PIKE SPEAKS

he old proprietor of the Interstellar Chinese Food Take-Out Mart hunkered over his hydrochestnut-encrusted thermonuclear wok and remained still. The stir-fried Space-a-roni sizzled and began to char. Quickly the heating device turned into a miniature crematorium, sending smoke billowing up to the ceiling where it activated the sprinkler system.

Most of the customers in the Mart were used to the scene and paid it little heed. Bob turned to Pflud.

"Pike’s meditating. It helps him to relax. But we’d better order something else. Let’s see ... I understand the Sweet ‘n’ Sour SnoCones are pretty tasty ... plus, they’re semi-intelligent, and can communicate with you, provided you don’t eat their talkpores. How does that sound?"

But Pflud wasn’t listening. The light shower from the sprinkler system had moistened her leaves enough to awaken the weevils with which she was infested. No amount of chlorotonic seemed to be able to rid her of the embarrassment. She began to twitch uncomfortably.

Bob leaned over to affectionately press one of her leaves to his temple, and several hundred of the wriggly critters dropped onto his shirt and neck. Brushing some of the hungrier ones away, he said, "It’s okay, Pflud ... I understand."

But he didn’t really. He didn’t understand why he’d had so much difficulty on the Ecstatocaster. He didn’t understand why his orders had suddenly been countermanded, cancelling the expedition to Saturn. He didn’t understand why he dreamt the same awful dream each night, in which the Likable Triple Cities were horribly demolished by a force from beyond the Mokus 5 system.

Pflud sighed, her breathy voice wafting sensually through the room like so many lice cuddling together in an open sore. Bob roused from his reverie.

"Perhaps we’d better go, Pflud."

But suddenly, from out of the steam-shrouded cooking area a low moan arose.

"Ohh ... ahh ... there’s danger! So much danger!" Pike had apparently untranced himself and was reviewing his revelations.

Punching a row of buttons on the counter, the sprinkler system shut off and the steam clouds were sucked out through some vents in the floor. "I need some AstroGastro," Pike muttered, dumping a new batch of Space-a-roni into the wok.

Except for Bob, Pflud and the old proprietor, the Mart was empty now. Bob was determined to learn what Pike had foreseen in his trance, since he had made a pile of money off of the outcome of a Chewball Tournament which had been envisioned during a previous "meditation.’

"Well, what’s up?"

Pike flushed. As the water swirled around in little blue concentric circles, he said, "There’s trouble, Bob. Someone from out there ..." -- he pointed vaguely off in the distance, towards Saturn -- "... holds the future of Mokus 5 in his tentacles, and he’s not in a particularly sound frame of mind right now. I fear doom is just around the corner!"

"But...but there must be something we can do!"

"There’s an underground terrarium near here. Your friend might be safe there. But as for you and me ..."

An ominousness rumbled at them from high in the sky.

"Then again, it may already be too late."

The three of them glanced upward and saw a speeding aerobus, its aqua tint glinting in the mid- day sun. It didn’t take much arithmetic to deduce that the space vehicle was on a collision course for the Likable Triple Cities.

"I, ah, think I could use a shot of that AstroGastro stuff myself," said Bob.

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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