The VMR Theory (v1.1) (32 page)

“We had to get you back, friend Ken. Poor Susie is pining, and a mopey dragon is simply impossible to live with. It is axiomatic that dragons are faithful one hundred percent.”

Cheeves took off his top hat and smoothed a few dents. “I wouldn’t wish to bore you with the details, friend Ken. Suffice it to say, we utilized the gold as security to issue a few billion in gold-backed bearer bonds, and with the prospect of war and hyperinflation looming, the Macdonalds assigned a value to them that far outstripped expectations. This, coupled with the firm initial position that Minnie and Mickey were able to give us in the corporate marketplace, enabled us to make the board of ephors a very acceptable tender offer, which they accepted following the massive and ultimately successful civil disobedience campaign launched by the planet’s Christian community.”

“What?”

“Yes, this was a surprise. When the ephors banned the ‘Bucky Beaver Show,’ it achieved such notoriety that a market for Bucky Beaver videos sprung up overnight,” Bucky explained with relish. “Minnie and Mickey assigned one of their companies to produce them.”

“In retrospect,” Cheeves concluded, “banning the show appears to have been a serious tactical error. Your friend, Mjarlen, has proven to be a devastatingly effective proponent of Bucky’s philosophy and has been superlative in making it comprehensible to the masses.” Again Cheeves paused. “He appears, however, to somehow have acquired the odd notion that the copy of the Bible he has is incomplete, and that the Bucky Beaver stories comprise additional portions.”

I looked at Catarina. “Oh, boy.”

Cheeves twitched his whiskers. “Although the Bucky Beaver stories do rather resemble Biblical parables, I am rather at a loss to explain this development. I understand that the Roman Catholic Church has its own communications network and sources of information, and I have been told that the Pope wishes to see the two of you.” Catarina swallowed hard. “There’s absolution for every sin.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but how long is it going to take us to say a million Our Fathers and a million Hail Marys?” I suddenly realized that the guards I had listened to for so long were gone. “What happened with the Special Secret Police? Why didn’t they break up the demonstrations and why is this place deserted?”

“When it appeared that they might become an obstacle, we set up an overnight delivery company offering very competitive wages and employee stock options.” Cheeves bowed. “I confess, friend Ken, that it was my intention to establish peaceful relations between Alt Bauemhof and the rest of the universe. I trust I have given satisfaction.”

Suddenly, Tskhingamsa let out a cry and fell through the opening in the ceiling onto my mattress. Sporting a maniacal grin, Mailboat Bobby Stemm appeared above us, waving a pistol and obviously suffering from the kind of behavior disorder that leads disturbed individuals to purchase aluminum Christmas trees. “Nobody move! I’m holding-—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. A .55 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the known universe.” I looked at Catarina. “I get so tired of these last-minute histrionics.”

“Bobby, what’s all this about?” she asked calmly.

“My career is rained. My source of cigarettes has dried up, and I’ve been exposed as a smoker. There’s nothing left for me.” Bobby clutched the gun to his breast. “The only thing between me and the end of everything is Ambassador Meisenhelder, and he’s packing his bags to leave!”

Cheeves wrinkled his nose. “The new government is rather precipitate.”

“But this is my chance! I’m nothing. Nobody. But if I shoot the four of you, I’ll be famous! Famous!” Stemm cackled insanely. “People will hire me to do infomercials.”

“This is wicked,” Bucky said. He looked around my squalid cell, which was in line to become our final resting place. “It’s worse than wicked, it’s vulgar.”

“We could rush him,” I whispered to Catarina. “He only has a seven-round magazine.”

“If we try to go up the steps together, it will be a problem trying to keep the same bullet from going through more than two or three of us,” she pointed out.

“Good point. Yo, Bobby.” I waved at him. “I hope you realize that if you blow us away, the newspapers will call this another random killing by a crazed dope fiend.”

“You can’t fool me that way, MacKay. Everyone knows how much I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

“Dear me,” Bucky said, taken aback, “I didn’t realize that anyone ever said anything like that, except in musical theater.”

“Look, Bobby, er, ah Bobby.” I coughed. “Are you sure you want to shoot us here? You don’t have any witnesses, and people will blame it on the Macdonalds when they find our bodies.”

He weakened for an instant. Then he remembered the videocamera in his pocket. He waved it triumphantly.

“No, they won’t. Sweet dreams, MacKay. I’ll be infamous, and you’ll be dead.”

I rested my chin on my knees. “Just when you start to think that it can’t get worse-—”

“It does,” I heard a familiar voice say.

I looked up and saw Mordred. “This is like my high school reunion. You, too?”

“I have a date with destiny,” Mordred said. He twitched his nose. “Lieutenant Commander Stemm, I presume. I trust you remember me.”

Bobby knelt to kiss the hem of his robe.

“Dear Lord, can that man suck up,” I exclaimed.

“I have this nagging feeling that we should have gotten out of prison when the opportunity first presented itself,” Catarina commented as she bent to check Tskhingamsa’s condition.

“Mordrpd, do you know this fellow?” Bucky asked. “He is one of Supreme Agent Wipo’s hirelings. He used to be the military attache to IPlixxi*, which is where I first met him.” He looked at Stemm. “So, what did you have in mind?”

“I’m going to blow them all away,” Bobby said, sighting down the barrel of his pistol.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Mordred asked, whipping out his poniard and testing its balance.

“Bucky, did you have to let Mordred go?” I hissed. “He is part of the family,” Bucky said apologetically. “I’m going to enjoy this!” Bobby said. “It’s going to be fun fun fun!”

“Don’t you just hate people who are perky in the morning,” I muttered.

“Any final smart remarks, Lindquist? How about you, MacKay?”

I shrugged. “I’m thinking. Don’t rush me.”

Catarina favored me with one of her famous smiles. “Good-bye, then!” Bobby laughed, just as Mordred gently tapped him on the head with the pommel of his poniard, and Bobby dropped like a poleaxed steer.

“Mordred?” I scratched my head. “You’re on our side?”

“Oh, yes.” Mordred stuck his poniard in his belt and dusted off his paws. “Didn’t cousin Cheeves mention our little agreement?”

I looked at Cheeves. “You mean there was a fix in to diddle the banks?”

“Assuredly not, friend Ken,” Cheeves said primly. “When I told cousin Cheeves that I wanted to invade !Plixxi* and topple brother Bucky from his throne, he bet me that I wouldn’t succeed, so when you captured me, I lost the wager and had to pay forfeit.” Mordred twirled his whiskers. “After a suitably abject reconciliation, I swore allegiance and took over the Commerce portfolio in the cabinet. Commerce minister is okay, but I did so want to be Poobah and consign people to dungeons and things.”

I ran my fingers through my rapidly thinning hair. “I hate to ask this, but what’s to keep you from shooting the four of us and making another try at the cushion?”

“Mr. MacKay, are you suggesting I should
welsh on a bet?
“ Mordred said loftily, “I am a being of honor, sir. I resent such insinuation on your part.”

“What cousin Mordred is saying,” Bucky explained, “is that although he deeply regrets not being able to parade my head on a pikestaff, how can one have any kind of stable social order if one does not live up to agreements one freely entered into?”

“The law of contract is sacred,” Mordred assured me. “Mind you, if Cheeves had left me a loophole, brother Bucky’s life wouldn’t be worth a campaign promise.”

“I see,” I said falsely.

“Besides,” Mordred said, “I get to be Royal and Imperial Viceroy here, which ain’t just brussels sprouts.” Catarina helped Tskhingamsa to his feet. “We might want to get out of here.”

“A capital suggestion, if I might say so,” Cheeves said. “Indeed, perhaps we might retire aboard friend Ken’s ship,
Rustam’s Slipper.
Things might be a little unsettled here for a few days or so.”

As we walked together down the dark corridors of the suddenly deserted Secret Police Headquarters Cheeves raised another matter. “Your dread and august majesty, it is customary to ennoble ministers of state, and might I remind you that this affair represents yet another instance in which Minister Ken has rendered signal service to the dynasty and the realm.”

Bucky stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh! That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Might I suggest that a title of nobility is in order?” Cheeves continued.

I also stopped dead in my tracks. “What about her?” I asked, pointing at Catarina. “It’s her fault, too.” Everyone ignored me. “When did we start giving out tides of nobility to humans?” Mordred wanted to know.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Bucky said airily. “Besides, it’s the perfect gift for the being who has everything.”

Mordred scratched his pointed little head. “I thought that humans didn’t go in for that sort of thing.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest that I really didn’t have much use for a Rodent patent of nobility, but the proximity of Catarina’s elbow was an inhibiting factor.

“Most humans are not afforded the opportunity to decline the honor,” Cheeves said with commendable restraint.

“Friend Ken is a vampire, which makes things different,” Bucky said with an air of assurance. “What say we make him a count, eh, Cheeves? There’s precedent.”

I sputtered ineffectually.

“There might be undesirable consequences to naming . him as a count,” Cheeves replied deferentially. “Friend Ken, if you would please kneel. Mordred, if you could lend Poobah Bucky your poniard for the ceremony.”

I knelt, with Catarina’s hand on my shoulder.

“If not a count, how about an earl, then?” Bucky asked, twirling his whiskers.

“A duke,” Cheeves said firmly.

The comer of Catarina’s mouth turned down. “Might I make a suggestion?”

I should have seen it coming. Thirty seconds later I found myself the Duke of Earl.

“There is, of course, the problem of finding a suitable position for you,” Cheeves mused. “We could leave you as minister of defense, but that hardly seems a worthwhile utilization of your talents.”

Before he could say another word, a Macdonald in a Special Secret Police uniform suddenly appeared in front of us. “Prime Minister Cheeves, could you please sign for this?”

“What is it, Cheeves?” Bucky said, moving up to peer over Cheeves’s shoulder.

“Can I get up yet?” I inquired.

“Excellent news, your grace,” Cheeves reported. “The consortium holding ownership rights over Schuyler’s World has agreed in principle to our offer, and they do not envision any difficulty getting approval from the elected planetary government, to the extent that the planet can actually be said to have a government.”

“What does that make for us, three planets now, Cheeves? I suppose you could say that we’re moving up in the galaxy,” Bucky said proudly.

Cheeves folded the telex. “There is, however, the problem of a suitable viceroy. Given the animus that has developed between the iPlixxi* settlers and the planet’s human inhabitants, I would recommend against appointing a iPlixxi* viceroy.”

I could see where this conversation was leading. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Not that.” Schuyler’s World being what it is, I have been known to say that I would rather be dipped in goo and left to harden than spend an extra ten minutes there. I turned to Catarina. “Help! I think I’m being railroaded!”

“I’d say you’re on the right track.” She winked. “But Schuyler’s World would be an excellent place for us to station ourselves.”

“Somehow, I can’t help thinking that you engineered this.”

For some reason, she burst out laughing.

Bucky patted me on the shoulder. “Buck up, friend Ken. We can’t just let our dukes wander around the galaxy selling fertilizer.”

“Bucky, think this through with me. I’m a spacer. Not only do I not know or desire to know anything about being a viceroy, but being a vamp, I can’t even walk the streets during business hours. I don’t want to be a dirt dweller. Heck, even if I wanted to suck dirt, I wouldn’t suck dirt from Schuyler’s World.”

“Dear me,” Bucky exclaimed, “you do make it sound unhygienic.”

“I don’t mean to hurt your feelings,” I said feebly, “but I’m not giving up my ship.”

“True, it would be a shame to decommission the flagship—indeed, the only ship—of our navy,” Bucky remarked.

Cheeves unbent slightly. “Granted, on Schuyler’s World, a full-time viceroy would probably provide more governing than the planet could safely tolerate. If we could count on Duke Ken for perhaps four months out of the year and gave him an experienced administrative assistant from the family—demi-sister Jezebel’s second son comes to mind—I would consider it a prudent measure. We could nominate friend Catarina as his deputy viceroy.”

Bucky turned and pumped my hand. “Then it’s settled! Welcome aboard, friend Ken.”

By an odd coincidence, Cheeves even had the patents drawn up and ready to sign.

As we flagged down a limo to take us to the spaceport, Catarina put her arm around my shoulder. “Ken?”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember that question you asked me back in Gregorio’s cavern?”

“Yes. Oh! Yes!”

She smiled. “I’ll let you know.”

We dropped Mordred off at the Ephoral Palace to grasp the reins of power, grabbed some carryout, and chartered a shuttle to carry us up to the space station.

As we were waiting for the shuttle I was absolutely astonished to see Gwen sitting in the terminal. She smiled when she saw us and drifted over. “Congratulations, Ken.”

“Ah, thanks.”

“No hard feelings?”

Catarina was right behind me, and I could feel my cheeks turning—well, maybe not red, but a little rosy. “No hard feelings. I guess with the change in governments, you’ll lose your contract. What will you do with yourself? Will you be all right?”