drink and emitted a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a moan.
The other members of the motley crew were quickly trotted out for
introductions:
Clitoria, the Amazon warrior.
Hyperkinetic, the Trickster.
And finally, Missionary Position, the Cattlelick Priest.
Ottar made a drunken lunge for Clitoria, but the seven foot tall woman boxed
his ears soundly, and knocked him to the floor. "Try that again, you bushy
bastard, and I'll stick your whiskey bottle so far up your whatsit that you'll
need dynamite to get it out."
Hyperkinetic was dressed in gay colors and he carried a lute, and had a
despicable tendency to sing verses of a long and dull marching song. In a
nasal monotone:
"A questing we will go!
Summer, fall, or snow!
The Fountain of Hormones we must find.
So come on chaps don't fall behind."
"Arrrr!" said Captain Rick. "I like this guy! Even though he can't sing and
his verse doesn't scan."
"Fountain of Hormones?" said Bill puzzled.
"Yes," said Doctor Delazny. "According to the best of our readings in our
computer, the goal of your quest is called 'The Fountain of Hormones.' Exactly
what that means or exactly what it is has not yet been
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Har...the%20Planet%20of%20Tasteless%
20Pleasures.htm (40 of 95) [10/14/2004 11:58:11 PM]
Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Tasteless Pleasure determined."
"But, gee the name is pretty evocative though," said Bgr through his satyr
guise.
The priest was a red-cheeked, merry-looking fellow, who turned out to be the
only volunteer on the Quest.
"Faith and begorrah!" he said when questioned by Bill on the subject. "And
sure, sincerely I believe the lusts of the flesh so personified at the end of
this quest are merely pagan heathen, and God willing I
should like to bring them to the ways of righteousness."
"Arrrrr. Me, I don't give a bowb," said Rick. "Except for the fact I got a hot
Page 41
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
rumor that the Holy Brewery is right by the Fountain. The one that makes Holy
Grail Stout. My soul thirsts after righteousness, but so do my taste buds!"
"Holy Grail Ale!" cried the priest, almost peeing himself with excitement.
"Well, I suppose I could use a wee sip of the dark stuff!"
"Of course you could," said Dr. Delazny, smiling, raising his hand as though
to give benediction. "There is treasure for you all. But remember.... the
successful completion of this quest may well result in the saving of many
lives, both human and Chinger!"
"Gee that's great!" said Bgr. But he was the only one apparently who
entertained that sentiment. The others had their attention too focused on
their own personal gains to care much about the sparing of lives.
As for Bill, his hormone and alcohol drenched brain vacillated between lust
and booze. A steaming vision of his lost love merged with a full bottle until
he couldn't tell the two apart. Which, basically, was fine with him. In his
zonked-out state, it did not occur to him that what Dr. Delazny was asking him
to do was to help pull the plug on his own lusts. But then, human desire has a
way of muddling one's mind, causing one's puny rational abilities to shrivel
up and blow away. For if, as the Ancients discovered, meditation places human
consciousness in the Eternal Now, then surely lust places the body-mind web in
the Eternal
Rut. The notion of slaking his desires with Irma's agile help year after year,
combined with a lifetime of
Manure Technicianship, his own home on a quiet planet, all the alcohol he
could drink, and no more
Troopers was sufficient to short-circuit the perfidious chemo-behavioral
wiring jury-rigged in his nervous system by the Empire, as well as to dampen
the notion that this Quest might actually be fraught with horrendous dangers
beyond his feeble imagination. Nor did he wonder if the game was worth the
candle;
he did not consider that Irma's beauty might fade with years. All of his
attention, what little was left, was focused on the eternal now
. The future would only be more of the same. Most certainly, he never
considered that his already overtaxed liver might not be able to handle all
the promised alcohol. But most especially, he hadn't the faintest idea that by
this late stage of the game, his position in the Starship
Troopers was as firmly wedded to his identity as the leather thong was to his
neck, and his old Farmboy days were just as dead as the dove.
No, all these considerations were far beyond Trooper Bill's ken. His heart's
desire was for Irma. Doctor
Delazny had chosen well, for he had become, by this foggy stage, the
archetypical Fool for Love.
So it was that when Dr. Delazny called this odd troop of travelers to
attention, Bill obeyed without question.
"Right this way, folks," said the good Doctor, gesturing them to follow him.
"The Aperture into the
Paradigm lies in a room down the hall. We will toss your weapons in after you
have stepped through the
Portal. We don't want any accidents here, now do we?"
Bgr the Chinger, in his satyr outfit, herded them all toward the indicated
room, chuckling enthusiastically and telling them how he intended to spend the
peaceful years of his life, following the Armistice that would surely result
after this excellent adventure. He would return to his studies, what
intellectual joy. He
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Har...the%20Planet%20of%20Tasteless% [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]