the doorway. There was a general buzz of activity with insects sitting by their baggage, some selling their wares and a few brawny cockroaches and spiders waiting with rickshaws. The ferry finally docked on the shore and we disembarked. There was a train for Lambdeth leaving within minutes at 11 o’clock, and so Anna rushed away rather swiftly to ensure she wouldn’t miss it. The next one wasn’t due for another six hours.

  As a result of her haste, Sir George and I didn’t have the opportunity to give her more than the most peremptory of goodbyes. She briefly kissed me on the cheek, assured me that we’d probably meet again, and rushed through to the platform in a flurry of black skin and white clothes. She waved at us from the platform, as she jumped onto the modern and very rapid train standing there.

  Sir George sighed as we turned away and headed down a tunnel past more shops. “That woman is Damned impudent, don’t you think, young man? If she were a grasshopper I don’t think I could have stood for it at all, but as a human being, I’m really not able to correct her. Women are necessary evils, I believe. It is their duty to serve us men in their dual rôles as providers of domestic comfort and sexual pleasure, and beyond that it is best they stray as little as possible. I know that my views on the natural subservience of the weaker sex are unlikely to find much favour with the modern miss, such as your dark-hued friend, but they are nonetheless sincerely felt. Don’t you find the futile attempts of females such as she to stand up for herself in the face of the undeniable superiority of our gender rather touching?”

  A female grasshopper in a long dress whose train was supported by two ladybirds happened to be walking towards us. Sir George halted and bowed low with a sweep of his top hat as she passed by, one of her forelimbs waving a fan in front of her face, and using the others to keep her dress from trailing on the cigarette-butt strewn floor. He righted himself after she had gone by.

  “Naturally, I believe in gallantry, as well,” Sir George assented. “Just as it is the rôle of the stronger sex to provide and protect, the woman’s is to accept, with becoming demureness, her position to support the male in his industry. A woman is to be useful as well as decorative: and the service they best provide is, of course, in the generation of children. I have sown my seed widely, I confess, and there are many batches of eggs I can claim to have inseminated, but my ambition, and that of all good Christians, is to sire offspring to the best of women and to provide the best for my inheritance.

  “Never let it be said that I don’t have the best interests for women at heart. But there is a limit to what a woman should be permitted to do, which your friend from Baldam would no doubt dispute. I fail to see any good reason why they should be allowed to vote. I fear it is the woman’s vote which may be to blame if the Blue Party fails to win the General Election. That, and the imprudent over-extension of the franchise. It is plain that women are the lesser sex. How many great female artists are there, for instance? And can one imagine any woman having the leadership qualities necessary to become a prime minister or a president?”

  I didn’t comment, although I was sure that there had indeed been several women who had succeeded quite well in these very things. The tunnel wound along and away, and was now much narrower. There was a curious form of lane discipline whereby everyone walked on the left and all collisions were avoided despite the flamboyant wings sported by several of the larger insects.

  All along the side of the tunnel, now constructed of clay-like earth, were holes which were the doors and windows of very unsophisticated homes. The inhabitants were now generally much smaller, represented primarily by ants, mites and termites. A serpent-sized worm wriggled by between our legs. A cockroach scurried past, furiously twitching his giant antennae.

  “This isn’t such a wealthy district of Endon,” I observed.

  “In truth, no,” agreed Sir George. “The scum of the city must live somewhere, and this, I’m afraid, is one of their districts. I apologise for having brought you into such close contact
with the lowest of Endon society, dominated by ants and other inferior species.”

  “Are ants innately inferior?”

  “God’s wounds! You cannot compare them with beings such as I with epithets other than inferior or unfortunate. There is a natural order in Endon’s society, as there is in mammalian society, and in keeping with this, just as there are those blessed with intelligence, æsthetic sensitivity and wealth, there must necessarily be those denied any of these things. Beings such as ants were created by the Lord to be wholly subservient to those of greater wisdom and aptitude such as I. It is only just and right that they should occupy such a rôle, just as it is right that I should have the advantages of my wealth and status.”

  “Are there many poor districts like this in the city?” I wondered, experiencing great difficulty in navigating through the scattered piles of litter and rubbish. I hoped that we’d soon find our way to a precinct not distinguished by peeling posters, huge heaps of neglected dung and with so many insects squatting by the roadside with limbs outstretched and pleading for alms.

  “Like any city, Endon has a full variety of districts from the highest to the lowest,” sniffed Sir George, studiously ignoring the beggars’ entreaties. “There are much better appointed quarters, such as where I live, with magnificent, pleasantly designed houses. They have wide streets and the houses have spacious gardens. It is there that the most peerless of Endon’s citizens live, with their staff of inferior invertebrates to tend the gardens, clean the streets and secure our properties from invasion by the scum you see here.

  “Then there are these districts of urban hell, where the Red Party is unquestionably very popular, preaching rebellion and disorder. Areas rife with crime, murder, drugs and violence. Full of the unemployed, the idle and the feckless. Areas which should by rights be purged from the city and whose loss would not be in the slightest bit detrimental to the city’s vitality.

  “In between these extremes of sophistication and degradation, there are the districts of the artisans, mostly bees, who toil hard and are more content living in modest homes where they manufacture white goods, honey, electrical components and motor cars. Then there are districts inhabited by merchants, accountants, dentists and teachers. More ordered than here but less opulent than where I live. And finally there are the districts for the honest workers - the clerks, factory-workers, soldiers and policemen - not as poor as this but certainly not wealthy.

  “But below all others and too far below for me to even bear to address, certainly to touch and without which the city of Endon would be improved are districts like this: for scum who have no real part in our society. I am told that nearly 50% of the city lives in these districts. I know that if the Red Party were to have their way this mutinous crowd of the unemployed, the criminal and the state-dependent would consume all of Endon by fire, smoke and anarchy. I am just grateful that the majority of this rabble is too illiterate, apathetic and disorganised to ever pose a threat to the social order, but if they were to ever arise... Why then, Endon would be Hell on earth! Grasshoppers and butterflies would be crucified and their wealth confiscated. Bees and Wasps would be slaughtered by their own stings. Ladybirds, Dragonflies and Locusts would have their wings removed. That is a day I hope I shall never see.”

  I hoped so too, feeling rather uneasy as the kaleidoscope of myriad eyes expressionlessly watched Sir George and I proceed quickly through the long narrow tunnels intentionally not engaging their attention. There were ants and termites gathered in menacing gangs by barred windows. There were cockroaches lying in apparent stupor in the unglazed windows. A tiger with dark glasses was huddled in conference with several ants by the stairs of a fire escape, at the foot of a tall termite-mound. I definitely didn’t feel very welcome in this neighbourhood.

  The tunnel soon widened to accommodate factories, abattoirs and warehouses, around which the streets were strewn with plastic cartons, discarded newspapers and cigarette ends. There were far fewer people, but I could see insects busy at work through the windows of the buildings and there was a general hum of electricity, steam and air-conditioning. The tunnel further widened as we came into a district that must have been one of the more salubrious districts Sir George had mentioned. The houses were large, and could just about be seen behind tall featureless walls topped by broken glass. In front of many houses were small sentry-boxes in which might sit an aggressive looking beetle or spider. The air was clear and clean and songbird-sized mosquitoes fluttered around in the decorative heights of gladioli, rhododendrons and tulips. Besides the guards in front of the houses, there were very few people, although there was plenty of space to hold them. The occasional pond or fountain adorned our way, and monstrous buttercups and daisies lined the roadside.

  “Do you live round here?” I asked Sir George.

  “Goodness no!” laughed the grasshopper. “Where I live is much better appointed than this. Do you think I would choose to live in such close proximity to the riffraff we’ve just passed? But many quite well-off individuals do choose to live here, and quite a few residences are owned by people not really native to Endon at all. Like Lord Arthur over there.”

  He indicated a colossal towering figure, easily thirteen foot high, meandering towards us along the wide roads. He was too large to ever venture down the tunnels we’d emerged from, but he was no insect. At first, blinded by the bright light from the streetlights, I thought he might have been a tiger, but he was in fact an enormous lion quite tall enough to glance over the walls at the houses. Not that he was doing that, as he seemed totally lost in thought and appeared quite frail and weak, despite his massive size and undoubted strength. A once glorious tawny mane was now quite threadbare and portions of fur were shredding off. His tail drooped sadly behind him.

  “Good morning, Lord Arthur,” Sir George called out to the lion when we were within a few yards of him. The grasshopper seemed quite minuscule in comparison to the beast towering high above him, who could easily toss the gangling spindle-legged insect to one side with a single gesture of his monstrous paws.

  “Is it still morning, Sir George?” wondered the lion raising his head and coming to a halt just five feet ahead of us. “This morning has seemed so very long. And so depressing. My Endon accountant tells me that I may have to sacrifice all my holdings in your fair city.” He scanned the district with eyes quite as large as my head. “I have never really appreciated the beauty of your city before, you know, Sir George, and now that my estate and my factories and my shops are to be sold off to cover my debts I feel I am appreciating it rather belatedly.”

  “Who are buying your holdings?” wondered the grasshopper.

  “What’s left of my holdings,” the lion corrected. “Once I owned more than a fifth of your city’s businesses. The buyers are a consortium of bees. And believe you me, they are robbing me blind! I’m sure the capital wealth it represents is worth at least five times as much as they have paid. And even the several millions of guineas they paid will cover barely a fraction of my debts. But every little helps.”

  “Are you staying in Endon for very long, your lordship?”

  “Not at all, Sir George. I have business to attend elsewhere. More to sell, I’m afraid. If it were not for the kindness and, dare I say, the great generosity of those friends of mine who have not abandoned me as my stock has sunk on the Exchange, I would have nowhere to stay. Once I had no shortage of homes in this city.”

  “Indeed I bought my home from you, Lord Arthur.”

  “You did! You enterprising arthropod. Not that I ever visited most of the properties I owned. I bought most of them for speculative reasons, you know.”

  “I’m sure you did,” the grasshopper replied approvingly.

  “But that was when business was good. Those were the days when the name of Lord Arthur was feared and respected throughout the civilised world. And further than that even. Now I can hardly open the financial pages of a newspaper without seeing articles speculating about when - no longer if
- I will become bankrupt. These are sad days indeed, Sir George.”

  “God’s Wounds! They are that! There is no longer the respect and honour due paid to aristocrats and businessmen such as we...”

  “That may be so, though I don’t really recall life being any better for it. But it is for me, not the world in general, that I complain. But hold! I must not forever grieve. I have known some very good times. Who is your young friend?”

  Sir George introduced me formally to the lion. “He is a stranger whom I’m escorting through the city of Endon.”

  “A real stranger too,” Lord Arthur growled indulgently. “There aren’t very many warm-blooded endoskeletals in this city are there? Except for tigers and merpeople. I trust you’ll be taking this young fellow to the Party...”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, your lordship, but that would be a most diverting way to occupy the afternoon. Are you also likely to come?”

  “No. I’m afraid not. As I said, I have too much business elsewhere. I have an appointment at one o’clock I believe with a representative from Delta who wants to buy the last of my fish factory shares. I think I had best make haste or the day will all be gone.”

  He twitched his monstrous tail, the tassel of which was larger than my whole body, and unsteadily lumbered off.

  “Lord Arthur is old money on hard times,” sighed Sir George. “He is a moral example to us all to retain by all means the wealth we have either inherited or achieved. God’s wounds! It’s incredible to believe that one as wealthy as he could ever have fallen so far. I sincerely hope I never share the same fate.”

  “How did he happen to lose his wealth?”

  “I’m no economic expert. I employ others to provide me with that expertise and knowledge, but what I have read suggests that Lord Arthur burdened himself with more commitments in steadily declining industries than he could profitably gain from. And then, instead of divesting himself of these commitments or taking advantage of new market conditions, he simply ploughed more and more of his wealth into the hopeless task of keeping these industries going. Eventually of course the whole edifice collapsed about him. I will never allow that to happen to me. I blame the lion for being too sentimental to his employees and not restructuring soon enough.” Sir George paused reflectively. “Still, less of that. I’ll take you to the Party as the good lion suggested. My carriage shouldn’t be too far from here.”

  Indeed it wasn’t. Sir George led me through a wide archway, quite large enough for Lord Arthur to have walked through and I stood blinking in the strong midday sun illuminating the forests of Endon. Sir George’s carriage was waiting for us, just as the grasshopper had predicted. It was very exquisite, drawn by a host of swift stag beetles who were snorting and pawing the ground while waiting. Sir George let me into the sumptuous and luxurious interior of his carriage where he opened a bottle of champagne and with a gesture produced a piping hot meal his chef had prepared for him.

  “Our destination is several leagues hence,” the grasshopper announced, “so we’d best have luncheon as we travel. I hope you enjoy my simple tastes.”

  The lavish meal of quail eggs, venison, caviar and champagne was somewhat less simple than I was accustomed to, and not having eaten since midday the day before I tucked into it with great relish as the carriage trundled off through the jungle of outsize flora.