​Something of the kind: 
Fox Hunting
The fox meditates
WHEN Samson set my brush afire
To spoil the Timnite's barley,
I made my point for Leicestershire
And left Philistia early.
Through Gath and Rankesborough Gorse I fled,
And took the Coplow Road, sir !
And was a gentleman in Red
When all the Quorn wore woad, sir !

When Rome lay massed on Hadrian's Wall,
And nothing much was doing,
Her bored Centurions heard my call
0' nights when I went wooing.
They raised a pack - they ran it well
(For I was there to run 'em)
From Aesica to Carter Fell,
And down North Tyne to Hunnum.

When William landed hot for blood,
And Harold's hosts were smitten,
I lay at earth in Battle Wood
While Domesday Book was written.
Whatever harm he did to man,
I owe him pure affection;
For in his righteous reign began
The first of Game Protection.

When Charles, my namesake, lost his mask,
And Oliver dropped his'n,
I found those Northern Squires a task,
To keep 'em out of prison.
In boots as big as milking-pails,
With holsters on the pommel,
They chevied me across the Dales
Instead of fighting Cromwell.

When thrifty Walpole took the helm,
And hedging came in fashion,
The March of Progress gave my realm
Enclosure and Plantation.
'Twas then, to soothe their discontent,
I showed each pounded Master,
However fast the Commons went,
I went a little faster !

When Pigg and Jorrocks held the stage
And Steam had linked the Shires,
1 broke the staid Victorian age
To posts, and rails, and wires.
Then fifty mile was none too far
To go by train to cover,
Till some dam' sutler pupped a car,
And decent sport was over !

When men grew shy of hunting stag,
For fear the Law might try 'em,
The Car put up an average bag
Of twenty dead per diem.
Then every road was made a rink
For Coroners to sit on;
And so began, in skid and stink,
The real blood-sport of Britain !

(Kipling)

And certainly 'I was singer to my clan in the dim red dawn of man' but they are so completely mentally damaged they didn't understand the words.
IN THE Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt.
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.

Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg
Were about me and beneath me and above.

Now go away and read the Knife and the Chalk.

Piles of infected shit, Linch, Goldstone, Blair, Milburn, Naylor and the rest, just squirming wormy piles of diseased shit.

OK, you're traitor vermin who'd feed their grandmothers to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal to keep him happy.

Fine, you are grovelling apes without honour, self-respect, integrity, principle, squalid disgusting bags of rotting flesh.

You just sit there clutching your wizened smelly dirty pricks and sniggering and tittering at your absolute power, how everyone obeys you, how brilliant you are to have engineered the destruction of a medically vulnerable woman.  What clever diseased baboons you are to keep pounding my spine.  I mean that so proves how brilliant and virtuous you are, does it not.

You can't of course speak, reason, learn but then you're only animals.

I don't know what's going to happen to me.  It is unlikely to be all good.  Even if it is,  the wanton evil, the wanton corruption of you vermin, you inutterable subhuman filth, has done unrectifiable damage to my body and my life.  Anyone with a scrap of shame or conscience would wish to help but of course that's no-one.  You're good people.  In your filthy twisted ape-brains evil is good.

However, there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, before I go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.  And fuck you where you breathe, lower than vermin.

The Rolling English Road
By G. K. Chesterton

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

(Chesterton)

...Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,
Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;   
Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,   
Don nervous, Don of crudities;   
Don clerical, Don ordinary,
Don self-absorbed and solitary;   
Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;   
Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;   
Don middle-class, Don sycophantic,   
Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic;
Don hypocritical, Don bad,
Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad;   
Don (since a man must make an end),   
Don that shall never be my friend.

***
Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted,   
Don to thine own damnation quoted,   
Perplexed to find thy trivial name   
Reared in my verse to lasting shame.   
Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing,   
Repulsive Don—Don past all bearing.
Don of the cold and doubtful breath,   
Don despicable, Don of death;   
Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level;   
Don evil; Don that serves the devil.   
Don ugly—that makes fifty lines.   
There is a Canon which confines   
A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse   
If written in Iambic Verse
To fifty lines. I never cut;
I far prefer to end it—but
Believe me I shall soon return.
My fires are banked, but still they burn   
To write some more about the Don   
That dared attack my Chesterton.

(Belloc)

Actually I think I'll compose the curse.  Damn, can't find my copy of The White Goddess.  The gist is that offending Irish poets was never a good idea, since Irish poets respond by composing curses that turn bowels to water and cover you in suppurating sores.

A book on quantum physics is not 'I think I'll go to bed and curl up with a good book and a cup of cocoa' material; the mind has to be thoroughly awake.  But metaphorically, certainly.  

Wonders of the Universe is a 2011 television series produced by the BBC, Discovery Channel, and Science Channel, hosted by physicist Professor Brian Cox. Wonders of the Universe was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two from 6 March 2011. The series comprises four episodes, each of which focuses on an aspect of the universe and features a 'wonder' relevant to the theme. It follows on from Cox's 2010 series for the BBC, Wonders of the Solar System. An accompanying book with the same title was also published.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_Universe
6 March 2011 was a Sunday.
The initial episode gained viewing figures of 6 million people when it was first shown on the BBC, and it was the first BBC factual show to top the iTunes chart.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_Universe
The long decline in Anglican churchgoing is levelling off, the Church of England has said.
A spokesman said average weekly attendances overall fell by 0.3%, to about 1.1 million in 2011, representing a "stabilising" of attendance figures
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22426144
So what were the other 50+ million doing. There’s more than one service a day, 1.1 million of the viewers then went off to church.  OK, 5:1.  It’s not so much a statistic as a metaphor.

At the risk of repeating myself (heavy sarcasm alert) the stomach-churning obscenity here, what inspires revulsion, lies not in a fucked-up nutter babbling about The Great Penis in the Sky, but in universal prostration at its feet in C21st England, not one voice prepared to say this is all sickness and lunacy and laugh in its moronic animal face  - and in among the silent being supposed academics of the University of London, supposed scientists - and in the part of the University of London in which they are supposed academics being UCL.  

Some Interesting Facts

The first university in England to admit students of any race, class or
religion, and the first to welcome women on equal terms with men.

Students from outside London, and from overseas, present from the start.

A teaching programme was established in which religious beliefs would not constrain the dissemination of knowledge and exploration of ideas.

Academic disciplines introduced as required by the emerging industrial and  commercial society; the first English university to offer the systematic
teaching of law, architecture and medicine.History of UCL

Except me of course.  I laugh in all your moronic sick animal faces.   Because it's farce, sick mad obscene femicidal farce, true, but farce, nonetheless.  There is absolutely nothing from Jesus to literacy to academic rigour to criminal law to the history of the free world from its birth in 1776 that they have not instantly surrendered to the Middle Ages, no fact, no argument, no moral standard they have not dismissed out of hand.  

​You're all just mad jokes, whatever pathetic airs and graces you give yourselves, however bloody important you are, you're just mentally diseased monkeys. What's the matter with you stupid cunts?  What's the matter with you stupid cunts that don't ask stupid cunts what's the matter with them.  I have been buried in the world of the criminally insane, those with not the faintest feeblest grasp of reality, those who live in a world that exists only in their heads.  Monkeys is flattering.  Bloody amoebae, unicellular organisms.  Just what the fuck is the matter with you that you do not ignore these creatures, if not lock them up for the safety of those around them.  

Bacteria in  a petri dish.  Plague virus.  Anthrax.  Something that kills whatever it touches.  Nothing may be done.  What pathetic absurd evil monkey-puke is that?

Butchering and destroying a woman.  What does that matter?   There is no line they will hold, not one single fucking line. Just something foul and disgusting to behold.  Physical abuse of a woman with a metal rod in her back.  You can't expect that to matter to doctors and nurses or anyone else for that matter.  Government?  MI5?  Don't be ridiculous.  All that matters are psychopaths, butchers, fascists, traitors, who must be petted, soothed, upheld, protected, not caused a moment's displeasure.  Who want me to suffer and preferably die in a wheelchair in the gutter and whose infinite malice, infinite inadequacy and perversion and disease it is imperative be sated.  It's obviously government policy to as far as possible dispose of anyone who doesn't crawl, anyone who doesn't go along with the destruction of democracy.  

Anyone who asks Mr Benn's questions:

What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you? Tony Benn, quoted in Hansard

Anyone who isn't a traitor.  Anyone who isn't an obscene grovelling monkey rubbing itself into the ground in its eagerness to serve, accommodate, foster evil.

Anyone who isn't a piece of dirt like Linch, Naylor, Goldstone, a squirming smelly animal, something vile and obscene to look upon.  Like all the rest of them.  Filthy, filthy, filthy little animals who only understand violence.

This city is called London.  If you look out of the window, you can see lots of the big red buses for which it is famous.  It is the capital of a country called England.  The governing-system of England is democracy.  In a democracy power is accountable.  Those with power are required to give rational justification for how they exercise it.  Is some part of that fucking unclear, vermin?  The exercise of power  must be transparent because the governing are accountable to the governed and the governed cannot fucking say if they like how power is being exercised unless they fucking know how power is being exercised.  Is that fucking unclear, Naylor, you vile filthy ape, Linch, Goldstone?  Absolute insolent, insolent rejection of democracy, insolent, insolent rejection of publicly establishing the facts.

In this country called England women are free to be the kind of people we choose to be.  We are not defined and boxed and caged.  We are free to be intellectually, emotionally, physically and sexually autonomous.  We are not the playthings of inadequate male monkeys, their property, our bodies and minds under their command.  How about that, filth, obscenity, vermin?  

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

(Chesterton)  

​Mais ce qui est vrai des maux de ce monde est vrai aussi de la peste. Cela peut servir à grandir quelques-uns. Cependant, quand on voit la misère et la douleur qu'elle apporte, il faut être fou, aveugle ou lâche pour se résigner à la peste.   Albert Camus: La peste
 
Or just evil, venal, psychotic.  Tony Blair.   Of course at one point I did think he was just naïve.  Nah.  He's just a total and absolute cunt.

Bambi grazed at the edge of the Enchanted Forest, the space where the stars are God’s daisy-chain and every time you sneeze a little fairy is born. Everyone who worked in the health service was just jolly wonderful, all pulling together, and all the doctors and scientists, well, they were jolly marvellous, all those little organs for transplant. It did worry him a little bit, didn’t Jews and Muslims have something about pigs. It would be just awful if a Jew or a Muslim died because there was no suitable organ available. Well, how about cows then? No, Indians liked cows. Well, what about sheep? Roast lamb, sheep’s eyeballs. Sheep wouldn’t upset anyone, well, anyone religious, and religious people were all that mattered. Religious people were completely wonderful. He was a religious person and he was wonderful, so he should know. He corrected himself hastily. Of course, everyone was simply marvellous and hard-working and brilliant too and everyone should have a degree and anyone who said different was horrid, simply horrid. Autonomy was just so messy, centralization, that was the ticket. Debate, that was so time-wasting. It was obvious he knew best. You certainly didn’t need to tell people facts. Europe was especially wonderful. What did it matter if a few billion euros vanished from time to time? People shouldn’t carp. There had to be perks in public service, everyone knew that. People should be more trusting, yes, that was it, there just wasn’t enough trust, enough giving. Obviously people had to pay taxes. It was really rather despicable to question if they were wisely spent.
As night fell, Bambi became uncomfortably aware of yellow eyes shining out of the trees. There was a low growl. This business about stamping out ‘sleaze’...Bambi laughed heartily. I mean Tory sleaze. For heaven’s sake, if one can’t look after one’s friends...of course you chaps know what you’re doing. Shouldn’t dream of interfering. There was a crackle behind him and he jumped. The growls grew louder.
“Do bugger off,” said Cernunnos.
“I say!” said Bambi, “you really shouldn’t talk to people like – “ He turned and his voice quavered as he took in horn, hoof and shaggy haunch. “Are you Satan?”
“No,” said Cernunnos. “Just think of me as a distant ancestor.”
Bambi looked doubtfully down at his own sleek limbs.
“Evolution,” said Cernunnos. “Not necessarily for the better.”
“Image is terribly important,” said Bambi.
“Image is a load of crap,” said Cernunnos. Bambi’s doubts returned and he wondered if there was any holy water nearby.
“Take him out,” said a voice from the trees.
“Make my day,” said Cernunnos.
“He is a pagan!”
“Nonsense!” said Cernunnos. “I am a god. I grew out of it. I am hoping young feller-me-lad here may do the same.”
“A pagan god,” murmured Bambi faintly.
You can fool all of the people some of the time. This Bambi had managed spectacularly to do.
It had been an article of faith that Labour had the moral high ground. Sin, whether snatching bread from the mouths of starving children or living debauched and immoral lives, was the prerogative of the bloated capitalist. The ragged trouser philanthropists bring out battered fiddles and a mournful wail fills the air: 'She was po-or-or but sheee was honest, victim of a rich man's gi-i-ime…' The Weekend Book instructs us to sing 'with moral significance'. 'See him in the House of Commons/Passing laws to put down crime/While the girl as he has ruined/Slinks away to hide her shame….' The rhyme is evident to Londoners. Dezzi's problem was that she was not ruined, had no shame and, large though her vocabulary was,  slinking away didn't figure in it
 
…
THE HOUSE THAT KEIR BUILT
 
            Naked Capitalism confronted Inner-City Decay. The whore whined. The eunuch raged at his impotence. As ever, she offered herself to the highest bidder, and so they built a shrine to Capital at Canary Wharf. Trade rolls up its sleeves and employs labourers and supervisors, warehousemen, fork-lift truck drivers, lightermen (once, lightermen). Capital preens and employs bankers. Outside the hall of mirrors, the rot is evident but no Eternal Dentist comes to drill it out. No sky-god ever has properly fulfilled his obligations. Loss of faith surprises? Here among the potted palms of Faceless Capital there is no loss of faith. See the laughing brook rippling over plastic pebbles of uniform size and carefully toning hue for they are available in a wide range of colourways. This is a place of work or a stage-set for the Garden of Eden? You deal till you reel. Is there more to life than moving money around the globe? Like pigs ready for slaughter they go to the Market. The Market will provide. Clearly the Market does not provide, here where the kids have found a pensioner to rape and they shoot up in the high street, but why should it?   When people reject all human experience bar momentary sensory gratification and the thrill of injury to others, why should anyone care what happens to them?
            Cometh the Saviour.  Things can only get better.
            Once upon a time a lad called Keir saw there weren't no good proper house a working-man could call his own, one without damp and rats and no flipping landlord squeezing your life's blood from you, and so he got out his tools and set about building one. It were a fine sturdy house, plain, mind, but warm and solid, place you could feel right at home, put your feet up by the fire. You were safe there.
            All Keir's family moved in. You know what families are like, fight like cats and dogs. You don't necessarily like all your rellies, but they're still family, and Keir's family prided itself on its internationalism, lot of folk been raised abroad, married foreigners, and family's all the better for it, that's the theory, anyway, but different folk have different ways and some of them ways didn't go down too well and so most folks lived on the ground floor and slept in the bedrooms on the first floor, bit chilly in winter, fires in the bedroom, that's for posh folks, but good thick blankets, heavy curtains to keep the draught out, but other folk lived in the roof. You didn't go up there without a clove of garlic, that's for sure! And you didn't go up there without something to feed Them. Nice piece of bleeding flesh would do, preferably not your own. Some of the neighbours were extremely disturbed by Keir's house, feared the infestation would spread to adjoining properties, called in the Council, demanded fumigation, but you look after your own, right. Folks a bit funny in the head, you don't turn them out to live on the street. Besides, they're right pretty and they sing something lovely, sometimes their music fills the whole house, a song to pierce the hearts of the hearers with pain, longing, a sense of inferiority, we are so coarse, so practical, if only we could be pure, single-minded like Them.
            Some of young Keir's mates were really quite fond of Them. They shouldn't be excluded and just needed to be  understood. Their ways wouldn't work for most people but that don't mean we can't learn from Them. Invite them down for a bite of supper! By the time They had eaten the table, the chairs and half the diners, it was a little late to reassess, but They were so pretty and their song so sweet They were forgiven. Others were more callous and thought they found ways of sealing Them off, but of course these were always temporary.
            Over the years, many fine upstanding lads and lasses went to live in Keir's house, and some were right meanminded, wanted to throw Them out, but more said, eh, it's family, you don't reject family, don't mean you give them their own way all the time, mind, and when the lads and lasses were out at work They showed their gratitude by making quite considerable structural changes to the house, even adding a whole new East Wing, and planted red roses round the door to make it more welcoming. Of course the lads and lasses weren't always grateful and sometimes right angry and stomped upstairs shouting you put that back like it was right now! But other changes were so seductive, so bewitching, that the lads and lasses could only gaze in awe. Why didn't we think of that! As time passed, more and more folks couldn't tell what was part of the original structure and what was later work and indeed many people took the East Wing as the original and rather looked down on the folks who stayed in the main building.
            Right now the house that Keir built is in some disarray.  Someone removed the last brick in the wall.  What does this mean!  There is more!  Revisionism!  Conquest!   Change! 
            By whom are we being revised?  What is the nature of the conquest?  Is there really any change?  What is 'New Labour'? 
            'New Labour' is government.  'New Labour' is political power after years in the wilderness.  We prefer not to ask.

Life is so much more fun when your mind works.  You should try it sometime.

Je suis allee voir dans la tete
Je n'y ai trouve nyet
Je suis allee voir dans la boue Je n'y ai trouve qu'un grand trou.  Je suis allee voir dans la main.  Je n'y ai trouve que rien de rien.  Leche-cul.  Va te faire foutre.
Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006. 
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.
 
“A snake has turned up at the border, craving, I think not, audience. Vastulis’ daughter.”
Received by His Imperial Majesty in an oversize white T Baz had had printed with ‘the most irritating person on the planet’ in which he usually slept and a pair of faded shorts dragged on over underpants, reclining on the sofa, Maya snuggled up to him wrapped in a fluffy pale yellow robe.
Vasily gazed at the pair of them with frank loathing.  The cat escort grinned. 
Sarat said, “For humans, I should trouble to dress.  I might even stand up.”
Someone is wearing a short fur jacket Baz judges real.  T-t-t, not the way….She removed it and handed it to the nearest cat.  Also not the way. The jacket fell gently to the floor. 
“Order them to leave.”
“No,” said Sarat.
“There is no right of private audience?  It is common knowledge – “
“Other guys I talk to,” said Sarat, “are not nasty slimy creatures from the pit of desecration.”
“’Guys’!”
“Would you like a nice cup of tea,” asked Baz.
“Remembering to say ‘please’,” said Paw.
“I will not speak in the presence of these animals!”
“Do sit down,” said Sarat.  “Since you know perfectly well that whatever you tell me will be all over PANTHER in ten minutes, what else have you in mind?”
“Not that.”
“Then?”
Must I crawl prostrate beg.
No.
Our lives are forfeit.
“There have to be witnesses,” said Sarat.
“And the witnesses are reamed,” said Baz.
Then I humiliate, abase.
She fell on her knees and touched her forehead to the floor.
“Get up,” said Sarat.  “Or I sit on the floor next to you?”
She raised her head and glared at him.  Maya tumbled to the floor and sat cross-legged/
 “Darling, falling at the feet of men is terribly yesterday.”
“Bitch!” said my lady of Vaudos.
“Lots of sharp white teeth,” agreed Maya.
Sarat joined Maya on the floor.
“The buzz-word is behaving intelligently.”
“You execute us or not.  Where is the intelligence!”
“It’s not down to me,” said Sarat.  “Heela, Saryulin and Marula.”
“You can intercede – “
“No,” said Sarat.
“You will not! I too can read law!”
“If you ask for my protection I have to give it.  You’ll still be locked up for life as a clear and present danger to normal humanity.”
“I cannot be – changed?”
“Only with your full consent.”
“’That they freely chose is but rarely unchosen,’” quoted Baz.  “Not sure where I got that from.”
“If you did not make it up!”
“We have the right,” said Maya, “to know what we’re protecting.  Have you killed?”
“Often.”
“And you enjoyed it or preferred the pain?”
“The latter.”
At which point there was a knock on the door.  Great goodness, there is a normal world.
Unless war’s broken out, thought Baz.  He went out to the summoner and closed the door firmly behind him.
“A lot of people,” said Sarat, “would love to know what ‘It’ is.”
“That is the price of life?”
“I’m confused,” said Maya.  “Thought you loved death.”
“Yea,” said Sarat.  “The Great Master shall hold you in his eternal embrace.”
“I have children.”
“A creature like you loves anything?” asked Sarat.
“What is ‘love’!”
“Something there’s not a lot of in Vaudos. Shall we keep to the point?”
“I can never go back.  My children.”
“Everyone go aaah!” said Paw.  “You must have thought of that.  What did you expect from this expedition?”
Baz slipped back.
“To see.”
“Get on line.  Read the papers.”
“A Fidubi lunatic Imperial Majesty!”
“Change sides?” suggested Paw.
“Know your enemy,” said Baz.
Sarat said: “You don’t get quivery at the mention of ‘It’.”
“Oh I see,” said Maya.  “You want to know if we can defeat ‘It’.”
“How likely are we to tell you!”
“The female mind may in some respects be stronger.  ‘Eso’, is it not?”
OhIsee
One duels, ma’am?
‘It’ is testosterone?
Find the secret find the weakness
Maya sits in a field of flowers.
Ground parched arid lifeless cracks
Maya back in overalls with a tin labelled SEALANT
Stop it! muttered Baz.  Sarat just grinned.
The land heals.  Tiny saplings appear. A forest of silver birches
Same old? questioned Paw.
The sound of trees falling, trees screaming as they are cut.
Maya sitting in a heap of sawdust crying.
Oh really.
Maya sitting in Zanocki Park with Sarat’s arm around her gazing fondly on their cubs.
Giant winged lizards with serrated beaks descend on the cubs.
Are turned into humming-birds, tiny jewels of colour giving off  rainbow rays of light
Maya and Sarat grow old, wither, become grinning skeletons.  Then comes the night.
Dark with no stars fills the room, and with it dread, at any rate if anyone in the room were prone to dreading, which they weren’t.  Voices shout and scream in terror and lamentation.
Oh really.
Maya sitting on a moonbeam swinging her legs.
Sarat’s voice in some irritation.  Can no-one change a lightbulb round here?
B+P looked at him.  Not me.
Would he interfere with a lady, would he!
The dark sniffs, paws, lacerations appear on Maya’s legs, her eyes turn red and begin to run with blood.
In real time.  Fractionally.  Maya shifts herself along her moonbeam and the blood hangs in rivulets in mid-air. 
Stain the floor.  A good squirt of new improved PANTHER  a skeletal hand seizes the can knocks Maya off her perch falls broken splayed
Getting antsy?
My lady of Vaudos falls like a rag doll screaming into infinite space.  Maya thoughtfully provides her with a cushion to land on sits beside her.
You lose because you always lose there is no death
There is no life
Garbage crap aren’t  you alive
Given surrendered no thing
I a star thing!
Destroy devour
Star deformed sucked torn
Maya nearly screamed.  In real time.  Sarat sort of moved. No, said Baz
Maya slammed the shutter down, a wall of apparent burnished silver with KEEP OUT emblazoned on it. Spurts of acid scorched seared pocked melted. Briefly.  Maya put smilies on the healed wounds.  Crush annul incinerate the outer surface a wall of fire.
It began to rain.  Heavily.
The fire sputtered and transformed into a wall of outward-facing spikes.
Strands of barbed wire grew from the tips of the spikes and encircled encaged my lady Vaudos
Your captive I cede
Maya waited for the counter-attack.  People rarely fight clean in this one.
Time does time not erode crumble destroy time tearing at the wound of life are you not weakened aged weary in your crumbling bones
Sun-ka-sun I shine I who am a star perceptual
Careful, thought Baz.
Even stars grow old and weary age and die can time not destroy all rock all land all seas
Time for lunch wet Viasdan in Carlin muddy field see stains on the floor in space Maya Talal ban-essa centred in the Whole, Anile Empress, Mistress of Kadun does Vaudos break its trust in time or space where are you?
Here.
Where?
Nasty shack no carpet tins.
And?
You wish in truth I bow crawl make obeisance to the Anile Throne.
No
Are we not all free to choose and choose death.
No.
Your meaning!
Is our meaning not made plain before the world death does not rule Kadun.
Then you must fight.
What are we fighting shall I ream
You would not it is forbidden
I would not.
Then an empty threat!
No.
These are riddles!
Find the key.
You command Imperial Majesty
Shrug
If I tell you
Have you not told
Perhaps or I lie
Lie and will lie why the truth
I must know
What?
What is death?
“A function of time,” said Maya.  “More than that I do not know and cannot say.”
That I see were time to stop and cannot. “Or we move and time stays still.”
“I think – “ began Baz.
“I think,” said Maya softly, “my lady of Vaudos is wondering whether.” She stopped.
“No,” said Sarat.
You take our lives we may not take our own.
“Not,” said Sarat, “at Xu-Laman.”
Shall we not be the final sacrifice.
He-elp, thought Baz. Unexpected, you could say unexpected.  Or they guess?
“Some kind of a fishing-trip?” asked Paw.  “Going to be a bit different this Xu-Laman, isn’t it.  Under the watchful eyes of Their Imperial Majesties.”
You cannot prevent the power.  [Image of dead cats nailed to a door.]
“Just longing for an excuse to invade,” said Sarat.
Corsin devour your rabble here assembled you will not.
“Exactly,” said Sarat enthusiastically.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Maya brightly.
“You are of course free to go,” said Sarat, “unless there’s something else you want to say?”
“I cannot.”
“Speak or go?”
“I cannot return!”
“Then you make no sense.” Or if you return the final sacrifice?
“Can you save my children?”
“If,” said Baz, “we were sure it wasn’t a trap and we’re not.  You were allowed to come.  Oh.  Knowing your children would be sacrificed at Xu-Laman.”
“We never thought they were nice.   If you do go back you are spared, must watch – “
“Yeutch,” said Maya.
“But how would they know you haven’t told us about ‘It’.”
“They want you to tell us about ‘It’?”
“They think themselves invincible.  I do not know.”
“And when we turn up ‘It’ is something different?”
“’It’ is always something different.  The results cannot be predicted.”
“Tear hair time?” suggested Baz.
“A field?” suggested Sarat.  “Not of course a boring muddy one.”
She looked intently at Maya.
“They say you cannot win. I do not know.  It uses silver.”
Sarat sighed.
“Does it by any chance confound space and time?”
“Then it is true!”
“What is?”
“The Throne.”
“Ah yes,” said Sarat.  “The kitchen-chair.  Or a load of old hooey.  A story to pique my personal interest.  What’s interesting is what I might do.  Desert Carlin.  Hare off to Van-senok.  Invade Ciletij territory.  Especially that one.”
“Sure you’d get a lovely welcome,” said Paw.
If my lady of Vaudos’ absolute bewilderment is faked then she’s an even better actress than we think her.
“Not sure,” said Baz.  “Are you supposed to know the chair in the museum in Azt is a fake?  Why does your brother freak over ‘It’?  And you don’t.”
“Do you actually have any children?” asked Paw.
“You torture me to verify truth?”
“No,” said Sarat.  “Not sure what we’re going to do with you – I think I know a real sweet guy who – “
He got out his phone, got through to M-P and asked for Taja, now, don’t care if he’s levitating.  Pretty-please.  Baz laughed out loud. 
“Sarat, he is busy.  You know that word.” 
“I have a problem here called Vastulis’ daughter.  Does that make him less busy?”
“Possibly!  How about Vax?”
“I’ll call Cho – “
“I mean Vax is around somewhere, only saw him about half an hour ago.”
“Could have left by now.”
“Just hang on a minute!”
At least the shrine at Maona-pri doesn’t torment you with jangling muzak when they put you on hold.  Sarat laughed and flipped the loudspeaker on.  The room was soothed by The Edes of Salva-va.
“Taja.  Idle, I think.  Nothing better to do than come to Carlin. Tell.”
“Pitched up of own accord query sent.  Strange story about ‘It’ being connected to silver, to the chair.  Sick strange story about being final sacrifice at X-L.  Can you spot the lies for us, please.”
“A pleasure.  I shall come.”
“Worse than that,” said Sarat.  “We don’t exactly have the facilities for caging monsters.”
“Of course.  Come and collect her.”
“I thank you.”
Sarat cut the call and looked at B+P
“I don’t have time to baby-sit.  Sort it would you please.  They’ll be here from the shrine as soon as.”
“Dialling as we speak,” said Baz.
Vasili said: “The shrine?”
“At Maona-Pri,” said Sarat.  “They really know about people like you.”
“Guess this will do,” said Paw.  “You’ll just have to find yourself another office.”
“I can cope,” said Sarat.
For the first time, thought Maya, she looks genuinely frightened. 
Sarat’s phone rang.  It did what?  Sarat’s and Maya’s phones are allowed to  ring. Only inside, puh-lease. There have to be some privileges.
“Vax.  I hear things.  Fox and I will come with Taja and Losig – female of the species.”
“I wondered about that,” said Sarat.
 
Need to fill in a few gaps here.  What would be a really good way of dealing with ‘It’, whatever TF ‘It’ is.  If ‘It’ is.  Are we convinced of ‘It’?  Well, unless it’s like a giant octopus or a squid or something.  Maybe it’s a shark in a giant tank!  If it’s going to explode, it needs to explode like a damp squib.  Not a few recalled the eggs laid at Caniba.  Be prepared! is the motto of this mission.
 
We also think it might be interesting to see if the son and heir  talks more at the scene of the crime.  Either they let us take him, in which case they want him to talk to us, or they don’t, which could be tedious.  Perhaps an invitation to my lord of Vaudos?  You mean he isn’t.  We have no firm evidence Vastulis is alive as of now.  If he renounceth all, he can tell Sarat that.  He won’t come!  His Imperial Majesty requests – requests and requires the presence – this is daft.  You’re just not forgotten, boy.   We’d just hate for you to think you’re forgotten.
 
 
Marula looked up from her monitor and laughed.
“I think I have received an imperial command.  Shall I obey?”
She moved over so Behna could read the screen.
“What will you tell him?” asked Behna.
“Whatever he asks.  Is it not his chair?”
“About the rest of it?”
“Why should he ask?”
 
So now a further meeting of the General Staff is convened.  Plus one.  Sarat says he didn’t know at the time about Challin’s affair with Marula and even if he had he had a few million other things to think about.  Cioulis and Karmen, however, took a profound interest in a number of interactions, especially perhaps the one that began “Mummy.”
“Took your time,” growled Saban.
“You see Heela, Saryulin?” retorted Marula.
“It is different.”
Marula’s eyes met Challin’s.
“Many roads,” he said, “one destination.”
“Carvena sal-tan sulit enemeri,” said Marula.
“Sulit -vastingi, bars ilamin enemeris!“ said Challin. “My apologies.” He waited for Marula to translate.
“The wanderer has but one home.  Home is where one rests one’s head. Broadly.”
OK, thought Karmen, they just get away with referring to their famous difference over empire. Cioulis showed him a mental image of two hearts entwined.  Karmen continued gazing into the middle-distance.
“The phrase-book,” said Cantilip, “sadly never got finished.  Hallo.  What is your name? You mean you actually eat this stuff patsito?”
“Could I possibly persuade you to marry me?” added Mel.
“One condition,” said Cantilip.  She  reached into her hair and extended a bottle-green tress. “You must promise to attend to my roots.”
“Dying to,” said Mel.
Sarat and Maya arrived.
Marula turned.
“My lord, my lady of Kadun!  I am summoned!  I come!”
“You’re going to love it,” said Cantilip.
Sarat said: “Maya and I had a visitor, Vastulis’ daughter.  After multiple layers of crap, possible-crap and not-crap, she is now incarcerated in the shrine at M-P.  Not something you would wish to meet, my lady Vasili. After extensive examination, Taja at the shrine reckons the following has a 95% chance of being true.  She was sent to tell us we are doomed and probably to send me off chasing wild geese to attempt to evade doom.  Explain in a minute. 
She started by throwing herself at our feet, literally.  We joined her on the floor and a good time was had by all.  What she wanted was life, except on closer examination it appeared to be death.  The psychology is a little murky.  She has three children.”
“Poor little bastards,” murmured Karmen.
“We don’t choose our parents,” said Sarat.  “Since she freely came, I told her she could freely go away again.  She repeatedly said she couldn’t go back.  This was puzzling, since it seemed this was no daring escape but permitted.  Her choice, she said, was between death and death. They can of course all go wherever they choose, Enbahaluk, Ciletij indeed, at least in principle.  It seemed a little unreasonable to wander up my garden-path and then say death was forced upon her.  At the other end there would seem a 95% certainty that Corsin wishes to celebrate its final Xu-Laman in Vaudos by immolating all Vastulis’ family. Of course she would have to watch her children slaughtered first.”
Karula was very pale.  Mitch held her hand very tightly.
“As for our supposed doom.  ‘It’ may be made of silver.  Taja thinks she doesn’t know.  Like the Anile throne.  Like the Anile throne ‘It’ has curious effects on the human mind.  One does, however, have to plant one’s delicate backside on the throne in order that a chorus of dancing bears high-kicks across the floor of the Ciletij Senate – “
“Sarat!” said Mel.
“You know what I think about the more highly coloured versions of the other matter.  It doesn’t change just because I’m apparently fighting a war with them!
“That gives me my next hologram,” said Sorg.
“No, Sorg, no,” said As. 
“I do not know that they would quite understand in G-T,” said Mitch.
“This,” continued Sarat, “is where it stops being repulsive and gets merely juicy.  Unfortunately any story you have heard about the Throne is true.  Also unfortunately the one in Azt is fake.  The real one is at Casin-Ruhn, the site of the Rape of Ciletij.  Why, I have no idea, I think it has been said to keep it safe when the empire collapsed. When the border was drawn it ended up on the other side.  I am not about to invade Ciletij to get my chair back!  Some people, Van-senok-type people, have always known it was there and indeed have sat on it, why not, after all, a convenient resting-place in the middle of nowhere.  Marula, Cantilip and Venga have sat.  The other known person who has sat is my revered grandpapa, Cho. He gets around, he surely does.  The problem  given us on a plate – it is noted - is how the hell these interesting physical properties can be – if of course they actually have been – transmogrified into supposedly the ultimate weapon.  Telling me this tale of the ultimate weapon I reckoned was meant to cause me to leave Carlin – could I, could I! – and invade Ciletij territory.  Sure I’d get a warm welcome. The Vasili person has not actually seen ‘It’.  It seems her partner, now gone to the Great Master, was involved in its creation.  She thinks she’s telling the truth.  Could be she’s repeating lies she has been told are truth.  We still don’t know for sure any more than we did to start with.  Oh and alternatively I am perhaps not supposed to know the throne in Azt is fake and to concentrate our attentions on Azt.  Fun this, isn’t it.  Possibly all a complete waste of time.”
     “We have to set eyes on ‘It’?” asked STB. 
     “No more FAFfing about,” agreed Sarat.
     Cioulis stood up, unusually taut.
     “I too.”
     “Normal day out for a senoki,” said Sarat.
     “Not I,” said Challin.  “But I knew it is there.”
     “There is no physical border,” said Saban.
     “Then it would be possible to claim one was wandering Van-senok hopelessly lost?”
     “No, Sarat,” said Maya.
     “Just a thought.”
     “It would.  We have.  Have I not said, Ciletij there are not our enemies.  We share danger from cold, from isolation.  If you find a fellow human, you assist not ask what he is doing there.”
     “Of course if you find a sick animal,” said Baz.
     “Then you put it down,” said Saban.
     “We can follow that up later,” said Sarat.
     “Now,” said Saban.  “What is the point of preserving such a creature?”
     “To get information from her,” suggested Mitch.
     “As Sarat has said,” said Maya, “once in Carlin she could have got a flight to the other side of the planet.  It is not the same as arrest in Azt.  Or for that matter Vaudos.”
     “That is understood,” said Saban.
     “The fundamental question,” said STB, “is change.  Or does attempted changing so damage they are better dead.”
     “Talk to them at the shrine,” said Sarat. 
     “One more thing,” said Maya.  “We duelled. When she was trying to pulverize me, the ultimate weapon was time.”
     “Would you be able to explain precisely,” asked Karmen.  She showed him. “Whew!”
     “Was a bit,” said Maya.
     “The illusion time has stopped?” asked Mel.  “What can that possibly mean?”
     “Whatever it is,” said Faun, “the key point is surely that we’re not supposed to be able to counter it.”
     “A stopped clock cannot be restarted?”
     “If one is dead,” said Sorg steadily, “is one not so to say a stopped clock?”
     “Be ye all of good cheer,” muttered STB.
     “I merely suggest!”
     “Wrong way round,” said Maya, “not stopping, speeding up.”
     “But it’s still an illusion!”
     “If you are crumbling into dust, do you know that?”
     “Did someone use the word ‘hairy’?  Or these fun things are what we are supposed to think, of course.”
     “However,” said Maya, “I appeared to constitute evidence ‘It’ is not invincible.  Do we bomb the House?”
     “Or are we simply dying of curiosity.”
     “We thought we’d play with them a bit,” said Faun.  “Of course it might bite our tails off.  On the whole Plan One.”
     “There is another possibility – roll of drums.”
     “Never!”
     “You don’t say!”
     “Suppose – some people.  Don’t know.  Group of Corsin.  ‘It’ isn’t finished.  They don’t have a lot of faith in ‘It’.  Not least because if ‘It’ is as described could we possibly know more about the Throne.  Some people are going to be thinking about cutting and running, stands to reason.  They say the Delta is very beautiful at this time of year.”
     “Then she was sent to check us out.  OK, the doubters let her out. But they have no control over the upcoming shit-fest.  They might have guessed she would not go back and in any case why would they think she had a choice.  So they wanted her out?  How is she doing?”
     “Taja has no analogy.  Like sharing one’s time with a poisonous snake maybe.  Something that may strike suddenly at any moment! It doesn’t, learned that much.  But it could. However, a talkative snake.”
     “A disinformative one?”
     “The properties of the Throne?” asked Challin.  “Possibly hooey, but it may matter.”
     “Apologies,” said Sarat.  “Cantilip is going to tell us a story. I’m sure others can chip in with their own experiences.”
 
     “He is frantically in love with her,” deemed Cioulis.
     “She is besotted with him,” opined Karmen.
     “Both their subsequent matches therefore doomed!”
     “Just watch the Announcements,” said Karmen.  
 
Sarat is bombing Vaudos!  I repeat, Sarat is bombing Vaudos!  Sarat is sort of bombing Vaudos?  Sarat is dynamiting in Vaudos?  Sarat does not – yet! - own Vaudos! WTF is Sarat doing in Vaudos? Are you sure he’s not bombing Dabida!  We are assured, announced Vanya solemnly, we are not under attack. This is of course in part because we are doing so to speak the attacking. 
 
OK, Sarat, the  people who are really, really going to object to this are your erstwhile bosom buddies in NoZone.  Guess they won’t bomb you back!  WTF you doing with the Great Divide?
 
Major public works, guys.  Just in time for the forecast torrential rain to fall in stair-rods. Up in the Lausanine the Hyla is in spate.  Excellent.
 
It is a truly terrible thing to have a past.  People observed with some awe that Sarat was probably getting more shit than had he committed mass murder. The lizard of course lamented the collapse of youthful idealism in the face of lust for power, but even the lizard failed to come up with an even slightly plausible explanation as to how irrigation helped Sarat get the rest of his empire back.
 
Nonetheless, it really brings home to you how a united Imperial Kadun will change the shape of the continent.  Literally? All the same, the plans for a national park look really good.
 
Call for you, Sarat.  Important. Cile (this mouthed, not spoken).  Sarat grinned and took the phone
“Sarat here.”
“What the hell are you doing, boy!”
Sarat grinned more.
“May I ask whom I have the honour of being shouted at by?”
“Varchulan, as you damn’ well know.  Well?”
“Finishing a war before you start one.”
“Listen before you act, boy!”
“I’m over 16.  I have a name.”
“Sarat, damn it, listen!”
“You haven’t spoken.”
Ah well, at least they’re talking to each other.
“I wish my grand-daughter to speak to Maya.  In public.  Perhaps even on a crate.  Is that clear?”
Ah.
“Entirely.  Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
 
Nothing by the way that wouldn’t dry up nicely if we just block the breaks.  Having encircled the House with water, what do we do for an encore, hope it’ll float away?  We shall wait and see if anything happens.  And if nothing happens?  Drones for this, we think.  Drones drop high explosive to create spokes of water, radii from the House. t Maybe we’ll erode the foundations.  Maybe ‘It’ is in a cellar or a dungeon below ground.  You know those stupid water-bombs you can get for kids’ parties.  What’s stupid about them?  Look, dear ‘It’, why don’t you just come out with your hands up – tentacles, whatever. Just leave it to soak a bit – marinade.  Oh good, it’s chucking it down again.  Where can we get that much water from?  I think it may be called the sea.  Thought you said you weren’t going to turn Kadun into a flood plain. Hydroelectric dams.  If I have this right, vast quantities of water falling through a confined space create the sort of pressure at the bottom that cracks mountains.  On the other hand, if the water isn’t confined.  You can kill with water bombs.  Some kids here, thought they were just messing around, bit of fun.  Unless presumably they’re so flimsy they collapse on impact – but then would they survive the flight?  We all secretly know in the bottom of our little furry hearts we want to drop something straight through the centre of the House.  The question is what?
 
The vampires came once and were wiped out.  We appear to have total control of the south of Vaudos.  Oh goody.
 
…
Sarat’s phone rang.
He listened.
“Something’s happened in Vaudos.  Not sure what.  Catch up with you later.  Or possibly sooner.”
And that will be all over the camp in 10 seconds.
He stood up
“Have your attention, guys…This is where it starts.  We are not, repeat not under attack.  The guys in Vaudos haven’t so much as twitched their toenails.  Only there’s – call it enemy activity, aim as yet unknown.  Tell you more when I know more.”
 
Something is happening at the House, on camera 24.  Oh right.  Shimmering, motile maybe-metal.  A little it looks  like a fence made of fine gold wires: it is flexible, curves.  Hovers.  Moves.  If you wanted to physicalize  - is there such a word – a force field, you might make it look like that.  It does not appear to have any affect on the ground over which it passes: for instance vegetation does not wither and die.  Is someone having us on?  Also, the Cult is not renowned for doing pretty, and it is, very, glinting in the moonlight.  It doesn’t even stop the clocks.  Maybe it has to be activated.  Maybe it isn’t real. 
 
It is undulating very slowly north, towards the Third Army.  And Corsin.  This bit of Vaudos, you will have gathered, is pretty empty.  It’s going to meet people.  Won’t they notice?  Will anything be left of them?
 
Sarat arrived.  It’s a walking fence.  Does it talk, does it play the piano.  Does it sing?
 
A fox appears, stops, approaches.  Passes through, vanishes.  Whoops!  But no, re-appears apparently unharmed on the other side.  And the point of that is what?  What happens to the human mind in that millisecond of disappearance?   Don’t do animal experiments, especially on humans.
Maybe didn’t really disappear, went into?
 
“There is a creature,” said Saban, “who is expendable.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” said Sarat.
“Then one of us?”
“Show her the pictures,” suggested Cioulis.
 
“This,” said Taja, “appears to be ‘It’. Your comments?”
“Death,” said Vasili. 
“That is an expletive?”
“It is death.”
“How is it death?”
“Madness and death.”
“Try again.  What is it?”
“Extinction.  Annihilation. Death.”
“You seem more knowledgeable.”
“I lied.”
“When do you ever tell the truth?”
 
“What is death to them,” said Venga.  “I will go.”
“If I forbid,” said Sarat.
“I shall pay no heed!”
“No,” said Hass.  “It should it must be me.”
“I sort of follow,” said Mel.  ”Let me talk to Qartly.”
“Ah-hah!” said Karmen.
Mel on the phone.
“A load of possibly screaming garbage about the Anile throne, a walking fence. It doesn’t appear to harm foxes.”
“There must be propulsion,” said Qartly.
“That may be too rational for the current scenario.”
“Human?”
“Where?  The House!”
“Is behind it actually the same as in front of it?” wondered Cioulis.
“A force pulls it forward,” suggested Qartly.
Mel went outside and continued the call.
“We have perhaps triggered it?” asked Karmen.
Maya said: “Maybe it’s not meant for us, just has to freak normal minds.”
“Nice one,” said Sorg, “but then why isn’t it heading for us.  Sort of shield?”
“It’s going to have some effect on us.”
“The stars, the stars,” said Cantilip.  “I get there.”
“Last person,” said Marula abruptly.  “As Hasiyata of course understands.”
Venga laughed.
“May I not grow!”
“Visible waves?” asked Challin.
“That’s an interesting one.”
“Don’t have anything intelligent to say about it, but it’s got to be interesting!”
“I do surely think we have to gaze upon it,” said STB.
“Cunningly disgused as foxes.”
“If we knew what kind of wave, couldn’t we deflect it or split it or something?”
“I think we know that,” said Karmen.
“Time-waves?” sighed Faun. 
“Small detail missing there.”
“I think we’ve been a bit thick,” said Maya.  “Haven’t we assumed only nice people know about the chair?”
     “We are such fools,” said Marula.
     “Gee, where did they get the raw material?” suggested STB.
     “Where are the Ciletij military?” asked Faun.
     Saban sketched rapidly.
     “There.  There.  There.”
     Sarat began to laugh.
     “Sorry.  Tickled my funny-bone.  The lake.  Maybe it likes water.”
     “We aim to please!” said Faun.
     “I suppose the chair is still there?” asked Hass.
     “Not transmogrified into a golden wave!”
     “Mine, all mine?” suggested Sarat.  “I think that would make me unhappy.”
     “We can witness,” said Saban.  “You can never prove.”
     “No,” sighed Sarat, “I could never prove.”
     Mel came back.
     “Qartly’s verdict, for what it’s worth: Kilana siy tan.”
     “We may just have got there ourselves.”
     “There are still unanswered questions.  If it were heading for us.  It is not.”
     “If it leads the Third Army.”
     “Good to know what is pulling/pushing/propelling.”
     “Suppose which I doubt we can change its direction.  What do we do with it!”
     “Nonetheless,” said Mel, “I think we have to get going.”
     “Whole new meaning to going with the flow?”
     “Just working out,” said Sarat, “how to tell the guys they may be under imminent attack by a walking fence.”
     “Which we think will blow their minds and make them useless.”
     “That’s the one,” said Sarat.
     “Do we have the nerve to ignore it?” asked Hass.
     “An interesting idea,” said Karmen, “but I should vote not.”
     “OK,” said Sarat.  “We do exactly what we were going to do. Except.”
     “Change of venue!”
     “None of that’s the problem, though,” said Mel.  “You can see why she thinks we’re doomed.”
     “We can see,” said Karmen.
     WTF that mean?  It means Corsin have learned how to handle, and so be immune to, positive energy. 
     “Oh I see,” said Maya and STB practically at the same time.
     “Why the brother is a quivering wreck,” said Maya.
     “Someone was an experimental animal,” said STB.
 
Hi, little fence.  Come out with your posts up.  You are surrounded.  What you are surrounded by may/might confuse even you.  Or it may not.  Be prepared!  Sigh. We were going to do this round the House.  Oh no: and we’re going to do this  around the House.  And at Hokabi.  Ooh, ooh, isn’t life exciting.  It’s basically our own ‘cleansing ritual’, Faun had explained.  You could not recite some of that ancient-speak and keep a straight face.  But so far as anyone can tell, all the movements are genuine.  It has to look really really good. And who is watching?  That is what we’re going to find out.  
 
Ritawa to Spetz.  We appear to be at war.  Something is happening.  Nobody knows what, according to Sarat, not even him.
Spetz.  Sort of a relief in a way?
Ritawa.  Sort of.  In a way.
 
Tell you something, said the bloke in charge of transport, while you lot were snoring three truckloads of cats headed for Vaudos.  We may not know what’s going on but someones do.
 
I wish! Sarat would have said, had he overheard.  Aware he was going to have to communicate, he hoped he could keep it the right side of sane.   In the morning the Press yammered. Something Is Happening.  Sarat kept it brief.  Still collecting data.
 
OK, assume it’s bait.  Stop.  Scan.  Nothing, a few specimens of that wide range of wildlife for which Vaudos is renowned.  Would be if anyone went there.  Hence the national park.  That’s weird though.  Why don’t the bunnies scarper from spook-zone?  The bloody fence.   Stop.  Scan. 
There are no humans.
 
So what’s the trap?  The dear fence itself? The House explodes?  Something explodes. Us, maybe, all over the news.  The trap, we think, is, might be, not that we can see how, we’re being filmed and recorded.  Will be.  Automatic cameras at the House? How can they still be working? The fence itself? We should not therefore do or say anything too outre.  PANTHER in Vaudos is not going to set the world alight.  Of course images can be manipulated.  Here we are in a sea of corpses? Whom have we massacred? Cross that one if we come to it.  Sorg’d have a field day making them Corsin corpses.  Don’t say that word!
 
The CR involves forming a circle around the target and moving in to form a five-pointed star.  That works, so we enjoy ourselves reciting the words in the privacy of our minds. We double up so it’s a smaller five-pointed star, at which point who knows, maybe a chorus of dancing-bears did high-kick across the floor of the Ciletij Senate.  Check tomorrow’s papers.  However, here in dark, dull, damp, Vaudos nothing happens, zilch. Zip a rock into the doorway and make it jump up and down.  Nothing triggered, nothing happening.  Sensors inside?  Well, if we’re sensed, we’re sensed.  Still nothing local. 
 
     Like the other Houses, the House in Vaudos is not large, roughly three large rooms by three large rooms.  Interestingly, it has a central courtyard, daubed by obscene and graphic graffiti and full of puddles.  Re-enacting cleansing rituals is not readily performed in wellies and it was a warm night. People were wearing those plastic sandals with drainage holes in you can get for swimming where the seabed is rocky and jagged. OK, water has seeped through gaps between the stones and it’s going to be a swimming-pool underneath?  How do we get to the cellars, preferably without drowning ourselves.  Obscene reek at the back and it’s not rotting vegetation. 
 
The kitchen table is heavily stained with blood.  The corpse nailed to it is fairly fresh, female and got up to resemble Maya in silver leotard and trappings with a wig askew of black curls.  We are PANTHER and friends.  We don’t stop thinking, that being mostly why we’ve survived thus far.  We therefore have a logical problem with this called 24/7 surveillance.  There has been a ritual murder of an occupant,  therefore, despite no signs of occupation, and where there is a murder there must also be a murderer. Or murderers.  Yeah right, the fence did it.  Pix.  The face can be reconstructed for identification. We wonder if we should just wait for something to happen, but, puh-lease, not here.  Make more sense if it were the kiddies.  Maybe that’s upstairs.  Either they screwed the cameras or there’s a tunnel.  Stop.  Scan.  There is no human life here except upstairs there is faintly something.
 
In the nursery. Three children are seem to be in a sort of time-warp.  The girl picks up a Maya-doll, tears its head off, throws it across the room, goes to fetch it.  Repeats the performance.  For ever.  The boys practise goal-scoring with Sarat’s head. More experimental anmals?  Haven’t we been busy.
 
The guys at the back have discovered a bank of screens and dials and flashing lights in an outhouse, presumably moved out of the way of the fucking water by invisible hands.  Oh yeah and you do what?  Thinkdon’ttouchitdon’tdoanythingthat’sthetrapalarm! Biterbit? Youbet. Screens, dials and flashing lights, no matter how fascinating, find ritual murder beyond them.  I suppose I mean they could manipulate a robot which is where? Is this secret passage time?  OK, this controls the fence. Somewhere.  There’s always a nice big knob obviously more important than the rest. 
Notwithoutkids
WhatkidsWTF
 
Then the fence:
.  Oh – oh - oh this is interesting.  The fence forms a circle a ring, defensive, offensive? Meaningless?  KLUTZESwe’reinacirclestraighten! They formed a line.  The fence unfolded to form a line at right angles. Ah-ah arewebeingpulledintwodirections? OK, little fence, let us try to tune in to your inner essence.  The fence began to sing, hum at least.  You know, like the Throne, popularly held to be musical. We seem therefore to be communicating.  Anyone know what we’re saying?  Friendandally!  Not if it screws half the Army!   The fence jerked suddenly, was pulled sharply backwards, appeared to shake off constraint and curled up again.   
 
The Hokabi team arrived.  Hokabi was pretty boring in comparison.  Its burnt-out shell offered much cover but provided it wasn’t covering decomposing corpses, time-bubbles and wavy fences, the regulars could sort it.
 
Obviously if we have two time-twitches the thing to do is put them together and see what happens.  They’re logical like that.  OK said Karmen let’s just see if we can if we can it’s moving.  I think in fact we just do we not I think we do get me a flight to Fidub can they land at the shrine.  Cho has a landing pad said Faun.  Good good good come on kiddies trip to the sunshine. And Momma.
 
If your brain is still working after all this, you will have grasped that the snotty little brats espied by the lass who didn’t like working at the House were too young to have been Vastulis’s.
 
“Get them to bring a few cans of spray paint,” said someone.  “Imperial silver.”
“Nice one.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Surely standard issue.”
 
Cioulis showed the fence an image of the Anile Throne.   It began to move towards him.  He held out his hand.  Cioulis! yelled others mentally and physically. He touched it thrown in deep space keep centred whole middle of fucking Vaudos I am travelling oh this is fun! Laters.  Apparently unaware the effort of disconnection had thrown him backwards he said shit! ScrewCorsinisthepointimmune? asked Faun.  Can’t be, said Cioulis.  Must be, said Faun.  They made it.  Cioulis laughed.  It made itself.   Don’t know where I got that from.  Certain.  Whatever they did this not intended. Faun reached the same conclusion as Karmen as to air freight.  Cioulis had another bright idea and showed the fence the shrine at M-P.  Confusion of images.  The word ‘home’. Is that weird or is that weird?
 
IAF loaded two cans of grey paint and a couple of paintbrushes.
 
Vax might have been heard to mutter something about the local tip, but that is the least of Sarat’s problems. 
 
There actually are private showers, in the no-go area, for people who’ve been doing things like crawling around soggy ruins in the middle of the night in sopping sandals and don’t want to talk about it.
 
     “Something to communicate,” said Sarat.  “Been to Vaudos, got the T-shirt.  PANTHER and friends went to Vaudos.  1 to investigate the House and 2 to check out the ruin of Hokabi for nasties. We might have wanted to use them as bases in Vaudos, though since I’ve just told Corsin that I guess we shan’t.  Just patrolling the joint.  3 to investigate an artefact that showed up on our cameras, nature of which still undetermined. 
     They thought the ‘artefact’ was a trap, bait, so were CAUTIOUS, 20 point bold. There seemed no-one around and continued to indeed be no-one around.  They found what they thought in fact was the trap, would  trigger an alarm and refrained from triggering it.  Alarm, explosion, could have been anything from generating all out attack to bringing the House down around them. Or or course they were wrong and nothing would happen.   They thought they’d trigger it remotely just to say good-bye. Nothing appeared to happen.  Eventually our camera picked up a contingent of Corsin.  Here they are hunting wild geese.  To continue ornithology, we were of course supposed to be sitting ducks.  As usual, we’re too clever for them.  Not quite the end of the story.” Picture of silver chair daubed on wall.  IMPERIAL PROPERTY – KEEP OUT.  ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.  “They entered.  Nothing happened.  They fanned out round the House.  Nothing happened.  Don’t think they do false sense of security but they wouldn’t be human, well a bit, if they weren’t more relaxed than when they arrived. FV also stands for Forever Vigilant.  We are, yes.  We had had of course plenty of time to get organized.  We shot a satisfying number of them.”  Pix of black-uniformed bodies.  “The rest ran for it. PANTHER and co scrammed too, having no wish to confront the entire Third Army, at least quite yet.
     “There are therefore a number of corpses requiring removal or dispersal. If Corsin wish to remove their dead, we shall not intrude. They will of course have to communicate that intent – and keep to it.
     “I don’t know what’s going to happen next.   Just so long as they remember – here I am having a quick babble.  We’re not sitting here gloating.  We’re sitting here figuring how to stay three steps ahead.”
 
Corsin thought it prudent to let their exalted leader, Ban-razit, comment first.
“Send Misa to them with a message.”
 
This is war, Sarat!
Not necessarily.  Countless firefights over the years, just not me to tell you about them.
Yes, well, maybe…
 
The loss of the fence has only slightly dented cool since most of us didn’t believe in it in the first place. (Editor’s note: slavering nutters in Azt I shall get to later.)  There remain more usual fashions of engagement.  There are other things not strictly same old.  We sent her to see.  Now we know.  Plain losing also dents cool.  Not, however, a lot.  If we wish to cause the maximum of  embarrassment, how should we go about that?
 
The fence wrapped itself around one of the pillars of the shrine, crooning softly.
“Quite so,” said Taja, not quite able to keep a straight face.”
“May we expect,” asked Losig.  “Generation.”
“Nothing if not interesting,” said Taja.
 
The time-bubble was a bigger problem, there being no point in bursting it only to kill its occupants, who are deemed alive and indeed kicking.  Sane or reparable are different.
 
Oh look, a car is speeding towards us.  How mundane, how trivial.  The car stops and is surrounded by cats.
“I am,” said General Misa abruptly, “normal.”
“Just checking.  And?”
“I have a message from Commandant Ban-razit.”
“I think if you will just follow us…”
Cats behind too.
 
Sarat is otherwise engaged.  He’ll be along in a mo.  Meanwhile, Maya.
“Ma’am!”
“Maya.  Do please sit down.”
“Long drive,” said Jaizi solicitously.  “Food, drink?”
“Love a coffee,” said Maya.  “Can we get some sandwiches please.”
Jaizi rang the canteen.
“Now,” said Maya.  “You are the bearer of a message.”
“Messages.  First, burial. A contingent of 30 regular soldiers will be sent to collect the bodies at 1600 hours.”
“OK. IAF will be overhead.”
“Commandant Ban-razit wishes to speak with – “  Fractional pause.  “ – you here in front of the Press.”
“Sounds a fun-fest.  Any idea why?”
“We are told it is a question of establishing the parameters of engagement.”
“And you quote.  I love it.  Have you got his number?”
“Of course.”
“May I?”
Maya dialled.
“Ban-razit.”
“Maya ban-essa.”
“A talking doll has called.”
“Darling, it’s simply super to talk to you.”
“Well?”
“4 is fine.  We’ll be watching from above.”
“Do we take instruction from a doll?”
 “Tomorrow at 10.”
“A ventriloquist’s dummy then.”
“If you absolutely insist Sarat call you.”
 “Safe passage?”
“Of course.  Anyone who freely comes may freely go away again.”
“An interesting observation.”
“I am fascinating.  You need to get to know me.”
“Horizontal, perhaps.”
“And dead?”
“You liked our gift, I trust.”
“The fence.  Drop dead gorgeous.”
“You will, gorgeous, you will.”
“Tomorrow at 10.”
“Tomorrow at 10.”
She put her phone down.
“Now.  D’you want to stay or d’you want to go away again?”
“My status is what?”
“Visitor, I think. uninvited.  Escorted.”
Sarat bounded in, waved Misa.
“Tomorrow at 10,” said Maya.
“Can’t wait,” said Sarat.  “Do you want to talk to us?  Or would you rather look around?”
“There are men here who would hang me.  That is why I was sent.”
“Ah. Should I?  Shall I?”
“After there was no choice.  They cannot understand.”
“Others asked for back-up.”
“The Cult,” suggested Maya, “has many sterling values.”
“We did not – do not – approve – licence.”
“Look around,” said Sarat, “see  how licentious.”
“Their practices,” said Maya, “are not – licentious?”
“I may see you alone, sir?”
“Sarat.  Yes.”
At which point the sarnies arrived.
“We shall repair to Sarat’s office,” pronounced Maya.
“Leave us some,” said Sarat.
At last we are alone.
“It seemed a good idea at the time,” said Sarat.  He didn’t say it with a light laugh or a cheerful grin.
Misa seized the thin rope thrown a drowning man.
“Certain things had yet to be clarified.”
“Such as?”
“The nature of the regime in Azt.  Naturally we obeyed political directive.”
“OK.  And?”
“Mad stories from a more primitive past.”
“Which you now know to be true.”
“I have seen.  You expected suicide?”
“Tell,” said Sarat.
“A group of junior officers attempted revolt.  They died obscenely and publicly. I have protected my men from that. Harsh discipline was necessary.”
“To accommodate Corsin,” said Sarat.
“You cannot possibly imagine.”
“Actually I can,” said Sarat.  “If I say others in similar circumstances, you would say not in Vaudos, not without the support of the Houses.  I take that point.”
“With exceptions.”
“With exceptions.  Both of whom are here.”
“I will not admit to cowardice.  Others factors prevailed.”
“Cowardice isn’t the only alternative to extreme, exceptional courage.  But the benchmark is still high.”
“There is also an incident for which I am blamed.  It was not I who betrayed them.”
 
Maya to Sorg: They want to talk.  Isn’t that sweet?
Sorg: You want visuals?
Maya: What else do they want to talk about?
Sorg: Got a few ideas.
Maya: By 10 tomorrow.
Sorg: Aargh. Extra hands would help.  May I recruit?
Maya: Whom d’you have in mind?
Sorg: Ritawa.  Couple of guys he’s told me about with common interests.
 
“This is Zytalis,” said Sarat, “cat who’ll escort you.”  He turned to Zytalis.  “Our visitor isn’t flavour of the month.  Any sniff of trouble, call me.”
 
“Sorry, and all that,” said Sorg, “but I need to know exactly what you can do and how fast you can do it, and I need to know now. You have one hour to make the following holograms.  Feel free to be creative.”
 
 “Misa’s here.”
“That cunt!”
“Doesn’t want to be on the losing side.”
“Maybe he had no choice.”
“Don’t give me that bollocks.  The poor sods over there have no choice.  Senior officers, they always had choice.”
“And we bloody know who they are!”
 
“Excellent,” said Sorg, “and 360° experience works how?”
 
Misa and Zytalis entered the canteen.  Dead silence fell.
“Come to surrender, I hope,” said someone.
“I brought a message from Ban-razit.”
“Misa the messenger-boy!”
“Cock-sucker.”
“They don’t seem to like you,” said Zytalis.  “Cool it, guys. OK.”
“Does Sarat know what a piece of shit this is?”
“Sold us all out for a lick of Corsin cock.”
“Anyone for a hanging?”
Some of them stood up.
“I said cool it.”
So did a number of people.
“I think perhaps,” said someone.
     Zytalis dialled.
     “Sarat.”
     “With Misa in the Canteen.  I think they want to lynch him.”
     “I’ll come.”
     “OK, guys,” said Zytalis, “Sarat’s on his way over.  We all just do our deep-breathing exercises till he gets here.”
     “Meeow.”
     “We shall sit over there.”
     So they did.
     Sarat arrived.
     “What’s going on?”
     “That total cunt.”
     “If you don’t hang him, we will.”
     Electric current moment.  Sarat appeared not to notice.
     “Give me facts.”
     “Group of blokes, made a break for it, wanted to get to Van-senok. That cunt had them hunted down and shot.”
     “Misa?”
     “Them or me,” said Misa. “I warned them.  Someone else betrayed them. Salbitan.”
     “Oh for fuck’s sake.”
     “Don’t give us that shit.”
     “He’s on our side, pig!”
     “OK,” said Sarat.  “One, Corsin sent him to cause aggro and he’s causing it, so cut it out now. Two. Evidence.  Witnesses.  Law.  People are not executed because of angry guys in a canteen. Ever.  Clear?”
On the whole clear, very clear.  Sarat pushed it with the wannabe-murderer.
“Sorry I don’t know your name.  The guy who said he commit murder if I didn’t.”
“Trion.”
“And?”
“Got a bit.”
“And now you’re not.  I don’t do guys who get a bit, OK.  Three. Tomorrow morning Ban-razit is coming here to talk to me –
“Oh for fuck’s sake!”
“It gets worse!”
“He’s coming on condition of safe passage.  I know what the creature is.  I know what it’s done.  I want to see it and hear it. I want it to see and hear me. I want it to go back to Vaudos knowing it’s over, and most of all I want to persuade it to do something stupid which will save us all a lot of effort.  No fuckwit demos.  Also clear?”
“Fucking hell!”
“Can we hold our noses?”
“So that cunt over there’s got safe passage.”
“His status is visitor.”
“Go back with them then.”
“That’s up to him.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing that’s happened in Vaudos will be investigated until we have taken Vaudos and can investigate properly, until there are legit courts to try people in.”
“It would still save a lot of effort,” said Rewn from the doorway, “to shoot him.” Sarat turned. “Garbage disposal.”
“If anyone should, you should!”
“Meaning exactly what?  Your men?” asked Sarat.
“My men.”
“But you got away.  Am I missing something?”
“I didn’t trust him.  Others did.”
Baz said with some irritation, “If he’s got this shit reputation why would anyone trust him?  OK, so many people were playing double, you got cross-eyed.”
Rewn gave a short laugh.
“That is about the size of it. You must understand in earlier years the situation was more fluid.”
“Hedging their bets,” said Baz.
“So,” said Sarat, “if we cut to the chase, he chose the wrong side and did their dirty work for them.  OK, law.  There’s a whole team sorting it, mostly so I don’t have to in a canteen in the middle of the night.  Materially assisting the enemy sounds good, but you could apply that to all the guys in Vaudos, yes?  Maybe some of you here at one time or another.  Enthusiastically assisting the enemy is probably more like it.  Not sure it has quite the right legal ring. We’ve been through the basics.  You can’t be a traitor to an empire that didn’t exist.  You can be a traitor to the human race by siding with Corsin.  Then there’s the sub-plot of threat, terror and control.  As I just said that needs evidence, witnesses, courts.  When we have Vaudos I’ll have a fully operational nation.  From that point of view Azt is an after-thought. But purely military offences are separate from all that. Yes?”
“I should regard,” said Rewn, “enthusiastic assistance to the enemy as a purely military offence.”
“Fine,” said Sarat.  “It still has to be proved.  With witnesses for the defence, if any, who are presumably in Vaudos. In conjunction with this Salbatin. Misa. You go or you stay?”
“I believe I am innocent of – enthusiasm.”
“Don’t you believe it!”
“Wouldn’t be where he is, would he!”
“So?” said Sarat.
Misa rose.
“At your command, sir.”
“Sit down. OK, detained pending further enquiry, not to mention your own safety.  Zytalis will find you a cell. Presumably we can at least start enquiring.  A lot of you are angry.  I understand that.  But there’s not a lot of hard fact here.  So.  After Corsin have gone, anyone with evidence, anyone prepared to testify in court, is going to give a statement to the cops and we’ll take it from there.  Anyone want to say anything else?”
“Yeah,” said someone after a moment.  “The Corsin cunts will have a route, right? Can we line it?”
Sarat grinned.
“Guard of honour?”
“Something like that.”
“Just keep it clean.”
 
“Oh I think so,” said Karmen, “and shall we not tweak?”
“You need to think of it as a stage,” said Sorg, “with props.”
 
“Unusually tactful,” commented Baz. “I mean, that was about what?  One fact, pretty-please.”
“Don’t do scapegoats,” said Sarat. 
“Rewn’s clean.”
“Oh, Rewn’s clean, all right. And I don’t believe they’re covering up for shit.”
“If they really wanted Misa dead, they wouldn’t have staged that.”
“All will be revealed!” 
 
Sarat refrained from calling the head of the legal team at home in bed in Fidub and demanding he come to Carlin.  He just mailed him to say that he was about to be in bloody Vaudos and wanted a legal adviser like now.  Pretty-please, of course.
 
 “We’re going to kill ‘em!” said Sorg at 4 am.  “You may now go to bed.”
“Thank you,” said Sarat.  “Thank you all very much for this little lot.  Might not need it of course.  Yet.”
“Sure it won’t be wasted,” said Sorg.
 
Sarat and Maya weren’t the only ones who didn’t have much sleep.  The guys would like you to look around, said Baz, just so you’re happy with it.
 
            “Don’t even breathe deeply,” said Saban
      “That is it,” said Karmen, “slow shallow breaths stay centred stay cool.”
      “You are?”
      “Just call us the welcoming committee.”
      “Nameless animals, then.”
      There are four of them, Ban-razit, Gilansan, Karda-mar and Sooletin.
 
            This – is - intolerable.
            Always turn tail, said Karmen.
            Imperial flags lined the route (paper, printed in scores, if it rains, it rains).  A billboard proclaimed ‘Forthcoming discussion groups: the treatment of war criminals; the care and feeding of panthers; the role of Sardun in peace; the transition to democracy; equality of rights under imperial law.’  ‘How to use a knife and not in the kitchen’, proclaimed a poster.  ‘Miviaz from Sardun (pictured) will share some tips from her fight against Corsin.’  Cartoon (large): group of lounging squaddies contemplating an expostulating group of officers with red faces, steam coming out of their ears and Cult insignia: “What the hell do you mean you don’t have to call me ‘sir’?”  “But you’re a complete cunt.  Why would anyone call you ‘sir’?”  A  variation had Sarat looking on commenting, “One does not do hissy fits.”  A long banner: Imperial Army – cool, sleek, elegant, effective and dangerous. Sarat and Maya’s graphics of the refuse collector and the cleaning-lady.  Consultation party: winter uniform – get ready for Azt! Illustrated by black fur mitts with silver claws.  And so on.  The arriving Press caught the end of the route.  WTF!  And so on.
     “Expecting callers, Sarat!”
     “You got it.  Corsin.  They want to talk to me.  Isn’t that sweet?  Invited themselves.”  He stopped due to the meh-meh-meh.  “Shut up now, puh-lease! Call it war by any other means. I don’t know what they want to talk about but I can guess it’s to do with our trips to Vaudos. We’re putting on a little show for them, VR look-alike. The guys have had training in this.  You lot, not.  Just hang on to a few basics.  You are in the same old bloody field.  You’re probably bored with this field.  I’m bored with this field.  Still, it’s a safely boring field.  Just remember you’re in an acutely boring field.   Count the daisy-stalks.  Search for the single dandelion that survived.  The sun is over there.  The GD is to the south.  Etc.  Maya and I are in front of you. Just remember nothing that isn’t a normal natural part of a field in Carlin is real. Especially there are no wolves in Carlin.”
      The shadow of, the sensation of, the knowledge of a wolf-pack running through the crowd, just shadows, bounding onto the dais, frantically wagging their tails.
      “Who’s a good dog, then,” said Sarat.  “Who’s a lovely girl now!”
      “No, that did not happen!”
      “How true,” said Sarat.  “Think of it this way, you may be going to watch a really good movie.”
      Er.
      “Don’t we need special glasses!  I think we don’t need special glasses!”
      “You spiked the water, Sarat!”
      “Would I!  Would I!”
 
      The throng parted rather rapidly to allow Corsin through.  As they approached the dais, on which Sarat and Maya were sitting on crates (with of course chairs for their guests), the picture changed to a surround of Sarat, who may be Narulis FFS, sitting on the Anile throne, a lake behind him and surrounded by silver birches. For some reason there’s a golden fence to the left, behind which is a number of bears in Ciletij uniform.
      Sarat once more Sarat in this bloody field jumped up.
      “Our reception thus far has been intolerable. You will do better?”
      “Have you no control over your rabble?”
      “Shouldn’t dream of it.  The right to free expression.”
      “Idiot nonsense.”
      “You invited yourselves here.”
      “What would you like to talk about?” asked Maya brightly.
      Ignored, as she had assumed she would be.
      “Gender politics in Imperial Kadun?” suggested Sarat. “I shan’t say welcome to Carlin because you’re not.  But do help yourselves to coffee and sit down. If you have anything intelligent to say.”
      They helped themselves to coffee.
      “The tom-cats have been busy.”
      “Perpetual motion,” said Sarat.
      “Suppose, an academic question, you defeat us?”
      “You can either run for it or be prosecuted.”
      A truck drew up. I suppose that should be ‘entered stage right’.
      “Puh-lease, not Ciletij,” added Maya.
      Ritawa got out and saluted smartly.
      “Special delivery, sir!”
      Two chair-shaped objects were unloaded.
      Oh no Sarat no!
      “Brought cushions too,” said Varulin.
      The crates were removed and replaced by two Anile thrones.
      “Freshly printed,” said Ritawa.
      “3D printing is amazing,” said Sarat.
      “Not sure they’re terribly comfortable,” said Ritawa anxiously.
      “Can’t be worse than crates.”
      “Your little point is what?” asked Ban-razit.
      “One of my little points is the ease with which we can create.”
      “At short notice,” said Maya.
      Sarat wriggled a little, repositioning himself.
      Galia put two fingers in her mouth and whistled approval.
      “Can’t say he doesn’t look the part.”
      Onefalsemove, said Karmen, youkneeelatSarat’sfeetbeforetheworldalsothepoint.
      Youwilldie.
      “Lots of points,” said Sarat.  “One of them is one false move from our visitors and they find themselves eating earth at the foot of the Anile throne.  That would be unfortunate.”
      “Good for selling newspapers,” said Maya.
      If looks could kill.
      Sarat looked at Maya.
      “Room for two.”
      She got up and nestled beside him.
      “Hudge up a bit.”
      He hudged and put his arm round her.
      “If we may continue,” said Sarat briskly, as though his were not the interruption.  “You wanted to know what’s going to happen to you.”
      “Theoretically, of course.”
      “To keep us in prison surely a valuable waste of resources.”
      “We all think it would be simplest to shoot you in the war you refuse to fight.  Solves a huge number of problems.”
      “We realize,” said Maya, “you’re not used to people who can get close enough to shoot you.”
      “Really easy to push around the little guys,” said Sarat.
      “Indeed we have enjoyed marked success in many quarters.  Shall we talk about the House in Vaudos?”
      “Vastulis’ crew,” said Sarat with apparent vagueness.
      “A clever idea, to murder my lady Vasili and daub it our work.”
      “Might have been if we had,” said Sarat.
      “You can produce her, alive?”
      “Sure,” said Sarat.
      “What you can tell us,” said Maya, “is whom you actually disgustingly murdered.  Because it wasn’t me.”
      Very real, very genuine picture of corpse from House.  People making puking noises but no-one on stage paying the faintest attention to them.
      “We found a lot of things at the House,” said Sarat.  “This is one of them.”
      “You admit, then, your tom-cats have been to the House.”
      “Sure,” said Sarat.
      “Is that not invasion of a sovereign state?”
      “News to me,” said Sarat.
      “And if we provide documentary evidence that Vaudos has seceded from Kadun and declared independence.”
      “Signed by whom?”
      “Vastulis ban-jaizat stoan.”
      “My evidence is that Vastulis is not sane.  He would have to appear in court.”
      “How can he?  He died in your destruction of the House.”
      Just enjoy. 
      “But you of course have his statement, his declaration.  I take it you also have him.”
      “This statement,” said Maya, “notably failed to be heard by anyone.”
      “Territories,” said Sarat, “that declare  independence generally tell the world about it. Vastulis was last seen in Bar-davit at some rally of yours.”
      “That hardly precludes residence at the House.”
      “We’ve spent a lot of time encouraging anyone living at the House to show himself. It’s pretty unlikely a sane and resident Vastulis wouldn’t have protested.”
      “The waterways.  You have film of your activities?”
      “Of course.”
      “Images are readily manipulated.”
      “Aren’t they just,” said Sarat.  “A haunted house story, I think.  Welcome to Vaudos.”
We are all of us apparently in incomplete surround, like a curved stage reaching down to part encompass the audience. The House looms before us.  The plains of Vaudos stretch away into the distance.  The radii of water glint in the moonlight, though not a lot because it’s dirty water. A number of black furry ears and waving tails appear and a speech bubble: WTF?
      “If I can just do the travelogue,” said Sarat.  “Observe the radii of water.  I did that!  Didn’t you notice?  It’s part of some incredibly ancient cleansing ritual Mel dug out.  I just wanted people to pay attention to me and now they have!  Isn’t that cool. We are entering the House.  You can tell we’re interrupting a formal dinner for thirty.  Look at the sparkling chandeliers.  The House was to start with a ruin.  It’s now even more ruined because I’ve been soaking it.  Think fire hoses and you’ll get the general idea…You’ve seen the kitchen. We went upstairs. And in the cellars Let’s have a guided tour here….In the nursery, a curious and vile installation presumably transported there for us from some Corsin family.  Wonderful people.” We are travelling very fast now, skidding through the grounds.  Rats shake their fists at us.  We confront the bank of flashing lights and dials.  “We reckoned someone would come calling if we interfered with it, as stated probably controlling the ‘artefact’, and they did.”
      “Ah yes, the mysterious ‘artefact’.  Surely you can tell your audience more about it.”
      “I showed it already,” said Sarat.  “It appeared to be a mobile golden fence.”
      “And that was enough to spark your mission to Vaudos.  Who can possibly believe that?”
      “Everyone, I’d have thought,” said Sarat.  “It had to be something else.  Perhaps in your world – in my world mobile golden fences do not exist. Some kind of circuit?  Or field?”
      “We wondered if we could use the technique,” said Maya.
      “In time,” suggested Ban-razit. “Perhaps simply a piece of private property – perhaps indeed an expensive toy? – you have stolen.”
      “When and if you produce a sane Vastulis, I shall be delighted to return him his property.”
      “Or his heir, of course,” added Maya.
      “If there’s one thing I know about it’s fields,” said Sarat.  “Fragments of gold fence are not usual.  Ask all the guys.”
      “The Houses are of course ancient, all of them reputed to contain artefacts from a bygone age.”
      “Dancing bears stuff?”  suggested Sarat.  “If there’s one thing surrounded by crazy stories, it’s the Throne.  Yea, do I not plant my backside upon it and a chorus of dancing bears high kicks across the floor of the Ciletij Senate?”
      “Panthers do a two-step down the Colonnade.”
      Various other creative suggestions that didn’t stop some people from musing that the outer and exoteric meaning of this dialogue is irrelevant.  What does he want from them?  Is he getting it?  And of course vice versa.
      “It sings too,” said Maya.  “Isn’t that gorgeous?”
      “Can’t wait to sit on it,” said Sarat.
      “Surely that is impossible.  The Throne is in Ciletij.”
      “That is bizarre.”
      “Where d’you get that idea from?”
      “I understand it has been confirmed by sources in Ciletij.”
      “Where in Ciletij?” demanded Sarat.
      “Casin-ruhn, an atrocity, of course, doubtless a signifier of triumph.”
      “Weird,” said Sarat. “If true.”
      “Dear Varchulan,” said Maya, “please may Sarat have his chair back.”
      Sarat grinned.
      “Of course it’s no big deal in the age of mass production.”
      “Still, it would be nice to have the real thing.”
      “Indeed.  Perhaps this ‘mission’ was simply an exercise in looting?”
      “That’s a really interesting idea.  You’ve seen the House so what was there to loot?  I can’t actually describe myself as needy.”
      “Ah yes, the champion of the poor. Surely in fact this whole farcical charade is an exercise in looting.”
      “It’s a wonderful thing to own property in Azt. Means I can kick out the present occupants.”
      “Absurdity!  After 600 years?”
      “Nobody paid us for the property.  I think illegally requisitioned is the term.  You haven’t asked what I intend to do with it.”
      “I believe make a killing is the term.”
      “Give it in perpetuity to the people of Kadun is the term.  Most of it.  Have to live somewhere.  We thought the Jumesit.”
      “Don’t forget,” said Maya, “not only are we not being paid for this gig, we have no intention of ever being paid, constitutional monarchy or not.  Like AM.  Independent means a necessity!”
            “Should you live that long, which of course you will not.”
            “I am of course aware of in which magnificent ancient buildings on the waterfront Corsin are housed.”
            “You own or claim to – “
            “Yup,” said Sarat.  “Fun this, isn’t it.”
            Careful, thought Vax, only because they just might be mad enough to set the whole of Azt alight.
            “Why are you here?” asked Maya. “Apart from stirring it.”
            “To establish certain parameters.”
      “Such as?”
      “How we can win.”
      “You can’t.”
      “You will defeat us with graphics?”
      “No.”
      “We can keep you here indefinitely.”
      “Provided I’m happy to be kept,” said Sarat.
      “You do not wish to winter in Fidub?”
      “I wish to winter in Azt.”
      “But you wish to avoid unnecessary death.”
      “You call it that. You need to be reasonable. Var-sega’ and Van-senok could wipe you off our screen.”
      “We are aware of the disposition of forces. The RoE.”
      “If we even think you might be bombing us, you’ll be wiped out from the air.”
      “Head to head.”
      “The reasoning does not escape us.”
      “Good,” said Sarat.
      “Erroneous, of course.”
      “I think that concludes.”
      Hang on just one minute
      These cunts are free to go?
      “I gave my word.”
      “How bloody noble!  So they go right back to torturing and murdering.”
      “They kill, that’s on your slate, Sarat.”
      “Just shoot them in the back as they leave!”
      “One reason I’m here, I do not and will not function at their level.”
      “You telling us they’re human?”
      “I don’t think they’re human.  I think they left human behind a long time ago.  So what do you want? They crawl at my feet?  Plenty of guys here who’d force them to the floor.”
      I think, murmured the head of the legal team.
      I’m leaving NOW!
      “That is not the point!  Legal arrest – “
      “That is exactly the point.  Total power.
      “That’s what they, right?”
      “That’s what they.”
      “I guess no-one sane thinks they’d give you safe passage!”
      “Least of all me,” said Sarat. 
      “You wanted to talk to them.”
      “Not a lot.  I wanted to watch them.”
      “Like maybe especially when you point out.”
      “OK, they put themselves totally in your power.  That doesn’t change what they are.”
      “Changes what I do,” said Sarat. 
      “There have to be some standards around this joint,” said Maya.                 
      “Arresting total shitheads for crimes against humanity is not an absence of standards!”
      “Except when they only made themselves vulnerable to arrest because they had my word.”
      “Guys have to die because you have some fuckwit notion of honour.”
      “Don’t do lying.  Listen, fucktard, what does it mean if I don’t mean what I say, if I don’t do what I say, if I don’t keep my word.  To you guys in the Press, to the guys in the slums of Vaudos. The guys here.  Ciletij.  Sarat? Oh, you can’t pay any attention to what he says. 2) If you were in M-P, no-one could stop you making a citizen’s arrest.  You’re on private property because I’m cool like that.”
      “You threatening me, Sarat?”
      “Just resorting to fact.” 
      Sarat turned to Karmen.  “Get them out of here before they cause a riot!”
      “If you will come this way I will not call you gentlemen.”
      Ban-razit paused to look at Sarat.  Sarat looked back.
      “Just not flavour of the month here.”
      “We love you!” yelled someone.
      “Good.”
      Maya got up.
      “Lunch!”
      “Thought we just had that,” said Sarat.
      “What about our sacred right to question!”
      “I just evoked my sacred right not to answer.”
      “Your turf, huh, Sarat?”
      “My turf.”
      “As in you could kick us all out and the whole continent would simply shrug!”
      “Would I, would I!  Your editors would be livid. Two things.  One, you’re wonderful and invaluable and save a hell of a lot of time because we don’t have to run around telling everyone what we’re doing. Two, as soon as there’s any action, you’re out of here.  Car-sandis is far enough.”
      “He loves us really!”
      “Are we not superb!”
      “War-reporting.”
      “A select few, preferably chained to a post? I will explain more.  You are not going to get in the way.”
      “Would we, would we!”
      “Symbiosis!  I did biology too.”
      “Ex-actly.”
 
      “Well fielded,” acknowledged Vax.
 
      “Very good,” said Vanya after a moment.  “He has completely humiliated them in front of the entire world.  They will of course never ever forgive.”
      “And they’ll make a mistake.”
      “They’d better.”
     
The point of all that? enquired the folks back home. The point of all that was what was at our necks for 4 hours.  That is the chief reason he bothered to see us. Pause.  Let us say it may prove a close call.   Numerous hysterical screams emanated from Azt.  The width of a chair away and you did not - ?  Could not, replied Ban-razit calmly. Better I crawl at the cunt’s feet?  The more delirious screamed, Traitor!  Would not! One of them descended on Vaudos and shortly afterwards crawled at Ban-razit’s feet.  The waterways are of significance? Rivulets, capable of transporting nothing.   Nonetheless, if we do not believe, and we do not believe, he did that either as part of some ludicrous and archaic rite or to provide a public facility, why did he do it?  Corsin showed an unusual interest in geology and nearly got there.