Log of the Cambric, continued
Feb. 6th, 2006 06:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerWell, now I know. I appear to be the Pope.
To be precise, the Hereditary Heresiarch of the Neo-Coprodist Schism of Plut, one of the five major religions on Werek, whose regalia of office is a green lanyard worn on the left shoulder. The genuine article apparently left today for an extended fact-finding mission on the resort world of Mok-Mok-Shasta-Mok, looking into conditions of labour for the native workers. So Palinurus told me, anyway, when I pointed out that he'd gone a bit too far. He also mentioned that the title came with a palace, a salary and immunity from prosecution. "Plus in your next life your soul only gets split into three bits, not thirty-seven like everyone else's," he added. I honestly couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
At any rate, I obviously couldn't go on wearing the thing. I abstracted a towel from the hotel bathroom and draped it over the offending shoulder, and we set off for the smallship.
Humans' memories can usually be relied upon to be unreliable, except when you really want them to. Even with my shoulder covered, the bowing continued, and the bus we rode on gradually gathered an escort of press cars, trying hard not to be noticed. I considered strangling Palinurus, but decided my immunity probably wouldn't cover it even if I could have succeeded. He just sat there, grinning in that idiotic way, like a kid on holiday.
There was no way we could get off at the dump without drawing attention to it, so we rode on round the bus's circuit to the Heresiarch's palace, where a large crowd had gathered. There the bus stopped and seemed unwilling to move on till i got off, so with Palinurus at my heels I alighted, waved to the crowd, no-commented politely to the horde of reporters, and fought my way up the steps and into the big cool empty antechamber of the palace, where I shut the door, leaned on it and closed my eyes.
This was not going according to plan at all.
To be precise, the Hereditary Heresiarch of the Neo-Coprodist Schism of Plut, one of the five major religions on Werek, whose regalia of office is a green lanyard worn on the left shoulder. The genuine article apparently left today for an extended fact-finding mission on the resort world of Mok-Mok-Shasta-Mok, looking into conditions of labour for the native workers. So Palinurus told me, anyway, when I pointed out that he'd gone a bit too far. He also mentioned that the title came with a palace, a salary and immunity from prosecution. "Plus in your next life your soul only gets split into three bits, not thirty-seven like everyone else's," he added. I honestly couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
At any rate, I obviously couldn't go on wearing the thing. I abstracted a towel from the hotel bathroom and draped it over the offending shoulder, and we set off for the smallship.
Humans' memories can usually be relied upon to be unreliable, except when you really want them to. Even with my shoulder covered, the bowing continued, and the bus we rode on gradually gathered an escort of press cars, trying hard not to be noticed. I considered strangling Palinurus, but decided my immunity probably wouldn't cover it even if I could have succeeded. He just sat there, grinning in that idiotic way, like a kid on holiday.
There was no way we could get off at the dump without drawing attention to it, so we rode on round the bus's circuit to the Heresiarch's palace, where a large crowd had gathered. There the bus stopped and seemed unwilling to move on till i got off, so with Palinurus at my heels I alighted, waved to the crowd, no-commented politely to the horde of reporters, and fought my way up the steps and into the big cool empty antechamber of the palace, where I shut the door, leaned on it and closed my eyes.
This was not going according to plan at all.