Appeals Court | Page 2

seizing the teapot, which has developed a nasty rattle in its guts.
"Breakfast and toilet. Not in that order. Sharp."
"That door there," says the tiny Adrian.
#
The zeppelin turns out to be a maryceleste, crewed by capricious iffrits whose expert-systems were trained by angry, resentful trade-unionists in ransom for their pensions. The amount of abuse required to keep the ship on-course and to keep its commissary and sanitary systems in good working order is heroic.
Huw opens the door to the bridge, clutching his head, to find Bonnie perched on the edge of a vast, unsprung chair, screaming imprecations at the air. She breaks off long enough to scream at him. "GET THE FUCK OFF MY BRIDGE!" she hollers, eyes wild, fingers clawed into the arm-rests.
Huw leaps back a step, dropping the huge, suspicious sausage he's been gnawing at. His diaper unravels as he stumbles.
Bonnie snorts, then gets back control. "Aw, sorry darlin'. I'm hopped up on hateballs. It's the only way I can get enough FUCKING SPLEEN to MAKE THIS BUGGERY BOLLOCKY SCUM-SUCKING SHIP go where I tell it." She sighs and digs around the seat cushion, coming up with a puffer which she inserts briefly into the corner of each eye. The tension melts out of her skinny shoulders and corded neck as Huw watches, alarmed.
"You look like a Welsh Ghandi," she tells him, giggling. Her lips loll loose; she stands and and rolls over toward him with a half-drunken wobble. Then she throws her arms around his neck and fastens her teeth on his shoulder, worrying at his trapezium.
The teapot whistles appreciatively. Bonnie gives it a savage kick that sends it skittering back into the corridor.
"You need a wash, beautiful," she says. "Unfortunately, it's going to have to be microbial. Nearly out of fresh water. Tub's up one level."
"Gak." Huw replies.
"'Snot so bad."
"It's *bugs*," he says.
"You're hosting about three kilos of bugs right now. What're a few more? Go."
Huw picks up his sausage. "You know where we're going, right?"
"Oh aye," she says, her eyes gleaming. She whistled a snatch of "America the Beautiful."
"And you approve?"
"Always wanted to see it."
"They'll burn you at stake!"
She picks up a different puffer and spritzes each eye, then bares her teeth in a savage rictus. "I'd like to see them fucking try. BATHE, YOU CRETINOUS STENCHPOT!"
#
Huw settles himself among the soup of heated glass beads and bacteria and tries not to think of a trillion microorganisms gnawing away at his dried skin and sweat.
"Bastard scum bastard," he mumbles at the battered teapot -- a one-time host for a cultural guidance iffrit to the People's Magical Libyan Jamahiriya, and now evidently hacked by Ade and his international cadre of merry pranksters. "Why South Carolina? G'wan, you. Why *there*, of all places?"
He isn't expecting a reply, but the teapot crackles for a moment then a translucent holo of Ade appears in the air above it, wearing a belly-dancer's outfit and a sheepish expression. "Yer wot? Ah, sorry mate. Feckin' trade union iffrit's trying to make an alpha buffer attack on my sprites." The image flickers then solidifies, this time wearing a bush jacket and a pith helmet. "Like, why South Carolina? To break the embargo, Huw. Ever since the snake-handlers crawled outta the swamps and figured the Rapture had been and gone and left 'em behind they've been waiting for a chance at salvation, so I figured I'd give them you." Ade's likeness grins wickedly as tiny red horns sprout from his forehead. "You and the backchannel to the ambassador from the Cloud. They want to meet God so bad I figured you'd maybe like to help the natives along."
"But they're radioactive!" Huw says, shaking his fist at the teapot with a rattle of yeast-scented beads. "And they're lunatics! They won't talk to the rest of the world because we're corrupt degenerate satanists, they claim sovreignty over the entire solar system even though they can't even launch a sodding rocket, and they burn dissidents to death by wiring them up to transformers! Why would I want to *help* them?"
"Because your next mission, should you choose to accept it, is to open them up to the outside universe again." Ade smirks slyly at him from atop the teapot.
"Fuck." Huw subsides in a fizzing bath of beads, with are beginning to itch. Moving them around brings relief, although it's making him a little piebald. "You want to infect the Fallen Baptist Congregations with godvomit, you be my guest -- just let me get the fuck away before the shooting starts."
"That's the idea," says Ade, scratching his beard absent-mindedly. "Bonnie's one of our crack agents. We don't wanna risk one of our best prophets-at-large in a backwater, mate. You'll be safe as houses."
Huw thinks of Sandra Lal, the house of the month club, and her mini-sledge, and shudders. His arse