Free For the Love of Gelo! by Tom O'Donnell Page A

played (by far the worst aspect of the Feast—why mar a perfectly good holiday with contact sports?) and fatty foods to be eaten in mass quantities.
    Despite the lights, the mood was dark. Sheln’s power grab didn’t sit well with the city. Its coup was brilliantly executed, but—as anyone might have predicted—Sheln had no talent for actually running the government. It had angered many by imposing a curfew and posting armed city guards at every entrance to the Unclaimed Tunnels. It had even banned the Observers from their own Observatory. Gelo was currently flying blind.
    Two city guards, Nar and Ydevi, had been specifically assigned to watch me and the humans to make sure we didn’t make any trouble for the new Chief. All day long, they stood outside the door of my dwelling. If anyone left, one of them would trail behind at a distance. Occasionally, I offered them food, but they always refused.
    A new nickname for the Chief of Council had already come into common use around Core-of-Rock. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a swear word. Everyone simply called it Imperator Sheln, “Imperator” being the title of the supreme dictator who ruled the Vorem Dominion.
    But Sheln’s worst mistake in the eyes of the public—even more than its subversion of the democratic process—was how it dealt with the Jalasad.
    The central feature of the Feast of Zhavend (aside from the much,
much
more important presents) is a tradition called the Jalasad. The Jalasad is a public performance in which the great deeds of the hero Jalasu Jhuk are commemorated. One lucky Xotonian gets to dress up like the Great Progenitor and reenact such heroic exploits as the Battle of Three Suns and the Escape from Quyl. Another, perhaps even luckier Xotonian dresses up as Morool, the ancient Vorem imperator who pursued Great Jalasu Jhuk across the universe. Everyone knows these old stories by heart, yet each year we thrill to see them performed onstage.
    In the Jalasad, Morool is a buffoon—a ridiculous villain that the crowd loves to hate—whom Jhuk repeatedly and humorously outwits. Crafting a revolting Morool costume is very important to the Feast of Zhavend. And each year the Jalasad performers—Linod’s originator, Lhoy, was one of them—somehow manage to outdo themselves in terms of Morool’s hideousness.
    This year, though, the jowly mask of the Morool costume bore an unmistakable resemblance to a certain public figure. All agreed that this was the ugliest Morool to date.
    When Sheln saw the mask, it flew into a rage. By its decree, the Jalasad was officially canceled. Instead, Sheln itself would personally deliver a two-hour public lecture to the festival audience. The topic: the importance of not criticizing our leaders during a time of war.
    It was shaping up to be the worst Zhavend on record (at least since the Great Giant Spider Gift Exchange Debacle of ’26). But it couldn’t have been a more perfect opportunity to execute our plan.
    The human children and I had spent the preceding days making preparations and gathering supplies. Becky had even put on Nicki’s glasses once or twice to throw the guards off their trail. Now everything was in place. We had food, water, a hundred meters of nylon rope, five human thermal blankets, and the cyclopaedia volume that described Kyral packed away. It was almost time. We had only one chance to pull this off.
    A rowdy crowd gathered at Ryzz Plaza for Sheln’s speech. Dozens of city guards surrounded the stage to keep the audience back. Already, several angry and anti-Sheln chants were competing with one another. Some repeated “Sheln’s the worst!” at the top of their b’hueys. Others yelled the marginally more positive “Bring back Kalac!” A third contingent offered a simple “Stink head!” over and over again. This last chant was my personal favorite, possibly because I started it.
    Hollins, Nicki,