MISS FENG SERVES THE WRONG
BEER
Uncle
Featherstonehaugh’s boat is furnished in white oak panels with
brass trim, ocher crushed-velvet curtains, and gently hissing gas
lamps. A curving sofa extends around the circumference of the
lounge, and for those tiresome long voyages to the outer system
there are cozy staterooms accessible through hidden sliding panels
in the walls. It is a model of understated classical luxury in
which a cove and his fellows can get discreetly bladdered while
watching the glorious relativistic fireworks in the crystal screen
that forms the ceiling. However, for the journey to Abdul’s
pleasure dome on Mars, it suffered from three major drawbacks. For
one thing, in a fit of misplaced bonhomie I’d offered Edgestar
Wolfblack a lift, and old Edgy wasn’t the best company for a
postdrop preprandial, on account of his preferred tipples being
corrosive or hypergolic, or both. Secondly, Laura was still making
her absence felt. And finally, as the icing on the cake, Miss Feng
had locked Jeremy in the luggage compartment. He was kicking up a
racket such as only a dwarf mammoth with a hangover can, and I
could barely hear myself think over the din.
“Dash it all, how
much beer did you give him?” I asked my butler.
“Two liters, sir,”
Miss Feng replied. “Of the rather elderly Bragote from the back of
your uncle’s laboratory. I judged it the least likely to be
missed.”
“Oh dear God!” I
cried.
“Bragh-ought?” echoed
Edgy, as a plaintive squeal and a loud thud echoed from the
underfloor bay. By the sound of things, Jeremy was trying to dash
his brains out on the undercarriage. (Unfortunately, a dwarf
mammoth’s skull is thick enough to repel meteors and small
antimatter weapons.)
“Was that a mistake?”
Miss Feng inquired.
I sighed. “You’re new
to the household, so I suppose you weren’t to know this, but
anything Uncle Featherstonehaugh brewed is best treated as an
experiment in creative chemical warfare. He was particularly keen
on the Bragote: it’s a medieval recipe and requires a few years to
mature to the consistency of fine treacle, but once you dilute the
alcohol, it’s an excellent purgative. Or so I’m told,” I added
hastily, not wanting to confess to any teenage
indiscretions.
“Oh dear.” Her brow
wrinkled. “One suspected it was a little past its prime, then. I
packed another firkin in the hold, just in case it becomes
necessary to sedate Jeremy again.”
“I don’t think that
will work,” I said regretfully. “He’s not entirely stupid. Uncle was working on a thesis that
the Black Death of 1349 wasn’t a plague but a
hangover.”
“Blackdeath? Is no
posthuman of that nomenclature in my clade,” Edgy
complained.
BUMP went the floor
beneath my feet, causing my teeth to vibrate. “Only two hours to
Mars,” Miss Feng observed. “If Sir will excuse me, I have to see to
his costume before arrival.” She retreated into one of the
staterooms, leaving me alone with old Edgy and the pachydermal
punctuation.