Photo / Getty, Science Photo Library
Emperor Xian Qi gazed at the screen.
It did not herald good news.
Plutonian Ice - known colloquially in the inter-planetary financial markets as P - had slumped again in the latest auction.
"What's wrong with them?" Emperor Qi screamed at the screen. "We've got the finest ice in the solar system. All we do is P."
A hologramatic image - personalised to his tastes - of a young, pony-tailed woman suddenly filled the imaginary space around him, with accompanying voice-over: "Butcoin, now accepted on Uranus: Your Shopping Planet."
Qi laughed. He always found the Uranian accent funny, but currency-wise he was old school.
Just for old times sake the Emperor shorted the Saturnian Ringit. Those media saps were tipping interest rates to rise soon on Saturn but Qi's close friends in solar markets had assured him otherwise.
The prospect of a quick profit briefly took his mind off the P problem. He was cheered, too, by thoughts of falling interest rates on his home planetoid of Pluto.
"That's got to be good for Cthulhuland property prices," Qi thought.
For some reason - which the Emperor had never quite discerned - his Plutonian subjects had chosen to congregate around the Cthulhu Regio. The area was just a tiny dark spot on Pluto's otherwise shiny surface. Cthulhuland's only distinguishing feature, Qi thought, was that it was far removed from the 'Hillary Mountain' P fields - the source of, in fact, of the planetoid's wealth.
"Funny name, Hillary," he said aloud, although he was alone for once. "I wonder where it comes from?"
But Plutonians were going to have to get used to funny names, Qi had told influential twits when an unsourced news story revealed individuals with Urananian-sounding names were buying up large in the Cthulhuland housing market.
"It doesn't matter if they're called Smith, or Peters, or Dunne, or Little," he said at the time. "Their money is as good as ours."
In private afterwards Qi confided to his favourite courtiers that Uranian money was actually better value going forward.
For not the last, nor the first time, he despaired at the small-planet attitude of his Plutonian underlings.
"What am I doing here at the arse-end of the solar system?" Qi thought.
But there was nowhere else to go.
Except for the Coopers Belt, the realm beyond Pluto where misshapen, iron-ore rich rocks flew about in chaotic orbits. Only Diggers lived there, exiles sent there from the ancient - legendary, some say - land of Australia, where they eked out a living mining the arid rocks.
A message from his trade emissary flashed on the Emperor's screen. More bad news: the Trans-Planetary Trade Agreement (TPTA) talks had fallen over again.
Qi glanced at his watch: there were 147 hours until the end of the day.
He reached for a glass of P.
OPINION: Renting is an option but it has lots of drawbacks.