The dark side of the sun - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,50
…’ Dom stopped. ‘You are pumping me.’
‘For the sake of Widdershins. I don’t want you to find Jokers World and lose it to a mob. You don’t care about politics. I tell you, used properly this could be the making of the Sabalos family.’
‘You mean that seriously?’
‘I do.’ She rose. ‘We’ll talk about this later. Are you coming to see the Masque?’
‘You must!’ said Tarli, hurrying round the table. ‘It’s a special production. Sub-Lunar wrote it on the ship coming here. Father likes a little entertainment after dinner.’
Dom thought it was mildly entertaining. It was a skit on current Earth-Outer Worlds politics, which were always good for a laugh, written in early Greek style. All the characters wore larger-than-life masks, spangled with jewels. The chorus was robotic.
Then it nailed Dom to his seat.
The chief protagonist was a goat-legged Chairman Pan, complete with horn and syrynx. It happened after the bit of business with the First Sirian Bank, a bloated silver globe on spindly legs.
The Bank said: ‘DO YOU THINK, THEN, THAT MAN CAN PREVENT HIMSELF BEING OUSTED BY ROBOTS?’
Pan capered across the stage: ‘Certainly. What robot could do my job? They can only go down to Class Ones, you know.’
Chorus: ‘Brekekekex, co-ax, co-axial!’
Pan: ‘But list! Who is this weary traveller?’
Another actor lurched onto the stage. He was a bright, vivid green. He was staggering under the combined weight of a pair of winged sandals that left a trail of feathers, a large sword made of rubber, a giant bottle of water and, on one emerald shoulder, a taxidermist’s nightmare of glass eyeballs, feathers, tufts of hair and badly assorted claws.
Pan: ‘Good grief! What are you doing with that strange, ill-assorted creature?’
Traveller: ‘It’s not a strange creature, it’s my pet.’
Pan: ‘I was talking to your pet. What do you seek, traveller? Get on with it so we can continue with this sketch.’
The traveller peered myopically around the stage and then glared at the audience.
‘I’m looking for a world of Jokers,’ he muttered.
Pan said: ‘Try Earth. They are quite good-humoured on Terra Novae, too. Oh, those Jokers. Be off with you! They don’t exist – do they?’
‘Yes and no. That is, no and yes.’
Bank: ‘EVERYONE KNOWS THEY HAVE MOVED TO THE UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR—’
Pan: ‘—so why not look on the dark side of the sun?’
Traveller. ‘Gosh, yes! The dark side of the sun, you say? I’ll go there directly.’ He shuffled off.
Dom woke next morning in a bedroom almost oppressive in its wealth, washed in a gold bowl and strolled down to the dining hall. He was late for breakfast. Most of the night had been spent in a fruitless discussion with Joan. There had been a row when Ig was taken to a laboratory and probed for every conceivable weapon, to the little animal’s distress. Nothing was found, but Ig, coiled across Dom’s shoulders, was strangely silent today.
Sub-Lunar had left after the Masque, after taking an urgent call from Earth.
Down in the hall a floating sideboard had been laid out with large dishes under covers. Dom padded silently over the carpet, experimentally lifting lids. One covered a dish of smoked red fish, another the considerable wreckage of a boar’s head. A third was just fruit. Being a Widdershine, he settled at last for the fish, and sat down at one end of the empty table. Out of interest he lifted the lid of a large tureen, and slammed it down hurriedly; the Emperor had been entertaining drosk guests.
A few minutes later a small door across the hall opened and a girl tiptoed in. She was small, and dark like Tarli. Dom grinned. She blushed, and sidled along the sideboard with her eyes fixed on him.
She piled a small dish with little fish and sat down at the opposite side of the table. Dom stared at her. In the morning light she seemed to glow. It was uncanny. The glow followed her, so that when she moved an arm she left a faint, golden ghost in the air. An electro-physical effect, but still impressive.
They ate in silence, broken only by the hum of a large, antique Standard clock.
Finally he steeled himself. ‘Can you speak Janglic? Linaka Comerks diwac? How about drosk? – upaquaduc, uh, lapidiquac nunquackuqc quipaduckuadicquakak?’
She poured herself a tiny cup of coffee and smiled at him. Dom groaned inwardly. Drosk was bad enough, but he could handle it. He prepared his epiglottis and sinuses for the supreme test.
‘Ffnbasshs sFFshs – frs Sfghn Gss?’
Her second smile struck him as unnecessarily prim.