GRAND TOUR Chapter One
How tedious. Locked up again. Why does no one ever listen to me? I am told (not always kindly) that I can carry myself with an air of authority. I think I also know when to stand back; for this, too, I am criticized. There is just no pleasing some people.
At least there’s a bench in my cell. The zombies (I think I am speaking figuratively) who put me in here didn’t say, but I am assuming this is just a holding cell and I’ll be moved eventually to something more accommodating, like an identical cell with a blanket on the bench and a pail for under it. Come to think of it, I suppose they needn’t move me; they could just bring the blanket and the pail. That’s a depressing thought; I was hoping for the Grand Tour.
I am a bit more concerned about Turlough at the moment than I am on my own behalf. He’s a panicky sort of fellow and ordinarily panic proves unproductive. He blurts out things best left unblurted. He does a good job, short-term, remaining reserved and secretive (frustrating traits in and of themselves, but sometimes handy tactics in a pinch) and then panic undoes all of that. I hope he got away, not least because if he is at large, he may be able to rescue me, and I think I just might need some rescuing.
No one has threatened me since my initial capture. That could change.
Honestly, we were minding our own business in the queue to purchase tickets to a rock concert in Krin, the capital of Zoltan. Zoltan is a university, a country and a planet, all at once. Don’t visit during Spring Break; all the students have got dead drunk and wandered off to the planet Korda to wreak havoc upon the local populace of the island of Rózsa. Not only are they sober in other seasons, they are among the most intellectually active and musically adept students in the known universes. (By the way, Zoltanian students never graduate – in fact, the most common euphemism for death is “graduation.” Everyone is a student for life. The teachers are all students; they attend each other’s classes, or skip them, as they wish. Even the Chancellor is a student.)
Zoltan’s most famous ensemble is Hyperphantasia, which lives up to its name. Turlough and I were planning to purchase, along with our tickets, a pair of tiny gel capsules containing Asmif™, the only known antihallucinogen (at least until the 48thcentury) that isn’t also an antipsychotic. We hadn’t decided yet whether to take them but just to be safe, wanted to have them on hand. Hyperphantasia’s zither solos alone have caused listeners to trip hard, but only for the duration of the music. Once the final chords fade, so do the hallucinations. Nonetheless, the group has been banned on 96 planets. We were lucky to be permitted to stand in the queue, much less enter the hall.
There we were, chatting with the others in the queue (well, I chatted; Turlough rolled his eyes now and again) when the two of us were approached by members of the local gendarmerie (also students), demanding to see our student identification cards. We politely explained that we were offworlders, here to see the show. Zoltan was not unused to offworlders; apart from its musicians being universe-renowned, some of its gardens are spectacular, and if you like food that, for those unused to potent spices, has been known to necessitate craniotomy, the cuisine can’t be beat. Some of the other chatters were also offworlders (and they had not been asked to prove who they were). Without pointing anyone out or naming names, I mentioned this to the cops, or security guards, or whatever they were, who remained unimpressed and asked us to come with them. Actually, they asked with their hands behind our upper arms, which annoyed me, and I asked them to show their identification cards. That’s when their hands got more insistent. Turlough and I were dragged out of the queue and hustled into a hoverboat, but before it could take off, Turlough bolted. The cops didn’t give chase. They took me up into the white sky (uncuffed – what was I going to do, try to fly away?) and pushed me back down into my seat every time I tried to look over the edge and see where we were going. I wouldn’t have known where we were going even had I been able to see, since this was my first time on Zoltan, but it might have been interesting.
They didn’t question me. They handed me over to some guards whose facial expressions seemed a bit surreal, and I wondered if I hadn’t somehow managed to get into the concert after all and was now hallucinating all of this. I wasn’t kidding about zombies. They popped me into this cell and here I am, waiting to be interrogated, moved, executed, given a medal, beaten or otherwise dealt with. I have my preferences regarding how I am dealt with, but I doubt they’ll be honored.
Ah, here they come now, the suits. This should be illuminating. Maybe, if I’m very lucky, they’ll even tell me why I am here.
