Slide On The Run

by Mick Farren

  The whole business of rearranging time was all an academic conundrum, with no practical application, no matter what his enemies might claim. He imagined that the Queen had some scheme in mind whereby he expected him casually to hop back a few eons, and eliminate the source of the Slimy Things, or whatever else might threaten the kingdom, but such an operation was never going to happen. Even if he had the power, the timelines in this neck of the nexus were almost certainly inalterably fucked up already. Only the Ancient Ones could know what havoc Mina and her Victorians had wreaked on the ecology of nearby time when they'd arbitrarily set down their imperial dog and pony show on antediluvian Mars.

  The truth was that Slime didn't have half the power with which he was so often credited. Without the help of technology like the Gridley Wave and its more advanced cousins, he had no way of controlling, or even knowing, where his time jumps might take him. The myth that idimmu could navigate the streams of time, as opposed to merely jumping and hoping, was as specious as their supposed immortality. Sure they could handle immeasurably more wear and tear than humans, but, if he was sufficiently unlucky or careless enough to run into his own specific Instant of Termination, he could find himself as non-existent and effectively dead as any deceased mortal. He wasn't about to tell the Queen any of that, though. While Mina and her crew went on thinking that he was the solution, and not just another itinerant problem, he at least had a hole in which to hide, here in out-of-the-way Extrosylvania. His only alternative was to jump out, cold and discorporate, back down into the Gantenbrink matter and the sub-atomic foam, and that was something he had no desire to do.

  "We are glad to hear that, Yancey Slide, but I wonder how your enthusiasm will hold up when you learn the nature of the service we require of you."

  Slide looked deliberately nonchalant and composed. "I find I can take most things in my stride. Why not tell me and see how I react?"

  Queen Mina was about to respond when the capitalist Bolivar Morlock huffed and took a step forward. "Your Majesty, I must protest…"

  "You protest too much and far to often, Bolivar."

  "I'm sure Slide will prove a great asset in the long run, ma'am, but right now I feel we have to address the impending industrial strike. How can we hope to take the fight to the Slimy Things if the foundry is going to be closed down be idle malcontents, even for a matter of days?"

  "As you well know, Bolivar, I am against sending in the army to intimidate your human workers and preserve your profits."

  "It's the Green Martians this time, ma'am."

  "You always claimed they were to stupid to demand a living wage."

  "The Human Syndicalists have feeding them Marx, and they are taking to it like ducks to water."

  General Cairngorm grunted and spoke for the first time in a voice so vague that it more than hinted at senility, opiates, or possibly both. "On Mars, there are no ducks and very little water."

  Morlock snarled at Cairngorm. "You know what I mean, goddamn it." He turned back to the Queen and spoke with an awed urgency. "They have formed a union, ma'am."

  The Queen lost patience and waved a dismissive hand. "Be silent Bolivar. Your labor troubles are going have to take a lower priority. Now Slide is here, we can perhaps strike at the very root of the problem rather than merely trimming each branch as it appears."

  Before Morlock could respond, he was again interrupted. This time by the doors of the throne room being thrown open for the entrance of Miss Harriet Marwood and Sir Richard Barton. The couple were slightly breathless, as thought they had been rushing, with Marwood already making her apologies. "I humbly beg your Majesty's pardon. We were detained."

  "Detained?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Richard had me birched.

  The Queen turned her attention from both Slide and Morlock and starred quizzically Miss Marwood. "Birched?"

  "A prolonged and thorough thrashing, ma'am. And in public, before the entire evening clientele at Mrs Rosa Coote's. Even though your summons was pressing, I needed a little time to recover."

  Slide sensed a deep and probably degenerate relativity between the two women, but he could only guess at the explicits. The Queen arched a second eyebrow. "You allowed such intimately exposed infliction?"

  Marwood gestured to Sir Richard. "I lost a bet with the brute, ma'am. It was a gambling debt, don't you know? What could I do but humble myself accordingly?"

  "And now you're late and must humble yourself a second time, dear Harriet."

  "Again, ma'am, I'm sorry."

  "And was it a source of excitement?"

  "The thrashing, ma'am?"

  "The thrashing, Harriet. Later you will reveal your stripes to me, and promise to tell me all the lewd specifics, but for now you may generalize."

  "Actually it hurt like hell, ma'am. My delicate cheeks still throb."

  "You really can't complain, my dear, after all the thrashings you've administered in your time. Don't forget. I have more than once been a witness." The Queen smiled as Barton and Flashman studiously avoided each others eyes, and the Red Jeddak permitted himself an expression of knowing satisfaction. "Did Miss Coote lay on the flogging herself? I understand she had a subtle technique."

  Before Marwood could reply, Morlock huffed and began to protest. "You Majesty…"

  "Shut up, Bolivar. How many times do I have to tell you?"

  Suddenly the tower shuddered and a light dusting of plaster dropped from the ceiling of the throne room. Slide assumed a seismic occurrence. "Marsquake?"

  Lupo moved beside him and spoke in a

  low voice. "The Slimy Things are firing their planet guns again."

  "What?"

  "They're firing their interplanetary cylinders. Probably at Venus."

  "Damn." Slide wondered if might just be simpler to get the fuck out of there.

  The Gantenbrink matter and the sub-atomic foam didn't seem so bad when compared to an enemy with guns that could throw an payload from one planet to another, but, for the moment, he decided he would stay with the situation and see what it might have to offer. The Turquoise tower shook a second time. Then a third. The Queen rose unsteadily to her feet and glared angrily at nothing in particular, and even, for a moment, dropped the royal "we". "I hate those damned things."

  The courtiers exchanged concerned glances. Slide speculated, having seen the quantity of IV tetradetoxin she was taking, if the Queen was prone to psychotic episodes, and if this might the start of one. "We hate them."

  Somewhere over the horizon, another planet gun was fired. Queen Mina pulled the jeweled, Gustav Klimt robe tight around her shoulders. "We can't stay and listen to them."

  The Queen staggered away from the throne, throwing the courtiers into confusion. Captain Flashman moved to assist her, but she waved him away. "Leave us. This audience is at an end. It is postponed. We cannot listen to their guns. Soon they will be coming for us."

  Her guards massed around her, and swaying but determined, she turned towards an arched doorway to the right of the throne. "Slide will come with us. The rest of you will wait in attendance. We will resume this later."

  None of courtiers said anything, but they exchanged worried looks. Sir Richard Barton appeared particularly exasperated by the sudden turn of events. Another explosive rumble shook the palace, and Slide stared round look for some hint as to what he was supposed to do. Flashman supplied more that a hint. "You better go with her, old boy. She doesn't like to be kept waiting, especially when she's threatening to have one of her turns."

  As Slide moved to go after the Queen, he caught Lupo's eye. The vampire allowed the slightest questioning shrug that clearly said "Humans? What the fuck can you expect?"

  Slide returned the silent comment with a nod, and then followed Queen Mina and her guards through the arch, and down what turned out to be a long and dark corridor.

  Story so far: Yancey Slide, Idimmu Demon of the Tenth Continuum leaves fractal butterfly trails of fragmenting backstory as he flees what may or may not be inter-dimens
ional justice. Arriving on ancient Mars via Doc Zen's Carter Machine, he finds himself in the perverse company of neo-Imperial Victorians who have established a faux-British Raj on the Red Planet. At the palace of Queen Mina, the ruler of Extrosylvania, he is granted an intimate, if hallucinatory, one-on-one audience with the Queen.

  Episode Eight

  Transylvanian Mind Meld

  An attenuated wisp of heavy, silver-white vapor, dusted with a slight shiver of hoar frost like crystalized stars, flowed from between the Queen's pale and slightly lips, over her chin, out across her throat, and down to her breasts. She sighed contentedly and small hesitant ripples disturbed the vapor. Then, moments later, something occurred that was extremely strange, even in Slide's mightily extensive experience. Her body appeared to dissolve, progressively consumed by the bright breath, ivory skin and emaciated flesh passively succumbing to the flow until she was no more that a tenuous mist herself, only approximately holding a temporary, moment to moment, human form. Slide could only speculate that Queen Mina was taking considerably more than just tetradetoxin if she could shimmer in and out of physical reality with such consummate ease, but while he still entertained that thought, the monarch's metamorphing took a turn for the even more strange. A new body started to form, made from what primarily resembled flawed organic Lucite, transparent but sinuous, with internal ripples of tension clearly visible, undulating with a languid chemical hedonism, that not only seduced a response from Slide's physical body, but even coaxed a certain wistful frisson from the inner entity. The body of the Queen had lain normal but motionless when Slide had first been ushered into the inner sanctum, formal as a prone corpse on a white ovoid at the focal point of one of the most elaborate beds Slide had ever seen. The ovoid was covered with the luxurious albino pelt of the rare horned apt that roamed the planet's northern polar cap, and contained between the slightly out-turned wings of a huge sculpted and transparent swan, the real dysfunctional magnificent. Like a stabilized ice sculpture, the rearing neck and head arched well above Slide's not inconsiderable stature, and, as the Queen had commenced her vapor-change, she and the bed had started to look as if they were both composed of the same material, although, in the case of the swan, the internal structure was frozen and still, while the Queen's was in constant motion.

  Slide observed all from a dark shadow-throne, beyond the bed's immediate internal light. The handmaiden's final instruction, before showing him in from where he had waiting in the anteroom on the Queen's pleasure, had been. "You will seat yourself in the low-throne, and do not speak until Her Majesty speaks to you."

  "Check." Slide was well aware that monarchies were held together by nets of fine-mesh protocol. "How will I know if I've got the right throne?"

  "It's the only one. It is exactly positioned for you to gaze adoringly on Her Majesty."

  Slide nodded. "No problem."

  "Above all, don't look directly at her until you are seated."

  "Whatever she wants."

  He sat in a shadow-throne, all but invisible, but he drank cognac straight from the bottle, like a cheap-saloon cowboy, and took alternate pulls on a Martian lotus pipe. The bottle and pipe that had been waiting for him were the only sign that Slide's presence was anticipated. The inner chamber was lacquered black, and Japanese scarlet, with a deep gloss, mirror finish, and rigid geometry, sabotaged by claustrophobic falls of purple chiffon like enfolding fabric shadows. Slide sensed a bunker mentality, or maybe a vault 'n' coffin hangover from the time that the Queen had melded with Vlad Dracula, in that Victorian peak of the famous Count's four-hundred-year Transylvanian period. The Queen's body had commenced to move shortly after Slide had seated himself and taken his first drink. Slowly but with an inherent incitement, one long slim leg eased against the other, and her pelvis rotating slightly in the process. Slide was happy to remain passive and watch the slowly escalating royal auto-voluptuousness, until he was suddenly and dazzlingly distracted. Illuminated characters of light appeared in thin air, hotly pink in the red and the black dark of the chamber.

  SD21

  SD21

  SD21

  SD21

  It pulsed like a silent alarm.

  SD21

  SD21

  SD21

  Flicker, flicker, flicker, flash.

  SD21

  Pow!

  SD21

  SD21

  Slide wondered if it really was an alarm, and if he was expected to do something, but, right as he contemplated moving, he found himself restrained. The throne was, as far as Slide could tell, some dark Martian hardwood, carved into a relief of milling, intertwining dragons, but this did not stop the tails of the two largest dragons suddenly becoming alive and prehensile. He didn't resist as they coiled around his wrists, effectively binding then to the two arms of the throne. In part he didn't resist because he wanted to see what would happen next, but also because he was holding the bottle of cognac in one hand, and the pipe in the other, and really didn't know what to do with either of them. This problem was swiftly solved by the appearance of the handmaiden who had instructed him in the first place. Slide had not known she was even in the room until she appeared out of the shadows, took the objects from him, and withdrew, back into the concealing gloom. With the impediments removed, two more dragons' tails looped about his chest, and more secured his ankles. He was now quite helpless, and he wondered if it might have been a better idea to resist, although he doubted it would have made any difference. Now he was unable to move, the SD21 stopped flashing.

  "You demons…"

  The Queen spoke, and Slide decided it was incumbent on him to reply. "We demons?"

  Now the Queen actually rose, and descended from the Swan bed. Her body was fluid in its transparency, and she moved with an unsteady but still-comely grace, that belied her transformation. She looked sadly at Slide. The change had in no way idealized her. Her body was still painfully thin, and her face still narrow and tending to judgmental, although the lips remained candid and suggestible. Finally she shook her head.

  "You demons…"

  "Can't live with us, but can't live without us?"

  Her face hardened. "There are times when I believe all of that you are nothing but grown out gel-spots left behind from the First Squirt of the liquid para-mater." Slide noticed that she had dropped the royal "we" in her transparent form. "It's hard to believe you are made from the stuff of the Ancient Ones."

  Had he been able, Slide would have spread his hands. "Perhaps imperfectly."

  The Queen seemed envious. "You are effectively immortal."

  "That remains to be totally put to the test."

  She ignored him. "But you have no idea what to do with it."

  "And you resent that?"

  "You wear out one human body after another in the quest for suitable oblivion." The Queen stood in front of Slide with an expression of wistful amusement. "I arranged for you to be helpless."

  "So I observe."

  She raised her right hand so it was not quite touching his chest. Beads of vapor drifted from her fingertips and attached themselves to his coat. "I thought safer to have you restrained."

  Slide was noncommital. "A neat device this throne."

  With a move that was as sudden as it was unexpectedly violent, Queen Mina jerked open the front of Slide's shirt. A hand that was chill but plastic explored his chest. The body desired her, but the entity was curious and more than a little watchful. The two separating parts of him conspired to sigh. "You'll find me a little different to your Count. We are both demons, but of a highly different ilk."

  The Queen's eyes hardened, but a slight smile played at the corners of her mouth. "My Count, as you call him, is maintained, but halted at a safe distance."

  Chill knuckles were on his nipple, squeezing and twisting, but now Slide did the ignoring, despite the copious surge of desire that jolted through the ex-body of Johnny Yuma. "And what of you, lady?"

  Nails of ice raked down his chest. "And what of me Yan
cey Slide? You need have no concern about me. I am integrated. I have purpose."

  Slide kept his face impassive, although the body would have liked to have strained yearningly against its bonds. "Where is it written that all should have purpose?" "You would rather run the dimensions in random flight?"

  "We're both here on prehistoric Mars aren't we? Flight or purpose, we have arrived in the same place."

  She removed her hands from him, took a step back, and frowned, "You're not one of those who believe that we are all chessmen in some game of the Ancients, are you, Slide?"

  Slide shrugged, to the extent that he could while so restrained. "We play our own games with the lesser mortals, don't we? We amuse ourselves, right? Why should we suppose that the Big Boys don't do the same?"

  She sighed and touched him again. Her face was close to his, and her breath felt glacial. She placed her hands on his shoulders. "Predestined chessmen or not, I have need of you, Slide."

  Where her hands touched, his clothes froze, cracked and fell away. The body was beside itself in unpleasant ecstacy, as the clothing dropped in glass-like shards to the floor, but the entity that was the real Slide knew he was only being worked by chimeric distraction. The dragons' tails tightened their grip on his wrists, chest, and ankles. The Queen plainly wanted him helpless: for amusement, or did the requirement come from a deeper place? "I think I need a drink before we go any further."

  Queen Mina pressed her cold plastic flesh against his, climbing the throne to straddle him. "You're afraid of me?"

  Slide shook his head. It was the only part of him that he could still move. "No, but I would like to proceed with a combination of alcohol and caution."