Jimeno Botts had a brilliant career ahead of him at the moment of his death as a true broccoli magnate. \"Methane may well be a greenhouse gas,\" Jimeno cautioned, \"but I\'m not giving up broccoli!\" And so, over a spell, an amount of methane had come to permeate distinct crevices in the altitudes of the earth\'s pitiably thin atmosphere, but never in sufficient concentration to engulf the planet in spontaneous combustion, and so, broccoli was never implicated formally. Jimeno had not at all cornered the broccoli market. Other broccoli vendors populated streetcorners in all major cities, many not directly affiliated with Jimeno\'s operation. Jimeno grew his own, some on farms dedicated to growing nothing but broccoli. Say what you will about broccoli as a vegetable, but Jimeno always served fine sprigs of broccoli. Entire stalks, if you insisted. Bunches and bunches, if you really preferred. \"It could as well have come from the earth,\" Jimeno commented one day after a fissure opened in the earth\'s pitifully thin crust, exposing a hot vent breathing sulphur, not to mention all that methane, right next to one of his prized broccoli fields. Jimeno took pains to measure the concentration of the methane on days when the wind was still and when clouds refused to budge past the nearby mountains. Jimeno displayed praiseworthy enterprise when he built a pipeline on the edge of the fissure to capture some of the abundant and otherwise free methane, whose release otherwise would have helped only accelerate a global change in climate long since run amok. (And yes, odd to mention it now, much of that captured sulphur did find its way into the heads of any number of kitchen matches!) Having access to this source of methane actually helped Jimeno run his nationwide broccoli business. From the pipeline he installed, he derived energy directly for running offices and warehouses and was able to sell another half or more on the side to finance other operations. Jimeno thus had two sources of methane at his disposal: the potential source sitting in his broccoli fields and the actual source running through his pipeline. Jimeno was no smoker and took a dim view of the vice personally but was famous for tolerating smokers and smoking. Some say he went so far as to ingratiate himself towards smokers and smoking, since Jimeno saw to it personally that ashtrays and lighters (well you ask! butane, Jimeno had an efficient butane outfit, too, in Louisiana), all stamped with the Jimeno Botts broccoli company logo, were ever to be found in copious supply at any office or warehouse of the Jimeno Botts broccoli company. (Perhaps odd, perhaps not, Jimeno otherwise had no known connections whatever with the tobacco sector.) The spectacular conflagration at the office-warehouse complex of the Jimeno Botts broccoli plantation under investigation did in fact occur on the day in question. Jimeno himself was conducting a tour of avid broccoli eaters and otherwise healthy smokers at the broccoli field sitting next to the methane pipeline. He had a tent set up to host the modest dozens and scores of stockholders he\'d invited to first tour his fields of hundreds of acres and hectares of broccoli and take a look at his methane pipeline before sitting down to dine on a number of entrees featuring broccoli. This tent did not \"conform to code\" in the strict sense of the word, although in terms of mitigation, it could be said to have \"exceeded code\". It was installed to be totally and completely waterproof, and while there was no hint of rain in the local microclimate or in any radio, TV, or cable forecast in the week preceding, the fact that it was a waterproof tent is not specifically germane. While not completely air tight, however, and while in the strict sense gas permeable, when enclosed--unless proper ventilation has been set up ahead--it seems to have presented an actual hazard . . . particularly on a day when the wind wasn\'t blowing steadily and when the clouds bunched up next to the hills there . . . .

Hortensia Nosferatu was in the mood for a frothy strawberry milkshake, heavy on the hemoglobin. And she was ready: her bloodbank had installed its new ATM only in the past week. She\'d made a fresh withdrawal a day earlier, and her fridge was adequately stocked for now. Surely, a pint of whole blood and another pint of just hemoglobin would put her in a spiffy mood! After rinsing the half-pint of strawberries and plucking their green crowns, into the blender. Next the hemoglobin, then the whole blood (she had her notions about such things, it couldn\'t be helped). (Mortals might think such things are of no consequence, but the undead know better, so we have been informed.) Upon further consideration, though, Hortensia added another half-pint of strawberries for color. Because of a longstanding aversion to the numeral \"10\", she set the blender on \"9\" and let it rip. Oh, so beautiful! The churning red froth seemed to come to life before Hortensia\'s thirsty eyes. In the dim light of her kitchen, Hortensia spied the flecks of strawberry getting smaller and smaller. And at the very moment--voila! Her shoulders twitched as she poured the thick froth into a frozen mug. Hortensia had begun to nurse the shake before the open window when, who should fly in but Cousin Orloc. \"Touch that refrigerator, and I\'ll put your hand some place where you won\'t find it,\" Hortensia smiled. But Orloc looked distracted this evening. \"Not to worry, I\'m so full I could barely fly,\" he sighed. Hortensia kept her glaring eyes on him anyway, he\'d begun popping freshly-plucked ticks into his mouth. But then he abruptly stopped and sat close to the empty fireplace. \"I wouldn\'t mind one sip, though.\" \"Sorry, this has strawberries in it,\" Hortensia smiled again. \"What a waste of perfectly good blood!\" Orloc hissed. \"Go blend your own \'shake, then,\" Hortensia smiled through parted crimson lips. Orloc shrugged helplessly. \"Can hardly afford a bag of leeches right now,\" he confessed, but Hortensia was not sympathetic. \"I warned you about sinking all your funds into that crazy mosquito abatement scheme!\" she chided. But Cousin Orloc was not to be consoled. \"Who could have predicted that drought?\" he replied weeping. \"Prized swampland! Clouds of mosquitos breeding night and day ordinarily, but--a drought!\" he whined. Hortensia was finishing her strawberry shake, licking the viscous froth all around the rim of the mug. \"If you\'d get out more, you\'d be alert to these things,\" she admonished him. Orloc\'s head sank. \"Oh, quit moping!\" she hissed, pausing at the refrigerator after leaving the mug in the sink. She peeked over her shoulder, and sure enough, Orloc had lifted his head enough to glint at her . . . .

Lighter-than-air flight was back. The skies of the coast were thus alight with colorful balloons, dirigibles, and zeppelins tethered to their docking towers along the beach, the aircraft bobbing in the breeze up and down the coast for miles, the waters themselves bobbing with boats. The coast\'s skies presented enough of a genuine spectacle to leave even some adolescent mouths agape. Serrata, for one, marvelled at the sight; the boats and craft bobbing in the water made less of an impression, since she\'d arrived by boat. Serrata had never flown and emphatically would not mind not crossing the Atlantic in a 28-foot tub, fiberglass or no. She scanned the local skies for the lighter-than-air craft she would commandeer for Bordeaux. She was by most accounts the most imaginative and intrepid 14-year-old in her class. Plausible confirmation came after Serrata found the tether-release switch in the cockpit of one zeppelin. She deftly escorted her step-mother to the cabin door and into the waiting surf a hundred feet below. Because the pilot and crew had not boarded, the affable Dutch stewardess would have to navigate. (That the stewardess, for all her affability, spoke only Dutch proved hardly any impediment at all.) ((The management in no way implies that simple fluency in Dutch confers superior navigational skill.)) Serrata had had the happy foresight to bring along the relevant page torn from a Michelin road atlas. Passing Bermuda from the south entailed a minor course adjustment, but the stewardess remained affable. (That she remained affable, Dutch, a stewardess, AND a mostly reliable navigator, is pure coincidence.) By the time they glided by north of the Azores, Serrata had mastered roll and yaw but not pitch. Some Azoreans exclaimed about the zeppelin that bounced by now on its nose, now on its tail; at least it wasn\'t spinning out of control! Serrata and the stewardess waved to the Azoreans below. With no thought of compensating for the lack of pitch control, the stewardess plotted a new course: due north from the Azores, then a hard right into the Bay of Biscay. Bordeaux, here we come! . . .