2.6 Alenby to the Rescue
2.6.1 Alenby at Château Mourey
8:00 am Thursday 26 November 1987
On a cool still dawn in Château Mourey's vegetable garden, the sun made a pearly glow in the morning mist, and gaining strength as it rose in the sky, lit up and made visible each exhaled breath of a lone, vertically disadvantaged figure, a laborer in a peasant's blue overalls, steadily engaged in the never-ending battle of gardener versus weeds.
Alenby, however, did not see his efforts as a battle. He liked working in the garden under the tutorage of the kindly yet demanding Jules César. He liked rising early and stepping outdoors at sunrise. He enjoyed imparting the proper back and forth motion to the stirrup-type weeding hoe, and he enjoyed the swish of its horizontal swivel-mounted blade as it sliced just below the surface of the black, friable chumanure-enriched loam. Like rowing a boat, he thought, rowing leisurely, on a mirror-calm lagoon. He hummed the melody to the baccarole from Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffman," Belle nuit, o nuit d'amor....
Everything had worked out well, he thought. Everything had worked out for him since he'd been released after his second term in Prison Simone Weil. Today is Thanksgiving, the last Thursday of November, so it was over four months ago that one had at last stepped out of prison to freedom, gorgeous freedom. Odd how fast time passes when things are rolling along smoothly!
Thanksgiving--a reminder that one had plenty to be thankful for. Green leafy plants such as kale and collards, the plants he was weeding around at that very moment, and all the other things that were good to eat fresh from the garden--some of which, like tomatoes, and pulses of all kinds, could be dried and saved for winter. And all beneficent roots and tubers, like beets, carrots, turnips, potatoes, already stashed away in Château Mourey's root cellar. Thanks to the garden and a wine cellar well stocked with local cabernet franc, life at Château Mourey was largely independent of the outside universe. Though of course there were certain inessential yet important elements of diet that required a weekly visit to the market at Richelieu. Champagne, and white grapefruit and Ethiopian coffee for one's breakfast, and black truffles for Georges' swill....
He gave thanks too for his prison-issue denim overalls with their reinforced pockets for carrying trowels and pliers and things. Oh, he missed the free and easy feel of wool, but the overalls had many good points like the snug fit about his 32-inch waist, and the action cut that left plenty of room for movement. And then thanks were due to Ada, for coming up with 3.4 million euros when it looked as if one might have to bite the bullet and actually do some sort of work for money. And thanks also to the enigmatic Soeur Vertumne, for springing one from Prison Fernand Point. The list did rather run on, there were many things to be thankful for....
Also a good few things to complain about, to be sure, but he didn't usually dwell on them. On the whole, his mood was generally more relaxed, more spontaneous, more generous than that of his former self.
Weeding done for the day, he turned to another task--planting shallots to grow from bulbs for anticipated harvest in early summer. To cultivate the beds for planting, he used the same implement, the stirrup hoe, but he let the blade sink deeper. Not too deep, though. Jules César was against deep cultivation--had a fixation on preserving what he called the structure of the soil for the benefit of earthworms and other creatures down there in the dirt...
Earthworms as it happened was a hot-button word for Alenby these days. .
Benefit of earthworms!--that was one goofy spooky bug-coddling crackpot bleeding-heart liberal notion for which one was definitely not thankful! And that was just one thing--
He worked the hoe faster and faster as annoying aspects of life in this alien universe u popped into his mind like a string of exploding firecrackers, to culminate in what was currently the most annoying matter of the lot--running shoes, lack thereof.
The fact was that, being tall by u standards, and correspondingly long of foot, Alenby had not been able to purchase running shoes in his size. Ordinary shoes and boots, yes, though with difficulty. But running shoes? No-oo, people with feet that big rarely went in for running, so there wasn't much call for them in extremely large sizes....
"Running shoes!" he snarled, ripping the hoe into the soil and for all he knew or cared dissecting countless earthworms. "Of all the simple necessities of life to put off bounds, that takes the Gaea-damn cuke!"
***
His desire for running shoes was perfectly logical, however. He needed them for speed and comfort on his weekly visit to the Richelieu market, which he invariably made on foot.
Why shouldn't he simply drive to the market? He'd pondered that question many times, and had come to the same conclusion--it was unsafe. He might have taken Ada's tomato-red Mercedes that had been sitting in the garage at Château Mourey ever since he had used it to outrun the PROFATPOL roadblock, but he knew that to do so would likely lead to his identification as the notorious Red Baron. He trembled at the thought: prison, a real prison this time, complete with a totally unappealing cuisine, as well as a host of other prison-type inconveniences like beatings and homosexual rape sort of thing. Then again he might have bought a new car for himself, but that was also out of the question. At some point in the process, his lack of credible identification as a u-person would come to light, and that could raise awkward questions with the French immigration authorities, which they might well pass on the PROFATPOL.
In the end he'd accepted reality--he just had to go to the Richelieu market on foot.
At first it was his habit to walk the15 or so kilometers to Richelieu and back, with Georges trotting quietly at his side. After a few trips, he alternated walking and jogging. Ultimately he he made it a routine to run the whole way, on the return trip carrying a backpack laden with groceries, at a pace that obliged Georges to gallop at full stretch.
Somewhere along the line he'd begun to dream of running competitively, perhaps of taking part in his age-sex division of the blue-ribbon event of pedestrianism, the Tour de France.
That was where that the whole problem of running shoes came to a head. Unless used from childhood to running barefoot, no one can hope to compete in long-distance events without being properly shod.
***
The business of planting the shallots, pushing the bulbs root-end down into the living earth, with the assurance that each bulb would produce by spring a half-dozen new ones, had a calming effect on Alenby's ruffled psyche. He no longer felt annoyed with Jules-César. After all, in the primitive pantheism of u it was natural to accept all sorts of weird unscientific notions about things like earthworms. One must learn to tolerate such harmless nonsense. Beside, one had to give credit to Jules-César for at least trying to do something about the running shoe problem. He'd improvised a shoe, or rather sandal, consisted of an orthotic foot support glued to a section of a rubber automobile tire of the pneumatic sort in wide use prior to its displacement by the modern tweel, and furnished with rugged elastic straps to bind it securely to the runner's foot. The latest experimental sandal had proved promising in its trial on the previous Friday excursion to Richelieu, but towards the end one had suffered discomfort from chafing.
Alenby's om vibrated. He picked up: Jules-César in his workshop, with a new version of the running sandal ready for the following day's shopping trip.
***
A likely breakthrough, Jules-César announced--a matter of repositioning the straps in accordance with the principle of zero average lateral-force component at all points of contact. A likely breakthrough, Alenby agreed as soon as he tried on the new sandals, and now both men looked forward to the trial run--Jules-César with calm confidence, Alenby with barely contained impatience.
2.6.2 Alenby to the Rescue
Restaurant Le Gardon Frit
12 noon Thursday 26 November 1987
Alenby did not, after all, wait until the next day for the trial run. An unanticipated incident gave him a pretext to set out at once.
He was about to prepare Georges' luncheon swill when he made a curious discovery in the back-pack containing what remained of the previous Friday's truffle purchase. It was a handwritten note:
Her Lowness Dr Ada Lynch, in imminent danger of embarrassment, needs a hero to abduct her from Restaurant Le Gardon Frit in Pouzay on Thursday 26 November 1987 before 21 h.
PS: Beware PROFATPOL thugs posted 24/7 on all Pouzay thoroughfares to foil egress.
PPS: Refrain from communicating with Dr L--her inputs are monitored.
PPPS: Note that Thursday 26 November is day on which American substance users celebrate an orgiastic feast known as Thanksgiving.
PPPPS: Destroy this note after memorizing contents.
Unsigned, handwriting obviously disguised, a sign of the writer's concern with
some sort of security issue, real or imaginary. Must have been dropped in his
pack, Alenby thought, while he and Georges were engrossed in shopping. Probably by
Cleopatra Kirwan--he'd caught a brief glimpse of her at the market. Ditsy young
girl with overheated romantic imagination, just the sort to go about shoving
secret notes in a fellow's shopping bag....
But no matter who wrote it, the note was a convenient excuse to try out the latest modification of the running sandals. Pouzay was nearer than Richelieu, but far enough away for a reliable test. He would take a trial run to Pouzay, find out most likely the whole hero thing was a hoax, and run back home again. He vexed Jules-César to put a Champagne on ice to celebrate the expected outcome of the sandals test.
As soon as Georges was totally engaged with his swill, Alenby changed to his running outfit--the reconfigured sandals, baggy shorts, tee shirt bearing the words CHAOS AND OUCH circled and slashed through, but no om, no tire pressure gauge, no key to his beloved Morgan Aero, or any other burden save his credit card--and he was soon striding easily eastward along the pedestrian path on the bank of the Vienne, towards the bridge at l'Ile-Bouchard. His heart and lungs responded smoothly and pleasurably to the increased demands on them. At each step his feet nestled cozily in the sandals. No sign of chafing....
His thoughts turned back to the note. One found the word "hero" a trifle unnerving. But if danger threatened--PROFATPOL thugs, for instance--a prudent change of itinerary was always in the cards. Even if it meant missing lunch.
Missing lunch did not loom as large on Alenby's personal disaster list as it had before he finally repaid his debt to society in his second term at Prison Simone Weil. In the course of each fast there, he had missed not just one but twenty-one lunches in succession, along with twenty-one breakfasts, dinners, and the same number of pre- and post-prandial snacks, yet had suffered no lasting harm. Still, in the normal course of life missing lunch was something to be avoided. He should call ahead for a reservation. As this thought passed through his mind he realized that, having left behind his personal communication equipment, he would have to rely on an old-fashioned card-operated phone. There was one such antique on the way, wasn't there? In the cabane half-way across the bridge, on the Ile of l'Ile-Bouchard....
Le Gardon Frit was not listed, the responder robot was desolated to tell him, but the restaurant could perhaps be reached through Restaurant Le Gardon, that's Le Gardon Frit without the Frit....
While the robot was working on that possibility, Alenby idly scanned the opposite bank of the river, to the right of the bridge. He noticed a row of dense shrubbery along the near side of the road, and to the near side of the shrubbery a grassy bank sloped steeply to a dirt road running along the water's edge. Perfect for a simple but spectacular stunt, he mused. In the trial period prior to purchasing the Borstal, he'd done something of the sort dozens of times. In this case one would take a sharp right off the bridge, accelerate into the shrubbery at a shallow angle, spin the wheel left and let her roll over easy. One complete revolution would put the vehicle squarely on the lower roadway. He felt a piercing sense of the loss of his Borstal, a perfect vehicle for that simple, elegantly spectacular stunt....
Restaurant Le Gardon finally answered. A woman's voice: "Restaurant Le Gardon Frit...oui certainment monsieur, attendez...."
"Attendez!" The very word in the very tone with which the priestess-heroine Soeur Vertumne had claimed his attention, a tone--low pitched like distant woodwinds, vibrato hinting of an ardent temperament. And he realized that the voice was that of the middle-aged restaurateuse at Le Gardon--her name forgotten now--who in a pathetic attempt at flirtation had blotted out her vocal attractions with an attempt at a smile, a smile intended to be gaily fetching but that had slid into a lame smirk. It was a gaucherie impossible to forgive, made all the more painful by one's feeling of sympathy for the offender. All in all a moment one tries to forget. But now it was back as vivid as ever, with an implication impossible to ignore: the restaurateuse and Soeur Vertumne, they were one and the same!
He forced himself to switch his thoughts to other concerns such as cooling off too fast with resultant muscle stiffening, while he was waiting for a response from Le Gardon Frit. Connected at last, he stammered his request for a reservation and half-understood the reply: reservation accepted for the Fête Américaine Prix Fixe at some largish number of euros; enter by way of Restaurant Le Gardon upon submission of a certain password, defined as follows....
He made a mental note of the password definition and moved off, slowly at first to avoid cramping.
Fête Américaine, he thought as he picked up his running tempo, that would be Thanksgiving. Exactly as in the note. And the password, 10 letters, diacritical-mark insensitive, part of the title of a Mozart opera. ENTFURUNG, obviously. That was in the note also, in a way.
Thanksgiving. The word had a mildly ominous ring to it--why? He pondered that question as he strode along the pedestrian path D18, past the hamlet of Mougon and through the village of Parçay and on to Pouzay, but failed to rouse any recollection of actually attending a Thanksgiving event. For peace of mind he had made it a lifelong practice to suppress all personal memories except those that contained a substantial component of satisfactory encounters with food and wine, and in the case of such Thanksgiving celebrations he may have once experienced, this strategy had presumably succeeded. On this subject his mind was a effectively a tabula rasa.
On reaching the bridge leading into Pouzay he passed a pair of black-uniformed PROFATPOL officers lounging in their patrol car, a Peugeot 305 stinkpot familiar from the mid-1960s. They offered oafish comments on his running sandals but made no attempt to stop him crossing the bridge. These must be a sample of the thugs mentioned in the note, he thought. That note was looking less and less like a hoax. He realized it would have been smart to turn around and head for home, but he continued across the bridge and, as instructed, presented himself at the entry to Restaurant Le Gardon. He hated to cancel a reservation....
The entry bore a "closed" sign, but as soon as he tapped in the password on the keypad alongside it the door swung open and a short, shapely young woman in waitress attire--he recognized Cleopatra Kirwan in the classic black dress/white apron combination--beckoned him to follow her along a passageway and down a stairway leading to an interior entry to Restaurant Le Gardon Frit. He noticed that since he had last seen her, Cleo's petite figure had acquired womanly proportions, and a noticeable undulation of her hips as she walked ahead suggested a newfound measure of self-confidence....
She opened the door for him, and as he passed into the luxuriously appointed foyer of Restaurant Le Gardon Frit she pointed out a keypad inconspicuously positioned behind a potted palm beside the door frame.
"It sometimes happens," Cleo whispered, "that patrons of Le Gardon Frit are overcome by the toxic fumes given off by the heated corpses of the sick, intensively medicated animals offered, in lieu of normal food, as an inescapable concomitant of the illegal restaurant experience. Should this, Gaea forbid--" she made the sign of the circle "--happen to one of the esteemed clientele currently savoring the hospitality of Restaurant Le Gardon Frit, she may regain entry into Le Gardon simply by entering her password, which is a six-letter word of the English language, meaning 'to revoke or abrogate by legislative enactment.'
"Now I must leave you to a functionary of Le Gardon Frit," she added, quickly backing away and closing the door.
Alenby hesitated. Several thoughts flashed into his mind. That six-letter word--REPEAL, obviously--was the key to the highly desirable presence of Soeur Vertumne. But that lady, perhaps herself committed to the rescue mission, might greet him with contempt--might even refuse to receive him--unless he also made some credible show of joining in the rescue effort. He had to go on.
2.6.3 Alenby Celebrates Thanksgiving
Le Coin Brillat-Savarin, Restaurant Le Gardon Frit, Pouzay
Afternoon, Thursday 26 November 1987
The indicated functionary, though of short stature, contrived to tilt his head so as to present a clear view up his nostrils--exceedingly well-groomed nostrils--thus effectively identifying himself as the restaurant's Maître de Salle. And this Maître de Salle, having clinched his credentials for that position by expressing subtle yet unmistakable disapproval of Alenby's sandals, conducted him to one of the restaurant's several private dining rooms.
"Voilà Le Coin Brillat-Savarin," he murmured, opening the door to reveal an elegantly furnished space with a table set for two, a large window giving on a bucolic scene reconstructed through the wonders of HV, and incongruously, a pair of American-style La-Z-Girl reclining chairs positioned before the HV/window for effortless consumption of electronic entertainment. He guided Alenby to take a seat, not at the table but at one of the recliners, meanwhile murmuring something to the effect that Her Lowness Dr Ada Lynch would be joining him momentarily.
As soon as the Maître de Salle had left--or to use words more fitting to the exceeding fluency of his actions, had ceased to be present--Alenby adjusted the La-Z-Girl so he could check the condition of his sandals. Dusty and sweat-soaked, they were a link to reality in a situation overhung with questions: This Maître de Salle, why did the fellow seem familiar? When were they going to serve lunch? Why was one lounging in a recliner instead of sitting at table, studying the menu and wine list? Where was Ada?
Ada made the last question moot by seating herself with a relieved-sounding "Ooof" in the other La-Z-Girl. Her action, one couldn't help noting, was ungainly. But it was the same Ada who had guided his early steps in u, a little dull and puffy in appearance now, and only artificially bright in manner.
After the couple had exchanged greetings of the sort that intimates generally exchange after a separation, she prattled on in a way that disposed of Alenby's other questions as well.
"He's not a Maître de Salle at all," she said when the topic came up, "not even a waiter. He's just an actor. Name's Leo, Leo Barton, teaches Theater or something at Iowa State. Came over on a sabbatical to work on PROFATPOL propaganda, got into the HV end and made quite a success of it, playing an unflappable quasi-British law-enforcement type. Now he's embedded in PROFATPOL's restaurant entrapment system, picking up background for his next HV series. Le Cèpe--that's the chef--he's very conscientious about reproducing authentic traditional regional criminal cuisine, and he wants everything to be in keeping with that. So he got Leo Barton come in for Thanksgiving, to help create a genuine American atmosphere for this very special occasion.
"At first Leo didn't know any more than the any other normal law-abiding American might know about Thanksgiving and how users celebrate it, except of course that it's all about substance indulgence. But after Googling and Wiki-ing a lot of old prePro records like old writings, old- master paintings--mainly Norman Rockwells, I think--and all that sort of thing, he seems to have gotten a convincing grasp of the whole Thanksgiving tradition. That reminds me, I'd better remind Leo--" She spoke a command into her om, and continued, "Speaking of Thanksgiving tradition, we have only an hour or two to kill before the turkey is ready. We shouldn't be sprawling here doing nothing. We should be sprawling here whetting our appetites with tasty snacks and traditional American aperitifs--whiskey, gin, coffee...."
The Maître de Salle wheeled in a tray table loaded with those items, and positioned it between the two recliners. He had no sooner vanished again than Ada started in on these "fixin's," as she insisted on calling them. She munched with what Alenby thought unbecoming urgency, and urged him to do likewise.
"We have to thank Le Cèpe," she told him. "He's such a genius--he's gone to a lot of trouble to reproduce these authentic Thanksgiving-food-like substances in his own kitchen. Like these crispy wafer things. They are quite simply loaded with genuine trans fats, and ethyl-bridged flavanols for that authentic mouth-feel, the whole kit and caboodle...."
Half-listening to her chatter, Alenby sipped coffee, black, and noted a distinctive metallic aroma, like that of a gear mechanism running hot for want of oil. It needed a shot of lubricant of some sort, like milk. He became aware of long-buried memories of Thanksgivings past seeping back....
"Oh, there's one other tradition I forgot," Ada said, interrupting herself. "Good Gaea, how could I have forgotten! The lively conversation we've been enjoying is not at all traditional. We should be slumped before the HV, silently enjoying sports entertainment experiences."
She picked up a controller and pressed a button to bring into view a list of Thanksgiving specials: "American Football? There's an exciting two-ton-a-side match-up between the Tulsa Termites and the Detroit Dung-beetles. Or how about synchronized swimming? The Miami Manatees take on the Seattle Sealionesses--we'll experience that."
Before Alenby had time to respond, she activated the synchronized swimming channel and set the volume to high. At once the room was filled with sight and sound of a pool full of naked women frolicking in unison to the swirling rhythms of the opening scene of "Das Rheingold."
"Now," said Ada into Alenby's ear, "now we are free to talk, without fear of--" She looked about the room, rolling her eyeballs and forming her lips in a "shh" sign.
After a moment he caught on. The place was bugged. But before he had time to consider the unsettling implications, Ada put a question on a matter that while not exactly close to his heart, was obviously not far distant:
"Alenby, what is that...footwear?"
Relieved to put Thanksgiving aside, he took the opportunity to talk at length about his sandals, his interest in running and other pursuits of the sweat-inducing muscle-flexing genre, his ambition to take part in the Tour de France....
Uncharacteristically for her, Ada refrained from interrupting and listened to the peroration all the way to the end. "You know I've got to get out of here," she said finally. "You know I need help. That's why you're here, isn't it?"
Barely waiting for his nod of assent, she continued: "I wouldn't have cast you in the role of scarperer, but from how you look and what you say I think you really are up to it--physically, at least. And morally, too. Am I right?"
He felt inclined to back out right then, abandon Ada and set his sandals on the road home. But the thought of the courageous Soeur Vertumne led him to stiffen his spine and imitate the action of the tiger: "It's damnably inconvenient, you know. But yes, now I'm here anyway, I suppose I'm up to it."
Ada responded with hugs and kisses, called him "My Scarlet Pimpernel," told him the abduction would begin at a certain point on the bank of the Vienne, at 21h sharp.
Alenby might have backtracked, citing safety issues. But at that moment he become aware of an aroma that took him back to childhood, a breath-stopping reminder of family celebrations of long ago. And a souvenir of Oxford, also breath-stopping--dirty rugby togs left lying forgotten for a week or two.
"Ah," said Ada, "I perceive you have picked up the appetizing osmazômeic aroma of roast turkey, the centerpiece of the users' Thanksgiving tradition. The vapor is piped into the dining room to keep our appetites at fever pitch."
"Yes, very appetizing, but what's that off note on the nose?"
"Well," said Ada, settling herself into her recliner, "we biochemists think the off odor is due to pyrolyzed residues of various fat-soluble antipsychotic-drugs traditionally fed to turkeys of the dimensionally disadvantaged traditional Thanksgiving breed--the 'broadbeam' breed, ideally so long on fat and short on muscle that it is unable to stand up unaided--to ensure that most of them survive the final fattening-up process prior to slaughter."
Alenby felt a little ill at that point, but Ada went on:
"From the standpoint of the social sciences, however, the offending odor is ultimately due to the economics of the Substance industry. The costs of evading the law are out of this universe! In the first place, Substances are inherently expensive...."
Alenby's sensation of unease had settled somewhere around his small intestine. He excused himself and headed for the toilet.
***
In the relatively wholesome ambience of the toilet, his head cleared and he emerged refreshed, with priorities straight. He strode to the potted palm, reached behind it to the keypad, and entered the password. The door opened. In the dim light of the corridor he made out the slightly hunched female figure, svelte in the long black gown, much black hair, bare arm gleaming softly as she stood at the bottom of the stairway with one hand on the newel knob. He knew definitely, at once, without knowing how he knew--she was Soeur Vertumne. Olympe!
Impulsively he sprang forward, grasped her unengaged hand and pressed it to his lips. Seemingly taken aback, she moved to withdraw her hand but immediately relented and did nothing to discourage his advances. Ardently, he kissed her hand, her forearm, her upper arm with special attention to its silky underside that gave off the intoxicating aroma of Yergerscheff coffee beans, medium roast, with intriguing hints of sauce hollandaise....
She spoke in her thrilling, low-pitched voice: "Let us do la screwing," she suggested, glancing towards the stairs.
It was Alenby's turn to be taken aback. Shouldn't "screwing," being a foreign word of non-Latin origin, be masculine? But his hesitation was brief. In this feminist-oriented universe, u, the default gender would naturally be feminine....
Without further ado, the pair scampered hand in hand, up the stairs to their assignation.
2.6.4 The Abduction
Downstream of Pouzay
Evening, 26 November 1987
From the gurgle and shush of the fast flowing Vienne, Alenby knew he was close to the water's edge. He glanced at his watch, but it was already too dark to read the time. He knew it was after 21 h. That was the deadline for this idiotic abduction caper. He was late. All was still, no wind, no signs of PROFATPOL patrols. No sign of Ada, either. A hoax, after all? An excuse to return to what had suddenly become a contender for one's favorite activity? Not likely--wishful thinking pure and simple. Even less likely that Olympe would welcome him back to her bed. She had been keen at first, but cooled off fast when she suddenly remembered some sort of commitment from forty years back--forty years! And then she'd been damnably firm on sending him to Ada's rescue. One had no reason to doubt her affection, though. When the time came for him to go, she'd put on a creditable mad scene--shedding tears, wailing, tearing hair and so on and so forth. But on the matter of the rescue attempt, she had remained adamant....
He started at the sound, leaves rustling.... He made out the form of Ada, standing close by. Close enough to smell, actually. Her bodily odor was--uh oh, more off notes there. In a previous life, he'd have thought bad cork, an occasion for a quiet word with the sommelier. But now he knew different--the offending smell was the smell of a user.
She handed him a partly filled black plastic garbage bag of the sort you close tight with a drawstring. "Undress and stick your things in this," she said in a low, determined voice. "Pull the string tight so it'll float. Loop it around your neck. And for the love of Gaea, keep quiet, and follow me."
He did what she said, though reluctantly. He felt pretty foolish, naked in the darkness, on the verge of shivering in the cool still night air. And it seemed to him positively ridiculous to swim the Vienne at night, considering the chances of getting snagged on roots of fallen trees, floundering on mucky banks.... And another thing--the last time he saw Ada, she could swim better than he did. Why did she need an abductor, anyway?
He put the last point to Ada, sotto voce, and commendably calmly, he thought, as they made their way along a narrow path leading down to a muddy area at the water's edge. Her answer was a quiet but brisk "Later!" accompanied by a sharp push that sent him staggering into deeper, fast-moving water. He instinctively dropped into a steady swimming rhythm, propelling himself out to the middle of the stream. She followed close behind, but she soon tired and had to grab the floating garbage bag for support. From then on the pair floated downstream on the river's current.
Presently they heard grunts and thrashing noises from the river banks.
"PROFATPOL patrols passing on both sides," Ada explained in an undertone. "Tracking hogs, by the sound of it--just as well we took to the water...."
Some time later, when they were sure the patrols were quite out of earshot, she answered the outstanding question:
"I'm beat. Totally out of shape. Haven't been swimming for ages. Couldn't have made it without you...."
And after a short time to catch her breath, "Worse than being out of shape, there's something wrong with my inner woman. Something users get, I think. It feels like a--a rock or something stuck in my large intestine--"
"Constipation," said Alenby. "You may have been consuming animal based substances, which lack the fiber needed for proper digestion."
"Yes, I know all about fiber. I don't want to hear about any holistic folk remedies, thank you. Not now--this is an emergency. I need something stronger. Like--would you happen to have any laxative medication? Users I have been talking to are very enthusiastic about Ipüpoften. It's a Murk product developed originally to treat chronic muscle and joint pain, but there were problems with side effects, including especially diarrhea. So after consultation with their team of top medical scientists and lawyers they changed the promotional materials to put this insight to work for the health of the Substance utilizing community."
"Well, Ipüpoften certainly sounds like a winner, but I fear my personal apothecary is no longer abreast with the latest exciting medical advances in the ongoing search for a cure for constipation. I believe I do have some of the old tried and true Crudulax. Not in the oral form, it's too late for that. You'll have to take the suppository version, Xaludurc you know. I don't have it on me of course, but back at Château Mourey....
"By the way, the moon's coming up. We'll soon be dangerously visible. Isn't it time we headed back to dry land?"
Ada agreed, and the current having slackened greatly at that point--they were in fact opposite Trogues, where the Vienne widens and makes a sweeping turn to the left--the couple had no trouble swimming to the left bank. They had no sooner emerged, dressed and begun to worry how they might bypass a likely PROFATPOL checkpoint at l'Ile Bouchard, when they made out the friendly outline of Jules-César's Citroën 2CV plug-in utility vehicle waiting for them in shadows. Alenby remembered then that he had quite forgotten to destroy Cleo's note, and guessed--correctly as it turned out--the fortunate outcome of his oversight: the alert factotem had read the note, foreseen the course of the abduction and positioned himself to pick up the fugitives without attracting unwanted attention.
The trio made their way safely past the checkpoint with the fugitives safely hidden on the load tray of the 2CV under a couple of bales of chumanure. On arriving at Château Mourey Jules-César popped the Champagne, and the trio drank to their successes: the abduction, and the trial of Alenby's running-sandals.