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the complaint that
none of their ugly lunatic donzelhas were Finalists for the Throne. They tried
to complain to the
Embassy but were brushed back immediately

that's exactly the sort of thing, as I understand it, that the Council has
directed its agents never to interfere with. So, thank heavens, even if their
local imitators have taken leave of their senses, at least the bureaucrats of
the Thousand Cultures know enough to keep their noses out of such a fine,
pleasurable institution as the monarchy!
More serious, to my mind, is the fact that so many of these rude
Interstellars, having deservedly received no consideration in a contest that
they could not possibly have won, either on style or on personal quality (I
say nothing of enseingnamen because they have nothing of it!), now pretend
there was nothing to win and mock the winners! Really, nothing stops them,
nothing shames them, they do whatever nastiness they wish and their poor
battered consciences lie dead or unconscious through all of it. Yseut has
already begun to wear something a bit more decollete, and to favor
(naturally

you remember her coloring) the light lavender shades; their vile girls wear
the same colors, in roughly the same cut, but exposing their nipples and the
horrible spiked studs with which they're pierced. I would add that many of the
Interstellar boys were swaggering around in tights and boots quite similar to
mine (with the exception of one dreadful, obscene decoration that I can't bear
to tell you about

oh, all right, they sewed a quite real looking, gigantic phallus to the seat
of the tights, but if you're my friend you'll boil with rage rather than
laugh)

I fought down the laughter, but found it impossible to work up any
rage at all.
Marcabru was so resolutely, crazily hetero that he had never even gone to bed
with a man out of friendship or common courtesy. How the Interstellars had
sensed what he would be most offended by, I didn't know, but I had to admire
their perception.
I looked back to the letter

boil with rage rather than laugh)

but I have dealt with that little problem of parody most thoroughly.
I encountered four of them on the street just a few days ago, and though I was
without friends, I
challenged them all to combat in serial. They seemed delighted, but I promptly
beat the first two who came at me, leaving them thrashing and then comatose
there in the gutter. And then, in the most cowardly fashion, with no trace of
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honor, the two survivors broke their oaths to fight in serial and rushed me
together, with neither salute nor warning.
That was where I did almost explode with rage, my hands gripping the tabletop
till my knuckles felt pierced. A friend in danger, long odds, and me not there
to share the glory? And the cowardice of that attack how far had things fallen
to pieces back home?
Had I even seen it while I was there? What would be left for me when I did
return?
I scrolled down and read.
And it was then that enseingnamen told, for naturally I was far calmer and
readier than they were. I saw that the one slightly ahead, to my left, had all
the same characteristic scars as poor old
Raimbaut, and gambled everything on its meaning that he was slow,
vulnerable, and had been severely scarred internally like Raimbaut. I
ignored the laggard and gave the scarred one three hard cuts with all my
strength, finishing with a solid thrust to the heart. He went down
without touching me.
I squared off with the sole survivor, calling him every vile name I could
think of as he seemed to back away, white, almost fainting with fear, looking
for any way to break and run

but I had him cornered against a wall!
It was then I heard the wail of the ambulance, and knew how far I had
succeeded. It swooped,
just as you imagine, and my last-finished opponent was sprung off to the
hospital.
"I hope your friend is really dead," I said, "and I do hope you'll be joining
him soon, no doubt as one more bloody greasy turd to pass through the
devil's shithole." With that I lunged and disarmed him

truly I don't think he had anything you could call a grip on his weapon, and
of course none at all on his enseingnamen
and then began to cut, administering some dozen wounds or so before I
finally gave him a coup de merce, forcing him, between wounds, for the
amusement of a crowd that was gathering, to confess to all sorts of incest and
bestiality, to sing childish songs at the top of his lungs while they roared
with laughter, and at last to beg and plead till the snot ran from his nose
and he sobbed for breath. By that time he was on the ground, for I had severed
most of his major tendons and so he thought he couldn't use his arms or legs.
The last cut before the final one was a castration, and he screamed just as if
it were really gone
...
a tribute to the engineering of the neuroducer, my last pigeon was. I finished
him off with a long slow cut across the throat, so that it would take him a
long time to believe himself dead, and turned to take a dozen bows before the
cheering crowd.
I have no doubt that, even after they release him from the
hospital, he will find that the psychological scars are thorough and
deep, and that he will ache for years to come.
Ah, Giraut, after a fight like that

it was then I longed for my old friend to be drunk with, to shout and laugh [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]