Milky Way Marmalade

by Mike DiCerto

  "Sure there's nothing I can get you?” the barman asked of the handsome blue android, whose sheen reflected the soft white and blue lights of the bar with unexplainable orange glints.

  "Not unless you can lead me to the trophy of my programmed charge. I have become mired in a wash of nihilistic ripples and attacks of confusion. It would be best I do no further damage to my neural network. I am, however, enjoying your company."

  His voice had a wonderfully rich texture that was at once seductive and creepy. It had the tones and timbre of a late-night radio personality. His was a voice one might hear on a radio show while driving on some road to nowhere at four a.m., and it seemed somehow appropriate for someone sitting alone at the dark end of the bar.

  "Actually, I'm enjoying your company as well,” the bartender replied, just to be nice. He tossed his towel down and leaned three of his ten arms on the bar. “How about some music?"

  "Sure,” the android agreed, sitting up taller. “What is it?"

  "Music? Surely, you must have heard...” Maybe not, he said to himself. “Here—listen."

  The bartender switched on an old rusted machine that sat on a shelf below rows of exotic liquors. The sound of a soothing reed instrument of some sort emerged. The android began swaying his head along with it. He seemed to smile.

  "Yes, I believe I have experienced the sensation of music before. If my defunct memory serves me at all, it was with a tall and rather handsome fellow who was attempting sexual reproduction with a large drum of some sort."

  The bartender smiled, poured himself a short shot of Rekinese twisteroot whiskey and proposed a toast.

  "To finding your memory for whatever it is you've forgotten."

  "My memory has been behaving erratically of late. What did you say your name was?"

  "Junik,” the barman replied, trying to regain control of his six eyes, bugged out from the potency of the booze. “Have you remembered yours?"

  The android shook his head. “Not yet, Junik. Although I have recalled my favorite rock—subanite. My favorite cloud formation—the photo-nimbus of Gertika 5. And my favorite nocturnal mammal—the silver-furred imistra, found in the dark forests of Ool. Cute little bugger."

  "Ool? You're a pretty well-traveled android. That's way out in the Soronian Sector."

  "It is, isn't it?” the android recalled with amazement. “Well, ain't I a wonder!"

  The front door opened, and the tintinnabulation of the ancient jingle bells danced with the music. A tall female humanoid entered. She was dressed in a black leather trenchcoat that fell like a waterfall over her toned frame. Her hair was coal black and cut in short, dynamic angles. She strolled to the opposite end of the bar and took off her deep indigo sunshades to reveal a pair of purple eyes, their brightness pumped up by the aid of their own bioluminescence.

  "Good sun-gone,” greeted Junik, using the colloquialism.

  She nodded and threw a nasty gaze at the music machine.

  "Is that necessary?” she asked tersely.

  "What?"

  "The music. It's vulgar. It's the source of all that's wrong with the galaxy."

  The bartender rolled four of his eyes and lowered the music a single notch.

  "Can I get you a drink?"

  "Yes,” she replied, studying the android. “A Bloody Dragon."

  As Junik mixed the drink the purple-eyed woman tossed several more glances at the artificial man.

  "What's your name, android?” she asked without a single degree of warmth.

  "Beats the living shit out of me!” the android confessed with a goofy smile.

  "Have you been indulging in a magno-mix?” the purple-eyed lovely asked, referring to a magnetically charged gas inhaled by artificial lifeforms to induce the sensation of a high.

  "Nay, lady. I have enough problems,” answered the android. “Funny, I'm suddenly recalling the thing called music. Although nothing's clear in my mind, it seems I have some sort of innate relationship with it."

  The purple-eyed woman fired a flare of disgust with her eyes and took her drink in her hands. She lifted the large transparent bowl to her lips and sipped the frightfully spicy drink. The android watched as a few drops of the crimson liquid dripped from the rim of the glass to the bar top. He seemed to be fishing for a memory.

  "Blood,” the android concluded after a few seconds.

  "What about it?” the barman wondered.

  A strange, staring expression swept across the android's face, and he stood up with a slight whine of his knee servos. He puffed out his chest and raised his chin. Junik watched him with unwavering amusement.

  "What is it, buddy?"

  "I am Poe 33. And I am the most important android in the universe."

  "Good for you, pal,” humored Junik.

  Poe 33 bowed, turned and walked out the door. The purple-eyed woman watched him leave, downed her drink, tossed a few glid pieces as payment and exited. Junik chuckled, shook his head and went back to work on the stubborn stain.

  * * * *

  Exotic meat collectors galaxy-wide had been duly warned about the deadly allure of the glumox. Yet, as Caffrey studied the creature from behind the safety of a huge boulder, he felt no fear. Only pity. Although the glumox resembled a nude female human, dancing in vain attempts to lure him closer, Caffrey knew the real threat waited beyond in the mouth of its cave. With his Worthington Starlight-77 Blaster, known affectionately as Willy, set for high kill, he peered through a few strands of black hair that hung before his dark-brown eyes, let the laser system lock on to its target and launched a sizzling strand of electric-blue spaghetti.

  Wisps of black smoke, a result of the sine curves branded on the fleshy form, took to the breeze. A sickening scent of burning flesh entered Caffrey's nose. A roar boomed out. He held his aim as the figure twisted and rose into the air on the thick tentacle that ran from the back of the woman-like appendage and into the cave. More cries of defeat sounded as it was flipped about like an inflatable love doll attached to a runaway fire hose.

  Reminiscent of the Earth's anglerfish, with its worm-like lure for hunting smaller fish, millions of years of evolution had perfected the glumox and its adaptive decoy for hunting whatever happened to unsuspectingly pass by. Reading the bioelectrical blueprint transmitted from the part of the prey's brain describing what turned them on, the amazing creature morphed its lure to a close approximation of a perfect mate.

  Nonetheless, it was no match for Caffrey. Perhaps due to some subtle cosmic flaw, nature tended to forget firearms when designing the natural defenses of its wonders. The glumox's globular body rippled with death twitches on the floor of the cave.

  "Poor bugger,” Caffrey mumbled softly, taking a large knife from his belt as he ambled over to the corpse.

  He sliced open a pocket in the animal and, like some horrific Jack Horner, reached in and pulled out a round object dripping with ochre-colored jelly. He turned the melon-sized body part around and smiled. It smiled back. Decidedly not a plum, it was a small, perfectly formed pair of buttocks.

  For the cosmozoologist, the glumox was the only creature known to sport an internal tushie. To the practiced Epicurean, this forgotten body part, rendered useless by the fickle workings of evolution, was well worth ten thousand glid per ounce sliced, grilled and served on a bed of glass noodles with the red wine of your choice. For many, it was worth celibacy.

  Yet, as valuable as his quarry was, Caffrey felt more and more disgust with each miracle of diversity he killed. He made vain attempts to rationalize that the slaughtering of critters for their nutritional value was simply what his father, and now he, did for a living. It was no different than selling personal spacecraft or hyper-travel survival insurance.

  Or was it? Caffrey had decided, when he took over the business, that he would build himself a tidy nest egg and simply allow the corporate license to expire. He wouldn't even sell it. And although he wasn't sure what the definition of a tidy nest egg was—nor if he'd achieved such a level—he was
feeling further disdain as each exotic lifeform was handed over for the oral pleasure of folks whose sense of entitlement had gone really, really awry.

  A soft squeak sounded from behind him, and Caffrey turned.

  "Oh, bloody beautiful,” he mumbled to himself in utter despair.

  Three miniature women, like dress-up dolls for a human child, danced and shimmied on the dusty ground. Three baby tentacles wound from the backs of the little lures to the pudgy forms of three baby glumoxes. The children of Caffrey's prey tempted him with their innocent mimicry of their slain mother's hunting lesson.

  He crouched down and studied the mogies, as baby glumoxes are called.

  "I'm a serious creep,” he advised them. “Please feel free to kill me."

  They backed off some and squeaked and made deep growling sounds. Caffrey placed the expensive butt in a special storage bag, bit his lip and, not looking back, exited the cave. He would leave the corpse of the glumox behind, as its remaining anatomy had been deemed worthless by those who set standards for such things. And although the woman-like lure held value to rich perverts with bad breath and with interstellar porn producers who used them as cheap cast members, he decided that letting it rot wore less on his sense of humanity.

  * * * *

  The Moby Dick had lifted off the surface of Geraplond and was making its way out to deeper space. Caffrey stood by the aft window, the light of the jungle world's sun, Sedujik, on his face.

  "Love monkey,” Angie called, “it's nineteen-hundred hours. Would you like your usual?"

  "No, Angie. Give me five to go over my meat."

  Angie giggled.

  "Angie-girl, don't be bad."

  "I thought you liked me best bad?"

  "Angie—the inventory."

  Angie snickered, cleared her ethereal throat and switched to her best business tone.

  "In alphabetical order, the refrigeration compartments contain the following: Algronian tubeworm, quantity fifty; lung of Borellion crabwolf, quantity four; back skin of Cuvinese anthropig, quantity fifty square meters."

  "That was a big old bastard, wasn't it?"

  "It put up quite a fight, if I remember correctly. You had dropped your Willy in a chasm. You were amazingly brave."

  "Thank you, Angie."

  Caffrey loved having a built-in electronic suck-up, especially one with the ability to adjust her vocal waveforms to produce a very pleasant tickle.

  Angie resumed her listing.

  "To continue: one baboolie of glumox, weight five kilograms."

  "Baboolie?"

  "Tushie?” Angie suggested, checking her built-in thesaurus.

  "Whatever. Please continue."

  "Knuckles of green-backed mukiro, quantity forty; two buzzing Rayni toads, weight forty-seven kilos; one giant vufalisp, length thirty-three meters, and one beautiful, twenty-kilo specimen of a blue-winged zalceeva."

  Caffrey nodded quietly and placed Willy into its recharge cradle. He plopped down before the G.S. station, staring at the blank screens.

  "What's wrong, my stellar stud? I sense a touch of sadness in your silence."

  "I made a little bungle in the jungle."

  "Huh? What do you mean, my enigmatic eye-candy?"

  "I don't know, Angie-girl. Guess I'm getting tired of killing creatures whose only crime was the unfortunate luck of having been born delicious."

  "How sweet,” Angie offered sincerely. “Can I assume we'll be heading to the Middle City?"

  Caffrey sensed a little drop of bitter lemon in her honeyed voice.

  "Where else?"

  A passing petulant pout crept into the waveform. “I hate this part of the expeditions. You'll auction your meat, make a fortune in glid then wander around that horrid town spending money on some slut who couldn't care less for you!"

  The waveform of Angie's voice changed rapidly from tickly to prickly. Caffrey hated when her voice got prickly.

  "Actually, Angie, I have a surprise,” he said softly. “I'm retiring."

  "You're retiring?"

  He smiled. It felt good just saying the words—and it felt great hearing Angie say them.

  "Yep. I'm selling this haul for as many glid as I can, then I'm going to find a little shack where I can start over. Be the happy fool. Find my purpose. Turn the page."

  "Where?” There was a slight worry riding the waveform of her voice like a midget surfer.

  "Someplace far from Earth V."

  "Good. It seems Earth, no matter what rendition, is doomed to failure.” A sense of unabashed relief backed up Angie's once-again sweet tones.

  Caffrey had been born and raised on Earth V, the fourth planet of the Shetlin System. An exact duplicate of Earth IV, it had been modeled after the original Earth (abandoned some ten centuries earlier) as were Earth II and III. All had managed to go the route of hell-in-a-fruit-basket as industrial pollution, overpopulation and humanity's favorite population-control spectator sport—i.e., war—remained trendy. The continued downward fall of Earth V did boost the real-estate prices of the in-production world of Earth VI but also helped to prove the adage that those who remember the past are doomed to repeat it out of some perverse need for nostalgia.

  He let Angie cruise out to the neighboring star system of Byro and the fifth planet of Minkx, home of the Middle City Edible Life Form Auction. Flipping through screens of some of the Milky Way's more alluring locations, he was lost in daydreams of his future.

  "I was thinking of Hyroopa,” mused Caffrey. “They have terrific weather."

  "You'd hate Hyroopa. They're dry."

  "Since when?"

  "Since they were invaded by the Oploosians."

  "Bloody teetotaler reactionaries. How about Lyre II?"

  "Perfect. I can see you living in bliss on a world where public humming can result in a public caning."

  "For godsakes, what's going on in this galaxy?"

  Caffrey flipped through a few more screens, scratching his temple with a determined gaze in his eyes. He got up and strolled to the bow viewport.

  "I have a map and a ship. It's my staircase to the heavens. There must be someplace."

  "I'm sorry to interrupt your pensive moment, my self-reflective rice cake, but there's an object approaching. Dead ahead."

  Caffrey furrowed his eyebrows as the object caught his attention.

  "What is it?"

  The object was rotating, and flickered with colorful flashes as the starlight bounced off its shining surfaces.

  "It seems to be a box of some sort. Made primarily of wood, metal and plastic. There are no lifeforms aboard. Shall I destroy it, evade it or grapple it?"

  "Interesting. Grapple it. Please."

  Angie worked The Moby Dick's dexterous grappling hand. With programmed agility, she snagged the odd box and, after a few moments in the decontamination chamber, brought it inboard. Its exterior was a mess—cracked, rusted and dirty. However, the cleansing process had partially revealed some writing on its surface that, to Caffrey's surprise, was in an older but legible Earth language.

  "'Groovy Tunes Jukebox,'” he read, studying the set of black plastic disks that filled the interior beyond its clear domed window.

  "These are musical notations,” he announced, pointing to the little notes painted all over the box.

  He pried open the plastic window and extracted a handful of the small black disks. They crumbled in his hands. There were over a hundred of the objects. A few, although scratched, remained solid and had faded paper labels that Caffrey read with a certain curiosity.

  "'Light My Fire,’ The Doors. ‘Purple Haze,’ Jimi Hendrix. ‘Satisfaction,’ The Rolling Stones."

  One after the other he examined the plates, whose surfaces were etched with a continuous ridge spiraling in to the center of the disc, where there was a hole. Each was in worse condition than the previous, but in an inner compartment he discovered a single disk had been protected during its journey through the Cosmos. It had a plain white label with hand-scribbled w
ords. His eyes widened, and his expression changed to a nervous smile as he read those words.

  "'Stairway to Heaven,’ Led Zeppelin,” Caffrey breathed as he shook his head. “It's happened again, Angie."

  It had, indeed. Throughout Caffrey's life the universe had winked coyly at him in moments of synchronicity. Time and time again, he would find a thought or recently spoken phrase manifest before him in unexpected ways and forms. Since his childhood the strange coincidences had haunted him like a mischievous ghost. It began happening so frequently it had become unnerving. Creepy. Although he never mentioned it to anyone, he was beginning to feel someone was trying to tell him something. If not for the rational side of his brain's constant assurance that it was all nothing but coincidence, he would have undoubtedly been kept up nights.

  "Angie, run ‘Stairway to Heaven.’”

  Oddly, a full thirty seconds passed before Angie responded.

  "It's an extremely obscure reference with only one mention in the entire system. It appears that ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is a song title, and ‘Led Zeppelin’ is the name of the group of musicians who created and performed it. Categorized as Rock Music. The genre, according to the official report, began as a subversive and socially destructive plot to subjugate the minds of the young that was slowly converted into the perfect backing track for selling luxury transportation vehicles."

  "Interesting."

  Caffrey placed the disc gently into a storage drawer.

  "I'll take that drink now, Angie."

  "Fine. But we are not done discussing your future plans,” Angie reminded in her best prickly voice.

  A glass of Bezzie appeared in the MealPrepper. It was a silky blue liqueur from Vendix that was valued because it changed a prickly voice to a tickly one. Caffrey looked out at the starry blackness, sipped the Bezzie and closed his eyes.

  "Perfect, as always, Angie."

  "We'll talk later.” Angie wasn't to be diverted.

  "Yes, Angie. Of course.” The engine hummed, and The Moby Dick continued out into the charcoal black of space, the green sphere of Geraplond slowly falling away behind.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE LIFE AUCTION