Serialization of "Quedly Dake and His Quest to Conquer the Globe" — Chapter 12 of 25
From Book 3 of the Trilogy “Taterskin & The Eco Defenders”
“That does it,” Albert said. “I am now convinced without a shadow of a doubt that the harshest measures are called for to stop Dake. I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to see what you all understood from the beginning.”
“Don’t worry too much about it, Albert,” Yookie said. “All’s swell that ends swell.”
“It sounded like you said, ‘all’s swell that ends swell, Yookie” Falcona said.
“I did.”
“That’s not the expression,” Falcona told the Koala Bear. “It’s supposed to be ‘All’s well that ends well’.”
“What’s the diff?” Yookie replied, nonchalantly stuffing a eucalyptus leaf in his mouth.
“Well, now that you mention it, I guess they do mean about the same thing,” Falcona admitted.
“So we can go to prevent Dake from waging nuclear war, right, Albert—with the Androcles?” confirmed Stripes.
“Absolutely; not only is the Androcles at your disposal, I will pilot it. There’s not enough room for all of us at our natural size, of course, so most of you will have to pass through the Compressor/Decompressor to temporarily shrink down to a punified version of yourselves.”
“Of course,” Ocero Puddleby and Jowls Behemoth replied, in unison. Terri said nothing, because she hated being “punified.” Although a highly unlikely and unexpected neologist, Terri was the one who coined that word in the first place. She preferred only being partly reduced in size and standing on the back of the craft, rather than being made small enough to sit with the others inside the Androcles.
“Now the question is, what do we do with Dake when we find him?” Ravelle X asked.
We discussed it for quite a while. We had many options, of course. We could do the same thing to him he had done or was planning to do the others. This seemed just, or at least not unreasonable.
Cooler heads (or warmer hearts, maybe) ultimately prevailed, though.
“We don’t really want to sink down to his depths of evil, do we?” Chapawee said.
We all ended up agreeing that no, we wouldn’t kill or even maim Dake (too much, anyway—maybe a little). Still, we certainly needed to make sure that Dake would definitely, positively, absolutely never be able to wreak havoc on the world again.
“But how, exactly, can we be assured of that?” Albert asked.
The silence was deafening as we all stood around, deep in thought, looking at each other, then the wall, then the ceiling, then into the middle distance, then at nothing in particular.
Finally Alexis broke the silence. “How about this: Permanent exile.”
It didn’t take long for us all, one by one, to agree to that. “But exile to where?” Chapawee asked. “It has to be somewhere he can never escape from or be rescued from.”
“How can we accomplish that?” Rinky asked.
“It has to be a desolate and isolated place—someplace nobody ever goes.”
“How about the middle of a volcano or the bottom of the Mariana Trench?” Chumbawumba proposed.
“But remember, we agreed not to kill him, Chum,” Albert answered. “We don’t need to give Dake a paradisaical tropical island to live in or anything like that, but so that we are not guilty of manslaughter—”
“You call him a man, Albert?!” Rory broke in. “I think he’s a monster! And monsterslaughter is justified!”
“He’s a monstrous man, yes, that’s why we need to exile him. I still don’t want to be guilty of something like that, though, no matter how bad he is—even if he would gladly do the same to us without a twinge or a qualm.”
“Then what’s the solution?” I asked. “Where exactly can we exile him where he will be able to survive but never be able to escape or be found?”
Another short pause, and then Alexis, stretching her wings out and shaking them, said: “I’ve got it! The Wet Tortugas!”
The previous chapter can be found here.
The next chapter can be found here.
Book 1 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Wonders Never Cease,” can be found here.
Book 2 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Tell It To Future Generations,” can be found here.
Book 3 of Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, “Quedly Dake and His Quest to Conquer the Globe,” can be found here.
