The Milestones Are Right

Arioch glares at the Mi Go squatting awkwardly on an office chair on the other side of the table.

The Mi-Go regards Arioch with equal distaste through its curious organs of vision.

Since the cult-in-government inflicted its sacrificial decimations upon the bureaucracy, the bureaux in the City of Witches and on Yuggoth were amalgamated. Adjustments were hard on both worlds. Arioch is very sceptical of the advertised financial efficiency, considering the expense of rebuilding locally the cyclopean, windowless basalt temples the Mi-Go inhabit. There is also the language problem. Arioch, a veteran of the arcane traditions of the bureaumancers, finds the polychromatic jargon of the modern business solar system frustrating.

Ecru. Smaragdine wenge azure. the Mi-Go pulses with what, on any normal person, would be a forehead. This one also uses it as a place to wear a tie. It’s a shiny green tie.

“Again? We went over this at our last meeting,” says Arioch. “We can’t bring forward the completion milestone because bureaucracy in a hurry leads to holes in Space–Time. In this bureau, we have Procedures. On this planet, we still have a crust.”

Sinoper. Sarcoline, murrey amaranth, taupe. The Mi-Go emphasises the last shade with a clatter of one of its grooming claws on the tabletop. Coincidentally, the Mi-Go’s iPhone buzzes pregnant with new import. The Mi-Go immediately checks it, buzzing to itself in bistre and drunk-tank pink.

This is another thing Arioch dislikes about the bureaucrats from Yuggoth: they are grafted to their cellphones.

Arioch waits, seething, while the Mi-Go shoots a quick text back to its cohort. When he is pretty sure he has its attention again, he tries to show it a chart showing the size of the holes in Space–Time that resulted from the last arbitrarily truncated bureaucratic project. The Mi-Go gestures contemptuously with its feathery basidiocarps and utters a series of colours Arioch can barely follow. Several of them seem to be from spectra other than Earth’s. Arioch thinks that’s unprofessional: the Bureaumantic Code specifies Euclidean chromosemantics are to be used at all times.

Nacarat onyx. Aeneous nacarat gamboge!

Arioch is angry now. That was uncalled-for. “It’s not a matter of the Stars Being Right. It’s a matter of due diligence and not blowing holes in Space–Time. I don’t care if your demiurge wants it ahead of the project plan, nor about its—and your—career aspirations.”

Atrous icterine subfusc?

“By all means. Refer it all the way up to your demiurge. You know I’m in the right, and you’re just a corner-cutting fungal cowboy. Crepusc in your own subfusc!”

Falu.

“Falu too.”

That went well, Arioch thought later.