tales for the new aeon

2
TALES FOR THE NEW AEON
by Thomas Voxfire
Copyright © 2004 ev.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTEMPORARY MYTHOLOGY
Page
Mother Nature Strikes Back
3
Forum of the Earth
32
The God Makers
40
Demon Therapy
67
SCIENCE FICTION
Paradox
84
Star Cops
129
Saga of the Stargun
145
Powered by Coitus
182
INSPIRATIONAL
Domingo’s Dream
198
HUMOR
The Great Thing of Slime
208
HORROR
A Relic for the Reich
242
Rend
257
No Longer Let the Gods be Mocked
262
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MOTHER NATURE STRIKES BACK
by Thomas Voxfire ©1996
Before the beginning of Years, the worship of Man was simple:
The All-Father was the Sun, the Giver of Light, Heat and Life.
The Mother of All was the earth, who brought forth Life from Her Depths of Ocean and Vastnesses of
Land.
The Air, Nourisher of all that breathes, was the medium in which the Light of the Father conjoined
with the Fertility of the Mother.
Reverence was duly paid to that which bore and nurtured the Race of Man. However, as Man learned
the Use of Years, and many other diverse Things, he forgot the worship of his true Father and Mother
and he came to worship himself, in his triumph and tragedy. He came to fear Death, the Doorway to
Beyond. And finally, having forgotten All but the Trappings of his Heritage, Man came to the worship
of the Acquisition of Things. And he did make a great Scourge of his Mother, the Earth, in his great
Greed for Material Possession.
And it came to pass that once again did Father and Mother unite, this time to produce for their errant
Child a much-needed Lesson.
MOTHER NATURE STRIKES BACK
I remember the day quite clearly, the day all the craziness started. Trudi and I were working on a
Western Hemisphere Vegetation Survey using LandSat imagery. The USDA just has to know what's
growing where so that we can be sure that we grow more than anybody else. Even if we do pay our
farmers a lot of money not to grow anything. We still have to be on top, no matter what.
Anyway, we were reviewing the satellite photos of the Brazilian jungle taken at 5 minute
intervals. One can never be too careful, perhaps the Jivaro Indians will get the jump on us in corn
production. Trudi was scanning the images, reading off the relevant data and I was loading it into the
USDA correlator. We'd been at it for three hours straight and we were both bored spitless.
"Specimen 141 shows natural vegetation and large burned areas," she droned, "no sign of
developed farming."
“Specimen 142 shows natural vegetation, no sign of developed farming.”
“Specimen 143 shows mostly natural vegetation, possibly one percent of image is crop
production.”
“Specimen 144 shows a large ring of concentric circles, no sign of developed farming.”
“Specimen 145 shows natural vegetation, no sign…”
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“Hey, hang on a minute,” I blurted into her nasal drone, “Specimen 144 shows what?” I knew she
had been out partying late last night and I figured she had seen a visible piece of her hangover. But we
had to keep the record straight. If our boss, the duly-appointed Under-Secretary of American Crop
Supremacy, Sam Fenwick, should read a report that we saw large concentric circles in the middle of the
Brazilian jungle, we would surely be duly-unappointed from our present positions.
Trudi hit the ESCAPE button and said "Huh?", sitting up slowly and painfully from her semicomatose daze.
"Trudi, girl, take three big slugs of coffee and back up to 144."
She did so, and then, looking somewhat miffed, turned to me and said, "Look, Johnny Oh-SoSmart, I know how to read a monitor screen, I've been doing this job for fourteen months."
She swished her pretty little head back to the screen and said, petulantly, "See, just like I said,
large ring of concentric circles, no sign--." She stopped suddenly as the realization of what she was
looking at lanced into her Budweiser-befuddled brain.
I leaned over to have a look and this funny cold lump began forming in the center of my stomach.
Slightly off-center of the LandSat image, right in the middle of the wildest jungle in the world, was a
huge green bulls-eye.
We both sat there stunned, each of us trying to cope with something that was clearly impossible.
Trudi spoke first, "We could take it out of sequence and destroy it. Renumber what's left. I won't tell if
you won't."
"No go. NASA has it, probably in triplicate. They just love to save everything. Somebody would
get wise."
"Well, what then? If we report it, there's sure to be a stink. Fenwick doesn't like stinks. He'll make
our heads into bowling balls."
Just then, the door opened. Oh God, let it be anybody but Big Sam. Anybody turned out to be
Bobby Tsunami, a grain-market analyst from down the hall. "Doughnuts, anyone?" he asked, sauntering
into the room, carrying a box of his favorite sugar-coated greaseballs. Please, oh, please, Bobby, don't
look at the screen. Bobby glanced at the screen and asked, "Playing darts this morning, are we? Where's
mine? I was Kyushu Regional Dart Champion, two years running."
The silence hung in the air like a fart. Trudi's hangover overcame her and her head sank slowly to
her chest. The medicine ball of fate fell solidly in to my lap. Kerplunk.” So, Okay, John, so you've got a
green bulls-eye on your screen. Is that some big deal?"
I let my breath out very slowly, searching for the right words, finally I stammered, "Bobby, s-ssit down. Uh, do you remember a couple of years ago when those Shuttle pilots spliced in a couple of
seconds of Star Wars into their transmission of a routine astro-scan?"
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“Who could forget? Everybody that could watch television thought it was an invasion from outer
space, there was a huge panic. Lasted two days as I remember, until they landed and said it was only a
April Fool."
"Right, and their little April Fool got them five years in Leavenworth. They're still there."
Leavenworth," Trudi moaned, "oh God, Leavenworth."
“Bobby, that bulls-eye is eighty miles across right in the middle of Brazil."
“Maybe its a big irrigation circle, like in Nevada and Utah It’s in the Amazon Rain Forest, one of
the densest jungles in the world."
Suddenly, his scientific curiosity aflame, Bobby jumped up and herded the stupefied Trudi out of
her seat. He sat down and I moved over behind him, watching as he gave instructions to the computer:
...ENHANCE...SPECTROSCOPIC ANALYSIS...ENHANCE...SPEED VECTOR ANALYSIS...SHIFT
TO IMAGE 145...REPEAT ANALYSIS...REPORT... He then accessed a read-out window and after
several minutes of electronic computation, the machine spat the data into the window. The green circles
were almost pure chlorophyll with a few ingredients the spectro- comp didn't recognize and they were
radiating outward from the center at slightly under Mach 3.
“Its like when you drop a rock into a puddle. Only there's no rock and no puddle, just chlorophyll
and jungle. Guys, I think we'd better get Fenwick. You'll get into more trouble sitting on this than if you
'fess up. You didn't put the green circles there, you only looked at a satellite picture of it. Relax, its not
your fault."
“Sam Fenwick," Trudi moaned, "oh God, Sam Fenwick."
So we called The Boss and we showed him the data. He surveyed our presentation impassively,
took a long deep breath, and, like the warm, caring human being that he was, said: "You know you three
can get Five to Life in Leavenworth for falsifying government information."
Trudi slid off her chair and became a large somnolent puddle on the floor.
I glanced helplessly at Bobby; pleading, imploring: Please make him understand, jail sucks,
prison sucks more.
“Try it yourself, Mr. Fenwick," Bobby said, "see what you come up with."
Big Sam sat down at the console and began to type. He was not nearly the whiz that Bobby was,
but in a few minutes he had arrived at basically the same thing. There had been a gigantic symmetrical
chlorophyll explosion in the Brazilian jungle less than two days ago. By now the outer ring, if it
continued to expand at its original rate, had had enough time to go several times around the world.
I could almost hear the gears turning in Fenwick's head as he mentally searched The Manual for
Explosions, Chlorophyll and/or Bulls-Eyes, Brazilian and/or Civil Servants, Termination for Cause.
Finally, he said, "I think it is in the best interests of the security of the United States, of which we are all
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loyal employees, to sit on this. Probably just some terrorist tomfoolery and we won't be a party to it, will
we, group?"
Bobby and I nodded in agreement and Trudi, from her supine position on the floor, only
murmured, "No more beer on weeknights, I promise, no more!"
Sam Fenwick, his bureaucratic conscience assuaged, patted Bobby and I on the back and marched
out the door. As far as he was concerned, the incident was signed, sealed and departed.
But not for me. It haunted me all day long and, as I drove home, I tried to figure out just what had
happened. Ever since I was a small boy I had been fascinated by mythology and I kept having this vision
of Zeus or Apollo dropping a giant cosmic Clorets into the mouth of the Earth. I knew it was crazy, but it
just wouldn't go away. Man had given the Earth bad breath and the gods were straightening things out.
After all, wasn't the Amazon basin where most of the oxygen came from? I got to my apartment, parked
the car and went inside. I flopped down in my favorite chair and fell asleep mulling things over.
The sound of the morning paper hitting the front door jerked me out of my sleepy reverie. Its the
paper, I thought, and if I don't get moving that damned dog is going to use it for dental floss. I grabbed the
can of Mace that I kept especially for such occasions and flew out the door, beating my neighbor's
Doberman, Rattler, to the paper by the merest of nanoseconds. Rattler growled and made ready to lunge
but I was quicker. In seconds, his ugly canine visage was coated with chemical nastiness and he was off
down the street, howling. I went back inside, sat down in my chair and opened the paper. I was looking
for something unusual, something off-beat; something that had to do with chlorophyll-bearing organisms.
There it was, third page, bottom right-hand corner, byline: Detroit, "Ford Assembly Line
Stalled by Weeds." The story went on to say that some strange species of fast-growing, bright-green
crabgrass had stalled production at the main Ford plant. The stuff was growing right out of the concrete
floor, jamming it all up. If they cut it or burned it, it grew back faster than before and if they used
herbicide on it, it grew back so fast that they could actually see it grow. And it went on to say...
Suddenly, the phone rang. It was Trudi: Hi, Johnny, I've got to talk to you, I can't get this Brazil
business out of my head."
“Know what you mean, me either. Something really weird happened and I don't think old
Fenwick putting the lid on it is going to keep it quiet."
"Johnny, have you seen the paper?"
You mean about Detroit, yeah, kind of strange, isn't it?"
“Detroit, no, no, Denver, at the Mint. There's algae growing on the money, bright green algae. It's
making the money all stick together and the ink is running, too."
“Funny that the government would let that out."
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“Some tourist spotted it, and the whole tour group took photos and sold them to the Denver Post.
What about Detroit?"
“Same kind of thing. There's super-crabgrass growing right into Ford's production machinery and
they don't seem to be able to stop it."
“Johnny, I'm going down to the office to run more analysis on image 144, do you wanna come?"
“Okay, see you in 45 minutes or so."
I raced through my bathroom business, threw on some clothes, chugged a pint of orange juice and
beat feet. By the time I made it to the office, Trudi was already there, gazing intently at her monitor
screen.
“See here, Ms. Bentley," I said, using my best Sam Fenwick voice, "that's government property
you're using in an off-duty time frame."
She looked up, startled, then puzzled, then pissed, "Johnny, so help me God, one of these days
I'm going to feed you this printer."
“Sorry, couldn't help it, what've you got?"
“Nothing really, nothing new. Except, except for...Johnny, do you believe in Mother Nature?"
“All legends have to start somewhere, why?"
“Tell me what you see when I bring the centermost circle up to full magnification."
I peered over her shoulder at the monitor screen. The center circle was expanded until it filled the
entire screen. There was the faint outline of a woman's face in the circle, a face full of pleasure. As a
matter of fact, it looked like she was having an orgasm.
"So what do you see, doesn't that look like she's getting off on something?"
“Like what? Trudi dear, what does a woman with a...," I paused and leaned over with a ruler to
measure the image and did a little calculating," Uh, 45 mile long face get off on."
“I don't know, this whole thing makes my head ring. Why don't we just go drink a whole lot of
something vaguely alcoholic?"
So off we went to the local tavern. "Line 'em up, Squid," Trudi said to the barkeep. One look at
his face, with its' little wavy tendrils of beard and you had no doubt what had earned him his nickname.
He looked like something you'd see out of Captain Nemo's big round window. Anyway, we started
putting down the lights; light beer and light bourbon, alternatively. Right quick we were about four sheets
to the wind . The TV was blaring some puerile athletic contest: The Dallas Grommets vs. The Buffalo
Blackboards or some such. Abruptly, a reporter superseded the sportscaster and said:
“This is Dwight David Dipstick, we interrupt this special broadcast of the National Seersucking
Championships to bring you an important news bulletin. This afternoon an American Airlines Jumbo 747
was tripped on its take-off attempt from Oswego Airport by a huge vine that was growing across the
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runway. The plane lost its landing gear and skidded to a stop on its belly. No one was seriously hurt
except one woman who tried to cut off a piece of the vine for a souvenir. The vine cold-cocked her with a
strong right cross and she suffered a broken jaw. This incident marks the fifth in the last two days where
the dominant, ruling species of this planet has been, for want of a better word, hassled by delinquent plant
life. It is this reporter's solemn opinion that these photo-synthesizing, leaf-bearing low-lifes must be dealt
with summarily.
Break out the lawnmowers, the weed-whackers, the Agent Orange, whatever you have handy and
blast the card-carrying commie dogs, uh…weeds.” His eyes started to roll and flecks of froth appeared at
the corners of his mouth. He, himself, was summarily dealt with by an ad for Johann’s Friendly Floral
Delivery.
The magic word chlorophyll brought us to our senses. We jibbed the mainsail and square-rigged
the poop and now we were only two sheets to the wind. However, we were still much too drunk to drive.
We hailed a cab and jumped in. About a minute down the road to her place, Trudi wriggled her hot little
form over next to mine, nibbled at my earlobe and subtly suggested that we go over to her place and do
something naughty. I said of course, so on we went.
Later, we smoked and talked. Or maybe we talked and smoked, I forget, we were both still quite
plastered.
"Johnny, what do you think is going on, I mean, how's this all going to turn out?"
“Dunno."
"You're a big help, I don't think.”
“Nice, Trudi, real nice, after what I just did for you."
"Well, I did it for you , too. C'mon, tell me what you think."
“You took biology in school, didn't you?
"No, of course not, I work for the Department of Agriculture, remember? I only took auto shop
and study hall. Chump, biology was my major. And what was your major, the Art and Science of Dumb
Questions?"
“Okay, okay, touche'. Listen, do you remember how they teach you that life started when
sunshine impregnated some very exotic organic chemicals in the sea water. Well, that sort of makes the
earth our mother and the sun our father. And the way I figure it, the way we've been treating our mother
has them both pissed off at us for being such inconsiderate nitwits."
"Oh, Johnny, you sound like a priest or something. Are you sure you didn't peek at the beginning
of this story?"
"Gimme a break, Trudi. Honestly, doesn't it make any sense to you at all?"
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“Sure, listen, why don't you just go and tell President Clinton and then see how long it is before
the FBI has you in a paper-doll factory."
"Trudi, I hope a geranium grows into your skull so that you have something besides a vacuum
between your ears," I said, reaching for her. Or maybe she reached for me, I forget, we we're both still
pretty drunk.
Sometime the next morning, after we ran out of coffee and aspirin, we knew we had to go
outside. So we got dressed and headed outside down to the corner market. Everything seemed so vibrant
and real. The plants were alive. Well, that's stupid, everyone knows that plants are alive. I mean the plants
were ALIVE. And they were all over the place, in places where plants usually never go in big cities. Over
the streets, hanging between buildings. And so many different kinds- ones like I'd never seen before:
vines and ivy and huge ferns, gigantic flowers, My God, words just don't convey. We walked under this
treeish sort of thing and a large soft orange flower floated down and settled on Trudi's shoulder.
"No, no, I didn't mean it," I said, grabbing at the flower, "please don't grow into her skull." But
when I had the flower in my hand, my whole body seemed to shimmer and flow and I heard this soft little
voice say in my mind, "I'm for lovers."
"Oh, wow, Trudi," I said, handing her the flower, "just hold this in your hand."
She did and she got this dreamy, far-away look in her eyes and she cooed,
"Johnny, baby,
this is better than a vibrator." She put the flower into her hair and we walked arm-in-arm down to the
store. We were more than just lovers, better, we were buddies, pals, almost siblings.
The automatic door to the store was hanging open, so we walked inside without having to trip any
sensors. It was a rather odd feeling. We were barely inside and we heard a tremendous commotion in the
direction of the produce section. We ambled over to see this huge fat woman smashing and bashing and
crashing the fruits and vegetables with a closed-up umbrella while she screamed at the top of her voice,
"They're going to kill us all, these nasty bastard green things." So saying, she skewered a cucumber with
her bumbershoot and sent it winging off towards the Pampers and Tidy-Buns. "We're not safe as long as
there's a single plant left alive on this planet," she said, as she sent a pile of lemons scattering in all
directions.
"The plants make our oxygen," I heard myself say to the crusading hippo-woman, "without them
we would all die."
She stopped lacerating a smallish pile of cantaloupes and glared at me intently, her brow wrinkled
with mistrust and malice, "And just whose side are you on, my little mister, your own kind or these
killers," she spat out as she brandished her umbrella at the tomatoes and summer-squash.
“Well, I haven't heard that they've killed anybody and I think that some of them are really pretty,"
Trudi said to her, turning her head so that her new flower was directly in the fruit-molester's face.
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“Look, this witch has one of their flowers," the fat woman yelled at two wizened cronies as she
proceeded to lunge at Trudi. Trudi merely side-stepped the madwoman, picked up a watermelon and
splatted her assailant right upside the head with it. The woman sat slowly on the floor, leaning
haphazardly as she went against the turnip bin, as green skin, red melon meat and the inescapable black
seeds cascaded slow-motion down her head and all over her frock. God, what a mess!
I think that just about then it occurred to us, simultaneously, that it would be wise to make an exit.
So we grabbed some coffee and aspirin and milk and bread, tossed some money on the counter and hotfooted it out the front door. After several sharp evasive turns and up a couple of flights of stairs, we were
behind Trudi's door, breathing hard and waiting for the mob. No one had followed us, we were safe and
sound.
Pretty soon, we were back in bed. Fancy that. We decided that the thing to do was make a recon
the next day and see what was transpiring in our local area. Unobtrusively, of course. No more direct
opposition to crusading zealots! Had I but known...
I awoke the next morning, the sun streaming through the open window, Trudi silhouetted in the
sunlight. I had worked next to her for over a year and I'd never realized how beautiful she was. She
caught me looking at her and she motioned me over to the window, saying, "Johnny, come look, there's
almost more green than gray." I got out of bed and walked over to where she was, slid both arms around
her and looked over her shoulder out the window. Sure enough, the plants were running neck and neck
with the concrete. "John," she said, with unexpected formality, “aren't you scared by all this?"
I subjected my higher intellect, my emotional sub-strata and my reptilian gut-mind to the most
rigorous analytic scrutiny and replied cogently, "Nah."
“Me either, the whole thing makes me feel loose."
Enough of existential rhetoric. We did bathroom, breakfast and clothes and headed out into the
day, in the opposite direction from the market, of course. We went up that way about two blocks, I think,
it was getting hard to tell where the streets were anymore, what with all the vegetation. More and more
jungle, less and less city as time progressed. As far as Trudi and I were concerned, it was a definite
improvement; but not for everybody...
We turned another corner and we still hadn't seen any people when we started hearing this voice.
At first it was just a faint murmur, but as we continued up the block, the murmur turned into a hubbub,
the hubbub turned into a racket, the racket turned into a deafening roar as hundreds of voices joined in an
horrendous chant:
“Oh Jesus, won't you please us,
Take all the naughty plants away,
Oh, Jesus, won't you please us,
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Give us back our see-ment today."
This heavenly cacophony, this pious pandemonium continued for several minutes. We stopped
walking and just listened. The audio was bad enough, Lord knows what the video would be like.
Abruptly, from the depths of the chant came a new voice - a blazing baritone brandishing a bullhorn
spoke to the multitude to quell their zealous madrigal with a further exhortation:
"Brothers and Sisters, the vengeful judgment of the Almighty is upon us. He hath forsaken us."
"Yea, verily, the Lord God has left us to Satan, to the flowers from Hell," came the reply of the
milling throng as they alternated unctuousities with the speaker.
"He hath left us to the Horned One, because of our wickedness, our sinfulness, our decadence and
mostly because of X-rated videos."
"Yea, we are damned and doomed to the Garden of Lucifer. May the Lord have pity on his poor
sheep, who have strayed from his way."
We listened to this drivel for several minutes, when Trudi tugged on my arm and asked, "C'mon,
Johnny, just one little peek?"
"Okay, but you'd better remove that flower, these guys sound like they mean business."
" Yea, business and only business, how long do you think before the bigwig on the bullhorn hits
'em with Ye Olde Collection Plate. If you want to stop Satan, first you gotta have the bucks."
So saying, we ambled around the corner to see for ourselves and it was about what you'd expect.
Some three hundred people stood in a vague semi-circle around a flatbed pick-up truck where stood,
resplendent in his blow-dried pompadour and used-car salesman suit, a man of the Lord, a Bible-belt
Bimbo at his finest, the unrivaled king of "Pie in the Sky in the sweet Bye and Bye," Mr. Billy Bob
Bumpkin.
And, as we put his flock to closer scrutiny, we saw that each and every one of them carried some
sort of gardening tool, mostly hoes and shovels, but there were a few weed-eaters and one guy was sitting
on one of those ride-on mowers like you see on golf courses. And there were no plants at all, not even the
normal ones, within a hundred feet of Billy Bob.
"And now, brethren, we must take stock of ourselves, for within this small circle we have stopped
the spread of Hell's Greenery, but if we wish to extend our area of righteousness we need the Lord's help.
And nothing helps the Lord quite so much as money. Your money. Please give what you can to my
assistants as they pass among you. And if you hold anything back from this just and noble cause, God will
know because Billy Bob will snitch." said the Reverend.
As Billy Bob's acolytes began to filter through the crowd on their heaven-sent mission to restore
the Lord's cash register and Billy Bob's checkbook, I decided that it would be well for us to seek other
surroundings. Just as I was whispering this thought into Trudi's pert little ear, Billy Bob spotted us and he
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spake into the bullhorn: "Come, my children, get ye from the Devil's Jungle and step onto the clean,
sterile concrete of Jesus. He that remains in the wilderness shall be unclean throughout all eternity."
"If he has any children, ten to one they're reptiles," Trudi whispered to me as we sauntered
towards him and then, as the throng of devotees became too thick to go any further, we stopped and Trudi
started calling out, " Oh, Billy Bob, Reverend Billy Bob", and kept it up until the milling crowd was
quiet. The second that she had total silence, Trudi yelled out at the top of her voice, "Billy Bob Bumpkin,
if Jesus Christ was here today, he'd turn you into a lizard and send you scurrying under the most
convenient rock. You're nothing but a conniving, deceitful..."
She got no further as a huge, grimy hand, I should say, paw, was clamped over her mouth. The
owner of said paw, a huge grimy lout, wrestled her to the ground.
"Shut up, bitch." it bellowed into her ear, "the boss don't like trouble-makers." I jumped on the
big bruiser's back and got the same treatment as Trudi from another of Billy Bob's Chosen Few.
"You see, brethren," Billy Bob said, seizing the moment, "Satan has sent his agents amongst us,
to test our commitment to Jesus. Will we fail Him, brethren, will we?"
"No, Reverend Billy Bob, no, we will not fail Him," answered the crowd.
"Take these two heathen devils away and feed them the fruit from the Garden of Lucifer.
Meanwhile we will decide what justice the Savior has for them," commanded the Reverend.
We were half-pushed, half-drug to an apartment building immediately behind the pulpit-pickup. It
seemed to be as free of plants as Billy Bob's concrete shrine or parking lot, if you prefer . We were hauled
up two flights of stairs and tossed roughly into apartment 39A.
"You try to get out and I'll bash your faces in. That goes for you, too, pop," the lout carrying
Trudi told us, giving us his most charming Tyrannosaurus Rex smile and slamming the door. "I'll be
waiting," he bellowed through the door.
"Trudi, for God's sake," I asked her, testing my various bones for fractures," do you always have
to be such a motor mouth. They may try to burn us at the stake or something."
"Johnny, you are such a killjoy, why don't you look on the bright side. At least we're still alive."
"Yes, for the moment," came an unexpected voice from the corner of the room, "but I don't think
the good Reverend plans to maintain that state of affairs for very long."
We both turned quickly toward the source of the voice: this must be the "pop" to whom our
captor spoke. The voice belonged to an old man in a rumpled gray suit. "Who are you," I asked, "what do
you think is going to happen ?"
"My name is Dr. Hinkley Brinkley and I am a botanist from Upstate University. I was doing
research at your marvelous city rose gardens when this incredible explosion of plant life took place. It's
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quite staggering and also quite beautiful. As to our immediate future, I think the good Reverend plans to
use us in some sort of ritual human sacrifice."
"See, Trudi, I told you, they're going to burn us at the stake.”
“You're both nuts, Christians don't do human sacrifice."
"My dear young lady," said the old man, "what do you think the Roman Catholics were doing in
the Inquisition and the Protestants in their various witch trials. Any time one takes human life for any
purpose, one is practicing human sacrifice to that purpose."
"I guess so, anyway, what did you do to tick the Reverend Reptile off?"
"I came upon him early last evening haranguing his parishioners or whatever they are with tales
of Satanic revenge and God's judgment and similar tripe and I interjected that it was merely some as yet
unexplained phenomenon which needed scientific scrutiny to be understood. I also added that Satan was
merely an excuse which some people used to blame their guilty consciences on. The Devil made me do it
and all that. Apparently the good Reverend didn't care for my analysis for several brutish specimens of
Homo sapiens accosted me and placed me here. I take it that you two did something of the same genre."
"Yup," I said, "little Miss Ratchet-Jaw just couldn't leave it alone . Had to tell old Billy Bob his
business."
Trudi was not even phased by my dubious accolade as she asked, "You know I'm really hungry,
do they feed us or what?"
Dr. Brinkley motioned toward the table and said," There's a large bowl of fruit there, on the table,
fruit from the new plants, for us to eat. It's quite delicious and sustaining and has the most curious effect
on the mind."
"Indeed?," I asked, "what sort of effect?
"It's both stimulating and soothing at the same time."
"Sounds good to me," said Trudi, jumping up and making a beeline for the table. She picked up a
lavender banana-looking thing, peeled it and had it gone in slightly under ten seconds. She tossed on at
me and I did likewise. It was delicious, like a banana, a peach and fig all rolled into one. And it wasn't too
long before I started to feel loose and happy and also just a little bit, dare I say it, randy.
Trudi had a dreamy faraway look in her eyes. Without so much as a by-your-leave, she walked
over to the old botanist and sat down in his lap, saying, "Dr. Brinkley, may I ask you a personal
question?"
The old fellow, obviously nonplused, answered, "I suppose so, you seem quite a headstrong
young lady, I doubt very much if I could stop you."
"Well, good, then, how about a little loving?"
14
He sat there with a confused half-smile on his face for awhile until he finally said, "Young lady,
your offer is quite tempting and were it not for the fact that my 74 years precludes me from the physical
act of manhood, I should be instant to respond to your kind proposal."
"Too bad," she said, "anyway, we'll be still be friends."
I stared at her amazedly, she had reservoirs of personality I had never guessed at. I think I was
starting to fall in love with her. If she was a guy, I'd say that she really had balls, but beings that she was a
girl, I'd say that she really had eggs.
Suddenly, I had one of those strange cross-currents of thought that happen to all of us from time
to time and I asked, "What's happening with the Russians with all of this, we won't have a Nuke Contest
or anything, will we?"
The old man thought for a minute and said, "Have you noticed that there aren't any electric lights
and we have apparently no power of any sort?"
Trudi walked over to the light switch and flicked it up and down several times. Nothing. Then she
walked over to the refrigerator, opened it and reached inside to feel the food, saying, "Its warm, he's
right, the reefer's not running."
"Just so," he said, "soon after, probably within two or three days after the commencement of this
floral explosion, there were reports of some incredibly strong form of Eleusine Indica growing into
factories, power stations and although the media didn't mention it, I think its a safe guess that it found it's
way into most of the weapons systems as well."
"Then why doesn't it overgrow old Billy Bob?" Trudi asked him.
He took a long slow deep breath and said, "I want you young people to understand that I have
been a scientist all of my adult life and the last thing I would ever want to sound like is a mystic." As he
mouthed the last word, his face twisted into the most unpleasant grimace. Mystics, apparently, were not
his cup of tea. "But, as difficult as it is for me to say this, these plants seem to be directed by some
praeterhuman intelligence that strikes me as benign rather than malignant. But to answer your question, I
think Mr. Bumpkin was able to clear away the plants because someone or something had no desire to stop
him. The factories, generating stations and missile silos are, quite likely, a horse of a different tint."
"Meaning?"
“I’m certain as I can be the their function was terminated."
"Who do you think---" My words were cut short by the sound of strong, determined footsteps
outside in the hall. The door flew open and there stood Billy Bob Bumpkin, Appointed of God .
"I have just talked to the Almighty," he informed us portentously," and he has told me that if I
don't raise a zillion-trillion dollars real soon he is going to have my hide. However, I was given another
means of redemption, namely, if I burn you three demons at the dawn's first light I will given expiation."
15
"Try this on for expiation," quipped Trudi as she flipped one of the lavender bananas at him. It
caught him right on the nose, then drooled down his cheeks and onto his suit.
Rage swept over his face and he cried, "Bitch, you shall be the first to feel the fires of the Lord's
wrath." With this, he slammed the door.
"I think you youngsters had better try to escape," said the old botanist, "burning at the stake is not
a pleasant experience at all, I'm sure."
"We don't go anywhere without you," Trudi said.
"That's right," I added. "If we go we all go together."
Trudi walked over to the stove and began rummaging through the pots and pans. After several
minutes she came up with a large black frying pan. She whacked the bottom of it with the heel of her
hand and said, "This oughtta do." Then she walked over and set the skillet down on a small table just
inside the hinge side of the door. Next, she called through the door:
“Hey, big fella, I'm sorry I hit your boss with the banana, can't we talk about it?"
"Go to hell, witch, tomorrow you die."
"Aw, gee, hulk honey, I'm sorry, please open the door. I want to make it up to you for being so
nasty."
Slowly, the door swung open and the doorway was thereby filled with an excess of large, grimy
lout. "Make it good, witch, or I'll bash your face in," he said.
"Gimme a chance, babe," Trudi said, her left hand snaking out towards the oaf's neck while her
right hand grasped the handle of the frying pan, ”Let me show you how sorry I am." She stood up on her
toes with what appeared to be a kiss on her lips. The lout, incurable romantic that he obviously was,
closed his eyes and bent over to receive the kiss. Instead, what he got was a knee-lift to the groin. The air
exploded out of him and he doubled over in pain. Trudi thereupon swung the skillet at his head for all she
was worth. As the sound of a dull gong echoed through the room, the worthy sank to the ground. And
stayed there.
"C'mon, let's go," she said to both of us, and went off down the hall, with the old man and I in hot
pursuit.
Down two flights of stairs, back along the service hall and out into the alley we went. No sign of
Billy Bob or any of his henchmen. It was by now quite dark.
"Where to, gents?" Trudi asked.
"It would seem that distance from these religious zealots would currently be our most important
asset," said Dr. Brinkley..
We proceeded away from the building in a tangential vector and within seconds we were back
into the jungle. As well as I could tell in the dark, the vegetation was surpassing the man made city by
16
leaps and bounds. The old botanist was quite a walker and we kept up a rapid pace. Stopping only to eat
some of the exotic new fruit several times, morning found us at the Interstate Freeway that bisected the
city. We had seen no other people since we left Billy Bob.
"So where are all the people?" Trudi asked, "think some of these plants might be Venus People
Traps or something?"
"I suppose its possible, but I think it's unlikely, in spite of their notoriety, carnivorous plants are
quite rare," said the Doc, "and I don't think they fit into the current scheme of things. This whole scenario
is more humorous than monstrous."
"Well," she said, "I don't know if I miss the people all that much anyway. And I surely don't miss
Sam Fenwick."
"And who might he be?"
“He be our boss, sheeit. Johnny, we never told Hinky about Specimen 144."
So I explained to him about our work for the USDA and especially about the satellite photo
which seemed so directly connected to all the strange recent events.
The old man had a stunned expression. He looked like a drowning man who was struggling up for
air; only in his case it was like his battered mind was struggling up for sanity. It seemed as if his intellect
was more important than his life; as if some deep dark gestalt voice was beating his rational mind into
shards.
“Hey, this dude is really in need of some loosening up," Trudi purred as she slithered over and
attached herself to the old man, giving him a couple of knocks on the forehead and breathing into his ear
,"Hinky, baby, are you in there? C'mon out and tell me all about it."
Through what appeared to be a monumental act of concentration, he then took a long, slow deep
breath and said in a choked voice, "All my life I have studied plants and they've been only specimens and
boring Latin names, but they're alive and I'm alive and we all come from the same place. Does this sound
like insanity, I'm desperately confused."
“It sounds like you've expanded your mind," I said.
"That does seem possible, young man," he said as he began to get a grip on himself, "the primary
cause of my mental dilemma stems from years of mental inertia being knocked skew-wise by events and
concepts that I barely understand but that I do know, in the depths of my soul are of far greater
significance than the Botany Chair at Upstate U." He stopped for a few minutes, searching for the words
he needed, then continued, "I have come to a non-rational conclusion, call it intuitive if you want, that
these new fruits that I've been eating have opened up my mind to new and broader ways of thinking. I
perceive in some fashion that I cannot explain intellectually that this floral explosion is some sort of
punishment."
17
"Meaning what?" Trudi asked, disengaging herself from the old man.
“That our father, the Sun, and our mother, the Earth, united in some extraordinary way to teach
their errant child, namely homo sapiens, a lesson."
Trudi cut him off, pulling away completely and abruptly, and giving both of us a dagger-laden
stare, "You both peeked at the intro to this story, didn't you," she demanded, assuming extreme formality,
"Rules exist for a reason, and this applies to fiction as well as anything else, and you two sorry wimps
shouldn't be jive-assing with the rules."
I walked over to her and took her by the hands and, gazing wistfully into her eyes, I said, "O my
beloved, do I detect the Naked Face of the Law-Abiding Spinster Schoolmarm, I had no idea you were
such a stickler for--."
My supplicating sophistry was suddenly stopped short by the unmistakable sound of gunfire.
"Duck and cover," said Trudi, and we all three hit the deck, "I thought you said that the Super-crabgrass
ate all the weapons, Doc, so what's with the shots?"
"My dear child, I meant missiles and such, I don't believe even the Almighty Himself has the
wherewithal to do away with all the firearms in the USA."
"So what do we do now?"
"I suggest that we remain in concealment until dark and then make our way out of the city into
the country. I suspect that those people remaining in the city are either looters or lunatics and we would
do well to quit the premises, as it were."
"How can a single pronoun, it, be followed by a plural verb, were? It doesn't make sense," Trudi
said.
"Tell me, woman," I asked her, " are you the heroine of this tale or simply a frustrated English
teacher? He who chases two catches none."
So we waited until dark and then forsook the city and headed south to the Humungous National
Forest, which was only a few miles south of the city and whose westernmost edge was brushed by the
Interstate Highway.
After several hours of walking, I began to notice, even in the dark, that the urban jungle was
becoming considerably less and was giving way to fairly normal countryside.
"Its as I suspected," said Doc, "the main focus of this floral explosion was the city, for it appears
that the normal rural landscape is relatively untouched."
"How come?" Trudi asked.
"If I answer that question honestly I know full well that it will incite you to another of your
diatribes regarding the necessity of adherence to traditional forms, so I evade your question by ignoring
it," he said, sitting down in a large patch of clover, "why don't we get some rest?"
18
The next thing I knew it was daylight, not broad daylight, more like early dawn. One of my eyes
was glued shut with sleep and the other one was just barely open. My nose was deep in soft clover which
smelled suspiciously like Trudi and I felt this pressure under my belly; on and off, on and off. Both my
eyes snapped to full open. Trudi had spooned her backside into my frontside.
"Hi, Trude," I said, "what's up?"
"You, if I have anything to do with it. How's about a little roll in the hay?"
"This is clover, Trudi, not hay, some USDA expert you are,"
"My, aren't we technical, so's how about a little rollover in the clover."
Not being able to think of any good reason to the contrary, passion began to take it's toll on me.
My hands meandered down her hips when, suddenly, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I
glanced toward it and saw...I slammed my eyes shut...No, no, I didn't see anything of the sort. I was still
asleep and dreaming. Most assuredly I did not
see a little green man with a large red flower
growing out of the top of his head. I kept my eyes tightly shut and asked, "Trudi, would you think I was
nuts if I told you I saw a little green man with a flower growing out of his head?"
"What color flower?"
"What color? Are you serious, what color?"
"Yes, I'm serious, what color?"
"Ah, red, I guess, yes, it was red."
"Well, so far this morning, I've seen two with yellow flowers, one with a blue flower, but this is
the first with a red one. Johnny, look, he's waving at us."
I slapped my hand over my face and peeked slowly, ever so slowly, through my parting fingers.
Definitely a little green man, about four feet tall with a big red flower growing out of the top of his head,
was waving us over towards him.
Well, why not? Why not little green men, it was just the illogical extension of all this other crazy
plant goings-on. So I got up, pulling Trudi with me and headed over toward the flower-man.
As we walked, I soon realized that Doc wasn't with us. Most assuredly, he would want to see this
wholly new form of plant life, maybe he could name it after himself. Didn't all scientists want things
named after them, so they could achieve vicarious immortality through Eighth Grade science books.
I hustled over to where he was sleeping, reached down and shook him by the shoulder, saying,
"Doc, Doc, wake up, got something to show you that will really turn your crank."
The old man sat up groggily, slowly and said, "This had better be good, John, I was having a
dream that I had discovered a totally new form of plant life and I was going to name it after you and your
female counterpart.”
19
“Honest to God, Doc, this is much better, take a look,” I said, pointing over to where Trudi and
the plant-man were having a conversation.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, took out his glasses and peered in the direction I had indicated.
“Lord above, John, that is the largest Hibiscus I have ever seen and what an oddly shaped stem, I must
have a better look." he said. He scrambled to his feet and made haste over to the plant man, who by now
had turned to face us. When he got to within several feet of it, he stopped short. "How very odd," he
exclaimed, "this magnificent specimen of H. coccineus appears to have a man growing out from the
bottom of it. How thoroughly extraordinary." He pushed his face within inches of the open flower.
This prompted the small green creature to speech: "What's this honky think he be, a bee or some
shit?"
"Isn't he cute," said Trudi, "and he talks just like Eddie Murphy."
"Oh sure," I said, "here it comes, he learned our language from watching TV in some Beverly
Hills nursery."
"I heard that, golf-ball head, what makes you think it's your language; you got some kind of
copyright on it? Actually, I speak thirty-four different dialects of American English, plus all the major
languages of the world plus I am quite well versed in gibberish - Meeska, Mooska, Mouseketeer and
cetera. But enough, let us make haste to She, who awaits your presence."
"And just who is She?" asked Trudi, "Mrs. Jolly Green Giant?"
"You would do well not to mock that which is beyond your ken, female featherless biped,
spawned of earth and sun," said the plant man ominously.
At this, Doc and I traded winks, which Trudi saw and for which we both got flipped off.
"You honkies gonna shoot the shit all day or are we gonna get our booties down the boulevard,"
asked the plant man. So, without further ado, off we went.
The plant man with the flowering top took the lead, with Trudi, Doc and I close behind. Not too
far down the path, Trudi caught up to our guide, grabbed him by the shoulder and said "I'm sorry for
being such a smart ass, I've never really had anything to believe in before. Can I make it up to you?" As
she spoke, her hand slithered down his back until it rested on his right bun.
The plant man gave her a wry grin and answered, "So She was right, you are a bona fide Scarlet
Woman, but, alas and alack, I only cross-pollinate."
"Well, can we still be friends? What's your name, anyway?"
He stopped and turned to her, taking both her hands in his, saying: "She also said that your
flippancy was matched by your sincerity, of course we can be friends. Allow me to present you with a
small token of my esteem." He squinched up his face a huge spray of watery, goopy nectar came ripping
out of his flower, drenching Trudi from head to foot.
20
"The little sonofabitch juiced me," she said, turning to Doc and me, goo dripping off her every
quarter.
"It looks as though our dear little Trudi has met her match," said Doc.
Just then Flower-Head piped up: "My fellow flowers," he said, walking over to a large clump of
weeds and picking up the largest ghetto-blaster I had ever seen, "call me BoomBox." He turned on the
radio, set the volume just slightly under that of a thermonuclear explosion and set off bopping and
popping down the path.
We
traveled for quite a long time, joined by many other of the flower men and some very
attractive flower women. I sidled up to one hot-looking little number and asked her what she was doing
after the safari. For my trouble I got a large flower-blast of hot pepper in the face and was told, "Andale,
pendejo, andale."
I scurried back to the relative safety of Doc and Trudi and went and asked Doc, "What was that
all about, what'd I tangle with?"
"A specimen of Euphorbia heterophylla," said Doc, "the Mexican Fire-Plant, and I believe she
told you to move it quickly, fool."
Later that afternoon, Boom-Box stopped the procession at a small brook. He said, "We flowerfolk need water and I'm sure you humans could use to drink and bathe." Grinning at Trudi, he added, " All
covered with sticky stuff, are we?"
"You know, I've never eaten a flower," she countered, returning his grin, "but in your case I'd
make an exception, yum, Royal Barbecued Hibiscus, sounds delicious, doesn't it?"
He gave her a look of mock shock, sat down on the bank and put his feet in the water. We shed
our inhibitions and our clothes and plunged into the brook. It felt great. What didn't feel great were the
not-so-complimentary remarks the flower people made in regard to the relative demerits of human
anatomy, culture and species in general.
"You know," I said to Doc, "I'm beginning to think that we were better off with Billy Bob, at least
you knew where he was coming from."
"Patience, my boy, patience. I think they're just letting off steam, our species hasn't been exactly
kind to the plant kingdom for quite a few centuries. It's this She who will tell the tale for us, I'm quite
sure. Let's just wait and see."
"You're the botanist," I said and then, turning to this cute little petunia who was sitting on the
bank near me, I asked, "How is it that we've never seen you before, were you just born."
"Were you just born? Were you just born?" she began to chant until god-knows how many of
them were bellowing it through the forest. After some very long minutes, the chant subsided and the
21
petunia lady hit me with, "How is it that you never see Bigfoot or Loch Nessie, could it be that you're too
slow, too stupid and too wrapped up in yourselves?"
"Et tu, Brute," I said and sunk down into the water. Arguing with Trudi was bad enough, arguing
with the flower-people was like arguing with Trudi raised to an exponential power.
It was about then that Boom-Box jumped to his fee t and yelled, "Okay, Ciscos and Panchos, let's
went."
"Have heart, willya," Trudi complained, "we're beat."
He looked at her, nodded and then walked over to this ultra-strange looking little fellow and said,
"Say, Brother Moonflower, could I trouble you for three of your finest pick-me-ups?"
The funny-looking one bent over and three small white round pods fell off his flower into
BoomBox's hand as he said, "These are really some of my best."
Our little red-flowered friend then walked over to us, holding out his hand, saying, "Eat - give
you bright eyes, bushy tails and fast feet. Brother Moonflower cranks out some stupendous uppers."
Well, why worry about the FDA, the AMA and the DEA now. We all three popped them into our
mouths. They had a refreshing, minty taste.
"Notice the refreshing, minty taste?" asked the Moonflower. "My special Get-Goings are
endorsed by weary travelers everywhere."
"You've been warned about advertising, cretin," said BoomBox, lifting the small pharmacist-plant
up by a tendril, "it smacks of commercialism."
A heavy hush fell over all the flower-folk. All of them turned to glare at the hapless Moonflower.
Commercialism, evidently, was not on their List of Things We Like. Brother Moonflower looked like he
had just been issued a passport to the Big Compost Pile in the Sky. "Sorry, guys," he said, "just goofing
around."
"Okay," said BoomBox, "but no Instant Replays." And we were off.
I was wired. Trudi was wired. Doc said he hadn't felt so spry in 20 years. I caught up with the
little Moonflower and expressed deep appreciation for his Get-Goings.
"I don't know why I keep thinking that I have to sell something that just grows," he said, "I don't
know what money looks like and I don't know what I'd do with any if I got some."
"You'd give most of it to the IRS, a lot of it to some Savings and Loan for college and whatnot
and spend the rest of it on Arab gas, Japanese TVs and VCRs and your neighborhood doctor to treat your
ulcers."
"What are ulcers?"
"Holes that the IRS makes in your stomach to coerce you to give it more money than you make."
"Money isn't all it's cracked to be then, huh?"
22
"You have happened on one of the primordial truths of the universe," said Doc, catching up to us,
"do you know how much further we have to go?"
"With the first light of the Life-Giver we should be there."
"Where is there?"
"We will have come to She."
"Who is She?" asked Doc. The little flower-man just smiled. We traveled on into the night. Little
by little, it seemed, the flower people were warming up to us. At least I thought so until one elegant Rosewoman came up to me and offered to sell me a bootleg keg of Agent Orange. This got a tremendous laugh
from everybody within earshot.
I laughed, too, and said, "C'mon, guys, gimme a break. I worked for the USDA, not some
chemical outfit."
"And what, pray tell," asked the beautiful Agent Orange saleswoman, " does the USDA do?"
"Tells farmers how much they can grow."
"How much what they can grow?"
"Produce --ahh--plants."
"Aren't farmers the people with the giant machines that can kill thousands of our kind in mere
hours so that your kind can stuff what's left of our kind into their faces. Regardless of what your
vegetarians say, it doesn't feel very nice to be all slashed up so that some human can have a corn dog. Just
because we grow in the ground doesn't
mean that we don't have feelings."
"Okay, so I’m sorry, I'll go cannibal the rest of my life."
She walked over to a nearby tree, plucked something I couldn't quite make out, came back and
handed it to me. It was an orange, a little hard to see in the dark, but it was an orange. "Sometimes I do
get a little dramatic, I’m afraid, but it would be a lot nicer world if you humans weren't so pushy and
shovy all the time."
About then, Trudi came up to us and said, "Hi Johnny, who's your little friend? They only crosspollinate, remember?"
"Trudi Bentley, I do believe you're jealous."
"No," said Rose, "she's only a bit confused by so much happening in so short a time." Turning to
Trudi she said, "If you will put your face near my petals I'll explain something to you."
"The last time I did that I got coated with syrup."
"Trust me, BoomBox is a terrible joker, I'm not."
Trudi nodded and leaned into Rose's flower. Even in the moonlight, faint as it was, I could see a
fine mist come out of the rose into Trudi's face. Trudi stood very still, barely swaying back and forth,
23
glowing ever so slightly. She looked uncommonly angelic. She came to herself slowly and bent down
and kissed the Rose-woman on the lips, saying, "You're really beautiful, I feel like a fool."
"All life is beautiful, only keep yourself open to it."
Trudi hugged Rose and then came over and hugged me, saying, "Your friend is very nice, I was
stupid to be jealous. That scent s she gives off makes you feel love for everything; yourself and
everything else."
I looked at Rose and asked her, "Can I have a shot, too?"
She stood on her tiptoes so that her flower was only inches from my face. "Breathe deep," she
whispered, as her scent wafted into my face. I felt dizzy and then, suddenly, I felt like the sun, radiating
love in all directions. And everything it touched; the trees, the rocks, Trudi, Rose, everything echoed it
back to me. It was ecstatic and I was ecstatic. As I came back to my normal self, I couldn't stop myself
from kissing Rose on the mouth, just as Trudi had done. She didn't seem at all to mind. She stepped away
from me and melted into the crowd.
About then, Doc came up. "I've just had the most fascinating experience with a Calla-Lily
woman. Her perfume opened my mind and made me feel as a radiant star."
"We got the same thing from a Rose," I said, "There's a good deal more to these flower people
than meets the eye."
From somewhere in the crowd, a voice called out, "Behold, the Lifegiver comes." I looked up to
see the first faint fingers of dawn begin to take hold in the blue-black sky. As we progressed, dawn got
brighter and brighter until the full light of day found us at the edge of a great clearing, perhaps a half a
mile across. At the far end of the meadow was a great green castle. Well, actually, on looking closer, the
trees were grouped to look like a castle. No, actually, they were just trees. But, for a moment, there was a
great castle standing across the clearing from us."
"Trudi, did you see that, first there was a castle and then there wasn't."
“Johnny, have you been into the flower scent again?" I decided not to pursue it.
Around the edge of clearing stood many tall plants, as tall as the trees but not really trees at all,
more like huge vegetable plants. I could see gigantic tomatoes, grapes and other veggies. People were
scattered all over the clearing along with quite a number of the flower people. Most everybody seemed to
be having a bacchanalian good time.
As we watched, one of the tomato plants, obviously having decided that it was time for breakfast,
tipped one of it's branches, bearing a tomato probably six feet across, toward the ground. When the
tomato touched ground, there was a soft snap as the branch detached itself from it's fruit and then, with
stately grace, it swung back up into the heights.
24
Humans came and gathered at the tomato, cutting off pieces off it and strolling away for their
morning repast. BoomBox strode strongly up to us and said, "She awaits you, but wants you to have
nourishment first, for you will need strength for the ordeal that awaits you." His bearing was decidedly
ominous.
All of the fun of the previous night seemed to vanish, Moonflower's pod had worn off and I was
headed for the dumps. Trudi and Doc didn't look so hot either. We trudged sullenly over to the big
tomato. I don't think any of us was very hungry. We pulled some of the red flesh and chewed at it
disinterestedly. Bother the ordeal, we wanted to have fun; flower perfume and the like.
Suddenly, the leaping laughter and delicious languor of the beings in the clearing was shattered
by a loud, bullhorn-amplified voice: "All right, you sinners, you disciples of Lucifer, the hour of
judgment is at hand." Stepping out from behind the trunk of a tomato tree was no less a personage than
Billy Bob Bumpkin along with three or four of his henchmen, one of whom had a large bandage on his
head. Behind them, in the trees, were many more of his followers.
The henchman with the bandaged head grinned wickedly at Trudi and said, "I'm going to burn
you, witch." As he spoke he brandished a strange nozzle affair that was attached by a slender hose to
tanks strapped to his back. The other two henchmen, as well as Billy Bob himself, also had these devices
attached to them. The rest of his entourage had the usual hoes and shovels.
"What are those things?" Trudi asked.
"Dunno," I answered, feeling like I'd just eaten several pounds of molten lead. "They're flame
throwers," said Doc, "they shoot a stream of flame about forty feet.
A particularly nasty weapon, definitely worthy of Billy Bob."
"We liberated them from the National Guard Armory under the Lord's direction to stop the spread
of Satan's Jungle," said Billy Bob, "And now, prepare to meet your maker, and may He strike me dead if
this cause isn't just."
I heard a faint rustling in t he branches above and I looked up just in time to see one of the huge
tomatoes detach itself from it's stalk and plummet earthward. Only this time it was from forty feet up. By
the time it hit the ground and Billy Bob, who happened to be standing between it and the selfsame
ground, it must have been doing maybe, let's see: at so many feet per second per second, maybe 35 miles
an hour. Figure about a ton and a half of tomato traveling at 35 mph and you can plainly see that what
was left of Billy Bob was little more than goo. Same for his henchmen, who got the same treatment as
their fearless leader when more of the giant tomatoes fell to earth seconds after the first one.
"All right," Trudi hollered out, "that's Giant Tomatoes 4, Religious Zealots 0. Go for it."
As if this was a battle cry, BoomBox and a phalanx of flowermen, their flowers held before them
like so many butting rams, ran amok amongst Billy Bob's followers, spraying vapor in all directions, until
25
all of them fell to the ground. And stayed there. The flowermen thereupon drug them into the clearing
and bound them hand and foot.
"I guess the Lord must have heard him," I said, "for he surely got what was coming to him."
The next thing I knew, Rose and the Calla-Lily woman appeared and told us," She is ready to see
you now." They led us across the clearing to where I imagined I had seen the castle. I still felt rather than
saw that the trees did form some kind of medieval fortress.
As we passed the first trees, I began to feel dizzy and disoriented and there seemed to be a faint
shimmer in the air around us. Suddenly we were in pitch darkness. I could see nothing, nothing at all. But,
as my eyes became used to the darkness, I could make out faint stars above us. We had gone into the
forest in broad daylight and now we were under the canopy of the night sky. Somewhat confusing to say
the least.
I heard Doc's voice say, "I remember reading an old legend some years ago about the greatest of
all the ancient temples where you went inside in daylight and then were magically outside under the
nighttime sky. The ancient Egyptians worshipped the Mistress of the Evening Sky in this temple. She was
the Soul of Infinite Space, the greatest of all the ancient deities, of whom there were a considerable
number.”
"Your erudition is commendable," said a majestic female voice that swelled in my mind, "and it is
for that reason that I have called you here."
"Okay, okay, so you've got a super-duper planetarium," Trudi piped up, "How would you like to
tell us what's going on? Pretty please."
Some distance away from us I saw a glow in the darkness. It grew brighter very rapidly and I
could see a figure swathed in the light. The brightness of the light reached a peak and then dimmed to
reveal a tall, stately woman, who said, "Come to me, my children, and I will satisfy your curiosity."
As we approached, I could see that, even in the dim golden glow around her that she was very
beautiful. She was tall, well over six feet. She had long blonde hair which swept well past her shoulders.
She wore a harem girl's costume; all blue and green satin with sparkling gold trim and jewels, lots of
jewels sewn in the most interesting places. Her face had been made up in the style of ancient Egypt, her
exotic almond eyes were highly accented in purple eyeshadow and black eyeliner. Her lips were a
brilliant moist red. In her hair was a small gold tiara bearing a huge emerald. Between her breasts, which
were only partially concealed beneath her sparkly halter, hung a brilliant diamond which shone with the
light of the stars themselves. In her right hand was a caduceus which was much more intricate and ornate
than any I'd ever seen in a doctor's office. But what got to me the most was her presence or her aura,
whatever you might call it. I felt drawn to her in a way that I can only barely describe. I felt like I was
about to have an orgasm and I wanted to rush to her but something held me back.
26
"It does take some getting used to, John," she said, gazing directly into my eyes, "which is why I
don't appear to mortals very often. I'm glad to see that we forestalled the invasion. It is the height of irony
that the Nazarene himself was a kind, gentle, tolerant man who sought only to bring the light of heaven
into the hearts of his fellows but so many of those who profess to be his disciples are the most selfseeking violent bigots imaginable."
Trudi poked me in the ribs with her elbow and whispered to me in a whisper much too loud to
keep a secret from anybody there, "Johnny, that's the lady in Specimen 144." Directing her voice more
loudly at our Hostess, she said, "Would it be too much to ask what exactly you were up to in the Brazilian
jungle, it looked like you were getting it on with somebody. And if you don't mind me being superpersonal, just who the he...heck
are you?"
The Goddess, what else can I call Her, laughed gently, "You are forthright, my daughter, and who
am I not to tell. The All-Father and I conjoined in a magical tryst for a very specific reason, which
certainly must have become obvious to you in the last several days. Your species was coming
dangerously close to seriously impairing the health and balance of my upper crustal zone."
"Beg pardon?"
"You were about to terminate most, if not all, the life on the surface of your planet. We felt it was
time to bring your folly to a close."
"Which folly is that?" asked Doc.
"You have forgotten who you are and where you come from. Only a very few of your vast
billions of humans have any recollection of your common divine origin. For the last several thousand
years, the leaders of your so-called civilized cultures have placed wealth and temporal power above all
else. A large number of you seemed determined to exterminate all life on this planet because of your
largely prideful desire to have one sort of economic system dominate another. You have used your toolmaking skill, which is quite formidable, to develop in microcosm the power of the All-Father, the Sun, in
a totally destructive way. This is what I refer to as folly. As to who I am, I have been called Mother Earth,
Nature, Isis, Gaia, Ceres and many, many more. The name I prefer most is Babalon. I am the incarnate
immortal spirit of the planet upon which you stand."
Doc, Trudi and I looked at each other and Doc spoke first, "I don't think any of us are particularly
fond of nuclear weapons." Trudi and I nodded agreement.
"What did any of you do to stop them from being developed and manufactured?" "Nothing,"
Trudi said, "how could we? The government built them to protect us from the Communists. How could
we stop the government?"
"I honestly don't know, my daughter, the irrational and irresponsible way most of you humans
conduct your lives is beyond my comprehension. And the way the more fortunate cultures treat the less
27
fortunate is reprehensible; not to mention the way you treat the lesser species, the fauna and flora. And the
manner in which you treat me, your true mother, is much, much worse; for not only would you have
destroyed my outer body
in your relentless drive for material acquisition, you would have destroyed yourselves as well. I was
sorely tempted to bring the razorgrass into play with you but the All-Father convinced me otherwise."
"What is razorgrass?" I heard myself asking.
"Believe me, you do not want to know."
"You still haven't told us why you brought us here," Trudi said, "it can't be just to chew us out for
everything that the human race has done wrong. I'll cop to my part, but not everybody else's.”
The Goddess smiled at Trudi and said, "Your frankness is your greatest asset, Gertrude, see to it
that you use it wisely. The truth of the matter is that I need your assistance. I have a job for you."
"What sort of job, what's the pay?"
"You, and certain others that I have selected, are to be my emissaries to the remainder of your
species, the ones who survived the greening of the world. We do not usually resort to such drastic
measures as those of the last few days, but I 'm afraid you gave us no choice. You had severely hampered
the forces of evolution on yourselves and the human race was going backward and becoming quite
degenerate. The herd has been destroyed in mass. What is left will be guided by us through ones such as
yourselves to come to live in accord with Nature and with each other. Your remuneration will be the
ecstasy known by those very few mortals who live their lives in accordance with the Divine Will."
"Us?" asked Doc, "then there are more of your kind?"
"All legends do have a basis in fact, Doctor, and the tales from you various mythologies are no
exception. There was a time when mortal and immortal mingled freely and joyously, until the coming of
the Dark One."
"Dark One, who is he?"
"His time is past, he is no more, we will speak of him no further."
Just as the goddess finished speaking, a small ray of what I can only call sunlight entered the
darkness and touched her gently on the forehead. It vanished and she appeared lost in thought for several
moments. Finally, she spoke, "The All-Father reminds me that words are much less adequate than direct
experience." She clapped her hands three times and said in a loud direct voice, "Come, my daughters."
Suddenly three flower-women appeared at the edge of the Goddess's glow. They were all a deep
lavender color and they danced rather than walked toward us. They were extremely beautiful, almost as
much as the Goddess herself and their flowers were like no other I had seen before. Each one of them
walked to us and took us by the hands, and placed their flowers mere inches from our faces.
28
"You have had this experience before," said the Goddess, "but it was fleeting and transitory. The
perfume of my orchid-daughters conveys information as well as ecstasy. Breathe deeply."
I took a deep breath and another. Nothing happened until I realized that I was no longer standing
in the darkness. Now I was floating in space among the stars.
No, more than that, I was the stars and all the space between them. I was the universe. I was a beautiful
blue, star-speckled lady who was the entire universe. And I was time, infinite time, all time that was, is or
will be. I was eternity all at once.
Slowly I felt myself grow smaller and I started to descend toward a nearby star, which grew
larger and larger as I approached. I recognized it as our Sun, and as I descended further I veered slightly
away from the Sun toward a small body of blue and green. It was the Earth, but its face was completely
different than I was used to. Instead of the familiar continents, there was only one vast land mass into
whose heart I descended.
I swooned and came to standing on the ground at the base of a huge tree. A strange, disembodied
voice spoke in my mind: "Thou dost behold the Gnarled Oak of God, the Tree of Life, the pattern and
substance of all creation on this world. Climbest thou and learn."
The lowest branch was well above my reach but merely the thought of the branch made me begin
to rise toward it. I took hold of the branch and began to climb. As I did, I became aware of the natural
history of our earth, of the formation of the minerals, of their transcendence into what we call life through
aeons of changing and evolving. I saw that all matter, whether mineral, vegetable or animal was
composed of the spirit; that all things had a common divine origin. That all things had consciousness and
were aware of their divinity, except for one, that had forgotten it. Namely, the race of man.
The pageant of earth hurtled past me as I passed upward along the great tree. I realized that the
intellectual methods of the scientists who made their field of study in geology, botany or zoology would
find their researches greatly enhanced by this sort of vision. For not only did I see the pageant unfold
before me, I could feel information seep into my mind as a narrative which coincided with the vision.
As I reached the coming of the primates, I could feel my headlong rush begin to slow and, as I
slowed to a snail's pace I came to behold the Advent of man.
Having come from nature, as did all things soever, man worshipped nature as the reason and
substance of his life. He knew the Earth as his mother and the Sun as his father and he gave them the
proper place in his life. He saw the Sun die in the evening and be born again in the morning and he used
this formula of death and resurrection to fashion his gods and thus were the legends of Adonis, Jesus and
Bacchus come to be.
I saw the great religions of the old time and how the worship of the solar nature of all made man
to work in accord with the earth around him. And man did flourish and grow strong.
29
But then came a shadow, a great dark cloud, that passed over the procession. And a veil did hide
the true nature of the sun and the earth from the mind of man. And this was the coming of the Dark One,
the Destroyer, the Teacher of the lessons of Sorrow and Desolation. And from this formula did the
legends of Sebek, Set, Saturn and then Satan come to be. And the realm of man was swept from the great
civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome into the abyss of the Dark Ages.
And now did man come to fear death and a great many other of the wonders of nature that did
appear around him. What he had once worshipped now filled him with fear and loathing. Harmless folk
who practiced the old ways of communing with nature and it's myriad spirits were burned alive as
disciples of the Dark One. Those who came to power, either secular or religious, had lost all sight of their
own divine nature, not to mention that of anyone else or anything as inconsequential as plants and
animals. They came to know nothing beyond the senses. Worldly power and the acquisition of mundane
things became the order of the day, as did war. The law of the jungle was raised to an exponential power
as man did slay man in order to obtain his possessions or have power over him or both.
And of nature and the world around him, did man, with the coming of industrialization and
technology, make a very great scourge of the earth in his great greed for material possession and temporal
power. And so did money become god. And the planet earth and all beings who dwelt upon it did come to
suffer greatly in order that man should have a great ownership of things.
Now it became time for nature to redress the imbalance that her errant child had created. I saw the
spirit of the Sun and the Earth join in a mystical union to make a magical outpouring of plant life in order
to deliver the race of man from it's mad dash into extinction. And I saw that certain men and women,
learned in the ancient lore of the Worship of Nature and the Sun, went forth among the remnants of the
human race to teach the old ways. But, in the ways of eld, there was also a new way; for having passed
through the time of the Dark One, those with wit to remember the suffering of his formula knew how to
avoid it's return: never lose sight of the one great eternal truth, that all things share a common divine
origin, and that every man and every woman is a star.
I came back to myself slowly, still in the grip of the exotic orchid-lady. My whole body seemed
to be steeped in her perfume. When she saw that I was once again awake and aware, she released my
hands and melted into the darkness. I looked to see that Trudi was standing alone next to me but I found
no sign of Doc. "Doc, Doc," I called out, "where are you?"
"His body was old and worn out and would not have served the purpose for which I intended it
to," came the voice of the Goddess, "so I merely sent him on a journey through the afterdeath planes to
incarnate in a new, younger vehicle of the flesh. You will meet him again and, though you may not know
him by his form, his soul will make itself known to you. Fear not death, my children, for it is a great
liberator and in no wise a curse."
30
"What would you have of us, Babalon?" asked Trudi in a voice to which I was not accustomed. I
saw reverence in her eyes similar to that which I felt myself and I knew that we had both been changed by
our recent experiences.
"You are to go out among your kind to teach my way and the way of the sun. And I think that
your people will have been sufficiently chastened to learn from your wisdom without chafing at it."
"But what will we tell them?" I asked.
"The words will spring from the holy fire in your heart and the ancient wisdom in your mind.
Have no fear, you will know what to say."
"Will we be able to call you if we need to?"
"Most certainly, take these," she said, handing us each a small scroll made of a rough fibrous
paper, "these words will bring me into your hearts and minds. And now I must take my leave of you. May
Good Fortune smile upon all your endeavors." She then touched both of us upon the forehead, the breast
and the genitals with her caduceus. Every place she touched me, I felt a warm tingle. Then, with no
further word, she was gone.
Darkness assailed us for a short space of time and then, slowly, light began to filter through the
branches above us. The light gained in brightness until we could plainly see that we were back in the
forest. Rose and Calla-Lily approached us silently and took us by the hand. Speech was not necessary; the
love and joy between the four of us needed no verbal expression. We were at one with each other, the
forest, the sky, the sun: all things, in fact.
Not so for BoomBox, however. He scampered up to us, his radio perched on his shoulder, blaring
out some heavy metal monstrosity. Rose reached past his flower and switched it off, saying, "Time and a
place for everything, Boomie, and this is not it. Any words of wisdom for our newly ordained priest and
priestess?"
He pulled himself up to his full height, looked at us portentously and said," The Lord Most High
who speaks with the Mouth of Sony has spoken unto me these words of wisdom for humankind:
“I didn't put you here to suffer,
I didn't put you here to whine,
I put you here to love another,
And to get out and have a good time.”
“So saith The Rainmakers, and why not?” With these words, he took Rose and Lily by the hands
and said, “Time to boogie down the boulevard, catch you good people later.”
They skipped off into the forest and were gone before we had time to even say good-bye. Trudi
and I looked at each other and came together in a big long hug. The hug was just beginning to
31
metamorphose into lovemaking when I felt something poke me in the ribs. I reached down to find the
Goddess's scroll. I let Trudi go reluctantly and unrolled the scroll to read these words:
TO CALL FORTH THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH
Facing the Quarter of the Rising Sun, say these words:
I proclaim that the Light of the Sun has banished all dark Thoughts and Beings from my
Circle.
I invoke the Goddess of the Earth, Mother of All Things, Thee, thee I invoke.
O thou, Mother of Fertility, on whose breast lieth water, Whose cheek is caressed by air,
and in whose heart is the Sun's fire, Womb of all Life, Recurring Grace of Seasons, Answer
favorably the prayer of labor, and to Pastors and Husbandmen, be thou propitious.
And I do solemnly vow and swear that I believe in one Earth, The Mother of us all, And in
one Womb where all Men are begotten, and wherein they shall rest, In Her name, Babalon.
And to Our Holy Father, who art the Lord visible and sensible of whom this Earth is but a
frozen spark turning about Thee with annual and diurnal motion, Source of Light, Source of Life,
Let thy perpetual radiance hearten us to continual labor and enjoyment; So that as we are constant
Partakers of the Bounty we may in our particular Orbit give out light and life, sustenance and joy
to them that revolve about us without diminution of Substance or Effulgence for ever.
In the Light of Our Father, may the Divine Presence of the Soul of Our Mother, the Earth,
come unto us to guide us in Her Way
So Mote It Be!
Even as I read the words on the scroll, I felt once more the presence of the Goddess and I could
feel that Trudi did likewise. We had quite a job ahead of us, but, in the end, it would be well worth the
doing
THE END
{Author's Note: Large portions of the Invocation of the Earth were taken verbatim from the
Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae.}
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32
THE FORUM OF THE EARTH
By Thomas Voxfire © 1997
It having been some ten millennia since the thawing of the great ice sheets, the Agent of
the Realm of Spirit, the inscrutable Senor Vidamuerte, thought it incumbent upon himself to
summon the Forum.
And so the Call went forth to the corners of the manifest Earth, "Let the Forum gather to
make discourse on things pertinent to the status of the planet. Let the four elementals send their
emissaries. The Forum is hereby ordained."
And so was the summons conveyed to the far reaches of the abodes of the Elementals. In
the hands of Angels and clutched in the talons of the Nameless Ones of the Pit did the summons
go, for the servitors of Vidamuerte were myriad and greatly diverse. And of this Great Call did
the world of Men know nothing.
Being the Soul of Patience to whom Time itself was nothing more than a plaything, Senor
Vidamuerte entered into the Place of Discourse, made preparations for Feasting and Libation,
and waited.
He recalled the previous Forum, convened by him as the great reptiles passed dominion
to the warm-blooded creatures. And then the Forum before that, when so-called Life first
spawned in the primordial ocean. He remembered the first, the Great Forum, when the All-Father
Himself brought together the Four Elemental Forces to create heaven and earth, stars and planets
and galaxies. And so did the Agent of Spirit wait, and ,as he waited, brooded.
He brooded the advent of sentient life; the hairless bipeds with their great need to
dominate: each other, Nature, Life itself, even God. They were restless beyond all measure and
to what useful end?
His reverie ended abruptly at the approach of a solitary figure. It was LaTerra, Mistress
of the Earth. Naturally, she would be the first, he thought, for she was the foundation, and must
needs the foundation always be first.
She approached him in her massive, lumbering gait. Vidamuerte noted that she appeared
even larger than when he had last seen her. When she had at last placed her great bulk directly in
front of him, Vidamuerte spoke:
33
"You're looking well, my sister, but you appear to have put on a little weight. Spending a
good deal of time at the table, are you?"
"Can it, Vidamuerte," she answered, "the machinations of the menwarts are causing me
no end of vexation and to counter the anxiety they cause me, I have taken upon myself an eating
disorder. And beings that I can take a new form when I desire, it causes me no great discomfort.
Nor should it cause you any.”
“And it shall not, Mistress LaTerra, for we are here to feast and make merry as we
discuss things pertinent to our beloved earth."
She brightened visibly at the word feast and she glanced about her until her gaze came to
rest on the banquet tables. "I do not make major discourse on an empty stomach," she said and
was off in the direction of the food.
Suddenly, a brilliant light shone throughout the hall. A point of flashing fire danced and
bobbed at the entranceway, finally coalescing into the figure of Daystar. His form was barely
visible beneath the radiance of his aura.
"Ah, Daystar," thought Vidamuerte, "the perfect counterpoint to the stolid LaTerra.
Perhaps his fire will quicken her pulse."
"Welcome, Daystar," he said, "how does the day find you? How do things proceed in the
Realm of Fire?"
"Busy, busy and yet more busy," came the answer in Daystar's rapid, staccato voice, "the
children of earth occupy themselves with incredible amounts of combustion - fossil fuels, wood,
forests, even each other. I have an entire division of Flamedaemons working non-stop in the
tropical forests. The overtime I'm having to pay out is making heavy demands on my coffers."
"Gripe and grumble, grouse and whine," said LaTerra between chomps on an entire roast
pig she had crammed into her cavernous maw, "and now, BurnBrain, I suppose you are going to
ply me with your usual crying towel approach to get more gold."
"A small donation on your part would be most gratifying, Mistress LaTerra. I might even
be persuaded to lend you one of my most efficient Flamers to aid you in cooking the vast
amounts of provisions you have obviously come to enjoy."
"Let us not get personal, Agent of Fire," LaTerra riposted, "or should we be discussing
the copious drafts of napalm you are said to be putting away in moments of uncontrolled
indiscretion."
34
"I remind you both that we are here in the spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance,"
said Vidamuerte, " Can we not forget our petty differences?"
"Hello, I'm here," came a liquid female voice from the main portal, "I do hope we are
working toward unity rather than division. I came to party, not to prattle."
The three elementals turned toward the voice. It was Aquatina, the elegant Mistress of
Water, who had made her presence known.
"Greetings, Lady of the Oceans," said Vidamuerte, her exceeding beauty making him
wish once more that he was other than androgyne, "and what is the state of the Realm of Water."
"Unmitigatedly polluted, I'm afraid," she answered, "in the old time, the humans made
sacrifice and libations to the sea, now, whatever they can't bury in the earth, they dump into my
rivers and oceans."
As she spoke, Aquatina pulled a used syringe from her bodice, and said, "You see, some
of their debris has made its way into my gown, I find this most distressing. I have been giving
serious thought to ascertaining Daystar's aid in accelerating the melting of the polar ice-masses.
Give them a small taste of what occured to Atlantis." She hurled the syringe at Daystar, who
vaporized it with a fire-dart.
" I really didn't attend this Forum with any desire to burn garbage, Aquatina," Daystar
said, "Why not give such things to LaTerra, for it is quite likely that she will eat them."
The Mistress of Earth glowered at him as she said, "Once again the Firemaster proves his
unexcelled ability to utilize his head as a rectal suppository."
Then, LaTerra appeared lost in thought as she absent-mindedly chug-a-lugged a hogshead
of wine. At length, she spoke, "Vidamuerte is right, we do need to cooperate. We do have a
serious problem. In fact, we have five billion serious problems. And they create more problems
all the time. Can't we get to the Pope about this birth control thing?"
"Unlikely," said Vidamuerte, "more population, more Catholics; it's the same old story.
The humans gave up much wisdom when they turned from the worship of nature to the worship
of themselves and their ability to acquire material possessions. More people equals more power
equals more money is, I believe, how the equation reads."
"And yet, there are those among them who greatly enrich the lives of their fellows;
Bertrand Russell, Eddie Murphy, Nolan Ryan, to name only a few," said Aquatina.
35
Their discussion continued unabated for quite some time, their long absence from each
other giving them much to discuss. And the sumptuous table that Vidamuerte had provided gave
them much to masticate and digest. And the heady nature of their libations, as well as the
quantity of same, made them fail to remember that their number was not complete. It was left to
Daystar to correct this failing.
"Where is Aeolus?" he asked the assembled elementals, "it is not like him to be so tardy
to the Forum."
"Oh, you know those wispy-minded air spirits," said LaTerra, doing what she called
balancing the extremities by eating both a devilsfood and an angelfood cake simultaneously as
she spoke, "in one ear and out the other."
"I hardly think that Aeolus would forget a call to the Forum," said Vidamuerte, "AirSpirit
though he may be, he is capable of correctly ordering his priorities. Something may be amiss.”
As if in answer to their queries, a powerful wind began to blow through the great pylons
of the Place of Discourse, knocking over a goodly number of various items. LaTerra came
ungracefully to her feet and placed her mammoth bulk between the rising wind and the banquet
tables.
"If that uncontrolled Windaemon doesn't cease and desist quite promptly," she said, "I
intend to be all over him in the same way that Daystar is all over his beloved jellied gasoline."
“I find it relatively implausible that you would be able to apprehend anything as fastmoving as a well-rooted tree, O Mistress of the Earth with the Unsurpassed Girth, let alone a
rampant AirSpirit," quipped Daystar, "perhaps you should choose a more suitable metaphor."
LaTerra hoisted a large crystal bowl of English Trifle and appeared ready to hurl it at
Daystar when suddenly the wind stopped. In its wake, at the entrance to the hall, stood a small,
very young Airdaemon.
"I had a feeling that at Aeolus was not the cause of this gale-force wind," said
Vidamuerte, "his style of entry is usually on the wings of a gentle zephyr."
"Who art thou, then, stripling," said LaTerra, "thou who hast had such an unsettling effect
on our well-deserved repast?"
"My, aren't we formal?" said Aquatina to LaTerra. And then, to the youth, she said, "Has
the Realm of Air taken to sending boys to perform the work of their elders?"
36
"Aeolus got hung up, Waterfox," came the AirSpirit's reply, "so he sent me instead. I'm
Airsprite, son of Aeolus, and I may be young, but I can blow with the best of them."
"And where is your father?" asked Vidamuerte, "how did he come to be hung up? I
wasn't aware that the Agent of Air could be caught on anything."
"Figure of speech, big guy," said the boy, "what I mean is that he took form in a
cumulonimbus over the North American continent which had so much caustic sulfur in it that it
ate big holes in his skin. He's in the hospital, getting skingrafts."
"Why did he not just assume a new form?" asked Daystar, "surely this would have been
the easiest way out of his dilemma."
"You know Daddy, he is a righteous cheapskate." said Airsprite, "his piddly-ass accident
insurance doesn't cover new bodies, only hospitalization with a thousand astra deductible on
reconstructive surgery. So there he lies and here I stand."
"So, acting Agent of Air" said Vidamuerte, "be so kind as to comment on the status of the
Realm of Air."
"What's coming down is this," said the youth, as he rapped out:
"We got junk and funk and smelly gunk,
And an ozone hole that can't be shrunk.
And Daystar's boys are working so hard,
We're losing our cool on the whole earthyard.
I'm tellin' ya, dudes, it's mighty rough,
Breathing makes my ass want to dip snuff.
Toxics come and toxics..."
"What absolutely charming poetry, Airsprite," said Daystar, cutting him off, "enlighten
me, did you compose that yourself, or did you steal it from Public Enemy? And I resent the
allegation that my realm-mates and I are the cause of all the combustion. I will lay that wreath at
the door of the Realm of Men."
"Whatever the form, the message is quite clear," said Vidamuerte, "and it is the same in
all the Realms: nature is being greatly hampered by the machinations of Man." He paused for a
moment and spoke again, "Now that our assemblage is complete, let us first pay homage to the
All-Father. May it please you, my brethren, to take your positions before the Great Throne."
37
One by one the five elementals walked solemnly to the center of the Place of Discourse.
Here was inscribed a large golden circle with a silver cross concentered within. Vidamuerte took
his place at the center of the circle, where the arms of the cross conjoined. Each of the others
took their place at the cardinal points, where the four arms of the cross contacted the circle; Earth
to the East, Air to the North, Water to the West and, finally, Fire to the South. They all faced to
the East, where stood the Great Throne of the Lord of Creation.
Vidamuerte began the anthem in which they all spoke together:
"Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee:
I, I adore thee!”
"Always gives you pause for thought to be assembled in His presence, does it not?" asked
LaTerra.
"Quite so," said Daystar, "but let us not pause for thought too long, my sister, or the food
and drink will go unattended."
"You speak wisely for once, brother Daystar," said LaTerra, who lumbered off in the
direction of the banquet, to be quickly joined by the others.
Once again, having seated themselves at table, the conversation flowed freely. Airsprite
produced a Sony Walkman and asked Aquatina if she was into Pearl Jam.
LaTerra leaped to her feet, no small feat in itself, and demanded of the young Airdaemon,
"Have you brought human technology to the forum, Spawn of Airheads, I should dress you
roundly and soundly about the head and shoulders."
"You're gonna have to catch me first, Big Mama Landmass," he replied, as he began to
moonwalk away from the table.
"Why are you so opposed to the youth's music, La Terra, why, my patron Apollo has
taught me to be quite proficient on the lyre," said Daystar.
"Music has its place, certainly," said Vidamuerte, "but we have more important things to
occupy our time, to wit: What to do in regard to Man and his treatment of nature?"
38
"What can we do?" asked Aquatina, "humans are microcosms, comprehensive unto
themselves. We are but elementals. Like it or not, it is they who set the order of things. It is left
to us to obey."
"Just so, my sister," said Daystar, "the problem is that if they continue their present
course unabated, they may well bring about their own ruin."
"And that's how the mop flops," said Airsprite, resuming his seat and keeping a weathereye on LaTerra, "species come and species go. No big deal."
"We will continue, regardless of what happens to the humans," said Aquatina, "its only
that it would be such a senseless waste for the first sentient beings that this planet has produced
to destroy themselves."
"Do you remember the fourth planet of the star Spica?" asked Vidamuerte, "as I recall,
three separate strains of intelligent life put themselves out of existence before one was evolved
that had the good sense to remain alive."
"Actually, I was pulling for the big lizards," said Airsprite, "they were a lot more kicks
than these current yo-yos. But, one big comet and one big dust-cloud, and no more dinosaurs.
C'est la vie."
"Please, no more talk of the reptiles," said Daystar, "LaTerra gets all misty-eyed when we
speak of them. Not to mention what Aquatina will do if someone brings up the lackluster
trilobites."
"You know, Daystar, you can be quite cruel," said Aquatina, "but that is understandable,
for the only earthlife you have any feeling for are ones that have been roasted in one of your
fires."
"How should it be otherwise?" said Daystar, "one must be true to one's own nature, is this
not so?"
"It is so," said Vidamuerte, "and it is my nature at this point to draw the proceedings to a
close. I request that each of you give, in summation, your conclusions to the Forum. First,
Daystar."
"As ever, we observe and we obey. We do not intervene." "Aquatina?"
"Man's destiny is in his own hands. The All-Father has ordained it so."
"Airsprite?"
39
"Why do we bother to have this get-together if we already know the answers? Seems to
me to be a waste of time."
"Your question is well taken, young one," said Vidamuerte, "you show some traces of
your father's wisdom. We have the Forum to align ourselves as a complementary force. And also
in the hope that our words and wisdom will, in some way, enter into the minds of the humans.
We can do no more. Have you anything more to say?"
"Ditto to what the first two said, I'm really not into heavy pronouncements."
"LaTerra?"
"Perhaps I could place one small volcano in a nuclear weapons plant. Just as a small
warning."
"Really, LaTerra, you know better," said Vidamuerte, "I doubt that they would
understand the message. As you must recall, the humans no longer believe in our existence."
"Then I must be content with repressing the bulldozers and the strip-mining with
compulsive eating. I can say more."
"Nor I," said Vidamuerte, "and so do I bid you take your leave. Hail and farewell. The
Forum of Earth is hereby dissolved."
And so did the Agents of Earth, Air, Fire and Water bid each other well-being and
godspeed as they departed unto their respective quarters. To watch and to wait. And, possibly, to
hope.
Back to top
40
As it is written:
That which is above is like unto that which is below,
And that which is below is like unto that which is above.
Hermes Trismegistus
THE GOD MAKERS
By Thomas Voxfire ©1997
I was late: I knew it as soon as I woke without the alarm. There was way too much light
in my room. I sat up groggily and grabbed the clock, which was flashing its' brilliant red message
at me; the power had winked out and then come back on about three hours ago. Damn those
lightning engineers, couldn't they get anything right?
I jumped out of bed and raced over to the window, looking outside and expecting the
worst. The sun had been up long enough to dry up all the dew on my cloud; it had to be at least
8:30. There was no question about it, I was in deep doodoo. I forced myself over to the phone to
call the office.
"Well, hello, Aeschylus, how nice of you to call," I heard Circe's sarcasm-laden voice
say, "do you suppose you'll be here in time for nectar-break?" She went off line and I could hear
the muffled screams and roars of the boss. When she came back on, she said, "Mr. Torquemada
would like to know if you plan to be in today or should we just have your things sent over to
Cloud-Polishing?"
"I'll be there, I'll be there as soon as I can," I said, pulling off my sleep-toga which was
hanging up on my telephone arm.
" I hope so, Aeshie, or its going to be many millennia buffing the strato-cumulus," she
giggled at me, "not to mention cleaning up the cirrus farm."
I hung up angrily. The cirrus farm, indeed. Just because I spilled bat-wing essence on her
PC keyboard, there was no need to be vicious. I threw my sleep-toga on my bed, hurried through
washing-up, tossed on my business robe and headed for the door, glancing fondly at my wings
hanging limply in the corner. 3500 astras to repair them for severe lightning burn-out. How was I
to know, with close to three liters of Dragon's Blood in me, that I was flying into a fully
41
developed cumulo-nimbus? It really wasn't my fault. And who, in the name of Unity, has 3500
astras just laying around? Not me, that's for sure.
I zipped out the front portal and headed down to the edge, just in time to see a half-empty
roc pull away. Real nice, it'll be 45 minutes until another one. I grabbed hold of the FREE ROC
RIDES sign with my left hand and extended my right hand, my right thumb searching for
infinity. Two winged angels, three gryphons, a star-painter and an obviously lost F-16 passed me
by without so much as a second glance. I was really beginning to get desperate. 55-gallon drums
of carbonated cloud-polish danced before my eyes. Finally, a clunky rain-seeder pulled over and
stopped. The old rain-maker looked me over once and once again. Then, having assured himself
that I wasn't drunk or disorderly, he asked, in a wheezing voice, "Where to, sonny?"
"Downtown, Heavenly Host Complex, sub-level B."
"Oh, government, are we? Okay, but you'll have to ride back in the seed-bin. There's no
room up here, what with Cerberus and me," he said, indicating a growling three-headed pitbull.
I clambered over the side and deposited myself squarely in the middle of three cubic
yards of chloride crystals. They weren't too bad unless you moved fast; then they slid under your
skin and, Lord, did you itch.
The ride downtown gave me a chance to think about the day's work ahead, and more than
that, about the new boss, Torquemada. How the Number One Man of the Spanish Inquisition had
gotten in up here, no one could really understand. He should have gone to You-Know-Where.
But there were rumors of warehouses full of Papal Indulgences and finally, St. Peter had
knuckled under.
The Old man wanted new blood running our department; we were really swamped
anymore. So they sent The Tork to psycho-surgery to remove the hard-core stuff, which they
dropped in the chute to Down Below. What was wrong with the old boss, Lao-Tze, I just didn't
know. Too laid back and contemplative, I guess. But The Tork, he was another story; he was Mr.
Efficiency himself. And that was what we, the Department of Deity Fabrication, needed most
right now.
To say that we were overworked and undermanned was to grossly understate the case.
The Old Man's rule was that any time one thousand or more humans wanted to worship a new
god, or any variation of an old god, it was our duty to dream one up. And our department only
had four people, The Tork, Circe, me and Lenny Da Vinci. At last count, there were 3,474
42
different gods in effect on Earth, not to mention the minions of Mr. Naughty from Down Below.
And the list was growing all the time.
The rain-seeder slamming unceremoniously to a stop yanked me from my reverie.
"We're here, sonny," the rain-maker said, "HH Complex, sublevel B."
I climbed out of the seed-bin and out onto the apron. I thanked the old fellow and turned
to go, shaking off crystals as I went. "Don't get too near any water till you've got all the seeds
off," he yelled at me, "otherwise you and everybody near you is going to take a shower."
I shrugged and headed toward the office. I got to the door, took a deep breath, and opened
it. Circe sat at her desk, a Cheshire-cat smile on her face. She pushed a button on a stopwatch as
I came in. Then she pushed another button, this time on her intercom and said into it, "He's here,
sir, and he's only one hour and forty- seven minutes late."
The door to Tomas de Torquemada's office flew open and there he stood, resplendent in
his crimson Cardinal's gown and cone-headgear, an implacable scowl on his face.
"You're late,," he cried, "monsignors, to the stake with him!"
Circe wiggled her finger back and forth at him, saying, "Now, now, your Eminence, sir,
that's a no-no. You don't want to go back to psycho-surgery. do you?"
The Tork rubbed the back of his head meaningfully and his shoulders slumped a little as
he said, "You're right, of course, Miss Circe, the old ways must go. No real heretics in heaven,
anyway."
Then to me, he said, "Aeschylus, if you and punctuality can't become better friends, then
its back to the clouds with you and I'll get John Milton to write copy for me."
"Yes, sir, sorry, power failure last night, no alarm clock, you know."
"Why not get a wind-up, Aeshie, they're only two and a half astras at HeavenMart," Circe
said. I shot her a sour look. I didn't want that old-fashioned junk; I wanted the new electronic
marvels, LED’s and LCD’s and VCRs, all the good stuff.
"Maybe you'd like to turn your PC in on an abacus," I parried back and got my sour look
riposted.
"Enough!" steamed The Tork, "there's work to do. There's a brand new faction in
Damascus, the Jumbo Jet Jihad Militia, they're almost 1700 strong and they've been worshipping
for over five days without their very own special Allah to answer their prayers. If the Old Man
43
gets wind of this, we will all be tending the cirrus farm. Get with Lenny and let's get them a god
on the Aethyr, now!"
Two seconds later and I was in the workshop. Lenny was bent over the drawing board,
feverishly penciling a design. He looked up at me, saying, "Hi, Aeshie, glad you made it. This
one's pretty much a normal terrorist type - sweaty khaki shirt, raggedy beard, shades, one
handgun, one AK-47 and six grenades. Only here's a new wrinkle, I'm going to put an airline
pilot's cap on him, in honor of the jumbo jet idea. What do you think?"
"Okay, I guess, what about the supernatural angle?"
"Standard military halo with scrambled eggs and a strong red-black aura. Pretty much the
usual."
"Anything special for the copy?"
"These guys only hijack jumbos, makes a bigger splash in the papers, probably be good
to tie that in."
"Right," I said, sitting down at my PC. I fed the floppy into its drive, hit the POWER
switch, booted and loaded the program, and typed: "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate,
the Merciful, I come before you, brethren, to speak of the dark-eyed houris that await you in
heaven when your earthly work is done. And that work, of course, is the total dissolution of
infidel society. We will make them pay dearly for Palestine's demise and for sowing the seeds of
disunity among the faithful. To them we bring only terror and death. May their jumbo jets fall
from the sky as drops fall from a rainstorm. In the name of Allah, so let it be written, so let it be
done!"
I read it off to Lenny and he nodded okay. I punched the ENTER button and the disk
drive started to hum. "You know, Lenny, sometimes I wonder if the Old Man really knows what
he's doing, this is the seventeenth war god this quarter. Means a lot of people dying down there. I
just hope..."
A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder blasted into the workshop, stunning us both. I
looked up to see a small black cloud on the ceiling with the icy-blue forefinger of the Old Man
Himself sticking out of it and pointing directly at me. A deep, booming basso profundo filled the
room, making the walls rattle: "And so it came to pass that Aeschylus, minor bureaucrat in the
DDF, was reincarnated on earth as a buffalo chip. And just what do you know of things, my little
44
Greek goombah? Lenny, if you can't keep your yo-yo partner on the track, I'm never going to
give you that transfer."
Then, His voice took on a more imploring tone, as He said, "C'mon, guys, you have to
have more faith in My wisdom. I'm supposed to be omniscient, remember. Just keep up the good
work and let's try to keep the heresy to a minimum. This is a trying time for all of us." The cloud
vanished and silence hung in the room.
"Aeshie, if you mess up my transfer, I'll never forgive you. The Old Man knows what
he's doing, believe me. He just has to get all the right pieces in all the right places at the right
time. Like chess, you know?"
I felt like a first-class chump. I knew that Lenny didn't like designing gods, he wanted to
be back on earth, designing helicopters and hovercraft. I wasn't going to louse things up for him.
"So, how are the graphics coming?" I asked him.
"Almost done," he answered, punching a few more keys and then the ENTER button. He
waited for about a minute and then pulled the disk out of the drive.
"Call Mohammed and have him meet us at the AP," he said to me.
I picked up the phone and called the Retired Saints dorm. A Chinese- sounding voice
answered: "Confucius here, to whom do you wish to speak?"
"Morning, Confucius, this is Aeschylus, I need to speak to Mohammed, we need him to
bless another one."
"Confucius say `War gods abound like ants on a hill', is there never to be an end to war?"
"Dunno, sir, just doing my job, Old Man's orders," I said, His recent visit still very vivid
in my memory, "He knows best."
"Just so,' the Chinese sage answered, "Ah, here is Mohammed."
“Allahuh akbar," Mohammed said as he came on the line, "do you really have another
one?"
"I'm afraid so, sir, can we see you at the Aethyr Projector in fifteen minutes."
"It shall be so, Aeshie, you know sometimes I wish I'd stayed a camel-driver. Islam
seems to have brought so much misery into the world."
"The Old Man says everything is going to be A-OK, we just have to hang in there.”
“So be it, see you at the AP in fifteen minutes.”
45
The Aethyr Projector was a most interesting device. Basically, its function was to place
the prayers and meditations of men in the same continuum as the minds of the gods. Projector
was not exactly the right term, because it could receive as well as transmit. In fact, a major duty
of the crew who manned the AP was to monitor all the prayers of the human race. The Old man
used to do all this Himself until the population explosion made it impossible for him to keep up.
So he incarnated several operatives, furnished them with a plentiful supply of gold and had them
purchase the necessary electronics to supplant Him.
We met up
with Mohammed just outside the PrayerSearch room and we went in
together. Seated in front of their consoles were several hundred technicians, mostly Mercurial
angels, listening to earth. Some of them waved to us as we walked toward the rear, where the
actual transmissions took place, under the guidance of the Master Projector, Attila the Hun. The
Old Man thought that there was a certain poetic justice in having Attila unleash the Divine Will,
in all its' myriad forms, on the unsuspecting humans below.
"Ah, gentlemen," Attila said as we walked into his lair, "back so soon?"
"Its the Arabs again," Lenny answered, "new militia, new god; you know the drill."
"Your boys are really working overtime, Mohammed," Attila said, "averaging six new
gods a quarter for the last five years. You must be proud of them."
Mohammed looked very old and very tired. He was essentially a man of peace, not a
warrior like Attila. "Please, could we get this over with?" he asked submissively.
We handed over our floppies to Mr. Hun and he put them in their respective drives. He
pushed a few buttons and the message and image of the newest Allah Jr., the patron saint of
Jumbo Jet Jihad militia, filled the screen.
"Check," I said, Lenny repeated same.
Mohammed trudged wearily over to the screen, made a few gestures and said a few
words in Arabic and then went slowly out the door.
"What's the matter with him?" Attila asked, "Somebody hide his Valium?"
"He wanted to bring peace and brotherhood into the world and so far his religion has
brought nothing but war, war and more war," Lenny said, "He's bummed out."
Attila grunted and then asked, "Have we got a go?" Lenny and I both nodded. He walked
over to the Projector, read a couple of dials, turned several knobs and threw a big red switch. A
deep dynamic hum filled the room and the image on the screen winked out. "Gentlemen, we
46
have a new god on airwaves," Attila said, "and what's so bad about war, I was quite good at it in
my day."
"In your day," I answered, "there were no MIRV missiles with hydrogen warheads. The
Old man says that if we don't keep the lid on the American war god and the Russian war-not-god
(atheists always have a way of confusing things) then we will all most likely be out of a job.
Cockroaches and lichens don't say prayers and don't need gods and that's all that's likely to be
left if they start playing "Pass the Nuke."
Attila
just
sighed
and
we
were
out
the
door.
Out
in
the
hallway,
we both stopped and looked at each other. "God-making ain't what it used to be," Lenny said,
"what with all this military madness sweeping the globe. Even the Hindus and the Buddhists are
getting unruly. And the Christians, by Unity, they're almost as bad as the Arabs. All of their
Messengers gave essentially the same message: That all men are brothers and should live
accordingly. But so many of Their self-styled acolytes twist the message to serve their own ends.
Witness Christianity and Islam, not to mention Judaism, who knows where it will end?"
We started walking back to our office when a deep green glow came up
around us. It was Horus, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and the primal war-god of all. He
strode toward us and stopped in front of where we stood. Well over eight tall, he had glowing
green skin and wore a golden skirt. With his hawk's head topped by a serpent-entwined sun-disk
over his sky-blue nemyss, he was very imposing. He never spoke, for he had never bothered to
learn modern languages. It was said that his voice rattled the walls even more than the Old
Man's. If he wanted to converse with you, he could put pictures in your mind. He looked us over
with his hooded hawk's eyes and passed on.
"Aeshie, did you see what I see?" Lenny asked, "I could have sworn it was the Garden of
Eden."
"Ditto, hope he's right, I wonder who designed him?"
"From what I hear, those guys designed themselves from the primordial nothingness. I
think even the Old Man was a youngster when they all started out. Designer gods really got
started with the Protestant Reformation when, all of a sudden, they needed a whole bunch of new
Jesuses."
"So how does that work?"
47
"Well, all the Christians worship the same God, you know, that funny old guy with the
long white hair and the golden scythe who rooms with the Old Man. But every sect has a
different Jesus. It wasn't any big deal while there were only Roman Catholics. But once Martin
Luther got rolling, every new Protestant sect had to have their very own Jesus, their own special
way to get to God. None of them wanted to share with any other sect, no matter if they all called
themselves Christians. So now there's over a hundred different Jesuses."
"Actually, its 117, by last count," said Circe, catching up to us outside the office door.
"The quarterly stats are out," she continued, "want to see the production figures?"
"Why not?" I said, taking the file folder from her. Lenny and I walked into the workshop,
"So what happened to the original Jesus, where is he?"
"He's in the hospital, in a coma. I suppose that he couldn't handle all the cloning that the
Old Man had to put him through," Lenny answered, "its no big deal with modern electronics, but
the old way, which took place in the Old Man's head, could cause severe disintegration of the
spirit."
Lenny walked over to the IN box, pulled out the latest production orders and riffled
through them perfunctorily, saying, "There's nothing really pressing, what say we go to lunch."
"Fine with me, just so long as its not the cafeteria downstairs, I wouldn't make Mr.
Naughty eat that stuff."
"How about the Beanery over on Stargate? They sling some pretty decent hash."
"You mean Borgia's Beanery? Okay by me, so long as Lucrezia's not cooking. Strychnine
gives me gas."
"By Unity, Aeshie, but you're provincial. Lucy has been off poisons for decades, ever
since the Old Man incarnated Cesare as a political science teacher at Southern Cal."
So off we went to the parking lot to get Lenny's Huey. He'd sort of borrowed it from a
Viet Nam battlefield where it had been crippled during a fire-fight. He snuck down one night
with a cargo-cloud and hauled it back up here. Put it in his workshop and rebuilt it. The Old Man
was generally against angels having earth battle vehicles, but He liked Lenny's work so He gave
him a special dispensation. Lenny'd put a substantial amount of time and astras into it. It had
hyperdrive, invisibility shielding and two very powerful laser cannons that he'd gotten from
some God Squad guys that patrolled the Betelgeuse sector. Lenny wasn't really warlike at all, he
48
just loved to tinker. Every once in a while he'd go visit Tom Edison and they'd get to tinkering
around and it took wild Brontosauruses to pull them apart.
Anyway, we pulled onto Stargate and Lenny brought the chopper to a halt on a public
cloud-pad. As we dismounted, several young angels approached us and, pointing to a recently
painted winged chariot, wanted to know if we wanted to drag race for pink slips. Lenny chuckled
and we moved on to the Beanery.
It was Roderic himself, decked out in his finest Papal duds, who greeted us at the door
and led us to a very sumptuous table. He and Lenny were old pals, fellow Renaissance men and
all that.
"And so, Leonardo," asked he who had been Pope Alexander the Sixth, "how are things
with the God Makers?"
"Busy, busy, busy, Roderic, how about you?"
"We're doing quite well, thanks. Lucrezia is just learning to do Mexican food and its quite
a hit."
"What's the specialty of the house, Your Holiness," I asked him.
"I'm sorry about the Papal clothes, all my regular maitre'd outfits are at the cleaners," he
said, "the special today is a lasagna-enchilada combo plate..."
He was cut off suddenly by a flash of red fire and a violent clap of thunder. We looked
up to see a swirling, fiery red cloud about to devour a good one-third of the ceiling. This time the
Old Man's finger was like a molten red steel ingot. As He spoke, obviously disturbed, all the
crystal ware on the table burst into fragments; "Aeschylus, Lenny, we've got big problems.
Report to my office, on the double." The cloud sent out one more burst of lightning and
vanished.
In just under one minute, we were climbing back into the Huey and heading toward
headquarters. "What was all that about?" I asked, "I've never seen a red cloud before."
"The last time I saw a red cloud was when Buddha's boys bombed Pearl Harbor. I think
this definitely means big problems."
Lenny didn't even try to make it the HHC parking lot. He just set it down on top of the
main building and we jumped out and went tearing down the stairs to the Old Man's office. As
we got to His door, I realized that I'd never seen the Old Man before, only the Cloud and the
49
Finger. Then we were in the reception room, and my jaw dropped when I saw the absolutely
gorgeous creature who was the Old Man's secretary.
"Nice to see you made it, He's very anxious to see you," she breathed in a voice that was
making me melt inside, "He's waiting for you in the conference room with the others." She
ushered us into a long hallway and pointed us toward the far door.
"Who was that?" I asked Lenny as we walked down the hall.
"Helen of Troy, and doesn't the Old Man know how to pick 'em.”
By then, we were to the conference room door, which opened at our approach. The room
was quite large, possibly 100 cubits square. On the far wall was an electronic display screen
which filled the entire wall. It was currently displaying a global projection of earth. In front of
the screen were several men and women talking and, seated around a large table closer to the
door, were some thirty or so more people. I saw Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, flanked by two
angel nurses, and several other big-time religious leaders. The military was represented by Julius
Caesar, Hannibal, Patton, Napoleon and Rommel. Attila was there, so were The Tork and Circe.
There were also quite a few that I didn't recognize- Heaven is a big place, you know.
Off to my left, a green glow told me that Horus was here. As I glanced in his direction I
saw that not one, but two Egyptian gods were present. One was Horus, the other one I didn't
recognize. He was as tall as brother god, but more slender, and his head was more like a crane's
than a hawk's. He wore a white apron and a large jeweled collar. His nemyss was midnight blue
with a gold Ureaus serpent coiled about it. His skin glowed a bright orange.
"Who's that?" I asked Lenny, gesturing toward the ancient Lord of Khemi with my chin.
"I've never seen him before," came the answer, "But I believe his name is Thoth, the
Absolute Lord of Creation. This must be important, if he is here. He is usually in contemplation,
guiding the destinies of the stars and galaxies. It is said that there is only one god, actually a
goddess, greater than Thoth. She is--"
Just then, Lenny was interrupted by a deep basso profundo voice from the front of the
room: "Ah, Aeschylus and Da Vinci, so now we are all here, please be seated, we must begin at
once. We have a most pressing problem on our hands."
We sat down at the table next to The Tork. I looked up to see who was the originator of
the voice which was unmistakably that of the Old Man. He was tall, full-bearded and looked as if
he had stepped from the pages of the Arabian Nights. He wore a pure white turban from the
50
center of which, just over his forehead, shone a brilliant white diamond. He was dressed in a
white satin pantaloon suit with a large red sash at the waist which held a gold scimitar encrusted
with jewels. Over this, He had a blue velvet cloak edged with gold that was clasped at the throat
with a winged serpent. His eyes were veiled as it was said that His direct gaze could disassociate
atoms.
"Ladies and gentlemen," He said, His voice passionate with the urgency of the moment,
"as you all know, the four great Egyptian gods of the Tetragrammaton rule the earth in a rotating
succession. At the beginning of this century, about eighty earth-years ago, Horus rotated onto the
Summit of the Earth. His reign will bring true paradise to the inhabitants of this beautiful planet.
But before this can occur, the remnants of the old god's reign must be scattered to the four winds.
The old god in question was Horus' father Osiris, the Lord of the Dead. The Aeon of the Dying
and Resurrected God is past and it is time for Eternal Sun God. And being that Horus is the God
of War as well as the Sun God, it is ordained that war is the means whereby the Osirian
civilization will topple.
This is not my doing. The last time the Aeons changed I was allowed to use the Great
Flood to disperse things. But I'm bound by the rules just like everybody else and the rules say
that war is the order of the day."
“All well and good, but get to the point," He continued, looking around at us, "no one
wants to listen to the Old Man beat around the burning bush all day. My plan was to divide and
redivide mankind by creating an infinity of little petty war-gods, thereby establishing a plenteous
multitude of tiny warring factions. Then, at exactly the most opportune moment, when homo
sapiens was totally splintered, I was going to have the Aethyr Projector replace all the diverse
deities with the One Radiant Sun-God, thereby unifying mankind.
I'm sure my plan would have worked, if the wars could be kept small and local. After that
business in the 1940s I would have thought that men would be tired of war. Such is not the case.
Apparently what has happened is that the President of Russia has been overthrown and
incarcerated by a coalition of age-encrusted hard-liners who chafed sorely at the President's
reform attempts. Immediately upon seizing power, this coalition has taken over the military.
Now, my operatives advise me that there is a 95% likelihood of a nuclear exchange with 24
hours."
51
He let this hang in the air for several seconds, to let the impact sink in. Then He said,
"This leaves us with several options: One, we can let events continue as they are will probably
mean that the earth will be transformed into a radioactive dung-heap with nothing but moss and
mutant insects to worship us. Two, we can find some way of intervening without showing our
hand too much. Three, we can wake up the Old Lady."
There was silence for quite a while until a bright, birdlike, trilling voice came from the
rear of the room. It was so musical that it was difficult to tell that it was a voice. I turned to see
that it was the orange-skinned Thoth who was speaking thus: "If you awaken She-Who-Dreams,
it will mean the end of all. Do you find this necessary?"
I nudged Lenny, my curiosity aflame, and asked, "Do you know what they're talking
about? Its all Greek to me."
Lenny looked at me quizzically, saying, "You know, Aeschylus of Greece, that for a
famous playwright, you certainly use some stupid metaphors. The Old Lady sleeps and dreams
the Great Dream of physical manifestation. If She is awakened, there will be no more dream and
no more physical universe. Until She falls back to sleep, which they tell me takes a very large
draught of Morpheus-Potion. It would be similar to shuffling the cards in the middle of a hand,
you would never know who had won . She would merely start a new dream with a new Big
Bang. It would take many billions of years to get where we are now."
"The Ibis-Headed One speaks the truth," said the Old Man, "the rhythm of the universe,
of being and not-being, is the sole province of my consort. We will not trouble her. My thanks to
Thoth for reminding me."
The god in the rear of the room nodded his assent.
"Which leaves us with the rather ticklish problem," the Old Man continued, "of what to
do with mankind. Any suggestions?"
Julius Caesar was the first to speak up: "Several months ago we watched a visual
presentation which might be of some help. As I remember, some Tribune-type named Vader had
at his disposal a large device called a Death Star capable of destroying planets. Perhaps he could
be enticed to lend us this device and we could lay siege to the earth and have them surrender
their weapons. Obliterate Mars and threaten to do the same to the earth if they don't comply. This
strategy worked quite well in Gaul."
"That wasn't real, J.C.," Patton told him, "Just fiction, its called a movie."
52
"But it seemed so lifelike," said Caesar, "oh, well, so be it. I don't seem to be able to
keep up with modern developments."
"Nice try, Julius," said the Old Man, "anybody else?"
Buddha raised his hand, saying, "O Nobly-Born, might it be possible to have the children
meditate on the Lotus of One Thousand Petals, the flower of peace and harmony. Perhaps this
would quell their warlike natures."
"You tried that before, when you walked the earth, O Enlightened One," asked the Old
Man, "did it do any good then?"
"Not much," said the Buddha, "they merely continued to experience the sorrow of
fighting."
Turning to Jesus Christ, the Buddha said, "And what of you, O Nazarene, do you have
any pearls of wisdom?"
"I tried to get them to stop fighting and love one another," said Jesus, "so they nailed me
to a board and stuck me with a spear. Ugly way to spend Easter."
"Why don't we just turn all the warlike Americans into frogs," Circe piped up, "frogs are
too small to push missile buttons."
"If we upset the balance of power, the Russians would invade," said Napoleon, "we
would have to do it to both sides, simultaneously. Might be a little difficult to explain, political
amphibians are something of a rarity."
"Well, Monsieur Bonaparte," Circe countered, "leave it to a Frog to know about that."
"This is pointless," interjected the Old Man, angrily, "what we need is a plan and we need
it now!"
The silence was pervasive, finally, being able to contain myself no longer, I spoke up,
"Why don't we ask Horus what he thinks we should do?”
Horus took several steps forward, his beak opened and a sound I can only describe as a
hawk's battle cry careened into the room. The sound was deafening. After about a minute, when
the walls stopped vibrating, Thoth stepped forward and placed his hand on his brother-god's
shoulder. Horus turned and their gazes locked. They appeared to be in communion. Soon, their
gazes separated and Thoth spoke: "Ra-Hoor apologizes for his inability to communicate directly.
He says that mankind is an house divided against itself and the only real chance to unify it would
be to present it with a danger common to all men."
53
"What sort of danger?" asked the Old Man.
"He suggests," Thoth answered, "that if mankind were threatened by beings beyond their
ken whose omnipotence was unquestioned, that should serve the purpose."
Horus then bowed and stepped back. Thoth did the same.
The Old Man pondered this for awhile, quite a while, then he spoke, "If I understand this
correctly, we need to simulate what the humans would call an attack from outer space. This
could be very difficult to do, as not a single sentient life form in this galaxy will approach this
planet for fear of being unhesitatingly destroyed. There is no other kind of being anywhere that
pursues the art of war with the gusto of human beings."
"Could ve not chust neutralize all zhe fissionable material?", asked this funny little
bushy-headed guy.
"That wouldn't really solve the problem, Albert," said the Old Man, "I don't think that
would truly unite them, they would merely look for some new way to slaughter each other."
The Old Man brooded in silence for quite a few minutes. Suddenly, He came out of his
self-induced trance and called out to Lenny, "Da Vinci, I think I finally see why I let you keep
that war machine. You installed a sight-shield on it, did you not?"
"Yes sir, I did."
“Could it be altered to project an image other than its' own?"
"Yes sir, quite easily."
"Excellent, then I have a plan. Listen..."
After several hours of tinkering with the Huey, Lenny and I were climbing aboard it. My
head was still ringing with the enormity of what we were about to do. To spend your time
making smallish gods for smallish segments of humanity was a smallish thing, but to...
"Enough daydreaming," I heard Attila's voice say in my mindphone, "Aeshie, you've got
to be sharp for this one." The Old Man had mindlinked all of us in the operation and He'd put
Attila in charge. The old war-horse was really into his part. "You too, Da Vinci, the stakes are
really high on this one. Zero defects, right first time etc. If we pull this one off, He promises that
He'll have you at McDonnell-Douglas inside of a week."
Lenny winked at me and gave me the thumbs up. I returned same.
PHASE I
54
We lifted off and proceeded in a tangential vector straight out of Cloud city. 50
kliks out, Lenny requested plane-crossing coordinates. A lisping Mercurial angel read them off
to us: "Theventy-five dath forty-thix, pluth or minuth one point theven azimuth, engage."
Abruptly, we were part of the normal physical universe, about 35 km. above the earth.
"Fire up the sight-shield, Lenny," Attila said, "Phase I requires invisibility."
"Done," Lenny answered, flipping two switches which caused a humming, crackling
band of non-light to spring up around the Huey. We could see out, but nothing could see in,
neither eyes nor instruments.
"We are feeding the attack coordinates into your computer," said Attila, "arm the laser
cannons for sedentary pulse."
"Commencing arming," I said, as I proceeded to give life and purpose to the two
awesome weapons that aimed directly downward from the belly of the chopper.
The computer's screen was a blaze of data. Lines blazed down its face at a dizzying pace.
Each line was a separate target; a different point on earth.
"Proceed to 25 km. perpendicular to North Pole, set speed at .8 light velocity, program
image in synch with lasers and then go to automatic. We'll handle the rest of it from here,"
ordered Attila. That old Hun was really getting into it.
Several moments later we were directly above the North Pole. Somehow, the home of
Santa Claus seemed an incongruous place to launch an attack on the earth, but all's fair in love
and war, as they say. Lenny pushed the AUTO button and I felt a huge hand try to push me back
through my seat as we began to spiral southward at an incomprehensible pace. Below us, I could
hear the laser cannons engaged in a tremendous amount of staccato chatter. Each pop of the
cannons was simultaneously answered by a blip on the sight-shield screen.
"Lenny, excuse my ignorance, but what exactly are we doing?"
"Blanketing the earth with laser-pulse nodules aimed at mostly military targets, especially
nuclear weapon sites, set in synch with a UFO image, to simulate an attack from outer space."
"Please excuse the continuing ignorance of a dumb Greek playwright, but could you put
that in simple language?"
"Sorry, Aeshie," Lenny sighed, rubbing me on the shoulder, "but I don't want anything to
go wrong, you have no idea how sick I am of making up gods for these childish, bickering
people. The laser fire is aimed and suspended in a..." he hesitated for a minute, searching for the
55
right word, "...in an egg, a plasma-egg. When it comes time for the actual attack, the main
computer will set the blasts off at random and each firing will be accompanied by the image of a
UFO warship, something much larger than this helicopter."
"What's a UFO ?"
"It's a euphemism that the humans use to describe something that they know, but don't
want to admit, exists. It means Unidentified Flying Object; a non-human alien vehicle."
"Then what ?"
" Aeschylus, the Old Man explained all this in detail, did you sleep through it?"
I felt the flush of embarrassment creep up my face and I murmured, "Uh, no, actually I
was down the hall trying to get the Old Man's secretary to have dinner with me."
"Great, here we are trying to keep these humans from turning their planet into a
radioactive dung-ball and you're out hustling the honeys, just great."
"Okay, so I'm sorry, anyway she said no---"
"All right, can the chatter," Attila's voice said in my head, "your run is completed, pull
back to a safe distance and watch the fireworks."
Lenny put the Huey back on manual and a few seconds later we were 500 kliks from the
surface of the earth. He placed us in a holding orbit and brought the view-screen up to full
magnification. Suddenly, a huge warship, easily a quarter-mile across, appeared out of the void
of space and fired two white beams of immense destructive power directly into the earth and then
vanished.
Can you remember the first time you saw a large shark, or a rattlesnake or a Black
Widow spider. How their lethal, sinister beauty touched something deep in your vitals. This was
how the warship image affected me: I felt powerful, unreasoning fear. And I knew it was only an
image; an electronic mirage. The earth-folk below knew nothing of the sort. Again the great
specter appeared and fired, and again, and again.
"Where did we get that ship? Lenny, it is scaring the piss out of me."
"Attila and the Roman, Julius Caesar, designed it. They seemed to get a tremendous kick
out of doing it. They both said that they hadn't had so much fun since they were incarnate. I
designed siege equipment, too, but I was always more interested in function rather than form.
But this image is very compelling, I'm sure it will have the desired effect."
56
The attack lasted about two hours and then ceased as abruptly as it began. There were
many thousands of instances of the great ship-image opening fire. I couldn't help but wonder
what the effect would be down on the earth's surface. Certainly many humans would be killed or
maimed. I felt a tickle at the edge of my mind and I heard the Old Man's voice say, "Your
capacity for compassion is commendable, but unnecessary, Aeschylus, anyone who dies in this
attack will spend several incarnations as my guest on a paradise planet of unimaginable ecstasy
and then I will return them to a much more enjoyable earth than they left. Do try to remember
that as real as the physical plane seems, it is only an illusion, a nuance in the mind of She-WhoDreams."
"You're the boss," I said, startling Lenny, who apparently couldn't hear the Old Man
,"what next ?"
PHASE II
The next thing I knew the voice of Senor Torquemada was buzzing around in my head:
"Well done, my sons, we have indeed had the Day of Judgment and the Hand of the Lord has
visited justice on the heretics and infidels."
"Once a strident Catholic witch-burner, always a strident Catholic witch-burner,"
muttered Lenny under his breath.
"I heard that, Da Vinci," said The Tork, and then, probably remembering his last trip to
psychosurgery, added, "Sorry, my sons, but old habits die hard."
"Don't let them die too hard, Tomas," I heard Attila say," or we will petition Mr.
Naughty to make a place for you. Let's get on with this, we want to monitor earth
communications to see what effect this laser-fire has had."
I reached over and switched on the radio. After all the mental communication, it was a
trifle disorienting to be listening to normal sound:
"...sphzzz...pop...pzz..mergency Broadcast System. Every major military installation in
the United States appears to...shzzz...pop...alien armada with intense heat ray...many thousands
of military personnel and dependents feared dead. The public is advised to stay in their
homes...residual heat is very great...sphzzz..."
"Station KDEV, Bob Parsons reporting, the United States has been attacked by Russia, I
repeat, the USA has been..."
57
"...God on the Airways, the Right Reverend E. Steven Sasquatch here, the Day of
Judgment is at hand, sinners beware, may the righteous take heart, for we behold the Second
Coming of Our Lord Jesus..."
In my head, I heard Jesus' voice, "Not again, thank you; once burned, twice shy; no more
being nailed to a board for me. Let them work out their own salvation."
We continued to listen to earth as we maintained orbit. After several revolutions, Attila's
main computer correlated the data we had been gathering and put the following onto the main
screen:
"60% OF TRANSMISSIONS REFLECT BELIEF IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL
INVASION, 25% IN AMERICAN - RUSSIAN ATTACK AND COUNTERATTACK, 12% IN
HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE PROPHECIES
OPINION.
GENERAL
AIR
OF
COMING TRUE AND 3% HAVE NO
REVERENCE
AND
DESIRE
FOR
MUTUAL
COOPERATION ON UPSWING. PRAYER LEVELS HIGHEST SINCE CUBAN MISSILE
CRISIS OF 1962. OVERALL PROGNOSIS FOR UNIFICATION OF HOMO SAPIENS IS
HIGH."
"We did it!" Lenny beamed at me, pushing me on the shoulder, "Damn, Aeshie, we did
it!"
In my mind, I could feel a general exuberance among all the participants of the Old Man's
operation. We'd done it; we had saved the earth and most of mankind from nuclear devastation.
Now, all we had to do was put the Sun God on the Aethyr and pull it all together.
Well, almost –
Totally without warning, the main computer spat out:
“MISSILE LAUNCH, AMERICAN ICBM, FROM UNKNOWN SILO IN VIRGINIA"
I felt my jaw drop. I glanced helplessly at Lenny, who was peeling his lower mandible off
his lap. Less than a minute later, the computer erupted again:
"MISSILE LAUNCH, RUSSIAN ICBM, FROM UNKNOWN SILO IN ESTONIA."
"Well, they've really gone and done it this time," I heard the Old Man say, sighing,
"Lenny, go to invisible and scan the missiles, now!"
We did so and reported back. The Russians had a 75 megaton warhead headed toward
the USA and the Americans had a 50 megaton missile homing in on Russia.
58
"If they really want to do it so badly," I heard the Old Man sigh once more, "who am I to
stop them ?"
Less than 20 minutes later, Washington, DC and Moscow were vaporized by the human's
own hand. Now two great headless dragons writhed all over the globe in their death throes.
"The humans have always been fond of war memorials," Lenny said, "They certainly
have their quota of them now. Let's hope they're satisfied."
PHASE III
"Just so, Leonardo," the Old Man said, "just so; two large radioactive slag-pits and
innumerable piles of melted-down military hardware should give them much food for thought.
Let's put their eyes and ears out and let them stew for awhile. I want you to take out their
satellites. We'll feed you the coordinates, stay invisible and go to it." In less than 15 minutes all
of the earth's artificial satellites were smithereens.
"Good work, boys," the Old Man said when we were finished, "I know you're probably
bushed, but I need to keep you out in the physical for a little while longer to monitor things. I've
had Attila pull all the gods off the Aethyr and I've damped their electricity - no telephone, no
television, no radio, no computers, no motors - no juice, period."
“Won’t many of them die?" asked Lenny.
"Some, yes, but the planet was grossly overpopulated. Anyone who enters the Great
Portal of Death will find themselves on Samadhi Seta, one of the most ecstatic existences in all
the physical plane. Most of those who die will be the weak ones which natural selection would
have claimed long ago if human evolution had not been hampered by maudlin socialism and
medical experimentation. Many of those who have been kept alive would have been better off
dying so they could then obtain a new, strong physical body rather than being caught in old,
tired, or defective one.”
“So what do you want us to do?” I asked.
“I’m going to materialize a cargo-cloud to bring you supplies. I want you to make a
recon, but don’t be seen. We’re going to keep the AP on receive only. When it seems that most
of the surviving humans have become truly reverent, we’ll turn up the volume on the AP to full
and put the solar message on the aethyr.”
59
Minutes later we were docking with the cargo-cloud and three little luminescent Lunar
Spirits brought our goodies aboard. They bid us good fortune and we made our way down into
the earth's atmosphere.
So we cruised and we ate and we cruised and we watched and pretty soon we realized
that the Huey had no bathroom. So we set down near a small river in what seemed an
uninhabited area, answered nature’s various calls and went for a swim. We were heading back to
the chopper when a young voice called out:
“Hey, Dad, there’s a couple of funny looking guys down here by the creek. Come and
look." A medium-small boy and a large man, dressed in the characteristic clothes of rural
America, came out of the trees and walked over to us. The man appeared to be carrying some
sort of weapon.
"We mean you no harm," Lenny said to them," and we hope that you do not intend to
use that device on us."
The man looked down at the weapon and shook his head vigorously, saying; "Oh, no, sir,
there's been enough killing, this is only to pretect me an' Timothy here from varmints while we's
headin' east to the Gathering."
"Much has happened in the last several days, has it not?" I said to them.
"Dog, I'll say," said the boy, "First the Black Dragon breathed fire on the Army and
Navy, then Washington got hit by a nucular bomb, then all the machines quit working ...and..."
"There's alot of folks that says its the Day of Judgment," said the man, "but I don't know.
Before, all you was hearin' about was war, war, war. More now folks is thinking 'bout staying
alive and getting along. I feel a brighter day coming , don't need no more war."
"And this Gathering of which you spoke?" Lenny queried.
"All the local folks are meeting at the base of Widow's Peak mountain to pray and ask for
guidance from the Almighty. You boys want to come along?"
"Yes sir, I think so," said Lenny , "but first we have several matters to attend to, would
you be so kind as to give us directions."
"Just head east, toward the rising sun," said the boy, "its 'bout three days walk from here,
right, dad ?"
"Yep , I reckon, sonny. See ya' there, boys." And off they went.
60
We waited until they were out of sight and then we boarded the Huey. We passed over
them about a hundred feet up. If they heard the whir of our muted blades, they gave no notice. In
a few minutes we had arrived at the site of the Gathering.
There were many thousands of people huddled at the base of a tall, thin spire of a
mountain which towered over the camp. A very large tent city had obviously sprung up in a very
short time. A small river meandered through the middle of the encampment.
"Well, Lenny, what do you think, should we make a recon?"
"The Old Man said to stay out of sight, that encounter with the father and son was an
accident. If we set down to go among these people, it will be premeditated disobedience. We
could use the mindlink but it seems curiously quiet. Maybe the Old Man's damping field has
fritzed it out."
"Its odd, I haven't even heard The Tork rant and rave since we passed the stratosphere, do
you think we're cut off?"
"I don't think so, Aeshie, I feel strongly drawn to attend this Gathering.”
"Let's go, what the hell! The Old Man always says that He'd rather have you make a
mistake by committing rather than omitting."
He nodded agreement and proceeded to guide the chopper behind a nearby hill. He
landed and then pulled out a couple of backpacks he'd stashed in the Huey for who-knows-what.
We loaded them up with the various necessaries. Lenny made sure that there was an extra
battery-pack on the sight-shield. Without further ado, we exited the craft and locked the doors.
Piece of cake, I thought, not knowing that we were being watched by three small girls hidden
behind a boulder.
I would have imagined that they were very surprised to see two strangely dressed men
suddenly step out of nowhere into the now and here. But, being young girls out for a lark, they
thought that were only visiting Masters of the Universe and went off giggling to tell their
friends. But, anon...
We rounded the base of the hill and headed into the milling throng, secure in the
knowledge that an ancient Greek playwright and an Italian Renaissance man would be welcomed
in a sea of bib overalls and plaid flannel workshirts.
We erred, greatly.
61
"Hey, pop, what's with the sheet?" demanded a freckle-faced teenager as he stepped in
front of me, chin thrust forward and elbows akimbo.
Seconds later, his left ear was snagged by a hamlike hand attached via an arm to a large,
buxom, matronly type of female who spoke energetically into the captured ear: "Junior, you
leave your elders to themselves or I'll apply the Lord's justice to your backside," she said,
dragging the boy off.
We continued on into the crowd. Evening was coming on and the air was becoming chill.
We approached a group of older people who were sitting around a fire and asked if we could join
them.
"Where you boys from?" asked an old-timer, "don't look like its from around here. But if
you're cold, then sit."
"Your kindness is appreciated, sir," Lenny told him as we hunkered down by the fire,
"Ah...actually, we're actors, Edward and I, and we were separated from out troupe during all the
recent excitement."
"Excitement, my sweet patootie," said a gnarled old woman, "do you call an invasion
from outer space excitement? Its Arcturans, I tell you, come to enslave us and steal our brains for
Arcturan Brain Pudding. Then they'll leave our bodies for the flies."
"Hush, Martha," said the first old man, "Please excuse her, boys, but my beloved wife has
some very strange notions about things, ever since she locked herself in her bedroom with two
cases of codeine cough syrup and watched “Alien” forty-seven times."
"The movies was the only place you could get the truth, and now the VCRs and TVs
don't work anymore; its them damn Arcturans, I just know it," was the old lady's come-back.
I wasn't aware of how tired I was until we sat down by the fire. It wasn't long before I
started dozing. I saw the Lenny was nodding, too. "Please excuse us," I said to our new
compatriots, "but we've come a long way and we're both beat."
The old lady shrugged, "Sleep if you want to, but remember that your brains are most
vulnerable when you're asleep. But we'll watch out for you."
We slept, our recently materialized bodies craving relief from fatigue in a way no normal
mortal could truly appreciate. Centuries of ectoplasmic existence had made me forget the harsh,
rugged intensity of physical manifestation. It was both exhilarating and draining at the same
time. We slept mightily.
62
And as we did, three small girls bore a tale throughout the crowd. At first, no one
believed. Finally, they managed to have one adult come out beyond the hill to feel the thing that
could not be seen. He brought a few more, then many more. All this while we slept, not knowing
and not caring.
I was deep in a dream of Arcadian fields, roaming with satyrs and nymphs, following the
heady music of the Syrinx of Pan. Abruptly, rough hands jerked me to my feet. I was dazed, still
mostly asleep. I felt a douse of cold water in my face and I heard: "Awake, you heathen devils,
and tell us who you are and who's bidding you do; the pilot of the Black Dragon who stripped us
of our God-given military might would be my guess. Confess, sinners, for we know that you do
the Work of Satan." The voice became increasingly shrill as it spoke until it reached the last
word, Mr. Naughty's naughtiest name, and it reached a crescendo like unto the howl of the
banshee.
I opened my eyes to see a tall gaunt man dressed all in black, save for a small white
collar, staring imperiously down at me. He went on, "And who but Lucifer could have provided
you with a Chariot of Hell, which cannot be seen except for those with the eyes of the Infernal
One." He fingered a large gold cross with one hand and with the other he brandished a great
black Holy Bible at us as if the book was a flyswatter and we were some errant flies.
The crowd was growing unruly. I could sense their fear and suspicion and the resulting
growing hatred. We'd rabble-rousers such as this man back in Greece. Men whose only pleasure
in life was to use their oratorical skills to inflame the malice of an undisciplined mob against
some poor unfortunate completely incapable of defending himself. Men who sought destruction
and bloodshed for its own sake on any imagined pretext.
I felt fear, even though I knew I had died centuries before. But being back in a physical
vehicle had awakened my animal soul. It was only of the body; it could feel fear and it could die.
I glanced over at Lenny. If he was afraid, he didn't show it. "So, John Calvin," he said to
the gaunt man, recognizing his former incarnation, "once again you tread the path of Hellfire and
Brimstone, how befitting your nature."
"Silence, spawn of Lucifer," cried the black-clad man, "you will be taught who has the
Power of the Righteous."
PHASE IV
63
And then, in the deepest strata of my being, I felt a rush of trembling, building energy. It
grew and grew until all that I am was filled to the utmost with an overwhelming cry: the Cry of
the Hawk. At once and the same time; pregnant with power and yet inexplicably silent and
unmistakably the Voice of Horus as I'd heard it before in the Big Briefing Room in the Sky.
The gaunt man had fallen to his knees, clutching his head with his hands, babbling
incoherently. He had also heard the Voice and it had blasted him smartly.
And then came another Voice; deep, powerful, passionate. I knew it was none other than
the Old Man Himself:
"Hail unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy Hiding, even unto Thee who art Khephra
in Thy Silence, who travellest over the heavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the
Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His Splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the Helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Evening."
I opened my eyes slowly and let them sweep over the crowd. In the flickering firelight I
saw only rapt attention facing skyward on all the faces that my gaze touched. It had to be the
Aethyr Projector turned up full gain. The Old Man had performed the ancient Egyptian
Adoration of the Midnight Sun and had flooded the minds of all of us with it. The effect was
stunning. At the edge of my mind I felt the tickling thought, "If you thought that was something,
wait until sunrise."
I felt Lenny tugging at my arm. He was motioning me away from where we stood. He
walked over to a pile of untended blankets and picked up two of them. No one seemed to notice
as he wrapped himself in one and tossed me another. I wrapped myself and no longer was an old,
cold Greek. Now I was merely another body wrapped in a blanket. We quickly melted into the
crowd.
"Aeshie, we'd better go check the Huey," Lenny said as we scuttled over the hill. In the
moonlight, we could see no one near where we had left the aircraft. "Stay here and I'll go look
things over." He half-walked, half-ran down the hill and suddenly disappeared. A few minutes
he was back in sight and walked briskly back to me. "Everything seems in order," he said to me,
"we can go, unless you'd like to wait around for sunrise."
"Love to, the Old Man's really putting on a show, I wouldn't miss it for the galaxy."
"Ditto."
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We walked to the top of the hill where we could see the crowd and the Huey's landing
site at the same time. Below, the people seemed subdued, expectant; only faint murmurs reached
our ears. Soon, we slept.
I awoke to the sound of Lenny taking a leak. It was just starting to get light. Sounds of
stirring people came out of the throng below. I looked skyward, faint pink fingers were
beginning to uncurl themselves from the tip of Widow's Peak mountain. Dawn was not far off. I
dozed again.
The next thing I knew there was considerable commotion in the crowd below. People
were jumping to their feet and pointing at the sky. I looked up to see the radiant gold aura of the
sun strongly embracing the mountain. But there was something else. In the middle of that redgold glow was the prow of a ship. Impossible!, I thought, and rubbed my eyes. I opened them
again, slowly, to get accustomed to the light of the dawning sun and now I saw fully what was
bringing the people to their feet.
The Bark of the Sun was drawing itself across the morning sky, away from the mountain.
In the center of the dazzling ship stood the sun, flanked by Thoth standing at the prow of the ship
in the lookout's position and Horus standing in the rear, his hand steady on the tiller.
"It defies the laws of perspective and probably a good many of the laws of physics but,
by Unity, what a magnificent spectacle. The children of earth will remember this for many a
generation," Lenny muttered.
And, once again in my mind, came the powerful Voice of the Old Man:
"Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy Rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy
Strength, who travellest over the heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His Splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the abodes of Night."
The Morning Adoration, coupled with the visual presentation of the Sun with His two
attendant gods had, by this time, sent most of the crown to its knees. I was about ready to join
them when I heard the voice of Attila rattling around in my brain: "All right, you two, earthleave is over. Let's get it back to base, double-time."
Jerked from our reverie, Lenny and I looked at each other dumbfounded. Within three
minutes we were back in the Huey. Ten minutes later, we were back in outer space. Twenty
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minutes later, we had cross-planed, entered Cloud City and were landing on top of the Heavenly
Host Complex.
A small group of people was waiting for us on the landing pad. The Old Man Himself
was there, as was His beautiful secretary. Circe was there with some touristy-looking guy. Also
Attila and some attendant angels.
As soon as we were clear of the Huey, the Old Man came up and threw His arms around
our shoulders, saying, "Well done, boys. I didn't want to directly order you to take part in the
ceremonies but I was fairly certain that you two would do it on your own. You never were in any
real danger, the mindlink only appeared to stop working. I was with you all the time. I wanted
first-hand information on the effect of the Solar Message."
"Whose idea was the Adoration and the Solar Bark?" I asked.
" It was ordained that I should use the Adoration from the very first," He said, "the Bark
of the Sun was Thoth and Horus' idea, they used to do it occasionally back in Old Egypt to keep
the people happy and reverent. Very effective, wouldn't you say? They're going to stay out there
for three full days and Attila is going to put all four Adorations in synch with them."
"I don't understand how they did it," Lenny exclaimed, "I mean, for one thing, they were
standing quite close to an object with a surface temperature of 5,000,000 degrees Celsius."
"Lenny, Lenny," Attila said, "always the scientist. They're gods, remember, if they want
to bend the laws a little, they bend them. No big deal."
Just then, Helen, the Old Man's secretary, came up to me and put her and on my arm and
said, "You know, Aeschylus, we Trojans have always been taught to `Just Say No' to Greeks,
but, in your case, I'm going to make an exception. I'd love to have dinner with you. Eightish, at
my place, Paradise Pavilion 29-B. Please don't bring any wooden horses.”
I was so delightfully dazed that I could only nod yes in my typically blithered-out
fashion.
Circe walked up next with the touristy-looking guy and said, "I guess we're out of a job,
fellas, there's no need for a bunch of little gods with the sun-god back on the throne. So Señor
Torquemada and I are going to start up Heavenly Tours again."
By Unity, would you behold The Tork in his Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, Japanese
thongs and American baseball cap with "Take a Heretic to Lunch This Week" emblazoned on it.
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"I'm mellowing out, gentlemen," he said, "the Old Man says its A-OK for gods and
angels to visit earth again, like when Olympus was hopping, so Circe and I are going to organize
tours."
Then the Old Man, who still had His arms around our shoulders, pulled Lenny and I off
to the side and whispered conspiratorially, "Lads, I've a couple of openings in the God Squad;
good pay, lots of adventure. What do you say?"
I said yes on the spot. Lenny stammered something about working for McDonnellDouglas. The Old Man told him that a promise was a promise and that if he really wanted to
reincarnate as an aircraft designer it was all right, but He really wanted Lenny to be an operative
in Celestial Security. Lenny shrugged and said yes.
“Good,” He said, “now’ listen up. We’ve got a real problem on our hands. A race of
savage, godless Arcturans have gone into space and are enslaving planet-bound species, eating
their brains and leaving their bodies to rot. They have to be stopped. Take a day or two off for R
and R, then take the Huey out to Vega sector headquarters. Take care of this one for Me and I'll
put in a good word with Helen for Aeschylus and Lenny, you have My permission to get your
own B-52. But no nukes!"
The wide glazed look in Lenny's eyes told me that the Old Man, as usual, had struck a
nerve. "I know you love to fiddle with the machines, Da Vinci, but please don't let it interfere
with your work. Now, let's pass from labor to refreshment and find a watering hole."
Back to top
67
DEMON THERAPY
By Thomas Voxfire © 1997
From the depths of a sound sleep, Sheila jerked awake and sat bolt upright, waves of pain
arcing through her brain. Immediately, her analytic sense kicked in, telling her that there was no
internal reason for her to feel this way. Slam-flash went the bolt from the base of her skull
upward. And again. So sudden and intense was it, that the pain threatened to overwhelm her
mind.
"This can't be happening," she thought. But it was!
She knew that before she did anything else, she must make her body insensitive to the
pain. She roll-slithered off the bed and crawled slowly across the floor to her practice mat and, as
quickly as the pain would let her, assumed her cross-legged Asana posture. She slowed her
breathing and tuned her mind to her relaxation mantra, an old Buddhist one. After several
minutes of wondering if her years of yoga practice were going to work this time, she felt the
rigidity and soothing numbness begin to take its toll on her pain-ravaged cranium.
"Just what the hell is going on?" she mentally demanded of nobody in particular. Having
gotten the pain to a tolerable level, she decided to inventory her chakras to see if they could
provide her with a clue as to where this unexpected burst of agony had come from. Starting at the
base of her spine, she concentered her scout-sense on the muladhara chakra and began to move
slowly upward. Nothing.
Then, as her scout made its way up her vertebra past her three lower centers and began to
approach her heart center, she felt strong emotion; anger, fear and hatred coming at her from
without. Somebody was very mad at her. "But why?" she queried herself, "I made their damn
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rain for them like they wanted, why be mad at me?" No answer being forthcoming, she moved
further upward. Her brow-center, the seat of her consciousness, would tell the story for sure, she
knew.
But the story was not to her liking, not one bit. She sensed that almost every able-bodied
male in town, some sixty-odd Iowa farmers, entertained very serious thoughts of her sudden
violent demise.
By now, the word why was assuming titanic proportions in her mind. So was the word
how. These men may be as mad as hell but they were also untrained. They didn't have the ability
to project their thoughts with enough force to cause her to feel this kind of intense pain. She
needed more information and she needed it quickly.
She externalized her light-body, shifted her scout-sense to it, checked the astral-cord for
solidity at both ends and sent it outwards in the direction of the farmers. As her astral double
passed the edge of her circle, she felt something both alien and familiar at the same instant;
something very old and very cold. And then there was nothing, as if something realized that it
didn't want to be recognized and had hidden itself in its own darkness. This happened so quickly
and Sheila was so intent on getting to the farmers that it was forgotten as soon as it happened.
In a few more seconds, her light-body found itself in the midst of an angry mob: "A lynch
mob," she thought, "and its me they want to lynch."
Deke Kelley, the mayor of Oak Forks, Sheila’s recently adopted town, stood up in the
back of a dilapidated Chevy pick-up amidst a sea of flashlights, shotguns and angry men and
exhorted them to greater and greater anger.
"She's a witch," he yelled to the crowd, which gave a chorus of assent," and her evil done
touched my nephew, Billy. He ain't ate nothin' for three days, he talks crazy, he's runnin' a fever
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and Doc Thomas can't find nothing wrong with him. She done it, I know she done it. We gotta
burn her before her evil touches any more of our little ones." The crowd of farmers, enjoying this
break in the monotony of their lives and not wanting it to stop without its' grisly climax,
hypervented their collective spleen on the hapless Sheila.
Bo Kelley, Deke's younger brother, climbed up into the truck bed next to his rabblerousing sibling and yelled out into the mob:
"Now hold on, boys, just hold on. There's no tellin' truth to this witch business. We asked
this young lady to come here `cause we're three months into drought and needed some rain, and
she cooked up some. I know she's like a fish out of water most of the time, but she' city-bred and
her magic ways are different . Billy's my son and I don't think she's put no spell on him."
But Deke, astute politician that he was, wasn't about to lose his advantage. Roughly he
shoved Bo down to the floor of the truck.
"Shut your contrary mouth, little brother, while us older and wiser folks go about
protectin' our kin," Deke said to the assembled men, "C'mon, boys, let's go get that little hussy.”
Realizing her peril, Sheila literally snapped her light-body back into her physical body so
quickly that her whole being felt like a well-rung bell. She was definitely out of phase. She
assumed the form of the Lord of Silence, the correct procedure for too fast a re-entry. She came
to her senses knowing that she had only a very few minutes before her enraged employers
dragged her on the proverbial carpet. Or the gallows. Or the stake.
She dressed hurriedly, put on a coat, grabbed what personal and magical things that were
in easy reach and tossed them in her big duffel bag. She flew out the front door, raced to her car
and fumbled with the keys to her slightly battered `97 Mustang.
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"C'mon fingers, do your stuff," she said to her un-nimble digits. Already she could hear
the raucous shouts of the approaching mob. Sheila was scared, good and scared, 13 units of
Emotional Control Classes at the Virginia Academy for the Occult Sciences notwithstanding.
The door finally came open and she threw her bag on the passenger seat. The Mustang had been
having starting problems lately and she doubted if any of the farmers would give her a jump. She
concentrated her mind's eye as a single unwavering beam of brilliant white light that played over
her mind-held image of her not-so-trusty little car, especially over the starting system.
One glance in the rear-view mirror told her that the men were not more than thirty yards
away. "Easy shotgun range," she thought.
"All right, Beezlybub," she said aloud to the Mustang, "let's go!" She flipped the navicomp switch to manual and turned the ignition key: VROOM...VROOM...VROOM: three quick
revs, slap it into Drive 2, pedal to the metal and Sheila was long gone. "God bless Henry Ford,"
she thought, "I think I'll nominate him for sainthood."
Fortunately for her, the men were intent on surprising her asleep in her bed and didn't
expect a quick get-away. Even more fortunately, by the time one of them got a shotgun to his
shoulder, she had rounded a corner and put a grove of large oak trees between herself and them.
And for the third and greatest stroke of fortune, the closest any of her would-be executioners was
to his pick-up was a five minute hard sprint.
As she headed down the frontage road toward the Interstate, Sheila took several deep
breaths to clear her mind. She had to get off by herself and do some trance analysis. It had been
no more than twenty minutes since she had first woken up with the screaming headache. A bit of
that awful pain still lingered and her mind was quite scrambled. She needed to rest and she
needed to meditate on her predicament. She fed the coordinates for Des Moines into the navi-
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comp, set the speed control for max-legal, switched the navi-comp to auto, placed a small bolus
of laurel leaves under her tongue, put the seat all the way back and went into the sleep that is not
sleep.
The tricky part of this breed of meditation, using semi-trance flow patterns, is that the
mind will tend to drift off the point into normal dreaming or just plain torpor. To control this
drift, caused by the mind's inertia toward laxity, the generally accepted practice is to keep one's
spirit in tune with the appropriate god (in this case, Sheila chose Thoth, the ancient Egyptian
Lord of Wisdom) while the consciousness tackles the object of meditation, utilizing the godconsciousness to see into the subject in infinite depth.
"I invoke Thoth, the Lord of Wisdom and of Utterance, the God who cometh forth from
the Veil, thee, thee I invoke."
"O thou of the Ibis Head, thee, thee I invoke."
Sheila’s mind went back, back, back into the karmic river of her being. She had to find
the antecedent causes that brought her to where she was today. There was no bad luck or good
luck in magick. There was will and there was karma. What happens to you is brought on by you,
no more and no less.
"Thou who wieldest the Wand of Double Power, thee, thee I invoke."
She went back to her previous life. Hazy. Foggy. Distant. Magical memory was not her
forte'. But she remembered a mistake, a serious mistake. It had cost her life, at the hands of a
mob. Then, release from the bonds of the flesh and the Bardo, the after-death planes: cleansing
and purging her spirit, readying her for her next carnal vehicle. She chose her parents, they
joined and she lived.
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"Thou who bearest in thy left hand the Rose and Cross of Life and Light, thee, thee I
invoke." In the womb, with all her tiny might, the Sheila-bud willed that it would not happen
again. She would do it right, by the Eye of Horus, she would do it right. Then birth: trauma and
pain and the resulting amnesia. She was going to do it right, but the memory of what "it" was,
wasn't there. Infancy, childhood, adolescence flitted by. Nothing. And then the Visitation, the
Academy and back to the Path.
“Thou whose head is as an Emerald and thy Nemyss as the Night-Sky Blue, thee, thee I
invoke."
Study, practice, triumph and failure - over and over and over. And then finally, the highpoint, the reason for all the toil: the Great Work, the ritual to contact and unite with the Most
High, the Soul of the Universe, the Lady of the Stars. The first phase went well, she had made
contact, but over-confidence made her sloppy in the second phase and despite all the pre-natal
precautions which she had long since forgotten, she made the mistake. Again.
"Thou, whose Skin is of flaming orange as thou it burned in a furnace, thee, thee I
invoke.”
She had failed to bind one of the servitors, a particularly wily one, and it had escaped.
"Be vigilant," her guru had told her," for it will be back. They're proud, these elementals and
quite vengeful and it will attempt to bind you to it’s will just as you tried and failed to bind it to
yours. You have the potential to be a strong adept, but you must be careful."
Then Graduation and the Real World. Her training was as a healer, her first job was in a
large hospital. On her first attempt at diagnosis, she had mistaken a perforated ulcer for gastroenteritis. The head resident, who was not at all sympathetic to magical medicine, had summarily
fired her for just one mistake.
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Back at the academy, the employment counselor had been sympathetic but all he could
find for the unfortunate Sheila was a job as a rain-maker in a small isolated farming town for a
group of drought-stricken farmers. She had called up rain for them, not once but several times
and they appeared to be quite pleased with her. The next thing she knew they were trying to kill
her for bewitching the mayor’s nephew.
BEEP...BEEP...BEEP...The alarm on the navi-comp brought her abruptly to awareness,
secure in the knowledge that the correction to her mistake was directly connected to little Billy
Kelley. The sun was just starting to peep over the horizon as she entered the outskirts of Des
Moines. She saluted the sun in the proper manner and proceeded to plan the day ahead. She had
to get back to Oak Forks and see Billy and not get killed doing it. Darkness was mandatory. She
decided to spend the day at the local library and head out in the early evening.
The Metaphysical section of the Des Moines Public Library proved to be a wash-out.
Three books on Edgar Cayce, two on tea-leaf reading and astrology and four on various kinds of
self-hypnosis just didn't cut it. She found one little occult bookshop but all it had was an old dogeared Goetia. She didn't need to summon the spirit, that was apparent, what she needed now was
advice on how to control it. "Hey," she thought suddenly, "I'll just call the school."
"I'm sorry, miss," the long-distance operator told her, "I can't get through. All of Virginia
has been hit by a freak electrical storm and there's no telephone service in or out."
Sheila began to feel more and more isolated and frightened. Then she remembered the
"bottom line" - when the chips were down, there was only one person that you could count on
and that was yourself. You either went boom or bust and she damnsure wasn't going to go bust.
Period. Exclamation Point!
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She directed her thoughts to the operation which she had bungled and tried to recreate it.
She had identified with the Goddess, who gave her the strength and knowledge to summon the
Spirits of the Four Elements; Earth, Air and Water were relatively easy. But Fire, the martial
spirit, was her bugaboo.
Sheila’s nature did not have much of a fiery martial side. She had a certain amount of
street sense but she tended to be empathic almost to the point of being a bleeding heart. The
toughness and orderliness of the military side of things did not particularly appeal to her. To her
detriment, for that was what she needed most in herself right now to deal with what's-his-name,
uh, Bartz...
Slam-flash went a wave of pain from the base of her skull upward. And again. And again.
Once more she felt the presence of something old and cold and malignant and at the
very edge of her mind she could hear awful, evil laughter, tinkling and nasty. And then a voice
scratched across her mind like broken glass, saying: "I've got him, little missy so smart, and I'll
feed him his face. You, you, too, he's mine and I'll eat him slow and sure and you, too!"
Get a grip on yourself, Sheila thought as she felt the panic rise within her, these
elementals are tough but they're only partial beings, not complete microcosms. She put herself in
a white light and banished for all she was worth. She felt the presence of the demon fade as her
circle grew stronger. "I'll have your ectoplasmic ass for dinner," she projected after the departing
spirit, surprising herself with this macho outburst, and adding as an afterthought, "and you'd
better not hurt that little boy."
Bartzabel, Sheila remembered, was the little nasty's name. The Spirit of Fire, beloved of
the god Mars. Bound and controlled, he was a necessary and useful part of a magician's bag of
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tricks. Summoned and lost, loose in the world because of Sheila’s ineptness, he could cause
Sheila’s environment a considerable amount of trouble: case-in-point, Oak Forks, Iowa.
She walked outside into the gathering twilight. She made her adoration to the setting sun,
climbed into her car and headed out of the city. Once back on the Interstate, she set the navicomp to Oak Forks and settled back to think. Not only did she have to deal with a cantankerous
elemental, there was also Deke Kelley and his good-old-boy buddies. And, unlike the demon,
they were complete microcosms and therefore much dangerous.
It was nearly midnight when she arrived back at Oak Forks. She maneuvered onto the
frontage road and headed up the little dirt road that led into the oak grove which backed on Bo
Kelley's farm. Once inside the grove she turned off her lights and used her astral eyes to keep
herself from becoming one with the trees. She stopped several yards from the edge of the grove
and turned the Mustang off. She then hunted around in her bag for her magical dagger and wand,
no easy task in a bag as disheveled as Sheila’s currently was. She didn't need the passive
weapons, the cup and the disc. What she had to do to redress the balance was purely active this
time.
She invoked the God of Silence to give her invisibility, took a deep breath and headed out
into the field towards Bo's house, several hundred yards away. "Piece of cake," Sheila thought to
herself, forgetting that pride went before a fall, "piece of cake."
What Sheila did not know was that Deke Kelley's oldest boy was parked not ten feet
from where Sheila was parked. Busily engaged in putting heavy moves on his girlfriend, Bert
Kelley was completely un aware of Sheila’s presence. But his girlfriend, not quite so enamored
of Bert's attentions as he might have wished, was. And not knowing that Sheila was supposed to
be invisible, she watched Sheila walk furtively across the open field.
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"Hey, Bert," she whispered, "don't say nothin', but that little witch your pa chased out of
town is headed towards your uncle’s house. We better get Deke and the other men-folk, too. I bet
she's come to take her spite out on Billy."
By now the young magician had made her way across the field and was up to the back
door. "Please, Lord," she prayed silently, "help me make them understand." She knocked quietly
on the door and waited. And waited. Finally, she knocked again. Then the porch light went, the
door opened slowly and the business end of a 12-gauge shotgun poked out at her. Sheila froze
and squeaked out between her teeth, "Please, Bo, don't shoot me, I can help Billy if you'll let
me."
The shotgun dropped slowly and Bo's voice came out of the dark doorway, "I'd a feelin'
you'd be back, missy, c'mon in."
He led her into the kitchen, where his wife sat at the table, looking very worried and
distraught. When she saw Sheila, a baleful grimace passed over her features and she spat out,
"Witch-woman, if you hurt my little boy, I'll kill you, so help me God, I will." Reaching for the
telephone, she added, " I'm going to call Deke, he'll know how to deal with the likes of her."
"Stop it, Margie," Bo said, pushing down the phone receiver, "and give her a chance, I
don't feel like she's bad."
Billy's mother, far from being placated, glared hard at Sheila and demanded, "What's
wrong with my little boy, witch, what'd you do to him?"
"Nothing, not intentionally anyway, but a long time ago I made a spirit, a demon, mad at
me and now it has come after me. It couldn't get at me directly, it needed a human host to work
through. So it took Billy, probably through his dreams in some sort of disguise."
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Just then, there was a high, strident howl from another part of the house:
“Aiee...hee...hee...haa...the bitch is here for me,… me...Eat her face I will and the little shit's, too,
too, too."
"There's no time to talk," Sheila said, taking charge of the situation and the emotionally
exhausted parents, "you must let me be alone with him."
Both the Kelleys felt the command in her voice and acquiesced. Margie Kelley's head
sank into her arms and she began to sob uncontrollably. Bo merely stood there and opened his
hands in a very old gesture: what can I do to help?
"Take a small, flat pan outside and fill it with sand or dirt, fresh dirt if you have no sand,
and bring it back to me." Bo did as he was told and handed the pan to Sheila.
"I'll show you where he is," he told her. Sheila put her hand out to stop him.
"There's no need," she said, "I know where he is and I know how to make it all right. Just
try to be calm and tend to your wife. Oh, I need some salt, too."
He nodded quizzically toward the shaker on the table and Sheila quickly scooped it up
and, along with the pan of dirt and her dagger and wand, walked down the darkened hallway
toward the gruntings and screamings of the demon-riddled child.
"And now, Bartzabel," she said in a business-like monotone as she flung open the little
boy's door, "prepare to meet your master."
Setting the pan of dirt and her magical weapons down, Sheila sprinkled a large mound of
salt, the great purifier, into her right hand. Then she turned quickly around and threw the salt into
the air over the boy, saying loudly, "Ahpopontos kako daemonos." and then brought her hand
down in a slashing arc toward the floor.
Billy screamed, "Fire, it burns...Ice, it burns. Stop it, it burns, burns, Aiee, it burns.
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"That oughtta hold him for awhile," Sheila thought, knowing that the one that was
actually burning was the demon, not the little boy.
Working feverishly now, Sheila took another handful of salt and traced a triangle around
Billy and then, to the east of the triangle, she traced a large circle around herself, making sure
first that all of her necessaries were inside.
Next she took up the dagger and performed the most powerful of all banishings, the
Ritual of the Flaming Star. On the bed, Billy had stopped screaming. He mumbled at her,
"Mommy?"
"No, Billy, its your mom's friend, I’m going to fix you right up, just lie quiet.
Everything's going to be okay."
Sheila put down the dagger and picked up the wand. "Oh damn," she thought," no
incense, how can I invoke without incense?" She gazed about herself in desperation. Suddenly,
her eye focused on a mosquito coil burning on the boy's dresser and before her good sense had
the chance to intervene, she broke the most fundamental of all the rules of evocation and stepped
outside the circle to pick up the glowing coil.
Faster than the eye could follow, the demon-Billy was on her, grabbing her by the wrist
and howling with derision, "Stupid bitch, stupid bitch, I got you...I'll eat you, too, too, too."
Sheila was mad: first at herself for being such a dolt and second at the demon for being
such an asshole. Anger gave her strength, martial strength and she picked up the boy easily,
ripped her wrist out of his grasp and threw him back on the bed. Then she stepped back to the
center of her circle, set the coil down on the floor directly in front of her and pointed the wand at
the small figure writhing on the bed.
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Slowly and surely her invocation of the Roman God of War filled the room with a dim
red light, announcing the presence of the god. The Billy-demon just lay on the bed, murmuring
to itself. The demon knew when it was licked. Sheila had attained to the consciousness of Mars,
Bartzabel's Lord and Master, and she was very much in command.
Sighting down the wand's length, Sheila, or Soror Estrella as she was known formally,
ordered the spirit to draw his sigil in the pan of dirt at her feet. It was done. The demon was
forever bound to her. She gave her new servant license to depart, adding the sanction that it
answer her call quickly, and then performed the closing banishing.
All that was left on the bed was a thoroughly frightened little boy. Crying gently, all Billy
could say was, "Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare."
Sheila opened the door and called out to his parents, "Billy's okay, you better come to
him, he needs you." Both of them ran down the hall to their son's bedroom, made for his bed and
threw their arms around him.
Without warning, the bullhorn-amplified voice of Deke Kelley blasted into the house, and
to Sheila it was even more ominous than the screams of the demon-riddled child.
"We know you're in there, witch," Deke said, "and you more' n' likely got a spell on my
brother's family. So don't try sendin' Bo or Margie out to talk for you. We'll shoot 'em. I think
you got that no-count Bo under your wing. You all come out together, Billy, too. And pretty
quick, or we're gonna start shootin'. Maybe burnin' too. So get out here!"
"He's gone round the bend," Sheila thought, "He sounds crazy enough to shoot his own
brother. Must be up for re-election or something."
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"Sit tight," she told the family huddled on the bed, "while I go take care of your nitwit
brother." Sheila, fortified by new strengths she never knew she had, now knew how to take this
idiot Deke and beat him at his own game and put the Fear of God into his pals as well.
She walked out the back door into the glare of about twenty sets of headlights. Shrugging
off the momentary blindness, she marched straight up to the middle of the line where she sensed
that Deke was.
"Deke Kelley, you sniveling coward," she yelled out in front of her, "why don't you go
home and hide under the bed where you belong."
Deke, hysteria edging his voice, screamed at her, "Quiet, you damn witch-woman or I'll
shoot you where you stand."
"Shoot, you stupid old fool," Sheila countered, "everybody knows you couldn't hit the
broad side of a bull's butt at ten paces.
This drew a roar of laughs from Deke's buddies, a lot of whom never liked the old loudmouth anyway. Deke, sensing his loss of control of the situation, jumped out of his pick-up and
ran at her, holding the shotgun aimed at her head. But as he stepped directly in front of her, she
drew on his memory and reformulated her image for him. Now Deke was no longer looking into
the face of the young girl magician, but instead, into the face of his long-dead mother, who
sighted down the barrel of her big, red Irish nose at him and scowled mightily, braying at him:
"You've been very naughty, Dekelind, and your momma's gonna whale the tar out of you."
The mayor of Oak Forks sank slowly to his knees, slobbering and blubbering as he went,
until finally he was nothing more than a pile of whimpering protoplasm at her feet. So intent
were the other farmers on watching this tableau of their vanquished leader that they failed to
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notice the starry night sky quickly cover with clouds. Sheila was going to make it rain one more
time and this would be a storm than none of them would ever be likely to forget.
She remembered from Weather Control class; that the teacher had said that it was a
simple matter of changing your molecular density to let the lightning pass through you. "Offer no
resistance," he had said, "just don't be there."
"Well," she thought, "let's hope that this time that theory and practice are one and the
same thing." She called on another on the Roman Gods, this time Vulcan, to send forth a
lightning bolt ( a small one, please) and strike her.
The assembled men of Oak Forks watched in awe and consternation as the sky boiled
above them. Where the hell had this storm come from, why just a few minutes ago the sky was
just as clear as a bell. Sheila felt her skin begin to tingle and felt her hair standing up on end.
Then there was a tremendous flash of light and blast of thunder. Sheila winced but still stood,
glowing slightly at the edges. And in the face of a glowing witch who absorbed lightning bolts,
the men began to cower
"If you men have any sense at all," Sheila told them in a commanding voice, "you'll do as
I say. Put this creep Deke in jail and make Bo your new mayor. Now get on home before I give
you a personal introduction to the lightning."
In less than three minutes the field was cleared. The men had acted as if the very fires of
hell were at their backsides, which, in a certain manner of speaking, they were.
Sheila trudged wearily back into Bo's house. She was very, very tired. Bo and his family
were sleeping peacefully on top of Billy's bed. She found the nearest unoccupied bed, lay down,
and was about halfway through the midnight salutation to the sun when sleep claimed her.
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Down, down, down she drifted into the deepest strata of her being, mental levels so deep
and ancient that modern psychiatry has not even guessed at their existence. She had been shoved,
literally shoved, into making a very necessary correction in herself, with no time to decide
whether or not she really wanted to. All of her planes, from lowest to highest, from Malkuth to
Kether, reverberated with the newness of her. And in the Sleep of Light, she was purged and
made whole. The culmination of millennia of repetitive incarnations was upon her. The High
Gods themselves took a hand in her preparation, for now she was truly fit to be their servant.
Slowly, she began to drift upward to wakefulness. As she drew closer to the physical
plane, she heard mumbled voices and, as her eyes creaked open, she saw indistinct figures at the
foot of the bed.
"Look, Doc," Margie Kelley exclaimed, "she's wakin' up!"
"Easy, there, don't upset her," she heard Doc Thomas' voice say gently, "How are you
feeling, young missy, you have been out for quite a while."
"I feel like a car ran over me just before I woke up. Anybody get the license number?"
she asked, her old flippancy returning quickly. Then, as she remembered more of what had
happened, she asked, seriously, "How's Billy?"
In answer, the boy came around from the end of the bed, ran up to her and planted a big
kiss on her cheek, saying, "Thanks, Miss Sheila, Dad said you saved my life."
"I guess so, Billy, but its my fault that the little creep got inside you in the first place, so
let's call it even."
"We put Deke in jail," Bo spoke up, "He's pretty crazy, talkin' about seeing Mama and
wanting to kill everybody. The state's going to send down some headshrinkers to look at him.
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Doc and me are gonna run things till we can have an election. You're welcome to stay as long as
you like, Miss Sheila. All the boys are real sorry 'bout what happened."
"It’s okay, Bo," she said wearily as sleep started to reclaim her, "I'd probably done the
same in their shoes..." She trailed off into incoherence, her last conscious thought that tomorrow
was waiting.
Back to top
84
Paradox
By Thomas Voxfire ©2000
Dylan woke in a daze. He had hardly rested that night; his mind churning over what he
was about to do. He must enter the Rift with his cadre and cause change in the past to improve
the present. They must risk paradox, again. This was not an idea that brought him peace of mind.
Once again, he invoked Kronos, the guardian of time and asked for guidance. And once
again, the thought formed in his mind as it had a hundred times before: enter the Rift and do
what must be done, then return. His duty as an apprentice agent to the Bureau of Temporal
Adjustment demanded it.
The phone rang loudly in his ear; it had to be Debra, the sentinel, she was always first, no
matter what was happening.
“Yes, Deb,” he spoke into the phone, “I know we have to be there in 45 minutes. Have
you talked to Kyle?”
“This is Kyle, pal, Deb’s eating breakfast. How you feeling?”
“Like shit, I’m spaced out bigtime. Do we have to do this? I’d rather go fishing…” he
trailed off as an image formed in his mind of the horrible fighting in Romania: almost three
hundred thousand people had died from the hydraplague the rebels had unleashed on them two
weeks ago.
“You know we can’t skip out, chump, the Temp has to do their job, and we’re up. Here,
you tell him.”
“Get your gear and your ass out front, cowboy,” Deb spat into the receiver, “and cut the
crap, we have to go to work. We take care of this one and we’re journeymen. So get your head
on straight. We’re there in 10 minutes”
“Roger that.”
Dylan cradled the phone and went through his gear, one last time. Displacer module,
check. Throat translator, check. 9mm Walther pistol, check. 9mm Uzi, check. 1000 rounds, 9mm
ammo, check. Rationpak, check. Medpak, check. Assorted survival crap, check. He shook his
head, clearing it. Time to go…time to do it.
He shouldered the heavy bakpak. He walked out the door, locked it, and started to sit just
as Deb’s red Marauder screamed around the corner and braked right in his face. The trunk
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sprung open. He walked to the car and dropped in his bakpak and then squeezed past Kyle into
the tiny back seat of the sports car.
“Couldn’t you have brought something with a little more room?” Dylan asked. He was
always the last in and they always made him sit in back.
“Yeah, right, like the bus we’ve always wanted. Boys, hang on, we’re outta here.” she
said, as she pushed the shifter into first and stood on the pedal.
They made the eight mile trip to HQ in just over 20 minutes. Deb drove like a bat out of
hell and, because of the ultrablue Temp plates on the Marauder, the cops didn’t hassle her. Kyle
had his door open before the car came to a stop. He had their gear out of the trunk before Deb
had the engine off. She was out of the car faster than Kyle. She and Kyle had their bakpaks
hoisted and were at the main door while Dylan was still exiting the car.
“Can we please go in, Dyl ?” she spat at him. He glowered at her and slammed his door.
“Thanks, pal,” she said as she flipped the remote over she shoulder at the car and sent it
into stasis.
Dylan caught up to them at the enterdesk, asking to no one in particular, “Do we always
have to be in such a fucking hurry?”
“You eat with that mouth, youngster?” the grizzled old man in uniform shot at Dylan.
“Keep a civil tongue, you’re in the presence of your betters.”
“Better at what, McAllister?” asked Kyle, “keeping chairs from floating off into space by
having your ass in them all the time?”
“Yeah, right,” said the old guard, as he thumbed the switch that let them into main ops.
“Why can’t they just head out to pasture where they belong?” queried Debra. “Why keep
these old fucks around?”
“Mainly to keep you children in line,” came the voice from across the ops-staging room.
The three cadre members froze as they acknowledged the Old Lady’s stern presence. She
continued with no further preamble, “Sentinel, mission!” It was not a question, it was a
command.
Taking a deep breath, Debra said in a machine-like drone, “Enter the Rift, recede twenty
nine years, three months, four days. Locate and retrieve Salicec...”
“Locate where, specify! Right now you’re anywhere on the planet.”
“Romania, city of Anina in mountainous region, locate Padravic School, isolate and
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retrieve eight year old Salicec, identifiable from photos and characteristic red beret.”
“Do you speak Romanian, sentinel?” asked the Old Lady fluently in that language.
Debra touched the translator at her throat, saying, “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t catch that,”
also in Romanian.
“I thought not, sentinel. Should you exit the Rift in a crowd of Romanians speaking
English and your mission will be stillborn. Be prepared or be dead!”
“Be prepared or be dead,” the three cadre members echoed her in Romanian.
“Technician, gear and usage.”
“ Five century modules, one each, Walther side arms, one each, Uzi mini-gun, one each,
1000 rounds ammo, each, medpaks, rationpaks, standard survival tools, bakpaks, summer hiking
clothes. All sets, one each.”
“There’s a change, according to intelligence, the best chance for retrieval is in early
winter. You will be regeared accordingly. Continue.”
“Set modules for thirty year jump. No arms below extremity level three. Recon, locate,
retrieve target ASAP.”
“Balance, potentials!” the Old Lady said to Dylan.
“Only a four month window, late summer to early winter, for retrieval. If Salicec is taken
prior to mother’s death, 97% chance mother will cause unacceptable paradox level event.
Immediately after mother’s death, target disappears with partisans, no further record of
whereabouts until emergence with rebel partisan army eighteen months ago. No acceptable
solution possible after emergence. Retrieval at this time will cause acceptable paradox event of
no genocidal war with biological weapons.”
“May Kronos guide your steps, cadre, gear up and go!” snapped the Old Lady as she
stepped out of the staging room.
Another door opened and two uniformed men entered carrying clothing. They were each
issued a heavy hooded parka, lined pants, snow boots and goggles. The cadre dressed quickly,
placing their modules in the slings under their jackets. Debra activated the module controller on
the wall behind her, nodding to Kyle when she saw the correct read-out.
“Synchro: Anina, Romania - 29y – 3m – 4d: retro!” said Kyle.
“Of course, retro, dipshit,” countered Deb, “you can’t go into the future, it hasn’t
happened yet.”
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“Are you sure?” questioned Dylan, “has anybody ever tried?”
Debra reached over to the module controller and told him, smiling, “Just shut the fuck
up!” as she flipped the switch, sending all three of them careening into the Rift.
Debra came to first, retching and vomiting up pop tarts. She was on her hands and knees
in dirt, and stayed there while she got her bearings. What the fuck happened? She’d never been
through a jump like this before. First, it’s dark, she thought, it’s night. They left in the early
morning and jumps were almost instantaneous. It should still be morning. And where were Kyle
and Dylan?
She heard groaning off to her left. She tried to get to her knees and almost passed out.
She called out, “Kyle! Dylan! Can you hear me? What is going on?”
“I hear you, beautiful,” Kyle said weakly, “I don’t feel good. What did we do? Jump into
a rock? I’ve never done a jump that lasted more than a few seconds, this one felt like it took
hours.”
“I hear that,” she said, recalling what had occurred during the jump, “I saw lights and
patterns of glowing …weirdness... it was totally…Where is Dylan?” She managed to get her
bakpak off and dug into it for a flashlight. She pulled it out and switched it on, sweeping the
beam around her. She saw Kyle a few feet off to her left. He was on his hands and knees,
coughing and retching as she had been.
Several feet directly in front of her, the beam from her light fell on a large dark unmoving
lump. Had to be Dylan, she thought, probably asleep. She crawled slowly over to him. His head
lay on a large round rock and there was blood.
“Kyle, man down,” she yelled, “he’s bleeding.”
“From where?” asked Kyle, crawling up to her.
“Forehead, look!” she said, pointing to a large red, wet lump just below the hairline. She
reached over and put her hand on his neck and let it stay there, saying, “Pulse is strong, he’s still
with us.”
Kyle fished around in his bakpak and got out his medpak. He took out the spray
disinfectant and played it all over Dylan’s lump.
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“Ow, damn that hurts,” Dylan yelled as he came to, “what happened? I remember big
swirly lights and taking forever…” He rolled over and puked. “What the hell kind of jump was
that? And why is it dark? Should be morning.”
“We need to center on the mission, gentlemen” she told them, “where are we? We should
be just outside a small Romanian city, but all I see,” she said, as she swung the light around her
in a circle, “is the wide open spaces.” There were mountains in front of them at a distance, barely
visible in the moonlight. But there was no city and there were no people.
Then she added, feeling a strange shiver of apprehension, “And when are we? Something
really doesn’t feel right.” She pushed her wristclock out where she could see it and said, “Oh,
Jesus, this thing has flatlined. Doesn’t say shit. How about you?”
“Yup,” said Dylan, “mine’s bye-bye.”
“Same,” Kyle agreed, “It’s for sure a GPS won’t work here either. How about a compass
and a map? And maybe a sextant?” He pulled the instruments out and went to work with them.
After a few minutes, he started shaking his head and moaning to himself: “No, no, no…this can’t
be.”
“What?” Deb asked, “don’t keep us in suspense.”
“As far as I can tell, we are where we’re supposed to be, except the mountains are a little
higher than they should be. And the stars are close to where they should be, but not quite. About
30,000 years not quite.”
“I beg your pardon,” Dylan spat at him, “say again!”
“Look, I’m not an astronomer, but, as far as I can tell from these instruments and where
the stars are, we’ve gone about 30,000 years into the past,” Kyle said, not believing his own
words.
“Not possible,” Debra, “we only had 5 century modules. The farthest anyone’s gone back
is three hundred years. And those jumps almost killed the cadres. You know that 150 years is
about max.”
“Well,” quipped Kyle, “here we sit. Guys, I’m not jiving around. Look at that star. It’s
called Sirius. In our time, it should be over there to the right. Where it is, now, is where it was
300 centuries ago.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll take your word for it,” Deb said, “now what? How did we get here? Can
we get back?”
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“Let’s think about this,” Dylan said, “my job is calculating potentials. If we have to be
careful about paradox in a 30 year jump, and I am a math major, the paradox vector of a 30,000
year jump is exponentially huge. We crush the wrong blade of grass, and New York may never
happen.”
“Cool,” said Kyle, “fuck the Big Apple.” Then, thinking over what he had just said, and
realizing what his responsibility was, said, “Not cool, I guess that was a bad response.”
“Right,” said Debra, “we do the wrong thing here and Kronos only knows what will
happen down the road. The only thing I see is that we need to get back ASAP!”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m wiped out,” said Kyle, “let’s get some sleep. Get a fresh
start in the morning, We can’t do diddly now anyway.”
“Uh, fellas,” said Debra, “this was supposed to be a six hour jump. We don’t have tents
or sleeping bags, and it’s getting colder by the minute. So where do we sleep?”
“Motel 6?”
“The Marriott?”
“Home on the range? Do we have a choice?” asked Dylan.
“One of us has to stay awake, in case of animals. There’s no dinosaurs now, right?” asked
Kyle.
“Nope, just wolves, bears, saber tooth tigers and woolly mammoths, that kind of stuff,”
answered Debra. “We’d better weapon up,” she said as she pulled the Uzi mini-gun out and
pulled back the bolt to put a round in the firing chamber, “but sleep with the safety on.”
“How about a fire?” asked Kyle.
“Got any wood?”
“So who’s the sentry?” asked Dylan.
“You, Dyl, you volunteered right?” answered Debra.
He lasted about 10 minutes longer than the others, then Dylan was out cold too.
“Ops Control, report,” ordered the Old Lady, “current status of Cadre 4.”
“Unknown,” came the reply, getting the ops man a strong scowl from her, “two seconds
into their jump and we lost total instrument fix.”
“Not possible,” said the woman, “instrument failure is not an option.”
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“Ma’am,” answered ops, “I didn’t say they failed, they were and are working. I said they
lost their targets.”
“Explain!”
“Excuse me, lady,” said the head resident tech, “but maybe I can help shed some light.”
“Proceed!”
“Approximately three hours ago,” he answered, “a freak, very powerful electric storm
discharged a lightning bolt into a power switching station some two miles from here, at almost
the exact same time the cadre jumped. For no apparent reason, several million volts at very low
amperage entered this building and made directly for the controller module, at the exact moment
it was activated. Instead of being gently pushed into the Rift, cadre 4 was slingshotted into it.
The really odd thing was that no other electrical apparatus suffered any effect. It’s almost as if
the electricity had a mind of its own. It went where it wanted to go and nowhere else”
“This is neither possible nor plausible, unless…” she trailed off, “unless it was the…no,
no, no such thing.” She shook her head as the enormity of what she was saying confronted her.
They all invoked Kronos, but they didn’t really believe in him. It was a superstition, a panacea, it
was not real. Or was it?
A few of the assembled personnel exchanged anxious glances. Seeing the Old Lady
flustered was not to their liking. As demanding as she was, her foreboding presence was always
steadying. Basically, she was the Bureau of Temporal Adjustment.
Gaining control of herself, the Old Lady said, “Get the instruments online, dammit, track
them and find them. Failure is not an option.”
The first rays of the rising sun caught the sleeping Debra in the eyes, waking her. She
shivered violently, not so much from the cold as from the realization of the enormity of her
cadre’s situation. Also she had to pee bigtime. Extricating herself from the pile which was Kyle
and Dylan, she stood up and walked away. She dropped her pants and took care of business.
Then she did a recon.
They were on a low hill, at the base of a mountain range which trailed off toward the
rising sun. The ground around them was spotted with dry grass and patches of dirt and mud and a
few trees. At the base of the hill, away from the mountain was a small river. Anina was near a
river, she remembered. On the other side of the river, a wooded area thickened into a dense
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forest. She heard bird sounds coming from the forest. Nowhere did she see anything even faintly
resembling human habitation. Nothing…
She examined her instruments. The wristclock was dead. The module was dead.
Everything electrical she tried was completely inert: nothing but lumps of metal, plastic and
circuitry. She felt panic rise within her and she repressed it. Instead of getting upset, she went
back to the still sleeping males and gave both of them a good swift kick in the butt.
“Up and atta ‘em, boys,” she barked at them, “we got work to do.”
“Damn, Deb,” said Dylan, coming to slowly, “take it easy. Just exactly what work are
you talking about? We’re about twenty-nine thousand plus years too early to do anything about
Salicec.”
“I think she means surviving, Dyl,” replied Kyle.
“Right,” she asserted, “and also figuring out how to get back home. My instruments don’t
function. Check yours, guys, okay?”
After several minutes, both the males reported that all their electrical equipment was nonfunctional. All of them fired off a round from their weapons.
“Well, the pieces are working,” said Kyle. “that’s something in our favor.”
“Can we power up the modules?” asked Dylan. “I tried my extra battery and it was totally
gone.”
Kyle stood up and surveyed the terrain around them. “Don’t see no power poles, folks,”
he said, “don’t think I can charge an ion battery from the materials I see from my personal
vantage point.”
“Smart ass,” said Debra, “what about people? What kind of people are around now?”
“From what I remember from anthro class,” replied Kyle, “history started about ten,
twelve thousand years before us. We’re twenty thousand years, give or take, before that. This is
Ice Age and caveman time. We’re in the fucking Stone Age. Any people we meet are going to be
primitive and are probably not going to like us a whole lot. I plan to keep junior here handy,” he
said, stroking the Uzi.
“Whatever,” answered Dylan, “what we need is shelter. Winter’s coming on. We need to
make some kind of camp. We need to get food, which means hunting or maybe find some
veggies or fruit or something. I think we ought to get across that river and check out the woods.”
“Agreed,” said Debra, “let’s do it.”
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They started to move down the hill toward the river.
“What happens if we run into cavemen?”, asked Deb, “we may need their help. Without
translators, we can’t talk to them, right?”
“Use hand signals and body language, do your foxy lady routine,” answered Dylan with
a smirk.
“No, wait,” Kyle interjected, “the translators aren’t electric, they’re driven by body heat.
They should be fine.” He raised his hand to his throat and spoke in colloquial Japanese, “See,
they’re working.” All of their translators checked out.
“At least we got one break,” said Debra, “so let’s go find some cavemen.”
If the People hadn’t been performing the moon ceremony late into the night, they never
would have seen the great flash in the east. As it was, it came at the climax of the ritual, covering
all of them in an intense white glow. Never had the rite of the full moon been answered by the
Hidden Ones with such power. They were awed and shaken by the light, all except one.
“The Hidden Ones have shown us a sign,” said Tlat, “ they tell us of the moon’s blessing
on our hunt. It will go well, they will find meat. They have spoken.”
“Dlel thinks not,” answered Dlel, “it was merely lightning. Awesome, but part of life.
Why do you go to such lengths to fool us, Tlat?”
Dlima, jumping to the aid of the shaman, told Dlel, “Lightning? On a cloudless night with
all the stars out? Dlel, it is you who are the fool. Dlima feels as Tlat, something powerful is about
to happen. Perhaps in the hunt, or possibly even more.”
“Kech,” retorted Dlel, “both of you are full of bison kech. Dlel knows…”
He was cut off by Tlen, leader of the People, “Enough of this bickering! The People have
been given a portent. We must await its fulfillment. Let us return to the home and rest.
Tomorrow we will see what the Hidden Ones have in store for us.”
“Agreed,” said Tlat, “let us rest after our labors.”
Dlel knew better than to argue with Tlen. Dlel was cunning but not particularly brave. He
would not push any more. But he would continue to think of new ways to unseat Tlat, so he
could become shaman. Or, he mused, even leader…
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Cadre 4 approached the river slowly. The three young Temp operatives were trying very
hard not to think about just how lost they were: lost in time with no working equipment to return
home, lost in a completely unfamiliar wilderness with maps made 300 centuries in the future,
and lost with no one to turn to for help. And even if they did find other humans, they had no idea
what kind of reception they could expect. And what about their equipment, could it be used?
Could the batteries be recharged? Kyle had a basic idea how ion batteries were built and he knew
how to charge them with a standard issue charger that plugged into a wall socket. But where they
were now, there were no such sockets, nor were there any walls.
“Okay,” asked Debra, “let’s say we find cavemen, and, if we can communicate with them
and, if they decide to help us, what do we ask them for?”
“Directions to Burger King?”
“Directions to Wal-Mart?”
“Directions to the local Temp office?”
“Assholes! No really, guys, we need to think this through,” she snapped, “we need to get
a plan. Balance, plan!”
Dylan snapped to attention by sheer force of habit. He thought for a few minutes, and
finally said, “We need to understand how it is we got here. Something turned our 5 century
modules into ones infinitely more powerful. To figure out how that happened, we need to get the
modules operable and check the logs. To do that we need charged batteries, which means
working chargers. Technician, issues relevant to charger!”
“Yeah, right,” rejoined Kyle, “we have chargers but no way to power them up. We would
need to generate electric current at 110 to 120 volts at about 4.8 amps for about an hour per
module. With the batteries charged, we could have the modules do self-tests to see if they still
work. That’s about it; power, it’s all about electric power. Find ConEdison and we’re in
business.”
Debra was about to ask about making a makeshift generator when she suddenly saw
movement on the river bank opposite them, about 200 yards away.
“Down,” she hissed, “I see something ahead. Cadre, recon!”
All three dropped to their knees and pulled out distance goggles.
“I see humans,” Deb said, “four of them. There’s two male adults, one female and what
looks like child. I don’t think they’ve seen us…”
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She stopped suddenly as the business end of a club swung down from above and landed
on her skull, as it also did very swiftly on the skulls of her companions. The three unconscious
cadre members were then bound with leather thongs. They never knew what hit them.
Kyle came to with a splitting headache. Jesus, he thought, what hit me? He could dimly
make out voices. He was about to call out to them, when he realized they weren’t speaking
English. Whatever language it was, he didn’t recognize it at all. He tried to move his hand to his
translator and couldn’t. His hands were tied behind his back. Damn, he thought, I’m a prisoner.
Not wanting to give himself away, he opened his eyes to slits and did a recon. He was in
a building, no, make that a cave. There were two, maybe three indistinct figures about ten feet
away, standing and talking in low tones. He could make out word sounds but understood
nothing. He could also see Debra and Dylan, laying on the ground near him. They were both out
cold.
He remembered a trick with this translator. He bent his head toward his left shoulder until
he felt the translator. He cricked his neck and the translator came on. He still understood nothing.
Shit, it doesn’t know this dialect, he thought, we’re dead in the water. As his mind overcame the
pain, he realized the truth: his cadre were prisoners of cavemen 30,000 years in the past. The
cavemen who were supposed to help them get back to their time had snuck up on them, bashed
them on the head and taken them prisoners. This was not good. He passed out.
When Kyle woke again, he could still hear voices, but there was something new. Every
so often, there was a word in English: “…strangers…danger…kill…” Good news, the translator
was learning the language. Bad news, the speaker wanted to kill the strangers. He could feel the
Uzi was still in its holster, but he had no way to get his hands to it. He could also see that Debra
and Dylan still had their bakpaks on, which meant they still had their gear.
Deb was lying close to his feet. He scooted over to her slowly and started pushing on her
back with his foot. She groaned as she came to, “What happened? Jesus, my head…”
“Deb, quiet,” Dylan hissed at her, “cavemen bashed us on the head, we’re prisoners.”
Suddenly, Dylan felt a tug at his shoulder. A face appeared over his, looking down at
him. Dylan was looking into the eyes of a young boy, maybe six or seven years old. They stared
at each other intently. The boy’s face was basically human with a few differences. He had a bony
ridge under his eyebrows. His forehead sloped backward into a mass of tangled brown hair. His
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jaw was big but also sloped backward, like his forehead. His eyes showed intelligence and
curiosity.
He was wearing several animal skins tied at the waist and was carrying a club. Dylan
smiled at him. The boy growled something at him that did not translate, but it didn’t sound
pleasant. Then the boy probed his jacket with his club, gently but insistently. He bent over closer
and looked inside. Then he reached out and touched Dylan on the forehead. Dylan was just about
to tell him to haul ass when several of the adults walked up behind him and stared down at them.
“No touch stranger,” said one of the male adults.
“Has thing want,” answered the boy, “ Want touch.”
“Danger,” the adult said, “no touch.”
Before any more words passed, the boy’s hand snaked into Dylan’s jacket, and then came
out holding his pistol. The boy passed it under his nose, sniffing at it. Then he licked it on the
barrel. “No danger, thing safe, stranger not move,” the boy said.
“Dear god, Dylan, what is the kid doing? He’ll hurt somebody, not good!,” Debra yelled,
which got the attention of two of the adults, who jumped to either side of her. They did not look
at her in a friendly and congenial manner, but brandished clubs at her face.
“Young one, you are in grave danger,” said Dylan using the cavemen’s language, “put
the thing down.”
The adult closest to the boy reached over quickly and plucked the gun out of his hands.
The boy let out a shriek and hurried away.
“Damn, that was close,” said Kyle, who was now awake and had seen most of what had
happened. “Was the safety on? Better tell papa to put the gun down too. Translator does
caveman, huh? That’s nice.”
The largest of the adult males stepped over to Dylan and straddled him, one leg on either
side of his chest and said to Dylan, “You speak People but not of People, how learn speak?”
Dylan didn’t know what to answer, so he just stared at the man standing over him.
Kyle said to Dylan, “How’d you get your translator on? Are your hands free?”
“No, I did a neck-twist on it. Just bend your head over and hit it with your chin. Then
leave it on, so it can learn the language. You too, Deb.”
“Check,” she said, “I hear that.”
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The adult straddling Dylan said, “Who you? Why here? What is thing?” holding out the
Walther, “How you talk like People but other strangers not?”
“We’re working on that, pal,” he answered, “we just need a little time.”
“Time have much,” said the caveman, repeating himself, “Who you? Why here? What is
thing?”
“We are travelers, we’re here to buy…uh, find power for our machines. Thing makes
noise, scares animals away.”
“Power?…Machine?…Show Tlat how thing work,” said the shaman, who bent over and
began to untie Dylan’s hands.
“No release stranger, Tlat,” said the smallest of the adults, “strangers bad. Tlat not
careful, make trouble for People.”
“Dlel make trouble for People,” said a new female voice, “hit strangers on head, tie up.
Not ask Tlen. Dlel has head of kech.” The female walked up to the smallest male and pushed him
away from the group. “Go hunt dinner. No make trouble for Tlen or Dlima give pain.” The little
male gave her a nasty look and slunk away to the front of the cave.
“Tlat not like Dlel hit strangers,” the man continued as he finished releasing Dylan’s
hands, “Tlik not mean harm just want know strangers, see stranger’s thing.” When Dylan’s
hands were free, he handed him the Walther, saying, “Show People how thing scare animals.”
“Right, Dylan not mean harm too,” he said.
The female and the larger male untied the remaining cadre member’s hands. Kyle’s hand
went to his throat to click off the translator.
“You sound like one of them, Dyl,” laughed Kyle in English, “watch what you do with
thing.”
“That’s for damnsure,” Debra said, “and don’t shoot at anything. Just make noise, let’s
keep the true function of the guns under wraps until we have to use them, at least level three
provocation.”
“Okay, gotcha,” said Dylan as he walked toward the front of the cave and outside, the
cave people and Debra and Kyle following him. He pointed the pistol up into the air and fired off
a round. The flash and the sound made the two males back quickly away, stunned. The female
whimpered but stood her ground. The little boy now rejoined the group and said, “Tlik no fear,
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noise not danger. Tlik want thing.” He tried to grab the pistol out of Dylan’s hand and the female
cuffed him soundly.
“Tlik touch stranger, Dlima give Tlik pain,” she said, looking softly at Dylan.
Dylan looked back at her. She was kind of cute in a caveman sort of way. He smiled at
her and she bared her teeth and growled, “Why stranger show teeth? Want hurt Dlima? Dlima
friend.”
“I guess these cavemen don’t smile, guys, wonder what she’d do if I gave her the finger,”
asked Dylan with a completely straight face.
“Probably drag you off into the cave and have her way with you,” said Debra, “I think
she likes you.”
“Yeah, right,” he answered, changing the subject, “where do we go from here?”
“We need Reddy Kilowatt,” retorted Kyle, “what’s the caveman word for electricity?”
“Let’s do this by the book, boys,” said Debra.
“Which book is that, sentinel?” asked Kyle, “I don’t seem to have my copy of ‘Getting
Friendly with Neanderthals’ with me.”
“Emily Post, dickweed,” she retorted, “let’s introduce ourselves, use names and all that
good shit We need friends and we need help..”
“Right,” said Dylan, clicking on his translator, and pointing to himself, “I’m Dylan and
this is Debra and this is Kyle,” pointing to the others in turn.
The larger male pointed to himself, saying, “Tlen, leader of People.” Then he pointed to
the other male and said, “Tlat, speaker to Hidden Ones for People,” and to the female, “this is
Dlima, sister of Tlen and mother of Tlik. Man go to hunt is Dlel, good hunter but not like
strangers. Also People have one more man, four women and one little one like Tlik, go hunt for
meat and plants. Come soon.”
“Where come from strangers?” asked Tlat, “how here? Wear strange things, not made
from animal. Have great noise thing. Why here? Come from Hidden Ones? Come in great light
during moon ritual?”
“Yes,” answered Debra, getting his meaning, “we are messengers from the Hidden Ones.
We came in the great light to get the help of the People.”
“Careful, Deb,” said Dylan, switching off his translator, “if they make a goddess out of
you, it may make some major changes in history.”
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“What history, Dyl?” she answered, “history hasn’t happened yet, it’s still the future. We
don’t have the slightest fucking idea what changes we’ll make and I don’t see worrying about it
is going to do any good. We need to do whatever we can to get back to our time ASAP.”
“She’s right,” agreed Kyle, “if we go worrying about what every little thing that we do is
going to do to the future, we won’t do shit. We gotta get out of here.”
“Right,” said Deb, “think of what will happen if we don’t and some archaeologist finds a
bunch of cavemen with a couple of them with Uzi’s, etc. What the hell kind of paradox will that
cause?” Then, switching her translator back on, she said to Tlat, “Sorry to be rude, but we
needed to talk.”
Tlat nodded, saying, “The ways of the Hidden Ones are different. Tlat not want to be
unfriendly to strangers. What do the strangers want from People?”
“We need power, electric power,” said Kyle.
“We have power,” Tlen said, pointing to several spears leaning against a nearby wall,
“but what is electric?” his mouth twisting over the unfamiliar word “Tlen does not know what it
is.”
“Ma’am,” said the technician, “I think I have a fix on them.”
“Have the instruments located them?” said the Old Lady, “where are they?”
“No,” he answered, “both the locators are blank. But I think I know what time period
they entered.”
“Proceed.”
“According to my calculations, the thirty year jump they were on would have
necessitated a module escape velocity of 1.4 t-units. The elapsed time between the instant of
entering the Rift and the instant they touched the five century limit of their modules works out to
be approximately 1380.774 t-units velocity. If they continued at that rate until module release, it
calculates to be 30,000 years, with a plus or minus factor of 738.4 years. Ma’am, they’ve gone
back 300 centuries into the Stone Age.”
“Not possible, your figures must be in error.”
“I’ve run this data through three separate systems and gotten identical answers each time.
You and I both know, at least technically, that a jump of this magnitude is completely beyond the
capability of our devices. Nonetheless, it did happen. And there’s one more thing.”
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“My mind is swimming, technician,” she said, “I’m having a very difficult time accepting
what you are telling me, but no matter, let’s hear it all.”
“The ConEdison people have done an exhaustive diagnostic on the switching station that
was struck by lightning, and they say there is no damage whatsoever. A bolt of the magnitude
that struck it could well have destroyed most if not all of the facility. The engineer in charge said
he traced the path of the bolt and it went nowhere else but here. He told me that it was almost as
if it was controlled.”
“Controlled by what?”
“Someone or something beyond his knowledge. Something he did not understand.”
“There’s no thing nor any man that can control lightning, we don’t have that technical
ability.”
“I’m not saying a man did, ma’am, but there is a legend of an entity that could control
lightning.”
“I’m not sure I like where this is going, but explain yourself!”
“Ma’am, the ancients called him Zeus.”
“The father of the gods, great!”
Suddenly, from outside the cave, there was a loud hooting cry. Another loud yell from
without said, “We return with meat and many plants. We feast!”
“The hunters return,” said Tlen, “the People must greet them and praise them for what
they bring for the People. And they must meet the strangers.” Then he let out a hooting cry
similar to the one from outside and motioned to the front of the cave with a wave of his arm.
Dlima was already to the foraging group, talking excitedly and gesturing toward the
group emerging from the cave. As soon as the returning hunters saw the strangers, all talking
stopped. They stared at the cadre members who returned their stare in kind. Something quite new
had been added to the ranks of the cavemen.
As they came closer together, with Debra in the lead, she had to do a double-take. One of
the male People had very dark skin and very curly black hair. Oh my god, she thought, one of
them is…
“Hey, check it out,” Kyle cut in, “one of them is a soul brother. Too cool!” To the black
caveman, he said, “Say, cool, what it is? What be happenin’?”
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“The strangers do speak strangely,” said the black caveman to Dlima, “what do you think
he means?”
“Dlima does not know, Dlata, the messengers from the Hidden Ones have their own
ways,” she answered.
“Looks like some of the anthropology books are going to need to be rewritten, ‘cause this
guy is black and we’re damnsure not in Africa,” offered Dylan.
“Right, so be it,” said Debra, “so let’s make friends.”
The new members of the group were Dlata and his mate Atlin; Dlet, the child of Tlen and
Atla, his mother, mate of Tlen and lead woman for the People. With them was Utli, mate of Dlel,
a big buxom woman with a hearty laugh, quite the opposite of her slinking mate and Medla, mate
of Tlat and medicine woman for the tribe. They had slain an aurochs, a large wild cow, and they
carried much meat that needed to be eaten.
“Great is the triumph of the foraging party,” said Tlen, “who made the kill?”
“Atlin, Atla, Medla and I ran it over a low cliff,” said Utli, “Dlata finished it with a spear
with the help of Dlet, son of Tlen. We all helped with the hunt.”
“It is well,” said Tlen, “it is a great victory for all. The People will have a great feast in
your honor. But first, the strangers have a powerful talisman of noise to scare away danger.
Dytlan, would you show our brave hunters.”
Debra glanced at Dylan and nodded, mouthing the words “Be careful” at him.
Dylan nodded back, pulled the Walther out of its holster and fired it, which made all the
People recoil in shock. None of them had ever heard a noise so loud, except for thunder, which
came from the Hidden Ones. Surely if the strangers could make so strong a noise, they, too, must
be from the Hidden Ones.
However, this time, Dylan did not aim as high as before and the bullet slammed into a
tree some distance away. It would have gone unnoticed by the People, except that Dlel happened
to be passing under the tree just as the bullet bored into it. He had heard the blast noise and had
seen the flash and had also heard the bullet as it smashed its way through the leaves and into the
trunk of the tree some twenty feet over his head. Ever curious about new things which might, in
some way, give him the power he so richly deserved and was denied him by the evil Tlat and the
stupid Tlen, he climbed the tree to see what he could find.
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He found a small hole in the smooth bark of the tree on the right side of the trunk. He
probed into the hole with his finger and deep inside he could feel something hard like a small
rock. So the strangers had a thing which made a very loud noise and put holes in trees very far
away. He pulled out a small flint knife and slowly dug the bullet out of the hole. It was not
familiar to him at all. He had never seen steel-jacketed lead before. This is no rock, he thought,
but if it is this deep into the tree, how deep could it go into an animal, or, he mused, into a man.
He would say nothing of the stone that was not a stone to anyone, not even Utli. He would keep
it to himself and wait and see. He put it in his pouch and climbed down the tree.
As he neared the cave of the People, Dlel saw that the hunting party had returned. At
least Utli was back, so he had one friend, even if she did take the part of Tlat and the she-bitch
Dlima sometimes. He wanted to see how the strangers thing had made the hole, so as he
approached the group, he made the hooting cry of greeting:
“Dlel returns,” he yelled, “his hunt was successful, he has two rabbits and a beaver.”
Utli ran to him and hugged him, saying, “We have also been successful, we have killed
an aurochs and we will have a great feast.”
Dlel disengaged himself from his massive mate and walked up to Tlen. “My leader,” he
said with a poorly hidden mocking tone, “on my way here, I heard a very loud noise come from
the camp of the People. Do you know what it was?”
“The strangers have a talisman to scare away animals that makes a loud noise and a
strong flash and even smoke. This is what Dlel heard,” said Tlen.
“Could Dlel see this thing?” he asked the leader.
Tlen looked at Dylan and asked, “Will Dytlan show Dlel the thing and make the noise?”
“It’s Dylan, pal,” he answered, rubbing the lump on his skull “I don’t know, this is the
guy that bashed us on the head.”
Switching off the translator, he said to Debra, “What do you think, Deb, I don’t trust this
guy. I get the feeling he is a very serious asshole.”
“I guess you’d better, Dyl,” she answered, “let’s don’t make any more of an enemy out of
him than he already is.”
“Roger that,” he said as he pulled the pistol out of his jacket, aimed it directly at Dlel’s
forehead and then let it sweep up into the sky and pulled the trigger. The flash and noise made
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Dlel fall to the ground, where he lay whimpering. “I get a heavy duty premonition that I should
waste this little fucker right now,” Dylan added, putting the gun back into its holster.
“Negative,” said Kyle, “we are not threatened, this is not level three. Get a grip!”
Now Dlel, who had watched Dylan very intently, knew what the thing was and also
where it was. It was made out of material very much like the stone that was not a stone. It was
held in the hand and when you pulled a little stick that stuck out of it, it made the noise and the
flash. He was not as nearly scared as he pretended, he only wanted attention, which he got in
abundance from Utli, who ran to him, hugged him and made a very great fuss over him for being
so brave in the face of the thing of the loud noise.
“Now, we feast,” cried Tlen, “and then we will have a ritual of welcome for the strangers.
We will eat and then Medla will make the potion and we will enter into the Cave of Life and we
will all drink the potion and then we will wait upon the coming of the Hidden Ones.”
“Sounds interesting,” said Debra to Dylan and Kyle, “wonder what this potion is all
about?” It didn’t take them long to find out.
Debra’s head was reeling, she was phasing in and out of normal consciousness. She was
having a very hard time remembering who she was and if she was what she thought she was. She
could not feel her body and then she was intensely aware of it, back and forth. She remembered
having a big dinner with everybody and then the witch-woman-doctor or whatever she was
passed around a gourd with a pungent tasting brew in it and then everybody went into this little
cave at the end of the big cave.
The small cave had an open fire in the center of it. On the walls were torches and
paintings of animals and people and other things she did not recognize. Then the potion hit her
and she started getting pretty damned disoriented. Dylan said it felt a little like acid but was a lot
stronger. Kyle didn’t say anything at all, he just looked totally spaced. They all sat in a circle
around the central fire like Indians. One of the women started playing a tom-tom and the men
started chanting this deep sonorous song over and over: “O Hidden Ones, let us be one with
you…” The chant just picked you up and carried you along it was so powerful and sensuous. All
the cadre were chanting with the People, there was no stopping whether you wanted to or not.
Suddenly over the chant, in a louder keening chant, came the voices of Tlen and Tlat
alternating with each other. This new chant was in rhythm with the first, but the melody was
different, and the words were different. There were not normal words, but rather were names: the
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names of the Hidden Ones. This continued for some time until all the cadre members started
seeing swirling lights moving all around the cave, around everybody and through everybody. Oh
god, was Debra’s last conscious thought, this is just like the lights in the jump. What the hell is
going on? Then she slipped away and upward from the physical plane.
“Zeus? Really?” snapped the Old Lady to the lead Temp technician, “I agree we are
dealing with some rather unusual circumstances, but do you really want to bring mythology into
this?”
“Ma’am, I’m as mystified as anyone, but I’m out of rational answers,” he answered, “I’m
grasping at straws to understand what has happened. I just want to get those kids back from
wherever they’ve gone.”
“I know, Karl,” she said, committing a major breach in propriety by using his first name,
“that’s all I want, but what can we do? Pray?”
“We do it all the time. We’re always invoking Kronos for this reason and that. Only most
of us don’t really believe it. It’s just a convention, asking the god of time for help. But what if
he’s real? What if there really are gods?”
“What if there are?”
“Okay, for the sake of this discussion, let’s put our normal secular way of looking at
reality on hold and say that gods are real.”
“Done, proceed.”
“There were many, many gods and they did all sorts of different things to us mortals.
Some were benign, some were neutral and some were just plain mean. The Greeks who lived in
the shadow of Olympus never knew what to expect next.”
“What do you think we can expect?”
“I have a theory. The Bureau has been in existence for twenty-two years. We’ve been
playing with time for two decades. We’ve had a few successes, some near misses and a couple of
weird paradoxes, plus that mess in Djakarta ten years ago…”
“No one will forget that, Congress almost pulled the plug on us after that one.”
“Exactly. Well, what if Kronos and his colleagues really do exist and they have been
watching us bumbling around in time, not really doing very much one way or the other, and
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decided to give us a try at making a real correction? Who’s your most competent and resourceful
cadre?”
“Cadre 4,” the Old Lady answered, “they’re not journeymen and they are smart asses but
they’re damn good at what they do.”
“Who’s on this jump mission?”
“Cadre 4,” she mused, “so what is your thinking.”
“Our best operatives were sent way into the past, to a time when mankind is just starting.
There were, and I’m making a guess, no more than a few hundred thousand men and women on
the planet, different kinds of cavemen. Any change, any paradox the cadre creates will really
change how things are today.”
“How do you suggest we proceed?”
“Go to the library, get a book on mythology and get everybody in the Bureau talking to
the gods.”
“You will awaken, Cadre 4, now!” the melodic voice said.
Debra sat bolt upright as though she’d had cold water thrown in her face. Dylan was to
her left and Kyle to her right sitting on very comfortable pillows, as was she. They were all
coming to abruptly. They were no longer in a cave, but were sitting in an open building with
columns for walls. Outside was a beautiful meadow. In front of them, seated on a gold chair
which could only be called a throne, was a young man in a gray toga. His hair was a soft tousled
brown and he had a gold circlet around his forehead. His eyes were gray and when she looked
into them, Debra felt her soul start to slip away. She averted her eyes downward and snapped,
“Who are you and where the hell are we?
“Call me Mike,” said the young man, “and you are not in hell, sentinel. Not yet, anyway.”
“Okay, Mike, so what’s he deal,” said Kyle, “What are we doing going 30,000 years into
the past and now we’re in, what, Olympus? Nirvana? Shangri-La?”
“Very perceptive, technician,” answered Mike, “you are here at the behest of Zeus, father
of the gods and king of Olympus. He has a job for you, if you are interested.”
“Zeus! Really? What if were not interested?” asked Dylan.
“Then you will be transported to the realm of Zeus’s brother Hades to live out eternity.”
“Hades, the ruler of hell?” asked Debra.
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“The very same,” said Mike, “an effective monarch, but not a particularly pleasant one.”
“I think I can speak for all three of us,” Debra said, “when I say we’d just love to take the
job. Wouldn’t we, fellas?” giving both of them a solid elbow in the ribs.
“Absolutely!” said Kyle.
“Right on!” said Dylan.
“Well spoken, Cadre 4,” said Mike, “and well met. Simply put, the job is this: you will
return to the cave of the People and enlist their aid in making a journey of no more than three or
four days to the south, to the Silver Mountain. One or two day’s march past the mountain in the
valley below it continuing in the same direction, you will come upon a lush region at the center
of which is a magnificent garden. The inhabitants of this fertile area are about to make a very
serious mistake, which in your legends is referred to as the opening of a cubical container
containing all the evils of your kind. You are to take any steps necessary to see that this does not
occur.”
“Pandora’s box?” asked Kyle incredulously, “we’re going to stop the fools who opened
Pandora’s box. This is heavy duty.”
“It is indeed, mortal,” said the deity, “and proceed cautiously, for danger will lurk both
within and without your intrepid band.”
“Can I ask one, no, two questions,” asked Dylan.
“Proceed, balance,” Mike answered, sounding very much like the Old Lady.
“Why don’t you gods do this yourselves, why bring us back 30,000 years to take care of
something you could do much easier than we can?”
“One, we want you to work out your own destinies and two, we like to watch; second
question?”
“Is Mike really your name?”
The being laughed lightly and said, “No, usually they call me Hermes or Mercury or
Thoth or a thousand other names. I thought Mike would be more likely to put you at ease. Oh,
one more small thing. You have exactly one week to complete your task. Fail this deadline and
you shall become the guests of Hades. Now off with you!”
“Tlat, they live,” Dlima’s voice shouted into the cave, “they are not dead.”
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“It is well,” he answered, “for the Hidden Ones have revealed that they are proper
companions for the People.”
“And how did they reveal this, o shaman,” asked Dlel mockingly, “I remember no such
revelation.”
“Not surprising,” said Tlen, “for you slept through the entire ritual. Had not Utli
awakened you, you would be sleeping still.”
“My hunt was long and strenuous,” Dlel retorted, “I was very tired”
“Very true,” laughed Dlima, “rabbits and beavers are serious prey.”
“Whassup?”, asked Kyle, slowly regaining consciousness, “anybody see the mammoth
that ran me over, I don’t feel good.”
“I hear that,” said Dylan, “seems like all I’ve done the last couple days is wake up with
some shitkicker hangovers after some really weird dreams.”
“Me, too,” Debra, “guys, we need to talk…outside…right now!” To Tlen, she said, “The
Hidden Ones wish us to confer in private, please excuse us.”
“It is well,” said Tlat, “it is not the way of the People to interfere with the Hidden Ones.”
The cadre headed out of the cave with Dlel following at a distance, trying to seem
uninterested. He did not succeed.
“Let’s splash a lot of cold water in our faces before we start,” urged Debra, “and switch
off the translators, our little buddy is following.”
“Roger that,” they both answered.
They found a small pond and dipped their heads in and splashed water in each other’s
faces. “Anybody bring a towel?” asked Kyle. No one answered.
“Okay, game plan,” she said, “did we just go to..?”
“Elysium,” answered Dylan, “and we met...?”
“The messenger of the gods,” offered Kyle, “who told us we had to keep Pandora’s box
closed or we would…”
“Live forever in the hot place in the center of the earth where the guy in the red jumpsuit
pokes you in the ass with a pitchfork every time you fuck up. Not good!” said Dylan. “Do we
have a choice?”
“Nope. Besides, what a kickass experience!” exclaimed Kyle.
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“Okay, Cadre 4,” Debra said, “which cavemen do we take with us? We’ve probably got
the pick of the litter.”
“The shaman, Tlat,” answered Dylan, “and the woman, Dlima and…”
“She’s without a mate, pal,” said Kyle, making a kissing sound.
“Yeah, right!, she’s tough but nice, I think we can use her.”
“How about Dlel?” asked Debra.
“Why do we need that little shithead, Deb? He’s the one who wailed on us and I don’t
think anybody likes him he’s such a fucking troublemaker. I feel like putting one through him
and then tell them I thought it was a saber-toothed mongoose sneaking up on us,” Dylan said.
“I got a funny feeling about him,” she said, “did any of you ever read the Lord of the
Rings?”
She got two no’s for answers.
“There’s this little slinky asshole,” she continued, “called golam or something that is
always hassling the heroes. The young hero wants to waste him but the older guru hero says no,
be patient, he has a purpose. In the end this golam saves the day. I think this Dlel is our golam.”
“Whatever you say, sentinel,” said Kyle, “but I think we should watch him like a hawk.”
“Roger that,” said Dylan, “do we need anybody else?”
“Who knows,” answered Kyle, “I’ve never shut down Pandora’s box before, I haven’t the
foggiest fucking idea who or what we’ll need.”
“Maybe we better go talk to the folks. Find out what they say,” said Debra, “Let them
know the Hidden Ones are counting on them.”
As they walked back toward the cave, Dlima met them outside. She stopped directly in
front of Dylan and asked, “Dlima would like Dytlan to share her fire, if the Hidden Ones give
their blessing.”
“I told you, dude,” laughed Kyle, “she’s got the hots for you. Better say yes, or she may
just wup your ass and do her thing anyway.”
“We’re back here to cause change,” said Debra, “who knows, maybe you’ll start a whole
new line of homo whatever. Might be fun.”
“She is kind of cute,” said Dylan. To Dlima, he said, “Okay, cave mama, let’s party.”
At this, Dlima grabbed him by the arm and began pulling him toward the cave. Debra
rushed up to Dlima and put her arm around the other woman. “Wait, Dlima, first we must talk to
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all the People, for we have a message from the Hidden Ones. After that, Dylan will share your
fire.” Then, without thinking, Debra kissed the cave woman on the cheek.
Dlima recoiled, demanding, “Why does Debra touch mouth to Dlima?”
“Where we come from,” she answered, “it means I like you.”
At that, Dlima thought for a minute and said, “It is well,” and then she kissed Debra and
then Dylan and then Kyle. She started to kiss Dlel, who was still following nonchalantly, until
she saw who it was. Instead, she gave him a solid cuff across the mouth, saying “Dlima does not
like Dlel, and the only thing I touch him with is my battle hand.”
When everyone was assembled inside around the fire, Debra told the People the message
of the Hidden Ones:
“During the ceremony, we of the cadre were taken to the place of the Hidden Ones. The
speaker said we must journey to the south to the Mountain of Silver and then continue south until
we come to a lush garden. There we must stop something very evil from happening, we do not
know how we will do this, but the speaker said we would know when the time was right. The
speaker said that we were to ask the People for some of them to come with us help in our
journey. We can not demand your aid, but we very much need it,” she said this last part directly
to Tlen.
“We are glad to be of service to the Hidden Ones. Whom do you want to go with you?”
he asked.
“We would like to invite Tlat, Dlima and Dlel to come with us,” she answered.
“No! No!” screamed Dlel, whose cowardice was surpassed only by his self-seeking,
“Dlel belongs with People, he protects the People, especially his mate, Utli. Utli can not bear to
have Dlel leave the cave.”
Utli ran up to him and threw her arms around her mate, yelling, “Utli will go with Dlel on
the mission of the Hidden Ones. It is her duty.” Dlel began to whimper, so Utli slapped him.
Tlen looked at Debra who nodded yes. It was settled. Then Tlen asked, “What is silver? I
do not know this word.”
“Guys,” she said, “anybody got something silver on them?”
Kyle pulled back his left sleeve to reveal a silver ID bracelet. He removed it and handed
it to Debra, who in turn, handed it to Tlen, saying, “The shiny stuff, Tlen, this is silver.”
109
He raised the bracelet to his eyes and squinted at it and then handed it to Tlat, who did the
same. The two leaders stared at each other for quite a long time until they spoke, simultaneously,
almost in awe, “The Cliff Of The Shining Water That Is Not Water!”
After a much longer wait, Tlat spoke in hushed tones, “I have seen this miracle only
once, when I was a small boy. I was taken there by my father’s father. It is very beautiful and it
is very sacred and it is very far away to the south. It would take many days to get there.”
“We don’t have many days, shaman,” said Dylan, “the Hidden Ones say we must get
there, and beyond, and do our task in seven cycles of the sun.”
“Then we must not wait,” he answered, “we will prepare tonight and you must leave at
first light. And you must move swiftly as the great birds of prey.”
“I don’t suppose you guys have horses, do you?” asked Kyle, “or maybe a motorcycle?”
“Will you cut the shit, dickbrain?” snapped Debra, adding, “Technician, serious!”
“Roger that,” he said, with a frown “I never have any fun.”
When all the workers of the Bureau of Temporal Adjustment had assembled in the
operations room, the Old Lady cleared her throat and spoke, “I want all of you to understand that
what I have to say is going to sound quite strange and I do not say it lightly. First, you know that
Cadre 4 is beyond our contact range. By a means the lead technician and I do not comprehend,
we believe that they have jumped 30,000 years into the past.”
This brought audible hushed cries of no, can’t be and not possible from the gathered
Temp people. She continued, “This was exactly my reaction; it can not be. We don’t have the
ability. But something caused a lightning bolt, seemingly an intelligent lightning bolt, to strike a
ConEdison power station and send a peculiar charge to this location at exactly the same time
Cadre 4 jumped.”
“No shit,” said one young software programmer, “Chariots of the Gods, huh? ET or
Amen Ra, who knew? Some deus ex machina from the stars kind of thing. Cool!”
“Pardon me, young man,” she said, “would you please be more explicit?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, somewhat abashed as he realized that the Old Lady herself
was speaking directly to him. He continued, “I read this stuff all the time, fantasy and sci fi,
either aliens or gods or whoever decided to give us a little help. Kind of like a boost or
something.”
110
“Why would they do that?” asked the head technician, glad to have an opinion even
faintly close to his own.
“Give us the ball and see how we run with it. Ante up the stakes. Get us to put our money
where our mouth is. I mean, if a thirty year jump is taking a chance with time paradox, what is a
jump one thousand times more going to do? That would really make some major shit come
down,” he said in a slightly strained voice as he realized the Old Lady and everyone else in the
room was hanging on his every word.
“How will it end, what will be the outcome?” she asked.
“Dunno, ma’am,” he answered, “I don’t write the stuff, I only read it. Guess that’s up to
what our guys do in the past. All we can do is hope that they’ve got their heads on straight.”
“Can we pray?” asked the Old Lady.
“Can’t hurt, can it?” he answered, “why not?”
The cadre members and the four People, loaded lightly with provisions because of their
need for speed, left the cave just as dawn was breaking. They would forage for meat and plants
as they needed them. Tlat was in the lead and Dlima was in the rear, as they were the most
aware of dangers from lurking predators. They did not speak at all until the sun was quite high
overhead.
Being unable to contain himself any longer, Kyle walked up and inserted himself
between Debra and Dylan and asked, “Well, so, how was she?”
“Oh no,” sighed Debra, “are we really going to play ‘preening rooster’?”
“This is in the interests of scientific research,” said Kyle with a very straight face, “I
mean no member of the species homo sapiens has gotten it on with a homo erectus before.”
“Gotten it on?” she asked, “gee, Mr. Science, is that in Latin?”
“It’s cool, Deb,” Dylan said, “I’d be curious too if things were reversed. Well, she’s not
much on foreplay. She just pulled my pants off and made sure I was up and then she got down
and wiggled her ass at me and we did it dog style. Then we went to sleep. Then we did it again.
It just kept going like that all night. I didn’t think I was going to be able to walk today, but I feel
like a million bucks. She’s really strong but pretty gentle. She’d probably do you if you wanted, I
don’t think that they’re possessive like we are.”
111
“Jesus, god, men!” Debra said in an exasperated voice, “you two would screw a pencil
sharpener if it’d let you.” With that she quickened her pace until she drew up next to Tlat.
“Men!” she said to the shaman, “I’ll never understand them, they’re just beasts!”
“Did Dytlan enjoy himself with Dlima? The sister of Tlen is very comely,” he said, “she
would take pleasure with Kytle if he desires, as would Tlat with Debra if the emissary of Hidden
Ones should wish it.”
Debra blushed, something she hadn’t done since she was a teenager, and said, “Thank
you, Tlat, I’ll keep it in mind.” Then she kissed him on the cheek and said, “You’re kind of
comely yourself.”
They kept moving south all through the day, with Kyle monitoring their direction with
his compass. The land became increasingly flat, spotted with meadows and small growths of
timber. As they passed one copse of trees, something made a loud snarling howl.
“What was that?” asked Kyle, “it sounded big, like a lion.”
“I don’t know what a lion is,” answered Utli, “it sounded like a bigfang, Kytle,”
“A saber-tooth, no shit,” he yelled at Debra and Dylan, “arm up, guys,” as he pulled the
Uzi from under his jacket.
He was not a moment too soon. The great cat bolted out from the trees making straight
for Utli. It had no fear of puny humans. They were too small and too slow to threaten the big
predator. It came to about ten feet from her and then leapt into the air. Kyle fired and his burst
caught it in the air. The big cat crumpled but kept its momentum. Utli screamed and jumped
backwards. The cat’s head caught her on the shoulder, knocking her to the ground, where she lay
pinned under the animal. Kyle and Tlat lifted it up enough to pull Utli out. She was badly shaken
but not seriously harmed.
“So,” demanded Dlel, remembering the bullet he dug from the tree, “your talisman does
more than make noise. What else did you not tell us?”
Debra jumped in front of him and grabbed him by the throat, yelling in his face, “Listen,
asshole, we didn’t tell you because it’s none of your fucking business. And if Kyle hadn’t used it,
your mate would be big cat dinner right now. As if you give a shit, you negative little
sonuvabitch. I ought to shoot your sorry ass and leave you for the buzzards.” With that, she
threw him to the ground, where he lay whimpering. This time Utli, who was still quite shaken
but had missed none of Debra’s confrontation with her mate, did nothing to console him.
112
Tlat was impressed. The messengers from the Hidden Ones did not boast of their
strength, but kept it hidden until it was really needed. They had powerful weapons, much more
powerful than spears. He walked over to the saber-tooth to see what the Uzi had done to it. All
he saw was a line of small bloody holes along its chest. None of the holes seemed that serious.
He wondered how such a small injuries could kill a large animal like a bigfang.
Kyle came up behind him and said, “I guess you’re wondering how it works. Come
look.” He walked over to the woods, put the Uzi on semi-auto and fired one round into a tree. He
pulled out his service knife and dug the bullet out of the wood and then dropped it into Tlat’s
hand. “These things come out of the noise maker very fast and very hard, Tlat,” he continued,
“this is what killed the saber-tooth.”
“It is not the way of Tlat to question the Hidden Ones,” said the shaman gravely, “Tlat is
glad your noise thing saved Utli. It is well.”
By this time, Dlima and Utli had joined them and had seen and heard Kyle’s
demonstration of the Uzi’s firepower. Dlima spoke first, “Kytle is a great hunter, Dlima has
never seen a bigfang killed before by a man. She would be honored if Kytle would share her fire
tonight.”
“No, Dlima, Utli owes him a life-debt,” said Utli, “it is my fire that Kytle should share
tonight. Dlel can go sleep in the kech.”
“It is well,” said Dlima.
“My, aren’t we popular,” sneered Debra.
“Deb,” said Kyle, “you know you really need to get laid. Why don’t you go hit on Tlat?”
Which, at the end of the day after a long hard walk, is exactly what she did as did Kyle
with Utli and Dylan with Dlima once again. The next morning all three cadre members walked
with an extra spring in their step.
“You know, I could get used to this,” said Dylan, “these cave folk are a lot easier to get
along with than most of the assholes in our time.”
“I hear that,” answered Kyle.
“Don’t kick back just yet, boys, we still have major shit to handle,” said Debra, “and if
we blow it, we’re going to spend a fuck of a lot of time in a very unpleasant place. Balance,
technician, mission!”
113
The group kept moving south. For two more days they traveled, with no further incidents.
Toward the end of the third day since they left the People’s cave, Tlat was beginning to feel the
presence of the Shining Mountain. It was a most odd sensation, almost as if the mountain could
come into your thoughts.
“I feel the coming of the Mountain, Debra,” he said to her, “it is close, we will be there
soon.”
“Good,” she answered, thinking about how much of their week was already used up, “it is
well.”
They kept on moving to the south and the farther they went, the flatter the ground
became. They had now entered a plain covered by dense forests. The group was no longer
walking through open meadows but was picking their way through the woods. It slowed them
down more than Debra liked, but there seemed to be no alternative. When she asked Tlat if they
proceeding correctly, he answered yes and soon they would see a major change in the terrain.
He was right. Suddenly, Dylan, who was now about twenty feet in the lead, shouted out,
“Holy shit, everybody slow down and be careful, you are not going to believe this!” As the rest
of the group came up even with him, they found that the forest stopped abruptly on the edge of a
huge, very deep canyon. The rim of the canyon stretched away on both sides of them for miles.
The wall of the canyon curved off to their right and continued to become a range of mountains.
About a mile away, a large conical peak jutted up with smoke coming out of its flattened peak.
Down its flank and into the valley below, there was an irregular flow of red molten lava.
To their left, the wall of the canyon fell slowly away to become gradually rolling hills
and then a plain beyond which was very far away and quite indistinct. Directly in front of them
was a sheer cliff which was several thousand feet above the canyon floor.
“This is incredible,” said Debra, “such a change and so fast. I thought we’d be walking in
those trees for hours. I see a volcano and other mountains, but where is the mountain that
shines?”
“You are standing on it, Debra,” said Tlat, “come look over the edge.” With that he went
down on all fours and crept to edge of the canyon and peered cautiously over it. He beckoned to
the others to join him. Kyle got there first, and when he looked over the edge, he whistled softly,
“Incredible! It is a mountain that shines.”
114
What they saw below them was a cliff face that seemed to glow. It was a myriad of colors
and textures: red dirt, gleaming metallic outcrops, black and gray rock mixed together with what
seemed to be liquid Quicksilver dribbling down the face. This exotic cliff-face seemed to go all
the way to the valley floor below. It spread away from them to both sides for quite a considerable
distance which was hard to estimate. And along with the glow, there was an eerie sensation of
sentience, as if the mountain was alive and could think.
“That looks like mercury,” said Dylan, “I didn’t know it existed free in nature, I thought
it was usually mixed up in some kind of ore.”
“This is definitely not your normal mountain,” answered Debra, “Do you feel anything
from it?”
“Like what?” asked Kyle, “maybe like it knows we’re here?”
“Sort of like that,” she said, “and maybe it’s not too happy about us being here. I feel like
we’re in danger.”
“From the mountain?” asked Dylan, who didn’t generally question her intuition.
“No, something else, like the mountain is warning us,” she replied.
“About what?” asked Kyle, “ saber-tooths, bad cavemen, what?” The answer was not
long in coming.
From the trees behind t hem, two small dark creatures, howling an ear-piercing shriek,
ran swiftly up to Utli and leapt upon her back. One of them bit into her throat and her blood
gushed out down her neck and onto her outer fur skin. She toppled toward the edge of the cliff
and fell over it before anyone could pull out a gun or raise a spear. Kyle raced to the edge and
almost fell over himself, except that Tlat grabbed him. Dylan came up more slowly, putting on
his distance goggles. He peered down the cliff’s face.
“I can barely make her out, she’s on the valley floor, and it looks like there’s more than
two of those things on her, looks like she’s covered with them. Sweet Jesus, they’re eating her,”
Dylan said, his voice full of horror and disgust.
Debra had her Uzi out and trained it on the trees behind them. “What was that thing,
Tlat? You’ve been here before, why didn’t you warn us?”
“Yes, Tlat, once again you have failed us,” snarled Dlel, “you did nothing to protect us
and now my precious Utli is gone.”
“I knew nothing of these beasts, the father of my father did not speak of them,” said Tlat.
115
“I’m really sorry about Utli, but she’s beyond help, and we have to keep moving and we
have to keep our guard up,” Debra said, “cadre, we’re at level four, weapons ready. We need to
get to the valley floor and proceed along its length to the south. Dylan, what do you see toward
the far end of the valley?”
“Hard to tell. It’s foggy or something. Could be a river or lake down there, it looks pretty
green, what I can see,” he answered.
“Maybe our garden is there, looks like we don’t have a choice but to move down the cliff
edge that way,” he said, pointing off to the left of them, “and then move back into the valley
when we can.”
“Right,” said Debra, “let’s do it, weapons up, no safety. Everybody stay frosty!”
It took several hours to reach the valley floor, and there were no more incidents with the
beasts that attacked Utli. By the time they were in the valley, they were more than a mile from
where Utli died and could not go back.
“It is the way of the People to bury their dead,” said Dlima, “we should not leave Utli.”
“I don’t think there’d be anything left to bury,” Dylan answered, putting his arm around
her shoulders, “it looked pretty nasty, what those things were doing to her.”
“Dlima understands,” she said and Tlat nodded in agreement. Dlel said nothing, he was
lost in thought, his little rat eyes staring off into the distance, almost as if he was not even part of
the group any more.
As they went down the valley, they became aware that it was much longer than it
appeared from the top of the shining cliff. By the time it had become dark, they had walked for a
great distance but did not feel that they had made much progress at all. When they finally made
camp, several hours after dark, it was in an open meadow. The nearest tree was more than fifty
yards away. None of them wanted another surprise attack.
“Cadre, we must stand guard duty. I’ll start for three hours, then Kyle for three, and
Dylan until dawn. Agree?” demanded Debra.
“Check!”
“Roger that!”
“And nobody falls asleep, or all our asses will be grass,” she said.
116
The night passed without event. The next morning was the beginning of the sixth day
since they began. Dylan woke everybody at dawn. They ate a quick cold meal of some potatolike things they had found and began their trek to the south once more.
“I wish to fuck we knew how much farther we had to go,” said Kyle, “we need to get to
this garden and do our thing, whatever that is.”
The land around them was changing as was the climate. The walls of the valley along
which they traveled had gone from almost non-existent to several hundred feet tall. The
temperature was slowly rising in the sunlight and the foliage was becoming vines and broadleafed trees instead of evergreens and small-leafed ones, and they were starting to hear sounds
like parrots and monkeys make coming from the undergrowth.
“This is weird,” said Kyle, “we’ve been traveling six days; we haven’t gone more than
one hundred, maybe one hundred twenty five, miles and this is starting to feel like the tropics.
We should still be in Romania in the middle of the last Ice Age, but this feels like Africa or
South America in the jungle. Does not compute.”
“Since when did anything about this whole trip feel normal?” asked Debra, “Just keep
your ass moving and your eyes peeled!”
“Peeled for what?” he retorted.
“Trouble, dude, trouble,” she said, “cause shit happens and this sentinel feels like we’re
gonna get lots of it real soon.”
Even as she spoke, what appeared to be a small spear came whistling out of the trees at
very great speed and ploughed into the ground at Debra’s feet. Kyle and Dylan both fired short
bursts from their Uzi’s into the trees where the spear had come from, and then kept their
weapons trained on the spot. Debra picked the object up and examined it.
“There’s something attached to it, it looks like leather, it’s wrapped around the shaft,” she
said as she untied a small vine and took off the leather, handing the shaft to Kyle, saying, “What
do you think it is, technician?” Then she unwrapped the leather and stared at it intently, and a
long sigh escaped her mouth.
“What’s it say?” asked Dylan. She handed him the leather. “Let the motherfuckers try,”
he spat as he looked at the picture drawn on the inside of it. He handed the leather message to
Kyle, who looked at it and then reacted by spraying the trees with another burst from his
machine gun.
117
“Just try some shit, asshole,” Kyle yelled at the trees, “just give me a fucking target and
your sorry ass is meat!”
“Save your ammo,” commanded Debra, “save it for live targets, not trees!”
“Roger that,” said Kyle and Dylan echoed him.
“May Tlat see the scroll?” he asked.
Kyle handed him the leather. Tlat studied it for several minutes. On it had been drawn a
picture of five headless human bodies. Behind the bodies was a dark shape holding five heads.
The shape looked much like the things that had killed Utli, only much larger. The message was
unmistakable. Tlat handed the message to Dlima who showed no reaction at all. The picture
produced in her nothing but the compelling desire to avenge Utli’s death. No one thought to hand
the leather to Dlel, who continued to stare blankly into the distance.
“So we’re warned,” said Debra, “do or die. I say do. Better dead from a demon than alive
forever in hell.”
“Right, piss on it,” said Kyle, holding up the little spear that carried the death threat,
“guys, this is an arrow, not a spear. Look at the vanes on the end. Whoever shot this at used a
bow and arrow…or a crossbow.” He handed the shaft to Tlat, who examined it closely and
secured it under his outer skin wrap.
“Well, we’ve got machine guns,” said Dylan, “like you say, piss on ‘em. Then he said,
after thinking for a moment, “Why are there only five bodies when there are six of us?”
“Why do you think?” answered Debra, “we’ve got a traitor and guess who?”
All of them stared at Dlel, who seemed oblivious to what was happening around him. He
paid no notice to them at all.
“Should we waste him?” asked Kyle.
“Negative,” Debra answered, “we may need him yet. Just march him along in front and
watch him like a hawk. Let’s move. We need to find this fucking garden.”
They continued on into the jungle, which was starting to close in around them. It was not
long before Tlat came abreast of Debra and said, “Debra, Tlat must speak with you. Dlel is no
longer with us.”
“How did that happen?” she asked annoyedly. The little renegade was a major pain in the
ass, but she didn’t want to lose him.
118
“Tlat does not know. One moment he was in front of me and the next he was gone, swift
as a snake. Tlat did not see him go,” came the answer.
“Everybody, hold up!” Debra yelled, “and listen up! Dlel has disappeared. The way Tlat
describes it, something may have snatched him.”
“Good riddance,” shouted out Kyle, “I won’t miss his sorry little butt.”
“Me either,” said Dylan, “but if some Big Ugly snatched him, he could snatch us too. We
really have to watch it.”
“Roger that,” agreed Debra, “we need to stay close together tight, in line of sight from
now on. Dlima, pull in with us.”
“Dlima comes,” she said. Soon all five of them were making their way through the dense
jungle, no one more than three feet from another. They kept on like this for over an hour until
Dylan, who was in front, stopped and exclaimed, “Holy mother of god, you are not going to
believe this!”
“That’s what you said about the silver cliff, chump, and I believed that,” retorted Kyle,
“now what?” As he came in line with Dylan, he said, “Damn, you’re right, I don’t believe it.
This is just too fucking unreal!” He, too, had stopped in his tracks.
Even the usually unperturbable Debra did a double-take when she saw what was directly
ahead of them, about twenty feet away. It was a great ornate gate and it appeared to made of
solid gold. On either side of the gate, a fence, about six or seven feet tall and also made of gold,
spread off in both directions until it became lost in the foliage. The doors to the gate were tightly
shut, but there were open spaces that were worked into the design of the gate.
Both Tlat and Dlima were dumb-struck. Neither of them had ever seen worked metal
before, let alone a huge expanse of it made of shining gold. After several minutes of staring at it,
Tlat was the first to speak, “What is this wonder? Tlat has never seen anything like it.”
“Nor has Dlima,” she said in a very subdued voice.
“Let’s check it out,” said Kyle, beginning to move toward the gate.
“Everybody be careful,” said Dylan, “don’t touch anything yet. God only knows what it
is.”
“Agreed,” said Debra, “look but don’t touch. We’re in Never-Never Land now, this ain’t
the real world and who knows what the shit will happen if you touch something you shouldn’t.”
“What is never-never land, Debra?” asked Tlat, “Tlat does not know these words.”
119
“I think this is where the Hidden Ones live,” she answered.
This statement froze both Tlat and Dlima in their tracks. Neither of them could do little
more than breathe.
The cadre team walked cautiously up to the gate and peered through the openings.
Inside they could see an incredibly beautiful garden, very intricately laid out of flower beds of
every color imaginable, orchards of fruit trees and an astonishing variety of beautiful plants,
many of which none of them had ever seen before.
Finally, after quite a few minutes had passed, Debra let out a long slow whistle, and
asked, “What’s the whole story on Pandora’s Box, anybody know?”
“Greek legend about the first woman on earth,” answered Dylan, “given to some mortal
dude as a wife by Zeus, who was up to his usual tricks of yanking somebody’s chain just to see
‘em dance. In her dowry from the gods, Pandora had this box they told her never to open.
Reverse psychology, I guess. Finally she can’t take the stress of not knowing what’s inside and
opens it. Shit hits the fan bigtime and has ever since.”
“Greek, huh? First woman on earth, huh?” mused Debra, “What about the Bible? You
thinking what I’m thinking?”
Dylan and Kyle thought for a minute and Kyle spoke first, “First woman on earth was
Eve who lived in…fuck me! No! No! This is not the Garden of Eden. You have got to be shitting
me!”
“This is where Eve and fucking Adam eat the apple and the whole original sin thing starts
or Pandora’s Box or whatever you want to call it,” said Dylan, “we’re supposed to stop all that?
Us? This really is too much. We start out to stop a local rebel bio-war and here we are going to
stop all the evils of mankind.”
“Shit happens,” said Debra.
“You got that right, Deb,” said Kyle, “so what do we do? We don’t have a whole lot of
daylight left. What day is this? I’ve lost count.”
“This is day six,” answered Dylan, “we’ve got tomorrow to finish or go to hell, go
directly to hell, do not pass Go and all that BS.”
“I don’t know about anybody else,” said Debra, “but I don’t really want to do whatever
we’re gonna do at night. Too spooky. Let’s do it in the sunlight. Let’s pull back, make camp, eat
and get some rest. Be fresh for tomorrow. Guard duty like before, okay?”
120
Everyone, including Tlat and Dlima, who were finally coming out of their trance, agreed.
The group pulled back some twenty feet from the gate and made camp. No one was very hungry
and none of Cadre 4 got any but the most fitful sleep. How could you sleep knowing that very
soon you were going into either the Garden of Eden or maybe the Pit ?
The night passed and the first rays of the rising sun found them getting ready to enter the
most sacred place in biblical mythology. Kyle wandered off to take a leak. When he finished, he
sauntered toward the gate, which, much to his surprise, he found wide open.
“Hey, people, guess what?” he called out, “the gate’s open. Somebody must be expecting
us.”
“Hang on till we get there, hot shot,” Debra called back, “no grandstanding, let’s all do
this together.”
“Roger that,” he answered, “I’m really not that hot to go in at all. No shit.”
Debra gestured to Dylan, Tlat and Dlima to approach the gate with her. No one was
moving very quickly. They formed a group just outside the opening and looked at each
nervously.
“There comes a time in every hunt when the hunter must approach the prey, no matter
how dangerous it is,” said Dlima, “that time is now.”
“Agreed,” said Debra, “I know this is going to sound corny, but let’s join hands going
through the gate. That way whatever happens to one will happen to all of us. I don’t know why I
feel this way about entering paradise, but I’m scared.”
“I hear that,” said Kyle, “I’d rather be taking on Djakartan neuroclones than walking
through this doorway.”
“Fuck it,” spat out Dylan, grabbing Debra and Dlima’s hands, pulling them toward the
gate, “time to rock n’ roll!” They joined hands with Kyle and Tlat and took the few steps that
took them across the threshold of the Garden of Eden. Nothing happened, except for a very slight
sensation of disorientation, which found them inside rather than outside. But inside of what?
“Ma’am, they’re back. We did it. Thank god!” said the technician.
“Roger that,” said the Old Lady, “it was a desperate measure, but well worth the taking.
Well done!”
121
“What the hell?” demanded Dylan, not able to believe his senses, “we’re back. How did
you do it?”
“I really don’t believe it,” exclaimed Kyle, “we just walked into the Garden of Eden to
stop Pandora opening her famous box and…and, now we’re back in ops. Unreal!”
“Yeah, right, unreal,” said Debra, “how did you do it, we were 30,000 years in the past
on the weirdest wild goose chase of all time and suddenly we’re here again?”
“Garden of Eden? Pandora’s box? You were only gone for five relative minutes, current
Temp time. And where is young Salicec?” demanded the Old Lady, “Cadre 4, focus! De-gear
and head for debriefing. It’s obvious that a good deal needs discussion and explanation.”
Besides the Old Lady, the technician and the members of her cadre, Debra saw that there
were only two others in ops. They were uniformed Temp workers who Debra did not recognize.
Nor did she recognize the technician which was odd but, she thought, at Temp, people do come
and go. But there was something strangely familiar about him. But what? Debra found herself
staring at him.
The uniformed guards walked up to the cadre to take their gear. Debra stepped back
several paces and said to Kyle, “Remember when you got hit on the head couple of jumps ago?
Is this the tech that helped you dress the wound?”
“Hit on the head? What tech?” asked the befuddled Kyle, who was now staring at the
tech as Debra was. He didn’t know who the man was except for a funny sense of…
“Jesus,” interjected Dylan, who was also staring at the technician “that tech, he’s…he’s
that fucking mongoose, Dlel. This is too goddamn weird!”
Both Kyle and Dylan began backing up toward Debra. All three cadre members had their
Uzi’s up, safety’s off and they were frosty.
“Debra, Kyle, Dylan,” said the Old Lady, soothingly, “you have obviously been through
a very stressful situation which needs a thorough going-over. Lower your weapons and surrender
them. De-gear and report to de-briefing. Cadre, obey!”
“What do you think, guys?” asked Deb, shaking off the Old Lady’s order, “are you
buying this crap?”
“Nope!” said Kyle.
“Awful real, but basically caca,” answered Dylan.
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“Well, then,” Debra commanded, “Cadre 4, fire!” All three cadre members pulled their
triggers simultaneously. The noise was deafening.
As the smoke cleared, they found themselves back in the Garden, and now they were just
inside the portal. Tlat and Dlima were standing on either side of them, looking at them with
expressions of amazement.
Tlat spoke first, “Tlat is distressed. At what did you make the noise things make the great
noise? Tlat saw nothing.”
“Also Dlima saw nothing,” she said, agreeing with him.
“I don’t know how they did that, but we were right now back in ops and we just blasted
the Old Lady and that shithook, Dlel,” said Dylan, “is that what you two got?”
“Roger that,” said Debra, “we just took down the Old Lady.”
“Hope she signed our paychecks first,” said Kyle, “shooting the boss is not that cool
usually.”
“Do not be alarmed,” Debra said to Tlat and Dlima, “the Hidden Ones were only testing
us. I think we passed.”
“Damn, that was real,” said Dylan, “make a hell of a VR game.”
“Okay, cool, so where are Adam and Eve?” said Kyle, “Cadre, mission!”
“Well said, hot shot,” chuckled Debra, “I didn’t know you were command material.”
“When it comes to VR,” he answered, “I kick ass. You should see me take on the ‘Brain
Eaters from Arcturus’.”
“I can’t wait,” she said, “so let’s move.”
They continued on into the garden, barely aware of the beauty that surrounded them.
Instead, they were all much more intent on where danger or treachery could appear from next.
They did not have to wait for long.
They heard it before they saw it. A great howling scream, similar to the scream the things
that killed Utli made, but much deeper and louder, came out of the trees to their right. It was
answered by another shriek from behind them. Then another from directly in front of them. Then
several more howls from no specific direction.
“Think we’ve got ‘em surrounded,” said Kyle, yelling out, “Okay, assholes, come on out,
no more hide ‘n seek.”
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None of them actually the dark shape enter the clearing. It merely materialized next to
Dlima and covered her with its darkness. No cry came from her. She was simply gone. Into
whatever it was. Kyle raised his Uzi and fired into the thing.
“Kyle, no!” Dylan cried, “you’ll kill her.”
“She’s already dead,” answered Kyle, who kept firing.
Debra reached over and put her hand on Kyle’s arm, “Cease firing, technician, the bullets
are having no effect.” Seeing that she was right, the thing showing no effect from the many
rounds he had pumped into it, Kyle released the trigger. The dark thing moved toward them and
where it had stood was a bloody pile of bones and tissue. Another of its kind suddenly appeared
over what was left of Dlima and stayed there for a few seconds, then it, too, began to move
toward them. Where Dlima’s remains had been, there was now nothing, nothing at all.
Soon, more of the things came out of the trees and formed a circle around them. It was
difficult to tell exactly how many of them there were, for they seemed to merge into each other.
They had no perceptible arms or legs or any external features. They were simply dark menacing
shapes, standing, waiting, hungry.
“And how do you like my little pets,” came a sneering voice from behind them. “They
have paid the she-bitch Dlima back for her insulting way toward me and now, Tlat, they will rid
the world of you.”
Dylan turned toward the voice, an expression of total disgust on his face, saying, “It can
only be the major scumbag of all time. Bye, Dlel!” as he fired a long burst into Dlel’s chest.
Dlel laughed a low, snarling chuckle, and said, “Your formidable weapons have no effect
here, in the Holy of Holies. And now you will all pay for your temerity.”
“Big words, cave man,” said Debra, walking up to him and spitting in his face. “I’ll bet
without your bodyguards, you can’t do shit. You’re nothing but a sniveling weasel.” Dlel slapped
her hard across the mouth, knocking her down.
This was too much for Tlat. He had always been willing to forgive the slights of Dlel, but
this time he had gone too far. He had struck an emissary of the Hidden Ones and for this he must
pay. Tlat had seen that the weapons of the strangers had no effect on Dlel or the dark things, but
he had something that might.
Tlat reached under his outer skin and pulled out the shaft that had been thrown at them
the previous day. Dlel paid him no notice, so intent was he in standing over Debra and bragging
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of his exploits. Tlat ran at Dlel and thrust the sharpened end into his eye, with all the force he
could muster. Dlel screamed in agony and fell. One of the dark shapes engulfed Tlat, but too late.
Dlel writhed, whimpered and died. As he died, he vanished, as did all of the dark shapes. Now
Kyle, Debra and Dylan stood alone in paradise.
“I thought you said we should keep Dlel alive ‘cause he had some special purpose,”
Dylan said, “right? Any idea what that is?”
“Nobody’s perfect,” she answered sheepishly.
“We killed him in ops and he came back here so we could kill him again,” said Kyle,
“he’ll be back, you can bet your sweet ass.”
“Odds on the little fucker is the devil himself. Probably end up giving the apple to Eve or
the box to Pandora or the h-bomb to Teller,” said Dylan, “or whatever other nasty shit he can
come up with.”
“Roger that,” said Debra, abruptly yelling toward the sky, “Hey Mike, can we get this
over with? I’d really like to have a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke, okay?”
“Is that how you pray?” asked Kyle, “I like it. Hey Mike, can I have a helicopter and
season tickets to the Lakers?”
“Asshole,” said Debra, “how about you, Dyl? Any special requests?”
“Fried chicken and cole slaw would be nice, and a sixer of Bud Lite,” he answered, “so
now what? I am pretty goddamn hungry. Wait a second, I just thought of something.” He pulled
off his bakpak and delved inside. “I thought so,” he said, “one last granola bar. And I got an
idea.”
“Will wonders never cease?” said Debra, “please don’t keep us in suspense.”
“I read a book on Zen once,” Dylan said, “and the guy said you don’t need to chase after
shit, just kick back and it will come looking for you.”
“Okay,” said Kyle, “so what’s the plan?”
“We have a seat, split this yummy, and just see who comes by,” he answered.
“What if nobody comes by?” questioned Debra “we might end up you-know-where.”
“Chill out, chick,” said Kyle, “what have we got to lose?”
So they sat and they waited, and waited and waited. Finally, Debra said, “So maybe Zen
sucks. Let’s get moving.”
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A gentle breeze started to come up and on it they could hear a lilting song. A soft female
voice was singing in a language none of them recognized. “Translators on,” said Kyle.
“I love you when you whisper in the wind, I love you when you shine in the sun,” came
the song. Soon, one of the most incredibly beautiful women any of them had ever seen was
dancing and singing her way through the trees. She was totally nude and didn’t seem to have a
care in the world.
“Whoa,” said Kyle, “is that chick foxy or what? Think that’s Eve?”
“Probably,” said Debra, “so where is Adam?” The answer was not long in coming.
From behind her, a young man stepped out of the trees and followed in her path. He was
as handsome as she was beautiful. He caught up to her and they embraced. They fell to the soft
ground beneath them and consummated a very torrid love tryst. After a time, both lovers were
asleep.
“Cool,” quipped Kyle, “ the Garden of Eden is X-rated. C’mon, Mike, let’s cut to the
chase. Where’s the snake, the box or the apple? Whatever?”
“Why don’t we just shoot them?” asked Dylan, “no Adam and Eve, no original sin.”
“No human race, either,” said Kyle, “bad idea.”
“Asshole Dylan,” said Debra, “you really want to shoot your Mom and Dad? I didn’t
think Zen masters went around shooting their parents.”
“Okay, okay,” Dylan said, “sorry. Just wanted to see if you were on your toes.”
“So what do we do?” she asked .
“We, uh, wait,” came his reply.
Movement caught Debra’s eye not too far from the sleeping couple. Slithering swiftly
toward them was a large, red python-looking serpent. On its head was balanced a small golden
box, about 8 inches square and two inches thick. Not really apple-sized, she thought, but who
knew? She reached over and poked Dylan, who was almost falling asleep. “Hey, Dyl,” she said,
“guess your Zen works. Here comes a big red snake carrying a box.”
“Too cool,” he replied, “hey, Kyle, here’s the snake, let’s go waste him.”
The trio walked over toward the advancing serpent, stopping directly in its path. All three
raised their Uzi’s and trained the weapons on the reptile.
“Hey, you, serpent,” commanded Debra, “hit the brakes. We need to talk.”
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The snake paid no attention and continued in its forward path. Dylan let a burst go into
its mid-section. The bullets did nothing to the snake and still it came.
Kyle, who had stopped to take a leak, suddenly had an idea. He ambled up to the snake
and pissed all over its flank. The serpent reared up to its full height, over six feet tall and spread
its great hood. What Debra had thought was python-like was actually cobra-like. Fuck it, she
thought, python, cobra who gives a shit? A snake by any other name is still a snake.
“You dare to urinate on me, human wretch,” it said in a sibilant hiss, “you will be
damned throughout all eternity for your temerity.”
“I know that voice,” offered Kyle, “looks like our little pal Dlel is back, probably in his
true form.”
“Wouldn’t you know it?” said Dylan.
While the serpent was busy with Dylan, Debra crept around behind it and snatched the
golden box off its head. “Bitch,” it said, “give me that or you die.”
“I don’t think so,” she answered, “only thing you’re getting from me is a hard time.”
“Really, Dlel old pal, why don’t you lighten up?” said Kyle, “you got nothing better to do
than yank people’s chains all the time? Did you ever think of getting an honest job. I know some
people down at Roto-Rooter who’d pay you good money to clean out stopped-up toilets. Right
down your alley, reptile-breath.”
“Okay, what about this?” queried Debra, “what if I go wake up Sleeping Beauty and
Prince Charming and give them the low-down on you, this box and what’s inside?”
“You would play with the destiny of your species? You would create a paradox of
unbelievable proportion,” said the snake. “Mankind must have evil, it is necessary.”
“Playing with destiny is what we do for a living,” said Kyle, “we’re Temporal Adjusters.
And we’re about to put evil out to pasture.”
“What’s in this box, anyway, it’s really not the right size for an apple?” Debra asked,
The snake thought for a moment and said, “Well, if you must know, it’s the collected
works of Friedrich Nietzsche, featuring ‘Beyond Good and Evil’.”
“Who the fuck is that?” asked Kyle.
“Philosopher-type,” said Dylan, “gonna confuse the shit out of them, huh, snake? Why
not throw in Schopenhauer and Kant, that would really send mankind to the funny farm?”
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“It is not your place to question me, mortal,” answered the snake, “I operate at the behest
of a higher power.”
“Right. Good,” said Debra, “it might interest you to know that your higher power wants
your little escapade stopped.”
“You lie!” screamed the snake.
“Enough!” a mighty voice boomed, seemingly from the sky; a voice so powerful that it
shook the trees and made Cadre 4’s collective ears ring.
“Okay, Mike, right,” said Kyle, “about time you showed up.”
“This is not Mike,” said a being as it materialized in front of them; a strong powerfullooking middle-aged guy with white hair and a well-groomed white beard, wearing a blue velvet
toga with gold trim, “mortals, you behold Zeus, King of the Gods!”
“Great,” said Debra, “no more middle-men.” She stepped up to him and handed him the
snake’s golden box, saying, “Here’s the box, which we kept shut as per instructions, can we go
home now?”
“Are you not interested in what is inside, sentinel?” asked the god.
“Nope! Whatever it is, it can stay inside where it belongs, I don’t give a tiddly hoot about
cutting lose all the bad shit in the world,” she answered, “I’m not into original sin, or Satan or
any of that BS. I just want to go home.”
“It will not be the same as when you left, mortal,” said the god, “are you aware of that?”
“Yeah, right, we changed the destiny of the earth, cool, so be it,” she said, “we’re just
tired of gods and talking snakes and demons and all that bad shit. We did your job for you now
you owe us in return.”
“So let it be written,” said Zeus, “so let it be done.”
Inside their jackets, the Temp modules came to life and all three began making the
warning countdown beeps.
“Far out,” said Kyle, “goodbye Garden of Eden, hello Burger King.”
“Hey,” said Debra, “wait! What about the cave people your little job killed?”
Zeus smiled and said, “They will all be returned to whence they came and will remember
nothing of what has occurred, save only in dreams.” He then raised his right hand, palm up, and a
flash sprung from it and into their Temp modules. Cadre 4 vanished.
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This jump was instantaneous. Suddenly they found themselves walking down a cobblestone street, next to them was a horse and rider. The horse backed away slightly from them and
the rider said, in an exasperated voice, “Do you Olympian travelers always have to be so
inconsiderate when you come back? I might have been thrown.”
“Sorry, my friend,” said Kylus, “ we’re a little new at this.”
“I understand,” said the rider, “apology accepted.”
Debracia looked at her wristclock to check the date. It was not there, nor was her bakpak
or weapons. “Where is my wristclock?” she asked, “and my Uzi.”
“Your what?” replied Dylantium, “I know not those words.”
“Nor do I,” said Kylus, “of what do you speak?”
“I can’t seem to remember,” she answered, shaking her head, “whatever it was is no
longer important. We must hurry, or the Festival of the Wine God will start without us.”
“Olympus forbid!” said Kylus, “this must not be.”
So off they went to the Rite of Bacchus…
Back to top
129
Star Cops
By Thomas Voxfire ©1999
Vax bit through the tendons of his wrist, severing the hand from the rest of his arm. He
had to. No choice. The kretl was closing on him; he had seconds, no more. The bone was
smashed, splintered. He needed time, not his hand. He wrenched the hand from the few strings of
flesh that held it to him and threw it into the face of the advancing beast.
Bloodspoor - the kretl stopped, tasting Vax’s blood. That was all Vax needed. He
retrieved his lance from the floor and with all the strength in his remaining hand, crammed it into
the predator’s middle eye and into it’s pea-sized brain. Fast, voracious and deadly, the kretl were
also very stupid and lost all sense of danger in the presence of food.
Vax pulled out his medi-kit from his bakpak, shook out three neo-morphs and swallowed
them whole. He knew the adrenaline was going to wear off and his arm, what was left of it, was
going to hurt like hell. He wrapped a stiki around his stump and spat on it. He felt the heat, knew
the bleeding would stop. He slapped the comm-unit on his shoulder to call his partner.
“Balnar, do you copy? I’m injured; need a regen, now!” he said tersely into the mike,
“how’s your end?”
No answer. Vax hiked his lance up on his shoulder, reached across his body with his
good hand and pulled his flamer from the holster. He checked the charge: still high; good. He
stepped over the dead kretl, mentally said good-bye to fingers sticking out of it’s mouth, and
stepped through the doorway, fanning the flamer in front of him.
He ran to the groundcar, and found his partner, what was left of him, sprawled in front of
it. His head and shoulder had been bitten away. Vax whirled to scan the building behind him. A
kretl was perched bird-like over the massive door-frame of the temple, eating Balnar’s head.
“Asshole!” Vax muttered to himself as he flamed the kretl. A staccato scream announced its
departure. Then he flamed his partner’s body. Damned if he’d leave the kretls any food. They
could regen Balnar full-tank from his synapse records.
He sank into the ‘car, thumbed the regen on and put his stump into it, stiki and all, as it
hummed into life. He knew he’d catch a lot of shit from the teks for a dirty regen unit. Screw
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‘em, he thought, let those little ditkos lay their asses on the line like him and Balnar. Then they
wouldn’t be so high and mighty about a little dirt.
He powered up the ‘car, set the autonav for station and let the neo-morphs have him. He
woke up at sentry; pulled his arm out of the regen and flexed his new fingers - good as new.
“Where’s Balnar, Vax?” asked the guard.
“He’s playing snackbar for the kretls,” came the answer.
“Kretls? What the Shat are Denebian bat-lizards doing on Praxtl? Downright weird!”
“Dunno. We answered a call for a routine burglary and get attacked by a nest of the
assholes. Weird isn’t the word for it.”
“Universe gone mad…” the sentry muttered to himself as Vax drove into the
underground garage. He parked, exited the ‘car, shook off the neo-morphs and headed upstairs to
report. Paperwork!
The old man was not all that happy about Balnar. Matter of fact, he was pissed.
“Pendejo!” he snapped at Vax, “know what a full-tank job costs these days?”
“Taxpayer money!” Vax snapped back, “ask me if I give a grunt! ‘Sides, I didn’t want to
leave him for the kretls.”
“Okay, okay, what the Shat are kretls doing on Praxtl? That’s weird!”
“I’ve heard it all before, skip, maybe for nuisance value.”
“Importing kretls is death; pretty heavy penalty for a mere nuisance. Who’d…?”
The teleradio beeped. The skipper answered it and his face went from bad to worse. He
hung up slowly. And spoke even more slowly:
“Heavy Weapons sealed off the kretls. It was a breed-nest, queen and all. They flamed
everything…almost everything. Control said that just before they torched the queen, a tbeam got
her.”
“Then she’s dead, you can’t transpo life.” said Vax, “but why kill her? Must have cost an
arm and a leg to get her here.”
“Why bring her and her brood here at all? Doesn’t make sense…kretls to Praxtl?”
Lascar screamed only once during the torture and then he died from shock, his blood
flowing heavily from the multiple stab wounds. He had said nothing, revealed nothing. The
Presence gestured mentally to his underling, who dragged the agent’s body to the basement and
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fed it to the kretls. He returned to the Presence reluctantly. He didn’t like working for something
he could barely see, but money was money.
“He never talked, boss,” said the drone, “never said nothin’.”
“I wished not his weary confession, only his pain for upsetting my plans. All who oppose
me will pay dearly for their temerity.”
“So what now?”
“Regrow the nest and begin again. This time without traitors. We have no disloyal
helpers now. Do we, minion?”
“No, boss,” the drone muttered, trembling in fear as he spoke, “no traitors at all.”
Balnar was still wet and bare-ass naked when Vax walked into the regen chamber. He
shook his head, sending amniofluid in all directions. “So what happened this time?” he queried.
“Kretls ate your head and shoulder, you didn’t look at all well so I flamed you. Didn’t
want the bastards eating the rest of you.”
“Kretls? On Praxtl? Weird!”
“Yeah, yeah...weird. So what! They’re here. And somebody paid a lot of money to get
‘em here. And when Heavy Weapons went to douche the queen, somebody tbeamed her. Why
kill something you’ve paid a tentacle and a leg for? Now that’s weird. HW would have done the
job”
“What’s the date? How long am I missing?”
“21 Virgo, ’75; when did you record?”
“Leo ’74, I’d better update,” Balnar said as he walked to the recorder and put the circlet
on his head. He touched the databank screen several times and then his eyes glazed over as the
recorder brought his memories up to date. He looked very disgruntled as he removed the circlet.
“The Dracos lost? Bad news!”
“Nobody wins forever. Get dressed, we gotta go see the old man.”
The old man had a very odd expression on his face when Vax and Balnar walked into
this office. It looked like confusion mixed with fear. The old man wasn’t afraid of anything and
he always knew exactly what to do. Usually...
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He spoke very slowly, his voice almost a whisper, “Close the door. I need to tell you
something so radical that if either one of breathes a word I’ll put you on regen restriction for the
rest of your lives!”
The two cops were stunned. The old man didn’t make idle threats. Whatever he had to
say, it must be very bigtime. Finally, Vax spoke; “Okay, okay, I won’t say diddly. So what’s the
big deal?”
“Balnar, how about you?” asked the old man.
“Yeah, me too. No more regen, Shat, skipper, what’s so secret?”
“I’ve got a buddy who works on satellite patrol on Deneb 4. He told me that a couple of
weeks ago they monitored a lot of unauthorized tbeam activity on the planet’s surface. They did
a quick head count and one breed-nest was missing.”
“So?” asked Balnar, “so somebody killed some kretls with a tbeam. Probably wanted
some trophies.”
“A full nest worth of trophies, I don’t think so,” said Vax, thinking over the
implications. “Somebody transpos a nest off their planet and then a nest shows up here, alive and
kickin’. Holy Shat, if that means...” he trailed off and sank back in his chair, letting his breath out
slowly.
“Wait a minute,” said Balnar, “are you saying that somebody figured out how to transpo
life? That means...” Balnar also stopped in mid-sentence as the implications drowned his mind.
“Nothing, anywhere would be safe. Security wouldn’t mean diddly. You could go
anywhere, do anything. You could...” said the old man.
“Put kretls on Praxtl. But why?” queried Vax, “why risk death to bring one of the most
dangerous predators around to a little, out-of-the-way planet? Doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe he just wanted to see if he could,” said Balnar, “maybe it’s just a test. Work the
bugs out of the system before you go for the big one. Whatever the big one is.”
“The thing that is really strange is that the guy who invented a life-capable tbeam would
be worth his weight in newgold.” Said Vax, “why be an asshole with it?”
“Maybe money doesn’t mean anything to him, assuming it’s a him,” said the old man,
“what if this whoever or whatever it is has a bug up his ass and just wants to jack people around
and be a big honcho. Some people like power more than money. We don’t all dance to the same
drum.”
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The Presence was not pleased; things were occurring at too great a pace. Damn that
miscreant traitor, Lascar. He’d cost the wraith almost an entire nest of kretls save for the queen,
three old males and some of her younger children. When the time came, the spy’s people would
pay dearly for meddling in his affairs. And he’d had to reveal his life-capable tbeam. Rage
surged through him: someone, anyone, would pay for thwarting him. He reached harshly for the
controls.
“So who’s dancin’?” asked Balnar, as the old man’s ‘radio chirped. He picked it up and
barked yeah into it and then his face went from golden brown to ashen gray. He listened for
several moments before he spoke:
“How many?” The reply made him shut his eyes in anguish. Very slowly, the old man
hung up the ‘phone.
“What is it, skip?’ asked Balnar. “How bad is it?”
“Three male kretls appeared in a grade school yard during recess. They destroyed 83
children before an old guy who lived next door heard their screams and took them out with an
ancient hunting rifle.”
“83 kids,” muttered Vax, “let’s go find somebody to flame.” He pulled Balnar roughly to
his feet and they both flew out the door.
It took them 12 minutes to cover the 15 miles to the school. Twice Vax had to flip his
badge at patrols to keep from getting pulled over. The ‘car tore into the parking lot and screeched
to a halt in front of the yard gate. Balnar and Vax were out of the ‘car before it was turned off.
They entered the yard to find a scene of carnage that made both of them, 20 year plus veterans
accustomed to gruesome sights, start to retch.
Small bloody bodies and body parts were strewn everywhere. Four patrol officers who
had beaten them to the scene were standing in the midst of the carnage, flamers out. The three
kretls lay among the bodies. Vax went up to one of the reptiles and kicked it in the throat,
making it spit out a small bloody foot. Vax started to puke.
Suddenly, one of the patrolmen yelled out, “Shat, watch it, this one’s still alive!” The
kretl lurched onto its foreclaws. Vax and the patrol both brought their flamers to bear and they
both fired at the same time. The kretl was cinders, but just before Vax touched the firing stud, the
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kretl had looked him dead in the eye and said, “You will pay dearly for your temerity,
policeman, dearly indeed!”
The patrol cop looked at Vax quizzically. “I didn’t know they could talk. What the Shat is
temerity?”
Balnar ran up to Vax, saying, “You look like shit, Vax, what’s your problem?”
“The sonuvabitch spoke. Kretls don’t speak, they’re brutes...dumb animals...big nasty
winged lizards...but they don’t talk, and they damnsure don’t talk like college professors. What
the Shat is going on?”
They stayed at the scene for two hours, helping the meat-wagon boys clean up the mess
and talking to grief-stricken parents. Nobody had the slightest idea why the school was attacked
so mercilessly. The really sad part was that you can’t regen a body full-tank until it’s passed
through puberty. Most of these kids were gone for good.
“I keep looking for a pattern,” Vax said as they drove back to the station, “but I keep
coming up with zip. Kretls that speak...life-capable tbeams...nothing makes sense. Who the Shat
has that kind of power?”
Back at HQ, the old man had the very same questions. He told them to record every bit
they could think of - fact, fancy, hearsay, whatever - and turn it in to Centraldata. Maybe the big
mainframe could get a pattern from all of it.
“Skip, one last thing; what is temerity?” asked Vax.
“Dunno, Vax, why?”
“That’s what the kretl told me, that I would pay for my temerity.”
“Guess you need a dictionary, I don’t know the word. Ask Draxx, he’d know, he always
does word puzzles.”
Vax walked over to Draxx’s cubicle and said, “Hey professor, what does temerity
mean?”
“Quite a large word for a cop, Vax, what makes you ask?” Draxx said, uncoiling his
primary tentacle from under his desk, “Where’d you hear a word like that?”
“A kretl told me that I’d pay for my temerity just before I flamed it,” came the answer.
Draxx’s eye opened fully in amazement, as he asked, “A what told you that?”
“A fucking kretl! It killed a bunch of little kids at a school and me and a patrol flamed it.
But just before it burned, it told me that.”
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“Yes, of course.” Shaking off his skepticism, Draxx went on, “whatever. Temerity is rash
boldness in the face of great authority; kind of word a dictator or monarch would use. And you
heard it from a mindless reptilian predator incapable of anything beyond hisses and roars. A kretl
on Praxtl, highly unlikely!”
“Thanks, professor,” said Vax as he went to get Balnar, thinking that at least Draxx didn’t
say weird.
He was letting his temper get the better of him, the Presence mused. He should not have
spoken to the policeman through the beast. The less they know of me, the better, he thought. He
would be more careful, more cunning. And more deadly. He was allowing his emotions to
overcome his common sense.
He must calm himself, return to the flow of universal inertia. His tenuous grasp on the
physical plane dissolved as his mind slowed...losing all sense of temporal events...becoming one
with the true nature of his kind...remembering...
He was the last of his kind. Centuries previous, the Presence had ruled a large part of the
known galaxy. Being beyond manifestation and therefore invulnerable, they ruled without
mercy. But a method was found to disrupt their energy flow and they were hunted to extinction
by their myriad captor races. All but one were destroyed.
It had escaped into the Void, badly injured and dissociated, but alive. It had joined with a
cloud of plasmic gas and drifted across trackless space, insensate. For decades it floated, until it
was pulled by gravity into the atmosphere of the planet Deneb 4. The unconscious Presence had
settled slowly downward and its life essence merged with the indigenous life forms. It became
one with a nest of kretls.
Consciousness returned very slowly, but as it rested, it healed. And it grew. Old
memories returned; memories of absolute dominion. Memories that would again be realized...in
time...
Vax and Balnar were sitting in a luncher, pigging out, when both their comm-units
chirped into life: “Unit B7, unit V14, cease all local function and proceed now to Gov-complex
3. Major disruption by reptilian assailants. Proceed with full armor. Heavy Weapons has been
dispatched,”
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“I don’t like the sound of this,” said Vax.
“What do you bet the shit-lizards are back?”, asked Balnar.
“I thought maybe they were gone, it’s been so long. Bet you’re right. We’re outta here!”
said Vax, hefting his lance.
They were in the ‘car and traveling in seconds.
“Why do you carry the silly-ass lance, man?” asked Balnar, as he did every week or two,
“what does it do for you?”
“Don’t have to charge it - it always works, cabron!” same answer as always.
Four and a half minutes later, they slammed to a halt in front of Gov-complex 3, just in
time to see most, but not all, of a human body explode outward from a third story window in a
hail of glass. Heavy Weapons androids were already deploying into the building, maxflamers
and mini-cannons attached to their forearms.
Vax stopped a HW unit and asked, “What does your scan show?”
“Reptilian, 5 possibly 6 units, attacking and consuming all local inhabs, estimate 47 to 50
deaths,” came the reply. “Additional, considerable transpobeam activity. Reptiles demonstrate
capability of evading flamer discharges. Probability of containing reptiles is 1 in 147.37. Further
data processing necessary...”
Balnar pushed Vax past the HW unit, saying, “Piss on statistics, let’s go. Shatdamn
robots will recite the binary alphabet if you let ‘em. Let’s roll!”
They entered the complex through the main glass doors, stepping over several
decapitated bodies in the process. “They really go for the brains,” observed Vax.
In front of them, a liftbox door started to slide open, revealing a big male kretl tearing the
arm and shoulder off what was left of a human torso. Vax and Balnar both brought their flamers
to bear and they fired. But before the fire could reach it, the kretl vanished in the shimmering
blue haze of a transpobeam. Whatever was in lift with the kretl screamed, burned and died.
Balnar was the first to speak, “Shat, somebody can transpo life. And fast, almost like the
operator knew we were right here. We’re screwed, how do you fight that?”
“Dunno,” answered Vax, brooding. There was something strange about that beam, he
knew it, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It was almost like the beam knew the cops
were there. It just didn’t work. The more they were on this case, the stranger everything got.
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They ran to the stairwell and ran up, not wanting to meet any more kretls in close
quarters. They had checked out about half of the second floor and found only blood and body
parts. They were moving into a large reception room when Vax’s comm unit spat out: “Reptilian
life forms have cleared building. Scans show only mammals - 7 alive and 53 expired. Heavy
Weapons units to withdraw within 30 minutes.”
Vax and Balnar spent the next few minutes talking to one of the only survivors, a pretty
little secretary who hid in the closet of her office as a kretl beamed into her boss’s office and
ripped his head off. She was very shaken.
“That thing tbeamed in here and killed Harry. He was a good boss. How the Shat did it
get here? You can’t transpo life! You cops gotta protect us!” she shrieked at them, in between
sobs, “and what was that thing?”
“It was a kretl, ma’am,” said Vax, trying to calm her, but knowing he couldn’t. Balnar
snagged a EmNurse android and hit it up for some neo-morphs. He gave them to the secretary
and got her some water from a nearby cooler.
“Take these, lady.” Balnar told her. She nodded and tossed them into her mouth and
gulped some water. In a couple of minutes, her eyes glazed over and they sat her down in a chair.
As they walked back to the ‘car, Vax said, “That tbeam, it knew we were there, how the
fuck does a tbeam know anything? This whole case makes no kinda sense. We’re up against
something a lot more than just kretls, but what the hell is it?”
“Consummate genius, that I am, that I am,” mused the Presence. The dupes had sent their
best against his kretls and it had availed them nothing. His mental control of the transpobeams
had rendered his beasts invulnerable. It was clearly time to extend his sphere of influence: Praxtl
was his for the taking. And after that...
“I don’t know where to go with it, Vax,” said the old man, “what did Central come up
with? Any kinda m.o.?”
“Nada! Nichts! Trello! Only two cases of tbeaming kretls, and those were stuffed trophies
for private exhibits. And Central said the databank blew two processors on tbeaming life. We got
zip! We need a whole new way of looking at this...this crazy bullshit.”
138
“Shat, let’s ask Draxx, he loves strangeness; he even believes in life on other planets.
Now that’s crazy!” snapped Balnar.
The big Spican uncoiled fluidly as they entered his cubicle, “Yes, gentleman, how may I
assist you street operatives?” he said, “Still troubled by Denebian predators?”
“You know somebody can tbeam life?” asked Vax, “doesn’t that bother you? It bothers
the shit out of us!”
“When you’ve been alive for twelve centuries, it’s difficult to be surprised any more.
There seems to be an advent of novelty constant and consistent. I merely observe.”
“Look, Draxx, we don’t know where to go with this thing. Kretls just appear out of
nowhere and then disappear back; we can’t touch them and they wipe out everybody in the area.
We need help; advice, anything. They say your kind have memories as far back as time can go,”
pleaded Vax, “and one more thing, that tbeam that moved those lizards around; I swear to Shat it
could think.”
“Hmm, a mentally augmented force vector, that does seem familiar” Draxx said,
becoming more serious, “give me a few minutes to cogitate.” His eye closed and the veins on his
scalp began to grow and twitch. The two cops ambled down the hall to the vending machines.
When they returned, Draxx was deeply absorbed in a crossword puzzle.
“Um, well, Draxx,” asked Vax, “did you come up with anything? Not to disturb your
puzzle, you understand.”
“Everything has to be immediate with you people, does it not? Can’t just stop and smell
the vorgash, can you?”
“Look, frogface,” Vax barked at him, “people are being killed right and left and we can’t
do diddly to stop it. We fucking need help!”
“Ah well, in that case, there was a species that could manipulate force vectors mentally,
but they have not existed for centuries.”
“What happened to ‘em, could some still be around?”
“Unlikely, they were hunted relentlessly to extinction...I doubt if they could still be extant
but, it is possible...if, somehow one or more of them had escaped and gone into hiding.”
The old man had joined them; drawn by Vax’s outburst. “By Shat, Draxx,” he said,
“knock off the riddles, tell us everything you know! Now!”
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Draxx was lost in thought as he dredged up old memories; at last he spoke, “ They were
called the Presence. They had evolved beyond the need for physical manifestation; they were
gaseous, almost pure energy and very powerful mentally. They had extensive psi powers and
used them to lord their superiority over normally manifest beings.”
“How?” asked Balnar, “explain.”
“The Presence declared themselves absolute rulers of a large quadrant of the galaxy.
They made a series of senseless, arbitrary decrees and if these were disobeyed and would visit
mayhem and malice upon the wrongdoers. They seemed to be interested only in wanton displays
of destruction, not maintaining order.”
“What happened to them?” asked Vax, “who hunted them and how?”
Again Draxx meditated, his scalp rippling with movement, “A group of scientists
from...ah, Praxtl found a way to disrupt their force patterns and kill them. The pogrom to
eradicate them took many years.”
“Praxtl?” Vax exclaimed, “that explains kretls on Praxtl. It’s a revenge thing. But why
did they wait so long?”
“That’s really all I know,” said Draxx, “can I return to my work, please? I have much to
do.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said the old man, “go on back to your puzzles.”
“Anagrams,” came the reply, “I work with anagrams and acronyms. It is most necessary
work.”
“No wonder Central didn’t have anything, it’s too old,” said Vax as they walked back to
the old man’s office. “We need to know how they killed these things. Guess I’d better go to
Archive.”
“Yeah,” said Balnar, “and I’m gonna get Mindbug and take it to the complex where the
kretls just hit. See if it can sense anything.”
“Mindbug, are you serious?” asked the old man, “that little creep is probably floating in
the DreamStream again. You’ll be lucky if it can even talk, let alone scan.”
“It’s good when it’s on, skip.” said Balnar.
“Right!” quipped Vax, “but when is it ever on? Has enough ‘Stream in its system to float
a small army. Shat be with you.”
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Balnar found the Mindbug in the park, its abdomen sticking out of a large scarlet
blossom. Every so often, one of his rear legs would spasm in delight. It was loaded again, drunk
on the nectar of the vorgash. Balnar grasped it by his rear body-section and pulled it
unceremoniously into the light of day. He carried it over to a bench and laid it in the daylight to
dry out. After several minutes, Balnar began to hear the insect’s fuzzy speech in his mind.
“So, policeman, you have seen fit to disturb my morning repast. What is so important that
a poor creature like myself can not be allowed to eat in peace?’
“Cut the bullshit,” came the answer, “you and me both know why you’ve got your
mandibles buried in the go-juice. I need help, empath, your help, now!”
“How so?”
“You’ve heard of the attacks on civilians by kretls?”
“Who hasn’t? Odd that someone would bring such creatures to Praxtl. For what purpose?
To take these beasts off their home planet is death, is it not so?”
“Yes, but, I don’t want to tell you any more. I want to take you to the last place the
lizards attacked and see what you sense. Okay”
“If it’s worth my while, if you get my meaning?”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll get the usual. Let’s roll!” Balnar scooped the Bug up and tossed it
through the window of his ‘car. Minutes later they pulled up in front of the Gov-complex, which
still had the police seal-off. It was completely empty.
“I don’t care to be thrown into groundcars, policeman, you exceed your authority.”
“Tell it to the Planetary Council. I could still pop you for public intoxication, Mindbug,
don’t forget that.” So saying, Balnar scooped it up again, carried the squirming insect inside and
placed it in the middle of a pool of dried blood. “What do you read, Bugbrain, c’mon, do
something useful today.”
The little creature’s eyes went blank, and it stopped moving. It stayed that way for
several seconds. Suddenly, it came to, very upset. Its mind buzzed in Balnar’s brain: “Holy Shat,
it’s one of them. But they’re all dead. Its coming...” Its words stopped as the blue haze of a
tbeam appeared over it, bearing a young kretl. The reptile grabbed the insect and pushed it into
its mouth; smashing the empath between its teeth.
Balnar heard a mental scream. He pulled his flamer and leveled it at the kretl. The beast
looked him directly in the eye and said, “Do not waste your time, moron. I won’t kill you now;
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you are too insignificant. Soon you and all of Praxtl will bow before me. Be warned, you will
bow.” Before the stunned cop could press the firing stud, the kretl vanished.
Meanwhile, Vax had spent three hours in the Archive data vaults, going over material so
old, that it was still on metallic paper. The first references to the Presence were almost a
thousand years old and spoke only of them respectfully as lord or generous ruler. This continued
for several hundred years, until he began to find descriptions of them as monsters who must die.
Apparently, the scientists who had invented the regenerator had discovered a way to
make it run in reverse. Instead of bringing life elements together and rebuilding them, it could be
made to split them apart, exponentially. Instead of healing, it killed.
They had developed a anti-regen vector ray. When it was played on the Presence, they
dissociated and died. When it was shot at a more solid life form, it exploded in bloody fragments.
After the Presence were thought to be completely exterminated, the anti-regen was considered
too horrible of a weapon to be used by civilized beings. The weapons were outlawed and
destroyed.
Vax’s comm unit chirped into life: “Vax, this is Balnar. I took the Mindbug to the last
kretl scene to scan for whatever and a little kretl tbeamed in and killed it. We can’t pick our
noses without this thing knowing about it. What the Shat are we going to do?”
“Balnar, listen, I know how to kill it. I found it in the records. They made a regen run
backward and made a gizmo to project the anti-regen ray. After the big honchos were all dead,
they destroyed all of the weapons because what they did to people was too messy. Shat, what
does a nuclear bomb do to people?”
“Fries them, leaves no trace. So what do we do?”
“Get those ditko techies to make us one, find out where the big chingon is and splatter
him and all his asshole kretls. We...” Vax didn’t finish the sentence. A large male kretl
materialized, grasped Vax to him with its powerful forearms and then they both vanished in a
shimmering blue haze.
Balnar heard the hum of the tbeam over his comm-unit, figured that was it for Vax and
hurried back to the station to request that his partner get a full-tank regen ASAP. The old man
said yes, and Balnar was down in the regen lab punching Vax’s data into the databank within
minutes after he’d last heard Vax’s voice on the comm.
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He hit the Proceed key and waited. In seconds, he got the message:
“UNDER GUIDELINE B-74 OF REGENERATING CODE, CLONING IS NOT PERMITTED.
OPERATIVE UNIT V-14 IS NOT TERMINATED. ENTER NEW PARAMETERS TO
PROCEED.”
“Holy Shat, Vax is still alive. But that means the Big Ugly’s got him,” exclaimed Balnar.
“Not good!” Quickly, he typed in “LOCATION OF UNIT V-14?”
The databank hummed for a few minutes, then brought up: “MAJOR INDUSTRY
SECTOR, PRAXTL CITY- NEAR CORNER OF ZEXTL RD. AND 108TH ST. - EMPTY
LARGE METAL FRAME BUILDING - POSSIBLY ABANDONED WAREHOUSE.”
“Got your sorry ass!” yelled Balnar as he popped his comm-unit and requested that the
old man meet him in the techlab on the double. The old man knew Balnar was onto something
and gave him no static at all.
Balnar grabbed the first tech he met in the lab and asked him how to switch a regen to
run in reverse.
“What in Shat’s name for? That’d make it a weapon; it would kill. Aren’t flamers and
mini-cannons enough for you guys?” asked the tech. “I gotta have authorization before I do
something like that.”
The old man walked in just in time to hear the tech’s speech. “Authorization you want,
authorization you got, now move it!” he said to the tech.
The techie picked up a portable unit and set it on the table in front of him, saying, “It’s
really no big deal, all we gotta do is...”
Vax was hurting. Hurting bad. His whole left side was burning, and there was so much
blood in his eyes he couldn’t see if he had his left arm or not. It didn’t feel like he did. Two big
male kretls were playing “in the pickle” with him, bouncing him back and forth between them
and biting off something else from him whenever he got near them. He knew he didn’t have
much time left.
Suddenly, the kretls stopped and Vax heard a strange, muted but very powerful voice in
his mind: “You were warned that you would pay for your temerity. The price is death.”
“Fuck you and the kretl you rode in on!” countered Vax. “They’ll regen me and I’ll be
back after your sorry ass! Count on it!”
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“When I have concluded with this planet and its scurrilous inhabitants, only my
operatives will have access to regen technology. You will become no more than a mark in some
obscure archive.” came the voice.
Vax felt rather than saw a kretl closing on him. This was it. Suddenly, from the far end of
the room came the crashing boom of a powerful explosion. Vax was knocked to the ground by a
rushing wall of heat and force. He heard the hiss of flamers and the staccato chatter of minicannons answered by the screams of dying kretls. He passed out.
Balnar, the old man, twelve HW androids and even Draxx had poured through the hole in
the side of the warehouse that the explosive charge had made. They opened up on the kretls at
once, with Balnar urging them to be very careful they didn’t hit Vax, passed out on the floor.
In a few minutes, everything in the warehouse that wasn’t police was dead; sixteen kretls
and one Procyite work-drone were meat. The tbeam console sat in a corner with nobody near it.
Whoever or whatever ran it couldn’t get to it in all the mayhem.
Two EmNurses came in and got Vax and were hauling him up on a stretcher when the
voice of the Presence filled their minds: “You have succeeded for the moment. You have killed
my beasts and for this you will pay. Dearly. When I return, I will cause all of you to endure the
most exquisite torture for meddling in my affairs.”
None of them could see anything in the dim light of the huge room. Balnar whispered to
Draxx, “What about it, sense anything?”
“Look high up in the far corner” came the reply, “see a faintly gauzy haze? Similar to a
heavy spider web? Aim the device at it and energize. The results should prove satisfactory.”
Balnar aimed as he was told and pressed the ON button, which resulted in a faint hum
from the regen unit.
An unearthly shriek of pain ripped into their minds. It staggered Balnar and the old man.
Draxx and the HW units remained impassive. In the corner where Balnar was aiming, flashes of
light began to dance. They grew and spread and as they did, the shriek in their minds grew as
well. Finally, the lights burst outward from the center and were gone. The scream receded to
nothing but silence. The Presence was terminated.
Balnar shook his head, saying “Shat, is it finally over? What an asshole that thing was.
What do you think, Draxx, any more of his kind around?”
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“Moot point, policeman, “came the reply, “we will know nothing until another shows its
presence and power. This time, however, we will be prepared. We should alert all planetary
governments about what has occurred.”
The old man agreed and gave the order to dispatch on his comm unit: put the entire
record of what had happened on hyper-transmission to all galactic-class planets.
“Thought we’d get put on regen restriction for snitching about tbeaming life forms, skip.
No big deal now, huh?”
“No,” said the old man, “it’s no big secret now.”
“It’s also no big secret that the Dracos are playing tonight,” said Balnar, “let’s go get
Vax out of the tank and go watch a ball game. Been a long day. ”
Back to top
145
Saga of the Stargun
By Thomas Voxfire ©1995
Charles Darwin stated that, given the time taken for human evolution, the human brain
had not had sufficient time to develop to its present level of complexity and capability.
Throughout the course of human history; certain men have appeared, men such as Buddha,
Moses and Jesus, whose presence and influence profoundly affected the course of human
development, and whose appearance was considered by people as divine, for the they could find
no rational explanation for it. Researchers such as Charles von Daniken have theorized that
human evolution has also been aided by periodic visits by advanced beings from other worlds...
The ship, a standard Alliance Survey Probe, exited hyperspace seven thousand kliks
inside the orbit of Neptune. In a very short time, the small water-rich third planet was identified
as the only one in the system capable of sustaining intelligent life. A recon of the surface
revealed rudimentary industry had been developed by the prevalent species.
“This is the planet,” queried Control, “no mistake?”
“Affirmative” answered NavCon, “That scrap of crystal has had ten runs through
membank and the read-out is constant. The population is 72.4 points past recontact parameter.”
“Incredible, to be isolated for so long,” said Control, “and second-degree humanoids at
that; the potential for mischief is incalculable. Commtec, put all reconbeams on full sweep; let us
see what use has been made of this free time.”
NORAD began tracking the bogie as it passed the asteroid belt on a course toward earth.
The radar operators could not believe that anything that size could move so quickly. They
contacted NASA and asked for visual confirmation by the Hubbell Telescope. The Allied Probe
reconned the telescope before it could be deployed and shifted it’s visible spectrum. NORAD’s
screen went blank.
“It’s gone, sir,” said the radar operator, “must have been a mile across and it just winked
out.”
“Call NASA and see if they got a picture,” said the OD.
“I did, sir, they said the coordinates showed only empty space.”
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“Then enter it in the log as a glitch, we don’t need brass crawling all over us.”
“So noted and logged, sir,” said the operator, making the appropriate entries.
“It’s difficult to grasp,” put forth Control, “there is a remarkable degree of technical
development but practically no moral unity. The destructive capability with which they threaten
one another for the pettiest of reasons is incredible. The systemic mischief these humanoids
manifest has taken a strongly suicidal bent. Opinions, my colleagues, how do we augment
Recontact?”
“They appear to worship violence,” said Commtec, “they vie constantly on all vari-group
levels, from the nuclear family to the nation-state. We might do well to terminate this strain and
write it off as a loss.”
“Disagree,” said Navcon, “we have much to learn here. Suggest we call on membank’s
synthetic function as to how to augment Recontact.”
“Agreed,” declared Control, “program membank to establish a mode that will bring them
up short against their violent foolishness. Termination should be kept to a minimum. We will use
force if we must, but subtlety and humor should predominate.”
“As you command, Control,” said Navcon as he began to enter parameters into the
membank.
Bobby Duncan had a hot date. It made him drive down the freeway quite a bit faster than
he should: about 25 miles an hour faster than he should. The Highway Patrol clocked his ’74
Mustang at exactly 90 mph. The cop put on his lights and gave chase. He never made the collar
and he never wrote the ticket. 45 seconds after he flicked on the pursuit lights, the Mustang
vanished in a blaze of purple-orange light. 23 different motorists saw the disappearance and all
of them gave essentially the same story to the police. Bobby Duncan was number one.
Marcie Jordan, a Broadway costume designer, caused the eyes of the entire cast and stage
personnel of “Macbeth Goes Hawaiian” to bulge in disbelief as she winked out of existence in an
orange-purple haze while she was showing her drawings of the three witches in flowered bikini
tops with black grass skirts. Marcie Jordan was number two.
For the next three months, relentlessly and inexorably, at least one member of the
species homo sapiens vanished every day in the same electric orange-purple sunburst: a truck
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driver from Vladivostok, a housewife from Stuttgart, sheepherders from Colorado and Romania,
a Sony vice-president from Tokyo, and Interpol agent from Paris, a Kikuyu from Kenya, a
London bobby and a Swedish call-girl and so on. In short, one representative from almost every
social group on earth vanished.
The media had a field day. Washington blamed Peking for excessive human rights
violations. China blamed Moscow for interfering in their internal affairs. The Russians blamed
the Turks. Sikhs blamed Buddhists. Evangelical Christians blamed the secular humanists.
Liberals blamed conservatives. The UFO nuts blamed extraterrestrials, but who listens to them
anyway? None of the authorities would admit that was happening was beyond current earth
technology, but everybody knew the truth. What no one could figure out was why?
“Essentially, what we need to do now is determine which of their belief modes, and in
what order, do we cause to be challenged to achieve maximum effect,” said Control.
“Membank suggests the following,” answered Navcon, “since they have seemingly lost
cognizance of their true heritage and have reverted to the law of the jungle or ‘me first,
reproduce you,’ we should...”
“That makes no sense,” blurted Commtec, “what in the name of Daath is reproduce
you?”
“The precise words are ‘me first, fuck you’,” he answered, “fuck being a harsh epithet
connoting reproduction. Their language and customs are oddly contradictory and confusing,
Twice I’ve had to manually reset membank’s overload protectors.”
“Very interesting,” said Control, “are we recording all this? The seeders will be
fascinated.”
“Of course,” answered Navcon, “to continue, Membank states that because of the
extremely high degree of selfishness these beings have, coupled with their generally seeming
loss of contact with the Spirit of the Bound Infinite, that their prevailing attitude toward one
another is ‘get to the top of the pile and to the very hot place at the core of the planet with
everyone else’. This is a paraphrase of “me first, reproduce you.”
“How do we deal with this attitude?” asked Control, “It is most unusual in my
experience.”
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“True enough,” answered Navcon, “and they manifest this attitude with a ‘get him before
he gets you’ destruction mode. And yet, in spite of all their squabbling, they have developed a
complexity of cultures that is nothing short of incredible.”
“ All well and good,” said Control, “how do we put the beings we have obtained from the
surface to use?”
“Membank reorients and updates their education to where they would be if the proper
Recontact sequence had been in effect,” replied Navcon, “and they are returned to function as
our operatives.”
“Will they be known as such?” asked Mechtec, the fourth and most silent of the Probe’s
crew.
“Definitely,” said Navcon, “to their fellow beings, they will come as gods.”
“Gods,” queried Mechtec, “what are gods?”
“Incarnate agents of the Bound Infinite, their religions are rampant with them.”
“Religion?” barked Mechtec, “What is religion?”
“Mechtec,” retorted Navcon, “have you never thought of possessing a wordbank? It
might prove the making of you. I could program one for you if you like.”
“Enough!” exploded Control, “we have more important matters to attend to than
Mechtec’s lack of erudition. To wit, where do we begin?”
“They will be clothed according to the popular iconography of the humanoids, and armed
with a Projector slightly adapted by membank and myself. The first target will be what these
beings apparently hold in highest esteem; a medium of exchange known as the Almighty Buck.”
The Pentagon was humming with activity; the Joint chiefs were in session. Hustle and
bustle were everywhere: brass hat clanged against brass hat and
the top-kick sergeant
maintained order and held sway. The big board in the War Room flashed its message of alertness
and preparedness. The American Eagle was ready for anything. Sort of...
“Hey, dude,” said the Marine guard at the main entrance to his fellow sentry, “did you
see what the Dodgers did to the Giants last night? It was pure murder.”
“Yeah, right,” answered the other, “don’t you think about anything besides sports? I
mean, look at those tits,” indicating the exemplary assets of the assistant secretary to the ViceAdmiral of the Navy as she jiggled her way by.
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Their reverie was interrupted abruptly by an odd purple-orange shimmering in the air a
few feet from them. The shimmer coalesced into the figure of an old-west cowboy, lavish with
glowing highlights.
“Howdy, pards,” drawled the stranger, “you know where I can find the Joint Chiefs?”
Trance-like and without hesitation, guard number one gave the necessary directions. A
faint jingling of spurs was all the stranger left behind as the cowboy made his way into the
Bastion of American Military Might.
“Listen to me, Admiral,” said the Commanding General of the Air Force, “our moon base
needs those lasers more than the Navy’s does.”
“Bullshit!” retorted the Admiral, “we need the goddamn lasers and if we don’t get them
there’s going to be damn few troop transports of Air Force personnel to anywhere on my ships.”
Realizing how many more men could be carried by ship rather than plane, the C.G. said,
“Well, I suppose a few less lasers...”
Suddenly, the door flew open, with the receptionist’s voice echoing through it, “But sir,
you can’t burst in there, I haven’t seen your ID!”
In strode a figure straight out of television. “Buffalo Bill in neon” was the first
impression of the Commanding General of the Marine Corps.
“Lookahere, boys,” said the apparition, “y’all got fifteen minutes to clear the building,”
“What?” said the head of the Army, “Who the hell you think you’re talking to? Nobody
tells the JC’s what to do: not you, not the President, not anybody!”
The stranger drew his unusual looking sidearm and fired a ray at the center of the
conference table. It became the glowing figure of Dwight David Eisenhower, the ultimate
American military icon.
“Boys, you’d better clear out,” said Ike, “this young fellow means business!”
The Chief Joint Chief, no fool when faced with something completely beyond his ken,
picked up the phone and ordered the immediate evacuation of the building. The Pentagon was
empty of all human life within 13.5 minutes, a record by all current standards.
Out in front, the cowboy drew his weapon and fired point blank at the great five-sided
building and vanished.
150
“Oh my god, oh my god,” raved the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, “solid gold,
solid gold...the Pentagon has been turned into solid gold. What will happen to the dollar?...the
Prime Interest Rate?...the Dow-Jones?...oh my god, oh my god!” Instantly, he was on the phone
to the president, intending to have the new, improved Pentagon hidden from public view. But it
was no use, for the Taj Mahal, the Kremlin, Angkor Wat, the Forbidden City, Sugarloaf, Mt. Fuji
and the Rock of Gibraltar had been similarly transmuted.
Navcon chuckled the equivalent of his species’ version of a chuckle, turned from
membank’s viewing panel and said, “Sir, we have turned several of their most cherished objects
into their most sought-after substance. We will let them derive for themselves which they
prefer.”
“Satisfactory” said Control, “and now?”
“We await further events. The ball, as these beings put it, is in their court.”
Meanwhile, in the Oval Office, the President sought the whys and wherefores of a 24K
Pentagon with the heads of the CIA, the FBI, the Department of the Treasury and other relevant
bureaucrats.
“All right,” he said, “it has been almost 72 hours since the Pentagon was turned into gold.
The Joint Chiefs are sitting in the War Room in shock, staring blankly at a non-functional Big
Board. We have a receptionist and two elite Marine guards mumbling incoherently about neon
cowboys. I want to know who did it, how and why.”
“We’ve no leads at all.” Said the Director of the CIA, “until someone who saw it happens
comes to his senses,”
“I don’t want any goddamn excuses,” shouted the President, “do any of you have any
idea of how fast the crowd is gathering around the Pentagon, demanding their share? Over half
the army guards stationed there have gone inside to get souvenirs and then, realizing that they’re
carrying a year’s wages or more, go AWOL. Somebody besides me is trying the straighten out
the economy, pay off the national debt, and balance the federal budget in one fell swoop and I,
by God, won’t have it!”
151
“It may seem impossible,” said the Director of the FBI to his major underlings, “but
we’re either dealing with rampant alchemists or extraterrestrials. No one on earth, not even Bill
Gates, has the power to turn that much material into gold.”
All eyes in the room were on the Director and nobody blinked.
“Consider this,” he continued, “three months ago NORAD picked up a huge blip as it
appeared from nowhere, tracked it for a little over a minute until it vanished. Three days later
people all over the world start being abducted right in plain daylight. Now, direct eyewitnesses to
these gold changes all report “glowing cowboys” aiming and firing ray guns which turn damned
big things into 24K solid gold.”
In the back of the room, one agent elbowed another and said, “See. I told you the Old
Man was a UFO nut. I bet it’s some consortium of Swiss banks.”
“All right, you two,” said the Director, “stop whispering and listen up. I want one of these
Hopalong Cassidy’s brought in for routine questioning or your backsides go over a slow fire.
And I don’t need to tell you who’ll be turning the spit!”
“Commtec has been doing extensive recon on their broadcasts,” Control said, “Commtec,
report.”
Commtec, glancing with undue smugness at Navcon, reported, “Apparently, membank
didn’t foresee the consequences of the attack on the Almighty Fuck...”
“It is Almighty Buck,” Navcon cut him off, “and it’s true that ‘bank didn’t expect the
violent reaction to a simple conjurer’s trick. It is all quite confusing, but the Chineez are blaming
the Marikuns for trying to make capitalists out of them and have sent large numbers of armed
operatives into Roosha to seize powerful weaponry designed to destroy many of the Marikun’s
centers of population.”
“Indeed?” said Control, “that seems rather extreme.”
“Yes, sir, and this will cause the Marikuns to retaliate by destroying many of the
Rooshins and Chineez’s centers of population. Membank’s analysis of their weapons reveals
they can destroy most, if not all, of the indigenous life-forms if allowed to continue.”
“Can the weapons be neutralized?” asked Control.
152
“Affirmative, we will put a planetary-wide damper field down to a third-level subatomic
density, which will render all their fissionable material inert. And the damper will be delivered in
a most interesting way.”
The UFO materialized directly over the North Pole and was first tracked by the US DEW
radar defense line. Ironically, the first person to see it was the same radar technician who had
first seen the Allied Probe. He had been reduced three pay grades and had been transferred to
Alaska after his loss of the blip had been reported to “higher up.”
“Holy shit,” he exclaimed to the OD, “this thing is a bat out of hell. It’s too low and too
fast to follow on the screen; activating tracking computer.”
After several seconds of electronic incantation, the computer read out: “COURSE - DUE
WEST WITH A 6.788° SOUTHERN DEFLECTION...SPEED - 7546 KPH...ALTITUDE - 5280
FEET...COMPOSITION - PRIMARILY FERROUS METAL...MASS DENSITY - APPROX
1.5 TONS...”
The low fast blip was tracked across the top of the world by Russian (now Chinese)
radar. Russian (now Chinese) ICBM’s were readied for launch. Moscow (and Peking) were in no
mood to Washington the slightest opportunity to explain.
The bogie was spiraling southward over the planet at incredible speed. The NORAD duty
commander, heavily into the John Wayne phase of his biorhythm cycle, flashed this order to all
American intercept-capable installations: “Incoming confirmed, destroy by any and all means.”
All available fighters were scrambled.
By this time, the newly-reconstituted Sino-Soviet alliance was ready. The order was
given and the first wave of Eastern bloc ICBM’s soared into the unfriendly skies. Now, NORAD
had a new problem, a first-strike nuclear missile attack.
A frantic call to the White House found the President searching the Wall Street Journal
for something nice being said about him. His fruitless quest did not have him in the best of
moods. His reply to NORAD was terse: “Well, shoot back, for Chrissakes!”
He slammed down the phone and said to his chief-of-staff, “Those bastard Russians are
attacking us, eight months before the goddamn elections. Don’t the sumbitches know what this
will do to me in the polls?”
153
And still the UFO spiraled southward; American ABM’s and fighter aircraft were
deployed. But if any missile or plane got within ¼ klik of the hurtling bogie, it sustained a
brilliant green flash and then drifted slowly downward, in defiance of gravity, to hit the earth
below with nothing more than a dull thud.
By now, the bogie was below the Equator, the Eastern bloc missiles were within 5
minutes of their American targets, and the American missiles, fifteen. The first Russian missile
landed in New York in Central Park, burying itself over two-third’s of it’s length with a
tumultuous crash. But no explosion!
“What’s that, daddy?” the small boy asked his father, pointing at the tail of the huge
warhead protruding from the grass.
“Dunno, son,” came the dazed reply, “some kind of ad stunt, I guess. Those ad guys will
do anything to get your attention.”
At this moment, the spiraling UFO reached the South Pole, where it vanished as quickly
as it had appeared. All of the ICBM’s had landed and all of them had failed to explode.
Meanwhile, back at the Military Establishment, the subject was outrage. The nukes didn’t
work! What treasonous shithead had busted the hydrogen bombs? Heads were going to roll and
there were goddamn-well going to be answers. Think of the money that had been wasted. Sweet
Jesus, Congress might cut defense spending more than they had already. Somebody’s ass was
grass and there were lots of lawnmowers.
The American President and the Chinese Premier exchanged a few embarrassed
sentences over the hot line: “Yes, the People’s Republic acted hastily,” admitted the Premier “but
you attacked us first.”
“Bullshit!” retorted the President, “we weren’t responsible for the bogie, we don’t know
where it came from.”
“Perhaps, but you capitalists are notorious for your trickery!”
“Trickery my ass, it’s you damn Chink commies that turned our Pentagon into gold!”
“Bullfilth to you as well, our revered Forbidden City is also gold, pawn of corporate
dogs!”
“Pawn, my ass again, and speaking of asses, it’s be yours if I had any working nukes!”
154
So much for the political rhetoric of reconciliation, what of the effect of the UFO on all
the military hardware? Examination of the downed missiles and aircraft showed that all
electronic circuits had been fused. Oddly enough, one of the gun cameras of a disabled F-16 had
not been hurt. The film was taken to the photo labs at Wright-Patterson AFB. After much
computer enhancement of the blue blur, the astonished technicians saw what had been speeding
overhead. Immediately, the OD was on the phone to the White House, passing along the
incredible news to a heavily sedated President.
“Hey you,” yelled the President to his nearest aide, as he let the phone fall to the floor,
“you get on the horn to the CEO of the Ford Motor Company and you tell him that the national
security had been seriously undermined by a goddamn flying Ford Mustang!”
“All major weapons neutralized,” said NavCon to Control, “though they still have the use
of minor weaponry. We could neutralize all of it by dropping the subatomic density to include
fire.”
“Negative, we will not do their work for them. They must learn themselves to beat their
bayonets into butterknives. Let us pursue another direction as membank directs.”
The media had a field day: BIG NUKES MAKE BIG FIZZLE...NUCLEAR WAR
AVERTED BY MALFUNCTION...WHO HOLDS THE WARRANTY ON H-BOMBS? came
the headlines.
Hundreds of warheads had plowed into the earth all over the Northern
Hemisphere and none had gone off. “What the hell was going on?” the public demanded, “What
hat triggered a nuclear war that didn’t work? Who was covering up?”
The press corps stormed the White House, besieging the President: “Why was there no
advance warning? Had the USA taken a scrap metal contract from the Russians? What about all
the small missiles and jet-fighters floating down out of the sky? Had something blown the circuit
breaker on war?” Inside the White House, there was pandemonium. Outside, there was more of
the same; as huge crowds of reporters, ordinary citizens and riot police danced the dance of
disorderly conduct.
The President, his shoulders sagging from the weight of the Valium inside him, was led
to the podium by the Vice-President, several Secret Service agents and his analyst.
“One at a time, fellas,” said the VP into the mike, “he’s had a rough night.”
155
“So have we, goddamit,” growled UPI, “what are all these inert Russian warheads doing
dotting the American landscape?”
“China-Russia was attacked by a Ford Mustang from outer space,” mumbled the
President, “they thought it was us, so they fired. And we fired back,” he added proudly.
Deathly silence filled the press room. “He’s finally gone over the edge,” thought the
assembled reporters, “that’s all she wrote!”
“Mr. President,” asked CNN, “are you telling us that WW3 was started by a UFO
sighting?
“Wasn’t a UFO, it was identified,” drawled the President, “a damn Ford Mustang flew
over Russia and China. Hell, it flew around the whole world...” He trailed off into gibberish.
The reporters rushed for the phone. This was a big one. For the first time in American
history, a President was going to be removed from office to be put into a paper-doll factory.
In Sino-Russian territory, the situation was somewhat different. Government police and
work crews collected the American bombs, telling the people it was a civil defense exercise and
they would be wise not to ask too many questions. Of course, the bigwigs had some questions for
some key nuclear physicists, but, all in all, political calm reigned. And, having no pictures if the
UFO, they had no idea they’d tried to start the holocaust because of an overflight by an
American sports car.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, barely a stone's throw from the White House, two bus
loads of girl scouts from Virginia had arrived to see the Washington Monument.
“Looks like a giant hard-on, doesn't it?" asked one little girl as she stepped off the bus.
“Shush, Priscilla," said her Den Mother, pushing a copy of Playgirl down into her purse,
"I just don't know where you learned that kind of language."
"Is it time for lunch yet?" whined one little green-uniformed storm trooper, "I'm hungry."
The den mothers went into a huddle and decided, knowing the little monster as they did,
that if they wanted to maintain order they'd better break out the picnic baskets. Behind them,
perhaps twenty yards away, a brilliant purple-orange light began to dance in the air, solidifying
quickly into Bat Masterson with blue-gold highlights.
"Wow, look at him." said the first girl scout, running up to the stranger, "who are you?*
156
"I'm a cowboy gunslinger from outer space," he replied, "who are, you?"
"I'm Priscilla, Den 4 leader from Roanoke, Virginia. Want to eat lunch with us?"
Turning around and seeing the confrontation, one Den Mother screamed and ran to the
fascinated little girl, clutching her away from the stranger. She'd heard a rumor about the man
who had turned the Pentagon into gold and had no desire to return an aluminum girl scout to her
lawsuit-happy parents.
Her scream had drawn the attention of several nearby policemen, who, seeing the
cowboy, drew their sidearms and advanced on him. Very quickly, a crowd of the curious began
to gather.
A TV camera crew, driving back to their studios from the Presidents debacle of a press
conference, came upon the gathering crowd and, always with a nose for the news, decided to
investigate. What they found inside the crowd of onlookers was three city policemen holding
their weapons on a glowing 1880's lawman.
"Sweet Jesus, this is the guy that turned the Pentagon into gold, c'mon, you guys get
rolling!" Within seconds, video cameras and audio recorders were eagerly recording the
tableaux.
"All right, pal," said one cop. “unbuckle your gun belt and let it fall to the ground."
The stranger just smiled and stood his ground, his thumbs hooked in his belt.
"Put your hands behind your head and don't move," said the second cop. The stranger made
no move. The third cop, sweat beading his forehead, gripped his service revolver in doublehanded fashion and emptied it into the stranger. The crowd screamed and fled, except the
camera crew, who knew a good story when they saw one. They just kept taping.
The stranger stood stark still, slowly a thin smile crept across his face. Almost quicker
than the eye could follow, he drew his gun and fired three short brilliant bursts at the policemen.,
And then, there were no policemen: just three large blobs of quavering, semi-transparent
green goo on the ground. Slowly, uncertainly, the crowd crept back. The first to reach the green
blobs was the hungry little storm-trooper. Timidly, she sniffed at the green stuff and slowly a
look of recognition, then astonished satisfaction, spread across her face. "Hey, you guys, "she
cried out, "this is Lime Jell-O, let's eat. It So saying, she produced an official GSA spoon and
proceeded to do just that. Her fellow scouts were quick to follow suit.
157
Within minutes, the cops were nothing but a memory. But they could have gone to their
reward proudly, knowing that in their hour of greatest sacrifice, they had provided two bus-loads
of hungry little girls with their mid-morning snack.
For most people, the loss of nuclear weapons caused a sigh of relief; the threat of
annihilation no longer a part of their daily lives. However, there were those for whom the loss of
the H-bomb caused great stress and anxiety: the Ku Klux Klan, the Neo-SS, the Red-Blooded
Good Old Boys, etc., etc.; all fearing instant mongrelization of their cherished racial purity due
to the lack of their cherished nuclear deterrent capability, moved to stage a great rally in
Washington to "Bring Back The Bomb".
As the great day approached tens of thousands of examples of America’s finest white
breeding stock advanced on Washington. So. likewise, were the "mongrelizers" moved to
action; Blacks, Chicanos, American Indians, etc, planned to counter the Red-Neck Rally with
their own brand of bigotry. Those damned honkies could take the hydrogen bomb and put it
where the sun never shined.
And so the great day came. Sheets, pillow-cases, uniforms and arm-bands were donned.
Placards and banners by the thousands were lifted into the air. Moccasin and sandals, jackboots
and go-aheads trundled the grass of Washington's great Mall. The electric tension of racial
animosity was so strong you could almost taste it.
Crack units
of
riot police patrolled
everywhere, the militia was on call. It would take only the tiniest spark of an incident to cause a
major conflagration: after all, what are neighbors for if not to beat over the head?
And so it was, as the Imperial Lizard himself ascended the recently constructed platform
and headed for the speaker's podium, his elite guard in immediate attendance upon him, and
spoke into the microphones: "My fellow Americans, I come to you in a time of great national
peril. Our beloved country is vulnerable to the godless Chink - Russkie Commies and their racemixing hordes of gooks and darkies.” Jeers and catcalls filled the air, fists were brandished;
hidden knives, pistols, straight-razors and Uzi’s were lovingly fondled.
A small brown-paper sack was hurled out of the crowd and landed at the feet of the
Lizard, it's upper edge on fire. "My god, it's a bomb," he cried, as he moved to kick it off the
platform. But instead of meeting metal or plastic, his foot blasted into a bag full of the end
product of canine digestion, which quickly coated his $75 wing-tip shoe.
158
“Some nigra throwed dog shit at the Lizard.” screamed his personal bodyguard, “let's get
‘em, boys. Immediately, like a lit match to a pool of gasoline, the riot began to spread.
Within minutes, a major melee was in progress. Chaos and fighting ruled the day. Tear
gas and water cannons were the grand marshals. The dull brute animal aspect of human nature
reared up its' head and brayed nakedly at the sky. Racial purity and racial equality were long
forgotten; "bust heads and kick ass" were what mattered now.
So intently involved were the participants of this glaring example of homo sapiens
inability to live with himself. that no one saw the air on the now-deserted speaker's platform take
on a distinctive purple-orange hue. No one saw the electronic masked man draw his pistol and,
swiveling from the hip, blanket the entire crowd with a pale white light. And no one saw him
vanish.
But it didn't take long for people to see that things were rather different than they had
been, The Imperial Lizard was astonished to see his personal bodyguard grow eight inches and
suddenly develop black skin and black kinky hair. The Lizard himself looked as if he should be
playing center for the Chicago Bulls. Nor was the 'other side' spared: the heads of CORE, the
NAACP, and the Urban League were all now blue-eyed blondes. So were a great many of their
followers. In fact, everyone in the rioting crowd had become the kind of man he hated or feared
the most.
"Holy Adolph" said the Obergruppenführer of the Neo-SS to himself as he stared at his
hook-nosed, skull-capped reflection in a mirror, "I've been turned into a rabbi. Some Jew bastard
is going to pay for this." And then he added, as an afterthought, "By Himmler, I hope it isn't me."
Clark County General Hospital in Las Vegas had the reputation of being the most expensive
medical facility in the United States, if not the world. Heart surgeons bragged that they could get
$75,000 an operation for by-pass surgery. Most rooms went for $500 a day, intensive care was
double that. Pay toilets cost one dollar and the slot machines in the lobby never paid off.
Medicine makes money: these were the watchwords of the American Medical Association
and good old CCGH was the number one contender for the AMA crown. Hippocrates would
have been proud to see his successors' balance sheets. After all, what the hell, twelve years in
med.-school isn't something you pay off overnight with just a few pennies; not to mention large
room-fulls of high tech equipment.
159
And, when you stop to think about it, why not gouge the sick and injured? Really, isn't
life more important than money? They'll only die if we doctors don't cure them and what good is
money to a dead man?
It was with these thoughts tugging at his mind that the chief bookkeeper for CCGH
looked out of his window that clear, sunny Nevada morning. His gaze fell on the main street
entrance where stood a rather gaudy cowboy. Now, cowboys are nothing unusual in southern
Nevada; in fact, they are an established part of the community. But this one glowed. And he
carried a gun, which he pulled and fired at the hospital. But nothing happened, just a brief flash
of light. The chief bookkeeper thought no more about it and lovingly leaped into his ledgers.
Down in surgery, Dr. Wilhelm Neinkleingeld proceeded to make the preliminary incision
to remove a large malignant tumor from a lady patients breast. "At least a $8500 operation," he
thought smugly to himself, "with a little ingenuity I can push it up to $9000.” The second
incision took his scalpel directly into the tumor. He spread the flesh and looked inside. "That's
odd," he said, "it's gone. Take a look at this, Bill."
His assistant peered into the wound and instead of a tumor, saw only healthy, living flesh.
"Simple, Bill," said the surgeon, "we tell her that we effected a miraculous cure and bill her
accordingly. Close her up."
In the burn unit was a 64 year old man whose camper had overturned on him and then
caught fire. He had third degree burns over 75% of his body. Even though heavily sedated, the
changing of his dressings caused screams of mortal agony to tear from his lips.
The duty nurse approached him with no small uneasiness. Even though hardened by
years of medical service, the old man's screams unnerved her. "Strange," she thought, as she
looked at his face, "it didn't look as strained as usual." She picked up the forceps and went for the
first bandage. She waited for the howl of pain as she lifted it away from his body. Silence. She
looked under it. Instead of the charred, oozing mess she'd become used to, she saw normal
smooth skin. Hurriedly she peeled off more dressings, her amazement growing with every inch
of skin she uncovered. Soon she had him completely uncovered and saw not a mark on him.
The old man's skin was as fresh and clear as a baby's bum. The nurse quickly reported the
fantastic news to the resident doctor.
Within a very few minutes, it became clear to the staff of the hospital that some
incredible miracle had taken place. Terminal cancer patients were having 100% remission.
160
Paraplegics and quadriplegics were getting the use of their limbs back. Stethoscopes revealed
that all of the cardiac patients' hearts sounded like well-tuned engines...Even the old nurse with
chronic sinus congestion was having her nose clear up.
A young boy with a broken arm who was brought into the emergency room hours after
the first healing occurred immediately ceased to feel the pain. Everyone in the hospital at the
time of the ray blast or who came into it later had their problem clear up at once.
Most people rejoiced at the miracle.
Most, but not all.
The next day the chief
bookkeeper gave the bad news to the big man himself: every bed in Clark County General
Hospital was empty. And if something didn't happen pretty goddamn quick, they were going to
lose one hell of a lot of money.
'Lil Benny’ Chavez knew, like all the other vatos knew, that "Los Harpies" ran the 38th
Street barrio. Nobody messed with the Harpies on their own turf. Nobody better leave their
stereo or TV untended too long or it became tribute to Los Harpies. The spray-can painted walls
told it succinctly: in this part of East LA - "Los Harpies rule."
The one truly unusual thing about the Harpies domain was that it contained the only
Gothic cathedral in all of Los Angeles. True, it was a scaled-down version of the original, but it
did look identical to the Notre Dame in Paris, graffiti-covered gargoyles and all.
The Harpies liked to hang around Our Lady and talk shit. The priest let them due to the
fact that he didn't know how to stop them. So they hung around - being bad, talking shit, and
harassing anybody who happened to be so incautious as to walk by while any of the "fine guys"
were holding forth.
Well, it just so happened that one morning that Lil Benny, Big Eddy, Medium Billy and
six or seven other vato locos were holding forth in front of Our Lady - standing around flexing
their spray-can fingers and talking about all the panocha they were going to get at the dance
Saturday night.
And then, who should come waltzing down the street toward the cathedral but Mr. and
Mrs. Hiram Swenson of Madison, Wisconsin, who were on a tour of all the great Catholic
churches of the Southwest. Down the street toward the Harpies, heavily laden with expensive
Japanese cameras and a brand new camcorder. The Swensons had promised everybody back in
their parish that they would come back loaded with pictures.
161
As they came into the Harpies, line of sight, 'Lil Benny' was
the first to spot the
pale white faces and all the expensive gear the Swensons carried.
"Hey man, look," he said “that old gavacho has a stereo strapped to his back. And they
both got cameras.
Turning around, Big Eddy, one of the main honchos of the Harpies, said, "Puto, that's not a
stereo, that's a camcorder and backpack to take TV pictures. Shit man, that's worth a lot of
dinero. One by one, the young hoods put down their spray cans and nonchalantly strolled over
toward the Swensons who were busily engaged in taking pictures and were completely oblivious
to the Harpies' approach. The elderly tourists were ringed by the toughs and the first time they
were aware of then was when Medium Billy snatched the camera out of the old man's hand.
"See here, boy, give me that camera," he said.
"Shut up , old man," retorted Billy, giving Hiram a sharp snap across the forearm with a
doubled-up dog chain. The old man howled and yanked his arm back.
*Take that, you little beast" cried Mrs. Swenson, as she bounced her purse off the back of
Billy's head. Two of the other Harpies grabbed her while a third snatched her purse away and
began riffling through it.
Billy slowly turned toward her, a malignant grin spreading across his face. He pulled
Hiram's microphone to his mouth, saying, "Hey, all you chumps out there in TV land, this old
bitch hit a Harpy on his own turf and I'm going to feed her her lunch." As he spoke, he reached
down into his boot an pulled out a long wicked-looking switchblade-knife which he worshipfully
flicked open. He advanced on the old woman, who stalwartly stood her ground, glaring defiance
at the young punk.
Billy, intent on his mission of vengeance, was only dimly aware of the purple-orange glare
that appeared in the air several feet behind his intended victim. And having no real interest in
the folklore of the Old West, he failed to recognize the incandescent reincarnation of Annie
Oakley that appeared in the teleport field.
"You owlhoots leave those old folks alone," she said to the astonished gang members,
who were now rapidly sensing that there were now three gavachos on Harpy turf.
Big Eddy moved toward her, intending to relieve her of the odd looking sidearms she had
strapped to her. As he reached out to touch her, there was a brief flash of light and he drew back
his hand abruptly, screaming in pain.
162
"So you boys like to make helpless old people feel fear, eh?" asked the stranger, "Well, I
think you ought to know what it's like to be on the short end of that stick. First, I got to pen you
mavericks up." She drew both guns and fired at the toughs. They found themselves whisked in
side the front courtyard of the cathedral. The big wrought-iron gate clanged shut.
Over her shoulder, that most famous sharp-shootress said to Hiram, "Get some pictures, pop,
you'll really wow the folks back home." He went to the twelve foot tall fence and began shooting
through one of the gaps in it.
Annie turned her attention to the gargoyles on the mini-Notre Dame, firing a ray-burst at
each one of them. Slowly the Gothic horrors began to stretch and come to life. One of them a
winged troll straight out of Hieronymous Bosch, flew to the ground and, leering about, uttered
one word: "Hungry". Spying the Harpies grouped in the courtyard he motioned to his fellows
and began to chant: "Eat ... Food ... Eat..."
The other gargoyles clambered, jumped, flew and fell to the grand. One by one they took up
the chant as they moved to ring the Harpies. "Food...Eat...Food..." 'Lil Benny' fainted, Billy
threw up. Uzi’s and chains were brandished, five switchblades were brought to the forefront, but
to no avail. Ever try to stab something made of concrete? Even the almighty spray-can proved
ineffective. Within just a few brief moments the pride of 38th Street had been reduced to
whimpering blobs of terrorized protoplasm. And still the gargoyles came.
"Folks," said Annie to the Swensons, "that's that, enough pictures, I think I’d better get
you out of here." All three started moving back down the street to the Swenson's car.
"What will happen to those boys, will they be eaten?" asked Mrs. Swenson.
"No, ma'am." came the reply, "but they’ll remember this day as long as they live. You
folks should, too. Don't be going into outlaw territory without finding out the lay of the land
first. Adios, amigos."
She vanished, leaving only a faint shimmer in the air. Mrs. Swenson said to her bemused
husband, “See, dear, I told you this vacation would be an adventure."
Dr. David Harlan had been, for better than seven years, the director of the Department of
Extraterrestrial Life Research for Cornell University. In a field composed mainly of cranks and
crackpots, he was considered by many as the number one authority on life on other worlds. He
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was intelligent, sceptical and every inch a scientist. He was also gifted with a healthy dose of
common sense.
Ever since held heard of flying saucers when he was a boy, his one overwhelming
passion was to meet a real alien face to face. For years he nurtured this hope in his heart, but to
no avail. He began to think that Carl Sagan was right: that even though there probably was other
intelligent life in the universe, Earth was too much out in the galaxy boondocks to come into
contact with it.
Then, all of a sudden, people started vanishing. Then, someone or something had turned
the Pentagon and a good many other of Earth's landmarks into gold, someone or something had
started and then brought World War III to a screeching halt, someone or something was causing
very odd things to happen to people, all sorts of people. It was almost as if ...
The ring of his telephone wrenched him from his reverie. He answered it and found
himself talking to the deputy director of the national Security Council. The President was having
a special meeting and would very much like to have his attendance and his advice. (The new
President that is, the old President was in a funny-farm factory somewhere on the other side of
the Potomac.) Yes, he’d be glad to attend.
Yes, and he’d be glad to put forward the theory that held been mulling over for several
weeks. The theory on just what was occurring to mankind lately. He gathered up his papers and
put them in his briefcase. He hoped the military types would keep their ratchet-jaws in neutral
this time. He had been to several meetings lately and all held heard was a lot of excessive soldier
verbiage that belied a definite lack of concrete information.
The Secret Service limousine arrived as promised and he was whisked to the White
House. Entering the large meeting room, he found the President and Vice-President, the leaders
of the House and Senate, the entire Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs (all clutching their bottles of
Thorazine), representatives of all the NATO allies and a number of other men and women he
didn't recognize. "Good god,” he thought, "even the Sino-Soviet ambassador is here." This
meeting was much more impressive than any of the previous ones. The President stepped to the
podium and called for order.
"Ladies and Gentlemen" he began, "I know I don't need to tell any of you that the planet
we all call home is under attack from outer space. It sounds ludicrous I knows but we have to
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face the facts that the events of the past few months are caused by agencies or powers with
capabilities far in excess of current human technology."
Murmured grunts of assent ricocheted through the gathering. The Joint Chiefs, however,
stared suspiciously at the Sino-Soviet ambassador. It would take a lot of convincing for them not
to blame the Russians and Chinese. They wanted easily understood, highly visible targets for
their rancor. They didn't want intangible extraterrestrials that couldn't be lined up in their sights.
"Let's just put this in perspective." said the President "four months ago, our radar picked
up a huge blip over 2,000,000 kliks out. It lasted for less than a minute, then vanished. Then
people started vanishing; people all over the globe, right in front of lots of other people. After
three months of that these neon cowboys start showing up."
"Excuse me, air," said the Director of the FBI, "the media is calling them Stargunners."
"Well, Stargunners, then," answered the President, "whatever you call them, these aliens
have put the world back on the gold standard and then wiped out all our nuclear energy in a
matter of three days. So NORAD computed the probable orbit of the original big blip from the
short observation of it and NASA put a spy satellite into that orbit, hoping to find something. All
they got from the satellite was a long, loud raspberry. After that, total silence."
"Then these Stargunners started showing up everywhere, pulling some of the strangest
stunts you can imagine; turning policemen into Jell-O, blacks into whites and vice versa,
bringing statues to life and so on.”
"They went into the Ukraine," said the Sino-Soviet ambassador, *and changed an entire unit
of state police into, what you call them, Teddy Bears."
"Two of them showed up at our annual baby, seal hunt," chimed in the Canadian
ambassador, "and surrounded the entire area with an impenetrable force field. Then one of them
posted guard at the only entrance to the field and told every hunter that approached that there
was a new licensing procedure. Anyone who wanted to club baby seals had to be married and
have children. In order to get a license for the season, the hunter had to club his youngest child
to death first. They got no takers."
"They picked up all of our whaling ships and dropped them, crew and all, into the Gobi
Desert," said the Japanese ambassador, "the Russians and the Norwegians, too."
"One of zese desperadoes vent to the Shmelenroten Chemical Works on ze Rhein,” said
the head of the German legation." vere it is necessary for zem to dump vaste into ze river. Zis
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Shtarperson put a teleporter on ze vaste outlet und van any vaste vas discharged, it vas right now
materialized on ze President of the Works' desk. Very big mess, I can tell you.*
"I tell you what we ought to do,” said the Air Force Chief, “we ought’ta nuke the
assholes. That'd teach 'em."
The President reached over and patted the hand of the Air Force General that held his
bottle of Thorazine and said, "Take your pill, Harry, they took all of nuclear weapons and turned
them into useless junk, remember?"
Turning back to the gathering, the President continued: "The list of their exploits goes on
and on. One of them put a damper field on the Monte Carlo Gran Prix, stopped all of the cars
dead in their tracks, and then asked the crowd that if they're so short of energy why do they
spend so much fuel in purposeless contests? It's almost as if Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, Genghis
Khan and Ralph Nader were all rolled into one, then split up into these cowboys and turned loose
on the world. The questions are how and why. Any rational theory will be greatly appreciated."
Glaring at the Russian diplomat, the Commanding General of the Army stated bluntly: "It's
the damn Chink-Russkies, I tell you, it's their fault."
The Chinese diplomat jumped to his feet, protesting loudly that they didn't have that kind of
power. Also that the military in his homeland had the same suspicions about the Americans.
Containing himself no longer, Dr. Harlan came to his feet, saying, “Mr. President, may I
speak? I think I have a viable theory on what is occurring.”
"Of course, doctor.” answered the President, “by all means." The President turned and
introduced him to the crowd, giving his lengthy credentials.
"Gentlemen and ladies," the UFO expert began, "I will be brief. First, I would like to ask
any or all of the Joint Chiefs if they would please explain the theory of basic training.”
"Take a slack-jawed, pansy-assed civilian boy and turn him into a lean, green killin'
machine-a man-a United States soldier!" growled the Army Big Cheese, menacingly.
"Quite so, General.” said Dr, Harlan, "and how is this accomplished?”
"Bust his ass and break down all the civilian mama’s boy bullshit inside of him. Then
train him to be a Marine!" said the Commanding General of the Corps,
"The key here," summarized Dr. Harlan, “is the breakdown of the prior conditioning and
training: to bewilder and confuse, to allow no stability, to put him at sea without any landmarks.
Would you say that you are bewildered and confused by all of this Stargunner activity?”
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A strong murmur of assent echoed through the collection of international bigwigs.
"Would you also say that you were aware of all these various incidents in some sort of
deja vu or precognition sense before you read about them or saw them on TV or whatever?"
Again a murmur of assent, but this time it came more slowly, with greater hesitation.
"By George, that's true,” agreed the British Consul, "I'd wondered more than once why
these incidents always seemed like second-hand news even though I'd never heard about them at
all. I seemed somehow to identify with the various people involved as well. It caused me some
rather odd moments, I can assure you."
"It has to be some form of massive telepathy," Dr. Harlan explained, "someone or
something has a strong grip on the collective unconscious of the human race. They, or it, seems
to have an uncanny grasp of our culture's most subtle nuances.*
"Oh, horse pucky," said the C.G. of the Air Force, " I say it's the damn commies and we
gotta hit ‘em with everything we got."
The President sighed and motioned to several Secret Service men. “Why don't you go
with these boys, Harry? They’ll take you to see my predecessor. Perhaps he can teach you all
about paper dolls." With that, Air Force was led away. Another twig on the American tree had
snapped.
Suddenly, a loud cry of alarm shot through the assembled multitude. To the immediate
left of Dr. Harlan, a purple-orange haze began to dance in the air. And then, there stood one
Stargunner, glowing vividly as usual.
This time it was a Mississippi Riverboat Gambler.
"Pardon gent's," he said, "but the good doctor's got an invite topside.” He grasped Dr. Harlan by
the wrist and they both were gone.
"Our guest is here." said Control to his crew, "let us treat him with respect and cordiality,
for his assistance would be of benefit to our program."
Control waved his hand over a glowing light-button on his panel and the door across the
Probe’s bridge slid swiftly upward. In walked the aforementioned Riverboat Hustler and one
very stupefied American UFO expert.
"Who in the name of God are you people?" rasped the thoroughly bemused Dr. Harlan.
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"If it is necessary for you to invoke the Spirit of the Bound Infinite to discover our
identities, so be it," answered Control. "I am Control, the ... ah...captain of this vessel and this is
my crew: Navcon, Commtec and Mechtec," indicating each in turn.
Taking a deep breath and mustering all the self-control at his disposal, David Harlan said,
"You must be the ones responsible for all the strange goings-on on Earth for the past few
months.”
"Just so." said Navcon, "But not without purpose, doctor."
Slowly realizing that he was face-to-face with his life's only true ambition, he asked,
"Where are you from?"
"Our home is the planet Kardal, the fourth planet from the star you call Spica,” answered
Commtec, ”It is some 7.5 starpoints from here.”
"What is a starpoint?"
"A measure of space and time, taken as one unit."
"Why are you here, what are you doing to my people?”
"Your people are also our people, my dear doctor, and what we are doing is preparing
them for Recontact.”
“For what?”
"Something that should have happened 72 starpoints, about 50,000 of your years ago.
You see, life was discovered here some two million years ago by one of our Seeder scouts. He
reported back to base that held come upon a planet where life had begun spontaneously. This is
quite rare. There are many sterile worlds in this galaxy, ready for life. Our Seeder ships inject
the necessary elements to start life and then we return at regular intervals to augment life
development. This is Recontact."
"Why ?"
"Variety is the spice of life, doctor. The more life there is in the universe, the greater the
permutations of existence. However, in the case of your planet, a file crystal was misplaced and
you were forgotten, at the most crucial stage of your development: the point when sentient life
began to appear."
"Except for the fact that you have no hair, you look just like us," asked Dr. Harlan, "are
you?"
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"Basically, yes," answered Control, "pentagonal symmetry is the normal rule for most,
but not all, intelligent life. But let me continue; you should have been Recontacted several times
over this period, but you were not. As a result, your mental and spiritual development was left
without guidance.
Your animal nature, which is primarily self-centered and brutish,
predominated. You were left with little or no direct experience of the Bound Infinite."
"I take it that's what you call God," said the UFO expert.
"Just so," answered Navcon, "but it is a good deal more than the gaseous vertebrate that
you call God. The Spirit of the Bound Infinite is the mind and essence of all manifest things. It
is the constant certain knowledge that all that is extant has a common origin. It is the underlying
sense of unity of all that was, is or will be."
"But what has this to do with me,?" asked Dr. Harlan, "why was I brought here?"
"We wish your advice. Our menscan, our telepathic scanning of your mind, showed you to
be desirous of alien contact, and, as actual Recontact draws near, we wished your counsel."
Suddenly, Control was cut off as a loud insistent keening came from the great glowing panel
in front of Navcon, who quickly put on his headset and passed his hand over several lightbuttons. He remained motionless for several minutes, staring blankly ahead. Slowly, he removed
the headset and turned to face Control.
"Sir,” he said, "the Rooshins and Chineez are amassing huge numbers of armed vehicles
and personnel in the center of the land mass of Yurup, membank predicts that some sort of largescale attack is imminent."
"That's all those short-sighted military meatballs know how to do,” said Dr. Harlan, "no
matter the situation, armed force is the only way to handle it."
"Membank suggests that we put a localized damping field on them to neutralize their
weaponry." said Navcon.
"Negative!" Control exploded with cold fury, "it's time we taught these ‘meatballs’ a lesson.
Program membank to equip our operatives with heat beams."
"Heat beams?" stammered Navcon incredulously, "as you will, air. By the Daath, this
lesson is going to be a drastic one."
"Yes it will." replied Control, “and program the use of the Earth ground vehicle that
Mechtec modified to fly air cover. Let this lesson be one that they will long remember. I see no
reason to allow their wanton violence to go unchecked any longer."
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The people of the Earth were stunned, shocked into fearful disbelief. Where there had been
interest, hope and even amusement, there was now raw naked fear. The Stargunners had spoken
loud and clear in the language that humans understand best: brute force.
It had taken less than two hours to turn two crack divisions of Russian tanks and support
vehicles and one division of the best Chinese infantry - over 15,000 vehicles and 1,500,000 men
- into so many puddles of molten slag and piles of charred canvas, rubber and flesh. The
Stargunners had waited until the Sino-Russians had crossed into
Germany and then they
attacked with a ferocity and intensity that would have made Attila the Hun poop in his drawers.
The soldiers had been so startled by the savagery of the onslaught that they barely fired a shot at
their attackers, not that it would have done any good.
The Stargunners were, by Earth's
standards, totally invulnerable.
After that, the Stargunners were not heard or seen for the better part of two weeks and
meanwhile the world waited, a prisoner of the most debasing fear.
"It is beyond my comprehension," said Dr. Harlan, "but your Stargunners are Earth
people. How could you get them to wipe out all those Russian soldiers in such an inhuman,
calculated way?"
"Quite simple, doctor," answered Navcon, "when these operatives were first brought
aboard they were in a state of menstat, or mental sedation. Their minds were directly linked up
with membank, who opened their consciousness to the totality of the Alliance Stored
Knowledge. They were then brought to full awareness, given a period of time to put things in
perspective and then asked if they wish to aid us establish Recontact. Having been made aware
of our overall program beforehand they all agreed to assist, even if it became necessary to
terminate sentient life."
"But all life is sacred." said the un-programmed physicist.
"Not intelligent life that is fundamentally inimical to other life." answered Control, "and
termination of whole species is not without precedent. A small planet in the system of Prolesis
Secundus produced a strain of implacably hostile parasites. The initial stage of this parasite
attached itself to a host, causing a larval stage to develop in the host. When the larva was ready
it exited the host in a most violent way. The larva then grew very rapidly to become a
particularly vicious predator. This strain was terminated and its' planet sterilized."
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"But who gives you the right to play God? Certainly those soldiers didn't.'
"We give ourselves the right and we proceed as we must. Believe me, doctor, termination is
the exception much more than the rule." answered Control. "Those soldiers were prepared to
proceed against their fellow beings in a savagely hostile way. We merely fought fire with fire. It
was an object lesson."
"Well, maybe so, but as a result of your object lesson, you very likely have much of my race
scared silly. We really are impressed by force, you know."
"It has been so observed doctor." said Navcon, "and to redress the anxiety caused by the heat
beam episodes Commtec and I are directing membank to turn our operatives attention to
entertainment."
It was quite common knowledge that in the whole of the pop music industry that there was
no "new wave" band any grosser or with less socially redeeming value than "Betsy Ross and the
Vast Subhuman Intelligence". They were the epitome of all that is dull, base and tasteless in the
human creative spirit. However, they enjoyed immense popularity, due to the insistent, primeval
“heavy metal" nature of their music.
And, tonight, "Muthuh Flag”, as she was affectionately known by her legions of fans, was
on tour. She was in St. Louis, in a huge open-air amphitheater, playing to 35,000 plus rock fans.
The band had just finished it's telling rendition of it's great number one hit, "Gimme Head
Till I’m Dead", which had left the audience ravaging through thoughts (and some clandestine
acts) of sexual gastronomy.
Soon after, the audience began hearing the ear-wrenching prelude to one of "Muthuh
Flag’s” most important message songs "Jesus Was A Homo”. Gradually increasing in tempo,
volume and electronic complexity, the amphitheater was soon filled with a din second only to
that achieved by the World War II fire-bombing of Tokyo. Close neighbors expected the advent
of Beelzebub's minions at any second.
Betsy Ross' great failing, unfortunately was the total inadequacy of her light shows. Oh,
yes , a few of the band members adorned their early American colonial costumes with glowing
replicas of human genitalia but, for the most part, old "Muthuh Flag's" light shows really sucked,
until tonight...
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It was Betsy herself that first realized that all was not as it should be as she saw, at the
ends of the theatre's two aisles glowing sparkles begin to move towards the stage. "Now what
the hell are those?” she asked mentally as she stared dimly through her Quaalude-saturated eyes.
She peered more intently at the sparkles until, all of a sudden, she realized that two fully armed
Stargunners were walking directly towards her.
She missed a chord. This may seem strange as Betsy only knew three chords and by
missing one of them she’d blown one entire third of her repertoire. Nonetheless, she missed a
chord. Her voice faltered. She stopped playing. One by one, so did all her fellow band members.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God," she screamed into the mike” "they're here, two of them, here at our
concert: Stargunners."
Imagine, if you will, a full-blown “heavy-metal" rock concert coming to a complete halt
in less than 20 seconds, I can't imagine it, dear reader, but perhaps you can. In any case, that is
what happened. In less than one-third of a minute the entire "punk" culture of St. Louis was
brought to the abrupt realization that it was being directly threatened by two of the monsters that
had sent over a million soldiers to a hellish grave.
After the stunned silence took its' toll, faint traces of raw panic began to show themselves in
the crowd. The tumult grew quickly until a strong, clear telepathic voice swelled in the minds of
those gathered to pay homage to the one thing that pissed off the Daughters of the American
Revolution more than International Communism; to wit, the punk queen Betsy Ross.
"Listen here , young ‘uns,” the Voice said , "what happened in Europe was 'cause some
people just don't know when to quit fighting. So just sit back and have a good time. Nobody,
but nobody, is gonna get hurt.*
Then, the Voice directed itself to the somewhat stunned band, "Please go on, we're only
here to put some zing in your act."
Hesitantly, "Muthuh Flag" got her act together and started pumping out the decibels.
After about a minute of this pulsating cacophony, both Stargunners drew their pistols and fired
several Technicolor bursts just over the heads of the band. The beams coalesced into a
powerfully incandescent dodecahedron that pulsed with force and fire, shooting forth multicolored electric sparks as it whirled and swirled.
As if drawing energy from the fireball, the band played stronger and stronger, not just
louder but with increasing coherence. Slowly, beams of light, each a different electric color,
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grew away from the central sparkler and advanced toward each individual musician. As the
beams lengthened, they touched the band members, immediately becoming spheroids of
pulsating light that surrounded them, each with his own aura of brilliance.
Driven by the tempo of the wild, uninhibited music, each individual instrument's own
spectral color began to dawn in the pyrotechnic display now raging on and around the stage. All
the vocals danced and pranced as shades of intertwined white lightning. The lead guitar’s notes
showed themselves as streaks of red fire; the rhythm guitar as undulating waves of yelloworange hue that undercharged the red flashes of the lead. The bass guitar's notes oscillated
between blue and ultra-violet, supporting and moving in accord with the red-yellow-orange
interplay. The drums moved in deepest gold and silver, highlighting and pushing the other
colors,
As the music continued, the light-mass grew outward from the stage. Out, out and out it
moved until the entire amphitheater was enmeshed in the most spectacular Light Show Nirvana
of all time.
All the people who would later talk about their experience at the concert said that they were
very deeply moved by what had happened to them. Many removed the safety pins from their
cheeks forever. Others gave up the punklife and returned to the relative security of normal,
average street gangs. Many took up the cloth. But everybody in some way or other, was
permanently changed.
What of Betsy herself ? What of her entourage? Two joined the ministry. Another two
of them enrolled at Stanford to do laser light research. Betsy got married and moved to a small
town in upstate Maine, where legend has it that she lived in seclusion, only coming out
occasionally to do remakes of old Andy Williams songs at local PTA meetings.
"The thing I find hardest to understand." said Dr. Harlan to Control, "is why you didn't
just land, declare your power openly and start dictating terms for Recontact. Why all the
theatrics!”
"One," came the answer, "this sequence was deemed necessary for maximum effect and..."
"Two," said the usually silent Mechtec, "You'd be bored silly with cruising around the
galaxy for hundreds of starpoints, endlessly searching for life to develop. You'd want to have a
little fun, too. C'mon, doc, give us a break."
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Everyone gawked openly at Mechtec, who had been monitoring American television and
had become quite adept at colloquial English. "Well spoken and to the point," said Commtec
and the other crew members agreed with him.
"However, membank directs our program to commence actual Recontact. There has been
enough of the 'basic training' stage," said Navcon.
"Quite so, doctor," added Control, "and perhaps you could held us determine the mode of
same. Some legend or unfulfilled prophecy is what we need now. Have you any suggestions"
Dr. Harlan thought for a moment and then slowly a light bulb went on over his head and
a smile crept across his face as he spoke, "Yes, I think I have just the ticket."
The studios of Vacant Cranium Broadcasting in Hollywood had seen it all over the years.
Sitcoms, kid shows, news shows, cop shows, etc., etc., ad nauseum. If it had relevance to the
general mediocrity of America, then VCB had put it on the air.
Tonight, however, there was going to be a television first for VCB. Had they known
beforehand, the execs could have mounted a huge campaign to sell much advertising space at
very exorbitant rates. Had they known beforehand, they could have gotten probably the highest
Nielsen ratings in the history of commercial television. Because tonight, they were going to
have live Stargunners on a live talk show. Unfortunately, the VCB execs were given no advance
warning.
And so it was that fateful evening, that in the lobby of VCB's studios, two Electric Texas
Rangers teleported their way into the field of vision of one of their biggest fans, VCB's aging
security guard, Tex “Namedropper" Austin.
Seeing their materialization, Ol’ Tex whipped out his autograph book and was on them in a
flash. "Howdy, fellas” he said," up to your usual pranks, eh? How'd you like to give me your
autographs"
"Sure, old timer," the larger of the brilliant Texas lawmen said, "be glad to." He took the
book and pen and wrote in it "Alliance second-degree humanoid of Earth who carries A firearm
#13.” His partner took the book and wrote the same, but #47. They gave the book and pen back
to the old security guard and asked him the whereabouts of Billy Barstow.
"Down the hall and first door to the left," said Tex, clutching his autograph book to his chest
as if it was the first issue of TV Guide.
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Down the hall the Stargunners went. Being Hollywood, no one paid them any mind,
figuring they were Just part of some show. But even Stargunners aren't perfect and when they
reached the end of the hall, they went into the first door to the right.
Inside, they found "Dr. Shrapnel’s Kiddy Korner winding down. The emcee was saying:
"Just tune in next week, little ones, and lovable old Dr. S will show you one hundred fun
things you can do with Dioxin... how to get mom ‘off your case' when she's 'on the rag'... and
how to secretly rip off money from your church collection plate, so... Be there or be square ...
And, for Dr. Shrapnel’s 'parting shot' never forget the Eleventh Commandment : Thou shalt not
get caught.”
The two Stargunners looked at each other and one made a rapid rotating motion at his
temple with his index finger. Realizing their mistake, they walked back out the door and into the
correct one. Here they found Billy Barstow's "Talk Your Stuff" show in progress.
They hadn't walked more than a few steps into the studio theatre when they were accosted
by a security guard demanding tickets.
“We don't need tickets," said the smaller Texas Ranger," we're part of the show." They
started to push past the guard and he put out a hand to restrain them. His hand passed right
through the Ranger's shoulder.
Aware that he was facing the Real Thing and not some
Hollywood weirdo, the guard let out a yelp and headed for the door.
The outcry drew the attention of nearby members of the audience, who also became quite
agitated at the sight of the Stargunners. As the audience grew noisier, Billy Barstow, who was
cozily chatting with porn queen Lana Lovelock about what she'd do if she got one of those
hotshot neon cowboys in front of a camera, looked out toward the commotion and asked just
what the hell was going on and just who the hell was causing the racket?
The two Electric Rangers continued down the aisle until they were in full view of everyone
in the studio. Three cameras swiveled toward them and Billy said, "Well, Lana, looks like you're
going to get your chance if these two stalwarts really are what they appear to be."
As if in answer, the duo both pulled their guns and fired at the center of the stage. A few
audience members bolted for the doors, but most stayed in their seats, transfixed. Where the two
ray-beams met, there appeared the figure of John the Baptist. No, not John the Baptist, but
someone dressed as John the Baptist, someone very familiar. Yes, it was Dan Rather, one of
TV's primum mobiles, in the guise of the mighty forerunner of Christianity.
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He raised his arms outward and upward from his body and he spake:
"By the Great Gods of the Mystic Electronic Eye, by the power of HBO and the glory of
CNN and by the Holy Trinity Of ABC, CBS, and NBC do I make unto you a Great
Commandment:
Thou art to take a great gaggle of television equipment to the Great Cathedral in the City of
Washington and there, on the morrow, thou shalt await His coming." As he spoke, the stage
curtains flapped without wind and the very walls seemed to shake. He lowered his arms and
vanished.
Billy Barstow, who had been around a very long time and was not easily shaken, invited the
two Stargunners up on the stage to have a little chat. They complied, taking seats on either side
of Lana Lovelock, who was busy wondering just how far she could get with these two stallions
on TV. She laid her right hand on the nearer one Is thigh and breathed at him, "So what do you
think of Earth women ?"
"Hang on a second, Lana, let me ask these boys some questions," said Billy. Looking at the
one that wasn't getting Lana’s overtures, he asked, "What's it all about, what are you cowpokes
up to ?"
"Aw shucks, Billy, we're just getting you ready for Recontact, that's all."
"What is that?"
"You'll know soon enough, just make sure you do like the Vision said."
Staring down at the growing bulge in his trousers, the Stargunner who was the object of
Lana’s ministrations said, "Look here, 47, do you remember anything about this during
orientation."
"Dunno." said #47, "the bosses are first degree humanoids, they don't have sex, maybe they
forgot. Anyway, we'd better get going, 'fore you get too involved." Then there were no more
Electric Rangers, just a fading purple-orange haze.
Billy looked at Lana, chuckled and said, "Well, Lana, what do you think, if held stuck
around, could you have got down and got funky with him?"
"Piece of cake," she answered, flashing a big sexy smile, "piece of cake."
It may seem coincidental, dear reader, but it just so happened that the day that Dan the NeoBaptist spoke of on "Talk Your Stuff" was Easter Sunday.
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And so it came to pass that beautiful Spring morning in the nation's capitol that more
electronic audio-visual gear was installed in the Great Cathedral than could be found in one spot
anywhere in the world, except maybe a Sony warehouse or an NPL game. There was barely
enough room for the priest, altar boys and choir, let alone a congregation. It could be said that
this was the first Electronic Easter in the history of the Nazarene’s church.
At precisely the stroke of 9:00am, the High Priest stepped up before the altar and gave
benediction to the technicians and their equipment. Immediately, they began televising for all
they were worth. The Priest turned to face the high altar, behind which stood a full-size solid
gold statue of Christ on the Cross.
Just as the Priest raised his arms and invoked the presence of the Lord, two purple-orange
firebursts appeared at his sides. And there were, as if by magic, Wild Bill Hickok and Jingles,
gleaming merrily away.
Without further ado, they pulled their sidearms and fired two beams, one of purest gold, the
other of shining silver, directly at the statue of the Crucified One. He slowly straightened His
head, opened His eyes and He spake: "Martyrdom is for the birds. Any thinking man will have
to admit that this is a particularly lousy way to spend Easter". So saying, He detached himself
from the Cross and, His body surrounded by a deep, pervasive golden glow, floated slowly to the
ground. The Priest crossed himself and fell to his knees, genuflecting.
Jesus looked at the two Stargunners and said, "Come, my brothers we have Our Father's
work to do. It is the time of Recontact.”
They walked down the main aisle, past all the astonished TV personnel, and out the front
door. They continued out to the street, with every mobile TV crew in the cathedral in hot
pursuit. They crossed the street into a grassy park and angled off to the west.
“Holy Moley," said one TV cameraman to his sound man," they're headed right for the
capitol. Isn't the President giving his... ?"
"Yep." said the sound man, cutting him off, "this is really going to be some party."
The recently-made President of the United States was a good deal more capable man than
his predecessor but, alas, he was a terrible procrastinator, He didn't want to appear foolish or
ignorant before the preset the American people and ultimately the people of the world, so he put
177
off all press conferences, public comments and just retreated into silence. He didn't want to be
put in the funny farm, it just wasn't his cup of tea.
Because of this, his State of the Union message was several months overdue. After much
cajoling and no small amount of Political coercion, the senior members of his party and his
advisors convinced him that if he wanted the U.S. to maintain some sense of stability, he must
address the people.
So he chose Easter Sunday to deliver his most important speech before both Houses of
Congress, his Cabinet, the Supreme Court and every other bigwig with enough clout to get a
pass. He called upon the services of the great speechwriter, Mona Maudlinmonger to render up a
telling diatribe wholly slushy with syrupy sentimentality to placate his constituency. He knew the
people wanted answers, but he dared not give them any hard information for fear that his rightful
place in history would be nothing more than to be filed away under “C" for 'crackpot". Instead
he was ready to serve up a huge platter of sugary platitudes designed to conceal rather than
reveal.
He was introduced to the assembled multitude by the Speaker of the House. He stepped up
to the podium and was greeted by a spattering of applause, arranged his notes before him and
began:
"My fellow Americans, I come before you in a time of great national humbulligary (double
talk, he’d learned long ago, was a very effective political tool) and ostentatious balpudney..."
Without warning, the door at the far end of the Great Hall of Congress exploded in a shower
of blue-green sparks. The President watched as Wild Bill Hickok and his portly side-kick
walked in, companioned by Another.
"Oh no." muttered the President to himself as he recognized the third member of the
uninvited trio, "they've really gone and done it this time. And I set them up."
As the Three walked down the aisle toward the President, the entire hall was filled with a
deep golden light.
Many of the assembly aware now that He was among them, crossed
themselves and fell to their knees as the priest in the cathedral had done.
"Must you always grovel?" asked Jesus of the kneelers, "Arise and be of good cheer.
And
listen up, for the time of Recontact is nigh."
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Everyone came to their feet. Was this, then, the Second Coming? The ways of the Most
High are indeed mysterious to mortal man Jesus had predicted His own return and here He was.
Who was too say in what manner He would come? The two Stargunners with him might well be
Peter and Paul in other garb. Who was to say otherwise ?
The President, painfully aware that he had no choice, yielded the podium to the
Nazarene. He faced the congregation, raised His hands in benediction and He spoke:
“Be it known unto you that I have come once again for your sakes. Pay careful heed to
what I say, for the very survival of your species depends upon it.
Be it known unto you that the planet you call Earth is only one small speck in the Aegis
of the Alliance, whose star-flung empire spans the heavens.
Be it known unto you that life on this planet was being developed under the auspices of
the Alliance, whose sole purpose is to extend the permutations of existence.
However, due to a unfortunate clerical error, your file was lost and you were left without
guidance for a considerable space of time. When your file was found and your species was once
again brought into the Alliance overview it was found that your brutish, selfish animal soul had
come to the forefront of your collective being. This animal aspect manifests itself in two
primary areas of your psychology.
First, you meddle in one another's affairs on a scale and to a degree unknown anywhere else
in the galaxy. Whether for religious or governmental or social or for whatever petty reason, you,
most all of you, are busy telling each other how to live, even when the other's life has absolutely
no effect on your own. This is a most unsavory mode of being. Live your own life, let the other
fellow live his.
Second, and much more basic to your survival, your violent, warlike nature threatens your
very existence. Prior to your planet being rediscovered you were on the verge of total selfannihilation simply because some of you didn't care for the way others of you saw fit to make
their living.
Your fascination with competition and combat, ultimately the same thing, is also without
parallel in the known universe. Know you well that "Winning” and "Losing" are the most
flagrant enemies to your survival. I was hard put to discern any situation on your planet when
one of you was not trying to beat another at some thing for some obscure reason. If your
neighbor wouldn't live the way you thought he should, then you saw it as your solemn duty to
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destroy him, figuratively if not literally. You spend so much of your time trying to tell the other
fellow how to live, or trying to destroy him if he won't do as you say, that you have a pitifully
small amount of time to live your own life. This is the sheerest stupidity.
Cooperation is the concept you most need to cultivate. All six billion of you painfully
need to work together with one another for the common good of all. Forget the childish
nationalism, the contests between vying socio-economic systems, the ethnic and religious
differences you seem so intent on belaboring.
These contests are the product of infantile
egocentricity. You will never see any true happiness on this planet until you all learn to live at
peace with yourselves and with each other.
You have produced much that is beautiful and of great merit. Technically, you are quite
adept, considering that you derived most of what you know by yourselves, without guidance.
Morally, you are ignorant, bestial savages; petty and picayune beyond belief.
You have seen the power we have at our disposal. This power could be yours, if you
would only open your minds, hearts and souls to the Spirit of the Bound Infinite, which is the
unified, unmanifest essence of all that exists. There are those in your own history who have tried
to put forth their understanding of the Bound Infinite. Largely, they have been persecuted and
reviled, such as the One whose image I now occupy. Later, their message is taken and distorted,
usually, but not always, to the advantage of the ones doing the distorting .as they seek to gain
social power or wealth or both.
This, then, is crux of my message: forget the competition and the combat and learn to
cooperate with one another.
The Light of the World will now entertain questions.”
Immediately, Walter (Wally the Warhead) Goombah, chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee-, was on his feet, demanding, "When do we get our goddamn nukes back?"
"At the same time the Abode of Satan registers a permanent temperature of 0º Fahrenheit,"
came the reply, "and if you persist in your warlike ways, the use of fire will be taken from you
and then you can damnwell eat it raw. In fact, if there is no sustained attempt by you Earthlings
to develop yourselves in a positive way, your species may well be terminated and the progress of
evolution will be returned to the level of insects. Any further questions ?"
No one spoke,
180
"All well and good," said Jesus, "then it is time I took my leave. Please, all of you, get your
act together and stop all this meddling and fighting." As he spoke, the golden glow surrounding
Him brightened quickly in intensity and then burst forth in a great flash that subsided quickly,
leaving only a group of stunned Earth people. The Second Coming had come and went.
"'Well, doctor." asked Control, leaning away from the panel that operated the Jesus-image,
“how did I do? Do you think they'll pay heed to the message?"
"I don't know, air," answered Dr. Harlan, "my people can be very stubborn, especially where
the right to fight is concerned. Only time will tell, Control, only time will tell."
And now, dear reader, in the interests of fair play to all points of view, would you please ...
CHOOSE YOUR ENDING!
A.
The Alliance crew, finding it necessary to repair their ship, return home, taking the
Stargunners and Dr. Harlan with them. After a ten year absence, they come back to Earth to find
that science had discovered a way to bypass the Nuclear Damping Field. Immediately, mankind
has its' long-awaited nuclear war, devastating and decimating three-fourths of earth's population.
Realizing that there is no hope for homo sapiens, the Alliance terminates the rest of mankind,
reduce the level of evolution to cockroaches and file the Earth away under "Oh well, we tried."
B. The Alliance crew, discovering that membank’s memory banks are full to capacity, return
home to have a googol of memory added to its' circuitry. Coming back to Earth, they find that
mankind has actually begun to live with itself. Cooperation is rapidly becoming the accepted
mode of being. They set down on the planet to teach man the use of the Alliance Mental Power
and they all live happily ever after.
C. The Alliance crew remain in orbit to monitor mankind's progress and become increasingly
intrigued with money, a thing previously unknown to them. Finally, they decide that it is better
to "Join ‘em than to lick ‘em". So they set the ship down on the planet’s surface, sell membank
to IBM, divvy up what's left of the ship into condo units which they sell at astronomical prices
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and then use the money to develop an effective monopoly on the marinated artichoke-heart
market.
D.
The Alliance ship, Earth and, in fact, the entire Solar System are eaten by a huge reptilian
monster, known as the "Lizard of Betelgeuse."
E. None of the above - WRITE YOUR OWN ENDING!!!
Back to top
182
POWERED BY COITUS
By Thomas Voxfire ©2001
The PhaLusian scout ship hung limply in a slowly decaying orbit around the small waterrich planet. There were no external signs of damage on the craft except for several small holes
near the forward observation port. Holes made by meteorites moving so swiftly that the intruder
shields had not sensed them until they were smashing their way through the fragile skin of the
scout and then smashing their way through the even more fragile skull of the powermate.
The instant she died of massive brain trauma, the intruder shields kicked on, sealing the
ship. There was practically no loss of atmosphere, only the loss of one life; the life of the
powermate, whose vibrations gave energy to the scout.
The pilot was unharmed, he had known nothing of the meteorites' intrusion until the
shield light suddenly came to life. He turned to the 'mate to see if she knew what had happened
and found her dead, small bubbles of blood suspended near her head, floating in the zero gravity.
The cabin lights dimmed to pale as the power failed and the standard batteries went into
effect. The energy gauge went to dark brown and then black, with only a small pink dot in the
center showing the batteries. The ship was effectively powerless and helpless and, in a short
time, it would be incinerated by the outer atmosphere of the planet toward which it was drifting.
The pilot cursed; first the Hierarchy for its cost-cutting efforts which had given the scout
second-rate and probably second-hand shields and second the powermate for dying, however
unavoidably, leaving him stranded and helpless. Then cursing gave way to rapid contemplation
of how to avoid the relentless heat of the atmospheric friction he was soon to encounter.
He knew he had only one chance; to remove the fittings from the 'mate's head and thighs
and put them on himself. He knew he couldn't match her output, even though he had been the
primary source of their combined energy, it needed her femininity to bring their joint efforts to
full potential. Still, he had no other choice, it was a simple case of do or die.
He placed the leg rings on, cinching them onto his thighs and feeling the slight tingle as
they began to draw power from him. He took a deep breath as he placed the head-ring slowly on
himself; he knew that the power drain on a male could kill if it happened too quickly and
blacking out was almost a certainty. He inclined his head toward his hand to catch himself if he
fell over and then, with the other hand, cinched the head-band into place.
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His head slapping into his hand jerked him to consciousness. The lights had brightened a
little and the gauge was now a dull gray. He had some power, he also had an incredible headache
and he was starting to vomit. He knew he couldn't sustain this for very long. He simply was not
designed for it.
He sent out sensing beams to the planet below: they read an vast myriad of life forms.
The dominant species was very similar in form to his own. Possibly he could obtain a new
powermate. He used his rapidly failing energy reserves to direct the scout to land on the planet's
dark zone as he wished to avoid detection until he knew more about the dominant life forms. The
scout swept into the atmosphere in a long slow arc and headed downward.
The pilot's second to the last thought before he lost consciousness was how odd it was
that the dominant species, even though they had the necessary two genders to produce joined
power, seemed to know nothing of it. In fact, they seemed to know nothing beyond joining for
reproduction and/or recreation. Odd, he thought, very odd. His last thought was an ardent desire
that the Auto-Nav pilot would not be as ineffective as the intruder shields. Then darkness
claimed him.
On the planet's surface, not far from where the PhaLusian ship was about to land; just
outside the small town of Millbrook, Texas; Sheree Eastland and her just about to be exboyfriend, Billy, were sitting in his '94 Mustang having one hell of a fight.
"Listen, sweetheart," he spat into her face, "you don't own me, I'll go out with who I
damn well please."
"Oh, Billy, tush," she answered, laughing, "I don't want to own you, I just wondered if
Milly was as hot a number as me." As she spoke, her hand meandered across his thigh, which she
began to rub gently. She smiled inwardly as she felt him swell beneath her hand and she felt a
little answering tingle in the same place on her own body.
Billy was just starting to forget why he was mad at her when she said, "You know I don't
have no secrets from you, Billy, I even told you all about Jake Marsh and me."
All of a sudden, Billy was mad as hell all over again. He could screw around if he
wanted to, but he wanted his woman to himself.
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"You sucked that little sidewinder off, didn't you, Sheree?" he screamed at her as he
pushed her away. To hell with you, you low-rent, outta my damn car." He reached across,
opened the door on her side and shoved her roughly onto the ground.
As soon as she was out, he fired up the Mustang, ground it into reverse and slammed the
pedal to the metal. His rear tire barely missed her leg as he roared past her out onto the road,
smashed the shifter into first and was off down the road, his rear tires howling bloody murder.
Sheree was half-sprawled on the dirt, sobbing gently to herself. Boy, she sure knew how
to pick 'em. The men in her life were pretty much nothing more than a succession of bastards.
Her husband had been a pretty decent sort of Joe, but he'd lost his life in a car accident outside of
Austin and after she'd lost him, she just didn't seem to have any luck finding another guy that
didn't treat her like dirt.
She had an uncommonly pretty face with a full sensuous mouth, long blonde curly hair
and a sexual appetite as voracious as a hungry coyote. But, as she moved into her late thirties, the
only guys she could get to come after her were pretty much all dirt bags; drunken oilfield
workers and barfly cowboys.
So there Sheree sat, her head sunk into her arms, sobbing gently to nobody in particular
that it sure would be great to meet a really nice guy who would keep her satisfied and treat her
like a lady. Had she not been so engrossed in her crying jag, she might have noticed the crippled
PhaLusian scout ship float down gently out of the star-studded Texas night to settle in a clearing
barely fifty yards from where she sat.
Once the scout touched the earth, it began to draw energy from the planet's magnetic
field. Sensing that the pilot was quite close to the end of his tether, the ship automatically began
to feed energy back into him. He came to his senses slowly, thanking the Mistress of the
Universe for sparing his life. For the first few moments, he could only lay back in his harness
and feel the power surge through him, revitalizing him.
The energy gauge showed a slight pink; enough to keep him alive, but not nearly enough
for liftoff, not to mention interstellar travel. And he did have a scouting mission to fulfill. For
that, he knew without question, he required a new powermate. He waited until he felt relatively
close to normal and then he instructed the ship's sensors to scan for sentient life, preferably
anatomically similar to himself and more preferably, female.
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It took little more than two decants of a standard time unit for his scan to find a target. A
short distance away an indigenous female biological entity seemed lost to her surroundings in a
relatively strong emotional catharsis. His scan-sense entered her cerebral cortex in the normal
powermate area and he automatically joined minds with her. This proved to be mistake, for
although he had some experience with the emotion of sorrow from his youth prior to his pilot
training, he was totally unprepared for the intensity of the alien's emotion.
It almost caused him to black out, such was the raw primitive nature of it. He recoiled
instinctively. Not only had his mind been almost strained to the breaking point by the female's
emotional state, the flood of unfamiliar images from her memory cells had disoriented him,
leaving him unsure of his ability to achieve a working mindlink with his newly found
powermate-designate.
Cautiously, he re-entered her mind, transmitting serenity signals to her emotional cells.
Soon he had her in a semi-trance state, not unlike that caused by hypnotism
and he then went into a similar trance and mentally absorbed and digested the data stored in her
memory cells. Much he did not understand; this creature seemingly had no ability to mindlink
with another. In fact, her mind seemed to have little or no control training whatsoever.
But what it lacked in control, it more than made up for in power. The female’s capacity
for passion, which the pilot equated into available power, was almost boundless. He had traveled
with three different powermates in his tenure as a scout pilot and none of them had even one
tenth the potential energy quotient as this alien female. He found himself experiencing a rather
unusually potent curiosity about what might be the reaction from physical union with such a
strong, unbridled powermate.
For her own part, Sheree was having a really nutso dream. She was in this really funny
little helicopter talking to this absolutely dreamy hunk about everything she knew about and even
some things she didn't know about. And along with the conversation, she kept seeing all these
pictures about stuff she didn't know anything about, things like flying in the little helicopter
through outer space.
Outer Space? Even in the dream, Sheree couldn't handle that one. At this point, the pilot
withdrew from her mind and she passed into normal sleep, her last dream-thought being what did
the hunk do in his spare time when he wasn't flying the chopper?
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The pilot hung motionless in his harness for quite a while, pondering the variables. He
knew that if he wished to continue his mission, he had to have a new powermate. If he wished to
have a new powermate, he had to physically contact the female alien who currently was
experiencing a most curious dormant state only a short distance from his ship.
He was not at all sure how the alien would react to him, her species seemingly had no
contact with other world beings. He decided that the only course open to him was to approach
her directly and inquire as to the possibility of a mutually beneficial liaison. He disengaged his
harness, removed the power fittings and stood up. He checked the instruments and found the
atmosphere quite breathable. He opened the port and made ready to descend to the planet's
surface.
Suddenly the physical shell of the dead powermate caught his eye. This will not do, he
thought, I must treat the 'mate's shell with the proper ceremony. He released her from her harness
and carried her outside. He laid her on the ground, committed her eternal life force to the Soul of
Infinite Space, placed a thermal blast-pack on her chest and stepped quickly back. There was a
brilliant flash and then the powermate was nothing more than dissociated plasma fragments.
A flash of lightning brought Sheree wide awake. Instinctively, she cowered from the
thunder. Thunder scared the devil out of her. But there was no thunder, only a clear, starry sky. It
took a little while for Sheree to get her bearings. She remembered the fight with Billy. She sortof remembered the funny dream about the hunky chopper-pilot from outer space. Outer space,
my ass, she thought, I don't care where he's from, I'd…
Suddenly, there was noise in the bushes behind her. She turned around to give that
damned Billy a really righteous piece of her mind when, standing in the moonlight, was the hunk
in her dream. Of course, she fainted.
The pilot was, by now, quite nonplused. After disintegrating the powermate, he found
himself struck by the sheer beauty of the this new planet's ambiance. The starry sky above him
had a hushed velvety feel that he found intoxicating. He shook off this uncalled-for reverie and
scanned for the alien female. He found her off to his right and directed himself toward her. He
approached her somewhat warily, more from a desire not to cause her undue mental stress from
his appearance than from any fear for himself.
187
As her hearing-sense made her aware of his presence, she turned to face him and
abruptly became dormant once again. How very odd, he thought, wondering how these aliens
conducted the normal routines of life with their strange propensity to become dormant with little
or no provocation. The pilot decided to become static and await her return to consciousness.
Sheree didn't keep him waiting long. How could she? This guy looked like George Strait,
Harrison Ford and Big Arnie all rolled into one. She couldn't help but wonder what he looked
like with that plastic jumpsuit off.
"Well, hello there, big fella," she said, "what'cha doin' in the woods? Checkin' out the
action?"
Sound! This creature communicated with vocalized sound. How primitive, how
rudimentary. He was unsure of his ability to respond. He was so used to communicating with
mindlink that the concept of using vocalization seemed horribly complex. But he needed a
powermate and this alien had a surprisingly compelling physical attraction which both excited
him and distracted his ability to concentrate.
"Cat got your tongue, honey?" Sheree asked.
"I assure y-y-you, female," the pilot stammered, trying desperately to coordinate his
mouth with his brain, "that I am in possession of my t-t-tongue. I have to c-c-confess that I am
unused to v-v-vocal speech."
Sheree stood up, brushed herself off and walked over to the hunk, saying, "Don't they
talk where you come from, big guy. No big deal, there's other ways to get stuff across." She
reached out and put her hand on his arm, saying, "Know what I mean?"
The pilot felt a definite spark at the female's touch, assuring him that this alien was
indeed in possession of much force. "I believe th-th-that I grasp your intended meaning, female."
"My name is Sheree, not female. You gotta name?"
"Pilot 78XA, Operational Exploratory Wing."
"Really! You got ID?"
He reached into his pouch and produced his identity disk. This made Sheree laugh at him,
"Hey come on, honey, I was just kidding. What if I call you Hunk?"
"I will agree to your choice of nom-encl-l-lature, SheRe."
"Swell, say, so, well, what brings you out into the forest late at night?"
188
"I will be direct; my female comrade, my powermate was killed by a small meteorite that
entered her brain in a s-s-singularly potent fashion. I seek a r-r-replacement for her."
"Your girlfriend got brained by a what?"
"An ultra-high v-v-velocity meteorite."
"For sure, where was she when it hit her, you didn't hit her did you," Sheree asked him,
suddenly getting suspicious that this dreamy dude might be some kind of psycho.
"No, Sheree, I as-ass-assure you, I am incapable of causing any harm to my powermate.
She is my engine, my comrade, in a sense, my very life."
"So how'd it happen?"
"We were .073 standard stellar units outside your planet's atmosphere when the objects
entered the ship and struck the 'mate. I was able to generate barely enough power to reach here."
"So I guess that makes you from outer space," she said, swallowing hard, as the memory
of her recent dream welled up in her mind.
"Cor-r-rect, I am not of your planet, but our species are functionally identical and my
ship's cells have corrob-b-borated that we would be able to produce joined power."
Sheree had a wispy image from the dream float across her memory, an image of the hunk
and a girl who looked a hell of a lot like the hunk doing some weird Hungarian basket job inside
the chopper. "So," she asked him, "tell me how we go about joining, sounds like fu...
Totally without warning, lights came blasting into the clearing where Sheree and the pilot
stood, along with the sound of crashing trees and screeching tires; Billy was back and he was
very drunk and very mad.
The driver door to the Mustang slammed open and Billy almost fell out. He crept up the
fender to the hood, where he held himself from keeling over by holding on to the radio antennae,
which bent over at a fairly radical angle.
He glared at them, “Gonna hurt ya, bitch.” He lurched his way back along the fender and
reached into the open window. After more minutes of drunken groping, Billy pulled back out of
the window, clutching a tire iron.
Billy then pitched himself off of the car and out into the clearing toward his girlfriend and
the pilot. Even in his drunken, uncoordinated condition, he was menacing. The pilot felt it, so he
said," You would do well to stand behind me, SheRe, this male seems to wish us both harm. Is
he of some importance to you?"
189
"He's one of the biggest scumbags I ever knew, for all I care, he could drop dead."
"As you will, SheRe," the pilot said as he disengaged his scan-sense, entered Billy's
cerebral cortex, caused the life force exit to open, which sent Billy's soul to the afterdeath state
and caused the rest of Billy to drop to the ground like a bag of rocks.
"I have committed his soul to the Infinite Spirit, SheRe."
"You did the world a favor, but we'd better do something with his body and his car. Sure
as hell, the cops will be lookin' for him."
The pilot picked Billy's limp form up as if it weighed nothing and placed it in the
Mustang. He then pulled a thermal blast-pack from his belt, set it for the proper mass, placed it
on the seat next to Billy's body and stepped back quickly, telling the new powermate to shield
her eyes. In a few seconds, Billy and Malibu were nothing more than disassociated atoms.
"Cute little gizmo," Sheree said," okay, so where were we before we were so rudely
interrupted. Oh, yeah, you want to marry me so that we can screw our way across the universe.
Let's go, baby."
She stepped over to the pilot, put her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to
hers. Her lips met his in a long hot kiss and she slithered her tongue into his mouth as she ground
her hips into his groin. The burst of raw sensation was so overwhelming to the pilot that he
nearly went into sensory overload.
"My place or yours, big boy? Little Sheree is ready and rarin'" she breathed at him as she
broke the kiss, only to start it up again. The pilot was numb: in shock caused by reaching power
gradients he had never before experienced.
Elsewhere, others were experiencing new and unusual power gradients. At Kelly Air
Force Base in San Antonio, located little more than 25 miles from Millbrook; Technical Sergeant
William Duffy was monitoring a new highly secret radar capable of detecting energy radiation
when the pilot's first thermal blast-pack disintegrated the lifeless powermate's shell.
The radar displayed this as a highly concentrated thermonuclear explosion of extremely
small force. Incredible, Duffy thought to himself, somebody just set off a miniature hydrogen
bomb about 25 miles from here, right in the middle of Texas.
On the double, he was on the horn to the OD.
190
"Lieutenant, you better get over here, pronto," Duffy said into the phone, "I just picked
up an ultra-miniature atomic bomb out toward Millbrook and Farley."
Five and one-half minutes later, Lieutenant Theobald Doolittle burst through the door of
Duffy's lab. "This better be for real, Duffy, I just walked away from an Aces-high full house."
Duffy put his computer record back to just before the explosion and then played it for the
lieutenant. When he saw Duffy's 'glitch', he sat heavily down on the nearest chair.
"Damn that's little," he said, "and it's so tight. Kind of like a hand-grenade nuke. We
could use something like that, Duffy, where'd it come from?"
"Dunno, exactly, out by Farley and Millbrook. It showed up so fast that I didn't have time
to set up triangulation."
"Well, go ahead and bring the TriA on line and let's just see if we don't get another one."
Duffy punched some buttons on his keyboard and it was done. Thirty seven minutes later,
the pilot committed Billy and his Malibu to the primordial ether. This time Duffy and Doolittle
knew exactly where the explosion was, that is, they had a plus or minus factor of fifty yards from
the exact location. Doolittle called the Air Police and asked for a fast surveillance van with two
fully-armed air policemen. Four minutes after he called, he and Duffy were loading the TriA into
it and seventeen minutes later they were on their way out the main gate doing 75 plus miles an
hour toward Millbrook.
"Duffy," the lieutenant asked solemnly, "did it occur to you that nobody around on this
planet has any sort of mini-nuke technology. Whose is it?"
"Unknown, sir, I'm trying real hard not to think about that part of it."
"Roger, Duffy, that's a copy. Whatever it is, I want to get us one," Doolittle said as he
leaned over the seat to say to the driver, "Stand on it, corporal, this is a Class A priority."
By this time, Sheree and the pilot had reached the ship. For the fifty or so yards that they
had been walking together, Sheree had been rubbing herself all over the pilot's body and
stopping a couple of times to trace a path from his mouth to his ear and back with her tongue.
The pilot kept from going into sensory overload only by repeating the pilot's oath over and over:
"There is no Existence save for the Mission. All is pendant to the Mission. My Life and
the Mission are one."
191
The pilot was not at all used to passion: it was erratic, it shrank and swelled. There would
be periods of relative calm and then, the female would press her body to his and caress him until
he was unsure of his ability to walk, let alone pilot a ship. Great flames of unbridled pleasure
surged through him and he felt ominous stirrings in his abdominal vortex.
The stirrings that led to the time of Breeding, not just merely producing power. He was
not currently licensed to breed, not to mention that breeding while on Mission was expressly
forbidden under the direst penalties. Several times the female had grasped the power-rod itself
and had moved her hand up and down its length with rapid, jerky movements, causing him to
realize that if he didn't get both he and she into harness very soon, he could be not be
responsible for his actions.
He caused the ship to open and drop ramp. He ascended quickly, pulling Sheree with
him. He entered the cabin and approached the power fittings. When he had picked them up, he
detached himself from her rather reluctantly and held them out to her.
"SheRe, you must place these on your upper legs and the third one around your head. If
you do not do this quite soon and begin to draw energy from me and feed it to the ship, my
physical senses will overload and I will become comatose."
”Oh no, you don’t. No going to sleep, this party is just getting started. I’m just only
starting to get turned on. There’s something about you that makes me want to go real slow so
that we can do it all night.”
”Cert-t-tainly a commendable attitude, I am certain that what you describe will greatly
increase our energy reserves. But to do so, you must place the fittings on your body where I have
described, but it must be against bare skin. You must remove as much of your c-c-clothing as
will allow this to occur."
"You want me to get naked. No problem," she said, kicking off her shoes and pushing her
shorts and panties down her legs. Then she pulled her sweater over head and stood in front of
him very, very nude. "What do you think, Hunkie, have I got what it takes?"
The pilot, while relatively new at assessing females for their physical beauty, did find it
necessary to remark: "You are very ef-f-fectively assembled, SheRe. I can feel a substantial rise
in my hormonal ducts. Please put on the fittings," he said, holding them out to her.
She took the large golden bracelets from his hand. "They're really pretty, Hunkie, does
this mean we're engaged?"
192
"If you mean are we entering into a contractual agreement for our mutual
benefit, affirm-m-mative."
"Great, okay, here goes," she said as she slid two of the rings up her legs as far as they
would go. "How's that?"
"Satisfactory, now, with the head band, it will automatically fit itself to your head when it
is in the right place."
She lowered the ringlet over her head and just above her ears, it contracted and seated
itself around her head.
“Hoowee,” Sheree exclaimed, “ these things tickle and, god, am I getting hot and
bothered. Let’s do it! Right now! Step right up and plunk your magic twanger right in...”
"Goddamn, would you look at that?" said Duffy as he stared at the TriA screen, "You
ever seen anything like that, Theo?", military formality forgotten.
Doolittle stared past him at the screen which now had a triangle of coruscating white and
red fire, tinged with electric blue in almost precisely the same place where they had registered
the mini-nuclear explosions. "What the hell is it, Duffy?"
"Dunno, sir, it has some aspects of a fusion pattern, but I've never seen anything like it.
It's so fluid and regular." He punched some keys on the PC keyboard and after several seconds
the computer spat out:
"Energy radiation of unknown origin. Insufficient data for analysis. Suggest analysis
from biological vector."
"How long before we're there, Duffy? If this energy source is alive, we gotta have one,
understand?
"That's a copy, sir. We're nine minutes, maybe ten from target."
When Sheree slipped on the power bands; she began to draw from the highly charged
pilot, she also began to feel what he was feeling; very, very aroused. By now, he was in harness
and was attempting to release the power-rod from its confines and because of his highly charged
condition, he was clumsy and was not meeting with much success.
Sheree saw that he was having a problem, so she asked him, "What's the matter, baby,
can't get our banana out?"
"My motor coord-d-dination is not up to par, She Re, I require some assistance."
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"Hey, what are little girls for? No sooner said than done." She stepped over to between
his legs, quickly undid the fasteners he had been struggling with and pulled out as strange
looking a male organ as Sheree, who had considerable experience in this particular area, had ever
laid hands on. It was long, stout and quite erect, but it appeared to be made of metal.
"What the hell?" Sheree said in surprise, "You're not a robot are you, if you are, you are
really going to tick me off. I am definitely not getting it on with a machine."
"I assure you, SheRe, I am as biologically complete as you. The sheath is to insure
NoBreed status, only power generation is permissible."
"Don't sweat it, lover, I had my tubes tied three years ago, I'm as sterile as a Coke bottle.
No little bundles of joy for me. So, this thing is a stainless steel condom, cute. But no thanks,
fucking with a rubber is like taking a pee with your underpants on. This thing has got to go," she
said, trying to pull the sheath off and having no luck at all. "You gonna help me or what,
Hunkie?"
"Place your fing-g-ger underneath the rod and feel for a small ridge near the base, snap it
with your fingernail and the sheath will release." Sheree did as he said, the sheath fell away and
now she had her hands full of her first extraterrestrial organ.
"Wowee, Hunkie baby, this really is a belly-blaster. Let me get it good and primed." She
leaned over and took the top of his shaft into her mouth, letting her tongue play all over the
glans. The pilot had never had oral sex performed on him before and it was all he could do to
maintain consciousness.. Had Sheree not been wearing the power bands to relieve him of his
generated energy, he most certainly would have gone into overload.
"Please get into harness, SheRe, we must proceed with the Mission," he said, trying to
keep his mind from exiting into euphoria. Control, he told himself, self-control is the key to a
successful mission. Sheree wasn't all that interested in the Mission, however, actually, she was
much more interested in just how big and hard she could get the Hunk's blaster.
She just stopped long enough with work to look at the powermate's harness and tell the
pilot, "No way are you going to get me to do one of those basket-ball numbers. I like lots of body
contact, lover," she said as she took his shaft and put it between he breasts and rubbed them up
and down its length several times slowly, with feeling.
194
"Sweet Holy Shit!", Duffy said in awe as he stared at the TriA screen, "The power source
has just doubled in potential and is continuing to increase at an exponential rate. Whatever it is,
it's starting to build up very quickly. I hope this isn't a big version of those mini-nukes or you and
me, the APs and everybody else nearby are going to become smoke."
"Very reassuring, sergeant, how far from target?
"4.023 miles, sir, a little under 4 minutes."
"Stand on it, corporal," said the lieutenant to the driver, "if we're going to get vaporized,
we might as well see what the damn thing looks like."
"Roger, sir." The van shot forward as the AP kicked in the overdrive, changing Duffy's
ETA from just under 4 minutes to just over 3 minutes.
By now, Sheree had convinced the pilot that it was no use trying to get her into the
harness. Instead, he should just lay back and enjoy it. She leaned forward and put her boobs on
his mouth and rubbed them back and forth. She was so hot by now that she knew she had to have
him inside her. She kneeled up on his seat, straddling his legs and pushing herself toward him
until she felt the head push into her. Then she got the tip of him to slide inside her.
She arched her back and let herself sink down on him, letting a short, sharp scream
whistle out of her throat as he filled her to bursting. She pushed her breasts into his face again
and started pulsing on him, slowly at first but picking up speed with every stroke. She could feel
that her soft female explosion was not far off. She couldn't remember ever being this hot before.
The pilot was experiencing much the same as Sheree. Everything the female did served to
excite him further. He was utterly unused to passion. He wanted to melt into her completely and
it was all he could do to keep his life force inside his body; it wanted to be inside her to merge
with her life force. He was incapable of movement.
"What the hey, Hunkie, do I get to do all the work. Did you forget how to screw all of a
sudden?"
The pilot pondered this for a moment, then, comprehending her meaning, pushed himself
up and into her in time with her downward strokes. The fourth push from the pilot sent Sheree
into orgasm. She came
and came
some more, all the time breathing obscene words of
encouragement into this ear with her lips and tongue. "Do it to me, Hunkie, all the way to my
toes..."
195
The pilot sensed his own approaching orgasm. "This cannot be," he thought, "I am
beginning to experience Ejac. I've violated so many regulations now what difference does one
more make." He put her hands on her and pushed her onto him faster and faster, harder and
harder. Sheree climaxed again and he was only seconds behind her. He felt the lash of needlethin flame build in his abdominal vortex, and build and build. Then it seared its way out of him
into her. He pumped and pumped until every millimicron of semen exited him. There was
nothing left for him to do but go dormant.
"Dammit, Theo," Duffy breathed huskily, "the brighter the image gets, the hornier I get. I
got a hard-on that's just about to come screamin' out of my pants."
The lieutenant and the two APs said ditto, they all wanted a shot of leg so bad they could
taste it.
Suddenly, the driver yelled out, "Object at 2:00 o'clock, range 12 to 15 yards!" He
slammed on the brakes just under 10 inches from a very large, very stout oak tree. This jammed
all four of them into the cab of the van staring out through the windshield at what none of them
could deny was a genuine UFO.
"Shit, lieutenant it looks like we've got ourselves a real, live flying saucer," said Duffy,
"and that light it's puttin' out matches the one on the screen, pixel for pixel. Let's go!"
They climbed out of the van slowly, their progress somewhat impeded by the rampant
erections they were all sporting.
"How the hell can you get horny looking at a goddamn spaceship. It's too screwy for me
to believe. Where the hell is the snatch that got us all worked up?", asked Doolittle to no one in
particular.
They approached the scout, not having the slightest idea what to expect.
The ship was a dull gray disk about 30 feet across and about 8 feet thick in the center. Around its
perimeter was a band of light which waxed and waned in tune to the vibrations of the pilot as
they were transmuted and augmented by the powermate. The ship was in neutral and the sexual
energy that gave it its power was at very low ebb, otherwise the four Air Force men would not
have been able to stand being near it.
196
Inside, the pilot was just barely coming back to his senses. He glanced at the instruments,
and he was not all surprised to see that the energy gauge was completely off the screen. He had
to stop and shake off the daze the powermate's passion had put him in. He knew that he had to be
fully aware if he was to fulfill his function as pilot.
"Hey, Hunkie baby, welcome to wake up land. That was great. You ready for another
little quickie, cause I sure am," Sheree said as she ran her tongue across her lips and then ran her
hands down her body
"Your offer is certainly meritorious, SheRe, but I fear I must inform you that we are
currently being observed by four male members of your military, whose intentions I perceive are
far from friendly. I suggest that you get into harness so that we can achieve a location of greater
security.
"Oh, well, why didn't you say so?", she said as she strapped herself into the powermate's
harness. "I guess even basket bangs aren't all that bad if the Army is after your ass."
The pilot grasped the main control, barely engaged lift and, such was the nature of the
power the ship had recently acquired, was out of the atmosphere in just under .00034 standard
time units.
As the ship lifted off, the Air Force team were brushed by an energy flash that fortunately
for them did little more than distort the fibers of their clothing. They were naked before they
knew what hit them, each of them standing there with erections as large as they had ever
experienced. They grinned at each other embarrassedly and climbed back into the van, hoping
that the guard at the main gate didn't look inside too hard.
As the scout cleared the orbit of Neptune, Sheree turned to the pilot and asked, "So
where are we headed, Hunkie? Do I have to stay in this bridle the whole time?"
"Negative, we have cleared gravity, you can deharness. However, I feel it my duty to
inform you that we must refrain from joining as the ship's cells display full capacity, more power
might damage them and I fear your planet has not the technical skill to repair them."
A big frown stole across Sheree's face as his words sunk in. "No more party, that is sad."
"Not unless you are willing to remove the power bands, which, of course means you must
operate slowly with me so that I avoid overload. You are a very potent 'mate, I must build up to
you in stages."
197
"Righto," Sheree said, as she slipped quickly out of the confines of the harness. She
walked over to him and clasped herself to him and then stood up to straddle him. With no
further preliminaries, she sunk him into her and slid slowly down, while her mouth found her
way to his ear, where she whispered, "I'll go slow if you will, Hunkie, put the cruise control on
ultra-slow."
"By your command, my powermate, by your command."
The pilot set the Auto-Nav to automatic scan in a slow orbit out of the planet's system; all
the relevant bodies in this solar system would be automatically catalogued. The Mission would
continue on schedule. The last thought the pilot had as his mind dissolved into euphoria was
would Wing Command accept his discovery of this incredibly potent powermate as justification
for breaking practically every regulation in the book.
Time would tell…
Back to top
198
DOMINGO'S DREAM
By Thomas Voxfire © 1997
Domingo crouched low in the weeds, the water of the Rio Grande lapping at his ankles. Had
his m other been there, she would be scolding him for getting his shoes all wet. But she was not.
She was many day's walk to the south; worried sick for the son she knew had run away to the
north.
Domingo knew it would be daylight soon, the roosters from the nearby farm were just
starting to crow. He must cross the river before daybreak or the gringo federales would surely
catch him.
He shivered; not from the cold, but from fear. Fear of the federales, the Border Patrol.
The strange English words echoed in his mind. He had listened as men told their stories of
swimming the Big River and making lots of money. They had spoken of the Border Patrol who
must not catch you. Or you would come back to Mexico without money, a failure.
"I must not fail," Domingo thought, "I must get money". Money for grandma, whose legs
didn't work and needed to see a doctor. Money for baby sister, whose cough never went away.
Money for food. Food to stop the gnawing hunger, the hunger that
never stopped. Except
when you were asleep, and, when you woke, the hunger was still there. It was always there.
Just as the first, faint pink shade appeared in the sky, Domingo plunged into the river. It
was not cold at all. Domingo loved the water. At home, he swam whenever he could in the creek
near his uncle's home. He was a strong swimmer and he was on the other side very quickly. It
was called the Big River, but it really wasn't.
He crawled out of the water, very wet and very proud. He was in the Estados Unidos, he
was in the United States. He would get a job, get lots of money and go back to his barrio, his
neighborhood, with a big truck full of food. Nobody would ever be hungry again when Domingo
got there with his truck.
Suddenly, a shaft of bright light cut across Domingo's path through the low brush and
came to rest on his face, blinding him.
"Freeze, wetback," said a voice behind the light, "just don't move. Lookahere, Ned, we
got a little one this time."
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Another light swept Domingo's face as a second voice said, "Federal officers of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. You are hereby detained until your legal right to remain
in this country can be determined."
Domingo didn't understand a word. But he knew he had been caught. He had failed. The
lights dropped from his face and strong hands clamped themselves on both his arms and began to
lead him through the brush.
As it
grew lighter, Domingo could see that his captors; two big, uniformed Norteamericanos, both
carrying guns, were leading him toward a pale green passenger truck parked in the brush some
distance away. On the door of the truck was a large blue circle with gold lettering . He couldn't
read the words, but he didn't need to. Police cars always looked the same. He began to cry,
softly, to himself. All his plans were turning into dust.
As they neared the patrol truck, one officer released him and began to walk around the
front to the driver's door and opened it. He got inside the truck and reached through to release the
lock on the passenger door.
Suddenly a voice, rough and electric, came out of the truck:
"...Request immediate backup, we have spotted 4 or 5 Hispanic males moving rafts across
the river. They appear armed with automatic weapons. Kennedy, Sorenson, request immediate
backup. On the double..."
Domingo could sense the tension in the new voice, even though he didn't understand the
words. The hand on his arm was almost not there as the second officer leaned toward the truck to
better hear what the radio was saying. Domingo didn't have the slightest idea what was
happening, but he knew he had a chance to escape. He wriggled out of the hand and started
running for all he was worth.
The agent felt him slip out of his grip and swore softly as he saw the youngster run away.
But armed drug-runners were much more important to capture than wetbacks. He jumped into
the truck as it roared into life. Dust spun from the wheels as they sped off toward their fellow
officers. When you called for back-up, you got back -up.
Domingo ran and ran and ran. He ran faster and harder than he did the time his older
brother chased him with the dead rattlesnake. He ran until he could not breathe. He collapsed
against a mesquite tree and just lay there against it, gulping in air. Little by little, his breath came
back to him. Domingo remembered how his mother was always reminding him that he had an
200
angel watching over him, keeping him from harm. Domingo thanked the angel and pushed
himself off the tree.
It was full daylight now and Domingo could see cars moving on a small road several
hundred yards away, through the scrub. He moved quickly and silently through the low trees,
keeping an eye out for pale green trucks with big blue circles on the door. He said a little prayer
to his angel to help him be watchful and walked out onto the shoulder of the road.
Now, thought Domingo, it is time to find work. He would do anything, anything at all, to
make money. He was a good worker and a hard worker. What he wanted to find most of all was
somebody who would give him a chance to show what he could do. And pay him some dinero,
some money, to do it.
So, Domingo plodded on down the dusty little south Texas road, looking for work. Cars
and trucks whizzed by him and paid him little, if any, notice. Once, he had to jump out of the
way of a large green tractor pulling an even larger machine behind it. The driver of the tractor
yelled at him to watch where he was walking or he would be hurt.
Domingo yelled back at him that his angel wouldn't let him get hurt, because he had to be
strong to get money to take back to Mexico. The driver just shook his head and kept pulling the
huge disc-harrow down the road.
A little further along, Domingo saw an old man working with a hoe in a large, well-kept
field. When he got near to the man, he called out, "Tell me, señor, do you have work for me?"
The old one straightened slowly from his weed-tending and, glad for the break in his
monotonous routine, said, "Yes, my son, I have much work. I can give you work from sunrise to
sunset. But I can give you no money. My padron will not give money to a boy who cannot work
as hard or as long as a grown man."
"I can work very hard, sir," said Domingo, "because I must earn money to buy a truckload of food to take back to my family."
"My son," asked the man, "did you swim the Rio Grande to come and find work?"
"Yes, sir."
"Many years ago I swam the river to make much money in the land of the gringos. And I
work hard and I work long. So does my wife, who does sewing. Together we make only enough
to live. We have no truck, only a little house and a little food."
"But are there no rich people who will pay you much money for work?"
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"If you can find them, niño, and if they will give you much money for work, perhaps. But
I do not know where they are."
"My angel will help me find them," Domingo said, "my angel always helps me."
"Buena suerte," said the old man, "good luck," as he went back to his weeds.
Once again, Domingo walked. He stopped several more times and asked his questions
about work. He always got the same answer: "Yes, there is work. No, there is no money."
Slowly, it began to dawn on him that he was in the wrong place. Farms and ranches did
not have money. But he knew where the money was. It must be in the cities, where the rich
people were. Domingo knew he had to find such a city.
And the longer he walked, the more his old friend hunger walked with him. Domingo
knew many tricks to forget his old friend and one by one he used them up. And, of course,
hunger had brought his wife, thirst, with him. Thirst was much harder to forget than hunger.
By now, Domingo had come to the outskirts of a town. There were more and more
buildings and less and less open land. Hunger's wife was really pushing him now. Pushing him
so hard that he jumped a small fence into a yard where a hose was running on some flowers. He
grabbed the hose and drank and drank and drank. It was running quite slowly and it took a long
time to forget hunger's wife.
"Pretty thirsty, huh, wetback?" said a voice over him. Domingo looked up slowly to see a
big teen-age boy with slicked-back hair and sunglasses. "Stand up," he said. Domingo did as he
was told.
The teen-ager moved directly in front of him and gazed down at him coolly. Not knowing
anything else to say, Domingo asked him where he could find work.
The older boy laughed and said, "Not in my grandmother's yard, mojado," his lips curling
around the word for wetback, "and probably not anywhere else. There's lots of people who live
here who want work. And they don't like you coming over the river and trying to get the jobs
they want. Best thing you can do is to go get your back wet again and go home. All you're gonna
find here is trouble. Now, beat it!"
Domingo moved to climb back over the fence. The older boy grabbed him by the
shoulder, saying, "Not that way," and pointing to the front gate, "use the gate, and go home."
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Domingo ran to the gate, flung it open and was once again walking down the road. He
wasn't any closer to his dream, but, at least, he wasn't thirsty anymore. But he was hungry, very
hungry.
Soon, he came to a small store, surrounded by shiny Americano cars and trucks.
Domingo thought they were very beautiful; especially one bright blue pick-up, whose driver was
just getting back inside. Domingo went up to the driver and asked him where he could buy such
a truck. The man looked at him and, with a laugh, said, "San Trejos Motors, use your credit card
to make the down payment," and slammed the door in his face. The pick-up roared into life and
sprang backward, tires squealing, almost knocking Domingo to the ground.
Domingo thanked his angel for protecting him once again. He went into the store. There
was a young girl behind the counter. He went over to her and asked if he could buy something to
eat.
"What would you like?" she asked, motioning with her hand toward the many display
racks of food in the store.
Domingo looked around at the many different kinds of food. Most of the packages were a
mystery to him, as their labels were written in English.
"I want papitas," ha said to her, "potato chips."
"Over there," she said, pointing to a rack full of large shiny bags.
Domingo went to the rack and took down a bag full of cheese puffs. Then he went back
to the counter and laid it down. He pulled a large, brass 10 peso coin, his entire life's savings,
worth about 35 cents in American money, and put it next to the bag.
"Sorry, little one," the girl said, "we don't take pesos."
Domingo didn't know what to do, except to tell her that the coin was all the money he
had. And also that he was very hungry.
The girl reached under the counter and pulled out something wrapped in foil. "This is a
taco from yesterday," she said, " I don't think anyone will miss it. Take it and go. I don't want my
boss to find you here."
Domingo said gracias and went back outside. He unwrapped the taco and ate it very
quickly. It was cold, the tortilla was hard, but, at least, it filled him up and he could forget his old
friend hunger for awhile.
203
Domingo spent the rest of the day searching for work. He might as well have been
searching for the Lost City of El Dorado. The only thing he found were people who said "No,
no" and "Go away".
The sun was starting to go down. He was very tired and his companion hunger was
demanding loudly that Domingo remember him again. He came to another market with several
trash cans in front of it. One of them didn't have a lid and Domingo dug into it. It was not the
first time he had dug into a trash can for food. He found some stale donuts. As he was pulling
them out, the door to the market opened and, once again, he heard the now very familiar "Go
away."
He kept on. It was getting quite dark. He found himself by a risaca, a small lake. There
were several large bushes next to it with grass growing underneath them. He lay down on the
grass. He wondered to himself, where was the work? No one has any job for me. Had the men
who crossed the river before him been telling the truth? How could they find work when he
could find none. He was confused and he was very sad.
Had his angel forgotten him? Where was she now when he needed her most? Would he
ever make some money? Without money, there would be no truck full of food for his family and
his neighbors. His dream would fail.
He began to cry softly to himself. And as the tears slid down his cheeks, Domingo slid
into sleep. At least in sleep, he could have his dream.
Domingo found himself in front of a great cathedral. It glowed with
light and it was very beautiful. He went through the ornately carved
front door and stood at the beginning of a long walkway leading to a
large candle-lit altar. The interior of the cathedral was filled with a soft
golden light. He could make out several robed figures standing in front
of the altar. One of them, clothed in white, turned toward him and
Domingo heard, in his soul rather than with his ears, a summons: "Come
unto me, little one."
He began to walk down the aisle with a tread so light that he almost felt as if he
were floating. As he approached the altar, he saw that there were two ladies, both
clothed in white, standing before him. One was facing him and the other was turned
toward the altar, her head bent in adoration. The one facing him had a look of great
compassion and her face was suffused with a golden glow. She spoke to him with a
204
soft, sweet voice that echoed in his soul, " There is no need for sorrow, little one, for
one as courageous and pure as you cannot but succeed in your quest. Thou shalt have
thy dream."
Domingo knew without asking that this was his angel. He dropped to his knees
and bent his head in prayer. He felt a hand being laid gently on his head and he felt, in
the depths of his being, the light of his angel flowing through him. He raised his head
to see that the other lady had also turned toward him. Her face also shone with light
and love. Domingo knew her also, for hers was the face of the Blessed Virgin, which he
had seen many times before...
Suddenly, Domingo was jerked from sleep by a loud crashing noise. He didn't know
where he was, most of him was still in his dream. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. What
had happened? Where was his angel?
He heard screams which he didn't understand, but he could feel the urgency in the voice.
He jumped to is feet and ran toward the screams. In the darkness, he could just barely make out a
lady laying on the ground on the bank of the risaca, screaming and shaking her hands toward the
water.
He looked out into the water and saw a car was sinking slowly into it. Domingo knew
that she was not screaming for herself but for something in the car. He plunged into the water
and swam for the car. As he came to it, he could only barely see a small baby trapped inside the
car, its head and shoulders sticking out of the water. Domingo reached through the open car
window and released the baby from the small seat which had trapped it. He pulled it out and
went to swim to shore.
But he couldn't move. His pantleg had caught on something on the car. He was being
pulled under with the car. He put the baby on top of the car and yanked at his pants, trying to free
himself. Domingo was suddenly aware of bright lights coming from the bank, and then the water
went over his head and he saw only blackness.
Once again, Domingo found himself in the golden cathedral with his angel and the
Virgin Mary. He knew that he must have drowned. But how could he have his dream if he was in
heaven.
"Fear not, little one," he felt the angel say, "you are not dead, only
dreaming. But your dream is your destiny. You will succeed, for you
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follow the way of the Savior, you place the welfare of others before your
own."
Domingo woke slowly, his head spinning. He was not in the cathedral in heaven, but in
bed in a room full of strange and wonderful things. A lady was bending over him, a lady dressed
all in white. She looked like his angel, for her face had the same devoted compassion in it.
"Are we still in heaven, angel?" he asked her.
"No, niño, we are in the hospital. And I'm not an angel, I'm a nurse. You almost drowned
saving a baby's life. If the police hadn't gotten there when they did and revived you, you would
surely be with the angels."
Slowly, Domingo began to separate his dream from what had happened to him. He
remembered the crash, and the screaming lady and pulling the baby from the car.
The door to the room opened and another lady entered. She, too, was dressed in a white
gown and there were white bandages on her head and arm. As she neared the bed, Domingo
could see that she was not Mexican, as were most of the people he had met since swimming the
river. Instead, she was a white lady.
"Is this the one, nurse?" the Anglo lady spoke, "is this the boy that saved my baby's life?"
"Ma'am, you shouldn't be here," answered the nurse, "you have been injured and you
should be in bed. Yes, this is the boy."
The white lady walked over to Domingo's bed and put her hand on his forehead. "I don't
know who you are or how you came to be there by the risaca. But it must surely be Providence
and you have my eternal gratitude, young man."
Domingo did not understand her words, but he felt her warmth and her gratitude. He
could only gaze at her blankly, for he did not know how to answer.
"I don't believe that he speaks English, ma'am," said the nurse, who then translated the
lady's words to Domingo.
Domingo smiled softly and he reached up to take the lady's hand and he said, "Your baby
must have an angel watching out for him just like I do."
The nurse repeated Domingo's words in English to the lady and a small tear began to
slide down the lady's cheek. "Please, nurse, ask him who he is and what can I ever do to repay
him," he said.
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The nurse asked him the lady's question. Domingo thought for a moment and then told
his story of coming to America to find work to make money for his family and his village. He
spoke of his dream and his angel and his disappointment that he could find no work and would
make no money, and that now the federales would surely send him back to Mexico.
"He is a wet...an illegal alien, ma'am," said the nurse, who went on to repeat Domingo's
words.
When she had finished, the white lady spoke passionately, "You tell this boy that he
most assuredly will not be just sent back to Mexico. I will see to that. I will sponsor him or
whatever he wants..." She trailed off and was lost in thought for several minutes.”
"Tell him, please, nurse," said the lady, after a long silence, "that my husband, who is the
pastor of the Church of the Good Shepherd here in San Trejos, and I have been discussing having
our church sponsor a family in Mexico and it looks as though the Lord has brought one to us.
Tell him that we will take up a collection of food and clothes and medicine and money and
whatever else we can get and, when he and I are both well enough to travel, we will load all of it
in my husband's pick-up and drive it down to his village."
Now it was the nurse's turn be moved. The lady was going to fulfill the boy's dream and it
was almost as if the Savior himself had guided them to be together. "You are very kind and
generous, senora, and I know that you are going to make this nino very happy," she said, lapsing
into Spanish with her own happiness.
As the nurse spoke the lady's words to Domingo, a great big beaming smile broke out on
his face and he reached up for the lady's hand and kissed it. His dream was real. He had
succeeded just when he thought that all was lost.
The lady bent down and kissed Domingo on the forehead and as she stood back up, she
sagged a little. The nurse caught her by the shoulders and said, "You really should get some rest,
senora, you have been through much."
"You are right, of course, nurse, I must get well and he must get well. But, one more
thing, ask him what his name is, please."
"His name is Domingo, it means Sunday in English," answered the nurse.
"Sunday, hmmm, the Lord's day. That is somehow very fitting," said the Lady, "tell him
that the first Sunday that he and I are both well that we will go to our church and tell everybody
about the great miracle that has happened."
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The nurse turned to Domingo to tell him, but he had fallen fast asleep. The nurse put her
arm around the lady to support her and led her out the door.
Domingo, of course, was dreaming. But this time, his dream was more than just a dream
of hope. This time, it was a dream becoming real.
Back to top
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THE GREAT THING OF SLIME
By Thomas Voxfire ©1998
It was scarcely past my second postpubescent ceremonial that the Rector broached the
idea of my attending to subjects of a higher nature. He cornered me one afternoon in the
altarboy’s anteroom
and pinned me to the wall with his left front dewclaw. The Rector
demanded fixed attention from his subordinates and got it by the simple expedient of impaling
them to the nearest large stationary object.
His breath stank of the charnel house as his great fanged mouth hung gaping mere tilins
from my nose.
"Varnash," he howled at me, "for many drondats I've had my eye on you; you show
promise, much promise. You should consider carefully taking up the study of the Way of the
Ooze. There is no higher calling for we who have dedicated our lives to the Work."
I was about to answer that I had recently decided to give up the Work and sell
migglymorphs for a living instead when a small human altarboy entered the room and tripped
over the Rector's great scaled tail. Without so much as a by-your-leave, the Rector swatted the
youth with his right foreclaw, severing the poor unfortunate's head from his body and leaving a
puddle of red liquid spreading over a large part of the floor.
"Damnable weak-bodied humans, why can't they confine themselves to their miserable
little planet. You can barely look at one of them without causing some major injury." So saying,
he pulled a small bell from under his breastplate and rang thrice.
Soon, one of the old monks came slowly in, looked over the disarray and spoke, "Hard to
discipline the pink ones, eh, Milord?"
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"Indeed, Belnash," answered the Rector, "they'd rather fall to pieces than take the
necessary chastisement. Be a good sport and tidy up, won't you?"
"At once, Milord," said the old one, who began to lick up the red liquid.
"And now, Varnash, returning to the subject at hand," said the Rector, "what think you of
learning of the Holy Ooze?"
I believe it was at this point that I made the decision that would so profoundly change my
life. And the thing that strikes me as so odd about it, even after all these years, was that I did it
on the spur of the moment to protect myself from the Rector's probable reaction to my decision
to be a morph salesman. I didn't think he would decapitate me, but I was quite sure that he would
make my ears ring for a appreciable space of time.
“Milord, I can think of no surer path for me than that which you suggest, what
must I do to further myself on this quest?"
The Rector released me from the pinion of his dewclaw, smiled broadly and said, "You
are indeed wise, my young acolyte, and a credit to your family, with which you must now sever
all ties."
"Milord?"
"All that you are and all that you have must be put behind you forever, if you are enter
onto the Path."
"As you will, your Grace, what must I do?"
"Go home, collect your belongings and merely leave without saying anything to anyone,"
he said and then, added as an afterthought, "and on your way out, crush the skull of your
youngest sibling."
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I know that I should have felt outrage and shock at this demand, but I knew inwardly that
he spoke from necessity. Still, I felt that I must put up some show of familial love, so I said,
"Crush my little bother's skull, Milord, in the name of Shang, why?"
"Burn your bridges, boy, no stone unturned. If you take up the Way of the Ooze, there is
absolutely no turning back."
"It shall be so, Milord, it shall be so."
"Excellent, so go home, collect your necessaries, do as I have bidden you and report
quickly to the Place of Going. As soon as your parents discover your brother's unfortunate
condition, there will undoubtedly be a healthy price on your epidermis."
I hastened to the place of my family, where I had spent the first 324 drondats of my life,
where I had watched with great affection my younger siblings grow up, especially my little
brother Tlilas, whose life I was now supposed to terminate. Could I really kill him without
remorse to trod the Path of the Wise? I wasn't at all sure that I could.
I reached the rear door and stepped inside and I heard rumblings from the kitchen. Not
yet, I said to myself, first let me get my things together. I crept noiselessly up to my abode,
pulled my Lesion Patrol
kitbag from the
closet and put it on the bed. Suddenly I
realized that the Rector had given me no idea what I should pack. My still largely dormant
intuition suggested that this was some sort of test of my fitness and that austerity should be my
guide.
Accordingly I packed with adolescent discretion, preferring clothes and equipment rather
than keepsakes and toys. I did pack my ornate ceremonial dagger that the Rector had blessed at
my first postpubescent and I also snuck into my father's room and purloined an old but functional
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blaster hidden in his bottom dresser drawer. Feeling thus fit for any and all emergencies, I went
downramp to deal with the appointed destiny of my hapless younger brother
I came upon him in the kitchen, stuffing his unhinged maw full of small squealing
mammalian creatures. I stole quietly up behind him, placed my main foreclaw on his central
carapace and squeezed inwardly. Scarcely any sound escaped him, as his mouth was crammed
full of his favorite food, and I continued the pressure until I felt a soft pop beneath my claw and
bits of his brains began to push up between my talons. I felt him slump forward and, as I released
him I felt a strange flash of dark triumph, and I knew that this gruesome interlude was preparing
me for the Way.
Flushed with the sense of d'Latahood that swept through me, I quickly exited my former
home through the rear door, proceeded outside to the cistern where I washed what remained of
my sibling's mindhouse from my major claw and then hurried out into the street just in time to
claim a seat on a passing public transport.
A young couple sitting next to me were discussing the relative demerits of corporal
punishment to children, the male opining the "spare the staff and spoil the child" philosophy
while the female held out for permissiveness. The male, apparently spying my religious dress,
turned to me and asked, "And what do you think, young acolyte, can a parent successfully raise
a child without discipline?"
"Without discipline, without necessary restriction, there can be no useful
development, no structure," I answered, feeling myself intellectually correct but, somewhere
deeper in my mind, I sensed terrible dread, but I was not to learn why I felt this way for quite
some time.
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The female, decidedly not keen on having religious sanction added to her companion's
argument, grasped him by his fanned ridge and threw him from the transport. She then hissed at
me an obscene epithet dealing with my lineage and hurled herself after her mate.
The remainder of the journey to the Place of Going passed uneventfully and I soon found
myself approaching a great open area filled with a vast array of vehicles and vessels of every
shape, sort and description. I leaped off the transport clutching my kitbag and directed myself
toward...Suddenly, I realized that I didn't have the foggiest notion where I was bound, the Rector
had said nothing regarding where in the Place of Going I was supposed to go.
Abruptly, for the first time since the Rector instructed me as to my future vocation, I felt
a strong pang of doubt. I saw my younger brother sprawled on the kitchen floor, his brain-fluid
eating into the linoleum, as my mother stood over him, screaming for the authorities at the top of
her voice. Soon they would find me and I would be doomed, thrown to the Razorfish.
"Tell your fortune, sonny?" a voice pierced into my dismal reverie, "only costs a dratil,
the future is an open book to a dlin-witch."
I looked down to see a wizened old hag who had attached herself to my right dewclaw.
How fortuitous, I thought, perhaps this witch can tell me where to go. I fished in my breast-plate
pouch and extracted a dratil, and threw it in her lap. "Tell me whence I go, old woman, and on
what ship. And quickly, for I do not have all dlit."
The hag stared directly into my eyes with eyes far younger than the rest of her and, as I
watched, her eyes glazed over as her clairvoyant part delved into my future. Some time passed,
and I had just begun thinking of retrieving my coin, when awareness came back to her vision and
she began to shake my dewclaw violently. "You are doomed, young acolyte, doomed to worse
than ten thousand Razorfish. Take your doomed money and be damned to you," she screeched at
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me as she stood up as far as her hunched back would let her and threw my coin into my face and
was off down the gangway, howling.
Well, by now I didn't feel at all well. I had only been on the Path of the Wise for less than
a dlit and I was twice doomed and once damned. I began to wonder if convicted murderers were
allowed to sell migglymorphs in their spare time. I also wondered if convicted murderers had any
spare time. But I didn't have to wonder for long. A great foreclaw descending on my shoulder
and a waft of unsavory breath told me that the Rector had not forgotten me. I was saved, but
saved for what?
He spun me about to face him and for the first time in as long as I had known him, I saw
fear in his great hooded eyes. And, as he spoke to me in a confidential whisper, the same fear
echoed in his voice:
"Silence, my boy, there is precious little time. Take these," he said, thrusting his foreclaw
into my pouch," your ticket and a special talisman which you are to wear at all times under your
breastplate. Proceed to Bay56 and enter the red ship, now go and pray to Shang that I can cover
your trail."
"But, Milord, what do you---?"
"Silence, you young twit, and go now, while you still can, I can say no more." He hugged
me to him and whispered in my ear, "Your life and the lives of many more than you could
possibly imagine depend on you and you alone. Now go!"
He turned me about and thrust me from him. I hurried down the gangway, my mind
awhirl, fragmented, dazed. I stumbled on as quickly as I could go. But, as I hurried on, the
confusion in my poor, overtaxed cranium began to dissipate to be replaced with startling clarity:
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It was as if I looked down a long poorly lit tunnel and also that I was the tunnel and
also I was the Thing that lived at the end of the tunnel in a huge, dark chamber; a Thing of
extreme age and size, an intellect vast and cool which took absolutely no concern for the
concept of personal hygiene.
Then it was gone and I returned to being Varnash, the stupefied. I was soon dimly
aware of coming to Bay56 and beholding a squat red space vessel of extremely dubious merit. It
looked dangerously like a Bellraad dung-hauler. Leave it to the Rector to get me the cheapest
flight possible. Oh well, up the gangplank and let's go find my bunk.
"Not so fast, lizard-lips," said the clipboard-wielding Glench seated at the entrance to the
ship, "perhaps we'd like seeing some sort of pass. Maybe even a ticket. Gotcha a ticket, scalebottom?"
I fished into my pouch and found a slip of paper. I handed it to the Glench, who held it in
front of his three beady little red eyes for several minutes. Obviously, reading was not one of his
stronger virtues. Finally, he grunted, "Dloonar, of Reggo, morph salesman, Suite 36B." I was
about to retort that I was Varnash of Tratar, Aspirant to the Way of the Holy Ooze but
remembered what the Rector had said about covering my trail and merely nodded assent.
"And where might 36B be, o ugly and misshapen Glench," I said, trying to sound like I
was totally in command of both myself and the situation.
"Down all three ramps to the bottom, third suite on your left, two doors from the main
holding tank vent. Hope you brought some nose-plugs, reptile-breath."
That did it! Enough! I had done nothing but try to enter a ship to which I had every right
to be on board and I was suffering undue abuse from this malignant miscreant. I grasped his head
with my major claw and was thinking of giving him an Instant Replay of me curing my little
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brother Tlilas of gluttony once and for all when the bald shiny head of a huge yellow Snakbur
appeared in the door, devoid of body, as were all such of his kind. The great ochre lips parted as
he spoke, "Leave the Glench be, Dloonar of Reggo, and pass to your quarters. I'll have no trouble
aboard my ship, you understand me, no trouble at all."
I walked past the great yellow head down the ramps and soon found my suite. It was
scarcely bigger than twice my volume but it had a bunk and I collapsed into it. To sleep but
hopefully not to dream. Of Things of extreme age and odor. Of evil - raw, naked, bleeding evil
and the strange agents of evil. No, I thought as consciousness slipped from me, no dreams. No
dreams at all.
I awoke suddenly in a great lather of sweat. I know what you're thinking; reptiles don't
sweat. Well, d'Latas do sweat and I was sweating up a storm. It was hotter than unmitigated
Moogma and there was an intense powerful knocking on my door.
“Let’s move it out smartly, lizard-face, we got problems in the digester," came the voice
of the Glench through my door.
I got to the door, opened it with a great shove and stumbled out into the hall. The Glench
stood in the hallway, motioning the passengers up the ramp.
"What in the name of Shang is going on, Glench?" I demanded
"Oxygen leaked into the main digester, changed the breakdown from anaerobic to
aerobic, causing the heat. Now beat it before you cook and we have to serve roast lizard
to the
other passengers."
I made my way as quickly as I could up the ramps and when I finally managed to get to
the top of the third ramp, the Snakbur appeared and ushered us into the galley. Once we were all
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seated, his voice took on an unctuous, mollifying tone as he said, "I'm terribly sorry for the
inconvenience, but the trouble is minor and we should have things back to right very soon."
"Who iss we?" came a hissing whisper from behind me, "what iss the sstrength of your
crew?"
I turned to see who was speaking with such a strange, sibilant voice. Apparently, it
belonged to one of the two black-robed and cowled figures seated in the rear. I could see nothing
of their faces except for two faint luminescent eyes and an occasional glint of stiff, ivory-colored
skin. The rest of the passengers, nine in number, were the usual polyglot riffraff one sees on such
vessels as a dung-hauler.
"There is I," the Snakbur answered, "your captain; my mate, the Glench, and the Rectal
who keeps care of the holding tanks. All else is automated and we need no further crew."
"Why did the Rectal not monitor the tanks more closely. captain," asked a small rodentlike beast seated next to me, "we could all have been barbecued. Most unpleasant, even on such
accommodations as these, where one expects deprivations."
"I'm afraid he fell asleep at the valve," said the captain, "most unfortunate, but it will not
happen again, I assure you."
"Asleep at the valve, indeed," came a voice through the intercom, " I was drugged by
person or persons unknown who slipped some --."
"Silence," roared the Snakbur, "you have been warned about eavesdropping and also
lying and also dereliction of duty."
"Tut, tut, and tut," said the intercom, "passengers, I could tell you a thing or two about
our illustrious captain. Why, just the other night--."
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He was cut off by the rodent, who reached over and switched off the intercom, saying,
"By Shang, there's nothing worse than a gossipy Rectal; they're the worst assholes in the galaxy."
Everyone in the room nodded, grunted or signaled assent. Except the two hooded figures in the
rear, who were curiously immobile.
Just then, the Glench appeared at the door and announced that the problem had been
eliminated and everyone was at liberty to return to their staterooms. By now, I was extremely
tired; fatigued beyond all measure and, as I made my way out of the galley and I took absolutely
no notice of the Glench's witty repartee concerning reptiles in general and me in particular.
However, I did notice that the two cowled figures walked with a very curious stiff gait
and, as they passed me, I heard soft clicks coming from underneath their robes. But I thought of
them no more as I made my way to bed, where I was appointed to sleep, soundly and without
dreams.
I came back to myself slowly after a most refreshing sleep. But as I came to and the
various thoughts about the previous day began to filter into my mind, the refreshment changed
rather quickly to anxiety. The Rector... the Way...my little brother...the witch...the vision in the
cave...the Glench. Without thinking, I reached into my pouch for my rosary. But instead of
beads, I found a small chain. Ah yes, the Rector’s talisman. I mentally chided the old reprobate
for his superstitious ways as I pulled the device from my pouch.
I switched on the light to see what he had given me. Odd, I thought, as I stared at the
talisman. It was merely a gray blob of some hard but completely unrecognizable material. As I
looked at it more closely, I saw that a small piece of curved red metal protruded from the bottom.
I held it up to the light to get a better look and I saw that the gray stuff was partially translucent
218
and inside the blob was another piece of red metal that curved in the opposite direction from the
piece protruding from the bottom. It almost looked like...
Suddenly, there was a loud harsh pounding on my door followed closely by the agitated
voice of the Glench:
"Open this door, now, you devious serpent, now, I tell you, now!"
I was still far too sleepy to decline his curious request, so I reached slowly over to the
door and opened it. "This had better be good, Glench, I've eaten several of your kind for a good
deal less than disturbing my rest."
He slunk quickly into my quarters and shut the door behind him. Odd, I didn't remember
inviting him in.
"Odd," I said to him, "I don't remember inviting you in."
"Milord, I felt irresistibly drawn to you, I..." His eyes fell upon the talisman still clutched
in my claw, he drew in his breath sharply and fell to his knees. "I knew it, I knew it, you are of
the Slime."
Enough was enough! I reached out and snapped him smartly with my primary talon. He
bounced off the bulkhead and collapsed on the floor, his eyes misting over slightly.
Events were taking an ever increasing strangeness. This thoroughly disreputable Glench
forced his way into my quarters, called me Milord and then accused me of being slimy. Me, a
dry-skinned d'Lata. And yet, some deep inner instinct told me that this cretin meant no
impropriety, in fact, in his own way the Glench was being quite reverential.
The mist began to leave his eyes and he started moaning. Then his head snapped up and
he stared unwaveringly at the talisman that hung almost forgotten from my claw. "No offense,
Milord, pity the poor Glench who did not know that you were of the Sl..uh..Ooze."
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Now it was my turn to become agitated. What did this little space pirate know of my
Quest. I'd been on the Path less than four dlits and already complete strangers knew of me and
my errand, obviously more than I knew myself. Not wanting it to cause any more problems, I
placed the talisman around my neck and let it sink under my breastplate
"Speak, Glench, and be truthful, what do you know of me?"
"That you travel to the planet of Hotchpot, the ancestral home of the OozeMaster and that
you bear a talisman of Him."
"Who is Him?"
"Not who is Him, rather who is He? Did you not take grammar and syntax at school?"
"Don't try my patience, Glench, or I will ingest, digest and divest you in the shortest
possible time, who is Him?"
"A being of extreme antiquity, an intellect vast and cool totally unlearned regarding
personal hygiene."
My scales crawled and my mind reeled. It was the thing in my vision, the thing in the vast
underground chamber, the thing with an aroma that made the Rector's breath seem as room
deodorant . What was this horror, this thing of the Pit?
"What is Him to me?"
"You bear his talisman and you do not know of Him? You journey to his planet and you
do not know why. Are you such a fool as to enter the service of One of the Dyad without such
knowledge?"
I could bear this no longer. Every moment increased my confusion and my self-doubt.
So, in one great rush of breath, I told the Glench everything that had happened to me in the last
220
four dlits. Everything except any references to my youngest brother and his curiously collapsed
cranium.
I really wasn't sure if the Glench believed me or not, but, at this point, I really didn't care.
When I had finished my tale, he stared at me long and hard for several den'dlits, then he spoke:
"Do you know anything about the battle of the Dyad? Of the endless confrontation, older
than time itself, between the Forces of Formlessness and the Society of Structure? Where were
you born, boy, in a sealed geode? You are as ignorant as a box of rocks."
"I have heard those old superstitions, but they are baseless heresy, old-wives tales and the
like."
"Those old superstitions concern the true forces whose interplay weave the Dance of the
Veil of Life upon the Face of the Spirit. In ages past, the Formless and the Structured were
complementary, necessary to each other and to the stability of the Universe. But, lately, in the
last few centuries, the Society of Structure has fallen into the hands of a madthing: a
megalomaniac monster who calls himself the Erection and who threatens to turn all of creation
into a great structured skeletal monolith."
"Where did you learn to speak such, Glench? Up to now your speech has been that of an
unlearned guttersnipe. What is your purpose and why, in the name of Shang, should I believe
you?"
"Because I am such as you," he said, reaching under his grimy coverlet and producing a
talisman identical to the one the Rector had given me.
To say that I was dumbstruck is to greatly understate the case.
My mind seemed to escape me and I found that I had, once again, come to the very
great cavern with the very great stench. I heard a voice, ancient and pregnant with wisdom,
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echo in the depths of my being: "Pay heed to this Glench, O Varnash, for he speaks the
truth. Come unto me soon, for I have need of your counsel. And with great care, for even
now, the Agents of Structure are close at hand and gleefully plot your demise.”
I started to answer, wanting to know what counsel I could give such an One, when I
suddenly found myself back in my room, with the Glench staring at me curiously.
"You have had mindtouch with His Holiness, the OozeMaster,"he said, "do you believe
me now?
"Yes, I do so believe you, but what am I to do?"
"You must continue your journey to Hotchpot and seek His presence. But first, you must
elude the two boneMensch who are certainly on board to stop you from your goal."
“Bone Mensch?”
"One word, not two; small b not a capital B. Yes, boneMensch, most relentless of the
Erection's agents. Men who have surgically transmuted their flesh to become only skeleton,
thereby ..."
The door flew open with a great crash and the two black-robed figures swished inside. I
caught a flash of silver out of the corner of my eye, and then saw the Glench's head topple from
his shoulders. Next there was a pinprick of light from one of the black-robed ones' sleeves and, I
sank into stupor and blankness.
I awoke slowly, painfully. The Rector had squeezed my carapace, only through this could
I feel such pain, I was sure of it. My eyes opened to behold, not the Rector, but the two
boneMensch, their cowls thrown back to reveal naked skulls with luminescent eyes, their mouths
full of strange, sibilant giggles.
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"Sso, you awaken, great flesh-infessted reptile, soon, you will die and be fed into the
digesster to become one with the other refusse."
"But why, I've done nothing to you. By Shang, I've never seen you before."
"Your coming wass foretold in the Great Foretelling: that you would bring the Erection to
limpness and impotence. Thiss musst not be, you musst die! And then, after you, the Very Large
Ssmelly Amoebae in the Very Large Smelly Cavern must die. And we will make of his abode a
great Shrine of Ssstructure; full of framing and girders and skeletals and no ugly formlessness
anywhere.” At this, they both exploded into howls of maniacal giggling.
I became suddenly aware that I was not bound in any way. I flexed my major claw to
return strength to it. The boneMensch seemed unaware that I could move. Perhaps they
underestimated the strength of the d'Lata constitution. They were both within easy reach, so I
reached out and placed my claw over the nearest one's skull and squeezed mightily. At nothing.
My claw simply passed straight through his skull, which brought forth another hail of giggles.
And then, my intuition, such as it was, came into play. I reached under my
under my breastplate with my minor claw and grasped the talisman. Once again I placed my
main claw over the naked skull of my adversary and squeezed. This time there were no giggles,
just a shower of minute fragments as his skull was pulverized beneath my grip. The other
boneMensch was still laughing as I turned his mindhouse into powder. I found that I was
becoming quite good at crushing skulls. If this Way of the Ooze business didn't work out, I was
sure that I could still find work as a gladiator. But, anon…
I stood up groggily, expanding my fanned ridge to increase my circulation. I was quite
dizzy but gradually my senses began to return to normal. My gaze fell across the severed head of
the hapless Glench, my first true comrade on the Path of the Wise. But instead of sadness or
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grief, it only reminded me that I had not eaten since the journey began. d'Lata hunger for
mammals is legend throughout our section of the galaxy, as I'm sure you're aware. In any case,
before I was truly sure of my own actions, I had consumed the Glench's head and half of his
torso. By then, there was no stopping myself and the complete Glench had become my only meal
in almost six dlits.
It now fell to me to take stock of my situation, so I stepped past the headless
boneMensch, opened the door and stepped outside. I made my way to the bridge to speak with
the Snakbur as to our estimated time of arrival on Hotchpot. Unfortunately, he was quite dead,
the great yellow head listing helplessly in the gunwale, a large gaping hole dripping mauve gunk
from the center of his forehead.
This discovery proved to be most distressing: the captain and the first mate of this
esteemed vessel had passed over to the Land of Shang. This left only the digester-tending Rectal
as a possible pilot. I hurried downramp to the Rectal's place of authority, the main dungsump. I
looked through the plexi-port to see another most disturbing sight; the Rectal was not in his usual
place at the valve, instead I could see only one of his tentacles protruding limp and lifeless from
the shitmass. Drat and bother!
Feeling quite heavy-hearted, I proceeded upramp to determine the fate of the other
passengers. As you can no doubt imagine they, too, were also quite dead. I was alone - terribly,
utterly alone - alone on a Bellraad dung-hauler heading Shang-knows-where with no one aboard
to pilot her. What to do, what to do? Perhaps, I could put out some sort of call for help. I went to
the bridge to look for the radio.
The hole in the radio was quite similar to the one in the Snakbur's head, save only for it's
size and the fact that the radio's hole dripped a colorless fluid rather than mauve gunk. Having
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next to no technical or mechanical skill, I knew that my attempting to repair the radio was totally
out of the question.
A wave of self-doubt washed through me to be followed quickly by a wave of self-pity.
My head sunk to my breastplate in despair, and I unwittingly grasped the talisman with my
minor claw and made a desperate mental cry for help.
Slowly but surely I became aware that I was not alone. I jerked my head up and looked
about me. The bridge was empty, except for the Snakbur. But I felt a Presence, an intellect vast
and cool - the OozeMaster, His Holiness, the Great Thing of Slime. And even as I thought this
thought, I felt my mind flooded with knowledge. The bridge was no longer an incomprehensible
mish-mash of unknown technical bric-a-brac, now I knew what everything was and how to make
it function.
I stepped forward d'Latafully and began to work the various controls. Odd, all of the them
seemed to be coated with some sort of colorless fluid. I made no sense of this at all until I
remembered what part of it's anatomy the bodiless Snakbur used to make the equipment
function, its tongue. Steady, Varnash, it’s only spittle. I pressed on and within a very short space
of time, only a few short dlits, I and the ship were in orb it around Hotchpot. By now I was
drained completely, so I sank slowly into the only soft spot on the entire bridge, the lobe-pocket
of the Snakbur's outlandishly large ear, and went immediately to sleep.
I awoke to find the ship totally still, the vibrations of its engines were strangely silent. For
the love of Shang, now what? I leaped out of the Snakbur's earlobe, which was beginning to
smell faintly of decay, and made my way to the instruments. Well, what do you know? I had
landed on Hotchpot, the only living thing on a ship full of corpses. Decidedly unpleasant, as my
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sense of smell informed me that all the now-dead life forms on the vessel were suffering the
same fate as the Snakbur, advancing decomposition.
I knew that it was necessary for me to quit the premises, so I made my way to my cabin
and retrieved my kitbag. As I made my way toward the main hatch, I realized that my dear
departed Glench had not been much of a meal and that, in spite of the rotting aromas all around
me, I was quite hungry. I paused at the galley only long enough to consume several of the less
fragrant passengers and then proceeded post haste to the hatch. The pressure readings said
normal so I activated the open-mech, having absolutely no idea what to expect. Would it be a
crowd of boneMensch, giggling and howling for my death? Or a squad of d'Lata police to take
me back to stand trial for murdering my little brother?
But no: the hatch opened to reveal an empty, desolate plain with no sort of building in
sight. Nor any living being. Nothing at all, in fact. The plain seemed to stretch to infinity, there
were no rivers to break up its monotony nor any mountains to check it's spread. A few scrub
plants dotted it's surface, small snarly trees and such, but that was all. Doomed, damned and
desolate , that was I. I passed through the hatch and activated the landing ramp. I descended
quickly to the plain below and proceeded out onto it's harsh surface. But to where?
I grasped the talisman with my minor claw, seeking telepathic directions. Silence, silence
and more silence. Suddenly, beneath me, I felt a great rumbling and shaking. Great cracks
appeared around me, seeming to radiate from the ship. I ran, but to where? Beyond caring, I
merely ran, possibly from bad to worse. I heard a great rending of metal and turned round to see
the dung-hauler disappear into a great crack in the ground. In a few den-dlits, it had disappeared
completely, the crack closed up and I felt so thoroughly alone that I wouldn't have minded the
company of even a boneMensch.
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The quake stopped as quickly as it had started. This really was beginning to be just a bit
much. What was the Path of the Wise, anyway, some sort of cosmic fun house? I began to feel as
if I were the butt of some huge joke. But who was the joker and why me? I felt dizzy and
disoriented and I wanted to cry; yes, I wanted to shed lots of tears and feel very sorry for myself.
So I sat down on the ground and prepared myself for a great emotional catharsis.
I had just begun to take a big, deep breath when I spotted movement out of the corner of
my eye. A small creature was approaching me, by Shang, it was a lizard. A great wave of
affection swept through me as I recognized a kindred being, possibly it, too, was lost and alone
on this dreary, desolate plain.
It scampered up my leg and perched itself on my dewclaw, giving me the once-over. I
was just beginning to formulate a great soliloquy regarding forlorn reptiles in obscure places
facing dire circumstances when, suddenly, the lizard spoke:
"Were you about to cloud up and rain, you sniveling cretin?" came the unmistakable
voice of the Glench from the small fanged mouth. "I suppose that I can no longer ridicule your
reptile origins beings that I now possess a life-form similar to your own. I would never have
chosen such a vehicle to transfer into, but time was very short and you still need a good deal of
guidance."
"Guidance to where?"
"To
the
OozeMaster,
you
"Can He not guide me as He did before?"
"His powers fail him on the surface of this planet, it is up to me to get you to Him."
"Charming. So, lead on, then, my small friend."
dolt."
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The lizard-Glench ran up to my shoulder and fixed himself next to my ear, saying,
"Proceed directly towards the blue sun."
I looked toward the heavens to find the blue sun but instead found only consternation.
There were as many as six suns in the sky and at least three of them could be called blue.
"Which blue sun?"
"What do you mean, which blue sun, how many blue suns are there?"
"I count at least three."
"My only instructions were to tell you to proceed toward the blue sun, I wasn't told there
were more than one."
"Marvelous, simply marvelous. Tell me, o enlightened Glench-lizard, pathfinder to the
wise, how to select the correct sun."
With no warning whatsoever, a soft melodious voice spoke from behind me, "Why not
use your intuition, Varnash, surely such an one as yourself should have no problem discerning
the proper direction."
I whirled toward the source of the voice and found myself confronting a very comely
d'Lata female. However I had whirled so fast that the lizard flew off my shoulder and landed
rather hard on the ground. It appeared stunned. Quickly, the female stooped to pick up the poor
creature and without so much as a by-your-leave, she popped my mentor into her maw.
Gone but not forgotten, my little friend, I thought and then said, "Pardon, Milady, but
that borders on cannibalism."
"I am extremely sorry, was he of some importance to you? I was just so very hungry."
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Her extreme beauty made me forget my companion's absence very quickly and I said,
"Think nothing of it, just a pet. I'm glad that his life was given in such a good cause as your
satiation."
I must interject at this point that, according to d'Lata custom, one such as myself was not
allowed the company of a female until after one's third postpubescent ceremonial. I was scarcely
past my second; I had practically no experience with females at all save my mother and the effect
on me caused by the very close proximity of this woman was mind-boggling. I hadn't even begun
to consider just how and why this female came to be here.
"I am here because you need me," she said, "I live to fulfill your needs. Tell me what I
must do to please you, o Varnash."
"I need to know which blue star I must follow for I must make my way to the
OozeMaster.”
"Would you really be with that old slime-ball rather than me?" she said as she placed her
minor claw on my fanned ridge and began to stroke it.
Little tingles of electricity traveled up and down my spine and I felt my rational mind
begin to dissolve into euphoria. To this day I don't know what made me do it, but without
thinking I grasped my talisman with my minor claw. Now I found myself being caressed by the
old hag of a dlin-witch from the Place of Going. Yuck and double-yuck! I placed my major claw
on her head and said, "Tell me which is the proper blue sun, witch, or you die!"
The hag was startled, obviously she thought she had me. "What do you mean witch,
dearest, am I not pleasing to you?"
"I see you as you truly are, old hag, tell me what I want to know or I will collapse your
skull."
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The fear of death showed clearly in her eyes and the quaver in her voice told me that my
words had found their mark. She pointed toward the aqua-marine star and said, "There."
Without further ado, I gave a mighty squeeze and that was that. I hope, dear reader, you
don't think I crush just any old skull. I do it with discernment. Albeit crude, I must admit, but it
is effective.
I shouldered my kitbag and headed toward the aquamarine star as quickly as my scaly
little claws could travel. However, I must confess that this rapidity did not last too very long.
Soon I was plodding - dull, slow plodding - across a desolate forbidding plain, following a
strange aquamarine star toward an utterly featureless flat horizon.
There seemed to be no night and day, just a constant succession of rather unusual suns.
The aquamarine star set and I kept on in what seemed to be the same direction. I hoped so,
because outside of a few scraggly trees, there were no sort of landmarks whatsoever.
On and on I plodded, dragging myself wearily across the monotonous landscape. The
weather was just as dreary as my surroundings. It was difficult to tell if I was more bored or
more tired. I thought of the Rector delivering one of his verbose admonitions regarding
persistence and determination. I thought of the Glench, not so much as a companion but, because
of my ever-increasing hunger, more as a meal. I thought of the OozeMaster and wondered
mightily why such an One should want my counsel. What could I advise a being so old and so
wise?
But, it seemed, I didn't have to wait long for my answer. The air in front of me began to
shimmer and swirl and it didn't take too very long for the tumescent swirling to congeal into the
head of a huge reptilian beast. It was definitely not d'Lata, it was much too primitive and
ferocious-looking. It looked more like one of our predatory saurian ancestors: the kind that
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wrinkled old d'Lata grandmothers used to tell horror stories about to coerce cooperation out of
small helpless children such as myself.
Slowly the great mouth opened and continued to press skyward until it was twice my size
vertically. I felt with my mind rather than my ears the word: "Enter."
Enter, indeed! I decided there and then that I had two choices, either I could go into a
long and redundant, morbid dialogue with myself about entering the mouth of a beast probably
hungrier than myself or I could just jump in with both feet. By Shang, I did the latter: I vaulted
the great flesh-rending incisors, raced across the immense convoluted tongue and dived into the
open throat.
There was a moment of dizziness and profound disorientation and then I was in a long
poorly-lit tunnel which I had previously seen in my first vision. I knew without question what or
rather who waited at the end of this selfsame tunnel; the Lord of the Formless, the OozeMaster,
the Great Thing of Slime.
"Varnash," a voice whispered in my mind, "I appreciate titles as much as the next, but
would you please move it out smartly, the universe is in very great peril."
Weary as I was, I ran down the length of the tunnel which opened suddenly and without
warning into a great cavern even more poorly lit than the tunnel. I continued to run until I slipped
on some slimy rocks and tumbled headlong into a pool of a vaguely familiar substance.
"So at last we are introduced formally, Varnash, welcome to my psuedopod. Stay where
you are and will converse, I communicate much better when in physical contact."
I felt my gorge rise at the thought of physical contact with the OozeMaster and I was
thankful that I had nothing on my stomach to relieve myself of. Nowhere in the universe was
blowing lunch into one's host considered good form.
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"What would you have of me, Milord?" I asked.
"No small task, my boy, I wish you only to save the known universe from a terrible fate."
"Such as?"
"Form without content, construction without necessity, bones without flesh, framing,
girders: Relentless Inexorable Structure. There will be no liquid, no blood, no puddles, no mud,
nothing that we find lovely. All the galaxies in all the universes will grind to a halt. Nothing will
move, all will be encased in R.I.S."
"And then?"
"Then that hideous fiend, that quintessential ignoramus, my illustrious son, The Erection,
will have had his way with our universe. And it will stay that way for oh so very long."
"And then?
"There will be such a long time with us trapped in this artificially structured state. But
there we all will be. Until the water and the air escape the abyss into which they have been
hurled, and they amalgamate to form the only kind of substance that R.I.S. understands and
fears: rust. But it will be so long before it all wears away and so very boring."
"And then ?"
"And then you, my good Varnash, will go put a stop to the folly of my son by the simple
expedient of pulling the plug on him."
“Son, Milord? Amoebas are sexless, I have read it in books."
"Listen, lizard-lips, when you've been around as long as I have you can do it as you damn
well please."
Lord above whose name is Shang the All-Wise, the OozeMaster spoke with the voice of
the Glench. Powerful secrets were unlocking themselves: "Are you the Glench, Milord?"
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"I am G.T.O.S., the Great Thing of Slime, I am the OozeMaster, I am the greatest, oldest,
most totally powerful entity in all of creation. In fact, I am creation, well, half of it anyway. The
Glench, as you call him, is my psuedopod taken form. I needed to be with you as you took your
first few steps on the Path, but, now I perceive that you are progressing well and only need my
help a little longer and then you can continue on your own."
"Continue on my own?"
"To the planet of Pellagra in the system of the star Anthracite, to the seat of the Erection's
potency and there you will confront him and render him harmless; limp and impotent."
"How will I do that, Holiness?"
"It is said that he has a fatal weakness, a very small chink in his armor. Something to do
with his mental state. Attack his equilibrium, his frame of mind, as it were."
"Very well, Milord. It shall be so."
"And one more thing, young acolyte, I will give you a powerful magical name, a name of
great power when confronting the forces of structure; I hereby name you the Wrench."
Was this overgrown mungball serious? Wrench, Glench, Stench - it was becoming
positively unbearable. "How should I proceed to this planet of Pellagra, Milord?"
"Are you capable of flight?"
"No, Milord."
"Then I suggest you book passage on some sort of vessel; possibly a space vessel.”
"Yes, Milord, could you loan me the fare? I seem to be down to my last dratil."
“Better than that, I will place you there.”
“I thought your powers didn’t work on the...."
Consciousness failed me at this point and I only very faintly heard him answer "I lied."
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When I again regained awareness, the first thing I felt was the now all-too-familiar
vibration of a ship in flight. I sat up slowly, groggily. I was very dizzy and also very dirty. I
needed a soak in the worst way. I looked about my environment to discover my whereabouts. I
found myself in quite a large stateroom. I struggled to my feet and proceeded to what appeared to
be the body-chamber.
There was a soaker there; I set the controls for mild scald and settled in. I dozed off and
was awakened suddenly by a disembodied voice on the intercom:
"Passenger Varnash, we approach your destination, Pellagra. You have ten den-dlits to
prepare to disembark."
I exited the basin quickly, dried myself, found my kitbag, retrieved my father's blaster
which I put in my breastpouch and made my way out the door into the hallway. A small robot
stood in the midst of the walkway and, at my approach, said, "So we meet again, scale-bottom,
how utterly charming. Would you follow me, please."
As you can probably imagine, nothing surprised me very much anymore; not even the
reappearance of the Glench psuedopod or whatever he was in the guise of a machine. Being able
to think of no comeback whatsoever, I merely followed dutifully.
I noticed that, in contrast to the Bellraad dung transport, I was now on a first class
passenger vessel. It was decidedly sumptuous, in an elegant, heavy-chrome way. The
OozeMaster was much more generous than the stingy old Rector. I filed this away for future
reference under Facts, Useful.
We made our way down the hallway towards the ship's exit, which I could see looming at
the end of the hall. I felt the ship make a medium thud and the vibrations of motion ceased.
"Are we there then, Glench?"
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"In you hadn't noticed, peabrain, I am now in the form of a robot. The Glench was several
incarnations ago. Yes, we are here."
"Sorry, by the way, I've never heard your name. You do have a name, do you not?
"Of course, I have a name, O Varnash of the Dwindling Mental Capacity, you may call
me Ooze Junior."
" How quaint."
He appeared on the threshold of speech and then obviously decided otherwise as he
motioned toward the air lock which was beginning to open.
“Out you go," he said, "and do, by all means, have fun."
I was outside before I knew what had transpired, standing on the top step of the landing
ladder just slightly above a veritable sea of giggling boneMensch. The ship beneath me came to
life and I was pitched off the ladder to the ground. For the last time, I heard in my head the voice
of my dearest compatriot and guide, the Glench, "It is said that the only food the boneMensch are
allowed to consume is the flesh of young aspirants to the Path of the Wise. Bon appetit."
Now here was a fine kettle of Razorfish. I was alone on an alien planet said to be the
home of one of the most evil forces in the universe and I was surrounded by a host of twittering
zombie-like monsters whose only desire was to make me the prime ingredient of their next
repast.
I knew instantly what I must do to correct this woeful situation, I must express my newly
acquired talent. I must make my way into this mass of boneMensch and crush skulls as if there
was no tomorrow. Which, I had to admit, as an afterthought, there just might not be.
I stood up d'Latafully, grasped my talisman with my minor claw and made ready to do
battle. Suddenly, inexplicably, the throng before me parted and a pathway was opened to me, but
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a pathway to where? The boneMensch, staying well out of reach, gestured me to venture
forward. Having no good reason to the contrary, I proceeded thus.
I traveled for quite a space of time along this boulevard of giggling skeleton men. They
made no move to approach me, which filled me with no small amount of frustration, as I would
have dearly loved to pulverize a veritable bevy of their fleshless craniums. If I made any sort of
move toward them, they merely danced quickly out of my way and tittered all the more.
This lasted for several den-dlits. Finally, the pathway opened to present a totally new sort
of entity: a metallic one. Huge it was, three or four times taller than myself, it had a vast head
with gleaming red eyes that sat atop a great steel torso from which many weapon snouts
protruded. It had great metal columns for legs and three arms which all ended in some sort of
formidable pincer-like device.
It's overall aspect was that of a powerful war machine. It had no discernible mouth,
instead a speaker at the base of it's head blared at me in a bone-chilling artificial voice:
"So, Varnash, slayer of siblings, you have come at last to the place of the Erection. Your
purpose is known to us and for this you must perish. Nothing can stand in the way of the
Relentless Inexorable Structure. However, if you prove yourself worthy, we might well make a
place for you in the ranks of Form and Sanity. No reason to die needlessly for the sake of some
malodorous amoebae with his sad tales of the necessity of the formless. He is clearly mad and
senile."
I could feel anger boil within me as I heard my lord and master spoken of in so
deprecating a way. Anger compelled me to speech, thusly:
"I am the Wrench, Dissembler of the R.I.S. and you, large, insolent machine, will pay
dearly for your temerity." I quickly pulled the blaster out of my pouch and, grasping my talisman
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with my non-gun hand, sent several volleys into the eyes of the great robot. Surely, the thing was
armored against plasma-fire, but not magical plasma-fire. The robot's head had disintegrated in a
cloud of sparks and fire. The body of the thing collapsed into the crowd of boneMensch,
crushing a number of them.
The rest of them scattered away from me and I could hear sibilant shouts of "The Wrench
hass desstroyed Number One, the Prophecy iss upon uss. The Erection iss doomed."
I grabbed one of them by the head and told him, "If you have any respect for the idea of
maintaining the structural integrity of your head, you will take me at once to the Erection."
"If I do, He will kill me."
"If you do not, I will kill you. He is there, I am here. Choose ye well."
Suddenly, darkness assailed me as my head was covered by a rough fabric device. I felt
myself being pummeled by many little bony hands and then I was unceremoniously thrown to
the ground. I felt a sharp, stinging crack on my carapace and consciousness escaped me.
I came to my senses slowly and painfully to find the I could, in fact, see again. The
hoodwink had been taken from my head. But my arms were bound closely to my upper torso and
were capable of only the slightest movement. I could feel that I still retained the talisman, though
it was just out of my grip, but the blaster had been taken from me.
All about me, the boneMensch tittered and giggled as they chanted at me a very
unpromising dirge:
"The Wrench is dead, the Wrench is dead.
Cut off his head and eat him instead.", they continued ad nauseum.
Doggerel, I thought, sheer doggerel. Was it the appointed destiny of Varnash the Wrench,
to die at the skeletal hands of the purveyors of such putrid poesy. How thoroughly ignominious.
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Just then a Voice entered my brain, directly, not through the organs of sense; a Voice
pregnant with latent menace: "Well done, my boneMensch, well done. Bring the insignificant
reptile to Me."
I was hauled to my feet and set in motion toward a tall, rather unusual-looking building.
We skirted the still smoldering robot and proceeded toward the strange edifice. As we came
closer, I perceived why it was unusual. It was all framing and girders, it had no walls or ceiling
or roof. Up through the middle of this odd building there rose a gigantic black column whose
top passed the highest point in the building by quite a goodly space.
The top of the column appeared to be a featureless black dome. The base of the column
was obscured by the bulk of the building, but I could barely make out that two great ovoids
seemed to constitute it's bottom.
"Come to me, Varnash the Wrench, and behold the supreme might of the Erection."
Would the power of megalomania never cease, I thought. By Shang, I had had just about
enough of these self-proclaiming nitwits. But, as I had no choice, I continued to approach the
great black column.
Soon I was brought to a very short distance from the base of the Erection. From the two
large ovoids below to the large dome above, it was suddenly clear to me what form the Erection
had chosen. It had fashioned itself as a huge male organ of reproduction. Realizing this, I
laughed aloud.
"Laugh not at your Master, for I hold your inconsequential life in my not inconsiderable
grip."
"The only thing you hold, you overgrown penis, is a headfull of ideas totally inconsistent
with reality and for this, as your father has decreed, you must die."
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"In case you had failed to notice, O Varnash, my minions control your every action, and
it is you who will die."
Was I indeed to die? My mission incomplete? To die to leave the universe at the mercy of
this band of highly questionable renegades. Despair engulfed me. I had failed. I forced my
minor claw to fully grasp my talisman. If I was to die, it would be holding the symbol of my
quest.
" Really , Varnash, that certainly took long enough. I was beginning to think that you had
forgotten your talisman," the voice of the OozeMaster spoke in my medulla oblongata, "The
words of power, my Wrench, use the words of power. They will terminate the machinations of
this senseless dolt. And quickly ! Quickly !"
"I thought you weren't going to help me anymore, Milord, am I not to continue on my
own?"
"I lied again, you argumentative moron. Just shut up and chant the words of power."
Words of power? I knew no such words. How could mere words defeat the puissance of a
being such as the Erection? Even in asking the question, I could feel the answer forming in my
mind. With startling clarity, I saw how to stop him. I lifted up my head, took one step toward the
great black shaft and raised my voice in full d'Lata battle cry:
"Impotence. Fear of female rejection. Frustrated lust. Premature ejaculation. Loss of selfconfidence. Impotence.", I began to chant repeatedly.
Before very long, it became apparent to all and sundry that my spell was having the
desired effect. The Erection was shrinking in stature, its color paling as I continued my chant.
”How did you know, how did you know?” came the weakening voice of the leader of the
R.I.S as I watched the great column begin to deflate and go limp.
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"Anyone with a modicum of intelligence with any information at all regarding bisexual
humanoid reproduction knows that the most expedient way of stopping an erection is to remove
its psychological fundament. Consider yourself treated thusly," I said, retracing my steps toward
the outside of the Erection's questionable shrine. And not a moment too soon, for as soon as the
column was thoroughly deflated, the building collapsed on top of it.
As I walked on, boneMensch began to appear around me. Only now they were most
definitely not giggling. Instead, they were downcast and without hope. I had brought their
adventure to an abrupt close.
"What will become of the poor hapless boneMensch?" I was asked over and over. I could
think of no appropriate answer until:
"Why not get a job, you would make a fantastic addition to the anatomy lab of any
worthwhile medical school. Think of it, a living skeleton to dissect."
Soon I saw that this simple answer had given the poor benighted creatures hope. The
listless heads arose once more with the thought of purpose bestowed upon them.
"But where do we find these schools, O Master Wrench?"
"Try the Yellow Pages under Schools, Medical. And hurry, before there's a glut on the
market. Now, begone."
I was suddenly weary of the whole business, I wished to be home. No, that wouldn't do;
at home, I was a murderer. Well then, I wished to be with Rector. No, that wouldn't do, the
Rector would be incredibly boring after all that I'd been through. The only wish that made any
sense was to be with the OozeMaster and to find out whither I should go.
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I felt a slight dizziness and, no sooner said than done, I was returned to the presence of
my Master. He positively beamed at me, if a great gelatinous puddle of protoplasm could be
thought of as capable of beaming at one.
"You have done well, my Varnash, you have saved the known universe from the
Erection."
"Marvelous, do I get a reward?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact you do. You get a new title and a new responsibility. Henceforth,
you will be the Lord of Structure and it will be your duty to be my complement and assist me in
keeping the universe in equilibrium. Bring forth your talisman."
I reached under my breastplate and produced it.
"Hold it aloft. Do you know it's import?"
"It seems to be a dirt clod eating a fishhook. Is it not so, Milord?"
"For all your prowess, Varnash, you are an incorrigible twit. It symbolizes the interplay
of Form and Non-form between the red S of structure and the gray blob of formlessness. But
now I must give you a new talisman. Behold!"
As I looked on, the talisman began to throb and change. The gray mass fell away leaving
only the curved red metal which I could now see was indeed the letter S. The S grew until it was
perhaps thrice it's original size.
"Put it on, Varnash, and never remove it. I have given it a powerful charge and, in so
doing, have taken a similar charge from you. We are now bound to each other in ways it will
take much time for you to understand. Now, go you hither from me and find your kingdom. You
have much to do to restore the senseless machinations of the Erection."
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And so I went, wondering, in spite of all that I had recently been through, if the universe
couldn't make a place for just one more migglymorph salesman.
Back to top
242
It is said that the priests of Ancient Egypt configured their gods with the heads of animals
so as to imbue the god with the characteristics of that particular beast: a cow's head meant
nurturing, maternal care; a hawks head, keen sight and swift, predatory behavior. One of the
great mysteries of archaeology is the god Set, the Lord of Darkness and murderous Destruction,
whose head has no counterpart in nature.
The simple explanation for this enigma was that the animal whom Set represented was
not born at all, but rather was created by a bastard sect of priests who wished to make a
creature so heinous, so horrible that it would give these priests absolute control over all of The
Black Land, as the land of the Nile was then called.
And so, by a species of magical genetic engineering, did these men bring together the
most brutal qualities of the hyena, the wild boar, the crocodile and the cobra as well as several
of the most vicious demons of the spirit world to create the prototype Set. All told, they created
11 of these abominations. They built a temple near the holy city of Memphis and erected the
image of Set on the great pylon and so set about a campaign of horror and death to control all
the lands of Pharaoh.
They might well have succeeded save for, in a most unprecedented alliance, the priests of
Thoth, Horus and AmonRa banded together to destroy this most horrible of Gods and his
minions. All of the bastard priests were beheaded; their heads burned so that their knowledge
could never escape into the world, and their bodies thrown to the great crocodiles of the Nile.
But the last and most formidable of these priests; the High Priest, Ani Set Ankur, managed
somehow, just before his destruction, to remove the penis bone from the last surviving beast,
secrete it in a special vessel given to him from the hand of Set himself, and bury it beneath the
great step-pyramid at Saqqara.
And so did this gruesome relic languish beneath the sands of Egypt until it was unearthed
by the minions of a modern master of malevolence; another man who sought to control all men
through the means of horror, death and darkness:
A RELIC FOR THE REICH
By Thomas Voxfire
ReichsfuhrerSS Heinrich Himmler, sitting at his desk in his office in the SS
Headquarters, was in a highly agitated state. He was expecting a phone call from the Führer
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himself; the word of god was imminent. Although he had spoken to Hitler many, many times; it
never failed to make him extremely nervous. The divine presence, even on a telephone, was
cause for both reverence and fear.
He straightened the papers on his desk for the fourth time and was about to rise to his feet
to begin to pace the floor when the phone rang. He had instructed his adjutant not to answer any
calls until he had spoken to Hitler.
He allowed the customary two rings and then lifted the receiver to his head.
"Heil Hitler," he spoke into the mouthpiece, "Himmler here."
"Ah, Heinrich," the voice said in a soft monotone, "how does the struggle go against the
enemies of the Third Reich, and, in particular, how does the search proceed for the ancient relics
of power?"
"It goes well, my Leader, the SS has two large gangs of laborers digging near the Great
Pyramids and only today a new excavation begins near the step-pyramid of Saqqara, the oldest of
all the pyramids. We have intelligence that the builder, the Pharaoh Zoser, had several of the
greatest sorcerers of his time on his staff. We are sure to find something useful to us, I am certain
of it."
"See to it, my faithful Heinrich, and quickly, for we must give our enemies no time to
pause, none whatsoever."
"It shall be so, my Leader, it shall be so." said Himmler, a dark grin passing over his face,
as he hung up the telephone.
There was no grin on the face of ObergruppenfuhrerSS Stefan Borstahl as he surveyed
the 200 plus Arab workers digging around the ruins of Saqqara. The sun was well into the sky
and the temperature had pushed over 42 degrees Centigrade.
"Blast, but it is hot," he spoke to the archaeologist standing next to him, "how do these
heathens live in this heat?"
"They and their ancestors have lived here for over 5000 years," said the scientist, Franz
Dopfke, "I believe they are used to it."
"Just so, Dopfke, but I am not. The Fatherland has a much more acceptable climate. Let
us hope we find something to please the Leader quickly." Even as he spoke, one of the diggers
began a loud ululating cry and raised something aloft. Borstahl saw a glint of reflected sunlight
from the object and other diggers took up the cry.
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"It appears as though your request has been answered, Borstahl, let us go retrieve it,
before someone tries to make off with it."
Borstahl signaled to two SS noncoms standing nearby. They raised their Schmeisser
"grease guns" to the ready and the four Germans made their way into the excited crowd, pushing
aside any workers who happened to be in the way.
The group leader arrived at the object-holding worker first and snatched the thing from
his hand. He turned around to the scientist and said, "What do you make of this? It appears to be
gold."
Dopfke examined the object, a foot-long golden cylinder, closely and then said to the
finder, in Arabic, "Where did you find this?"
The worker led him over to a small, three foot deep hole, which contained a badly
decomposed wooden box slightly larger than the cylinder. He studied the find very closely, lost
in thought, until Borstahl spoke, impatiently; "Well, Dopfke, speak. Will this thing take us out
of this accursed desert?"
The archeologist looked up, startled, and said, "Sorry, Sir, but this is most puzzling."
“How so?
“First, this does appear to be gold. The Egyptians never buried golden objects loosely by
themselves. Something like this would have been in a burial chamber or special vault. This must
have been hidden in a great hurry. Also, the only writing on it is a name set in a cartouche. The
name is that of a priest, Ani Set Ankur, a priest of Set.”
“Is that unusual?”
"Yes, very. The only people allowed to have their names in cartouches were the
Pharaohs. For a priest to do it is blasphemous. This fellow must have had a very high
opinion of himself."
"And who is Set?"
"A particularly nasty one, the Lord of Darkness and Desolation. Makes the Christian
devil look like Santa Claus."
"Christians are fools and, apparently, so were the Egyptians. But can we use this?"
"I am not certain if we can use it or not. But we must open it to find out. Listen, it
contains something." He held it up to the SS officer's ear and shook it gently; a faint rattle could
be heard.
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"Let's take it to your quarters and examine it more closely," Borstahl said to the scientist,
and to the noncoms he said, "Get these heathens back to work. Let them find more things of
interest."
The two SS men brandished their machine guns at the workers and sent them scurrying
back to their digging. Borstahl and Dopfke hurriedly made their way to the scientist’s tent.
Inside, a technician was seated at a table covered with artifacts and tools. Before he had time to
speak, Dopfke handed him the cylinder and said, "Quickly, Dietrich, no time to waste. See if you
can open this, it appears to be plugged at one end."
"Yes, sir", said the technician as he began to probe the object with a screwdriver-like
tool. Soon, he said, "This must have been done in a very great hurry, it is not like the Egyptians
to do such sloppy work. I almost have it... Ah, there." The object made a soft pop and a black
vapor came out of the cylinder, where the plug had been.
"God, what a stench," said the technician, dropping the cylinder and quitting his seat and
backing away in a lurch. The other two Germans also backed away in a hurry and all three quit
the tent in a rush.
"Loathsome...and primordial," said Dopfke, gagging.
"Not unlike the death-ditches at Dachau," said Borstahl, also gagging. Then, realizing he
had spoken of something he shouldn't, he assumed the superior air of an Aryan superman, and
said "The SS are not daunted by bad smells, let us see what we have. Re-enter, now!"
They reluctantly made their way back into the tent, the stink only slightly dissipated.
Borstahl walked to the table first, looked down and said, "Ah, we have something new. What do
you make of this." He pointed at an ivory-colored shaft, about nine inches in length, lying next to
the cylinder.
Dopfke picked up a pair of tongs and, grasping the shaft, held it up to examine it.
"Odd," he said, "very odd, it appears to be organic. Dietrich, you were trained in biology,
what do you think?" He handed the tongs to the technician, who reached out for them very
slowly.
"I remind you, technician," said Borstahl, "that you are in service of the Third Reich.
Make haste."
Duty overcame disgust and Dietrich peered at the shaft intently for several minutes
before he spoke:
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"It is a bone. Except for two things it looks very much like a penis-bone from a wolf."
"Penis-bone?" queried Borstahl, "Explain."
"Animals in nature, menaced by predators and enemies, do not have time to copulate as
we do. This sort of bone allows coitus to take place rapidly, sort of an instant erection for the
male."
"What is unusual about it?" asked Dopfke.
"It is much larger than any wolf's and one end terminates in a very sharp point. This is not
normal, this would cause very great damage to the female."
Forgetting his original repugnance, the technician tapped the pointed end as if to test its
sharpness. Suddenly, he screamed, "Holy God, it pierced me... it is taking me.." A drop of blood
hung suspended on the end of his finger and then fell onto the shaft. To the horror and
amazement of the Germans, the shaft began to tremble and then it loosened itself from the tongs
and slithered onto the arm of the technician.
The pointed end embedded itself in the flesh of his forearm and then, before any of them
could stop it, it had entered his arm completely. Dietrich screamed only once, "Holy Jesus, it has
me..." And then his eyes rolled back until they were totally white and he collapsed to the floor,
moaning and shaking.
But just before he collapsed, Borstahl and Dopfke watched with unbridled terror as his
expression changed: changed into one of malevolent lust, lust for revenge and lust for mating, a
lust denied it for over 5000 years.
In the body of Dietrich Gernsbach, the spirit of the god Set awoke. It had been bred to
take dominance by whatever means necessary. It would dominate. It would prevail. And it was
hungry, very hungry...
Although greatly shaken by what he had seen happen to the technician, Stefan Borstahl
could still think on his feet. He ordered Dietrich placed in the strongest detention cell he had and
placed a 24 hour guard on him. He did not know what he was dealing with, demonic possession,
perhaps. It did not matter. Whatever it was, if it could be put to the use of the Third Reich, he
might be able to profit greatly from it. Time would tell.
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LanzKorporalSS Hans Ostgeld had been placed on guard duty. He was not told who he
was guarding or why. Only that no one should come out and no one but Obergruppenfuhrer
Borstahl could go in. Anyone else was an intruder and should be shot.
Ostgeld had gone on duty at midnight. His shift was over at 8am. It was now 3:43am.
Ostgeld was quite tired. He was not at all sure that he could sleep during the heat of the day. So
he decided to let himself doze a little. He didn't really decide to do it. He just began dozing.
He awoke suddenly to the sound of a voice. A voice coming from inside the door he was
guarding. A soft, melodious female voice, speaking in German.
A woman, he thought, a woman, here in the desert. Wonder why they put female with a
voice like that in this little jail.
"Please, could I have some water?". the voice said, "I'm very thirsty. Please."
Hans Ostgeld really did not belong in the SS. He was much too decent a person. But his
father had high Nazi connections, so here was. Sitting in the Egyptian desert in the middle of the
night, guarding some exotic female who wanted a drink of water. Orders were orders, but how
could he refuse her?
It took him several minutes to unlock the heavily chained and padlocked door, but, finally
the deed was done. He picked up his canteen and made to pull the door open. It had opened no
more than a few inches when a great scaled claw grasped his wrist in grip of steel and he was
pulled roughly through the door. He had only the barest perception of a face straight from the Pit
of Hell when he was twisted around sharply and his back was slammed into the prisoner. He felt
a searing pain in the base of his skull and another one, even worse, in his rectum and then he was
no more.
Stefan Borstahl was sleeping fitfully, his mind torn between two images; one of leering,
red, demonic eyes staring at him from across five thousand years and the other of the pointed
bone-shaft entering the forearm of the terrified technician. He slipped between waking and
dreaming, a single question nagging at him: Can we use it or will it use us?
Suddenly he was roused by the sound of his tent-flap being whipped open and a
breathless voice that panted at him, "Sir, come quickly, you must come. Something terrible has
happened."
"What is it, Sergeant, what has happened?", asked Borstahl, shaking off his stupor.
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"The prisoner has escaped, and the sentry is dead. His body is horribly mutilated..." he
said, breaking off in a shudder.
Borstahl rose at once, threw on his tunic and followed the sergeant in a half-run. He
thought as he ran, all of my men have done duty in the death camps, they are used to mutilation.
Whatever has scared this man must be horrid in the extreme.
Abruptly, they came to the door of the detention cell. It was partially open and there was
a faint light inside. Borstahl stepped in and found the camp doctor kneeling next to a prone body.
"What is it, doctor, what has happened?"
"Unknown, Borstahl, someone or something appears to have bitten away his neck and
lower skull. His brain is gone. And his anus has been repeatedly pierced by a very sharp object.
Look!", the doctor said, shining a flashlight up and down the prone body.
Borstahl retched at the sight of the ravaged body. It was one thing to see the violated
body of a subhuman; a Jew or a Gypsy. But this was an Aryan, a brother SS. He stumbled over
to the wall and vomited, again and again.
After he had composed himself, the doctor shined the light on the posterior of the corpse,
and said, “Look at this, this is most curious.”
Borstahl peered down at he lacerated flesh of the buttocks and saw traces of a milky fluid
mixed with the blood and tatters of flesh. “What is it?” the SS leader asked.
"It closely resembles semen. Whatever killed him, copulated with him as well, with a
penis as sharp as a sword."
Borstahl's mind reeled, this was beyond his comprehension. He could not cope with what
the doctor was telling him. He called to the two SS men outside to come get this horror and bury
it immediately.
This being accomplished, Borstahl called for all his men, military and civilian, to
assemble in the mess tent immediately. He had no idea of the creature's needs, but what had been
done once could be done again. Borstahl wanted no more dead SS, it would look very bad on his
record.
The men assembled and Borstahl explained everything that had happened since the
discovery of the gold cylinder. All of them stared at him blankly, fear playing across their faces.
Many of them couldn't comprehend what was being told them, or, if they did comprehend, the
didn't believe it.
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The SS leader asked for comments or suggestions and got none. He dismissed them
ordering all of them to arm themselves and sleep in pairs, one guarding and one sleeping, in
shifts. He also ordered a complete search for the technician the next day, as soon as there was
enough sunlight. There were no more incidents that night.
At daybreak, the search began. Nothing was found anywhere in the camp or in the ruins.
The Arab workers were interrogated to see if any of them had seen or heard anything unusual
during the night. Again, there was nothing. The rest of the day passed uneventfully.
As night approached, Borstahl assembled all of his men and the Arab leaders of the work
gangs and told them to be very careful of anything unusual seen or heard during the night. He
was not very specific with the Arabs because he didn't want them alarmed unduly. Only that if
anything happened out of the ordinary, the workers should summon the SS immediately.
The night passed, seemingly without event. But the next morning, two Arabs were
discovered dead, their bodies having suffered the same treatment as the SS guard. No one had
seen or heard anything, as the two Arabs had been sleeping apart from the main group. Within
the hour, all of the Arabs had fled, leaving only the Germans to cope with a growing sense of
dread.
For the next four days, the pattern was the same. A daylight search revealed nothing. At
night, regardless of the strictest precautions, another body would be found, savagely mutilated.
Finally, with the greatest reluctance, Borstahl contacted SS headquarters in Berlin and told them
all that had happened. He was summarily told that there had better be no more SS deaths and that
Gestapo officers would be dispatched immediately. Now, there was nothing to do but wait.
It was now the sixth day since the relic had been discovered. And seven deaths. Borstahl,
Dopfke and the camp doctor, Lentz were seated in Lentz's quarters, trying in vain to find some
solution to the horrible enigma confronting them before the Gestapo arrived.
"This thing is a total will o' the wisp." said Dopfke," It leaves no traces except dead
bodies. It is not seen nor heard. Thorough searches reveal nothing."
"I am completely at my wit’s end," said Borstahl, "it's almost as if we have no choice but
to sit here and die. Clearly, we need help, but from where?"
As if by summons, the flap to the tent opened and an SS noncom poked his head in,
saying, "Sir, there is someone, an Arab, who says he must see you. He says it is vitally urgent."
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The three Germans looked at each other in astonishment and nodded agreement.
Somehow, their prayers (if members of the Third Reich could be thought of as praying) may well
have been answered. “Show him in at once,” Borstahl told the noncom.
The soldier's head retreated from the tent flap and a small, wizened man, with a long
white beard, wearing a burnoose and Arab caftan glided silently into the tent. He placed himself
directly in front of Borstahl and fixed the SS leader with an intense, piercing stare.
"You have unleashed a very ancient and very powerful evil on the race of man. It must be
stopped immediately or the magnitude of the horror it will bring is almost beyond imagination,"
the old man said, in perfect German.
"How can you serve the Third Reich, old man?" asked Borstahl, "What can you tell us
that will help?"
"I have no interest in serving the Third Reich or your Leader, but I cannot stand by and
see my fellow human beings suffer and die needlessly. Especially at the hands of one so heinous
as the god-monster Set." said the old man.
"Who are you?" asked the doctor, "and what does a modern Arab know of the gods of
Egypt?"
"I am not an Arab, my ancestry is Hebrew. My people were in bondage here at the
time..."
"We need no help from a subhuman Jew," cried Borstahl, "get out or I will have you
shot."
The archaeologist held up his hand to stop the SS leader's outburst and said "We need
help from wherever we can get it, Obergruppenfuhrer, don't let prejudice outweigh practicality."
Borstahl's head sunk to his chest and he was lost in thought for several minutes. Finally,
he spoke, "You are correct, Dopfke. My SS indoctrination is very strong. What must we do, old
man?"
“How many deaths have there been and how did you deal with the bodies?, asked the old
Jew.
“Seven, we buried them in the sand.” answered Borstahl.
“Then we must exhume the first body and examine it. If my suspicions are correct, mere
burial is not sufficient. We must make haste.”
“What suspicions are those?" asked Dopfke, "How did you come to know of this?"
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"The rumor of the return of very ancient evil is all over Cairo. Gentlemen, we are wasting
precious time."
Borstahl, wanting to have the problem solved before the Gestapo arrived, immediately
summoned four soldiers and ordered them to dig up the first body.
They proceeded to the burial site and, in a very short space of time, the soldier's shovels
had made contact with the body which was no longer a body.
Lentz's breath hissed from his mouth as he spoke, "What in the name of God is that?"
Below him in the shallow grave was a roughly man-sized envelope of splotchy gray-brown
color. Beneath it's slimy, translucent surface movement could be seen; short, erratic jerks as if
whatever was inside was trying to force its way out.
"It is as I thought," said the old man, "the Set thing is reproducing itself. This must be
destroyed now. Shoot it and then gather as much gasoline as you can. Now!"
Borstahl gave the orders. A soldier stepped forward and emptied his machine gun into the
envelope. Yellow pus-like stuff began to ooze out of the bullet holes. The movement inside the
thing appeared to cease. The soldier leaned over the hole to see better. There was a sudden
ripping sound as a scaled claw snaked out of the cocoon and closed around the soldier's neck.
He was pulled down onto the surface. Another tearing noise came out as a short snout
attached itself to the soldiers face. He screamed as a mouthful of fangs bit the front of his head
off. More ripping sounds came forth as more of the creature revealed itself.
"Shoot it more! More!" cried the old Jew. "We must have the gasoline now!"
The other three soldiers fired at the creature, point blank. Sibilant moaning sounds came
from the snout as it spat out the soldier's face. Its movements were slower than before.
Just then an armored transport arrived, three large barrels of gasoline in the rear. Borstahl
ordered it to back up to the hole and have one drum emptied onto the thing in the grave. As soon
as the drum was finished, the vehicle pulled away and Borstahl fired into the gasoline, which
erupted into flame.
An inhuman howl filled the air as the thing approached death. In the flames, two great
claws grasped at the empty air and the jaws of the dying monster gnashed together. The watching
men were more than aware that they were watching something of incredible power and tenacity
trying to cheat death. Soon there was no more movement.
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"It is still not dead completely. It must be burned until nothing is left of it but ash. It has
astounding powers of regeneration," said the old man. "We must do the same to the other bodies.
Quickly! Quickly!"
All took shovels and began to dig. As they moved down the line of the sand-filled ditch,
each body in order was a little more human. The last body was nearly normal, except for a thin,
slimy membrane growing over the exposed face. The soldiers walked up and down the ditch,
emptying clip after clip into it. Then, hundreds and hundreds of gallons of gasoline went in.
Soon, a fifty foot long wall of flame reached up out of the ditch.
"We have only a few hours until sunset. We must find the original abomination before
nightfall. It knows what we have done to it's children and when it comes out into the night it will
be driven by more than just hunger or the desire to mate. Implacable desire for revenge will push
it to kill all of us. And it is quite capable of doing this," said the old man.
"But how?" asked Dopfke, "We have looked everywhere, again and again."
"It is capable of invisibility and changing it's appearance, it simply didn't look like itself.
It is most probably hiding where it first transformed."
"The detention cell where it killed the sentry," said Borstahl, "Let's go, on the double."
In a very few minutes, they stood in front of the cell. The door stood slightly ajar. The old
man pulled a large reddish jewel from out of his robe and stood gazing at it. Finally, he said,
“Yes, it cannot hide from the shew-stone. It is in there, apparently dormant. The legend says they
cannot function in daylight. But as soon as the sun is beneath the horizon, it will be upon us."
"Then we can just go in and kill it, yes?" asked Dopfke.
"Legends are not always completely correct," the old man answered. "I don't know the
extent of its' powers. It's children could move in direct sunlight, we saw that as they were shot. I
believe we should seal it in and destroy it from outside."
"Seal it how?" asked Borstahl.
"Magically," answered the old one, "with lamb's blood. Many thousands of years ago my
people protected themselves from the Angel of Death by putting lamb's blood on their door
lintels so that the Angel would pass over them. We should be able to seal the beast in the same
way."
Borstahl was about to comment cynically on the bitter irony of having a Jew and a Jewish
ritual protecting members of the Third Reich, but thought better of it and instead, turned to his
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second in command, LeutnantSS Dieter Von Appel, and ordered him to take several men and
procure some lambs. Immediately, the men were gone.
As they waited, Borstahl ordered all of the ordnance and gasoline at his disposal brought
to the front of the detention cell. It was now no more than one hour until sunset. A few minutes
later, his underling drove up in a truck. The men could hear the baaing of lambs from the cargo
area of the vehicle.
Borstahl ordered the lambs dispatched now. One by one, they were held over a bucket,
head down. Their throats were slit and the blood dribbled down into the bucket. When all the
blood had been gathered, the old Jew took the bucket, said a few words in Hebrew over it,
produced a handkerchief, dipped it in the blood and spread it all over the door lintel.
Abruptly, there was a low hellish growl from inside the cell. The smell of blood had
awakened the creature and, in awakening, the realization of what the men had done to its
children filled it with fury. Sunlight or no sunlight, the thing jumped to its feet and sprang for the
open door.
The men outside saw the door fly open with a great crashing noise. The monster made
ready to rush outside but stopped in its tracks. The lamb's blood has performed its' function: the
thing could not pass it. It backed into the darkness instead, howling as it went.
Dopfke was transfixed; he could not move. Sheer horror at the sight of the beast had
paralyzed him. The creature was approximately man-sized and the first impression was that it
was an upright crocodile. But that impression was incorrect. Upon closer inspection, the body
was shaped more like a man's: it had powerfully muscled arms that ended in two vicious clawed
hands. The barrel chest was huge and also greatly muscled. It was covered completely with large
gray-brown scales and it had a massive erection with a razor-sharp tip at the base of its' torso.
But the face was the worst of all, it was straight from Hell. Two hooded eyes, which
seemed to glow a dull red, glared out at the men with diabolical hatred. The snout, crocodile-like
but shorter, was filled with huge slimy fangs. It was hooded, somewhat like a cobra, and it
swayed slightly as it stood, much the same as a viper ready to strike. It aroused the instinctive,
primordial fear in the men of the mammal for the reptile. None of them had ever seen anything
so totally hideous.
The sound of a car's horn heralded the coming of a long Mercedes staff-car, small
swastika flags adorning the front bumpers. The Gestapo had chosen this moment to arrive. The
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staff-car came to stop next to the men. Two hard-looking civilians exited the vehicle and walked
toward the group. One of them said, "Heil Hitler, we wish to speak to Obergruppenfuhrer
Borstahl. Which one of you is he?"
No one answered. The terrible apparition of the Egyptian Lord of Darkness had left the
men speechless. They were stunned, inanimate.
"You are dealing with agents of the Geheime Staats Polizei; you had better find your
tongues rapidly," said the second agent.
Borstahl shook off his fear and said, "I am Borstahl. It is I that called you."
"Speak, Borstahl, we have heard of SS deaths. Hitler and Himmler are not pleased. What
is your situation?" asked the first Gestapo agent. He motioned Borstahl to follow him around the
detention cell. When they reached the rear of the cell, the agent leaned nonchalantly against the
wooden planks that constituted the walls of the cell, and said, "Choose your words carefully, SS,
your life may well depend on what you..."
He didn't have time to finish his sentence, as the boards next to him flew to splinters from
a powerful blow. A claw closed around his throat and the agent was drug into the opening,
screaming.
The old Jew was the first to arrive. He was surprisingly agile for one so old. He surveyed
the scene and said to himself, "By Jehovah, I should have realized..." He ran to the front and
picked up the bucket of lamb's blood and began to draw a continuous line around the cell,
starting with the door.
Inside, Set had crushed the back of the agent against him, bit through the man's skull and
sucked out his brain, while he pummeled the man's anus with his sword-like penis. In seconds he
had a mighty orgasm and then let the agent's body slump to the floor. His semen would take care
of the rest.
As he digested the brain, Set's mind was flooded with the Gestapo's knowledge. This was
no mere foot-soldier. This was a man of some stature in a newly formed state. A state not unlike
the one his priests were building so many thousands of years ago. A state built on horror, hate
and death with a leader not unlike Ani Set Ankur.
Set became aware that the man he had just taken had an associate that would soon be
returning to the seat of power of this new state. He must return with this man. He wished to be
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the god of this new order. But he realized also that he must refrain from being so impulsive, he
must move with restraint. A plan began to form in his mind…
Outside, Borstahl had explained the situation to the second Gestapo and pleaded for no
more delays. The creature had to be destroyed at once. The agent, shocked by the death of his
comrade, could not but agree.
Borstahl gave orders to his men. First, a soldier emptied a flame-thrower into the open
doorway. Then, a second. Two more were kept in readiness until they had a more specific target.
Next, a large number of hand grenades were thrown into the door way. Soon, the cell was
nothing more than burning rubble.
It was now quite dark. The flames cast an eerie glow on the whole scene. When the wood
had burned almost completely, Borstahl ordered it probed for body remains. Several SS began to
go through the burning rubble with shovels. It was not long before they found what was left of
the Gestapo agent and the monster. Borstahl ordered more wood piled on the remains and then
had the other flame throwers brought into play. Soon there was nothing but ash.
But, in the darkness and confusion, no one saw the penis-bone of Set exit his body
before it was totally destroyed. And no one saw it slither over to the surviving Gestapo and enter
his leg. Before the agent could speak, he was in Set's control. This time, however, Set had
decided not to transform the man immediately. He would wait for a more auspicious moment for
his unveiling. Until then, he would exert only enough of himself to control the man's actions.
No one had seen the movement of the penis-bone , but the old Hebrew had seen the
Gestapo momentarily startled by the pain of its entry and he had seen a demonic glare sweep
across his face which quickly returned to its normal state. He hurried over to Borstahl and said:"
Sir, I must tell you that I believe that this is not over..."
"Silence, Jew," he spat at the old man, suddenly blaming him for the entire episode. Had
not Hitler taught them that Jews were the cause for all the evils in the world.?, "I have had
enough of you and your Jewish rituals. Go. Get out or I will have you shot." As he spoke, he
motioned two soldiers toward the old one. "If he is not gone in one minute, shoot him," Borstahl
told the SS.
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The old man gave a long, despairing sigh and turned away. Over his shoulder, he said,
"Good luck, my Aryan friend, as Jehovah is my witness, you are going to need it." Within
seconds, he had melted into the night.
The next morning, the Gestapo agent left for Berlin, assuring Borstahl that he would
speak favorably of Borstahl's heroic actions to Himmler. Borstahl was sure to get a promotion.
Also, the Nazis would get a new friend and mentor. Hitler would unwittingly get his relic
of power. And the most evil and destructive Lord of Darkness ever conceived in the history of
man would ascend to the throne of the Third Reich.
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257
Rend…
By Thomas Voxfire ©2001
It began as a tear: a small shift in the space-time continuum. They happen all the time;
in the void, in stars, in planets. They come and go. Unnoticed. But not this one; this one
evolved in the belly of a mouse. It began as life; so it had life. And hunger… ravenous hunger.
“Billy” his mother yelled at him from the kitchen, “did you check that trap you set last
night?”
“Not yet, mama,” he yelled back at her, “but I will.”
“He’s a good boy,” she thought, “he’s always ready with a yes.” She was musing on how
she might reward her son’s goodness when, suddenly, a shriek, a cry of intense horror and pain,
tore through the kitchen. She had never in her life heard such a scream…
She raced onto the rear porch to find her son slumped on the floor, snapping to and fro in
powerful convulsions, as if yanked by a giant string held by a giant claw.
“Billy, oh god, what’s wrong? Oh baby, what…” she moaned at the writhing shape as she
reached down to touch it…him. She tried to stop his wild twisting. He shook and spun around in
her grip until she looked directly into what had been his face and a wave of nauseous terror
swept through her.
Where Billy’s face had been was now a huge bloody gash, through which blood, brain,
mucus and saliva poured out. The gash widened and spread into his neck and then into his shirt
collar. She heard a popping, tearing, rending sound as his body was ripped open.
She was so numbed with shock that she didn’t notice when her hand, where she was
touching Billy, had a small gash open in it and then race up her forearm. Before she had time to
scream, her body was torn to shreds.
What was left of her slumped onto Billy. What ever it was, it joined them.
Together…forever…mother and son…and it. They congealed together, as fresh blood congeals
from a slash. They and it, whatever it was, were one.
From nothing, came something, something joined with more. Sensation flooded this
new creature, formed of nothing torn from nothing… and small…and bigger…and bigger yet.
Dissolved and coagulated over and over. Ripped and joined, until all became one. The body
grew, the mind grew, the hunger grew…it wanted more.
Billy’s dad pulled his ancient Chevy pick-up into the driveway. It had been a long day at
the office and he was bushed. All he wanted to do was kiss mama and Billy, collapse into his
favorite chair and fall asleep watching TV. He never got to do anything but kiss mama.
“Hi honey, I’m home,” he called out as he walked through the front door.
“I’m in the kitchen, dearest” she called back. “Come give us a kiss.” He barely noticed
how strange and strangled her voice sounded. He found her in her favorite room, bent over
something on the kitchen table, her face turned away from him. There was a strong, pungent
odor in the room: the smell of the slaughterhouse. Too tired to notice that, he reached out and put
his hand on her shoulder and pulled it back quickly, coated with blood.
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“What…?” he started to say as she turned to kiss him. He bent to her automatically, but
even as their lips met, a livid pulsing gash spread across her face, engulfing his. His body arched
and convulsed as his tissue was lacerated, slashed, devoured. In seconds, they were joined in a
way not even sexual union could mimic.
A new sensation…lust. It grew, extended, lusted for this new dimension. But it had
taken much into it’s new being; it needed torpor, rest. It slept, metamorphosed and grew. Pure
hunger was transmuted to desire for union. New memories flooded its mind, new desires…It
swelled with lust.
Suzy was hooking the south side of 10th St., she always hooked the south side; that’s
where all the action was. From the ranchers driving out of town after they sold their loads at the
packing sheds. They had money and they wanted to party before they drove home to their boring
wives with their boring pussies.
When the old Chevy pick-up pulled up to the curb, Suzy gave the driver a big smile and
said, “Hi baby, wanna party?” She knew this guy! This wasn’t a rancher; this was Mr. Family
Man with the dumpy wife and the little pink-cheeked kid. She’d seen them at the grocery store.
“What gives?”, she wondered. “Who cares?” she also wondered. Money is money. So she got in,
slid over next to him and laid her left hand on his lap.
She felt his swelling rod under her hand and gave it a big squeeze. And another. This guy
was ready. He gave a long sigh and she felt his rod jump in her hand. He’d come already; this
was the easiest $20 she was ever going to make. She went to reach out her hand for the money,
but it wouldn’t move: it was stuck.
She looked down and saw her hand sitting in the middle of a growing red stain. This
wasn’t cum, it was blood. Abruptly, she saw a slice start between her fingers and rush up her
arm. She screamed, went into shock and fainted. When she woke, she was no longer just Suzy.
She was Billy, mama, dad, Suzy and it. And hungry. And horny…
The mind grew…it reached…absorbed…drank deep of the blood of life. A new idea, a
new thing…intellect…questions. A new lust…to follow the other lusts … knowledge.
The Suzy-thing knew what she-it needed to do. She needed to learn. And schools were
where you learned. She drove to Carver High School, parked in front and walked inside, miniskirt and tube-top concealing nothing. She heard the cat-calls and wolf-whistles from the dudes
standing around the entrance. She’d be back in a sec, to collect a little…well, you know, action.
She turned right and sauntered down the hall toward Mr. Throneberry’s room. He was the
only teacher who had ever tried to help her be anything but a party girl. She liked him, she
wanted him…with her…inside her . Now!
“Hi, teach,” she said, walking into class, oblivious to the stares of the twenty-some odd
students, who suddenly saw a reason to stop being bored for a minute or two. In a minute or two,
they’d be anything but bored. “I wanna know everything you know, now!” she continued, taking
his hand and putting it on her breast. She giggled at him, “You know, book learning and body
learning, all at once.”
Shocked by the suddenness of her approach, Dick Throneberry felt himself respond to her
stunning advance. He felt his member begin to swell. Suzy felt it, too, as her hand left his and
slid down to his crotch. She squeezed him several times, then pulled down his zipper and reached
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inside. She felt him jerk and saw the glazed look in his eye. She had him…she knew it. She lifted
her lips to kiss him.
The class watched, in shocked silence, as the most intense porno scene they had ever
witnessed turned into bloodbath of unrelenting horror. Just as her lips reached his, Suzy’s head
split with a loud snap and her head engulfed his. In seconds, she had exploded around him…in
him…with him. And he with her: one in grisly fleshlust, one in body and knowledge.
The students screamed and hurled themselves at the door; panic beyond measure
whipping them into frenzy. All but three escaped before Dick-Suzy-it came to its senses and
stopped them. It placed one hand on the two running boys and it’s foot on the girl and split and
digested them in a very few seconds. When the slaughter was over; demure little Adrienne
Atkins, preacher’s daughter and class bookworm, walked down the hall and out the back door.
She now had the uncommon good sense not to try and get the ancient Chevy pick-up waiting for
Suzy out by the entrance. After all, Suzy was no more.
For a very brief space of time, it knew satiation. But satiation gave way to hunger, lust
and questions. And a new longing, one of the spirit, the newly acquired spirit; a longing to
know; not know, experience a fresh thing: unity with that which is beyond the flesh…
Adrienne-it’s father was a man of the cloth, a man of God. A man with a yearning of the
spirit that he shared vociferously with his flock whenever he had the opportunity. And, as his
daughter entered the nave of his church, he had the opportunity to share it with her. A sharing
beyond his wildest imagination…
“Daddy,” Adrienne asked as she walked up the aisle, “did God make everything that will
ever be?”
“Of course, he did, dumpling,” answered the Reverend Aristophanes Atkins in his most
unctuous tone, “the Lord God Almighty did make all of the Spheres of Creation from the highest
heavens to the deepest hells. He did makest all the things…”
“Did he make cocks and pussies, daddy? Hunh, did he?”
“What did you say?” the Reverend screeched, his face going livid red, “How dare
you…?”
In the mean time, a group of terrified history students underwent a brief but very intense
interrogation by one Sheriff Wilson Atkins. Stories were listened to but not believed. All the
stories were essentially the same. There hadn’t been time to conspire such a dubious tale. Class
rosters were checked; three students were unaccounted for. There was blood on the classroom
floor. There was undiminished horror in the eyes and voices of all concerned. Gradually,
disbelief transmuted into conviction. Something incredibly horrible and grotesque had happened.
A search began…
It had gained new faculties at such a pace, it scarcely knew how to use them. Sensing
the necessity for a new vehicle of expression, it reached inside of itself to an older, more
effective form. It changed…
The Reverend shouted his diatribe at the ceiling, so that the Almighty would know the
extreme consternation and agitation his daughter had caused him when he heard an odd sound. A
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sound like a dog makes when it is run over by a car: a crunching, crashing, mewling sound: a
sound of death and pain.
He whirled to find that his daughter had been replaced by Suzy Tenth Street, the object of
many more than one of his sermons on the evils of vice and lust. A lust he had shared with Suzy
in the rear closet of the church. A lust he would share once more, and only once…
“Hi Revvie!” Suzy bubbled, “tell me all about God and I’ll lick your lollipop until your
eyeballs pop.”
“Well, my child,” answered the man of God, completely unconcerned about the
whereabouts of his recently transformed child, “the Lord Almighty is in all things. You can find
him in here.” He said as he pulled down his fly.
Suzy sidled up to him and, as she reached into his pants, asked, “Can God heal all
wounds?”
“Of course, He can, you little slut.”
“Can He heal this?” she demanded as she grasped his stiffening rod, ready to rend him
asunder. But Suzy-it had learned a small capacity for control. The longer the rending took, the
more satisfying and pleasurable it was. She would rip him and absorb him slowly, to get the
fullest measure of pleasure. He screamed as his penis began to tear in two.
Outside, Sheriff Atkins quit his vehicle and headed for the front door of his brother’s
church. His niece, Adrienne, was one of the students not accounted for on the class roster. He
liked the little bookworm, she was quiet and knew her place around her betters. He hated selfassured, brassy women.
Abruptly, a scream of incredible intensity split the air. He’d never heard a scream like
that before. It sounded like somebody (probably his brother) was getting his dick cut off with a
dull knife. Serve the old hypocrite right, he thought, until he remembered why he was here. The
class and the monster, whatever it was.
He raced to the front door and, finding it locked, kicked it open. He saw only Suzy Tenth
Street at the other end of the nave. Bitch…slut, he thought. She epitomized everything he hated
about women: brassy, aggressive, desirable.
“Where’s my brother, bitch?” he yelled at her. Remembering her as the one who had
killed the teacher and the other kids, he pulled his gun out as he lumbered down the nave toward
her. “What the hell did you do to him?
“Oh he split,” she giggled, “Hey Sheriff, wanna party?” she said as she pulled her tubetop over her head with a blood-covered hand, “Wanna rock and roll? Want me to lick you all
over?”
Enough! He’d had enough! He fired at her - point blank - again and again and again until
the hammer clicked down on an empty chamber. Suzy just stood there, unmoving, with a strange
bewildered look on her face. She-it could have let the bullets pass through her but instead, out of
curiosity, she melded with this strange hard, cold new thing which entered her with such force.
She altered herself to become one with the bullets. This would prove to be her-it’s undoing.
The Sheriff watched in total horror and amazement as Suzy’s skin began to turn dark
grey and her features started to look more and more like a statue’s. Numbed, he saw her change
slowly into something like his brother, then his niece, then some teenagers, then a man, a woman
and a boy. Finally, there was nothing there but a vaguely mouse-shaped rock. Then a soft
sucking sound grew in the church and continued to grow until it sounded like the Universe was
being sucked inside out. Then there was nothing but absolute silence. He stood there, rocking
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slowly back and forth, still holding his gun, his mind blank, glutted with sheer sensory overload.
He would never find his way back to sanity.
The tear in the fabric of space/time was breached…plugged…healed. It had sealed itself
up with its last metamorphosis. But not before it had dragged nine human souls into hell. And
these tears happen all the time…
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262
Xantherus, Sorcerer of Darkness, lies in state:
Nailed to a descending Cross, mockery of the Nazarene.
Body corrupted by the hunger of bacilli and maggots.
Slain by the Lord of Light for blaspheming the Most High:
Dog-god! Seducer of Virgins! Eater of Children!
The Dark Elders decree his rise;
Summon the Enchantress; Mistress of the Pit!
Call forth the Fiery One, let the Flames consume
His earthly vesture, Give his Spirit another House.
The Chant begins:
"O Nameless One, whose breath is the Fire of Hell!
Come thou forth, And let they flame
Destroy All that is, So from the Ash will spring:
The Specter of Xantherus will walk again,
Among the Legions of the Living!"
The deed is done!
Bodiless red eyes pierce the Night!
Flames leap from an Unseen Mouth!
The hardened Heart of the Cult knows Fear,
As the Fire Daemon works his way!
Xantherus is ash: bone, sinew, blood, maggots: All is ash!
The Evil is unleashed, a Sacrifice is sought,
Flesh must be taken for Flesh given in the Flame:
The Sorceress screams; eyes blood-mad-red,
As her soul is possessed by the Dread One.
The Dark Goddess rises, red-gleaming eyes proclaim:
The Second Coming of Xantherus
In the body of a She-Devil
Free to work Her Will in the World of Men:
Who will know only Death, Desolation and Despair!
NO LONGER LET THE GODS BE MOCKED
By Thomas Voxfire © 1997
He had been Evil before there was Good. He had been Darkness before there was Light.
His spirit had infected the Infinite Void before there was Space and Time. His Presence lured
Lucifer from the Almighty. His Essence corrupted the demons Astaroth, Beelzebub, and
263
Paymon. His breath blackened the Wings of Angels. He is the spawn of Chaos and Her return is
imminent…
Before she was able to walk, little Melanie Dillon was plucking flies from the air with her
fingers so she could pull off their wings. In early childhood, she learned to set fires with her
mind, often at great distances and in the most unusual vulnerable places. In her early teens, she
set adults on the path of total mental degradation, if for no other reason than to take pleasure in
their distress. By the time of her majority, she had used her potent feminine wiles to lure scores
of men, including her father, to their dishonor and death. And all of this was done in the spirit of
guileless innocence. When you are utterly evil, the absence of good has no need for remorse.
She was not unaware of her unique nature. She knew herself different from others. She
was wholly alone; a dark star in the Abyss. She possessed an intellect vast and cool. Her physical
beauty was incomparable: she was irresistible to men, as if she had been the twin of the goddess
Aphrodite. But, for all of this, she was without true purpose until, early in her twenty second
summer, she met a man who taught her the lust for power.
She lay in his arms after a singularly successful mutual orgasm. As their breathing
returned to normal, he whispered into her ear, “Sugar, you could screw your way into the White
House if you wanted. I never knew a woman could do it like you. You’d have the ol’ prez eatin’
out of your hand, no problem.”
At first, his words made no sense to her. Why would she want to screw her way into
anything? She made love primarily for her own pleasure and because she liked to toy with men
according to wanton impulse. She brooded his comment for a moment and then suddenly, as a
flash of lightning, the import of what he was saying brought her life into focus: unbridled power
was hers for the fucking.
“Dearest, what a marvelous idea, I must reward you for it,” she spat into his mouth. She
left him choking to death on his own blood and sputum.
Washington DC was no stranger to the bizarre, in fact, the city catered to it. So when the
Cult of Shiva opened its portals in the stately North West quadrant, few eyebrows were raised.
So a new temple to the God of Destruction and Regeneration had opened. The seat of American
power had as many religions as it did nationalities. One more meant little or nothing. At first...
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Senator Paul Trayson was a busy man. As the President pro tem of the Senate, he
commanded and used a considerable amount of power on the Hill. He loved to wield power;
loved to feel the anxiety of those he controlled; loved the heady feel of dominion. At the
moment, he stood in the center of a group of his aides in the capitol entrance hall, plotting the
political demise of the President’s latest appointee for Secretary of State.
“Again, Wilson,” the Senator spoke softly, “tell me once more how you plan to smear
Danberry. I love the sound of it.”
“It’s simple, sir,” came the reply, “his daughter is the original hot pants mama. She’s had
more abortions that Jimmy Carter has peanuts. We’re paying her doctor 25K to do an interview
with the National Repor...”
“Senator Trayson, may I speak with you?” an elegant female voice interrupted.
The men turned toward the voice, ready to send the hapless woman summarily away and
found themselves gawking at one of the most exotically beautiful women any of them had ever
seen. Long black hair coiled about her face, entwined with jewels. Her deep blue eyes were
shadowed with purple mascara and her lush lips were colored as scarlet as sunset. The gauzy
green robe she wore did nothing to conceal her full breasts and hips.
The Senator shook himself out of a daze and answered, “Yes, my dear, how may I be of
service?”
She stepped into the circle of men, her perfume enveloping them, and handed a gold card
to the Senator. “We must speak privately, sir. Would you care to attend me at my temple this
evening? Do come alone.” With that she turned slowly, brushing him lightly with her breasts,
and melted into the crowded lobby.
Senator Trayson was the first to speak; “Who, in the name of time, was that? Any of you
ever see her before? And what was that red spot on her forehead.”
“I think that means she’s a Hindu,” answered Wilson, “but she didn’t look Indian.”
“No,” answered the Senator, “she looked more like an American movie star. What are my
plans for this evening?”
“Reception at the French Embassy, sir. You wanted to talk to the frogs about their
nuclear testing program. You said it was urgent.”
265
“It can wait,” came the reply. “I need to involve myself intimately with Eastern religion. I
feel myself drawn to it.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure you do.”
Trayson glanced at the card in his hand; in blue letters it said, “Satyarin Reja, Priestess
of Shiva” with a local address and phone number. In the center of the card was a picture of the
six-armed Hindu god dancing on a human body. The card was quite beautiful and quite
unsettling at the same time. The Senator overcame his anxiety with lust. He handed the card to
Wilson and told him to run the standard check on it - FBI, Interpol and the CIA.
“And so, Senator,” she said, pouring him a second glass of wine, “your interests and mine
are quite similar, are they not?”
“It depends on what interests you are talking about, Ms. Reja,” he answered, “I’m always
interested in beautiful women,”
“And I in handsome, powerful men,” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder, “but
what I am speaking of is the incumbent in the White House. I do not look upon him with favor.”
“He’s a pig-headed fool,” said the Senator, becoming slightly irritated, “always billing
and cooing about the homeless and human rights. People in power are there to take care of the
powerful, that’s how I see it.”
“I quite agree. You see, our interests are quite similar, as I said. Would you like to see
him out of office?”
“Sure, but fat chance. He’s healthy as a horse, has no skeletons in the closet that I’ve
been able to find and has three more years of his term left. We’re stuck with him.”
“What if something were to happen to him, something unforeseen?”
“Then that veep of his would get in, and he’s even more of a slobbering nitwit. I think the
idiot is even in Greenpeace.”
“I see. And what if his veep, as you say, should encounter some unforeseen
circumstance? What then?”
“I think I know where this is headed, ma’am. Next comes the Speaker of the House, I’m
fourth in line.”
“Fascinating,” she said letting her hand drop from his shoulder to his knee, “you are only
three heartbeats from being President.”
266
He realized that this was not the conversation that he should be having with an almost
total stranger. But the effect this Priestess of Shiva was having on him was turning his mind into
mush. Lust was overwhelming his ability to think.
“What if I could arrange three unfortunate accidents?” she asked in a sibilant whisper, her
face coming to within inches of his,“ completely unconnected to each other and traceable to no
one. Suppose you found yourself suddenly in the White House? Would you remember who put
you there? Would you then be kind to me?”
“Lady, you get me in the White House and I’ll give you any thing you want. Count on
it!”
“I will indeed, sir. Let us seal our agreement, with a kiss,”
She bent forward and placed her mouth on his. After a moment, her tongue snaked past
his lips as her hand slid up his thigh to grasp his stiffening member. He was hers, she knew it and
he knew it. The rest would come...
I feel like a boy again, Paul Trayson thought as he breezed into his office early next
morning. “Hi, Maggie, wonderful day,” he said to his secretary, “haven’t felt better in years.”
“Good morning, sir,” she replied, not wanting to spoil his unusual good mood, but
knowing that she had no choice. “Senator, wait, ah...did you hear about Tom Donnelly?”
“No, what did that old curmudgeon do now?”
“He’s dead, sir, early this morning. It’s been all over the news. Weren’t you listening?”
“No, I was...” he trailed off, dumbstruck. He didn’t really like Old Man Donnelly, but
they had done each other a few favors and he respected the Speaker as he respected very few.
“What in God’s name happened?”
“I guess he was in the tub, sitting in the water, and his wife tripped and dropped her
blow-dryer into the tub with him. He was electrocuted.”
Trayson mumbled something incoherent and stumbled blindly into his office, his new
lover’s words echoing in his mind: “You are only three heartbeats from being president.” He
hadn’t taken her seriously, who would? But, obstacle number three to the White House was gone
and he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, why and how.
He shook off the momentary panic he felt and punched the intercom, “Maggie, where’s
Wilson? Beep him and tell him to get his ass over here now!”
267
“He just walked in, sir. He’s on his way in.”
Wilson was barely through the door and didn’t even get the chance to get a word out
before the Senator barked at him, “What did you find out about that woman?”
“It’s weird, sir. She is a complete blank slate. No records, nothing. It’s like she never was
born, here or India or anywhere; not under the name on that card.”
The Senator took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He thought for a long time before he
spoke, “Wilson, I have always thought of you as my best man, can I trust you implicitly?
“You know that, sir. I’d never let you down.”
“Good! Okay. Wilson, I was intimate with her and I said some things I shouldn’t have. I
must know who she is. Go to her temple, tell her I left my watch or something. Get her to touch
something. Get some prints and run them. Quick!”
Wilson was out the door in an instant and Trayson sank back in his chair, feeling the very
uncommon sensation of fear. What had he got himself into?
The day wore on slowly. The death of the Speaker would bring some major changes on
the Hill. All day he fielded questions from members of his party in the House wanting to know
how to handle this or that. By the end of the day, the Senator was tired and wanted to just go
home and get a good night’s sleep. Then he remembered...
“Maggie,” he barked into the intercom, “what do you hear from Wilson? Where the hell
is he? I need that information he’s getting.”
“I don’t know, Senator,” her voice showing the tension of the day, “I’ve heard nothing
from him. I’ve been so busy with all these calls, I haven’t thought much about him.”
“Okay, Maggie, go home, get some rest,” he said, unusually sympathetic, “I think we
both need it.”
“Yes, sir, thank you. Oh, sir, there’s someone here to see you. A woman. She’s only just
come in. Her name is Reja. Do you want to see her?”
Trayson choked an inaudible reply. Before he had a chance to really say no, the door
opened and his exotic new lover walked in and without the slightest hesitation, crossed to where
he was standing and urged her hips into his, her lips finding and clinging to his. Any thought of
fear or self-preservation fled from him, drowned in insatiable desire.
She massaged her body into his as she whispered into his mouth, “Well, dearest, how do
you like being no more than two heartbeats from the presidency? Am I not effective?”
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“You are incredible,” he breathed huskily, not really thinking about the Speaker. “I need
you now, here.”
“In this office? How common. Come to me tonight at the temple. I will demonstrate
postures from the kama-sutra. You will be in heaven,” she said as she stepped slowly away from
him.
He shook himself from his aroused stupor and asked, “Did my man Wilson come to see
you? I think I left my watch at your place.”
“No, dearest, I had no visitors today except for the faithful who came to worship. But you
will visit me tonight, will you not?” she said as she stepped through the door.
“Count on it, my dear,” he answered, his mind torn between watching her leave and
wondering what the hell had happened to his most loyal aide. He picked up the telephone and
dialed a certain friend in the FBI, a friend who owed him some discreet favors.
“Kellner,” the Senator said into the phone, once the connection was made, “Paul here,
need a small favor.”
“Anything, sir, what can I do for you?”
“My aide Philip Wilson has not reported in all day. See if you can find him, would you?”
“At once, sir.”
“Excellent. Call me at my private number if you need to,” he said and hung up.
The night was heaven as she of Shiva had said it would be. When he finally left, early in
the morning, Trayson was sure he had lost to soul to her. Again and again she had deflated him.
He had nothing left of his own...
“Maggie, anything from Wilson?” he asked as he stepped through his office door.
“No, Senator, nothing. But you did have a call from a Mr. Kellner. He said it was urgent.
Do you want me to ring him for you?”
“I’ll handle it, Maggie, you run my office but not my private life, okay!”
“Of course, sir,” she answered, noticing how tired he looked; and he was even grumpier
than usual.
Once inside his office, Trayson pushed the speed-dialer. He had the FBI in seconds.
“This is Paul. What do you have for me?” he asked as Kellner answered.
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“This is very strange, sir. Last night the city police responded to a murder in darktown.
When they arrived, they found a crowd gathered around a badly burned corpse. They questioned
the people in the crowd. No one had seen it get there, except for two little kids who said it that
there was a fire in the air and the body fell out of it.”
“So what are you saying? Does this relate to Wilson?”
“Senator, the body was so badly burned, there were no prints or face or anything
distinguishable. They ran the dental configuration. It was your man Wilson, sir. I’m sorry.”
Trayson didn’t answer. He couldn’t, he was numb. He let the phone slip out of his hand
and sat heavily down in his chair and stared vacantly at nothing. He didn’t respond when Maggie
found him sitting slack-jawed at his desk and told him he had an important phone call.
“Sir, are you all right?”
He gave no answer. She walked over to him and pushed him gently on the shoulder.
Nothing: no response. She shook him harder. Finally, he raised his head and looked at her
blankly.
She saw his eyes were empty. It was almost as if there was no life in them; in him. It was one of
the most eerie things she had ever seen. She started to scream, stifled it, picked up the telephone
receiver from where it lay at his feet and called his doctor. She had never been more frightened
in her life. “That woman,” she thought, “that woman...”
The President of the United States had been a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam. He had Hueys
in the blood. He kept one parked on the White House helipad and went flying whenever he
wanted to get off by himself. He didn’t take the Secret Service. Nobody went with him unless he
gave them a special invitation.
This morning he had given such an invitation. He wanted to talk to the Vice-President
alone. He trusted his second-in-command as he trusted very few men. They lifted off from the
helipad at first light and in a very few minutes were over rural Maryland.
“What do you think about Danberry, Josh?” the President asked, “will the Senate confirm
him?”
“It’s going to be very difficult, Gerry,” came the reply, “Trayson and his gang have it
bottled up in committee. I don’t think he’ll...”
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He never finished. Without warning, there was a loud thudding, crashing noise on top of
the Huey. The President lost control and the ground came rushing up at them. There was a fiery
collision with a huge tree. Both men were killed instantly. Obstacles one and two to Paul
Trayson’s ascension to the presidency were gone.
The nation went into mourning. Both the President and the Vice-President had been very
popular. Many Americans thought that this was the best man in the White House since John
Kennedy. Both men would be sorely missed. And then grief changed into shocked disbelief as a
very strange photograph emerged in the tabloids.
Several teenagers had been out hiking in the Maryland woods and taking nature photos
when they heard a helicopter pass overhead fairly low. One had idly snapped a picture of it as it
went by. The next thing the boys knew, the chopper was smashing into the forest in a ball of fire.
They shot all of their film at the crash site. Both of them would swear later that it looked like the
craft had been shoved out of the sky.
The National Reporter bought the boy’s cameras for $10,000 each. When the pictures
were developed, all of the pictures that weren’t of the countryside showed flames, debris and
burning trees. Except one; it showed the President’s helicopter just before impact. Above the
Huey, there was a ghostly outline; a figure - almost human - of something dancing: something
with six arms: something very like the god Shiva.
“DEMON CRASHES PREZ’S CHOPPER!” the headlines blazed across the country. No
one who saw the photograph could deny what was there. The picture was put through rigorous
computer verification. The most skeptical intelligence was forced to admit it’s authenticity. The
United States of America passed from grief into anxiety and fear. Religious movements began to
develop overnight.
The Right Honorable Paul Trayson, senior Senator for Illinois, stepped forward to swear
the oath of office of President of the United States. The absolute pinnacle of political power was
his. And, in spite of the fact that he was now the most powerful man in the world, he felt no joy,
no sense of accomplishment. He felt only numbing fear. It took every bit of self-control to keep
himself repeating the words of the oath.
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He mumbled a few brief platitudes designed to serve as his inaugural address and
hurriedly left the speaking platform. No one in the crowd, even the usually critical media,
blamed him. He had been swept into office by three very uncanny deaths, two of which seemed
to have supernatural overtones. The ruling emotion when John Kennedy died had been very great
sorrow, the death of Gerald Packard left only abject fear in its wake.
The limousine swept down the drive of the White House, Secret Service agents running
alongside of it. It stopped at the rear entrance and the new president exited quickly, lost in the
crush of dark-suited, dark-glassed men sporting Uzi’s and radio antennas. They led him into the
Oval Office where, he soon realized that he to get himself under control. He had a country to run,
no matter how he had gotten to where he was now. He couldn’t very well tell anyone about the
witch-woman who had thrust him into the Presidency.
There was one person he could tell, Trayson finally realized. No matter what he did
wrong, no matter whom he destroyed in the name of personal ambition, no matter what
Washington courtesan he had an affair with; his wife always forgave him. She always
understood and she always loved him. As soon as she was out of the hospital he would tell her
everything. She would know what to do; she always knew what to do. He even felt a measure of
his old self-confidence start to return. He was President now and he would, by God, deal with the
priestess of Shiva.
“Okay, we need to have a cabinet pruning,” he said as he surveyed the men standing in
his Oval Office. “Time to get to work, gentlemen, we have a nasty mess, a nasty Packard mess,
to straighten out,”
Just then, a door opened and Maggie stepped through into the somewhat unfamiliar room.
“Senator, um, Mr. President,” she said with obvious distress in her voice, “I have to tell you
something, something very bad.”
“Not now, Maggie, it can wait,” Trayson said, “tell me how you like being the
secretary to the man in the Oval Office.”
She walked over to him quickly and said in an almost whisper, “Sir, Johns Hopkins
called. Susana, Mrs. Trayson,...your wife. Something happened during the exploratory surgery.
They can’t explain it. But she developed internal bleeding. They couldn’t stop it. Oh, sir, I’m so
sorry. She died. Oh, sir, your wife is dead,” she said as she burst into tears.
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No one in America, not even his bitterest political enemies, could blame President
Trayson for escaping to Camp David. How much tragedy could one man take? Let him fall back
and regroup. He would be dealt with in time. The country could run itself for a while without
him.
He went into total seclusion. No one was allowed near him except for Maggie, two of his
closest aides and his doctor. The Secret Service was completely excluded. He received no phone
calls, watched no television and listened to no radio. Every avenue of communication with the
outside world was shut off from him. He left no way for Her to get to him.
But he had to sleep. And when he slept, he dreamt. And when he dreamt, She came...
Every night, it was the same. He awoke, drenched in sweat, the nightmare fear sapping
his every reserve, Her words ringing in his inner ears: “Surely, dearest, you haven’t forgotten
your promise?”
He couldn’t stay hidden forever. The media gave him two weeks, then began demanding
“WHO IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY?” and “WHERE IS THE PRESIDENT?” A delegation
of senior members of his party from both Houses of Congress appeared at Camp David to speak
with him. They convinced him that, in spite of all he had been through, he could stay secluded no
longer. None of the members of the delegation could believe how haggard, pale and unsure of
himself the president was. He was a totally different man. One of the most powerful, selfassured men on Capitol Hill had become a cringing shadow of his former self.
Later that same evening, President Trayson left Camp David in a very small motorcade
with no fanfare whatsoever. Under cover of darkness, he returned to the White House. Once
inside, he was surrounded by Secret Service agents and aides from his own camp as well as from
the former president.
“Mr. President,” said the White House Chief-of-Staff, “I have never cared for you or your
politics, but in the interests of American security I will remain here to orient you to this job until
you are ready to pick your own people. So will the other necessary members of President
Packard‘s staff. No one blames you for what happened to him.”
The new president stared at him blankly, mumbling “Thank you.”
“Gentlemen,” the president’s doctor spoke up, “President Trayson must rest. He has a
very big job ahead of him. He is no shape to take up the reins of power tonight.”
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“That’s true, sir,” said the Chief-of-Staff, glaring harshly at the president, “but he
damnsure better be ready to do it tomorrow.”
The doctor nodded assent and led the president off to his bedroom, surrounded by Secret
Service men. He gave the benumbed leader of the American people a strong sedative and put
him to bed.
When he awoke the next morning, at first Paul Trayson remembered nothing of the
events of the past several weeks. Then, as became aware of waking in a strange bedroom, the
awful truth fell in on him once again. He was now President of the United States and he had
gotten there by selling his soul to a She-Devil. And he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that
she would demand payment soon.
He knew he must get a grip on himself. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the
bed. He sat there for several minutes, taking deep breaths and psyching himself up. He could do
the job and he would do the job. No witch was going to stop him. Slowly, his self-confidence
returned. He knew what he had to do: throw himself into his very demanding new office and
forget about Satyarin Reja. He’d get his FBI friend to arrange a small accident for her. Dammit,
he was the power now.
He picked up the phone.
“Yes, Mr. President,” said the voice, “how may I assist you?”
“I want breakfast; eggs, toast, juice and coffee; in the Oval Office in twenty minutes,” he
said tersely and hung up. He was the boss now and he wasn’t going to let any of them forget it.
Two Secret Service men met him as he exited his bedroom, saying, “Good morning, Mr.
President. May we escort you?”
“Oval office, gentlemen,” he replied as they strode off down the hallway.
He nodded to the group of men and women as he entered the room. There was steel in his
voice as he said, “As you well know, we have work to do.” He walked over to the table where
his breakfast had been laid out, sat down and began to eat. “Let’s have it, people, what is the
state of the union?” he asked, humorlessly. They could see that the husk of a man they had seen
last night was gone and Paul Trayson, in all his cynical nastiness, was back.
“We have the beginnings of major civil disruption on our hands,” said the Chief-of-Staff,
“if we do not handle matters carefully, we could have big problems.”
“Explain,” said the President.
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“Sir,” said the CS, “weren’t you briefed at Camp David? Ever since the President’s
helicopter crash, this country has been going crazy about demons and gods. Cults are springing
up right and left. The largest and most powerful is here in Washington. They are holding mass
rallies claiming that the god Shiva is coming to destroy the world, like he did the President.”
Trayson felt a twinge of panic and forced it away. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid I don’t
understand. We’ve always had religious nuts.”
“Not like this, sir, look!” said the CS, walking over and turning on a television.
“...all eyes of America, no, of the world are on this woman, this self-styled Priestess of
Shiva as she whips her followers into frenzy,” said the announcer’s voice as the camera panned
across a sea of thousands of screaming, crazed people. It zoomed in on a woman standing in
front of a temple not unlike the Taj Mahal: an exotically beautiful woman exhorting the crowd
with her words and sweeping gestures.
“Holy Christ, it’s her!” blurted the President as the camera zoomed in on her face. For
just an instant, Trayson looked into her eyes and saw recognition. He felt the words ‘a promise is
a promise, beloved’ form in his brain. A wave of nauseous fear swept through him.
“She says she will not stop until the President himself comes to speak with her personally
at her temple,” continued the newsman, “for she says he must be told the will of Shiva in his own
temple. And the nation is asking, ‘Will the president come?’ The President hasn’t been seen for
over two weeks, no one knows where he is, or if they do, they are not telling.”
“Well, sir,” said the Secretary of State, “that is pretty much the state of the union in a
nutshell. This Shiva outbreak is happening all over the country. Either you go visit the Cult of
Shiva or we are going to have massive riots in every major American city.”
“Can’t the police do anything?” asked the President.
“Two SWAT teams were literally torn limb from limb when they tried to break up this
demonstration. Now the police won’t go near it,” said the National Security Advisor. “We could
send in the Army, but that would not help our international image at all.”
“So I have to go to her, then, is that what you’re saying?” asked the President. He knew
this was inevitable, he knew she would find some way to force his hand. Trayson felt a strange
reversal occurring in his mind. Maybe he ought to forget his fear and go join forces with her, he
thought. She seemed a most formidable foe. What kind of ally would she make? And, sweet
Jesus, could she fuck.
275
The presidential motorcade; one limousine, two support cars and eight motorcycles; left
the White House early the next morning and proceeded across Washington. In less than fifteen
minutes, the president’s entourage pulled up in front of the Temple of Shiva.
The crowd in front of the temple was strangely quiet. As the president exited his limo,
escorted by three Secret Service agents, he stared out into a sea of rapt faces, all eyes fixed
directly on him. Trayson could hear a faint sound, almost inaudible, a sound like fire rushing
through dry grass. There was a pathway through the crowd that led to the front door of the
temple, some 50 yards away.
The president and the three agents started up the path. Immediately, people sprang up in
front of the agents, blocking their path. Two of them started to draw their machine pistols and
more people jumped into their path.
‘Let it go, gentlemen,” said Trayson, “stay here. I must go alone.”
The agents reluctantly stopped and retreated slowly to the cars they had left. The
followers of Shiva melted back into the crowd, leaving the president to walk slowly up the path
toward the open door of the temple.
As he walked, the sound from the crowd grew in Trayson’s hearing. It was a word,
whispered by every one in the multitude, a word whispered over and over. “Shiva, Shiva, Shiva,”
they chanted, “Shiva, Shiva, Shiva.” Trayson could feel a knot of fear form in his guts. He forced
it down.
And then, suddenly, there she was, standing in the doorway. She was dressed in a loosefitting harem suit which did nothing to conceal her lush beauty. She walked up to him and kissed
him fully on the mouth and he did nothing to resist. All this was done in plain view of the crowd
and millions of television viewers. She broke the kiss and escorted him into the temple.
“At last you have come to me, dearest, I knew you would not fail me,” she said as she
led him across the floor of the temple which was empty except for the two of them.
“I don’t think I had much choice. I have been told you wield much power,” he answered,
“I want to work things out with you.”
“Excellent,” she murmured as they made their way across the vast room lit with
thousands of candles and pungent with the smoke of incense. She brought him to the main altar,
upon which stood a huge golden statue of the god. She stood next to him, both of them facing the
276
idol. Her hand snaked across his trousers to rest on his member, which she began to massage
adroitly. In a very short him she had him very erect.
“Now, dearest,” she spoke softly into his ear, her breath carrying the scent of hashish,
“you will swear an oath to my Lord Shiva and then we will consummate our long-delayed
union.”
“Yes,” he stammered, his eyes glazed and his mind no longer his own.
“All that I am and all that I have are the property of the God Shiva forever,” she said,
“repeat those words from the depths of your soul.”
He repeated the words. She undid his belt and opened his pants, letting them fall to the
floor. Then she reached into his shorts and grasped him, making him gasp with pleasure. She
stood in front of him. Going up on her tiptoes, she brought his shaft to the lips of her
nethermouth through an opening in her suit. Then she slowly sank down on him, engulfing him.
He was hers and he was Shiva’s. There was no way out...
Outside, after the president had been gone more than an hour, the Secret Service agents
decided they had to go in, no matter the consequences. They alerted the army that they wanted
back-up and started to draw up contingency plans. They would rush the entrance and whoever
got in the way would be machine-gunned.
Suddenly there was a great thunderous cry from the crowd. All eyes looked up to see the
Priestess of Shiva and the President of the United States emerge from the doorway. They both
seemed serenely happy. The president was no longer wearing a business suit. Now he wore the
robes of a Brahmin priest. There was a gold circlet about his forehead just under which was a
spot of red. Slowly and ponderously he spoke into a microphone:
“My fellow Americans, I come before you to bring you tidings of great joy. I have joined
with the High Priestess of Shiva and have become one with her. I have taken unto myself the
duties of her priest. As well as being your president, think of me now as your Holy Father as
well. May all share in the glory and joy of the great god Shiva. And now I must proceed to
affairs of state.”
With that, he embraced the priestess and walked down the open pathway through the
crowd of followers to his limousine, past the group of stunned Secret Service men. One finally
came to his senses and opened the door to the car to the newly-made High Priest. Only at the last
minute, just before he was shut inside, did one young reporter for the Washington Post shake
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herself from her amazed stupor and run up to him to ask, “Mr. President, what does this mean?
What is going on? What happened to you?”
“It means, my dear,” he said, smiling beneficently, “that the American people are about
to find a new joy in their lives, the love of the god Shiva.”
“But you’re a politician, not a priest,” she answered, “and what about Jesus? What about
Christianity?”
As he spoke, a strange hard glint came into his eye. “The old order changeth,” he said,
“yielding place to new. Prepare yourselves, my children.” He sat down into the limo and
slammed the door, ordering the driver to depart. In minutes, the motorcade was speeding back
toward the White House.
Orthodox Hindus disavowed the Cult of Shiva utterly, claiming that Shiva was primarily
a regenerative deity, not a monster. The Christian Religious Right was beside itself with fear; its
rhetoric reached truly manic proportions as it brayed out its message of Jesus won’t save you if
you support the new High Priest of Shiva. Practically every major religion in the United States
felt its knees buckle with the apprehension that its days might well be numbered. The New Age
people took it in stride: hadn’t this been what they had been saying all along?
The people of America went into frenzy, their highly-strained emotions whipped
unmercifully by a media callous to the effect its words and gesticulations had. Riots broke out in
many major cities, pitting adversaries against one another who had no real idea why they were
fighting. Churches were looted and burned. Crazed fanatics broke into TV studios to scream
“Shiva destroys all those who oppose Him” at the cameras. The fabric of society was rapidly
becoming frayed beyond repair.
“Dearest,” said the new First Lady as she switched off the TV, “these Religious Right
people are obnoxious. They must be silenced and their followers scattered to the Four Winds. I
will endure their Christian claptrap no longer.”
President Trayson, knowing full well that his wife could do anything she turned her mind
to, asked, in return, “How do you suggest we go about this?”
“My followers will see to it, my love,” she answered, running her hand over his stomach
and below, “just see to it that they are not distracted in their holy mission.”
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“Of course, dear,” he said, raising himself to her touch, “they can do whatever they like.”
“NINE LEADERS OF CHRISTIAN ULTRA-RIGHT DIE IN ONE NIGHT”, ALL
MAJOR CHURCHES LOOTED AND BURNED”, “KRISTALNACHT COMES TO
AMERICA” screamed the tabloids. In less time than it takes to pull the wings of a small
multitude of flies, the backbone of the Christianity in America was severed and shattered. And
the head of it all, smiling serenely and beautifully, was the High Priestess of Shiva. Paul
Trayson’s last thought before he succumbed to her utterly, was that there was no stopping her.
Any political opposition that arose to Her or Her husband was dealt with just as
summarily. This time there was no need for odd “accidents”. Men and women were dragged
screaming from their homes to be beaten brutally before they were burnt at the stake.
And just as swift as she was in destroying her enemies, so was the Priestess without
hesitation in gaining new converts. Her emissaries were sent into the ghettos of all major cities,
plying major gang leaders with newly-legalized marijuana, cocaine and heroin of the finest
quality. For those who would not accept Shiva, she offered Saturn, Loki and Satan. The Lord of
Destruction by any other name is still the Lord of Destruction. And this new god was
considerably more fun than melancholy old Jesus. All gambling was legalized and prostitutes
were encouraged to enter into the Temples of Aphrodite and Bhavani to do service to the
Goddess of Love in the name of Shiva.
Nor was the rest of the world quiet in this time of Shiva. Converts spontaneously
appeared in every country of the world proclaiming the reign of Shiva; a Shiva who by this time
had the complete support of the American military. In a very short six months, Satyarin Reja had
established herself as queen of the planet. Truly, there was no stopping her. Or so she thought...
Then, one summer evening on the foot of a great mountain on the outskirts of Cheyenne,
Wyoming, a very young Arapaho girl had a vision: a vision of a great darkness dispelled by a
young one who carried the spirit of the White Buffalo. So powerful was her vision
that she convinced the elders on her tribe to take her to Washington to see the cause of the
darkness, the Dark Star called the High Priestess of Shiva.
The journey took more than ten days; ten days in an ancient Plymouth with more
problems than moving parts. Only the indomitable will of the youngster and the power of her
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vision kept them going. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the Arapaho stood just
outside the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They walked slowly, solemnly, to the entrance.
The guards at the gate looked somewhat puzzled as the tribal party approached. Visitors
to the home of the Priestess did not approach without some outward sign of their devotion to
Shiva. To do otherwise was to invite the inquiries of the Priestess’s Counselor, considered by
most people to be an extremely unwise course.
“What would you be seeking, Indians?” asked the guard, “you do not appear to be of the
Cult.”
“I will speak with Satyarin Reja,” said the little girl, “I will speak with her now!”, her
eyes boring into those of the guard. Transfixed, he opened the electronic gate and the Arapahos
entered, all six of them. The guard spoke into the radio he carried as he ushered up to the door of
the White House. It did not occur to him that he should do otherwise.
As they were approaching the entrance, the High Priestess herself appeared, with several
of Her retinue. “What is this?” she demanded, “can mere children force the gates of my temple?”
The guard dropped to his knees, begging forgiveness. The Priestess swept past him to the girl.
“What do you wish from me, child?” asked the obviously troubled Priestess, “how is it
that you can sway my guards from their duty?”
The youngster drew herself up to her full height and looked the Priestess directly in the
eye and said, in a voice much more commanding than her years allowed, “You have brought a
great darkness into the world. You are wholly evil. I have received a vision from the Spirit of the
White Buffalo that you must be stopped, no matter the cost. That is why I am here. That is my
mission!”
For the first time in her twenty- three years, Melanie Dillon, nee Satyarin Reja, nee the
Queen of the World, felt fear and confusion. Never had she felt the power of good as she did in
this small Indian girl-child. For a brief moment, she was at a loss as to what to do. She turned
abruptly away from the girl and closed her hands over her eyes. She was lost in the deepest
meditation.
Suddenly she smiled and turned back to the child, asking, “Young lady, did no one ever
tell you that it was very foolish to play with fire?”
“Fire? What fire?” asked the child, momentarily thrown off her point, “I don’t see any
fire.”
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“But my dear,” said the Priestess, pointing at the girl, “it’s right there!”
As she whipped her eyes to where the Priestess was pointing, the girl screamed as her
dress burst into flames. Then her hair and her skin. Then her flesh and her bones. All of her
burned in the breath of the Flame Daemon. Very soon there was nothing but ash. The other
Indians bolted and ran toward the gate, only to be cut down in a hail of machine gun fire.
“Ah me,” said the Priestess, letting out a long sigh, “the trials and troubles of this wicked
world are something abominable, are they not, Henri?”
“They are indeed, my Priestess, they are indeed,” the head of her private guard answered.
“Do see to the mess, will you, my love? I have a world to put in order.”
He bowed as she strode elegantly into the house.
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