Astonished as I was to find that my quarry was no more than an impersonator, and at the same time relieved that I had not started streaming a hushed commentary about how I was approaching the true monarch of the glens only to find that I had flushed the pseudo form of a parasitic sub-species, though this in turn might have been of enormous interest if I had been aware of the nature of the subject on the approach - and at this point I wondered why Louise had not established a gender fix earlier, surely one of the easier tasks she had had to perform when compared with the assessment of blood sugar levels, even of blood types, let alone selenium levels - but at least I now knew that I should anticipate nothing, even openly crowned heads were to be approached with scepticism. But more disturbing than Louise's failure to prioritise was the failure of her cloaking strategy - for the second time - in an admittedly too-near-to-miss situation. My confidence that any chance observer would translate her image automatically to some familiar everyday object was shaken. My screen was busy with data assessment and in a few moments we had identification. Gervase Murray 49, born at the summer solstice of 1963, who made his living as an emblazoner of coats of arms and as a freelance blogger under the sobriquet Muscletone. He was Honorary Secretary of the Pepi II Society, which had a surprisingly large following in Scotland and the Northern Isles. Headquarters in Ullapool. Annual General Meeting held at the Oykel Bridge Hotel - cancelled last year for lack of a quorum (set at a modest 10 members). Louise could sometimes go on indefinitely. Alcoholic and heterosexual. Self-description on dating sites - "Spanker friendly" without stipulating any further preferences. While I was busy absorbing this interesting if rather compressed biography, Louise was perusing the Pepi papers which lay scattered in the kettle where Muscletone had abandoned them. She streamed for my observation a letter dictated by the distinguished Pharaoh some 2270 years ago: "It is true that you know how to do what your lord loves and praises and commands. Come north to the palace at once!" Could this be an encoded message? The Pepi II Society was devoted to maintaining their monarch as lead throne-sitter in the global contest - they had even devised an award, a virtual diamond studded pin in the form of an ankh, to be worn by the holder. I would have thought they could have no doubt of the Long Pepi's eternal right to sport this decoration, as I Am God's Daughter, their interpretation of our present monarch's throne name, would be 120 years old by the time she could convince the adjudicators of her claim. She showed signs of staying power, though at this stage in the rather slow race to a finishing line that was both distant and controversial I could not help feeling that there was no pipping Pepi. What if I Am God's Daughter were to reign within a few months of the Long Pepi's record 94 years and fail for some purely trivial reason like a goji-berry-deprivation that might have seen her over the line? Was she then to be deprived of her title, or would the Society generously declare it to have been an equal contest and issue two diamond studded ankhs? Most of the papers Gervase had so precipitately abandoned were fliers, the sort of thing that might be thrown into the air with a flourish by the passenger of a speeding motor bicycle. They were consistently polemical in tone with a smattering of pop culture - PEPI RULES OK followed and preceded by rows of exclamation marks, or THERE'S ONLY ONE PEPI, both of which I considered to be inaccurate if considered outside their partisanal context. More classical but with an unaesthetic sense of fusion as distasteful as curried smoked salmon was BEAUTIFUL IS THE KA OF RE ROCKS, a reference to the pharaoh's throne name that would take some millions in publicity spending to make familiar with the masses. But the presence of Muscletone on this upland terracing was an indication that the real monarch of the glens might be expected to pass within the vicinity unless, of course, he was planning merely to scatter his fliers in the hope that a random gust might deposit one in the lap of I Am God's Daughter. In which case I imagined that he could be apprehended in his flight on the charge of littering and fined £50 under the act. I wondered how he was dealing with his exit from the estate, how far panic had driven him and whether he would attempt to cross the Deva in his Shona skirt and hacking jacket - so like my own, though it was noticeable how his were stretched to their limits even in a seated position, suggesting a discounted purchase without proper deliberation in a garage or open field sale, and I thought it likely that the violent nature of his departure had reduced them to ribbons. Yet, after the Ghost Glass dome, he had introduced an element of welcome normality into the scene. The August sun at this latitude already shows signs of the declining day by early afternoon and the pale light was a reminder that I had not eaten, a situation that was not allowed of remedy within the pod, and that we still had the remnant ancient pine forest to negotiate before sundown. I had toyed with the idea of a riverine approach down the Deva, in subaqueous mode Louise could pass for an enormous alligator pike or ancient salmon to which no one would give another glance and if they did they would simply dismiss her dark shadowy form pacing the river bed as some submerged cluster of weeds wending its way towards the open sea. And that is what discouraged me, that once submerged we would continue past the Castle and continue blithely unconscious of navigational error until we entered the vast submerged planes of the North Sea. Louise, I felt, might even be capable of pacing her way to Norway to gorge on autumn apples. Suddenly Louise assumed an unauthorised rearing posture which she maintained for some minutes. Her sensors had detected consistent linear movement at a distance of some two thousand ells. A Land Rover! Louise, whose magnification powers rival Keck I, quickly brought into focus a headscarfed, silvercurled figure her hands on the steering wheel. Alone in a comfortably fitting hacking jacket of criss-crossed green and yellow or breacan, the headscarf sporting a bold design that I would have thought more suitable for a Provencale tablecloth - tumescent lilies juxtaposed with sheaves of wheat and demi-rampant dormice - and on the dashboard in front of her a tiger owner's manual! This surely must be I Am God's Daughter! and Louise's scans produced satisfying results that indicated we had to do with an organism that scored excellent figures throughout her stats. No selenium depletion there, just a touch of osteoporosis but at levels well below the average for her age range. And it was with relief that I read gender match coming in at 100%. Here was no tarr-furred hack whose bodily fluids could fuel a dozen office parties. Stomach contents showed a high percentage of dhar-bu, the renowned berry so favoured by Genghis Khan and others of his ilk, amongst a slurry of oat meal and goat's cream. A health conscious queen had skipped lunch, perhaps. I prepared myself for commentary. Louise remained motionless in her unauthorised rear, subjecting me yet again to excruciating neck pains that I would have to endure for as long as she chose to remain erect. To relieve the pressure I was forced to grasp the straps of my harness and pull myself upwards towards the neck of the pod. The manoeuvre cost me some time and trouble and unlike Louise I was not able to maintain the position for long as my arms began to tremble with the effort and so I did not see what had happened until Louise dropped slowly to a quadrupedal stance and uttered her dreadful challenge at a staggering nine bels. Enough to start me vomiting bile. Too-loud-to-be-heard I hoped and prayed, but when I looked at the screen it was clear that Louise had failed her too-large-to-be-seen test for the third time. 1
