THE TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER

KYWATCHERS!  HAVE YOU PLAYED THE PNEU ALIEN INTERGALACTIC LOTTERY YET?
WIN YOUR VERY OWN PRIVATE PLANET.  TEN MILLION PLANETS REASSIGNED EACH
EARTH-WEEK.  GRAND PRIZE WINNERS MAY ENJOY ONE THEY CAN theoretically VISIT
WITHIN THEIR LIFESPAN. (Note: Not applicable to humanoids over age of 20.) SPECIAL
GRAND PRIZE WINNERS MAY CLONE A MODEST POPULATION FOR THEIR PLANET,
INCLUDING PREPLANNED MUTANOIDS!

PLAY TODAY!  WIN TODAY!  ABSOLUTELY NO WAITING!


The Pneu Alien Intergalactic Lottery is sponsored by Glookanauts, Universal

The message had been hand-carved in bas-relief on the surface of a nearby asteroid by an industrious, if somewhat exhausted Glookanaut, but now was only one of a multitude of attention-seeking devices in the spaceburbs around Boondock which garishly proclaimed the return to the age of that baneful exploitation of humanoid senses, commercial advertising.

The Glookanauts -- those peasant-minded, if not altogether fervent, disciples of The Wonder Computer -- had been awarded this area by the Space Court to distribute their soft-core non- edible propaganda, and now the spaceburban ano-gravity was bursting with floating astrokiosks and hyperbooths sporting cosmic come-ons and galactogibberish.

Some of the more interesting literature handed out included the papular pomphlets, ‘Salvation and Evaporation on Astrogoobers a Day’ and the always useful ‘Duet Yourself Home Cloning.’

And the promotional gimmicks! Not since astroadvertising had been outlawed on Old Earth in 2040 had humanoids been subjected to such tactics -- alpha wave suggestors, four-color digital hypnomessages, and free lunch inculcation rays.

It was into this fanatic den of Madison Astroavenuers that Quand 20E’s space trawler plunged, as it reentered real-time space after a multi-page absence. During that time, the Saturnian had remained mostly unintelligible, due to an overabundance of ammoniweed-inspired reveries. Even now his two minds were divvying up a giddy dream of Saturnian sylphs and cudgelling cubes of cosmocheese...

...when he was suddenly jolted back into a posi-prook fixed state of consciousness as his vehicle slammed into several hundred startled Glookanauts at -- unfortunately for them -- breakneck speed.

Sensing the zone of unassuming sitting ducks and brittle fingers through which he was rapidly plowing, Quand 20E tentatively formed a chuckle-tendril and sucked on another ammoniweed. Boondock was just around the corner.

And on Boondock, Bong arose from his cramped squatting position which he had dutifully maintained since his arrival and studied the blips-gone-mad on the Lookout-o-phon. The spaceburb-situated Glookanauts were moving about in a terrific frenzy -- like spastic blinking lights on the electropinball machines -- and unless this was some new kind of advert ploy, there were in some sort of discomfiture.

But so, too, was Bong, as the speeding armed space trawler plunged uncontestedly towards his bungalow on Boondock.

Neither of Quand 20E’s minds, deluged with ammoniweed-grafted pleasure tendrils, was able to appreciate the rapidity with which the planet was being approached. Instead, he used level 3 telepathy to pick up the final score of the Chewball Tournament back home.

Millimoments passed, and the Saturn-dweller learned two disconcerting facts from the quivering thought tendrils in the anoatmosphere around Boondock:

1. Chewball Tournament postponed because of raid. (Raid! What raid?)
2. He was about to (uh-oh) crash....

The Karmora Papers is Copyright ©1976,1993,1996 by Dennis Báthory Kitsz and David Gunn. All rights reserved. If you enjoy this book, an appreciation fee of any amount may be made to Dennis Báthory-Kitsz or David Gunn at Malted/Media Productions, 176 Cox Brook Road, Northfield VT 05663.

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