INTRIGUE ON LAKE SPECTRUM : sixth chapter of BRAIN GAMES ON QINSATORIX

                                                       BRAIN GAMES ON QINSATORIX

                                                                     by  Tom Leonard


                                                              FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS



                                          CHAPTER 6: INTRIGUE ON LAKE SPECTRUM




                                                                          

After a convivial glass of sherry and a cheese nibble in the Chapel of St. Vincula deep inside the White Tower of Mainau, the three students from Alpha-Omega were given a bottle of fizzy soda, and sent, with Tamzin Soyabean and the pretty non binary Aztalan squaw, to relax in the Qinview Room. While they were fizzing their soda all over the portrait of the Emperor Bojo the Unforgettable, the senior Shiners were pursuing their political discussions with the High Priest of the Aztalan around the oval mahogany table in front of the richly decorated altar.

      To his misfortune, HRH Prince Alfredo Saxie-Monteith failed to notice his companion Lady Jemima spiking his drink with a teaspoonful of Eyedrops. His host Sir Aristotle Sunkist nodded, barely perceptibly, in approval, poured his daughter another half-filled glass of sherry, and tapped the table with his Inspector Maigret pipe.

      "And so gentlemen, not of course to forget my darling Jemima who enlivens my heart with joy and wisdom, we have two items on the agenda today," burbled Sir Aristotle, looking every bit the Divine Plutarch. "We will firstly discuss possible ways of assisting the government and our Aztalan brethren in  their renewed efforts towards peace and reconciliation. Secondly, we will consider possible reactions by the Shiners towards the ongoing unrest in the eastern provinces, which could, if not properly addressed, lead to violent revolution by the Homo Erectus, and whoever or whatever they can persuade to gang up with them--"

      Pippa wondered whether that included the mammashunters, and maybe the dreaded Sigmoids from the northern seaboard.

      "I am most concerned by your form of words," objected Prince Alfredo, slightly glazy-eyed. "The Homo Erectus are simply seeking confirmation of their ancestral rights to control the eastern trade routes. You feckin Icarians grabbed them off us in 2121, and you've been milking our resources ever since."

      "Tough!" reacted Sir Aristotle, straightening his Coxbridge Alumni tie.

      " Our Pelimode allies are not to be lightly dismissed, you nefarious rogue," raged the snotty-nosed prince. "They'll sort all you feckin autocratic colonialists out. "

      "That's priceless, Alfredo! You're hardly a grovelling peasant yourself. I now call upon the government's Chief Economic Advisor to set the ball rolling by addressing the important issue of the day."

      "Thank you, Aris, old bean, " enjoined Ket Martingale, himself a high bred Icarian. "Those stuck up Erecti should seek solace with the talking chimps! Now then! The key issue as far as our Aztalan kith and kin are concerned, is whether we can reach an accommodation regarding their highly profitable Monte Carlo casinos. Their profits are much too excessive, and in breach of our fair trade laws. Moreover, the Aztalan casinos are subject to lower taxes under the terms of the Indigenous People's Reservations Act.   The roulette wheels with two zeros and azure-jack games in our more respectable casinos are all perfectly fair in the sense that they glean a long-run profit of only a nineteenth of all money bet. It is essential to equalise these profits since we need to avoid discrimination against our totally honest fair-traders. The Aztalan should clean up their act!"

      Sleeping Sparrow flexed his shiny bronze chest. "Thank you for those valuable insights, Dr. Martingale. Unfortunately, the Aztalan nation is facing far deeper problems on a variety of  fronts. We're getting starved cheek by jowl with the convicts in the Southern Swamps, we're freezing to death in North Artica owing to the high price of fuel, our children are receiving scant remedial education, and no free milk or school lunch, and our mothers are being sterilized en masse following the births of their first children. Two of your officials even came into my wigwam last month wanting to neuter me! This isn't equitable either!The Aztalan demand equality, self-autonomy, and free food for one and all."

      Dr. Alistair McCull gritted his teeth. "Without wanting to sound vindictive, I do believe that this raises the question as to whether we should put the Aztalan, the entire caboodle of them, into one of our glacier camps in South Artica. I'm sure that the Pelimodes would be happy to feed them with  lentils and rice, while they dig  deep for the hubric and expend themselves according to an actuarially efficient death rate."

      Sleeping Sparrow blew a gasket at that, and flopped forwards onto the table with his head buried between his hands.

      The Foreign and Alien Secretary Dirk Eradacus, rose to his paw-like feet. "Now now, McCull! You're sounding off like a high-ranking Snazi."

      "Thanks for the compliment! They should have let the Snazis grind them all to mincemeat,"

      "Compromise is sometimes more valuable than genocide! If the Aztalan stopped biasing their roulette wheels with immediate effect, then we could consider sending a regular basic food supply to their reservations for a trial period of a month, before taking things from there."

      "Spoken like a true pox-ridden gibbon!" howled Prince Alfredo, waving his fists. "The Homo Erectus will never kowtow to indigenous low-life, particularly to those who cannibalise each other. Strafe them with scyon gas, that 's what I say!"

      "Are you all right, dear?" asked Lady Jemima, with her usual shrill emphasis on 'all right'. "Maybe you're feeling a bit drowsy . Why don't you go and relax on the futon in the Henry Plantagenet room?"

      "Derr---wot Henry was that?"

      "The Sixth, as I remember, and a right sure loser. He was put away when some other Plantagenet jerk usurped the English throne."

      "Shan't! Don't want to!"

      The meeting was about to fall apart in disarray, when the ape swan Lysistrata hurried in from the turret suite upstairs. "You should come quickly, Sire. There's trouble in Constanta."

      "I'll be in my office in a sniff of a cat's whiskers," responded Dr. Sunkist, and so he was.


In the meantime, the assorted teenagers had been watching the thousand and thirty-first episode of Big Boom Theory on the giant screen in the Qinview Room.

      "I am neither a living creature nor a divine being," declared the Tibtech physicist Shellfish Skink, "but rather an intangible, artificially intelligent, multi-perspective entity that subsumes and encompasses the Gini waves." 

      "I don't believe you!" protested the spaceship engineer Wolfie Foxowitz. "The Gini waves pervade the parallel universes at velocities that exponentiate the speed of light, though not as quickly as the Forces of Gravity, which activate instantly from vast distances and enable teleportation between our star systems."

      "Put my cookie back!---Thank you! As an intangible entity, I am able to enter the consciousness of any sentient being and to observe the sinusoidal random waves that interlink all such consciousnesses. I existed at the Beginning when the Grand Creator sowed the seeds of evolution in the Fields of Folvangr. Furthermore, I will exist at the Omega when he reaps his crop."

      "You're much too naive, even for a talking shellfish," asserted the Bayesian astrophysicist Leonardo Da Capricorn. "There can't have only been one Beginning."

      "Of course not, ancy pants! Our Beginning was just one of an uncountably infinite number of Beginnings that have occurred on the vast spatio-temporal process in our seven enormously vast parallel universes which the Jokers psycho-constructed when emerging from the initial Conception Cradle. Similarly there are uncountably infinitely many Ends or Omegas. Therefore the Grand Creator's crop is forever reaped. It could well be in the process of being reaped somewhere in our amazingly vast Red Trojan Universe at any particular point in time."

      "Whoever made up that shit should be sectioned to the Royal Ick," asserted geeky Fanny.
      
       Shellfish's eyes gleamed a deep shade of green. "That's why I'm so abundantly creative. Would you care for a piece of lemonised water melon?"

       "Yummy!"

       The aerospace boffin Nehru Catmeat chuckled in the unique way that he usually chuckled. "To put it in a nutshell, Shellfish, we are all infinite consciousness facing a humanoid reality."

       Shellfish sniggered. "You're nothing but an ignorant copycat, Nehru! The philosopher Augustine de Hippomat dreamt up that infantile quote while he was living in exile on the Planet Reptilius."

      "But how did you acquire your amazingly broad breadth of knowledge, Shellfish?" inquired Wink, with an adoring gaze.

      "That's because I'm wired into both the Grand Creator and the Jokers, Wink. The Grand Creator is forever trying to expand its own consciousness by continuously reaping its crop from the group consciousness of various multi-generational multitudes of humanoid guinea pigs. It does this in the hope of being able to expand its influence out of any away from the Seven Universes, and into the spleen of the Multi-Coloured Rat. The Grand Alter Ego has already made great inroads into the Rat's very large elongated thyroid gland, but it won't be meeting up with the Grand Creator any time soon."

      "This is getting abundantly boring," complained Dreyfus.

      "And much too repetitive," agreed Pippa, switching to Channel Six.

      "Come and give me a hug, Slim," suggested Tamzin, with a delightful pucker.


Sir Aristotle Sunkist returned to the chapel from his office in the lofty turret, ensconced his hefty backside on his beautifully embroidered armchair, and smiled.

      "Wot was all that about?" bumbled Prince Alfredo, looking drowsier and drowsier,

      "A mere detail," replied Sir Aristotle, with an almost imperceptible wink. "A small technicality that needed to be sorted out in Constanta."

      "I'm surprised you're involved," mumbled the none-too-quick prince, "My dear brother King Philippe is in control there, and as far to the west as the eye can see."

       Sir Aristotle performed the Sign of the Skewed Cross."God bless him, and long may he reign over us."

       At that, the prince keeled over sideways, fell to the floor, twitched several times, and fell into a deep, loudly snoring slumber.

       "The prince suffers from periodic hypergenetic fits," explained Lady Jemima. "I'll ask two of the pectishes to take him to the Henry Plantagenet Chamber to recover."

      While that drama was unfolding, the five teenagers were watching 'The Magic Roundabout' on the big screen in the Qinview Room. Dreyfus laughed his head off when Zebedee said that it was time for bed. However Dougal and Ermintrude were still objecting when the picture on the screen disintegrated into a kaleidoscope of colourful lights. The image of an agitated Apollo Walrus wearing a large pirate's earring and a rainbow coalition vest then flashed into view.

       "Breathtaking news, Breathtaking News!"screeched the eccentric Channel Six Current Affairs announcer. "Rebel forces have stormed the Regional Parliament building in Constanta. And here are King Philippe and the amazingly rotund Dowager Queen Wilhelmina of the dastardly Homo Erectus waving to the vast crowds from the balcony of Wellingboot Palace. Troops from the Royal Pelimodes are protecting the forecourt and putting scores of brave and courageously loyal citizens to the sword. Meanwhile, Crown Prince Nikolai of the Homo Erectus is leading an attack on the Qinview Broadcasting Station by the harbour. His elite bodyguard is meeting scant resistance from the Imperial Green Jackets, most of whom have fled along the beach in disarray. And now over to our political analyst. Guthrie Gungepipe."

      "Thank you for that prize-winning titbit, Silas," blethered Gungepipe. "This is a very dire situation indeed. If the Homo Erectus take the military base at Cluj, then the entire eastern battlefleet will be at their disposal, together with eighty uranium-powered battle-tanks. To be frank, the omens do not look good, and the regional government appears to have completely lost control. Furthermore, the fourth battalion of the Imperial Pectish have just deserted to the enemy. The Homo Erectus are also in a strong position in political terms. They regard the Land of Qet as encompassing the entire eastern peninsula, and they may well decide to secede from our beloved empire. But in a worst case scenario, they may try to advance upon Trivoli and seize the entire Empire for themselves. God forbid it, and we should all fall to our knees and pray for divine deliverance."

      Pippa and Slim rushed into the Chapel of St. Vincula to tell the adults the bad news.

      "The Homo Erectus are taking power---," burbled Pippa.

      "Enough!"Sir Aristotle Sunkist cut Pippa off in mid-sentence and chuckled like a narcissistic psychopath. "Don't worry, kiddies. We've got everything under control. Now why don't I take you all on a tour of the utterly exquisite art gallery and our internationally celebrated Archaeology and Anthropology Museum?"

Dreyfus Dreadnought opted out of the proposed cultural activities because he was feeling much too lazy, and he lay slouched, staring into space, on a futon in the Qinview room, his silver horn drooping to the right.

      What ridiculous trauma during the last couple of days, he mused, clenching his hoof-like hands, all that stuff with the Reincarnate prick and his whore of an apology for a daughter, and now all this shit in Constanta. But at least I've established an even closer friendship with Pippa. We've got similar sorts of transgender issues to handle, and she gives me really cuddly hugs. And I'm so glad that Slim is making it with this weird human Tamzin. Shame she's betrothed to the Apollo Gibbon  vermin, but I do hope they're able to work it out.

      Dreyfus was distracted out of his mood at some later, indeterminate, point in time by the sound of the blaring of trumpets from the direction of the Qinview screen.

      "Breathtaking News, Breathtaking News!" screeched the Channel 6 announcer. "We're receiving these pictures from the Homo Erectus rebels who've recently successfully stormed our broadcasting station in Constanta, God damn them. Here is their feckin King Philippe in the Rose Garden behind Wellingboot Palace, talking to some of his new subjects. But why's that callow youth preening himself?  I think the silly coot must be Crown Prince Nikolai, returning to take the credit for his troops' shameful victory on the beach. He's holding hands with his ridiculously massive grandma, the Dowager Queen Wilhelmina, the stupid pussycat. The fake royals seem to be receiving a torrid reception from their guests. What an earth is that reprobate doing with his squeegie-squeegie? Goodness gracious me! But why are those two eagle-faced soldiers acting up? They must be traitors from the Imperial Pectish. And what on Qinsatorix are they doing with those flamethrowers? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!!"

      To Dreyfus's consternation, the Pectish infantrymen scorched King Philippe to a frazzle, together with a couple of dozen onlookers, including the king's own mother and geeky son and several Pelimode courtiers, and such horribly ghastly scenes ensued as the crowds ran towards the harbour to escape the devastating flames. Several Pelimodes leapt, burning, over the harbour wall, only to drown, gurgling, in the stinking mud. Six Homo Erectus  lay sizzling on the lawn while an eye-jabbing, horned albatross circled expectantly overhead. The much revered Catholic High Pontiff of Constanta died in agony with a burning hole in his gut. One unfortunate human couple close to retirement age perished in a burning rhododendron bush with their two pedigree furry dogs. Horror, upon horror, upon harrowing horror!

       Jesus wept!  agonised Dreyfus. Maybe I ought to tell the grown-ups about this.


Pippa and Slim found the art gallery to be exceptionally boring, and they showed only a fleeting interest in the archaeological and anthropological artifacts, the most grisly of which were on loan from the Kaiser Wilhelm Anthropological Institute in Nouveau Berlin. But, after two or three hours of leg-aching arduousity, Sir Aristotle and Lady Jemima took their thoroughly brassed off guests way up to the ornate roof garden, to relax over a pint of Fledermaus and a tray of sausage rolls.

     The ape swan Lysistrata also came up to the roof garden, to play 'March of the Fire Ants' on the grand piano.

      "How're things in Constanta?" Sir Aristotle nonchalantly inquired.

      "Everything's hunky dory, particularly with the ants, Sire," replied Lysistrata, tapping the side of her nose and then her chin.

      "Jolly good show. Would you care for a Proscuitto and Riccota hors d'oevres before you get started?"

       Pippa wondered whether there were some subliminal messages in what was being said, but she couldn't fathom what their meanings were, or whether or not any had been intended at all. Lysistrata's irritatingly amateur performance on the grand piano was greeted with only moderately polite applause, and Pippa was delighted that there were no calls for interminable encores.

      Pippa and Slim were laying into the remaining spicy hors d'oevres, when the Foreign Secretary and the Chief Economic Advisor to the sassy First Minister came over looking unusually officious.

      Dirk Eradacus smiled stiffly. "We'd like to talk to you about your futures, guys, and to map out a sensible career plan for each of you."

      "Do we get a choice?" Slim tersely inquired.

      "Durchaus nicht, meine liebling," replied Ket Martingale, with a saucy wink, "not while we're pulling the purse strings."

      "Do your plans involve sending us to University?" asked Pippa, cautiously.

      "Yes indeed, my precious cherub," purred Dirk, with a cat-like smirk. "You'll be going up to Coxbridge, on the lovely Isle of Livermore, to study Psychology, Psychometrics, and Economics. Slim's already been told that he'll be studying Business, Jurisprudence, and Global Security at the redbrick University of Corinth at Los Alamos. This is all contingent on you not fucking up on your Highers of course, in which case you'll be selling whole life insurance in the Outer Seychelles for the remainder of your miserable life."

       Pippa winced at the prospect. "Well at least the Isles of Livermore and Los Alamos are connected by a causeway. What career plans do you actually have in mind?"

      "Good question, sexy pants," replied Ket, with an inappropriate stare. "But before we put you wise on that, we'll be taking you down to the Franz Linden Centre on floor minus eleven to show you what we're actually about. We still receive most of our funding either from the Linden Joyous Life Fund or the Rockerwell foundation. "

      "Franz Linden was a leading eugenicist during the Snazi era," added Dirk, "and  Nap Rockerwell doles out his loot from the family skyscraper in Buffalo City."

      "Nap's a right joker," added Dirk, with a evil gleam. "When he funds it, the proles catch it, right in the neck."

      "Where the fuck's floor minus eleven?" asked Slim, losing his cool.

      "Nine floors above the ancient subterranean canal to Fantasia," purred Dirk. "Come along now, cuties! The elevator will be reaching the roof garden in approximately minus forty-five femto-seconds."


The high tech elevator descended to floor minus eleven in precisely twenty-one femto-seconds. When they emerged from its skilfully embossed silver interior, Pippa and Slim were enveloped in a shard of light blue light. When they stepped forward into the elegant green-tinted vestibule, a prim ape swan secretary was busily working on her desktop. A statuette of the ghastly Franz Linden was embedded into the wall. It somewhat resembled a death mask.

                                                                 

      To the right stood the skilfully arched entrance to the much renowned 'Centre for Socio-Sexual Investigation', as attested to by a flashing red neon sign. Pippa wondered whether it was a high class brothel.

      The secretary smiled sweetly, and handed Ket a bulging brown folder. "Your grant for a preliminary investigation of the head sizes of newt lizards in Dalmatia has been approved by the Rockerwell Foundation, Dr. Martingale. We'll be able to appoint two new limited term research associates, and purchase a pressure cooker for the kitchen."

      "Wot's that got to do with Socio-Sexual Investigation?" asked Slim, feeling mildly flummoxed.

      "Absolutely nothing at all, teeny bopper," replied Dirk Eradacus. "We countenance anything if we get funded for it."

      "Let's go and meet up with the affable A.P.A.torture psychologists in Laboratory Alpha One," suggested Ket. "They're about to start questioning a Sigmoid terrorist, using the highly sophisticated Lieber-Fieber-Glieber technique.."

       "Wot does A.P.A. stand for?" asked Pippa.

       "The Association of Psychological Arseholes," replied Dirk, purely in jest.

       Ket was annoyed by that. "Please be serious, Dirk. It stands for the Asturasian Psychological Association, and they have fine Yankee traditions which date all the way back to the C.I.A."

      When they reached the laboratory, three doctors of psychology were interrogating a huge swan-like sub-humanoid, who was strapped to an old-fashioned, convulsive electric shock machine.

      "I'm not a terrorist,"shrieked the Sigmoid. "I'm only a protestor. We were demanding a higher working wage outside the Lake Tittykaka Job Centre when the dumb pectishes came and collared us."

      "In that case, would you kindly explain why the Pig Rozzers discovered this Molotov Cocktail in your possession?" asked the first psychologist, with an almost imperceptible grin.

      "That's not a Molotov Cocktail!" wailed the Sigmoid, flapping its cruelly clipped wings in agitation. "It's a night lamp. We were planning to continue our completely peaceful protest into the wee small hours."

      The second psychologist, the recently elected President of the Peace and Justice, promptly pressed the purple buzzer on his desk, and a pectish with a blow torch hurried in.

      "Scorch him, St. Crispius-style, Sid!" demanded the evil doctor.

      "Not my G-spot!" shrieked the Sigmoid. "I confess! I confess!"

      "Not so fast on the forgiveness bit," growled the third highly qualified A.P.A. psychologist.."Scorch him to smithereens anyway, Sid!"

      "No!!!!!!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!!!!!"

      "Well, that was an interesting academic investigation wasn't it, kiddies?" said Dirk Eradacus, while they were sweeping up the ashes. "We learnt what makes Sigmoids squeak."

      "It'll look good in your final report," replied Slim, tactfully.


In Laboratory Alpha Two, several Psycho-Economists were debating how to use L.J.Savage's Expected Utility Hypothesis to rip off the customers of the Imperial Bank of Trystonia, using a device recommended by Tom Leonard and Chungy Chung in Chapter 4 of their Coxbridge University Press textbook Bayesian Methods for the Deceitful. In Laboratory Alpha Three, several space scientists were working on the nuts and bolts of their triple loop Trident missile tracking system, and compiling an interim report for Global Security.

      But Pippa was most interested in the activities in Laboratory Alpha Four, where the forwards and backwards dancing movements of common or garden cranes from the Hokefunoky Swamp were being subjected to a statistical analysis by four young Apollo Cranes on work release from their studies at Coxbridge. Pippa found it difficult to tell the difference between the totally pea-brained, ordinary cranes and the Apollo Cranes. But then she noticed that the Apollo Cranes also stepped sideways.

     "Where do we fit in on all of this?" asked Slim, afterwards.

     "You and Pippa will be continuing your careers here after you graduate from University," explained Ket. "If you're awarded Firsts or Upper Seconds, that is. If you fuck up with a Lower Second, then you'll be on floor minus nineteen scrubbing the latrines. If you space out with a Third then you're on Universal Credit."

     "Sounds like a life-sentence," moaned Pippa, in dismay.

     "A career in Purgatory is better than a life in Hell," replied Ket, sounding unexpectedly philosophical


Prince Alfredo was still lying, deserted by the other Shiners, in a deep Eyedrops-induced coma, snoring his head off in the windowless Henry Plantagenet Chamber, when his Cnupian slave master appeared before him, in a flash of yellowy-brown light, looking like the Archangel Gabriel's stunted kid brother.

     "Good tidings and felicitations, Sire, and here are your two recently purchased slaves," burbled the crafty slave master. "This is Dink. She's Chinese, petite, and abundantly cute from your sort of perspective. And this is Dunk, a fine sturdy Scots lad, as well-hung as they come. They cost you a mere three hundred  dollars each, and they should suit your fancy for at least a week."

     "How sweet," replied  a Voice in Prince Alfredo's head, "Let them kneel at my table while I eat. I will spoon feed them from my silver bowls."

     "But what shall they eat?" inquired the slave master. "Surely not the scrumptious caviar?"

     "Porridge of course," answered the Voice, "but laced with lorazepam for their continuing good health."

      The prince flexed his hands and made Dunk and Dink squat like ducks while he filled their mouths with Quaker Oats, until the gooey stuff spilt through their.teeth.

      "You will now attend to my feet while I relax on the green futon," commanded the Voice, "and be sure to lick away the fungo-jell between my little piggies before you suck the smelly big ones."

      "Yes Master," whined the not so obsequious slaves, in careful unison. "We'd do anything to please you, Master."

      "Thank you kindly," said the Voice, when the prince felt replete. "And now it's time to entertain me with your carnality and your lust."

      "How could you be so horrible!" howled Hera Herrera. the leader of the mammashunters, rushing into the prince's dreadful dream.

      "It's my birthright," protested the Voice. "Some are born to rule. Others to grovel."

      "Take this!" howled Hera, throwing the Spear of Destiny at the prince's greasy navel.

      "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!" howled the Voice. "You send me to eternity from my dream."


The prince awoke abruptly, only to discover that Hera Herrara, Dunk,and Dink were nowhere to be seen. But before he could breath a sigh of relief, a stroppy pectish with a flame thrower in his lower hands loomed out of the gloom, armed to the teeth and flexing the claws in its feet.

      "Are you an apparition too?" choked the prince, while remembering to reach for the six-shooter in his tartan pouch.

      "I'm real," asserted the huge pectish, as the scorching maroon flame flew past the prince's left ear,

      "Any more of that, and I'll blast you to Kingdom come with my faithful revolver, High Noon."

      "Make my day."

      "Right then. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!"

       And the noble Prince of the Homo Erectus was, in full reality, frazzled to a cinder. Sir Aristotle Sunkist was amused when he heard about how it happened, and he gave the huge pectish a big hug and a twenty dollar bonus.

      That's all four of those feckin Erectus royals summarily disposed of, enthused the Grand Reincarnate of the all-forgiving Shiners. The Revolution will fail.





          Please click here for


           CHAPTER 7: THE THREE WISE MEN OLD COUNTS STICK THEIR OAR IN


                                                           

 

JOURNEY TO THE APE SWANS' NEST, fifth chapter of BRAIN GAMES ON QINSATORIX

                                                BRAIN  GAMES ON QINSATORIX

                                                          by  Tom Leonard



                                                         FIRST  FOUR CHAPTERS





                                            CHAPTER 5: THE APE SWANS' NEST


                                                                           

                                                                                    

And so it came to pass. The autumnal winds were blowing in from the East and the pine trees giving vent, when the youthful High Priest of the Aztalan and six of his ageless Elders took shelter in the Wigwam of the Fireball Fighters to meet with the Shiner delegation: the gibbon-faced Foreign Secretary of Qinsatorix, the bullish, green-haired Chief Economic Advisor to the First Minister, the corrupt prince of the homo erectus, and the manipulative ' headshrinker' who was headmaster of the Alpha-Omega Academy.

      The eleven wily politicians discussed great matters of State, in particular a proposed Peace and Reconciliation treaty with all indigenous Icarians in the entire Red Trojan Universe, a treaty
which would, in reality, be orchestrated by the Shiners on behalf of the so-called Divine Plutarchs.

(The plutarchs were projected by the Shiners as representing the interests of the 'ruling' hi-tech Icarians in Trivoli, though the plutarchs regarded themselves as in God-like manipulative control of the entire planet, rather like the Borgias and the other sick, cruel and abusive Roman Catholics who sought to control Planet Earth 'from above' for over two millennia.)

      Who the twelve Divine Plutarchs actually were was an open question, though it was generally accepted that the Grand Reincarnate Sir Aristotle Sunkist was one of their number, and it was rumoured that they all lived on separate islands, or in hermit's huts on isolated rocks, in the Archipelago of the Shiners. It was even suggested that they were all Shiners of sorts, though the Shiners themselves fervently denied this (as of course they would!).

      The plutarchs weren't quite as powerful as they imagined themselves to be, largely because of the strong though competing effects of the aggregate forces of humanoid behaviour. In particular, group humanoid consciousness can fly off the rails in its entirety in situations where specific evil humanoids are only partly to blame.  Humanoid populations that are unable to harness their group consciousness face doom and even Armageddon on the planets they inhabit.

       Even though the Foreign Secretary Dirk Eradacus was a low-class Apollo Gibbon, he was a long-time Honorary Closet Shiner, and as such had been secretly elected to be a Superior Elder of the Closet Shiners (The Closet Shiners didn't usually attend the meetings organised by the common or garden Shiners, but instead got themselves involved in all sorts of covert intrigue of the type that tends to make the minds of ordinary folk boggle in disgust).

      The vain and narcissistic  First Minister of Qinsatorix, who resided in  Trudeau Tower in Trivoli, was  kept 'totally unaware' of Eradacus's and  Ket Martingale's two-faced conflicts of interest, and was not himself a Shiner. As far as the proletariat was concerned, it was the democratically elected Parliament in Trivoli who made the crass decisions, though subject to the influences of mysterious 'ripples from above' and a variety of crass political advisors and eugenicists.

      The Emperor and the Imperial Icarian Royal Family played a largely ceremonial role, though they flapped their Charlesian ears and stuck their long  noses in whenever they thought that it was in their own interests to do so. They'd lost public respect in AD 2698, when the Princess Royal was discovered in flagrante delicto in a public latrine with the Archbishop of  Madron and two horny Apollo Panthers, and they'd struggled to maintain their credibility ever since.

      The expensive jabber-elk  hunting trips in the Salacian Urals didn't help, particularly since the talented jabber-elks were a much-treasured species. Neither did the infernal show-jumping.The overworked dromedaries received lots of public sympathy, and oodles of favourable coverage in the tabloid press. When the portly Princess Infante won an Adephian gold on Sasquatch, it was  Sasquatch who received the plaudits for tossing her into a ditch after the last fence. The princess was roundly booed when she received her medal, for her never to be forgotten cruelty to the family pussy cats and porgis.


Left to their own devices, Pippa and Slim drifted off for a natter under a Mumbo Jumbo tree, where they discovered a couple of comfy places to park themselves, in the gnarled, snake-like roots. Barely had they sat down when two tiny Aztalan girls crept up, squatted on their heels in front of them, and listened to their every word, while the purply-black, star-shaped festoonettes eavesdropped from the prickly bark.

      "Dreyfus was so very kind and considerate to me last night", said Pippa, only for the Apollo Unicorn in question to stride up, waggling his noddle and wobbling his slightly twisted silver horn. He came arm-in-arm with Tamzin Soyabean, the intended indentured wife of the Qinsatoran Foreign Secretary; she still looked sullen and distraught, though the bruises covering her lovely face were now a lighter shade of blue.

      Slim swatted a hungry festoonette that was making inroads into his shoulder."You should switch to a vegetarian diet, Dreyfus," he joked."Your tummy's wobbling as much as your alicornia."

      Dreyfus clasped his tummy in dismay. "That's a funny word. I hope you don't mean my weegie."

      "I meant your feckin stupid horn, you ted."

      "And how are you this evening, Tamzin?" sidetracked Pippa, as gently as she could.

      "It's a relief to be able to talk to another human," burbled Tamzin, "---homo sapiens, I mean. Some of the other creatures on this planet are beyond the pale. And, as for those homo erectus---."

       Slim felt a bit insecure about that since he was a full silver-blooded Icarian. "Please tell us the story of your life, darlin'," he interrupted. "Where was you brung up?"

       Tamzin smiled a glimmer of a smile at that attempt at the vernacular.

       "I was brought up by two redundant copper and arsenic miners in the tiny village of Bethlehem-on-the-Dnieper, and felt repressed and traumatized as a child," she spieled, as if on a stream of oblique consciousness. "My Uncle Joe worked me and my mother to the bone in his gin and crystal crank distillery. The crank was so noxious that it gave me pimples on my face, and it made me so brain-fogged that I failed my standard grades in Pottery and Cookery at Beth Remedial."

      Pippa felt very disturbed by that. "How appalling! Wasn't crank banned in the Destructive Chemicals Act of 2702? It's almost as bad as Ritalin."

      "It certainly damaged me, even more than the gasohol," sobbed Tamzin. "And after that miserable let-down, I was forced to work with the hard-boiled laundresses in  Wash and Tailor Incorporated as a lowly assistant seamstress. I was really skilful with needles, and seemed to have developed fresh talents. But the laundresses enjoyed having fun with the stray lads; first of all they'd coat the poor lapdogs with raspberry goulash, would you believe? And then, before I could say 'How's your father?' the bitches coated me with goulash too! And then they had the audacity to try to lick it all off ! And when they ran out of goulash they opened their pots of marmalade----Aaaaaaarg!"

      Slim had once been licked by a laundress himself, and the peanut butter had stuck to his skin. "How utterly degrading! Our employers should show more duty of care in  the workplace."

       Tamzin pulled herself together. "Yes," she sighed,"and that mean-fisted lizard's negligence got me into a right fucking pickle. One day, Lady Jemima Sunkist came in and offered me a job in Fantasia, as a receptionist in the Hotel de Wash. It sounded like a chance to escape the drudgery and all the bullying, the chance of a lifetime! But, before I could say 'Bob's your uncle' the sleazy gibbon from the harem took me upstairs to the God-dammed Celebrity Suite, and made me spread by lovely legs for all and sundry. It was so revolting! And now they've hitched me up to another smelly gibbon. It's  enough to make you want to puke in their soup."

      Pippa was wondering how best to reply to Tamzin's very sad and troubling tale of woe, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the web-footed ape swan Lysistrata walking determinedly across the meadow, hand-in-hand with a swarthy Apollo Walrus (who Pippa took to be the bubblecopter pilot).

     The Aztalan girls read Pippa's thoughts."They're off to the casino in the Cavern of Chance and Fortune," said the one with the snub nose. "It's under the khaki wigwam next to the first-aid tent."

     "They'll be able to chance their luck on the roulette wheel with three zeroes," said the one with the floppy ears. "It's totally biased. Why don't you all tag along and take your chances too?"

      After empathising for over ten minutes and in very compassionate terms with Tamzin's sad dilemmas, Slim and Dreyfus decided that they wanted to visit the casino to ferret out more social injustices. So away to the Wigwam of Saint Fortuna  they all went.


Two talking llamas checked the four companions' credentials and showed them into the inconspicuous-looking wigwam. Thereupon, the tiny Aztalan girls encouraged the inquisitive quartet to follow them through the vibrating Ring of Randomness, down an ancient limestone staircase lined with Plurassic Age paintings of humanoid Dinosaurians, and through a maze of curiously shaped stalagmites that stood over seven feet tall and resembled zany part-humanoid, part-machine Grottzappers from the Planet Ceres.

      After successfully negotiating a six inch wide vertical 'squeeze', Slim got totally discombobulated by the bright red flashing lights and python-like silver stalactites, and thought that he was in psychosis. And when a passing Aztalan waiter gave him a free glass of Potentia, Slim's eyes turned into prisms.

      "Welcome to the Cavern of Chance and Fortune," exclaimed a very tall, extremely slender Aztalan lady with three neatly arranged, big floppy breasts, who was painted glossy bright green all over. "The azure-jack and multi-dimensional dice tables are behind the beanpoles on your right, and the Monte Carlo roulette wheel is straight ahead. If you strike lucky on number 13, then today's special prize is a trip down to the Hades tavern for a free flagon of consciousness-enhancing Psychedelia. Otherwise, it's forty cents a shot. Our waiters would be glad to run a drinks tab for you, and we wouldn't object too strongly if you didn't pay up.  If you'd like to gamble, then the chips cost a silver guinea each. Please pay cash up front or punch your pin number into your friendly croupier's Facilitating machine."

       The gambling tables behind the beanpoles were surrounded by hordes of perfectly sober ape swans from the nearby Isle of Mainau and a number of well-plied tourists from the Hotel of the Pink Hapsburgs in the village of Mainau (many of whom were on psychedelic highs). The Aztalan croupiers were having a field day; they were chuckling away while the tourists got fleeced. The secret lenses and wily, orange festoonettes in the stalactites were enabling the croupiers to pull every mean trick in the book.

       To the left, a squat and very hairy Aztalan was guarding a huge red hot cauldron full of bubbling Sweet Paprika seasoning fluid, which generated a stream of yellow noxious gas that gushed through a flue in the roof of the cavern. He occasionally threw in a chicken or a live fox.

      "This is where we throw customers who cheat," snarled the Aztalan, in apparent jest. "You lot look as if you'd make a tasty supper, though I'd probably mix you with chives."

      "I don't want to be mixed with chives," wailed Dreyfus, clearly misinterpreting what was doubtlessly an idle threat.

      The other three teenagers also felt a touch nervous. So they all marched straight on, penniless and guinea-less, to the Monte Carlo Simulation Chamber.

      The roulette wheel was fully twenty foot in diameter, with 39  pockets equally spaced around its circumference, and it took four beefy Aztalan to set it in motion,  Thirty-six of the pockets (which were coloured either silver or gold) were haphazardly assigned one of the numbers 1,2,--,36, and the three green pockets were each labelled zero. The casinos on the mainland were required by legal statute to ensure that their wheels were fair, in the sense that on any particular spin the heavily weighted, round leather football could be regarded as 'equally likely' to end up in any one of the 39 pockets (each with probability 1/39). A punter betting a guinea on a specified number between one and thirty-six would receive 36 guineas if his bet turned out to be correct. However, if the outcome was one of the three zeroes, then the House would scoop all the bets. It wouldn't take a statistician to be able to work out that if the roulette wheel was fair, then the House would in the long run (i.e. after a large number of spins) invariably make a substantial profit. This would indeed amount to 1/13 of all money bet.

      A highly compulsive businessman from Naples-under-Lyme was repeatedly betting on the number 17 while being plied with free glasses of Potentia by a fawning waiter from Hades. The slick businessman felt that 'since 17 hadn't come up for a while, it was very likely to come up soon'. Little did he realise that the wheel had been fixed so that the football couldn't ever end up in the number 17 pocket! The stupid chancer was therefore set to lose his shirt, and his bow-tie too.

      As if by a fluke, the number 23 came up on three consecutive spins. All the punters therefore rushed to place their bets on the same outcome, number 23, on the next spin.

      "Don't be silly, folk!" cried Slim. "The outcomes on consecutive spins are statistically independent!"

       A hefty croupier ran up, booted Slim in the seat of his pants, twisted his fingers Freemason-style, and made a strange hand gesture (with Slim's twisted fingers) towards the ceiling. On the next spin, the football landed in the number 23 pocket, but bounced out and ended up in the number 7 pocket.

      'I do believe that the wheel is fixed with a deflecting device," muttered Pippa.

      All the losing punters ranted, raved, and  demanded their money back. Not to be outdone, Dreyfus Dreadnought leapt onto the roulette wheel, and hung on to the ivory statue of Erosia in Flagrante at its epicentre.

      "This wheel is biased and grossly unfair," he announced, with aplomb. "It, in all probability and according to my advanced calculus level multiple pi calculations, scoops up approximately 31.416% of all money bet, regardless of how skilfully you bet."

      At that, eight stroppy talking pigs ran up, hauled Dreyfus and his three companions through the exceedingly tight subterranean squeeze, dragged them up the stone staircase, and, to the consternation of the talking llamas, threw all four of them onto the sheep and llama dung heap in the ravine.


The eleven wily politicians emerged from the Wigwam of the Fireball Fighters an hour or so later, with impassive expressions on their faces, and Prince Alfredo skedaddled  at pace towards the bubblecopter without uttering ne'er a word of farewell, followed by the two hard-nosed government officials from Trivoli and the ubiquitous psychopath Alistair McCull.

       Lady Jemima emerged from the Wigwam of Saint Fortuna and caught up with her colleagues shortly afterwards after stopping for a brief snog and a well-received canoodle with two of the Aztalan octogenarian elders.

      When the four dirty, smelly, and dishevelled teenagers boarded the bubblecopter, they  were encouraged to sit down immediately behind the swarthy Apollo Walrus pilot, who apart from objecting to the stench, turned out to be suffering from a rare compulsive disorder. During take off he rambled on incessantly about the price of toothpicks, and was still complaining about the price of toothpicks a few minutes later when, after a  hop up to 2000 feet, he took the copter into a spiral nosedive over the postcard-perfect Isle of Mainau.

      During their steep take off, Pippa caught a glimpse of a fleet of shining blue ocean freighters at anchor in Scalpel Flow. During their rapid descent, she caught a briefer glimpse of a tall, shining white, castle keep emerging from a small lake. The greenish-blue lake (known as Lake Spectrum) was nestled inside a redstone asteroid crater and looked as if it was well below sea level. The lake was partly concealed by a ring of dense, dark green trees surrounding the rim of the crater.

      Maybe that's where the nasty Snazis once hid, deliberated Pippa. It could be the Ape Swans' Nest. The Snazis escaped along the subterranean canal to Fantasia, where they were shot to shreds and hung from lampposts.

      Just when the copter seemed about to dive head over heels into Lake Spectrum, it abruptly levelled out, as if by animalistic instinct, and headed for the landing pad by the Hotel of the Pink Hapsburgs, where the pilot endeavoured to land it in one piece.

      Pippa was still sorting out her baggage, and looking for the very tiny otter she thought she'd hidden inside her night bag, when she saw Sleeping Sparrow, High Priest of the Aztalan, riding up the beach on a giant llama, cheek by jowl with his favourite non binary squaw. They'd travelled at pace from their village on Fantasia to catch the low tide.

      The hotel ranked equally in the tour-guides with the highly expensive Ambassadors Lodge off Tavistock Square in the City of Lanterns, in terms of both Spartan luxury and imaginative handicap courses for physically disabled guests needing a quick pee. It was staffed by a hundred or more ape swans who fell over each other in their efforts to provide ultimate satisfaction for the more prestigious of their guests, if not for the plebs.



Later that night, Pippa and Slim, now looking remarkable spruce, attended a highly convivial St. Crispin's Eve reception in the Drawing and Quartering Room, hosted by the Grand Reincarnate Sir Aristotle Sunkist and his delectable fifth wife, who Sir Aristotle nicknamed 'Whatchamacallit' since he could never quite remember whether she was called Tipsy or Tracey. While Dreyfus Dreadnought wasn't formally invited, he took a whiff of the hedgehog and mackerel hors d'oevres, and decided to gatecrash the toffee-nosed proceedings in the hope of polishing off a chocolate and meringue pie.

       Pippa and Slim focused their vibes on Tamzin Soyabean once again. She promptly left her gibbon-faced fiancee Dirk Eradacus hob-nobbing on the podium with the Sunkists and their power-seeking cronies, and when she joined her soul-mates it made her feel human once again.  But when Pippa was button-holed by a minor official with a diatribe about the whereabouts of the six local were-walruses, Slim and Tamzin made their excuses, and retreated to the ornately decorated terrace outside.

      Dreyfus surveyed the VIPs on the podium, like a child on the sidewalk, while taking a gulp or two of Iron Brew.  And he suddenly noticed a female Apollo Unicorn standing there, silver horn firmly in the vertical, who could have been his twin sister. Upon closer scrutiny, he realised from the way she flinched that she must be the spouse of the host, Sir Aristotle Sunkist, a rough diamond of a whore-monger if ever there was one.

      What a wonderful creature, pondered Dreyfus, in the deep and dark crevices of his mind. If only I could be her gay lover. But then Dreyfus recalled that he'd been brought up as a bloke, and tears welled in his eyes.  .

      Sir Aristotle must have sensed Dreyfus watching. He cut short his political and highly complex conversation with Sleeping Sparrow (who was somewhat provocatively dressed in a frilly, mauve quanta-skirt and an Aztalan bra-ket). Thereupon, the Grand Reincarnate of the Shiners took out his crystal glass monocle, and scrutinised his prey from a distance, in minute detail. He decided that Dreyfus was the girl for him, for that night at least, out of his deplorable inner consciousness.

     "You make such admirable choices, Daddy," purred the mind-reading Lady Jemima. "Your sixth wife, perchance?"

      "You know I prefer them as cuddlesome and hairy as the Queen of Sheba's legs," growled Sir Aristotle. "Maybe I should chance my luck with the talking Koala instead."

      A few minutes later, Dreyfus crept closer to the podium and hid behind a huge Fritalian panda who was having a whale of a time. Dreyfus was just in time to overhear a snippet of dialogue which seemed to be of vital political importance.

      "---and my dear brother King Philippe, Archduke of the Asturias is waiting in Constanta for the Homo Erectus troops to arrive from the Land of Qet," Prince Alfredo Saxie-Monteith was saying. "They will then join forces with several battalions of Royal Pelimodes, and march on Trivoli, uniting the squabbling factions of Apollo revolutionaries as they go. My dear mother, the Dowager Queen Wilhelmina, Lady of the Lake, will follow with the uranium-powered battle-tanks and Big Meg. She'll blow 'em away."

     "You're doomed to failure," retorted Sir Aristotle Sunkist. "The Divine Plutarchs will never countenance such an outrageous adventure. You're all from an inferior sub-species, every man jack of you!"

      "But you promised us your support," wailed the prince, "at the Summer Solstice Weinfest in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in June. While we were downing a bottle of vintage malt together."

      "Poppycock, malarkey, and blatherskite! I said that totally in jest."

      "Now I see you pretty game," growled the prince, with the gravity one would expect of a royal homo erectus. "We will nevertheless proceed at pace with our revolution, and the Icarian Royal Family and all you fucking plutarchs will suffer the consequences."

       "The gin is going to your head, Your Highness, and I didn't even hear you say that. Now, would you like a soothing mug of creamy---."

         The giant pandas were getting noisier and noisier, and so Dreyfus wasn't able to hear the conclusion of that emotive conversation; indeed he largely forgot about it when he was approached by a delightful flower girl, who blew him a kiss and gave him an immense bunch of red and pink roses, and a crafty wink.


An hour later, Slim and Tamzin were still whispering sweet nothings together on the terrace. And then, upon a sudden concordance of impulses, they hid behind the Icarius and Periboea tree for their first tender kiss.

     "Wud yer like to come up to my room for a quick coffee and a bite of my peppermint cookie?" Slim sheepishly inquired.

     "They still burn adulteresses at the stake on this planet," chuckled Tamzin,"but who gives a toss?"

      Meanwhile, Dreyfus was taking a bite out of a well-spiced slugs-and-snails-and-puppy-dogs-tails hors d'oevres, when Lady Jemima Sunkist mischievously sidled up.

      "My Daddy wishes to deign to meet up with you," she burbled, fluttering her crimson, artificially elongated eyelashes.  "I think he could be mistaking you for Mummy's twin brother."

      "Wot the Alfie Dickens does he wanna meet me for?" stalled Dreyfus, feeling a bit itchy.

      "I don't know about Mummy, but I'm up for a four-way."

      "Fuck!" wailed Dreyfus, suddenly feeling a mite insecure.

       At that very moment, there was a concordance of humanoid consciousness across the entire planet. Three wizened old creatures in Ur-in-the-Chaldees stirred in their beds, and got up to visit the loo.

      "Unto us a Child is given!" wailed the one with the false teeth.

      "Looks as if we're going to have to head west again," slurped the incontinent dribbler, "searching for some stupid heavenly star."

      "Fuck that," reacted the bearded reactionary. "I'm goin' back to my bed."


In the morning and after a late breakfast of Quaker Oats, fried ostrich eggs and sliced llama, the Shiners set off on foot for the Ape Swan's Nest, with the four youngsters, Sleeping Sparrow, and his ever attentive squaw in tow.

      When they reached the Hillock of the Mad Hares, Prince Alfredo told Ket Martingale that he felt completely at ease with the conversations of the evening before, and that he thought he'd reached an accord with Sir Aristotle Sunkist before the Grand Reincarnate left for the Ape Swan's Nest, looking completely shagged out, in the early hours of that morning.

      Ket scratched his green sideburns, and pulled out a flea. "Jolly good show, old chap," he bullishly replied. "I'm sure that the courageous efforts of the Royal Family of the Homo Erectus will draw all good humanoids together, in the spirit of the Shiners, and Sir Adebe Adobe Maneke, his very self, and that you will conquer the evil oppressors and reduce the Imperial Icarian Palace to dust."

      The prince raised his fist in triumph. "Gung ho, old bean!"

      Ket sniggered to himself. He thought that the prince was an unadulterated buffoon.

      The party was accompanied by an honour guard of six unisexual pectishes, large eagle-faced sub-humanoids with sawn-off shot guns for upper arms which they fired using their trigger fingers (one finger for each upper hand). The pectishes had been intelligently designed by an eminent Grottzapper on the Planet Ceres a couple of centuries previously, and fetched a thousand bronze dollars each on the black market. Their lower arms sported large fists which could clench like a vice, and their claws could take off a humanoid's head in a blink of an eyelid.

      Slim and Pippa politely detached themselves from their companions, and walked hand-in-hand along the woodland trail, feeling a touch irritated by a pectish with B.S.D. who kept squeaking to itself while its claws scraped the gravel.

      Slim decided not to let on to Pippa about his bedtime frolic with Tamzin Soyabean of the night before, since he was concerned that she might be jealous.

      "I think that Tamzin  is beginning to recover from her ordeals, now that she has made friends with people of her own age," he said, with an all-knowing tilt of his head.

      Pippa furrowed her brow. "Yes, but we must find away of protecting the poor darling from that monster Dirk Eradacus. He'll treat her abominably for a couple of years and then exiled her to the Isle of Limbos. He should not be allowed to marry her!"

      "That's easier said than done," argued Slim. "Once she's indentured, he'll lock her away in his turreted mansion on the Aventine Hill in Trivoli, and we won't be allowed any contact with her."

      "I'll find a way of helping her to escape. That I will!"

      "But where would we hide her? Where would she stay?"

      "Hummmmmmmm. That's a problem---Maybe we could ask the mammashunters to help us."

      "Great idea!  I'm in secret j-spot mail contact with Hera. I'll seek her advice when we develop our escape plans more fully."

      Pippa looked puzzled "Hera? Hera who?"

      "Hera Herrera of course, silly. She attended the meeting on Lismore with her two even brighter orange granddaughters."

      "That rings a bell! She may be the mammashunter who visited me on Caleb a week or so ago. I mistook her for an apparition! She said she was a budding revolutionary."

       "She certainly is, but she may need to incite violent protests by the Apollos and maybe the Trinkons. There were only a few hundred mammashunters left after the Stingwell massacre of 2710."

        "Wow! Methinks we should spread our wings and become revolutionaries too."

        "Yes, in principle at least," agreed Slim. "But we should protect our own butts."

        "Too true," agreed Pippa, feeling a twinge in her recently transplanted kidney.


 The woodland pathway merged into a much wider, muddy track. Just as Slim and Pippa were about to soil their shoes in the sludge, a cylindrical, steam-powered truck roared by and headed towards the dense thicket of Jasmobob trees that obstructed the view ahead.

      The party of visitors and the intellectually challenged pectishes successfully negotiated the next quarter mile of the mud-and-dung-ridden track, despite having to step into the nettles whenever yet another truck zoomed obliviously by. And when they emerged from the other side of the thicket, the trucks were all unloading their wares onto a ledge overhanging a redstone crater.

      When Pippa peered over the edge of the crater, as nervously as a sheep on the Isle of Tiree, she saw the bubbling bluey-green waters of Lake Spectrum about eight hundred feet below, and wondered whether she was taking an eye-test . In the middle of the half-mile-wide lake stood a magnificent, white castle keep almost five hundred feet high, and Pippa was most impressed by the flowering Mango trees she thought she saw on its roof.

      "It's a replica of the tower which the courageous, predatory Normans built on Planet Earth to suppress the cowardly indigenous citizens of London," asserted Prince Alfredo, vigorously scratching himself. "and the only way in is through the Water Gate. So we'll need to go down on the heavy traction elevator. Don't worry! The lift shaft is firmly riveted to the sloping rock-face. "

      Pippa didn't dare to even look sideways when everybody descended  in the enormous titanium elevator cage, with only a few jolts, the stacks of crates shaking  precariously around them. She opened her firmly shut eyes, with a start, when the exit gate crashed upon, only to see a dozen or so pectishes herding a flock of yellow, woolly sheep onto an ancient Royal barge.

      The lake was teaming with ape swans, many of whom shouted words of welcome while the Shiner delegation and their appendages were crossing the bubbling water on the quarterdeck of the barge. Sleeping Sparrow and his non-binary squaw waved condescendingly back from the Royal throne, looking as imperial as any Emperor and Empress of the post-modern era.

      When Dreyfus Dreadnought threw a red pebble at an ape cygnet, a slightly larger ape cygnet threw a mollusc shell back which deflected off Dreyfus's snout and hit Lady Jemima in her navel. The Foreign Secretary Dirk Eradacus gave Dreyfus an awkward look, while his fiancee Tamzin couldn't stop herself from chortling. Dr. Alistair McCull simply sat there looking obstinate.

      When the barge reached the Water Gate, one of the dumb pectish escorts yelled, "No traitors today, only sheep for the slaughter!"

      The portcullis was slowly raised, and there on the crab-shell-encrusted stone steps stood the lovely 'Whatchamacallit' , the Apollo Unicorn spouse of  the Grand Reincarnate, Baron Aristotle Sunkist of the Hapsburg Principality of  Mainau.

      "Welcome to the Ape Eagles' Nest," she politely declared. "My husband is waiting for you in the Chapel of St. Vincula. Would you all care to join us for a glass of cream sherry?"


          Please click here for

                                        CHAPTER 6: INTRIGUE ON LAKE SPECTRUM


                                                                 

   

THE SHINERS REACH A CONSENSUS fourth chapter of BRAIN GAMES ON QINSATORIX

                                            BRAIN GAMES ON QINSATORIX

                                                             Tom Leonard


                                                    FIRST THREE CHAPTERS





                                CHAPTER  4:  THE SHINERS REACH A CONSENSUS





                                          


Pippa felt both relieved and delighted when Slim appeared for Sunday morning breakfast in the Hotel Las Fuentes. She was amused when her buddy Dreyfus scampered up with the coffee and burnt toast, and felt surprised that he had such a clear head. Hers often felt fog-ridden until well after lunch.

     "You're looking much too skinny this morning, Dreyfus," she teased. "You should try to put on some weight."

     Dreyfus smiled, and flexed his very masculine chest while imagining that he resembled a thoroughbred pegasus. "I'm working on it, darling. I've just polished off a large bowl of wheat crunch."

     "I thought that jobby catchers had gone out of vogue," grunted Slim, who hadn't quite woken up yet.

     "Of course they haven't, you stupid coot," retorted Dreyfus."They stop the roaches in the kitchen when they try to crawl up my leg."

     "I do hope you had oodles of fun during your trip to the Hotel de Wash, Slim dearest," intervened Pippa, with a quizzical smirk.

      Slim smiled as weakly as a clapped out mad hatter. "It was O.K, I suppose.Some of the dancing freaked me out, and the Gina Turner oldies evoked bad, haunting memories."

      "Maybe you should have danced into the night at our Ceilidh. Dreyfus and I had bundles of fun,"

      "Wish I had, I suppose, though there was all sorts of weird stuff in Fantasia, and that gave me considerable cause for reflection."

      "Would you like a dollop of purple marmalade?" purred Dreyfus. "I like reflecting too. It gives me strength"

      "One day we will rule, and they will have cause for reflection," burbled Pippa, out of her inner id.

      "It's much too early to think deep," yawned Slim. "I guess I'd prefer raspberry goulash  s'il vous plait, Captain Dreyfus."
 
      "You're looking remarkably altogether this morning," replied the teenage Apollo Unicorn, with a crafty wink. "A modicum of corny humour too. Maybe you were touched by an angel during the night."

      Slim went bleary-eyed. "Yes I was, and I've had a change of mindset. I'm gonna stop being an evil Knievel for ever and anon."

      At that, the celebrated mind-body therapist Dr. Alistair McCull appeared on the scene, puffing his hash-pipe.

      What's the ghastly headshrinker up to now? wondered Pippa. We must be in for some nasty surprise or other. But that's what shrinkotherapists are like!

       McCull grinned contentedly. "I'm glad to have caught up with the three of you loveable muppets all at once. We've had a change of plan. You'll  be very excited about this, kiddies! Later today, we'll be taking a copter trip over the lofty peaks of Fantasia and landing on the magical Isle of Mainau for even more Shiner hospitality. Maybe we'll get some lemon meringue pie this time."

       Fuck this chancer! thought Dreyfus, giving McCull the evil eye. "What's the catch, Herr Head Doctor?"

      "There's no catch, you impudent, monocerosic whipper snapper. Tomorrow is St. Crispin's Day, and that's an official holiday at Alpha-Omega. So we don't need to fly back to Caleb until late Monday evening. You'll enjoy our stopover on Mainau, and several of our Shiner amigos will be travelling with us."

       Slim munched his burnt toast, burped, and tried to retch. "Why that shitty cesspit, Herr Lord and Lector?"

      "I'll make you sweat buckets for your truculence! We're going to meet the Grand Incarnate of the Shiners, of course. He lives in the 'Ape Swans' Nest' on Mainau."

      Pippa passed wind. "What the feck is the Ape Swan's Nest?"

      "You're heading for an old-fashioned dose of orang-u-tang potion, young lady. The nest we're going to nestle in is a bit like the Eagles' Nest way up there in the Salatian Alps, where the Snazi leadership once hung out. But it's in the middle of the Isle of Mainau and below sea level. The Grand Reincarnate feels safe there from his enemies, whether real or imagined. He verges on post-perinatal paranoia at times, like many great men of his kind."

      "What the fuck does that phoney toad-eater have to do with anything?" asked Dreyfus, with a fierce twitch of his snout.

      "You're none to bright for a unicorn! His Gracefulness is the thirty-second reincarnate of the Sir Adobe Adebe Manake who founded the Shiners fully a thousand years ago, and a finer spiritual leader you could never hope to meet. He leads the Shiners by shining example, a knight in shining armour if ever there was one. You should feel privileged to be invited to meet him."

      "I don't feel privileged," moaned Pippa. "I wanna go home to feed Scatty."

      "Who's in Hell's name is Scatty?" spluttered McCull.

      "My pet otter, of course,"

      "Yet another figment of your vivid imagination! I'll ask the travelling Shine-shrink to magno-infuse your receptors with a psychosis debilitator during the lunch break. Your God forsaken receptors too, Mr. Quick, but with eight hundred extra milligrams of concentrated mahi mahi. That should settle your nerves for the rest of your day, though you may slurp a bit."

      "Not in my spleen!" howled Pippa. "This isn't a Quaker Retreat! You're trying to control us for your own deceitful purposes!"

      Dr. McCull smiled. "It won't be in your spleen, young lady."

         Mercy on us! agonised Slim, turning into a jellybean.


Later that morning, all the Shiners and Attenders(apart from the party-revellers with bladder-busting hangovers) took part in a Quarterly Regional  Business  Meeting in the Emperor Artorius Auditorium, an Era Nouveau building with a leaky roof in the grounds of the Hotel Las Fuentes. After soothing each other's seriously punctured skin with lashings of  i-base lotion, Pippa and Slim felt well enough to attend, and so they did.

      Pippa knew that the Shiners had, like the leading mathematical logicians, long since discarded democratic voting as a rational way of making group decisions. It can, for example, lead to ridiculously contradictory conclusions when three or more motions are put to the vote.

      Pippa was therefore looking forward to seeing how the Shiners' much-vaunted 'Decision Making by Consensus' worked in practice. Slim couldn't understand how anyone could ever know whether a consensus had or hadn't been reached, and Pippa couldn't comprehend how anyone would understand afterwards what had really been decided. Notions like 'The Spirit guides us', 'It's Yahweh who decides' and 'The ignorant should hold their peace' simply didn't seem to hold water.

      When Pippa arrived at the meeting,she was surprised to see a delightfully pretty ape swan on the podium, exchanging pleasantries with the red-nosed Grand Clerk, and busily shuffling and re-shuffling the papers on her colourfully engraved black ebony desk. Piper wondered why the ape swan was there, since the highly discriminatory Shiner rules only permitted homo sapiens and Icarians to attend their official meetings.

      The Grand Clerk began the meeting by standing up and waving Sir Adobe Adebe Maneke's little blue book around his head. "If there are no objections, I will record the Minutes of our March 2712 meeting on the Isle of  Thrush as read and approved. Thank you!"

     That was a bit quick, thought Pippa. Maybe he's trying to hide something important.

     "By special arrangement with the Grand Reincarnate, who has just returned from the Planet Daedalus," continued the Grand Clerk.  "I have invited his political consultant Lysistrata, here present on my left, to attend this important business meeting, purely as an observer of course, so that she can communicate our decisions back to him through his telepathic mind-wave receptor. Any objections to the presence of a sub-humanoid bird-animal in your midst? No? So we have a consensus! That's passed then."

      So that's why there's a sub-humanoid in the meeting, pondered Pippa. I wonder what the cocky ape swan is really about?

      "The only item on the agenda is 'The Approval of our Annual Meeting Report'," added the Grand Clerk. "I would therefore like to put the Higher Elder in the light, and to invite him to address this issue in further detail."

       The Higher Elder was a very elderly Icarian with flowing, pinkish-white hair, and a wrinkled, well-scrubbed face. After various multitudinous procrastinations, Pippa was beginning to see rabbits running round the walls when the speaker finally got to the point.

     "And so the major conclusion of our retreat should be that 'love makes the planets go round,'"  pontificated the old fool. "There's a little bit of love in everybody, and everybody should forgive everybody else their little bit of mischief. Everyone should recognise that anybody else might have a totally different opinion; just live with it! Love is the essential ingredient of our faith. When we have love then nothing else really matters. Love, love, love!"

      "Is that a motion?" inquired the Grand Clerk, cleaning his ear with a toothpick.

      "Of course it is. I so move!"

      "Seconded!" cried a squat gnome in the peanut gallery.

      "The motion has been proposed and seconded, and is therefore on the table," declared the Grand Clerk, clapping his hands together and clenching them as ponderously as a gorilla from Crockville.

      When the Higher Elder sat down there followed a respectful, deathly silence. But after a few minutes, a green-skinned lady wearing a morning suit and a top hat leapt up to speak. For reasons best known to himself, the Grand Clerk stared at the ceiling and studiously ignored the lady, and when she flopped back into her seat she was furiously biting her lip.

      Several very quiet minutes later, a prim Icarian gentleman in a pin-striped suit rose to his feet, and peered at the Grand Clerk through his monocle.

      "The Higher Elder is effectively restating our Articles of Faith, as decided by our forbears in Madron in AD 1972," he lisped. "Maybe this year we should include a few more specific conclusions in our report. In particular, some of us seemed to agree yesterday afternoon that the valiant efforts of Aid and Abet to assist the convicts in the Southern Swamps by taking them free, chemically enhanced bars of Galaxy should be highlighted in Shiner Tit-Bits. Furthermore, a bunch of insightful Junior Shiners from Lapperland advocated free tamponage for all high school girls with a GPA exceeding 3.2. I propose that we include all such seminal items in our report in order to emphasise our socially pro-active agenda."

      What a good idea, thought Pippa. They could give them free squeegy-rubbers too.

      A dozen  or so further Shiners and Attenders got up, at sporadic intervals, and the six who were acknowledged by the Grand Clerk made a variety of further suggestions for enhancing the annual report.

      The Grand Clerk was about to sum up when the ape swan official observer hurried over like a busy body on heat and thrust a sheet of pink paper onto his pearl-encrusted desk .

      The Grand Clerk twitched his remarkably long, thin, red nose. "Thank you, Lysistrata----Whoops!----and many thanks for reminding me about this. During a top secret meeting last night in the Hotel de Wash, we agreed to parley with the indigenous Icarians in Aztalan with a view to brokering a Treaty of Peace and Reconciliation between indigenous Icarians everywhere and the Qinsatoran Parliament in Trivoli, in particular regarding the redistribution of wealth from the Monte Carlo Casinos around our planet.---- I'll minute that!"

      "Wot top secret meeting?" inquired a flaming redhead with a pentagon of udders for breasts.

      "You're out of order!" screeched the Grand Clerk. "Sit yerself doon!"

      "They're just trying to siphon off the revenues from the casinos in Aztalan," howled a highly offensive yuppie hipster in excessively ubertight, velvet pants."Corruption! Fraud! It makes me wanna crap and vomit. All over you, you creepy sucker!"

       "You're out of here! Security guards!

       There was another deathly hush while four Apollo Lions tossed the exceedingly rude and obnoxious hipster in the air, and hauled him away, flashing his mankle, like a carcass of sweaty meat.

       This is surreal, thought Pippa, scarcely believing her eyes, but good riddance to that wanker..

       After a short period of reflection, Prince Alfredo Saxie-Montieth of the Homo-Erectus rose pompously to his feet.

      "Thank you all so much for considering this epoch-making Peace Treaty at this seminal point in time," he burbled, clearly his mucous-lined nostrils. "It was debated during an ad hoc meeting late last night while we were relaxing together in Fantasia on t'other side of the creek. Those present included a Superior Elder, myself and your very own Lady Jemima Sunkist, the cherished daughter of our much revered Grand Incarnate and his dear, sadly-departed wife, the Duchess Matilda-Maria von Hapsburg of Hohenlochwort-uber-Rhein. Indeed, several of us are planning to stop off in Aztalan this very afternoon to initiate the peace negotiations with the High Priest of the Aztalan and his tribal elders, before proceeding to Mainau to report on our progress to our much beloved Sir Aristotle Sunkist himself."

      Slim thought that was quite a turn up for the book. Such a secretive meeting in such bizarre surroundings! And Lady Jemima sticking her oar in once again.  Like daughter, like father, he supposed. And the Shiners seemed to be operating on several different levels at once. Slim thought that they were a bit like the insidious, multi-fanged Q.I.A, a sort of Yurassic dragon perhaps, like a brain machine where some bits don't know what the other bits are up to.

      The next deathly hush  lasted fully ten minutes, while Pippa's crazily reactive thoughts zigzagged through her grey matter like out of control wheelie-dodgem-boards. The Grand Clerk finally roused himself and banged his desk with his heavy-metal gavel.

      "It is now the appointed time for the Clerk to prepare the Minute!" announced the petty megalomaniac, selecting an elegant feathered pen from his gold-encrusted Quill Pen rack, specially imported from the third moon of the Planet Dallium.

       After several minutes of frantic scribbling, the Grand Clerk rose to his feet and read out loud, "During their Retreat on the Isle of Lismore during September 2712, the Shiners decided to emphasise that love makes the world go round, since when we have love nothing else matters. It was also decided to pursue our pre-existing socially pro-active agenda with due diligence. It was furthermore decided that we should initiate Peace and Reconciliation negotiations with the indigenous Icarians in Aztalan--- That really made my knuckles ache, folk. Anything else?"

      An exceedingly tall and thin gentleman wearing a floppy white toga rose solemnly to his feet. When he spoke he sounded like the Roman orator Publius Cicero. "I must say how much I admire the Grand Clerk's thoroughness and eloquence, which does him credit before the Living Gods: Yahweh and Asherah, Jovius, the All-Seeing One, and the eleven Alephs, all in one. I wonder, however, whether a few of the new socially pro-active projects which were proposed yesterday afternoon might deserve an honourable mention? Some of them seemed to be both creative and imaginative."

     The Grand Clerk blew his prickly nose, a touch noisily, and looked the Romanesque gentleman straight back in the eye.

      "Insufficient consensus," growled the clerk, flashing his jet black eyelashes.

       How about that for a lark! Pippa was still recoiling in shock when Slim Quick leapt to his feet.

      "Wot about Aid and Abet's scheme to help the convicts in the Southern Swamps?" he persisted. "They're worked to the bone, dying of thirst, and getting rhino-whipped and slowly garroted at the whim of the sadistic Apollo Serpents. If love is universal then we should show love to those who suffer, much more so than to the filthy rich fat-cats who propagate the lies and deceit."

      The Grand Clerk went glazy-eyed, but he recovered quickly and raised his bright purple eyes to the Heavens. After a few seconds, he nodded as if in effusive agreement with unfathomable divine forces above, and banged his desk three times with his hefty gavel.

      "The Higher Elder's motion and my amendments and none other are passed by Yahweh-inspired group consensus and are therefore the sanctified Word of the Living All-in-One God," he sanctimoniously declared. "This meeting is thereby automatically adjourned. We will next meet on the Isle of the House Dogs during March 2713, at which time the Minutes of the current meeting will be presented for your kind and generous approval."

       And so that was that.


During that Sunday afternoon, Pippa, Slim, and Dreyfus stuffed their bags full of loot and set off for the nearby Bubbly Bojo's  Bubblecopter Pad. They were greeted on the amazingly smooth, titania-enhanced tarmac by their four travelling companions, who they'd nicknamed 'Creep-face' McCull, Ket Fartingale, Prince Alfie O'Muggins, and Lady Slippery Fingers, though they daren't tell them that to their faces.

      While the seven Creatures of Yahweh were busy confabulating, they were disturbed by the wail of a Rozzer siren coming from across the bridge. The wailing grew louder and louder as a pig-mobile sped across the hotel forecourt and onto the tarmac, where its flashing crimson and orange lights caused consternation among the chumpmunks and sent them rushing to the bushes.

      The pig-mobile was closely followed by an extremely long yellow limousine which ground to a halt just in front of the massive, multi-rotor bubblecopter.

       Slim was wondering which very important personages would alight, when a middle aged Apollo Gibbon in a lounge suit and carrying a red brief case stepped out of the car. It was Dirk Eradacus, the Foreign and Alien Secretary of Qinsatorix no less, the gibbon who was responsible for much of the political intrigue around the planets, the person who decided when to start wars and when to end them, a humanoid to be reckoned with.

       Eradacus was accompanied by the ape swan Lysistrata, the political consultant who'd participated in the Shiner business meeting earlier in the day. But, to Slim's consternation, the motley pair were followed out of the limousine by a forlorn, red-haired teenage girl with bruises covering her face. He recognised her immediately. She was the slender redhead who'd asserted herself in the Celebrity Suite of the Hotel de Wash during the night before, the girl from the harem who'd so bravely told the lecher prince where to get off. Slim felt his shamrock-shaped heart pulsating in unison with the human heart of this unfortunate victim of predatory abuse.

      Slim noticed a striking resemblance between Dirk Eradacus and the glorified pimp in the Celebrity Suite, the Apollo Gibbon who called himself the Head Theropithacus. Slim surmised, perfectly correctly, that Eradacus was the nasty pimp's younger brother.

      Power and corruption are much too closely entwined on this planet, concluded Slim. I wonder whether is was like this in the Milky Way Universe. I guess that it's safe to assume that it was.

      Dr. Alistair McCull rushed over to greet the Foreign Secretary. "I'm honoured to be travelling with you, Dirk, old bean, " he blithered. "It will be fun putting those Aztalan through their paces together."

      Eradacus blinked, and peered, with due decorum, down his handsome nose. "You're welcome, my good fellow. You will have met my colleague Lysistrata this morning. And this cute teeny is my fiancee Tamzin ---Tamzin Soyabean as I remember. They have such stupid last names in Bethlehem,  and I blame that on the village idiots. I simply love the way this one walks, and she has the choicest thighs in the whole of Christendom."

      "Soon to be Tamzin Eradacus," purred Lysistrata, "Dirk's fourth surrogate-wife."

      "The first three were sent to the Isle of Limbos." explained Eradacus, with an ape-like grin.

      "How utterly charming," blethered McCull. "I simply love her human breasts."


When he boarded the bubblecopter, Slim was encouraged by Ket Martingale to sit next to him, in an aisle seat. Thinking that he had property rights, Ket took a firm grip on Slim's knobbly right knee and didn't release his grip for the entire trip. Slim felt imprisoned, and thought that this was all because he'd behaved like a very naughty puppy dog the night before, at the whim of the high-powered government economic advisor.

       But that was a wonderful, exotic memory, thought Slim, wot happened between us in the power shower. Hopefully it will erase some of the more horrendous memories of my youth. Yes, it was such hilarious fun while it lasted. But in terms of sensitive feelings that's all there was to it.

      The distraught redhead Tamzin Soyabean was sitting immediately across the aisle, next to Pippa who was in the portside seat. Pippa gave the much battered stripling some ointment to rub into the bruises on her face. When Slim glanced at Tamzin, the poor girl turned her head and sobbed.

      When the copter soared towards the clouds, Pippa imagined that she was a Barbie-doll inside a huge watertight bubble rising towards the surface from the deep depths of Oceania and that the birds were dino-fish escaping from the hippo-sharks. When the copter levelled into the horizontal, a thousand feet above the mystical mountain peaks, Pippa imagined that the peaks were purple killer bear-whales rising through the water to eat her. When the copter dived towards the North Fantasian Steppes, Pippa thought that she was about to be buried feet up in the ocean deep.

      Slim was peering through the perfectly transparent floor at the thousands of sub-humanoid peasants toiling in the fields below, when two Imperial battle-cruisers zoomed by, at five hundred feet, and engulfed the supposedly intellectually challenged hordes in clouds of pink margon gas,

      "That's just to keep them happy," explained Ket. "We wouldn't want them to complain too much about their lot. We spray them with glowzone when we want to sterilise them, and they never know the difference. It's all part of our sub-humanoid eugenics program, you see."

      "What do you spray them with when you want to genocide them?" inquired Slim, caustically.

      "Galt gas, of course. They disintegrate into piles of dust and ashes."

      "I'm beginning to get the idea. You must have read the works of Professors Alfred Ploetz and Eugen Fischer in the Aryan Annals of Anthropological Eugenics. They were dead keen on racial hygiene."

      Ket caressed Slim's perfectly smooth chest, tenderly, with his unusually tiny right hand. "You're learning! Keep up the good work and we'll award you a University Scholarship. You can study Business and Law at UCLA."

      Slim wanted to slap Ket across his God-dammed autocratic colonialist face, and only just managed to constrain himself. But the prospect of studying at the University of Corinth at Los Alamos did appeal to him. The Isle of Los Alamos also housed the Global Security Complex.


When the bubblecopter circled above the village of Aztalan, Pippa could discern scores of wooden huts and wigwams scattered between the pine trees below. When they landed in the Meadow of the Ghost Riders, several hundred bollock-naked indigenous Icarians were waiting, with bowls of.tasty pompomogranites and delicious grapeshot, to greet them, their silvery orchadeuses glistening in the golden sunlight.

      When Dirk Eradacus and Prince Alfredo led the Shiner delegation across the green pasture towards the Wigwam of the Fireball Fighters, the bronze, clean-limbed High Priest of the Aztalan came out and raises his arms in salutation.

      "Hello, I'm Sleeping Sparrow," he said."How about a few rounds of Omaha poker?"


                                          Please click here for

                     
                                       CHAPTER 5: JOURNEY TO THE APE SWANS' NEST