Nick swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said, “I see that now. How silly of me.”
“Me too,” Con mumbled. “Won’t be doing anything like this again ma hurry, you can bet your life.”
Jane glowered at them. “Actually,” she said, “you’re closer to the truth there than you think. Stay there.”
She swept out, and came back a few seconds later with two tomato ketchup bottles and a saucepan. “It’s just as well,” she said, “that I was planning on making a bolognese anyway.”
She emptied the bottles into the saucepan, put them down on a coffee table, and snapped her fingers. “Right,” she commanded. “In you get.”
The two genies stared at each other.
“You can’t be…”
“You heard me. Come on, jump to it.”
Quickly, the two genies assessed their position. On the one hand, Jane had invoked no magic spell or charm sufficient to force them into the bottles. They didn’t have to go. They would be perfectly within their rights to stay exactly where they were and simply explain, calmly and rationally, exactly what they thought they were playing at.
WHOOSH!
Jane nodded and screwed down the lids. Then she put the bottles away in the kitchen cupboard and went back to bed.
NINE
Start a war.
Using hail, giant ants and burning pitch. Piece of cake.
The atmosphere was electric.
Around the packed arena, a hundred thousand spectators watched dry-mouthed as the synthesized fanfare sounded, the gates opened and — the teams appeared!
They had said it couldn’t happen, not in our lifetimes. The political, cultural and ideological gulf was too great, they said. They’d been wrong.
As the teams ran on to the field, one man sat back in his seat in the President’s box and swelled with pride like an overfed bullfrog. Rightly so; he had devoted the last three years of his life to making this moment possible. He had dreamed the impossible dream, and it had become a reality.
The first ever international sporting event between the pathologically hostile Latin American states of San Miguel and Las Monedas. The symbolic resolution of a feud that threatened the peace of the whole world. Here, in the Stadio Ricardo Nixon, San Miguel City, the differences of these two bitter rivals would be fought out, not with tanks and bombs but the click of heels, the swirl of petticoats, the snap of castanets. The great Tango Showdown between the San Miguel Tigers and the Las Monedas Centurions was about to begin.
Secretary General Kropatchek sighed with pure pleasure. One small two-step for a man, he reflected, a giant entrechat for Mankind.
The contestants lined up, magnificent in their gaudy splendour. Nervously, the orchestra tuned their instruments for the last time. One false note, they knew, could even now lead directly to Armageddon. The Master of Ceremonies took the field — just for today, he had dispensed with the curule chair and his customary robes, and was dressed in a simple purple tuxedo — and read a brief prayer before shouting, “Ariba!” and standing well back. The contest began.
In the clear blue sky, a small black speck appeared, too small to notice.
Accounts of what happened next vary, naturally. If you believe the San Miguel version, a Starfighter of the Las Monedas air force swooped down low over the arena, discharged a drop-tank of napalm on to the dead centre of the specially installed dance-floor, and roared away. The Las Monedians, of course, say that it was a San Miguel MiG that dropped the incendiary device. The truth will probably never be known. The truth, in circumstances like these, is generally irrelevant anyway.
What did matter was the sudden explosion of activity in the President’s box. As the flames roared up to the sky from the middle of the stadium, the delegates from the two countries flew at each others’ throats and started throwing punches, plates of vol-au-vents and souvenir programmes. Their aides, meanwhile, were yelling into their radio handsets, demanding punitive air strikes and massive retribution. Secretary General Kropatchek managed to escape to safety, but only by stunning a passing waiter, snatching his tray and edging out backwards handing out canapés.
Three hours later, just before hostilities could begin in earnest, a hasty cease-fire was lashed together: involving a three-mile neutral zone along the common frontier, a UN peacekeeping force and a unilateral ban on all forms of ballroom and flamenco dancing throughout the front line states. It held. Just.
Which pleased the human race no end but irritated Philly Nine, who had put a lot of thought and effort into the attack, and had quite reasonably expected a result. Back to the drawing board.
High in his solitary eyrie, he watched the tanks withdraw, clicked his tongue, and took out his crumpled envelope.
He ran his pen down the margin and drew a cross.
x Burning pitch
Ah well, he muttered to himself. Better luck next time.
One small random particle, working its way steadily towards the centre…
“That signpost,” said Asaf, with deadly patience, “says Ankara, 15km.”
The Dragon King lifted his sunglasses and squinted. “Too right, mate,” he said. “Well, stuff me for a kookaburra’s uncle.”
Asaf breathed out slowly through his nose. “I may yet,” he replied. “Admit it,” he went on. “We’re on the wrong road.”
The King looked out of the window. “Hell,” he said, “it all looks different from down here. I’m used to the aerial view.”
Asaf snarled, put the camper into reverse and started to backup. The King put a hand on his arm.
“Just a second there, mate,” he said. “While we’re here, we might just as well…”
He tailed off. Asaf scowled.
“We aren’t lost, are we?” he said accusingly. “You’ve lured me out here for another of your goddamn poxy adventures. Admit it.”
“Fair dinkum, mate, you’ll like this one. Stand on me.”
Asaf stamped on the accelerator, sending the camper hurtling backwards. “Oh no, you bloody well don’t,” he snapped. “Not after the last time.”
“Yes, but—”
“And the time before that.”
“Hang on just a—”
“And the time before that, with the talking shrub. I nearly died of embarrassment.”
The King shut his eyes, took a deep breath and stalled the engine. Or rather, he caused the engine to stall. Then he tried his best at an ingratiating smile.
“Adventure,” he said weakly, “is the spice of life.”
“Get out.”
“Pardon me?”
“Get out of my van,” Asaf growled. “And you can bloody well walk home.”
“You haven’t seen the adventure yet.”
Just then, at precisely the moment when Asaf was leaning across to work the passenger-door handle, a beautiful white gazelle sprang out in front of the camper, stopped dead in its tracks, raised its head for an instant and then ran on. Asaf stared.
“Is that the adventure?” he said.
The King drew breath to explain, thought better of it and nodded.
“You see?” he said. “Told you you’d like it.”
Asaf frowned. “I must be mad,” he muttered. “Stark staring—”
“She’ll be right, mate. Trust me.”
Still muttering, Asaf climbed slowly out of the camper, shut the door and walked slowly towards the gazelle, which had stopped about seventy-five yards away and was feeding peacefully on a discarded cheese roll. He had covered half the distance when — WHOOSH!
It seemed as if the ground split open at his feet, as a huge apparition reared up and loomed over him. Generally humanoid in form, it had three heads, five arms and the legs of a wild goat. Out of the corners of its mouths projected weird curling tusks, and in its hands it held a variety of archaic but imagination-curdling weapons. It crouched in a fighting pose and said, “Ha!”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” said Asaf, disgustedly. “Not you again.”