They examined the object that had become visible far ahead of them. Although thinner than a hair at arm's length from this distance, they both suspected it to be a staircase like the one they came from, which by now had almost gone out of sight. After leaving the table behind, the sense of desolation that the platform evoked in the Verificator and Excutatrix had returned, and for close to half an hour they walked in silence, as if too depressed to speak. Then the Excutatrix resumed their dialogue:
"It seems the edges of the present sector are tapering toward yonder stairs. This suggests said stairs may be positioned at the centre of a number of floors, as observed earlier in relation to the staircase that gave access to the platform. It makes one wonder as to the overall structure of this so fascinating yet alienating environment. One possesses insufficient information to draw conclusions, but one wonders still."
"One does, does one not?" Arnold thought out loud. "One can not help but speculating. How many of these staircases are there in total? Do they all have eight sectors radiating from them? In what way do the edges of the sectors come together again at another staircase? Are the edges curved? Is the whole platform curved? Is it a kind of conceptual sphere, with two staircases at the 'poles'? Is there perhaps only one staircase, that somehow curls its sectors back onto itself? As yet, the observation platform's structure remains as opaque as its floors are transparent."
Upon advancing it slowly became clear that the location being approached looked identical to the one from which they had departed. They decided to make a clockwise outflanking movement rather than walking straight to the winding stairs. Before long the edge of the current floor lay before them; with care they stepped over it, and the adjacent sector, at first just a ghostly projection, turned solid under their feet, providing a new spherical set of locations in the Field of eternal integrity. There was still no sign of the Imperator. Now and then standing still for a while to observe a scene of interest, they spiraled around and toward the staircase, in the process establishing there were indeed eight floors. At one point they came across a table, indistinguishable from the one with the Egyptian vase and photo's of Pietje seen before. Later, close to the winding stairs, they sat down on two dentist's chairs to rest. After several hours of walking on the hard surface of the platform, even the Excutatrix gave up her vertical position.
"The Excutatrix misses the hybrid bicycle, parked in front of the Psychometitor's multi-volume encyclopaedia and not seen since." She adjusted the chair to assume a horizontal orientation.
"Yes, one could use wheels here. The Veterinarius is well-equipped with his vehicle. Walking is impractical given the distances, takes too long, does not allow one to see everything, or to know if one has seen everything, or to learn the structure of the whole. One can reasonably assume that, travelling away from the central staircase, one ends up at a similar, or even the same staircase with the same configuration of sectors around it. But how does the bull-man traverse between platform and Field? Via the winding stairs? His cart would not fit, says my carpenter's eye. And I do not see it parked around here."
"The Verificator and Excutatrix will need to climb the stairs to verify whether they are indeed the same and identical to those seen before, or merely similar." She began to consume nutritional items which she took out of some of the many pockets of her uniform. Arnold had something to eat and drink too. Twenty minutes later they got up and took their time for the long ascent. The spiral staircase led to a small room which appeared familiar, except for the door marked "The arrival hall", to be unlocked with a regular neuro.
"That is not the door through which the Verificator and Excutatrix entered", Arnold stated. "This one can be opened from inside the staircase. It does seem to lead to the arrival hall though."
The Excutatrix produced a coin. "Then the search for the Imperator shall be set forth in aforementioned hall. The Excutatrix has momentarily had enough of the so thoroughly interesting yet somewhat unfriendly observation tower." She inserted the neuro and opened the door. The hall they subsequently entered seemed identical to the one they knew, apart from the absence of a sign saying "The observation tower" above the door they had just come through. This door also had no coin slot, so could not be opened from inside the hall. Followed by Arnold, the Excutatrix crossed the room and opened the door to the audience waiting room using another neuro; as she had informed Arnold earlier, a shortage of golden coins she had not. The Verificator blocked the open door with a chair as they walked into the room, like he had done before with the corresponding door on imaginary ground level.
"If the Imperator is overlooking the Field of eternal integrity, the present instance of the audience waiting room may be where to logically expect him. While not on the actual observation platform, it is still on the same i-floor, since no silver neuro has been spent in going from platform to waiting room." She took a brochure from a rack.
Arnold examined the room. "This appears to be the same floor as the one from which the Verificator and Excutatrix accessed the tower, but with a slightly different version of the arrival hall. This hall instance seems meant for exiting the tower and returning toward imaginary ground floor. Strange things, these four-dimensional castles."
"The leaflet kindly provided here warns against charlatan test constructors and I.Q. society founders. It mentions many of the points addressed by the Verificator and Excutatrix during their discussion of this topic whilst on the platform. By way of example, it informs the reader that such dilettantes characterize themselves by congratulating or praising the candidate with the latter's score, by allowing repeated attempts, by performing statistics and basing norms on a mixture of first tries and retests, by publishing 'high scores' charts, and more such horrors that make one cold to the bone. Concerning incompetent society leaders, it states that their lists of accepted tests may be more or less blindly based upon those of other societies, absent own psychometric expertise; and that said lists often contain tests that have no validity, or are even unable to yield scores altogether, at the intended pass level."
"The rascals", said Arnold. He grabbed another brochure called Notes on the interpretation of high-range mental test scores. "This is new. Apparently it comes with one's report when taking a test scored by the Psychometitor now. Quite brilliant, and indispensible for the serious candidate. Had something like this existed in my early days as a test taker, it would have greatly accelerated my studies of psychometrics."
"Good that the Psychometitor continues developing and renewing his act", the Excutatrix commented. "A moving target is always harder to hit, as already pointed out by that boxer of yesteryear: float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Not that any of the other test creators could ever be a match to the Psychometitor."
"He is the greatest indeed, though himself far too modest to state that. How long is the Excutatrix planning to wait for the Imperator here?"
"Until the Imperator comes to collect the present company, or until the Verificator and Excutatrix agree it is better to leave than to wait any longer. The Excutatrix can not unilaterally take that decision, not being the bearer of the root minus one neuros needed to return to imaginary ground level. A consideration is that the creature Bhit should not be left alone indefinitely."
Arnold was briefly in thought. "It occurs to me that the separate instances of staircase and arrival hall, meant for exiting the observation tower, serve a purpose. They may be there to force one to leave the platform and travel toward ground floor in the right way; that is, without being 'flipped' in the fourth dimension. Were one to return through the same door that gave access to the tower, that might constitute 'flipping', rendering one a deviant at one's imaginary level of origin."
The Excutatrix put down the leaflet she had been reading. "What a relief to have this anti-flipping protection built into the castle's construction. One would not want to end up a deviant, would one?" She opened the door to the bathroom, assumed a standing position with her legs apart over the water closet, and urinated perpendicularly downward through the fabric of her uniform trousers.
"No, one most certainly would not", Arnold affirmed.
The dual Pietje-Excutator chimaera hid at the dark end of the quay until Arnold came back with a bag of nuts for the hybrid ferrywoman, who had meanwhile returned from her solo flight. After the latter two had cast off for another attempt to reach the Imperator's castle, the double hybrid ascended to the Excutator's official residence to have a meal and discuss what to do about their predicament.
"I find our situation untenable. Is there a way to see the Imperator and ask him to reverse this hybridization?", Pietje - that is, his head - asked.
"It is principally Sharon's task to take visitors to the Imperator's castle. If we want to avoid seeing her, the only thing I can think of is to borrow her boat while she is away to inspect the other landing places. Considering that I have wings now, I could pull us across the water. Sharon has told me it is just a few hours straight ahead and you can never miss it, as long as a hybrid is towing the vessel and possible non-hybrid passengers are unaware. Since you are a hybrid too, I suppose you could do without the unawareness, and give me some instruction on how to fly during the journey." The Excutator - that is, his head - looked at his wings, over which he still did not have full control.
"You will need about a day of practicing before a flight like that becomes possible", Pietje - that is, his head - predicted. "I could instruct you tomorrow as to the art of flying. Can we spend the night in this apartment?"
"Yes. It is mine, after all. Although Arnold may return here after his audience, or if the trip fails again, which it should since he appeared to be conscious when boarding. But he can not be back before some time tomorrow morning, so we can evade him by rising early, cleaning up a bit, and going out for the flying lesson." They finished dinner, and after Van Dorn - that is, his body - had done the dishes went to bed. That is to say, the combination of Pietje's head and the Excutator's body went to bed, while the entity comprising Van Dorn's head and Pietje's body perched itself on the sofa's armrest, after a brief introduction in perching by Pietje - that is, his head.
A quiet night it was not; the Excutator - that is, his head - repeatedly lost control over his - that is, Pietje's - body, causing both to fall over with a thud, which in turn woke up Pietje - that is, his head -, who subsequently urged the Excutator - that is, his head - to be more careful with his - that is, Pietje's - body. Not long before dawn they got up and tidied the place, the Excutator - that is, his body - doing most of the tidying. Taking victuals for the day with them, they sneaked out of the purification site's underground quarters, and had breakfast facing the rising sun on the east slope of a sand dune.
Then, the one-day flight course took off. Van Dorn - that is, his head - soon learnt that flying is no sinecure, and by the time he first got airborne, both instructor and pupil were craving for luncheon. The afternoon session was used to further hone the student's aviation skills, and when the evening fell, the Excutator - that is, his head - was somewhere between the Wright brothers and Blériot in his mastery of heavier-than-air flight. Still, the dark underground crossing to the Imperator's castle would be no pleasure cruise, as Pietje - that is, his head - warned.
Tired and hungry, they walked back to the entrance that led to the Excutator's quarters. Once underground, the Excutator - that is, his head - carefully listened at his apartment door to ascertain that Arnold was not in. Then they entered and Van Dorn - that is, his body - prepared dinner under instruction of the Excutator - that is, his head. While eating they discussed how unfortunate it was that the Excutator's arms were attached to the Excutator's body, rather than to Pietje's body. Had it been the other way around, the poor Excutator - that is, his head - would have been able to use his hands to hold cutlery, while now he had to eat with his mouth from the plate like a non-human animal, or wait until Pietje - that is, his head - was available to feed Van Dorn with the latter's own hands. Pietje - that is, his head - would not have missed those arms as, being a parakeet, he was well-versed in eating with his beak.
Like the evening before, they went to sleep early. A mere two hours past midnight, both were wide awake again and eager to undertake their journey to the Imperator. Silently, the hybrid nolens volens descended the winding stairs and listened at the quay door for a while. Once sufficiently confident Pietje's daughter was not there, the unusual duo ventured to leave the stairwell and moved to the darkest side of the landing stage.
Although it seemed an endless wait, barely an hour had gone by when they heard the sound of flapping wings. It became louder, and minutes later the hardworking ferrywoman showed up out of the dark and moored. The two kept as still as they could to avoid discovery. As the air hostess began to peck in her trough, the onlookers established that no passenger was on board. Arnold attempts to reach the castle had finally succeeded, they understood. Not long thereafter, the parakeet girl flew away into the black nightly sky with a scream, leaving her boat behind. "Now it is our turn", whispered the Excutator - that is, his head. "Finally", Pietje - that is his head - replied when the stewardess had gone out of hearing range and they started walking to the jetty. "I hope there is something left in that manger. Having seen Sharon eat, I have become a bit peckish myself."
After two hours of fruitless waiting, the Verificator and Excutatrix agreed it was better to leave the audience waiting room and adopt a more active approach. Following a suggestion by the Excutatrix, they knocked on all of the doors on this side of the hall and listened carefully. No response occurred. They briefly considered opening the doors with neuros, but decided there was too little justification for such a random search method, also in view of the fact they did not have enough coins to open all of the doors in the castle. Instead, the two decided to move back toward imaginary ground floor, and knock on all of the doors they encountered on each of the intermediate floors. Arnold grabbed a root minus one neuro, and they crossed the roller coaster track that ran along the middle of the hall, to reach the leftmost door in the opposite wall which was marked "To imaginary ground floor".
The Excutatrix remarked she first wanted to verify whether the door at the beginning of the track was open or able to be opened. Before Arnold could comment she ran to where the rails passed through an opening in the wall. With bent knees the uniformed official entered the narrow sloping corridor and turned right. The Verificator walked to the hole in the wall and stuck his head through. "Door closed and can not be opened", he heard her say from down below. Then she came back in sight and took place in the cart that stood against its stop. With the familiar low rumble, the Excutatrix set herself in motion. "The Excutatrix is going around the track to hear as to what this apparition of Apathos informs us", she announced while passing Arnold, who subsequently watched her vanish into the dark climbing corridor on his left. When the cart could no longer be heard, he went to the centre of the hall, where brakes were mounted between the rails.
Minutes later the vehicle rode into the arrival hall with some noise. Its occupant jumped out before coming to a complete standstill. "Interesting, but not helpful regarding the Verificator and Excutatrix' quest. The Apatosaurus gave a brief historical account of the Imperator's mental ability tests, containing little to nothing new for the present company. So Verificator, insert thy imaginary coin."
Arnold walked back to the door leading to imaginary ground level, and slipped a silver neuro into the lock. Together they stepped through and at once found themselves in front of the next door, several metres to the right. Based on their earlier experience and conclusions, both knew that in reality they had moved one metre in the fourth dimension and thus accessed the next imaginary floor. The procedure of knocking on all doors in the opposite wall was repeated, and as a formality the Excutatrix opened the audience waiting room, in case that would work as a trigger to make the Imperator show up. This time, Arnold was the one to go to the start of the roller coaster track and make the ride. But again, the Apatosaurus gave no clue as to the Imperator's whereabouts; the Apathos apparition at this imaginary level dealt with his work as a composer, music theoretician, and musician, Arnold reported when back in the arrival hall.
"Did you know the Imperator once designed a personality test of musical fragments, measuring the candidate's appreciation for discordance and dissonance? The latter concepts can be objectively quantified as set out in his treatise on music theory, says the Apatosaurus."
With attention she took note of his report. "The meant treatise is known to the Excutatrix, but not the test of music fragments. Presumably said test was never implemented?"
"Correct. Such an auditory project is harder to realize and administer than a regular pencil-and-paper test. Perhaps it is still to come." They proceeded their journey to imaginary ground level, spending some time on every i-floor encountered. Taking the roller coaster ride in turns, they learnt new facts about the Imperator's work in fields like literature, philosophy, politics, economics, evolution, and the Tarot. The latter amazed them, and made them conclude that apparently the Imperator's awareness was so inclusive that in whichever topic crossed his path, no matter how off-beat, he quickly discovered something essential not seen by anyone before. "If only I had a tenth of his genius", Arnold sighed.
"Do no let it get the Verificator down", she consoled him. "Verificator is an interesting enough character as is, not quite unlike the Excutatrix. In fact, were the Excutatrix ever to brutally commit suicide, said Excutatrix would without hesitation elect the Verificator as aforementioned Excutatrix' companion into the grave. But, let the Verificator and Excutatrix not get sentimental."
"Indeed, let the Verificator and Excutatrix not. That would have been the most touching thing ever said to me though, were I the slightest bit disposed for sentimentality." Finally, the Verificator and Excutatrix stepped through the eighth door and accessed ground floor. At once, an almost bizarre vocal cacophony caught their ears.
"You have to be made capable of more pain, you cunt like creatures in the light of feminist ethics where truth is not checked and..."
"I beg your pardon?! Look at yourself, you inflated pig-headed dwarf!"
"Don't you dare visit Monaco again with shit for a brain and the parrot-mouther fattened for the kill, the technical millionaire and as the corpse of a Kant killer thrown at my face."
"Are you talking to me? Watch out or I will bite your nose, or what must pass for it!"
"I can take a max punch from an adult in the stomach area. Removing yourself like an ethical pussy will do you no good, search the fast twitch fibre in the depths of my shit and a punch taking talent like kick boxers do..."
"Well you will soon need that talent if you go on like this! It occurs to me you are talking fractionally too big for your britches."
The Verificator and Excutatrix turned around and found the noise to come from the audience waiting room, the door of which was still open. Upon closer inspection, the room appeared to be occupied by an unusual threesome consisting of Bhit Bhasma and the Pietje-Excutator hybrids, the former still dressed in his inflatable yogi suit. The Excutatrix approached the repulsive creature and attempted to calm it down. Arnold meanwhile spoke to the man-parakeet alloy, and learnt they had managed to reach the castle by secretly borrowing Sharon's boat. It had not been easy; Pietje's feet had time after time accidentally dropped the tow chain while trying to pull the vessel, and his feathers had been far from dry upon their eventual arrival at the imperial mooring place. The Excutator's neuros had enabled them to access the gymnasium, where the human-bodied half of the chimaera had ridden the roller coaster track, while its winged remainder had carefully waddled up the slope and entered the arrival hall near the switch, just in time to see its counterpart roll in from the other side of the hall. Then, they had discovered the open door of the audience waiting room, and met with an incoherently ranting hominid. Although more than an hour had passed since, the Imperator, whom the unhappy hybrids wanted to speak about a possible reversal of their state, had not come to collect his visitors yet.
Arnold explained that he and the Excutatrix were looking for the Imperator too, but had not been able to locate the latter either. To discuss the matter without disruption, they agreed to find another place to talk and lock Bhit up in the waiting room for the time being. The Excutatrix reassured the little rowdy and left it some food, and then they quickly withdrew to the hall and closed the door. Ignoring the muffled noises of protest, the four walked along the wall until they found a door marked "The courtroom".
"This one seems suitable", Arnold said, and opened the room with his ninth golden coin without awaiting possible responses to his choice. A sizeable and largely empty oblong room with white walls lay before them. White sofas were standing around, aligned with the walls, and Arnold and the Excutatrix used one thereof to block the door so that it would not fall shut. The company took place horizontally, except for Van Dorn - that is, his head - who preferred an armrest and pulled one leg up as parakeets do. Pietje - that is, his head - praised the Excutator - that is, his head - for the sense of balance thus displayed. Arnold and the Excutatrix were now lying on two adjacent sofas along one of the long walls - the one on the right, seen from the entrance -, while the cross-species twin hybrid occupied two directly opposite couches on the other side of the room. Thus they were almost four metres apart, and each about one and a half metre removed from the wall nearest to them.
The Verificator spoke: "Absent the Imperator, we will for the moment deal with our problems without him. A brief overview of the matters at hand is in place; first, there is the case of the Excutator Van Dorn, guilty of offenses in high-range mental testing and therefore in need of purification, but having escaped that delightful procedure through sly manipulation at the expense of an innocent. Self-obviously, the Excutator's purification must be carried through, however this is currently impossible without putting Pietje, another innocent, through the same in the process."
"You can say that again!", the good parakeet - that is, his head - commented. "I am not dying to get a wooden pole up my..."
"Second, but intertwined with the first," Arnold continued, "it seems desirable to recombine the Pietje-Van-Dorn configuration into its constituent entities, thus relieving the plagued bird from its current ordeal, while freeing the Excutator for purification. Whether this is possible at all, let alone how, is yet unknown; and if Van Dorn for some reason beyond comprehension wanted to avoid his being purified, he might even prefer such reverse hybridization to be impossible. Third, there is the question as to what to do with the hominid creature Bhit Bhashma, apparently possessed by the Dysgenitor. Is it humane to purify one of so limited mental capacity, most likely unable to comprehend and appreciate the bliss of this for true offenders so cathartic treatment? Or is responsibility diminished below threshold level here? Fourth, I want to go home, or at least find out if there is any chance of ever returning to where I was before being transferred to the Field of eternal integrity. And fifth and finally, if only for purposes of academic interest, we should investigate how it can be that one with the intelligence, conscientiousness, associative horizon, and geniality of the Excutator Van Dorn has proven capable of such cunning and unethical behaviours as: repeated retesting under the names of several innocent others; the use of test answers already known to him - not arrived at by his own effort but shown to him in confidence - to obtain a higher score and win a contest; and the actual cashing of the large monetary prize that went with that contest."
The Excutator - that is, his head - spoke: "Regarding your fifth and final point, I think I can shed some light on that. Being the one whom it concerns, I believe I have enough insight into my personality and its place in human evolution to offer the following explanation." He changed feet, using his - that is, Pietje's - wings to keep his balance, and began his discourse amid avid interest.
"Evolution is a process wherein organisms adapt to be fit for survival in their respective environments. 'Fit for survival' in this context means: able to reproduce, pass one's genes on. Those who are good at that 'survive', that is, contribute genetic material to the following generations. One needs not necessarily be 'strong' for that, as is so often mistakenly assumed. In fact, one needs not even procreate individually, as one's siblings each carry about half of one's genes, so that their children and children's children set forth parts of one's genome too. The features, traits, or abilities observed in any organism, including the variance and intercorrelations thereof, reflect the evolutionary history of that organism, as a fossil record of natural selection."
"For instance, features that are essential for the individual's survival into reproductive age will as a result of that go in fixation, as one calls it; that is, all or almost all specimens will come to possess them simply because they are necessities, and the interindividual variance of those features will approach zero, as will any possible correlations with other variables. On the other hand, features that are not so much necessary for individual survival, but that offer some reproductive advantage in a given era and environment - that 'make a difference' - will come to display a large variation between individuals. And because they are all selected by the same criterion - fitness in the evolutionary sense - their intercorrelations will tend to be more or less positive; in other words, they will tend to cluster together to one extent or another. Traits that offer a larger fitness advantage will on average develop higher correlations than those providing a smaller 'edge'. Thus, by studying the variance and intercorrelations of an organism's features or abilities, one acquires insight into the selection processes that shaped the current genotypes of that organism."
"Obviously, different environments produce different results in the sense of adaptation. Sophisticated human civilizations have arisen among peoples who previously lived and evolved in moderate to cold climates. Current Western civilization is the product of descendants of European ice-age hunter-gatherers. Clearly, spending centuries or millennia in a harsh, cool environment works as resistance training for a people's gene pool, and raises the average levels of positive traits or abilities. High civilization does not develop in that stage though, but later, when circumstances become milder, or people move to a more moderate area. Then, one sees the blossoming of culture; the raw ability acquired priorly is invested, becomes crystallized, into language, art, architecture, large-scale societal organization, science, and technology. It is as with Demosthenes, who practiced his oratorical skills by talking with pebbles in his mouth or reciting poetry while running."
"When studying human ability types and their intercorrelations, one finds that mental abilities are the most favoured by natural selection, offer the greatest 'edge'. They display the highest correlations, not only with other mental abilities, but also with positive non-cognitive traits and features like motor skills, reaction speed, sense of humour, general health, physical fitness, height, longevity, eminence, altruism, achievement, and ethical values. Moreover, mental ability correlates negatively with undesirable matters like racial prejudice, obesity, smoking, lack of impulse control, hysteria, dishonesty, crime, dogmatism, and acquiescence. Throughout a people's or race's development from hunter-gatherer lifestyle to technological civilization though, this set of abilities and other traits, and their intercorrelations, undergo change as a result of the changing environment. After all, a complex technological society requires other abilities than does a tribe of hunter-gatherers, and the shift from the latter to the former will therefore induce genetic changes in its population."
"The ability spectrum of ice-age hunter-gatherers is dominated by essentials like visual-spatial and visual-logical ability, motor skills, reaction speed, and physical strength. Many other ability types occur, mind, but are more or less subordinate in the hierarchy obtained when studying intercorrelations. The abilities that in a given era and environment offer the greatest fitness advantage will come out on top, receive the highest loadings on the general factor g. When evolving into more complex societies with large-scale organization and technology, the focus, within the mental abilities domain, shifts to the numerical and verbal aspects, initially in addition to the raw ice-age spectrum, later at the expense of it. Also, in latter-day wealthy societies, selection pressures for many previously vital features and traits are greatly relaxed, leading to a gradual decrease in genetic human quality, with the exception of verbal and social skills, which become dominant as part of a feminization process. This degeneration is aided by the fact that these rich societies attract mass immigration from poorer parts of the world where the average ability level is lower, and the adaptation as undergone by the peoples of the moderate and colder areas has never taken place. And, as the original visual-spatial and visual-logical fundament of mental ability erodes, the pyramid of g is undermined, and the so important correlations with non-cognitive traits and features suffer. One begins to see more individuals who despite their high intelligence have undesirable traits like dishonesty, who use their high verbal ability to facilitate deceit. My own behaviour should be seen in that light; I say this not to excuse myself, but merely for clarification."
"So, broadly speaking one can say that the advent of high civilization, through various dysgenic effects inherent to it, may eventually result in a decline of mental ability and of other positive traits and features. Average I.Q. in a technological society at or beyond its summit may be lower than that in a somewhat less advanced culture which is still on the rise, which is still closer to its original ice-age ability. Raw spatial ability begins to slip away early on, as civilization reaches the stage wherein verbal and numerical skills are valued higher and become the main objects of selection. The deterioration of Western visual art and architecture from the Renaissance to the late twentieth century illustrates that as clearly and painfully as anything ever could. Later markers of de-cadence are the increase of wealth-induced illnesses, the soft treatment of criminals, making victims rather than culprits responsible for crime, the facts that average height, life expectancy, and tested I.Q. no longer rise or even start to drop, and the taboo on mentioning the hereditary nature of many important behavioural variables. The latter is germane to being in denial with respect to the degeneration that is taking place; only social-environmental factors are accepted as explanations for individual differences on any trait that matters, despite the vast body of evidence for the contrary, and even the existence of truth itself is denied, stuck as one is between what is and what one thinks ought to be or has been indoctrinated to believe. High verbal ability becomes a tool for deceiving not only others but also oneself; a convoluted labyrinth of falsehood and half-truth is constructed to not have to face reality. We call it cultural marxism."
"Of course, one could say that modern society has other fitness criteria than were selected for in the past, and that we are merely adapting to our new self-created environment. And that would be perfectly true, but in no way contradict the fact that a technological civilization puts certain cognitive and ethical demands on its citizens in order to be sustained. A society's civilizational level is determined almost exclusively by its average I.Q., not just because of the mental ability aspect but also because so many other traits required for civilization correlate positively with I.Q. When average I.Q. drops below a certain threshold, technological civilization can no longer be maintained, no matter how desperately one clings on to the neo-marxist dogmas one has been taught, no matter how frenetically one denies the hereditary nature of the qualities that gave rise to civilization in the first place. In this respect I always like to refer to Netherlandic author Marten Toonder's 1963 masterpiece Het kukel, in which is written: '...wealth makes the kukel drop. A city where the kukel is no longer rising, must be dissolved'."
A this point, a racket from the arrival hall interrupted the Excutator's oration.
The Excutatrix sprang to her feet and ran to the door. After one look to the left she signalled Arnold to follow her and went toward the noise. The Pietje-Excutator half-breds remained motionless in the courtroom.
Near the audience waiting room, the door of which was open again, they found the creature Bhit, still wearing its ridiculous inflated muscle-yogi suit, involved in a verbal and physical fight with the parakeet-stewardess Sharon, who was trying to bite the little hominid's nose. "That brat called me a parrot-mouthed sky harlot!", she explained as Arnold and the Excutatrix separated the two with mild force. "It was time someone taught him some manners!". The Excutatrix guided the angrily stammering ape back into the waiting room and gave it some brochures for distraction. Meanwhile Arnold talked to the offended air hostess, and established she had come to see the Imperator and report the unauthorized use of her boat by a third party. He told the ferrywoman about the Imperator's apparent untraceability, and began to clarify who the boat thieves were and how their hybridization had come about.
The Excutatrix closed the waiting room door to confine the repulsive creature, and joined the conversation. With interest Sharon learnt what had happened, and where her father and Van Dorn were residing. As she indicated a desire to avoid contact with the latter two, Arnold spent his tenth neuro to open a door marked "The conference room" and let the girl in, while the Excutatrix briefly returned to Pietje and the Excutator to inform them as to what was going on. Then, they took place at the round wooden conference table, but not before Arnold had put one of the high conference seats against the door to keep it open.
"You told me that the Imperator has given you your nice boat. Have you actually met the good Imperator on that occasion?", he asked the bird-headed cabin crew member.
"Yes, he even took me into his castle and let me ride the roller coaster! It was so nice!"
"And how did he look? Do you remember that?"
"Yes, I remember it well! I am not stupid! He looked... how will I put it... well, he looked just like that little monster in the waiting room, really."
"Are you certain? Did the Imperator look like the creature Bhit, with which you were fighting some minutes ago?", the Excutatrix asked Sharon with attention. "The creature you brought to the castle in your boat, together with the Excutatrix?"
"Oh yes, exactly the same! Except that the Imperator was tall and handsome, instead of short and ugly. And that he wore smart clothes, instead of a blow-up doll. And that he said nice things, instead of mean insults. And that he spoke whole words, instead of one syllable at a time. And that his sentences were grammatically correct and meaningful, instead of crooked and incoherent. And that he was clever, instead of a retard. And that he walked upright on his legs only, instead of on hands and feet like a monkey. And that his head had a regular shape, instead of looking like a turd. But otherwise, he looked just the same!"
Arnold condensed her description: "So, would it be correct to say that the Imperator was really in all respects the opposite of the little monster in the waiting room?"
The interrogated flight attendant rubbed her head against the edge of her left wing, as if in thought. "Come to think of it... yes! How on earth did you figure that out?!"
"Just a wild guess", he assured her. "And, how did you leave the castle again, after riding the roller coaster? How did you get back to the quay?"
"Why, the Imperator showed me out. We went through that door at the end of this hall that says 'To the quay'. There was a long corridor behind it that went to back to where we had entered the castle. It was a pity I had to go so soon, I would have liked to stay and ride the roller coaster all day! That Apatosaurus is so funny!"
"Maybe we can arrange that. Your father and the Excutator have proven they can handle the boat. I say they should take over your job for a while, so that you can play in the castle. And when the Imperator shows up, we will ask him for a better solution to these strange issues."
The Excutatrix agreed. "A usable suggestion, Verificator. The hybrid ferrywoman has provided valuable descriptions of the Imperator and deserves a holiday, while for the Excutator this community service will form an admittedly unsatisfactory but better-than-nothing alternative to purification, which latter procedure can not be implemented momentarily. Let the Verificator and Excutatrix proceed to inform the new ferrymen of their employment."
"Hooray!", Sharon cheered. "Can I go to the roller coaster now? Can I?"
"Yes, you can!", Arnold said to the half-bred, who jumped up and out of the room, and flew more than she ran across the arrival hall to where the track joined itself. With the Excutatrix he returned to the courtroom. The double hybrid was not happy with its newly assigned task, although Pietje - that is, his head - found some comfort in the thought his daughter would have fun in the castle for the coming time. They left the room and looked for the door marked "To the quay", that Sharon had mentioned. Pietje unlocked it with a neuro from his - that is, the Excutator's - pockets, and the four of them entered the corridor that started behind the door and turned to the right after some thirty metres. A shallow downward slope followed, and about a minute later there was another right turn. Now they found themselves in the corridor wherefrom the gymnasium could be accessed. Not long after passing that door, they turned left and walked straight to the castle's entrance gate. The four went down the stairs outside the gate, and Arnold instructed the chimaeric ferry twins to bring a supply of food for Sharon to the castle, and then he and the Excutatrix watched the duo go aboard and cast off, the one flying with the chain in his feet, the other sitting in the boat and pedalling to power the boat's lighting.
As they walked back to the arrival hall - Arnold had strategically placed his rucksack against the "To the quay" door to keep it open - the matter of the Imperator's apparent absence was raised by the Excutatrix. "Having heard the ferrywoman's description of the Imperator, where does the Verificator surmise the latter is likely to be found?"
The addressed answered without hesitation.
"In the audience waiting room on imaginary ground floor."
"The Excutatrix thinks the same. Dares Verificator speculate as to the cause of the Imperator's condition?"
"He must have been flipped in a dimension beyond the basic three, rendering him an inverse of himself in a number of respects. Possibly he made an imaginary transition in the wrong direction, through another than the thereto designated door. Given that he ended up in one of the Excutatrix' dungeons, the Veterinarius may have mistaken the flipped Imperator for an offender on the loose, and transported him to an apparently fitting offender library."
"That seems logical. What does Verificator think of the plausibility of flipping the flipped Imperator back to his original mode of being?"
Arnold pondered the question in silence for a while. "Three problems come to mind. First, there is the practical matter of how to do it. The door in the arrival hall leading to the observation tower is the primary option. I could open it, and the Excutatrix could take the flipped Imperator through the door while I stay in the hall to keep the door from closing. Then, said Excutatrix would have to forcefully push aforementioned flipped Imperator back into the arrival hall, taking care not to reenter the hall oneself through that same door, which after all would cause the Excutatrix to be flipped, thus creating a new problem while solving the existing one."
"The Excutatrix would not want to be flipped!", she interjected.
"Naturally, a flipped Excutatrix is undesirable; therefore, the Excutatrix would be required to return via the appropriate door just left of the middle that is marked 'To imaginary ground floor', once one is on second imaginary floor level. To that end, the Excutatrix would have to be provided with an imaginary neuro. Second, it is relevant whether the flipping that has taken place is a true full-duplex, two-way process, that can be reversed in a one-to-one correspondence to obtain a result identical to that with which it started. Were it a mere one-way hash, a second flipping would result in random noise rather than being a true reversal."
"Third, the flipped Imperator is no longer as he was right after being flipped; normal mental and physical developments may have taken place after the flipping, and in any case, an apparent fusion with or influence of the Dysgenitor has altered him from a harmless, virtually nonverbal creature, into an angry, vengeful, ranting midget. Provided flipping is a perfect two-way procedure, a second flipping will not result in the original Imperator, but in an new version of him, which will be the opposite of what the flipped Imperator has become; of what he is now. And since the present flipped Imperator has been worsened in some respects by the Dysgenitor's contribution, a reversal of the flipping will yield an Imperator who is better than he was before in those respects; better, more ethical, more peaceful. The Dysgenitor is basically the essence of evil; the Satan, the Devil, the Marx. So, the twice-flipped Imperator will have the inverse of that in him. He will be more like an angel, a god; a Eugenitor."
The Excutatrix observed another matter: "It must be asked how this new theory of the Imperator's flipped-ness is compatible with the Excutatrix and Verificator's existing hypothesis that the latter two, and all that is happening to and around them, are a fiction produced by the Imperator's brain. Can a brain, reduced to a regrettable state as seen in the flipped Imperator, still maintain a phantasy at the level of quality currently being experienced?"
"That is unlikely, considering that the original Imperator had a good brain, so that his flipped version most likely has a bad one. Also, the introduction of the Dysgenitor aspect into the flipped Imperator seems not to have changed the nature of the fiction, suggesting that this all is not a figment of the flipped Imperator's imagination. If it indeed is a product of the original Imperator's mind, as I still deem highly probable, it must be accepted that the phantasy has persisted beyond and despite the unfortunate flipping, in a yet unexplained way. Once the precise mechanism behind this persistent imagination has been found, it may also make clear exactly why the figments of said imagination appear to have awareness and free will of themselves, which, after all, is uncommon for fictitious persons." They had meanwhile reached the arrival hall, and on Arnold's suggestion placed one of the sofas from the courtroom against the door to the quay to keep it open, so that Arnold could keep his backpack with him again.
The Excutatrix considered Arnold's ideas on flipping the flipped Imperator back to how he was before: "The method of pushing the flipped Imperator through the door to the observation tower in the false direction is worth a try. The Excutatrix is uncertain whether this procedure will be physically possible though; the pushed flipped Imperator may simply end up in the arrival hall on imaginary second floor, instead of returning to ground floor through the still open door, or the Verificator may fail to keep the door open. The door may close itself with juggernaut upon any attempt to pass it the wrong way. On the other hand, if the Imperator has been flipped once, then clearly such a wrongful transition is not precluded altogether. The question as to the possible one-way hash nature of flipping remains unanswered until a second flipping has been executed, and poses the most serious risk. The Verificator and Excutatrix can only hope that flipping is full-duplex. The possibility that the flipped Imperator's Dysgenitor admixture may after reversal result in an improved new Imperator, a Eugenitor, strikes the Excutatrix as positively attractive. So, let the Verificator and Excutatrix proceed to carry out an attempted flipping of the flipped Imperator."
They walked to the waiting room and unlocked it with one of the Excutatrix' neuros. She approached the flipped Imperator. "Bhit! Come play with the nice Excutatrix!" Though verbally faltering in vulgarities, threats, and insults, the inverted ruler of the universe obeyed in deed and followed her into the arrival hall, where Sharon just entered from the right in the roller coaster cart. "There he is! He looks just like the Imperator!", the stewardess on leave remarked, and jumped out to get her vehicle through the brakes and start the next lap. As they crossed the hall diagonally toward the rightmost door in the opposite wall, Arnold took two of his silver neuros and handed one to the Excutatrix. Both knew what had to be done. He unlocked the door, opening it all the way until it touched the wall, and positioned himself against it to prevent it from closing. She stepped through, uninterruptedly sweet-talking to and petting the flipped Imperator who followed her. Then, Arnold felt the door moving. "It is trying to close! Send him back now!" The Excutatrix pushed her foulmouthed companion toward the still visible transparent door frame that slowly dissolved into air as the door attempted to shut itself. The ruler on all fours suddenly braced himself like a mule. "Nooooooo!!!! Do not hurt me, torturers! Let Bhit live I beg you. Try hitting yourself else you will be met with a force and Daedalus displayed with analogies you have never seen before first!" Arnold had to use his full strength to keep the door from slamming shut, but felt he was losing the battle and finally jammed his feet against and under the bottom of the door. The Excutatrix failed to make headway, and as a last resort ripped off the flipped Imperator's inflatable muscle suit and threw it through the disappearing frame. Arnold's shoe soles squeaked ear-piercingly as the self-closing door shoved them over the floor with unstoppable force. Then, the to-be Eugenitor, having observed his beloved body building outfit vanish in front of his eyes, gave up resistance and leaped to where he had last seen the suit. Arnold felt the two objects pass behind his back just before the door dematerialized and he suddenly stood next to the Excutatrix on second imaginary floor.