Tropic of Skorpeo

by Morrissey, Michael

  “Ah… Right behind you, my dear,” said a male voice.

  “Well, I’m glad someone is actually here in person,” said Juraletta, as she turned to confront him. She paused. There was something different about the duke.

  “What’s happened to your hair?” Juraletta asked.

  “Juraletta,” reproached Gorgon, “don’t be rude!”

  “I’ve dyed it.” The duke looked a tad sheepish.

  Funny old Fissionable Duke! thought Juraletta. She did feel fond of him at that moment, despite the fact there were lurid chunks of dysprosium in his beard (which he had forgotten to dye).

  “Do you, the Fissionable Duke, take Princess Juraletta to be your wife so that she may one day reign over Qwerty?” intoned Gorgie.

  “I… ah… certainly do,” said the Fissionable Duke, blushing furiously. Juraletta suddenly wondered if he was possibly the oldest virgin in the world.

  “And do you, Princess –”

  “Hang on a minute, Gorgie. Isn’t this rather abrupt? I mean, don’t you have to make a speech? Remind us of our marital responsibilities? Gather the guests, perhaps? Or play some music?”

  “Oh Princess, you’re so old-fashioned!” cried Gorgon. “It’s only in books that celebrants go on and on about the virtues of holy matrimony until death do us part, et cetera et cetera et cetera. No, it’s much simpler nowadays. These are nowadays, aren’t they? I mean, this isn’t the future or the past, is it?”

  “I don’t know,” confessed Juraletta, looking abashed. “I’ve been rather lost these past few days, what with everything that’s happened. Let’s ask the duke. Duke, is this the past, the future, or nowadays?”

  “All three, I dare say,” grunted the duke. “By the way, aren’t we supposed to be getting married in the near future? That is, in… ah… the next few minutes?” He raised a single eyebrow and seemed to assess her quizzically.

  “Of course you are to be wed,” cried Gorgon. “Princess, don’t dilly dally – the guests are getting hungry.”

  “There aren’t any guests here, Gorgie – not even Sage, and he lives in the castle! How can they be hungry if they’re not here?”

  “They can be hungry wherever they are,” said Gorgon. “They have a perfect right to be hungry at your wedding.”

  “Their rights wouldn’t be perfect,” said the duke. “Rights are usually somewhat less than perfect.”

  “What about their wrongs?” cried Juraletta. “Could their wrongs be perfect?”

  “That which is wrong is naturally enough imperfect,” said Gorgon. “Now, do you take the Fissionable Duke to be your husband?”

  “I expect so,” said Juraletta. “Yes… on reflection… I will.”

  “Hurray,” cried Gorgon so loudly that her serpentine hair woke up and hissed noisily.

  Behind the snakes’ upraised heads, on all of the screens, hundreds of guests cheered.

  “I’ll leave you two love birds alone,” said Gorgie.

  Juraletta didn’t feel particularly like a love bird, but nonetheless she placed her soft, white hand in the grizzled paw of the benign old duke, who coughed embarrassedly as he led her away through the winding corridors of Venera Castle to his bachelor’s suite, made resplendent for the occasion.

  In the suite, all was whiteness and glitter. The bed was swathed in aromatic sheets of a pearly sheen, with twin suns emblazoned on each. From great jewelled urns sprouted flowers made of living crystal.

  “I have a gift for you,” said her ancient yet new husband.

  “Oh Duke, you shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble –” Juraletta began.

  “Trouble? For a future Queen of Qwerty? It is your due honour, madam.” He bade her close her eyes, then slipped a necklace of rare earths encased in emeralds around her slender throat. “And now, my dear, as you are my wife, will you kindly disrobe so that I can see what gorgeous jewel lies beneath those filmy swathes.”

  Juraletta’s eyes widened, and she blushed. “It’s so early, Duke, and we have a lifetime of disrobing ahead of us. Why don’t we play a game?”

  “I don’t know any games, Princess.”

  “Let’s play scissors, paper, and rock,” Juraletta suggested, racking her brain to remember the rules. “It’s simple. You extend two fingers so and form a pair of scissors, and scissor cuts paper. If you ball your fist and make a rock, it defeats scissors. Paper, however, can wrap around rock. And if you put your hand out flat, that is paper – which is sliced by scissors but can still beat rock. So someone always wins – unless it’s a tie, of course.”

  “Sounds like life,” murmured the Fissionable Duke.

  “Life isn’t a game,” Juraletta said. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

  They parleyed with their fists, then both extended hands. The duke kept his clenched into a rock, while the princess turned hers into scissors. For the next four tries, Juraletta changed her hand to a scissors twice and paper twice. The duke consistently retained his fist as a rock. After ten rounds the duke was still maintaining his fist, and Juraletta cried in exasperation, “Duke, you can’t be a rock all your life!”

  “Why not?” replied the Duke. “I’m rather fond of rocks.”

  “This time you have to be something else,” urged Juraletta. “Go on, be a devil!”

  When the Duke tried paper, the princess extended two fingers. In the next round, the Duke formed scissors; Juraletta’s hand was in a fist.

  “This time, if I win, you must do as I wish,” said the duke.

  Juraletta considered this. He will probably revert to rock, she thought, so she extended her hand as paper, but the Duke had outwitted her by staying with scissors. His fingers clamped over her small palm, holding it tightly.

  “Now, my dear,” the duke said amiably, “kindly remove that silly smock and that provocative little petticoat. Do it quickly – yet at the same time, linger on each garment, if you get my crusty old drift.”

  “Before I do that, why don’t I sing you a sweet love song?”

  “Well, that would be romantic…”

  Juraletta drew air into her four lungs and exhaled a glissando of back-shivering trills. Her voice possessed great volume and timbre, and in the higher registers was as piercing as a lance. As the sound became even sharper, the Fissionable Duke clapped his hands over his hirsute ears.

  Then the princess slipped off her stole. The duke was visibly affected – his nostrils widened, his breathing became heavier; even his beard stiffened with excitement. Juraletta removed her camisole. Turning a colour somewhere between carmine and puce, the duke’s eyes went wide as she flung her camisole onto the bed. His expression shifted from delight to pain. Unbuckling her jewel-encrusted belt, she was about to slip down her dress when she saw the duke’s expression, and froze. His face had turned deepest purple, his eyes bulging like two comets about to impact on the Yucatán Peninsula. No, he didn’t look healthy at all – small tendrils of smoke were issuing from around his eyes and under his fingernails.

  What had Gorgie said? The duke must not become too excited, though he wasn’t exactly excited – he was simply smouldering. She snatched up her camisole and rushed to the table where a bottle sat in a bucket of ice, soaked the silky garment in the water that half filled the bucket, and dabbed it on his brow. It turned to steam immediately. Oh dear! She brought a handful of ice to where he stood, goggle-eyed and glowing, but the cubes flashed into steam as soon as she dropped them on the top of his head. She wondered if getting dressed might cool him off. In an instant, she pulled the camisole back over her head and then perched herself on the edge of the bed where she sat anxiously examining the duke. His face was half hidden by a cloud of smoke, a stone idol buried by an early morning mist. Nevertheless, his eyes remained focused on her – or, to be more precise, on her chest. Glancing down, she noticed that the white camisole had turned translucent, while the icy water had given her four nipples an alarming degree of perk.

  A popping sound. The Fissionable Duke was alight. Flames
enveloped him completely in a matter of moments. Juraletta gasped in horror – her husband was ablaze, incinerating on her wedding night!

  The heat of his conflagration increased rapidly. As it became intense, Juraletta slipped backward across the bed, the heat still reaching her even as she dropped to her feet on the far side. Where the duke had sat like an amiable orangutan a few short moments ago, he was now a ball of exploding white fire. In a few seconds more, it was all over – the duke had vanished. Clearly and horribly, the Fissionable Duke had lived up to his name. What a powerful force love was . . .

  Juraletta approached cautiously and regarded the pile of burning ashes that was her former short-lived spouse. She knew what she had to do – find Gorgie and tell her what had happened. She was glad that all the wedding guests had only appeared on screens; somehow she didn’t feel she owed them any explanation.

  Princess Juraletta of Venera Castle, intended Queen of Qwerty, realised that she was a widow on her wedding night (and still, presumably, a virgin), and shed a few silent tears that clawed at her skin like instruments of torture as they ran down her cheeks, dropped off the curve of her chin, and mingled with the still faintly glowing ash. Now that her first husband had combusted, she wondered what would become of her. Would there, could there, ever be another? And what would Gorgie say?

  On the plus side, she thought with a touch of guilt, the way was suddenly open to find Prince Rhameo and see if he was a little less prone to spontaneous combustion…

  Rhameo barely recognised his father. Grown to super-Skorpean height, he was now over ten feet tall, and lightning shot from his beard, while his gaze threatened to incinerate whatever it touched.

  “I thought I had loyal sons,” growled Zoah in a thunderous voice, eyes flashing like rabid comets, “now I see they are treacherous dogs. Who is the loyal one and who the traitor?”

  “Father –” Teleporteus began.

  “Be silent, runt,” Zoah ordered. “I shall do the talking, you shall do the answering. First of all, my queen, can you explain why this woman, whom my son was to marry, did not exist? She was just an ovaloid.”

  “I saw her standing there,” the empress protested.

  “Did she speak?” asked Zoah. “Did we see her face? She was either a Robotoid simulacra or just a projection – an ovaloid in five dimensions! But that is irrelevant, because it was all a sham, and the only thing left was a heap of clothes! She was nothing more than a trick to distract us while they sent Punkoids to attack us. And you, my queen, why did you set up this farcical wedding? Did they hoodwink you, or are you trying to fool us?”

  “Gloggwetafug exists! I talked with her… she seemed most suitable,” pleaded the empress.

  “Then you are as naïve as you are foolish,” yelled Zoah. “Get out of my sight, scrufulous baggage!”

  “Father, can we talk?” interrupted Rhameo, as the humiliated queen retreated into the smoking shadows of Skorpeo’s ambushed capital.

  “No time for talk – we must destroy the Rhomboids! And I’ll give you and all my other sons twenty-four hours to do it, or you’ll have me to answer to! Go, both of you, for I do not trust either of you to do it alone! When you have done that, I shall decide what to do with the Volgogthians. Believe me, they will rue the day they tried to best Zoah!

  The emperor drew a deep breath.

  “Unleash the Dogs of War!”

  The Emperor of Skorpeo spun on his heel and stalked from the room, yelling orders as a fresh wave of Punkoid attack ships screamed overhead.

  “Pundit!” Rhameo called. No answer.

  “Pundit!”

  “Pundit!”

  “Present,” said the lean one, appearing at his side.

  “What are the Dogs of War?”

  “Giant, mutant dogs,” said Pundit as languidly as if they were discussing a flower growing in a park. “Genetically designed to kill.”

  “Designed to kill? How?”

  “By their size and ferocity. The Dogs of War are twenty feet tall at the shoulder, weigh fifty tonnes, and have teeth tipped of durametal that can crush an armour-clad fissionic poniard. They devour men for breakfast.”

  “Sounds good – so long as the men are Punkoids, Sleazoids, and Volgogthians. Can anything stop them?”

  “Not that Pundit knows of.”

  Rhameo watched in awe as the colossal mutant dogs, vaulting fifty feet in a single bound, leapt from tunnels beneath the palace and attacked the Volgogthians with feral ferocity. They’re not just enormous mutant mongrel dogs, he thought, as he watched a set of slavering jaws crunch illegal fissionic poniards into shattered debris, they are mad dogs of war.

  Rhameo grinned at his brother. “Behold, Teleporteus, the Dogs of War! To plead for mercy is to commit suicide!”

  “I see them.”

  “Observe how the enemy retreats.”

  “I observe.”

  “You don’t seem pleased.”

  “Of course I’m pleased, Brother – the Dogs of War are doing a great job. But isn’t it time to call them off?”

  “Only the emperor can do that.”

  “They have done their work, now they’re only gnawing on Punkoid bones.”

  “Their work will never be done – the Punkoids are without number.”

  “Nothing is without number, Brother,” said Teleporteus “Even the stars in the Fornax –”

  “This is hardly the time to worry about the Fornax System. We must mop up!”

  “Well, Brother,” said Rhameo, as they headed towards the hangar an hour later. “What do you know of the Rhomboids?”

  “Only that they are an irregular shape,” said Teleporteus.

  “I hear that their number is legion,” said Rhameo. “And that anyone who enters their dark domains is certain to die or, at the very least, suffer a twisted psyche.”

  “Are you seriously worried about a pathetic alien twisting your psyche?”

  “I’ve heard that their home world is protected by naked women called Jezebels, who can fly through space,” Rhameo continued. “Beautiful, but deadly.”

  “I hear they’re ruled by a monstrously weird life form called the Octopus,” said Teleporteus.

  Indeed they are, pink-thoughted Lord Maledor. And, as luck would have it, if I picture the Octopus floating in his vast bed of mucilaginous delights being simultaneously pleasured by an orange-tufted Punkoid, an amorphous pullulating Sleazoid, and one of the slimy snake people from the Gardens of Fleschimor, my attacks of goodness subside quickly.

  Nonetheless, Lord Maledor knew even as he watched Teleporteus and Rhameo preparing to fly from Skorpeo that something had to be done about Queen Beia and Astroburger. They had turned their hellhole within the womb of the living asteroid into a home – a haven of comfort and love! He considered introducing a third life form; a sexually ambiguous Punkoid, or perhaps an enpenised Slutoid – something that would cause dreadful jealousies. But these diversions only worked if there were highly developed ambiguities in the sexual psyches of his targets, and Astroburger, God rot his mediocre soul, seemed to be as straight as an orange-tipped cortical command arrow. The Queen of Reflections, even though she had delusions of being a pervert on a grand scale, was no better. What a pair!

  Lord Maledor sat up in his chair and snapped his fingers. Why not let them go, or rather give them the illusion of freedom, while maintaining his invisible (yet invincible) evil control over Beia? He could send them out into the universe. Set them a task…

  Yes, illusory freedom coupled with certain directives might well lead to a refined evil that all would admire…

  Especially me, smirked Lord Maledor.

  “What’s that noise?” Astroburger asked.

  “I don’t hear anything,” said the de-Queened Beia, looking absurdly contented as she lay on a sumptuous, newly appeared couch, the seeming gift of a benign god.

  “Funny, I could have sworn –”

  He was interrupted by a horripilating gurgle. As the walls began to shake, a gl
owing red patch appeared and their chamber began to vibrate, the air around them thrumming – their bodies resonating with the asteroid.

  “What is happening?” cried Beia, as her umbilical connection broke free.

  “Cosmic disaster, if I’m any judge,” said Astroburger. “And,” he added, coughing modestly, “I am.”

  “Yet again?” asked Beia, assuming an air of alert expectancy and demand, at odds with her previously umbilicised demeanour. “I have the impression, Astroburger, that you have monitored too many cosmic disasters.”

  She no longer sounds in love, thought Astroburger, relieved though also unexpectedly saddened.

  The asteroid suddenly stopped vibrating, and there was a moment’s silence before one side of the chamber collapsed inward with a muted rumble. Through the gaping hole came a massive, chitinous black limb that was dotted with dark red bristles.

  “Do you think we’re being rescued?” asked Queen Beia in a familiarly haughty voice.

  “I don’t think so,” muttered Astroburger in his customary gloomy tone, as one of the legs – for there were now several writhing their way through the widening gap in the living asteroid’s wall – began groping its way around their haven, lashing to and fro like that of a gigantic, questing spider. A leg nudged Beia, then darted forwards to wrap around her slim ankles. It began drawing her toward the gaping hole.

  The resourceful Astroburger snatched up one of the chairs that had furnished the room, and he proceeded to swing it with all his might against the horrible limb. This had little effect, so he fell to his knees and bit into the leg. Astroburger had remarkably strong jaws – Replicoids are noted for their shark-like bite power – and this caused the monster to squeal and chitter, as it loosened its grip on the queen. Pulling her free, he gently elbowed her towards the far side of the living asteroid’s womb.

  Their situation didn’t look promising. Though for years, if not decades, Astroburger had plotted the course of cosmic catastrophes that had never quite come to pass, he had never given much thought to the small-scale catastrophe of his own demise.