There was a moment’s silence. Then Her Excellency said, “Ms. Sue-Ellen Harrison spoke most highly of you, Em. She was full of praise for your abilities and your deep commitment to interplanetary peace.”
“For which a healthy mind and a healthy body are the number one prerequisites,” Ned said with enthusiasm.
There was another silence. It was clear that Her Excellency was having trouble making the connection. I was having trouble with it myself. She said, “Won’t you please sit down.”
We did.
“Use it or lose it, is my motto,” Ned said. “Crook gizzards, fuddled brain, planetary peace down the drain. Snappy innards, noggin clear, planetary peace—no small beer!” Ned then looked modestly at his own feet. “I’m a bit of a poet myself,” he said quietly. “I feel that the deepest, truest thoughts are best expressed in rhyme.”
I was gripped by a sudden surge of panic. Just what game did Ned think he was playing? Ulrike Lewis might be a bit ancient, a bit past it, but she was a Living Treasure; she had enormous moral standing. The last thing we needed was for bloody Ned to start taking a piss. I was about to say something mollifying. But Her Excellency got in first.
“One of the traps of rhyming poetry is the tendency to allow the rhyme scheme to dictate the sense of the poem.”
“What?” Ned said.
“Why did you finish your poem with the phrase, ‘no small beer’?”
“It seemed to fit.”
“Exactly, young fellow. It seemed to fit, but it doesn’t.”
“Why doesn’t it?”
“Because you only used it to get a rhyme with ‘clear’.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate the clear importance of galactic harmony,” Ned said. “The harmony of the galaxies is the harmony of the spheres, and I’ll drink to that in no small beers.” And then, after a short pause, Ned added, “Cheers!”
This was madness. Ned knew nothing of poetry. The doggerel he was spouting couldn’t fool Her Excellency for a minute.
Or could it? I suddenly saw Ulrike Lewis through Ned’s eyes. Ned thought she was a mad old crone, and you could see why she might appear that way to him. He hadn’t been brought up on her poetry, he had never won a prize at school—an Ulrike Lewis Medallion for Poetic Excellence. Not that I’d ever won one myself, but I’d always entered the annual competition.
I brought my attention back to the conversation. Ned had returned to the subject of gizzards.
“Only the gizzard wizard snouts it out, only the wizard is wise to the tripe, only his nose knows no wipe.”
“Alas, young man,” Her Excellency said, “you must forgive me if I do not respond immediately to the sense of your verse. I suspect there are cultural referents embedded in it which are known only to native Earthlings, and perhaps to those like Em here who have had first-hand experience of your civilization. What, for instance, is a ‘gizzard wizard’?”
“I am a gizzard wizard,” Ned said modestly. “It is my humble calling. I go amongst the people snouting it out.”
“Snouting what out?”
“Disease, decay, inner putrefaction, impurities of all stamps, rot, snot, even sometimes moral contagion. Although, I try to limit my activities to those items of decay that are consistent with organ replacement therapy. There is no organ that codes for moral contagion. You can’t replace it.”
“Ah, yes,” Her Excellency said, having finally understood a single phrase. “Organ replacement therapy. Something we Newharpians are very good at.”
“Indeed you are,” Ned said with feeling. “We Earthlings are deeply in your debt when it comes to the actual growing and replacement of organs. Pity about the diagnostics.”
“Diagnostics?”
“Scanners, medical imaging technology, pathology procedures, x-rays, y-rays, z-rays, stingrays, computer-assisted ultrasound tomography, litmus paper, all that sort of crap. By the time the diseased organ starts showing up on those babies, it’s usually too late. As I say, a pity.”
“Our diagnostic procedures are state-of-the-art.”
“Sure are, but the art is in a state of Stone Age decrepitude. Lassitude. Vicissitude. It’s lamentable. Lamentable, I tell you.”
“And you have a better way.…”
“Wizard gizzardry. Gizzard wizardry. Blizzard drizzardry. The secrets of the Ancients.”
“The Ancients…?”
“Old buggers. Old as sin. Knew a thing or two. They knew how to sniff out decay. A single putrefying molecule of decay. That’s all it took. One of those little putrifiers up the nose of an Ancient, bang! The guy was onto it, quick as a flash.”
“And you have this facility yourself?”
“Years of study. Arcane tomes. Runes.”
“I trust you don’t find much to sniff out on The Delegate. We run a very healthy ship.”
“Meatus.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Meatus.”
“What about meatus?”
“Your Excellency has a meatus problem.”
“I don’t think so, young man.”
“The number of times I’ve heard that response.…”
“I’m sure my own personal physician.…”
“Denial.”
“What about denial?”
“It’s natural. Don’t worry about it. Everybody goes into denial at first. They call in their own personal physician. The physician calls in one of the scanner guys. The scanner guy can’t find anything—of course he can’t, his instruments are a thousand times cruder than a gizzard wizard’s hooter. But he tells the victim what he or she wants to hear: you’re in the clear, there’s nothing wrong with you, don’t do anything, relax, have a good time.… And all the while the rot is setting in, establishing itself, making itself at home.”
“I’m sure that.…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ned said quietly, “of course you’re sure. And I’m sure you’re right. Forget I said anything about your meatus. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe…. Let’s talk of more interesting things. Now, about me and Em being Ambassadors of Yoof.…”
* * * *
And we did. We talked for the best part of an hour about the ceremonies and speeches and appearances at joint sittings of both houses of parliament that we would take part in once we arrived at Skyros. Ned made
