The Ill-mannered Door (humorous sci-fi)

38.2: Tales from the Queue

It took us the rest of the afternoon, but we did manage to get the information we needed and were on our way again, sailing for the portal to Verlan Beta, which we learned was in a place called Monument Valley, Arizona.

Derek had sounded pretty sure that was the portal the queen would need to use if she was trying to reach the empire. He also thought that we had a good chance of beating her to it because of our jump through the portal in Canada.

The queen would have to cross the Atlantic and most of the United States to reach the portal to Verlan, provided that Derek's assumptions about the queen's plans were right. Right or not, it was our best chance, and we were on our way.

The long travel south gave us plenty of time to knock about the ship, so the next day I decided to track down Derek to see if I could find out what had been bothering him. I found him below decks lying in his hammock, staring out the porthole at the passing countryside.

"Oh, I'm sorry, you look terribly busy. Perhaps I should come back another time?" I said.

He squinted his eyes at me and said, "You're an odd bird, Thomas. You know that?"

"Yes. Oh, speaking of odd. You've been acting rather odd lately."

"Have I?" He said.

"Yes, and something is definitely bothering you. First, after that phone conversation at your flat--"

"Phone conversation?" He said, looking confused. "Oh... right, yeah. Wait, you were eavesdropping? What did you hear?"

"No, of course not, I didn't hear anything! It sounded like you were talking with someone on the phone, so I went outside."

He gave me a skeptical look, so I quickly changed the subject with, "Yes, and then there were those strange men in that office yesterday. Did you recognize them?"

Derek sighed as he stared out the porthole, but didn't answer, so I just stood and waited. I had nothing better to do, and causing drawn-out, awkward silences was something that I was good at, so I hung in there.

"You're not going to leave, eh?" Derek asked after several moments had passed.

"No."

Another sigh, then, "Ah, what the heck. I suppose I need to throw you a bone to get you off my case. Yeah, I knew those men. Not personally, but I know who they are and that the staff at the IRO being so helpful to them means that something is really wrong."

"But isn't the point of that place, at least in theory, to help people get the information they need?"

There is often a great chasm between theory and practice.

"Yeah, but not for them. The IRO is run by the empire, but the men we saw being helped yesterday were from House Werrick."

"House Werrick?"

"Yeah. In the empire, there are large families, or organizations, called houses. The power elite. The queen's family was one, and the current emperor is from a house that was a rival of theirs. Well, House Werrick is a big one, but they're into all sorts of shady stuff, and their hate for the current emperor is no secret. They're wanted for sedition, among other things."

"Maybe the staff at the office didn't recognize them?"

"Their cloaks were pinned at the neck with their house seal! Everyone there knew exactly who they were, but they were getting preferential treatment when they should have been getting reported."

"And that means?"

Derek shook his head for a moment and said, "I don't know yet, but nothing good. And that 'phone call' at my apartment... something's not right. I wasn't able to reach my normal contacts back in the empire. Some guy I'd never talked to before answered and said that they were unavailable, and he was being really elusive about the whole thing."

"What would those House Werrick blokes be doing here on Earth?"

"That's a really good question, Thomas."