Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

It was Arnaut who cracked first. Shabble had made the youngster from Asral carry the wishstone. Arnaut had wished on it time and time again — to no effect. Now he was going to try direct action to get his way. He was the youngest, and had a bloody temper when roused.

‘You shib!’ said Arnaut. ‘I’ve had enough! That’s it! You can beat me, bum me, hit me, hate me, but I’m not doing any more. I can’t talk any more. No more jokes, no more stories, no more songs.’

All this was said in Arnaut’s native Malud, but Shabble, who was a linguist of the first rank, understood it perfecdy.

‘Why not?’ said Shabble, sounding as hurt as Shabble felt.

‘Because I’m dying of hunger!’ screamed Arnaut in a cracked and ragged voice.

‘Then why didn’t you say so?’ said Shabble reasonably. ‘Come on, I know where there’s some vampire rats.’

‘Rats!’ said Arnaut.

‘Yes, rats, rats,’ said Shabble, drifting off down a corridor.

‘We can’t eat rats!’ said Arnaut.

‘Cats eat them,’ said Shabble. ‘So they’ve got to be good for you. Cats never settle for anything less than the best.’

‘What’re they saying, what’re they saying?’ said Thayer Levant, who could not follow any conversation held in Malud.

‘I’ll find out,’ said the brawny Guest Gulkan.

An exercise in translation followed. Then:

‘Man cannot live by rats alone,’ said Pelagius Zozimus. ‘If you want to keep us in good shape we’ll need green vegetables as well.’

‘Green vegetables!’ said Shabble huffily. ‘I suppose you’ll want to be sleeping next!’

‘Well…’

‘I knew it!’ said Shabble.

Then, in a fit of pique, the free-floating lord of misrule spat out a blue-blazing fireball. It drifted to the floor and exploded in a flare of ionising radiation. Zozimus winced and all argument about diet ceased.

On went the refugees, guided by the fearsome imitator of suns. Quick-striding in their hunger-haste, they passed a corridor lit by blue light. Zozimus glanced along it, wondering if he should make a break for it and run.

‘Should we run?’ muttered Al-ran Lars to Arnaut and Tolon, for he was thinking along identical lines.

‘Let’s,’ said Arnaut.

But already their haste had taken them past the corridor junction, and if they turned to sprint back they would collide with the close-following Guest Gulkan.

‘Let’s risk a dash when we reach the next corridor,’ said the muscle-man Tolon. ‘But watch yourselves! That sun-thing’s three parts mad.’

‘I am not mad!’ said Shabble, who had hearing as acute as you could imagine.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ said Arnaut, throwing up his hands as if to ward off a fast-flung rock. ‘You’re not mad, not mad at all, not — gods, what’s that?’

Something was emerging from a side corridor up ahead. Arnaut knew only that it was big, heavy, brown and bulbous. A monstrous, hulking thing stubbled with inscrutable protrusions. It made a sound like heavy breathing as it advanced. Then it halted. Blocking the corridor.

‘Turn around,’ said Shabble, in great haste. ‘Turn around, everyone. I don’t want to lose you.’

Everyone turned around. They didn’t need to be told twice. They had already guessed that the thing up ahead was fearfully dangerous.

‘Go back the way we were going,’ said Shabble, in something of a panic. ‘Don’t run!’

The wingless wonder softly but swiftly said that thrice, each time using a different language. This was very, very important. Shabble did not want to have these wonderful new playmates killed by the monster.

The lord of light and laughter knew what the monster was. It was stupid. Very stupid. But it was also dangerous. Very dangerous. Very very very dangerous. It was a machine. It was a dorgi. Shabble had instantly recognised the dorgi for what it was, even though the shining one had not seen such a menace for over five thousand years. Shabble, my friends, does not forget.

‘HALT!’ said the machine.

None of Shabble’s prisoners understood the Code Seven used by the dorgi, but they all halted the instant it spoke. They all knew a sentry’s challenge when they heard one. Their bright-shining companion halted also. The monster was definitely a dorgi. Those rock-crunching tones were unmistakable. Theoretically, Shabble is incapable of shuddering. Yet Shabble shuddered regardless. The demon of Jod had not known there were any dorgis left. But there were! Shabble was terrified.

Nevertheless, the shining one played it ultra-cool.

‘Oh, hi!’ said Shabble, speaking Code Seven to the dorgi. ‘Why, what a surprise! I didn’t see you there! Don’t worry about us, we’re just passing through.’ So saying, Shabble started to drift away down the corridor. ‘Yes, yes, don’t worry about us, we’ll find our own way thank you.’ ‘HALT! HALT RIGHT NOW!’

To emphasise its commands, the dorgi trained the seven snouts of its zulzer on the slow-drifting Shabble. Under the threat of the zulzer the demon of Jod came to an abrupt halt. The zulzer could not kill the lordly persecutor of cats, but was quite capable of destroying the transponder linking the feckless one with the local cosmos. Once that was destroyed Shabble would be deaf, blind and helpless. Trapped in a different universe entirely. Mute, blind and bereft of kinaesthetic sensation. Alone, alone, doomed to be alone, unloved, uncherished and unbefriended, all alone and hideously lonely for all the rest of eternity.

Hence Shabble regarded the d° ^ r gi ^ an d its zulzer with nothing short of horror.

The dorgi spoke again:

‘Halt! Halt! Right now! Drop your weapons! Move up against the wall! Halt! Or you will be eliminated!’

If Shabble could sweat, then Shabble would have been sweating then. The shining one had absolutely no idea what to do. But while Shabble vacillated, the killer Tolon unshipped a knife. What good would that do? Not much.

Tolon might as well have armed himself with an ostrich feather. But he didn’t know that. He had never met a dorgi before. He had no idea what he was up against.

None of the other humans had ever met a dorgi either — but some of them were already making some acute guesses as to its nature.

‘What is that thing?’ said Guest Gulkan. ‘What’s it saying?’

‘It’s saying we’re chin-deep in something unpleasant,’ said Thayer Levant.

‘Never mind,’ said Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, with a confidence which was entirely feigned. ‘I’m sure our guide can handle it.’

‘Our guide is a Shabble,’ said Pelagius Zozimus, ‘and I wouldn’t trust a Shabble to do so much as cook a pancake. Get ready to run!’

The dorgi was getting angry. It was working itself up into a killing rage. In a roar of fury it said:

‘Now! Now! Against the wall! Or else!’

In extremis, Shabble was seized by inspiration.

Said Shabble, in a perfect imitation of Anaconda Stogirov, the immortal Chief of Security of the Golden Gulag:

‘Let me pass with my prisoners.’

There was an ominous rumble from the dorgi.

‘I have an Absolute Authorisation!’ said Shabble, still using Stogirov’s voice. ‘You doubt? Then check your Security List! Now! Or I’ll have you dismantled. Bit by bit. Preserving your pain circuits intact until the very end.’ The dorgi growled again. But backed off a bit. It began to check the Vocal Identities preserved in its Security List. Then the dorgi rumbled in discontent. It had checked Shabble’s Vocal Identity against the Security List. According to the check, Shabble was in fact Anaconda Stogirov. But Stogirov was human, female, 567 incas high, 96 noks in weight, and had blue eyes, red hair and fair skin.

This then was the problem which troubled the dorgi: could Anaconda Stogirov have been ablated and reshaped in a fashion radical enough to leave her with the outward appearance of a Shabble, that is to say a shiny free-floating globe the size of an orange? The dorgi grunted strenuously. A problem indeed! For it knew virtually nothing of human anatomy, and equally as little about the internal construction of Shabbies.