p {text-indent:2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px} h1 {page-break-before:left}
Back | NextContents MU MAO AND THE COURT ORACLE by Elizabeth Ann Scaroborough Mu Mao became Aware as he was reborn yet again. That is to say, once more he became embodied, for his rebirth occurred not at the body's physical emergence from the mother's womb, but from the time Mu Mao realized, "Here I am again. Here I go again. What now?" The current body gained Awareness as it was dumped unceremoniously into a cage with three siblings, all as hungry as Mu Mao, reincarnate, suddenly was. Just once it would be nice if rebirth took place in a lovely home, somewhere warm, with soft blankets laid down for the arrival of the sweet little much-adored and wanted kittens. Instead, Mu Mao the Magnificent found himself in an animal shelter, among many other cats and kittens. He knew it at once by the smell—it was clean, which was a blessing. And at least there would be some food. Often he was born into the wild, or into some great colony of wild cats. Being a Bodhisattva and helping others work out their destiny and achieve Enlightenment was no easy task when one had to skitter up trees to avoid being eaten by larger predators. Worse was having to avoid being eaten by other larger and more feral cats. Mu Mao was now born into perhaps his thousandth lifetime, the first several hundred of which had been devoted to evolving into the wise person, shaman, healer, priest, lama, hermit, monk, and counselor he had ultimately become, the latter thirty devoted to his reward—being born into the highest possible lifeform, that of a cat. He found it particularly upsetting when others of his exalted species aimed their teeth at his own helpless little kitten tail. True, even some cats had to evolve, but he found their process unnerving. Did no one in charge of fate think it necessary for Mu Mao to help his fellow lifeforms from the standpoint of being a companion animal to some doting two legged being with opposable thumbs? When he had slaked his hunger and thirst, he researched his current situation by examining closely the papers covering the floor of his erstwhile home. They looked fresh and current and he could still smell the ink so he knew they must be no more than a day old at the most. It was the year of the Cat, according to Asian astrologers, and from the date, within the sign called Leo in Western astrology. The sign of the cat. Very catty. Reeking with cattiness. Very clearly, Mu Mao's current mission would be concerned with events unfolding in the realm of his fellow felines. "Ahem," his Mother of the Moment said. "What do you think you are doing? Tear up that paper at once! Cats can't read!" "I beg your pardon, gentle mother," he said politely, "But I can. In several languages actually. Which I also speak, though only after judicious consideration for the sensibilities and circumstances surrounding me. However, other than the information I have already gleaned, the reading matter lining our cage tells me nothing of value concerning our current situation. Perhaps you can enlighten me. Is there some great event in the making within the realm of cat-kind?" His mother, a calico of undistinguished markings, reached out a hard paw and swatted him across the cage. "Don't get saucy with me, young kit! While you drink my milk you go by my rules. Cats don't read and cats of our clan don't meddle in the affairs of the realm. What business have we with royalty ? Did royalty step in a prevent my farmer's land from being sold, the barn which has been the personal domain of generations of my ancestors from being torn down to make a parking lot for a shopping mall? Did it keep my elders from being put down and you and your brothers and sisters and me from being put in here where no doubt we'll be gassed as soon as the kits take the kennel cough? Don't speak to me of matters of the realm!" "I beg your pardon," he said with what sounded like a small pitiful mew as he washed his face very quickly to try to wash away the pain of the blow. It didn't take much to hurt when you were five and a half inches long from nose to tail tip. However, a small thing like personal discomfort could not obstruct his duty and so he sought other sources of information. The cage beside theirs was filled with what looked like a vast black and gray striped fur pillow. Mu Mao reached out a paw and touched the pillow. "I beg your pardon, sir or madame as the case may be," he said to the pillow. There was no reply. It might have actually been a pillow—it might have been dead, except that there was some warmth emanating from beneath the fur and the coat twitched ever so slightly as Mu Mao touched it. "Hey, little fella, don't bother the poor old guy," a man said. Mu Mao turned. The man was looking sadly toward the cage containing the inert animal. Mu Mao, sensing that there was something for him here, rubbed himself against the front bars of the cage and gave a small, cute mew. Manipulative and disgusting perhaps, but effective. The man undid the latch of Mu Mao's new home and lifted him out, holding him in one hand and stroking his head with a finger. It felt very good. Most nice things that happened to Mu Mao felt very good. Feeling very good when at all possible seemed to be one of the benefits of possessing the qualities of Catness. "Would that older cat have hurt that little baby kitten?" a woman's voice cooed from somewhere to the left and slightly behind the man. "I doubt it. But the poor old guy has enough problems without being harassed by a little punk like this guy," the man told her. He wore a nametag. It said "Andy." "Oh?" the woman asked without much interest, and sneaked a finger around Andy so that she could tickle Mu Mao's chin. "Yeah, poor old cat is a sad case. He's lived with the same guy for almost twenty years and now his master is dying. The guy thought maybe if the cat came here, he'd have time to find a new home before his master died. But the old cat ain't havin' any. He sits like that with his face to the back of the cage." "Maybe he needs more attention," the woman said. Her voice carried no reproach that Mu Mao could hear but Andy reopened Mu Mao's cage and returned him to his siblings, then opened the adjoining cage and extracted the other cat. The other cat lay like a lump in Andy's arms, unresisting, but also indifferent and stiff, a deeply resentful look in his narrowed eyes. He did not respond to Andy's voice or touch or to the woman's. He just sat there and glowered and pretty soon Andy put him back into his cage. Mu Mao's heart went out to him, but when he tried to speak to the old cat again, his siblings pounced on him and rolled him around the cage and his mother began to wash him with more energy than was strictly required. After that, he needed a nap. When he woke up, the people had gone home. The first time he lived in a shelter, he thought that when the people went home, all of the animals would go to sleep. He was wrong. This was when the cats gossiped through the bars and wires of their cages. "Did you hear?" asked a bobtailed black tom two levels down. "The King of the Cats is dead and nobody knows who the new king is or where he might be." "That's silly," said a fluffy neutered calico spinster. "How can anyone mislay a king?" The tom tried to lash his bobbed tail and thumped it against the bars. "It's more a case of the king mislaying his mistresses—and potential heirs. Tom Gamble was a very busy cat. The ladies always liked him and he hated to disappoint them." "Perish the thought," Mu Mao's mother said, yawning and settling her chin on her paws. "The world never has seen such a lot of scruffy longhaired tawny striped kits as His Majesty sired. And which of them is the crown prince, well, that's anyone's guess." "His Majesty wasn't much to worry about details," sniffed a gray tabby. "He never did appoint a court oracle." "You don't appoint one of those, " a white almost-a-Persian said loftily. "They are born, not made. Not even by kings. "Well, whoever was made didn't get recognized anyway. So now here we've got Bast-knows-how-many potential heirs and nobody to sort them out. There'll be fur flying for sure, bloody civil war because of it I tell you." The black bobtail was warming to his subject. Mu Mao peered carefully down through the screen of his cage. He wondered if black bobtail tom had any idea what a war was like. By now, many generations of cats had come and gone since the end of the world. The warlords had made way for governments which were if no less rapacious at least more peaceable about it. These governments were extremely polite to each other. For now. A cat civil war wouldn't involve nuclear devices, probably, but it could still be an ugly and horrible thing. As the many times great grandsire of almost all of the cats in existence today, Mu Mao mourned any carnage among them. A frightening thought occurred to him then and he checked his own body. Whew! He had a little sooty black tail and a white chest and paws, black back with a white spot, white belly with a black spot. His face would either be black or have a mask he supposed. It didn't matter. He was not a ginger cat as Tom Gamble and his likely heir were. So the heir was not him. Nor did he feel especially oracular. Therefore, he was free to pursue whatever business seemed to call for him to put a paw in. As soon as the others settled down for the night, he began. The first thing to do was get from his cage into the adjoining one, to confront the terribly depressed cat. This presented only a small difficulty for Mu Mao, who as the most esteemed of lamas had excelled in the Tibetan psychic sports, which naturally included breath, and even molecular control. He simply exhaled all of the air in his body. His mother was not watching. Perhaps if she had been, she would have been alarmed for when he exhaled, he exhaled the air between his very atoms, becoming so small as to be virtually invisible. Thus he could easily slip through to the next cage, after which he inhaled mightily and regained his former kitten size, perhaps even adding an additional ounce or two of air. Then he padded forward to confront the bitter old cat. The old one was not sleeping, but brooding with both green eyes slitted resentfully. "My dear sir, you simply cannot continue like this," Mu Mao told him. "You frighten away those who would save you by your unfriendly demeanor. I have it on good authority that it is nearly impossible for an adult cat to find a home from one of these places as it is." Mu Mao thought for a moment the old cat would swat him but the poor fellow seemed to lack the energy, and instead sighed, letting much of the air out of him self, though not to the degree that Mu Mao had done. "Don't speak to me of homes. A home is nothing but an illusion based on the whim of a fickle and callous race. I should know. From the time I was smaller than you, all through kittenhood, I was with him, his true companion, loving him when others rejected him, bringing him mice and birds when he was hungry, licking his wounds. I even submitted to the veterinarian's knife so that my natural urges to mate and sire children would not interfere with my closeness to him. And now, after all these years, he has betrayed me. Dumped me like so much feline garbage, given me into the hands of these people who cage me here, without my pillow or dish, without my weekly treats or my toy, without the drug that gave me the feeling of being wild and free—and without that cruel unworthy man I have loved for so long. He doesn't want me any more. I don't care. I hate him now. I hate all humans and I don't want to live with them. If I must live with another one in order to live, then I prefer to die." "Oh, you will die if you keep this up," Mu Mao said. "But then you will be with your friend if you do, I suppose." "What do you mean?" "You heard Andy. Your friend is dying. That is why he had you sent here to find another home." "You understand what they say? It means something?" "You mean you don't? You lived all those years with one man and didn't understand what he said?" "Well-no. Not really. It didn't matter. I didn't actually need to. He would say things in a kind voice and I knew I could do as I wished and if he sounded stern and pointed at something I knew I shouldn't go back to it until his back was turned. Otherwise, he fed and petted me and babbled to his heart's content and I sat on his lap and purred for him and meowed when I wished him to do something in particular. I must say, he spoke better cat than I did human. But then he stopped speaking to me, would not lift his hand to pet me, and finally turned away from me and allowed others to take me from our bed and put me into a vile case and bring me to this place where you see me now. Perhaps he was bored with me, do you think? I have heard others here speak of how their people became bored with them when they no longer performed kittenish antics such as someone like yourself might do. When that happens, I understand it is not uncommon for the people to simply dispose of one, as has happened to me, and get a newer edition." "No," Mu Mao said firmly. "That is not what happened at all. Andy explained it to the woman. Your friend was dying. He wanted to see you in a good home before he had to leave, to make sure you would be cared for. Even as he dies, he cares for you and worries for your welfare." The old cat stared at Mu Mao and a large tear ran down the short fur along the side of his nose. Mu Mao noticed that he had black circular stripes that joined on the bridge of his nose, like spectacles. "He will be all alone and he sent me away to spare me. But I don't want to be spared. I want to be with him. I want to go to him. If I die too, I don't mind. But I can't bear to be locked up in here when he needs me." The old cat stretched briefly then rose to his feet and began pacing in a manner that was extremely tiger-like. "If I thought he would live until morning I would raise such a ruckus that the man—Andy—would unlock my cage to see what was wrong and then I would give him a great scratch and make him release me and I would run out the door very fast and home again." "Oh, good! You could find it again?" Mu Mao asked hopefully, for he was sure now he knew what his first mission in this young life must be. "Well, it must be around here somewhere!" the old one snapped. "I know I would find it only—only, now that you tell me what is happening, I have a feeling." "A feeling?" "Yes, I think—I think he is still here but I don't think he will be here tomorrow. I think he needs me now. Of course, it is all his own doing that I am here but you and I both know this isn't working. I need out." The "now" and the "out" were drawn out and agonized, and meant the same thing in cat as they did in English. "Calm yourself," Mu Mao said. "I am here to help you. First, we must release you from your cage." "Yes, but how?" "Patience," Mu Mao said. He thought about it. He could make himself small again and slip through the front of the cage, but that would not release the old cat. If he were full grown, and the cage on the lowest level, he could easily undo the latch with his teeth and paws and the cunning of thirty remembered feline lifetimes and prior lives as a holy man. But this was not the case. "Hmmm," he said to himself and then, "Hm?" That was it. A simple mantra, a chant—a purr, done with great concentration and deep vibration. He leaned against the lock and purred with all his might and all his energy and all of the depth of his tiny being. The lock never stood a chance. It shuddered open within moments, and Mu Mao and the old cat leaped to the floor. Instantly all of the other cats were awake and scratching at their cages. Mu Mao's new mother was particularly vociferous. "Ungrateful spawn of a lecherous tomcat, why are you liberating that washed up old ally cat and not your own family?" "Mother—friends, at least here you will have a warm place to sleep and food. Outside you will have nothing." "Except our freedom," said the bobtail black. "And a certainty that nobody will pluck us helpless from our cages to take us to a gas chamber. I've heard about what they do in these places. Where do you think I was before I came here if not out there?" The old cat was pawing and mewing at the door and Mu Mao turned from him to the others and back again while the old fellow went frantic trying to get out. "Very well. There's no time to argue." He went to the door and jumped up on the handle and said to all of the other cats. "Repeat after me:" and began the purring Mantra of Liberation once more. Moments later two dozen cats and kittens were straggling at various speeds behind the tail of Mu Mao, who was struggling to keep up with the old cat, his face never getting further forward on the old one's body than the butterfly spirals of black stripes in the gray of his sides. Mu Mao's mother continually lost ground as she shifted kittens and at last Mu Mao in his tiny voice told three of the other adult cats that if they wished to go in the same direction he was, they should help carry the young. Much to his surprise, they agreed. But even more surprising, the old cat turned for the only time since their escape, and scooped up Mu Mao by the nape of the neck. After that, their caravan went much more quickly. The old cat was not lost, not was he confused. He unerringly homed in on his former home. A strong chill wind blew them along, but it was not yet raining or snowing and the night was clear, with many stars Mu Mao could not properly appreciate from his berth under the chin of the old cat. The cortege of cats passed over and under a series of back fences, alleys and yards until they came to a small house with high grass. A light was on in a back window. The old cat dropped Mu Mao, hopped up to the sill and scratched, mewing. Mu Mao jumped up beside him. The others started to do the same but the old cat hissed warningly at them and then modulated his tone to another plaintive meow. Inside the room was a bed full of tumbled covers and a small, frail person. The person turned toward the window, as Mu Mao looked on. He seemed to have no attendant or helper however, and had barely the strength to raise his hand. Someone had brought him water and tidied the place recently, from the look of it however. Perhaps he had help come in during the day, or perhaps they slept elsewhere in the house, though it scarcely looked large enough for two people. "Let me in, Fred! Let me in!" the old cat cried over and over and Fred seemed aware of him but unable to move. Finally the old fellow jumped down, narrowly missing Mu Mao's mother and two of his brothers. "If he won't open the window, then I will take a run and break through it," the old cat declared. "Oh, that will be a grand surprise for your friend. A concussed unconscious if not dead cat lying cut to ribbons and bleeding all over his floor. I believe there is a better way," Mu Mao said. "A moment please." He began his chant of levitation, aiming at the window. It was a tricky business. Once he himself rose into the air and he had to start all over again. Another time he saw something move from the corner of his eye and looked around to see all of the other cats lifting from the ground, and once more started over. Fred lifted once, briefly too, but then Mu Mao at last chanted with the correct intonation and the window creaked, jerked, and flew open. The old cat flew through it as if he had wings, landing on the bed beside his friend and purring madly, rubbing himself so hard against the fragile body in the bed he threatened to crush it. "Gently, old one," Mu Mao cautioned. "His fires burn low. You wouldn't want to extinguish them entirely before you had a proper reunion." Just then, however, Mu Mao heard paws on the sill and turned back to the other cats. "It's a private moment," he told them but bobtail black tom sauntered saucily forward, and had to bounce unceremoniously back to the ground to avoid losing his nose as the window flew shut again. Mu Mao saw with surprise that the communication between the two did indeed consist only of cat noises on the one side and human murmurings on the other. It seemed to suit them fine, however, and he decided not to offer his services as a translator. Fred was immediately enlivened by the presence of his feline friend, and gave the cat weak strokes and spoke to him while the cat purred and rubbed. Mu Mao found such extravagant affection almost distasteful, as he himself had learned to practice detachment in all things. However, in his heart he knew that love was not merely a great catalyst to many important changes and events, but the only catalyst if such things were to have Merit. Slightly bored, nonetheless, Mu Mao looked about him while man and cat reunited. He noticed many framed photographs on the dresser. They were all of Fred and the old cat, who in some of them was a young cat, and Fred a younger man. In one of them the old fellow was a mere fluffball of a kitten and Fred himself barely dry behind the ears. Most of the photos said, "Me and Delf" although one, a portrait of Delf as a kitten, said "Delfy, seventh son of Alison Gray." Delfy himself was very gray in that picture. The dark stripes would have come in later life. Photographs also covered the walls but they were too high for someone of Mu Mao's diminutive stature to see. Photograph albums were piled on the table beside the bed, as if Fred had been looking at them before his caretaker tidied up. Mu Mao jumped up on the table to see if any of them were open, but none was and they were too heavy for a small kitten to manipulate. He didn't want to knock one off the table and disturb the reunion. However, from his fresh vantage point, he saw a computer sitting on a table in one corner of the room. This was something even a kit with the right know-how could use. After all, it involved only the pushing of a few buttons and something called a mouse. It was a small computer, and its power button responded readily to the touch of a tiny paw. Fred was not a secretive man. No password was required to see what concerns he filed on his machine. One choice said "Delfy" and Mu Mao pounced on the mouse. A number of things happened inside the computer with the result that soon there was a chronicle of Delfy's life from the time he was born until Fred became too ill to be Delfy's biographer any longer. Man and cat had been intertwined throughout their lives to the extent that it was amazing to Mu Mao that Delfy had never learned more of Fred's language or had mistaken Fred's intention when the man sent his cat companion to find a new home. Actually, according to the sad note in Delfy's chronicle, Fred had given Delfy to a friend who promised to find him a home. Apparently the friend had simply dumped the cat at the shelter. But from the time Delfy was born, a Gemini in the year of the Dragon, when Fred had helped Alison Gray deliver her kittens and had wiped the caul from little Delfy's face, they had been together. There were snapshots of the house Fred and Delfy lived in before and after the earthquake. Fred wrote that before the earthquake, Delfy had leapt from his arms and flown back and forth to the frame of the door, hooking his claws into Fred's pants and insisting that Fred follow him. Fred credited Delfy's instinct for survival with saving his life. There were the women friends that Delfy didn't like who eventually broke Fred's heart and the man friend that Delfy hated, who turned out to be a crook. Fred even spoke sadly of when he first began to feel ill and Delfy began shredding a magazine that had an article about bladder cancer in it. Had he paid attention at the time Delfy did this, Fred believed the doctors could have treated it. A Gemini in the Year of the Dragon. Well. Yes. Auspicious? Certainly. Mu Mao gave the mouse a final, rather unenlightened bat, and jumped down from the table. Fred's initial joyous greetings had dwindled to incomprehensible murmurings. His pets grew feebler as the joy that had flooded him with adrenaline could not sustain his strength, and his hand faltered, and lay still. Delfy stopped in mid-purr and looked into Fred's face. His eyes, so fond and happy moments before, were now glazed and empty, though his lips still curled in a slight smile. Delfy gave a mew that was half a whine and nosed at Fred's limp hand. My Mao jumped up on the bed and with his tiny tongue began grooming the old cat's head. "We were just in time," the kitten with the old soul said. "And you did a good thing for Fred. He was very glad to see you and had missed you very much, as you saw for yourself. I have read his words concerning you and it is true that he only sent you away to save you. But you didn't want to be saved so now what?" "You who can open doors with your purrs, make yourself invisible and levitate windows ask me what's next?" Delfy asked in a dispirited voice. "I do," Mu Mao said. "We are all wild again. The others seem to wish to stay together for the time being. How about you?" The old cat sunk his chin into his paws. He remained snuggled next to Fred's body. Mu Mao licked and licked, projecting calming and healing thoughts as he did so. "I don't care." "You cannot stay here, friend. I know the ways of people. Soon they will come and take Fred away and someone new will live here. Probably you will not be welcome and will find yourself back in the place where we were. I think you and I both know you have a life with and a duty to your own kind now." Delfy turned away to lick Fred's ear, and tried to groom his hair. A horrible wild yowl sounded from without and Mu Mao jumped upon the window sill in time to watch a gang of strange cats descend upon the refugees from the shelter, tearing into them with ferocity meant to kill. The fur flew, screams and spits, hisses and the sound of ripping flesh met him. For just a moment, the small feline he was in this life thought it best to stay put, but he saw a grizzled calico with one ear leap upon his mother and try to get at one of his litter mates. He levitated the window with such force that the pane rattled in its frame. The Bobtail black tom flew into the grizzled calico and tore her from Mu Mao's mother's back. Mu Mao was levitating his small siblings to the relative safety of the window sill when Delfy sprang up beside him. The striped cat's fur bristled until he was enormous, ten times the size of Mu Mao and his brothers and sisters. With a roar like a lion's, a roar so unlike his mewlings and purrrings to his former companion that Mu Mao could hardly believe this was the same cat (a true Gemini, he reflected with satisfaction), he stilled the furor of battle. "HEAR ME AND BE WARNED!" he snarled. His eyes were rolled back in his face, and the black spectacles around them became a spiraling infinity knot that hypnotized the cats below and quite surprised and pleased Mu Mao with the definitiveness of its declaration of Delfy's unique status. "The King is Dead. You anarchists who would rend the kingdom apart for lack of leadership, beware. The new king is among us now. Long live Bobtail Black Tom, the only legitimate and non-neutered heir to His Former Majesty, Tom Gamble!" The strange cats slunk away from those they were mauling, just far enough to roll onto their backs, as did the other refugee cats one by one, while Bobtail Black Tom strolled among them licking their faces or giving their bellies a warning tap with his paw. Mu Mao's mother, having made her obeisance, brought her youngsters from the sill one by one, the last being Mu Mao, who jumped down unaided. Beside him, Delfy landed but neither of them showed their bellies to the bobtailed black king. Nonetheless, the king graciously sauntered forward, quite full of himself now, Mu Mao noticed, though he doubted the black cat had had any idea of his own royalty prior to Delfy's announcement. With great ceremony he licked Mu Mao's forehead and then lowered his own head for Delfy to lick his ears, which Delfy did in the feline equivalent of a coronation. "Great Oracle," the king asked when this was done, "You took your own sweet time about announcing yourself. What kept you?" Just then Fred's caretaker, who apparently had been asleep in another room in the house and been aroused by the racket, came to the window. "I never saw so many damned cats in my life. Shut up, you lot! There's been a death in this house and—why, Delfy! You came back. Come on back inside, kitty, and we'll find you a good home. Fred wouldn't want you to be a stray." But Delfy, a true Gemini now joined with his second path, turned his tail to her and nosed the king, who led his court back into the dark back yards and over the back fences and across the shadowed alleys that were his new realm. Mu Mao, his small body weary from his exertions, begged his mother for a ride.
DON'T GO OUT IN HOLY UNDERWEARorVictoria's Secret ?orSpace Panties!!! by Elizabeth Ann Scaroborough Victoria Fredericks, Space Cadet, was just your average titian haired, emerald eyed temptress of a time and space traveller, nothing out of the ordinary really. Except that Victoria had a secret. She had an underwear fetish. Long ago, back on earth, even before she began the cadet training program, she had fancied lacy silk underthings in shades to match her eyes and clash with her hair, as well as scanties in purple or black or aquamarine, in tiger stripes or leopard spots or little pink and red hearts. She liked knowing that under her standard issue uniform, she had on something fine, something she wouldn't be ashamed to show in any emergency room. Her mother had impressed the importance of underwear on her at an early age. "Vicky, baby," she had told her. "I don't want to catch you goin' out to play with holes in your underpants. What if, God Forbid, you should fall off your air board or get hit by a low-flying shuttle and have to go to the emergency room? What would the doctors and nurses think to see your holey underwears?" That was Mom all over. Not well-educated herself, she slaved for hours in a spacer bar saving the money so that young Victoria could have a better education, a broader horizon, than she herself enjoyed. And better underwear too. Mom's job in the spacer bar was such that she particularly appreciated a well-placed piece of lace. In good condition, always. Victoria was brought up to do the same. However, once Victoria shipped out, she found that her secret satisfaction became her secret sorrow. Her lovely undies wore out, set by set, first the black, which was so basic she wore it for all occasions, followed by the white with the little pink rosettes and bows accenting the lace, then the emerald which went so well with her eyes, followed by all of the other colors until she was in desperate danger of having to wear--ugh--standard Space Cadet issue underwear. And that was just on her first mission! She sent an urgent dispatch earthside with a supply ship begging her mother to send something suitable from her favorite boutique. The time thing had entirely slipped her mind. If it seemed like forever until another supply ship brought her special package, it must have seemed longer than that to her mother, who wrote in a shaky hand, "Vicky, baby, forgive that I don't write so good but for God's sake I'm nearly ninety, so I think I'm doing pretty good, don't you? I hate to tell you, baby, but the port has gone to hell since you left and your favorite boutique closed up. I don't get around so good, but I got my Elderaid to go shopping for me and asked her to buy you something nice. This is what she came back with. It was in a closeout sale at the souvenir shop at the spaceport. Sorry, it was the best I could do. Just remember to change often and don't go out on any missions with holes in your scanties, okay? Take care of yourself. Love, Mom." Victoria sniffled, ashamed to realize she'd been thinking only of herself in asking her mother to sacrifice precious time, energy and money for her wish, but the Space Corps stuff really rubbed her the wrong way after all those years of silk. So she bravely wiped her eyes and with fingers trembling with anticipation, opened the package to pull out -- plain cotton briefs. Her heart sank. They were perfectly respectable, and would surely be more comfortable than the Space Corps ones, but they were so ordinary! And then, examining them closer, she saw that they weren't ordinary at all. The package said, "Space Panties" but at first, they just seemed to be the sort of typical days of the week panties girls had once worn in school. "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday," Victoria counted to herself, "Saturday, Sunday . . . " but that was only the first seven. There were thirty eight more pairs to go, one for every day in a spacer's week! "Sheperdsday, Glennsday, Gurguriansday, Kristasday . . . " she named them in order, all of the spacer days named for the early astronauts. There was a fresh pair of briefs for each. If she was careful, washing by hand and mending when necessary, she need never be without a special pair! Or so she thought, tears of gratitude, relief and homesickness dampening the white cotton and industrial strength elastic. As her time of service lengthened and her data bases became engorged with knowledge as she grew in wisdom, experience, and, of course, beauty, her elastic began to give out and her fabric to fray. A few pairs of her precious undies had become ripped in the line of duty--a couple more, before she came to value them so highly, in the line of other, more pleasurable pursuits. And so the space panties were carefully stowed in her locker to be worn only for good luck on special missions. Like saving whole entire planets. Such as the one she was saving now, while wearing the Glennsday pair. Not only were they her most especially lucky pair, they were also the only ones left that had no holes, not even the tiniest. She'd cried when she opened her locker to find her entire stack of treasured unmentionables full of bitty little holes. Nobody had told her about space moths or she would have brought along space moth balls. Only the Glennsday pair had escaped with the tiniest of punctures. Barely noticeable, really, but it worried Victoria, as she set forth to save the simple, quaint, low-tech inhabitants of the earthlike planet known in space jargon as Hotel Whiskey. "But, Commander," she had protested to her gruff, stern-but-fair commander, when given the assignment. "Why don't the Hotel Whiskonians simply zap the silly Hasslebads into the next dimension?" "Because," Commander Helen Highwater replied, "they have chosen a simple, quaint, spiritual life and aren't good at fighting. Unfortunately, the Hasslebads are much more sophisticated technologically and are very good at fighting. So your mission, Space Cadet Victoria Fredericks, is to defend the planet from utter destruction and the domination of the forces of evil and so forth. Okay?" "Sure, yeah, okay, fine," Victoria said, with a snappy salute. "Here are the keys to the top secret battle-shuttle, the Rikki Tikki Tavi. If, and when, you return with your mission successfully completed, you will have passed your final test and will no longer be a Space Cadet but a full, entire, completely commissioned and graduated officer of the Space Corps, and in a really swell ceremony will receive your insignia as Ensign Victoria Fredericks of the Space Corps." "Just for defending one little planet and destroying the forces of evil that threaten it? Gee, Commander Highwater, piece of cake. Send me in there, Commander." With only a brief stop, so to speak, to don her special lucky lingerie and her space suit, she had gone to the shuttle bay and inserted the keys into the ignition of the battle shuttle Rikki Tikki Tavi and, prudently waiting for the bay door to iris, had blasted off into space. What a rush! It was the first time the commander had let her take a shuttle out on her own, though of course she had practiced flying in simulators and under the supervision of seasoned Space Corps veterans such as Captains Flash Morgan and Chuck Rogers. But this was her premier solo flight and fight. She continued being really thrilled right up until, as she approached the tasteful emerald and purple sphere that was Hotel Whiskey, she saw her enemy sneaking up on her from the far side of one of the planet's pretty lavender moons. She knew it had to be the enemy ship because it was this really ugly, mean looking black thing with a nose-cone flanked by what looked like twin spikes, or fangs, but which were really space-to-dirt missiles. No doubt meant to blow the peaceful, gentle, quaint Hotel Whiskonians to smithereens! The rest of the Hasslebad ship rose like a hood behind the slitted dual view ports on either side of the nose-cone. Mere badly conceived exterior design wasn't about to intimidate Victoria, however. She got right on her com set and opened the pre-programmed Hasslebad hailing frequency and said, "Hey there, you in the cobra ship! Come in. This is Victoria Fredericks, Space Cadet in the Space Corps battle shuttle Rikki Tikki Tavi and if you don't stop picking on that poor little planet beneath us this very instant, I will open fire and you will be really, really sorry." "Ha, brave and beautiful but sadly doomed and deluded earth woman, we defy you and your dainty little space shuttle to keep us from enslaving the puny world beneath our jets! Surrender now and you can have a ringside seat as the consort of our emperor while watching us make that world go away." "Absolutely out of the question!" Victoria replied spunkily. "Your sort are evil, odious, wicked and mean and wish only to dominate others and you have a very ugly spaceship. I would never feel comfortable as the consort of an emperor who employs such tacky designers." "Impudent earthling vixen, we will blow you out of the cosmos for that! The emperor himself designed this vessel. Prepare to die!" "Oh, grow up!" Victoria retorted, and opened fire just in time to intercept their volley, which rocked her sideways. Fortunately, since the days when prescient science fiction had predicted ships of her sort, appropriate seat belts had been designed so she was only slightly stirred, not shaken loose from her command console. But their next volley knocked out her auto controls, her life support systems, her computer, and the communications system. All she had was her viewport, her manual controls, and her wits. She was flying by the seat of her panties! Fortunately, she also had her laser rockets and they could be fired by manual control. She sent another volley right into their guts and, since she was a dead shot, with or without computer control, she watched with satisfaction as the ship exploded into many many . . . Her satisfaction evaporated as a particularly large chunk came flying, despite the lack of atmosphere, toward her viewport, smashing into it. The last thing she remembered was the jar of the impact, the hiss and sizzle of the control console as it tore apart in sparks, and the feeling of thousands of tiny pricks of fire burning through the cloth of her suit. Then all she saw was stars and darkness as she descended down, down, ever downward.
To awaken, bruised, burned, in terrible pain, but still apparently intact, in drastically compressed darkness, lit only by the still flickering mini-fires of the Rikki's electrical bits. Fortunately, the impact of landing had jarred open the shuttle's hatch. Victoria wriggled toward it. Her leg hung at a peculiar angle and she couldn't feel her toes, but she scooted on the bottom of her shredded space suit across the rubble strewn deck and out the hatch. What a mess! The shuttle crash had produced a crater many feet deep, with sides so steep she could barely squirm between her vessel and the grave encompassing it. The ground was also still very hot, though the outside of the shuttle, made of special heat-repelling space ship stuff, was still cool. Her leg was killing her. She ought to have splinted it, but long pieces of anything weren't part of space shuttle design. If only she could climb on top of her shuttle, she might be able to hoist her well-conditioned though still curvily feminine form out of the pit with her strong but shapely arms. She had aced Space Cadet basic training and worked out daily in the ship's gym. Her leg hurt so badly that she nearly passed out from the effort. She planted her hands on the roof of the shuttle and pushed--and to her surprise boosted herself three feet above the shuttle before coming back down on its roof, rather lightly, and with ample time to protect her injured limb. That was easy, she thought, and bounced again, with a slight change of direction that landed her beside the crater. About that time, the press arrived. That is, a press of robed, girded, masked, painted spear carrying folk Victoria could only assume were indigenous Hotel Whiskonians arrived. They didn't look quaint and charming. They looked--well, dangerous. But of course, Victoria Fredericks. Space Cadet, laughed in the face of danger, or at least giggled nervously. "Hi," she said, twitching her fingers up and down in a little wave she hoped did not have a radically different meaning in their cultural milieu. "I guess you've come to welcome me as a conquering hero, on account of I just saved your planet and all." One of them nudged her with a the shard of pointed crystal borne on the end of his spear and she yelped. "Please don't do that. My leg is broken, I think. I don't suppose you could call my ship, could you? My communications unit was destroyed in the crash when I was nearly killed defending your home world," she paused for a moment with significant glances into each set of masked or painted eyes she could make contact with. Her mother had taught her a thing or two about responsibility, not to mention guilt, a weapon that, like primitive magic, was very effective on those who believed in it. It probably wasn't fair to use psychological warfare on these simple people, but it was nicer than skewering them, as they seemed willing to do to her. She intensified her gaze, mentally projecting the words, "Naughty naughty. This is a nice way to treat a person who gets herself crashed to save you?" Gradually, first spears and then eyes dropped groundward and toes began describing semicircles in the lush violet petals blanketing the ground. Two or three of the Whiskonians edged toward the lip of the crater and, looking in, pointed and began speaking in gibberish. They consulted, jabbering among themselves in their simple native tongue. Then suddenly they surrounded her and two of them grabbed her leg. A bolt of agony shot through her and the last thing she thought as they attacked her leg was that if she lived through this, she could never wear her Glennsday panties again.
Sometime later she awakened, still suffering but not so acutely, to find herself floating along atop the shoulders of her erstwhile attackers, who were singing a charming native folk song of surprisingly complex melody and interlaced harmonies. Overhead the orchid-hued fronds and leaves of the forest frothed above her, fanning her as the breeze passed through them. At eye level were trees with familiar looking leaves shaped like two tiny bat wings stuck together at the tops with the wings fanning out on either side. Lovely little red berries festooned the trees giving them a cheery look. And then suddenly they were passing beneath a stone archway, and the warriors, as she thought of them, were transferring her to other, gentler hands. She was deposited upon a table of some sort and carried deeper into the building. Her bearers were not masked but veiled in violet that matched the ground cover she had seen near the crash site. They seemed to be both male and female and spoke in murmurs. She was carried into a room containing many stone slabs, like altars, with other people on tables laying atop them, their bodies clothed in tattered and bloodied robes and draperies. Some of the bodies lay very still. Some were screaming. And two of her attendants pulled out long wicked looking knives and plunged them toward her -- space suit. From the corner of her eye she saw the splints and bandages, and realized that they were only removing her clothing to examine her wounds. Or were they? As the equipment was being arranged, the nurses, as she now thought of them, pushed her back down onto the table and the doctor, as she now thought of him, began touching her inappropriately in the area more or less covered by her ruined Glennsday panties. "What's he doing?" she asked them but no one answered. "I'm sure Space Corps insurance will NOT cover this procedure, whatever it is!" she threatened, but to no avail. These were aliens, after all, despite their humanoid appearance and behavior. The doctor looked up suddenly and jerked his thumb in the air and before Victoria could do so much as scream they held her aloft, high over their heads. At least they were good enough to support her injured leg as they did so but she could feel the physician's prying fingers lightly tickling her behind through the fabric and holes of her ruined undies. Then suddenly, he let forth a cry that sounded like "Tonda Roga!" And the others all responded, "Tonda Roga? Tonda Roga!" And all of them began genuflecting and moaning the same name at the top of their lungs. "No, no," she said, pointing to herself as they lowered her gently to the table. "Victoria. Victoria Fredericks." But they failed to heed her words, though they stopped genuflecting finally and bustled about with a gleeful energy that seemed misplaced in a hospital. They busily splinted her leg, gave her a soothing drink that eased the pain, and draped her in first a violet veil then in many other layers of rich apparel that she privately considered a little overdone. "Thank you too much, I'm sure, but if you could just send up a smoke signal or something to hail my ship, that would be plenty of gratitude," she said modestly, adding, " I really have no need for all of these things. They'll catch on the equipment back at the ship." But no one was paying any attention. The ones who weren't backing away from her slab, still genuflecting, had moved on to the next patients. Puzzled she watched while the medical staff first disrobed the patients and fingered and muttered over their underwear, which was at least as disreputable as hers had become. Only then did anybody treat anybody. "Is this whole hospital staffed with perverts or what?" she asked, the pain making her impatient and not too prone to consider the reasonableness of what appeared to be local folkways. "My stars, the malpractice suits around here must be astronomical." To her surprise, one of the masked figures, she thought it was the same one who had tickled her--fancy--while examining her undies--turned to her and said, "Not at all, Tonda Roga." Victoria gasped. "You speak English!" "Naturally. Oxford Space Academy actually." "But--but--" "You are surprised I speak your language? You see, the priestly class is the aristocracy on our world. Healing and prophecy go together--" Victoria observed where his fingers were walking across the groin of his current patient, a groin clad in a tattered garment that resembled a pair of shorts. "But not exactly hand in hand?" she asked with a brave, knowing little smile. "Please, none of your earthling prudery, my dear. I am both Chief Physician and High Priest on my world. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is %^&**(+@#." "That's a toughie," she said. "Okay if I just call you Doc or maybe Reverend?" He regarded her girlish confusion with less dignity than he had previously displayed. "Of course, Tonda Roga. My name, being the highest on the planet, is naturally of the old tongue, virtually unpronouncable to all but the priesthood. In time, I hope you may even come to call me--but never mind." He readjusted his visage into a stern expression once more. "You are the Tonda Roga. You may be an off-worlder, but you must not look askance at our perfectly normal diagnostic function I am performing." "What diagnostic function?" she asked, returning determindedly to the subject after being lost, for a time, contemplating the invitation in his eyes to call him -- what? Sweetheart? He returned her to reality. "Why, reading the holes in this patient's unga gao roga of course. It is our chief form of divination and diagnosis." "Excuse me?" "The sacred undergarments. Not so sacred as your own, of course, but nonetheless very holy indeed." "You mean my undies aren't just full of holes, they're holy too here? I don't want to be ethnocentric or anything, doctor, but that sounds like something out you'd hear at Callahan's Saloon." "Not at all. On our world, we believe that the knowledge of character, the future, health, everything, can be read from the condition of that garment which covers the seat of passion, the outlets of the innermost being, the very foundation upon which one balances oneself throughout much of life." "Is that so?" she asked petulantly, for she was very groggy from the pain medicine. "It is. How else would we know you were the Tonda Roga?" "That just shoes you how silly it is. I'm not Tonda anybody. I'm Victoria Fredericks, Space Cadet, serial number 00111001." "Not to us. To us you are the Tonda Roga, the chosen one. It's all right there on your knickers. You can read for yourself if you don't believe me." "So what's this Tonda Roga chosen to do anyway?" she asked. She decided to pass on the knickers-reading part. She thought it was dumb and besides, he had already done it and he was the expert, wasn't he? "Save the world as we know it, of course." "Well, you're safe there then, aren't you, since I already did that." The eyes over the top of the mask-- kind of cute eyes, really, she'd never seen that shade of reddish brown in an eye color before and it was a little like being looked at through infra red-- looked momentarily confused. "I beg your pardon." "I said I'm way ahead of you. I saved your world this morning, I guess it was, just before I came here. Didn't your warriors tell you? They found me at the crash site." "They mentioned something about how you fell from the sky but--" "I blew up the Hasslebad ship that was threatening your planet, only I got knocked dirtside by the debris." "I had no idea." "I told the warriors. They seemed to understand." He shook his head. "They understand emotional messages but of everyone on the planet, I'm the only one who understands your language, I'm afraid. That's why I hope I can explain to you the meaning of it all." "What all?" "What you must do to save us, beautiful one." "I told you I--" "Okay, save us again then. It is foretold that the Tonda Roga will come and we shall know her by her unga rao roga and she alone will possess the skill to brave the underworld and the dragons thereof and repair the World Wide Warning Web." "Bet you can't say that fast," she said, giggling from the pain soothing drink. "There'll be a great feast tonight and we'll have a procession leading you to the entrance to the underworld." "But I can't walk on this leg!" "I thought a Space Cadet never says can't," he scolded, shaking a finger at her. "How do you know what a Space Cadet does and doesn't do?" "I attended the Academy as a student, before the web was broken. My family is wealthy and aristocratic and I am considered a very good catch--" he added with eyebrows raised to indicate he was waiting for a response from her that indicated she cared about such unprofessional things. To her surprise, portions of her that had recently been a party to the reading of her unga rao roga indicated that she did indeed care. She hoped he wasn't really gross when he took his veil off. "But my mother insisted I get an education first. I came home just as the web was breaking." "What is this web thing?" she asked, determinedly all business. "It is the mandala grid that protects the planet from the attentions of those who would harm us, such as the Hasslebads. It conceals us in the invisible protection that kept us safe all through time." "But now it doesn't?" "Correct." "Well, then, I don't want to sound critical, but if it's so important, and you're such a leader here, why didn't you fix it yourself?" "Because only a Tonda Roga can do so." He replied, sounding mildly shocked. He wasn't the only one "A Tonda Roga?" she asked. "I thought it was the Tonda Roga and I, Victoria Fredericks, Space Cadet, am she. The one you've been waiting on." "Sort of," he replied. "Sort of what?" she demanded with some of the pique those of her hair color are known for. "We couldn't wait quite that long, you see. Long enough for you to maybe show up some day, maybe not. So there've--er--been others." "And they couldn't do it?" "Evidently not," he said, shrugging. She didn't like that shrug. "What do you mean by that? Don't you know?" "Not exactly. They never returned." She took a deep breath. "Oh, it's one of those is it? A Class 3 situation." She remembered that from her manual as something very grave indeed, though she couldn't recall the exact text at the moment. No doubt because of the pain medication. "In that case, I'll require a few things from my vessel. Can someone please take me back there now?" "That won't be necessary," he said, and motioned for another attendant. They carried her between them to another large stone clad hall, and she saw her ship sitting in the middle of it, very much the worse for wear. She did hope her little bag was still untouched. She described it to the doctor and he said to one of the warriors, "The Tonda Roga requires her magic bag. Enter her steed and fetch it forth." Trembling, the warrior did as he was told and after a few false tries, during which he emerged with the broken communicator, a spare space helmet, and a half dozen replicated bowls of jello, he brought her bag. She drew from it a carving knife and then said, "I need a branch from those trees with the funny leaves and the red berries." "You mean the holly trees?" the doctor asked. "They're a mutation on the same tree you have on earth." "We didn't have any trees around the Space Port," she said sadly. "How deprived you were!" he said. "Yes, but though we had no natural surroundings, we had the glory of Space Port in our very air and of course, we had love. My Mom used to buy me the most beautiful underwear. You'd have loved it." "Ah, yes," he said dreamily. "I feel quite sure of that." The holly boughs were duly fetched and, using her Space Corps Knife with the five thousand attachments, she cleverly fashioned a sturdy cane to help her walk into the danger she must face. Then about three hundred scantily clad handmaidens paraded into the hall and carried her and her cane away on their shoulders. She was taken to a chamber where she was tenderly washed, oiled, buffed and polished, groomed and perfumed before being reclad in some rather beautiful lace and more gossamer soft veiling that flowed into a diaphanous garment revealing more than it concealed. Dreamily, she fingered the material. "This is lovely. Where is it from?" she asked, but the girls didn't speak English and her universal translator had been broken in the crash. Fortunately, despite the filmy nature of her outfit, it did have a handy pocket for her Space Corps knife. She heard the drums just as the polish on her toenails dried. Pulsing, primal rhthyms throbbed through the sultry night carrying the heady scent of nocturnal blossoms. The maidens bore her from the hall out into a huge garden-courtyard ablaze with torches. The smoke from them wrapped everything in cinnamon scented gauze, giving it an otherworldly feeling, which was not surprising, Victoria thought, considering she was on another world. The night-blooming flowers were draped over everything, swags and garlands of them, all purest white, all smelling like a really exclusive perfume shop back on earth. A double line of simple, quaint natives, all drumming, dancing and singing their charming indigenous songs, opened before the procession. At the end of the human corridor, flowers and fire arched dramatically over a solitary figure. Toward this man the maidens bore Victoria Fredericks, whose heart was now beating with danger, excitement and another, less familiar feeling, one she couldn't remember having in all the years since she had finally gotten to know all too well every single guy aboard her spacecraft. Finally, the maidens set her down at the feet of the man. She languished there for a moment, staring up at him through the cinnamony smoke. He was the best looking thing she'd ever seen, and looked aboslutely human, without funny nose wrinkles or strange ears or bald head or anything. Well, his hair was sort of a pale lavender, but that could have been the lighting and besides, it was one of her favorite colors. He held out a strongly muscled arm to her. He wore only a loin cloth and a few posies around his neck and she could see that all of him was as strongly muscled as the arm. His voice was familiar, tender and warm as he said, "Come, my Tonda Roga. The time has come for you to save the world as we know it. By the way, you look stunning in your ceremonial robes." "Thanks," she said, rising to her feet--or rather, her foot and cane, with the help of his strength. "It's not very practical but--" "Tonda Rogas usually also wear eight inch spiked sandals for running through the tunnels but in view of your injury, we relaxed the dress code," he told her. "It's nice to be special," she smiled up at him, feeling woozy from the pain potion or the smoke, or maybe just the moons and stars, she didn't know. But she thought she would drown in his eyes. "You are special. I have come to love you, titian haired earth girl. I pray to our benign native gods that you do not perish on your mission of mercy." "Me too," she murmured, her lips so close to his she could flick out her tongue and taste them. "But now," he said, stepping aside so quickly she nearly fell over, "It is time for you to brave all. Farewell, my brave beauty!" "Bye!" she said, and, taking the proffered torch, stepped through the arch and into a long long tunnel whose floor descended rapidly. It also twisted and turned as it descended and branched off many times. Victoria had covered that eventuality in the Cadet Academy however and began unravelling the hem of the diaphanous garment so she could find her way back. But though her training and her spirit were equal to any task, her body was not doing so hot. Her leg hurt and she stopped to rest just where the tunnel forked and twisted again. After a few minutes, when she'd caught her breath and the pain subsided to a slightly duller ache, she leaned forward, holding her torch in front of her, to peer into one of the passages. An orthodontist's nightmare of stalagmites and stalactites over and underbit each other into an impassable mass through one passage. She pulled the torch back and stuck it into the other branch of the tunnel. She could see nothing so she scooted forward on her bottom and thrust the torch around the corner. The torch guttered and flared, guttered and flared, and in its fitful light, she could see nothing but grayness. She inched forward a bit more and stretched her hand forward to balance herself. She touched something hard and brittle and looked down. It was a bone! A bone sheathed in white diaphanous material. Like what she was wearing. Oh dear. Next to it was a grinning skull. She looked away, up into the light of the smoking torch, and made out other bones poking through the grayness. She got only a glimpse, but it looked to her as if the gray matter was composed of zillions of fine threads. Then a portion of the thread extruded and gobbled her torch. For just a moment before the light went out, she saw through the grayness, far back beyond it to what seemed to be long sinuous moving shapes that seemed to be waving at her. And still shapes that looked like pairs of wings, trapped in the incredibly tangled web. And of course, more slender young girlish bones. Then with a singeing smell and a slurping sound, her torch was extinguished and she was alone in the darkness. She backed away, trying to rise to her good leg, but as she rose, something slithered forward, touching her bare toe, and sucked at the tip of her cane. Holding onto the cave wall, she backed further away and ever further. What was she doing? A Space Cadet never retreats! Pulling forth her Space Corps knife, she cut through the slithery material and severed a sample. It did not seem to be alive actually, but lay still in her hand, soft and fine as Asian silk. "Aha!" she said pluckily to herself, an idea dawning as she recognized certain pieces of this situation as a monstrous blowup of something she was already intimately familiar with. For though the web threads weren't silk as she knew it, it was certainly some sort of silky fiber. And though the previous Tonda Rogas had been engulfed by it, Victoria in her more sophisticated wisdom doubted that it was a hostile life form. After all, the people of this planet believed there was a web down here and the stuff she held in her hands was what webs were made of. It seemed to her that what was necessary was a little ingenuity and good old fashioned Space Corps knowhow. And, of course, the right tools. When the next surge of gray stuff popped out at her she slipped to the side and shook her finger at it before hobbling into the adjoining cave. Groping with her slender fingers, she found the tip of a stalagmite. With the sawzall blade of her knife, she cut off the tip at a point where it was about five diameters wide. Then she cut about a half inch below the first cut, and lifted off a fairly regular disc shaped piece of the stone. Using the laser-punchall beam, she bored a hole in the center to slip her cane through. It was a perfect fit, of course, and stopped a few inches from the bottom. There was also a small flashlight beam on her knife and with this, she saw that beyond the shallow shelter of the stalagmite cave, the gray matter had gotten really pushy and extruded several more feet into the main tunnel. Instantly, the sensitive Cadet realized why. When she had seen the "dragons" they had seen her and were wiggling in anticipation of her saving them! Poor things! That was what had happened before and they'd ended up killing the very Tonda Rogas who had come to help them. But of course, those had just been simple village girls, not Academy trained and space-seasoned Corps Cadets! She reached out and grabbed a handful of the gray web and gave it a saucy twist around her cane just above the rock whorl. Then, when it was secure, she dropped it and began spinning. The gray matter spun and spun and every time her makeshift spindle was full, she cut off the thread and attached another hunk to spin more. Soon she had cleared a large enough path for herself to escape, retreating back the way she had come. The party was still going on and seemed to be a wake in her honor. Indignation overcame her as she saw the natives dancing and wailing over her supposed fate instead of showing some initiative. Standing in the archway she cried, "Hear the Tonda Roga! I have returned and I have devined the nature of your problem!" The crowd, as one person, albeit not a very brave one, shrank back and looked at her as if she was a ghost, which, considering the ensemble they'd given her to wear, she no doubt appeared to be. The doctor however, looked toward her with his mouth agape and his tear reddened eyes filled with wonder and hope. "But--but how?" he asked. She shrugged and tossed her flaming locks, her green eyes flashing. "I'm a professional. Those other girls simply shouldn't have tried being a Tonda Roga on their own. You sent me to be a human sacrifice, didn't you?" "No, I swear. It is simply written that the Tonda Roga will be a woman and ye shall know her by the holes in her unga rao roga, just as I told you. I personally couldn't be more delighted to see you. But--" "No, I have not yet saved your planet from destruction from within. No one person can do that, however valiant. It will take all of you to do that. This party is traditional too, isn't it?" "It is written that we shall watch for the Tonda Roga for five days and five nights after she enters the underworld." "Good. Now I know why you were all called here. I want everyone to go into the woods and start collecting branches and rocks." "But whatever for?" "We have a yarn to spin," she told him in her perky, mischievous way, deliberately being mysterious. "I'll reveal all in my own time." She gave him a wink. He blushed. * * *
It took plenty of hard work, encouragement and grit but she had the problem completely under control two weeks later when a landing party from her ship appeared in the courtyard. "You're out of uniform, Cadet Fredericks," Captain Flash Morgan said with a low appreciative whistle. "Like it?" she asked, twirling to show off the slight tulip skirt of her slithery saffron silk slip, which she had just been modelling for the doctor. "Very much, but what's going on here?" he asked, taking in the long line of people stretching from the cave, through the courtyard and out the doors of the hospital into the woods, where spindles, looms, tatting shuttles, crochet hooks and dyepots were busy transforming the gray fibers into colorful, slinky material and strips of lace. "Just saving the planet, sir," she said with a snappy salute. "As ordered." "Isn't she wonderful?" the doctor asked from a kneeling position. He had been about to kiss the hem of her garment when the crew showed up. Darn it, Victoria thought mutinously, if momentarily. "And can you tell me, Cadet Fredericks, just how you're doing that?" "Because she's the Tonda Roga," the doctor said. "I asked her," Captain Morgan told him. "No need to be rude, sir," Victoria reminded her superior officer of his diplomatic obligations. "The doctor, I'll have you know, is the high priest of this planet and by doing a--er--reading, he discovered I was supposed to save it. Of course, I'd already saved it from the Hasslebads but the reason it NEEDED saving was because the internal net, this sort of organic technical thingy inside the planet, had broken down. Only a Tonda Roga could fix it, but since it was sacred here, none of the other girls had a clue what to do and ended up getting enveloped." "So you slew the monster with your laser gun?" "No, sir. My laser gun was broken, sir. In the crash when I was injured destroying the hasslebad ship, sir. But I didn't need a laser gun. See, nothing malevolent was at work, actually." "It wasn't? But it enveloped all those girls?" "An avalanche isn't malevolent, sir, but it still kills people. This was more like a flood--of all these little silky things, wiggling out and tickling me all over. I had a torch with me and before my torch went out I saw that there were these long wormlike creatures way back in the tunnel. When I felt the gray stuff trying to roll over me, I realized it was similar to silk. It's the stuff the web is made of and the wormthings--" "The dragons," the doctor corrected. "The dragons, are like giant silk worms. Only problem is, over the years, being sacred and all, they've multiplied too often and have spun so much silk that they can't escape to become giant moths. The silk was blocking all the tunnels and exits and there was so much of it there was no longer any room for anything else except for the worms, who pushed it out into the tunnels a little farther with every movement. That's how come it enveloped the other Tonda Rogas." "She diagnosed our planet's ailment. Its arteries were clogged," the doctor told Captain Morgan. "The gods told her that we must accept the bounty not needed for the web and make of it useful items. Always before cloth woven from the web was sacred--it is from it that our unga rao roga come, and our other ceremonial garments. But it was very scarce, emerging from the ground only at certain holy places. Now, however, all are to wear sacred garments both inner and outer, giving the dragons space to weave, room to grow and time to fly." "The giant moths are the early warning system," Victoria said. "They sense spacecraft within a certain distance and communicate this to their children, the dragons, who cause the web to send off certain biochemical signals that make the planet sort of er--disappear. Kind of like a chameleon." "Good work, Fredericks," Captain Morgan said. "But what I don't get is how you figured all this out?" "Well, sir, fine fabric has always held a certain--fascination for my family. And I knew how to repair cloth from an early age. My mother was extremely particular about the condition of my --er--unga rao roga and didn't want me ever to go out with holes in my underwear. Naturally when the spinning, weaving, and dying portions of primitive culture survival came up in Space Cadet Academy Survival Skills 101, I paid close attention to these portions as vital to good grooming and wardrobe maintenance. It came in handy, as did my handy Space Corps knife. I owe my training and equipment--and my mother--my life." "And we owe the lives of our people and that of our planet to this lovely young lady, our Tonda Roga . . . " the doctor said, taking her hand with a sigh. "Well, sir," Captain Morgan said, checking his chronometer, "It's always a pleasure for the Corps to be of service. We're glad to have had one of our people instrumental in saving you folks here on Hotel Whiskey. But now Cadet Fredericks must return to the ship and receive her commission as Ensign Fredericks of the Space Corps." The doctor and High Priest snapped his fingers and the three hundred handmaidens sprang forth, each bearing a full set of lingerie made to Victoria's measurements and in every color of the rainbow. They piled the garments around Victoria's feet while she squealed with glee at each new arrangement of lace, each naughty or nice detail, each glowing color. Then, taking Victoria's hands in his, the doctor looked deeply into her eyes and said, his voice trembling with suppressed passion, "My sweet titian haired earthling Tonda Roga, you must take these unga rao roga back with you as a token of our thanks and esteem. In place of your holey undergarments, we give you holy undergarments to wear and remember our reverence for your beauty and bravery. It will warm my--uh--heart, to imagine part of us so close to certain parts of you." Then he turned so that he stood beside her, facing her superior officer and now his voice with its quaint charming accent was full of primitive dignity and nobility, "As for you, sir, were you sleeping at the Academy when they taught that diplomacy requires you to learn the name of a world as it is called by its own inhabitants? Our world is not called Hotel Whiskey, but is named for the lovely trees that grace its surface and provided the wood for the first sacred spindle. As for this gorgeous and valiant creature, she may be to you Cadet Fredericks or even Ensign Fredericks, but to us she will always be our own Tonda Roga, Fredericks of Holly Wood." And with that, Victoria and her precious new undies returned to the ship. She wore the tatted lace bra and panties in Space Corps dress blue for her commissioning and as her new rank was pinned upon her secretly lace-encased chest, her heart swelled with pride and tears came to her eyes recalling how much she owed to her dear mother's advice, and how surprised mom would be if only she knew the impact her words had had upon her daughter's adventures.