CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – “SLOWLY, BUT SURELY”

Norlin enters his apartment hastily at eighteen hundred eight hours... late... clicks on the plasmavision news - watching Mister Simple leer out at the camera...

"...a mighty embarrassed burglar. An intruder, cunningly concealed within an ice-sculpture of Venus on the half-shell, broke into the Blue City home of Grover Pearson, Astrophysics Dean at Man Ray University, and stole over two dozen specimens, valued over seventy thousand zekels on the FexMarket last night, but failed to remove a prize of perhaps a hundred times the take on all of these specimens combined... the bloodstained undergarments of a reputed girlfriend of Elvis, in the very image of the King. In Blue City now, with the Professor, is Honey Markell."

The newslady, uncharacteristically demure in a light blue pastel suit, raises the cordless KJAD microphone to her rouged, genetically-enhanced lips... Norlin, staring at her, allows a few animals of license to swagger through his mind, then shakes his head. "I'm here with Professor Pearson, Hank, in his sumptuous library on a most exclusive street here in Blue City, and with the most valuable pair of plain, white soiled cotton panties ever seen in Barataria. Professor, what makes this specimen so valuable?"

A feral grin smears the blotchy tundra between bristling ginger beard and moustaches. Pearson holds up the very bloodspattered panties given Norlin, that morning, by the unfortunate Lisa Marie.

"Honey, these are the very panties worn by an alleged girlfriend of Elvis Presley... not his wife, Priscilla, or live-in companion Ginger, that other, last, secret one... on August sixteenth, nineteen seventy seven. At that very moment, and more than half a century ago, when the King passed away, there was a bloody discharge which, as you may see..."

The Venusian partisan wiggles Miss Klort's panties before the KJAD camera...

"... is in the perfect image of the King's face!"

"Unquestionably," Honey Markell declares breathlessly, "... a priceless relic!"

"Second only to the Veronica itself," Pearson boasts. "I removed it from safekeeping at the Specimen Depository so that it may be exhibited at the upcoming Centennial. Instead of placing it in the safe, with my other unmentionable valuables, I am returning it to this hollowed-out copy of Principia Mathematica and placing it back on the shelf... right here!"

And, with the exaggerated movements of an automaton, Pearson wiggles the bloody panties again, smirks, turns his back to the camera, places them within the book-safe, gestures like a game-show hostess to the safe, smirks again, and turns back to the camera.

"Professor Pearson," Honey gushes as if reading off a script... actually, she's memorized and rehearsed, several times, before every one of her live broadcasts... "aren't you concerned that the burglar might attempt to return and steal this invaluable relic?"

"Not at all, Honey," the astrophysicist chuckles. "As you... and all of your viewers will see... all transport bearing, even suspected of bearing ice-sculpture, or ice, in any form is being interdicted by Jatesland police, They have joined Blue City in patrolling these streets, night and day, twenty four hours, until I bring the relic to the Jatesaneum, to be displayed, on Jatesday, in commemoration of that certain revision of the calendar and restoration of Jupiday and Venuday... not Marday!... to a nine, not eight-day week. It will be our return to order, thereby returning gender balance to our masculine-feminine misproportion, as well as conforming our dual Aryan and Greco-Roman heritage..."

"Thank you, Professor Pearson."

"I'm not finished!" he sputters, visibly deviating from the script prepared, that afternoon, by Norlin, Clem Clarke, and Henry Hat... and Norlin's gratified to see Honey Markell's near imperceptible gesture to an unseen cameraman as Pearson exploits the interval to launch one, last, partisan depth charge. "Any planar barbarian... anyone not similarly attuned - human or spirit - is but a lesion in what advanced minds perceive. Down with Mars!"

The PV hurriedly switches to a longshot of policemen searching a hydrolorry in the street two blocks from Pearson's blue house as Honey signs off.

"Professor Pearson in Blue City, secure behind a veritable wall of blue. Now, back to the studio..."

"Coming up..." Mister Simple promises, "...the secular Satanists and abstract artists who exploit Compliance and public charity to operate soup kitchens for the homeless that are serving wine?... and cheese?... but, first, these important messages..."

As the pop-ups swarm, Norlin turnes off the PV and his autocom buzzes... it's Percy Said.

"I told you so!"

"How'd you get my kebbin' home number?" Norlin glowers.

"I'm intelligent. Do you want to know what I read in this afternoon's Journal? Only the headlines - can't afford an Evening Charge, but you'll want to know what was tomorrow's news, today... unless you'd rather not..."

"All right - hit me!" surrenders the commander of C-Squad, pressing both thumbs against his temple to forestall the headache intimated...

"I see only in the headline box, so it will probably occur tomorrow morning... after dawn, but before noon... there are going to be multiple murders in Jatesland..."

Norlin's hands drop. Modesty-strength pain flashes from the base of his skull upwards and out his eye sockets, and there's nothing he can do... aspirin has been illegal since 2020, and Ray Angeniuex's chemists, working for Skark, test for sixteen common antihistamines, twelve decongestants and five stomach acid compounds in addition to the once-ubiquitous ibuprofen and various aceto-compounds.

"Where in Jatesland? Who? How many..."

"I said only headlines, Officer. I'm being as co-operative as I can... the only other clue in these headlines is 'strange'... strange murders..."

"Murder is never normal, Mr. Said. You've got to give me more to go on..."

"That's all there is. Oh... your strategy in the matter of Professor Pearson's burglary bore fruit. That case will be closed... presumably to the public's satisfaction. It'll be on the nite news, probably, so there's really no reason to go further into the matter. Good night, Officer..."

"Said!" Norlin roars... but the informant has hung up.

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