The Mouse On The Moon: eBook Edition (The Grand Fenwick Series 2)

by Leonard Wibberley

  "Energy," replied Kokintz, seating himself again by the fire. "Fuel. The discovery of a source of energy sufficiently powerful to project the rocket from the earth to the moon. Present fuels are oxygen-activated—that is to say, they burn oxygen to release their energy. Some of them are liquid, some solid with built-in oxygen, for as you realize there is no oxygen available in space. But none of these fuels is much more than primitive. An entirely new energy source is required for space travel."

  They fell silent for awhile, Mountjoy envying those nations whose budgets could command research into so fascinating a problem and Kokintz engaged with the whole field of energy, of which man knew so little.

  What was energy? It was a form of matter. All matter could be converted into energy if the key for the conversion could be found. And the corollary of that statement was that all energy could be converted into matter—an even more fascinating prospect. Nothing was ever destroyed and all things were therefore eternal though they changed their forms. He found the thought greatly comforting.

  His mind wandered off into this infinity of the interrelationship of energy and matter and the Count of Mountjoy, seeing him thus preoccupied, left the room disconsolate, to return to the petty problem of the budget of Grand Fenwick.

  When he had gone, Kokintz continued staring at the low heavy oak table before him as if upon its top lay the whole universe and all its mysteries. He was a pudgy man in his late sixties with a figure that would have done credit to a teddy bear. One of the world's greatest physicists, he was essentially a simple man and his colleagues agreed that it was his basic simplicity which made him so great a scientist. He had an ability to see clearly through the most complicated issues, never distracted by fascinating pitfalls to the side.

  He did most of his work with paper and pencil, and since it irritated him to be without a pencil when he needed one, he carried a dozen or more on his person, so that the breast-pocket of his jacket bulged with pencils of many kinds. Tully Bascomb had once counted the number of pencils Dr. Kokintz had about his person and found seventeen. When Dr. Kokintz wanted to test any calculation he had conjured up, he sent the ingredients off to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, or to the California Institute of Technology or some such institution, and these were always glad to do whatever he required.

  So he sat, staring at the tabletop, when suddenly there was a little pop and the cork flipped out of the bottle of Pinot on the table before him. Kokintz stared at the bottle and the cork and then looked from them to the fire.

  "Boyle's law of the expansion of gases," he said to himself. And then, because such was his type of mind, he began to wonder exactly what rise in temperature had taken place inside the bottle to cause the fumes from the wine to become sufficiently agitated to push the cork out of the bottle. Was it the same for all wines? Certainly not. That would depend on their volatility, which was related to their alcoholic content. But was there something about Pinot Grand Fenwick, a wine prized throughout the world for its bouquet and its health-giving qualities? …

  Dr. Kokintz picked up the bottle and then did something that would have horrified the Count of Mountjoy. He measured a portion of the Premier Grand Cru '58 into a beaker and then poured it into a retort, and fumbling around for a match—he was a pipe smoker and never had any—found one at last and lit a Bunsen burner under the retort.

  He became so interested in what he was doing that he was still at his work, his desk littered with books and technical reports from scientists in every corner of the globe, when the following day dawned.

  CHAPTER II

  Dr. Kokintz was extremely tired, having had no sleep at all when Tully Bascomb called on him the following morning so that they could get pictures of the bobolinks for their report to the Audubon Society.

  Tully was politically the most important man in the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, being the consort of the regnant Duchess, Gloriana XII, a somewhat willful young lady of twenty-three. His relationship to her was that of Prince Albert to the great English queen, Victoria. He was at one and the same time her adviser, her investigator and her conscience in so far as it was concerned with the affairs of the Duchy. But he held her in the greatest reverence and made no effort himself to become the ruler of Grand Fenwick or to detract from the regard in which she was held by her people. His own devotion to Gloriana, who was both his wife and his ruler, was a magnificent example to the five thousand seven hundred and sixty-three inhabitants of Grand Fenwick, whose loyalty and love for the pretty Duchess had indeed deepened since her marriage to Tully Bascomb.

  Besides his position as Ducal Consort, Tully was also (by virtue of his own talents) Grand Marshal of the Duchy, meaning, in modern terms, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and also Chief Steward (which in modern terms would be the equivalent of Secretary of the Interior). It will be understood that the various government posts in Grand Fenwick still retained their medieval titles. As Chief Steward his duties included supervision of the Forest of Grand Fenwick—an area of no more than three hundred acres lying at the bottom of the valley whose mountainous walls marked the boundaries of the country. He had traveled much in his youth but was fond of forestry and together with Dr. Kokintz, had contrived to turn the Forest of Grand Fenwick into a sanctuary for wild life.

  "Been working?" asked Tully, glancing around the disorderly office and sniffing the air, in which there was a strong smell of wine.

  "Ah yes," said Kokintz, rubbing his eyes. "Yes. A little work. The chemistry of wine has been curiously neglected. Some research has been done here and there but no real digging. Now what did I do with that residue?" He went over to his work bench and its litter of books, pipettes, retorts and beakers and peered around clucking impatiently to himself. Then he started patting his pockets and took out of them a large Oompaul pipe and then the apple of which he had given a piece to the rice birds. The apple had gone brown in the area which was cut and he examined this brown color with interest and for a moment seemed to have forgotten the object of his search.

  "The residue," said Tully gently.

  "Huh?" said Kokintz. "Ah yes. The residue." He gave one more look at the apple and then took a huge bite out of it to provide his breakfast. He put the remainder back in his pocket and started opening and shutting the books which were lying around, sometimes stopping to read a paragraph which caught his eye.

  "Tanashi of Tokyo," he said, tapping the pages of one book. "A sound man. He has done a great deal of work on the effect of spatial radiation on the growth of bamboos and other giant grasses." He turned to another book, grunted, picked up a yellowed sheet of printed paper and grunted again. "Potato virus." And was lost for a while in reading.

  "The residues," said Tully gently.

  "What residue?" said Dr. Kokintz.

  "Whatever residue you were looking for," said Tully.

  "Of course. Of course," said Kokintz and turned once more to his haphazard search, being rewarded after a little time by the discovery of an envelope into which he peered mildly and then, folding it up, put in his pocket.

  He turned to Tully. "What have you got that camera for?" he asked.

  "We are going to get pictures of the bobolinks," said Tully, who was quite accustomed to Kokintz' absentmindedness.

  "Of course," said Kokintz. "Yes. Here, let me carry those plates for you." He took a number of the photographic plates from Tully and stuffed them into the pocket of his coat and the two left together for the forest. On the way, Tully began to feel apologetic about dragging the scientist away from his work and, to ease his conscience, said if what the doctor was doing was very important, perhaps they could return on the following day and get the pictures of the bobolinks. Or alternately, he could try to get them himself.

  "Oh no," said Kokintz. "It is no great matter. It is just a little research." He offered nothing further, and they trudged along in silence until they came to the border of the forest, which was ringed about by a fence of rails. They climbed the fence and, pushin
g through the tangle of last year's bracken, for the month was March, came at last to the area in which the bobolinks had been seen. Here they constructed a shelter of brushwood for their camera, which was focused on the topmost branches of a beech tree in which the birds had been spotted the previous day. They waited through the forenoon and the greater part of the afternoon and were rewarded with twelve exposures, of which three promised to be excellent, being taken through a telescopic lens.

  During this waiting Kokintz took out one of the innumerable pencils which he always carried in the breast pocket of his coat and made a great quantity of calculations on a large block of paper which he had brought with him.

  He fell asleep shortly after midday and Tully, glancing at the pages on which the doctor had made his calculations, was surprised to find a picture of a bottle of wine on one of them. Nearby was scrawled "Temp. 68 deg. F." and below that "Thrust 20 lbs. per square inch minimum."

  None of this made much sense to him though he concluded that the doctor was busy with the problem of the fermentation of Pinot Grand Fenwick. When they had exposed all their plates they returned to the castle and Dr. Kokintz said that he would develop the negatives himself. Tully was content to let him do this, for in these matters the doctor was the most careful worker.

  While Tully and Dr. Kokintz were in the Forest of Grand Fenwick, the Count of Mountjoy was making his daily call on Her Grace the Duchess Gloriana. He found the Duchess propped up in bed and leafing through one of the slick American magazines which formed her favorite reading. The magazine which occupied her attention was Holiday and at the sight of it the Count had a moment of misgiving. Gloriana had several times mentioned the prospect of taking a vacation abroad with her consort and the finances of the Duchy could not extend to such a trip.

  "I hope you haven't decided to bore me with the budget figures, Bobo,” said Gloriana, eying the Count severely. "I'm not in a mood to talk about it now, and in any case you know I like to have Tully with me whenever money has to be discussed."

  "No, Your Grace," said the Count meekly.

  "Well, sit down then and have a little toast," said Gloriana. "The marmalade is over there but there's only one knife and that's got butter on it. Still, I don't mind if you get butter in the marmalade."

  The Count smiled and helped himself to toast and marmalade. He was much older than the Duchess, old enough in fact to be her father and that by a handsome margin. As a baby she could never pronounce his name, Mountjoy, and called him Bobo instead and that was the name she used except when she was very angry with him.

  "Your Grace was thinking of going on a vacation?" asked the Count, eyeing the magazine meaningly.

  "No," said Gloriana. "Not a vacation. Something better than a vacation—for a woman, at least."

  "Oh?" said the Count, cautiously.

  "Bobo, would you help me to get something that I really need desperately? I just have to have it." Her voice and manner had all the direct and disarming simplicity of a child's. It was the tone of voice that Gloriana had used on him with success ever since she was five years of age, and Mountjoy knew that he was helpless in the face of it. He tried to temporize.

  "I must know what it is before I can promise," he said.

  "That isn't very gallant," said Gloriana. "It isn't what I expect of you. You used to be always willing to do what I wanted. Now you're getting old and cagey."

  "I am still Your Grace's devoted servant," said Mountjoy, "though I admit to the weight of years."

  "Now you're trying to be pathetic," said Gloriana. "But it won't work. Tell me, how can you pretend to be my devoted servant when you won't promise to get me what I want without knowing what it is first? What's devoted about that? If you're devoted, you don't bargain with people. You just do what they ask."

  Mountjoy knew he was beaten and was mildly surprised that he had, in view of his past experience, nurtured even the faintest hope that the outcome would be different.

  "I promise, Your Grace," he said. "Whatever it is you want, I will use my best endeavors to get it for you."

  "Bobo, you're a darling," said Gloriana. "And I didn't mean that about getting cagey and old. You are the only man who really understands women. Absolutely the only one. Tully doesn't at all."

  "Thank you, Your Grace," said the Count of Mountjoy. "What is it that Your Grace desires?"

  "A fur coat," said Gloriana.

  "A fur coat?" cried Mountjoy, astonished.

  "Yes," said Gloriana. "An Imperial Russian Sable coat. They're absolutely divine. One of those. Just look at it. Isn't it heavenly?"

  She threw the copy of Holiday to the Count of Mountjoy and he picked it up to examine a picture of a woman swathed luxuriously in an Imperial Russian Sable fur coat. Clad in the rich, deep black fur, the woman looked like an empress and for a moment the Count of Mountjoy recalled with nostalgia the great days in Europe before World War I when women attended the opera at Covent Garden or in Paris clad in just such furs, and men wore top hats and cloaks lined in white or red silk, and talked of grouse shooting in Scotland or pig-sticking in India and discussed the coq au vin on the Lusitania or the qualities of Belgian guns for tiger shooting. Looking at that fur, a whole world, which had been a wonderful world for his kind, reappeared before him.

  But the cost—the cost was impossible. It was around fifty thousand dollars, sixteen or seventeen thousand pounds: the equivalent, in fact, of the total budget of Grand Fenwick for a full year. He paled at the thought of the expense and was dismayed that he had been trapped into promising to use his best endeavors to satisfy this desire of the Duchess. Gloriana noted his reaction and said airily, "Is something the matter, Bobo?"

  "It's the expense, Your Grace," said the Count. "I do not know how or where we are to get the money. It is beyond our means."

  Gloriana did not say anything to this immediately. Rather, she took a piece of toast, spread some marmalade on it with great nicety and then gave it to the Count, who at that particular moment had no appetite for the tidbit.

  "Sometimes you underestimate your own abilities, Bobo," she said at length coaxingly. "You have dealt for so long in little things that your view of your own potentialities is reduced. You are made small by smallness, but you are a man who is capable of greatness. I am surprised to see you dismayed at the prospect of getting me a fur coat."

  The Count felt a little swelling of confidence at these words, and at the same time was ashamed at his dismay over the cost of the coat. But there rose before him the picture of Bentner with his opposition to expenditures of any kind, particularly expenditures which invoked borrowing money.

  And certainly if the Duchess was to be provided with a fur coat, the money would have to be borrowed.

  "We are a nation," Gloriana said firmly. "We are a small nation but a real nation, just like all the other nations of the world. A private person might be appalled at the thought of the cost of such a purchase. But it is utterly ridiculous to think that a nation—any nation—cannot provide its ruler with a fur coat."

  "It is ridiculous," agreed the Count. "But it is also true."

  "It is only true if you admit that it is true," said Gloriana firmly. "I have already warned you against underestimating yourself and being dragged down by the little things you have to deal with. You haven't been able to get hot and cold water for us nor a good road through the Duchy but I certainly think you ought to be able to get me a fur coat and I'm going to leave the problem up to you. I'm the only ruler in Europe that has to go around in a cloth coat and even if it is of the best Irish hand-woven tweed, it isn't fair."

  With that she closed the audience, and the Count of Mountjoy, put on his mettle by the Duchess, whom he loved, went away to do some very hard thinking—alone.

  CHAPTER III

  The Count of Mountjoy did nobly in the presentation of his budget to the Council of Freemen with which, as usual, he coupled a review of international affairs. Even the stolid David Bentner had to admit that on this occasion the Co
unt had excelled himself. His summary of international affairs was masterly, his picture of the Iron Curtain being extended into space ("affrighting the silence of the spheres with the strident nationalism of man" was the way the Count put it) drew shivers of appreciation even from the Labor back bench. His solemn warning that in times such as these there was a grave charge upon Grand Fenwick to lead East and West into the ways of sanity brought resounding cheers from both sides of the House, since no real effort or cash expenditure was involved.

  "In such times as these," the Count continued, "when all the resources of human wisdom are needed to ensure the future happiness of mankind and his security on his mother planet, it behooves us to be cautious in all matters and to guard well all expenditures undertaken by the nation. The opposition will, I think, be pleased to hear that I have therefore included in the budget no provision whatever for extraordinary expenses such as the improvement of communications within the Duchy or the installation of modern plumbing in the castle, which I have so often advocated, though without success in the past." (Cautious cheers from the Opposition, which scented a trap in these concessions.)

  "However," continued the Count, "I ask both sides of the House to support me in an application for special credits from the United States…"

  "No loans…no loans…" shouted Bentner.

  "An application for special credits from the United States…"

  "No loans…" cried Bentner. "Who borrows money sells himself."

  "…for the purpose of…"

  Bentner was about to interrupt again when he was gaveled into silence by the Speaker.

  "…for the purpose," continued the Count, "of gratifying a wish dear to our most gracious lady, Her Grace, the Duchess Gloriana XII, ensuring her prestige, her dignity, and that of her people."

  Bentner was immediately put out of countenance. The Duchess was not present at this budget address, for the constitution forbade the ruler of Grand Fenwick taking any hand in matters concerning the raising of money—a proper provision against arbitrary tax demands. But it was traditional that whatever the ruler desired should, within reason, be granted, and any suggestion at all of opposition to such desires, particularly in the case of Gloriana, smacked of a kind of personal treason and disloyalty horrible to think upon.