for one of you Judges simply hours ago."
Somebody from Shangri La Towers actually calling the Justice Department for help would have been notable, but if anyone had noticed it they hadn't told Dredd.
"What the drokk are you talking about?" he said.
"Why, the Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton!" Lady Slocombe exclaimed, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "My closest companion. She's been missing since last night, and not a soul has seen a trace of her."
A certain amount of light began to dawn. Lady Slocomb was under the impression that Dredd was here to investigate a Missing Persons case. And the fact that she thought Judges had the time and resources to investigate every Missing Persons case they came across just showed how out of touch the inhabitants of Shangri La were.
"Well, to be missing in any official sense," Dredd began, trying once more for some minimum semblance of diplomacy, "a citizen has to be out of contact for more than forty-eight hours."
"Don't give me that, you jumped up little functionary!" The obliviousness of Lady Slocombe was reaching dangerous proportions in every sense.
Insulting a Judge was not exactly a crime, as such - unless the Judge in question decided to define it as Verbal Assault Calculated to Cause an Affray. The tone of Lady Slocombe, so far as Dredd was concerned, was coming dangerously close to crossing that line.
"The Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton," Lady Slocombe continued, "would never leave my sight for so much as an hour . Why, even when I rub her up the wrong way, she merely shoots up the curtain and hisses at me from the pelmet."
Dredd looked at her as the wheels, at last, began to turn. "We're not talking about any kind of person at all, are we?" he said.
Lady Slocombe looked back at him with scorn. "The Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton," she said, "is my Felis domesticus . A pure-bred Abyssinian Blue. Suitably modified, of course, to withstand the rigours of our poorly misused world."
For a moment Dredd stood stock still, hands clenched inside their gauntlets.
"Let me get this straight," he said at last. "You think I'm here to investigate the unexplainable and mysterious disappearance of your drokking cat?"
"Yes, of course," said Lady Slocomb. "The Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton is my cat. What else would she be? Some foul fiend has had her away - so what are you going to do about it, eh?"
FIVE
" An idle, light, evilly deceitful and proud fellow who whispers insulting jests basely and obscenely, and is rightly called by the people by the name of Mimmus..."
- Milo
Life of St Amandus
Efil Drago San had been born in the slum-domes of Puerto Lumina, the single colony-outpost on Earth's moon that had not affiliated itself with the Justice Departments of what had once been the USA, or the New Sov Bloc that had once been centrally controlled by Russia.
Puerto Lumina was quite simply a Lawless living hell, its people driven insane by confinements and depredations that made the Mega-cities of Earth itself pale by comparison. Conditions that had those unlucky enough to live under them fighting tooth and bloody nail to survive.
Mass cannibalism had been merely one of the more obvious and least repugnant survival-strategies that had evolved.
The only way out, at the time, had involved the friendly treaty between Puerto Lumina and the European Mega-City-state of Brit-Cit; this in large part due to the basic nature of Brit-Cit itself.
The United Kingdom - as it had been then - had never played an active part in the Rad Wars that had decimated the world in the late twenty-first century. For all its sabre-rattling and dreams of an Empire long since gone, the UK was little more than (as was said, repeatedly, by informed commentators at the time) a banana-republic without the bananas.
Taking it out would have been a waste of a perfectly good tactical nuclear strike.
The ABC clouds drifting in from a desolated
Somebody from Shangri La Towers actually calling the Justice Department for help would have been notable, but if anyone had noticed it they hadn't told Dredd.
"What the drokk are you talking about?" he said.
"Why, the Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton!" Lady Slocombe exclaimed, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "My closest companion. She's been missing since last night, and not a soul has seen a trace of her."
A certain amount of light began to dawn. Lady Slocomb was under the impression that Dredd was here to investigate a Missing Persons case. And the fact that she thought Judges had the time and resources to investigate every Missing Persons case they came across just showed how out of touch the inhabitants of Shangri La were.
"Well, to be missing in any official sense," Dredd began, trying once more for some minimum semblance of diplomacy, "a citizen has to be out of contact for more than forty-eight hours."
"Don't give me that, you jumped up little functionary!" The obliviousness of Lady Slocombe was reaching dangerous proportions in every sense.
Insulting a Judge was not exactly a crime, as such - unless the Judge in question decided to define it as Verbal Assault Calculated to Cause an Affray. The tone of Lady Slocombe, so far as Dredd was concerned, was coming dangerously close to crossing that line.
"The Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton," Lady Slocombe continued, "would never leave my sight for so much as an hour . Why, even when I rub her up the wrong way, she merely shoots up the curtain and hisses at me from the pelmet."
Dredd looked at her as the wheels, at last, began to turn. "We're not talking about any kind of person at all, are we?" he said.
Lady Slocombe looked back at him with scorn. "The Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton," she said, "is my Felis domesticus . A pure-bred Abyssinian Blue. Suitably modified, of course, to withstand the rigours of our poorly misused world."
For a moment Dredd stood stock still, hands clenched inside their gauntlets.
"Let me get this straight," he said at last. "You think I'm here to investigate the unexplainable and mysterious disappearance of your drokking cat?"
"Yes, of course," said Lady Slocomb. "The Contessa Trixi von Paddlepatch-Wuffleton is my cat. What else would she be? Some foul fiend has had her away - so what are you going to do about it, eh?"
FIVE
" An idle, light, evilly deceitful and proud fellow who whispers insulting jests basely and obscenely, and is rightly called by the people by the name of Mimmus..."
- Milo
Life of St Amandus
Efil Drago San had been born in the slum-domes of Puerto Lumina, the single colony-outpost on Earth's moon that had not affiliated itself with the Justice Departments of what had once been the USA, or the New Sov Bloc that had once been centrally controlled by Russia.
Puerto Lumina was quite simply a Lawless living hell, its people driven insane by confinements and depredations that made the Mega-cities of Earth itself pale by comparison. Conditions that had those unlucky enough to live under them fighting tooth and bloody nail to survive.
Mass cannibalism had been merely one of the more obvious and least repugnant survival-strategies that had evolved.
The only way out, at the time, had involved the friendly treaty between Puerto Lumina and the European Mega-City-state of Brit-Cit; this in large part due to the basic nature of Brit-Cit itself.
The United Kingdom - as it had been then - had never played an active part in the Rad Wars that had decimated the world in the late twenty-first century. For all its sabre-rattling and dreams of an Empire long since gone, the UK was little more than (as was said, repeatedly, by informed commentators at the time) a banana-republic without the bananas.
Taking it out would have been a waste of a perfectly good tactical nuclear strike.
The ABC clouds drifting in from a desolated
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