Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [91]
ELRIC: “I fear, sire, I bear more of life's demands. At best brief rest—but not the oblivion you crave.”
A fresh face at the Terminal Cafe …
“Taffy” Quelch walks into the Cafe with a box under his arm, waving to familiar faces both at the tables and in the audience.
TAFFY: “Don't mind me, pards … I just dropped in to watch the game.”
Taffy finds himself a seat by making some of the machinoix move along a bit… The machinoix are in holiday mood, perfectly agreeable…
TAFFY: “Thanks, pards. Any chance of a cup of tea?”
A machinoix offers him a dark, gleaming icepop on a stick and a large paper cup which has written on the side “Poincare's Solution Xtra-Strong”—
MACHINOIX: “Plasma-pop?”
Taffy raises a graceful hand to refuse the offer…
TAFFY: “Kind of you, lad. I'll wait for the Darjeeling.”
He looks back at the tier behind—
TAFFY: “Anybody know the score?”
At the main table Jack Karaquazian, Michael Moorcock, Walter Simonson & Colinda Dovero are playing intensely. Jack in particular is absorbed.
We see the Original Insect within the table.
WALTER: “We can save Sam here …”
MM: “Let the poor bastard go.”
COLINDA: “Save him—or play on?—Make your move, sir.”
JACK: “Put on some speed—watch over me … no time for sentiment …”
Now—out of the table—comes the schooner, piloted by the Rose. The machinoix are spectacularly delighted and so is Quelch.
MACHINOIX: “The Rose!”
“Our girl is racing for the touchdown!”
QUELCH: “What a pilot! She made it! Now our side has a chance!”
Spammer Gain's progress is suddenly stopped—she's achieved maximum mass and is perfectly balanced between being and non-being …She's reached Oblivion Dock …
This picture could make a virtue of compression, if you liked, so we could give the next panel maximum space…
SPAMMER: “Ah, this density, this constipated meaning … I can no longer move. I'll never see my fishlings again … Past fades. There's no future. And the present is a universe of pain …”
Kaprikorn Schultz, who sought to slay her with his trickery, is himself no more than an entropic echo …
KAPRIKORN: “We need no metaphysics
To sanction what we do
Or to muffle us in comfort
From what we did not do …
“Again the multiverse defeats me
And turns me to dissipate smoke
So it's goodbye
To bagpipe music
As the bell begins her stroke”
…and the Rose discovers the Original Insect already threatening the Grey Fees …
The Rose steers her schooner to the Grey Fees where the Chaos Engineers are already embattled. Noble deaths as the Straight Arrows tear everything up. But the Chaos Engineers retaliate with every musical force they can muster… Buggerly Otherly, MaMa Singh, Father Fry and one or two others are left—Corporal Pork and Raider Miles are killed by Yanni and Schubert respectively…
ROSE: “Howdy, pards. Looks like you're losing …”
MAMA: “Rose! I knew you'd come. Pearl Peru's imprisoned and Spammer's lost to Oblivion Dock!”
BUGGERLY: “Every moment we lose more of our best to Law's sententious appetites. Sweet Rose! By heck, I'm glad to see thee!”
The Original Insect—her pathway cleared for her by the Straight Arrows which now swarm around and ahead of her like those little fish that swarm with sharks—is eating up the Second Ether, this time in the persons of the Chaos Engineers. Everything behind her is a total void, an absolute absence … Speed Camus’ plane is in trouble. All this on a giant display by Captain Otherly as she shows Rose the problem. Rose still has the helmeted head of Prince Gaynor the Damned [wrested from his body in Part Eleven of Moonbeams and Roses].
BUGGERLY: “We've tried everything—Mozart Squadron's gone, Rotten Wing's down, you name them …Not a riff, not a symphony pierced that thing's appalling armour.”
MAMA: “We've lost Wagner and Siouxsie Command. Joy Division's holding. Bartók, Reich, Zappa, Garcia, Debussy, Townshend, Ravel, Grainger and Kingsize Taylor Squadrons—all down—We have one Graham Parker side holding the whole 596th single-handed.”
FATHER FRY: “Hendrix