"Watch it, Bill. Archy's had the trots lately," warned Rick. "He will eat prunes, prunes, no stopping him.

Literally."

A brilliant blue and green parrot suddenly hurtled through the hatchway, screeching like a banshee on fire, letting fly at the same time with a cloacal catapult. There was a spattering on all sides. Bill did a quick Aztec twostep and nimbly skipped aside. But Rick (the Supernal Hero) was a little slow on the uptake, or bombed out on dope or something, and he caught a portion of the stuff on his forehead. He cursed mellifluously as he pulled out a spare scarf and wiped his forehead. Then he put the scarf on his shoulder and waved the parrot down. In a dazzling flutter of cobalt and emerald Archimedes landed, farted psittacinely, and promptly turned his head sideways, suspiciously eyeing Bill.

"Awwwkkkk! Bird killer! Awwk! Avicide!"

"I was hungry," Bill whined apologetically. "I didn't know that this beaky b.a.s.t.a.r.d was sacred. And, anyway, what's it to you, bowb-bird?"

Bill had had enough of avian trouble by this time and he jabbed out a threatening forefinger at the parrot - which squawked angrily and promptly bit it. "Yeow," Bill howled and sucked the throbbing digit.

"Archimedes - do be nice to our guest. You know I can clone you in a blink of a bird's eye and get meself a better parrot. With better cloacal control. So you had better be good."

"Awwwwwwk! Archimedes good boy! Awwwkk! Who loves ya, baby?"

"Can't clone his pleasing personality, though," said Rick, giving the big bird a kiss on the beak. "Say Bill, interesting foot you got there. What gives?"

Bill looked down at his cloven hoof and scowled at the sight. He didn't feel like waxing enthusiastic about the mood foot explanation, which did not bear thinking about. Much too bizarre and depressing. When in doubt, lie, as the old Trooper motto ran. "I'm a fighting fool of a Galactic Trooper. Ran into a radiation storm in the course of my highly cla.s.sified duties. I can tell you only that the foot, shall we say, mutated!"

"Why, that must be painful!"

"I can't tell you. That information is also cla.s.sified."

"Well we really are a bundle of secrets! And a Trooper to boot. Which fact I find highly relevant. I have just lost me first mate to a case of venereal scurvy. I told the fool to use the impervium condoms if he was going to vacation in the Backdooria system. A little uncomfortable, yes. But what are a few peter abrasions compared to the horrifying alternative. Think he listened to me? Got a bad case of the Fades and just wasted away." Rick eyed Bill's considerable musculature appraisingly. "Don't suppose you'd be interested in signing on as First Mate. Got meself a Quest coming up, and I could use a little qualified help."

"Sorry, pal. I've got to find a girl named Irma. She's my true love, and locating her is the only way I'm going to get this decaying dove off my neck." Racked now by self-pity, sniffing with sorrow, Bill explained the whole sad story, all the way from the hospital on Colostomy IV to the business with the Rocker and Zeus.

"Awwwww! Zeus! Zeus!" The parrot opened its eyes wide, squawked with fear, c.r.a.pped copiously onto his master's shoulder, then flapped noisily back into the starship, screeching hideously as he flew.

"Does Zeus like parrot stew or something?"

"No, actually the overs.e.xed deity got ahold of poor Archimedes after he swanned Leda, if you get my drift. Traumatized poor Arch. But it just so happens, completely by chance - but what else is serendipity for - that my Quest is taking me to one of Zeus's main hangouts."

Bill frowned. "You mean, he's not here on the pinnacle of Mount Olympus?"

Rick laughed. "Olympus shimpus! The summit of the mount is about ten thousand feet further up. This is just a Johnson Howard's s.p.a.ce Traveler's Comfort station." He pointed out the dark green building beyond a boulder that Bill had missed. "Had meself a hankering for about fourteen of the Three Hundred and Twenty-Eight Flavors."

"Could you give me a lift up to Olympus, Rick? This bird is really starting to rot." Bill's nose cringed as he looked down at the dead dove. Flies buzzed around the thing; the x's in the corpse's eyes x'ed back at him emptily.

"Yes, 'tis getting a little ripe, ain't it. Well, me hearty! I'll make you a deal. You come along with me, be my first mate, and I'll put that avian in a stasis field. Be my first mate and we'll probably find Zeus at his favorite watering hole - the destination of my Christian quest!"

"And what is that?" asked Bill suspiciously. Christians had a generally bad reputation on Phigerinadon II, ever since that Holy Roller show had held a revival on the Phalanges Continent amongst the Donner Settlement. The Hyper-Donners, being cannibals, had of course eaten these missionaries - and had suffered terrible bouts of indigestion for years afterwards. Hence the bad reputation.

"Why, for the second most fabulous quest of them all!" said Rick in a highly oratorical manner. "The Quest for the Holy Bar and Grill!"

Bill smiled enthusiastically. "Where do I make my mark!"

CHAPTER 7.

FIRST MATE BILL.

After all the mythological bowb he'd been traipsing through, it was nice to get onto a starship again. True, it wasn't precisely as comfortable as a Trooper starship, which made it the general galactic equivalent of a riveted steamboat without extras, but after the heavy G-force take-off almost mashed his face into a pulp, he learned his duties as first mate. For the most part these consisted of cleaning up the parrot droppings from the floors, walls, and even the ceiling - this parrot was really an aerobatic c.r.a.pper - and dumping the results into the hydroponics room. What pleasure to realize that he had finally become a Technical Fertilizer Operator! Thus fulfilling his life-time ambition. It was an easy life, even if it was a c.r.a.ppy job, easier than the Troopers, and Bill quickly got pretty used to things. Also, Rick was as good as his word on the dove business - he'd gotten out a can of "Loo Stasis," a special electronic fix for noisome starship heads, and gave the bird a good blast. The smell had ceased immediately, and would theoretically stay away for a couple of months. Of course he still couldn't get it off his neck, and if you touched the thing with a finger you'd get zapped by static electricity, but it was a small price to pay for containment of birdrot stench.

Once this problem was solved, and Bill had learned his other responsibilities as first mate, the days settled down to a fairly agreeable, though basically boring, routine. Up at the crack of pseudo-dawn. Breakfast of plasticized hardtack, ersatz salt pork and imitation artificial coffee. Clean up parrot droppings. Manure hydroponics. Dust free-fall bowling trophies. Lunch of hardtack, salt pork and coffee and a bottle of rum.

Vomit. Clean up parrot droppings. Manure hydroponics. Mop the decks and press the b.u.t.ton that activated the death ray that cleaned the heads. After first checking they weren't occupied since the captain took a dim view of him death-raying the crew. Take navigational reading and help Rick plot new navigational course according to Rand McNally's GUIDE TO POSSIBLE COORDINATES OF FABLED STARSHIP PORTS. Feed super-hamsters that powered the star-drivers. Dinner of hardtack, salt pork, coffee with artificial sweetener subst.i.tute, then two bottles of rum and the juice of one lime to add some flavor and to prevent s.p.a.ce scurvy. Recreation hour. Tell dirty stories. Curse. Vomit. Pa.s.s out. Just like back in the Troopers.

Most certainly, though Bill cherished the highly challenging and rewarding vocation of Guano Engineering, and the rum was nice (even though he strongly suspected that it was dehydrated alcohol and rum essence that Rick mixed with tap water in the kitchen), it was the recreation hour that Bill enjoyed the most. During this time, he and Rick could swap stories, or Archimedes and Rick would put on what they thought were their hilarious comedy schticks and soft shoe routines, which bored Bill so tremendously that he would fall asleep if he even thought about them. At least when their act ended Bill was free to read or watch Rick's huge supply of alien p.o.r.nography (he particularly enjoyed THE MATING FROLIC OF THE SEVEN VENUSIAN s.e.xES which appeared to be a combination of a complicated orgy and SWAN LAKE).

However, as placid as life was in this Quest for the Holy Bar and Grill, he had to come to the conclusion that there was something definitely unreal about it. Ever since Bruce the satyr had dragged him into the ocean things had been just a shade less than substantial. Oh, the first bit with Irma and the Fields of Elysium, the Furries and the climb up the mountain had all seemed real enough. He'd seen, felt, tasted, heard and smelt the usual wash of sensations. He'd performed the usual bodily functions with the usual enthusiasm, or lack of it, had drunk and l.u.s.ted with the exact same urgency and specifics that had imbued his farmboy days and his Trooper career. And while in a normal human life, admittedly it was rather odd to meet up with mythological creatures, get a dead dove slung around your neck, then go gallivanting after your lady love in a starship named DESIRE with a possibly immortal hero and his neurotic parrot, Bill had, in his brief lifetime which he hoped to extend, experienced unusual adventures in a number of exotic and nauseating places. (Which are chronicled in a number of exciting volumes all available at the outlet where you bought this book.) He took it all in stride.

However, from time to time, he would catch glimpses of disquieting unsolidity in his peripheral vision.

Nothingness. Blankness. Nada. Tabula rasa. He'd swing his head around quickly, and whatever was supposed to be there, be it control board, dope dispenser, ersatz imitation food-subst.i.tute machine, dehydrated water-closet, parrot, Rick - suddenly was there. But only after a subliminal blur, a shuffling of the air, like a suggestion of a quick Tri-Dee dissolve or an acute hangover.

Since what rum he could keep down generally kept Bill numb enough to not care much (although in truth rum was soon knocked off his list of top ten alcoholic drinks, and he yearned for their arrival at the Holy Bar and Grill if only to drink his fill of other potables) what happened one morning was particularly upsetting. Yawning and blinking and wishing that the word rum would be permanently stricken from his memory banks, he noticed after awhile that he was having a hard time sealing up his s.p.a.ce boots. Or rather he wasn't sealing up his s.p.a.ce boots because he wasn't closing the seals. He could not close the seals because the stumps of his arms could not do the job because his hands were missing.

The wild frantic screaming and fits of panic woke up Captain Rick and his parrot soon enough. Yawning, Rick the Supernal Hero raced down to see what the fuss was about, wearing only his galactic Dr. Dentons and a yawn, Archimedes in full flap behind him.

"My hands!" Bill shrieked incontinently. "They're gone!"

Since Bill was waving his arms in the air and running hysterically around the room, thoroughly panicked, Captain Rick quickly realized that something was wrong.

"Oh by Heavens! Has the venereal scurvy struck again! Have you been touching something that you should not have been touching, you naughty Trooper. Here, let's have a look!" Rick ordered, placing a monocle over his good eye.

Quivering and shaking with this most frightful trauma that can be visited upon a Trooper, eyes averted, Bill slowly and reluctantly extended the stumps of his arms.

"Awwwwwk!" screeched the parrot, horrified at all the screaming and raw emotion. Somehow, it managed to hide its eyes with its wings.

"Well, I must say, this is a tempest in a teapot. Or something to do with the fickle finger of fate. There is, I am forced to say, no sign of disintegration, and certainly none of disappearance."

Baffled, Bill opened reluctant eyes and looked at his wrists. Hands. Two. Both in place.

"What kind of bowb is this?!" Bill howled in relief. "What's wrong with me? I'm going mad, I tell you, mad!"

"Let us do try not to overdramatize this late at night."

"Yes, I'm sorry." Bill's teeth chattered as he explained to Captain Rick the feelings of unreality he'd been experiencing lately. Since Bill was particularly frazzled and looked as though he wasn't going to get much sleep that night, Captain Rick treated him to a gla.s.s of warm soy milk with honey and mustard and rum.

Guaranteed to cure anything. Or at least to take your mind off your troubles as you retched your guts out.

It was a measure of Bill's distraction that he actually ingested the atrocious concoction and held his gla.s.s out for seconds.

"Arrrrr!" Captain Rick agreed, shaking his long locks. "I know what you mean, mate. I get that feeling from time to time meself. It's a strange life, it is. I'm just hoping I get me answers to me questions that have haunted me lo! these many years at the Holy Bar and Grill."

"Questions. What are your questions?"

"Why, the eternal questions of the Philosophers, of course, Bill me lad. The riddles that have haunted mankind since the ancient days, e'en before distilling was invented, which must have meant a pretty grim world.

"Namely, who came first, flying saucers or Raymond Palmer? Or, its logical corollary, did Raymond Palmer come from a Flying Saucer?

"Two, which came first, the chicken or the Western Omelette with home fries on the side?

"Three, if a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, does it fall upwards or downwards?

And its corollary, if a deaf man falls in the wood, does he make a sound?

"Four, does G.o.d exist, and if he (or she) does why does drinking too much eventually kill you, why does s.e.x produce disease and finally why can I never get good tickets for the Galactic World Series?

"And finally, Bill, the real stumper, what is the meaning of life, why is a man born, why does he live, and why does he die - and where the h.e.l.l can I get a good bottle of Pepto Abysmal for Archimedes. I'm getting sick of the smell of parrot bowb all over the place."

Bill's head reeled at the depth of these philosophical questions. Incredible! Profound! It was all too much for him, so he asked for another soy milk and pyech to obfuscate the implications aborning in his head.

To relax him further, Captain Rick told him his story.

CAPTAIN RICK'S TALE.

or "Stars in My Handkerchief Like Clumps of Green Gunk"

to unwind the digital alarm clock.

So ginsberged out for the universe to give him a moniker.

The sub-voice answered with an eructation.

Belched forth the answer: Kid, you sniveling cyberrunt brats.h.i.t, what the bowb do I care? Captain Kid, Captain Rick, career astronauts and beats with bongos pound and sound forth the international anthems, and sheesh! the price of bananas in Nicaragua has skyrocketed, and elevator operators grease their a.s.ses with their thumbs, and Walden's and Dalton's are really down on Pynchon-hitters lately, so what why should I give a good Gesundheit? Anyway, I got this mouthful of cold espresso in my mouth, and h.e.l.l if I know why? Jesus! Ptoui! Tastes dreadful!

Another minute Kid squatted on the Johnny-on-the-Spot, clutching his New York Review of Books and Little Magazine toilet paper, listening to his heaving breath and kerouac inner-music.

Beyond leafy trees, moonlight painted, wallpapered and interior decorated strips of fashionable West Village light in the forest.

He rubbed poetry across his b.u.m. Somewhere in Soho (or maybe Tribeca) an art gallery opens a William Burroughs shotgun art show. The whole city has turned into skysc.r.a.per after skysc.r.a.per of art galleries in this fiction-turned-semirealscape of stranger-than-real gangs wandering inanely about with holograms for switchblades.

The leaves leered and winked.

The woman wearing a sweatshirt of shadows and a Jimi Hendrix hairdo rose up from the dark culture of Sixties and smell of hashish. A pill of light lay upon her nose.

Captain Kid and the woman had s.e.x, and then tried to figure out what would happen in the eight hundred and seventy-seven page anticlimax.

For what is "Myth" but the neo-deconstructionist prose of a missing literary critic who lisps?

"Huh?" said Bill, quite baffled.

"Oh, sorry, that's the highbrow version for my intellectual friends at c.o.c.ktail parties," said Captain Rick.

"I dare say you want something more soothing. Arrrrrrr. Yes, I have just the thing."

Rick rolled out his thousand watt amplifier as big as a s.p.a.ce tug, his Stratosphere-blaster electro-drone guitar. He laid down a few tasteful deady-metal fret licks (deady-metal being the au courant fashionable version of rock-and-roll, where computer-operated corpses of electrocuted murderers fronted your standard lead guitar, kitchen synth, drum and ba.s.s ensemble) and began to sing.

Archimedes squawked and, in a hail of feathers and a critical splatter of fresh doo-doo, fled the room.

CAPTAIN RICK'S STORY.

TAKE TWO.

"Ballad of the Supernal Hero"

They call me the Hero with a Thousand Faces.

I see lots of things and go lots of places.

I'm a mythic hero, I like to ramble.

But my hero's not Joseph but John W. Campbell.

Ye see, sometimes I'm a pirate, sometimes a saint, But first a h.o.m.o sapiens; coward I ain't.

Mankind was meant to rule all these stars Build malls and condos, and taverns and bars.

As I child I was a wimp, I found nothing arousing.

Till I read John on Dean Drive and Dowsing.

Now I travel from planet to planet, circ.u.m-celestial Killing things smart and extraterrestrial.

"Terra Uber-alles" I sing with a belch and a shout And my surging male humanity I like to flout.

And when things get grim, and bare goes the cupboard I just pull out DIANETICS by good old Ron Hubbard.

My greatest adventure. Hmm, well, let me see.

There was the time in a cantina that I had to wee Alas, I'd left my blaster in my digital locker There in the stall was Lay-ya and Luke Starfokker.

Now Lay-ya I'd divorced 'couple years before s.e.x with a princess was mostly a bore.

Luke I thought was raising sheep on Mount Shasta.

"Help!" Luke cried. "We need you and your blaster!"

"Lord Brain-Death is back, the Farce help us all.

We hear Heavy Breathing, and that is his Call.