Lexis took a moment to compose herself. “We need to focus on this program you’re about to go on. The crawl is moving forward as intended, and that’s all there is to that. But I need to brief you a little on caprid customs.”
Donut looked like she wanted to say more, but she thought better of it. “Caprids,” she said. “Hmmm. If they’re anything like that Harbinger fellow, I fear it’s going to be a hostile interview.”
Lexis nodded. She lowered the tablet, and I caught the briefest glance at the screen before it shut off. There were words. I couldn’t read them, but they were superimposed over the image of a small child.
“Liaison Harbinger is an anomaly amongst the caprids,” Lexis said. “Most are not like him. For this program, you will be sitting in the center while you’re judged. They call it an interlocution. But it’s basically just a roundtable, and you’re in the middle. In the end, it’s, uh, like a regular interview. Just a little peculiar. The caprids are strange, but it’s generally good-natured. A few crawlers have been on the show and have had a decent time. You just need to get used to their eccentric affect. They’re not a collective mind. But they are a herd, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”
I remembered those creepy kids from the art show contest.
“Judged?” Donut asked. “Like in a beauty contest?”
“Sort of,” Lexis said. “There will be about a dozen interviewers, and if they judge you worthy, they will ask you a question. Them asking you a question is considered a great compliment. But you don’t have to answer if you don’t judgethemworthy. Though for this thing, it’s pretty much all for show, so you should probably answer. And once that’s done, you, uh... Well, you exert yourself.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.
She made a sort of grimace. “Just go with it. You’ll know what to do.”
[ 28 ]
“Well-met, stranger!”the caprid said as we entered the studio. “Please, please, sit there in the center of the room! We have provided sitting appliances for your convalescence!”
Despite the creature’s demonic appearance, he had a ridiculously goofy look on his goat face. He was bouncing up and down giddily as I hesitantly approached. He reached out to touch me, like he wanted to shake my hand, but his hand went right through me, giving the illusion he was sticking his hand into the pouch on my costume.
Lexis hadn’t entered with us. She’d said she needed a moment. The woman was literally shaking.
A spotlight appeared, shining down on a pair of chairs on a turntable in the center of the dark room. They were just two regular stools, which would allow me to sit properly with my tail.
I attempted to examine the smiling goat creature, but my interface had stopped working the moment we stepped in here. Still, this wasn’t a zero zone. I hadn’t lost my buffs. And the kangaroo costume was still firmly attached to my skin.
I looked the black goat creature up and down.
I knew there were different kinds of these things, mostly mirroring the various breeds of goats we had here on Earth. Butthis particular one looked a lot like the same satanic demon goat breed as Harbinger, though not quite as tall. This one had that same goofy yet deadly earnest look as Prepotente on his face, which was an odd combination.
I could also see the shadows of several other goats in a circle around us. They were of all sizes. They murmured amongst themselves.
“Hi!” Donut said, waving from my shoulder. “I must say, I’m glad you speak the same language as us and seem pretty normal like our friend Prepotente. Carl says he went to some press conference once with one of your kind, and it was really weird. What’s your name?”
The goat gasped and smiled at Donut. He reached out in an attempt to pet her. “I am Botis, and I am the magistrate of tonight’s tunnel event. Are you Carl?”
“Am I Carl?” Donut asked incredulously. “I am Princess Donut!”
“A pleasure! Please, sir, you sit at the chairs and we will begin. We are live! We are live!”
“Already?” Donut asked. “And did you call me ‘sir’?”
“Yes, sir. We are live!” he shouted. “You will sit! We have been live since they announced you and your spouse were coming!”
I sighed and moved to the stools. Donut jumped from my shoulder and landed on the adjoining raised stool. She turned to look up at me.
“If they hadn’t turned off our ability to send private messages, this is where I’d say something very not nice,” she grumbled.
I grunted with amusement. “Let’s just get it over with.”
Donut appeared as if she was about to add something caustic, but had thought better of it.
We waited for the host to say something. He didn’t. He just stood there a few feet to our left, looking at us, really staring. We sat there in awkward silence for a good ten to fifteen seconds. The only sounds were the breathing and guttural noises from the circle of goats in shadow.
“Well,” Donut finally said, “it’s certainly a pleasure to be invited on your show. Because you clearly don’t know, my name is GC, BWR?—”