Harrison Trotter and the Supersilly Sphere (Page 5) by Karen

General "the Brain" Sanderson is a tall, narrow sort of Narphageine, scheming, cunning, incisive, brilliant, with a penchant for fine fruit juices. In fact, the many tales of his wild careers across the Seven Galaxies with maverick abandon in pursuit of exceedingly rare fruits, each in their ephemeral seasons, some on the order of only about 100 trillion Planck times, shall not be recorded in this novel. (For those tales and others in the Gorkav Universe, please see our shameless attempts at enriching our franchise science fiction/fantasy cash flow with action figures, ancillary books of mediocre content, and a glut of MMORPGs that should ensue upon the release of "Harrison Trotter -- The Movie!")

Almost the only relief of a comic type Sally allows herself to enjoy on duty is to prod the general with asinine retorts when he proposes one or another of his petty schemes in her presence.

"Are you sufficiently prepared for this mission, Sally?"

"Why, General Brain, what are we going to do this mission?"

"The same thing we do every time we issue out upon a digressive sort of sortie in one of those cool new star speeders," says the general turning away from the window looking out on the rising 5 1/2 suns in their morning dance through the sky, "Try to take on the intergalactic exotic fruit extract oligopoly with bargain prices!"

The general and Sally have a close relationship, though neither will admit it except upon the utmost imperative of danger or acute need. When Sally was an infant the general, one of her father's oldest and best friends, rescued her from a renegade, ruthless, reckless band of Cartankian troubadours from the notorious Omicron district of the Roborn Galaxy, where marauding malefactors strafe the feckless with tedious explanations of ancient digraphs. Fortunately for Sally, her intellect was not polluted by the aimless sport of the Cartankis, for the general was a quick thinker with a keener wit, and he deflected their foul humors with a satirical monologue on grammatical decadence.

The arrival of the general today unnerved Sally, for notwithstanding their mutual personal rapport and professional respect, Sally never told him of the full magnitude of her gifts. Miraculously the witty general never suspected what Sally, herself knew from the age of innocence, that she herself, alone with the force of fate must fulfill the broken remnants of the Prophecy. Sally knew how the general would react when she told him. Her life would never be easy again, "as if my life ever were easy," thought Sally as she stood in formation waiting for the general. She would again be isolated from those she knew and the few that cared for her. Sally was not an easy person to care for or get close to, but those who did happen to do so invariably discovered her superior personal attributes and looked after her. But now, Sally knew there would be no such relief. "At least he will let me see my father one more time," she thought, and as for Nancy, "well, she will hate me for it, but she will understand. She always does," which is well for Sally to think, for underneath all those ditsy antics Nancy is nearly identical to Sally.