I took a daringly large amount and popped it on my tongue. The taste was extraordinary; I could almost see the Cambrian Mountains just visible in the rain, low clouds, gushing water and limestone crags, frost-shattered scree and-
“Are you all right?” said Millon when I opened my eyes. “You passed out for a moment there.”
“Kicks like a mule, doesn’t it?” said Pryce kindly. “Have a glass of water.”
“Thank you. We’ll take all you have-what else you got?”
“Mynachlog-ddu Old Contemptible,” said Pryce, showing me a whitish crumbly cheese. “It’s kept in a glass jar because it will eat through cardboard or steel. Don’t leave it in the air too long, as it will start dogs howling.”
“We’ll have thirty kilos. What about this one?” I asked, pointing at an innocuous-looking ivory-colored soft cheese.
“Ystradgynlais Molecular Unstable Brie,” announced Pryce, “a soft cheese we’ve cloned from our cheese-making brethren in France-but every bit as good. Useful as a contact anesthetic or a paint stripper, it can cure insomnia and ground to dust is a very useful self-defense against muggers and wandering bears. It has a half-life of twenty-three days, glows in the dark and can be used as a source of X-rays.”
“We’ll take the lot. Got anything really strong?”
Pryce raised an eyebrow, and his minders looked at one another uneasily. “Are you sure?”
“It’s not for me,” I said hastily, “but we’ve got a few serious cheeseheads who can take the hard stuff.”
“We’ve got some Machynlleth Wedi Marw.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“It’s what you asked for-really strong cheese. It’ll bring you up in a rash just by looking at it. Denser than enriched plutonium, two grams can season enough macaroni and cheese for eight hundred men. The smell alone will corrode iron. A concentration in air of only seventeen parts per million will bring on nausea and unconsciousness within twenty seconds. Our chief taster ate a half ounce by accident and was dead to the world for six hours. Open only out of doors, and even then only with a doctor’s certificate and well away from populated areas. It’s not really a cheese for eating-it’s more for encasing in concrete and dumping in the ocean a long way from civilization.”
I looked at Millon, who nodded. There was always someone stupid enough to experiment. After all, no one had ever died from cheese ingestion. Yet.
“Let us have a half pound, and we’ll see what we can do with it.”
“Very well,” said Pryce. He nodded to a colleague, who opened another suitcase and gingerly took out a sealed lead box. He laid it gently on the table and then took a hurried step backward.
“You won’t attempt to open it until we’re at least thirty miles away, will you?” Pryce asked.
“We’ll do our best.”
“Actually, I’d advise you not to open it at all.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
The trading went on in this manner for another half hour, and with our order book full and the cost totted up, we transported the cheese from their truck to the Acme van, whose springs groaned under the weight.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a wooden crate in the back of their truck. It was securely fixed to the floor with heavy chains.
“That’s nothing,” Pryce said quickly, his henchmen moving together to try to block my view.
“Something you’re not showing us?”
Pryce took me by the arm as they slammed the rear doors and threw the latch.
“You’ve always been a good customer, Ms. Next, but we know what you will and won’t do, and this cheese is not for you.”
“Strong?”
He wouldn’t answer me.
“It’s been nice doing business with you, Ms. Next. Same time next month?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, wondering just how strong a cheese has to be before you’ve got to keep it chained down. More interestingly, the box was stenciled with the code X-14.
I handed over the Welsh cash, it was swiftly counted, and before I knew it, Owen Pryce and his marginally threatening flunkies had revved up the truck and vanished into the night, off to sell cheese to the Stiltonistas in the Old Town. I always got first dibs-that was probably what the flaming Camembert was all about.
“Did you see that cheese chained up in the back?” I asked Millon as we got back into the van.
“No-what cheese?”
“Nothing.”
I started the van, and we drove out of the industrial estate. This was the point at which the CEA would have pounced if they’d have known what was going on, but they didn’t. All was quiet in the town, and within a few minutes Millon had dropped me off at home, taking the Acme van himself to start peddling the cheese.
I had only just opened the garden gate when I noticed a figure standing in the shadows. I instinctively moved to grab my pistol, before remembering that I didn’t carry one in the Outland anymore. I needn’t have worried: It was Spike.
“You made me jump!”
“Sorry,” he replied soberly. “I came to ask you if you wanted any help disposing of the body.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The body. The ground can be hard this time of year.”
“Whose body?”
“Felix8. You did him in, right?”
“No.”
“Then how did he escape? You, me and Stig have the only keys.”
“Wait a moment,” I said nervously. “Felix8 has gone?”
“Completely. Are you sure you didn’t kill him?”
“I think I would have remembered.”
“Well,” said Spike, handing me a spade, “you better give this back to Landen, then.” I must have looked horrified, because he added, “I told him it was to plant some garlic. Listen, you get inside and keep the doors and windows locked-I’ll be in my car across the street if you need me.”
I went into the house and locked the door securely behind me. Felix8 was a worry, but not tonight-I had a complimentary block of Llangloffan, and nothing was going to come between me and Landen’s unbeatable macaroni and cheese.
17. Breakfast Again
Commonsense Party leader Redmond van de Poste, MP, succeeded Chancellor Yorrick Kaine in the hastily called elections of 1988, changed the job title back to “prime minister” and announced a series of innovative policies. For a start he insisted that democracy, while a good idea for a good idea, was potentially vulnerable to predation by the greedy, egotistical and insane, so his plan to demo cratize democracy was ruthlessly implemented. There were initial issues regarding civil liberties, but now, fourteen years later, we were beginning to accrue the benefits.
The news on the radio that morning was devoted-once again-to the ongoing crisis of the week-namely, where the nation’s stupidity surplus could be discharged safely. Some suggested a small war in a distant country against a race of people we weren’t generally disposed toward, but others thought this too risky and favored crippling the efficiency of the public services by adding a new layer of bureaucracy at huge expense and little benefit. Not all suggestions were sensible: Fringe elements of the debate maintained that the nation should revitalize the stupendously costly Anti-Smite Shield project. Designed to protect mankind-or at least England-against the potential threat by an enraged deity eager to cleanse a sinful race with a rain of fire, the shield project would have the twin benefits of profligate waste of good cash plus the possibility that other European nations could be persuaded to join and thus deal with Europe’s combined stupidity excess in one fell swoop.