by Anthology
Adam doubting, Gordon Lester he attempts to laugh it all off, maken a fist and on the wooden frame of the door pounden:
:ker-whumph:
(twicet)
:m footsteps inside, door opening a crack (chained) m thoo the crack peeren out a face, not holy unfamiliar, fat, cornsilky colored hair pasted flat to forehead wid perspiration, huffin in his plainbutton warsurp sweat-stained grays,—What can I do to be of service to you two obviously fine gentle, uh,—his eyes flicker down Gord, across at shuhite, up Adam A., lite on A’s face, smiles, cuts horizontally to Gordon’s mug, m he completes syncopated word—men?—
Gord speaking:—Wanna show my buddy here your fine floor show, haven’t seen Miss Merriass Markham in a long while, off in space fighten nigras, now I’m back . . . —Gord does rattle.
Blond feller:—I’m really sorry, sir, I don’t know you and this is a private club.—
Gord:—Whadaya, etc.—
BF: (in essence)—Amscray before I call the uzzfay, oysbay!—
Adam A. Aiken: (not in these words)—Let’s blow, Gord.—
Gord gives assent grumpily & down the creakies they creak.
Adam:—Howzabout a visita Piggy Peggy’s Pussy Parlor, GL?—
So they do, picking respective ways through crapped-up broken sidewalk & crossen rotten busted streets beneath busted streetlights (Letohatchie has not been bombed). Outsiden the good ole 4P Gord sees that same ole Letohatchie town John Darn plain with his can of insect repellant (or whatever), leaning as usual against a (n even nonfunctional) lamppost.
Inside, G&A are greeted by Piggy herself in finest old tradition of surn hospitality.
—Mighty busy night, boys, alla these visiting firemen in town for the big meet over ta Town Hall,—Peggy sayen, fixin her little-girl blonde curls (they been slippin all around her face as she talks, noddin her head continually)—but we aim to please. What’s your pleasure, boys or girls, S or M, plain or fancy, twosomes or whosomes, now or later, lesser or greater, front or back, top or bottom, bed or board, anal oral or genital, thin or fat, this or that, etc.—
(Peggy, she always tries to provide her customers with what they want, that’s her formula for a successful retail enterprise.)
Gord, aside to Ad—Leave this to me, Ad.—To Piggy Peggy:—Just a dark room, PP, a soft floor, open the door & a pleasant surprise.—
Gord & Adam shortly lyen side-by-side, stark naked & all up for excitement (assisting one another in the preparations). Lights low, door opens slow, in comes someone maken a show.
She’s a biggish lady, you bet; Gordon Lester’s eyes at the moment are somewhat shut but he hears appreciative noises from Adam; Adam he says—Willya lookit that, Gordon.—But Gordon bein capable of delayen gratification he squeezesis eyes shut m says—I wanna feel it first.—
Gordon waits in his homemade darkwomb & in a minute he feels something very surprising doing something very surprising someplace very surprising. He sayen something very original like (these are not his precise words)—What the fucken shitmother’s going on here?—
From Adam Aiken an unexpected bit of inarticulation.
Gordon opens his eyes and speaks with shock:—Miss Markham!—
All hell breaks loose in which Gordon Lester Wallace III, Miss Merriass Markham, Adam A. Aiken, and one or more surprising objects are variously tangled & tied, conjected complected & connected, interspersed interjected & interspected, banged balled blowed & throwed, socked cocked & knocked, rolled cold & holed, dabbed grabbed & jabbed, permutated germutated & spermutated, dipped tipped cripped & whipped.
But no details. If you think this is a story off over which to get your rocks you’re mistook.
Anyway, in the morning Gordon puts in for space duty again.
7. To the Nation We Know
Marius Goncourt personally verified the completeness of each conference kit shortly before the arrival of the first invited participant. Each had the usual lined pad and short pencil, the conference folder, the report of the preliminary taskforce on the experimental manpower resuscitation project, the meeting agenda and the departmental chit good for one free meal at the ministry executive cafeteria. Seating was carefully arranged, nameplates present at each place, refreshments at hand.
After checking arrangements Marius waited in the hallway for the early participants. The first to arrive was Mme. Laveau. Goncourt greeted her, then asked a question: “Your superiors at Propaganda are willing to see this through? No last-moment hesitation?”
Madame nodded.
Goncourt continued: “As long as it’s just talk, they like to sound creative, aggressive, open to new ideas, radical thinking, but when it comes down to committing to action, you know how they are. Suddenly they go with the tried and true.”
“Bureaucrats,” Mme. Laveau said.
Goncourt nodded.
“Then what are we?” Madame asked.
Goncourt grinned ruefully, took her arm to guide her into the conference room. “Of course, of course,” he said. “But N’Haiti is starting to fall apart. If some plan doesn’t get us past this manpower crisis the blancs will be in N’Porprince within 18 months!”
“What makes you think they are any better off than we?”
“Perhaps they aren’t,” he agreed. “But then, shall we fight the N’Alabamians until both planets collapse from sheer exhaustion? Be assured, Mme. Laveau, I lose no sleep worrying over the fate of the poor enemy, but I also take no comfort from envisioning N’Porprince and N’Montgomery equally in ruins, both planets decimated, both worlds in chaos, unable to raise and distribute food even, for inability to put workers where they are needed.
“A modern planetary society is a complex and delicate structure. You cannot just remove a few pieces and say, ‘Well, most of it is still there, it should keep running nearly as well as it has.’ That won’t work. Take away too many of the skilled people who make the economy, the government, the law continue to function, and the whole thing won’t just slow down a little or go a little out of kilter.
“We’re pressing our luck now, both we and the blancs—they are human beings, you know. We have to get this thing cleaned up and return our attention to developing our planet and its trade and cultural relationships with others, or we’re going to find ourselves back in some kind of hunting and gathering society. Well, maybe not quite that bad but . . .” he permitted his voice to trail off.
“I know all that, Marius,” Mme. Laveau said. “Whose side do you think I’m on? It’s just that resuscitation is such a radical solution, it’s hard for people to accept. And our plan for selling it is even more radical. But . . . as you say, we are approaching a state of affairs where only a radical solution can save us. I think it can work, I have the backing of my Ministry, and if we can get through this committee, we’re in business.”
“The man who invented committees,” Goncourt said, “should have been contraceived.”
As he spoke the remaining participants in the meeting arrived: Goncourt’s own deputy for Exoneurobiology, Trudeau; representing Grand Admiral Gouede Mazacca, Captain J.-P. Girard: from the office of Governor Faustin of La Gonave, Deputy Governor Laurence.
At last, Jean-Jacques Adolphe Antoine-Simone, Minister of Military Manpower Procurement. Short, balding, round-faced, huffing as he strode to the front of the room self-importantly.
All rose. M. the Minister gestured them to be seated once again. He spoke:
“Madame, gentlemen—you are all aware of the problem. Captain Girard can tell us how badly the space fleet of N’Haiti is in need of additional men. Space warfare produces casualities in alarming numbers. For obvious reasons we cannot rob the munitions industries of workers to meet the military needs, so farmers are drawn away. Now M. Laurence can tell us that La Gonave is stripped to the bone. Agriculture on N’Haiti itself is equally as bad off.
“M. Goncourt tells me that Doctor Trudeau and his people in exoneurobiology have devised a method of reviving space casualties and returning them
to duty. Now I am only a simple man, a simple servant of the government and the people of N’Haiti, but even I can see that such a program, if it is successful, will still have very serious overtones in the area of, ah, let us say public relations. So I have asked M. Goncourt to work with the Ministry of Propaganda to prepare a strategy for gaining public acceptance of this use of, ah, let us say reanimated corpses. Goncourt?” He waved a hand at his deputy and seated himself.
Marius said only, “Madame Laveau has represented Propaganda in this project. I will let her present our plan.”
The five men followed with their eyes as Mme. Laveau walked to the front of the room. She looked about, smiled slightly as her eyes locked with those of Goncourt. Then she began to speak, at first hesitantly, then less so as she worked into her presentation.
“We have all seen the remarkable work of M. Trudeau and his staff. Although his first subjects were only crudely animated, later experimental resuscitees have proved capable of performing routine military and industrial duties under supervision of normal persons. A certain percentage of space casualties, we have found, can be returned to useful assignments by the application of M. Trudeau’s implantation procedure. A far larger number can be reclaimed by the application of salvage techniques.
“Our surgeons have long held that there is no reason for an otherwise healthy person to expire when the implantation of an artificial organ or the transplantation of a natural one to replace a single nonfunctional organ could return him to health. We have now applied this principle more radically. Providing only that the size and general tissue structure matches, and with the application of anti-rejection techniques, we can take extremities, trunk, head, internal organs, from any number of casualties, recombine them, implant one of the NGC 7007 organisms—and have an effective soldier or worker. These resuscitated individuals—” she stopped as Laurence interrupted her sentence with a single word:
“Zombies!”
“Yes,” Madame Laveau resumed. “Zombies. Sooner or later everyone associated with this project comes to that. Zombies. And that is our problem in public relations. Will N’Haitians accept this seeming return to O’Earthian primitivism? My Ministry has studied this question, and we have reached conclusions in three areas, leading to a proposed course of action.
“First, we must consider the reaction of our own general citizenry. The war is less than overwhelmingly popular as it is, and a major program which was rejected by the public would place the government in an untenable position.
“Second, the reaction of the workers and military personnel who will be in regular contact with the resuscitees. Because the subjects seem to manifest no will or personalities of their own, we have concluded that it would be best to isolate them into units of their own—field crews, industrial work gangs, even complete space ship crews, with only normal humans as supervisors. The latter will of course have to be selected for special psychological makeups facilitating this type of assignment.
“Third, the effect on the enemy. This is probably the most difficult aspect of the problem to consider, and yet potentially the most significant. If the enemy regards this program as evidence of desperation on our part, it will only encourage his war effort. But we believe that if we approach the rest suscitation program from the right direction we can actually convert it into an effective psychological warfare weapon.”
Madame paused. From his chair Minister Antoine-Simone, squirming with eagerness, called out, “Zombies, yes! Tell them the plan!”
Mme. Laveau gestured placatingly. “Very well,” she said. “Yes, after long consideration we believe that this aspect of the procedure should be neither denied outright nor downplayed, but should be the main focus of our entire publicity campaign regarding resuscitees. We propose the fullscale revival of the O’Earth traditions of vodu, with public ceremonies emphasized, to gain support for the program as an authentic Haitian tactic. Further, we propose to broadcast information on the resuscitations—omitting, of course, clinical data of potential value to the enemy. We contend that this will make the space ships manned by resuscitee crews, which will carry special markings to make them visible to the enemy, objects of such terror that there will be a significant advantage to our forces.”
M. Antoine-Simone said, “You think there will be full acceptance of this, Madame? Intellectuals, philosophers, the religious minority . . . they will all go along with this?”
“Perhaps not without difficulty, but all can be convinced. The intellectuals are aware that our war with N’Alabama is of the enemy’s making, not of ours, that we are at war for our survival. They and the philosophers support the war, except for the total pacifists, who are opposed to it anyway, so their attitude toward the resuscitation program does not matter. We plan to emphasize the cultural and nationalistic aspects of vodu, the ties to O’Haiti. This should gain us their support as well.
“As for the religious, the problem may be more severe, but we must again emphasize the cultural ties to our O’Earth heritage. We may have to permit a few trappings of other mythologies to be grafted onto our vodu rites, but my ministry’s researchers assure me that in the historic practice of vodu there was a cross-mythologic flow anyway. The old vodu cult was based on a pantheon of nature gods originally found in a country called Senegal on O’Earth.
“Blanc slavers raided Senegal and its surrounding states to capture workers, and transported them to the nation we know as O’Haiti, our ancestral home. The slaves wished to retain their religion but to fool their masters they adopted some of the forms of the slavers’ religion, and grafted them onto their own rites. So you see—” she paused and looked about the room like a lecturer making a point in an undergraduate class “—vodu was a mix from the start, and we can use the same tactic as the O’Haitians to make vodu live again, serve again as the tool and focus of our national struggle against the descendants of the Christian slavers.”
* * *
Circling the green luminary NGC 7007 deep in God’s tri-di toy (called “The Universe” by the clerk down to Plenum’s Fine Toy Emporium where God’s fat old Uncle Dudley bought the thing for his sometimes bratty nephew), several pieces of junk. Dirt, slime, plasm and protoplasm, assorted fluids and gases and the rest of the crap God built with his tri-di toy. (Boy, did mama and papa let fat old Uncle Dudley have it after he gave their kid that little present . . . in the privacy of their connubial slime-vat, of course.)
One of those hunks of crap, remember, the shiny one. Ahh, N’Yu-Atlanchi. Or so its first human inhabitants had called it when they found the place a while ago. Of course their descendants don’t remember that. They don’t even remember their names, either singly or as a race. God does, though. Hey, otherwise who could have told you that Ch’en-Tch’aa-Zch’uwn, that was her name?
Blessing be upon thee, Uncle Dudley.
Circling that piece of crap (the shiny one where the S’tschai live) two more. On the lesser one, something metallic stands, complex, involuted, circuitously formed within, lands and grooves of micromolecular thickness woven into patterns of incomprehensible function, power inputs ready to accept any available energy source, radiant, material, nucleic, chemic, kinetic, telepathic, monatomic relays awaiting their signal to perform tiny tricks, flip-flops ready to flip (or flop), storage arrays in order, functional capacitances at the ready, with only a crimp here, a gap there to show that something not intended had once happened to the metallic something. Daily the metallic something is bombarded by (on the average) maybe four or a thousand cosmic rays, no or some micro-meteoroids, some light, a spectrum of other radiation; it is pulled and pushed (simultaneously) by tidal gravitation; blown (when facing in the right direction) by solar wind; and maintained, as a figment of the imagination of old Uncle Dudley’s pet nephew.
Moving in a complex orbital dance with that piece of crap is a similar but larger one. Large enough to retain an atmosphere of sorts. Once it too had a magical mystery machine on its surface but you know you pay a price. Take the air
for a while (fifteen pico-seconds or some aeons, what’s the difference?) and all that nice shiny metal turns to red dust. Ah me, and so it has.
But in that atmosphere walks our old friend from the N’Haitian Ministry of Military Manpower Procurement, Phillipe. Now chief clerk, reclamation section, S’tschai harvest project, planet of N’Yu-Atlanchi, NGC 7007. Office of the chief clerk is located on the greater moon of N’Yu-Atlanchi. The planet, fer Dudley’s sake, would be too wet for a comfy working space.
Phillipe checks his weekly report to the Ministry back on N’Haiti, thinking, Oh, why did I ever leave beautiful downtown N’Porprince? Actually he left because his boss told him he was leaving. That’s life in the ministry. But he got a better job code out of it, so it wasn’t a total loss.
The weekly report indicates the continuing high yield of S’tschai is holding up. Apparently the All-Mother (although Phillipe has never met the, uh, “lady” himself) has some kind of built-in mechanism for increasing her own production rate to meet the ecological balance required by the planetary chemistry of N’Yu-Atlanchi. Somebody comes along and harvests a few thousand S’tschai a week, All-Mother just gears up a little more, produces a few thousand more S’tschai a week, balances her little family neatly.
Phillipe and his superiors know enough not to push the All-Mother too hard. That would be killing the goose that lays the golden egg, if you’ll just take your superelectronic stylo and go back and change a few nouns and verbs around.
Phillipe is far from overjoyed with this assignment, but it’s all right. For the war effort, you know. Only temporary.
8. Aboard the Starship Jimmie-O
An NCO’s bunk in a N’Ala starship is bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a phone booth (laid on end), shaped a little bit like a condom for a giant about 70 feet tall with a teeny-weeny baby bonnet attached to the open (or “non-business”) end. You slide into it (if you’re an NCO aboard a N’Ala starship) as if your feet were the head of said 70-feet-tall giant’s dork and your head its base; then you put on your teeny-weeny baby bonnet.