Futureproofing your prison

"This is by nature of a test," said the little man on the television screen.  His face was rosy-cheeked and slightly too plump, he looked like an idealised child from an Enid Blyton novel.  "The key to your manacles has been fed to your sleeping companion.  They are comatose and will remain so unless fed an antidote, which is just outside the door to this room.  The ceiling, which you will have observed, is decorated with art deco spikes, is descending at the rate of fourteen yoctometres every nanosecond and will not stop descending.  You may choose whether to save yourself, by extracting the key from your companion, or to die together in a companionable death that will be rather more agonising for you that your anaesthetised friend."
Max produced a gun from the waistband of his jeans and shot the companion in its head.  It exploded like a rotten melon, scattering seeds everywhere.  The man-child on the television started screaming, its hands thrown up own its face with only its eyes peeking through its fingers.
"Key, huh," grunted Max, forcing his hand down the companion's neck.  The companion's body split rapidly apart, confirming that it had never been human and was, in fact, mostly deoderised pork with lumps of plaster-of-paris here and there, plus two hands and two feet for realism.
"Where did you get that gun?" screamed the man-child on the television?  "You're not supposed to have a gun!  You're supposed to be caught in an ethical quandary!"
Max's questing fingers found a key and pulled it free from the meat-sack with a sucking sound.  He looked at the television screen, a little flat-screen set into a concrete wall above a prison bunk.
"A tickle quarry?" he said, his brow creasing.  His eyebrows were the black, bushy kind that looked ready to walk off his face by themselves if you stopped looking at them for long enough.
"An ethical quandary!" screamed the man-child.  "You're supposed to care for your companion!"
"Never cared for nuffin', right?" said Max.  "Nuffin never cared noffin' for me."
"...what?"
"Anyway, that's not Jamie," said Max.  "Jamie snores when he's asleep, right?  And Jamie's not dumb enuff to eat keys.  That's Dave.  Dave eats keys."
"Dave eats keys?" said the man-child weakly, pulling its hands away from its face.  The ruddiness of its cheeks had gone splotchy and little white spots had appeared.  "Who is Dave?"
"Dave's my other friend," said Max. "But Jamie's my real friend.  He lets me stick it in him when he's sad."
The man-child stared at the screen, its oversized eyes somehow managing to grow a little bigger still.  Pink veins appeared in the whites, close to the corners of its eyes.  Finally it seemed to get hold of itself.
"Hah!  Well, you might have the key but that's only the key to your manacles.  You still don't have... wait, where are your manacles?  Why aren't you wearing any manacles?"
"Big fish, ain't they?" said Max inspecting the key, and wiping pieces of sticky melon from it.  "Can't wear fish, not on a Friday."
"Bu–whu–muh." said the man-child, its mouth moving like a goldfish while its voice tried to syncopate.  "Fish?  Fish?  You're supposed to be locked up, so that I can tell you that unlocking one off the cuffs will set off a charge inside the manacle that will sever your wrist and cause you to bleed to death unless treated."
"Right," said Max.  "What cuff's that then?"
"That's the problem!"  The little man-child was visibly raging.  "You're not wearing the chains!  You're not doing it right!"
"Chains?  I've got some of them down here," said Max, picking up a length of heavy chain with a metal wristcuff at either end.
"Oh... foodstuff!"  The little man made it sound like swearing.  "Fine, well, you still can't get out of the door because you've not got a key to it!  Haha!  You'll just have to sit there until the ceiling impales you, knowing that you killed your only friend to satisfy your own selfish urges!"
"Weren't my friend," said Max stolidly.  "Which end of this chain is the explodey one then?"
"I'm not telling you," said the man-child.  "It would do you no good anywa– wait, what are you doing?"
Max clicked both cuffs around the door handle and stuck the key in the lock of one of the cuffs.  Then he picked up a hand from the mess on the floor and bent its fingers around the key, ignoring the screams of rage from the television screen.  Then, standing to one size, he jiggled the hand until the key turned a little, igniting the explosive charge and blowing the handle and lock off the door.
While the man-child screamed and Max opened the door, two more people were sat in front of another television screen watching the interaction.
"But haven't you let the prisoner out now?" asked the person on the left, making a note on a piece of paper on a clipboard.
"No," said the other, picking at a freckle.  "The prisoner is the man-child."
"Ah," said the first, nodding and making another note.  "Perpetual frustration."
"And a never-ending sense of futility," said the second.  "The escaping prisoner has many more hoops to jump through, but the man-child believes he will be punished for every trap the faux-prisoner evades."
"You'd say you've succeeding in futureproofing your prison then?"
"In the sense that no-one in it has a future, yes."

Robo-doc

The operating theatre was chilly, and the patient's table had to be heated to avoid them waking up with frostbite in their extremities.  It wasn't heated quite enough to be comfortable though, as the chill of the table helped depress the CNS and improved the anaesthetic's effects at lower doses.  The patient lay still, waiting for the anaesthetic to do its job while the doctor stood over him, the anaesthetician sat by his head, and various nurses bustled around looking busy.
"That's it, he's gone!" said the anaesthetician chirpily.  He flicked the patient's nose with his thumb and forefinger to prove it, and elicited no reaction.
"Great," said the doctor.  "Everyone out, except you, of course, Jules."
The anaesthetician nodded, and pushed his stool back against the wall of the operating theatre.  He watched as the other medical staff left, leaving the white, sterile space empty.  The wall he was leaning against was tiled and cold, and he shivered a little and sat upright to keep warmer.  His equipment, mostly a few monitors and gauges, some tanks of gas and some clear plastic tubing running from the tanks to the patient formed a compact block at the head of the table, and the monitor beeped reassuringly every five seconds.
When the doctor and nurses were all clear a klaxon sounded and a red light started flashing.  Slowly, a section of tiled wall slid aside to reveal a rising metal shutter, and when the shutter was completely open the klaxon shut off.  From the space revealed, the robo-doc emerged.  It was an insectile metal creation with twelve arms, each ending in a different kind of manipulator: scalpel, tongs, forceps, fine needles and thin spatulate metal strips.  Some conducted, others were fibre-optically enabled.  The robo-doc rolled forward on caterpillar treads, strangely silent for its size and menacing profile, and approached the table.
"Dr. Sprocket, can you hear me?"  The presiding surgeon's voice came from a speaker hanging from the ceiling.  It didn't echo, as the echoes appeared to confuse the robot.
"I can hear you, Surgeon," replied the robo-doc.
"On the table is the patient.  They are in need first of diagnosis, and then of surgery."
"You have already diagnosed the patient," replied the robo-doc as it rolled closer to the table.  "Otherwise you would not know that the patient will need surgery."
"Indeed," replied the surgeon.  "If our diagnoses concur then you will perform the surgery; otherwise we will delay the surgery while we find out why our diagnoses disagree."
"The patient has a damaged knee," said the robo-doc, a camera hand sweeping over the prone form.  "Initiating X-ray blast."
Jules dived for cover behind his equipment, wishing that he'd remembered to bring a lead-screen in from one of the other operating theatres.  There was a moment when the whole room seemed to turn purple, and then everything seemed a little darker.
"How strong was your X-ray?" asked the surgeon, his voice sounding slightly distant now.
"400 milli-sieverts," said the robo-doc.  "However, I can tolerate much higher doses without ill-effect."
"How about the patient?"  Was that acid in the surgeon's voice.  Jules, annoyed to be overlooked, stuck his head up and said, "And what about me?"
"Collateral damage is inevitable," said the robo-doc.  "It will be minimised.  Ah, the X-ray's indicate that the patient has a duodenal blockage as well.  Surgery will be required to remove the patient's knee and unlock the patient."
"Bad diagnosis," said the surgeon quickly.  "Knees do not grow back."
There was a pause and then the robo-doc beeped.  "I concur," it said.  "The knee can be repaired.  Or fused in position.  This would be the easier option."
"Bad diagnosis," said the surgeon again.  "What would be the best outcome for the patient?"
"The patient is overweight," said the robo-doc.  "Studies show that granting fatties surgery usually results in morbid obesity.  Removal of the knee is once again indicated."
"Fatties?  Dr. Sprocket, where did you get the word 'fatties' from?"
The robo-doc was removing the patient's trousers as it answered, and Jules had started backing slowly away from the table and towards the operating theatre door.
"I have updated my vocabulary with dictionaries of slang in forty-seven languages," said the robo-doc.  "The patient is unconscious here, and I understood that doctor's have a 'black' sense of humour.  Is fatties somehow inappropriate?"
"Yes!  Dr. Sprocket, removal of the knee is still the wrong diagnosis.  The knee should be fixed."
"The knee is fit for purpose, Surgeon."
"...what?"
"The knee is fit for purpose.  It does not move the patient around, and this is its present task.  This patient is simply too tubby to support its own weight."  The robo-doc beeped several times in quick succession.  "A liposuction treatment may aid the patient."
"The patient has not consented to such surgery!"  The surgeon was sounding worried, and Jules had reached the doors now.  He leant back against them, one hand behind his back feeling for the door-handle.
"The patient does not appear to register highly enough on an intelligence scale to be worth obtaining consent from," said the robo-doc.  Its scalpel hand lifted high above it
"Nevertheles– oh crap, just turn the damn thing off."  The surgeon sounded frustrated, and Jules, finding the handle slipped through the door.
"Surgeon, Dr. Sprocket is refusing interface requests.  He'll need to be manually shut-down."
"What?  How?"
"Well, first we have to get close to a machine equipped with surgical instruments that make effective weapons and that can irradiate us with X-ray blasts."
The next sound was the cutting of a micro-saw through bone as the robo-doc began its amputation.

A little light marketing after brunch

The offices of Data Analytics Marketetic Normalisations were housed in a modernist steel-and-glass construction that stood on the site of a four-hundred year old house.  They'd had to obtain special permission to demolish the house, and had ended up paying to have it vandalised first when English Heritage had looked ready to step in.  Their CEO had been quoted in the papers about the event.
"Well blast it all, we wouldn't have had any of these problems if this had been America!" he'd said to the reporter.
"Ah yes," said the reporter.  "They don't have any buildings 400 years old in America though."
"Exactly!  There's a culture that knows how to renew things regularly!"
Those particular interviews were carefully kept absent from the book of cuttings and other publicity that the firm had managed to obtain.
The building towered over the surrounding houses and small shops.  The row it was on had originally been factory houses built early in the Industrial revolution and subdivided ever since, until modern day residents boasted about their cupboard-sized kitchens and bathrooms not actually big enough to fit a bath in, even stood up on end.  Minguy, looking out of a tinted glass window that occupied the entire wall, liked to stare down at the rooves below and fantasize about pushing his office safe out of the window to see if it would crash all the way through the ground.  He thought it might.
"Minguy!"  He turned lightly on the balls of his feet and saw that Jeronica was stood just outside his office clutching a vase of pussy-willow stems.  He smiled, the exact smile that he practised every evening in front of the mirror for fifteen minutes until it felt like it was part of him, and beckoned her on in.  She wobbled a little as she walked over, and he realised that she was now eight inches taller than him.
"New heels," she said as she got close enough for him to be able to hear her without her having to shout.  "A little gift from Leshoutier for getting their adverts shown in Dubai.  There's something waiting for you in reception too."
Minguy smiled a little wider, feeling the corners of his mouth tear slightly.  He dipped his hand into the pocket on his waistcoat for some vaseline to rub on them.  "They make you tall," he said, tilting his head back slightly so he could make eye-contact with her.  "Intimidatingly so."
"Yes," she said, tossing her hair back over her head.  Immediately two heavily-styled locks fell back to obscure her vision and give the impression of a scared young girl peering out at him.  He thought it was creepy, but expensively so.  "Yes, and not all of our doorways are tall enough."
"You won't be wearing them around the office much then?"
"What?"  Jeronica looked at him as though he'd suggested she wear viscose.  "I've spoken to Jack, he's going to get another three inches clearance for the doors.  I've also given Ozwald a call and told him to design me something that won't look like ankle support but actually is, and I've called Scholl and told them I'm going to need a whole lot better toe care and aggressive foot therapy."
Minguy nodded, this was pretty much what he expected from Jeronica.
"Anyway," she said, "Leshoutier has sent you something too, and reception swear that there's no airholes in the box this time, and it's not been barking, or trying to move by itself, so there's probably no hurry on this one.  And when you have a minute, the National American Society of Hipsters are looking to hire us."
"What do NASH want?"  Minguy let genuine interest creep into his voice.  NASH had only managed to organise properly in recent months, mostly as a response to what they saw as a direct attack on their core beliefs and everyone else saw as justified mockery.  Much to his (and his research assistant's) surprise they'd attracted substantial funding and membership.  It seemed like there'd been little pockets of hipsters scattered around everywhere just waiting for the chance to find like minds and start doing things together.  Their Facebook page had been an absolute success, with all the hipsters firmly disliking it instantly and then rushing to change their opinion once it was so uncool that liking it was the only cool thing to do.  While the group oscillated wildly out of control and newspapers made sardonic comments on irony the members had somehow managed to come together, form a coalition and a society, and now had a grand building somewhere in Manhattan where they looked down condescendingly on the rest of America.
"The Presidency," said Jeronica.  "They've figured out that the primaries are just ways for special interest groups to get the right candidates in front of the electorate and that the final election is about as fair as coal.  Rumour has it they have a hipster on the Supreme Court already, so they can take the Presidency so long as they get a candidate up there."
"Which one?"
"Well, there's the problem," said Jeronica, but Minguy interrupted her.
"No, I meant which Supreme Court Judge?  The little one?"
"Eff knows," said Jeronica breezily.  "It doesn't matter at the moment, the problem we're going to have is that they want a President only a hipster would vote for.  Someone who's not cool and no-one else would vote for."
"Ha!" said Minguy.  "That figures.  But then how could such a person get elected?"
"That's another problem they want us to solve."
"Hmm.  What do you think?"
"I think it's a challenge," said Jeronica, carefully.  "And having the group that picked the American President a happy client is certainly something to consider.  I think we need to think long and hard before we say either yes or no to this.  And finding a suitable candidate is a significant problem."
"Maybe not," said Minguy.  "Don't we still know that woman who sells suicide-ducks?"
"Marlene?  Straps mines to the underside of ducks and sets them loose in kiddie-parks?"
"Yes, she's the one.  She's American, isn't she?  And not in jail?"
"Yet."
"Well then, I think we have options!  Let's go market, Jeronica dear."

Dim Tart

"Dead?"  Melissa gasped dramatically, and one wrist was flung upwards to land against her forehead like some nineteen-forties movie starlet's idea of shock.  Sadly Melissa misjudged it badly and her bony wrist rapped against her forehead like a hob-nailed boot striking the boot-scraper, and her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed on the floor in a heap for real.  Miss Flava looked at her pityingly, Playfair barely spared her a glance, and Ronald Verges acted as though she wasn't there.  Only Calamity paid her any attention, sneaking out from behind Playfair's legs with her head lowered as though hoping that if she couldn't see Miss Flava then Miss Flava couldn't see her, until she reached Melissa.  Then her long pink tongue lolled out of her mouth, and she started licking the woman's eyes.
"Why do dogs like the taste of eyeballs?" asked Miss Flava, watching Ronald Verges.  He still didn't look down at the fallen woman.
"I don't know," said Playfair, with a hint of exasperation.  He sighed heavily.  "Easier to chew, maybe?"
"Surely they'd just pop?"  Still no reaction from Ronald Verges.
"Hah, yes.  Maybe that's what they like about them.  Grapes for dogs!"
"The Great CumuloNimbus is dead, Sergeant?" asked Ronald, his foot tapping slightly as her spoke.  He held his arms tightly across his body, and his face was drawn, his mouth pinched.
"Detective Inspector, actually," said Playfair.  "I have a card here somewhere...."  He produced nearly a dozen cards of various shapes and sizes from an inside pocket and dropped them on the floor.  They clattered, causing Miss Flava to raise an eyebrow.
"No, don't help me," said Playfair turning round and bending down and somehow managing to stand on Ronald's tapping foot in the process.  "I've got them all!"
There was a noise like a steam-kettle starting to boil in the next room, and Miss Flava noted that it was coming from Ronald as he tried not to let Playfair know that he was standing on his foot.  His pale face was going a putrid pink, and his teeth were gritted to the point where they were nearly grinding together.
"There, got them all," said Playfair standing up and finally shifting his weight off Ronald's foot.  He put them away in his pocket again.  "Now Mr. Ronald, you were saying that the great CumuloNimbus is dead."
"No!  No, you were saying that, Inspector.  I was only repeating it."
"How do you know that the Great CumuloNimbus is dead then?"
"I just said, Inspector, you told me."
"Hearsay, then.  You're spreading malicious rumours about the demise of a local celebrity without checking if they're true or not first?  Is there a reason for this.  I mean, a particular reason, other than the obvious?"
"Wha–"  Ronald stared at Playfair with his mouth open.  Then he realised what he was doing and it snapped closed again like a striking venus fly-trap.  Miss Flava pulled Calamity away from Melissa, noticing with a little bit of concern that Melissa's nose now appeared a little nibbled.
"No, I'm not spreading rumours," said Ronald, getting his thoughts together.  His accent, already rather Home Counties, became plummier still.  "One doesn't do that kind of thing.  You told me, mere moments ago, my dear chap, that the Great CumuloNimbus was dead, and I'm now trying to find out why you are telling me that.  One that."
"Because he is," said Playfair.  "And you are in his house, which is suspicious, with a woman, who looks suspicious, doing suspicious things in a suspicious manner.  And this, you see, makes me suspicious."
"That's a lot of suspicion," said Miss Flava, sounding helpful.
"Oh do shut up, you dim tart," said Ronald.  It sounded reflexive, as though this was a standard come back for the women in his life.  The silence in the room was thick enough to cut with a bread-knife, and when he realised why, his still-ruddy face finally started to pale.  "I was talking to my sister-in-law," he said.  He pointed at the unconscious woman on the floor, lying in a pool of dog-drool.  "She's a daft tart and a dim bint."
"I really hope you know more Arabic than that one word," said Playfair, producing a notebook from a pocket Miss Flava was sure he'd shown to be empty at least twice today.  "Or that's language likely to cause disorder.  And possibly a hate crime."
"A hate crime?" said Ronald, over-enunciating his aitche.
"Well, I hate you," said Playfair.  "And causing me to do that is definitely a crime."

AI war

"Gravity is one-fifth what you are used to," said Melandibus, the Artificial Intelligence responsible for managing the spaceship's living quarters.  "Please exercise caution when walking, jumping, reacting to the unexpected and dropping things.  You may, however, be less cautious when engaging in most forms of copulation, showering, and performing Yoga."
"Thank-you, Mel," said Captain Adder, slowing his stride slightly.  The floor felt somehow bouncy underneath his feet, as though it were pushing him back up when he landed on it, and he knew that this was the illusion caused by the reduction in gravity.  A thought crossed his mind.
"Most forms of copulation?" he wondered, forgetting himself and speaking aloud.
"Not that thing you do–" began the AI, and he hastily cut it off before it could elaborate.
"Mel, why is the gravity abnormally low?"
"Zygomatic, the ship's AI responsible for the cleaners, has determined that this is the optimal level of gravity for keeping the ship spotlessly clean," said Mel.  The AI's voice synthesis routine had been destroyed during an interaction with an enemy Wellensittich two months earlier, and although his Geordie engineer had done his best to cobble something back together, the AI now sounded mid-pubescent, with its voice breaking and changing unexpectedly as it spoke.  When it reached Wellensittich it trilled the word a lot like the alien species did when talking.
"I see," said Adder, approaching a door.  The door slid aside with a soft click, and as he walked through he abruptly fell over, landing heavily on his chin.  It didn't break, but it hurt significantly.
"Lopodopterous, the ship's medical AI, has determined that three times normal gravity is more effective for maintaining bone density and health," said Mel without waiting to be asked.
"Are any other AIs weighing in with an opinion?" asked Adder, pulling himself to his feet.  He felt like he was being glued to the floor, and each new step was now a real effort.  In moments he was out of breath.
"Fourteen more," said Mel.
"And is the gravity around the ship now erratic, depending on which AI got to set it?"
"Not exactly," said  Mel.  "The AIs are warring over it at the moment, and gravity may change arbitrarily from one step to the next.  I would advise caution."
"I think that goes without saying," said Adder gloomily.  "Mel, please turn off gravity for any corridor I am in."
"You are presently only in one corridor," said Mel.
"Don't make it sound like you wish I were in more than one," said Adder.  "Just make sure that there is no gravity in any corridor I'm in, and that I don't leave a zero-gravity corridor for a plus-gravity corridor without ample warning."
"Very good, Captain Adder," said Mel.  The captain felt relief as his weight suddenly vanished, and he pushed off the floor to hang just below the ceiling.  Now, to get to the bridge.

*

"Officer Shlong," said Captain Adder, trying not to snigger.  The poor man hadn't chosen his name, after all.  "What is going on with the AIs?"

"Internecine war," said Officer Schlong, who was sat at his station looking badly hungover.  "I think we've actually lost the Ironing and Washing AI for good; one of the others appears to have successfully flooded its chamber with soap suds."

"Why, though?  Aren't the AIs supposed to be cleverer than us?"

"Only by our standards," said Schlong, looking depressed and hungover at the same time.  "They were built in our image though, and we've managed to copy over all kinds of odd little emotional and psychotic traits into their programming."

"So how do we stop them fighting?"

"Arbitration?"

"Stop them fighting," said Adder, deciding that delegation was the best form of command.  Schlong looked miserable, but then he usually did anyway.  He simply couldn't hold his drink, and the bread dispenser was currently soaking all bread in alcohol before dispensing it.

"Right," said Adder.  "Ignoring the AIs then, can we get to the Truto star system before the end of the week?"

Longbleat

The Longbleat Health Spa and  Farm was located in the luxurious Sussex countryside, surrounded for miles around by farmland, forest and heavy vegetation.  The brochure – glossy, smelling faintly of lavender, and reported to taste like Epsom salts (Barbara hadn't actually licked the pages to find out) – talked about the opportunity for long walks around the Spa and Farm, admiring the vegetation and generally healthfully benefitting from the close proximity to nature.  It also devoted double page spreads to the rooms, which were panelled in dark woods and furnished with soft white linens and knitted woollen, white blankets so that the effect was of snow-fall in a Narnian wood.  There was a chapter on the food, which while claiming to be nutritionally balanced and dietetically analysed still appeared to have obtained a Michelin star, and was mouth-watering enough that some of the pages were now stuck together for entirely wholesome reasons.  Barbara had stared at the pages until she could no longer resist temptation, and had then booked a week there for her and her daughter, Megan.
Megan was staring out of the taxi windows in horror as they passed another bog on the narrow, single-car road that apparently led to Longbleat.
"Babs," she said, knowing that her mother hated the informality.  "Where the eff is this place?  Are they going to have television there?  Or internet?  Wi-fi?"
"Megs," said Barbara, knowing that the name-calling was childish and yet unable to stop herself.  "It's a health spa, you won't need the television.  It'll be leisurely meals, gentle exercise, massage, exfoliation, heated stones, and comfortable beds made up by room service.  It's a chance to relax and get away from it all.  It's paradise."
Megan scratched at a spot on her chin.  It did sound quite appealing when put that way, and her mother was paying for it all, so perhaps she shouldn't sound too ungrateful.  But she didn't much fancy missing any of her evening soap operas; perhaps there'd be free wi-fi so she could watch them online.  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked for reception.  Nothing.
"There's no reception!" she said incredulous.  Babs stared at her for a moment, and then pulled the well-thumbed brochure out of her Louis Vuitton handbag.
"Yes there is," she said, pointing to page four.  "Look, it's done in a Louis XIII style.  The reception looks a bit sixties, but I think that's supposed to be part of the charm."
"No, I mean mobile phone reception," said Megan, and then stopped.  "Louis XIII?  Wasn't his mother a Medici?"
"What if she was?"  Barbara hated history almost as much as she hated the news.  It always got depressing when you got to the good bits, and there was never enough sex.  She preferred OK! magazine, and its newly published sibling, F-U!
"Poisoner and political intriguer," said Megan.  "Interesting choice of monarch for reception then."
"Oh really!  It's the style of the furniture," said Barbara, her tone dismissive and snappish.  "I hardly think they're going to poison guests in reception."
"No," said Megan.  "It would make more sense to do it on some of the blasted moorland that surrounds the farm."
"That's farmland, woodland, and rich, saponiferous vegetation," said Barbara, reading from the brochure to make sure that she got the long words right.
"You won't be going for many walks this week," said the taxi-driver, who'd been silent up until then.  Megan and Barbara exchanged looks, and Megan got the task of talking to the man that Barbara thought of as 'the help'.
"Why's that?  Is the weather bad?"
"Foot and mouth," said the taxi-driver.  There's be sheep-pyres all over the place up here.  Look out for them at night and open the window.  Great mutton flavour."
"Oh that's horrible!"  Barbara's hand flew to her mouth.  "Of course we won't be opening the windows, there'll be air-conditioning!"
"I don't much care to walk anyway," said Megan.  The taxi-driver, who'd noted the suspension drop when she got in, wisely said nothing.
"Well," said Barbara, annoyed by the taxi-driver and determined to get back to the positive of the Longbleat spa, "there's a heated indoor pool."
"Presumably not heated by burning sheep?"  Megan subsided when she saw the little red spots begin to burn angrily in Barbara's cheeks.  "I don't really swim much, either, Babs.  It's a bit... well, wet."
The taxi-driver coughed, which could, just, have been a stifled snort of laughter.  Both women looked at him, but when he stayed silent returned to the brochure and their conversation.  "The hot stone massage sounds nice though.  Do you think they use special stones?"
"Oh yes," said Barbara immediately.  "They're volcanic in origin, smoothed by centuries of passing water at the bottom of rivers just beyond the main volcano.  They have special sherpas go and collect them and bring them back to civilisation."
"Oh good," said Megan.  "You know, I heard a rumour that in America they just use house-bricks, or old cobblestones."
"That's awful!"  Barbara's hand was at her mouth again.  The taxi swung to the left as they took a tight corner and turned onto the Longbleat drive.  "Oh look, what's that under that tree?"
They both peered out of the window as a spavined horse, foaming at the mouth, shuddered its last beneath the tree and collapsed, its mournful face bouncing heavily off the ground.
"Nature at its finest," said the taxi driver into the silence.

Mrs. Rancipopple

Mrs. Rancipopple was talking to the yeast.  The yeast was talking back, though rather slowly.  It seemed to be a poor conversationalist, but that wasn't stopping Mrs. Rancipopple.  It had taken her thirteen years to learn how to cast this spell, and she was going to make the most of it while she could.
Jermander sighed.  Like most of the rest of the class he was bored; talking with yeast was a trivial application of the spell, which allowed a person to converse with anything that presently had a mind.  Some of the lecturers at Gorillamumps had become legendary for their uses of the spell: they'd spoken with the nascent crystalline minds of mountains, they'd spoken with the titanic, pattern-obsessed mind of El Niño, and they'd even managed to talk with the hive mind of a hornet swarm.  And here he was, sat in a crumbling classroom in a draught, listening to Mrs. Rancipopple talk to yeast.
Mrs. Rancipopple was not one of the great minds of Gorillamumps, and was largely employed so that the careers master could point to her and hold her up as an example of what would happen to you if you didn't apply yourself to your studies and pass your exams.  She was also, though she quite possibly didn't know it, one of the first lines of defence at Gorillamumps: in the event of a supernatural intrusion or a supranatural attack she was considered a disposable unit who could be used as a shield, a distraction, or a sacrifice.
"Have you reproduced today?" asked Mrs. Rancipopple, seeming engrossed in her conversation.
"Have you?" whispered Jermaner to the Young Mummy sat next to him.  The Young Mummy tried hard not laugh, and ended up shaking tomb dust everywhere, causing the Fungi of Yuggoth behind him to start sneezing, and everyone else to look at it, trying to work out where its nose, or even its mouth was.
"Pay attention, students!" snapped Mrs. Rancipopple looking up from her yeast.  The answers to these questions will form part of your exam.  What... What is that noise?"
"H'brr'k, miss," said Nadine, one of the left-aligned Ancients of Mu-Mu.  The Fungi from Yuggoth held a wet, dripping appendage up in what might have been an apologetic fashion, but actually sent chills of horror through everyone who looked round at it.  "He's sneezing."
"Swearing," said Mrs. Ranipopple.  Everyone stopped looking at H'brr'k and looked at her instead, mostly puzzled.  "She's swearing," said Mrs. Rancipopple, looking slightly puzzled herself.  "Quite... inventively."
"You can understand its sneezing?" asked Jermander, knowing that he probably shouldn't draw attention to himself.  The faculty were still trying to track down who had let Taurus loose on the campus last Janusday.
"Her," corrected Mrs. Rancipopple.  "And yes, she's not sneezing, she's swearing.  Something about... mummy dust all over her good frotcockle."
"What's a frotcockle?" asked Nadine.  The whole class was entranced now.
"I don't know how to translate it," said Mrs. Rancipopple.  "It's like... it's like vagina-carrier, but you have to have a frot first, and it needs to be cold enough that it's partially collapsed, and needs to be far enough away from a knertrudle that there's no frilletting, just cockling."
"You're making this up," said Nadine, but she didn't sound certain, and the Fungi from Yuggoth was undulating in a way that made everyone feel nauseous but was generally agreed to be their way of saying Yes, yes.
"No," said Mrs. Rancipopple.  "The yeast has always been able to understand the Fungi, it thinks she got a lovely fruiting body."
The silence in the classroom was thick enough to cut up and build igloos with.
"Um." said Nadine, trying to break it.  The word hung in the air as though unable to fall to the ground and slink away in shame.
"Oh my," said Mrs. Rancipopple.  "Have I just found a way of decoding Yuggothian?"
Somewhere on the other side of campus, as though resonating psychically, the careers master let out a scream of anguish.