The Ill-mannered Door (humorous sci-fi)

21: Predicaments and Plans

As I sat there on the bed in the king's cabin, a pall had fallen over me and I couldn't help but worry about Isabella. Had she been blown up right along with the door, or had she made it through before the queen's men had arrived? She could be stranded on the island, or... no, I couldn't think about that. We really had no way of knowing without going to check on her, but there were a few problems with that the three of us had discussed.

The first being that the door that led to my home was now likely blown to charred toothpicks, which put just a wee bit of a dampener on our ability to pop through and check on Isabella.

The second was that the other door back to Earth was currently locked up tight in Derek's flat and he had carelessly forgotten the combination to the lock. He tried to blame that whole thing on me, of course, but I wasn't having any of it. Not to mention the fact that even if we could manage to break into the flat and go through the door inside, that would put us in Canada. Then, with the travel time involved to go check on Isabella (who maddeningly didn't possess either a mobile or a landline!), we would never be back in time to deal with our third problem. A point which didn't seem to trouble Derek in the least, but jabbed repeatedly at my conscience like a hot poker wielded by a large, and rather sweaty, blacksmith.

Now, the good thing about the first two problems was that Derek would be forced to help me deal with the third problem.

This third problem, a minor trifle really, was that the kingdom we were currently in was due to explode later in the evening. However, on the plus side, I was told by the king that the festivities beforehand would be quite smashing. Despite that, I wasn't looking forward to the celebration.

Ultimately, the third problem had to be dealt with first, and I had to resign myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to return to England to check on Isabella's well being until afterward. I found that resignation to be far more difficult than I ever would have expected.

The king, Derek, and I were still gathered in the king's cabin on the Bounty. Higgins was there as well, he'd come in at some point during our discussions, but he mostly just sat in the corner. If this had been Earth, he likely would have been on his mobile posting something to his wall, but in this world, he seemed fairly content with just staring at one. And, other than the occasional bout of loud throat clearing, he hadn't contributed anything to the conversation.

In an effort to stoke the bellows of the dying conversation, I said to the king, "Where's the bomb being kept right now?"

"Which bomb?" the king asked, shaking himself out of a doze that he had been having in his chair.

"Oh, I don't know, the one that's going to decimate your kingdom tonight?"

"Right. That one's stored in the Ministry of Wisdom, which is guarded by men loyal to the queen."

I was tempted to address the irony of storing a nuclear bomb which would soon be detonated at something referred to as the Ministry of Wisdom, but instead, I said, "Don't you have any men loyal to you that could help us?"

Higgins cleared his throat.

"No," the king said, to which Higgins loudly cleared his throat again, so the king continued, "I mean, not like the queen does. Not trained soldiers. She wouldn't let me have any of those."

"Well, what about the sailors on this ship, they seem like rough and ready types?" I asked.

"Yes, they are, but I've heard rumors that some of them are loyal to the queen. Unfortunately, I don't have any idea which ones, or how many of them there are, so I think it'd be best to leave them out of our plans. I'm afraid that it comes down to the three of us."

Higgins cleared his throat again and looked at us expectantly.

The king sighed and then added, "Perhaps four."

I didn't think Higgins would turn out to be of much use to us, but staring at a wall until the world explodes isn't exactly a full calendar, so I couldn't blame him for wanting to knock about with us.

"So, this Ministry of Wisdom place," I began, "is there a way we can get you inside to disarm the bomb?"

Derek said, "He already said there are soldiers guarding the place. Try and keep up, eh?"

"Yes, thanks for the tip," I said to Derek before turning to the king again, "But if we could get you inside, would you be able to disarm the bomb?"

The king nodded.

"All right then, we know what we have to do," I said.

"Oh good, now that we've got the difficult part out of the way, the rest should be easy," Derek remarked.

I gave him what I hoped to be a withering look and said, "Well, let's get cracking."