Foul Ball

  ‘You did play your part real sweet.’

  ‘Cow, does Proton really want to kill me?’

  ‘Hey, Cormack! Negus!’ Proton was calling at him, across the glade. ‘One down! Two to go!’ He was holding two fingers up in the air and grinning hugely. ‘Ready for the next one? You betcha!’

  ‘What is the next one, as matter of interest?’ said Cormack quietly to the cow.

  ‘Ordeal by Ingestion,’ said the cow.

  ‘Ordeal by what?’ said Cormack.

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  ‘They’re going to win again, aren’t they?’ said the Emperor.

  ‘It seems so,’ said the hive-mind.

  ‘I’ve got to chop the head off that big insect thing?’

  ‘The one in the yellow jersey with the striped thorax and the wings like filigree.’

  ‘He will crunch like a cornflake and then drip on me.’

  ‘Most unfortunate.’

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  ‘Well, the Shamanic Throat has been consulted and we’re good to go,’ said Bernard. ‘Seems I was worrying over nothing with the whole lack of barrel issue. I think, in fact, we’ve established a rather pleasing precedent.’

  ‘Jolly good,’ said Cormack.

  ‘Ordeal by Ingestion today. Looking forward to it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Probably wise. Here’s the form. Your legs will be chained and we will attach a long rope to them. Then we’re going to pull the rope up through a pulley so that you will be hauled within the branches of the Fractious Jub-Jub tree over there. You will be hanging upside down. You will need to take this penknife and make a small scar in the bark of the tree. I stress the word, small. The sap within the tree will begin to flow almost immediately. You must drink it. It is milky in colour and, as you would probably guess, tastes extremely foul, but it’s quite harmless when it is mixed with saliva. If you drink it immediately, it poses no danger and you will safely digest it. I believe it has a mild laxative effect, but that is nothing to worry about. If you don’t drink it, and allow it to drip, however, it will set and form a paste – a paste that has remarkable incendiary properties. It will catch fire at once and then explode, destroying the tree, the vegetation around it and, of course, you in it. As I have said, once you have made the incision with the penknife, it will be flowing quite freely so you must drink it all down, just so. Now, the statistic that I hear most often quoted is that a standard Fractious Jub-Jub tree contains twenty-seven gallons of sap…’

  ‘Twenty-seven gallons?’ said Cormack.

  ‘Be careful you drink it all. We will set two dogs at the foot of the tree to keep watch over you throughout the night and will return in the morning. Is everything quite understood?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cormack.

  ‘Then we will begin.’

  The Sibyl chained Cormack legs carefully, and he was raised in the Fractious Jub-Jub tree. It was a monstrous thing - its trunk alone must have been twenty feet in diameter - minutely corrugated and hung with creepers and vines.

  ‘Native to a ghastly little planet in Sector Seven,’ said Bernard. ‘Crumpton or something. Introduced to Foul Ball three hundred years ago, seeded by the Shamanic Throat himself.’

  ‘Are you set, Cormack?’ said Proton.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Cormack when he was hanging upside down.

  ‘Make the incision.’

  ‘What if I don’t?’

  ‘Fine by me,’ said the Sibyl.

  ‘Cormack, make the damn incision, will you?’ said Proton, fingering the laser gun round his belt.

  ‘I can’t drink twenty-seven gallons, Proton.’

  ‘Remember Pranzi, Cormack. Remember that she died that you might live. Don’t let her sacrifice be in vain. Don’t ever let that happen.’

  Cormack looked at Proton hard and Proton looked back harder.

  ‘You probably, won’t have to drink it all. Bernard here is a reasonable man.’

  ‘Well, actually, he most definitely will have to drink it all because otherwise…,’ began Bernard, but had to stop because Proton had accidentally kicked him.

  Cormack reviewed his options and felt them limited to either cutting at the tree or being shot to death by Proton, so, reluctantly, he began to cut at the tree with the penknife.

  ‘Good boy,’ said Proton.

  The Sibyl was peering through a pair of binoculars from a safe distance.

  ‘The sap is flowing. I have confirmed it. Very good. Throw down the penknife. Thank you. Now make sure you drink the sap.’ Cormack put his lips to the incision as though he were kissing it. ‘That’s it. Suck it down.’

  The Sibyl turned to Proton and said, ‘Jolly good. I think we’re set.’

  ‘Yes. He’s going at it hard.’

  Cormack’s face was ashen.

  ‘Always a bit reluctant to leave them here like this. Inevitably what one finds of them in the morning is rather distressing.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Cormack. He’s the real deal.’

  ‘I think we should withdraw to a distance. It can be a little off-putting for the Candidates when they are closely observed.’

  The dogs were set, and Proton and the Sibyl watched Cormack quiet in the canopy for a while before heading back to the glade. Night was falling.

  ‘We will know when he’s done,’ said the Sibyl as they walked away. ‘A whole section of the forest will get torched and it’ll light up like a funeral pyre. Should be able to see it from the glade.’

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Later Cormack heard, ‘Psssst!’ from high in the branches.

  He looked up, but was unable to speak because his lips were locked to the tree. So he blinked at Stanton Bosch in acknowledgement.

  ‘I did swing across them there treetops to be with you, see. As me and the cow told you we planned it. Now, you’ve been here an hour, I reckon. Your belly must be getting quite full.’

  Cormack nodded his head as best he could.

  ‘So you move across there and let me suck on this here tree awhile.’

  Stanton Bosch swung down to be close by Cormack and settled himself on a nearby branch. Then he hooked his feet around a couple of twiggy knobs and fell forward so that he was hanging down right by him.

  The effect on Cormack, who was only swallowing the horrible tasting Jub-Jub sap with extreme difficulty and now had Stanton Bosch so close that he could feel the man’s whiskers on his cheek, was overwhelming, and it was almost beyond his powers to stop himself from falling to the forest floor in a wave of nausea.

  The Bosch moved closer to him, and grabbed at his head, pulled it towards him, and frenched him hard above the incision. Suction was thus transferred and Cormack was freed.

  Now Cormack could talk and it was Stanton Bosch who had to remain silent.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, barely suppressing the urge to vomit.

  The Bosch nodded.

  ‘Let me know when you want me back there.’

  He raised a hand as if to silence him.

  Cormack took the hint and hauled himself up the rope so he could sit on a branch to watch the night out. He found a perch in a higher branch and found he was able to lean back using the trunk of the tree for support. It was actually quite comfortable.

  Stanton Bosch was a way below, obscured by the foliage.

  Soon Cormack had closed his eyes, and the gentle rocking of the tree as it was caressed by the zephyrs that blew in from the glade, together with the sound of the gentle rustling of leaves all around him, lulled him to a troubled sleep.

  After many hours, when it was still dark but it was apparent that dawn was imminent because the birds were awake and were twittering loudly, Cormack awoke with a start and, after a brief moment of existential terror, remembered where he was and why he was there, and the terror became more focused and less existential, and he orientated himself and climbed quickly down the rope.

  Da
ngling from the rope, level with where he had left him hours before, Cormack searched the darkness for signs of Stanton Bosch.

  At first, he could make out nothing except strange dark shapes. He swung sideways to grab at a branch closer to the trunk. Then he gave a gasp. He could see something vast and globular, like a huge goitre, hanging from the tree.

  He moved closer, pulling himself along the branches, until he could make it out much better.

  The thing had the face of Stanton Bosch, tranquil like a sleeping cherub in a frieze by Michelangelo, and the whiskered lips of Stanton Bosch, that were still pressed hard to where he had made the incision, and perhaps it was even Stanton Bosch’s scaly neck, strained and veined like a tobacco leaf - but what lay below, where Stanton Bosch’s body should be, did not look Bosch-like at all.

  It was an enormous bolus of bloated lard, so white it was casting an ambient glow supplementary to the damp moonlight. Tattered shreds of what might have formerly been lederhosen flapped around it like the unaccomplished clothing of a hula-hula girl.

  Cormack studied it a while.

  The giant ball tapered to tiny hairy strands that might be legs, hanging like mooring ropes off a dirigible, and from far below on the forest floor came a terrible smell, and evidence of massive eruptions - heaps of processed pus lay in giant steaming pools. The two dogs the Sibyl had tied to the base of the tree were flat on their backs, quite dead.

  Stanton Bosch, sensing Cormack’s presence, gave him the thumbs up and indicated he should come over.

  Cormack, with extreme reluctance, moved towards him, and the Bosch made further motions with his hand that seemed to indicate that Cormack should move his head alongside his. He winked at him, and abruptly withdrew his lips from the incision. Then he grabbed at Cormack’s head, and shoved his mouth over the hole. Cormack, his eyes tight shut, felt the pus bleeding into his mouth. He was too terrified to move.

  He could feel the tree rocking violently and creaking, and waves of vicious stench passed over and around him, and he was close to passing out, but, with an effort of will, he forced himself to hold tight to the tree.

  ***

  Chapter Forty

  When, at last, he opened his eyes, Stanton Bosch had gone, and he could hear footsteps in the forest, and the sounds of twigs snapping, and conversation.

  It was Proton and the Sibyl, returning to look at him.

  Proton was very excited, the Sibyl, cooler.

  ‘Of course, the absence of a conflagration is a good sign but it does not mean he has necessarily survived,’ said the Sibyl.

  Proton was running now, staring up at the Fractious Jub-Jub tree and scouring the canopy.

  ‘What is that smell?’ he cried as he ran.

  ‘My advice would be to keep from round the Fractious Jub-Jub tree,’ said Bernard, who was struggling to keep up. ‘Oh well, the dogs are dead…’

  ‘Cormack! Cormack!’ shouted Proton.

  ‘If the Candidate were still alive, he would be well advised not to answer you,’ puffed Bernard.

  ‘Oh yes! Sorry! Cormack! Don’t answer me, mate! Don’t answer…I think I see him! Up there!’

  ‘Yes, it is the Candidate. Remarkable.’

  ‘Breathing, I think.’

  ‘Sucking indeed. He looks very well.’

  ‘What is all that crap?’ said Proton, almost stepping in the beginnings of the steaming pile.

  ‘Fallen from the Candidate…’

  ‘Cormack, mate, hang on in there!’ Proton turned to the Sibyl. ‘How much longer?’

  ‘I should think another five minutes. Observe the colour of the leaves. The sap is almost drained.’

  ‘Cormack! I knew you would do it! Five minutes, Cormack! Just keep sucking!’

  The Sibyl had to manhandle Proton to a safer distance and they watched from the other side of the glade. Proton was almost beside himself with agitation.

  At last, the Sibyl, consulting his watch, stepped forward and made his way delicately to the trunk. He cut a small incision, sealing it with a kind of waxy balm he produced from a jar inside his caftan.

  ‘It is done,’ he announced. ‘The tree is drained. We must lower the Candidate.’

  Proton grabbed at the rope and cut it with a knife so that it whizzed upwards under Cormack’s weight, until Proton got a good hold and lowered him gently to the ground.

  Cormack lay motionless.

  ‘Speak to me, Cormack! Speak to me!’

  Cormack gave a small groan.

  ‘Give the boy some air,’ wailed Proton.

  Slowly Cormack came round and was able to moan horribly.

  ‘Cormack, Cormack, mate, you’re going to be all right.’ Proton was sobbing. ‘You’re going to be all right, my boy. You did it!’ He hugged him, in spite of the horrible smell coming off him.

  The Sibyl was touched by the display of manly affection.

  ‘You did it,’ Proton sobbed. ‘You bloody did it… You mad dog of a Negus.’

  ***

  Chapter Forty One

  It was the day of the final and Mrs. Bellingham was agitated.

  So was the Emperor. His jodhpurs weren’t pressed and he was going to have to wear the hive-mind on his head within a customized swimming cap. The Zargonic captain had been dismissed on the Emperor’s orders and the Emperor had assumed the captaincy of the team. The hive-mind wasn’t sure about it.

  ‘Perhaps, Sire, it would be more fun to watch from the top of the Circus?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t.’

  ‘Bellingham may look like a galumphing hoo-hah but she is extremely dangerous.’

  ‘I want her duct, hive-mind.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  ‘And I want to have a proper game of polo for once in my life.’

  ‘What are going to do if you lose?’

  ‘We cannot lose. They are feckless. It is only the luck of the spandrill that has carried them this far. Let us play hard and play fair and I will have her. I want to play, hive-mind.’

  When the Emperor had made up his mind, he could not be dissuaded.

  The crowds began filling the Circus early and the game was to be carried live on the uniSwarm.

  Word had leaked out that the Emperor was to play and, instead of increasing interest as might have been expected, it had killed it, because the general feeling was that the game was now to be fixed and played by Imperial Decree, and that the Zargons, who might conceivably have lost under normal circumstances, would now have to win. The bloody execution of Mrs. Bellingham, not something that most sane individuals wished to witness, was now inevitable. Most things to do with the Emperor were unpopular and this time the disgust was overwhelming - the stands were only filled because the tickets had already been sold.

  At the appointed hour, which happened to be two o’clock local time, the captains - Mrs. Bellingham, splendid in gleaming riding boots and brandishing a dinky little whip in the hand that didn’t hold her mallet, reinvigorated by the inevitability of her death today, and ready to play up and play the game and sod the consequences because they would follow whatever, and the Emperor, a nervous little parcel of anger and frustration, bald and armoured, stomping like a clockwork soldier to the half-way mark - stood together for the toss.

  It was the first time Mrs. Bellingham had seen him so close.

  What a remarkable little fellow he is, she thought. Sleek and globby, but ghoulish at the same time, with that little box he carries everywhere such an inconvenience. The cable so tortuously inserted down his throat. Remarkable how something so ordinary and painful to look at, pitiable even, can wield such extraordinary powers.

  She didn’t bother to blow him up there and then because the ratings would be better at the end of the match.

  Propitiously, the Emperor called the toss, so the referee didn’t need to engineer a fix, and he chose his half. Mrs. Bellingham had been given a new polo pony, not that she cared. It was fabulously skinny and she was feign to mount it before the first whistle in case
it collapsed, so whilst the other players took the anthems on their horses, she, defying protocol, stood and fed it grass from the pitch.

  The Zargonic team was also having a hard time with protocol. They were intent on deferring to the Emperor and the Emperor seemed intent on ignoring them, perhaps imagining he was still on the simulator. They carefully took up their usual positions, all the while watching him for signals as to where he wanted them, but he remained quite motionless and silent as though he were in a trance.

  The referee watched him too, fearful for his life, frightened the Emperor might kill him if he made any poor decisions. He waited for a signal that he might blow the whistle and start, but the Emperor remained inscrutable, his eyes scrunched up as if he were staring at the sun, his mind elsewhere, and there was nothing for it but to go ahead and blow the whistle and the game began.

  The spandrill was thrown high in the air and, on hitting the ground, immediately erupted from its bag and tore off down the pitch into the Zargonic half.

  Bellingham, sensing another stitch up, geed on her pony and, bending at the knees, it lumbered forward, but too slowly because the Emperor had the spandrill and thwacked it repeatedly up the pitch in a great barrage.

  The crowd roared encouragingly. He was really very good. He had an intense, focused expression on his face, and the crowd responded to his enthusiasm. Perhaps they would have a match after all.

  The Imperial Progression up the pitch continued unopposed because the Cramptonians moved out of his way, not wanting to be the first to tackle him. It was left to Frantic to rush from the left wing. He got himself in position between the goal and the Emperor and walloped at his pony, scaring the spandrill from its path. The Emperor was visibly infuriated, but, contrary to the crowd’s expectations, didn’t call for a foul and rushed back to his position. Thus they knew the game was on, because by his actions the Emperor had shown that he was willing to play it fair and see it through to its proper end.

  The first half proceeded in a tense and close-fought manner with neither side getting sufficiently forward to really challenge the other. It was nil-nil at half-time.