Planet Zog, The Third Age, year 36 (roughly equivalent to the year 2162 in Earth years)

The post didn’t work on Sundays, so the mail Dodo took the day off. It spent its day off using its elongated sieve-shaped beak to shift through the mud of a steaming bog for insects and strange little mammals that looked like overgrown tardigrades.

After a good nights’ rest and on a full belly, it strode triumphantly into Gloam’s headquarters, upon which it was swiftly shot and roasted. It was a delicious delicacy, unfortunately.

If it weren’t for Gloam’s private chef being a bit of a stickler, the letter would never have been read. But read it got indeed.

For Munty Spitzen was a philosopher king, and reading was something he actually did, from time to time. For all his bald-faced pugilism, Gloam loved a good story just as much as any other good little boy or girl.

His favourite stories were Huckleberry Finn, the Jungle Book, and lots of other rather twee sorts of tales that were in a direct counterpoint to just about everything else about his person. And if you were to ever find out about that, you’d more likely than not get your head bopped, since it had been generally bad for business in his experience for a rival thug to find that out he was really rather fond of Beatrix Potter (and not in an ironic way) and such. Typically, he found that the people receiving this sort of information would tend to make assumptions about him, and extrapolate theories about his character, and this invariably required him to do violence against them to assuage his hurt feelings.

But the particular tome in Gloam’s pudgy beetroot paws was not a whimsical tale of anthropomorphic badgers and toads and their exploits in the glades of Oxfordshire. Which, of course, meant that he wasn’t immediately grabbed by its premise, for he had a preternaturally short attention span, and he wasn’t in the habit of doing things that stretched beyond its limits as a general rule.

However, on a second re-read, he was surprised to find things to like about it. He liked, first of all, that it was addressed from a Baroness. This was owing to the fact that for all his working class bravado, he was at heart a fawning royalist. He blushed that someone with a title deigned to speak to him, even if the peerage system didn’t exist on Zog in the same way that plumbing, or Geordie Shore didn’t.

The second thing he liked about it, was that it suggested that he could have a hand in bringing about the industrial revolution of Zog, through the making of things that go zoom, and can pull things, and presumably push them too. Because this would lead to all sorts of other efficiencies, which would lead to the rapid accumulation of hard currency.

And thirdly, he liked the proposition within the letter particularly because it wouldn’t cost him a cent, since his contribution would only be the indentured servitude of his populace. Which he didn’t mind in the slightest, since the populace, as he found, was something that he held in a sort of benevolent contempt.

He found it odd, though, that a techno-boffin like the Baroness resorted to Dodo-mail when the far more advanced (yet also primitive) communication device was the Zog-line. But then again, he wondered if it was some sort of confection designed to charm him, and then he blushed, and forgot all about his cognitive dissonance and fell back in love with the Baroness, and all the wonderful things they would do together. If this was the case, he thought - then surely it would be wise to return the favour.

So Gloam at once sent for the nearest mailman (in this case, a sort of badger crossed with a platypus), with Z-Pop acting as scribe, and responded in kind:

Glome

Rottley Court

Zogtown 0208

Dere Baronness,

I was most delited to receve your correspondense via Dodo-male, and to ear of yor poposed sinnergies with our respctive endevors.

I regaet to inform yew that yor male-Dodo fell ill an dyed, so I have sent our male-badga in playse.

I am paticulaly flatted that you see the patentchal in my latest inervation of Scalabul Slayvery®. We ar all very happye wit the ressults so fa.

Exeedinly optmistic of our pospects. If you wer to cum to Zogtown and vist me in my apattment, I wud very much like to discus the matta furtha.

Besst Regars,

Glome x

Gloam wasn’t to know for many months after this moment that Z-Pop was in fact a terrible speller, dyslexic and essentially illiterate (though he would never admit it). His Earth equivalent had apparently dropped out of school to work in interior design, where literacy wasn’t needed as much as long as you could make a studio apartment look like a Sultan’s Harem for a respectable budget.

Thankfully, for Z-Pop’s prospects at least, the Baroness wasn’t in the habit of pointing out the foibles of her patrons (of which there often were, from her perspective at least, since she possessed an IQ of 187, and was able to detect foibles in almost anyone she met). In any case, she didn’t see the upside in starting with Gloam, considering his reputation for responding to negative criticism with physical violence.

And so after receiving her invitation, the Baroness Volt packed up her blueprints and her prototype, and bundled it all together with strips of Zog-vine. Then she lashed the zog-line to the back of the nearest Google-Eyed Mammoth, who was known to be interested in carting around large loads from one place to the next, owing to the fact that it now had the mind of a lorry driver from Kent named Donald Shipley.

‘Whurr to Mam?’ thought the Mammoth, although it came out more like a shrieking trumpeting Elephant-y noise.

The Baroness climbed aboard the prototype, which had wheels, and sat atop it like a sleigh, along with her most nervous-looking test pilot. The test pilot was a young Zoggite named Aguzog Tezoga, and was actually one of the few Zoggites whose mind hadn’t been swapped at all. Agog found the whole thing quite thrilling, and at the same time wildly terrifying - especially when he had to go up in the Baroness’ gadget. But mostly he was just hungry. The Baroness then whipped the reins savagely, which the Mammoth interpreted as meaning that they should start going in the general forward direction.

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Then they trotted along a precarious path along the Spindly Ridge, past the bopping bowsers slurping up Helium3, out of Rancid Gardens, and into the Yelping Forest. This was the most direct way to Zogtown Proper (and also the only way), but it wasn’t the easiest of journeys, due to the tendency of the native trees to yelp nervously upon sensing movement. It was an inconvenience that the Baroness would simply have to bear.

Along the way, the Baroness attracted a tribe of local Yelpies - local inhabitants of the forest who had evolved to have misshapen cauliflower ears to cope with the constant noise pollution. They followed the caravan along like excited pixies - if pixies were 13 feet tall and built like brick shit-houses. They had a child-like naivety to them. They were curious, knocking on the wooden sides of the Baroness’ prototype, and fawned around like impish elves. The Baroness watched carefully, but wasn’t overly concerned, since she had her other marvellous invention kept snugly under her heavy robes - her gun - which she could easily revert to if a violent altercation were to erupt.

The Yelpies had been the primary conscripts to work Bickly Urgh’s Helium3 mines, and upon discovery of the contraption that was being Mammoth-dragged to the capital, one of their number went to Bickly Urgh promptly to inform him of the news. News of which Bickly was unsurprisingly pleased to receive - a use-case for his obscure product might finally have some sort of application, and therefore his existence would presumably continue to have some sort of application by the same token.

The prototype, along with the Baroness’ enigmatic haughtiness (and flowing wizard robes) provoked infinite curiosity. The further they went through the Yelping Forest, the more and more excited onlookers tagged along, and the Baroness’ parade grew as it snaked along the forest path to the capital.

Upon arrival in Zogtown Proper, the Baroness was taken aback by the evolution of the area. Only a few short weeks ago, it was a haphazard collection of thrown-together mud-huts, roasting pits, and, of course, death pits (to dispose of rival clan members after a raiding party). The death-pits were still there, of course, but they were bricked away behind a building with signage reading ‘Ellis & Sons Death Assurance Services Pty. Ltd.’ There was a man (and presumably his son) standing out the front giving out marketing leaflets. But the death pits was but one cog in an infinitely complex machine.

There was a seafood market down by the river, with a patchwork of stalls selling all manner of strange and beautiful alien fish and crustaceans, with fins where their eyes should be, and eyes where their gills should be, and generally more eyes in more locations than should ever be thought reasonable. Hawkers sold nuts, berries and Cnuut - a local leaf that when smoked gave as close an effect to tobacco as Zog’s uniquely different biome could provide. It slightly stimulated the mind (which was similar), it tended to also have a paradoxically relaxing effect (also quite like tobacco), but it also tended to give its users crippling hallucinations (well, you can’t have everything). The Baroness bought a bushel-full, suspecting it may help her with her creativity a little bit and general boredom a big bit.

While all this was going on, Bickly Urgh had quietly joined the procession, pushing himself through the crowded trail of excitable Yelpies as politely as he could (he said ‘pardon’ - but they couldn’t hear him, so he mostly just came across as rude), popping up on tippy-toes occasionally to get a glimpse at the Baroness’ contraption. He was particularly interested in the combustion engine, and was quietly doing mental calculations based on the bits he could see.

Once the procession had arrived at Rottley Court, the Baroness dismounted from her prototype, left the reins with Azoga, and entered the lobby of Gloam’s building. She then strode eminently past the velvet-wearing guards lining the walls, up the stairs and into Gloam’s apartment where he was waiting, sprawled out on a chaise longe like a Caesar, in the throne room of his penthouse apartment, which was also used as a study when throne-room occasions weren’t called for. While the world of Zogtown had become remarkably lavish compared to the before-times, the four weeks since the great cataclysm hadn’t afforded time enough for construction of a legitimately royal venue like a palace (though Gloam had certainly begun demanding one), and - to be quite honest, it was really quite remarkable that anything like the luxurious apartment building Gloam lived in had been finished in that time at all. But no-one was getting any thanks or pats on the back for it - because when you have slaves, you don’t have to go in for that sort of thing.

‘Ah, Baroness Voulte,’ said Gloam. ‘Hauw waunderful ouf you to join us.’

Gloam had recently begun affecting an upper-class accent in anticipation of the Baroness’ visit, with varying degrees of success.

‘Won’t you join us for afternoon tea?’

The Baroness bowed deferentially, and then sat on a plush poof on the other side of a tray of cheeses, with Gloam sitting opposite.

‘Neow tell me our this feascinating niew innovashion. We’re really rather excited about it. I heare thaet we may bee able to make a few Chittens.’

The Baroness surveyed the room. Gormless was indeed a most apt word to use to describe the quality of sycophants leering around the room. Dressed in the latest fashions - like ‘pants’ and ‘shirts,’ the sycophants chittered at the sound of the word ‘Chittens,’ slithering their little proboscis tongues in and out with excitement rather grotesquely.

Deciding finally that it was worthwhile expending a soupçon of mental energy to engage her potential benefactor, she said:

‘Yes.’

Gloam was very pleased with this answer. But it also left him wanting.

‘Do go oun,’ he cooed.

The Baroness glanced around at the gormless suck-ups, then anxiously at the guards, who were gripping their lances rather aggressively.

‘The…the prototype modular transporter vessel I’ve built…is able to achieve upwards thrust, allowing its passenger to deliver themselves from one location to another, through the air.’

The gormless chittered and slurped into a frenzy.

‘And it will run for at least 6 minutes on only one tank of tree resin.’

Excited applause erupted from the royal chambers, not the least from Gloam himself.

‘Marvellous, marvellous. What a time-saving gadget this will bee. And it’s awl mine!’

Gloam gave a hand signal to his guards, who approached the Baroness and laid hands on her. Concurrently, a group of guards downstairs had surrounded the prototype. Even his uncontrollable obsequiousness to the Baroness’ title wasn’t enough to overcome his even more uncontrollable urges to steal and control something new and valuable.

‘Look I really think we ought to be partners on this,’ started the Baroness, struggling with the guards heavy-handing her. ‘I really think you’ll get a lot more value out of it that way.’

Gloam wanted to raise an eyebrow - but he didn’t have one. Zoggites, having 13 feet of rippling magenta muscle and squinty wasp-like heads, are wanting of facial hair, especially around the orbital ridge. So in place of an eyebrow-raise, he fluttered the thousands of eyes in his beady right eye-socket. In any case, it was quite obvious to those in the know that this meant, without equivocation, that he was reconsidering his position.

‘Oualright, Ai’ll bite. Tell me more.’

Gloam flicked his hands at the guards, who dropped the Baroness rather brusquely. Gloam gestured to the Baroness to retake her seat at the velvet poofs near to the cheeses.

‘There’s a very distinct possibility, that with the right engine, combined with a more powerful type of fuel, that my design might take us into…well, space.’

The room went absurdly quiet. Gloam clicked his tongue.

‘Why on Zog would we want to do something laeik that?’

The Gormless chittered sassily.

‘Well, according to my estimates, the 17 moons of Zog are at least 20% inhabited. We could visit these other civilisations, trade with them - explore, and so on…’

Gloam did another of his fluttery eyeball eyebrow-raises, to indicate that he wasn’t particularly fussed about that.

‘Oh, and at least one of the moons is made primarily of diamonds.’

After a long pause, Gloam clicked his tongue again. Then his tense frown turned up at the edges as he cracked into a big old grin.

‘Well,’ he said, slipping back into his native cockney. ‘That’s fuckin’ brilliant! We’re gonna be minted!’

And he laughed deeply, and loudly, and magnanimously. And the Baroness was given a flute of bubbly, and the music makers were called in, and Gloam was happy, and the gormless were squidgy with excitement (and wracked with jealousy). But most importantly, the Baroness’ cunning plan had unequivocally worked.

She was safe. And presumably, rich.