Chapter
Five. Audience with the Emperor.
The very
next morning the Emperor’s men came for her. They drove up in a big black
stretch limousine. They told her she was granted a voluntary audience with the
Emperor. They told her that attendance was mandatory. They said she may ride in
the limo’s coach, or in its trunk. Sogwa chose the coach; but she did not let
go of her vacuum cleaner, not for one instant.
It was a
long ride to Camp Goliath. The Emperor’s men said nothing the whole way.
Once there
they gave her a name-tag. They told her that the audience will be in the sun
room in back, and that she will leave her vacuum cleaner in the closet. And she
did leave her vacuum cleaner there, though she really didn’t want to.
The Emperor
was drinking dry wine. Very, very dry wine. There was not a drop in the glass
he was sipping from, and the bottle he kept refilling the glass with was empty.
He was pouring and drinking air, and the air made him tipsier with each glass.
And as he drank, Chimpy stared through the sun room windows at the water tower
in Camp Goliath’s back yard.
At the
Emperor’s right hand sat a man made of money, who said nothing, but listened
and watched the whole time, smoking a cigar made of human bones and frowning at
every word except “profit”.
The first to
petition the Emperor was a junkyard dog with a baby face. He was Rover, the
Emperor’s Vizier, and he was herding a flock of reporters. “Baaaaaad is goood!”
the reporters bleated. “Woorrrrsse is beeettter! Worrsst is beeesssst!”
“Quiet, you
hacks!” Rover barked. “How dare you not denounce me?”
The
reporters bleated, “Uuup is dowwn! Yees is nooo!”
“Shut up,
you sell-outs! Do these meet with your approval, Your Highness?”
The Emperor
gave his blessing to the flock, and Rover herded them away.
Next up was
a Robot in a business suit, carrying a huge sackful of cash. It insisted on
talking before handing the sack over. The Robot spoke in a dull drone about
windfall profits, and creative accounting, and closed bids, and cost-plus
contracts, and below-prevailing wages, and crony appointments, and inferior
workmanship, and eminent domain, and mass dispossession, and mass bankruptcy,
and debt enslavement, and other exciting profit opportunities. The Robot said
the words “exciting profit opportunities” in a boring robotic drone, but it
said them so often that the man made of money looked almost happy.
Then the
Emperor said, “Come on, pay up!” So the Robot left the sackful of cash at the
Emperor’s feet. “So what do you want?” the Emperor asked the corporate Robot.
The Robot
droned, “Permission to do anything to anybody for any reason, so long as it
makes an instant penny profit.”
“Permission
granted! Next!” And the Emperor poured himself another glass of air.
Next up was
the Emperor’s spiritual advisor; a Preacher who had wings and a halo, but also
horns and a tail. His feathers were golden, and his hooves were cloven. He
carried a book which he called Hole-y, because of all the holes that he had cut
out of it.
He also
carried a huge sackful of cash, and like the corporate Robot, he too insisted
on talking before handing the sack over.
The Preacher
with wings and a halo and horns and a tail gave a sermon in praise of
Hypocrisy. He preached, “Hypocrisy is good because it is convenient. It has all
the value of sincerity, at none of the price. Hypocrisy destroys virtue in
order to save it; for what profit it a man to gain his own soul, but lose the
world?”
The Preacher
with horns and a halo proclaimed:
“Hypocrisy
is greater than the saints, for it does not demand that people change their
ways. Hypocrisy is greater than the angels, for it creates its own reality.
Hypocrisy is greater than creation, for it offers impossibilities.”
The Preacher
with wings and a tail testified:
“In the
hypocrisy-based community, we attain perfect freedom from responsibility. Ours
is the triumph of the whim. Under our care, the innocent are punished, the
guilty are protected, the able are dismissed and the incompetent are promoted.
By the power of pride, true and false exchange places, upon command. Our
strength is as the strength of ten because our hearts are impure. The hypocrisy-based community transcends veracity
to attain impunity. O rapture!”
The raindrop
on Sogwa’s necklace sparkled like fireworks all through the Preacher’s speech;
for Coreena had stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies.
Sogwa
thought the Preacher’s wings, halo, horns and tail made him look like a bug.
The Emperor
was so impressed by the sermon that he accepted the Preacher’s sackful of cash
in exchange for nothing whatsoever.
Next up was
the General. He wanted troops they didn’t have, and money already spent, and
equipment already broken, to fight a war already lost, for a cause already
forgotten. And failing that, the General petitioned, could he have an exit
plan? And failing even that, could he please have any plan at all?
The Emperor
said, “How many dead? How many injured? How many tortured?”
The General
named three large numbers.
The Emperor
said, “Not enough. Stay the course.”
The General
said, “Yessir!”
Chimpy
drained another glass of air, poured another glass, and said, “Next!”
It was
Sogwa’s turn. She had never been so scared in her entire life, but she spoke up
anyhow. She said, “Just one question, Mister Emperor sir. How much is two plus
two?”
Chimpy
sipped some air, then smiled a half-smile. He leaned towards Sogwa and said,
“How much do you want it to be?” And he laughed at his little joke: Heh, heh,
heh, heh, heh!
The raindrop
on Sogwa’s necklace blazed through every color in the rainbow, then settled on
a deep bright bloody red which only slowly dimmed to clear.
Sogwa said,
“Thank you, Mister Emperor sir. You’ve told me everything I need to know.” She
got up to go, and the Emperor poured himself more air.
Nobody
watched her go, because so many other petitioners were there.
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