Plus, he always knew he was fortunate he had inherited his mother's Mediterranean good looks.
After a couple of weeks weighing the pros and cons of such an undertaking, and some minor philosophical differences of opinion with Leigh, they decided, in the halcyon spirit of the times, to go for it.
Pickup was to be around Area 51. They were to bring only two other Earthlings, preferably people who had useful skills in the sciences or computer technology, which was just taking off on Earth. It was all totally hush, hush of course and they made a collective vow of secrecy that not one of them ever breached.
Why would four successful young talents volunteer to travel into a nearby galaxy?
Again, one has to remember that this was the 1960s, and the charismatic John F. Kennedy had made space travel a top national priority. This was very appealing to young idealists like Jonathan, Leigh and the rest of that generation.
When the President was tragically assassinated in 1963, and Dylan went electric a few years later in '65, there was a sense among many people that the nation's karma was under a dark star.
So, Jonathan, Leigh, the prodigy Kurt Wagner and Evangeline Daughtry decided to go full Lewis and Clark to Zeon.
Yes, as we know, Jonathan had become taken with Evangeline and had dropped his computer whiz fiancée Elizabeth two days before departure for the buxom Playmate, and, as a result, the future of intergalactic history was inexorably altered. Not since Helen ran off with fair Paris to Troy has there been a more impactful tale of lust and intrigue.
In the years hence, the saying; "beware of Earthlings bearing gifts" would become a phrase often repeated in Zeon.
Chapter Fifty-Sixty
Your Cheatin' Heart
Alas! They were so young, so beautiful, so lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour was that in which the heart is always full, and, having o'er itself no further power, prompts deeds eternity cannot annul.
–George Gordon Byron, Don Juan
Parrimore instantly differed with his brother, Decleanus, about the wisdom of inviting the Earthlings to Zeon: they had no other choice. Parrimore insisted on letting them live after they got rid of the murderous pests. Decleanus wanted to poison them after Zeon was back up and running.
Parrimore made a mental note of his brother's ruthlessness. "We may be more advanced than them scientifically, but they have much to teach us about the evolution of their planet. So much like us initially, then they went off on another trajectory. Let us learn from them what not to do," said Parrimore.
"Ah, methinks the lady Evangeline may have something to do with your forbearance of the savages," said Decleanus with his trademark dry delivery.
Of course, Jonathan rendered the debate meaningless when he took advantage of his photographic memory and kept the needed compounds and process for the making of the insecticide where only he could access it: in his brain.
And while he and the others had largely eradicated the mosquitos, they could always recur in the Mountain Region and no one would brook the removal of the man with the cure.
Decleanus would be run off the planet if such a calamity would occur again. No, he must face the facts, the Earthling Jonathan had out smarted him, and to that he had to tip his hat, if he ever wore one.
While Jonathan was indeed brilliant and charming enough when he wanted to be, he was no match for Parrimore's saucy wit and piercing blue eyes.
As we said earlier, Evangeline was an early adopter, and she was about to seduce an alien, a dude from another planet. How adventurous! And Melanie wasn't around to assist Jonathan this time.
So Parrimore and Evangeline begat Apol and Ranna, who begat Zorbane. That's how our rockin' rebel came into the universe.
Chapter Sixty-One
The Space Cowboy
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
–André Gide
As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
–Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or the Whale
One could say that Zorbane was a child of destiny. One of his grandparents was a proud citizen of Zeon, Parrimore, and the other was an adventuresome Earthling, Evangeline Daughtry. He was the only child of Ranno and Apol. Like his father he was a superb and daring pilot from an early age. He shared with his mother a natural curiosity for life and all its wonders.
He was introduced to Earth music by his father when he was 10 years old. Together they listened to the forbidden music in the evenings when Ranno was back from his patrols. His father made him promise never to tell anyone about the music. Only his mother shared their secret.
One day when he was 12, a man came to the door and spoke to his mother. He told her Ranno has disappeared from his patrol squadron in bad weather. There was a search on for his aircraft.
The next morning when he woke, the phonograph and records were gone as well. Just like his father. Disappeared. He was in shock, and totally devastated of course.
But something about his mother's demeanor intrigued him when a few days later, Uncle Decleanus came by and told them that his father was perhaps still alive. So, he held out hope. Decleanus was known as a true political animal, but nobody was that good an actor. The fact that his mother, who was frightened like he was just 24 hours ago, was now sucking it up and playing it all with a brave face. She was no longer prostrate with grief. What did Decleanus tell her?
Maybe he’d never know but it provided the motivation for him to become the best pilot he possibly could.
In many ways, after that day, Zorbane was 12 going on 30. Driven, as they say.
And, where did his father's treasured records go?
Chapter Sixty-Two
Intergalactic Rock 'n' Roll Mecca
Romantics play Claire de Lune
Born agains sing "He is risen,"
But no one ever wrote a tune,
For godless existentialism.
–Steve Martin, "Atheists Don't Have No Songs"
Aside from counting on the cultural heat that these artists would imbue to the Mountain Region, how would Zorbane, Haskell and Jericho recreate the environment, the abject poverty, and the cultural milieu that was the American South, where the world's most powerful musical revolution took root?
The Mountain Region of Zeon certainly had several of the same characteristics of the Deep South.
It was agrarian. There was not much in the way of manufacturing. It featured a temperate climate in the winter, although the Mountain Region climate was closer to California's Central Valley than the Mississippi Delta in year-round temperature and rain fall.
Poverty? It was non-existent. Churches where one could earn to sing and harmonize? There were none.
Whatever your religious beliefs, the Christian faith, and by extension, spirituals, gospel music and sacred music, essential to the eventual creation of rock 'n' roll, were not a part Zeon's history.
There also supposedly was no supernatural force of evil in Zeon's history. Try to imagine the blues without the devil.
I mean, what's Robert Johnson, the quintessential blues savant, without the crossroads legend?
But since the Zeonese were so similar to Earthlings in most every way, there's a very good chance that good and evil are in play there, and thus the chance that great art can be accomplished.
Plus, Haskell, Jericho and Louise had the DNA of some musical giants, and, if they survived their journey, they would introduce those forces into the strange new planet's environment and sow the wind.
As Zorbane had explained to the
m: "We are importing a blueprint for life on Earth and how to reconstruct these musical pioneers. We'll have everything required to create a do-it-yourself kit to produce musical Earthling legends!"
Dear reader, you may be asking, how did Zorbane's father get his hands-on records from Earth, with a record player to boot? I mean, we're talking a very long journey at incredible speeds at great costs, and as far as we know, no one from Zeon had ever made that journey. Well, it would be good to remember that although Evangeline Daughtry had loved the folkie scene back in the 60's, her fellow Playmate, Dorothy Strong, was a stone-cold rock 'n' roll fanatic, and had turned her on to Mahalia, Little Richard, Elvis, Fats, Jerry Lee and all the rest via 45 records. She would play them for hours on end as they talked and drank and solved all the world's problems. Evangeline could not imagine living without these sounds her friend had turned her onto. It was so, well, not of the times. And like many another adventurer, she loved to go against the grain. She knew Jonathan was smitten with her, and he made sure no one questioned anything she was bringing on board the space craft. So, when the time came for their foray into outer space, she managed to smuggle eight 45RPM singles on board.
To create room for the classic records she had to jettison her favorite new books: The Way of Zen by Alan Watts and Phyllis Diller's Marriage Manual.
And so that is how the seeds of Zorbane's fealty toward Earth's most sensual and primitive music were deposited into his fertile mind.
But how did he listen to these forbidden records?
In the late 1990s, Ranno, being the celebrity pilot he was, became friends with a coterie of brilliant techies, and, with some rare Mountain wine he had smuggled in as a bribe, he persuaded them to make a record player for him with a built-in speaker. This was all done on the down low, of course.
Zorbane often wondered if he would ever see his father again, and despite his best efforts, none seemed to know where he was. Was he dead? Was he being held in the bowels of Zeon in some antiseptic prison? His mother was well paid as part of Decleanus's communication division. Was she keeping the secret from him, or was she just playing the game to stay alive? He understood growing up that she had to be stoic and keep the family going. Despite being raised by a single mother, without the credentials of some of her comrades in Decleanus's inner circle, what he told Jericho that night on Earth when they first met was the truth; he never wanted for anything.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Highway to Hell
Trax was pensively pacing his cell, thinking of almost nothing but when he could get the next drink, when he noticed two guards coming down the hall chattering nervously. This was highly unusual, for they had been impassive, stoic mutes for the two weeks he had been captive here. Yes, there was something afoot. And sure enough, following behind the chattering guards were Decleanus and two of his henchmen striding quickly toward his cell. Yes, something big was imminent.
The guards quickly unlocked his cell door and Decleanus waved them away. He then motioned for Trax to sit.
Trax noticed there was something different about his demeanor. His natural arrogance was gone, his body slumped in a kind of recognition that circumstances were changing.
Decleanus looked into Trax's eyes. "I have a deal to offer you," said the supreme Shaper.
But just then he sensed someone else had arrived. The young pilot looked around, and there standing in front of his cell was Apol, Zorbane's mother. She was dressed in dark colors, looking forlorn and troubled.
"Trax, please listen to Decleanus. He only wants what is best for you and Zorbane,” said Apol with urgency. “And, we can get you what you really, really want above all things." She pulled back her jacket to reveal the beautiful bottle of liquor.
Trax took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Heroes
If anyone was essential in helping Zorbane's plan to turn part of the Mountain Region into a laboratory for the creation of rock 'n' roll, it was native son, Odurn. They went back a ways. Zorbane's father, Ranno, had smuggled Odurn's father's wine back in the day, and over the years Zorbane had struck up a friendship with this very talented and capable man.
One of the perks of being in the Zeon Air Corps was the ability to fly all over Zeon with nearly total impunity. That included the Mountain Region. He had spent many an evening with Odurn, tasting wines and listening to music. It was forbidden, but they didn't care. Odurn, who was about 10 years older than he was, could have been an academic star in Zeon, could have done many things, but he never would have tolerated the snobbery and none too subtle elitism that marked Zeon's society. Plus, he was Mountain born, and that made such speculation meaningless.
Odurn and Zorbane shared a naturally rebellious streak that made their pact to slip these Earthlings into Zeon easy to understand.
Standing nearly six-and-a-half feet tall with a stevedore's arms, Odurn was an NFL lineman by Earth's standards. His immense physical stature, successful business background, and easy charisma made him a natural leader among most of the agricultural growers in the region.
Out of a population of around 100 million, approximately 35 million, or a third of the population, lived in the Mountain Region.
Haskell and Louise would have no problem fitting in after a fashion. As for Jericho, well, Odurn had an idea.
One night when Odurn and his family and friends were listening to Zorbane's broadcast, the exuberant DJ read notes from Jericho about this Elvis Earthling. Odurn was transfixed. He and his family tried to imagine what Jericho looked like: was he tall, muscular? Did he wear a beard like pictures of Earth pioneers he had once seen? His writings made him appear relaxed, humorous and at ease with himself, Odurn's daughter, Cassida, said. Later in the week, during a message session with Zorbane, Odurn discovered the man Jericho was an Earth black man. How extraordinary he thought, in the Mountain Region during the sunny months the workers would get very dark as well, then get pale during the colder months. Earth must have some very hot regions for a man to stay black all year round. Some hot planet, he thought. And he talked about this Elvis man as if he knew him. Perhaps he was from the hot regions of Earth as well, and because he sounded different from most Zeonese, maybe he was black as well.
Odurn’s family was enthralled by the new music and looked forward to the broadcasts whenever they came on. Out of necessity and caution, they had to be broadcast at random hours because Zorbane knew the troopers hunting him would seize on a pattern and make it easier to track him down. Word of the new music was spreading and even the pilots flying in from Zeon were curious. They couldn't receive the broadcasts in Zeon proper, so, naturally, they just had to listen whenever their flight plans called for a Mountain Region patrol.
When these pilots returned to Zeon, they felt somehow transformed, with altered perceptions of this supposedly very backwards planet, Earth. And although some of the Shapers were beginning to sense the pilots liked the Earth music, there was really nothing they could do about it. Because these pilots were very skillful and necessary to the commerce of Zeon, the Shapers almost had to tolerate their listening, but under no circumstances were they ever to bring the music physically back to Zeon.
"Let the Mountain People revel in this juvenile, barbaric music. They're not true Zeonese, anyway," said Leigh Redmond without a trace of irony. He was an Earthling, and one of the Shaper Council.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Almost Forever Young
I'm happy to report that my inner child is still ageless.
–James Broughton
One tightly-held secret that Zorbane and Trax had withheld from Haskell and Jericho was the technique by which Jonathan and Decleanus had stayed so relatively young despite their advanced Earth age. Years ago, Zeon's s
cientists had discovered a variation on the Earth science of cryogenics. That was the name for the scientific method of freezing elements to preserve them for certain periods of time.
It seems that the Zeonese had learned to combine cryogenics with an injection that basically altered the genetic structure of someone, giving them on average an extra 60 years of robust life. This was truly a life-altering procedure. We’re not talking about just hanging on at the nursing home, but full-tilt boogie vitality until you were 120 years old and then you started a slow decline for another 20 or so years. But for reasons that will be obvious later, this miracle cure for aging was kept top secret from most all of the general population at first, and then a less potent injection and process was slowly introduced into the general population.
So, when a person of power and means was deemed ready for this procedure – and this "Fountain of Youth" operation was never given to a person under 50 – depending on their personal habits of course, they could expect to stay in reasonably good health until they were 140 years old. There were of course aberrations where someone died quite early, say 100, or lived to be 150, but these were anomalies.
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