She sat down against a bole of a tree and wept.

Bill drank some more wine and thought about this. When he looked at the maiden, his heart still went pitter-pat. A Trooper being a Trooper, he still wanted some fast and heavy action, but the iota of farm clodhopper still remaining in the core of his being was moved by this delicate flower of a woman.

"There, there," he said, thinking of words to comfort her. "Maybe some way-out, enthusiastic s.e.x would make you feel better!"

"Oh, you male chauvinist pigs are all alike!" said Irma, and she wept yet more.

Now, Bill thought this was a compliment, and was touched deeply. "Look, I'll get us both out of here, Irma. But first we have to compare notes." In protracted and boring detail he outlined his origins, and how he'd been dragged here by the licentious satyr. Irma, blinking back perfect tears, sniffled and listened. Bill had to wake her up twice during the repet.i.tious parts, but at least she tried to pay attention.

"Now it's your turn, Irma. Tell me your story."

So Irma did just that.

IRMA'S TALE.

or "Snow Job"

My full name is Irma Feritayl, and I'm from a planet called Fey in the Softscience system in the Half- Baked Sector of the Galaxy.

When I was a little girl, I had lots of kittens. Pretty little b.a.l.l.s of fur, oh! such soft and cuddly creatures. I loved cats and kittens so much that the servants called me Kitten, and that's still my nickname if you want to call me that. Anyway, I had a kitten called Moonbeam and a kitten called Dusty and a kitten called Snowflake. They were such funny things, and they loved to play with yarn and scamper about. Oh, we had such fun! Did I tell you about my kitten called Mr. Furball? He had these strange gray spots all over his rear end. Anyway, these kittens when they became cats weren't psychic or anything, but I wish they had been, just like in the Snortin' Andy books I used to read. You know about those, don't you? Like GALACTIC PETS. And my favorite, b.i.t.c.h WORLD. No? Oh, they're sooooo good.... All the heroes and heroines are psychic and they can talk to animals! Oh, and did I tell you about the kitten I had called Sir Troublemaker. Well, when he became a cat...

Bill interrupted at this point and suggested that Irma get past the bit about the kittens and get to the point.

Any point that wouldn't send him screaming out of his mind like this dreadful cat c.r.a.p.

Oh, sure. So, did I mention I was a Princess? Yes, my father was King Hans Pagan Feritayl. What a wonderful father! He was the one who gave me all the kittens. And we had a family counselor named Merfud. It was Merfud who divined that I was a Special! I don't know if you know what Specials are, but some people call them Talents and some call them Espers, and some planets just call them Nerds.

Anyway, Merfud figured that my Specialness was that I could psychically speak to Unicorns!

Unfortunately, as there were no Unicorns on Fey, I didn't get to use my specialness very much. But still I knew I was not only a Special, but a Special Princess!

But now the story gets sad. I was kidnapped by the evil Queen Snowjob in the country of Great Big Frosty Mountains when I was just a teenager. Worse, she spread a genetic curse on my father's land of juvenile. Communicable Zits! Whew, was I glad I wasn't there! Did I tell you I had a boyfriend? Well, I did. His name was Joe. Joe and I both liked cats, which is why we got along so well. And also, Joe was a Special, too. Joe could talk to slugs. Unfortunately, that didn't help him much in his quest to rescue me.

He didn't make it too far, either, before he died of Terminal Acne. Or that's what the evil Queen Snowjob told me, anyway. I found out pretty soon what Snowjob wanted from me. She wanted to rule the whole planet of Fey, change the orbit around the sun, and turn it into a galactic ski resort. She'd made a deal with the Chingers to get a Special Cosmic Unicorn shipped in to Fey - and she needed me to communicate with it!

Well, when I found out about this, I knew that I could never be a party to this evil plot. Daddy hated tourists! So I had to find a way out. And I did just that! I explored the lower regions of caverns and found a sewer grate. I opened it and with a lantern I navigated my way down deep into the sewer system.

I had been wandering a very long time, when I saw a light ahead! It was an opening! So I walked out....

And I found myself here.

When I looked around, though, the hole had closed up.

And so, here I've been stuck for what seems like forever.

The End The beautiful princess called Irma sighed and put her head into her hands.

Bill rubbed her back sympathetically. Such a sad story. It was also the most incredible load of lachrymose bowb that he had ever heard. Only he didn't dare tell her that since he still had plans to get into her knickers. "You know, maybe a little s.e.x would cheer you up!" he said brightly.

"Oh, Bill. Let us just forget awhile the crude l.u.s.ts of the flesh! I think you are one of the most majestic creatures I have ever seen. May we simply commune from soul to soul?"

"Soul to soul? Isn't that a Galactic Motown record by Outta Sight and the Pimps?" Bill said.

"No, silly! It's a form of Romantic Psychic Telepathy, just like in BLAZING ROMANTIC SCIENCE COMIX!".

And when she flashed her baby blues at him, Bill simply turned to silly putty in her hands. Having drunk the entire goblet of wine may have had something to do with this malleable state, but actually Bill was in fact as smitten as his tough Trooper training would allow.

And so, for a time, the sweet object of his affection communed with Bill's soul on a spiritual plane, which did absolutely but nothing for him. And it really had been a long day. Clutching her warm hand in his he drowsed off and communed with some heavy zzzzzzzz's.

CHAPTER 5.

THE RAPE OF IRMA.

Lightning, across a bloodshot landscape.

Thunder, banging out like a brobdingnagian belch accompanied by the wail of a thousand petulant p.u.s.s.ies.

Bill woke up - vaguely - to spaghetti.

Color-coded spaghetti, wound into a coil, snaking away into machines, chugging and clicking, needles needling, dials dialing.

A squeaky voice: "Partial consciousness, Unit Alpha V!"

Another voice, chalk on a blackboard: "Dampen! Dampen!"

"Endorphins at optimum level already. Unit resisting unconsciousness. Awareness level reaching drugged but dangerous level."

Bill groaned. Where the h.e.l.l was he? He saw stretches of stainless steel stained by little green amorphous blobs.

Focus! He had to focus. Where the h.e.l.l was his Trooper discipline?

"Well then, slug him again, you idiot!"

A ma.s.s of resonant density fell directly upon Bill's noggin, and once more this particular Starship Trooper saw the stars.

When Bill awoke the next time again, he found his head in the sweetly scented lap of his beloved Irma.

She was stroking his hair and gently rambling on about the delights of p.u.s.s.ies.

"...and then there was Featherhead! Oh, that cat just adored his catnip! Of course, we had to get him declawed after he scratched that poor serf's eyes out, but oh well!"

Bill scrunched around and was rewarded with a magnificent upshot view of Irma's magnificently impressive b.r.e.a.s.t.s expanding above him, blocking out the view completely. Which was all right with him.

What a Heaven!

What Paradise!

What an incredible existence! Who cared where the h.e.l.l he was! Bill immediately decided that wherever he was it was lightyears better than anywhere the Troopers could send him.

With satiated pleasure the lovebirds talked and sipped the dear wine for a brief eternity beneath an Aegean sun, not too far at all from the wine-dark sea, and just down the hill from Mt. Olympus, while sprites and songsters, dancers and satyrs played with Maypoles and whiled away the day with more of this kind of bucolic, fresh air Baccha.n.a.lian stuff.

Bill could not remember when he had been happier. Though to be precise Bill could not remember ever being happy, but it does not pay to split hairs: for a gentle two or three hours the sun shone, orgone surged through Bill's body and his sperm-filled eyeb.a.l.l.s swelled mightily under the pressure. He was relaxed and content, caught up in the fanciful spell woven by the climate, the wine, and the concupiscent creature prattling incontinently on beside him.

Little did this happy-for-an-instant Trooper realize that this happiness would be oh, so brief.

Irma had suggested a walk.

She was an enchanting creature, the stuff of pure dreams. Bill had never encountered a woman like her before. To Bill, women were not mysterious beings; mystery implies intellectual thought, and all Bill's thoughts on the subject were unambiguously coitus connected. Except for his mother, of course. Bill's memories of her were pretty vague and he was sure that she had been kind and gentle; but he couldn't really remember. Which meant that memories of an earlier, possibly gentler existence had been entirely driven out by s.a.d.i.s.tic Trooper training and his loathsome experiences in the wars. Still, Bill had a soft spot in his heart for Mom; somehow he'd eluded the usual Trooper heart surgery on the subject.

Yes, he feebly remembered the days with Mom back on Phigerinadon II. He remembered the lullabies she used to sing, "Song of the Pa.s.sionate Porkuswine" and "Ole Girl River" in her slightly grating, off-key soprano. Bill remembered the chocolate-soy brownies she would nuke in their homey homemade atomicwave oven that had accidentally killed Dad. He remembered her gentle whippings with the robo-mule prod when she caught him reading w.a.n.kY TRI-D COMICS on the Sabbath instead of studying the Neo- Koranic Texts According to the Subgenius Bowb of the Zoroastrian Nabobs for his religious upbringing.

He remembered how she had smelled of sour groundhog yogurt, and the way their kitty-kebab suppers tended to stick on her mustache and nostril hairs. He remembered the wonderful soft blue of her skin when she would have those circulatory problems she was wont to. (Poor Mom! Parts were always falling off her at the most inopportune moments.) But most of all, he remembered how Mom would rock him to sleep as a child when he had the colic.

She'd put on some old blitz c-nodes and make Bill dance to near-exhaustion, urging him on with blasts from their old microwave gun warming the seat of his pants. When she finally allowed his little head to hit the pillow, Bill tended to fall asleep immediately.

Yes, dear Mom was a creature apart from all other women, and Bill treasured those trace elements he had left of her in the burnt-out neural banks of his shriveled gray matter.

Other women?

Well, there were the licensed hookers of course. Bill seldom attained a higher level than the two bucks for two minutes variety to whom he was joyfully addicted. Occasionally he had glanced with lurking l.u.s.t at the hard-bitten Trooper females. But since they tended to wear aluminum bras and chain mail panties, keeping their skulls shaved for easy node-implants, Bill hardly thought of them as s.e.xual objects. (Far too many Troopers tended to get their joy-plugs burnt if they tried the fleshy interface with one of them.) And then of course there had been Meta. But even Meta, with all her wildly exuberant female attributes, her high octane s.e.xuality and her 90 proof pheromones, was hardly what you would cla.s.sify as cla.s.sically feminine.

Irma was.

In fact, she was not only cla.s.sically feminine; she was feminine cla.s.sically. She was sweet and gentle, her words kittenishly playful and teasing at times. But she could also listen, jaw agape, to what Bill had to say. With those big, round blue eyes full of awe; eyes that Bill could fall into, could drown in their great blue lake of wonder. He coughed and spat lachrymosely, intoxicated not merely with the huge amount of wine he'd downed, but by the subtle shifting of her scent, of her lithe limbs beneath the gauzy gown; the way her gentle fingertips would occasionally touch his swelling biceps to emphasize a point.

Little did Bill realize it, but here he encountered a threat far worse to his well-being as a Trooper than any Death Juggernaut of the Ether, any Fry Ray of the Cosmos that the dreaded Chingers could throw at him.

Bill was falling in love.

They held hands.

They baby-talked to one another. (As this was a step up in Bill's language skills, he couldn't do it very long.) They told each other their deepest longings. (Irma wanted a new kitty-cat, and Bill wanted a bottle of Old Granbowb.) They walked in springtime freshness while lovebirds chirped amidst the olive branches and doves cooed softly and musically at their feet, occasionally squawking as they were stepped on.

Since the doves looked terribly delicious, Bill would have blasted one for dinner, if he'd had a blaster on his belt. Instead, he made a grab for one, caught it around the neck and would have wrung that neck, but for Irma's horrified remonstrations.

"But I'm hungry!" said Bill with no little amount of frustration. "What do you guys eat here!"

"Why, ambrosia, of course!"

Bill looked down at the thrashing dove, and then looked suspiciously at Irma. Memories of the terrible reconst.i.tuted food on that grand old lady of the s.p.a.ce fleet, the f.a.n.n.y HILL, bubbled loathsomely in Bill's memory. Here was fresh meat in his hand, as opposed to questionable victuals from Irma.

"It's very good!" said Irma.

"Hey, is that a rainbow over there?" said Bill, pointing.

"Where?" Irma spun around and searched.

With deft flicks of his wrists, Bill stuffed the dove down the front of his jumpsuit. Just in case ambrosia was anything akin to starship galley chow.

"I don't see any rainbow," said Irma, turning and looking at him, batting her pretty eyelashes with bemus.e.m.e.nt. "Where's the dove?"

"Oh, he flew away." Bill grabbed her hand. "But, dearest creature, let us not dwell on dreary doves but speak of other more tender things. Let's walk away further down there, all right?"

"Down there" was a nice private little dip in the field, a gully where some gentle brook doubtlessly burbled merrily. Bill's intentions were, of course, entirely unchivalrous. They'd drink the jug of wine that dangled from the goat-skin that Irma had scrounged somewhere and he wouldn't hog it at all but would let Irma get just a wee bit tipsy. Then he'd suggest an innocent skinny-dip in the sparkling water. And then, when she got ahold of his manly physique and her feminine juices started mixing it up with the alcohol - whamo! - she'd be putty in his hands. What a way to go! What a snazzy plan!

However, no sooner had they reached the edge of this delightful scene, (and there was indeed a most delightful burbling brook here, Bill saw with great interest) than a sudden sharp screeching tore through the enchantment, like a schoolteacher's claws on the 3-D board!

"Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!" went the ghastly sound, somehow contriving to fill the entire universe with its gigantic gurgling. Somewhere buried in that terrible sound was pulsing music as well.

"What the bowb is that?" said Bill.

"Oh dear," said Irma, looking up resignedly. "We have ventured too far out into the open. I forgot that Zeus desires to slake his l.u.s.ts upon my maiden loins."

Zeus sure wasn't the only one, Bill thought, but what did that have to do with that noisome noise?

He looked up, and was immediately stricken by quivering, shaking, quaking fear. Descending quickly from the sky, its black form obscuring the sun, was a monstrous bird shedding mites the size of grapefruit.

Wrapped around its neck were gigantic speakers. The result was a frightening avian ghetto blaster mutation!

And was that the Phigerinadon II national anthem it was playing? "In Awe We Kiss the Emperor's Big Toe. Pyakh." No it wasn't. It was an archaeological treasure from the dawn of time sung by Elvis Pelvis.

"OmiG.o.d!" cried Bill. "What is it?"

"It's a Rocker!" cried Irma. "Oh, please, Bill - don't let it get me! Be my hero!"

Bill's mighty sinews bunched, preparing for battle. His awesome fangs bared, his fists fisted, he took his stance against the creature, and looked up to snarl out his challenge.

He saw the flash of scythelike talons, the gnash of the sharp, giant beak, the glint of murder in its huge black eyes - Bill immediately turned and ran for his life.

"Bill!" cried Irma despairingly. "Bill, don't leave me!"

Bill kept on running. He glanced backward as he ran to see if the Rocker was following. Fortunately for him, it wasn't. Instead it was descending upon the hapless Irma, wings furling down and flapping up a horrendous wind that struck Bill in the face like a slap. He watched as the creature hovered above Irma and curved its talons around her.

The gauzy robe ripped and fluttered as the creature seized her. With a squawk and the audial sneer of Elvis, the Rocker took flight again, soaring high and flapping toward the distant mountains, gusting up a great cloud of dust.

Bill stood and gaped, coughing in the dust.

The fear gradually seeped away and deep regret took its place.

A solitary lonely tear dripped down his cheek, across his lip and onto his fang - where it mixed with saliva and slopped down onto his cloven hoof.

What a terrible loss!