each one bisected so that half a trunk carried a leg, an arm and half
a head and the entrails hung to the ground and streaks of blood
blackened the shining marble pillars — oh, that is death, that is
death: blood-slimed festoons of guts hanging to the ground with
dogs ripping what they can reach and the pitiful little penis of an
axed-in-half m an and the tears you might shed over the curling
brown sex hair below the ripped belly of half a not-yet-married girl.
Sesemene, no fop, did not avoid the meaning of Take me Fomalhaut:
death, girl flesh slashed and blood released to blacken down pillars.
Arrogantly he rode between the halves of these innocents, rode to
Fomalhaut on winged elephant and starship, fought at Fomalhaut,
but did not stay all the years of the war. Returned there at last to
hear — ‘Lord, Fomalhaut.’
From me strange learned Fainey-Juveh would maintain a formal
distance: eagle-clawed entrail-ripping Sesemene he embraced. For
him the blue-faced emperor was alive, riding his eternal winged
elephant down that charnel-hung avenue to Fomalhaut for ever
and ever amen. Tiuark lived, all the five Tiuarks, all the forty-four
Tenikis, the six Selenippes, the twenty-one Ororons, the three
Pvattis, the seven Pvatchis, Chuchah the Devil, and Chuchah the
Builder, Henorahk the Priest, Fiodek the Three-eyed, Charmesh of
the Five Thousand Children (is it possible? Oh yes, oh yes). T hat is
Jagging
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the meaning of empire — a man, gorgeous and grandiose as all
men, free of all checks, possessor of all power, building into the
world all his dreams, those known and those secret even for himself,
the beautiful and the sickening, building in real stone, real iron,
real flesh. The myriad of his subject willingly subject themselves
because it is better to see their dreams made flesh by somebody else
than never.
Gentle intelligent Fainey-Juveh said ‘Autocracy is the only form
of Government worthy of man. W ith anything else one’s life drains
away in unrelieved mediocrity and no one sees a dream worth the
name made real.’
Still high on the splendid visions of empire this strange jack had
given me, I said, ‘Do you support Jahenry?’
He thought a moment with his bald dome shining, his long lips a
little thrust and his eyeglass windows aimed away to the stars. Then
said, 1 suppose I am inconsistent at times.’
Because now we knew each other so well that I understood he
didn’t like Jahenry, Berlit was much more his type. And also we
both understood, with nothing more being said, that inconsistency
is truly the salt of hum anity’s thoughts and deeds and dealings.
Inconsistency, being unpredictable: it is the source of all laughter
— take me, take Orry, take Fiormaria, Kolissa, G randm other
Tiuark, Sesemene, Fainey-Juveh . . ..
But now Trivash, the emperors’ garden, was an airless ball of
slag. Bubutap after whom the emperors took one of their titles
(What? This big big jack emperor comes in — Pvatti II like a fighting cock wearing foot platforms to make him taller than his gang of yesboys — comes in and they all suddenly stop their heads-together
eyeball-to-eyeball talking and smarten up and yell ‘Hail, Bubutap!’
Bubutap, they say, Hail Bubutap — ! O r — or — Sesemene the
Conqueror, eagle-faced, lean as a blade strides into the High
Audience Cham ber and the lords there in one voice — really, one
voice — shout ‘Hail Bubutap!’ and you think of those raging vortices and freezing methane belts out there on the giant that takes up half the sky and you know that some jack has entered that cham ber) — yes, Bubutap whose great name the emperors grabbed for their own, and Bubutap into whose storming gas seas they sank
vast power stations, and Bubutap who sat always like a swollen
apple in the Eden of the Trivashti mind — this Bubutap spins on at
some fantastic rate and its gas storms rage and rage now at this
moment and will rage until the end of time. But time has ended,
