Chronicles of Andromeda
a blogsical
by Ian Wilson
Page 9
Phineus finally realised that force was not the way to get the condominium from the griffoids. He was not a stupid man and he knew that Perseus had misgivings about the riches of Gaia being available to so few humans. They decided to go together to talk to the mayor of the griffoids, using a universal translator machine that Phineus had invented. The mayor was happy to talk to them. At first his utterances made no sense but then the translator tuned to his utterings:
It became apparent that the griffoids had their own name for condominium: they called it "Lardy Lead". They found out that the griffoids were perfectly happy to let Phineus have as much as he needed but in exchange they wanted more new games for their Virtual Playstations and Nintendos.
Perseus thought: this is all very well, but if Phineus is able to construct the worm hole to Earth then we are going to need ways to manage tourism and immigration to avoid the fate of Earth also befalling Gaia. He remembered his history lessons and an Australian style points based system. A plan began to hatch...