INDULGENT SPIRIT
A Saga in Space and Time
Tom Leonard
Words like 'she' and 'her' are intended, for the moment, to represent all genders.
CHAPTER 3. HALF A STRONTIAN YEAR IN 2.16 KEPLER SECONDS
3.1 Arrival on Torus
Lieutenant Iota Iyola and and her pumanid buddy Kim Catworthy spent hours surveying the surface of Torus on the scanning screens on the bridge. Torus resembled a peaceful version of a living planet that Iota had once seen between Mars and Venus in the Sol Solar System, but whose name she'd long forgotten. Iota wondered whether both heavenly bodies were created by the same divine entity.
However, two circular oceans on Torus between the 70th and 110th parallels distinguished it from any planet Iota had seen before. Called Pacifica and Adversica, the oceans were centred at the points where the 90th and 270th meridians cross the equator. When Iota turned her attention to a three-dimensional mesh diagram, she was able to confirm that the two circular projections determined by the geographic co-ordinates were mirror images of each other.
Iota then envisioned a huge cylindrical passage connecting the circular oceans through the centre of the planet and thought that a passage of this type could have replaced the curiously shaped 'hole in the donut' when the planet changed from a torus into a sphere. Then she wondered whether the entire cylinder was full of ocean water and whether the complex gravitational forces and the geological systems beneath the huge landmass could sustain this sort of phenomenon indefinitely.
When Kim consulted her Torus Manual she discovered, to her surprise, that Iota's intuition was correct on all counts. The author, an eminent space scientist and geophysicist, described empirical evidence which effectively confirmed that the planet had indeed developed in this way when changing into a sphere. The sixty thousand kilometre long cylindrical passage was called the 'Dissecting Cylinder' of Torus.
The previously designated 'migration region' was located between the 140th and 150th parallels and the 85th and 95th meridians. It therefore lay due north of Pacifica. Massive volcanos were spewing their ashes all around the mainland, and Iota wondered how safe the migration region would be from the lava should any of the nearby volcanos suddenly erupt.
At precisely two Kepler femtoseconds (quadrillionths of an Kepler second) prior to midnight on the last day of AD 300,022, Kyle, Drew, and Jordan Rainbow were teleported to Torus with their twenty-week-old baby Lox, in the company of Kim Catworthy.
Lox was healthy and v-male, just like her mother, and a delight to her many admirers’ eyes. Kim had recently befriended the Rainbows, for reasons best known to her devious self, after watching the love triple win a prestigious 'Atum Family of the Year' award on CBC. The second placed triple were so disappointed that they pished all over the stage. When they got their grisly come uppance, the audience went bananas and laughed their heads off. Then a chef cut off their fingers, turned them into absolutely delicious hors d'oevres, and distributed them along the ever hungry front row.
Kim and the Rainbows arrived in the planet's official migration zone at precisely midnight Kepler time. A total of 10,000 Atum babies appeared at that very same instant, together with roughly the same number of Tavar adoptive parents.
Twelve Zazin observers and their curious love puppets arrived a femtosecond later. The four furry goats and diminutive Cyclops made a bee-line for the ice-cream truck, and the homo erectus toy-boys took a less direct route to the back of the truck to replenish their supplies of glow.
The migration of the Atum babies marked the beginning of Anno One on Torus, a 400 day Strontian year that, according to mathematical calculations, was to only last 4.32 Kepler seconds for the observers on Katrina. The fledging city of Xan was already under construction on the banks of the Tazi, thanks to the homo sornicus builders, and the many Atum immigrants who helped design it. Meanwhile, the Atums and Sappies (homo sapiens) were building a township called Peaceville by the confluence of the Tazi and the Taw, and feeding on the delicious trout and not so tasty gobies that they caught in the rapids.
The Chief Automaton had given the Rainbows extra-special permission to travel with their baby, as they were Teleview celebrities. They had been playing with Kim and Lox in their quarters on Katrina, and listening to their parrot singing 'If I were the pecking kind' when they, Lox, and Kim felt faint, and suddenly found themselves in a reception hall on Torus.
The much-fêted homo sapien ruffian Rick Stent arrived on Torus five femto-seconds later. She'd totally transformed her persona, having felt compelled to marry Pontiff Sunny Z1 in order to avoid a grotesque form of execution. Quickly promoted from downtrodden bondage-wife to much-esteemed First Lady, Rick was wearing diamond labrets and a silver knee-length tunic to hide her scrawny eyebrows and the acne and boils on her skin, and she'd agreed to assume the demeanour of a flirtatious woman. Despite the pontiff's impassioned love-making, Rick felt as masculine as ever.
Rick was accompanied by a gang of rough-and-tough homo sapien youths from the Peacock Constellation of Universe 776. The kindred spirits intended to visit Torus for two hundred Strontian days before returning to Katrina with a progress report for Rick’s ever brutish husband Sunny, the Living Incarnate.
The Rainbows had received permission to remain in Xan for forty Strontian days before returning to their duties on Katrina. They and Kim stayed in a cabin in the outskirts of the city with breath-taking views of the river. Their hosts were Lox’s highly spiritual Tavar adoptive parents, Max and Min Kap, who'd moved into the cabin awhile previously.
Lox shared a heart-shaped cradle in the corner of the living room with the Kaps' other adopted baby, a z-male Atum child whose three biological parents were eminent Bayesian statisticians who'd been discredited in yet another series of Bayesian sex scandals and confined to the 'Bayes Cube' on Katrina. The Tavar couple made Kim equally welcome; they put bowls of delicious puma-edible food on the floor by her kennel at meal times.
[Bayesian statisticians and scientists are named after the seventeenth century Presbyterian minister Rev. Thomas Bayes. They're into subjective probability, and computer simulations which never converge]
3.2 Back to the Control Room
Unknown to the migrants, there was a mild panic in the control room of Katrina about 0.01 seconds of Kepler time (less than a day of Strontian time) after their arrival.
“A huge space-dove has departed from Planet Retreus in the Kappa solar system,” declared Lieutenant Iyola, “and it’s set course for Torus. Its estimated time to arrival is, or rather was, approximately 0.23 Kepler seconds.”
Captain Korchov swore under her breath. “I could have guessed that there was already civilised life in this universe. Maybe it slipped through some confounded wormhole or other. I’m not even going to report this incident to our God-damned Living Incarnate. She’d only want us to blow the poor bastards to Kingdom Come.”
“Why don’t I turn off the Bridge to Incarnate intercom for a while, Captain?” suggested Iota Iyola.
“Switch it off for ten full Kepler seconds, Iota!” agreed the captain. “That should be more than sufficient. It's well over two years Strontian time.”
3.3 Kim infiltrates the Zazins
Back on Torus on the first day of Anno One, the twelve Zazin observers stayed in a building called the 'Hutch' on the site on a hill named ‘Divinity Mound’ where there were plans in progress to erect a huge Planet Capitol building with a shining white dome.
Kim Catworthy made her excuses to her hosts early that evening and headed for the mound. When she reached the summit she saw Dr. Jip Z2 in the doorway of the Hutch, giving detailed orders to a Walrusian guard.
"We'll go get the thief, Your Worship," promised the slimy guard, untwisting her reptilian tail as she slithered away.
Kim dutifully licked Jip's scrawny feet and blessed her in Ophelia's holy name. Thereupon, the felidae from Feline was quickly ushered inside, and Mileza Z4 presented her with a silver quaich generously filled with raspberries and topped with lashings of custard.
There seemed something a bit orchestrated to Kim about the bonhomie that followed, but the synthetic giggling and laughter stopped abruptly when Dr. Splat Z3 called for silence and initiated a socio-political discussion:
"I believe that we should encourage the Atum, the Sappies, the Walrusians and the rank-and-file Tavars to create an Ophelia-fearing middle class on Torus. However, the aristocratic upper class should be highly selective, and restricted to Zazins, the leading Tavars, and a token Walrusian. The rest, the riff-raff, should be put into a deprived underclass and ruthlessly exploited. The big question is how and when we should start interbreeding the species."
A horny Bayesian biologist with a cleft chin gave her homo erectus toy-boy a mutually stimulating grope. "We could try encouraging the Atum v-males to associate with male homo sapiens again, maybe sooner rather than later. My great grandfather paired 100 v-males with 100 Sappie males on Kepler 101AB in a randomized clinical trial. The results were statistical significant, but the offspring were buried without trace when Planet Kepler 215BC spun out of orbit."
"What an ingenious way of contributing to Ophelia's creative process!" enthused Jip. "Why don't we breed a whole tribe of these fascinating creatures on Torus?" We'll need to socially repress them, of course, to prevent them from usurping our authority."
"They could be our administrators and managers, the ones who bully the laboratory technicians and retail workers, " suggested a starry-eyed Zazin, fingering the furry white goat on her knee.
"We could call them Humatums," suggested the Bayesian biologist, "in memory of the hapless creatures who died a century ago, According to my translator, the Sirusian word humatus means 'having been buried'."
"How apt!" enthused Jip. "Now we'll be resurrecting them again."
"Maybe we should ask the First Lady's gang of brawny Sappies to get us started straight away," suggested Splat. "I'm sure that we can find a few willing v-males among the stray Atums for them to fuck. Then we could raise the babies in a security-locked village and send in our indoctrination team as they grow older. A Humatum zoo is also well worth consideration."
The Bayesian biologist smiled encouragingly. "Capital! I'd be glad to send in our bio-eugenics experts to address the quality of the offspring. They can be relied on to euthanize babies who don't meet appropriate standards."
"I saw two of the Sappies pishing into the Taw," confided Splat, with a gleam in her eye. "They're called Pal and Pat, and they're real hunks. I think that we should put their massive big ones to work in the reproduction shed."
"Great idea, Splat," responded Jip. "Maybe they should double fuck a double-quilted hornynk before they get down to the serious business."
"How interesting," mused Splat. "Humahornynks...I wonder what they'd look like? I'll contact the Piper twins ASAP. Maybe I'll invite them over for a bite and a nibble later."
Kim Catworthy carefully rearranged her bushy, six foot tail. "Why persist in being so prescriptive, Splat darling?" she asked. "My guess is that the Atums and humans would be cohabiting already if you hadn't inflicted so many regulations on them in the past."
Jip tickled the nape of Kim's neck with the tip of her snake-like tongue. "Nonsense, dear!" she mansplained. "You almost sound like one of those liberal socialists. All mating should be regulated from above. Otherwise evolution would get completely out of hand, wouldn't it?"
Kim stood bolt upright on her hind legs. "Well, I must be going," she said. "I have some errands to run."
"Please stay for the pot roast, dear," begged Splat. "You'd never guess what we're putting on the stove tonight."
The Bayesian biologist licked her lips. "I'm looking forward to the grilled offal," she enthused, "and maybe one of the creature's succulent ribs."
"Thanks anyway," replied Kim, with a nervous twitch, "but I'll be eating river trout later, hopefully with curly fries."
As Kim was leaving, two Walrusian guards came in with a very frightened, stark naked, homo sornicus slave girl.
"I didn't steal the stupid horse!" shrieked the girl, quivering in fright.
"Sure you didn't!" chuckled Jip. "Thank you officers! We'll take care of the silly thief. Would you care for a glass of water, gorgeous?"
"I can see the way your dreadful mind is working, Jip," objected Mileza Z4. "Why are you so God-damned hedonistic?"
"Because I love eating well-spiced tentricles," snorted Jip, rubbing in the ketchup.
"I'll settle for a juicy slice of her rump steak," responded Splat, licking her lips, "spiced with chili sauce."
"I'd settle for sex, and more sex," cut in the Bayesian biologist, going wild with the chili.
Splat giggled like a psychologically detached murderer. "You'd be welcome to use my razor-sharp metal comb, darling. Her left buttock, perhaps?"
Kim felt very anxious about what was in store for the Sornie slave, but in the circumstances thought it was best to make good her own escape. While she felt that she had bigger fish to fry, she would later wonder whether she'd made the morally correct decision.
3.4 Rick and the Rainbows go out for a drink
Kim's next errand took her across the Tazi to the guesthouse in Peaceville where Rick Stent was staying with his twelve raunchy amigos. Kim bypassed the pontoon bridge and felt invigorated and cleansed by the challenging swim.
Her mission accomplished, Kim returned to the Kaps' cabin during supper. Min Kap dried the pumanid's glossy fur with a huge bath towel and Max served her a platter of deliciously flavoured gobies and boiled spuds. Kyle and Jordan rocked the babies' cradle during dessert, while Drew showed them coloured pictures of white, red, and black foxes, and pink rabbits. Then Max sang 'Call of the Wild Ones' while Min played the flute.
Kim was still feeling anxious about the fate of the slave girl who'd been hauled into the Hutch, but cheered up when there was a familiar sounding triple knock on the door. She smiled contentedly when Min ushered in the resplendent First Lady Rick Stent, his very self. Rick was wearing a platinum tiara of the highest quality, and she was accompanied by her fair-haired, alpha male amigo Chi Kit and two pretty Sappie girls out for the lark.
Rick's eyes wobbled and then focussed on Drew. "Is this where the Rainbows are staying?" he inquired, straightening his full length, ruby-studded, lace evening gown.
"Sure it is," replied Drew. "Why the fuck are you dressed like that?"
"Expediency," replied Rick. "I'm married to the Living Incarnate, you see,"
"I suppose I understand. So why the visit?"
"I sort of remember you from the time you were on CBC News. Would you and your better thirds like to go for a late night tipple in the Woodlands Tap?"
Drew guessed where this was heading.
"I know all about you too, Mr. Splint," she cautiously replied. "Why don't you ask my hubbies? They're relaxing on the futon."
The pretty girls smiled at Kyle and Jordan, but the two Atums rudely turned their heads away, pulled up their tracksuit bottoms, grinned at Rick, and yelped, "Yes please!"
As the party of seven approached the taproom, a Sornie slave boy ran up to the young ladies, in tears. After talking briefly with Rick, the ladies returned to Peaceville immediately. While Drew felt concerned, both Kyle and Jordan breathed hefty sighs of relief.
The Woodlands Tap was an austere place, with antlers of giant elk hanging from the walls.
Rick ordered five jars of shandy, and then initiated a discussion. "This evening one of the leading Zazins in the Hutch suggested that male Sappies should be encouraged to associate with Atum v-males. Any thoughts about that, anybody?"
There was an uncomfortable pause and the waiter, a diminutive Walrusian with a large front package and a long, slimy, thin tail, took the opportunity to serve the shandys. She gave Jordan a suggestive wink as she did so.
Kyle was the first to reply. "Some people might find these ideas shocking," she said, "but I think that we may be at the very beginning of something quite liberating. I long to feel free from any regulation. I long to have the opportunity for a relationship with a homo sapiens, preferably a man, but maybe a woman, just as I'd like to meet a non trinary Atum. Call me pansexual, but that's what many creatures are like."
"As long as they don't make us perform for those pesky human women...," spluttered Jordan.
"It seems to me," interrupted Drew. "That the future of this planet would be greatly enhanced by a close socio-political alliance between the Atums, all humans, and the Tavars. If this alliance can be strengthened by these species nurturing and making love to each other, then so much the better."
Several drinks later, the bar manager, an unusually refined-looking Walrusian, came over with the tab.
"Are you still planning to use the four-poster in the guest room for the night, Madam?" he tactfully inquired, "now that you're five instead of seven?"
"What do you think, guys?" asked Rick, bleary-eyed.
"Sure we'll use it," said Kyle, brightening up, "but we'll need an extra post."
The diminutive Walrusian waiter with the long tail tried to sneak in too, and Jordan let her in, twisted her reptilian tail around her neck, and shagged her until her scales started dropping off.
Drew took a liking to Chi Kit. He was clean-limbed, fair haired, and full of the joie de vivre. Drew fell to her knees, shrieked "Snuff me!" and stuffed Chi's pulsating cock way down her voluminous throat.
3.5 Drama at the Water Well
When Kyle, Drew and Jordan arrived back at the Kaps' cabin, Min was spoon-feeding the babies with cod-liver oil and Kim was finishing off her wheaties.
"Glad to see you guys," said Kim, with a furtive look. "Hope you enjoyed your drink."
"It turned into a reasonably convivial weinfest," replied Drew, defensively.
Max Kap gave the Atums a surly look. "It's scorching hot this morning," she complained, "and we need fresh water. Could somebody please fetch two bucketfuls? You could try the well outside Holy Name Church. It's hand-operated."
"We'll go," said Kyle, grabbing a metal bucket, and Jordan emptied the dark green pail into the non-flushing loo. A mass of drain-flies poured out in protest.
There was no sign of life when Kyle and Jordan reached the brick-lined water well. But the huge copper bucket that was used to draw the water hadn't been re-lowered down the well by the previous user; it had instead been left on the ground with chain attached.
Kyle was aghast to see that the entire area was littered with a mixture of what appeared to be blood-splattered pieces of a Zazin's purple arms and torso, and the gruesome remains of a furry white goat. And when Jordan tripped over the copper bucket, the severed bulging head of a Zazin rolled out. It was still connected to the deceased creature's eyeballs, which seemed to Kyle to dance in the air for an eternity.
"Let's try the well outside St. Cuth's instead," blithered Jordan, as if in a mind stupor, only for the homo sapien twins Pal and Pat Piper to emerge from Holy Name with axes in their hands and clots of dark green and deep orange blood on their tunics.
"That's the Right Reverend bluddy Dr. Jip and we've just chopped her into little pieces," explained Pal, looking unashamedly proud of himself. "She boiled a Sornie slave boy for supper last night, and chewed on his flesh. Then Splat's crazy goat ripped the poor blighter's bollocks off. "
"The poor Sornie went to the Hutch to try to save his girlfriend," explained Pat. "They made her eat a piece of his kidneys. What's more, the screwed up reverend invited us to double hit on double-quilted hornynks and v-male Atums. How vile can you get?"
Kyle and Jordan tried to slink into the background. As they were departing, Pal shouted, “All the evil Zazins will get their horrible nasties as our army grows stronger, and we intend to stay on this planet to lead to it.”
That was when the revolution against the Zazins and Walrusians began. It was Pal and Pat Piper who started it, and Sornie slaves and Atums who supported it.
Upon hearing of the savage demise of their colleague Jip Z1, all but one of the remaining Zazin observers went into hiding in the secretly located 'Golden Eagle's Nest', a huge, well-stocked log-cabin at the summit of a tall peak in the White Mountains, from where they continued to control the Walrusians and spread cruelty around the migration region. Only the kindly mathematician Professor Mileza Z4 felt safe enough to remain in the Hutch. However, she teleported to the Eagle's Nest each day to participate in the political discussions.
The Pipers fled to the Red Mountains, and over fifty homo sornicus slaves escaped with them. With covert assistance from the ever scheming Kim Catworthy, Rick Stent arranged for supplies, weapons, and tents to be delivered to the Green Glen in an armed convoy of three duckmobiles. The drivers were all Atums who'd settled in Peaceville, and they travelled through the Pink Canyon to avoid detection by the Walrusians.
3.6. Arrival of the Gentoo
Twenty Strontian days after the Rainbows' arrival on Torus, the light blue sky above Xan turned dark grey. The Space-Dove Iustitia, en route from Planet Retreus, was moving across the face of the Pi-Sun. The Iustitia descended to the planet surface with pin-point accuracy and landed between Divinity Mound and the banks of the Tazi. The citizens of Xan congregated on the mound and on Liberty Hill, and the people of Peaceville hurried over the bridge to find good vantage points.
The gigantic space-craft was creamy-white in colour and shaped like a turtle dove. It took a long time for anybody to emerge. Eventually a hatch opened, and a squat creature clambered down a rope to the ground. She resembled a human-sized penguin, but with long arms protruding from under her wings. She was promptly presented with bunches of roses by Kyle and Drew Rainbow, Jordan having tripped over a rock and strained her ankle several minutes earlier.
"Thank you, fellow sentient beings," said the creature. "I, Puntus, President of Planet Retreus, come in the Holy Spirit and bring fraternal greetings from the Gentoo nation. I can't exaggerate how wonderful for it is for we, the Gentoo, to be in contact with other intelligent life for the first time in over two of our millennia. Welcome to your new universe!"
To the Rainbows’ surprise, their host Min Kap stepped forward to greet the Gentoo on behalf of the Council of Tavars. Then Professor Mileza Erdosa Z4 shook hands with Puntus on behalf of the Zazins. The crowds applauded wildly and the chattering wood pelicans on Bird Hill clucked in delight. A pride of mottled sparrow-dolphins circling majestically overhead raised their silver tail fins in apparent salute.
That afternoon President Puntus and his deputy met with Mileza and the Kaps in the Tavars' tiny rose garden, while Drew and Kyle served the tea and Kim served the cookies. Jordan was sent to scrub the bathroom floor and clean out the loo. The primary objective of the high level discussions was to foster peace and harmony both on and between the planets.
The Gentoo had developed a hi tech, peace-loving society, following the brutal extermination of their sadistic rivals, the Mu, on Retreus two thousand of their planet’s years previously. Nowadays, there were no slaves on Retreus and all disputes were settled reasonably amicably. With future interplanetary trade deals in mind, they now wished to use their immense experience to beneficially influence life on Torus.
When Mileza advised President Puntus about the tense political situation on Torus, the president saw challenging but not insurmountable problems ahead. A 'frank and honest' discussion ensued.
"But do you think," asked Mileza, "that there are circumstances where peaceful, non-violent people like yourselves might feel compelled to use violence, in order to safeguard the future of their populations?"
The president thought carefully before responding in detail. "That question was last relevant on Retreus when the Gentoo overthrew the Mu, and for a century or so after that. There comes a point when autocracies become effectively insane as far as the people they rule are concerned, though they frequently retain a strange, conditional sort of sanity within their power base. They then have to be overthrown for there to be any prospect of a rational future. That is why the Fifth Mu Dynasty had to go. However, the rule of the Gentoo was arguably just as insane, and then we exterminated the remnants of the Mu, even the peace-loving ones, down to the boiling of the last child in Novgorod. Indeed, none of the peace-craving Gentoo were prepared to stand up to their own murderous autocrats. However, when the Great Prophet descended to the Mount of the Archangels, he led us forward with a sense of true worthiness and the murderers vanished into oblivion."
Mileza looked most impressed. "And now, all these centuries later, we are wondering whether to ferret out the cruel despots from among my fellow Zazins," she replied, "but we need to protect all of our sentient creatures and not to find a single creature of any of our species guilty by association."
"God speaks for both of us, Professor. Find the murderous leaders and destroy them, and then build your new, all-accepting society."
"Thank you, Madame President. May I ask how long you plan to stay on Torus?"
"Sixty of your days, at most, Mileza. I need to return to Gentoo City in time for Thanksgiving. I will, however, be leaving several of my senior colleagues to help and advise you here."
That could create a strange sort of time anomaly should we visit Planet Retreus in the future, thought Kyle. I'll need to check it out on my Einstein calculator.
3.8 Sudden Departures
The next morning, two expert Gentoo implanted teleprojection crystals into Mileza Z4's and Kim Catworthy's forefingers.
That afternoon, Mileza and Kim teleported from the Hutch to the Golden Eagle's Nest in the White Mountains. Dr. Splat Z3 was sampling a glass of vintage wine with the libidinous Bayesian biologist, who was describing her conquests of several curvaceous homo sornicus captives, two of whom were trying hard to recover from the Bayesian's attempts to impale them with her prickly, ever expanding shark-dildo.
"And I put the tall one into a tit-grinding machine," said the Bayesian, just as Mileza walked onto the veranda trailed furtively by Kim.
"Hiya!" said Mileza. "What a breath-taking view! What's up?"
"I've just been elected founding president of the Interstellar Society for Bayesian Analysis," drooled the smug biologist, squeezing her bristling orc, "and we're making plans to flush out the rebels in the Red Mountains, using a brilliant..."
Kim flicked her forefinger and the evil Zazin vanished into thin air without even a flash or a whimper.
"What happened to her?" shrieked Splat, shaking like a jittery poltergeist.
"Exactly what's about to happen to you," replied Mileza, with a flick of her finger, and Splat vanished, screaming her head off, in a crackling flash of dazzling light.
"My crystal was orthorhombic," explained Mileza, and Kim looked confused for once.
Several minutes later, Splat and the horny Bayesian biologist were joined in Teleprojection Reception on Planet Petreus by the other eight other Zazin observers. From there, the ten Zazins were sent in friendship capsules to the Gentoo College of Peace and Harmony in Novgorod, where they were confined to the lower basement and encouraged to enroll in a long and arduous re-education program.
In the meantime, Kim and Mileza released the couple of dozen homo sornicus captives who'd been strapped to BDSM crosses in the Golden Eagle's Nest. Then they all teleported together back to Xan.
Kyle, Drew, and Fox spent a total of forty Strontian days in the Kaps' cabin. But they were enjoying a relaxing tossed salad snack with their gregarious hosts when they were suddenly teleported back to the solitude of their triangular desk on Katrina.
Unknown to the Rainbows and owing to the time compression, only 0.432 Kepler seconds had elapsed during their visit to Torus, and they were totally confused to hear their parrot still chanting the ditty, 'If I were the pecking kind'. Drew told the silly bird to 'shut the fuck up'. Then Jordan throttled it.
The love triple were relaxing on their upholstered bed ten Kepler minutes later, when the Super-Automaton spoke through their ceiling.
“Thank you for visiting Torus, official Atum love triples,” said the shrill voice. “L-tube videos depicting highlights of your children’s lives will be sent to you ASAP. Many of your grandchildren are still alive, for the moment at least, and a gargantuan family tree is in preparation. Some of you will doubtlessly have made potentially significant contributions to long-term evolution on that planet... Whoops!... You may well have found this announcement a touch disturbing. Maybe I should have explained a curious time effect to you before making it.”
Kyle, Drew, and Jordan were besides themselves in horror and bewilderment.
“That means that I will never see my darling baby ever again,” wailed Drew.
"And we will never experience her teenage pangs as she grows...grew up," agonized Jordan.
“I’m sure we will,” howled Kyle. “It must be the ghastly Zazins pulling another of their mind-tricks. Yes, we will, will, will!”
No comments:
Post a Comment