The Darkside Of The Sun

looking for a world of Jokers,’ he muttered.
    Pan said: ‘Try Earth. They are quite good-humoured on Terra Novae, too. Oh, those Jokers. Be off with you! They don’t exist – do they?’
    ‘Yes and no. That is, no and yes.’
    Bank: ‘ EVERYONE KNOWS THEY HAVE MOVED TO THE UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR —’
    Pan: ‘—so why not look on the dark side of the sun?’
    Traveller. ‘Gosh, yes! The dark side of the sun, you say? I’ll go there directly.’ He shuffled off.
    Dom woke next morning in a bedroom almost oppressive in its wealth, washed in a gold bowl and strolled down to the dining hall. He was late for breakfast. Most of the night had been spent in a fruitless discussion with Joan. There had been a row when Ig was taken to a laboratory and probed for every conceivable weapon, to the little animal’s distress. Nothing was found, but Ig, coiled across Dom’s shoulders, was strangely silent today.
    Sub-Lunar had left after the Masque, after taking an urgent call from Earth.
    Down in the hall a floating sideboard had been laid out with large dishes under covers. Dom padded silently over the carpet, experimentally lifting lids. One covered a dish of smoked red fish, another the considerable wreckage of a boar’s head. A third was just fruit. Being a Widdershine, he settled at last for the fish, and sat down at one end of the empty table. Out of interest he lifted the lid of a large tureen, and slammed it down hurriedly; the Emperor had been entertaining drosk guests.
    A few minutes later a small door across the hall opened and a girl tiptoed in. She was small, and dark like Tarli. Dom grinned. She blushed, and sidled along the sideboard with her eyes fixed on him.
    She piled a small dish with little fish and sat down at the opposite side of the table. Dom stared at her. In the morning light she seemed to glow. It was uncanny. The glow followed her, so that when she moved an arm she left a faint, golden ghost in the air. An electro-physical effect, but still impressive.
    They ate in silence, broken only by the hum of a large, antique Standard clock.
    Finally he steeled himself. ‘Can you speak Janglic? Linaka Comerks diwac? How about drosk? – upaquaduc, uh, lapidiquac nunquackuqc quipaduckuadicquakak?’
    She poured herself a tiny cup of coffee and smiled at him. Dom groaned inwardly. Drosk was bad enough, but he could handle it. He prepared his epiglottis and sinuses for the supreme test.
    ‘Ffnbasshs sFFshs – frs Sfghn Gss?’
    Her second smile struck him as unnecessarily prim. She clapped her hands. A moment later he felt a presence by his elbow.
    A giant was standing behind his chair. A pair of eye-slits surveyed him dispassionately from a small head atop a body as broad as it was high, which was almost two metres. It wore a jerkin of leather, covered with familiar angular designs in red and blue. A variety of hand weapons were stuck into the belt. It was a drosk – an old one – so of course it was a female. If there had been any males in the place they were probably in her deep-freeze right now.
    The girl sang a glissando of bell-like note. The red eyes blinked.
    ‘Empress say what you say?’
    ‘I was just trying to be sociable,’ said Dom. ‘Who are you?’
    The giant held a brief interchange with the girl, and said, ‘I her bodyguard and lady-of-the-bedchamber.’
    ‘That must be economical.’
    ‘Lady Sharli say you come for a ride?’
    Without waiting for his answer the drosk lifted him out of his chair with one hand. Ig woke up and bared his teeth, then whined as the giant picked him up gently in another great paw and crooned to him. The swamp ig blinked, then ran up one iron-muscled arm and perched on the drosk’s head.
    Sharli was already walking across the broad patio outside the hall. She looked sympathetically at Dom as he was dumped at her feet like a parcel, and stamped her foot – to Dom’s amazement, for even his mother had never resorted to that in her expert tantrums – and waved one tiny finger at the giant, who bowed to her. She helped Dom to his feet.
    A robot was standing holding the reins of two creatures. Dom hadn’t seen horses before, except the pair that had been regretfully sent back on his birthday. But these were Laothian horses. Therefore they were robots.
    Sharli was helped onto one with a coat of anodized aluminium. The reins were some woven metal, hung with jewels and bells.
    Dom’s mount was copper coloured. As he climbed into the control saddle it