Kitman Versus The Squirrels
A novel. With some squirrels in.
In Which We Have A Nice Cup Of Tea Amid Disaster.
Kathleen was lying on my living room sofa reading when we arrived, and didn't even look up when the five of us appeared next to her.
"Hi," said I.
"I vacuumed your room," she said, turning the page. "You had sixteen dollars in small change under the bed, by the way."
"Did I? Oh, good."
"I spent it on this graphic novel," she said.
"Ah." I leaned over to read the cover. "Iggy the Stoof Volume 2. Well, I was going to get it eventually. Any good?"
"If you read it for Jungian symbology it's endlessly fascinating. So, what's going on?"
"We have guests," said Kitman.
Kathleen looked up at last, gave my duplicate the once-over, and exchanged a long, mutually bemused look with her own. "So," she said. "Are things getting interesting?"
Kathleen2 shrugged. "Tolerably," she said, glancing around my living room. "So this is whatzisname's house, is it?"
"Yup," said Kathleen. "What do you think of it?"
"I can see why he spends so much time at our house, but it's not as bad as I might have expected."
"Well!" said Kathleen, closing her book. "Why don't I make us all a nice cup of tea while you tell me all about it?"
While Kathleen made everyone a nice cup of tea (which involved both of me washing a number of cups by hand, as the dishwasher contained all the videotapes that hadn't fit into the oven), I gave Kathleen a concise explanation of what had been happening.
"Brainchildren, huh?" she said, poking my duplicate in the shoulder. "How do you kids know that you're duplicates of us, and not vice versa?"
I2 held up his right hand, palm out, and waggled soapy fingers. "No fingerprints."
"I've got fingerprints," said Kathleen2, examining her fingertips. "Well. Concentric circles, anyway..."
"Lucky," said I2, after dropping a cup onto the kitchen floor where it, thankfully, failed to break into a thousand pieces.
"Hmm," said Kathleen. "So, did any of you ever figure out what Kuan Kuo meant by 'mind the doors', or whatever it was he said?"
"Not yet," said Kitman.
I began rinsing cups, filling them half-full with water and handing them to Kathleen to put into the microwave. A thought began to wiggle in the back of my mind, in the way thoughts do before they emerge—
"Hey!" said Noel, who had just appeared in the living room, armed with a halo, a big book, and a file folder. "I've made a breakthrough!"
— and my thought shrank back into my unconscious.
"Rats," I said.
"Close!" said Noel. "His name is Ratavaara."
"Better wash another cup," said I2.
Robin glared at Noel over the opened book. "You folded a page corner?"
"I can explain!" said Noel.
"No you can't!"
Noel hung his head. "You're right, I can't."
Kitman took the book away from both of them and read the marked page.
"Huh," he said. "According to the—" he paused to check the title — "Gardenomicon, here, the World Tree has only one servant, the squirrel Ratatui, or Ratatat, or Ratatosk. The tree cycles like a nut-based Phoenix, but the squirrel is eternal and linear. And being a squirrel, he has, or had, a suppressed desire to eat the World Nut. Apparently, during the last cycle he had a spiritual breakdown (Ratnarok) which rent him in thirds, approximately along the lines of Id, Ego, and Superego — and the Id stole the World Nut and ran off with it. The other two have been chasing after him ever since."
"I thought you were going through Rolodexes and things," said Robin.
"I was!" said Noel proudly. "That's how I know his real name. Nash Mider found that book listed in one of your indexes. He thought it had an interesting title. Oh, and he says to tell you he's running out of pilcrow nuts."
"Terrific," said Kitman. I was impelled to shudder a bit, myself, remembering how we had...
...wait, when had that happened?
And what was it? It had had something to do with pilcrow nuts. Or was it blue tomatoes?
It had involved raiding the caves of the voons, and rescuing Hodgson...but it hadn't happened before we had rescued Nash Mider, and I couldn't see how it could have happened afterward, either.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking," said I2 quietly, "that's about what it feels like when history changes under your feet. For the world is a dream, and things are like heat haze."
I was glad that no one else was listening, because they might think we were deep and then I'd have to explain we were misquoting the back of a Tangerine Dream album cover.
Noel was continuing. "It wasn't in a Rolodex, it was in one of Kuan Kuo's file folders. Interventions, requests for."
"Where did you find that?"
"At the bottom of the second-most-recent paperslide. The one I'd just put in alphabetical order."
"And 'I' ended up on the bottom?" said Robin. "Well, that's normal."
"Squirrels leave calling cards?" said Kitman, peering at the form with the card clipped to the top. "Ratavaara, World Tree Liaison Officer. Nice embossed logo."
"See?" said Noel. "Told you I'd seen it before."
"Liaison Officer?" said Kathleen.
"If trees could talk they wouldn't need squirrels," said Robin.
"But they don't need squirrels."
"Apparently this one does."
Kitman interrupted. "This form is illegible! What is this, a coffee spill?"
"No, tea," said Robin. "Kuan Kuo likes it strong."
"You wouldn't believe his coffee," said Noel.
"How much darker could it get?" said Kitman, holding up the form, which was solid brown but for one white corner.
"We have a saying at the office," said Noel. "Never drink anything that looks the same coming out as it does going in."
The microwave chirped, reminding us that it was done. I distributed cups of tea, which were not greeted with as much enthusiasm as they might have a few moments previously.
"Okay, fine," said Kitman. "We now have a name and a more interesting history, and I think it reasonable to assume that the frequently multiplexed green and blue squirrels are two forms of Liaison Officer Ratavaara."
"Which means we can talk to them!" said Kitman2.
"If they can talk, why haven't they?" said I. "The squirrels that ate Kitman's house weren't exactly chatty. And neither was the one Nash Mider caught."
"Well, Nash Mider wasn't exactly verbose when under the influence of pilcrow nuts," pointed out Kitman. "As to the others, who knows? But we should definitely hop back and see if we can talk to the little fellow in the cage, once he wakes up."
"I'll go," offered Noel. "I can bring the cage back with me."
"Good!" said Kitman. "Do that, please."
Noel saluted and disappeared.
"Scratch the extra teacup," said I2.
"Question," said Kathleen, raising her hand.
"Answer," said both Kitmans.
"What about the red squirrel?"
"What red squirrel?"
"The one he saw being tackled," said Kathleen, pointing at me. "Remember? The red squirrel tackled by two other squirrels? The one you thought might be part of a breeding pair?"
The Kitmans looked at me.
"What color were the other squirrels?" they said.
"I didn't notice," said I.
The Kitmans began to pace the living room. "If the Id squirrel was here first," said Kitman, "and at odds with the other two, what does that mean?"
"It suggests that the Id squirrel has a different agenda," said Kitman2.
"Why?"
"Isn't it obvious?" said Kitman2.
"Of course," said Kitman.
"He wasn't nosing around the house, he was nosing around the back yard," said Kitman2. "At the base of the tree. And what's in the tree?"
"The door!" said the Kitmans.
"Hah?" said both of me.
"The door to the tree lab," explained Kitman2. "The Ego and Superego squirrels are collecting all the houses in one place, presumably on the grounds that they were made from the World Tree. Purpose unknown, of course, but regardless—"
"—they don't have all of ours yet, because the original back door is currently attached to the tree lab!" completed Kitman.
"They don't know about the door yet, but the Id squirrel does. If he got away—"
"He may come back for it."
"Okay, so what is his plan?"
"No idea. To stop them doing whatever it is they're doing, I suppose."
"We'd better go get that door before he does, either way."
"Time is of the essence."
"We'll go by vaxillator."
"We can't. No bookmark."
"Then we'll go by halo," said Kitman.
At which point Noel returned by halo.
"Um, more bad news," he said. "The squirrel...sort of escaped."
"Escaped?" said Kitman. "He escaped? How could he escape?"
"Nash Mider says he just vanished out of the cage," said Noel. "I think the only reason he didn't do it before was that he was too spaced out on pilcrow nuts."
"Terrific!" said Kitman2. "Splendid!"
"Really?" said Robin.
"No, I was being ironic. Or possibly sarcastic, I've never been sure of the difference."
"Also..." said Noel, and crammed more distress into an ellipsis than I would have thought possible.
"Also?" said Kitman.
"The Nash Mider house is now gone," said Noel. "I checked."
"What, with Hodgson in it?" said Kitman.
"Fortunately, no," said Noel. "He's sitting on the steps with his suitcase and umbrella."
"Well, that takes us back to where we were," said Kitman. "Williams and I will go back to the tree lab by halo and wait. And hope that somebody comes along that we can negotiate with."
"Can't we come?" said, well, pretty much everybody else, setting their untouched teacups en masse, except of course Noel, who didn't have one.
"A generous offer," said Kitman, "but I'd prefer that you all go back to the Jade Pyramid." He turned to my duplicate. "What was it you said you were? Spinoffs?"
"Yeah," said I2.
"Think of yourselves as emergency backups," said Kitman. "You never keep your emergency backups at the same site. Go. Help dig for more information, and try to turn up Kuan Kuo, so he can apologize for his filing system, or his table manners if nothing else."
"Not me," said Kathleen. "I'm staying here and reading my comic book. Also," she said, casting a glance at the clock over the stove, "Animaniacs will be on in fifteen minutes."
"Suit yourself," said Kitman, and adjusted the halo on his head. "Come on, Williams — we may already be too late."
"Does anyone not want their tea?" said Noel. "I'm parched."
