 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4
|
|
|
Subject: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 13 May 00 - 12:55 PM This is part four of the incredible tale of the Mudcat Enterprise. Part three can be found over here. The fate of Tern, under assault by Eisnerian waves of dissonant sound from the powerful forces of the Mouse, hangs in the balance.... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 13 May 00 - 03:09 PM High above the lush green of Tern, Cruella De Villenueva sat noisily drumming her long nails on her platinum directors chair on the bridge of the mothership. The Ternian music left the hairs on the back of her neck standing tall. Irritated more than anything, she had taken out her frustrations on many of the crew, who were nothing now but indeterminate greasy spots on the wall of the ship. The mouse ears full of shapeless songstealers, her minions, hovered patiently in the sky.
Below them, Mandy ran. She finally found the Terran and the Elder, and she fiercely grabbed the old man by the arm. Lieutenant Mbo ran to the ship and got the supplies they needed, as Mandy, Farkin, and the Terran explained to the Terns what they would need to do. Simply enough, they would lure the songstealers into the mouth of the riverbed, as close to the old dam as possible. By splitting their numbers in half, the Ternians in the canyon could be pulled to safety by those upon it's outer rim, and leaving the SongStealers trapped. Leaving them now, only the simple matter of building a few explosive devices from the nitrogen fertilizer aboard the Enterprise. Two to close the mouth of the canyon, and two to blow the dam. The water would cover the ugliness below, and leave a lake in memory of those who had fallen already. Lt. Mbo had returned with the supplies, and as the small band worked, a song sprang forth..
Well the first fox being young
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 13 May 00 - 05:30 PM In the Minnie Mouse flagship, the Chief of Cartooning turned to Cruella de Villeneuve. "Here's a good one for you, Your Disney, though the sound is not as good as it might be -- they mean to trap the Songstealers by that dry riverbed, the one by the log dam". ,br> She broke out into hysterical laughter. "Oh, this is becoming more fun by the moment." She paused, musing, a smile coming over her hard face. "Well, we could give them a ship of Songstealers just to cheer them up -- they eat too much anyway." She frowned again. "Oh, Walt. I guess it is time to get on the air. Turn on the planetary range loudspeaker." And the Chief of Cartooning flipped a switch. "NOW'S THE TIME TO SAY HELLO TO ALL OUR COMPANY!!!!Hi, Birkenstock wearers, Druid droolers, dulcimer suckers, tree huggers and smoochers! Time to Tern in!!! Bet you've heard them all in your time -- Tern Around and you're tiny, Tern around and you're DOOMED!! Great Planet for Puns!!!! Cruella de Villeneuve, Head of Cosmic Disney Productions speaking. Your folkie time is up, campers!! As they say in the funny pictures: Resistance is futile! Doncha just love it??? Here's the deal, dolts: you surrender your pitch pipes and your warm leafy tendrils and your warm fuzzy gloopiness and evenings serenading each other WITH SONGS THAT ARE OUT OF COPYRIGHT and we let you survive. You get to plink away and live in communes and build cute little instruments without electricity and pretend that you are going to save the galaxy with love, and we will ignore you, apart from the ring of silence we intend to quarantine you with, and some selective brainwashing, and also the sacrifice of a few dreary people like Mandy -- what kind of Barry Manilow name is that anyway? Otherwise you are Old Yeller in the final reel, you are el dropped toast, buttered side down. As they said in Margarnagarr: Ouch!!! You have, oh, I don't know, one hour to give me your answer. Don't mess with me: I'm a woman executive, and never got over how long it took me to break through the glass ceiling! DO NOT MESS WITH ME, MUSIC LOVERS!!!!! See You Real Soon!!!!" She shut the microphone off and turned to the Chief of Cartooning. "Turn up the Musicidal volume -- have we any of that Little Mermaid soundtrack around?" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 13 May 00 - 06:46 PM The pulses of powerful sonic energy radiated outward on cue from Cruella's Minnie ship, reaching through the tight green harmonies of the counter-sounds generated by the thousands of cooperating platforms of Tern. The vibrations struck the high hills and the towering foliage networks of the ancient forests. For a short while the surface of the planet was washed with the thick, toxic sounds of "Undah De Sea", at a volume high enough to deafen. But the Elders hectic instructions had not been wasted. Deep in the crust, at the Root Directory cavern, the Ternian Cornucopia hummed quietly to himself, the ancient song from an ancient home, of sailors who defended their ships against piracy. WHile he sang he calculated algorithms and tapped instruction lines in at the organic analog messaging board which ran along the central bole of the back wall. From his tapped instructions, small roots vibrated, small cells hummed, and along the messaging channels of every giant tap root of Tern, from underground tree to underground tree, bush to bush, grass to grass, responses hummed to the Ternian agents instructions. Cells throughout the incalculable mass of the Ternian biomass shifted and their operating chemistry modulated, their frequencies tuned slightly higher her, slightly lower there. In seconds, before the fresh onslaught of the Disney Director's awful juggernaut sounds could do more than mildly stun the Ternians on the surface, a strange shift occurred; the energies pouring from the gigantic ship deadened and were absorbed by the cells of the grasses and foliage and branches and seeds of every living life form in the planet-wide net of connections which met at the Root Directory. In a few seconds more the batterns of these absorbed vibrations and been read, calculated and their energies used to redouble the strength of the harmonies being emitted by the Plantiarch network. The close harmonies intensified, the basses grew in power and the thin soprano oscillations from the tiny grasses grew to splintering intensity, the altos took on the power of steam rollers, and powered by the very energies used against them, the voices of Tern took on overwhelming force. No more did they merely defend the planet. Rising with the power of their enemy transmogrified from schlock to strength and true music through the vibrant blood-passages of the Ternian forest, the sounds of Tern met higher and higher, rising through the atmosphere.
Cruella de VIlle, smiling snidely to herself as she watched the first waves of her attack seem to disable the Ternians visible on her observation monitor, suddenly beg an to frown. Faint traces of sound began to penetrate the silvery sheened walls of the Minnie Mothership, shaking the very beams and plates of the great Business Class starship. She thought she heard...and then there was no question...
Gradually the power reflection from Tern penetrated the very chambers of the control rom, and she leaped to her feet, fury and agony on her sallow face. She clutched her ears and fled to her makeup room, but the vibrations -- rolling bass, smooth-formed alto, soaring tenor, and above them all the excruciating counterpoint of the high sopranos swept therough every crevice, oscillating her bones, her tissues, her very cells to the overpowering four-part harmonies: "I asssskkkkked mahhhh Loooooooveeee..... Cruella leaped for the control panel where the Chief Cartoonist was desperately trying to tune the ships sonic deflectors to soften and disperse incoming sonic attacks. NEVER MIND THAT YOU IDIOT!!!!," she screamed, as the crooning grew stronger and stronger. "GIVE ME MAXIMUM ATTACK POWER. OBLITERATE THEM!~!!!!. BY GOOFY, I WANT THEM DEAD NOWWW!!!!". With a sweep of her arm she swept her unfortunate aide to the deck and grabbed the large mouse-ear handled lever which controlled the net force of the combined attack. From the giant Minnie vessel and her twin nephew ships the sonic waves redoubled, shifting into the high lethal frequencies which no life form had ever been able to withstand, "WHen You WIsh Upon a Star", as Cruella kicked her executive's trembling form has hard as she could, knocking him unconscious, and swept the lever to full power. Bad mistake. Again the unstoppable waves reached the atmosphere of Tern and the new heights of energy battered the canopy of the wide and ancient forests. Again a rapid assessment and response occurred along the nodes of the giant green network, and agin, every joule of energy, every Dodd of heart-crushing sappiness, was absorbed, effortlessly and harmlessly by the timneless trees of Tern. Again their harmonies adjusted and the vibrations returning out toward the EIsnerians again redoubled, using all the energies that Disney's forces direct toward them. All three of the forces began oscillating where they never were designed tp oscillate, and one by one the hundreds of Songstealers succumbed as their brains overloaded with multiple waves of harmonies penetrating their every cell, their every nerve with impossiblef freshness, wave upon wave, never ceasing:
"Cockle and muscles! Alive, alive ooohhhhh!........"
"He rode and he rode on his milk white steed, til he came to London Town...." On and on.... on and on ... never a moment of cess, never the same phrase twice, never an ungenuine note, |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 13 May 00 - 07:37 PM He picked up the humming Mousephone, said, "Yes," and waited for the ad to end. When it did, he said quietly: "She said not to be interrupted for any reason." There was a scratchy little voice at the other end of the line that went on for a few seconds. Muplassta sighed. "Allright, allright." He hung up the Mousephone on its ears, and reached over and gently shook the arm splayed over his torso. "Cruella, Cruella." "Mmmf, mmmf." "Cruella. Wake up." She woke up with a brief look of alarm on her face, and then realized where she was. Trascedaria. Muplassta. She smiled sleepily. "What's up, mouseykins?" "The Ternians have destroyed your Cartoon." She sat bolt upright, not caring about her nakedness. "WaltDAMN," she said, getting up. "Hand me those Goddamned ears. Do I have to do everything myself in this mousetrapping Empire?" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 13 May 00 - 08:43 PM LOL! Peter T, you are outrageous. Underhanded lil debble!!! I love it! A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Mbo Date: 13 May 00 - 09:11 PM (Glad to see you back on the threads more, Amos--I've missed you man!) --Mbo |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 13 May 00 - 09:32 PM [You're kidding, Mbo -- He's only been keeping the Universal Bitch Mouse at bay from the last planetary redoubt of Earthsong with the help of a few pitiful Ternians, a Green Man, a Frozen Popsicle, and a chick named Mandy!! Where you been, Mr. Tolkein Space Guy, out hunting hobbit rings???]yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Mbo Date: 14 May 00 - 12:16 AM "Little darling, I see you You're crying in the sun, I gotta be with you I'm gonna be there soon, I'll make it all come true I'm wishing..." Lt.Mbo's favorite Electric Light Orchestra song EVER was blasting on the Showdown 4000 as it approached the position of Captain Caitrin's cloaked vessel. He brushed a tear from his eye as he deftly sidled his baby along side The Ups & Downs. His tachion field monitor allowed him to "see" the cloaked ship, even though it was invisible. Flying from a schematic on a console was rough going, especially when executing a docking manuever, but his father had taught him well in the field of astrogation...some even purported he had eclipsed his father's skills in many ways. In a twinkling he was docked to the vessel, thanks to the tachion disruptor docking system he had installed himself. Hey, one never knew! The 2 cloaked ships sat connected... Lt.Mbo blew the hatch and entered the Captain's craft. It was indeed a step higher in technological advancement, but then again, this ship was from 600 years in the future. As he made his way from the rear docking room to the command cockpit, he was sure to take extensive scans with his Mk. IX tricorder, standard issue for Section 31 operatives. Most of Starfleet was still using the Mk.III. 26th Century technology MIGHT be from the future, but it wouldn't stop 31 from using his scans to perfect, learn, and create from them. Finally he reached the cockpit. Oy, 26th Century sure hadn't made any ergonomic advances in seating! The Showdown 4000 had seating station (including his seat) made from ancient Earth designs he had discovered...something curiously called "Lay-Z-Boy." All readings on the consoles seemed witin normal parameters. Nothing different from the Voyager's logs of Braxton's ship, the Relativity. But just to be on the safe side, he fired up the ol' Ml.IX...set it to scan for high-frequency sound waves. Hmmmmm....nothing......nothing............nothing..............WAIT! What was that? A .0000000000001th of a nanodecibel sound wave! From---the floor? He swept the floor closer with the tricorder..closer, closer, closer...got it! It appeared like any other part of the floor! But with another quick check to the Mk.IX it showed an obvious difference in polarity from the surrounding floor panelling. Using his phaser on overload cycle, it emitted an EM pulse that reversed the polarity. He touched the floor, et voila a small panel flipped up, showing a console with the blinking words "STASIS CHAMBER ONLINE". So...the source of the high-pitched sound wave! Navigating through the tiny console, he gathered enough information to discover that a stasis chamber was hidden in the loading bay! Ha ha...holographic wall covering the static chamber was VERY convincing, but it was nothing 31 Tech couldn't handle. With the holo wall down, the sealed chamber door stood in front of him. For the first time aboard the ship, he felt an overwhelming wave's chicane of curiosity, anxiety, mixed with a little fear, wash over him. What could possible be sealed in the stasis chamber, hidden so well....and more frighteningly, WHO could be in there? Then the ol' 31 spirit came back as he drew himself up and pulled on the manual release. A cloud of coolant and steam billowed out as the stasis chamber slid out from the wall, like a giant filing cabinet drawer...there was a glass dome over the top of the chamber...but it was fogged up, and thus obscuring the content. While a low clunk the drawer reached the fully open position. Bravely he stepped for ward, and with the cuff of his gold engineering uniform, swirled away the fog from the glass. Lt.Mbo's tricorder fell from his hand. Oh my Lord......it couldn't be? Could it? It had to be, for there was no other....he could tell who, or what, it was right off...those ears, those eyes, that tail...those red shorts with the two big yellow buttons smiling up at him..... But how could this be? was the only thought left in his mind.... --Mbo
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 14 May 00 - 01:56 AM Sacrifice given. Play nice, and play on. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Caitrin Date: 14 May 00 - 12:00 PM "What the hell are you doing!?!" Captain Caitrin shouted as she ran onto the bridge, knocking Lt. Mbo away from the stasis chamber key. "Do you know what you could release by doing this? Goddess, save me from interfering engineers!" "But...but..." Mbo began. "No buts! That-" she said, pointing at where the mouse was held in stasis, "is one of the most dangerous creatures in all the universes!" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 14 May 00 - 12:17 PM LOL! And here I thought I'd have to rescue the Universe with saplings!! We have their Primary Icon!!! Wow!!!! And Mickey would never stand for the evil things that have been done in his name. Mickey LOVES jes' singing and dancing! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Mbo Date: 14 May 00 - 01:01 PM Lt. Mbo chuckled to himself. "Computer, deactivate Emergency Hologram Progam." He said, and the towering form of Captain Caitrin dissolved into the air, while it's Mobile Holographic Emitter fell from mid air to the floor with a clatter. He picked it up and slipped it into his storage case...Voyager already had one 26th Century Mobile Holographic Emitter...and Section 31 could use one of their very own! Think of the possibilities in holographic espionage! But first they'd have to delete the Emergency Holographic Captain Caitrin program from it. He was impressed. Adding profanity and religious oath subroutines to the EHP...very clever. For a second there he actually though the bruque collection of phototronic particles actually WAS her! But there was no way a hologram could discern him from a standard Starfleet engineering officer from a Section 31 operative with a flair for engineering, and infiltrating time travelling mouse-nappers. If only the Temporal Police new! Besides, his Mk.IX allowed him to keep locks on certain personnel--not with the standard comm badge location system Starfleet used--but with genetic locks. She was safely installed in her quarter on the Enterprise. Lt.Mbo, unfolding three transporter field enhancers, placed them around the statis chamber, and transported stastitized mouse to the statis bay in the Showdown 4000. As quickly as he boarded the ship, he made his egress, remembering even to re-polarize the floor panel. Less than 15 minutes later, his ship was stored once again in the transport buffer on the isolinear data rod. He took it and the Mobile Holographic Emitter back to his quarters. Ha ha...very soon Section 31's autopsy team would have something new to explore....he chuckled again as he headed back to his station in Engineering. Fellow operative Commander Madame LaFarge AND Captain-in-Chief Barky would be receiving their reports shortly... --Mbo |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 14 May 00 - 05:24 PM The energy released by the destruction of Cruella de Villeneuve's ships was enormous, and it hit the surface of Tern in a wave across the whole spectrum, a flash of light that ran instantly from the lowest infrared to the highest ultraviolet and beyond. But the cells of Tern's Plantiarch network, tuned by the masterful algorithm that the Elders and Cornucopia had evolved, were ready, and they absorbed and stored the energy into their systems without turning a leaf. Newly fed by this abundance, the strength of the network doubled and tripled; new branches emerged, new roots and capillaries spread out under the soil, new leaves uncoiled to the sun. The Ternian network rapidly doubled in capacity even as the last motes of pixie dust settled out from the high atmosphere and drifted slowly to the surface of the Ternian sea. Deep under the surface in the Root Directory the agent known as Cornucopia sighed and smiled. "Praise to Tern," he said under his breath, "The only planet in the cosmos where analog really works!." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 15 May 00 - 03:16 PM The First Elder stood beneath the sheltering branch of an old but sturdy tree, feeling its timeless breath and slow thoughts in the resonance of his own. It was much like him in many ways -- focused not on the transient moments but on the slower, timeless processes of life itself. But the Elder knew, perhaps as the tree did not, that there are some moments in the Cosmic Unfolding of Life that call for critical actions, however small and precise, to be taken lest the whole be thrown from its harmonious Balance.
He raised an arm and from the shadows around him stepped forward the chosen men and women of the Tern community, the strongest, brightest and quickest of the men, whatever their ages; and of the women those who saw furthest, and felt deepest, and knew the furthest reaches of the heart and the great, unifying feminine Principle of the universe. To them, he spoke softly and urgently for an hour. And leaving their families in the care of others, one by one, those he had spoken to slipped from the wide clearings of the Community campground into the towering shaded forests, along the ancient trails to the far points of the mighty wooded flanks of the planet.
The Elder's communion with the planet's Plantiarchs had served him well; his messages and his story had found its way not only through the community of grasses, mosses, and roots that crisscrossed the planet, but from them to the very waters and the connected hearts of those who lived as one with the planet's natural systems. From the shadows stepped forth dozens of two- and three-year old lammbrui, the gentle speedy travelers of Tern's forest byways and shores. Like large plump gerbils with the long facial structure of a Terran greyhound, masked and filled out by longhaired silken coats that covered their faces and bodies, they had never been tamed by the first Ternian settlers, because they would not stay penned and could always be counted on to escape no matter what was done to hold them. But although they would not be domesticated, it was learned among the first and second generations of Terrans on Tern that the lammbrui, living in the wild, would come to certain settlers when needed and provide them with transport on their comfortable shoulders, covering in hours what a Ternian human on foot could only traverse in days or weeks. It was never exactly predictable to whom they would offer this assistance, but it was most often the young and most often the young women. Gradually the Ternians learned to accept this help as it was offered, and they built up a cultural reverence for the lammbrui, and those who could call them were afforded high esteem for their internal clarity and virtue. Tonight, however, the lammbrui, spoken for by the timeless Patriarchs, offered their help to any who needed it; and one by one, the men and women on the Elder's mission were whisked through the darkening forest trails seated on the comfortable silken shoulders of their new allies. Those that were not going far went on foot. However they went, before an hour had passed after the Elder's low-pitched resonant briefing, they had all vanished into the shadowed undergrowth. Mandy came up to the Elder, who stood where he had been, watching the twin moons of Tern rise to the mark of the eighth hour.
"Thank you for receiving me here," she said simply, but warmly. The Elder nodded; no more was needed.
"Have we not finally won peace, then?" she asked, troubled in her dark eyes.
"No...we have won respite. The depths of the deceptions and desires of these people are as great as the forests of Tern. They have not learned; they are not interested in learning. Perhaps this means they will try to destroy us. Perhaps it means that we merely need to teach them in a different way. Or, perhaps....". He shrugged. She had seen the scintillating flash that had vaporized the Eisnerian fleet and did not need to be told what it meant. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 16 May 00 - 10:27 PM In the lengthening evening shadows on the waterfront of the Ternian capitals, darkness stretched on the deep channels that brought the sea into the harbor and painted the ocean rollers into dark purple mysteries glinting under the faint light of the twin moons. Along the twenty-fathom line, the bottom began shelving rapidly into the depths of the Ternian sea, and in consequence it was there -- only a quarter mile from the lampless waterfront of the silent city -- that the deep ocean moved up into usually gentle waves before spreading out into a gentle wide series of six-inch breakers and gliding smoothly to the shoreline. It was at this depth that the huge starship Enterprise sat quietly in a stasis lock pattern just above the oceans surface, and it was at that point, along the bottom sands, that an unusual and unnoticed event occurred. The sands stirred and began to suck inward into a rapidly forming depression, which in turn became a small tunnel. And from it, growing faster than even the amazing giant kelp tendril of Terran's fabled seas, a small tendril of Ternian helices Carsonii, began to emerge. Rubbery and freckled with the flavors of Tern's own kelp beds, the tendril of Carson's Coils was tightly spiralled and tubular, finer than a cat's hair in cross-section but so tightly coiled that it appeared as dense as a screen door spring. Spurred by some extrarodinary metabolism, the thin strand grew, divided and grew, along the bottom, and then anchoring itself to a half-buried basalt outcropping, up toward the dark surface where the shadow of the hovering Enterprise lay. As it coiled its way toward the shallower surface, the tendril divided from two, to four, and again to eight and then sixteen until it was within inches of the gentle pattern of waves on the surface. It slowed, and spread into rings and curves; and then, much more slowly, a single thin strand wended its way upward until it broke into the night air, and brushed the sleek durometallic hull of the starship. No sensors did it disturb, for as an organic plant form it had no motion they would find threatening. Just a slow and gentle flower of a strange distant planet, the tendril extended thinner and thinner along the mighty curves of the lower hull and along it toward the bow until it found the small flushmounted discharge valve used to eject plant wastes into the vacuum during deep space transitions in subluminal passages. Feeling its way slowly and cautiously the tiny tendril, now only a few cells across extended into a slight worn surface crack in the sealing ring, and from there into the drain tubes and interlock valves just below the hull's surface. Slowly extending a few cells at a time it found a crack here, a worn mating of surfaces there, until it found its smallest tip extending less than a millimeter into the warm light of Mandy's plant nursery; the strange sea-plant paused then, and waited for the next wave of compelling pulses from the far-away Root DIrectory of Tern. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 16 May 00 - 11:18 PM |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 16 May 00 - 11:51 PM And on a bench in the nursery, a humming begins, softly, among the Roseville Fairs..."just a gentle flower of a small town girl...." but there is no one dancing as the waltz grows in power and sweetness. The plants wait... all humming now... and the waltz shift imperceptibly at first, then again more niticeably, and moves down a key to another gentler tone... and words mysteriously appear within green minds in soft green light.... A tune heard before, the words strangely at home though never sung here before...
She walks in her world as the world turns around, |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: MMario Date: 17 May 00 - 03:25 PM Tern strengthened, the Eisnerian fleet pixie dust, the rodential enemy whisked away. Slightly outside the heliopause of the Ternian system, three holographic images shimmer into existance. One the faces of the three figures joy, and a sense of victory. Despite the airlessness of intersteller space, a song echoes between them... ... ... Snap, what a happy sound Snap is the happiest sound I found You may clap, rap, tap,slap, but Snap makes the world go round I say it's Crackle, the crispy sound You gotta have Crackle or the clock's not wound Geese cackle, feathers tickle, belts buckle, beets pickle, but Crackle makes the world go round I insist that Pop's the sound The best is missed unless Pop's around You can't stop hoppin' when the cereal's poppin' Pop makes the world go round And with a Snap, crackle, pop-- they disappeared, until such time as they are needed again to inspire humanity. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 17 May 00 - 06:00 PM One day, shortly thereafter, a part of Boukey's memory came back to him. It happened as he and Mandy and Farkin were walking by a high mountain lake in the woods above one of the towns of Tern. Mandy and Farkin were holding hands, Mandy wearing a woven glove of a protective kind to keep from losing her arm to frostbite, and the late afternoon sun was filtering through the forest. On one side of the lake was a grove of large ancient trees, with very little undercover, and at one moment, in a trick of the light, it seemed to be dawn on another planet, under another grove of trees by an ancient house, on Margarnagarr. And then he remembered. He only remembered a glimmer of something, but it was enough to hit him hard in his chest. He staggered and crouched down, as if warding off pain. In a few moments, the two lovers turned to him, and then they saw him. "Boukey, Boukey," said Mandy, rushing back to him, followed by Farkin, "Are you all right?" "Sharazade," he whispered. "Sharazade." He got back up, and began to run back the way that they had come. "I have to get to the Elder. I have to get to the Elder." Without saying another word, the three ran through the forest, branches whipping them, stones tumbling after them as they came down the high trail to the town. Breathlessly, the trio finally found themselves, at dusk, before the Elder's door. Since it was always unlocked, Boukey and his companions knocked fiercely, and entered. The Elder was just finishing an early dinner with his son. The two rose, as the dusty group entered hastily. "Sir," said Boukey, "I am sorry to intrude, but I have had a piece of my memory return, and I know that it is of importance. It is not all, but it is something." The Elder bade them all be seated, and gave them some Ternian wine to drink. He did not hurry, and he waited for Boukey to speak. "Sir," he said finally. "I believe that, though I can only remember a fragment, a young woman named Sharazade who I was with on the planet Margarnagarr, was your daughter. She was a refugee from Cybania, the slave planet. She spoke to me once about her father, on a Taurid planet she would not name, but which I know now -- from the songs I have heard here in the last week -- to be Tern." Boukey's eyes filled with tears. The Elder and his son stood up. They both saw the tears. The Elder said, slowly: "Where is she now?" Boukey shook his head: "I do not remember. I had to protect all those memories from invasion, and they will not come back to me. What I have left is a feeling, a feeling of great grief, as if she were dead. I feel -- I feel -- she is dead." He stopped for a moment, keeping himself barely together. "But what I do remember is that she was what they were after: she was the key to the death of Margarnagarr, and that she was the prize: she was the death of Tern to come. I am sure of it." There was silence around the warm honeywooded room. Boukey sat back down, his head in his hands, tormented with not remembering, and remembering. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 17 May 00 - 07:44 PM Aw, Peter, right in the cyber-points of vulnerability! You sho' is a rascally one. Dang...maybe I can get the Rice Krispy elves to intervene. And don't forget, I have your Mouse!!! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 19 May 00 - 11:47 AM The sun rose smartly over Britannicus Tertius. Around Trafalgar Square the bobbies on their bicycles kept a watchful eye on the flower girls, the costermongers, and the dancing cockneys. On one corner, Noddy, BigEars and Rupert the Bear were in animated conversation with Sir Walter Raleigh and a rosecheeked Mrs. Miniver concerning difficulties with obtaining good servants. Down towards Westminister, a military band was playing sprightly tunes, and the eye caught the glimmer of silver sunlight off their polished cuirasses. Above it all the great clock tower, Big Micky, its gloved hands currently displaying 8:29 in the morning, kept time.
In a room along Whitehall, overlooking this jovial scene, a group of 4 powerful looking men stood around a large mahogany table in an elegant pseudo-Adam room. They were waiting. At 8:30 precisely, Cruella de Villeneuve entered, elegantly tailored as usual
"See you real soon," she greeted them.
"See you real soon, "they replied.
"Please sit down gentlemen." They sat down. She took the head of the table, and opened up her portfolio. She briefly looked at each man in turn. To her left, the Head of Tomorrowland, Nuurdd, who was originally from Regnuoy, the reverse aging planet, so he became younger every year, which somewhat unsettled Cruella (and, it must be confessed, everyone else around the table) every time she saw him; but youth was certainly the only way to keep up with new technical developments. Across from her was a familar face, Schhhluppp, the Drugpin, recently acquired to be the Head of Fantasyland. To her far right, was the stalwart Chief of Cartooning and Replication, known to all as "Chief". And beside her, her right hand man, was Doxadist, Head of Main Street, the dreaded Moustapo.
"Well, gentleman, we are met at a critical moment for Cosmic Disneycorp, and I am sure that Walt is with us. Today, as Walt would say, we have to cut to the cheese. In order to do this, you have to know the whole story; and you also know that the Root of Title forbids this to anyone but me. So, as you know, and I apologise in advance, you have to have this part of the story eliminated from your memories after this meeting. So, and again apologies, please put on your Mouse ears for this portion."
The four men put their Mouse ears on, and there was a brief hum. She continued.
"Well, gentlemen, this is the situation. As you don't know, and will only know for a short time, Cosmic Disney Corp owns and operates the Federation and with some exceptions, was more or less on track to rule the universe. We owe certainly our recent successes to the work of our new head of Fantasyland, who has brought his formidable team into the fold." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 19 May 00 - 11:55 AM Schhhluppp smiled, which was a revolting sight any time of the day, but especially at 8:30 in the morning. "This set of until now reasonably favourable circumstances has been somewhat complicated by a little problem. Well, it began as a little problem, and is now making things more difficult for us. As you know, the basic Root of Title for DisneyCorp stems from our role as the saviour of the Earth remnant centuries ago, as cherished in song and story. As you don't know, this somewhat obscures the real history. Cruella sighed, paused, and began again. "In the middle of the 21st century, one of Nuurrd's ancestors (not personal ancestors, but an earlier Head of Tomorrowland, you understand), got the idea for a film about Global Warming, to be called "Heart Warming" about how goodness and community and purchasing Disney products would save the planet from environmental destruction. Fine, no problem. But he also decided to take the opportunity to hybridize the computer animation process with work that another part of the Secret Lab had been engaged on for some time on biogenetic engineering of life forms. The idea was to make a superrealistic film in a new process to be called "Live Superanimation". Unfortunately, at the premiere of the film, a range of animogenetically modified organisms leapt off the screen and proceeded to proliferate in unstoppable fashion over the planet, disrupting the carbon cycle, and generating a runaway greenhouse effect. The Disney Lab tried to create countercartoon predators in what was called Project Wile E. Coyote, but by then it was too late. The Earth went over the cliff, and this time did not come back in the next reel. At the last moment, a group of remnant Earthlings were able to escape, and link up with other remnant groups of early explorers that had been left on Mars." "To deal with this fiasco, the then remnant DisneyCorp, rapidly and through extraordinary inventiveness, and brute force, rounded up all the Earthlings it could find, and gave them a new Root story, wherein everything on Earth, all the nature and the culture and all forces, were rooted in Disney, first, last, and forever. It is this story that is the basis for the Root of Title, and the legitimation for everything we are doing. It is our cover story, but it is more than that, it is our root story." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 19 May 00 - 12:08 PM "For the next few centuries, all went well. We slowly, and then more rapidly, took over everything, dedicated churches and planets, and so on. And then one day, a little loose thread appeared. This began under my predecessor and husband, Roy of Blessed Memory, and has extended into my term. It has come to the point where it must be wiped out. "The President of the Federation, curse him, has an inquisitive son, Boukey, also known as the Green Man, who decided on a whim of some sort to become interested in something harmless, like studying the ancient roots of folk music. Don't laugh, gentlemen, this is serious: it may portend our undoing. In the course of his studies, he became interested in the roots of Earth music, and, initially -- and in full view of the Federation during the Great Hearings -- was more than happy to assert that all the Earthsongs he found showed conclusively that Disney pervaded Earth culture, and that the Root of Title was obviously sound." "Then as he was engaged in some harmless research on one of the outer planets of the galaxy, one of our not-too-bright Songstealers, from the Moustapo -- not I hasten to add from Doxadist's reconstituted force, but the bunch from the previous bungler, whose name has been erased from Disneymem -- one of these Songstealers who overheard a slip of song from a remnant Earthling colony, proceeded on his own initiative to eliminate the colonists in somewhat overt fashion. This raised suspicions in the mind of Mr. Boukey, and also raised an interesting question in the mind of the then Head of DisneyCorp." "For the next few years, we tracked, and sometimes lost, the trail of the Green Man, but when we did locate him in his searches, we began to piece together, as he did, the possibility, first, that the original Disneywashing hadn't gone deep enough with some resistors, and showed up in oddly deep places, like childhood memories of songs; and second, that there might be a remnant of Earthlings who had escaped all Disneywashing completely." "It was on the planet Polgar that the pieces of this puzzle came together, with the finding of an escaped Cybanian slavegirl, who was identified" -- here Cruella omitted the information that it was she herself who had made the identification -- "and discovered to have come from the Planet Tern, home of this possible remnant community. She somehow escaped Polgar after the interrogation, but we followed, and thanks to the efforts of her rescuer, we soon learned that there was a planet Tern, home of the remnants, a mortal threat to CosmicDisney Corp. Happily, we caught up with the two escapees again on Margarnagarr, with the results you know." She paused. Big Mickey struck 9. Time for morning tea. A butler wheeled a tea tray into the room. "Gentlemen," she said, "You are now up to date. You can take off your Mouse ears. Everything after this you are allowed to remember." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 06:48 PM The silence in the honeywooded room on Tern was finally broken by the Elder. He said, quietly: "I understand that there are things you are unable to speak about, but are there -- are there things you can remember, that would, well," and here he paused for a few moments,"tell us about her, my daughter." Boukey looked up. "I am sorry, Sir, I have been so selfish. Yes. I will tell you what I can remember. There are gouges out of my mind, but what I can, I will." He smiled, weakly. "I suppose I should start by saying, Sir, that I loved your daughter very much. " The Elder also smiled. "It doesn't take a Ternian Elder to discern that." Boukey blushed, if a green man can blush. Mandy and Farkin looked at each other. "Well, Sir, the first thing I can remember is that we escaped from Polgar on a cattle transfer vessel, after something -- after something happened to your daughter, which affected her deeply. I think she may have had to do what I did -- that is, shut down her memories to keep the interrogators from finding out important things. But in my case, the memories were intellectual and recent: in her case they included everything important, including everything she knew about Tern. It meant a much worse intrusion, deeper blocking, greater loss." The young Terran, her brother, interrupted from across the room. "She was fighting to save Tern!" Boukey nodded quietly. "Yes. And I think, for the time being, she did." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 06:55 PM He took a deep breath. "Let me go on to something happier. We were sitting in the hold of this cattle vessel, and I told her that what had happened on Polgar and elsewhere made me think that there was something important in the remnant songs, and that they needed to be traced back through their journey outward. Understand, this was long before I knew anything about Disneycorp's role in what was happening. Long before Margarnagarr. It turned out that this cattleboat was heading for Cassiopeia, and I had always wanted to search for a Calliokeh master; so I suggested that since I had been able to get away with my recorder intact, and some money, she might like to come with me to Calliokeh: otherwise I would send her to my Father for protection. She said she would come with me. So we set out for Calliokeh." At this point Mandy interrupted and said: "What is a Calliokeh master?" Boukey replied: "Good question. About 200 years ago, an Earth remnant, on its way to Tern perhaps?" and here he looked at the Elder. The Elder looked at him sadly. "They were coming here, but never reached us. We know of them only through the recordings, of course, that others brought with them." Boukey nodded, and went on. "This remnant carried with it a number of famous musicians, who had sustained a very powerful style of playing and singing on traditional stringed instruments, guitars, banjos, etc. This style had been further developed in their progress towards Cassiopeia, so it is known to experts as Cassiopeian style. " |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 07:00 PM He went on. "Imagine their amazement and delight when they discovered that the people of Calliokeh, a double sunned, double mooned planet in Cassiopeia, had 10 fingers on their left hand, and 10 fingers on their right. Within about 50 years, they had created some of the most extraordinary fingerpicking music in the entire universe. In 2485, about 70 years ago, a Callioken guitarist named CallioPetey Jack was recorded by an earlier folk song historian doing three of the most famous songs in history: "Cosmic Train", "Callioken Blues" and "My Destarlillo Home". These were released by DisneyGolden Records, and were on the market for about a week. Then they were pulled, and the masters destroyed. And that was it -- we had nothing more from Callioken. " "So," Boukey said, "Sharazade and I set out for Callioken to see if we might find any descendants of CallioPetey Jack." The Elder rose, and went over to the wall, and pulled out an old nanorecorder. He turned. "We do have some technology here, for really useful purposes. Like playing CallioPetey Jack. Tern has, thanks to a Terran of my acquaintance" -- he looked over at his son, who smiled for the first time in a long time -- "one of the only recordings of "Callioken Blues'" in the cosmos. He started the machine. Nothing happened. "Oh," said the Elder, "forgot to plug it in." He plugged it in, and started the machine again. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 07:07 PM [Sorry, I don't seem to be able to post long messages, otherwise this wouldn't be broken up.] |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 00 - 07:36 PM Go, Peter, go!!! ~S~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 07:48 PM Gee, hi, Praise, glad to hear from you (hope you are feeling better!). I thought everyone had lost interest, which wouldn't be surprising given that this turned into a more complexly woven story, I guess. Very hard to give people room to do their own thing, and do your own, and so on, in a "thicker story". I was just going on to see how my little band of weird characters was going to turn out! And of course, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance....yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 00 - 07:57 PM Peter, and all-- I transferred the first three Enterprise threads to text file and began reading it night before last, in hardcopy form, during resting time. My copy-editor's pencil could not resist the urge to tweak, smooth tenses, etc. Shall I proceed? Trust me to edit? (References available!) And YOU had all better proceed to keep writing, or I will be very disappointed that there is no clear end! Where are JenElle's contributions? Come on girlfriend! I wrote a lovesong into the nursery! Did I miss something there or what? And then I have another idea for y'all! LOL! But I wanna finish THIS get-well book first!! It's a wonderful vacation from everything else I am wrestling with. What-- you thought this was just fun? Just writing practice??? Hey! Some of us READ this stuff! I can't speak for them all, but I want more!!! ~S~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 08:05 PM Oh, I am going to keep on, whatever. I sort of like all these weird people, and wait till you see what Cruella is about to get up to! Whew!....yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 20 May 00 - 08:10 PM I reserve the right to up-end your story line at any given time and send your plot into a tailspin by virtue of a completely non-relevant post. Beware. The Trid |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 00 - 08:11 PM go go go go!!! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 20 May 00 - 08:22 PM Stunning, just stunning, Peter! A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 08:24 PM But of course, LEJ, just remember that Cruella will get you in the end, after Tern is toast. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 09:50 PM The sound of a 24 string guitar, playing a very sweet tune, filled the room. What made it so powerful was that it was absolutely simple -- nothing anyone with 5 fingers couldn't play -- but had an unEarthly feel to its Earthiness. The blues progression moved along, like every blues progression in the history of things. And the voice was big and sad, with an undertone of harshness. And it sang:
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 20 May 00 - 09:55 PM "Well, the moment we landed on Calliokeh, I thought I had made a serious mistake. We came out of the airport, and almost immediately we saw an old woman with a Cybanian facial slash. Sharazade turned to run, and then we saw another. And then we both realized, of course, that Calliokeh had been a refuge for escaped slaves, throughout its history. These were Cybanian women: but there were others -- escapees from Demenchiadora Central, with their branding; the victors in the slave revolt on Circassix who simply turned their back on the Jaileroid, and left; and many others. And so it turned out that she was more welcome there than I. She was among friends. I had this idea that there might be some Calliokeh singers somewhere around Destarlillo, given CallioPetey Jack's song, so we got two bus tickets on the Blorghound Express and headed South. Well it was North, really, but it felt like heading South, if you know what I mean. I think she slept all the way there, she was so tired, her head on my shoulder, rocking back and forth." He stopped. "Sorry." They all just smiled. "Anyway, we finally got to this town in the back of beyond, hot humid, the dogs sticking to the pavement if they didn't keep moving, and they didn't, as the driver said to us, pulling in to the depot. Now, Sir," said Boukey, "I don't know when you saw your daughter last -- " The Elder said softly: "She was only a child when they were taken." Boukey continued: "Well, Sir, she grew up into a beautiful young woman. She had a certain way about her -- she just smiled, and people would do things for her. I think that even in the few hours we had been on Calliokeh, she was getting stronger. I say that because while I was inside the depot, trying to talk to the officials about whether there were any musicians in the town, she had already sweetalked the locals sitting on the porch into directing us to the very home that CallioPetey Jack had sung about 80 years previously! We decided that before we tried to find somewhere to stay for the night, that we would check it out. We walked some distance in the heat, my recorder and other supplies weighing us down. And as we walked, she began to sing -- not an Earth song, or a Ternian song, but some jingle she heard on the bus, I don't remember what it was. That was the moment, Sir, for me. I could have walked down that road forever." "So we walked, and she sang, and the houses got poorer and poorer, until we ran out of houses, and there were long fields of violet stretching out as far as you could see under the pink sky. Finally we came to a small house, couldn't be bigger than this room, and on the porch leaning up against a sofa with the springs half out was a little old Calliokeh woman, about 3 foot tall, wearing a workhat, and playing a 24 string guitar. "'Good afternoon, Ma'am', I said. She likened as how that might be correct. 'I am a folk song and blues historian. This is my assistant.' Sharazade smiled that smile. The old lady smiled back. "I am looking for anyone who might be able to remember anything about CallioPetey Jack, who was recorded here, oh, about 80 years ago or so". "Sure, I remember him," she said, playing a reasonably complex Calliokan lick. "You do?" I said, eagerly. "Well", she said, "My memory isn't what it was. It is pretty foggy. I can remember some things. But my advice to you --" and here she turned her head -- "is to ask him himself. Hey, husband, there's some strangers here to see you. Non-government people!!!"
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 21 May 00 - 12:39 AM As the Elder sat in his sparse but warm home listening with his heart stretched thin to the vivid images of his daughter being described, the city on the shore slept. But the humming of another series of byways and highways never slackened -- the energetic endless dynamic networth of exchange, exploration, growth, and interaction which filled the soil and oceans of Tern. The ways of animal life, with their bursts of frenzied activity during part of a day's cycles, and their plunge into somnolent quiet for another part, is alien to the thinking of the planet's trees, grasses and plants. For them, all parts of time are living parts, and all the power of their imagination, which in animals is largely reserved for dream-time, is constantly on-call and involved in the moments of their being and growing. Thus the notion of dreams as a way to see beyond the normal realm of spacetime is not known to those forms of life of the Plantiarchs line. Such seeing is as much a part of real living, for them, as the drawing up and releasing of water is. In the wooded hills a few kilometers back from the river delta, the people of Tern have build a place dedicated to improvng the understanding of this difference and of what the thought forms and cultural ways of the non-fleshed residents of their planet are. These long, polished wooden buildings which cling to the side of the steep foothils of the Ternian mountain range, amongst leaping springs, young waterfalls and stout red native trees, have been the dream and goal of the brightest and the best of young Ternian scholars for centuries. As a result the Insitute of Diverse Life Forms, fueled by the particular economics of Tern's situation and its shortage of metals found abubdantly i other segments of the universe, has become the seat of more wisdom about the dynamics of natural ecological communication and survival networks than could be found anywhere else in the known universe. Despite the late hour, the lanterns still burned in the Institute's main research wing, where one of the Council of Elders and three of the Insititute's leading scientists pored over a projection in three dimensions in the center of the table. It showed the major and minor threads of the Ternian Plantiarchs networks, the tiny capillaries and grouped hairthin branchings, larger arterial root paths and major trunk channels that joined the seas, the rivers, the plains and the forest of Tern. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 21 May 00 - 12:43 AM oo! oo! And next.... ~S~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 21 May 00 - 03:13 AM Silent on the window sill, Mandy shifted, relaxing just a touch in the slight breeze. He had a piece of her heart, to be sure. She had been worried when Boukey said he wanted to go walking around the mountain lakes, but Farkin had assured her that all would be well, and the fresh air would do them all good. The late afternoon sunshine felt wonderful on her skin. Honest to goodness sunshine, not the solar effect lamps of the Enterprise. She bared her arms and stood still, feeling the heat prickle her, and reveling in the day. She playfully swatted Farkin with her frostbite mitten, and shouted 'Race Ya' before darting up the hill. Farkin, not being one to ever give chase, gave a frosty chuckle and watched her form disappear in the trees. Mandy reached the edge of a mountain lake, and climbed an outcropping of rocks to wait for the gentlemen. As she watched them climb the hill, a feeling of sadness began to swell inside her. Farkin plodded along in his fashion, but Boukey....his eyes, once blank, began slowly to change. She hopped down, and with her mitten on, grabbed Farkin's hand. All the while walking and looking over her shoulder at the approaching storm in a Green Man's eyes. She had read Earth legends of the great tsunami storms that travelled silently along the ocean floor, and broke on the shore with a ferocity that was unrivalled anywhere in the universe. She had a feeling it's rival was about to appear. She knew the instant it happened, the light returning to his eyes. He doubled over like he'd been kicked, with her name, Sharazade. The threesome ran back to the Elder as fast as their legs would carry them. That had brought her to this window. She couldn't watch the pain in his face, but she listened with her heart and glared at the burls in the wood of the window frame like they didn't belong there and didn't they know it. She listened intently however, and with each bit of his memory that was restored she found peace and torment entertwined in her soul. Peace, he'd found his memory and his love again. Torment, the beings responsible for all of this were still out there. Ach, she needed more air than this window was providing! The Elder, the Tern, and Farkin were still watching the Green Man's story unfold before them. Farkin was looking a bit rounded at the edges, she would take getting him a new nitrogen canister as an excuse to remove herself. Silently, she brought her knees to her chin, spun on the sill, and dropped out of the open window. The seedlings had been singing in the nursery again, and their song stuck with her as she crossed the courtyard.. She's cheering for you, love, for you and your Call, Your Call from above that you never shall lose, Onward and upward to all you may be, Neither stumbling, alone, nor ever to fall. Yes she weaves the cheer gently for love, for her love, She weaves the cheer gently for love... And she weaves the cheer gently... so gently my love, And she weaves a cheer gently for love.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 21 May 00 - 09:14 AM [Wow] |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 21 May 00 - 10:11 AM Boukey laughed. "Of course, not only do Calliokan's have double the fingers, they have double the lifetime!! It was CallioPetey Jack himself! You can imagine my feelings. Well, there was a harrumph from inside the house, the distinct sound of a bottle being corked, and then a yelp from a ratty blorghound who preceded his master out of the door. Into the sunslight stepped a figure no bigger than the little old woman still weaving Calliokan tunes on her guitar. He looked at us suspiciously for a moment, then saw Sharazade, with the slash upon her face, and grinned." "Now there is a pretty woman, don't you think so, Dorf?" he turned to his companion. "Why the bejezuz are you asking me for -- don't let him start on you, Missy, he may be a hundred and sixty, but don't let him start on you." She strummed a mite angrily on her instrument. "Now, Dorf. Waal, I suppose we better introduce ourselves, one to the other." He stuck out his hand. "CallioPetey Jack, but call me Jack". He had 5 fingers on his hand. And 5 on the other. I stepped back in some shock. Sharazade took his hand, but said nothing. Then I came forward, and stammered out who we were, and some other nonsense. "Waal," said Jack, "you had best come out of the suns. Wouldn't want this charming lady to catch her death. There is room there on the sofa, if you two don't mind bunching together, and I don't see why you would." So we sat down, while he swatted his blorghound off his porch chair, and sat down as well. "I hope you don't mind my asking something, Sir, Jack." "Shoot". "I don't mean to doubt who you are or anything, but, um, you don't, well --" Sharazade chimed in, as if reading my mind. "He wants to know how you can play so beautifully such complex music with only five fingers on each hand. He has been regaling me all through our voyage here with stories about your virtuosity, and the extraordinary capacities of Calliokan guitarists." Jack smiled, "Isn't she just the sweetest thing, isn't she, Dorf?" Dorf muttered."Well, my dear, the tragedy of it all is that my dear Mother, rest her soul, was an Earthling by descent, and Papa was a Calliokan. So what do I get: Calliokan height, and Earth fingers! Had a brother, passed on now, Vern, had it the other way around, Earth height and Calliokan fingers. Couldn't play guitar to save himself from hanging. Fast typist though. Why, he was so good that they raced him once against one of those speaking/typing machines, you know where you speak into a microphone and the computer types it out?" We nodded that we knew of such machines. "Well, they took Vern and this machine to a farm auctioneers convention up Destarlillo Side Road, and set them to work. At the end of the day Vern won, but the strain was too great -- he died on the spot. Wrote a song about it once -- bout a Key-Driving Man." The old woman cackled: "He's been telling that whopper for 100 years!! Heavens, once he gets started, we could be here all day. Would you two like some coffee? Key-Driving Man! Holy Hannah!" We said that we would like some coffee. She went towards the door, and then turned back around: "I only stay with 'im because of his sense of humour. He has a roving eye like all men. Remember, I warned you." |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 22 May 00 - 12:38 AM *LOL--Key-Driving Man--priceless* |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 22 May 00 - 01:57 AM The courtyard was quiet in the twilight, all of Tern seemed to be bedding down for the night. Fathers returning, mothers calling the children in from play, and smells escaping kitchens that told of simple feasts. Mandy walked, warmed by the seedlings' song and the small bit of Ternian wine the Elder had given her. When she heard the first rumble from the sky, Mandy's heart skipped a beat. Fearing the worst, she turned and looked skyward, her only assailant being a few fat raindrops falling from the fast approaching clouds. It takes a good rain to cleanse a troubled spirit, she could always hope. She reached the piers just as the waves started to roll, bits of foam clinging to the delicate vines that sprung from the sea to engulf the Enterprise. The vines, motionless in the ever increasing wind, bent their tendrils to allow her aboard.
Yet mindful of her charges, she first went below to the greenhouses. Here, in the warm light, the vine had taken over. Lush foliage covered every surface, every door forced open, and every plant in her nursery had given up their hydroponic moorings in favor of entertwining with the vine. Wide-eyed, she went in search of the Frodis.
The vines parted just as gently as she left the ship, but the storm outside had doubled in intensity. She tucked Farkin's canister under her arm, and blindly made her way along the pier, feeling for solid ground at each step. Reaching the shore, she ran for the cover of the trees. There she found herself sharing the canopy with a wet and miserable lammbrui. The poor creature was soaked to the skin. It shook, sending droplets spraying the forest floor. Mandy shook herself, with similar effects, and the two peered out into the storm.
She curled her fingers in the creatures hair, and followed it for what seemed an eternity. When she reached the door, she pulled the pin, and squeezed herself and the lammbrui inside before the wind took the door from it's hinges. She turned, expecting to find her friends, but finding only a two small women seated by a roaring fire. The two might not have looked alike in their youth, but age had made veritable twins of them. Identical small wrinkled faces and toothless smiles shone in the light of the fire. The creature sat by the women at the fire, and Mandy took the offered cushion. She rested, drying herself, and listening to the voices in the other room. Boukey was continuing his story amid mutterings from the Elder and the Tern. The young Terran came through for another bottle of wine, and Mandy gave him the canister for Farkin before she returned to the warmth of the fire. One of the women held a large toothed comb, and began to brush the lammbrui, rolling it's long hair in her fingers. With each handful, she passed it to the other, whose shuttle clicked a steady rhythm. Mandy half-interestedly looked at the cloth the women were making. The roll was probably as wide as the length of her arm from elbow to wrist, delicate shades of lammbrui brown. She gasped as she began to unroll their history, panels showing the Enterprise landing on Tern, the fire, the vile mouse covering the sky....ending with the panel of a small five-fingered man making eyes at a lovely young woman with a slash across one cheek.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 22 May 00 - 02:25 PM |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 23 May 00 - 01:27 AM It just makes me weep for happy to see such fine use made of my little imaginings! This is a very touching business, in ways I had never imagined! I was just gearing up for a battle and all, and you guys come along and make delights like these. Thanks. I am complete tonight! Now old Vern he said to the office manager, |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Peter T. Date: 23 May 00 - 09:42 AM [It is a very interesting form of experimental co-writing -- it seems to work well when you keep to some simple rules and manners for living generally -- for instance, you can borrow other people's characters, but you shouldn't do anything to them that would go against their basic integrity; you need to give the other people some openings for their own imagination to pick up threads in your own pieces; you should give others space (SPACE); and so on -- but with the occasional big surprise thrown in to discombobulate everyone. Then all these nice things Tern up. It seems to be able to survive a wide range of tonal shifts -- dark moods, jokes, parodies -- as long as each shift is linked to a character: the character seems to carry their style with them. And so on. Hilarious song by the way, and where do I get me some of that lammbrui brown material!?]yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: MMario Date: 23 May 00 - 10:52 AM *Deep in intergalactic space, where the Aether-net phases into harmony with the token-packets of Humanity's sub-sub-conscious and the electro-magnetic pulses of underlying reality stuck chords against racial memories and the fruedian particles of subspace ring with delicate chimes, there is a node where ancient beings of pure energy reside, if such insubstantial beings can be said to "reside" in any place. Rather, the node is where they are most likely to manifest. During the time-quanta humans would call "today" three of the oldest of these beings coalesce about the node.* **The trio of Engrams danced in their holographic forms about the fruedian node. Though there was none there with physical eyes to see, if there had been, they would have seen the holographic forms that were as close to physical form as the Engrams could take, shimmer oddly. Though they primarily took the form of a trio of small humanoids with oddly pointed ears, at times they appeared to be a young maiden, a mature woman and an ancient beldame; at other times a godlike couple clad in egyptian regalia, with a young stripling by their side; at still other times the three were mere flames of holographic light, or winged beings with animal heads, or again pointed eared humanoids, but larger, clad in warlike mien.**
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: MMario Date: 23 May 00 - 11:39 AM "We are still bound by the Disnoid images so prevalent the last few generations" the Engrams communicated amongst their/it/him/her/self. "But with the Mouse contained within a shielded stasis chamber, the genetic memories of humanity will soon break free again and join with that of other life forms who have not sufferred so much from the Eisnerian regime. Even now, lesser engrams which have not been seen for decades begin to manifest. Behold! ***And as the Engram gestured with one limb, indeed, other holographic entities shimmered briefly about the freudian node. A humanoid tiger appeared briefly, metamorphing into a horn-helmeted Viking prototype with war hammer, and again to a muscular demi-god clad in a lions skin; Another Norse appearing figure with flaming hair appeared, to shift into a cartoonish coyote, then briefly to a man with a coyote head. Other brief glimpses flickered about the node, a woman, owl on her shoulder; nine young girls, dancing and singing; more and more, faster and faster.*** "And BEHOLD!" cried the largest Engram...and a vision appears of a young child at a breakfast table...whose mother had just poured the morning portion of bosjuice over his frozztyflakes. With a puzzled look he says, "But they DON'T say "Mickey,Mickey,Minnie" at all! It sounds more like , oh a crackle, snappy, popping sound!" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 24 May 00 - 01:33 AM Go, Mario, go! Subvert the Icon! This is inspired counterevolutionary fervor at its best! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 24 May 00 - 11:28 AM Life encodes. There is enough information in a small but living cell to generate the entire structural map of the universe's most complex, adaptable and powerful organism: the thinking citizen. There is no system in any of the Galaxies to match it for its capacity to discern the good from the bad, the genuine from the tawdry, and in its best variants, even sort the true from the false. All our greatest decisions, most world-helping designs, our most shattering insights have come from the warm center of this single amazing invention; and all its architecture can be held in a space smaller than the tip of a tendril of a branch of a single morning glory. As another day of calm came and went, the widely distributed young men and women of Tern were busy. In sites throughout the wild rolling forests, along the pleasant coasts of the great Ternian Sea, and here and there among the fair rolling steps of the Ternian Highlands, they built their stations -- often starting with natural tunnels, or caves, and expanding on them to build large underground spaces. Across the breadth of the planet's far side, dotted only by farm villages and gentle country roads, fishing villages and an occasional temple of song, or research out post, or artisan's center, and all through the mighty forests, the Ternian human agency was at work building notes to the root network under her verdant surface. As each subterranean site was formed, craftsmen's wagons would arrive to deliver finely formed complex structures of bolewood, with live rootlets emerging from the sides of it, carefully wrapped in moistened sacking. The craft halls across Tern delivered workbenchs and tables and seats, all formed from the hallmark polished dark redwood garnered from the year's fallings in the deep forests. Strangely formed polished wood key-tables, with their own precious root-systems intact and nourished, were brought and planted in each cavernous site. The artisans, guided by scholars from the Institute, carefully placed and nourished the intricately carved bolewood spheres and watched over them as their rootlets found hold in the rich loam, and took place and began stretching cell upon cell, molecule upon molecule into the deep moist soils. The Root Directory space near the capital had tripled in size since the agent known as Cornucopia had first established his coding office there, and was now lined with a dozen of the beautifully curved and carved living life-stations. As the nourishing moisture and vitalizing Neezian light came and went upon the surface, so the tendrils and channels connecting these may points grew, hour by hour, finding their way into connections and splitting from their new junctions to form further paths and meetings. Part by part, celebrating and evolving, the ecosphere of the planet was becoming a single, unified, singing Voice. From the songster bipeds of ancient Earth's blood to the smallest sea-fern in the dark rolling waters of her warm sea, each life-form turning in wisdom to its own natural and most graceful use, the planet Tern was becoming One. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Mbo Date: 24 May 00 - 12:02 PM Lt.Mbo let go a sigh of relief. He had finally finished the report on the hidden ship and the stastitived Mouse. He silently wished that Sloan was there to see him now. He had been a kinda of mentor to Mbo, always urged him on when the rest of 31 was against him. How long had it been? Almost a year now since Sloan committed suicide to keep The Dominion from discovering the 31-engineered virus that was killing the Founders. He had died for the cause, but Mbo wished he could have avoided it...this was the kind of mission he'd love. Suddenly, without warning, the Lieutenant's musidisk player began acting very strangely. Hmmph, crummy replicator needs a good depolarization, he though. His disk holding all 16 ELO albums started skipping around like mad...he tried to shut it off, but it would not comply! It finally stopped on "Fire On High", but started playing backwards.....which of course played the backwards masking forwards...the voice screamed at him "THE MUSIC IS REVERSABLE, BUT TIME IS NOT!!!! TERN BACK TERN BACK TERN BACK....." then it skipped to another track, blasting "Tern to stone, when you are gone, I Tern to stone..." He felt as if someone was trying to tell him something.... Overtop of the music came a sharp hissing, like an open comm channel....he checked his console...yes, someone was trying to get through! Then a deep voice spoke to him. Greetings, Lieutenant, or should I say Agent Mbo! You do not know us, but we know you, and we want to help you. It seems you have in your possession, well...a certain Mouse that we require. Don't try to fool us, we know about the data rod, the Showdown 4000 nad the Mouse...don't deny it. Who are you? The stranger should identify himself, said Mbo. We do not usually reveal that information, but we have had tabs on you for a long time, and we know you can be trusted. We are the Tern Mousquis. We have been persecuted in the past, but now we are strong, strong. We are committed to saving the universe from the evil influence of that, that, vermin. Speaking to you now is Horace Horsecollar, head of Mousquis Security. With me is my Commander, Peg Leg Pete, and our Weapons Acquisition Officer, Monterrey Jack. We would like to meet with you, at our compound deep below the Ternian sod. Well, I'd have to clear it with Commander--Agent LaFarge, and Captain-in-Chief Barky first, Mbo said. Ahh yes. We know of then too, and both can be trusted. Be at the ready, we will initiate a site-to-site transport to our coordinates when the time is right. Bring any and all information you have gleaned from the Mouse, the Ups & Downs and Captains Braxton & Caitrin. We have it from good sources, and we have many, believe us, that Braxton once worked at the Mons Teneris Disney theme park before becoming the commander of the Relativity. Captain Caitrin may have some small part in it too. We understand she attended Starfleet Academy with you? Bring all info on her too. Do it for the safety of the universe, do it for Section 31, do it for Sloan, do it for your Captain. Horsecollar out. Lt.Mbo sat back in amazement. Better get the report to Captain Barky and LaFarge, and get busy on digging up bones, he thought. 3 hourse later he was sitting on his purple recliner in his quarters on Deck 47. Another so-called "Lay-Z-Boy" design he had discovered. All his information was downloaded into the experimental Mk.X PADD. Loads of memory! He grasped that handle in the hand, while staring lackadazically at his Gold and Grey uniform. One thing the Fleet did have, and that was comfortable fatigues. Quite unlike 31's standard black leather. He waited. And waited. And waited. Suddenly he was aware of a strange change in the air around him, and he felt himself being pulled in a direction he didn't know existed.... --Mbo
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: MMario Date: 24 May 00 - 03:28 PM he ended up, for a fleeting second, in this reality from which he luckily rebounded into his purple recliner with no ill effects. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 25 May 00 - 03:36 AM Mandy woke, bathed in a pool of sunshine, oblivious to the Engrams envelopment of the silken threads of universal conscience. The opened window shutters gave free passage to light and wind that had been washed clean in the rain. She rubbed her eyes and gathered herself in the silence of the house, her only company in the small lammbrui who sat solidly by the door. She let the creature out, and marveled for a moment at the activity going on in the courtyard just outside the door. A group of Ternian men gathering nets and heading for the piers. The Elder's hostel was silent save for the muffled notes of the wooden chimes hanging just outside the door. She walked through the twisted halls, searching the rooms, and stopped briefly outside the furthest door. Entering, she found veritable chaos. All sorts of Ternian scholars swarmed the shelves of recordings. Icteric little people who devoted their lives to the care of the treasures in this room. In the center of the room stood a tall man, apparently perfoming musical triage. "These go now, those can wait, these now, those..bottom of the pile..." barked a tired Cornucopia. Vigilant, he monitored the Ternians in the library. Mandy walked to the small 'bottom of the pile' area, and grasped the outermost of the recordings. 'Kaalufa--Live at the Sands', with a red faced blob on the cover. She placed it on the player and gasped at the first strains of supposed melody that escaped.
'And if an old friend I know She pulled it from the player with a look akin to someone sniffing the outdated Niposian Goat milk in the cantina. She wasn't sure what the tall man's criteria for bottom of the pile was before, but she could surely trust his judgement now.
"There you are, dear" came a voice from behind her. She turned to see one of her toothless benefactresses beaming in the doorway. They seated her, and chattering all the while, began to fix her a breakfast of a buttery hot cereal that Mandy devoured gratefully. The two women buzzed about the small kitchen. The larger, a solid Gaia, and the smaller, a timid Luna that revolved around her in a flurry. The women, ever gracious, allowed Mandy to finish her repast before beginning their maternal assault. Gaia warmed to her, it had been so long since there were any young women in this house. Luna sat perched on a stool shelling vegetable pods, talking while Gaia recovered the albums. Wooden placards, attached with a ring, showed etchings of the Ternians. Gaia blew the dust off a cracked, ancient looking stack and bade Mandy come closer. "This was us, you know, on a day just like today. Sun shining, and the men going out to sea. She and I both had husbands that went to the water. Those were the days, dear." Luna chimed in, "We would sing in the evenings when they came home. They would mend their nets, and us two old women would dance and sing...remember that one they loved? That was their favorite..." Gaia's eyes sparkled with delight as she simultaneously grabbed a dishtowel from the rack and spun Luna from her stool. Mandy sat in awe at the transformation taking place before her. Tired feet dancing sprightly on the hard wood of the floor and two voices in harmony.
'Some day he'll be a captain bold The two women collaped in their chairs, giggling like teenagers, until their eyes came to rest on the next set of etchings. The family of the Elder. "The twins were so lovely," said Gaia, "you'd not know it now, but once this house rang with all of the noise that children make." The first of the etchings showed a tired looking woman and her midwife, holding two howling babes. The others followed the two children, a boy and a girl, through various stages of toddler-hood, the mother looking tired for entirely different reasons now, and then the etchings stopped. "She was taken from us, you know." spoke a teary Luna. "Stolen from us. They came, and they took our beautiful girl." Mandy had seen the same tortured look in the eyes of the Green Man. Their loss was one and the same.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 25 May 00 - 11:18 AM Ah, Jen, beautiful...ya pulls me heart strings, honest ye does. Argh, argh, argh! Love, Popeye |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: MMario Date: 25 May 00 - 03:24 PM *totaly unrelated scenario* Engram in the likeness of Olive Oyl staring at the Ice giant, overdubbed with a soulful rendition of "He's LARGE" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 25 May 00 - 05:26 PM All right fellas....ROTFLMAO...NNgram and skipper of the S.S Meatball....get to writing before I have all of your characters in an intergalactic group hug followed by everyone going out together for slurpees... ~Elle |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 25 May 00 - 05:46 PM I'm not kidding..... I'll do it..... Glitter, and sunshine, and fluffy kittens with big round eyes..... Don't make me do it.....
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 25 May 00 - 06:25 PM "Waal,"said CallioPetey Jack, after he had set down his cup of coffee, "Suppose you tell me what you'all are doin' down here. I sure hope you are going to end up better than the last fella." I frowned. "You mean the man who recorded you for DisneyGolden Records?" "Yeah,"said Jack, picking up his 24 string so he could think better. "Nice enough fella, very strange though. When I come to think of it, I think he was out of his depth." I looked at Sharazade and then I said: "Yes. His name was Thaddeus Lomax, and from what I can gather, he thought that he had been hired to find original blues and folk people, linked to Earth remnants, such as yourself. And then something happened." At that exact moment, Sharazade later told me, she thought for a moment that Dorf was inside the house moving around, and then realized that she was mistaken -- Dorf was out among her vegetables, weeding 50 yards away. "Sure," said Jack, "I mean, none of us ever really expected it would go anywhere. It was kind of fun though. Quite a picture. He rented a room in Destarlillo and sent out word that he was recording local talent for DisneyGolden. Among all the riffraff, there was at one time sitting outside the makeshift recording studio, the whole range of us -- there was the Reverend Clove Cerillas, Betthie "Make it 21 Fingers" Raxxandall, and Toulouse McMcTrelawney. How's that for your hot lineup?" Boukey smiled wearily: "The Destarlillo Sessions. And you were the cream." Jack swirled along the frets of his guitar, catscradling unheard of chordal patterns: "Spilt milk, more like it." Sharazade looked quizzically at me. On an impulse, I took her hand, and held it tightly. I said: "A week after the records were released, Thaddeus Lomax was dismissed from DisneyGolden Records, the label was disbanded, the masters were destroyed. A year later he was found to have committed suicide on the new planet Trascedaria, when it was still just casinos. Before it closed in completely." Sharazade shuddered as if a cold wind had come over the hot Destarlillo afternoon. I turned again to Jack, who kept playing. "But nothing happened to you." "Well," said Jack, "People down here have some experience with government trouble. The sheriff, poker playing buddy of mine -- has a tendency to rub his eyes when he gets a straight or better -- let me know down the vine that some Feds were talking around after me. So I went hunting for about 10 years. That's when I met up with Dorf in the marsh country. It was one evening, when I saw her coming along the road, easily as beautiful as this young peach here. I asked her if she knew of any accommodation, seeing as if it weren't for the alligators, I would have slept out in the woods. " I smiled and said: "Did she have another lover?" Jack said, and he looked over at the wizened old creature pottering around: "Oh sure, but I played him out of there pretty fast. If you go to sea and leave a woman like that sitting around, you are askin' for a fast-talkin' Calliokan man to come around. Askin' for it." "So anyway," he continued, accomanying himself with a little lick or two, somewhat reminiscent of variations on Goedel's Theorem in G, "then we moved back here when the coast was clear, and ain't heard nothing since." I said: "Well, you should know, Jack, that those 3 records are revered across the cosmos. The few original copies that remain are not only totally illegal, but worth untold sums. I have been told that a copy of "Cosmos Train" was traded for a planetary system in Cygnus some years ago by the President of the Cygnian Province himself." Jack strummed a few of the simple, but completely impossible opening chords of Cosmos Train, and looked me straight in the face. "Don't quite know what I would do with a planetary system, but....I tell you, Mr. Greenskin, Bouquet of Flowers, or whatever your name is, that I trust you. I don't know why, but I do. Probably the peach beside you has something to do with it. I'll tell you what I think -- don't tell Dorf I told you this, she would kill me, which would be far worse than anything any Federation types could do to me, believe it. I think --" I thought I saw a shadow stirring in the house. Dog? "I think it was this. You remember how in Callioken Blues, there is that little piece about the mouse." "Yes," I said, "Of course. Mousehole." "Well, I don't mean to be crude, but that was not the original word. Ladies present. He made me change it. Lomax did. And I said why. And he said, because it is obscene. And I said, have you listened to "Cosmos Train"? And Lomax said to me, very quietly, and I quote: 'There has to be some reference to Disney in the song, and this is as close as I can get without wrecking the original.'" "Now," said Jack, "What do you think of that?" I sat upright, absolutely still. I said, very quietly: "Do you know any other Earth songs without anything referring to Disney in it?" And Jack smiled and shook his head: "Hundreds, thousands. I don't know hardly any with Disney in them. Never learned them that way." At that moment, Jack's blorghound, that had been sitting at our feet, suddenly leapt to its feet and hurled itself past us into the house beyond. "What the hell --" cried Jack. And then there was this incredible howling and gnashing of teeth, and the blorghound had something, there was barking and yelling, and we jumped into the darkened house, and saw the dog leap out of a back window after a shapeshifting shadow that plunged into the nearby patch of trees, followed by the blorghound. Sharazade screamed, and screamed, and I held her in my arms, and Jack and Dorf came around us, and eventually we calmed her down. Dorf sat beside her on a tumbled bed in the backroom, and we left the two of them alone. Jack and I came out front. "Did you get a look at him?" I said. Jack shrugged his shoulders. "He looked kinda like a giant muskrat. Or a rat, period. A Mouskrat." I said: "I am sorry I have brought this to you and your wife. I cannot understand how we were followed down the open road. I am worried for you. " Jack sat down, and picked up his guitar again. "Son, I wouldn't worry none about Dorf and I. I would worry about that Mouskrat. Once my blorghound gets that taste in his mouth, don't matter what kind of critter it is. He is gone." He strummed a bit. "But you are on to something, ain't you?" I replied: "You have confirmed something I heard on Polgar. But I don't yet know why there is this discrepancy, and why it is so dangerous. It has something to do with the Earth remnant. I need to get some evidence from another, a different remnant group before I can trace this all the way back. You are at least 250 years from the source." Jack looked into the house. "Would you like to leave her here with us for a time?" I had not thought of that. "Could you look after her? She is so troubled after what happened to her on Polgar. Today hasn't helped. There is something after her -- or us, or me." Jack said: "Well, my wife has taken a liking to her - I can tell, in spite of her fits of grumbling. We're pretty ancient, but we could help her -- hell, she could help us around here." I paused, thinking. The little old man smiled: "And I swear off playing any hot love songs while she is under our roof. It'll be tough, but I'll do it." I was so worried, that I didn't know what to do. And then, around a corner, mouth full of something that looked like a chunk of shadow, the blorghound reappeared. He had a sparkle in his eye. "Well," said Jack, "No more Mouskrat." And so I decided to leave her on Calliokeh, for a time. I spent the rest of the waning day, and most of the night recording Calliopetey Jack tunes. And in the morning, Sharazade and I sat on the beat up old porch sofa, and I told her that I was going on to Borhghillai, and once I had what I needed, I would come back. She said nothing -- for she had gone back into the silent place. And it worked out well. Jack got her out of herself, fast enough, and no shadows returned. Then. And --" And at this point he stopped, and looked around. It was deep night on Tern. The Elder rose and said: "Let us continue in the morning". The company of listeners, already unaccountably missing Mandy, dispersed to their rooms. Boukey lay in his bed, and it was a long time before he fell asleep, the sounds of a mournful slide guitar in his ears -- a Walking Blues that accompanied him down the road from Jack's guitar, as he began his walk back towards Destarlillo Town from CallioPetey Jack's that distant day, so far away, so long gone. In his mind, he replayed the last sight of the strange threesome, perched in the late morning sun -- Jack, working the slide guitar, Dorf brushing Sharazade's hair, and Sharazade herself, sitting on the edge of the porch, occasionally waving gently at him until he passed out of view. And into sleep.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 25 May 00 - 06:47 PM Nice save Peter, beautiful. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 25 May 00 - 09:54 PM As morning painted the treetops a lighter shade of green on the rolling hills, the Elder rose from his rest and left the house, and walked long along the dappled shore road, smelling salt water and tasting fresh air. The narrow earth road took him along a stretch of road, lined by patches of seasand amidst reddish swaths of time-flattened rocks and traces of drift wood on his left as he walked toward the sunrise. On his right a gentle sloping meadfow gave way to a stand of tall berrybush, and then to a grove of sturdy trees. He paused, reflecting on the beauty of the forest, and the wonderful essences that touched his spirit whenever he bent his mind to the wonderous traceries of the forest network. He felt a tingling and a soft scraping at his boot top and looked down, startled from his revery. A lithe green-leaved vine had extended out from the brush at the forest edge, and growing unnaturally fast was now wrapped firmly around his leg below the knee, unshakeably secured around the high polished brown boot top. Startled, but only slightly, the Elder tested, gently, and judged he was a secure prisoner, for whatever reason the brush held. He composed himself, in a mode of inner peace and unbounded patience that only those who have touched the minds of the Plantiarch hierarchy can know. And as he knew would occur, in due course the moment reached its fulness, as the young Terran, accompanied by the man known as Cornucopia and a round and short fellow with very large eyes, no hairline and a very wrinkled brow came put from under the branches, following a faint trail that faded off into the woods toward the higher inland hills. "Sorry for the cellulose page," said the bright-eyed son. Irwin has finally cracked one of our toughest problems. We thought you would want to know immediately. Show him, Irwin!". The rotund little scientist stepped forward carrying a simple polished hardwood board, and a large wooden planting bowl in which a young plantlet stood sturdily. Step over here in the sunlight," he said respectfully. The Elder found that he was now unleashed, and untangled his foot to step across toward the sea side of the road, which was now in full light. "You see, Sir, we knew we had to solve this. And there were many among us who were convinved it was impossible, that the species boundary layer would not possibly adapt to so ideosyncratic a phenomenon as an alphabet. But some of had been trained in post-Neumannian cogntive layers analysis, and we knew that we could find some way across the specietal wall if only we could grok the coding impulse on the other side a little more deeply. Then your son here remembered the girl from the Enterprise nursery and how she had related to the plants in that environment. So we used our tendril-work to penetrate their cellular and metacellular morphemic field structures, and that was the key. After we had them traced it was simply a matter of retrogressing the morphemics back through the chlorophonemic matrices we already hasd, and we had it. I didn't do it all myself, of course. My lab assistant helped me. I couldn't have done it without Rosetta -- in fact most of the important ideas were hers." The Elder nodded quickly, showing the young scientist that he was not interested in his oral dissertation. The young geek turned to the Terran and recieved from him a parchment, carefully hand-lettered by some long forgotten archivist. The Elder saw as the roly-poly geek turned back to him that the parchment was none other than the ancient ballad from the Warnerian epoch, just before the first advent of the barbarians had begun, known as Unreconstructed Rebel, and in the way of all Ternians, he was irresistibly swept up for a moment in the memory of a gravelly voice, an ancient hand-made mountain banjo, and the indelible closing phrases: An' I will not ask for pardon, A faint smile crossed his lined face as his attention returned to the moment and the sweating, enthusiastic young researcher. The youth was holding the finely lettered parchment above the bowl and its sturdy sapling, directly in line with the sunlight and parallel to the ground. As the Elder watched, the plant stirred, its curvaceous branchlets stretching and lengthening in different directions; the leaves of the plant, unlike any the Elder had seen, were broad, flat and oval and crisscrossed with a fine mesh of tiny lines where the cells formed microscopic ridges in long narrow straight grids across the leaf face. Toward, and then touching the ancient papyrus, the leaflets extended on their unfurled branchings and moved slowly, brushing across the paper where the muted glow of Neezian light hitting the upper side made the fine copperplate characters stand out in stark contrast. The brushing and quivering of the leaflets contunued across the whole width and height of the papyrus. And as suddenly as it had begun, the leaves calmed, the narrow green arms returned to their close-curved configuration around the main stalk if the plant, and all was still. The Elder looked up quizzically, unsure what he had seen, one eyebrow raised imperiously toward the grinning and somewhat fatuously triumphant lab researcher. "Don't you SEE??" the youth demanded. "Look!! Look!!! Here!!!" And he reached under the junction of the plant's first branch and released a tiny pale lens-shaped seed, smaller than one of his own eyelashes, still moist from the generating processes hidden in the small plant's deepest psyche. "It's HERE!!! The SONG IS HERE!!!!". |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 26 May 00 - 02:22 AM I'll sing you a song, It won't take too long. I'll sing it high... I'll sing it strong. Oh-o-oh, Lordy me, Didn't we shake, sugareee, Everything I love, I love in song. Oh I've got a secret That I now may tell. I came from heaven In a split pea shell. Oh-o-oh, Lordy me, Didn't we shake, sugareee, Everything I love, I love in song. First star on the left Early in the morn. Prettiest sight seen since the day When love was born. Oh-o-oh, Lordy me, Didn't we shake, sugareee, Everything I love, I love in song. For love of the music I came to be. For love of the words and thoughts you'll sing I'm in harmony! Oh-o-oh, Lordy me, Didn't we shake, sugareee, Everything I love, I love in song. Now if you're a singer, And you'd like a song. Just shed a tear upon this seed-- Grow it high and strong. Oh-o-oh, Lordy me, Didn't we shake, sugareee, Everything I love, I love in song. Oh-o-oh, Lordy me, Didn't we shake, sugareee, Everything I love, I love in song.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 26 May 00 - 02:55 AM The morning rose cool and clear through the kitchen window. Smells of baking bread and the humming of the planets. The Gaia and Luna busied themselves with the daily regimen of running the Elder's home, but the peace of the kitchen did little to appease the turmoil in the maiden's mind. Gazing out the window, she watched the Elder cross the courtyard and follow the trail to the shore road. The past few days had sent his world head over heels, it followed him with all of the tenacity of a SongStealer. Dark shadow with limitless reach. He walked among the lush greenery, but the vision was lost on him. He stared solidly at his feet, willing them to walk, carry him further on, as if his answer were to lay just over the dunes. Mandy puzzled to herself, she hadn't heard him leave. Where was everyone? She slipped from the kitchen in time to see Farkin pull the pin on the front door. His duties on the Enterprise didn't allow him the luxury of unending shore leave, but he gave the girl a silent nod towards the ladder in the corner of the room before he pulled the door closed behind him.
The Elder's loft sat atop the house, the roof precariously perched on a few slender poles, as garish as any derby day bonnet. Walls non-exhistent, the warming air danced through the structure, whirling a few stray leaves in it's frenzy. Boukey slept peacefully near one of the center poles.
She knelt at his bedhead and gently touched his shoulder. The Green Man's eyes opened instantly, but it was a few seconds before recognition returned to them. The dreams had left their mark on his memory, and Boukey was eager to find the Elder. The two quickly climbed down the ladder. Boukey, barely patient enough for the water to boil, much less wait for breakfast, grudgingly drank the strong mug of mint tea that the girl forced on him. He started to refuse, but the girl gave him a look that stated simply enough that he'd drink it and like it. She did, however, do a fair job of fending off the two housekeepers, he thought. With his strength returning just a little bit, he smiled. When he'd finished the concoction down to the leaves, the two started out for the shore. Mandy walked steadily ahead, stopping occasionally to turn and wait for the Green Man. The shadows clung tighter about him than they did the Elder, and he fought his way along the trail as if he were mired in quicksand. Finally, her tending nature won out over her impatience to find the others. She went back along the trail and lightly grasped his hand.
As they reached the top of the first rise, Mandy saw the Terran and the Elder grouped together with a strange round creature and the tall man from the library. Mandy started to wave a hello, but the Terran saw them and ran back along the trail. He met the pair, his arms outstretched, and swept the girl off of her feet. Seeds of Song, the simplicity of it amazed the Mandolan gardener down to her toes. The plants, interconnected, made a matrix unrivaled anywhere, yet each individual plant remained responsible for it's own song. With careful culitvation, each seedling could be transported to any spot in the universe. Tiny planets, marred by the Eisnerian Empire, could once again have song. Her heart raced inside her chest. She gave a gentle squeeze to the Green Man's hand and gazed up at him hopefully, but all around him knew that the shadows lingered with him still. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 26 May 00 - 02:58 AM Good God, you people are on fire! I still expect royalties when you sell the rights, though. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 26 May 00 - 03:24 AM The Trid had been drinking since he got off the ship...well, actually, since he and Catspaw had finished the third pitcher of Frozen Strawberry Gargleblasters. He was stumbling down a darkened street in a remote section of Tern the wasn't mentioned in the Michelin Guide he had borrowed from Farkin. In fact, he wondered, where the hell did I leave that damn guide...probably at the Saturn-Nail-Ya, the low-life dive that the book had described as "a quaint and immaculate taste of Old Saturn. Try the Mungh Clusters!" Well, he was too loaded to use it now anyway. He stood still at a corner, trying to get his bearings. Suddenly, he was relieved to feel a familiar vibration in his schleeber. At certain times of great inebriety or mental indecision, he found his schleeber possessed nearly flawless navigation instincts, somewhat like a dousing rod. He had long ago discovered that at these times it made no sense to ignore it. Now it led him down a twisting alley toward an illuminated pub called the Jovian Goiter, into which he swept, schleeber forward. His three eyes bugged out in amazement: there at the bar sat a disconsolate Cartoosh, surrounded by five even more inconsoleable lingerie models."Billy!" they shouted in unison. " Hello Girls!" the Trid laughed, "Daddy's home!" and the models scampered to him. "Oh, Captain," declared the Arachnoid Robot," you are as a lighthouse whose beams, once faint, suddenly spring up and..." The Trid turned to him with a scowl, saying "Shut your snapping mandibles, ye tin tarantula! Spare me yer lame similes and fetch me Fuggerfruit in copious quantities! I'm BACK!!!" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 26 May 00 - 03:28 AM Big Guys, may-ay cry-eye-aye (they may cry) Big Guys... may-ay cry-aye (they may cry) Mourn their worlds (humankind, to be so cruel) Mourn their worlds (broken dreams, the hearts of fools) Mourn their worlds (love submerged beneath the rules)-- Big Guys, with Big-Guy tools! Big Guys, may-ay cry-eye-aye (they may cry) Big Guys... may-ay cry-aye (they may cry) Silly worlds (silly worlds, your songs were gone) Silly worlds (thought the silence would go on) Silly worlds (didn't know the day would come)-- Big Guys would plant new songs! Big Guys, may-ay cry-eye-aye (they may cry) Big Guys... may-ay cry-aye (they may cry) Tell the worlds (near and far, they wait to know) Tell the worlds (stock supplies, and off we'll go) Tell the worlds (tell them all, it's really so)-- Big Guys' tears their songs will grow! Big Guys, may-ay cry-eye-aye (they may cry) Big Guys... may-ay cry-aye (they may cry) Big Guys, may-ay cry-eye-aye (they may cry) Big Guys... may-ay cry-aye (they may cry)
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 26 May 00 - 03:41 AM Welcome back Leej, pull up a spare chair for that wonderous schleeber o'yourn and join the party! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 26 May 00 - 01:01 PM Back on the Trid's ship, an energy emanation shimmered briefly. From its fast-dissipating field stepped a golden, furry creature with twinkling chocolate eyes and a pure sugar-plum, kiss-blowing heart. Sugar Dog looked around and saw only a skeleton crew keeping watch. No one saw her. "Huh!" she said, "No Sugar Dog Man here! Guess the Trid is off on a toot. Ah reckon Ah better ready up his recovery chamber, won't he be surprised when Sugar Dog be here to welcome his surly ass home, all hung over!" Trotting off to the recliner room, she shook her head in bemused affection, silky ears shimmering could they but have been seen. After making preparations, she settled down to wait. Would Billy have picked up a terminal case of the red-ass? No matter-- she'd deal with it! ~S~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 26 May 00 - 01:12 PM .... She hummed softly to herself, but thoughtforms with subtitles coould be seen above her golden head: WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH A TRIDSTER PIRATE? What shall we do with a drunken pirate? What shall we do with a drunken pirate? What shall we do with a drunken pirate? Earl-eye in the evening? Set him up with babes and blow his socks off! Set him up with babes and blow his socks off! Set him up with babes and blow his socks off! Earl-eye in the evening! What shall we do with a hungover pirate? What shall we do with a hungover pirate? What shall we do with a hungover pirate? Earl-eye in the morning? Send him a Sugar Dog to love him up gently... Send him a Sugar Dog to love him up gently... Send him a Sugar Dog to love him up gently... Earl-eye in the morning! What shall we do if the pirate's not willing? What shall we do if the pirate's not willing? What shall we do if the pirate's not willing? Earl-eye in the morning? Wrassle and tussle and lick him all over! Wrassle and tussle and lick him all over! Wrassle and tussle and lick him all over! Earl-eye in the morning! ~S~
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Mbo Date: 26 May 00 - 01:28 PM There's a man who leads a life of danger To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger With every move he makes, another chance he takes Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow Secret agent man! Secret agent man! (They've) given you a number and taken 'way your name Beware of pretty faces that you find A pretty face can hide an evil mind h, be carefull what you say, you'll give yourself away Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow Secret agent man! Secret agent man! Swinging on the Enterprise one day And then laying in the Showdown 4000 next day Ah, know you let the wrong word slip, while kissing persuasive lips The odds are you won't live to see tomorrow Secret agent man! Secret agent man! Secret a-a-a agent man! --Mbo |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 26 May 00 - 03:37 PM Wow, wow, wow. Jen and Sooze are fire on the mountain, and Leej is dancing on the Aurora Borealis like Fred Astaire in the rain. What a crew. Nice choon, too, Mbo... are you tipping your hand here? Who DO you work for, anyway? *BG* A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 27 May 00 - 10:56 AM Sugar Dog woke with a start. Still no Trid. She ran her thoughts back down their pathways, looking for a reason he had not yet appeared.... back... back... oh yes... she had been napping at the Tavern 2... and dreamed a fabulous dream, of cabbages and kings, and a ship called the Enterprise... "Thass it!" she yelped. "Ah reckon Ah fergot tuh tell dat Tridster Ah had dreamed him uh all-new ship! Ah fergot dem peeples ain't always plugged intuh dem alternate realities!" She yippled in glee, rolling on the floor and shaking with amusement until her sweet Sugar Dog ass nearly dematerialized. "Ole Trid can git back tuh star-trippin' an' doan know it yet! Oh lawd, Lawd, Lawsamussy, but wait till he find out dis ship only kin do certain missions! Ooo, ooo, EE!" Trit-trotting to tne communications section, she focused her attention on the young agent at the controls. Suddenly Agent Mbo began to tap a message.... to Billy the Trid... as Suagr Dog sat back on her haunches, grinning from ear to silky ear, tail thumping in smug pleasure. As he pushed SEND, Agent Mbo turned and SAW her, a grin breaking over his features. "Sooz!" he trilled. "Now that we are working together....!" ~S~ |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: wysiwyg Date: 27 May 00 - 10:59 AM sorry, this lapopt can't spiel two gude cuz the screen so faint |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: JenEllen Date: 27 May 00 - 02:39 PM The Elder's kitchen overflowed with excited chatter. The Elder sat at the head of the table, with the rest gathered around him. Rosetta and Tuni explained their magnificent discovery to all in attendance.
The Elder looked up just as Farkin filled the doorway, the entire doorway. Farkin told her how he had returned to the ship, passing Trid in the hallway. Trid gave him an exaggerated salute and a "Melt ya later, Good Humor Man..." before he turned the corner. Farkin's cabin had been ransacked, and his Ternian travel guides were missing. He had searched the ship and ran the scanners, but Trid and the models were no longer on board. "That's impossible," cried Tuni, "Carson would never have let him off the ship..." "Impossible or no, he's not on the ship, he's loose on Tern. I'm going to find him." Farkin grumbled. At this, Mandy scooted from her seat on the counter. "I'm going with you." The concerned faces at the table had no Ternly idea....The one and only mission that Farkin and Mandy had with the Federation was in a Mail Order Lingerie Model scam that Trid had dreamed up. Trid had escaped, and Mandy still cringed to think about the thongs.... The twosome walked the streets of Lower Gnagu, the seediest city of Tern. Wharf rats the size of lammbrui covered the piers. The two made the rounds of the taverns, and finally Farkin pointed, "There." Lola's. The tavern was decorated of Lola in her younger days, feathers in her hair, dress cut down to there, she'd been a showgirl.
Trid dozed at a corner, fuggerfruit drool cascading down his chin. The lingerie models scattered at the first sight of the pair. Mandy took a deep breath, and pressed up behind Trid. She exhaled in a throaty growl.
Trid woke with a smile that froze on his face as soon as he turned. Instant sobriety.
The three sat in stony silence, Trid glaring at the pair across from him. Farkin Finally spoke. "What do you think you're doing Trid, you know you can't get off the planet without us.." Trid laughed, not a trace of fear. These two were nothing to him. They had no Federation to protect them, and all that resided on Tern were old folks and half-wits. He started to smoke, offering to both Mandy and Farkin. Farkin only crossed his arms and glared. Mandy took the offered 'rillo and lit it. She puffed lazily, sizing up Trid through the smoke.
With this simple gesture, the first trace of concern crossed Trid's face. Mandy twirled the table knife in her free hand. Trid paled, something told him that she'd have no trouble doing him bodily harm. He should have killed them years ago when he'd had the chance. He watched the two leave his table, and finally Lola's bar. They were protecting something, he knew it, but what? Time for him to call in some favors.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 27 May 00 - 04:30 PM Late in the afternoon, after the excitement had died down, Boukey sat down once more with the Elder and his son, the Terran. He said, apologetically: "I am sorry this is so fragmentary. I am driven to tell it more and more as more and more of it comes back to me. Because I think there is something at work behind this that is coming toward you." The Elder nodded. "Yes, the first attack was a feint, or a miscalculation. Everything you have said so far, and what we know ourselves suggest that there is a deep subtlety at work behind the overt activities of a crew of clumsy minions. It was far too obvious, far too brutal. " Boukey looked at him. "What do you think then?" The Elder weighed the situation, and then said, "I think that you discovered on at least Borhgillai or by the time you reached Margarnagarr that the whole Cosmic Disney Corp empire rested, not on the Root of Title, but on an Original Lie that they seeded into the minds and culture of the Earth remnant, and made it look as if they saved the Earth, when really they doomed it. And that if that were discovered, the whole enterprise would collapse. And the little shards and threads of evidence you gleaned from the remnants were enough to convince you, and lead you to us." ""Yes," said Boukey, "That is what I found." The Elder said. "What puzzles me is why they have not struck again. What are they waiting for?" "Well," Boukey replied. "One thing. Should anything happen to me, all I know will be made available to my Father, the Federation President, by a prearranged signal. That is what I did, the last thing before setting out for Tern on the Enterprise. And I sent a copy of that threat to Her Disney Herself, Cruella de Villeneuve. I believe that is why she has held off simply destroying this planet, given that they have the physical power to do so. " The Elder frowned and said: "No, it cannot be as easy as that. I don't mean physically, you are right there: after all they simply have to arrange for the Neezian sun to go supernova. Any idiot can use brute force to wipe out beautiful subtlety. You can always toss acid on a Rembrandt. They have some other game in mind: I assume, for instance, that if they knew about our new discovery, they would create a Terminator process that would exhaust songseeds after a few plays, so the song would die forever unless you paid royalties to Cosmic Disney Corp. And so on. " Boukey said, "It is clear that they were learning all the time. When I reached Borhgillai, the Library Planet, all the references to Earthsong material had been wiped out of the retrieval system. If it hadn't been for the fact that some librarian in 2300 had done a card catalogue by hand during a one year sunstorm that interfered with all the computer systems, I would not have found anything. As it was, all I found were tantalizing hints about the links of a remnant group to the founding of Holy Demershinnia. It was there that I intended to go next. I did what I could to hide my tracks and traces, and was I believe successful. It helped that Demershinnia was a shrine space -- extremely difficult to do any damage there. Well, I applied for entry, and like all applicants, I was shepherded onto the Anteluna, cleansed and recloaked in pilgrim's garb. After a week, I and many others moved into the pilgrim ships, full of Dermershinnian hymns and psalms, and hope, and descended to the desert planet." The Elder said: "I have always wished to go there: but Tern is a holy place in its own way too. Like people, a place is known by the quality of its enemies." Boukey looked around, and replied: "Yes, there are similarities: songs everywhere, but silence as a kind of song too." They were all silent for a moment, listening to Tern.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Mbo Date: 27 May 00 - 10:49 PM Amos, Lt.Mbo works for Section 31, a top secret and unsanctioned organization attached to Starfleet. Up until recently, it was a complete secret. But they have been around since the beginning of Starfleet. No one has any control over what they do, kinda like the CIA with an attitude! Oh no, the Sugah Dog! Alternate timelines are beginning to crop up in subspace! --Mbo
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise Part 4 From: Amos Date: 27 May 00 - 11:57 PM This concludes Part Four and leads to Part Five of this amazing story. Part Five is over here.
|