morning, Sergeant Lim. We’re onto something.
I was. We are. Right. And it’s Detective Lim.
‘I didn’t mean to stall.’
‘You don’t erzackly stall, baby—you just fuck arourf a lot.’
Childish giggles. Can’t be just because they’ve been slowed down for
nine years or whatever in deep-space. I think they really are like that.
‘Damn yo’ white hide, at least you could tell me how my wife is!’
‘Now hoi’ you on, mista, whose skin dat you’s a-damnin’? Stella’s
great, kid. I mean really great.’
Some sex in it, then. But answer the question, punch. Whose skin
just got damned?
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Norman Talbot.
‘So’s Plush. She’s marvellous.’
‘T hat right?’
A silence. A very little one.
‘Incomparable. We’re pregnant.’
PANMARINE NEWSFLASH 29, for 12.22.36, at 17.45 hours: Multiworld-record-breaking athlete Taafa Omi, who last week signed with the San Antonio Gilas for an incredible 200 MegaC transfer fee, has been admitted to
the Austin Medical Analysis Centre. His manager, Larry Bo, has released a
statement to the effect that his admission is part of his attempt to answer the
repeated allegations that his brilliant performances have been artificially aided
by the so-called Indetectable Deep-Space Drugs. IRS officials have impounded
the records of Omi’s multi-MegaG enterprises, Weightless Trainer and Weightless Weightwatcher, sine die, perhaps coincidentally with Omi’s latest move.
Deep-Space Medical experts Commodore Theodore Slatecoat and Vice-
Commodore Shawn Loftis are expected to head a wide-ranging investigation.
The former served with Omi on the history-making Beowulf Expedition.
Thanks, Vera. Sex and drugs and M ulti-MegaC rolls.
So what’s the investigator in Austin doing at Panmarine Base? Conspiracy?
‘Congratulations. But what I meant was, how’s she compare —
compare with at first?’
‘You mean in bed? In general? With Stella —no, you don’t mean
that.’
‘Guess that answer’s part of what I meant.’
‘Well, naturally, “at first” was magnificent. So confident, thoughtless
even. . . Kind of hot-coffee laughter about everything. . .
‘You likes yo’ coffee black, suh? Yeah, well, I’d say we rated honey-
colour. Honeymoon, maybe. Does your coffee stay hot?’
‘Yep.’
‘Not bitter? Reckon not. Little cloudy?’
Having a great time sloshing around in food metaphors. W hat
would Freud have said? I’ve no idea; what would he have said? A bad
sign for a criminal conspiracy, anyway, punches.
‘Plush and I have maybe been trying a little bit too hard, but we’re
learning. I can just about step out at will, now.’
W hat in hell are they talking about? It’s got to be sex. Presumed
wifeswap. But why are they confessing and laughing at the same time?
And who’s the other one? On 24-HAR-370 there was Blanchis, De-
maine (she’s dead), Filosofia, Kokkolevu, Kuman, Knight, M adan,
Munro, Omi, Robbins, Shona, Tan (most of the women seem to be
dead), Tseung, Van, Vittoria, Voronsky, Walden, Wiglaf, Wreidt,
After the B eo w u lf expedition
97
Zurbaran. Will you check, please?
Check what? And with where? Your list is correct.
‘Yeah. Me too. Magnificent, but with signs, right?’
‘Like goodbye signs?’
‘Well, back-to-normal signs. Deja vu. Look, kid, did you never think
maybe Plush was getting a lot like Stella?’
‘Intensely, sometimes — but it was nice. Hey, do you mean our deep-
space magic is cooling off?’
‘More separating out, or diffusing. Adapting, could be even
infecting.’
Magic. Oh come on, guys.
‘But it doesn’t get weaker. It’s blossoming, dammit, Slatecoat. And
ours is the only one that worked, wouldn’t you say?’
I ’ve got a feeling Detective Lim, that these childish big idiots are carrying something very weird. Infectious’ did he say?
‘Maybe because we got twice the helping. Kid, this is going to be a
lot screwier than just screwing. Better brace yourself for impact.’
Indetectable Deep-Space Aphrodisiacs. Take two mis instead of
retiring. Still, that stuff about helpings sounds a bit more solid.
‘You know, Slatecoat, you’re getting into some kind of subcompulsive state, and trying to infect me with it.’
‘Now that’s an accusation you’d have been incapable of making this
side of HAR-370!’
‘Before HAR-370 I never needed words like that. Nobody ever
threw a sub-compulsive state at me!’
‘And now I do?’
‘Hell, no, not just you. I do it to me. And Plush too, in a way.’
‘And your little fireball Stella, she just does that sort of thing all the
time! But why the overkill? I ain’t in no sub-com-anything.’
‘You’re in something, no shit. Even here, you keep moving, looking
round.’
‘Jumpy, yeah. Churned up —not unhappy, just uneasy. You and
Plush, you read each other’s minds?’
‘A lot, but it doesn’t churn me up. You know, Plush and I slept from
Lunar-base to Panmarine. I never did that before, not a wink. Peace
tends towards change, as K says.’
‘Tends towards change’—That’s Kubla Wiglafs Live Toronto tape, the
‘Peace-fall’ track. And that’s another one you can cross off your list. PAN
MARINE EDUCATIONAL 203, 7.29.36, at 19.00 hours. The meteoric
rise and sensational suicide of singer-composer, poet-translator, astro-computer
wiz Kubla Wiglaf have stimulated savage controversy throughout the literary
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Norman 'Talbot
and entertainment worlds. The violent Fijian Fundamental School of Revolutionary Criticism and the Arnold-heavis Moral Axis have now joined the Edinburgh
