"01 - Armageddon, the Musical (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

'Respect has to be earned,' Gloria replied, as the phrase has always been a favourite amongst women. 'The winning couple from last week are here. Don't you think you should speak to them?'

'What for? We aren't thinking of letting them survive another week, are we?'

Gloria shook her beautiful head. 'Do you remember

54

your eighty-second reincarnation?'

Dan made a thoughtful face. 'Vaguely, that's when I had to do a runner from the Red Chinese, wasn't it?' Gloria nodded. 'I remember wearing foolish glasses and giggling a lot, and,' Dan turned his third eye upon Gloria, 'I remember that the Maharishi got all the best girls.'

'I've got you on video, you used to talk a lot of sense back then.'

'What are you getting at?'

'What I'm getting at, as if you don't know, is that even in exile you were worshipped by millions as the Living God King.'

'I still am.'

'You had responsibilities. You still have.'

'Oh, very funny. The one hundred and fifty-third incarnation I might be, God's chosen representative on Earth I might be, but a cabbage I ain't. If you wish me to fulfil my responsibilities then allow me to go into spiritual retreat for about thirty years.'

'Duty then, you have a duty to the station.'

Dan closed his eyes and drew his trousered legs into a full lotus. He began to hum gently and before Gloria's eyes, slowly levitated towards the ceiling. It was a spectacle Gloria had witnessed before, but this made it no less unnerving.

'I'll talk to the winning couple myself,' she said, making a rapid departure from the Green Room.

She slammed the door and stalked back across the studio floor. As she approached the winning couple she was further distressed to find that the Dalai was already with them. He raised his Tampa Sunrise to her and smiled sweetly. 'Gloria,' he said, 'what kept you? Not been talking to yourself again I hope?'

55

And a rose smells sweetly when it's growing in manure. Ivor Biggun

Back on Phnaargos the Time Sprout was holding court.

'Sixteenth generation, eobiont engram modification,’ the wily veg explained, 'utilising the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter.'

'The what?' asked Mungo Madoc.

'Curve of space,' said the sprout. 'Time doesn't travel in straight lines. I thought everyone knew that.'

Executive heads bobbed up and down. 'Yes, indeedy,' said Diogenes 'Dermof Darbo.

'Well, it's the first I've heard of it,’ said Mungo.

'You see time doesn't really exist, it's an illusion. Relative of course.'