Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'Food to shit,' he repeated. 'That interesting. You look next time you cut some joker open. You have good look, poke around inside.It don't hurt him, he dead by then, so you look. Man, I spend two days once with some joker's belly. That good thing. Food come down to stomach, see, then-'It was a long explanation. Yot listened, then said:

'It's not really the same thing. You see, we change food to – to something not food because, well, we're alive. But fire isn't alive. Fire changes only because god is in the fire, demonstrating divinity. You understand? Animals are alive, plants are alive, but fire isn't.'

Yot repeated this in three different ways, trying to get the facts into Whale Mike's head. When Yot was finished, Mike sat for a while staring at the fire with his tiny, imbecilic eyes. He looked puzzled. Then his fat, stupid face split into a grin.

'Now I understand what you getting at,' said Whale Mike. 'You think maybe fire not alive. Then maybe fire god.'

'You're getting nearer the truth,' said Yot. 'That's good! I'm glad you're starting to believe.'

'Man,' said Mike, 'I hear, that one thing. Believe, that something else. You real fancy speaker, but you got no more sense than rabbit fart. You not get upset now, we good friends, but I got to say this. You think fire not alive, but him alive all right. Him good friend, that what.''Fire-'

'No, you fart later. Now listen. Fire, him alive because he need feed, otherwise die out. Him born just like us, live strong, die grey. You put him under water, you find out how much god you got there. He die under water, you try some time.'

Yot did his best, arguing his thesis remorselessly. But whatever he tried Mike countered. Finally, Yot and Drake withdrew, leaving Mike to tend his fire in peace.

'He's too stupid!' said Yot angrily. 'He can't understand! All he can think about is a woman with a soft arse!'

'Well, that's understandable,' said Drake. T can identify with that.'

'Oh, you would! No, Mike was the wrong choice. He's not really human. He's – he's a filthy stupid animal. We should try someone else. Someone smarter.''Like the Walrus, perhaps?' said Drake.'Well. . .'

'It's pretty late,' said Drake. 'We'd better be getting some sleep. What say – what say we leave conversions until our next good meal? Okay?''Okay,' said Yot.

Even religious fanatics need to go to bed sooner or later.

The Old City: remnants of a military-industrial complex (properly known as Karalagazoko Atalamiti Zenavanarik) built in Penvash during Technic Renaissance which briefly revived some of the High Science which had survived the terrors of the Days of Wrath; wrecked during Genetic Mutiny, an episode so destructive that accounts of it were few, inaccurate and fragmentary.

Next day the pirates rose early, stoked their fires, blessed the night for sparing them from rain and snow, tore the last sinews from the bones of the animals they had murdered the day before, checked the stowage of their wealth and weapons, then started downstream in high spirits.

Soon they encountered another gigantic phallus of green star-stone, just like the one they had seen on the previous day. Bucks Cat repeated his remark about his uncle Habby, for Cat treated jokes as consumer durables, to be used as long and as often as possible. Jez Glane, in turn, repeated his desire to find a matching 'woman-one'.Then a little horseplay started.

Jon Arabin let the more boisterous burn off their surplus energy. When things started to get serious – Simp Fiche suddenly acquired a bloody nose, and a couple of tempers showed signs of being the worse for wear – he called them to order and led the way downstream again.

Up ahead was a hammering sound which grew steadily louder as they got closer. Nobody suggested turning back. Marching in strength, with weapons to back up their

muscle, today they feared next to nothing. The fresh meat so recently put in their bellies had made them new men -and heroes, too, at least until they encountered some real live danger with claws to it.

After half a league, they reached a stunted tower from which came the hammering. The ground round about shook; they felt like a handful of lice standing on the skin of an enormous drum being beaten with a big silver ladle by a one-eyed hunchbacked dwarf wearing red velvet trousers and red felt slippers to match.'___ ________ ___ ' shouted Slagger Mulps.'____________?' shouted Jon Arabin in reply, having seen the Walrus's mouth move.'____________ ________________' replied Mulps.

Arabin made a curt gesture of discontent. They moved downstream until it was quiet enough to hear themselves shout.

'Man!' said Jon Disaster, his head still ringing. 'The sound of that thing's like being knocked about the head with a mud pack.'

That started a comparison competition, which Simp Fiche won by comparing the hammering to something too gross to bear mentioning.

They went on with added confidence, believing by now that they had found the Old City of legend, and had met the worst it had to offer. They passed many ruins half-hidden amongst dishevelled evergreen forest. Often they had to scramble over walls of honest-built granite, great blocks of it good for another thirty million years or more, at least, if left to do their job in peace.

The ruins grew steadily higher, while the river dividing those ruins grew wider, chuckling along cold and hard. Sometimes, the earth throbbed underfoot. Steam and thin threads of acrid yellow smoke drifted from cracks in the ground. One place echoed with the chimes of a dozen bells, which they could not locate, though they looked hard, on the off-chance that the bells in question might be made of gold.

Late in the afternoon, Rolf Thelemite, who was in the lead, cried:

'Careful coming over the wall! There's a hole on the other side!''My kind of hole?' called Simp Fiche.

'Your kind?' said Jon Disaster. 'We didn't know you were choosy!'

'I am, you know,' replied Simp Fiche. 'I like them tight enough to bleed.'

And when Fiche saw the hole, big lips of stone opening into a tunnel glistening with wet pink light, he declared it too big for him.

'But Jez will try it, surely?' said Burpskin, with a glance at Glane. 'After all, it's the woman-thing to match the man-spike.'

After a certain amount of hilarity, as pirates competed with each other in crudity, nothing would serve but that Jez Glane must lower himself into the hole.'I don't think that's wise,' said Drake suddenly.'Why not?' said Glane.

'It doesn't feel right,' said Drake, who, for no reason that he could pin down, had a terrible foreboding about that hole.

'Doesn't feel right?' said Glane. 'Man, we haven't tried it at all yet! How can we know how it feels?'

'Yes, for sure,' said Bucks Cat. 'He's got to lose his virginity some time.'

'Who knows?' said Glane. 'There might be something down here worth eating.' And, with a grin, he got in. 'Nice and greasy,' he said. 'A snug enough fit. AndHe frowned, for the lips were closing on him.'Pull him out!' said Jon Arabin.

Whale Mike snatched Glane by the hair, meaning to yank him from the hole. Too late! Metal spikes slammed from the sides of the hole and riveted Glane through and through. Impaled, he tried to scream, but his agony was too great for him to cry out.

Steam hissed up. Then, with a glutinous bubbling sound, the hole filled with boiling yellow fluid.'Stand back!' shouted Jon Arabin.

They leaped clear as the fluid fountained up, burning where it fell.

'I'm burnt! I'm burnt!' cried Raggage Pouch, scalded by the flying fluid. Staggering blind, he fell into the river.

The fluid in the hole receded as rapidly as it had come. Jez Glane was gone – all but for his bones, impaled on bright steel. Even as they watched, the bones crumbled. There was the 'Whoosh!' of a great in-suck of air – and the last traces of their deceased comrade were gone.