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BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5
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Subject: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 27 May 00 - 11:54 PM This is part 5 of the intriguing tale of starships, planetary discovery, unheard of union between human and plat, and the ultimate evil that organization is capable of, the amazing story of the Mudcat Enterprise, which lies at stasis-anchor on the gentle surf off the quais of the capital city of Tern, in a galaxy far, far away....
Part Four can be found over here.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 28 May 00 - 10:34 AM Big Mickey was striking fifteen. The Chief of Cartooning and Replication paused briefly, and continued: "Of course it was at this point that we received the Directive from Your Disney, so after planting the information about Margarnagarr in the Great Library at Borhgillai, we followed him to Demershinnia, at a discreet distance. We knew she would come after him, and then we could put the Directive to work. We did not reckon with the sandstorm, and that meant that everything had to be done in a hurry on Margarnagarr." Cruella de Villeneuve snapped impatiently: "We know all that, there wasn't anything to be done, Chief. I am the one to blame, if anyone. Stop apologising." The Chief looked at her with his admiration. She was the best: the buck stopped with her. No fooling around. No wonder everyone looked up to her, feared her, but admired her. He cleared his throat, and continued.... **************************************** It was twilight on Tern. Boukey continued: "Let me say a bit about Demershinnia. The planet is dotted with shrines and temples to every religion and spirituality in the universe, and no one could visit them all in many lifetimes probably. The favoured pilgrimage route for Terrans or their kin is to begin at the city of Mondacc and then trek along the holy Darojn river through the desert to the monastic caves. At each daily stage in the trek there are oases and caravanserai, pilgrim hostels, and clusters of sacred spaces. There is no final goal: it is a cycle that ends where it began at Mondacc, many days or weeks or months later. The pilgrimage is itself the pilgrimage. Among the furthest reaches of the cycle is the Geosis shrine, where was lodged some assumed remnant folk from Earth, long isolated from their brethren elsewhere: deeply holy, self-contained. It was that shrine that I set out to locate. All the myriad beings of the Terran family shuffled along this trail, I could not begin to describe them all, men, women, children, all dressed in Demershinnian pale blue robes. Much of the day was passed in silence, but there was conversation and chatting, and exchange of provisions. There was some singing -- modern hymns, ancient Disneyfied "Mouse of Ages" tunes and so on -- but that was really reserved for the evenings. When we reached the caravanserai, weary at the end of the long day, everyone camped in a great circle, under the vast cream scythe of Luna in its new moon phase, and ate, and drank, and sang every song everyone knew. It was all not as holy as it perhaps should have been, but such are pilgrimages. Instruments of every description - souds, rrraldors, harmonicas, bloopers, Callioken guitars, you name it. "It was on the third day that I began to feel that I was being followed, shadowed. It was impossible to determine where that feeling came from, and impossible, among so many figures, many with their faces cloaked always, to pinpoint anyone who would be taking a special interest in me. Days went by. One, two, perhaps three figures seemed to keep close to me, cloaked, dark. Meanwhile, we moved further and further out into the desert world, always with the Darojn River on our left, growing slowly narrower as we traversed upriver." After a week, we reached the Healing Shrine of Auld, which as you know, purports to heal diseases and disfigurements of all kinds. The whole party, the thousands of us on the march, went through the Shrine,and hundreds went into the Darojn Pool for the special Healing. It was a terrible sight: but one could not help but be moved at the faith and the suffering of so many. Among the disfigured, I saw a number of Cybanian women, trying vainly to heal their facial slashes; and my heart went out to them, and to your daughter for all that had been done to her." The Elder stopped him with a touch on his arm, and then motioned for him to go on. "That night, as we all sat around the central fire in the vast caravanserai, quiet beginning to descend, but many songs still to be sung, one of the cloaked figures who I was suspicious of, whose face I could not see, turned to the string player and whispered for him to play. He replied, just loud enough to hear, that he did not know any Cybanian music. He said to the larger circle: "Is there anyone here who knows Cybanian clothroal?" And an eldery woman, slash down her face, said, "Yes, of course, hand me that. What do you want?" The cloaked figure said: "'Until'" The elderly woman smiled and said, "Oh, that old thing. Cassandra's song." And she began to play, and the figure began to sing: How can I change your mind Unravel the mystery that confines us Silence is hiding the pain But deep in your soul you must know We've got to take a chance And let our spirits flow Love is an elusive thing But into every heart it sings. "And as she sang, from all over the caravanseria, from family groups, from other small fires, from dark corners, the Cybanian women came forward, leant forward, to the beautiful song. The firelight turned their faces into gold, golden tears falling down their hurt faces, many mouthing the long unheard words. She went on:" Whatever it takes to make it right No matter how hard I will fight for you I swear that it's true I want the sweetness in life with you until this life is through. "And they all began to sing along quietly, cracked voices, sweet voices, tuneless voices, all around. Their shadows arched tall on the distant walls, swaying in time to the clothroal's beat." Such a bizarre twist of fate That something so simple should escape us, Anger and pride crowd your eyes But this is a vision for two There's no one else to tell my deepest secrets to I don't want to live alone It would be a lonely song.... Whatever it takes to make it right No matter how hard I will fight for you I swear that it's true I want the sweetness in life with you Until this life is through. "And the song ended. And the women all began to speak to each other in the women's tongue, high and out of reach of all the rest. And there were many friendships formed that night. And as for me, as I had known from the first note the cloaked figure sang, I had the happiness of knowing that Sharazade had come here, to Demershinnia, to find me, and to be with me again, whatever it took." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: wysiwyg Date: 28 May 00 - 12:46 PM [swoooooooonnnnnn.........] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 28 May 00 - 01:41 PM "As the fire died down, and the pilgrims turned to sleep, Sharazade and I walked out into the desert, under the vast starblanketed night, Luna scything down towards the horizon. She was quiet, but seemed to have made some kind of decision, or peace for a moment with herself. She told me how she had received my message, and decided to come, and had made her way to Demershinnia through the complex byways I mapped out for her in case of trouble." The Terran interrupted: "Sorry, but how did you send such a message, in such a situation?" Boukey looked puzzled for an instant. "I don't remember somehow." And then a memory returned. "Oh, yes, I remember. We had arranged, Jack and I, for me to send a letter to his sheriff friend in Destarlillo Town, with a transcription of a song back to Calliopetey Jack in Calliokan notation, which had the message in musical code. That was how we were to keep track." The Terran shook his head. "It all seems too easy. There is something wrong with all this." Boukey agreed: "It was too easy, or so we found. They were following us, they had tracked her from at least Anteluna. She had missed my setting out by two days, but had caught up later. And she brought them with her." The Elder said: "No, I don't think so. I think your original intuition was correct. They were already with you, and they were with her." "All the time?" "It is of course hard to know. Perhaps not." Boukey said: "Well, we worried. We felt it was too easy. So we decided that after we reached Geosis, we would return by an alternative route, skirting the southern reaches of Darojn and striking out on our own. If we were followed, we would know, out there, in the open. Meanwhile, we continued with the rest of the pilgrims, though the numbers began to thin. Another few days passed, and more and more pilgrims turned back or found their refuge. We were down to perhaps ten or more, when we reached Geosis." "And here," said Boukey, "here my memory jags into fragments. I cannot remember anything except the beginning and the flight at the end. In the beginning, we made our way to the great Shrine, the Shrine to the wisdom of the embodied sphere of life -- the giant original version of the smaller shrine I saw here on the first day. And it was with great anticipation that we awaited the Turning Service, when the Earth Songs would be sung by the massed churchfolk and their leaders. Late in the afternoon they came from their small homes, and some from their monastic huts, some from work, some from play. And they entered the Shrine, and within moments they began to sing. The first song they sang, to an ancient modal melody, was When You Wish Upon A Star. This was followed by Someday My Prince Will Come. And so on. With great beauty, and intense belief, and devotion." "From beneath her cowl, Sharazade looked at me in horror, and I looked back. It was then that the full dimensions of what was at stake struck both Sharazade and I. The entire remnant community of Geosis had been Mousewashed, and did not even know it. As if on a signal, we both arose, and moved to a subchapel on an aisle. 'What kind of people are these?' She whispered, her voice shaking. 'Can they do this?'" "They can," I said, "And they have. When they did it, I don't know. But they have become more daring, more frightening with each passing day. " " And THAT is just the beginning!" triumphed a voice from behind the subchapel altar. "You will come with us," ordered another harsh voice from the side. "Yes," said another voice behind us, "Your holiday time is up!" Four figures, like all the rest, cloaked in Demershinnian blue, came out of the shadows and converged slowly upon us. I had only a moment. I didn't know what to do. Out of nowhere, a thought came to me. I reached up and pulled off Sharazade's cowl. "PRAISES TO WALT!!" I screamed. "ALL PRAISES TO WALT!! THE WOMAN IS HEALED!!" There was a murmur from the churchfolk. Heads began to turn. "LOOK EVERYONE," I cried: "A MIRACLE!! THE WOMAN WHO WAS ONCE A CYBANIAN SLAVE HAS HAD HER SLASH HEALED!! IT WAS GEOSIS THAT DID IT!! LOOOOK, EVERYONE!!!" I pulled her past the four figures out into the blazing aisle, towards the main shrine, where a thousand faces looked at her. "SEE FOR YOURSELF!! SHE IS HEALED!! THE HEALING POOL AT AULD COULD NOT HEAL HER!! BUT GEOSIS HAS WORKED A MIRACLE!!!!" The four figures were engulfed by the crowd milling forward. "WALT BE PRAISED!!!!!!!!" "But --" said someone in the front, "But she is not --" "Yes," said someone else, "She is as beautiful as the dawn!!!" And another said: "But I can see it. There, on her face!" And at that moment, the elderly Cybanian woman who had remained as one of our party rushed forward, and saved our lives: "WALT BE PRAISED!!! She is free!!! I KNEW HER BEFORE!!!! Walt Save Me Too!! Me Too!!!" And she hurled herself before the crowd laughing and howling with berserk delight. "A MIRACLE!!" they all cried. And we ran. How we got out of the Shrine I do not know. The crowd followed howling and praising for as long as they could through the streets of Geosis, and then, in the warren of turns and side alleys, we lost them. We stood breathing for a moment. "I think we have lost them for a moment, Sharazade." I said. She looked at me, silent. "I am sorry," I said, "I couldn't think of anything else. I did not mean to use you like that. I am sorry." And she reached over and for the first time ever she kissed me, and smiled, and said: "Fool, it was a miracle, if there ever was one. It did go away, for that brief moment. It was the first time it brought me anything but despair in my whole life. It saved us, oh my sweet Green Man, it saved us!" And then the sandstorm hit.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: JenEllen Date: 28 May 00 - 03:18 PM Mandy sat at the Elder's table with her head in her hands. Her being was an mixture of muted horror at what she was hearing, and her unabashed sorrow cascading down her cheeks with every tear. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 28 May 00 - 05:11 PM Jesus, Peter. Stunned, again, by your power and craft. Beautiful!!!! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 28 May 00 - 11:58 PM The youngmeen had buil the nodes, but it was to the women that they delivered the product of their labors. Except for Cornucopia's central office deep in the Ternian forest, in the warm underground wood-furnished root centers sprinkled all across the planets, the word went out to the young women, briefed by the Ternian Elder, that they should come. And they came in their scores and hundreds, each to her assigned place, borne from the deep forests by the docile lammbrui, or coming on foot, two or three of them to each of the deep sheltered control points of the planetary network. Some bore lutes and some bore zithers, some brought dulcimers and some tambourines. A few bore the peculiar polished mahogony mouth reed instruments for which Tern was famous, the Ternian mouth harp withits delicate hand carved reeds and plates. But all of them bore as well her share of the treasury from the capital, a portion of the Lomaxion repository. Cornucopia and his assistant again burned the midnight oils at one of the far flung labs of the Institute, and on the dawn of their third days, Rosetta shook the dozing agent, bearing yet another bowl of hot rootjuice to keep him nopurished and stimulated. "Cornucopia! Wake up!" she said sioftly and urgently. He shook his head and gazed blurrily at her warm, rough-featured and intelligent voice, noticing her gentle figure and her bright sparkle of lucid determination. "Wha...What's up?? DIsneys back????" he leapt groggily to his feet. "No, no!!" she laughed "Come!" And she led him down the hall to the lab where the rolypoly bio-scientist was beaming down at a planting bed. Four small plants beamed back at him, as much as plants can beam. Like sunflowers, they had large nodding round heads lined with delicate leaves. Unlike their remote Terran ancestors, they had small air-sacs lining the back of their round faces, and unusual flytrap-like orifices on the outer surface. Although fixed in their basic shape, the agent would have sworn these plants were smiling. At least, there was a cheerful, celebratory atmosphere in the lab, and he sensed he was about to find out why. "This mister contains a distillate of a certain strain of the seed DNA we showed your father," the lab genius explained. "Watch this!" He sprayed a small cloud from the mister over the nodding heads of the four plants and then hastily held up one hand for silence. In less than three seconds the heads began to nod in unison. The small openings on their faces began to shift and change forms minutely. From where he stood, Cornucopia could see the airsacs on the back of two of the plant's faces swelling and contracting. Then the singing began -- soft, high-pitched, but absolutely true to the ancient original on which the agent and his brother had been weaned as children. This land is your land The harmony was perfect, the voices whole though thin. Cornucopia's jaw dropped as he realized the implications of what he was seeing. A broad smile crossed his tired face. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 29 May 00 - 01:07 PM "Sand. It was as if the air around us had pulverized itself into powder and was bent on driving itself through our bodies. Even in the relative shelter of the market quarter, winds of sand howled whirling, biting our faces, choking our lungs, clogging our eyes. In the noise and tumult we crouched down in a sheltered doorway. I shouted over the shrieking wind:"We will have to wait it out, we are at least protected till the storm stops!!" Sharazade shouted back, her face and hair already coated with sand: "No, this must be our chance to escape! Geosis is too small to hide us for long --" The screaming wind carried her words away for a moment. Across the abandoned bazaar, hastily abandoned boxes and jars rolled uncontrolled in the swirls of gusting sand. Shuttered windows battered against the frames of houses. We huddled against each other, waited for a lull. Then she began again, shouting in my ear as clearly as she could: "We should go ahead with the original idea! The other way back, across the desert! They can't follow us there, maybe!" I yelled back: "This is crazy!! We can't even find our way across the street, let alone through a sandstorm!" Then the wind died down for a moment. And then Sharazade showed something I had not seen in her before. She wiped the sand from her face, and shrugged her shoulders: "Oh, this, this is a minor storm. You forget that Cybania, may it rot, was a desert planet like this. " She stood up, and the wind hit her again, but she weathered it, her body determined. She thought for a second, and then bent back down and said: "Come on, we can do this. We need four things, and we need them fast." "What?" I replied. "We need some water, two of these Demershinnian drosbaack camels, and some mint tea." I said:"Sharazade, are you out of your mind?" "Look," she said, "we either do this, or we are in their clutches for good." "Alright," I said, getting to my feet: "But what is the tea for? Isn't it a bit early for tea?" The wind was picking up again. She reached back into her pilgrim's sack and pulled out a simple frock dress, which she then tore into large strips. "We need the water for us. We need the drossbaacks to ride when the storm drops a bit. And the mint tea is to saturate the cloths. We wrap the cloths around their faces, over their nostrils. The smell of the mint soothes the animals, keeps them from panicking. A little piece of Cybanian lore. And then --" I interrupted. "But how are we going to get these things?" She looked at me as if I did not know enough to wash the sand out of my ears. "Steal them, of course." *********************************************** In spite of what she said, it was a horrible storm, as she admitted later. The drossbaacks were only occasionally spooked, but they were hard to drive against the wind, and we spent countless hours making almost no pace. On the third day, during a brief lull in the endless screaming wind, we came to a high dune, and in the greyyellow distance, we were unable to see the landmark we had counted on. We guessed, turned to what we hoped was the north, got lost again, and moved back into the resurgent storm. Much of the time we simply had to give up, and huddle in the leeside of the warm bellies of the drossbaacks, lying down wherever. Although we knew that we were fighting for our lives out in that desert, I think she was in her element. She would hate me to say it, but it was a world she knew, and had fought to survive in once before, and had that in her bones. After two more days, the water began to give out. The storm abated a bit, but we were in a trackless waste. And the storm would not blow out: it merely held its breath. We desperately needed at least a glimpse of the night sky to locate ourselves again. After another day, we began to lose hope that the sky would ever clear, that we would ever find water. We had only a few hours to live. We had stopped, panting, to take a rest, hideously thirsty. Sharazad sat by me, and we held hands, and a faraway look came into her eyes, and she said: "I remember one of our older women, a fine strong woman, who was a Sufi mystic. One day when I was nearly dead, faltering from exhaustion, she took me aside and said to me: 'In Islam, we must pray and do our ablutions with water at scheduled times of the day and night. But what were we to do in the ancient times when we were out on caravan and found ourselves without water and far from any oasis? Then Allah, God, allows us to do our ablutions with sand. We cleanse ourselves with sand, when there is nothing else. We say that when the time comes that we find water, we will do them right. But in the meantime, sand. And she said to me: this is what you must do, child, this is the nature of hope in a barren land. For you, sand must be the promise of water to come.'" Sharazade reached down, and in the middle of a world of sand, picked up a handful of sand, and placed it on her brow and down her face, as if she were washing herself in it, and let it cake and fall. She was praying, to Allah perhaps, to the God of the Sandstorm more likely. The wind howled. The world shifted, sifted sand. I began to fall asleep, which I knew was dangerous, but we were becoming hypnotized by the endlessness of it all. The end was coming. And then she gripped my arm. "Wait!" she said. "Why not?" I looked at her. She said: "You must be able to find water for us. You are half plant. You must have an instinct for it, somewhere." I replied: "Well, I am certainly going brown and withering." "No," she said, "I am not joking. You must have it in you somewhere. Have you never tried?" I looked, I am sure, somewhat bewildered. "Well, no. I mean I always gravitate towards water, dream about it. But what would I do?" She said, "I have no idea, I am not a plant. But there must be a way. You must be able to tap into that plantness. They used to call it a water witch on Cybania: there were people who could find water. We have nothing to lose. Why not empty your mind of the immediate desire for water, and see if anything happens?" I think getting rid of the immediate desire for water was the hardest part. But I gave it a try. For someone whose mind had always been scholarly or at least academically inclined, it was hard to let go in that way, and there in a raging sandstorm, with the smell of drossbaacks in the nostrils, and the grit of impending death in the mouth. But I persevered, fighting the desire for water. And then after an hour or more of wavering, dropping to sleep, waking again, something odd happened: I had the growing sensation of entering down into a vast cavern below my mind, full of the sound of echoing dripping water, the beautiful haunting sound of echoing dripping water. When I came to the surface, I said in a mesmerized voice to Sharazade: "I do. I feel water. Vast caverns of it. I do." She looked at me in hope. And then frowned. "That may be no use to us. You sense the aquifer, deep underground. Miles underground maybe. We need local water." The wind around us howled. "Well," she said at last, "There is no help for it. We have nothing else. You must get up and walk towards the water. I will follow." We bundled up our provisions, and with the feeble strength I had in my limbs, I stumbled forward, trying to empty my mind, trying to reach out towards where water might be in this vast sea of sand. Sharazade, her face wrapped against the storm, led the drossbaacks along behind. We staggered through the descending darkness, leaning against the interminable wind. Four hours later, exhausted, battered, a spring of water bubbled up into what was left of my mind. And moments later, we fell, all strength gone, into the blessed oasis.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 29 May 00 - 04:51 PM Cartoosh scuttled down the path toward the Elder's home, intent on his mission. The Trid had told him to find out what he could about the Sacred Songs, and the arachno-cyborg knew that if anyone held the secret, it was the Elder. The robot halted at a turn in the path, and gazed at the pastoral scene before him. A small brook cascaded down a gentle slope through a meadow filled with wildflowers. The recent rain was rising in gentle mist beneath the Neezian sunlight, and a rainbow painted the sky with unreal color. "Van Gogh might have painted this, or Monet," though Cartoosh, for he had an artistic bent, due to a broken and malfunctioning visual analog circuit. The circuit was meant to analyze visual data for the purposes of determining work or defensive activity, but a blown capacitor in the output module rendered it primarily capable of producing value judgements regarding the basic esthetic properties of what Cartoosh saw. In fact, one of his cherished possessions lost in the explosion of the Space Shagger had been his copy of The History of Western Art, a very ancient Terran tome.
As he stood appreciating the vista before him, he heard voices and footsteps coming up the path. He scuttled sideways into a thick stand of willows, and then saw an unlikely sight: seven midget Terrans with floppy sock-caps and mining implements were trudging up the path singing In a clearing, they suddenly came to a stop, and the most disgruntled-looking of them said "OK. This is the spot! Who's got the radio?" The other six began patting their coat pockets and rummaging through their haversacks."Well?" said the frowning dwarf,"I thought I gave it to you Happy." The one called Happy skipped up to the leader, saying,"you did! You did! But I found it's heaviness interfered with my frolicking, so I gave it to Sleepy. SLEEPY!" And here a third Dwarf was assisted to his feet by two of the others."Oh... the radio? Dopey's got it." The grouchy one slapped his forehead and said "Oh Christ! Where the hell is he?" One of the other dwarves pointed to Dopey, who was in the act of attempting to stand on his head on a round boulder "I cud do it," he said "if'n it wadn't fer this!" and he dumped the radio out of his cap. The head dwarf snatched up the transmitter and said " Ms Villeneuve? This is Grumpy. We're in position." A voice crackled in response alright. He's moving toward the Elder's cottage right now. Continue with the plan. The dwarves quickly arranged a net across the path, tying ropes at the corners and throwing the ropes across several tree limbs. They then concealed themselves as the one called Dopey stepped to the center of the net and began to scatter sticks leaves and dirt across it. When he had finished, he stood still for a second, closed his eyes, and began to sing in a beautiful soprano voice
Fair young maid, all in her garden Farkin was wandering in the meadow, putting off his return to duty aboard ship as long as possible. He was moving slowly toward the stream, whose soft murmerings seemed to promise the disclosure of some secret long held, if only he could listen long enough. He walked carefully, avoiding the red and yellow blooms that dotted the meadow, for they would instantly wilt at his touch. Behind him, his footprints were pressed six inches deep in the soft soil, and filled with the water that was beginning to flow from his Coldsuit in an almost steady stream now. He stood before a Hawthorne Tree, looking closely at a small bird-like animal who chirped and stared back, when Farkin suddenly heard the sound of singing, close by. In a dream-like trance, he moved toward the painfully lovely sound, a song he knew as one of old Dylan Woodrow's. He began to sing it himself as he moved toward the source
"No, kind sir, I cannot marry thee He stepped across the narrow brook, and beheld a small Terran standing in a clearing. Farkin walked slowly toward him, as the little Terran continued his song. The Ice Giant was concerned that the creature might fear him, and so he touched his forehead in the greeting of his kind. At this, the creature suddenly leapt out of the clearing, and Farkin felt the ground suddenly rise, ropes tightening around him. The dwarves gave a joyous shout and strained at the ropes. "Higher!" shouted Grumpy. "He's too heavy!" said Happy," we can only get him a foot or two in the air!" Grumpy cleared his throat and spat."OK, then. Tie him up." They quickly secured the net ropes, and wrapped him in heavy cord. Grumpy opened his knapsack and produced a thin band of metal, like a crown but studded with points directed inward. Attached to it was a small transmitting device. "I will tell you nothing," growled Farkin. "You don't have to," laughed the dwarf. "Take off his helmet." Happy was raised to Farkin's head height and began to unscrew the Giant's helmet, saying "he won't last long with this off! They're just water, y'know." "No problem," said Grumpy,"it only takes a minute. Then we'll know everything he knows." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Mbo Date: 29 May 00 - 07:00 PM As his atoms rematerialized, Lt.Mbo found himself standing in a long, rather dark cave, or what at least to him SEEMED like a cave--there was poor visibility, and his defective right eye would not give him ample focus. Suddenly he heard a strangle crackling sound behind him. He wheeled around, and reaching for his hidden phaser, found it to be gone. Our transporter buffer removes weapons as well as contaminants, said a voice from the darkness. In the dark he saw the glow of something radiate and then fade. But do not worry, you have no need of weapons here. You are among friends. The Lieutenant's eyes phased out as he was coat off guard by the sudden appearance of light. When his eyes returned to normal, he saw that he was indeed in a cavern, one with security cameras & phaser cannon implacements at intervals along the wall. Standing in front of him were three figures--all were dressed in Khaki jumpsuits with maroon berets. He observed them. The first was a vaguely equine looking creature, with a large collar around his neck. The second was a rather obese rodent-like alien with large ears, and an even larger red moustache. His scarf flapped soudlessly in the chill and canny air. The third was even larger than the second, maybe seven feet tall, with a wooden leg, and a cigar clamped tightly in his teeth. "Welcome, Lt.Mbo" said the latter. "I am Commodore Peg Leg Pete, commander of the Tern Mousqis. These are my two most trusted officers, whom you talked to earlier, Security Chief Horsecollar and Weapons Acquisition Officer (WAO) Monterrey Jack." "G'day!" said the fat alien through his wild and unkempt moustache. "Come," said Peg Leg. "We have been informed of a dire emergency, and your help is greatly needed to help us. Our time is not long. Come, we must give you the quick run through of our protocols first." "What emergency? What do I need to do?" asked Lt.Mbo. This was all interesting, and highly intriguing, but he still felt a little out of the loop. "You will see, but a Section 31 agent of your calibre is just what we need. We are willing to give you a Mousqis commission of Commander. Do you accept?" Asked Pete. "I will." he said. "For I trust YOU as well. You wouldn't believe the information one resourceful 31 agent can pick up from a simple comm carrier wave. I have discovered some history of you as well. My information only took moments to collect, but I spent the rest of my time preparing to come here, researching YOU. I know WHO you are, what you are about, where we are in Ternian coordinates, etc, etc. I also have a certain "friend", a Yridian, Shrek, who is currently being held in the Federation Penal Colony on Rura Penthe. Smart man Shrek. Know more than your average Yridian." "WELL, Commander Horsecollar, look like a Security overhaul is in order?" Asked Pete. Horsecollar replied with a guilty sigh. "Well, my mind HAS been on Claribelle lately..." "Ah, I know how that is!" laughed Mbo. Just about every free moment of his time was devoted to the thought of HER. "C'mon, mates, no time for this rubbish & gob-gaggling! Let's move!" shouted Monterrey, tossing Mbo a huge weapon. "What in bloody blue blazes IS this?" Asked Mbo incredulously. He had seen a LOT of weapons at Section 31 headquarters, and could fix just about all of them, but he had NEVER seen this kind before. "It's a Hirogen design--don't ask who they are--let's just say they are from the Delta Quadrant. But we improved upon their design, adding an advanced feature--a narrow field antimatter cannon. Just the most tremedous weapon that we know of." Said Pete. "YES!" shouted Mbo. "Let's rock and roll!" "We knew we were right in picking you for the job, COMMANDER!" Said Pete. "Let's head back to Task Force HQ, We'll discuss the emergency and our mission on the way." --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Mbo Date: 29 May 00 - 07:41 PM 2 hours later, Commanders Mbo, Jack, and Horsecollar were hurtling through hyperspace, toward a planet 15 parsecs away. Mbo distractedly fingered the locket concealed under his jacket. The locket with HER picture in it. One day my love, he thought, one day. "We're entering the planetary system now" reported Horsecollar. The thoughts on Mbo's mind diffused as his brow tool up it's normal furrow as him mind set on the task at hand. "Alright, Horace, bring 'er in low. Let's see what this Mousquis fighter can do!" The Mousquis fighter was long and sleek, with quad spread quantum torpedo launchers and auxiliary photonic disruptors--all in all one deadly a piece of weapontry as ever could have been conceived by minds of ingenuity. As they dove low, through the planet's misty atmosphere towards their target, Monterry let out a large burst of alien profanity! "Blast bally buggahs!" He raved "We can't go on a strafing run...they are too close in concentration. We risk losing our guys!" "Corboeuf!" rejoined Mbo. "Well, we'll just have to take the mission into our own plans. Set her down, Horace, we're going in." They left the fighter craft concealed under a grove of alien vegetation, and the three set out through the dense forest, in the quite pleasant twilight towards the coordinates being relayed to the Mk.IX. What a shame, Mbo thought. This place would be the perfect place to raise a family....mbo shook his head and centered his mind once again on the coordinates. Hbo led the party, with his Hirogen antimatter cannon at the ready, set on "Stir Fry", with Monterrey behind him and Horace taking up the rear. They had a 10 mile hike in front of them. Any closer, and the ship would have draw to much attention upon landing. So they made they way. It was well into the night as they neared their final destination. The night air was cool around them, as millions of stars shone dazzlingly...so near to touch almost, yet so distant, and as bright and ebullient as HER eyes... "Look" whispered Horace. "There appears to be a glow over there." "I see it. It matches the coordinates. That's where they are." said Commander Mbo. They crept closer to the glow, which appeared to be emanating from under a grove of willow-like trees. They took great pains to be as quiet as possible, even more quiet than the nature of their jobs had taught them. A few moments later, three heads gazed into the clearing. There was a man bound with ropes, a tall man. "That's him!" Whispered Monterrey. "Looks like we got here in time despite the setback." "Aye," said Mbo, "but his captors are well, armed...we must set the moustrap now. Monterrey, Horace, take up your positions...let's move." Dopey was dozing with his back against a large tree, dreaming of the great skills of sexual prowess he had elicited when, after getting a kiss on the head by Snow White, how he had ran to then end of the line so he could receive another. Ahh, Dopey, Snow couldn't resist your miniscule machismo....when THUD a livid green bolt of antimatter struck Dopey as Monterrey watched each atom of his being disintegrate. "That's one," he smirked. he wondered how Commanders Horsecollar and Mbo were faring on their ends... --Mbo
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Mbo Date: 29 May 00 - 08:01 PM And he thought....
I'll be seeing you --Mbo
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 29 May 00 - 08:37 PM "Looking at the moons," the Elder remarked to Cornucopia, "you wouldn't think so much depended on their precise characteristics and the exact dynamics of their courses..." The young man sat intensely focused at the primary controls of the small scout ship, angling in a precise parabolic curve outward bound for the outermost orbit of the first of the twin moons. They reached the edge of Tern's atmosphere and they both felt the acceleration as the local resistance faded away, and the ship, loaded to its absolute maximum, shifted slowly into a path of orbit around the first moon. Within an hour of reaching the first tangent point, they had looped around her back and into the narrow gravity well with which the second moon kept her sister firmly in constant range. They flew down the slope of that gravity ramp at faster and faster speeds, pulling out at the last minute in order to reach an orbital path around the back of the second moon, slowing only a small amount as they warped around in a huge figure-eight. Again, they followed the indeniable pull of the primary moon, now moving twice as fast as they had on the first loop, and again they nudged the path just slightly at the last moment, just enough to reach an orbital curve rather than smashing into the center of mass of the dry, towering, startk, brilliant, towering globe. Every iota of Cornucopia's attention was fixed on the sensors as he tweaked the very nose of death in microscopic course adjustments. Again, at twice the speed; and again. The velocity of the small vessel was approaching terminal limits as they flung themselves once more down the spatial ramp defined by the gravitic force-cone of the second moon. The calculators on the control panel clacked and whirrred, and the small green plant row behind the console quivered their tell-tale leaves in distinct patterns, informing the gaent of every instant's calibration. Finally he knew it was time, as the vessel began to hum and oscillate with the near luminous speed it had built up. He tapped a few control keys of burnished wood, as the sturdy ship roared down the well of gravity, starting around the lower limb of the second moon; at that precise instant her nose pointed straight for the ancient home planet of Terra. along a line millions of parsecs long, which defined the core path of human expansion through known space and intersected every human inhabited galaxy at at least one point. A huge explosion was heard from the depths of the scout vessel. From all along her lower hull, from a series of precisely calibrated tubes no bigger than bamboo trees, came smoke, fire and an incredible array of rapidly accelerating microscopic hardwood needle-form tubelets, each shielded with the transparent friction proof mineral coat that only Ternian technology could provide. On calculated paths these tiny vessels burst toward the rest of the known universe, dodging the asteroid belts with incredible finesse and speed, each making microscopic course adjustments. As the scout vessel lost speed, the Elder watched the thousands of tiny vessels fade into the remote distances of the galaxy. Within a year, he knew, they would be reaching the systems they were targeted for. "Let us cross our fingers for plan One," he said, smiling at his companion. "It is the surest of them all, if the slowest. It may be our only real hope." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 29 May 00 - 10:32 PM Happy had just slid the transmitter crown off of the giant's head and he looked into Farkin's eyes. Where there had been a sharp glint of light in a field of bright blue, there was only hollow darkness now. But they had gotten what they wanted. When the handcomp had printed out the contents of Farkin's head, the dwarves had been able to locate what they were looking for. Grumpy had actually done a grotesque little jig before he radioed Villeneuve and told her " I have their plan in front of me, and it's fiendish. I will send you a thorough report, but I have to tell you....it's plants!" The electronic voice responded Plants!? "Yes," said the dwarf, "plants that carry the seeds of songs...the Old Songs. They plan to plant them in worlds across the known universe!" There was a pause, and then find them! And bring me one of these plants. I want to examine it.. That was when a green lightning bolt struck Dopey, reducing him to his basic molecular components. The rest of the dwarves scattered into the underbrush. The Giant stirred in response to the explosion, sending another cascade of water into the pond that was forming in the clearing below him, the edge of that pond at last breaking through a crust of ground, allowing it to flow into the brook, and down through the meadow to the sea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: JenEllen Date: 29 May 00 - 11:53 PM Her aim was as true as ever, but no enemies were in sight. Her staff spun as swiftly, but no one in arm's reach was deserved of the wrath. When Boukey mentioned that they all rest for the evening, everyone in the tiny kitchen agreed. Gaia and Luna hurried to the loft to prepare him a fresh bed. Mandy followed behind him, up the tired old ladder, into the loft. The glossy pine boughs made him a soft bed, and Mandy pulled the blanket up tight around him. He brushed the cheek of her tear-stained face, and in the instant their eyes met, the dam broke inside the tiny woman. She reached the bottom of the ladder, and hiking her skirts up to her thighs, ran for the door. She bolted from the Elder's porch in a flash of skin. Her feet pounded furiously the ground of Tern, and she ran. She reached the clearing they had all once gathered in, and fell to her knees in the twilight. The twin moons hung impatient, not waiting for the Neezian moon to set before making their appearance. She fell, throwing her head back, and the clearing was filled with the howls of a wounded animal. Mandy gathered her sobbing form, climbing a tree for solace. The branches folded around her, causing a small fluctuation in the power of the Root Directory. Tuni and Rosetta looked up from their work for a second, but resumed when there was no apparent danger.
She remained in the tree, until a hand gently shook her ankle. It was the Terran. She dropped to the ground in instant attack. He held her arms and answered her calmly, "You know that the people aboard the Enterprise were Tern's only hope. I had to protect my family and the secrecy of this mission. But I came out here to bring you news, Tuni and Rosetta have found a way to scatter the seeds. It seems they met with Gladys and the Daisies in your nursery, and have developed a way for the plants to carry song with them. The only thing that is required now is for all of us to remain together, I can't imagine Cruella will let this one go without retaliation..." Mandy looked to the sky just as the first of the tiny vessels exploded across the sky. She sighed, and encircled the Terran's neck in her hands, bringing his forehead to hers in mutual apology and forgiveness. The two were returning along the forest path when they heard the first explosion. They ran along the trail to the horror waiting for them in the clearing. The small greasy spot on the grass that was Dopey, and the quickly melting remains of Farkin, dangling above the ground.
The Terran moved to cut the rope, when a dwarf appeared out of the underbrush. Lucky for the Terran, it was Sleepy. The tall man was able to boot the dwarf, in mid-yawn, back into the bushes. Mandy finally had a worthy enemy in arm's reach, grabbing Sneezy by the shirtcollar and trousers, flinging him into the ragweed. The rest of the dwarves danced around them. Farkin's hollow eyes stared up at them from within his bonds. The Terran and the girl dragged him through the forest to the home of the Elder. Behind them, glistening in the light of the twin moons, ran the river that was her friend.
On the Elder's porch once again, her feet beat a steady tattoo; 8 paces, pause, turn, 8 paces, pause, turn. Her eyes held the blank stare of a caged animal. Gaia, Luna and the Terran watched the bizarre ritual before them. The four remained on the porch, wating, while sparks of songs raced across the night sky.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 12:23 AM Wandering through the monstrous writhing stone catastrophes of the Neezian asteroid belt, the Ternian hopper -- larger by several times than the scoutship that had first detected the Enterprise -- dodged and curved, flickering through the dappling shadows of the ancient sun. Finally it came to rest on the broad, cold, scarred back of a stone leviathan roughly the size of the legendary City of Ann O'Heim, whose memories are still revered throughout the keepers of Fantasyland's storied past...a rock large enough to modify the face of California. The freight bays on the hopper opened and a number of Ternian men and women in space suits started a bustling order of high-speed activity all across the surface of the giant asteroid. Drills and flaming torches were brought to bear, changing the face of the spaceworn rock. Here, men wielding giant jackhammers tore huge curves into the face of the rock. There, drillers honeycombed the interior spaces with long thin channels ; officers with blueprints scrambled, leaping ridiculously in the low gravity, trying to land with grace, and humming snatches of their favorite ancient songs. Ho, bo's, can'cha line em!?? HUH! and, from anothe rquadrant of the great gray surface, Drill, tarriers, drill! And drill, blast and fire they did, while the far Neezian sun swung far to one end of their horizon and back, and the twin moons on the other side rose and fell in tandem, through the time of five Ternian days and nights. The space around the gigantic rock was littered with broken rock, the refuse of their huge operation. The asteroids mighty interior, once a solid mass of chill granite, was now a honeycomb of this passages lined with strange devices. AGain, the agent known as Cornucopia brought his small scoutship to the dangerous currents of the asteroid belt, landing gently on a flat cleared area near the freight hopper. He stepped out and consulted a large pad of intricate calculations he had brought from the labs. He conferred with engineers, scientists, experts in every aspect of Ternian knowledge, and watched as the tired crew planted long log-like charges into several of the new tunnels marking the rock's surface. He shook hands with the lead technicians and the senior engineers, nodded in agreement that all was ready, and returned to his scout craft, relocating it several miles away from the surface. From there he had to admit, the work was beautiful. In the sharp light of Neezie, the newly carved front of the gigantic rock flowed on gracefull measured curves where once random harsh rockfaces had been. Here a large, rounded extension of a mouse-ear -- there, another -- between them the large fatuous, staring eyes carefully carved in low-relief -- and there to one side, the raised, three-fingered hand in its insipid wave of eternal happiness was perfectly rendered. As he watched the freight hopper, tools and personnel again on board, move gently past him on course to return to Tern, tCornucopia shook his head in awe. It was a perfect mouse, he thought. The Eisnerians will love it. He made some last-minute calculations and set several polished wooden switches on his control panel, and waited while the timing circuits counted the microseconds. There was a sudden glow from the back of the gigantic carving, and a burst of gigantic waves of energy began pulsing and spewing from the asteroids stern. The enormous rock hung in space momentarily, slower than the slowest oil tanker answering a helm command; then, slightly, and then dramatically, it moved, steering outward from the fringes of the belt, accelerating constantly now, the gigantic charged tubes pouring out terajoules of concentrated thrust, coordinated by micro-thrusts from smaller tubes around the giant rock's backside. Faster and faster, the greatest Mickey ever made by the hand of man, the largest gift ever offered in human history, began its graceful trans-system flight to the far-off twinkle of the Solarian system. The agent tapped his communicator, knowing the watch in the Lomaxion center would be anxious to hear his report. "Cornucopia in," he said softly; "Cross your fingers for Plan Two!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 30 May 00 - 01:03 AM After searching the seedy underbelly of Tern's waterfront for over an hour, Cartoosh at last located Billy the Trid and the Lingerie Models taking in some Plutonian Porn at the Planet X Cinema. The feature was entitled Revenge of the Orgasmian Cheerleaders. The arachno-droid sidled up to the Trid in the darkness, averting his eyes from the rather gymnastic side-line activity that Billy and three of the models were engaging in, and instead concentrating on the on-screen menage a trois which featured two voluptuous Venusian Vibroids and a Halpasian Humpgrunter. The essence of what Cartoosh had seen and heard concerning the brain-draining of Farkin by the dwarves was imparted in a hushed whisper. A few minutes later. Billy and Cartoosh had found Cornucopia's drunken lab assistant at the Saturn-nail-ya,and had successfully wheedled the location of the Song Plant nursery out of him. They left the town under cover of darkness, and with the Trid seated on his back, the robot spider loped through the forest with surprising speed. Billy was chortling, and saying " we'll get to the plants before she does, hijack 'em, and sell 'em to her for an Eisner-load of money. Hell, I'll have my own Star System, the Trid Constellation. I'll build the biggest fuggin' Casino since Hunkahunka went up in smoke..." Cartoosh gently cut in "um...and me, Cap'n Bill? What can I expect? I've always wanted my own Art Gallery.." The Trid laughed so hard he literally fell off of the spider's back, rolled in the grass howling, and was unable to catch his breath for several minutes. At last he climbed back onto Cartoosh's carapace, saying " sure, an Art Gallery, a Tea Shop, and a Toenail Parlor if ya want. Let's go." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: MMario Date: 30 May 00 - 08:33 AM A Trojan Mouse? Could it be? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: JenEllen Date: 30 May 00 - 11:40 AM Rosetta locked up the nursery behind Tuni. He was headed off for his evening at the Saturn-Nail-Ya, and as usual, asked her to come along. "Nah, not tonight," she said, looking at the activity on the Elder's porch, "Might catch you later though, g'night."
She reached the stairs, and the Terran came down to meet her.
Rosetta stood in the path of the pacing girl. When Mandy reached her, she startled out of her dream. Rosetta's soft arm encircled the her. Rosetta kept a steady stream of meaningless conversation pouring from her mouth to the maiden's ear, and the two walked off the porch towards the nursery. The Terran gave a grateful nod and promised to send word along should the Giant's condition change. The nursery was unlocked, and the lights returned. The tiny seedlings chirruped like baby birds. Mandy followed behind rosetta, giving each plant a small touch and a smile. In the whirr of warming machinery, the two women never heard the click of a metallic spider in the brush just outside the door.
Her skirt was still wet from dragging the Ice Giant back through the woods. Mandy gathered up her skirts, and wrung the water out into the pots of the smallest seedlings. The little plants gave a shiver, the water was so cold, but one by one they joined in song. Mandy took a step back, then laughed to hear them.
As Robinnood and Little John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: GUEST,Mbo_at_ECU Date: 30 May 00 - 12:44 PM As the dwarves scurried back into the undergrowth for cover, Mbo, Horace & Monterrey were waiting. It was quick work, for dwarves are slow and anitmatter is fast. "Dang, too late to save the Ice Giant!" shouted Mbo. "But at least we got the radio...and the contents of Farkin's head. We may be able to return it to him. Blasted bally luck that we couldn't stop them from revealing the plan for sowing the seeds of songs." "No no, you've got it wrong, mate" boomed Monterrey. "Farkin's mission WAS to get captured. Several of our operatives have already removed him from harm's way. And we was SUPPOSED to have the secret revealed...but it's all part of the plan. m'boyo. Farkin was actuallt carrying a biogenic virus implanted in his brain--when the dwarves downloaded his brain contents, they downloaded the virus as well. In mere hours Villeneuve's whole communications grid will shut down--ker floop! Now we head back to the ship, and locate Farkin--he needs his brains back. But before we can move in on Villeneuve,we must find someone first. Someone with excellent skills in dealing with rodents, I believe she is with Farkin now...."
Doodle die
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 12:50 PM Yeeehaaaaa! The Mudcat Soul is on a roll!!! Git down you ratcatchers, you plant-healers, you tree-lovers, and yes, you dulcimer-hammerers and Birkenstock-wearers! Tern, Tern, Tern! The hammer's coming down on Walt's cellulose methane all through the universe! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 30 May 00 - 01:42 PM Boukey finished his story this way: "After we reached the oasis, my memory fragments completely. I know that we made our way to Mondacc, untracked so far as I know, and that somehow we made our way to Margarnagarr to follow the trail to the clinching evidence. But then I can remember almost nothing. My journal was lost in the struggle with the Songdealers on the Enterprise." The Elder said: "There is something strange in this. That you protected your memories is one thing: to have them fused closed is another. There are layers of protection and counter-struggle here. The question is what it means, and whether you could survive bringing it all forward. It goes without saying that we need them. But we don't want to jeopardise your mind. What do you think?" Boukey looked at him and said: "I don't know how to help." The Elder replied: "Neither do I. All I can suggest is that you try what worked before. I have to go on a mission tonight, but I suggest that you try and go down into those caverns again. Where the water was. In your mind. In your dreams. Maybe it will unlock the past. But it may unlock other things." Boukey tilted his head to one side, looked off into the distance, and quietly said: "I will try. If I cannot cope in a place like this, with good friends " -- here he smiled at Mandy and the Terran -- then when."
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When he said good night to Mandy, Boukey sat for awhile and looked out of his window at the stars over Tern. They had all gone. He sighed. He began, as he so often did, to bring into his mind, not where he was going, not down into the caverns he had unearthed in those desperate moments on Demershinnia, but a small fragment of a memory, something he could not place, but something talismanic. It was Sharazade under a tree not far off, lying there, sleeping. Where was that tree? He could not remember. All he could remember was the feeling of great peace, and then how it was gouged out by a hollow pit of sadness. And another fragment: Sharazade running towards him on a beach, her hair full of sand. But no: that was Demershinnia: not a beach. But there was water.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: JenEllen Date: 30 May 00 - 01:47 PM Rosetta called Mandy away from the young plants, to a hidden corner of their laboratory. "Come look at this." she guided the girl through a set of hevy wooden doors. "I have been coming in early to work in here, I think it might just be the key we are looking for." Rosetta's dark eyes danced as she watched Mandy wander through the rows upon rows of tiny plants. "Strawberry, blackberry, wine grapes...." spoke Mandy, "I know them well." "Eat one." said Rosetta, plucking a ripe berry from the vine and offering it to Mandy. Mandy thoughtfully chewed the strawberry, "Yeah, it's a strawberry." she thought to herself, watching the smile grow on Rosetta's face. She continued to walk through the bushes, and as she did, she began to sing.
'I see you there stranger "YES!" shouted Rosetta, slamming her fists to the table. "Where did you learn that song??" Mandy thought for a minute, and honestly didn't know.
Rosetta grabbed her hand and dragged her to a worktable piled high with papers and sketches. She poured them each a large beaker full, and they raised their glasses in toast. To Earth! To Tern! To fallen friends and soon to be vanquished enemies! In a few short moments, the two were full of wine and song.
'The girls have religion
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 30 May 00 - 01:54 PM In Farkin's mind, all was silence. The crystalline structures that had chained his memory together, and that had archived the hundreds of Sacred Songs learned from old Woodrow, were broken. Random images appeared to him: the faces of his wife and children, the smile of the Mandolian woman,red and yellow flowers. But they were disconnected, meaningless, and lacking the sound that had underlain all of his experience- the Old Songs that were like a soundtrack to his life. He was in a half-world of shadows. The Terran gazed at the Ice Giant's distorted face, and called his name again. Although his helmet had been reattached and new liquid nitrogen bottles inserted in the Coldsuit, it appeared that they had been too late. To the Terran, it appeared that their was no life remaining in the figure. In a Terran, this would certainly be called death, but who knew what death was to a creature such as this? ----- ------ -------- After the two women left the nursery, Cartoosh went to work picking the locks. Soon he and the Trid were inside, and loading the plants into a large tub. Just before placing a lid on the tub, Billy was startled by a voice singing
Won't you tell me Sean O'Farrell The Trid stared into the tub, a smile transfixed in his face. Billy sang "hush me bouckle, hush and listen", and after a second, the plant responded "and his face was all aglow." Billy laughed with glee as he and Cartoosh bounded through the Ternian forest on their way back to the city. "We've got to find a safe place to hide these, then we'll contact the Disneyites." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 02:04 PM Sigh for the poets of the Mudcat, ye gods; sing for the pen of Peter, who is a master among them! Oh, ye gods and saplings, welcome him who brings out the deep heart of all who hear him. Sing, gods, that his song shall flourish in the hearts of all men, all plants, for all time. For here he has brought beauty to weep for, joy to sing for, and music that even gods may pray to hear. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: JenEllen Date: 30 May 00 - 02:19 PM The two women left the laboratory in a dizzy, drunken stumble. Rosetta helped Mandy as far along as the Elder's door, kissed her gently, and giggling, gave her a shove up the stairs. Hiccuping lightly still, Mandy clambered up the ladder into the loft. Drenched there both in moonbeams and in sweat, sat Boukey. He was trembling in the warm of the evening, and eyes wide, mouth speechless, he stared at her. Mandy pulled the blankets back, and re-arranged the pine boughs. She curled her feet beneath her and brought the Green Man's head to her shoulder. They would wait for sunrise together. Her mind drifted, in its half-drunken state, to the events of the evening and the wealth of song in Rosetta's care. To Farkin, and the massive loss in her heart of a dear friend. Of the many times his cool demeanor had kept her Mandolan temper under wraps, and the blue eyes that lost their glow, now lying blank and still on the chemists table. 'Well met, well met my own true love Well met, well met cried he I've just returned from the south, south sea And it's all for the love of thee Well I could have married the king's daughter, dear She would have married me But I've forsaken all her gold And it's all for the love of thee Well if you could have married the king's daughter, dear Then you should have married she For I have married a young carpenter And a nice young man is he Well if you forsake your house carpenter And come along with me I'll take you to where the grass is growing green To the banks of Sicily She picked up her tender little faces And kisses gave him one, two, three Stay at home, stay at home, my tender little face And keep your lover company They hadn't been at sail but on two weeks I know it was not three When this fair lady began to weep She wept most bitterly Are you weeping for your house? Are you weeping for your stores? Or are you weeping for your house carpenter Who never you'll see no more? Oh I'm not weeping for my house, Nor am I weeping for my stores I'm weeping for my tender little babe Who I left sitting on the floor' |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 02:48 PM Billy stared in to the dark overhangs of boughs and the high tanglefoot of shrubs bordering the trail he and Cartoush were following. He couldn't be sure, but the path looked vaguely different than he thought he remembered it. Cartoush bounded along, following the worn needled trail under the redwood boughs, around the bends, over the deadfalls, fording the small stream, around the .... he stopped so suddenly that Billy nearly fell off, and the tub of lab plants swayed dagerously. Around the curve of several boulders which emerged into the trail, a series of dark shadows suddenly moved across their trail, and in the star-shadows of the forest night, a moving array of faintly reddish glowing eyes could be seen. They held their breaths, their hearts pounding, as the dark shadowey forms moved closer to them. Their ees gradually made out the profiles of a dozen of the mild-mannered lammbrui creatures, their long coats glinting in the moonlight, hemming them in, and pressing them from all sides. "Hell, it's just a bunch of dog-faced gerbils!" shouted the Trid. "Cut 'em down!!!". And suiting his actions to his thoughts his fast right hand, ready to deal out hot phaser death, moved ot his belt... And stayed there, securely wrapped by a tiny green tendril that had intercepted him faster than an Algorean Netsnake, and twined itself three times around his wrist before he could draw. Larger vines from the dense underbrush had wrapped themselves around Cartoushe's carapace and underbelly, and a third, the thickness of Billy's wrist, had gently encircled the plant tub and pulled it softly into the underbrush. The circling lammbrui stepped closer, and Billy the Trid saw a baleful scarlet gleam in the eyes of two of them as they raised high on their rear legs, pawing the night air, and crashed down on his skull with a flash of lightning, pain, and a quick lapse into blessed unconsciousness. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Peter T. Date: 30 May 00 - 03:14 PM [Thanks Amos, for the kind words, but pretty sweet and fine writing all round, I should say, including your very complex world creation. Great minds write alike -- Mbo and I also seem to be weirdly in sync on this one! Nice songs, friends to meet the mutually troubled dawn with. What more can you ask for? A bit ironic: I thought everyone had left this story behind....]yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: MMario Date: 30 May 00 - 03:19 PM sometimes one must allow the masters to create |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 04:40 PM As the twin moons descended to the mark of the third hour before dawn, the unconscious forms of the Trid and Cartoush slumbered, wrapped in affectionate vinings from head to ankle, under the damp red boughs of the forest. Beside them, newly grown from the seed-tumble of their sudden arrest, a wide-headed flower nodded in the predawn light, and from its small face a tiny song came forth: Oh, you who have your liberty, And to these dulcet strains, sung over and over by the immature plantlet, accompanied by the cheerily crude counterpoint of a forest starling, did Billy the Trid, burglar extraordinaire, slowly and painfully awake, freed of the burden of his booty by the mysterious intervention of the forest network. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Mbo Date: 30 May 00 - 06:05 PM And Commander Mbo began to hum...
Come and bring the spade, me boys, --Mbo
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 06:10 PM The Terran stood monitor watch in the deep center of the Ternian Root Directory gazing of multiple panels of polished wood showing bright analog fluctating curves and three-dimensional figures on them. He was in a relaxed state, at one with the forest above him. He watched a dataflow crossing his screen and recognized the originating subnet as the meadow area near the Leder's quarters, where the vaporization of the Eisnerian dwarf agents had occurred just prior to the last good rain. What he saw made him raise his eyebrows and grab for the shapely wooden annunciator horn next to his work table. "Get me the Elder!! Immediately!" he hissed. ANd he spoke long into the night, monitoring the data stream, tapping instructions, and juggling the three beautifully carved annunciators as he traced the trail of Dopey's cellular remains back through the chlorosphere and read their awful message,... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: GUEST,Peter T. Date: 30 May 00 - 07:01 PM By now, Boukey was gone. Upon his return, Boukey had asked for a meeting with the Elder. He told him all that he had dreamed, and all that had come back to him. There were still rips in the fabric of his past, but there was enough. "So," he said, "I would like to request a fast ship, and an escort to take me to the Federation, to take me home." The Elder looked startled. "This is your home, if you will stay." "No," said Boukey, "I am a danger to you, whatever happens. There is more to come. I am sure you could scan and detect most of what they did to me, but there might be some trickery still. They had me for some time, I know that, and did things to me. They seem to know what is going on so quickly. I seem to be a living tracer. So I cannot stay here." The Elder sighed, and shook his head. "You are my son, as well, now, you know that." Boukey turned his head away. "I can't be a son to you. I was the one who brought those monsters on her. I did not save her. I lost her." The Elder said: "No, please, no. You found her. If it weren't for you she would have ended as what -- a saloon girl in a cowtown on Polgar. She would have never sung an Earthsong again. She would not have had any happiness. She would not have met you." Boukey could barely speak: "But she would have been alive! -- she --" The Elder interrupted: "There is no answer to that. You cannot go on like that. Yes, you could never have met her, but that is useless. You are not to blame. You found out what you could, when you could. She struggled to find her way out of an original evil that she had nothing to do with, and was free for a time, and was trapped again by another evil that she had nothing to do with, and then from the grave she broke it all in pieces. Damn it, son, she saved this planet twice, everything on it, and the songs of Earth, she saved those too -- millions of miles from here, and without knowing that anyone would ever know or care. The first time she saved this planet for love of Tern, for her childhood, for her past; and the second time, she did it for love of you. She knew what they wanted: she had been in their hands before. She was not going to be in them again, not with the double danger of you being in them as well. She knew what they were planning to do, and she wrecked that: how she knew I don't know; but she did. She knew what was in that monster's eyes. You cannot go on like that." Boukey sat for a few moments. Then he said: "I know one thing that was in that monster's eyes. Of all that horrible moment when Cruella came upon us, I can remember only one thing. Sharazade looked at her, surrounded by her troops, and cried out: 'You! Drusillanx! From Cybania!!' Cruella had been spawned there too: she had been recognised. And that made her all the more determined. And I have no doubt that all the troops there that night were murdered as well. She cannot let me live once she suspects that I have that memory back again. But we are into a different sort of fight now. My hope is to lay the facts as I have them before the Federation: to dismantle DisneyCorp in that way, whatever you may do here from Tern. Then she will be unable to harm me. If your son was willing to follow after me in a few days, he could gather up the appropriate records about the attack on Tern. There are other witnesses to planetary destruction they might find worthy too." The Elder said: "So, does Mandy wish to go as well, to speak of her planet? Or would she be asked for later?" Boukey said: "I don't know. I haven't asked her. I will. She is dealing with her own griefs as well, as you know." The Elder said: "And then? If you are successful in bringing Cruella down, finally?" Boukey looked at him. "I think I will go back to Calliokeh. I think Sharazade found a kind of home there. I think if she had been there longer, she would have made many friends among the Cybanian refugees there. They were, in the end, I think, her kind. And they have become mine. I am a Cybanian now myself: my mind has been violated, and my soul is slashed. " The Elder said: "I never knew her as a woman, except through you. But in that way, you brought her to me too, when I thought she was lost forever. So that was found. There was a gap in my soul as well - which you have helped to fill, not completely, but a little." Boukey replied: "If I make it to Calliokeh, you will have to visit." "Perhaps -- ", said the Elder, quietly: "-- perhaps by then you will know enough to teach me a little Calliokan guitar." And he went over to the console, and put on the record of "Calliokan Blues" and came back, and the two stood there listening to it together, arms around each other's shoulders. And the song began, simple, shimmering with the rising heat of a Destarlillo morning over the long low fields, and as the old voice growled and grumbled, there came into their minds an image of a porch in the half shade, half sunshine, a small Calliokan man in a battered work hat playing a 24 string guitar, an even smaller Calliokan woman with a determined look on her face, wielding a hairbrush, and a young woman, as beautiful as the dawn, perched on the edge of the porch, humming to the music, and waving goodbye.
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 09:47 PM It has been years, now, since the first testimony concerning the treacherous Drusillanx! from Cybania reached Brittania Tertius, and through the subether medianet quickly spread from system to system. It was not long after that, in the long measure of time, that the remaining executive corps of Disney, fighting a desparate rearguard battle to preserve a volatile, disintegrating empire that had entirely lost its unifying credibility, moved their gargantuan central headquarters back to the more economical site of their first triumphs on ancient Terra. The barren surface of the planet bore little resemblance to the flourishing verdant hills that once graced her face; but EIsnerians were in a throttling life-threatening cash-flow crunch, and needed every time they could extort to try and recover some scrap of their lost credibility. For a short while, they felt sure they had committed a fatal error, when their astronomers reported from the bastions of Tomorrow Land that a comet the size of a large town was careening for the planet. As the inconceivable mass approached through the reaches of the local system, updates indicated that it was, perhaps, not a catastrophe, but a miracle! For it was in fact the figure of their original icon made gargantuan, smoothed by its long passage from the unknown and uncharted depths of space. The leadership of Waltworld Inc., the shell corporation to which all the crumbling assets of the once glorious empire had been gathered, was less decisive and less insightful than it had been, in Cruella's heyday; since her suicide, nothing had seemed to be quite as good. But those who still had two brains to rub together conceived among them, at a long dry conference in the barrens of Southern Californ I.A., that this appearance, which astronomers were now swearing looked just like their legendary saviour Mickey, could be claimed as a Cosmic Omen, and perhaps they could parlay that tale into a regeneration of the greatness of former years.
They poured all their resources into a plan to bring the great icon to land safely in the heart of the wide Anza-Borrego desert country east of Ann O'Heim, where their towering headquarters building stood in sooty disrepair. They leased a fleet of powerful tractorships to come along of the hurtling mass of rock. and guide it into an asymptotic approach which according to their best caculations would land it safely on the dry sands. Well, their systems engineering people, raised on the CInderella mythology, used their best BibbityBobbetyBoo algorithms, and the result was more like a pumpkin than a coach; as the hurtling Mouse approached atmosphere on the careffully calculated trajectory, it met more resistance from the atmospheric density than they had estimated, and skipped like a stone, heading toward the moon; the pull of the gentle homeplanet drew her back, and again the Great Mouse struck the highest layer of atmosphere and skipped away, bound for Antarctica; again, penetrating slightly further and slowing significantly, on a parabola aimed at Easter Island; finally, slowed too much to continue the insane dance, the gigantic form entered atmosphere and drew slowly toward Manhattan from a height well above L.E.O. It gyred, waving the three fingered glove of stone in a bizarre grimace of synthetic, heartless happiness to the ragged citizen the breadth of North America; then it began to glow with the friction of atmospheric resistance to her breakneck speed. The honeycombed interior heated, and ancient cleverly designed stoppers and seals began to blow away with the heat, trailing into the wind; one by one, from a thousand small pipettes drilled into the back, shoulders and buttocks of the gigantic Mouse, streams of tiny particles were cast into the jetstream of the planet and into the lower layers of the sky's winds, carrying home the ancient songs of yore to their many sites of reborning under Terra's ancient sun. As the horrified citizens watched in fear for their lives on a late summer evening, the plummeting form of the giant mouse, waving spasmodically, tore asunder across the summer sky, leaving a trail of life giving calcite that slow drifted to land across a hundred-mile wide swath through central Illinois. As the summer waned in the Northern hemisphere, and the early rains of fall began, the fields of Earth were visited with a new color, never before beheld there. and wild fields of beautiful golden mini-suns sprang up to assert the power of life, and fend off vile winter's dark promises. In week after week of th elongest Indian summer in recorded time, the flowers born from Tern gave back to the people of Earth every song they had ever lost. In the years that followed, planet after civilized planet reported on the aether's far-flung network that it too had gained a similar crop, dating from the arrival in their skies of hordes of microflechettes sprinkling the tiny seeds to every populated surface in the known Universe. Thus, John Henry, John RIley, and John the Baptist were again upon the lips of humans, and indeed every song-loving species throughout populated space, where once only the branded lyrics of Walt had been allowed. A renewed interest in religions began, a burgeoning of philosophical centers and biological research institutes, centers of social invention and new forms of drama began to flourish, and the soul of life itself among the many stars of the universe flourished, and was healed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Mbo Date: 30 May 00 - 09:57 PM (Dang, does that mean the story is over? --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 10:32 PM As the glistening Enterprise began her final system tests after her long stay near the shiny polished quais of Tern, Mandy and the Terran walked down to the loading ramp which curved delicately to shore from her massive sides. He turned to her and looked into her eyes -- and she noticed that the battles of the recent past had aged him, but in a nicely balanced way. Or perhaps it was the merging he had undergone with the hierarchy of the Plantiarchs. They stood at the bottom of the ramp, and he turned toward her and held her elbows. They stood still, under the rising morning light of Neezy, and although no words were exchanged between them, a torrent of something more powerful, a river of certain seeing such as is only known to those who have tasted the longer, slower sight of the rooted, passed from his eyes to hers, and returned again to him. They smiled, and without a word, turned from the humming of the great ship Enterprise and began a slow and long and gentle stroll along the tree-perfumed trails of Tern. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Amos Date: 30 May 00 - 10:40 PM Although the after images of our most beloved creations will not fade for a long time -- if ever -- I have told my part of this incredible story, and I want to express my deep, heartfelt thanks to those whose voices chimed in to make this saga so endearing and enduring. Especially, to Peter T., whose art revived the tale so many times, to Jen Ellen, who always guaranteed the heart would be left in, to LEJ, MM, and Mbo, who turned the key corners for us at so many critical passages, to Praise, Caitrin, Spaw Barky,and all the others who made the Mudcat Enterprise and her adventures so worthwile -- thanks, forever, gang -- it's been REAL. Love, Amos |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Mbo Date: 30 May 00 - 10:47 PM You're welcome Amos, we love you too... I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night And I think to myself what a wonderful world. The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people going by I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do They're really saying I love you. I hear babies crying, I watch them grow They'll learn much more than I'll never know And I think to myself what a wonderful world Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world --Mbo |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Peter T. Date: 31 May 00 - 08:58 AM [Thanks, Amos, nice end. See you real soon! (Why? Because we like you....) -- C. de V.] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Lonesome EJ Date: 31 May 00 - 02:25 PM Post script The final collapse of the Disney Empire came fourteen years after the seeding of the planets. Cruella DeVillenueve and the last of her cronies, their Colossal Corporation in wreckage around them, had retreated to a bunker beneath Disney Corp Headquarters where they issued a threat to destroy the Neezian System and the revered planet of Tern unless they were granted sole control of the Terran Solar System. Mudcat Federation soldiers were knocking down the bunker door, when Cruella pushed the button, resulting not in demolition and catastrophe but in a soulful rendering of Carrickfergus by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. The door fell, and Cruella was taken hostage by a platoon of Ice Giants from the Ballonder Brigade. She was tried and sentenced to annotating and reviewing in detail a large body of rythmic poetry from late 20th Century Earth known as "rap" music, for the purpose of submitting examples to the Traditional Archive. - from The Rise and Fall of Disney ________ _________ ________ If you walk down Boukey Boulevard in Tern City, and head south on Mandey Street past the Farkin Song Archive, you will see a small store with ancient and unique instruments hanging in the windows. Here you can buy a Zamphirian Pan Pipe, a Calliokeh 24 String Guitar, a Mandolan Zither, or a Terran Banjo, and take lessons in playing them. Some are ancient, some are reproductions made in the ancient way. The sign above the door reads WILLIAM TRID MUSIC and INSTRUMENTS, and some very old Ternians still remember the old three-legged fellow who used to lovingly repair his mandolins and ukeleles on a table behind the counter, how he would regale them with his stories of Space Piracy, of smuggling, and of how he once was offered a constellation by the Disney Corp, but refused because of his love of the old songs.He is long dead now, but his shop continues, and is well worth seeking out. It is not so difficult to locate if you realize it is just across the street from the Universe-Famous Cartoosh Gallery of the Arts. - excerpt from The Michelin Guide to Tern |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Peter T. Date: 31 May 00 - 03:29 PM THE MICHELIN GUIDE TO TERN - ERRATA: On page 304, "Mandey" should be "Mandy". Copyright notice missing: All songs public domain once more, except for "Until", Cassandra Wilson, New Moon Daughter, Capital Records, Inc. 1995; and all Disney Songs, including The Mouseketeer's Theme Song, renewed copyright, Disney Enterprises Inc. Further:
Pursuant to Title 17, United States Code, Section 512(c)(2), notifications of claimed copyright infringement will be sent by Disney Enterprises Inc. to Service Provider's Designated Agent. See Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement. These terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these terms shall be filed only in the state or federal courts located in Los Angeles County and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of such courts for the purposes of litigating any such action. If any provision of these terms shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable,these terms and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. This is the entire agreement between us relating to the subject matter herein and shall not be modified except in writing, signed by both parties. See you real soon.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: MMario Date: 31 May 00 - 04:06 PM |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: wysiwyg Date: 31 May 00 - 04:10 PM Be sure to tune in next time, for the amazing adventures of... (theme music, credits, etc.).... (Commercial) Brought to you by the folks at the Mudcat Cafe, proud sponsors......... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Tavern Enterprise, Part 5 From: Mbo Date: 01 Jun 00 - 12:12 PM But there were no streets or public squares named after Lt. Mbo. In fact, he never did return to Starfleet or Section 31. He stayed on as a mission Commander for a few years in the Tern Mouquis until the collapse of The Disney Empire. But after that, he passed out of the history of that time, and where he went, few can say. But I, Eriol, the Bard of the Stars, am one of the few that know. After his retirement, he finally won the hand of his lady love. They were wed, and lived in the secluded hills of Gartha province, which was a verdant paradise once again. And thus their long tale of waiting had come to an end, and they were one at last. From their little house, music could always be heard; yea, the music of singing, of children's laughter, and the silent music that springs from the hearts of those who love blooms eternal. It is said that he died on his 100th birthday, and his lady love passsed at the very same moment as he. The last word on his lips as he slipped the bonds of mortality was her name. They lie together under the enormous trysting tree were they had met that sunny afternoon so long ago, and his tombstone bears the simple legend Here lies a Dreamer Who had one that came true --Mbo |