The Worm of the Ages and Other Tails: Six Short Fantasies (7 page)

‘We’ll see,’ said Dr. Xi.

The work of Team 5 is still ongoing, but progress is slowing down, and it is the opinion of this clinician that the team’s effectiveness has been seriously compromised. Dr. Levko has barricaded herself in her quarters. Dr. Pringle carries condiment bottles with him wherever he goes. Dr. Xi proposes to move the entire lab to a secret base on a volcanic island and hold the world to ransom; and it is not entirely certain that he is joking. The daily team briefings have taken on a surreal quality. Dr. Khosruparvez has suggested the creation of elements with
imaginary
numbers, and Dr. Metharom has begun sketching designs for imaginary lab equipment. Yesterday, it was decided that Element 3.5, if and when discovered, should be named
kerfluffium
after Dr. Palmeiro’s pet rabbit. Dr. Palmeiro has not got a pet rabbit.

It is my urgent recommendation that Team 5 be disbanded, its members barred from further research in the field of preonics, and the Fleury–Vasilievsky experiments assigned to a group of researchers selected for stability, sobriety, and a total lack of imagination. The reputation of the Institute requires it. The dignity of science demands it.

Our research is far too important to be left to those who can actually do it.

Tom Simon is a writer of tall tales from the tall country of Alberta, Canada. He has wandered far in dreams, sleeping or waking, to the Isles of Light and Droll’s workshop, and to places stranger than these. Some of these dreams have been written down in books, but many more remain unrecorded; for Mr. Simon is notoriously the sort of person who begins many projects, but does not always bother to