concluded:
‘They' must’ve gone down that side corridor.’
It thundered to the side corridor. Which was too small to admit it. The dorgi did another Advanced Situational Analysis, which was every bit as painful as the first. It concluded:
‘I cannot pursue.’
By now it was in something of a quandry. So it once more consulted its Supreme Directive. Which clearly stated:
4. IF NOT NOW ENTIRELY SATISFIED WITH AREA SECURITY THEN PROCEED WITH AREA DESTRUCTION.
‘Right!’ muttered the dorgi. ‘That does it!’
Swiftly it charged up its Probability Disruptors, highly satisfied with the comforting thought that everything within fifty luzaks would shortly be chonjorted beyond repair.
‘Here goes!’ said the dorgi.
Then Initiated the Probability Disruption.
Nothing happened.
Doubtless the Probability Disruptors were on the fritz.
‘Just my luck,’ muttered the dorgi dourly, and consulted its memory banks, where it eventually located:
Directive 238768138764: Equipment Malfunction.
IN THE EVENT OF A MISSION-CRITICAL EQUIPMENT MALFUNCTION SEEK OUT A SUPERVISOR, ROBOTIC, GRADE 7.
The dorgi grunted. Then grunted again. It did not like supervisors. They were intelligent. Worse, they were more intelligent than dorgis. (Most things were.) Still, there was no helping it. A Directive was a Directive. There would be several thousand years of intensive algetic therapy in store for any dorgi rash enough to disobey a Directive.
Grunting and grumbling, the dorgi began to rumble along the corridor, diligently looking for a supervisor. It was going to be looking for a long time, for the last operational supervisor had suffered a terminal malfunction some three thousand years earlier.
Still, such is life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
While the dorgi was busy looking for a supervisor, and Shabble was regrouping Shabble’s prisoner playmates, the conjuror Odolo lay in bed in Ivan Pokrov’s private quarters in the Analytical Institute on the island of Jod. Odolo had collapsed halfway across the harbour bridge, and Uckermark and Chegory had lugged him the rest of the way.
During the battle in the pink palace, Varazchavardan had made a very determined effort to strangle Odolo, and the marks on his throat which evidenced the effort were steadily darkening from slap-smash red to thunder black. Still, Odolo was alive and breathing yet. Uckermark and Chegory sat by ^? the unconscious conjuror’s bedside, discussing him with Ivan Pokrov.
‘You sav he transformed himself?’ said Pokrov.
— w ere not kidding,’ said Chegory. ‘He — he’s a — it was a, like, a nightmare, okay?’
‘All right, all right,’ said Pokrov, doing his best to soothe the upright Ebby. ‘So he transformed himself. I believe you!’
'He must be a wizard,’ said Uckermark. ‘Or a sorcerer at the very least.’
‘A wizard,’ said Chegory. ‘They’re at war, aren’t they? Wizards and sorcerers? So he’s a wizard. Else why would he hide his powers?’
‘They’re not exactly at war,’ said Uckermark. ‘Wizards and sorcerers, I mean. They just don’t get on very well.’ Pokrov tried to think of some intelligent contribution he could make to this debate, but failed. He was used to dealing with life, death and the universe in terms of mathematical theory, but had no satisfactory theoretical explanation for magic. This is scarcely surprising, for even Thaldonian Mathematics fails to provide a Predictive Paradigm to explain those processes which the researchers of the Golden Gulag were in the habit of describing as Synergetic Improbability.
‘I still don’t know why he made that dragon, though,’ said Chegory. ‘At the banquet, I mean.’
‘Maybe it was a joke,’ said Uckermark.
‘Banquet!’ said Pokrov, grateful to have something sensible to say. ‘That reminds me! I’ve been so busy all day I haven’t yet had lunch. Would you care to join me? Odolo doesn’t need us to watch over him.’
Chegory wasn’t really ready for another meal. In fact, he felt sick at heart because he had abandoned Olivia to the dangers of the pink palace. Furthermore, despite the anatomical difficulties involved, this sickness of heart had communicated itself to his stomach. In short, he was off his food.
Still, it would have been rude to refuse. Besides, in the presence of Pokrov, Chegory still felt constrained to play the role of the polite, disciplined, upwardly mobile young Ebrell Islander. Even though he knew he was a doomed outlaw, a debauched wastrel on the run from law and authority both, a hoodlum hopelessly entangled in a world of drugs, deceit, conspiracy, coups and sudden death.
‘Yes,’ said Chegory. ‘That’s, um, a great idea. We’ll have lunch, okay, it can’t make things worse.’
Over a (very) late lunch they discussed the probable fate of Olivia Qasaba and Artemis Ingalawa.
‘I wouldn’t worry about them,’ said Ivan Pokrov blithely. ‘Varazchavardan’s got nothing against them. Doubdess they’ll be back at the Dromdanjerie right now, cleaning up.’
Chegory shuddered.
‘You didn’t see what we saw,’ said he.
After lunch, Chegory quit the Analytical Institute and stood on Jod’s burning shore, where the wealth fountains were still pouring out streams of dikle and shlug as if they would never stop. The longest fountain flow on record had lasted for three years and had killed out all the lagoon life to a distance of five leagues from the disaster. Judging by the quantities of dead fish afloat in the harbour, this latest outburst might prove equally as disastrous.
Still, who could complain? Without such poisons, there would have been no wealth on Untunchilamon. It was dikle, shlug and other alien substances equally as miraculous which had made the island a wealthy and desirable part of the Izdimir Empire and had financed the construction of the fair city of Injiltaprajura.
Young Chegory Guy looked across the Laitemata Harbour to the streets of that city. All looked quiet. Dead. Normal, in a word. For in the usual course of events nothing would move in Injiltaprajura in the late afternoon of a day so hot.
Chegory watched the distant pink palace.
WTiat the hell had happened back there? He had seen a contest of Power between Varazchavardan and Odolo. The pink-eyed albino had almost broken Odolo’s neck. Then the conjuror had somehow rendered the wonderworker unconscious. Then, before Uckermark and Chegory could kill the odious Master of Law, Nixorjapretzel Rat had intervened.
‘So what do I know?’ said Chegory. ‘I know Varazchavardan wants to win Injiltaprajura for Aldarch Three. That he wants Justina dead. And me dead. And Olivia dead. And Ingalawa dead. And Uckermark dead, come to think of it.’
Yet Ivan Pokrov would have it that there was nothing to worry about!
The more Chegory thought about it, the more he was sure the Analytical Engineer was being wildly optimistic. Pokrov was so bland, so sure, so confident. So detached from reality! This was a life or death situation. Very shortly, Chegory was going to be dead. Unless Varazchavardan died first.
‘He’s got the soldiers on his side,’ muttered Chegory.
Then, after some thought: ‘But all it takes is a knife. One man with a knife.’
There was not much question about who that man was going to have to be. Yet Chegory did not rush back to the palace then and there to do or die in the manner of heroes for he had been taught to think his problems through
