BLOLOMITE: The principal substance of reduction, that substance which appears to be a metaphor for the Cosmic Jolt which, the X’Thi believe, resulted in the creation of the universe and their own central, crucial role in it. Blolomite can neither be seen, touched, tasted, heard nor felt but it is the major source of all energy. During Hok, Blolomite may be seen for brief Hashes in the light of the paralleled moons.
COSMIC JOLT: That central, lurching force with which the X’Thi believe that the universe began; alternatively, that C.L.F. (I am using abbreviations in order to save transmission time and costs and hope that you appreciate this gesture) with which the universe will end; their conception of the known universe, and all of time for that matter, as being a loop or thread suspended between the poles of Cosmic Jolts. The interval between the first Cosmic Jolt and the second appears to be calculated, as neatly as I can manage this, as being in reductions of sixty to seventy trires.
A panic appears to have been created by the landing of the vehicle upon Coul’s Planet; the impact sprang up little filaments of Blolomite and many of the X’Thi took this to be the second and the more jarring of the Cosmic Jolts. It may have been for this reason, the impact and the panic, the assault of the X’Thi upon the vehicle, which caused me to use the reactor. I regret this very much. I have communicated this regret to the X’Thi. They have accepted my apology. I do not believe that they will seek retaliatory action since they are a gentle and spiritual people, but cannot guarantee this.
COUL’S PLANET: I do not believe that there is any megalomania in my referring to this rather bucolic if gaseous world as the above. As Coul’s Planet. The naming of territory after its discoverer has an old and honorable tradition dating back to the maritime industry and also from the early days of interplanetary survey. Coul’s Planet, along with the remainder of the universe, was, as stated by the X’Thi, formed from the Cosmic Jolt an unimaginable interval ago and will similarly terminate in another. In another Cosmic Jolt. In the meantime it is composed of a series of noxious gases suspended by light gravity above a liquefied core: methane, hydrogen and nitrous oxide in equal parts circulate rather energetically around the unseen core. Here at the heart of Coul’s Planet I reside, surrounded by the friendly steel and metal alloy bulkheads of this ship which protect me from the environment and which also through an intricate series of viewscope devices permit me to remain in contact with the X’Thi, the lords of this planet. I am located, to the best of my knowledge, some twenty-five hundred miles north of the equator, rather near to one of the snow-capped poles. The X’Thi have no name for their own planet. The stupid creatures. They say that its name is ineffable, known only to the Creator of the universe. Therefore I have given it its proper name.
DECAMPMENT: Shift of Coul’s Planet in the cosmos which, according to the X’Thi, results in a necessary redistribution of gaseous materials which would otherwise become stagnant. Forming waste. Reconstitution of Blolomite during the decampment renders the planet safe until the next period, but grave shocks to the environment force the X’Thi into their annual rite of displacement which takes them to the northern pole through this period of readjustment. They cannot take me with them and that is why recovery efforts must be accelerated and why you must do everything within your power to save me from the horrors of unreconstituted Blolomite, slowly encircling this little craft in their dread dread tentacles which I cannot retract.
DISPLACEMENT, RITE OF: See DECAMPMENT.
E: That cosmic sound (emanating of course from the Cosmic Jolt) with which all creation began. According to myth of the X’The, “E:” was the shout of the Creator as, in his anguish, he caused Coul’s Planet to be.
HOX: Apparently a religious festival preceding decampment. (See DECAMPMENT, DISPLACEMENT.) Alterations in the eco-geological balance signaling the advent of decampment cause physical changes in the environment. Blolomite appears in dull flashes of energy, suddenly revealed to the naked eye. One can, during Hok, reach out and physically touch the Blolomite or endure the illusion that it can be touched as seen in the vibrating, varying light swinging from the equator to the poles, revealing the substance in all its dull luster, recapitulating as it were the appearance of the planet as it might have been during the Cosmic Jolt. During Hok the normally tight sociopolitical patterns of the X’Thi are deliberately altered; there is a relaxation of stricture, prurience occurs, random contacts between individuals, a shattering of the socioeconomic sector so that all elements of the culture interweave and intermix during this celebration. During Hok even the lowest and humblest of the filthy creatures may cohabit with the rulers; even the rulers are allowed to throw off the necessary dignity of their office to fornicate with the populace: all of them fornicate and cohabit together; it is this which brings Hok to its climax and in the general exhaustion, guilt, debilitation which follow, the decampment and its consequent displacement then occur; but through all of this and after I will be confined to this vessel, the simulated bulkheads, the thick metal shielding, unable to participate because exposure to the deadly gases of Coul’s Planet would instantly kill me; all I would be able to do would be to rotate slowly in the contrived weightlessness of the ship, penitent, suffering, awaiting rescue and then, after Hok, in the darkness after decampment when all of them have gone to the poles and it is as if I will be the only individual left on the surface of the world … well, you should surely see why I await the rescue party with such unusual eagerness and anticipation and why it is all I can do to keep myself from tearing at the very bulkheads with frustration and rage; I can hardly bear the emotional exhaustion of Hok which, the X’Thi assure me, is almost upon us. How much more of this can I stand to take?
COUL, LEONARD (see also COUL’S PLANET): The discoverer of Coul’s Planet. The intrepid and solitary voyager out of the Service who has dedicated his life to adventure, to the search for and achievement of new terrain, who has cheerfully, steadfastly, unblinkingly accepted the loneliness and danger of his trade, who has asked (until the moment of this disastrous event) absolutely no assistance from the Service but has merely accepted his duty as a given condition, now thirty-seven years old and fallen upon difficult times but still, still, gentlemen, of good courage and spirit, continuing his negotiations with the X’Thi, working upon this glossary which is a keyhole into their consciousness, performing his tasks within the difficult confinement of the ship uncomplainingly … all the time putting to one side any consideration of his wizened genitals, his tormented psyche, his diminished and abused consciousness which has put up with more, more, I must tell you, than any of you would conceive. Who, nevertheless, is Coul to complain? Hok comes upon him; Cosmic Jolts lay both before and ahead of him, somewhere in the middle of that great Loop of possibility he hangs doing his tasks, keeping up his optimism, knowing that in his hour or hours of need ye will not abandon him but will save him from all of this.
PARALLELED MOONS: Two moons track Coul’s Planet, revolving around it in tandem much as Coul’s possibilities may be said to darkly devolve around his core. The moons are linked yet separate, they are in similar orbits following duplicate trajectory separated only by a small wisp of space; for this reason they are referred to as “paralleled,” although certain of the X’Thi disagree with this, saying that “simultaneous” would be a better mode of reference. The Cosmic Jolt has both an origin and a conclusion, the X’Thi (they are in their way a rather mystical people although they have no organized religion) state, all of the universe may be perceived as a duality, within each of us are not only (in many cases) paired organs but opposed motives, and these paralleled moons are projections of that duality, circling, circling Coul’s Planet in the perpetual night of its sky. During Hok, Blolomite is revealed in Hashes in the light of the paralleled moons (see BLOLOMITE). The paralleled moons, however, are composed of the same gaseous substance as is Coul’s Planet; that is to say that it would be very difficult to get hold of them, even if they were not so impossibly distant, so impossibly huge.
&nb
sp; TRIRE: See AZAPLI.
X’THI: The cheerful residents of Coul’s Planet. The natives of Coul’s Planet I should say rather; indigenous to its ecology and terrain, that essentially ebullient population whose rather arcane linguistics are at least mapped in this glossary, that essentially ebullient population With whom I have been in almost constant contact since my crash-landing and subsequent unsuccessful escape attempts from Coul’s Planet some time ago.
The X’Thi are mystical without being religious, efficient without being organized, proprietary without being domineering; it can be said that they combine both the best and worst traits of their ecology in so being, although again this may merely be a projection of my own admittedly limited view of them and they may be both more or less than can be readily ascertained. What is there to be said of the X’Thi? Their physical appearance is amorphous; dimly glimpsed through the viewports of this sinking vessel they take on different colors and aspects with the changes of the day; part of this having to do with their own rather chameleon-like ability to partake of features of the terrain, part of it having to do with my own rather dazzled perceptions which due to hunger and increasing flight cannot be trusted as to consistency. The X’Thi themselves testify that their changing aspect may be due not to difficulties in sight or terrain but to the presence of Blolomite itself throughout the atmosphere: Blolomite has the sinister ability to distort reality into changing shapes and aspects; coming from the Cosmic Jolt and being put in place by the squawking “E:” of the Creator (whose identity, gentlemen, is unknown at the present time, the Creator being ineffable), it partakes of many qualities which may be beyond our ken and it can be said that to live on Coul’s Planet as I have been forced to for this period of time may simply mean to be immersed in Blolomite as strange as this thought may be, immersed in Blolomite and circling forever dimly under the light of the parallel moons, the parallel moons streaking the heavens in their very duality. The X’Thi say that they cannot sustain me much longer in this environment, that as the time of decampment approaches they must more and more attend to their own difficult and necessary tasks preceding said decampment, that they will have to abandon me to my own devices in order that they may protect themselves. There is, they assure me, nothing at all personal about this abandonment, they are rather fond of me, they are fond of Leonard Coul, abandoned voyager in their midst, but their own survival is paramount and they must go about it in their own way. After all, Coul’s Planet, the Cosmic Jolt, Hok and the decampment were around long before I was (to say nothing of Blolomite) and will Similarly survive me by a good long period; they must pay proper obeisance to their traditions because without their traditions, where are they? An unanswerable question, gentlemen. Hok will begin, in glimmers of Blolomite as seen in the light of the parallel moons the Cosmic Jolt may be apperceived but the X’Thi will be gone, they will all be gone and I will be here alone, always alone, unless efforts are made to speed up the rescue party at all costs, to accelerate, that is to say, its efforts. In the meantime there is nothing to be done but to continue on my routine and essentially timekilling tasks, maintenance of the environment, eating, sleeping, the preparation of this glossary and so on. What will I do when Hok comes? The answer to that is unspeakable and I will cheerfully leave that question to you, gentlemen, being unable, quite, to deal with it myself.
Y: That cosmic sound (emanating, it is said, from the second Cosmic Jolt) with which creation will end. (See E.) According to the myths of the X’Thi, the Creator will cry “Y:”. as Coul’s Planet comes to an end, imploding toward ash in the Sickly light of the wasted moons, small scraps of Blolomite dancing in the gases as in that explosive “Y:Y:Y:” all that the X’Thi will ever know shall end.
The Shores of Suitability
Common exegesis of Killers of the Rulers portends the interrelationship of post-Joycean rhetoric with post-Shavian political pluralism. Relate this confluence. Elaborate and discuss. Exemplify.
The Old Hack is having a nightmare. In it, he has returned to academia and is seeking a master’s degree at Extension U., which, he hopes, will enable him to find work as an assistant instructor of English. All right, it is a long shot, but he is almost out of ideas. The markets are really hell, and foreign sales have dried up. And he is having big trouble delivering on the one outline he has sold. So the Old Hack has enrolled in English 353A: Science Fiction and the Archetype, because in the catalog it seemed to be an easy three points (no paper required). If he knows anything, he knows science fiction. Right? Well, doesn’t he? Now he is taking the final examination in this graduate-level course, which appears to focus on an old Ace Double, Killers of the Rulers. He is especially qualified to deal with this book. He wrote it back in 1957 between wives at the old place on West 89th Street. Even so, the exam is giving him trouble. Big trouble.
The subtheme of colonic usurpation in its Jungian relevance creates a multileveled tension in Killers of the Rulers, which points toward the induction of three distinct archetypes. Name these archetypes. Elaborate and discuss. Discuss further how a Freudian approach would defeat consummation of the Blue Alien Incursion.
The Old Hack is not sure exactly how he got into this. It all seemed so simple when he enrolled. The reading list, which included many of his old favorites, indicated this would be a snap, to say nothing of the pleasant surprise of finding Killers of the Rulers right in there between More than Human and The Forever Machine. But he suspected that things had begun to go wrong from the start. In the first session the young instructor had begun by speaking of a Manichean influence in the birth of American science fiction, and how the great Fifties novels were an extension of the Fabian theory of Socialism as propounded by the works of G. B. Shaw. The Old Hack had briefly thought of identifying himself when his book came up in November. “I wrote that one,” he could have said (it had been written, as had all of the Ace Doubles, and too much of his other stuff, under a pseudonym), but by then he was totally confused. It did not seem wise to admit writing Killers of the Rulers, particularly if he could not understand a word the young instructor was saying about it.
Produce a 1,000-word monograph interrelating the empire building of Killers of the Rulers with the more pacific vision of More Than Human. Be specific. In what way does Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” inform and influence both works as controlling response? Why does Heartbreak House not apply here?
Heartbreak House. That’s what West 89th Street had been. It was there, drunk and up against a deadline, that he wrote Killers of the Rulers on the kitchen table. The Old Hack hadn’t even started it until the weekend before it was due. There had been all that excitement about him and Mabel Sue, and, besides, for a $750 advance (payable in halves) why should he get all upset about churning out this stuff to their convenience rather than his? Even then the book kind of lurched along, what with Betty (wife number one) crying and coming out of the bedroom now and then only to throw another of his paperbacks at him while he sat there typing. Finally he gave up, turned to the Cutty Sark, and took down that 1952 issue of Worlds of If, which he used to bloat up his novelette.
In the end the book was not what he had promised in the outline, but what the hell? Everyone lied and cheated in the small things (he had tried desperately to explain this to Betty); the important commitment was to getting the work done, and to holding on to enough of the advance money to have a good blowout. Despite all the screaming, he had been only three days late, thanks to the Cutty Sark, but then the bastards took a month to deliver the check, by which time he was well embarked on that disastrous series of events that ended with Mabel Sue’s calling him a drunken liar and throwing his typewriter and the carbon of Killers of the Rulers out the third-story window.
Neologic devices in Killers of the Rulers account for, as in Finnegans Wake, much of its subnarrative power. Present and discuss five such devices. Analyze two of them. Describe how they function as a metaphoric combine of the Blue Aliens.
In his dream, the Old Hack brings his b
lank essay booklet up to the proctor midway through the three hours. “I can’t stand it,” he says shakily. “I can’t stand it anymore. Just take me away. I’ll be good.” The proctor stares at him mercilessly through goggles of glittering glass. “Help. Help,” the Old Hack whimpers as he tumbles like a stone through various levels of his dream world.
He finds himself awake and fifty-seven in his own bleak room at dawn, his hopes for an assistant instructorship at the college destroyed, the empty pages of Grandsons of the Killers of the Rulers littering the floor beside him, and this novel—his masterpiece, he had told the editor to clinch the contract, the crown of his career—three months overdue today. And counting.
Hop Skip Jump
IN the distance Constanza thought she could see the Battery, the extreme southern tip of Manhattan with boats prowling the waters, the thin lights and suggestion of ships curving toward the night; nearer were the heavier, blooming lights of midtown Manhattan, the suggestion of motion within. But in the tight confinement of the car itself, looking at the George Washington Bridge, it was possible to believe that the city did not exist, that it was just the two of them, the suspension bridge itself only a suggestion against the night that held them.
“It’s going to make a pretty blaze,” Frank said.
He pitched the directional signal upward indolently, cut to the right lane of the upper roadway to take the parkway exit. “Chicago was nothing to the way this will be. This still is the big town.” His smile, she knew, would split the night if she looked, but she was lacing away, staring through the passenger window, looking at the poles as the car skirted them. “We shall utterly consume all things off the face of the earth,” Frank said happily, “and that’s the prophet Zephaniah. Always liked Zephaniah. They thought he was a crank, you know. Now he’s a minor Book.”
The Very Best of Barry N Malzberg Page 19