by Anthology
Follow up that delightful culination with a quick (but non-optional) visit to the old chapel for a dose of God’s own. Shall we be epigrammatic and say mass after mess? No, we shall not.
Nonethenever Alquane that lucky ole sun pushing his rays through stained glass winders depicting heart-rending scenes in the Shrine of St. Lurleen McQueen illumine soul-thrilling ranks of congregators in pew, pew, pew as chaplain heaves into view tew, mounts his pulpit (whatever turns you up) with visible risibles, gazes across gray-clad all spat and polished rows, officers’ section shall sit upon thy rite ham, enceeyos upon thy laff and klenz the ole soul.
Sermon today, same subject as usual. Good to know God is on our side. Thanks, chap old chap, crikies, think of going to war with Him in the ranks of them. How many divisions does he have, buy the weigh? Sing a few good old hymns (officers melody, eeyems harmony) like The Old Ragged Cross or I’m Dreaming of a White Kiss, Miss. Dear chaplain does a couple of costume changes to melloharp and drums, comes out for his big finale in golden robes and pistol belt to introduce—Singing and Dancing His Way into Your Hearts—the ajjerant bird.
Bird stanz up to deliver orders of the day. Ptowie! Thus—This old fort this campa spacers gotcher marching orders here, See-O says to thank the cadre for a splennid job-well-dun, finest bunch of gyrene shavetails ever seed, pride utha fleed, mission over, staff reduced, here you go boys yule delighted to get back into the mysterious interstellar void and slap some punks for the glory of the N’Alabamian Weigh-a-life.—
—Waddeezay, wa-wa-wa?—axes crabby old esseffsee (reserve warrant O’nee doesn’t let anybody forget same you can bet) setting aside our sarge.
Our sarge snarls—Deep, man, we-all gonna gettanutha hotpot on the old bentfin boomer.—
—Oh,—exudes crabby. Not to go uncomprehended he repeats—oh.—
—Y’all find your list of duty stations posted on the company (just as one might anticipate, hath one but possession of the correct background) bulletin board right after Divine Observances,—sez the bird.
—Dis,—beloved chaplain commands unto his flock—missed!—
Cleansed of soul, lightened of heart, filled in the head with thoughts of God and Planet, our old sarge he looks at him’s orders on the bulletin (right!) board after kirkey, seize a long row of names, ranks, serial twiddles, along upside of each bespeach a ship of the Crimsy Wabe, new duty stations for most of cadre, ship names m sine meants for each gyrene O m NCO lissed, restum must be stain on as cadre, ‘ll maintain post facilities pending renoola OCS program.
Our old sarge he looks, maybe not quite with twenny-twennies (no sprig chicken he no more but he keeps in good shape rest assured) but he gets buy with spectacles at leased. There’s old friend Gordon Lester Wallace III gonna be a gunnery sarge upboard the old James O. Eastland. Our sarge once served upboard the Jimmie-O. He muses of nice times there. Yas. Goody, Gordie. Fun for fine. Other cadre buddies here and there doing this and that now and then. Freddie now, he’s to be seen on the list nowhere, must be stain on as permy party. Owell, he’ll blast no blacks that way, but it’s a soft berth.
Sarge himself? Where’s he to go? He won’t be on the Jimmie-O. No. Sarge looks on list, fines him’s name at last. Zippidie-doo-dah, sarge, you gonna be a weapons squad leader upboard the starship Theodore Bilbo.
[Aside: howcame smenny N’Ala ships barin’ O’Missa names? Ponder that.]
Welletsee, welletsee, who is gonna be in that squad? And who is gonna be the platoon sarge? Squad leader worth his stripes, he cares.
Our old sarge he heads for the TeeBee stoppin by cadre barracks only long enough to pack a couple parsimonious suitcases [suitcases? well, call em duffles ef you like to] for space duty, grab a military gyrocar, fling him’s Bilbo bags in, scuddle uccer tarmac to the TeeBee, cline upboard m finiz berth. Spacerine hammock’s none 2 comphy, one must admit, but like rubbery jello, it’ll do.
Sarge stoze gear, check sin, finezeez first man in from his section and disTeeBeez to wait for others. He paces tarmac, gazes back m up at the Theodore Bilbo she’s a fine figure of a ship. Tall, rounded shaft glisters in Alquane’s pretty morning rays. Up at the top and instrument ring girds fuselage and atop that the conical command module replete with tippy-top cat’s-iris command viewing station. Master ruby laser station there too, firing stream of hot singeing light to bathe foe when TeeBee’s aroused.
Crew quarters in the shaft, gun modules in the skin, and down at ground level mounted to the base of the shaft two giant globular fuel modules glistering m gleaming in the warming rays of happy old Alquane light, their contents of supercold liquified compmatter bubbling over surplus through safely valves, it hisses and steams in the Alquane warmth looking like clusters and curlicues of angel’s hair around the globular modules and the base of the old Theodore B.
Finally sarge’s squad trickle in. Nice boys, nice all, from fine ole pure-blooded surn fammies O yes. Sweet blond hand laserman from Echola, articifer’s mate from Eutaw, couple pincer-axemen from Coxheath m Salitpa, glow-mortarman from Gasque and a sissant sarge outen Suggsville Center. A good crew all. That’s important.
Our old sarge, he checked round summat, found altogether a fine bunch in that platoon of his except maybe one or two. Didn’t like a zaprifle squad sarge alongside nohow. Fella name of Raff Slocomb. Knew him from cadre. Basserd wunt drink around, wunt whore around, mean SOB if you follow. Gotta watch for Slocomb.
Not too sure of the platoon leader too. Bad situ that, a good leader, he got confidence in the next layer too. An the next leader (platoon sarge was an ok, thank you) bein a shavetail just outen OCS. One of our boys no less sarge ponders (very thinky today wouldn’t you say?), and he didn’t like to toe too much for me. Mmm. Now he’s platoon shavetail. Shavetail Snarp. Oak hay, will get on somehow.
Our sarge he lines up his men m inspexem good. Then alla board upside the starship Theodore Bilbo. Everybody checked in, gear stowed, strapped down, ready for deepspace.
Supercold, superdense fuel flows from those big hairy balls of the starship Theodore Bilbo into painboxes. Molecules are energized, atoms are squeezed, electrons are sheared from their primaries, crammed m jammed m slammed, whammed m bammed, shaped, scraped, raped, nuclei ripped apart, smashed into one another, forces whirling and driving madly, something becoming something else, something less, part of that something becoming nothing, energy produced, screams out propulsion tubes crying to the echoing deaf cosmos for relief, release, dying in an attenuating blaze of hyperenergized exhaust, thrusting the Bilbo away from N’Alabama into the dark vacuum that surrounds Alquane, thrusting, heaving, hurling her upwards.
Theodore Bilbo heads outward, outward, driven along the planetary plane away from Alquane, shuddering, screaming as she goes.
This is propulsion by agonized matter.
On O’Earth furgem Jewrabs rule the world. Descendants of the citizens of that long-ago Federated Republic of Israel and Jordan [“Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer, than to have your lox m eggs in Palestine,” er, it was a big tourist attraction, that] that grew into a Pan-Semitic Empire, that Neo-Shem that spread and conquered and took. Growing population, lebensraum the Jewrabs echoed some forgotten hack politico of earlier times.
Great powers to stop ‘em? Who?
The former United States of, uhh, where was that? Well, anyway, they quarreled too much with the old CCCP. Almost blue us all up. Happily the old Third Force powers woolen stand 4 that, disbanded them mothers back into independent units. Nation of Iowa, say, inn’t rilly 2 scarifying. Nor, oh, Mountain Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast.
Czecho you can bet slovakia sure breathed easlier. Also Iceland. Who’s afraid of the big bad Georgians (Murrican or Sophie’s wet)? Bunchezza farmers both.
Rest easy for a while. Neo-classical Cathay no problem; Innier too busy feeding starving millions for far’n ventures; Japan’s new motto “Make money not enemies.” Alla little guys rested easy for a while. Then the furgem Jewrabs took over. O’Earth, ta-ta
.
Nameanwhile, howzabout colony worlds? Agonized matter goes fast.
No, you don’t dig, man. Like, fast.
Like, think of what fast means to you. Now pretend that means slow. NOW what’s fast mean? Oak hay? Now, that’s slow. Now what’s fast? You still there? Still following? Oak hay, now you have some idea of what’s agonized matter driven spaceships fast.
So: colony worlds. Nation can’t feed its people, can’t pave its streets, can’t school its kids, can’t medicate its sickies, can’t solve its problems . . . can always do the prestige things. Once upon a time, could have a jet airline. Once upon a time could have nukie-bombs. Now: everybody who’s anybody, he got agonized matter driven spaceships. He got ships, what’s he got next? Right! He got worlds.
So we got: N’Afghanistan, N’Albania, N’Andorra, N’Argentina, N’Australia, N’Austria, N’Belgium, N’Bhutan, N’Bolivia, N’Brazil, N’Bulgaria, N’Burma . . . yuwanna be bored, read an atlas. Also, we got N’Alabama, N’Alaska, N’Arizona, N’Arkansas and 49 more.
Also we got worlds colonized by religious nuts, diet faddists, hobbyists, political fanatics, sado-masochists, alcoholics, lotus-eaters and a few hundred other kinds of loonies. Also we had a few worlds colonized by homosexuals of both types, but they didn’t breed true in captivity and they died out.
Also we got colony worlds carrying on the electromagnanimous traditions of their ancestors including their loyalties and their hatreds.
And when the furgem Jewrabs finally take over poor O’Earth en its tirely, them colony worlds is left on their own. With agonized matter driven fast spaceships. So N’Alabama hates N’Haiti?
Our old sarge is on his way to war raght now!
5. Into the Exoneurobiology Section
“ ‘M. Goncourt, we cannot obtain the technical and fiscal support required to effectuate specified mission parameters!’ Merde!” shouted Goncourt, pounding his fist on the grimy wooden desk top. “Nobody can get the support he needs, Trudeau! You know it and I know it. We’re functioning in a bureaucracy and the trick is to do your job without the official backing you need. I give you my support and I’m your chief. I don’t want to hear that officialese double-talk. Let’s save that for Antoine-Simone and the rest of the clods upstairs. Let’s speak plainly to each other.”
Trudeau winced at Goncourt’s outburst.
Goncourt said, “Well?”
Trudeau said, “I’m sorry, sir. I read and write so many tech reports that ‘m afraid I’m beginning to talk like one. I take it you want it straight.”
Goncourt grunted an affirmative. “I want a straight report on your specimen, and it had better be good. Manpower is breathing down Antoine-Simone’s neck, and he has to produce on this boondoggle or he’s in bad, bad trouble, eh? That means we had better produce or we’re all going to find out what the far side of La Gonave looks like.”
Trudeau gestured with his brown hands to express his thoughts. “The specimen seems to be operating properly. The control organism has been implanted in a fully thawed composite cadaver. Healing is taking place at an encouraging rate. I think I can get a response to aural stimuli now.”
Goncourt rose from behind his desk, took his subordinate by the arm and propelled him through the doorway of the office. “Good! Let us see what wonder you have wrought, Trudeau. We may yet come out on top of this thing.”
The two officials passed Goncourt’s secretary, marched down drab corridors past frosted-glass lab windows and around corners. They paused before a door marked Exoneurobiology. Trudeau reached over and opened the door and they entered.
“Before viewing the specimen, M. Goncourt, I suggest that we view a film of the surgical procedures already followed.” Trudeau rolled a screen down one wall, flicked a switch and the screen began to flicker. On it appeared an operating theater and surgical team. A rolling pallet was brought into the room, a sheet-covered form lifted from it onto an operating table. Throughout the scene the viewing room remained silent. When the sheet was drawn back a cadaver was revealed. The left arm and shoulder and half of the chest were missing, a jagged outline indicating the place where the body had been ripped apart.
Now the camera cut to the doorway of the room, showing another cart. As it was wheeled into position the scene cut back to the overhead view. The body already on the table now showed a clean edge in place of the former rags of flesh marking the extent of its wounds. “This is later, of course,” Trudeau said. “The procedure takes several hours at present. That is one of the drawbacks that we hope to overcome with mass techniques.”
Goncourt reached into a pocket in his sagging jacket, drew out a small pipe and charged it. “I want to see this fully,” he said. Trudeau struck a match for him. Through blue-gray clouds the image continued to change.
“The second cadaver has been prepared as you see,” said Trudeau. “The skin is contoured to match the extent of the first cadaver, with sufficient overlap to promote rapid growth. Internal organs are undivided—each is taken fully from one subject or the other.” On the screen the two partial cadavers had been fitted together like parts of a jigsaw puzzle. Surgeons were adjusting bones, stitching nerve and muscle connections, attaching blood vessels like plumbers matching water supplies. The camera cut, cut, indicating repeated time lapses.
Finally the obvious chief surgeon waved two assistants to the task of suturing the skin of the massive pseudo-incision. After a few more minutes the screen became blank and Trudeau flicked on the room lights.
“Very well,” Goncourt said, “a clever piece of surgery, a logical extension, however, of standard techniques.”
“But the difference,” Trudeau exclaimed, “the difference is that we are not merely moving a particular organ from a donor to a patient. We are actually combining parts of two nonviable cadavers to produce a complete individual.”
“And he will live? He will function? Will this new patchwork man you have created be able to perform military duties? This is not an academic research grant, you know. We are supposed to contribute to the manpower problem, to the war effort.”
Trudeau stood and looked Goncourt in the face. Goncourt’s eyes were fixed on the bowl of his small pipe, which had gone out and which he was trying to puff back into life.
Trudeau said, “In the case of space casualties, this surgery is insufficient. When they are wounded in battle, when they are mortally wounded, the wall of the ship and the protection of their space suits both violated, the sudden vacuum and absolute cold produces a double effect.”
Trudeau looked again at Goncourt. He had got his pipe going again, was looking into his subordinate’s face with apparent rapt attention. Trudeau went on:
“The sudden physiological effects are terrific. At zero-pressure the lungs are instantly exhausted. Vomiting and evacuation occur. The bladder empties. There is danger of damage to the eyes, ear drums, blood vessels, all pressure-sensitive organs.
“But simultaneously the body is plunged toward absolute zero. In vacuum there is of course no conduction cooling, but radiant dissipation occurs at a fantastic rate. Even before pressure damage occurs, the body is quick-frozen. That is how we can obtain cadavers in such good condition.”
Trudeau stopped speaking as Goncourt waved him to silence.
Goncourt said, “All very well, but what of the central nervous system? Can the revived cadaver function?”
“Not independently. The shock of death does something to the individual—we do not fully understand it, although we have tried attaching graphic readout devices to various CNS points in subjects and obtained astonishing results. They are apparently conscious of sensory input and probably capable of essentially normal mentation, but no voluntary functions take place.
“For this reason we have experimented with the creatures from NGC 7007. They seem to have evolved extremely complex and sensitive nervous systems, widely distributed generalized sensors, and yet to be without will or resistance. Also, they are small enough to be implanted at the bas
e of the brain. They acclimate quickly, attaching filaments into the spinal column and brain. The bloodstream provides nourishment.
“Because these organisms are constructed as they are, they can be used as master controls for the subjects. By implanting one in a subject’s skull, we can revive him and use him as a quasi-automaton for military’ or industrial duty.”
“A quasi-automaton,” Goncourt repeated. “Or a zombie.” Goncourt sucked futilely at his pipe, knocked out its dead ashes and returned it to his pocket. He rose from his chair, said, “Very well, now let us see this laboratory wonder of yours.”
In the next room the patchwork man lay on a hospital bed, breathing slowly. Clad only in pajama pants, the body showed its livid scar from neck to sternum, turning a neat ninety degrees to disappear behind the rib-cage. The flesh of the attached arm and shoulder was a different shade of brown from that of the rest of the body. From the temple of the still man an electrode fed a thin wire leading to a communication interface. A small computer, fed through the interface, controlled a graphic display screen, its surface a neutral green-gray across which moved sluggish waves of varying density.
At the footsteps of the two men the figure lying on the bed opened its eyes. The display screen flickered. On it appeared the forms of Goncourt and Trudeau. They were approaching the viewpoint from across a rolled-down bedsheet. Goncourt stopped, placed his arm in front of Trudeau to stop him. In the screen the figures seemed to advance an additional fraction of a step. The image fragmented, shuddered back into form to show them standing as they were.
“You see,” Trudeau said.
From an audio device Trudeau’s voice distortedly repeated, “You see . . .”
Trudeau stopped speaking. The device paused, then repeated a higher-pitched, “You see.” Higher, “You see.” Higher, “You see, you see—” Trudeau took quick steps, switched off the audio output.
