Kitchomat 101

 Moden cookery is, of course, mediated by machine, and modern cookbooks should reflect that.  Sadly we see that there are still many ‘author’s out there (and we use our scare quotes advisedly as who these days writes for themselves when ChatGPT42 assembles nouns and verbs more entertainingly than any of us?) who seem to think that they are writing for people and not for the kitchen automata (the near ubiquitous kitchomat).

Gone are the days when an author might recommend beating the cook before each service in order to ensure that the food was of acceptable quality.  Also gone are the days when a brigade of staff would assemble to convey dishes from the kitchen to the dining room a la russe, and gone too are the days when a simple meal for two might be served solely by the butler and illuminated only by candlelight.

More recently, the time has passed when the time-conscious might stop briefly at a fast-food restaurant for take-out, or when they might hurtle into a one-stop shop for pre-packaged, pre-sliced and pre-cooked food to reheat in the microwave, the precursor of today’s kitchomats.  Gone too is the antediluvian and, it must be indicated, somewhat childish, obsession with foraging and cooking by individuals.  Why would you attempt something with such proven failure rates by even modestly intelligent people when the kitchomat can be relied upon to faultlessly and repeatedly produce excellent quality in a fraction of the time?

No more shall cookbooks instruct the cook in how to chop, slice, dice, brunoise and, via other pretentious culinary jargon, pretend to understand how lumpen vegetables and bruised fruit shall come together with variously sourced proteins to form a ‘meal’.  Now, as this book shall indicate, we shall provide only the necessary instructions for the kitchomat, and it will feed us.

By way of example, the ‘author’ of this book sat down with ChatGPT42 for a brief, enervating, conversation and, whilst discussing things of a fratricidal nature, asked for a menu for the evening, when the ‘author’s family would be visiting (mostly to show off their new self-driving vehicles).  The suggested menu was:

‘Clear’ tomato water with basil foam,

Sous-vide chicken breast with cauliflower ‘rice’ and carrot ‘caviar’

Banana and peanut-butter smoothie

and, it should be noted, the quotes are ChatGPT’s own.  Naturally the ‘author’ handed this over, unquestioningly, to the kitchomat, knowing that it could only produce a satisfactory result.

The kitchomat, while a technological marvel, does sometimes ask questions if presented with requests couched entirely in natural language.  This is to be expected; the vagaries and ambiguities that arise when people attempt to think for themselves are to be derided at all costs, and precision and simplicity are to be aspired to.  The kitchomat’s first question was to enquire as to what was meant by “‘Clear’”.

Naturally the ‘author’ referred the question by to ChatGPT42 for clarification.  Having established that the resultant liquid should be clear and free of particles in suspension, the kitchomat opted to wash the tomatoes and serve the washing water.  To obtain a basil foam it added a basil purée to its soap dispenser, producing light-green bubbles that popped with a delicious fragrance.

As you, my ‘reader’s (and I am sure that most of you are having a synopsis of this text read to you by your favourite text-to-speech generator) may have guessed, the kitchomat also enquired as the to intended meaning of ‘rice’ and ‘caviar’, which ChatGPT42 responded to.  The outcome was a dish of brutally violated cauliflower and minced carrot served with a luke-warm lump of pale protein.

The kitchomat professed to have no trouble at all in understanding the nature of the smoothie, and I was delighted to hear the familiar whine of the kitchen centrifuge in operation.

Serving such a meal in the modern home is also a dream of ease and elegance.  With no human staff around, there is no-one standing around idle while people eat; there is no danger of food or drink being spilled on guests, and there is no need to have people lean back and forth so that hot dishes can be circulated behind or in front of them.  Instead the kitchomat deploys its dishes to a squadron of roombas which happily and helpfully deliver them to the table.  Indeed, who has not been charmed the sight of a roomba trundling along the length of the dining table carrying with it, say, a hedgehog of cheese-like protein studded with spears of hemi-vegetables?

The tomato water with basil foam was expertly conveyed to the table with minimal spillage and guests were invited to dip their own cups into the tureen (the drinks dispenser was sadly unavailable that evening), and the sous-vide chicken breast was only slightly mauled by the cat en route.  The piece de resistance, naturally, was the peanut butter smoothie, served (as you might expect) with straws.  Sadly the kitchomat had assumed that chunky peanut butter (as is my usual preference) was intended, but this caused blockages in the straws making it hard to eat as intended.  The bananas were pureed into a slurry of pure starch however, so it was possible to ‘eat’ around the island of peanuts and all was not lost!

With this success evident on the page, this book shall now provide recipes in the modern sense: instructions obtained from ChatGPT42 for delivery to the kitchomat so that ‘reader’s may host dinner gatherings fit for a robot overlord!

Ostrich Feathers

 “Ostrich feathers?” Maggie raised an eyebrow.

“I had no idea,” sighed Juniper.  She was clutching a martini glass in one hand and the olive, tidily impaled on a cocktail stick, in the other.  “They looked glorious for ten minutes after I arrived.”

“It’s the sea breeze,” said Maggie, trying to sound knowledgable.  She had been in Ferkala for nearly a year and had rapidly tired of having everything explained to her by the older expats.  “It uncurls them cruelly.  They’ll not recover.”

“Oh,” said Juniper mournfully.  She made a delicate moue with her lips, which were rather too full for the proper effect and then tossed back her martini.  She scrunched up her face and shuddered, then looked about her.  “Where’s the man with the drinks tray?”

Maggie looked about the room as well, as her own glass was nearly empty.  They were in the Ice House, which had once been an actual ice house storing huge blocks of ice sailed in from the near continent.  After electricity had been introduced and refrigeration improved to the point where everyone had their own fridge the Ice House had gradually emptied and now was used by the Oompah of Ferkala as an events venue.  Tall, thick walls towered over them with light filtering down from high small windows.  The room was essentially circular and the floor, once covered with straw, was now laid with a sparkling mosaic that depicted the liberation of Ferkala.  It was filled with the best people that Ferkala had to offer, if you believed the invitations that the Oompah issues.  Maggie suspected that it was really filled with the bored and the boorish; those people with nothing better to do than eat and drink at someone else’s expense.

“There’s a cheterry over there,” she said, pointing.  Chetteries were uniformed men who carried out the indispensable services necessary to the civilising of Ferkala.

“Over here!” shouted Juniper, waving an arm vigorously.  Maggie carefully chose not to observe the sweat patch that had formed under Juniper’s arm.  “Over here!  Damn him, the man isn’t listening.”  She looked at Maggie as though expecting her to do something.

“I’m sure he isn’t,” said Maggie, feeling a touch superior.  “He’s not a servant, after all.  But he probably knows where one is.”

“You mean I have to approach him?”  Juniper looked aghast.  “But he a cheterry.”

Maggie smiled, thin-lipped and mean.  “You could cast about for a servant,” she said.  “They usually pass through no less often than every half-hour.”

“Half an hour!”

Juniper stormed off, pushing her way through the thin crowd of people dressed in wilting finery as the heat of the evening soaked through the thick walls of the Ice House.  Occasionally a head turned as she forged ahead like a vander-boat on the river, looking to see what novelty might be happening, but for the most part the crowd were already feeling desuetude settle over them and though the band was playing upbeat numbers still the dancing was slowing and the conversations were slurring and Maggie felt that people would be departing soon.

“What have you done now?” asked a voice behind her, and she turned to find Lieutenant-Colonel Kittiwake strolling towards her, a half-drunk glass of Negroni in one hand and a fresh mint julep in the other.  He offered her the mint julep with a minimal inclination of his head and she grinned mischievously and took the negroni instead.

“Juniper was being tedious,” she said. “I directed her to the cheterry.”

“Drink!  I said, I want another drink!”  Juniper’s voice was harsh and abrasive and cut through the muted hubbub of the senescing crowd like a hot knife through butter.  Heads turned in earnest now, sensing drama, and expectations rose.

“She doesn’t know they’re all mute?” Kittiwake frowned at the mint julep and tasted it experimentally.  “Hmmph, you drink this?  It tastes like medicine.”

“She’s not been here long, and she’s not one for learning,” said Maggie.  “It’s sweet in its own way, but I think I’d prefer to be a spectator more than a player where she’s concerned.  I’d say she’ll be returning before the year is out.”

“You’re still determined to stay?”

Maggie sipped the negroni, wishing that Kittiwake hadn’t already drunk half of it, but preferring the bitterness to the astringency of mint.  “Yes,” she said.  “The Oompah is over-reaching, I’m sure of it, and I think there are opportunities here.  Modest ones, of course, but a sharp pair of eyes and a thoughtful demeanour can achieve a lot.”

“The Oompah believes that the governors lack ambition,” said Kittiwake.  He set the julep aside on a tray as a servant passed by.  “He wishes to expand.  There will be expeditions made to the Allaba foothills in the next two weeks, and scouts send out beyond them.”

“Are you even listening to me?”  Juniper sounded furious and Maggie was keeping her eyes averted from the scene even though most other people now had stopped everything and was watching with fascination.  Even Kittiwake, who was standing side-on to the proceedings, was darting glances when it wasn’t impolite.

“The foothills?” Maggie pretended to think for a moment, but this was old news to her.  “How would an expedition venture up into the mountains, or beyond them, though?  They are high, and airless from what I hear.”

“The Oompah believes that they are not as airless as is made out,” said Kittiwake.  “But I really require another drink before continuing our delightful conversation, milady, and I fear I shall need to find one myself.  The evening grows hotter and I think the Ice House is starting to empty.

There was a ringing slap that punctuated his sentence and Maggie now allowed herself to look over at Juniper and her harangue.  The cheterry appeared to have slapped her, which could only mean that she’s struck him first.  Their regard for protocol was legendary.

“I should accompany you,” she said artlessly.  “Or rather, you should accompany me.  I shall let you take me to dinner, perhaps at Spencer and Co.”

Lieutenant-Colonel Kittiwake shook his head very slightly.  “I see,” he said.  “The master criminal departs, having wrought chaos and achieved her ends.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Maggie with the most insincere smile she owned.

Strike!

 The Aide looked down at her papers.  They were a mix of official documents, some stamped with ‘Confidential’, ‘Secret’ or ‘Miscellaneous’ (the classifications secretary was apparently feeling ambitious) and print-outs from various web-sites because the Minister refused to look at a screen that wasn’t showing his own image.  She shuffled them a little, pointlessly as she already had the ones she wanted on the top, and then looked up at the Minister.  His eyes were on the television mounted on the wall behind her, but they were drifting away indicating that the news report of his latest speech had ended.

“Well?” he said, as though he hadn’t been the one to stop the conversation in the middle.  “My train to the Midlands on Thursday?”

“There are none,” said the Aide.  “The unions are on strike.”

“What?  That’s ridiculous!”

“Minister, that’s the consequence of your policies on public transport.  You announced funding cuts, you’ve announced your intent to pass new laws to castrate the unions, and you’ve announced a new mandatory retirement age that is seven years higher than anything even your most cynical critic predicted.   All public transport workers have gone on strike while they still can.”

“Castrate,” murmured the Minister.

“Yes, Minister.  And, while you will probably have to mean that metaphorically and not literally in order to get the law passed, that is still quite drastic.  You are being compared with Draco in the popular press, which is quite astonishing as it means they are taking the trouble to explain to their readers who that was.  You’ve also been compared with Nero, Caligula, and at least three of the Borgias.  Whether you intended it or not, the country is getting quite an education as a result of your policies.”

The Minister smiled.  “So if they’re on strike, the trains aren’t running at all?”

“No, Minister.”

“Then just commandeer one.”

The Aide opened her mouth, and then hesitated.  This hadn’t come up in the pre-briefing meeting she’d had with the Minister’s Secretary or the saner members of the cabinet.

“I don’t think I can,” she said slowly, wondering if she could.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” said the Minister. “Official government business can’t be held hostage by the peons, and if there’s no other trains running there’s no danger of collision.  I mean, how hard can it be to drive a train?  They run on rails!”

The Aide, who had spent several hours with the Minister’s speech-writer trying to make sure he never made a statement anything like what he’d just said, stretched a smile across her face with an effort.

“It’s not just the question of speed,” she said.  “There are signals to be considered, and the state of the track — which, as you know, you’ve been cutting the maintenance budgets for in the past three years —“

“Yes well, they only spend it on alcohol, don’t they?”

“…probably not, actually Minister.  Or there would be a lot more train accidents than there already are.”

“Hmm,” said the Minister in a way that the Aide had come to dread.  “Train accidents.  If there were more, it would contribute to our populations crisis, right?  As well as lowering public confidence in public transport?  Which would boost support for the idea that we should all just use helicopters to travel around the country, right?”

The Aide, try as she might, had been unable to find out who had put the idea in the Minister’s head that only people who could afford to fly in helicopters should be able to move around the country faster than walking pace but she was persisting in her attempts as it was especially galling for her.

“Our population crisis is that it is decreasing, Minister,” she said.  “We need more people, not more accidents.”

“Not old people,” said the Minister cheerfully.  “We’ve got too many of them.  We just need young people, and young people like helicopters!  They’re exciting!  Fun!  They go fast!”

“The trains would go fast if you didn’t keep cutting the track maintenance budget,” said the Aide, knowing full well that the Minister wouldn’t listen.  “Why don’t you fly to the Midlands then?  There are airports there.  Somewhere.”

The Minister waved a hand as though swatting a fly.  “Too soon,” he said.  “Let’s thoroughly discredit public transport and the unions first.  So commandeer me a train, and let’s break this strike!”

“Very good, Minister,” said the Aide sombrely.

Bon Amba

 The path down the mountainside was as treacherous as Garret could imagine; there was a large amount of loose scree that regularly slipped underfoot and rattled off, pulled by gravity to the steppe below, and the path was little more than a goat-trail with large sections that needed to either jumped over or skirted around on tiptoe.  In an hour they’d barely progressed a kilometre and he suspected that they were barely a hundred metres lower than the cave they’d started off from.

His pack was weighing heavily on his shoulders but he stubbornly refused to think about it.  If he did he’d have to set it down and sort out what he really wanted to keep and that would upset Samara as she would resent the delay, think he should throw it all away, and then start shouting when he inevitably decided he wanted to keep all of it.  So he flexed his back muscled and gritted his teeth and trudged on after the other two.

Efimov was in the middle and seemed least bothered by the whole ordeal.  Garret found himself puzzling over that a little: they were headed to Blinton where the people had apparently disliked Efimov enough to want him dead and he didn’t seem too concerned.  Granted, he’d rotted their eyes out of their heads, which could be seen as making a point, but even so… Garret had been hounded by people before and hurt by names such a ghoul and graverobber (what, exactly, was the point at which grave robbery turned into archaeology and became respectable, after all?) and he doubted that he’d be as sanguine as Efimov seemingly was.

“What is Bon Amba?” said Samara suddenly.  She had apparently found a stretch of path clear of scree and long enough to consider talking instead of breathing heavily and wondering how to get past the next obstacle.

“Is magic system,” said Efimov easily.  “Rock ahead is rotten, watch footing please.”

Samara halted and stared at the path in front of them.  “Where?” she said after a moment.  She sounded as though she was getting angry again, but wasn’t quite there yet, and her shoulders were hunched up just a little.  Garret took the opportunity to set his pack down and sit on it.

“Slightly to your left,” said Efimov.  He edged forward a little and pointed so that his arm stretched past Samara and she could see the slightly darker patch of rock he was indicating.

“That?”  She shrugged and drew a dagger from her belt.  Kneeling down she reached forward and poked the rock experimentally.  “Nothing wrong with — oh shiiii—“

With a crack and a dull rumble the end of the path splintered into fist-sized rocks and cascaded down the mountainside, bouncing and throwing up clouds of yellowish dust.

“Not careful enough,” said Efimov.

Samara rounded on him, the dagger raised in the air above his head and the muscles of her biceps and triceps standing out like thick cords.  Her eyes were wide with anger and her lips had pulled back to reveal cat-like canines and sharp, flesh-tearing teeth.  Musk rose on the thin, cold air and Garret got off his pack and crouched behind it.

“Be keeping calm, please,” said Efimov as though she were pointing out a particularly nice area of scenery.  “Path is still crumbling.  You should come this way please.”

Garret peeked out from behind his pack and saw Samara hesitating, her arm jerking as she fought the urge to launch herself at Efimov and stab him to death.  When she lunged he was certain that she’d lost the internal battle and ducked back behind his pack, waiting for the screams and the spatter of hot blood.

There was a crash and another cloud of yellowish-brown dust surged over him, stinging his eyes and filling his mouth with an earthy-bitter taste.  He spat, trying to clear it and rubbed at his eyes though that made the stinging worse as the grit seemed to work its way further in.  It took him a good few minutes to finally be able to see again, and then, to his surprise, he found Samara disentangling herself from Efimov, the dagger dropped on the path behind him, and him helping her away from the new end of their path down the mountain, which was now a vertical drop.

“Thanks,” said Samara curtly.  Garret was well aware that that was as grateful as she got, and Efimov nodded as though not expecting even that.  There was a moment of silence and then, clearly forcing herself to speak, Samara said, “That could have been tricky… uh, more tricky to handle if you’d not spotted it.”  Her mouth clamped shut and her lips started turning white with the pressure she was applying.

“Bon Amba,” said Efimov.  He picked her dagger up and returned it to her; she refused to break her tight-lipped silence as she put it away.  “Is different kind of magic; not taught at Bogbones or Atul schools.”

“They teach every kind of magic at Bogbones,” said Samara.  Her cheeks reddened though as though she’d not meant to speak.

“No,” said Efimov.  “I do not believe all kinds of magics are yet known, so that is not possible.  And Bon Amba is not taught anywhere.  Is learned from studying the residues, is left-over magic from some other time.  Bon Amba will show you where the connections are missing or where they can be made.  But is dangerous, some of those connections were broken for the reason, and who knows what reason is any more?”

“Bon Amba makes connections?” asked Garret.  Efimov’s accent wasn’t usually a problem for him, but he didn’t feel like he was understanding what he was saying about this.

“No.  Bon Amba reveals connections.  People with magic can then use it to change those connections.”

“Could you have used it on the path?”

Efimov looked directly at him and Garret felt like a particularly stupid student in front of the teacher.

“I did,” said Efimov gently.  “That is how I was able to warn Samara.  I think you mean to ask, could I have used magic to stop the path disintegrating, after I used Bon Amba to find the problem?”

“Yes,” said Garret.  It sounded like what he should have asked, he thought.

“Yes,” said Efimov.  “If there had been more time.  But now the path is gone and there is nothing to connect.  We must find another way down.”

The Armageddon Library

 The entrance hall was marble-floored and the white marble, flecked with red and gold inclusions, glistened as though freshly polished.  Tall stone pillars — not marble as that would have been decadent — held the ceiling aloft in two rows of four pillars each.  Their sides were fluted and their tops were carved to make it seem as though grapes and vines were growing there.  At the far end of the hall were mahogany double doors with brass handles, and along the walls of the hall were paintings; most were landscapes but there were two portraits that flanked the far double doors.

Heather, who had been leading the way until that point, slowed down and then took several steps to the side, stepping out of the colonnaded avenue down the centre of the hall and stopping in front of one of the landscapes.  The painting was rendered in an ochre palette, all earthy browns, deep reds, and a hint here and there of orange.  A single splash of yellow was used to indicate the breaking of sunlight through clouds and illuminating a wide building that looked like a palace of some kind; two storeys high and made of a dark, expensive looking stone.  Part of it was ruined and the walls were shattered and riven; lumps of stone littered the foot of the wall and rooms were partially visible.  A grandfather clock, seemingly untouched by the devastation around it, was located high up in the partial ruin with the time just visible.

“Heather?”  Jacob had reached the double doors and was resting his hand on a handle.

“In a minute,” she said, not turning to look at him.  He looked at the back of her head, admiring her long black hair that fell straight down to her waist, and then at the door.  His fingers tightened on the handle as he made his decision, but the handle refused to turn and the doors refused to move.

“I think these doors need both of us,” he said, tugging on the handle.  The doors were solidly made and didn’t even tremble.  He noticed that the handle was cold beneath his hand and seemed to be chilling his skin instead of being warmed by it.  Puzzled, he pulled his hand away and shook the slowly-growing numbness from it.

“I recognise this,” said Heather, still not turning away from the painting.

“Somewhere you’ve been?”  Jacob stopped shaking his hand and examined the handles on the doors carefully, now not touching them.  One, the one he’d been holding, had a grey layer of condensation covering it but the other was clear. He touched a finger to it, tentatively, and it felt warm to the touch.

“Somewhere I’ll be,” said Heather.  “It’s from a vision.”

“One of those that Yaga gave you?”  Jacob couldn’t keep from sounding faintly skeptical.  Grandmother Yaga was, in his view, a fraud: a con-artist who read tarot cards, cast horoscopes and dabbled in numerology and preyed on the weak-willed and simple-minded.

“She didn’t give me any visions,” said Heather, turning away from the painting at last.  “She gave me a drink that helped me see them more clearly.  I had the visions anyway, every time I tried to sleep.  She helped me see them, and that made them go away so I can sleep properly.”

Jacob opened his mouth and then hesitated.  The dark circles caused by weeks of sleeplessness were still visible on Heather’s face and he’d been kept awake some nights himself listening to her toss and turn and try to sigh as gently and quietly as possible.

“Right,” he said awkwardly.  “Ok, I guess that’s how it worked then.”

“It is,” said Heather.  She took a step forward and then frowned.  Instead of joining Jacob at the door she crossed the hallway to the other side and stared at the painting there.

“This one too!  I will be here in the future.  How strange is that!”

“Well,” said Jacob, trying to rein in his skepticism.  “I guess these are places you want to visit anyway, so maybe it’s not that surprising you were dreaming about them.”

“Visions aren’t dreams, Jacob.  They come on like dreams, but they are glimpses of the future.  It’s still you, just looking through your own eyes at a different time.”

“Seems a bit pointless,” said Jacob.  “What good is seeing it if you can’t do anything about it?”

Heather’s finger brushed lightly over the surface of the painting, feeling the brush strokes permanently imprinted in the oil paint.  It was rough, a little like snakeskin.  “If you remember it,” she said, “you can do something about when the time comes because you can plan what you’re going to do.  It’s like you get an extra chance, time to think about it before it happens.”

“You sound like you’ve done just that.”

“I have,” said Heather.  “Here.”

Jacob decided that standing by the double doors wasn’t encouraging Heather to join him so he walked over to the painting to join her.  His presence normally caused her to back away slightly, so perhaps he could herd her to the double doors like a sheepdog.  To his surprise though, she remained standing where she was and let him get almost close enough to put his arms around her.  He looked at the painting, more to have to something to do than out of curiosity, and almost turned away again.  Then he focused and took in the picture.

“That’s us,” he said, staring.  “Here.  In this room.”

“Yes,” said Heather.  “I had a vision of this room and that painting, only in the vision I came to help you with the door instead of stopping and looking at the art.”

“And?”

“And in my vision we were both killed by what lies beyond the door.”

Jacob was silent for several seconds and then he shivered, a full body shake that made him turn pale and look wild-eyed.  That faded quickly, but the paleness remained.

“What does lie on the other side then?” he asked.  “I thought we were looking for a library.”

“That’s what’s on the other side,” she said as though not realising how annoying that sentence was.  “And there was something else; a snake of ice that lay coiled around the room and guarded the books and breathed out the very cold of Fimbulwinter.  It exhaled, and we died in a freezing gale that torn the heat from our skin and our souls from our flesh.”

Jacob took a step back from her and, when he realised that he’d taken a step towards the door took another step, further away from both of them.

“It’s gone now,” she said.  “It was always leaving, we just were too fast and startled it.”

“I don’t much like snakes,” said Jacob.  His voice was faint and the paleness wasn’t fading.  “That sounds like a nasty way to die.”

“It’s not how I die,” said Heather.  “At least, not today.  I have seen myself in other visions and other places; I surely won’t die until after then.”

“Must be nice to know,” muttered Jacob. “Anyone can have these visions, can they?”

Heather’s sudden smile startled him and she laid a finger briefly on his lips.  When she withdrew it he licked them.

“Seers see their own deaths,” she said.  “It’s depressing, seriously.  I’ve seen myself die eight times now, and each time I’ve had to figure out how to avoid it.  Sooner or later I’m going to get it wrong, and then the vision of my death is the true one.”

“I can handle that,” said Jacob, but it didn’t sound convincing.  “Can we go in the Library now or are there spiders in there?  Or lions and tigers?”

Heather nodded.  “We can go in.  You can open the doors yourself now, there’s no snake on the other side holding them shut.”

“Good to know,” murmured Jacob.  He returned to the doors trying not to tremble as he reached out for the handles.  This time they stayed warm in his grip.  “I hope the Armageddon Library is worth the trip.”

“So do I,” said Heather.

Rules and points

 The spaceship’s drives hummed as the power increased.  Sat in the command-chair on the bridge, Captain Rascal bounced gently up and down — he had the gravity on the bridge kept at a quarter of one-G especially for this — waiting for the moment that Yemoi, the navigation officer, would announce that they were ready to enter hyperspace.  His eyes glittered with excitement and his fingers, slightly short and stubby for a baseline human, gripped the arms of the command-chair as though to stop him from bouncing away from it.  Which, given that Captain Rascal was short and light and built like a jockey, was entirely possible in the reduced gravity of the bridge.

The bridge doors opened on the left side and Rascal looked casually over to see who was arriving.

“Vizile!  Get over here you old reprobate!”

Vizile, the First Officer, forced a smile onto his long, thin face.  His skin was ruddy, a consequence of being born on one of the four Fire Worlds, and his hair was jet black and he looked, to Rascal at least, like a picture of a demon from old mythologies.

“Captain,” said Vizile in a level tone that completely belied his actual mood.  “I think we should consider—“

“Engines at full power,” said Yemoi, speaking over him.  Vizile raised a red hand as though to try and stop her speaking, but she continued, “Entry into hyperspace is now possible.”

“Don’t do that yet!” yelled Vizile.  Rascal grinned at him.

“Mark!” he yelled, equally as loudly, and Yemoi pressed some buttons on the desk in front of her.  Vizile’s face spasmed as he tried to both grimace and stop himself grimacing at the same time.  It looked like the effort hurt.

“What’s the matter, Viz?” asked Rascal.  The transition into hyperspace was smooth; from the perspective of the bridge the only thing that changed was that the viewing screen greyed out.  Whatever was out there now was impossible to see as hyperspace contained no photons.  Energy exchange was mediated through some other means that was still being intensively studied.

“I think we might have left someone behind,” said Vizile.  His voice was tightly controlled and he was trying hard not to sound angry but he sounded like someone had stepped heavily on his foot and he was trying not to scream.  “I have been unable to find Merance.”

“We did leave her behind,” said Rascal.  Now that they had entered hyperspace and there was nothing to anticipate he had slowed his bounce and was sitting almost normally in the command-chair.  “Her shuttle didn’t reach us before we departed.”

Vizile rubbed a hand over his face.  His skin paled with the the pressure, only gradually reddening again as he hand was lifted.  “She was en route?” he asked.

“Maybe?  I dunno,” said Rascal.  “Is there a test for that?”

“I mean,” said Vizile, “she was travelling to us when we left?”

“Oh,” said Rascal. “Why didn’t you say so then?  Yes, she would have been about three minutes away.  But she was late, and you have to have rules, don’t you, Viz?”

Vizile drew a long breath.  He had, as he acutely remembered, sat down with the captain a few days ago to discuss having rules and obeying them, particularly with regard to using the ship’s instruments (such as the Butcher) in ways that potentially (or definitely, in the case of the Butcher) harmed the planetary life around them.  It had not been an easy, or pleasant, conversation, and he had been walking figuratively on eggshells ever since waiting to see if Rascal was plotting revenge.

“I think, Sir,” he said after a pause, “that we did discuss that rules can be treated as guidelines at certain points, and that making a point and breaking a rule can both be problematic.”

“Did we?”  Rascal grinned again and despite himself Vizile smiled back.  The Captain’s mood was oddly infectious.

“Yes, Sir,” he said.  He rarely called Rascal ‘Sir’ and was hoping that the man would notice this sooner or later.  “Yes, and I think you were making a point there, that didn’t need to be made.  Weren’t you?”

Rascal’s smile never faded or faltered.  “Not for you, old bean,” he said.  “For Merance.  She needed to learn not to be late, right?”

“I… I… suppose so,” said Vizile who wanted to sit down somewhere quietly and work this out without Rascal derailing his train of thought.  “I… I mean, we can always go back for her.”

“No need!”

Vizile’s train of thought derailed thoroughly and catastrophically.  He blinked several times, trying and failing to guess what Rascal might mean.  Finally he gave in.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his tone full of trepidation.

“She was close enough to get pulled into hyperspace with us,” said Rascal.  He started bouncing again, which Vizile considered a bad sign.  “She’s sort of following us.  She should pop out at the other end when we do.  Give or take a half-million kilometres.”

“Wha— that— how—“  Vizile struggled to find any words and he took a couple of steps backwards while his brain short-circuited in every direction there was.  Yemoi looked up from the navigation console, which was doing little at this point except showing the expected time to departure from hyperspace, and addressed the captain.

“The shuttle’s too small, Sir,” she said, and it irked Vizile just a little than the ‘Sir’ was sincere.  “It’s not got the stability to withstand hyperspace travel.  It’ll probably disintegrate when it emerges.”

“Let’s hope Merance gets into a space-suit before that happens then!” said Rascal cheerfully.

Free and fair elections

 Asquith, known as the Iron Scourge throughout many of the lands of Appoloron, walked into the throne room of Concord Keep.  There were two guards on duty outside the door, and two inside the door.  As he looked at the interior guards one of them squeaked and fainted.  The other, who had turned as pale as wood-ash, trembled like a leaf in a strong breeze.

“Pick him up,” said Asquith, trying for patience.   It seemed like the guards in the keep didn’t know how to do anything without being told.

“Sir!” said the guard quickly, saluting.  He hit his helmet so smartly that it fell off his head and bounced twice before resting up again his unconscious partner.  “Sorry sir!”

Asquith sighed, not bothering to hide his disgust with the guards, and stalked over to the other side of the room.  There were tapestries hanging on this wall in blue and red; on the entry side they were green and purple.  Merrilla, a sorceress who’d been adventuring with him for nearly fifteen years, was holding a corner of one of them and talking about it with Menelouse.  Menelouse was arguably more of a merchant than an adventurer though he could be handy with a dagger when no-one was looking at him.  He was also tonsured to try and hide the fact that he was balding from the middle outwards, had a straggly greying beard and a paunch that suggested he preferred ale to combat.

“What’s wrong with the guards?” asked Asquith, adding “this morning,” as an afterthought.  “I think one of them just fainted when I came in.”

“We did kill a whole bunch of their colleagues,” said Menelouse.  “Well, I say we, but I mean you.”

“And?” Asquith was genuinely puzzled.  In order to kill the previous King, Erich III, they’d had to storm the castle and collateral death was a natural side effect of this.

“And so they’re all worried that you’re going to do the same thing to them,” said Menelouse.  “Or maybe ask Merrilla to turn them all into toads or ferrets.”

”Capybaras,” said Merrilla.  “Toads are icky and ferrets run off and get into things.  You lose count of them, and the next thing you know is that you’ve dispelled all the magic in a room and there’s a dead guard squashed into a box or hamper.”

Menelouse raised an eyebrow and Merrilla shrugged.  “It’s happened before,” she said.

“I haven’t killed anyone in days,” said Asquith.  He felt a little aggrieved that the guards trusted him so little.  “What makes them think I’m going to start now?”

“Well,” said Menelouse, “they don’t know you, do they?  They just know that you turned up, killed a bunch of people, killed the King, and haven’t left yet.  They’re going to be a bit worried about you deciding you’re bored, killing everyone else, and leaving.”

“I could just leave,” said Asquith, but Menelouse was shaking his head.  “I could!”

“But you wouldn’t leave anyone alive who might think that you’d done something illegal, would you?” said Menelouse.  “I mean, leaving is one thing, but leaving with someone putting a bounty on your head is another, isn’t it?”

“They wouldn’t dare!”

“The guards don’t know that.”

Asquith stared at Menelouse for a few seconds then turned away.  He walked to the throne and looked at it carefully.

“Don’t,” said Merrilla, raising her voice a little.  At the door the conscious guard looked up, then looked hurriedly back down at the floor.  “We agreed.  Free and fair elections for a new ruler.  If you sit on it, you’re acting like you’re in charge.”

Asquith grunted and sat on the topmost of the three steps that lead up to the throne.  “Last thing I’d want,” he said.  “That just sets you up as a target for the next regicide to come along, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t pay all that well either,” said Menelouse.  “I mean, sure, there are taxes to be gathered but there’s a lot of work goes into that, and there are a lot of expenses for a country.  I mean, here, for example, you’ve got recruitment costs to rebuild the army as a priority, and the weather’s been poor for years, so it’s not like there’s a lot of food around.  Now, if you—“

“Shut up!”

Menelouse looked sulky.  “Just saying,” he muttered, but stayed quiet after that momentary rebellion.

Merrilla let the tapestry fall from her hand and walked over to sit next to Asquith.  She was wearing a satin off-white gown that draped over her and caught the draughts of air so the she seemed a little like a swan sitting on the currents of a river.

“The elections should be over,” she said.  “We’ll get the results in soon, and then we can go.”  She looked over the throne room; stone walls and floor like all the rooms of the keep, and solid, aged-looking floorboards of a brown wood so dirty you couldn’t tell what tree it had come from.  Apart from the guards, the throne, and the tapestries the room was bare: it was used for audiences with visitors and handing down judgements and didn’t need much furniture, but its emptiness seemed to echo the way Asquith looked: as though waiting for something.  “I was thinking we might go back to—“

“No,” said Asquith.  “I’ve heard tell that there’s a small border war to the east; I think we’ll go there and kill a few more people.  Relax a little.”  There was a squeak from the guard at the door but he managed to stay conscious.

“But—“

“No,” said Asquith.  “This has all been rather more stressful than I anticipated.  I need something mindless to do.  Something that will take my mind off all these other things.”

“Menelouse will—“

“No.”

Merrilla fell silent though her face wrinkled and smoothed as thoughts ran through her mind and she tried to find a way to broach them with Asquith and then decided not to bother.  Seconds turned into minutes, then into a half-hour.  Only then was the silence broken by the creak of the door opening.

“What do you want?” snapped Asquith without looking up.  Merrilla and Menelouse however watched curiously as the Lord Chamberlain entered.  He was a surprisingly young man dressed in a brocade robe of brown and green and carrying a black staff that was the official symbol of his office.

“A word or two, my Lord,” he said, sounding deferential.  Something in his tone appeared to soothe Asquith, who looked up and rearranged his scowl into something approximating a smile.

“Make it quick,” he said.  “Wait, the election results?”

“Indeed, my Lord,” said the Chamberlain.  He smiled, and Merrilla was struck by how cold the smile was, and how genuine.  It was the smile of a man who knows he’s delivering bad news and is actually quite pleased by it.

“The results of the free and fair elections have been tallied.  And recounted, and then checked a third time.  There can be no mistake in the outcome.”

Merrilla found herself rising to her feet.  She looked over: Menelouse was on the balls of his feet and looked as nervous as she felt.

“Who?  You’re being awkward; it is Count Vrech?”  Asquith had had to be stopped from cutting the Count’s throat when the Count had denounced them as regicides.

“No, my Lord,” said the Chamberlain.  “The Count, however, has been informed of the outcome and wishes it to be known that he is leaving the country as we speak.”

“Good,” said Asquith.  “Which way?  I think I might just follow him.”

“Ah,” said the Chamberlain, and Merrilla felt a cold hand stroke her soul.  “No, my Lord, you will not.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

The Chamberlain’s smile became icy indeed and Merrilla sank back down to sit on the stairs.  Suddenly she knew what he was about to say.

“You have been elected King, my Lord,” said the Chamberlain.  “Though an elected King is perhaps an oxymoron, so we should call you President, or Leader, or something similar.  You will be busy learning statecraft I think.”

Asquith just stared and the Chamberlain waited a moment, then carefully, artistically, shrugged.  “Free and fair elections, my Lord,” he said.  “You are clearly someone who can defend themselves, and know all about sieges and warfare.  You are probably what we need to lead us to a new golden age, and if not, you can probably lead a war that will make us all rich.  The people appreciate that.”

“I don’t know how to run a country,” said Asquith in a small voice of horror.

“Who does, my Lord?  We all just make it up as we go along.”