Greegs & Ladders (5 page)

Debt clients
began to materialize all around the Greeg cage. They appeared in
random locations, causing certain spectres to suffer the
embarrassing act of Bodily Displacement Syndrome.

Rip let go of
the Greeg cage and turned to face the ever-multiplying mob. He
relished their attention, and was for once happy that a debt
counsellor had been phoned. To add a layer of theatricality he
paced back and forth in front of the cage. He tripped over a ledge
and decided sitting down was the best thing for him to do at the
moment.

“I see by the
sudden appearance of so many desperately poor people that I have
made a good wager.”

“I’ll bet you
can’t teach a Greeg how to make a jug of frozen orange juice in six
months!” screamed a desperately poor Snail-oid from the back of the
crowd.

“Everyone
listen here,” spoke Rip, “you hopelessly debt-ridden lot might as
well teleport back to your places of hiding and await your
inevitable dismemberment, because this particular bet is for my old
friend Joe, and for Joey alone.”

Jim laughed at
the thought of being Rip’s friend.

“What’s so
funny?” asked Rip. “Is the bet too good for just you?”

“No, no,” said
Jim. “You were right before. The bet was made to me alone. All
these other leeches… I mean, all these leeches should just teleport
out of here.”

Some of the
leeches vanished. The ones scheduled for an earlier dismemberment
stuck around, clinging to the hope of a life-saving bet.

“What say you,
Johnny?” asked Rip. “Do you take the bet?”

Jim paused for
effect. “I humbly accept your wager.”

“Ha ha!”
laughed Rip, clapping his hands. “All we need now is a
witness.”

“WITNESS!”
shouted four thousand random members of the mob.

“I guess
that's enough witnesses,” said Jim. “It’s an official challenge.
You will acquire a Greeg, and within two years you will make it
more intelligent and presentable than anyone here. If you do not,
you will give me your priceless fleet of Obotron 7 space ships. I
want all the windows scrubbed. And full tanks of gas too. I loathe
hunting for investment bankers.”

“You know,”
whispered Rip, “I think this might be my greatest wager ever.”

Jim thought he
saw tears welling up in a few of Rip’s eyes. Suddenly a severed
hand that had been momentarily caught up in a time-pocket flew
through the air and smacked Rip in the face.

“I’ll leave
you to the business of finding a Greeg,” said Jim as he walked off
in the nearest direction away from Rip.

Once the
autograph session ended and the crowd dispersed, Rip approached the
Greeg-keeper’s tent.

“Ahem… hello?”
he said as he parted the tent flaps. A rank stench emerged from
within. Evidently Greeg-keepers don’t live much better than
Greegs.

“What do you
want?” snarled Reg.

“Haven't you
been watching any of the events going on outside?”

“No… I’ve been
in here watching my show.”

Rip looked
around the tent and saw nothing on which a show could be watched.
Not even an imaginary show like schmold TV. All that lay inside the
tent were a few tables with dead things placed on top of them. Reg
did very little in his spare time aside from eating the nearby
population of Crabbits into extinction. Of their skulls he made
tables on which to place dead Crabbits.

“You didn’t
see the chaotic mob right outside your tent? I think we even
shattered the planetary record for most teleportations in a
nanosecond. You must have felt some of the land-quakes?”

“No, I’ve been
in here watching my show, like I said.”

“I’ll fill you
in,” said Rip.

He went on to
tell a long rendition of everything that just happened. Being that
it just happened, I’ll skip ahead. But know that Rip told the story
with his usual eloquence and exciting flair for showmanship.

“That’s the
stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” laughed Reg. He banged his hands
against the table. Bone fragments were scattered across the mud
floor. “You can’t teach a Greeg anything! You can’t get them to be
clean! You’ve surely lost your fleet of ships to this Elizabeth
guy.”

“
I
disagree,” said Rip. “It
can
be
done. I
will
transform a
Greeg within two years!”

“What’s all
this got to do with me anyway?” asked Reg.

“I need one of
your Greegs. How else am I going to win the bet?”

“
One
of
my
Greegs?” asked Reg. His red
eyes glowed darker crimson, as they were prone to do when he grew
upset. “Not a chance can you have one of my Greegs! I’m barely
getting by with the low number I have right now. I don’t even have
enough for a double-digit orgy, and the tourists are only paying
lots for the big group scenes. There’s no way you can have one of
my Greegs.”

“Think of it
like an investment. I’ll give you the Greeg back after two years,
regardless of whether I win the bet or not,” lied Rip. “But imagine
I do win the bet… you’ll suddenly find yourself in the ownership of
an intelligent, clean and presentable Greeg. Never in their history
have Greegs garnered those adjectives. Think of the rare attraction
you’d have on your hands if you owned such a specimen. Tourists
would flock from the farthest dimensions, even the invisible one,
just to have a look at this Greeg. You could charge whatever you
wanted for admission.”

Reg grew
interested. “And if you don’t win the bet?”

“You’ll still
have your Greeg back, after only a short two year rental period.
And even if I don’t entirely transform the Greeg, I’m sure that in
a couple years I can at least teach it enough tricks to greatly
enhance your outdated show.”

“Hmm… I
suppose the show is a bit outdated.”

“A bit? Are
you kidding me?” said Rip, reaching the climax of his suave hustle.
“The Greeg show is done. It needs something new. Everyone’s seen
Greegs having sex, it’s just not that crazy any longer.” He
couldn’t have been lying any more. Greeg carnivals were more
popular than ever throughout the universe. Just not on the rundown,
out-of-the-way planet Reg had chosen to live on.

The
painfully slow cogs of Reg’s rotted brain began to turn.
You could almost hear his
thoughts creaking, like the sound of a thousand fingernails
scratching The Floating Chalkboard of Elbereth (something that has
actually been done, much to the chagrin of those now-deaf folk who
forgot to wear earplugs while doing it).

“If I
introduced something new to the Greeg show... I could get rich?” he
asked.

“That’s
right!”

Reg lingered
over this incredulous thought. “I’ll do it!” he finally shouted.
“You can have one of my Greegs!”

“You won’t
regret it,” said Rip. “When can I take the beast?”

“Right
away!”

“Good. There
is only two years after all. But that’s still enough time.”

“I suddenly
believe in you,” said Reg, feeling the stoned-like effects of Rip’s
powerful methods of deception. “You seem like a creature of great
intellect.”

Dr. Rip T.
Brash the Third was indeed a creature of great intellect, however
this assumption would not have been made if Reg were a creature
capable of the sense of smell, as ordinarily no creature of great
intellect would have on their breath the scent of 12 Crammington
Krish Fortinis.

Reg led Dr.
Brash to the Greeg cage.

“You can have
that one,” he said, pointing at Zook. “I have suspected he is
slightly more intelligent then the other Greegs.”

“Why do you
suspect that?”

“He bangs his
face against the bars slightly less often than the others.”

a Pair of Old
Friends Take in a Show

The crowd
laughed and howled and rolled around on the ground. This would
never get old. Nothing made them feel better about themselves than
seeing a Greeg be a Greeg, and knowing for certain that they were
not a Greeg.

Naddy had, in
no particular order, and in the last hour:

• Attempted to
  eat his left arm
  

• Realized it
  was futile considering his lack of teeth
  

• Strained his
  neck muscles trying to look at his own asshole
  

• Tried to pop
  his neck back into place
  

• Considering his neck hadn’t been popped out of place,
  suffered severe damage to his spine.
  

For a brief
moment of self-awareness, Naddy actually realized that he was a
source of mockery. He felt the disdain and condescension from the
carnival goers. He paused for a second and looked out pathetically.
His eyes asked the carnival goers if this was really the way things
should be. He questioned why they were so much better than him, and
if so, why did they simply point and laugh instead of helping him
be like them? He hadn’t chosen to be a Greeg, he was simply born
one. The carnivalites hadn’t actually accomplished anything more
than him, other than not being born a Greeg. For a nanosecond, he
was acutely aware of all of this and he begged with his eyes to be
taken out of the cage and to be one of them. His plea faintly
registered with no one and was instantly forgotten when he shook
off the silly thought at the sight of the female waking from a nap.
With no competition from Zook, Naddy had her all to himself. He
barely even tried any more. He bumbled over to her side and farted
directly in her face. Then he punched himself a few times in the
mouth and kneed an inanimate object. Lacking any semblance of
self-esteem, the female shrugged and pulled out the procreational
paraphernalia.

As the
act of sex began it should be noted that I lied a little bit in the
previous paragraph. The plea did not
entirely
fail to register with
all
of the carnival gawkers. There was one creature
who felt a connection and shared a moment of understanding with
Naddy. This same creature was now feeling very strong emotions
stirring up inside him as the first attempt went down. While it is
true that he was hooting and hollering with the rest of the crowd,
he couldn’t help but feel a gut wrenching volcano of bubbling
anger, longing, jealousy and resentment churning around in his
stomach. He tried to dismiss it at first, but he could not deny the
fierce reality of the feelings. He surely, undeniably wished more
than anything that he could tear off his clothing, go into the cage
and challenge the lowly Greeg. He found the disgusting female
inexplicably attractive beyond his wildest fantasies. All he wished
to do was to rub feces and dirt and bodily fluids all over himself
and engage in acts of psychotic and nonsensical physical violence
towards the other male. Somehow he knew this would ensure he would
get to be the one making the first attempt right now. He didn’t
know why or how he knew this was important, but he did.

“Savages,
hey?” A familiar voice came from beside him, more prodding him than
genuinely asking the question.

“Yes, yes,
savages.”

“Everything
about them is savage, primitive and borderline retarded… except
when they do this. Look at that, look at how they do it. More
elegant and caring than a barrel full of Vibrulant Oolorians.”

“Still doesn’t
make them any less savage or dumb though.”

“Not at all.
Just a bizarre and random fluke. No real logical explanation for
it.”

A brief pause,
and then the familiar voice continued.

“You’re right
though, every Greeg is an idiot, a moron, a complete and total
twit.”

“You can say
that again… every, single, one. Good for a laugh, and nothing more.
Crammington Krish?”

“You bet,”
said Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third.

“My treat,”
said the former Greeg formerly known as Zook.

Planetary
Relativity, Astrospeciology and Fleeing in Haste

It was now 1.7
years after Rip had made his outlandish bet that he was about to
win. It should be noted that Rip, being the clever bloke he was,
had actually duped the audience considerably. As any seasoned
traveller of time and space can tell you, a year is a very relative
term. On the planet Schmick for example, a year is about the time
it takes you to read:

This.

There
you go, another Schmickian year gone by. By the time you next see a
period a whole decade will have gone by. The planet Schmick is
about four inches away from the sun it revolves around. Well, it
doesn’t actually revolve around it so much. Not all planets revolve
around their suns. Not all go in circles, or ellipses, or ovals.
Some make boxes, zig-zags, figure 8’s, loop-dee-loops, jittery
slaloms, loping spirals, corkscrews and spastic shuffles. Some
planets interact with one another as they go about their sun;
performing doe-see-does or bumping and jostling as they go. Others
go directly at their sun, these are called “suicidal planets.” Some
don’t move at all. They are referred to as “Lazy Planets.” Some
super intelligent, lazy planets have risen up against their sun,
banded together and made the sun revolve around them. These are
called “Union Planets.”
Others, like Schmick, disappear and reappear in multiple
places around their sun at a dizzying speed. This makes it appear
as if they are
actually
occupying every single space around the sun at all times.
They are
doing exactly this. Schmick is not really
a planet and its sun isn’t technically a sun. But there’s no point
in trying to explain that to you.

Other planets
crawl at a pace that would make Grovulant Sloggerz look like
Riptulating Froppers. These planets never use the year as a
standard of time. Instead they prefer to time things out in
general, ball-park phrases like “When that thing happens later on.”
These planets are absolutely useless to anyone looking to fuel up
their space ship, as clearly no investment banker could ever thrive
in such a lackadaisical environment.