Ascending

position as the most annoying creature in the universe?' He turned to me. 'I assure you this is necessary if you want to save your brain. A teeny-tiny-eensy-weensy bit of you has to become jelly.'

'All right,' I said, gritting my teeth. 'If that is what I must do…'

'It is,' the Pollisand said. He went to the fountain and dipped his toe into the honey. Of course the toe did not turn purple — no doubt Mr. Foul Annoyance had such evolutionarily advanced skin, it did not succumb to the honey in the same way as lesser beings.

'Where do you want it?' he asked, walking back to me on three feet to keep his damp toe from touching anything. 'Bottom of your foot so it’s hardly ever visible? The tail of your spine so it’s covered by your jacket? Atop one breast like a purple tattoo?'

I turned to Festina, thinking I might ask her advice… but as soon as I looked at her, I knew what it had to be.

I lifted my finger and pointed to my right cheek. The Pollisand moved before Festina could stop him.

EPILOGUE: BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS WISHED TO COMPOSE ONE.

Dealing With Tedious Details

Being the captain of a huge alien starship is not so much fun as you might think, because there are many fearsome burdens. The greatest burden turns out to be one’s Faithful Sidekick, who is constantly worried one will speak carelessly to the ship’s computer and thereby Precipitate A Tragic Incident. Festina dictated to me exactly what commands I should give the stick-ship, and forced me to recite the instructions several times in English before allowing me to say the same in Shaddill-ese. Even then, she required me to think and think and think about the proper Shaddill-ese translation for each word; she would not let me speak until I had pretended to ponder for at least ten seconds over each instruction.

Of course, I did not really think about the translations that much — I was more concerned with contemplating the new appearance of my face (which reflected quite nicely in the fountain’s basin). The Pollisand had only brushed my cheek lightly with his toe, no more than a casual dab… yet he had created a precise duplicate of Festina’s birthmark in both size and shape. Immediately thereafter, he had produced a strip of clear plastic bandage which he slapped over the jelly smear to prevent it from slopping off my face. The bandage instantly bonded with my skin and is (supposedly) permanent.

Festina, of course, was anguished at the change in my features — she is a very nice person, but she has a Deep Psychological Fixation about her appearance which renders her a bit crazed. In her heart of hearts, she believes her birthmark makes her very very ugly… whereas she is actually ugly because she is opaque, and the birthmark has little effect, pro or con.

I hasten to point out that the jelly now composing my cheek, while undeniably purple, is a transparent purple; if I wiggle my fingers behind my head, you can see the movement quite easily, staring straight through my cheek and my brains and all. So the blob on my face is not a disfigurement, but merely a Colored Highlight that adds an extra-special accent of beauty. I am even more ravishing than ever… which I know is hard to believe, but after all this time listening to my story, you must surely realize I would never tell you falsehoods.

Nor will I tell you all the finicky arrangements we made in the next few minutes. Of course, we ordered the stick-ship to stop swallowing the little Cashling vessels, and to put back everything it had captured. We also released the crew of the Royal Hemlock from the stick-ship’s sinister holding cells. The cells contained many other individuals of various species, all of whom had been kidnapped by the Shaddill due to these individuals being too smart for their own good. Captain Kapoor promised he would transport the prisoners back to their homeworlds as soon as possible… or to any other world they wished to visit, as a pleasant consolation prize for being locked in Durance Vile by wicked fur-beetles.

Speaking of fur-beetles, their jellied remains disappeared from the fountain while we were busy with other matters. I hoped they had merely gone slurp down the drain, but Festina suspected they had used some newborn mental power to transport themselves to wherever the rest of their people lived: an alternate dimension (whatever that means), or perhaps a distant Jelly-Planet where all the furniture jiggles. It seemed most unfair that these monstrous villains should simply ascend to their own nirvana without suffering retribution; but then I realized it could not be a very good nirvana considering that everyone there was all googly… and perhaps it was not a nirvana at all, but a horrible awful hell, where the only entertainment was persuading others to join you. So I decided not to make myself glum over never punching a Shaddill, and I regarded this as a sign of my Growing Maturity.

I believe I shall be excellent at maturity.

An Annoying Au Revoir

The Pollisand disappeared about the same time as the jellied Shaddill — again while our attention was distracted by more pressing business. He left behind a slip of paper with words written in glowing letters exactly the color of his eyes:

HEY KIDS, IT WAS TRULY SPLENDIFEROUS WORKING WITH YOU, I MEAN THAT IN THE SINCEREST POSSIBLE WAY. AND GUESS WHAT? MY CRYSTAL BALL SAYS I’LL BE SEEING ONE OR TWO OF YOU AGAIN REAL SOON. BET YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT. HUGS TO YOU ALL, AND BIG WET KISSES. OH WAIT, I FORGOT; I CAN’T KISS YOU BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE ANY GODDAMNED LIPS! COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, SCHMUCK-HEADS. — THE P.

As soon as we had all read this, the letters on the message blazed brighter and set the paper on fire. No one made any effort to extinguish it.

'Do you think he really knows what’s going to happen?' Lajoolie asked most fearfully, staring at the burning note.

Festina made a face. 'He obviously gets a kick out of jerking our chains — and whether or not he’s prescient, he’s definitely a first-class schemer. If he wants us embroiled in his machinations, he’ll manage it somehow.'

'Ah, Admiral, ever the optimist,' said Aarhus. 'Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas.'

Festina shrugged modestly. 'Hey… it’s a gift.'

Final Dispositions

So here is how we all ended up.

Lady Bell and Lord Rye never left Unfettered Destiny while it remained in the hold of the stick-ship. They cowered like cowards until we told them everything had been resolved in our favor. After that, Bell insisted we still must pay the 'ransom' we agreed to — so we recorded our testimony as originally promised, and the result was broadcast to the entire sector.

This caused much stir amongst the peoples of the galaxy. It also caused a torrent of broadcast money to flood into the Cashlings’ pockets… whereupon Bell and Rye bade adieu to their vocation as Prophets and set off to become producers of sensationalistic VR extravaganzas. Apparently, this was not an uncommon career path for persons of their race.

Because of our broadcast, the admirals of the navy’s High Council found themselves the targets of Public Outrage, not to mention repeatedly being invited by civilian police to 'assist in criminal inquiries.' Each high admiral tried to shift the blame for the reported atrocities onto his or her colleagues, while he or she claimed to have been kept 'out of the loop.' A few of the villains also managed to disappear before being apprehended by authorities. Despite such developments, Festina felt certain the majority of the council could not possibly escape incarceration, even if a few managed to wriggle away from the clutches of the law.

It has not yet been determined who murdered Uclod’s Grandma Yulai; but as Festina predicted, that particular crime garnered a strenuous reaction from the Technocracy’s civilian government. With the League of Peoples forever watching, humans cannot allow a homicide to go uninvestigated. If necessary, Festina says she will look into the matter personally when she returns to New Earth.

As for the rest of the Unorr family, they had already gone into hiding by the time Grandma Yulai was slain. They realized the High Council might commit drastic deeds in order to conceal their crimes… so the Unorrs removed themselves to a place of safety until all was well. It was only the grandmama who voluntarily remained in the open so as to coordinate the Admiralty’s ultimate exposure.

Therefore, Uclod and Lajoolie had a family to which they could return: a family who eagerly awaited the couple in order to congratulate them on a job well done. Apparently, Uclod’s relatives were vociferously telling everyone how wise they had been to purchase Lajoolie as Uclod’s wife — Lajoolie had 'made the boy a man,' had 'helped him fly right,' and had achieved many other goals expressed in hackneyed phrases. The Unorrs swore they would recommend the same Tye-Tye marriage broker to all of their friends… which was not a pleasant prospect to contemplate, but at least it ensured that the broker would not wreak vicious acts upon Lajoolie’s brother.

It turned out that one of the vessels in the outreach crusade was a female Zarett with a male Zarett on board. Using monetary credit from his family, Uclod purchased the couple and put baby Starbiter into loving Zarett care… where I imagine she was tucked into a soft spherical crib each night and spoiled with hydrocarbons of excessive sweetness. Uclod also promised to erect a monument to Nimbus in the Unorr family cemetery on the Freep homeworld. Starbiter (the mother, not the daughter) will receive an even larger memorial in the same place — perhaps a life-size model with a special fungal coating to mimic a Zarett’s gooeyness. I think that sounds most icky indeed; therefore, I have resolved to visit it immediately if ever I find myself on that planet.

Before I go there, however, I shall have to visit New Earth. When all the navy villains are brought to trial, I shall be required to give testimony… which I shall do most prettily and with great condemning vigor.

Alas, Festina tells me it will take a long time for any admirals to wind up in court. First there must be an Extended Media Circus, then an Orgy Of Knee-Jerk Recrimination, then some Somber Universal Soul-Searching, followed by a Period Of Desensitization Due To Massive Overexposure, leading to a Backlash Of Cynical Indifference, then Collective Amnesia And Perversely Partisan Revisionism, finally culminating in Cattle-Call Jury Auditions wherein hundreds of out-of-work actors vie for 'cushy all-expenses-paid gigs with a high exposure quotient and very few lines to memorize.'[15]

[15] — It is possible Festina was making a joke when she gave me this list of events. Or not.

So my presence will not be required on New Earth for months or even years. Festina will go there immediately, of course. Sergeant Aarhus will accompany her, for he intends to serve as her personal bodyguard. When he spoke of this to Festina, she contended she needed no bodyguard… but he said she did, since many powerful admirals now hate her and wish her harm. Anyway, Aarhus feels most guilty about Nimbus’s death — the sergeant believes that if he (Aarhus) had only done a better job as a security mook, Festina would never have found herself choking and the cloud man would still be alive. This line of thinking does not make sense; but grief makes fools of us all, and even I sometimes catch myself wondering if there was something I could have done to save the cloud man’s life.

Nimbus was my brother and my friend. I have not had so many friends in my life; I could tell you the exact number, but the count is so low I do not wish to reveal