Nova Express
Page 9
The Reality Film giving and buckling like a bulkhead under pressure and the pressure gauge went up and up. The needle was edging to NOVA. Minutes to go. Burnt metal smell of interplanetary war in the raw noon streets swept by screaming glass blizzards of enemy flak. He dispersed on grey sliding between light and shadow down mirror streets and shadow pools. Yes he was wising up the marks. Willy The Fink they called him among other things, syndicates of the universe feeling for him with distant fingers of murder. He stopped in for a cup of “Real English Tea Made Here” and a thin grey man sat at his table with inflexible authority.
“Nova Police. Yes I think we can quash the old Nova Warrants. Work with us. We want names and coordinate points. Your application for Biologic Transfer will have to go through channels and is no concern of this department. Now we’ll have a look at your room if you don’t mind.” They went through his photos and papers with fingers light and cold as spring wind. Grey Police of The Regulator, calm and grey with inflexible authority. Willy had worked with them before. He knew they were undercover agents working under conditions as dangerous as his own. They were dedicated men and would sacrifice him or any other agent to arrest The Nova Mob:
“Sammy The Butcher,” “Green Tony,” “Iron Claws,” “The Brown Artist,” “Jacky Blue Note,” “Limestone John,” “Izzy The Push,” “Hamburger Mary,” “The Subliminal Kid,” “The Green Octopus,” and “Willy The Rat,” who wised up the marks on the last pitch. And they took Uranus apart in a fissure flash of metal rage.
As he walked past The Sargasso Cafe black insect flak of Minraud stabbed at his vitality centers. Two Lesbian Agents with glazed faces of grafted penis flesh sat sipping spinal fluid through alabaster straws. He threw up a Silence Screen and grey fog drifted through the café. The deadly Silence Virus. Coating word patterns. Stopping abdominal breathing holes of The Insect People Of Minraud.
The grey smoke drifted the grey that stops shift
cut tangle they breathe medium the word cut
shift patterns words cut the insect tangle
cut shift that coats word cut breath silence
shift abdominal cut tangle stop word holes.
He did not stop or turn around. Never look back. He had been a professional killer so long he did not remember anything else. Uranian born of Nova Conditions. You have to be free to remember and he was under sentence of death in Maximum Security Birth Death Universe. So he sounded the words that end “Word”—
Eye take back color from “word”—
Word dust everywhere now like soiled stucco on the buildings. Word dust without color drifting smoke streets. Explosive bio advance out of space to neon.
At the bottom of the stairs Uranian Willy engaged an Oven Guard. His flesh shrank feeling insect claws under the terrible dry heat. Trapped, cut off in that soulless place. Prisoner eaten alive by white hot ants. With a split second to spare he threw his silver blast and caught the nitrous fumes of burning film as he walked through the door where the guard had stood.
“Shift linguals—Free doorways—Cut word lines—Photo falling—Word falling—Break Through in Grey Room—Use partisans of all nations—Towers, open fire—”
WILL HOLLYWOOD NEVER LEARN?
“Word falling—Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room—”
Insane orders and counter orders issue from berserk Time Machine—
“Terminal electric voice of C—Shift word lines—Vibrate ‘tourists.’”
“I said The Chief of Police skinned alive in Baghdad not Washington D.C.”
“British Prime Minister assassinated in rightist coup.”
“Switzerland freezes all foreign assets—”
“Mindless idiot you have liquidated the Commissar—”
“Cut word lines—Shift linguals—”
Electric storms of violence sweep the planet—Desperate position and advantage precariously held—Governments fall with a whole civilization and ruling class into streets of total fear—Leaders turn on image rays to flood the world with replicas—Swept out by counter image—
“Word falling—Photo falling—Pinball led streets.”
Gongs of violence and how—Show you something—Berserk machine—“Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin” charges in with his army of short-time hype artists and takes over The Reality Concession to set up Secretary Of State For Ruined Toilet—Workers paid off in SOS—The Greys came in on a London Particular—SOS Governments fade in worn metal dawn swept out through other flesh—Counter orders issued to the sound of gongs—Machine force of riot police at the outskirts D.C.—Death Dwarfs talking in supersonic blats of Morse Code—Swept into orbit of the Saturn Galaxy high on ammonia—Time and place shift in speed-up movie—
“Attack position over instrument like pinball—Towers, open fire—”
Atmosphere and climate shifted daily from carbon dioxide to ammonia to pure oxygen—from the dry heat of Minraud to the blue cold of Uranus—One day the natives forced into heavy reptile forms of overwhelming gravity—next floated in tenuous air of plaintive lost planets—Subway broke out every language—D took pictures of a million battle fields—“Will Hollywood never learn?—Unimaginable and downright stupid disaster—”
Incredible forms of total survival emerged clashed exploded in altered pressure—Desperate flesh from short time artists—Transparent civilizations went out talking—
“Death, Johnny, come and took over.”
Bradly and I supported by unusual mucus—Stale streets of yesterday precariously held—Paths of desperate position—Shifting reality—Total survival in altered pressure—Flesh sheets dissolving amid vast ruins of berserk machine—“SOS . . . — — — . . . Coughing enemy faces—”
“Orbit Sammy and the boys in Silent Space—Carbon dioxide work this machine—Terminal electric voice of C—All Ling door out of agitated—”
What precariously held government came over the air—Total fear in Hicksville—Secretary Of State For Far Eastern Hotel Affairs assassinated at outskirts of the hotel—Death Diplomats of Morse code supported in a cocktail lounge—
“Oxygen Law no cure for widespread blue cold.” The Soviet Union said: “The very people who condemn altered pressure remain silent—”
Displacement into orbit processes—The Children’s Fund has tenuous thin air of lost places—Sweet Home Movement to flood it with replicas—
So sitting with my hat on said: “I’m not going to do anything like that—”
Disgusting death by unusual mucus swept into orbit of cosmic vomit—(Tenuous candlelight—Remember I was carbon dioxide)—Rousing rendition of shifting reality—John lost in about 5000 men and women—Everyone else is on The Grey Veil—Flesh frozen to particles called “Good Consciousness” irrevocably committed to the toilet—Colorless slides in Mexican people—Other feature of the code on Grey Veil—To be read so to speak naked—Have to do it in dirty pictures—Reverse instructions on car seat—
“Mindless idiot you have liquidated The Shadow Cabinet—”
Swept out tiny police in supersonic Morse code—Emergency Meeting at entrance to the avenue—
“Calling partisans of all nation—Cut word lines—Shift linguals—Vibrate tourists—Free doorways—Word falling—Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room —.— .— — — — — .—. —.. ..—. .— .—...—.. —. — —. .— —. .... — — — — — — — ..—.. —.—.. .—.. ..—. — —.”
TOWERS OPEN FIRE
Concentrate Partisans—Take Towers in Spanish Villa—Hill 32—The Green Airborne poured into the garden—Lens googles stuttering light flak—Antennae guns stabbing strafing The Vampire Guards—They pushed the fading bodies aside and occupied The Towers—The Technician twirled control knobs—He drank a bicarbonate of soda and belched into his hand—Urp.
“God damned captain’s a brown arti
st—Uranus is right—What the fuck kind of a set is this—?? Not worth a fart—Where’s the reverse switch?—Found it—Come in please—Urp Urp Urp.”
“Target Orgasm Ray Installations—Gothenburg Freelandt—Coordinates 8 2 7 6—Take Studio—Take Board Books—Take Death Dwarfs—”
Supersonic sex pictures flickered on the view screen—The pilots poised quivering electric dogs—Antennae light guns twisting searching feeling enemy nerve centers—
“Focus.”
“Did it.”
“Towers, open fire—”
Strafe—Pound—Blast—Tilt—Stab—Kill—Air Hammers on their Stone Books—Bleep Bleep Bleep—Death to The Nova Guard—Death to The Vampire Guards—
Pilot K9 blasted The Scorpion Guards and led Break Through in Grey Room—Place Of The Board Books And The Death Dwarfs—A vast grey warehouse of wire mesh cubicles—Tier on tier of larval dwarfs tube-fed in bottles—The Death Dwarfs Of Minraud—Operation Total Disposal—Foetal dwarfs stirred slowly in green fluid fed through a tube in the navel—Bodies compacted layer on layer of transparent sheets on which was written The Message Of Total Disposal when the host egg cracks—Death Dwarfs waiting transfer to The Human Host—Written on The Soft Typewriter from The Stone Tablets Of Minraud—
“Break Through in Grey Room—Death Dwarfs taken—Board Books taken—”
“Proceed to Sex Device and Blue Movie Studio—Behind Book Shop—Canal Five at Spiegel Bridge—”
“Advancing on Studio—Electric storms—Can’t quite get through—”
“Pilot K9, you are hit—back—down—”
The medics turned drum music full blast through his head phones—“Apomorphine on the double”—Frequency scalpel sewing wounds with wire photo polka dots from The Image Bank—In three minutes K9 was back in combat driving pounding into a wall of black insect flak—The Enemy Installation went up in searing white blast—Area of combat extended through the vast suburban concentration camps of England and America—Screaming Vampire Guards caught in stabbing stuttering light blast—
“Partisans of all nation, open fire—tilt—blast—pound—stab —strafe—kill—”
“Pilot K9, you are cut off—back. Back. Back before the whole fucking shit house goes up—Return to base immediately—Ride music beam back to base—Stay out of that time flak—All pilots ride Pan pipes back to base—”
The Technician mixed a bicarbonate of soda surveying the havoc on his view screen—It was impossible to estimate the damage—Anything put out up till now is like pulling a figure out of the air—Installations shattered—Personnel decimated—Board Books destroyed—Electric waves of resistance sweeping through mind screens of the earth—The message of Total Resistance on short wave of the world—This is war to extermination—Shift linguals—Cut word lines—Vibrate tourists—Free doorways—Photo falling—Word falling—Break through in grey room—Calling partisans of all nations—Towers, open fire—”
Crab Nebula
CRAB NEBULA
They do not have what they call “emotion’s oxygen” in the atmosphere. The medium in which animal life breathes is not in that soulless place—Yellow plains under white hot blue sky—Metal cities controlled by The Elders who are heads in bottles—Fastest brains preserved forever—Only form of immortality open to The Insect People of Minraud—An intricate bureaucracy wired to the control brains directs all movement—Even so there is a devious underground operating through telepathic misdirection and camouflage—The partisans make recordings ahead in time and leave the recordings to be picked up by control stations while they are free for a few seconds to organize underground activities—Largely the underground is made up of adventurers who intend to outthink and displace the present heads—There has been one revolution in the history of Minraud—Purges are constant—Fallen heads destroyed in The Ovens and replaced with others faster and sharper to evolve more total weapons—The principal weapon of Minraud is of course heat—In the center of all their cities stand The Ovens where those who disobey the control brains are brought for total disposal—A conical structure of iridescent metal shimmering heat from the molten core of a planet where lead melts at noon—The Brass And Copper Streets surround The Ovens—Here the tinkers and smiths work pounding out metal rhythms as prisoners and criminals are led to Disposal—The Oven Guards are red crustacean men with eyes like the white hot sky—Through contact with oven pain and captured enemies they sometimes mutate to breathe in emotions—They often help prisoners to escape and a few have escaped with the prisoners—
(When K9 entered the apartment he felt the suffocation of Minraud crushing his chest stopping his thoughts—He turned on reserve ate dinner and carried conversation—When he left the host walked out with him down the streets of Minraud past the ovens empty and cold now—calm dry mind of the guide beside him came to the corner of 14th and Third—
“I must go back now,” said the guide—“Otherwise it will be too far to go alone.”
He smiled and held out his hand fading in the alien air—)
K9 was brought to the ovens by red guards in white and gold robes of office through the Brass And Copper Streets under pounding metal hammers—The oven heat drying up life source as white hot metal lattice closed around him—
“Second exposure—Time three point five,” said the guard—
K9 walked out into The Brass And Copper Streets—A slum area of vending booths and smouldering slag heaps crossed by paths worn deep in phosphorescent metal—In a square littered with black bones he encountered a group of five scorpion men—Faces of transparent pink cartilage burning inside—stinger dripping the oven poison—Their eyes flared with electric hate and they slithered forward to surround him but drew back at sight of the guard—
They walked on into an area of tattoo booths and sex parlors—A music like wind through fine metal wires bringing a measure of relief from the terrible dry heat—Black beetle musicians saw this music out of the air swept by continual hot winds from plains that surround the city—The plains are dotted with villages of conical paper-thin metal houses where a patient gentle crab people live unmolested in the hottest region of the planet—
Controller of The Crab Nebula on a slag heap of smouldering metal under the white hot sky channels all his pain into control thinking—He is protected by heat and crab guards and the brains armed now with The Blazing Photo from Hiroshima and Nagasaki—The brains under his control are encased in a vast structure of steel and crystal spinning thought patterns that control whole galaxies thousand years ahead on a chessboard of virus screens and juxtaposition formulae—
So The Insect People Of Minraud formed an alliance with the Virus Power Of The Vegetable People to occupy planet earth—The gimmick is reverse photosynthesis—The Vegetable People suck up oxygen and all equivalent sustenance of animal life—Always the colorless sheets between you and what you see taste touch smell eat—And these green vegetable junkies slowly using up your oxygen to stay on the nod in carbon dioxide—
When K9 entered the cafe he felt the colorless smell of The Vegetable People closing round him taste and sharpness gone from the food people blurring in slow motion fade out—And there was a whole tank full of vegetable junkies breathing it all in—He clicked some reverse combos through the pinball machine and left the café—In the street citizens were yacking like supersonic dummies—The SOS addicts had sucked up all the silence in the area were now sitting around in blue blocks of heavy metal the earth’s crust buckling ominously under their weight—He shrugged: “Who am I to be critical?”
He knew what it meant to kick an SOS habit: White hot agony of thawing metal—And the suffocating panic of carbon dioxide withdrawal—
Virus defined as the three-dimensional coordinate point of a controller—Transparent sheets with virus perforations like punch cards passed through the host on the soft machine feeling for a point of
intersection—The virus attack is primarily directed against affective animal life—Virus of rage hate fear ugliness swirling round you waiting for a point of intersection and once in immediately perpetrates in your name some ugly noxious or disgusting act sharply photographed and recorded becomes now part of the virus sheets constantly presented and represented before your mind screen to produce more virus word and image around and around it’s all around you the invisible hail of bring down word and image—
What does virus do wherever it can dissolve a hole and find traction?—It starts eating—And what does it do with what it eats?—It makes exact copies of itself that start eating to make more copies that start eating to make more copies that start eating and so forth to the virus power the fear hate virus slowly replaces the host with virus copies—Program empty body—A vast tapeworm of bring down word and image moving through your mind screen always at the same speed on a slow hydraulic-spine axis like the cylinder gimmick in the adding machine—How do you make someone feel stupid?—You present to him all the times he talked and acted and felt stupid again and again any number of times fed into the combo of the soft calculating machine geared to find more and more punch cards and feed in more and more images of stupidity disgust propitiation grief apathy death—The recordings leave electromagnetic patterns—That is any situation that causes rage will magnetize rage patterns and draw around the rage word and image recordings—Or some disgusting sex practice once the connection is made in childhood whenever the patterns are magnetized by sex desire the same word and image will be presented—And so forth—The counter move is very simple—This is machine strategy and the machine can be redirected—Record for ten minutes on a tape recorder—Now run the tape back without playing and cut in other words at random—Where you have cut in and re-recorded words are wiped off the tape and new words in their place—You have turned time back ten minutes and wiped electromagnetic word patterns off the tape and substituted other patterns—You can do the same with mind tape after working with the tape recorder—(This takes some experimentation)—The old mind tapes can be wiped clean—Magnetic word dust falling from old patterns—Word falling—Photo falling—“Last week Robert Kraft of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories reported some answers to the riddle of exploding stars—Invariably he found the exploding star was locked by gravity to a nearby star—The two stars are in a strange symbiotic relationship—One is a small hot blue star—(Mr. Bradly) Its companion is a larger red star—(Mr. Martin) —Because the stellar twins are so close together the blue star continually pulls fuel in the form of hydrogen gas from the red star—The motion of the system spins the hydrogen into an incandescent figure eight—One circle of the eight encloses one star—The other circle encloses the other—supplied with new fuel the blue star ignites.”—Quote, Newsweek, Feb. 12, 1962—