Probably the next most notable were the cockroaches and rats who finally, after millions of years won their battle for the cities of Erde. They did have a little period of antagonism at first as they naturally wanted everything for themselves, but level heads prevailed and after only one peace meeting, they decided there were plenty of cities to go around and sharing them wasn’t such a bad idea after all as the rats really needed someone to clean up after them, and the cockroaches appreciated having the free and abundant protein provided by defecating warm blooded mammals. Happily ever after.
In the oceans of Erde, little had changed over the period of human existence. Well other than the complete and total annihilation of all edible fish, crustacean, sea mammals and plant species due to the insanity and greed of the Erdean Salmon Conglomerate that had wiped the oceans bare of anything worth anything in the name of Glothic profit. This was however quite fortuitous for certain inedible species such as the Blobfish (Psychrolutes Marcidus), which bore a remarkable similarity to a Vogon, and the giant Nomura's Jellyfish (Nemopilema Nomurai), which took delight over millennia in trying to capsize the boats of the Erdean Salmon Conglomerate. These two species along with a number of other poor unattractive creatures did well out of the deal and became the top dogs of the water world of Erde.
Nothing had ever changed for Erdeworms though. Safely hidden in the ground, blissfully unaware, they missed everything and carried on as if nothing had happened; happily doing all the hard work in making sure that bananas grew in plentiful supply.
Elsewhere
‘Well that’s fitting,’ Sep mumbled to himself and had a short giggle at the message he’d just received from Septenarii.
‘Investiture confirmed: The first of April. Happy Fool’s Day.’
Sep was about to reply when he saw two quick responses from his brothers Heptad and Heptahedra.
‘Is this a joke?’ and ‘A pinch and a punch for the first of the month.’
Sep tapped out, ‘A flick and a kick for being so quick,’ and started giggling to himself again until he saw the next, and highly unexpected message.
‘My seven grandsons, this is not the time to joke. Proceed with haste to implement Ichor and finally cleanse Gloth of the shame of this cursed monkey family. September.’
Sep replied instantly as did his six brothers. ‘Yes grandfather,’ he tapped and wondered how long it had been since he had heard from September. Lost in the passage of clones, Sep had no idea other than that it must have been a very, very long time indeed. So long in fact, that Sep had completely forgotten all about September. He was reminded now however as to why he was what he was and why he was doing what he was doing. Which was?
‘Oh yes! A Glothic Cosmic Cruiser. Now where in heaven’s name am I going to find one of them to commandeer? And if I do find one, how am I going to commandeer it? Maybe I should start with who will commandeer it,’ he said to himself, which was perfectly normal for Sep, as there was no one else ever around to talk to other than himself.
Although September had left all the years of Blood Brotherhood grunt work to his seven grandsons over the course of their clones, he had kept his ear to the ground so to speak and was fully aware of the interbred genetic fiasco that had beset the Gregorian Royal Family. The time had finally come to avenge his father’s stupidity, and to fulfil his two dreams. To return a Glothic pure blood Supreme Potentate to rule wisely and honestly over the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth, and for himself to return to Gloth, to happily and at long last, die.
However, before any of that could happen he had to get his seven grandsons to work to ensure that Ichor eventuated. Although they all knew their individual roles, September made extra sure by sending a long and detailed message to each of his seven grandsons, reminding them of the tasks they must fulfil; and quickly.
Sep stopped talking to himself as he read September’s detailed instructions about how he was to arrange for the capture of a Glothic Cosmic Cruiser with the assistance of friends from Lacertilian, and then a full history of the loyal service that Lacertilian pilots had given Supreme Potentates over generations until their unfair dismissal en masse by the latter and very reptilian racist Gregorian, July the Forty-Fourth. Then followed an order to ensure that the Lacertilian pilots were returned to the service of the Supreme Potentate after the success of Ichor.
‘Right,’ Sep said to himself as he felt he had been properly kicked up the backside and understood that he’d better get on with things. He started searching his tattered contact book for an old friend.
Wing Commander (retired) Inna Jjiphii, deputy-vice-second chairman of the Lacertilian Pilot’s Association. Inna was renown for his assertive action and ability to make and implement his decisions in no time at all; a quality that Sep admired. They had first met when Inna was flying plitzominium freighters to Titania early in his flying career and for some reason, probably because Inna always bought chocolates and Sep offered Inna his spare room, which was a thousand times more comfortable than the plitzominium smelter’s quarters, that their friendship had blossomed.
He tapped out his message, ‘Hi Jack! A big one. G.C.C. for me.’ Sep waited for a few minutes, but for some unusual reason Inna didn’t live up to his reputation, as no answer was forthcoming after thirty minutes. ‘Odd,’ Sep mumbled to himself as he made a humphing sound all the way to his kitchen to prepare a snack. As he was slicing from a block of Worstlimostli for his sandwich he heard the ‘ping ping’ of a new message. It wasn’t worth his energy or his knife slipping from the solid block of Worstlimostli and slicing his thumb, only to discover that the message was one from his brother Heptad proudly announcing that his task of finding an amenable caterer for the post Ichor celebrations was well underway. Sep tapped out, ‘Well done,’ but with no enthusiasm, but did apply some enthusiasm to wiping the blood from his cut thumb as it dripped liberally onto his Q’muniktor.
It was late in the evening when Sep finally got the answer he had been waiting so many hours for. ‘Geezz!’ was all it said, but Sep took it to mean that Inna was on the job now. Although Glothic Cosmic Cruisers were very big, well, gigantically enormous in fact and comparable in size to that of a moderately small moon, Sep had confidence that Inna would find a way to neutralise the force shields, overpower the crew, which usually ran into hundreds, and then find somewhere nice for the two thousand or more paying passengers, who would be awfully annoyed at having their Luxury Class travel interrupted by a group of light green hijackers. ‘Lucky I didn’t ask for a fleet of Hoog battleships,’ he mumbled to himself but meant for Inna, before returning his full attention to his still bleeding and throbbing thumb.
The next morning brought good and bad news for Sep. The bad news was that his thumb was still pulsating in pain but it diminished somewhat when he read the message from Inna Jjiphii.
‘Too easy Sep. Found one parked in Sun System Three getting a kitchen refit. The maintenance crew have been invited to stay for tea on Outer Multitudinous. So what now my friend?’
Sep referred to September’s instructions and started tapping out his reply to Inna. Just before he sent his message, Sep had a thought. He was always wary when he had these, so he waited for a moment before deciding that it wasn’t a bad thought at all, so he added another question to his message.
‘By the way Inna, how many Erdeans do you have there now on Lacertilian?’
Even though this wasn’t in September’s detailed instructions for Ichor, Sep hadn’t forgotten that he had a responsibility to return all Erdeans to Erde. The fact that he had only ever managed to get one back successfully – that one success being Hal – over the space of a few thousand years, he hadn’t lost his resolve to fulfil his bound duty to cleanse the Twelve Sun Systems of Gloth of the Erdean monkey gene.
*****
Kaybob Krizzle, The Puissant of Karhoonaa and President of the Grand Council of Gloth was not having one of his better days. With only two weeks to the investiture of April the First he was having great difficulty in k
eeping his fellow councillors from passing a motion to postpone the investiture and appoint a Potentate-General. The general consensus among the councillors was that April was incapable of fulfilling the functions expected of The Supreme Potentate and that he was also clearly certifiably insane.
The appointment of a Potentate-General had only ever been necessary once in the entire history of Gloth. It had occurred when October the Seventh went missing for some months – an affair of the heart it was called at the time but everyone knew that October had a taste for the girls and that he had disappeared for while to have a nasty sexually transmitted disease treated in the Eleven Sun System – that a temporary Potentate-General was appointed to run the Supreme Potentate’s office. Under Glothic law it was the President of the High Council, a mostly ceremonial body that concerned itself with uniforms, pageantry, cutlery and rules governing the comportment of palace staff, who assumed the role of Potentate-General. Luckily, the High Council President of the time, Mykyndah Gii was an extremely well educated and refined gentleman who managed extremely well and also kept a lid on the sordid affair surrounding October after the Supreme Potentate’s eventual return. Cured apparently of his embarrassing ailment.
Krizzle rubbed his temples as he read the draft motion again that had been delivered to him that morning. It was signed by eleven councillors. Enough to pass the motion at the next Grand Council meeting in two days time. The motion posed two problems for Krizzle. The first being that the current High Council President was a great-uncle of the soon to be Supreme Potentate, April, and although not as off balance as some members of the Gregorian Royal Family, he was well known for having a passion for all things military and a liking for all things that go bang. As a staunch advocate of power by force, he had even tried to convince some senior members of the Grand Council that Gloth needed to get back to war as it was extremely unfair on all the Glothic soldiers who were not getting a chance to die in bloody battle. Happily, no councillors listened to him. But if he became the Potentate-General he could end up fulfilling his wish and declaring war on anyone he felt might provide a nice gruesome battle.
The second problem the motion posed was that if the investiture was postponed or cancelled, it would mean that all the planning for Ichor would be derailed. Krizzle knew the Blood Brotherhood were relying on him and that failure was unthinkable after all these years he and his ancestors had waited quietly, patiently and secretly, and suffered under the ignobility of Gregorian rule. He also knew that eight of his fellow Grand Councillors carried Gregorian Erdean genes and would be exiled once Ichor succeeded. For the sake of Gloth, he had to find a way to quash the motion and ensure the idiot April and his investiture gathered the entire Gregorian family and thus the entire Erdean gene pool in the Grand Hall on April the first. And at the same time, keep the secret of Ichor safe.
*****
‘Four hundred and twenty-one pure Erdeans and six half-breeds. Sorry about the six Sep. I know we were supposed to keep them segregated, but you know, these things happen. They’re only a tiny bit green though, so hopefully no damage done. Are you sure the GCC will be safe from Glothic High Command when we park it near Yooranus?’
Sep was surprised there were so few Erdeans. ‘Probably not enough females,’ he muttered to himself as he prepared his reply to Inna while checking all his notes about Ichor and what he should do with six half Erdean, half Lacertilians. He finally found the direction he needed from his battered old copy of the Statutes of The Blood Brotherhood. ‘Every single Erdean gene will be cleansed from the surface of Gloth and its Twelve Sun Systems and returned to Erde – or incinerated.’ Sep searched further into the text but found no reference to half-breeds. Then he realised what he had to do. As even the number of Gregorian Royal Family who were half, or even less than half Glothic were to be repatriated to Erde because they carried the monkey gene, so must the six half breeds on Lacertilian. Or be incinerated. He didn’t particularly like Erdeans, and was as committed as anyone in the Blood Brotherhood of ridding Gloth of the evil monkey gene, but he didn’t dislike them that much to want have them all jettisoned close to the nearest sun and turned into cosmic vapour.
‘Thanks for the head count Inna. Less than I thought. They will be repatriated later. The GCC will be perfectly safe when it comes time to park near Yooranus,’ Sep tapped with one hand and crossed his fingers behind his back with the other knowing that there was someone on Gloth from the Blood Brotherhood who was charged with making sure Glothic High Command were looking in the other direction when the hijacked Cosmic Cruiser arrived. His crossed fingers helped him believe this would happen. He had no idea who this someone was, and hoped that old September still had this part of the plan under control. ‘Just make sure you don’t arrive before the last day of March.’
Sep sent the message then decided to treat himself to a Worstlimostli sandwich, which he accomplished this time without further damage to his thumb. Just as he sat down to eat his accomplishment he heard a strange sound that quite startled him. Strange sounds didn’t happen where Sep lived, so it was indeed quite odd. A sort of k-nack-k-nack, k-nock, k-nock sound. A tapping bordering on a banging sound. Then escalating to an angry thump-thumpety-thump sort of boom-boom-boom sound.
‘Open the damn door!’ gave Sep a real clue. He went to the door of his elevator and pushed the ‘open’ button.
‘About time you fool,’ a bent old man with long white hair and matching beard, a crooked nose and strikingly sharp green eyes grunted as he barged into Sep’s living room.
‘What took you so long?’
‘Well, I haven’t had a visitor in over two thousand years so I didn’t really understand what all the noises were about.’
‘Feeble excuse.’
‘So, well, who are you then?’
‘Anything to eat, I’m starving. Awful food on plitzominium freighters. Just awful. Wouldn’t feed it to a Bezzbuzz. Couldn’t eat a mouthful of it.’
‘I’ve just made a Worstlimostli sandwich.’
‘Good grief. Sounds ghastly. Nothing better?’
‘Um, as I was saying. Eh, who are you?’ Sep asked as he started to feel a little like he was talking to his own reflection in a mirror.
‘Oh we are such a close family. I’m your grandfather! Now stop dithering and set about finding me some food before I drop dead of starvation.’
‘September? Of course. You look just like …. eh, well, … me!’
‘Good, clever boy. We’ve got that straight, now off to the kitchen young Septimity before you have a dead relative decomposing on your living room carpet.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Sep said, still in shock as he looked at the replica of himself standing in front of him. Or was he the replica he thought.
‘Where’s your Q’muniktor? I’ll need it while you’re cooking me something edible.’
‘Umm, it’s over there on the ……’
‘Right. Off you go then. Don’t dilly-dally.’
Sep thought about saying something but had the sudden notion that there was nothing he wanted to say. A lot to ask yes, but it seemed as if September was not really in the mood for questions. He turned on his heels and slowly wandered off to the kitchen. Turning his head once to notice September deep in concentration, tapping out something on Sep’s Q’muniktor. He then focused his attention on cooking. As he only had frozen Krurdle burgers – a Krurdle being an over-sized turquoise subterranean slug that survived by eating its own tail, which luckily grew faster than it could eat it, and the singular source of protein on Titania – he wondered if September would be satisfied after he heated them up and covered them with plenty of FeeSees sauce. As he re-heated the meal, he wondered what he should call September. Granddad didn’t sound right. Nor did Grandpa or Pops. He decided he might try September and just see how things went.
As Sep prepared dinner he could hear September tapping away on his Q’muniktor, punctuated with grunts, grumbles and general noises of dissatisfaction. ‘Everything going to p
lan then?’ Sep asked with an attempt at levity as he brought dinner to the table.
‘With you and your dimwit brothers, how could that be possible?’
‘Oh!’ Was all Sep could think of saying in reply, which gained an annoyed grunt from September as he sat down at the table and looked at the food.
‘What in the name of the Twelve Suns is this?’
‘Um, sort of like a hamburger.’
‘It smells like something from a sewer.’
‘I quite like hamburgers,’ Sep said hoping to convince September of his prowess in the kitchen.
‘It’s rat!’
‘No, it’s not rat.’
‘Well, what is it? It smells like something that lived in the bottom of a stagnant, overwatered pot of Katzpiz bush.’
‘They’re Krurdle burgers with FeeSees Sauce. Quite a treat here on Titania in fact,’ Sep said with a confident smile hoping September had never heard of Krurdles and would thus be impressed.
‘Never heard of it,’ September said as he took a mouthful.
‘Hmm? Tastes better than it smells,’ he said with a nod of approval.
‘I’ve managed to find a Glothic Cosmic Cruiser,’ Sep proudly announced and hoped a rapid change of subject would help in them getting to know each better.
‘Good,’ September mumbled between mouthfuls. ‘All I have to do is get your layabout brothers off their backsides as well. There isn’t much time. Now,’ September started after a few more mouthfuls. ‘Who’s flying this Cosmic Cruiser?’
‘Well, I’m not sure. I just got a message from Inna Ji……..’
‘I want to know who’s commanding the ship and how many crew. I only want Lacertilians.’
‘Right.’
‘Well?’
‘What?’
‘Are you going to sit there all night? Find out who the commander will be.’
Septimity and The Blood Brotherhood: The Third Hilarious Glothic Tale (The Glothic Tales Book 3) Page 3