Story: Wordspace, III

(Part I , II , IV)

The mighty Cloud passed over the great plain of the Wordspace, gently swooshing from side to side to add effect to the passage. His letters slowly rearranged under Mystery as the collection trip continued until finally our gallant protagonist was sprawled syllable-length on the amorphous surface. Cloud slowed to a halt at the prearranged point halfway between Sea and Ocean and ascended to a quiet layer where the Council could meet in peace.

Around the circle, and not including Cloud who was an honorary member, the Council of Lesser Abstracts had been gathered to deliberate. Running clockwise around the Ring there were: Mystery, History, Deliberation, Revolution (always bumptious!), Curiosity, Regulation (armed with a clipboard), Wimsy, Speed, Innocence (reading poetry), Medicine and Playfulness. Those eleven were the current members according to the rotation and they would debate what to do with Revolution's news, once he had finally given it coherently.

Mystery was reminded of the last time that Incoherency had given a speech at the Council in his presence, a massive shambling effort on his part about the importance of maintaining a guard on the Zone of Dangerous Jargon which unfortunately segued into a long and rambling joke about the Large Numbers Reunion before falling apart into a broken apology about the loss of the punchline and having been trapped in a whatever all the night before. It had been rendered even more confusing by the presence of Night, who as a representative of the Greater Absolutes was rather confused by the whole sequence. Night really didn't like get involved in things when he could distilling down captured syllables from the Zone for analysis in his dark laboratories.

Revolution - who was surely up to something apart from the disaster - raised himself up and began to speak. "Reports are coming in from Scout and Explore that we are suffering some jargon-loss at the edges of the known Wordspace. They state that locals have seen unknown words swooping in from beyond the frontier."

Curiosity and Mystery rushed to get in the obvious question but Curiosity won out. "Could they describe the interlopers? How much of the jargon has gone?"

"Composition was out there and recorded a very lengthy description which boils down to 'Alphabet unknown, lexically incomprehensible'. They appear to be from an entirely different form of life. And we must mobilize to meet them should anything terrible occur!" Revolution threw his inevitable proposal upon the Council: "Who's for a new and totally benevolent tyranny until the problem has been settled!?"

The catcalls were sarcastic but once they were over and Revolution had settled down to a quiet haze in his part of the Circle, Wimsey suggested that Cloud take them to the scene of the action so they could observe awhile. Speed seconded and Cloud set off at a swift float towards the edge of the known Wordspace from whence the troubles had been reported. Deliberation, checking her own clipboard, revealed that she had agents in that region, namely the Kangaroo, the Dragon and the Quark, and that the Snaggle was on its way.

Cloud roared through the space that Sky left for him and reached the edge in record time. There beneath them, and around them, and above them was the edge of known space. And there was a hole.

To be continued...