There was not really time to ponder the incongruity of the statement, but, nevertheless, the nuances reverberated cruelly through polkingbeal67's mind like laughter in a church.
"You want taxi?" inquired another one of the tourists, pointing to a cab parked just a hundred metres away down the road.
Throwing themselves into the cab, polkingbeal67 and Melinda collapsed on the back seat like dishevelled and disoriented fugitives. After some seconds, the driver looked around and arched an eyebrow. A silence descended on them like a pack of rabid, hungry dogs trapped in a vacuum. Slowly and painfully, the realisation was dawning on them - they did not know where to go or what to do.
Polkingbeal67 slumped back into the seat and closed his eyes. "The End of The World," he said. The driver put his hands back on the wheel and drove off.
. . .
Back on Smolin9 (formerly Morys Minor), nipkow4 was ensconced in a meeting at the leader's palace. In the office suite below the leader's private chambers, he was holding forth on the agenda for the pre-meeting briefing on the strategy relating to the consultation with representatives of the Intergalactic Court of Justice, Arbitration and Conciliation.
Before she left for her trip to Earth, Melinda had asked him to deputise for her and had dispelled his misgivings by telling him it was his opportunity to really walk the talk. In the short time available to her, she had taken him under her wing and made him her protégé. They were both fully aware that his ability to keep intergalactic pressure at bay during this testing period would be sorely tested. Under her expert direction, he had quickly learned how to live and breathe confidence. However, he soon found that the more he inhaled confidence, the more he exhaled doubt. It was the old story of ambition and aspiration tethered by the constraining reins of reality, an encounter with a disagreeable reflection in the mirror, a dispute between a person and what that person might have hoped to be.
Right now, immersed in a meeting that threatened to test all his skills in diplomacy and statesmanship, he became fearful of broaching the subject of polkingbeal67's flight from justice and acquiescently allowed the delegates to get bogged down by the thorny issue of whether or not to approve the minutes of the previous meeting.
"I think it would be helpful to have an overview of the minutes before we're asked to approve them," suggested the saurian from Permia, spitting and sputtering like bacon in a hot pan. "My planet insists on an overview! I have been asked to present a petition to that effect." With exaggerated formality, he stood up, walked slowly and deliberately towards nipkow4, bowed and produced a rolled-up parchment, neatly tied with a red ribbon. Impressed by the solemnity and dignity, a few of the delegates applauded. When nipkow4 dutifully reminded them that clapping was not considered appropriate for officialdom or ceremony, he was rewarded with an enthusiastic round of applause.
Opening the scroll, nipkow4 perused the contents and uttered a snort of disdain. "There are only six signatures on here!" he exclaimed. The Dwingeloo commissioner, sitting on his left, nudged him and whispered, "There are only six people on Permia."
"I agree with the saurian," said one of the Lacuna delegates, "we should have an overview. And perhaps a roadmap discussion?"
The saurian nodded in approval. "Yes, absolutely," he enthused, "followed, I suggest, by a brainstorming session. What about you, nipkow4? Have you got an opinion on this? Or has Melinda not told you what it is yet?" There was a sharp intake of breath followed by one or two sniggers, then propriety reasserted itself.
Nipkow4 let it go without comment and an intervention by the Dwingeloo commissioner delivered him from his distress. "Can we please get on!" she urged. "I want to know what's going on with Melinda's mission to the Pale Blue Dot."
The saurian made a sound like a half-clogged drain. "Why are you Mortians so obsessed with that infernal planet anyway?" he protested. "Totally overrated if you ask me. Have you seen the reviews on TripCrit? Three and a half stars! Wait a minute..." His fingers drifted lazily like spider's legs over a microwocky-like device. "This is what someone from Epimetheus has posted: 'the people are volatile and unwelcoming but the trees are nice. Three stars.' Why, even Oov gets an average of four stars!"
Nipkow4 did not feel inclined to defend Earth's reputation and remained keen to defer discussion of Melinda's progress. She had been in close contact via wormhole channel during the early part of her trip but communication had been patchy in the last few days. No one could understand why it was taking her so long, having apprehended the fugitives, to return with them to Smolin9. "I must rule on the point of order first," nipkow4 insisted.
"No one raised a point of order," the saurian pointed out, twitching his spindly arms in agitation.
Nipkow4 went on regardless. "We have seriously deviated off-topic," he said. "I think we need to reach a consensus on the matter of approving the minutes. I want to be sure everyone is satisfied that we've identified all the issues..." Suddenly, the nervy, jerky flow of his otherwise wise and erudite words was interrupted by the sound of something thudding against the window. "Was that an orbis bird?" he asked, turning on his heels. It was not. It was a microwocky falling from the window above.
Frustrated by Melinda's prolonged absence, the planetary leader had demanded the use of a microwocky in order to make direct contact with her. Unfortunately, he had never mastered the skill of operating the device and, in a fit of pique, had tossed several of them through the window of his private chamber, insisting they were malfunctioning. His mood had been foul ever since his discovery that the Voyager 1 dish antenna had disappeared from his palatial gardens. Polkingbeal67's notion of returning the probe to the south lawn of the White House may have met with almost universal intergalactic approval, but the Mortian leader had been apoplectic with rage when he had learned about its removal.
Gazing out of the window, nipkow4 noticed a crisply defined funnel-shaped cloud looming menacingly towards the palace. "We're in for a storm," he observed, as the door to the office flew open and the Mortian leader crossed the room towards the table, trailing seaweed and matted braids of earthling human hair. It was his first appearance in public since polkingbeal67's disappearing act. Two of his personal attendants could be heard calling after him in anxious whispers. Appearing at the door, they stood transfixed as the leader stepped on a chair to climb up onto the table, slipped on a rogue frond of seaweed and proceeded to crawl around in random circles, uttering strange oaths and cryptic proverbs. Stopping in front of the terror-stricken saurian, he growled, "When the lion comes down from the mountain to the plains, it may be challenged by the dogs!" Fixing the next delegate with a baleful stare, he shouted, "But you have climbed the mountain and entered the cave of the lion!" With that, he scrambled to his feet, whirled a piece of seaweed and roared at the top of his voice, "Grr!" If a real lion had roared like that, it would have been banished from the pride and become the laughing stock of all the hyenas in the land. Nevertheless, the assembled dignitaries and officials fled in disarray, completely unnerved by the bizarre turn of events. The Mortian leader yelled after them, "Behold, behold the crane standing amidst a flock of chickens!"
As the leader was being escorted back to his private chambers, nipkow4 read a message on his microwocky. It was from Melinda: "Hi nippy! Wish you were here! The cruise was great. Very cold. Saw glaciers and all sorts of penguins and a leopard seal and stuff. Got lots of pictures to show you when I get back. Some of them are a bit random. Ha ha. How's it going standing in as planetary leader? I'm sure you're doing a fantastic job as deputy. Is that erratic, or what? Anyway, we've got a problem with yukawa3. He's not eating and strange things keep happening to him. I know he's a penguin and everything but it doesn't explain all the weird stuff. Anyway, I must dash. I'll get back to you later. Take care. Give my love to everybody. Literally."
At this point, nipkow4 became aware of a pair of tiny compound eyes trying to attract his attention. They belonged to the senior chillok ambassador, who had been forgotten during the exodus fr
om the meeting and was still perched on the special dais erected for him at the far end of the table. He was unable to make himself heard because the myrmecam had apparently broken down. It is, of course, possible that it had been deliberately or inadvertently switched off at some point during the meeting. One propitious consequence of this was that the delegates had been spared the ambassador's unrelenting, hysterical, mocking laughter during the Mortian leader's deranged intervention.
As he fiddled with the myrmecam controls, nipkow4's brain started processing two apparently unrelated thoughts - Melinda's recent alarming news about yukawa3 and the memory of the threat the ambassador had issued during the conference that took place immediately before Melinda had left. In short, he put two and two together and arrived at a staggeringly big number. Pointing an accusing finger at the chillok, he ranted and railed, accusing the dumbfounded ambassador of instigating a reprehensible assault on yukawa3 in what amounted to "an utterly repugnant breach of intergalactic conventions".
As far as the ambassador was concerned, it was a provocation too far. "Casus belli!" he shrieked, as nipkow4 left the office. "Casus belli! Casus belli! Casus belli!"
. . .
Polkingbeal67 and Melinda got out of the cab at The End of The World Station, partly because they never thought of going to the airport instead and partly because Old Sea Dog felt car sick and almost threw up in the back of the cab. They made their way to the cafeteria and parked themselves near a window with a couple of coffees, listening to the buzz of convivial chatter, the sporadic laughter of small children, a hissing coffee machine and the constant rattle and clatter of cutlery.
"What do we do now?" Melinda asked, after a short while. "We'll never find Fernandez and yukawa3 if we just sit around here."
"I need a minute to think," said polkingbeal67, both hands clasped around his coffee. Staring at the steaming liquid, he contemplated the many perils to which yukawa3 was exposed. His mind wandered. Totally absorbed by the thin, unfurling wisps of steam and the eddies of cream swirling around lazily like a flattened-out barber's pole, he pondered the fragility and tenuousness of life. Being a Mortian accustomed to longevity, he was not given to reflections on mortality and found it very disconcerting. This and his concern for the welfare of his protégé were not the only strange emotions to infiltrate the fortified ego of this estimable battle hero. Long-held tenets were crumbling inside him. Condemned to make way for a radical new makeover, his entire raison d'etre was now being swept aside by the compelling blasts of new insights.
According to earthling sociology, people define themselves in terms of in-groups and out-groups. In-groups are social groups to which people feel they belong and to which they feel loyalty; out-groups, by contrast, are groups to which people do not belong and to which they feel no loyalty. Compatibility and affiliation with groups may be based on such factors as religion, politics, race, nationality or occupation and it stands to reason that group influence has the potential to affect an individual's behaviour in both positive and negative ways. If that all sounds a bit simplistic, rest assured it gets a lot more complicated. Like a Venn diagram gone mad, intergroup cohesion gets blurred by group interdependence, group overlapping and the effect of superordinate identities ('umbrella' groups). Some would say this has a civilising effect, offsetting the dangers inherent in bonding hormones that undermine a person's conscience and render that individual disposed to demonise and dehumanise those perceived as being members of an out-group.
Polkingbeal67 had certainly been guilty of a bit of demonising and dehumanising in the past, but things had changed. His affinity with his Mortian in-group had not been compromised as such, but he now saw it in the context of a more complex hyper structure. He was developing a sense of kinship and connection with other forms of life and it shook the very foundations of his being. In short, he felt awed by a new sense of connection to other beings. Powerful coffee indeed. If this was the end of the world, it was full of hope and wonder - a Lazarus moment, the metamorphosis of a spiky caterpillar into a winged butterfly.
It is important to keep your feet on the ground when your mind takes a leap in the dark and, in timely fashion, Melinda brought polkingbeal67 back down to earth. "I need to pee," she declared, "And after that we should take a bus back to the city centre. Then, as soon as we find yukawa3..." Her voice trembled slightly. "And we will find him!"
"What?" Polkingbeal67 prompted her.
"What?"
"You said 'when we find him'..."
"Yeah, when we find him, we'll go straight back to Morys Minor, I mean Smolin9."
"You realise that'll mean sending me to my doom?" polkingbeal67 pointed out, eyes downcast. "They'll make me do compulsory planetary service on Oov. I'm not cut out for building ant heaps, I mean, er, chillok cities!"
Melinda placed her hand on his. "You've changed," she said, "and I'm going to see to it that the court recognises that."
"They won't listen to you. They certainly won't listen to me. Everyone back home now thinks I'm a liar."
"I find that very hard to believe," Melinda assured him. They exchanged looks and burst out laughing. Melinda wondered if it was the first time she had ever heard him laugh. Wiping tears from her eyes, she went on, "I think we understand each other better now. You see, I know why you came here and I know it wasn't because you wanted to escape justice. Literally." She looked deep into his eyes as if she were delving into his very soul. "When I came to visit you the day before you were due to be sentenced, you told me you'd seen the future and that you knew the answer. You said you just needed to find out what the question was. Do you remember?"
Polkingbeal67 nodded. "The answers are out there," he said. "They're everywhere. Everyone's got some. But the tricky bit is coming up with the right question. I'm only just beginning to understand that. It feels like... I don't know, it's like having a great opportunity but knowing you'll only see it retrospectively. I feel like I've been born for a purpose but I don't know what it is."
"But you thought you might find the question here, didn't you? Like yukawa3, you felt kind of drawn here." She squeezed his hand. "I literally, sincerely hope you find it. Just be careful you don't pursue it too hard. It might, y'know, keep running away."
"That's true," polkingbeal67 confirmed, "and I think yukawa3 is closer to the question than I am. The trouble is, he comes up with spectacularly bad answers."
Shortly afterwards, they boarded a pale blue double-decker bus and sat behind a party of people in ski gear carrying snowboard bags, chatting away excitedly. The bus weaved through the congested, snow-slicked streets and the windows started to mist up. As they approached a junction, Melinda noticed a large crowd that had gathered outside a diner. Wiping the condensation from the window with the palm of her hand, she stared hard. "Quick, look! It's him!' she exclaimed. "It's him! It's him! Literally!" They scrambled off the bus and ran back towards the diner. Arriving at the back of the crowd, they craned their necks and peered over shoulders to see a sickly-looking penguin performing half-hearted tricks at Fernandez's behest for the entertainment of the slack-jawed bystanders, some of whom tossed a few pesos into a yellow sou’wester lying on the pavement. Unable to force their way through the throng, polkingbeal67 and Melinda waved their arms and called out Fernandez's name.
What happened next was a blur of frenzied noise and activity. Spotting polkingbeal67 and Melinda at the back of the crowd, Fernandez made a grab for yukawa3, who chirped shrilly in distress and clumsily dodged the captain's flailing arms. Undeterred, Fernandez seized the sou’wester, scattering coins everywhere, crammed it over yukawa3's head and swept him up into his arms. Later, polkingbeal67 would say he saw a cloud of flying ants ascending from the scene, but, given that it was late October, this was extremely unlikely. What he probably saw was the shower of coins flying from the sou’wester. Struggling feebly, like a worm on a hook, yukawa3 attempted to bite his captor, but Fernandez refused to relinquish his grip and clung on tight as he ran away down the street
with polkingbeal67 and Melinda on his heels. Suddenly, yukawa3 became enveloped in a bright, phosphorescent green light and Fernandez dropped him. The immediate area around the penguin became engulfed in a greenish fog. It cleared almost instantaneously to reveal a sight that would be etched in the minds of those present for some time to come.
Yukawa3 was apparently embedded in the pavement and only the top half of his body was visible. He opened his beak to utter something, but no sound came forth. Eyes wide, hand to mouth, Melinda was frozen to the spot. Fernandez looked at her. "Iss trick, no?" he asked, half in horror, half in inquiry. He stooped to pull the hapless bird from its confinement, at which point there was another shimmer of green light and Fernandez was left grasping at thin air. Yukawa3 was gone.
. . .
"Come on, cheer up!" said Melinda, noticing what may have been tears in polkingbeal67's eyes. "We've rode these sort of storms before. All is not lost."
"So where the hell is it then?"
"Where's what?"
"All of it," said polkingbeal67. "We've lost smolin9 and now yukawa3 too. When do the good things start? That's what I want to know." His new-found sensitivity and empathy had taken its toll on him, leaving him broken, jaded, a little more cynical and a whole lot wiser. They were sitting in the Avon coroner's office waiting to speak to someone about the death of Sophia Gonzalez (smolin9's earthling identity at the time of his demise). They had travelled separately, polkingbeal67 using his airline return ticket, Melinda making a wormhole transit.
"Listen," said Melinda, "there'll be good stuff, I promise you. Joy and contentment are going to switch places with all this pain and adversity. Literally. You'll see. We'll make it happen."
Polkingbeal67 was unconvinced. "I won't hold my breath," he said. "When good stuff happens, it's like a fault on your earthling televisions." He noticed Melinda looking at him quizzically. "That message – ‘normal service will be resumed shortly’."
Through The Wormhole, Literally Page 28