The Guns of Two-Space (30 page)

"Ha! But you hate it out here!" grinned Vodi.

"Tell me about it," replied Asquith glumly. "There isn't even enough time for my cloned eyeball to come out of the vat before I have to head back out into this insanity! Being a writer is
not
what I thought it would be. Basically, I'm doomed to carry cases of my book with me wherever I go for the rest of my life, hawking copies and working on the sequel in my spare time."

"Welcome, my friend," said Brother Theo, patting him on the shoulder, "to the ranks of wandering wayfarers, traveling troubadours, vagabond vagrants, roving rogues, and road agents, and all their ill-mannered ilk, distributing data across the galaxy, like parasites disseminating disease."

"Yeah, that's me," sighed Asquith. "Well, my friends and mess mates, I've come to know
your
ilk, so I brought a couple dozens of excellent Earth wine with me as a peace offering. I had our mess steward open a bottle, so charge your glasses whilst I propose a toast." This earned a sincere cheer, and in less than a minute they all held their glasses high as Asquith said,

"I have no doubt at all the devil grins
As seas of ink I spatter,
Ye gods, forgive my 'literary' sins,
The other kind don't matter.
 

"So here's to literary immortality," concluded Asquith glumly. "It's not necessarily what it's cracked up to be."

"Eep," agreed his monkey.

That brought a chorus of further agreement, and thus the critics were placated by the time-honored process of a spirited defense, and a well-placed bribe of spirits.

Whatever events were occurring in the slow-paced halls of the Westerness Admiralty, the dizzying speed of Earth's fickle public was leaving the Navy far behind. Asquith's book generated a plethora of demands for Melville to make media appearances across Earth, which left the Admiralty in a state of extreme agitation and confusion.

Several centuries ago, just as humanity had gotten a good start at exploring two-space, Earth had peacefully relinquished her nascent star empire to Westerness. Since then, Earth's attitude toward Westerness and two-space had been one of benign neglect combined with total disinterest verging on disbelief. By now, most of the people on Earth thought of two-space and Westerness (if they thought of it at all) as just an elaborate fantasy played out by some obscure sect.

The Admiralty tried to respond to Earth's demands by hinting that Melville was in deep trouble for losing the
Kestrel
. They implied that it was a "Navy thing" and the plebeian public wouldn't understand, "Don'tcherknow old boy?"

This was
not
well received on Earth. The best thing the Navy could have done was to have simply ignored the public, and the fickle finger of fandom would have gone somewhere else. But the Navy's heavy-handed response made Asquith's book even
more
popular and greatly increased the frenzied demand for media appearances.

Asquith's biography of Melville sparked a fad that briefly made poetry popular on Earth. For the first time in centuries the home of Kipling and Shakespeare was actually talking in rhyming couplets. The higher-ups in the Navy bureaucracy may have wanted to hold Melville responsible for losing the
Kestrel
, but Asquith used his fame to mount an informal defense in the popular media. In particular, a bit of doggerel, written by Asquith and posted on the Net became a big hit:

I should not tell YOU how to fight,
You who put
Kestrel
on its flight
To poke around among flat stars
With crewmen schooled in masts and spars.
While
Kestrel
sank you traded
Fang
Quite slyly with that Guldur gang.
Their blush of vict'ry turned to shame
With how you won that fighting game.
The curs then watch as off you sail,
Them flinging curses from the rail.
Your
Kestrel's
loss a crime? It's NOT!
In tactics books THAT should be taught!
 

Then the Admiralty made their next mistake. They let Melville make a few appearances, trying to throw a bone to placate the media moguls who kept Earth's bored billions entertained. It only served to tantalize and taunt the beast.

Melville ended up doing a brief whirl of media appearances that left him bewildered and exhausted. He did enjoy it, in a mind-numbing sort of way. But most of it was quickly forgotten, like vague memories of irrational, nonsensical dreams that blend together and really don't matter in the morning.

One event that did stick in Melville's mind (primarily because of its particularly bizarre nature) was a literary party with Asquith's publisher and agent in attendance. The Admiralty had granted shore leave to all of the
Fang
's officers when they finally let Melville go, so Mrs. Vodi and Fielder were also at the party in response to Asquith's invitations.

Melville and Fielder were in their best uniforms, accompanied by their monkeys, but without pistols, swords, or even knives. Weapons were forbidden on decadent, pacifist Earth, and there was absolutely no way to slip anything through the tight decon stations designed to keep out weapons and the devastating two-space virus that had caused Earth's "Crash" centuries before. Both officers felt naked without their weapons, and Fielder had quickly tucked away the first steak knife that he could get his hands on.

As they entered into the party they were struck by a vast panoramic scene. The event seemed to be taking place at multiple levels in a huge, vaulted chamber. Above them, people stood on large flat sections of carpet that floated in mid-air, drifting around in a dizzying fashion, though never bumping into each other or crowding their riders. People mingled freely, stepping up, down or across, from one piece of flying carpet to another as freely and easily as if they were stepping down a set of stairs, while they talked, sipped, and snacked.

"Thomas Melville of the Royal Westerness Navy, Captain of Her Majesty, the Queen of Westerness' Ship, the
Fang
," announced a major-domo in a voice that was subtly but powerfully enhanced by electronics as they entered into the vast ballroom. "Member of the Order of Knights Companion of the King of Osgil, Member of the Royal Host of Glory of the King of Stolsh, and Friend of the Dwarrowdelf League. And his... monkey," said the announcer, with a microscopic pause that seemed to communicate great depths of amazement or confusion, "Squire to the King of Osgil.

"Baronet Daniello Sans Fielder," continued the major-domo, "Lieutenant of the Royal Westerness Navy, First Officer of Her Majesty, the Queen of Westerness' Ship, the
Fang
, Knight of the Realm of Osgil, Member of the Stolsh Royal Order of Honor, and Friend of the Dwarrowdelf League. And his monkey, Squire to the King of Osgil."

Melville and Fielder wore the twin "gongs" awarded to them by the kings of Osgil and Stolsh hanging from colorful ribbons around their necks, and each of their monkeys proudly bore its own medal in a similar fashion. But, proud as the two officers were of their medals, they would both have happily traded them in for swords when they saw the arrogant and disdainful glances of the assembled earthlings turned their way.

"Cuthbert Asquith, the Sixteenth, Earth's Consul to the Planet Ambergris, and his monkey." Asquith looked almost dashing with his black eyepatch and tuxedo, and the monkey perched on his shoulder added an exotic, alien effect.

Asquith's literary agent was named Curt Richards, a tall, elegant, stately man in a white turtleneck under a black jacket. He spent the whole night talking about the revolutionary new idea of publishing "p-books" (books actually written on paper!) for distribution on Earth, and striving with single-minded tenacity to get a bigger advance from Asquith's publisher.

The publisher was a very real and surreal shock to Melville. Standing before him in a Navy uniform was none other than Captain Ben James of the Royal Westerness Navy (retired), who had been Melville's professor at the academy.

As a cadet Melville had always thought that Captain James was several sheets short of a full spread of sails, but now he had to concede that the man who had been his favorite professor was also a canny and cunning old bird. James was living happily on Earth, where high-tech medicine prolonged his life while he built an impressive publishing empire based on rot-gut pulp fiction. And Asquith's book was the current crown jewel of his empire.

Captain James had become hugely successful at marketing Earth fiction (in p-book form) to the thousand worlds of Westerness' far-flung star kingdom, while also marketing Westerness fiction (in e-book form) to Earth and to the teeming billions on the Moon, Mars, the Asteroid Belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He was even having some success at marketing to Dwarrowdelf and Sylvan worlds, although their civilizations were having difficulty understanding the difference between copyrighted material and the vast treasure trove of Earth literature that was in the public domain.

Melville found himself admiring the incredible energy and sheer audacity of Captain James' accomplishments, while noting that the cunning little dynamo was still a bit "all knots and no rudder' as they used to put it at the academy.
And
, thought Melville,
you must never forget the array of fruit salad on the old captain's chest. All those ribbons said that he'd been there, done that, bought the T-shirt... and then washed his windows with it.
 

Melville made the mistake of saying that he was surprised at the continued success of the literature on an advanced world like Earth. Captain James promptly went into instructor mode and informed Melville that, "Reading is actually the highest of high-tech. One classic author called it, 'an infinitely complex imaginotransference technology that translates odd, inky squiggles into pictures inside your head.'"

"Yes, my friend," added Richards, the literary agent. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is magic, and
books
will always be a kind of magic."

It appeared to Melville that the only truly stable, sane one in the literary crowd that night was Etaoin Shrdlu, a publisher who had made a competing offer for Asquith's book and seemed to view the whole event with serene placidity. Then Asquith informed him that this was merely the effect of very high-quality medication, and Melville decided that it was time to mingle.

But if Melville thought the book folks were crazy, he was quickly given an education in higher order insanity as he stepped up onto one of the floating platforms and began to mix with the poetic and artistic types at the party. His first brush came as he tried to extricate Mrs. Vodi from a full-fledged harangue against some "art-eests" whose works were on display at the party.

"You bunch of flakes and fakes," said Vodi as she lectured a gaggle of artists and critics in her usual diplomatic and tactful manner. She had them neatly trapped in a corner, and was running them ragged like a sheepdog joyfully penning sheep. "You call this art? Ha! You know that a society is truly decadent when it falls for your brand of fakery. It violates the First Law of Art, Carmack's Law, which says, 'If I can do it, it's not art.' How many years of art school did you have to go to to learn to splash paint on a canvas like that? If someone studies music for four years, they walk away with an ability to play an instrument and can do something I could never do or imitate. But you walk away with an art degree, and the best you can do is
this
? Something any fool can imitate?
This
is the best ya got? 'If I can do it, it ain't art!' And the price tag! Ten thousand dollars for
that
? Oh, so
you
know so much about art, eh? Then
you
buy the freaking thing! And you, dammit, get some clothes on that man! What the hell's
that
supposed to be? Performance art? Performance art! Squirting
those
substances into
that
orifice has
not
been approved by the surgeon general! Oh, and now you're gonna light it, eh? Betcha think that's clever? Ha! I've seen better around any campfire when the boys have been eating beans! I know an artist has to suffer for his art, but why do
we
have to?"

Vodi's monkey was enjoying the harangue immensely, reinforcing key comments with the occasional "Eek!" as it kept a careful watch in all directions. Periodically the creature would whip an arm out with blinding speed to snag an olive from a passing martini or an
hors d'oeuvre
from a tray or a hand.

With the exception of the "performing artist" the artsy folks were all dressed in black. (Which Vodi claimed was really about personal cleanliness, or lack thereof.) They had been happily grazing along, maintaining serious expressions no matter what kind of drivel they were viewing in the name of "art." Now someone was calling their bluff, and one of the sheep bleated in response, "Well, you just don't get it."

Vodi was beginning to wind down, but this last remark ran fingernails down the blackboard of her soul. "And
that
violates the Second Law of Art, Elantu's Law," she replied with renewed vigor, cutting off the recalcitrant sheep and herding it back into the flock, "which says, 'If the artist has to explain what it means, then it's not art.' It's not art, it's a
failure
. Instead of universal symbolism or universal language, it's gibberish. Or a con job!"

It occurred to Melville that it was a good thing Broadax or Ulrich weren't there.
They
would have been demonstrating the fine art of high-pressure, arterial blood splatters on the walls.
Hmmm
, thought Melville, distractedly.
It wouldn't be high-pressure blood spatters as I don't think they would be in full vasoconstriction. Oh, wait, after the first victim—I mean, "artistic endeavor"—the rest would be in full fight-or-flight mode. Well, flight anyway. Thus resulting in the proper arterial paintbrush for their preferred canvas. At least until the police showed up to put an end to Broadax and Ulrich's brief but dramatic careers as artists and art critics.