64 - A Gift Rorse

“Why don’t you catch a ride with me, home, brother?” Gerald was carefully not looking at Terence’s face.  “Since you and I are obviously and publicly reconciled, since my wild younger brother has recovered from his temporary disarrangement while he was alone on the moon?”

“I... um. I... suppose I will.” Terry managed to close his mouth, and focussed his attention on collapsing his rod and reel, since he hadn’t caught anything, truly by design, since he had no intention of plaguing an earthan creature of any species, and certainly not by setting a barbed hook into it.   

“So... your laboratory is wildly successful and our beloved Font of All Knowledge is well pleased with you?”

“Astonishingly so.”  Gerald called the rorse to them, popped the storage hatch in one haunch for Terry to stow his things, and extent its back and create the second rider’s saddle.  Terry set his toe into the temporary step to settle into the saddle.

“This is a fancy model.” Most riding rorse were only for one.  The machine stepped off with a glass-smooth gait, as Gerald took up the reins.

Terry couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded as though he carried something sour in his mouth. “Nothing but the best as a gift for such a faithful manager, from First Lord Sidenham, himself!  Imagine.”

“I... see.”

For Gerald to receive a personal gift from the Lord of the Lab meant that the Firsts were going to be claiming the credit for an invention or development, of course and the rorse was meant to make him feel ‘valued’ even as they devalued any of the lesser peons’ work.

“And it is supposed to make the workers more... amenable to the work.  It is incentive to me to manage my teams with diligence and dispatch.” His voice was deadly calm, which was only wise, riding a machine given you by your First.  Who knew how often it recorded your conversations?  Or how often your First actually listened through its ears, saw out of its eyes?  You never looked a gift rorse in the mouth.  That was where either the recording equipment or the weaponry was built in.  “Our test subjects actually weep and scream... with joy of course, after the procedure is complete.”

Terry listened with mounting horror as Gerald talked. I need... I need to do something.  But what can I do? “The subjects become very content with their new states.  Very calm.  We still have leakage from the tear-ducts but they tend to not remember why they continue to weep.”

“Gerald, you are doing such work!”  There wasn’t anything he could say that wouldn’t endanger both of them, and the family.  Gerry didn’t answer him, immediately, but he could feel him swallow hard, even as the rorse extendedits back a tiny fraction longer so they were not pressed so close together.

“Did you know that the Font Himself is interested in my First’s work?”  Such an idle, deadly question.

“Goodness, no!  How thrilling!”  What did the old bastard want?

“Just as you and I are so fortunately reconciled, it seems that Our beloved Dispenser of All that is Technological, wishes for his dear son... the older son, gone prodigal, to be reconciled with Him.”

Oh inkless, penless, dickless shit. The old bastard wants the Heir he wants... and he has a way of rewriting the young man.  But he’s safely run off planet... to the dastardly university of Steinpelz.

“But... he's run away, offworld.  I heard rumour years ago that he married some galactic woman who spoke for herself.”

Gerald ritually spat off to one side.  “A woman with no Keeper... shocking.  Yes.  Our Font, I had heard from First Lord Sidenham, has actually written a conciliatory note to his son.  He has specifically asked me to expedite my work, so that it may be more... gentle a procedure than the one currently working... One more suited to a higher ranked person, preserving the best of their minds of course.”

The nightmare scenario of the one-time Heir becoming a silently weeping, obedient son was enough to keep Terry quiet as the quisling gift rorse rode them both home.