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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?'
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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.'
'Oh. Of course.' Mungo turned to face Fergus Shaman. 'Fergus, if this is a practical joke, I
shall not be responsible for my actions.'
'Could be ventriloquism, Garstang suggested. 'An uncle of mine had a singing turnip. Went
distinctly quiet once the old bloke had kicked the bucket.'
'Yes, yes!' Mungo beat upon the table with his fists. 'My patience is not inexhaustible.'
'When you're all quite finished, the sprout bobbed up and down, 'I will gladly enlarge upon
any concepts that you might find . . . trying.'
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'He has a certain eloquence, said Lavinius Wisten. 'I like that in a sprout.'
Mungo Madoc made digging motions with an ethereal compost shovel. 'The floor is yours,
he told the loqua-cious veg.
'Well, said the sprout, 'I'll keep it brief, it's all to do with the microcosm and the macrocosm.
As above, so below, that sort of stuff. The infinite atom, the sprout, the planet, the sun, all
spheres you see. You are all, no doubt, conversant with Phnaargian dogma, that the entire
universe is nothing more than a pimple upon the nose of the deity.'
All present, barring the sprout, made the sacred sign, pinching their thumbs and forefingers
to the tips of their noses.
'Then you will no doubt wish to expedite matters before the great one chooses to lance his
boil.'
'Point taken, said Mungo. 'We need waste no more time regarding the mechanics. Can
you, with accuracy, convey a member of our team back to an exact location, at an exact
time, on Earth?'
'A piece of peat. Although there may be one or two minor biological problems for the
traveller accompany-ing.'
'Ah, Mungo nodded meaningfully. 'Now this does surprise me.'
'Ironic extrapolations are quite wasted upon me. I merely state fact. The Phnaargian isn't
designed to travel through time. He's the wrong shape for one thing. He will "pick things up"
as he travels along.'
'What? Like germs, do you mean?'
'Knowledge, said the sprout. 'We will be travelling at the speed of thought. So therefore on
the same wave-length. He'll pick it all up, centuries of it. The
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accumulated knowledge of every intelligent being in the galaxy, that has ever lived, possibly
even ever will live.'
'So when do we leave?' Mungo asked. 'Best get off, eh?'
'Slow down, the man who takes the trip and picks up all this knowledge will become . . .'
'Godlike,' said Mungo Madoc.
'Barmy,' said the sprout. 'Stone bonkers.'
'Ah,' said Mungo. 'I see.'
'As a hatter,' the sprout continued. 'Off his kookie, out of his tree . . .'
'Quite so.'
'Basket case.'
'Thank you.'
'Loony, dibbo, round the twist . . .'
'Thank you very much. And this will happen as he makes the journey back?'
The journey back into the past is OK; it's the journey forward that will do for him. Blow his
mind, freak him out, spring his . . .'
'Thank you! This matter will require a good deal of thought. Fergus, kindly take your little
friend down to the lobby. I'm sure he'd like a glass of water, or some-thing.'
'Virtually self sufficient, chief,' said the sprout. 'Meta-bolic rate merely ticking over,
pseudopodium catered for.'
'The lobby!' shouted Mungo and he meant it.
The door sealed upon a sullen Fergus and a com-plaining sprout. Mungo smiled down at
this team. They returned his gaze, with varying degrees of apprehension.
'This is a conundrum,' said Mungo Madoc. 'One, in fact, quite new to my experience. But it
has potential. I like it.'
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'But it isn't going to work, Gryphus complained. 'In fact it's a load of old . . .'
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