March: A Tale of Salmon and Swedes (The Glothic Tales Book 4) (10 page)

‘Punks? Yes, them, but why are they called such a silly name?’

‘Sorry, March. I have no idea at all.’

‘Well, that presents a nice little bit of research for me to do.’

‘A change from salmon and oysters.’

‘And Abba.’

‘Um, yes,’ March said, sheepishly, as the taxi pulled to a halt in front of their building.

‘Eleven quid, thanks luv,’ the taxi driver said.

Dirty Power

‘My Q’muniktor and centre coil copy of THE don’t regenerate very quickly here.’

‘No they don’t. I have the same problem with my Q’muniktor, so I use it sparingly,’ Trys replied, as they shared toast and Scottish marmalade for breakfast.

‘But electromagnetic energy is in abundance everywhere in the Universe, so why is there so little of it here?’

‘It’s because of …..’

‘The force field?’ March interrupted.

‘Yes, it deflects a lot of energy, and that’s why there are so many cables all over the place. Even with some rapid progress over the last century or so, Earth technology is prehistoric by Gloth standards. They are still burning fossil fuels and using nuclear energy to create electricity, and weapons of course, but once produced, the electricity can’t be stored, so it is shot down cables all over the planet, hoping that it will be consumed as fast as it’s produced. It’s highly inefficient and wasteful, and worse, because they can’t store it, more and more products are designed and manufactured to use up the supply. Then there is the problem of carbon floating up into the atmosphere from all the burnt fossil fuels and being trapped beneath the force field. They don’t know it’s there of course, so they have no idea at all that they are slowly poisoning the whole planet. The carbon layer is another reason your Q’muniktor regenerates so slowly, as it further reduces the amount of electromagnetic energy that can make its way down to here.’

‘And producing nuclear energy and weaponry is akin to giving one’s planet a death sentence. I don’t suppose anyone on Earth knows how Erde finally destroyed itself.’

‘Probably only a few in the Camera Stellata,’ Trys replied.

March munched on his toast, and took a pensive moment to digest the information. Trys let him be, but she was thinking to herself that the whole Erdean project had been a disaster from day one, when the Hybridised Uniform Manipulation And Naturalisation project was first implemented on Erde, as a means to develop profitability from a planet populated only at the time, by a variety of primate species. It became known as HUMAN, as an easy acronym, but it was still a genetic experiment that went awfully wrong, because the introduced Glothic gene failed to develop as fully as the researchers at the time had anticipated, and instead, the genes of the various breeds of primate remained dominant. While the Glothic gene did result in bringing intelligence, language and ingenuity to the primates on Erde, their dominant genes meant that instead of the planned homogeneous population developing, each breed of primate remained stubbornly different. This resulted in forming localised tribal populations, which ended up speaking hundreds of different languages, were of different colours and face shapes and of course, rather naturally, all decided to hate each other quite passionately.

Then when each Glothic Oversight Detachment, or GOD was sent to monitor the project, the genetically modified beings on Erde misunderstood completely and started to worship every Glothic Oversight Detachment that arrived, and in the process aided in the development of religion on Erde, which then sparked even more division and confusion, and of course, arguments, conflicts and in the end, all out and uncontrollable global war. Twice.

With the second chance that Septimity gave the remaining Erdeans, who were fortunate enough to have been scattered around the Twelve Sun Systems at the time Erde self destructed, he would be disappointed now to know that even give the chance to start all over again, Erdeans had managed to make almost all the same mistakes, all over again – including global war. And again, twice – as if twice, once, was not enough.

‘It would seem that the etymology of the word punk is unknown. I checked last night.’

‘What, no Abba?’ Trys joked.

‘My THE ran out of power before I could get to them,’ March said, smiling with his mouth full of sticky marmalade and toast.

‘So, what are your plans for the day?’

‘I’ll have to wait for my Q’muniktor to regenerate, but I would like to make some calculations of the capacity of the current shuttles to transport salmon, and an estimated annual return on sales.’

‘You can use my iPad for that if you like.’

‘A what?’

‘Hold on, I’ll be back in a tick,’ she said, as she stood, grabbed her stick, and trotted off. When she returned, she sat back down and handed her white iPad to him. He looked at it for a moment, and tapped the dark screen. Nothing happened.

‘You have to press that button, there at the bottom.’

He did, and the screen glowed, so he tapped again.’

‘You have to swipe the screen from left to right.’

‘Not very intuitive, is it?’ he said, as he swiped and finally got it to work. ‘And awfully heavy.’

‘I’m sure you’ll manage to work out how to use it, and I don’t think your arms will drop off.’

‘Probably not. But thank you, I’m sure I’ll be able to do my calculations now.’

‘I’m sure you will. Now, if you are planning on a day of calculations and whatnot, that will allow me time to write a few urgent letters and hopefully, have them ready in time to make it to the Post Office.’

‘Letters? Like in paper and quill? I’ve read about them.’

‘No quill, but still yes, hand written in ink on paper. It is still viewed as a sign of respect here to write a letter to important people. I need to thank Mr. Prescott-Jones for welcoming us yesterday evening, and I would also like to arrange for a visit to Rome for you. I know a cardinal or two there, so I am hoping we can be officially welcomed at the Vatican so you can see the replica of the Dodecahedron, which is buried deep in the bowels of the Vatican. It is not on public display of course, as it is a closely guarded secret that it even exists, so we would need the permission of the Pope to visit.’

‘The Dodecahedron that February the Fifth swore his oath of office upon? Blue, flashing and fabled to have given him the twelve virtues of office?’

‘Ah, so you have read the story or February the Fifth then.’

‘Oh yes, one thousand times.’

‘So, can you remember the twelve virtues a Supreme Potentate must possess?’

‘Let me think. Um, honesty, wisdom and, um, oh yes, loyalty, and um…’

‘I must have read the story more times than you. They were, benevolence, compassion, courage, discipline, faith, honesty, loyalty, mercy, patience, prudence, tolerance and wisdom,’ Trys recited, by heart.

‘And in impeccable alphabetical order,’ March said, looking up from tapping away on the iPad, but amazed at her memory.

‘So, would you like to visit the Dodecahedron?’

‘Yes of course I would ….. but hold on. If no one other than Mr. Prescott-Jones and his two fellow office bearers know about Gloth, how is the Dodecahedron’s existence understood by these people, at the, what was it again, the Vatican?’

‘The Vatican, along with the Pope is a very mysterious and secretive religious order. Although outwardly, their Catholic message makes for a very popular religion for millions upon millions of people on Earth, under the surface of their organisation lies deep, long kept secrets and mysterious traditions, which all bar a select few people know about. Even given what the Camera Stellata thinks, my gut feeling is that there are those within the Vatican who know about a connection to what they would probably refer to as a heavenly reality, but which is Gloth of course. Only a few perhaps, but I think the fact of the connection between Pope Gregory and Gloth is far too important to have been lost over time by the Vatican. As Mr. Prescott-Jones said himself, it was those of Glothic royal blood, like his forefathers, who created Rome in deference to Rom, the birthplace of Pope Gregory. That they created a replica of the Dodecahedron confirms logically in my mind that Gloth is indeed known to at least a select few, including the Pope of course, at the Vatican.’

‘So Gloth is not such a big secret after all?’

‘Well perha….’ Trys started to say, but was interrupted by the iPad in March’s hands suddenly bursting loudly into song.

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life

See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen

Friday night and the lights are low

Looking out for the place to go…

‘Sorry, but how do I turn the volume down on this thing?’ March asked, with his cheeks reddening in embarrassment, as he passed the iPad to Trys.

‘Here,’ she said, as she pushed the volume button on the side of the device down to silent. ‘I don’t think Abba worshiping was one of those twelve virtues I mentioned.’

‘No, perhaps not.’

‘Don’t look so embarrassed, March. If it helps you any, I quite like a little Abba music from time to time too. They were immensely popular here thirty or forty years ago, and are still to many. I don’t quite know what it was, or is, about their music and their voices I mean, but their music is so unique that as far as I know, they hold the record for being the most successful, and profitable, musicians of all time. Even more than the Beatles.’

‘Who?’

‘They were another musical group; all men though, whose popularity was about ten years before Abba. More research for you, huh?’

It seems so.’

Trys took the iPad from him and did a quick search for the Beatles. Once she found a video of ‘Get Back’, she hit play and handed the iPad back to March. He watched, listened, and then very soon went to find the volume button by himself and turned it down to mute. ‘Not quite the same magnetism, is there?’

‘Seemingly not. Well, I have letters to write, while you have calculations to make, so perhaps we should both be doing something far more productive than watching music videos.’

‘Yes, agreed. But just one quick question, if I may, before I start my calculations.’

‘Yes?’

‘What would be an approximate exchange value of the EdErg index against the pieces of Earth paper?’

‘You said a quick question, March!’ Goodness me. Look, every country here uses a different currency, or paper money, so the value varies widely, and on top of that, the values fluctuate by the minute, hour, day and month.’

‘That’s insane!’

‘From a Gloth perspective, yes, but here it is absolutely normal, because it is an easy way to make a quick profit, or loss, as the case may be. In other words, it’s institutionalised gambling on a country’s worth. The only moderately stable rate of exchange you could use, if it’s for your calculations, would probably be the price of gold, as gold has a relative value throughout the Twelve Sun Systems. Its value per ounce fluctuates here like money too, but far less than the numerous denominations of paper money, and I’m sure there is a weighted index on the EdErg index that relates to gold.’

‘So much for a quick question.’

*****

While Trys got to work on writing her letters in the study, March retired to his room to work on his calculations, hoping he could find a way to marginally increase exports from Earth, and in doing so achieve a modicum of a positive result, which he could report back to his father. He was also recalibrating his thoughts of a long stay on Earth, as from what he had seen in his first few days, there was little to excite him. He sipped his can of Coca-Cola, purely out of thirst rather than enjoyment, and suddenly pined for a Ranting Teensy, which was a very popular drink on Gloth, with young people in particular. Made from the mauve rubbery sap of the Dotsigh tree and tasting somewhat similar to heavily diluted Fozzoxly, its truly remarkable property was in delivering instant energy in seconds. So powerful in fact, that one small glass could keep one awake for four to five days.

Thinking about needing energy himself, he thought back to his conversation with Trys about how fundamentally archaic energy production and consumption was here on Earth. Throughout the rest of the Twelve Sun Systems, energy was in such infinite abundance that barely a thought was given to it. Whether it be either electromagnetic energy to operate devices or machinery, light to propel spacecraft, or sound waves attached to light to transmit instant communication, such as for voice, data, music or live video, all of these energy sources were naturally infinite, as these and many other energy sources filled the entire Universe.

A little dejected, with only the possibility of visiting the fabled Dodecahedron in Rome offering even a hint of excitement; and only a replica at that, he went back to his calculations, hoping to find a quick and dirty salmon solution, so he could end his mission as soon as possible.

After an hour of multiplying the maximum carrying capacity of the existing shuttles at one hundred and twenty kilograms of salmon and five kilograms of caviar, and then increasing the frequency of their flights to Earth from once per month to once per week, on top of factoring in a net price reduction of twenty percent, which he only hoped Prescott-Jones could deliver under his plan, the equation he arrived at would only arrest the current slide in Earth profit from eleven percent, year on year, to a better, but still unsatisfactory three percent slide. If the increase in frequency of shuttle flights allowed for more Glothic armament sales to be delivered to Earth, then the equation narrowed to a little under break even. A result, which may please his father a little, but would certainly not fund the astronomical expense of new entry ports in the force field, and without them, there would never be a hope of increasing trade between Earth and Gloth by a sufficient amount that would begin to offset the millions of years of accumulated Erdean and Earth losses.