when yeti arrived on arcturus in the hold of the slave ship, the rebels were closing in on the capital of the empire of atlantis.
the empire was about to fall - not to one group of rebels, but to several, who were closing in on it from all sides.
the only question was whether one group of rebels would quickly seize control, or whether one or more groups would form a ruling coalition, or whether there would be a protracted or endless civil war.
what was needed was a leader - a figure - man, woman, or child - who would come forth and capture the imagination of the people and that they would rally around.
gonzalvo, a cab driver who dreamed of ruling an empire, had pondered long and hard on these matters.
he realized he could not never present himself as the savior. he was big and awkward and had no charm or easy flow of words. therefore, he had to find a savior that he could be a counselor to, if not the actual puppet master of.
he never shared these dreams with anyone. he was a “card-carrying member” (no one actually carried a card) of the true freedom party, one of the many revolutionary parties in the capital, and attended their meetings, performed his allotted tasks, handed out their leaflets, and accepted their criticisms.
gonzalvo never slept much. when he was not driving his cab or engaged in his true freedom party activities, he liked to lift weights at the gym, and to play poker. he was pretty good at the weights, not so good at the poker.
one early morning before dawn, gonzalvo was waiting behind the rail of a small poker parlor a couple of blocks from the imperial palace. the place had only three tables and all were filled. gonzalvo was first up but nobody had moved in over an hour.
he was just about ready to give up and go home to his lonely room, when he heard a voice beside him.
“you still running around loose? i would have thought the ugly police would have got you by now.”
gonzalvo turned. it took him a couple of seconds to place the speaker. it was a young man who had been a driver for the same cab company as gonzalvo but whom he had not seen for about a year.
“remember me?” the young man smiled. “george. from peerless cab.”
“yeah, i remember you.” gonzalvo remembered him very well. he struck up a friendship of sorts with the young man, hoping to convert him to the good cause and perhaps even groom him as the savior, as he had good looks if nothing else. but george had turned out to be just a punk and a pretty boy, only interested in girls and high powered vehilces.
“been waiting here long?” george asked gonzalvo
“quite a while, “ gonzalvo told him. "i was just about getting ready to quit.”
“huh. so not much chance of four people getting in, hey? three, if you quit.”
“three people?” gonzalvo looked around. besides gonzalvo and george, the players, and dave, the proprietor-floorman, the only other persons in sight were another young man and a young girl, who might have been teenagers, hanging in the shadows beside the candy and soft drink machines.
the boy was short and muscular and mean looking, the girl was one of the most beautiful gonzalvo had ever seen in his long life.
“my proteges”, george smirked.
“proteges! i hope you are not putting that poor girl to work.”
“ha, ha! no, man, no, anything but, ha, ha. you do me wrong, brother. “ george glanced back at the boy and girl and lowered his voice. “put her to work? she’s a princess, man, a princess from the castle. and the kid is a prince.”
“you don’t say so.”
“i do say so.”
“and what are they doing here? seeing how the real people live?”
george shrugged. “i guess. although it is hard to know exactly what they are thinking. especially the girl. want me to introduce them to you?”
“why not?”
so it came about that gonzalvo met clorinda.
No comments:
Post a Comment