One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde [121]
“Emissaries from Speedy Muffler will meet us at Fanny Hill,” added Senator Jobsworth, “and they will accompany us to Pornucopia, the capital.”
The conversation fell off after that, and once I’d mustered some courage, I spoke.
“Did you want to speak to me, Senator?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “I want you to understand that you are here simply as a face—nothing more. As already explained, we have been putting around the story that you have irritablevowel syndrome and are mute. You will not be party to talks, or to preparations for talks. You will not express an opinion by gesticulating or written notes unless we decide and are fully briefed. You’ll be told where to appear and when. Is that clear?”
“As a bell, sir.”
“Good. Off you toddle, then. Ah!” he added, much relieved, “Come in, gentlemen.”
Red Herring, Colonel Barksdale and Zhark had just appeared at the doorway. I was no longer needed. I thought for a moment of voicing my concerns over what Thursday might have been up to, but I didn’t know for certain what she had been up to, so I said nothing, bowed and withdrew politely from the cabin.
I walked down the companionway to the main deck and found my way to the bar. I wasn’t particularly bothered by the senator’s attitude. It was what I was expecting—a friendly welcome, then being put firmly in my place.
The bar was elegantly paneled in light wood with inlaid etched mirrors to give the the illusion of greater space. The furniture was of leather but had worn badly, and the horsehair stuffing was beginning to sprout at the seams. One of the madlooking foreigners was asleep in an armchair, and at the bar was the adventurer. He looked handsomer than he had earlier, and his hat was placed on the bar next to him.
“Enjoying the trip?” I asked as I sat down.
“I thought it would be funnier steaming through Comedy.”
“It’s less funny the closer you get.”
“Hmm. Would you permit me to buy you a drink?”
“I buy my own drinks,” I told him, doing as Thursday would. It wasn’t like it was a real drink anyway. Alcohol doesn’t do anything in the BookWorld, except act as narrative furniture in scenes such as these. If you wanted to get off your head, you’d hit the hyphens, but I needed my wits about me.
“A beer for me,” I said. “Drake?”
“Scotch.”
The barman placed our drinks on the counter, and I took a sip. The beer was a light, amber-colored liquid, but it tasted like warm tea. This wasn’t unusual, since everything in the BookWorld tasted like warm tea—except warm tea itself, which tasted of dishwater. But since dishwater tasted of warm tea, warm tea actually might have tasted like warm tea after all.
“Are you part of the diplomatic mission?” asked Drake.
I told him that I was, and he grunted noncommittally. Since the senator said he was fodder and unlikely to last the next few hours, I though it a safe bet to trust him.
“I overheard something odd outside the mysterious passenger’s cabin.”
“That’s entirely normal. You’ll probably hear odd noises in the night, too, and if we’ve got time, someone will be found shot dead with a cryptic note close by.”
“Do you want to know what I overheard?”
“Not really. There’ll be an impostor on the boat, too—and a shape-changer.”
“What, of the alien variety?” I asked, looking nervously about.
“No,” he replied, smiling at my naïveté. “Someone or something who is not what it seems.”
“Isn’t that the impostor?”
“There’s a subtle difference.” Drake mused for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “But I’m not sure precisely what it is. I was born yesterday, you know.”
“My name is Florent,” announced a new bar steward who had just come on duty. “May I mix you a Tahiti Tingle?”
I frowned, then turned. It was Sprockett, dressed as a bar steward and sporting a ridiculous false mustache on