In his unfamiliar accent that seemed like a peculiar composite of Indian and Italian, Weldon said, \u2018I tell you gain, sugar. You say word, I kill you. I kill your family. I kill everybody. I even kill small baby rabbits with fluffy ears and floppy tail.\u2019<\/p>\n
Guinevere was still unsure whether to take Weldon’s threats seriously. He was a touch melodramatic for someone who claimed to have invented the solar system. Thinking that Al Gore had been misquoted for over a century for \u2018inventing the internet\u2019, she had asked whether he had really meant to use the word \u2018invent\u2019. Perhaps he had meant to say \u2018discover\u2019. Weldon protested that the question demonstrated a gratuitous lack of faith and issued another threat that culminated in the mutilation of small rabbits.<\/p>\n
\u2018I told you, it’s all a haze, Myron,\u2019 she said, with a carefully chosen minimalist description that contradicted nothing she had said previously. Lies were easy to maintain when they were kept short, like I love you<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2018Like hell it is, Gee,\u2019 Myron shouted, trying to keep pace with her. \u2018And could you just stop for a second!\u2019 Myron had taken the male inability to multi-task to great heights; walking and talking was apparently too much for him.<\/p>\n \u2018No,\u2019 Guinevere giggled, \u2018I don’t think it was anything like hell.\u2019 She stopped and turned to look at Weldon, who was shaking his head furiously like an angry schoolmaster, wagging a cautionary finger at her. He then opened his hand and a small, white rabbit appeared atop his palm. Completely oblivious to the threat that had been made at its expense, the fluffy ball of cuteness twitched its nose and stared at nothing in particular with impassive, opal eyes from beneath the shelter of two canvas-like ears. It demanded to be hugged.<\/p>\n \u2018Aha! So you do remember something!\u2019 Myron fired back.<\/p>\n Weldon scratched his head with his free hand, apparently concerned. A moment later he realised what was wrong and a top hat popped into existence on his head. He took off the hat and lowered the rabbit into its depths with open-mouthed mock terror on his face. \u2018You say something, I kill baby bunny dead.\u2019<\/p>\n Myron cried, \u2018For god’s sakes Gee, if I have no results, they are going to close my project! They want some proof that the damn thing works not oh I’m sorry don’t remember, pass the biscuits, hmm nice cuppa tea cheers.\u2019<\/p>\n Guinevere said, \u2018Look, Myron what do you want me to say? Would you be happy if I just said something like I passed through the gate and instead of finding myself on the rim of the galaxy I ended up in heaven and met a handsome man who said he was the god Weldon and invented our solar system and threatened to kill bunnies if I told anyone where he was and what he was like and right now he’s standing behind you and only I can see him threatening me not to say anything?\u2019<\/p>\n Myron’s jaw dropped.<\/p>\n Weldon tapped the rim of the top hat with a wand he had chanced upon behind an ear and something noisy started happening inside the hat. It made the kind of noise a coffee grinder might make.<\/p>\n \u2018That’s not true, of course,\u2019 Guinevere felt compelled to add for the poor animal\u2019s sake. Weldon tapped the hat again and the noise increased in pitch and volume, making it sound more like a blender.<\/p>\n While Myron had no capacity for multi-tasking, he was quite adept in the arena of hysterics and yelled, \u2018You’re completely lock-me-up-and-throw-away-the-bloody-key crazy! You’re going to get my project canned. What’s the BFD? Keep this up, I’m going to have to go through myself with the last dregs of the budget.\u2019<\/p>\n Guinevere shouted back over the blending noise, \u2018I THINK ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS RE-CALIBRATE A LITTLE.\u2019 After all, that was what Weldon had suggested, but given his penchant for jocularity, it might just send someone to the unpleasant surface of Io. No one would want that, certainly not Myron’s wife after failing to persuade her husband to take out some life insurance. Gate technology is dangerous, she had argued with some precision, but Myron had retorted with a watertight argument. He was not the one having to go through the gate, he had explained, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to point out Guinevere, the current project victim.<\/p>\n \u2018Why the hell are you shouting?\u2019 asked Myron.<\/p>\n The grinding noise stopped. Weldon pulled the rabbit out the hat in one piece, with a mischievous, toothy grin. \u2018See I do magic. See my great magic trick! I am bloody good. You love me, I think.\u2019<\/p>\n The last thing the human race needs is to meet Weldon, Guinevere thought, as he was not exactly the god it had had in mind.<\/p>\n \u2018Oh dear dear,\u2019 Weldon said, as one of the rabbit’s feet fell off, dropping back into the hat with an unsettling plop<\/em>. \u2018But this lucky charm, yes?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his unfamiliar accent that seemed like a peculiar composite of Indian and Italian, Weldon said, \u2018I tell you gain, sugar. You say word, I kill you. I kill your family. I kill everybody. I even kill small baby rabbits with fluffy ears and floppy tail.\u2019 Guinevere was still unsure whether to take Weldon’s threats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hammerport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}