Part 21 (2/2)

'I suppose that might work,' said Buff, mollified. 'Or maybe we could import aliens who actually enjoy labouring in the sun. They could pay us. You could look it up on your Hitchhiker Hitchhiker book.' book.'

'I will do that, as soon as we send these jokers packing.'

Hillman looked around John Wayne Square and wondered how things had gone wrong so quickly. Six months ago this plaza had been a stunning centrepiece for their new society and now there were weeds sprouting through the flagstones and strange blue bugs eating holes in the gla.s.s.

We need a G.o.d. And fast.

Buckeye Brown cleared his throat. 'How do we even know the Tyromancers will mount an offensive today today?'

Buff addressed that one, happy to have solid information to relay. He spread his legs, bouncing slightly on the b.a.l.l.s of his heels as though he were about to heft a barbell. 'It's the only day they can come. Monday through Wednesday is cheese-making. Friday is the actual reading of the cheese. Sat.u.r.day and Sunday are for contemplation of the message in the cheese. Thursday is the only day when secular activities are permitted.'

'And we know this how?'

'Oh, Aseed subbed over a mail. In case any of us want to join up. Nice presentation, I have to say. A lot of floating cheese icons. Apparently, if we don't join up, then we bring Ed.a.m.nation on the entire planet.'

Hillman's jaw flapped for a moment, then: 'Ed.a.m.nation? You're not serious.'

Buff grinned. 'Serious as a dry well, Hillman.' He pulled a crumpled missal from his pocket. 'Ah... here it is: ”The day of Ed.a.m.nation shall be visited upon the non-believers in a huge and terrifying form, possibly cheese-related, but any huge and terrifying form can be understood to have emanated from the Cheese.”'

Hillman was getting pretty cheesed-off with the word 'cheese'. 'Huge and terrifying, bejaysus. Who writes this junk?'

'Aseed does. The First Gospel of Tyromancy, he's calling it.'

'That jumped-up little ginger fartbollix,' swore Hillman. 'Who does he think he is?'

This question brought forth a determined round of not answering from the a.s.sembled troops, as Aseed was pretty much identical to Hillman, apart from some styling and sartorial issues. And it appeared that Hillman was the only one who didn't recognize this.

Luckily they were spared any embarra.s.sment as Buff's phone jingled in his pocket.

'Oh, my phone. What a pity I was just going to answer that question about who Aseed thinks he is, but now my phone is ringing so I better answer that and not actually answer the question. A real shame.'

He fumbled the cell phone from his pocket and slid it open. 'Yeah? You sure? Okay. We're on the way.' Buff closed his phone then held it aloft with great melodrama. 'The Tyromancers approach.'

'What? Really? Who was that?'

'It was Silkie. She's on lookout from the coffee shop in Book Barn.'

Book Barn was the mall's highest building, with a gla.s.s-walled coffee shop on the third floor. From there, a lookout could keep an eye on the main road while browsing the latest releases. Silkie Bantam usually volunteered for the lookout's job because she was an avid horror book fan and could get through a few ghoulish chapters while she watched.

'How did she sound?'

'p.i.s.sed off. She had to make her own coffee.'

Hillman felt everything slipping away from him. The Book Barn people too The Book Barn people too. This Tyromancer squabble had to end today.

'Righto, me laddies,' he said, stamping a foot to pump himself up. 'How are we for weapons?'

This was Buff's domain. He'd been quite the Kirk Douglas fan back on Earth and so had been put in charge of the weaponry.

'Not too bad,' he said, leading the ragtag brigade to the foot of the plaza's Sean the Boxer statue. Their tools of battle were laid out on the plinth.

'It's mostly gardening stuff,' admitted Buff. 'This strimmer has nice weight to it and could give a person a nasty cut. We have a couple of rakes for poking and tripping, that kind of thing. I myself provided this nine iron not my premium club, obviously, but it's got a good swing. Pretty dangerous, in the right hands.'

Even though he himself had signed the agreement forbidding the transport of actual mechanical weapons from Earth, Hillman had hoped for a slightly more robust a.r.s.enal.

'This is great!' he said with hollow enthusiasm. 'Let's show these f.e.c.kers how the men of Cong can fight.' He selected the strimmer and was about to press the starter b.u.t.ton when Buff tapped his elbow.

'Better hold off on that until we need it. The charge is pretty low.'

'I see.'

'Usually Jose does all that, but he ran off with one of your maids.'

'Right. Fine. Well, we can work with what we have.'

They strolled in a loose group towards the main gate. The compound had been designed along the lines of the original Innisfree, with a mall added in on the far side of the lagoon. There were pootle-tink birds standing in the shallow waters, some reading but most working on their tans and bemoaning the fact that a bird's drive disappeared so quickly when someone handed it a lovely crocogator-free lagoon.

Guide Note: The pootle-tink birds have long been victims of their own attractiveness, that and relentless inbreeding. The pootle-tinks were, for centuries, respected throughout the Galaxy as weavers of fine feather tapestries, until a certain Galactic Council trade amba.s.sador proclaimed their plumage to be exquisitely beautiful and a must for all fas.h.i.+onable lagoons. This effectively spelled the end for the pootle-tink way of life as the culture vultures moved in and began to aggressively breed and cull the pootle-tinks in the quest for the perfect plumage, which could then be s.h.i.+pped across the Galaxy to brighten some diplomat's water feature. The pootle-tinks did not put up much of a fight as they are vain creatures who enjoy being stared at. Culture vultures, on the other hand, do not have a narcissistic feather in their wings and like to pa.s.s the time s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g over other species then spending their profits on booze and sugary desserts. 'We are like opposite ends of the same spectrum,' a culture vulture once remarked to a pootle-tink, to which the pootle-tink replied: 'Yes, so long as one end of the spectrum is made of c.r.a.p and that's the end you're at.'

'I have a thesis due in two months,' one pootle-tink lisped to a friend. 'And I haven't even started my research.'

Another spotted Buff on the bridge. 'Hey, hey, Buffy. How's the swing coming?'

'Not bad, Perko. Not too bad at all. You finished writing that book yet?'

Perko rolled his eyes. 'It's all in my head, Buff. I just need to park my backside on a chair and start typing, you know what I mean?'

'I know exactly what you mean,' said Buff, who had no idea what the bird was talking about, but was in a mood for positive statements.

The fighting men of Cong followed Hillman across the asphalt to the main gate, which their leader was forced to crank open with a winch.

'One of us should have learned the gate code,' huffed Hillman as he laboured. 'This is ridiculous. The Magratheans have subbed over the back-up codes, but there are hundreds of them. Electronic gates, cash registers, Sub-Etha vision. Nothing works without the codes.'

Once the gate was open enough to slip through, the men stood at the checkpoint and gazed across the fuzzy humps of purple gra.s.s to the tropical forest that divided the two compounds. The tree branches criss-crossed densely and hung heavy with fruit and wildlife, apart from a half-elliptic cylinder-shaped tunnel that had been laser bored through to the other side.

Hillman took out his phone and zoomed in on the tunnel mouth.

'I see the misguided f.e.c.kers,' he snorted. 'Coming over on golf carts. Jaysus, it's hardly the Light Brigade now, is it?'

The a.s.sembled band laughed heartily as they had seen warriors doing in war movies, then used their phones to zoom in on the approaching convoy.

'I count ten,' said Buckeye, who had the most expensive phone with the best lens. 'There are only eight of us.'

'Yes, but we're on top of a hill,' countered Hillman.

'So?'

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