rokenly, "Lik had some and I didn't. I'm all hot and frustrated and I think I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I'm lying here next to him and I ACHE!" "Oh, dear," said Pratia in quick sympathy. "By all means, go ahead: I couldn't live with myself if I tortured children." Asa moaned her thanks. Lik popped up and looked down into my face. "I also feel deprived. I didn't get a chance to give him a nice kiss." I turned my head away from her. "Oh, come now, Monte Pennwell," said Lik. "Certainly a kiss never hurt anyone, especially from a girl who prides herself on being chaste." Pratia grinned expectantly and sat forward in her chair. I turned my head back, offering my cheek. Pratia was beginning to pant. My eyes went round! Asa's groan filled the room. Pratia's needle and hoops were crushed between her quivering hands. Lik gave me a gentle pat upon the cheek. "Now, you see?" she said, "It didn't hurt a bit. You are a good boy, Monte." "Oh, he is that," said Asa, panting. "Gran-gran, can't we hear this story another time?" said Lik. "No, no!" I said. "Please, please. What happened on the island?" Pratia blinked her eyes a few times and then got back to putting her needle through hoops once more. She sighed. "So we got passed by Planetary Defense and we landed on the island. "You never saw such a peaceful scene. The flowers were blooming and beautiful, the air was very soft. The palace steps were burnished, the paths were swept. And here and there in the little nooks, catamites were making love to each other. "They hadn't even noticed that we landed! Thinking it was because we were at the palace back door and that no one had spotted the ambulance-since Prahd had driven quietly-we rushed in through the palace. "We rushed up a stairs and down a hall. "Five officers were sitting there outside Queen Teenie's bedchamber. Their senior saw us and held up his hand. He frowned. " 'No, no' he said, 'you can't go in. We're just now changing the guard.' "There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the door. It opened and five officers marched out adjusting their clothes. "The senior in the corridor saluted the senior coming out. He said, 'We are here to relieve you, sir. Is there anything we should know?' "The officer who had been in charge of the watch finished buttoning his tunic. 'It's warmer than usual. My advice is to advance to the attack at once.' "Before the relieving officer could answer, Prahd swept him aside and we rushed into the room. "Teenie was lying on her bed. Five years hadn't changed her much and she still wore her ponytail. A beautiful smile was n her mouth and she was stretching lazily. Then she saw us! "She leaped up and rushed over. She was in total alarm! "'You're from the mainland!' she cried. 'What's wrong? You're in doctor's clothes. Is somebody sick?' "We showed her the message and she blew up. She swore for a full two minutes without stopping. Then she went into action. "She got on some clothes-something they call a bikini top-and she grabbed a piece of chain and she assembled five real guards. We got into the ambulance and at her direction went roaring down to the south end of the island. "Apparently Madison and a gang he'd had lived in a village there, miles and miles from the palace and on the edge of.a cliff. It was very picturesque; the houses had thatched roofs and tile floors. We stopped in front of the biggest one: it had a sign on it that said Press Office, but it was where Madison lived. "A woman came out whose name, I gathered, was Flip. She tried to kneel but Teenie went right by her. "Madison was lying on the bed. Teenie threw the message at him. He looked at it and then at her. He tried to get up! "WHAM! She hit him with the chain and knocked him right back in bed! " 'You son of a (bleepch),' she screamed at him. 'Are you trying to get us evacuated out of here?' And she hit him again. Then she started hitting the furniture and she nearly wrecked the place! "The woman Flip was wailing at Prahd and it was an awful row. "And you know what the plague was? Madisorf had a cold! "When the scene calmed down a little, Prahd, as long as he was there, examined him. 'The cold,' he said, 'is just an allergy. You're allergic to something here.' "And Madison said, talking in a whisper to Prahd, 'I'm allergic to no headlines.' "Teenie heard him and sailed in again. 'That's all you ever talk about, you (bleepard)! I'll give you a headline!' and she hit him across the skull with the chain, slashing it open. "That seemed to satisfy Teenie and she went outside and started lambasting some of Madison's crew for letting Madison make trouble. "Madison broke down and wept. 'All my genius is gone,' he said. 'Ever since I began to sleep with Flip, I am deserted by real ideas. I started to PR the governor and almost got him executed and then Teenie found out and put me in a dungeon for three awful weeks. I'm a failure. I can't even get a minor revolt going! She won't even let me start up a paper!' "Well, Prahd sewed up his head and consoled him and he even gave him some gas he could sniff so he wouldn't be so impotent with Flip and that was the end of the plague. "But you know Prahd. Or maybe you don't. But he can always find something wrong with people's cells. Here we were with an ambulance chock-full of medical supplies and an estimated week to handle a plague and no plague to handle. But there were five thousand people or maybe six with warts and such and their staff doctor was nowhere near as good as Prahd, so they started going through the villages shaping people up. "They didn't need my help so I moved in with Teenie and we had a great old time gossiping. I was younger then, you know, and I really enjoyed myself. "I'd lie on one bed and Teenie would lie on the other and we talked and talked about everything under the sun, moon and stars." Pratia let out a deep sigh of fond nostalgia. "Ooooh! Those officers!" "Wait a minute," I said, propping myself up between the two girls, "Didn't Prahd get jealous?" "Prahd? Oh, Monte, you are so naive. Prahd has never touched me. He's a cellologist and it's against his professional ethics to (bleep) his patients. And I've been a patient of his for ages!" "But all your children have green eyes and straw hair," I protested. "I know from the record that your first child by Gris had green eyes and straw hair…" "And so did the second," said Pratia. "Oh, I see. You didn't know that I conceived on my nuptial night at the Royal prison." She smiled in fond memory. "What a night! And two months later, there t was, pregnant. Wonderful." Asa murmured, "Go on and finish telling him the story, Gran-gran. I always love to hear it." Lik was playing with the hair on my chest, "Yes, go ahead, Gran-gran. You're just getting to the good part." "Oh, yes," said Pratia. "Well, anyway, I suddenly noticed I was using up my quota of officers much, much faster than Teenie. I have always been a believer in conservation, so one night when we took a break for dinner, I asked her what that was all about. "And she said, 'It's spots.' "And I said, 'What spots?' "And she said, 'The spots you touch.' "And I said, 'Well, I never! Tell me more!'' "Now, it seems she'd been trained by somebody called Hong Kong whore, some professor at some high institute of learning, and she could make her body do the wildest things internally and she knew all the nerves in somebody else's body and all the spots to touch. She showed me and it was absolutely marvelous! I'd never heard of such a thing. "So I got to thinking and I asked around and I found out they were short of fuel bars and would run out in a few months. They were cut off from all communication with the outside, but Teenie wasn't too worried until I pointed out that the little rods she used to train the women with wouldn't work anymore. "So I made a deal with her. I would get her twenty tons of fuel bars, enough for fifty years at least, if she would teach me all these tricks. "Prahd was straightening teeth and ingrown toe-nails and he'd found that some of the inhabitants were descendants from the Teon sea people of ages back, so it wasn't too hard to get him to report that the plague was under control but would take another couple weeks. "Well, those two weeks were just about the greatest in my life. Some electronics crook in Madison's outfit had made her all the necessary screens and probes and she'd taught all her maids with them, so she went to work on me." She went on talking. But, staring at her, I couldn't make the things she was saying reach my startled wits. Her mouth was moving. Asa was listening in pleasure. Lik was gleaming in fond delight. Pratia's mouth was forming words. No sound at all was reaching me! And then I realized that I hadn't really gone insane. The two girls had simply lifted up the edges of the pillow my head was on and it was covering my ears! I batted the obstruction off my hearing with an impatient hand. "… and having performed so elegantly before the whole island population, I was graduated Magna Cum Loud." Pratia sat back with a sigh. The girls were panting. Pratia smiled at last. She shook her head. "How fleeting are the yesteryears. Alas, the two weeks were over." "Now comes the sad part," said Asa with a sigh. xi Pratia sat in nostalgia. The girls lay on either side of me, inert. At last Pratia began to insert the needle into hoops once more. "So we went back to the mainland," Pratia said, "the throng on the palace terrace waving us good-bye with…" "Wait. Hold it!" I said. "I know for a fact that Sol-tan Gris was in a dungeon there. You haven't mentioned him." Pratia looked at me with her blue eyes. "Gris?" she said. "Yes. Did Teenie torture him to death or what?" Pratia let out a gentle laugh. "Oh, Teenie might get angry but she was never crueclass="underline" you'll note she didn't even keep Madison in a dungeon. But as to Gris, she probably got tired of his screams after pulling a couple fingernails. Maybe he just wasn't any fun to torture. Possibly he just fainted any time he saw pincers or tongs. "You see, the dungeons were very deep there: way under the mountain. Not the place you'd go for a pleasant walk. Oh, I asked her about him but she just shrugged. Probably it was a case of vengeance satisfied. "Well, anyway, when we got back to the mainland, Prahd reported that without fuel the place could become unhealthy. Dear Jettero wasn't back yet so they authorized the shipment." "Now comes the very, very sad part," said Lik. "Prahd," continued Pratia, "went over with it to see that it arrived all safe, and just as he was leaving, Madison whispered to him, 'You wait! I'll put this island on the map yet!' "Well, Prahd didn't think anything of it. But he hadn't been home here three days when…