Jason is still herding his many-legged sheep in the high places, up where the fingers of Aurora come first to smear the sky with roses, and doubtless he is corrupting youth with his song.
Ellen is pregnant again, all delicate and big-waisted, and won't talk to anybody but George. George wants to try some fancy embryosurgery, now, before it's too late, and make his next kid a water-breather as well as an air-breather, because of all that great big virgin frontier down underneath the ocean, where his descendants can pioneer, and him be father to a new race and write an interesting book on the subject, and all that. Ellen is not too hot on the idea, though, so I have a hunch the oceans will remain virgin a little longer.
Oh yes, I did take George to Capistrano some time ago, to watch the spiderbats return. It was real impressive-them darkening the sky with their flight, nesting about the ruins the way they do, eating the wild pigs, leaving green droppings all over the streets. Lorel has hours and hours of it in tri-dee color, and he shows it at every Office party. It's sort of a historical document, spiderbats being on the way out now. True to his word, George started a slishi plague among them, and they're dropping like flies these days. Just the other week one dropped down in the middle of the street with a big splatt! as I was on my way to Mama Julie's with a bottle of rum and a box of chocolates. It was quite dead when it hit. The slishi are very insidious. The poor spiderbat doesn't know what's happening; he's flying along happily, looking for someone to eat, and then zock! it hits him, and he falls into the middle of a garden party or somebody's swimming pool.
I've decided to retain the Office for the time being. I'll set up some land of parliament after I've whipped up an opposition party to the Radpol-Indreb, or something like that maybe: like Independent Rebuilders, or such.
Good old final forces of disruption… we needed them down here amid the ruins.
And Cassandra-my princess, my angel, my lovely lady-she even likes me without my fungus. That night in the Valley of Sleep did it in.
She, of course, had been the shipload of heroes Hasan had seen that day back at Pagasae. No golden fleece, though, just my gunrack and such. Yeah. It had been the Golden Vanitie, which I'd built by hand, me, stout enough, I was pleased to learn, to take even the tsunami that followed that 9.6 Richter thing. She'd been out sailing in it at the time the bottom fell out of Kos. Afterwards, she'd set sail for Volos because she knew Makrynitsa was full of my relatives. Oh, good thing-that she had had this feeling that there was danger and had carried the heavy artillery ashore with her. (Good thing, too, that she knew how to use it.) I'll have to learn to take her premonitions more seriously.
I've purchased a quiet villa on the end of Haiti opposite from the Port. It's only about fifteen minutes' skimming time from there, and it has a big beach and lots of jungle all around it. I have to have some distance, like the whole island, between me and civilization, because I have this, well-hunting-problem. The other day, when the attorneys dropped around, they didn't understand the sign: beware the dog. They do now. The one who's in traction won't sue for damages, and George will have him as good as new in no time. The others were not so severely taken.
Good thing I was nearby, though.
So here I am, in an unusual position, as usual.
The entire planet Earth was purchased from the Talerite government, purchased by the large and wealthy Shtigo gens. The preponderance of expatriates wanted Vegan citizenship anyhow, rather than remaining under the Talerite ex-gov and working in the Combine as registered aliens. This has been coming for a long time, so the disposal of the Earth became mainly a matter of finding the best buyer-because our exile regime lost its only other cause for existence the minute the citizenship thing went through. They could justify themselves while there were still Earthmen out there, but now they're all Vegans and can't vote for them, and we're sure not going to, down here.
Hence, the sale of a lot of real estate-and the only bidder was the Shtigo gens.
Wise old Tatram saw that the Shtigo gens did not own Earth, though. The entire purchase was made in the name of his grandson, the late Cort Myshtigo.
And Myshtigo left this distribution-desire, or last will and testament, Vegan-style…
… in which I was named.
I've, uh, inherited a planet
The Earth, to be exact.
Well-
Hell, I don't want the thing. I mean, sure I'm stuck with it for awhile, but I'll work something out.
It was that infernal Vite-Stats machine, and four other big think-tanks that old Tatram used. He was looking for a local administrator to hold the earth in fief and set up a resident representative government, and then to surrender ownership on a fairly simple residency basis once things got rolling. He wanted somebody who'd been around awhile, was qualified as an administrator, and who wouldn't want to keep the place for his very own.
Among others, it gave him one of my names, then another, the second as a "possibly still living." Then my personnel file was checked, and more stuff on the other guy, and pretty soon the machine had turned up a few more names, all of them mine. It began picking up discrepancies and peculiar similarities, kept kapocketting, and gave out more puzzling answers.
Before long, Tatram decided I had better be "surveyed."
Cort came to write a book.
He really wanted to see if I was Good, Honest, Noble, Pure, Loyal, Faithful, Trustworthy, Selfless, Kind, Cheerful, Dependable, and Without Personal Ambition.
Which means he was a cockeyed lunatic, because he said, "Yes, he's all that."
I sure fooled him.
Maybe he was right about the lack of personal ambition, though. I am pretty damn lazy, and am not at all anxious to acquire the headaches I see as springing up out of the tormented Earth and blackjacking me daily.
However, I am willing to make certain concessions so far as personal comfort is concerned. I'll probably cut myself back to a six-month vacation.
One of the attorneys (not the one in traction-the one with the sling) delivered me a note from the Blue One. It said, in part:
Dear Whatever-the-Blazes-Your-Name-Is,
It is most unsettling to begin a letter this way, so I'll respect your wishes and call you Conrad.
"Conrad" by now you are aware of the true nature of my visit. I feel I have made a good choice in naming you as heir to the property commonly referred to as Earth. Your affection for it cannot be gainsaid; as Karaghiosis you inspired men to bleed in its defense; you are restoring its monuments, preserving its works of art (and as one stipulation of my will, by the way, I insist that you put back the Great Pyramid!), and your ingenuity as well as your toughness, both physical and mental, is singularly amazing.
You also appear to be the closest thing to an immortal overseer available (I'd give a lot to know your real age), and this, together with your high survival potential, makes you, really, the only candidate. If your mutation ever does begin to fail you, there is always the S-S series to continue linking the great chain of your days. (I could have said "forging," but it would not have been polite, inasmuch as I know you are an accomplished forger.-All those old records! You drove poor Vite-Stats half-mad with discrepancies. It is now programmed never to accept another Greek birth certificate as proof of age!)
I commend the Earth into the hands of the kallikanzaros. According to legend, this would be a grave mistake. However, I am willing to gamble that you are even a kallikanzaros under false pretenses. You destroy only what you mean to rebuild. Probably you are Great Pan, who only pretended to die. Whatever, you will have sufficent funds and a supply of heavy equipment which will be sent this year-and lots of forms for requisitioning more from the Shtigo Foundation. So go thou and be thou fruitful and multiply, and reinherit the Earth. The gens will be around watching. Cry out if you need help, and help will be forthcoming.