03. The Hot-Wired Dodo by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-01T00:55:00+00:00

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They were all there, all lined up at the tea party, all looking starved and thirsty and forlorn, since the Mad Hatter and March Hare had wasted the tea and the Dormouse had eaten all the biscuits and crumpets.

I knew their faces; I knew all their faces, save perhaps one or two, whether they were male or female, big or little, weak or strong. Even Black Hair and Yellow Hair were there, although not copies of them. Of the short, plump woman with no nipples who was cloned in the big room there was no sign.

Jack L. Chalker - The Wonderland Gambit 03 - The Hot-Wired Dodo When I approached them, they all turned to me with pleading eyes and empty teacups and moaned, groaned, and pleaded with me for help. For some reason they believed that only I could help them.

But I wasn't myself. Or was I? I looked down and saw two enormous bird's legs below me, and feathers all around, and my vision was indeed blocked in part by what I'd taken to be a very large nose but proved to be a hard, bulbous beak. I was wearing a waistcoat and tie, and my four-fingered hands held a pocket watch attached to my coat by a gold chain. The watch said that it was one minute to twelve. I was the Dodo.

But I couldn't be the Dodo! I'd seen the Dodo digging and had spoken with him on more than one occasion. I'd even argued with him, or dismissed him as not worth arguing with. Digging through the Earth to get out of a hole instead of taking a hand and being pulled out-it was absurd. Yet, now, I was having a hard time remembering why the logic was absurd. I was beginning to think like a Dodo!

A small child, eyes big as saucers and twice as sad, came up to me, showed me an empty plate, and asked, in a plaintive, heartrending voice, "Please, sir? May I have some more?"

I looked down and hardened my heart at the sight. "Forget it, kid! You 're in the wrong book!" I snapped, then took out my pipe and began to fill it with tobacco. When it was ready, I lit it with a burning piece of straw I pulled from one of the torches outlining the meadow and puffed hard. The smoke billowed out, far disproportionate to the amount of burning weed, and it swirled around and began to take form.

"So you've gotten to that point, have you?" the Cheshire Cat asked, although in the smoke, only the eyes, nose, and mouth were visible. "What point?"

"Must everything have a point?" it retorted. "Why, I'm quite round. Very few points on me, except at the claws and whiskers, I suppose."

"But you said- "

"No, I said that you have gotten to that point. There's a difference."

"Indeed? What?"

"Well, someone else could have gotten to a totally different point, for one thing."

"This is nonsense! I can't remember much of anything right now, but I know that this is not real.

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