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.Movies	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 2234 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, based on Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Any resemblance to person(s) living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
I woke to the sound of a knock on the front door of the house.   There were footsteps as Stranger came back downstairs to open the door. Another hulk came inside. This one was a woman, her age somewhere around Stranger's, I'd say. She smiled to see me, the new capture, and lifted her lantern to count all the humans. I got the feeling she liked to count them, and imagine the profits each would bring.
They talked for a bit about her plans for the place, then he whined about his foot (though he no longer limped) and they went up to the bedroom. "Oh, that's good," I said cheerfully. I now had absolutely no questions about what I'd have to do to resolve this situation, and no moral qualms at all.
"What?" Sister Sarah called. "Did you understand that?"
"It's an ancient language," I said. "Some people suspect it's from Atlantis. But that's not important right now. Sister Sarah, have you ever heard about steak houses, where they let really rich diners pick the living cow they want their steak cut from?"
"Yes," she said in a dark tone. Others had comments.
"That's wasteful!"
"That's BABARIC!"
"It's mean!"
"It's stupid."
"It sure is, you need to let beef age for a week or so, to get the best flavor."
"QUIET!" Sarah shouted. "Why do you bring that up, Peter?"
"This is going to be a gourmet bakery," I said, then stopped. There was a long silence.
"I'll grind his bones to make my bread," someone rasped.
"Exactly," I agreed with him.
Someone else started to cry. "Exactly," Sarah agreed with her.
"There's good news, though!" I shouted.
"What, at least we'll go for really high prices?" some guy snapped.
"Nope," I said. "Are there any hulks other than the three I've seen?"
"What? No, Turfell and his wife, and her father. What's the good news?"
"The good news is that I'm feeling kinda bloated." I turned to the cage door and hit the lock with the heel of my hand. Metal shards shot off into the darkness. I stepped out, then grabbed the cage and swung it over the edge of the counter. It crashed to the floor. I jumped down after it. I heard Stranger's voice calling out at the noise. I ignored him and ran across the floor to the front door.
They must have really good weather above the clouds, because the door wasn't a really close fit. I slid across the sill and ran out in front. Then I popped up out of my clothes. Not to say that I undressed swiftly, I just shot up to full height, leaving the clothes behind. And me, now, naked. I really wish our size changes included clothes.
Everyone else's does. Spooky's clothes, the hulks' clothes, everything grows and shrinks. I don’t even get to keep pocket change. At least it wasn't snowing. But still, I was in a wonderful mood when I turned around and knocked on the front door, loud thumps with my fist.
"Who is it?" Old Guy shouted from over my head. Stranger replied, sounding like he was down on the first floor already. I didn't hear wife anywhere. The window over my head opened. "Who is it?" Old Guy repeated.
"Taxes!" I said.
"What?"
I stood up, reached up and yanked the old guy out of his window, tossing him to the ground. The wind was knocked out of him. "It's time to pay The Stupid Tax," I said. He gasped at me in confusion and pain. Stranger called from the other side of the door. "Taxes," I repeated.
"At this time of night?"
"Open up, or I'll double the valuation."
"No, no! Wait!" He lifted the latch. I grabbed him by the throat and yanked him to my side. "Urgle!" he said.
"Behave," I told him, "and you'll live through the night." He tried to nod. "Oh, but one thing." I grabbed his hand and squeezed, breaking a few bones. "That's for hitting Spooky. Now, call your wife down here."
A big naked giant held her husband by the neck and had one foot on her father's throat. Giarell tried very hard to do exactly as I said. She found a great big cage and put all the humans together in it. She even rigged a rope through the frame so I could carry it easily, which was thoughtful of her.
Then she found all the beans for making the world-bridging stalk. She swore up and down that she gave all of them to me. But her number didn't match what Stranger had told me when I asked him. So she went and got the rest.
"Okay," I said. "Now use one of them to call the beanstalk." Stranger started to resist my grip. I squeezed and he shut down.
"We can't do it by the house," Giarell said. "We'll get caught!"
"Oh. And using the beanstalk is illegal, here?"
"Yes! After that horrible Jack's murder spree-"
I cut off her explanation. "I don't care. Actually, if you guys get caught, then they'll make sure you never come down to Earth again, won't they?"
"Yes," she said sadly.
"Okay. So, let's go to the village square and call the beanstalk!" She started to resist, but I pressed my foot down and Daddy started to choke.
In the end it was quite a parade. The dawn was just breaking as Giarell led me, holding the big cage in one hand, and squeezing Stranger and Daddy's wrists in the other. People were just rising and started to ask questions. Giarell promised to explain later. I just smiled happily down on the tiny giants. Aheh.
We had a small but very interested crowd when we stepped onto the Commons. Giarell knelt and dug up a bit of turf with her bare hands, then asked me for one of the beans. I'd put the bag in the cage, so Sarah fished one out and offered it to me. Sarah hadn't spoken to me since she'd seen me at my actual size. She just stared in wonder. I'm happy to say she mostly stared at my face. Not everyone did. Nuns appear to be a class act.
I gave the bean to the woman and she buried it. Then she named our city and 'The Downs.' A beanstalk grew up out of the grass, causing a lot of commotion around us. The parade had turned into a felony, much more entertaining.
I let go of the men, who collapsed to the ground, gasping and panting, trying to force air into their lungs. Before she could move, I grabbed Giarell. "Ladies and gentlemen of the clouds," I roared. "Stay the fuck off of Earth!" I snapped Giarell's neck, twisting her head around with my hands and stomped on the other two's throats. There was a snap and a gurgle and they were gone.
Then I grabbed the cage, slung the rope over my shoulder and climbed down.
Now the goddamned stalk was too SMALL for a decent sized person to climb it. Cramped little branches and shoots, no spacing to speak of, sap making my feet stick to the twigs… And the breeze was downright chilly.
----------
I'm sure the cage rocked back and forth on the way down, but no one complained. No one said a word. Towards the end, I could see rooftops, with guards here and there scanning the sky. The stalk came down right next to an old apartment building. The guard waved me to a certain direction. I followed it, and the gestures of other guards, until I was at an empty warehouse I could hide in for the next ten hours or so.
Heh. That was my idea.
Spooky was inside, apparently in full health. I relaxed a bit on seeing her. She and the elves and the guards cheered as I put the cage down and opened it. People were led out and medical personnel from both missions looked them over. I sat down and sagged against an internal wall. Uriah gave me an approving nod. Spooky ran over to hug my wrist.
Sarah…turned away from me and let an elf nurse lead her to a Brob doctor. That kinda hurt, but not all that much. She was in shock. The test would be how she reacted to me when I was in street clothes and not 72 feet tall.
I lifted Spooky up for a hug to my cheek. "Careful!" she squeaked.   Then I noticed it wasn't her. Her pocket had squeaked. Mary was waving at me. I waved back. I held Spooky carefully on my open palm as she put Mary down to see how my skin felt. She ran a finger along one fingerprint ridge.
There was a bit of a commotion on the edge of my attention. A teenager ran from the guards and over to my knee. She tapped on it, making sure I was looking at her. "I just wanted to say thank you, Mr. Peter. And, well, to say that NOW I know what a giant is!"
There was laughter and cheering from the other rescued people. Sarah even smiled.
--------
Hours later, I brushed my teeth and managed to fit into some clothes that had been brought over. I curled up in a big chair and looked over the rows of beds. The rescued humans had been checked out thoroughly and lightly sedated. They snored their way through an evening without cages or anxiety about the future.
At least, no anxiety they knew about.
Uriah drifted over to where I was dozing. I sprawled across the overstuffed chair. Spooky was half-asleep on one arm of the chair. Mary purred on my shoulder. He dragged a chair over and sat down.
I'd given my first report while I was waiting to shrink down. The fact that the giants spoke Dingar shocked him most of all. He'd gone off to make some calls and think about 'things' for a while. I was going into an after-action fugue and didn't much care.
"Bill called," he said now. "There were vague reports of a disturbance in the area, but nothing major or specific. Squad cars haven't noticed any riots or outbreaks of socialism, so they're ignoring it."
"Great," I said, though my tone was flat. After bare-assed acrobatics in the sky, the threat of beat cops didn't get a rise out of me.
"And you're probably wanted for murder in a kingdom we don't have an extradition treaty with."
"Probably," I said, still deadpan.
"Hey!" Mary roused. "It was self-defense!"
"Not at that point," Spooky said, shushing our ward. "The good news is that they may not have the means to wreak any revenge. Maybe we have all the beans!"
"The beans," Uriah nodded. "If anything, that's probably the only reason anyone might follow you back to here."
"The beans do pose a threat to their security," I agreed.
"What about us?"   We all turned to find Sister Sarah standing beside the impromptu conversation pit.
"How did you get past the guards?" Uriah asked in surprise. "Or past the sedative?"
"Misspent youth," she said.   "To both questions. What's going to happen to us?"
Spooky had rolled to her feet when Sarah appeared and had gone to get a chair so she could join us. The nun's hands shook a bit as she sat down. She hadn't QUITE gotten past the sedatives. And willpower would only carry her so far. But it did get her into this conversation.
"Well," Uriah said, "you guys have seen… A lot of things I'd like to keep secret. I would hate it if a rescue exposed my people to harm when your government comes looking for us."
"We'll keep your secret," Sarah said. "I can speak for all of these people."
"Not entirely," Uriah countered. "Some of them are junkies. You can speak for them, but not for what they might do to ease their addiction."
"They're not addicted," she said. "Whatever that drug they gave us was? It not only healed diseases, it cleared away mental and physical addictions." She turned to look at me. "I want some of that stuff. A lot of it. I need one of the magic beans."
"Two," I said. "You need to get back down again."
"I thought I'd start small," she said.
"Screw that," Mary shouted. Sarah's eyes bugged. She hadn't noticed the shrunken woman before. Well, in my giant (HA!) hands, she'd have looked like she was half an inch tall. Easy to miss while a doctor is asking for your medical history. "Ask for ten, let them negotiate you down to two."
"Oh, my. Are you a Lilliputian?" she asked. She nodded to me. "I caught the reference to Brobdingrag earlier. I suppose it just makes sense."
"No it doesn't," Spooky giggled. "I'm the Lilliputian. She's human." Sarah's eyes goggled.
"That's another story," Uriah said. "Right now, you people pose a threat to my people," he nodded at me, "and to my allies." He pointed at Spooky.
"Are you going to kill us?" she asked.
"Furthest thing from my mind," he said. "But… Well, it would be safest if we took you to either Brobdingrag or Lilliput."
"Save us from abduction, then abduct us?" she sneered.
"No," I said. Everyone turned to me. "If we disappear Sarah, we're going to have to take Bill, too. He won't let it stand. And if we take him, Winnie will know. She'll have to go." I stood up. My voice had been getting a little louder with each word, they told me later. "And if we take Winnie, we'll have to take Mama, too. And if you think I'm going to put that little witch in a pet carrier, you've got a lot of thinking to do, your royal shove-it-up-your-ass-ity."
By that point, Spooky cheerfully described it, I was a deep red, screaming at the top of my lungs, and waving my arms for emphasis.   Mary hung onto my collar for dear life as I stepped over to look down on my liege. "And she's psychic! She'll know we're coming! She'll be ready! With… An axe. Or something. That'll work. It'll HURT! So NO! NO WAY!
"It'll be safer for every single one of us to decamp, and hide, and come back after she's long dead and someone's sealed her grave in concrete!" I came to myself at that point, heaving breaths in and out, arms stretched out and feet spread.
Uriah looked up at me without moving. "Are you done?"
"Yeah, I think so." I stepped back and sat down. "Plus, uh, it'd be, you know, wrong."
"Noted," he said with a smile.
I eased back in my seat and Mary stood up slowly. "Love your passion," she said into my ear. "But maybe you need to get some sleep."
Spooky came over and sat on my lap, pinning me in the chair. "Yeah, you're the voice of reason, not the hysterical one."
"That's true," Uriah nodded. "What would you suggest, if it was up to you, Peter?"
"Hire them," I said instantly. Sarah looked surprised. I closed my eyes and it all played out clearly behind my eyelids. "We expand the mission. Missions. Both of 'em. Different businesses to help us understand humanity. Give the rescuees jobs in the businesses. Hell, some of them could probably run a business or two. Or a safe house. Run inventory for a movie store, maybe. Or buy food for Sarah's place. People with salaries.
"Then they're part of the conspiracy. Our secret becomes their secret, too. They have a vested interest in the success of our security."
"Only if you pay them enough to make it worthwhile," Sarah's voice cautioned me.
"We can pay," I said. I felt Spooky moving and opened one eye. She had her arms spread and was mouthing: '-coins this big' to the Sister. I closed it again.
"And Sarah's mission to acquire an instant rehab?" Uriah asked. I wasn't aware that the Prince could speak in such soothing tones. I floated for a bit and then saw that answer, too.
"You go home, with all the beans," I said. "I can't imagine that the Lilliputians have any interest in exploring hulk-land above the clouds."
"Nope," Spooky agreed.
"Then you dress in full regalia, put one bean in your pocket, and climb another bean up into the sky.
"You do the diplomacy thing about my murder slant rescue operation. And you offer to give them back all the beans, unexamined by our scientists, if they'll give us the rehab drug."
"Interesting," Uriah said.
"That's the Peter we were waiting for," Spooky said.
"You can go to sleep, now," Mary told me.
"S'alright," I muttered. "I'm just going to rest here for a bit."
"I'd make one small change," Uriah said. He seemed to be talking from some distance away. "Sister Sarah, would you like to join me on my diplomatic trip to tie up loose ends?"
"Can I bring a grenade launcher?" she said sleepily, so I'm not sure how serious she was.
"That sounds fascinating," he replied. "What is it?"
Then everyone was silent. It seemed like seconds later when I stretched and opened my eyes.
"There's the big guy," Spooky said. I sat up and looked around. Most of the people and all of the medical equipment were gone. There was me, the chair, a table with some more chairs, Spooky and Mary and a few guards eating take-out from a barbeque shack.
"Where'd everybody go?" I asked, then rubbed my eyes. "Dumb question. Never mind. Man, I'm hungry." Spooky slid a chicken down towards my end of the table. "It's a start," I said.
"So what's Dingar?" Spooky asked.
"It's the most ancient of ancient languages," I said, in Dingar. Spooky stopped chewing on her rib and looked over at me.
"Where'd you learn Fuscan?" she asked in heavily accented Dingar.
"Oy vey," I muttered.
----------
Alchemy is the rule up in the land of the Cloud-Giants. That's the term they prefer to use to refer to themselves. All official documents will use that term, and all diplomats will keep a straight face as they do.
Uriah met with the Queen of the cloud-hulks. She was amazed to learn that other giants existed, horrified to hear Sister Sarah's testimony, and relieved to know that I intended no further invasions of her lands. I'm even a named article in the treaty! I'm pardoned as long as I, or 'that creature' as the official document sometimes calls me, never go back up.
Sarah sent us a bit of the transcript when they negotiated that article. "I'm serious, [Uriah], he doesn't show up to 'turn himself in,' or to look up leads. No 'hot pursuit' loopholes and you never, ever send him as a representative. Not to make a point by his presence, not to show that you're upset about something, nor to draw attention to an injustice, not to prove that he's 'not all that bad, once you get to know him, all dressed and shit.' Never.
"My people are more than a little superstitious where it comes to bloody death climbing the beanstalk and cutting a swath through the population. We don't need such potent reminders. So no, never, agreed?" Then they wrote that up in legalese and signed it.
The hulks swear that the bakers did not represent the bulk of the Cloud Giant population. Uriah insisted that I didn't represent Brobdingrag attitude towards the rest of their nation. And Sarah has tried to convey that Jack is not a good model for understanding humanity.
Understanding Mama, maybe… But we haven't told them about her.
The problem they face in trade with us is that they don't really know how the beans or the rehab potion are made. Ancient alchemists made the things long ago. And they didn't just make the potion. Kind of like some cloning research, where they want to just make a twenty-gallon tank of bone marrow to sweat out O Negative blood? They made…something that produces the potion. And a plant that spits out the beans.
They would love to trade for the one, and use the beans to do it, but the quantity is a sticking point. They can't really up production, and there's a limited supply of magic beans, so logistics have to be worked out.
In the meanwhile, Brob historians carried Lilliputian librarians up on the second trip and they all dove into the libraries up there. Word is, they have much better records about where all three of our peoples came from. But initial contact is made and there's no warrant out for my head. So I'm happy.
Spooky and Mary seem pleased, too. She says it'd be Hell to train in a new giant to replace me.
- 12
- 13
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