Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

— and thereby excite their customers to heights of pleasure unheard of and undreamt of elsewhere. But in the days of the Golden Gulag, dikle was used exclusively as a high-temperature lubricant in the sunships of the Systems Patrol.

So now you know.

All the time that Cheogry and Olivia were studying, servants of the Analytical Institute were busy on the foreshore, filling amphorae with these precious substances. Meantime the musically obsessed Shabble, still floating in a teapot, sang on and on and on.

Shabble had of course been telling the truth about capturing some pirates (the Malud marauders Al-ran Lars, Arnaut and Tolon) in the depths of Downstairs. Furthermore, Shabble had indeed been lied to by these ruthless cutthroats, who had broken their most solemn promises and had slipped away when the innocent one at last went to sleep. The reckless one had also been telling the truth about the wishstone. It really had been stolen.

Even now, events of some note were taking place on the mainland. Undesirable elements (such as Ebrell Islanders) were being rounded up to be interrogated about the missing wishstone. Many were being beaten up as they were rounded up. Furthermore, it was most unlikely that the trouble would be over by the time Chegory Guy was due to return to the mainland.

Late in the afternoon, Ivan Pokrov was summoned to the Counting House. That was the official name for the room in the Analytical Institute which housed the Analytical Engine itself. A transmission shaft had snapped, bringing the operations of the Engine to a grinding halt, and he was needed to supervise the repairs. He left Chegory and Olivia with plenty of work to do, and at first they worked diligently, or at least pretended so to work.

But the day was hot, and Chegory soon abandoned scholarship for dreams. Wild dreams! Fantasies in which a benevolent Hermit Crab granted him thighs, nipples, breasts, buttocks and watermelons by the thousands. Then Olivia seized her Ebrell Island friend and shook him into wakefulness.

‘Pokrov’s coming!’ she said.

Thanks to this warning, Chegory Guy was the very picture of diligent scholarship when Ivan Pokrov returned in the company of Ingalawa.

‘How far have you got?’ said Pokrov.

‘Not far,’ admitted Chegory.

‘There’s always tomorrow,’ said Pokrov. ‘It’s time to go home. I’ll be coming with you. I’ve decided to accept the dear doctor’s invitation. I will dine at the Qasaba household this evening.’

As the westering sun sank in the west they packed up. Chegory changed into his evening wear — trousers and shirt — leaving his loincloth on the island for the morrow.

They were ready to make the trip back to the mainland. There were of course four of them — Chegory, Olivia, Ingalawa and Pokrov — but unfortunately there were only two pairs of stilts left in the rack at the main entrance to the Analytical Institute. The flow of dikle and shlug from the wealth fountains had eased but it was still more than ankle-deep.

‘Let Olivia and Artemis have the stilts,’ said Pokrov. ‘We men can wade.’

‘No need,’ said Chegory. ‘There’s more in the workshop. They were getting repaired yesterday. The glue should be dry by now. I’ll go and get them.’

With that said, off he trotted.

Ah, how pleasant it is to have servants! An obedient Ebrell Islander willing to run for the stilts without even being asked! However… appearances are deceptive. These animals cannot really be domesticated. As you will see.

While Chegory was off on his errand, the others did not sit, nor did they retreat into the shadows. Pokrov was lost in thought (a common occurence for him) and thus paid no heed to heat or discomfort. As for the two women, why, they were not going to be the first to admit to the weakness of the flesh. They were both Ashdans, the pride of which race has not been exaggerated by the many commentators who have remarked on it.

‘Look,’ said Olivia, pointing to the south-west. ‘A canoe.’

Indeed, a double-hulled canoe was being paddled through the Rajavakoram Channel between Scimitar Island and the mainland. They knew it at once to be one of the seagoing canoes of the Ngati Moana for it was far larger than the frail outriggers which fished in the local lagoon.

‘They’ll have news,’ said Olivia.

‘Only of the west,’ said Ivan Pokrov.

In the season of Fistavlir the only canoes to reach Untunchilamon were those which came from the west. In such vessels the Ngati Moana dared the shallows of the Green Sea, helped by the Coral Current. A canoe adrift in that flux of water will be carried at least thirty leagues to the east between one sunrise and the next.

This canoe would in all probability have come from the island of Yam, which lies due south of Asral and Ashmolea.

Its crew would have aided their eastward drift by salvaging whatever scraps of wind came their way, or by paddling, maintaining their strength by feeding on sharks and turtles caught fresh from the sea.

‘We could get away on one of those,’ said Pokrov softly.

Artemis Ingalawa laid a hand on his shoulder and said:

‘It’s too early to think of that.’

She was in no hurry to flee Untunchilamon. Life here was good. Anyone could have told that just by looking at what she was wearing: not the plain robe which would have been appropriate to one of her rank but a trouser suit of yellow silk and a silken alizarine cloak fringed with gold and cinnebar. She had known poverty in the past and liked her present financial status much better. What’s more, on Untunchilamon she was free to indulge her mathematical passions to the full, yet was far removed from the competitive pressures which sometimes made life in her homeland very difficult indeed.

Artemis Ingalawa had found her utopia and was determined to enjoy it till the end.

Besides, there was still a chance that Aldarch III might lose the war for control of Yestron. But, certainly, if he did win, and then stretched out his claws toward Untunchilamon, there would be many good citizens of Injiltaprajura who would be prepared to pay heavily for a place on one of the canoes of the Ngati Moana. Usually, the Star Navigators take no passengers, for the journeys they make in their open canoes are long and hard, even to those habituated to such a life.

What motivates these people to dare where no others will? Trade, obviously. These matchless navigators traffic in pearls, ivory, dragon teeth, sponges and spices. But above all else it is the lust for pounamu which drives them. This brittle green stone they love as much as do the aesthetes of Ang, and so to acquire it they will sail the length and breadth of the Great Ocean, touching on shores so distant that one is scarcely more than a legend to the other.

While Pokrov and the Ashdans were still watching the canoe, Chegory returned with the extra stilts. But with him as well was Shabble. Chegory had liberated the irresponsible one from the teapot. The living jewel was bobbing now at his shoulder, still humming softly. You see? You would not really want an Ebrell Islander as a servant. Off it goes on the simplest of errands: to get some stilts. Yet back it comes with the most feckless delinquent on all of U ntunchilamon.

‘Chegory,’ said Ingalawa, chiding him. ‘I thought we could have done without Shabble’s company tonight.’

‘But Shabble loves dinner parties,’ said Chegory. ‘Shabble loves them all too much!’ said Ingalawa. Shabble was to formal dining in the Dromdanjerie what the Empress Justina’s albinotic ape Vazzy was to banqueting in the pink palace. Need more be said?

‘Don’t worry about Shabble,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘I’ll keep our spherical friend in order.’