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  And another monthly meeting of the Council was at an end. Unquestionably a more entertaining one than most. But in the final analysis, no more and no less useful than all the rest.

  15.

  The records told of a world long, long ago where there grew many sorts of trees. And that amongst these trees, there was one sort of tree that was wondrous indeed. For this sort of tree gave up the most extraordinary of substances: a gunge. And what made this gunge so extraordinary was that the people of that world were able to fashion it into a fibre, a fibre that played the most crucial of rôles in their civilisation. For it did nothing less than hold up their knickers - all on its own - without the need for buttons or braces or belts. And the people of that world called this fibre: 'E-lastic'.

  But then these trees were lost. And with them, the source of E-lastic. And the expanding civilisation of the universe, unable to find a synthetic replacement for E-lastic, entered its dark ages, a time when underwear became horribly cumbersome.

  Yes, it was lots of little buttons and lots of little zips. And whilst buttons and zips were OK, they were only OK up to a point. After all, there were certain times, certain pressing times, when if buttons stayed buttoned and zips remained zipped, one could have a real problem on one's hands. Whereas togs with E-lastic were never a threat. As with nothing to catch and nothing to snare, they'd be down by your ankles with seconds to spare…

  But much worse, buttons and zips were never so absolutely reliable as the self-gripping magic of E-lastic - in their all important supporting rôle. Indeed, it is difficult for anybody who has not suffered this particular privation to appreciate just how much it can dominate one's thinking - nor to begin to appreciate the sense of insecurity it can engender. Well-supported drawers are no less than fundamental to most people's self-confidence. It is that important. And that's why a range of alternatives to buttons and zips - and the other more conventional upholders of smalls - found their way into the underwear world.

  There were various glues. The waistband of a pair of pants would be impregnated with some state-of-the-art glue, which in theory stuck to skin or carapace, and as easily, when desired, unstuck. Most, of course, either failed to stick when they should have stuck, or failed to unstick when they shouldn't have stuck. Knickers kitted out in this way were responsible for countless cases of frustration, exasperation, panic and acute embarrassment - and not a small number of surgical interventions. They were also excruciatingly uncomfortable to wear and quite often very smelly. Glue-trews, as their producers decided to name them, never really took off. And when they were, they were often never put back on again.

  Lighter-than-air devices looked much more promising. These chaps were ingenuously made. And the ingenuity of their construction made them as comfortable to wear as glue-trews were uncomfortable. In fact, they were a real joy to wear

  The secret of their lighter-than-air nature - and the cause of their very high comfort factor - was helium. Or more precisely, the mass of helium-filled micro bubbles interwoven into the very fibres from which they were made. When wearing an “LTA” pair of pants, one was wearing a delicate knicker-shaped armada of infinitesimally small helium-filled zeppelins. And the cushioning this afforded, as just a by-product of their technology, was superb. You could even get them more or less cushioned where you wanted, simply by using a variable thickness of material on bum-parts, front parts, side parts, and even on up and under and along parts.

  They became very popular very quickly. So much so that it wasn't long before a whole generation began to regard LTAs as the only undies ever worth stepping into.

  Then the health scare: helium leakage! And where was some of it going? Well, where would it go? It might only be very small amounts of the stuff, hardly measurable in a day. But people wore knickers for more than a day. They lived in the things. So what might be the cumulative effect?

  Of course, like most health scares, there was no real substance to this one at all. Up whatever orifice the inert gas decided to travel, it was soon established that it had no effect whatsoever on the knicker-wearer's well-being. But the damage had been done. The idea had been put into people's minds that a dangerous gaseous substance was being allowed into their undercarriage parts. And that was enough.

  The LTA knickers habit burst, and people went on to look for the next solution to underwear security.

  Enter thinking knickers! What better way to control the activities of one's underwear than by enabling it itself to know what to do - when to “tighten itself” and stay firmly anchored to the nether regions and when to “loosen itself” and slide down and away as the occasion demanded?

  Of course, they weren't thinking knickers in the sense that they contemplated philosophy or questioned their own existence. Not at all. But they did operate through a marvellous blend of programmable micro-mechanical technology - by which they could increase and decrease their size - and an array of connected sensors, which could be triggered by the slightest of movements. And with just a few hours acquaintance, most people could operate their auto-pants not only quite easily but also quite safely. No mean achievement in technological terms when one considered that the flimsiest g-strings could be equipped with this kit - entirely discreetly - and with a range of speed options for the release mechanism.

  They were brilliant. But they were doomed to failure. And the reason, of course, is obvious: knicker hackers.

  As soon as the new underwear was in circulation, the hackers were into them to see what they contained - technologically speaking. And within weeks they knew everything they needed to know about auto-undies - and they were on the rampage. Hacker override was happening everywhere.

  A minority derived its pleasure from preventing the release function from operating when the wearer - through reasons of lust or a large dinner - wanted it to - with desperate or unspeakable consequences as the case may be. But, as one can imagine, to be aware of exactly when to apply this particular misery and to be in a position to observe its results was never an easy matter.

  There were, however, no such problems for the majority hacker sport, where the hackers, with their tiny override gadgets, would activate the knickers whenever and wherever they wanted - and observe the results as they pleased: normally a fall in the victim's drawers, confidence and self-esteem, all at the same time.

  It mushroomed into an epidemic, with gangs of hackers de-panting every poor soul in town. And with the men still wearing the trousers in society, and the women now back into skirts and dresses, it was the fairer sex who were the more vulnerable to attack - and were attacked - repeatedly.

  When somebody then started to market a jamming device, the sole purpose of which was to prevent some idiot from taking down your knickers by remote control, the writing was on the wall. If security underlies everybody's relationship with his or her underwear, how can you possibly sell pants whose security system invites assault and then has to be reinforced by another security system? They soon joined glue-trews and their lighter than air successors in a growing list of horribly failed bloomers in the annals of underwear.

  Other solutions followed, but they were too extreme or too impractical. Pants with magnetic waistbands - supported by metal implants, knot-knickers where one tied oneself in, mini grappling hooks around the groin area, plug and chain devices, and even velcro-surgery.

  Then the renaissance. Somebody found a dust planet. And then somebody else found out what to do with the dust. And bingo! The dark ages lightened no end…

  It was a really uninspiring place, that first dust planet. Cold, featureless, entirely unattractive as a place to colonize, and, on first inspection, lacking even any natural resources worth plundering. But then the geologists came across some peculiar readings on their machines - which seemed to indicate that the planet was like a Swiss cheese; it was full of enormous cavities, some of them only a few tens of metres below its surface. And the cavities weren't empty cavities, but neither were they full of gas or liquid. They contained some
thing that baffled the geologists' equipment really quite successfully. And its identity was only revealed by excavation. It was black dust. Fine, lightweight-in-the-extreme, black dust; dry and powdery and, once released from its cavity home, capable of getting absolutely everywhere: into any machinery, through virtually any clothing, into food, eyes, ears, mouths - and it coated everything it drifted onto - with a film that was blacker than black.

  It seemed that the stuff was a real menace, and its release from the first cavity excavated only rendered the new planet even more worthless than before. The dust was now fouling its atmosphere. Wispy black clouds drifted about everywhere. And a world, which already received very little sunlight, now received even less. It was a place with its own built-in pollution. And now that pollution was out and was free.

  However, for a handful of geologists and chemists, this commercially disappointing world was still a scientific enigma - and a fascination. How had a world developed giant pockets of dust within its mass? What was the dust? What was its relationship to the more orthodox hard bits of the planet? And so on and so on.

  Well, the research produced more new puzzles than it did answers - and just a fairly bizarre hypothesis that the dust pockets were the result of some giant planet virus - probably now extinct - but in its heyday able to reduce a diet of solid planet to a residue of planet powder. But during the chemical investigation of the dust, one researcher happened to discover that it had a decidedly unexpected property, a property that would change people's attitude to the stuff - and quite fundamentally. For when heated at about one and a half atmospheres of pressure, it coalesced into a rubbery mass, which when cooled again could be worked into nothing less than a new-age E-lastic! And so 'D-lastic' was born. And the universe had, at last, a fitting heir to that champion upholder of the past, a magic-lastic solution to that great pantie-poser problem of the present.

  The dust world became a gold mine. A technology was spawned to deal with the stuff - to extract it, to handle it, to transport it and to process it - all without allowing it to escape into free air and so achieving its awesome pollution potential. And it was worth it. The universe wanted secure, uncumbersome underwear, D-lastic underwear. And the universe was prepared to pay for it. The planet's discoverers, its developers, and indeed everybody connected with the dust business, made a fortune.

  And it didn't take too long for a full-scale dust rush to get under way - a search for the second dust world, and then the third… And now there are twenty-six known dust worlds throughout the inhabited galaxies. Twenty-six pillars supporting that edifice which is dependable, easy-to-wear duds. Twenty-six treasure-troves.

  And twenty-six temptations for every thief, brigand and gangster in the universe - requiring the best protection that money can buy. A security establishment that has been developed to meet the very particular and very real threats that these worlds have to face - every working day of their long working lives: the Dustforce. An elite band of professionals whose job it is not only to guard the dust worlds and their workers, but also the dust itself. For not until it has been coalesced into rubbery harmlessness is it other than a real pollution hazard. And therefore the Dustforce is also a “dust-brigade”, a force trained to deal with its intrinsic menace as well as its intrinsic interest to the lawless. It's a sort of environmental Tickler set up really. And it's staffed with the same sort of adventure-seeking stalwarts - including, at the present time, a young lady by the name of Madeleine Maiden. For it was the Dustforce that Madeleine had joined when her boyfriend had gone to the League.

  When Renton had been grappling with the demanding modules of the League's induction course, Madeleine had been undergoing her own trials and tribulations at the Dustforce academy. She'd been wrestling with its very own version of a gruelling apprenticeship for its entrants. And the wrestling worked. She'd creamed it. She was so much a natural, she'd even surprised herself. Why, she thought, had she been so reticent on her Dumpiter adventure? She'd not be so now. Not here on her first active service posting - on Kerra-Dust, one of the very largest of the dust worlds. And one of the dust worlds that had seen some serious bandit incursions over the past few months.

  She had arrived just after the last little incident. And since then, much to her annoyance, it had all been very quiet. Nothing had happened. Absolutely nothing at all.

  Then something did.

  There was an emergency call from the dust mine, Targa-B, a huge dust facility on Kerra-Dust about a thousand miles from Madeleine's own base of Pebla Erra. She was one of the first to arrive there in response to the call, and therefore one of the first to find that Targa-B had been emptied - not of its valuable hoard of dust, but of its rather more irreplaceable dust workers: the dust miners, the dust technologists and even the local garrison of Dustforce officers. They'd all disappeared.

  It was incredible. Who in their right mind would want to steal people - dust people? Somebody with his own dust mine? Impossible. There weren't secret mines. There couldn't be. It just wouldn't work. And who had the power to kidnap people on that scale anyway - and were well enough trained to do it - very well trained indeed…?

  Well, despite getting their collective knickers into a rare old twist, the Dustforce just hadn't a clue…

  16.

  Growing up is not a doddle. Not in any way is it an easy stroll up a smooth ramp to so-called wisdom and maturity. Nor is it even a mildly challenging ramble up a gently rising incline to adult self-assurance and understanding. Renton had observed this before. No, rather it is more akin to a clumsy, faltering and occasionally alarming climb up a massive set of stairs. And to make matters worse, this huge set of stairs sometimes gives way to walkways, unexpected stretches of level path where little if anything happens - where genuine new life-experiences are very few - and where you learn very little. And sometimes it's just the reverse. The steps of the stairs become huge. More like looming rock faces. And here, there is almost too much happening. You're simply overwhelmed with new experiences - dramatic new experiences. And your learning “explodes”. And - if you're able to keep your foothold - you grow up in no time at all.

  Renton was back in Pandiloop and contemplating his own staircase - and the size of the steps he'd encountered over the last forty-eight hours. And there was no doubt about it; he'd grown up pretty damn quickly…

  His previous adventure hadn't been without its moments. But it had been very much an unplanned, accidental affair, where he'd simply been swept along by its irresistible momentum. And, most significant of all, actual combat - real armed confrontation - hadn't come until very late in the day. And then, he'd gone and missed most of that anyway.

  It was all very different from what had just happened. This time, it had started with a real atrocity. Then there'd been a planned pursuit. Then an intentional assault. Real warfare, gory deaths, kill or be killed stuff. And none of it incredible or extraordinary - to a Knight of the League. And that's what he was now: a real bloody Tickler. And that meant he could expect more of the same. Not necessarily every day, but pretty damn often. And he'd be seeking it out. Getting himself into any number of similar Ticklish situations in the future. On purpose.

  Yes, he really had grown up a hell of a lot over the last two days. And what was undeniable was that a spurt of growth of such magnitude gave the old equilibrium a bit of a sideways clout. It needed some support. It needed a severe dose of steadying. Yes, it needed some reassuring list making: Renton's very own way of bringing balance to his life and preparing it for whatever lay in store. And on this occasion the list might need to be a double one: of the pluses and the minuses of his first taste of professional adventuring as a Knight of the League.

  And he would address the pluses first. The most obvious benefits of his new existence and the specific “good things” he'd already experienced.

  He had no doubt about the first entry:

  • his new friends, his new companions in the Pandiloop office who'd adopted him as one of their own - so quic
kly and so willingly. And on top of this he already had one special friend, one very special person, his comrade-in-arms, Meitchars. And whilst he might not show it a great deal, Renton knew that Meitchars approved of him - and trusted him. And that was fantastic.

  Then there was the pretty impressive runner up:

  • his reaction to armed aggression, his response to being under fire and indeed in the line of fire. He knew he'd had a touch of post-aggro loquaciousness. But in the circumstances that was entirely understandable. And that was just a reaction to the events after they'd happened. It was how he dealt with the events at the time that counted. And on that score he knew, for a beginner, he'd done pretty well. Not only had he not frozen, fainted, or passed water, but he'd also demonstrated some really positive attributes - like clear thinking, coolness, a relative degree of physical dexterity - and above all else, what he could only think of as a professional level of aggression. Not an out and out uncontrolled rage or a manic urge to obliterate his adversaries, but rather a healthy competitive sort of fighting spirit, revved up to just the right level to deliver the required degree of adrenalin-fuelled bravery and concentration. And this was all so different from those make-believe battles on his induction course - where his natural pacific inclinations had shone through every time. But when it was the real thing… well, it seemed that it was just as natural to respond to the challenge - but just enough. One didn't need to be a psychopath to be a soldier after all…

  Then the list of goodies turned to a clutch of the frivolous:

  • the dress code in the League, which was non existent,

  • the cooking in the office canteen, which appeared to be sponsored by the local garlic-growers,

  • the length of his bed, which was six inches greater than his own six foot, three, and therefore supremely comfortable,