Larry Sheldon (25,501 – 25,587 N.E.) – Founder of the science of psycho-cosmography, famously quoted as saying, “Look, we needed more space so we invented starships. What’s the big deal?” Creator of the Sheldon Plan whereby the new empire was replaced by the new, new empire and the outpost world Zero became the Bulwark for this new order. He was a secretive and reclusive genius who suffered from acute fear of other people’s body odor. Some historians now believe his existence may have been apocryphal.
(Encyclopedia Publicius Domainius, 1023 edition)
Here he stood in the center of the galaxy, the administrative capital of the new empire; Titantor! A world that circled the central black hole of the Milky Way galaxy. Only an incredibly powerful anti-gravity field prevented Titantor from being ripped to shreds and swallowed by the gravitational force of its evil black star. A steady stream of planets and debris had to be fed into the anti-gravity generator to keep this horrific imbalance in existence. But such was the power of this empire and its vanity that the whim of the emperor was enough to maintain this cosmic madness.
And here he stood Bob Goodfellow, a fresh graduate of the Arcturus Community College and Creamery here to put his knowledge of psycho-cosmography to good use assisting Larry Sheldon to save the new empire from the forces of entropy that threatened to tear it apart and bring on a trillion years of barbarism and low credit scores for everyone. And he was nervous. Meeting a genius like Larry Sheldon was intimidating. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead. He wiped it away with a handkerchief. And suddenly there was Sheldon walking toward him smiling and looking him over nervously, “Bob, good to finally meet you. Yeah, I’m not big on shaking hands or standing downwind of people. So, let’s walk with the wind in our faces and you following me at about a six-foot distance. Thanks!”
Within these strictures they covered the distance to the Titantor Senate building in about an hour and Goodfellow watched from the gallery as Dr Sheldon was cross-examined by the representatives of the Imperial Science Foundation.
The Pontifex Maximus grilled him, “Dr. Sheldon, you claim that using the energy output of fifty billion stars to turn the Smaller Magellanic Cloud into a jacuzzi for the emperor’s concubines will lead to the heat death of the galaxy. Do you have any proof of this?”
Larry sat with his handkerchief clutched over his nose recoiling at the examiner’s overpowering cologne, “Well, the fact that the population of the empire has decreased from a million-billion-billion to seventy-eight would seem to be a relatively strong indicator, mathematically speaking.” The Pontifex made a rude noise and scoffed, “What nonsense! This mighty capitol; Titantor, on its own, is home to countless billions. We see them all around us!”
Larry used his emergency inhaler and continued, “Yes, but they’re all robots. In fact, it’s worse than the numbers indicate. There are only thirteen women of childbearing age left and half of them are Vestal Virgins. We’re going to have to really rethink a lot of priorities if this whole shebang is going to last past Wednesday.”
This sparked outrage and shouting among the senators. The concomitant bad breath overwhelmed Larry and he swooned in the witness chair. … To be continued!!!!
