Touching Cloth

Beefheart sat in stunned silence for a moment, jaw gaping, searching for a suitable opener.

"- ", he began, then stopped.

"Uh...", he ventured.

"OK", shrugged the doppelganger. "We'll start. We have assumed this form partly to conceal our true nature from you, but also partly to get your attention. We brought you here for a reason and we went to great lengths to make sure no one else would know where you were so we'd have enough time to tell you what you need to know before we send you back."

He smirked at Beefheart and took a long drag from his cocktail.

"Back? ...from the dead...?" slurped Beefheart through his own drink. His gaze drifted toward the ocean and the two naked giggling figures splashing in the surf. "But maybe I like being dead...."

His train of thought was rudely disrupted by being slapped hard across the face. Head swimming, he dragged his attention back to the sight of his own face glaring angrily back at him from the next seat.

"Listen, numb nuts, we don't have much time and you've got to try and drag your sorry excuse for a brain into third gear before it's too late. We snatched you from the bridge of your ship because we couldn't risk Danzig's troops killing you, but your trigger happy crewman fired up the Zen Gun before we could get an accurate fix. Your shielding blew up like a fucking firecracker and we spent three days trawling the space lanes around Port Salut gathering up your component particles before we could risk reassembling you here."

The doppelganger paused to empty his glass in two large gulps, while gesturing to Louis to refill both drinks. Beefheart closed his eyes, frowned and rubbed his forehead to show he was trying to take it in but as his alterego began speaking again he found the sensation of his own voice telling him things he couldn't understand in an angry and highly agitated manner too reminiscent of his time in therapy and reluctantly opened his eyes again.

"Danzig heard that you were dead but now he's going after the rest of your crew with everything he's got. He's even using Interceptors for fuck's sake! They got Bob on Ursa Major Beta and have been torturing him for the last two days." The stranger paused, frowning, before continuing, "So far he seems to be enjoying it, but that's Bob for you."

"No, that's not right. I spoke to Bob a few minutes ago and -"

"And nearly gave the whole fucking game away, shithead!"

Beefheart winced and braced himself for another slap, eyes closed. When it didn't come, he cautiously opened one eye then gawped in amazement to find himself on the bridge of the Beefheart. Leaning over the navigator's station, deep in conversation with former Ensign Perreira, was the eloquently shapely form of the newly promoted Captain Ubermilf. Beefheart watched her hips gyrate as she shifted her weight from one foot to another and wondered whether she would be as pleased to see him as it was becoming apparent he was pleased to see her.

"Now that," leered the now familar figure at his side, "is the kinda trunk space you want in a late model car!"

Beefheart giggled despite himself and glanced around the bridge. "Am I to assume from the lack of pointing and shouting in our general direction that we aren't actually here?"

"Not exactly. We're here but on a different plane of existence. Part of the technology we've been developing for the last century. We can open a transdimentional portal to another location in space and time, within certain operational parameters, and either observe or interact as necessary. This is what Danzig is after so desperately - with this he could become truly omnipresent and set himself up as God. A sort of "management buy-out", if you will, or I believe "regime change" is the fashionable term."

Beefheart slumped against a bulkhead, his ego pricked liked a soap bubble. "But I thought he was after me..." he pouted sulkily. The doppelganger shook his head despairingly, and the two winked out of existence just as the astral form of Taoski entered the bridge. It stood for a moment, wide eyed and speechless, wondering whether to share his vision of two manifestations of his former captain with the rest of the bridge crew, then decided it wouldn't help his reputation as a "mystical looney toon" as Piebeard had so succinctly described him.

Back in the bar, two slightly sozzled captains were wrapping themselves around another round of monster frozen margueritas as the stranger of the two tried to get Beefheart to grasp the problem.

"Danzig was after you. He wanted you dead because of what you know and because he couldn't risk you finding us, or vice versa. Now you're out of the frame he's going after your crew because he figures they're his best bet of finding us and getting his hands on our technology. We stepped in to make sure you weren't hurt because you're the one who holds the key to bringing his empire down. With me?"

"A'solutely not", slurred Beefheart. "What is it he thinks I know that's so dangerous?"

"You know," smirked his other self, "but you just don't think you know, and we know, but we can't tell you. You've suppressed the memory and if we just told you what it was you'd be so traumatised that - "

"Horseshit!" snarled Beefheart, leaping uncertainly to his feet. "You're fucking with me to play some sick game and - "

Beefheart stopped as he found himself in near total darkness. A sickly sweet smoke drifted around him, the smell of which seemed vaguely reminiscent of a half forgotten nightmare. A chill settled on to him like a damp shroud and he shuddered.

The sound of shuffling footsteps crept toward him and gradually the darkness lifted, revealing a stone flagged floor and damp stone walls. In one wall, a heavy, brass studded oak door, ancient and impenetrable. In the opposite wall, a stone staircase, the steps worn smooth and hollowed by centuries of wear. Down these steps into the room crept the trembling figure of an altar boy holding a fat, greasy candle which dripped over his surplus and left a trail of wax in his wake.

Beefheart felt his heart grinding in his chest as he recognised his own childhood figure. Memories stirred in his subconcious and he felt like his head was full of snakes as he watched his former self creep toward the door, then freeze in horror in the middle of the room as with a mighty groan the door began to swing outward into the room, obscuring Beefheart's view of what lay beyond.

Clouds of incense billowed from beyond the door and an unearthly light flooded into the dank stone chamber. The young Beefheart's eyes grew to the size of saucers as he stared open mouthed at what lay beyond the doorway. A desperate, gasping, wheezing filled the air, the sound of a 50 Capstan Full Strength per day nicotine habit, and with a slow, heavy tread the towering figure of the future Pope Danzig, now still just a priest, entered the room.

The black robed figure swished to a halt a pace away from the terrified altar boy and, addressing him by his confirmation name, extended a leather gloved hand and wheezed:

"...Luke.... join us..."

Torn between obeying meekly and fainting with fear, the young Beefheart looked in abject horror first at the scene beyond the door, then up at the priest's face.

"F-Father....?" he stammered, then coming to his senses he dropped the candle and fled in horror back up the stairs as fast as his trembling legs would carry him.


An abruptly sober Beefheart sat with his legs dangling over the wooden verandah of Chez Jules, staring disconsolately at the sea. The second figure lowered himself gently down next to him and, without a word, passed Beefheart a bottle of Sailor Jerry's Spiced Rum. He waited a moment to allow the liquor to take the edge off some tattered nerves before continuing.

"We don't have much time," he spoke quietly. "You're the only one who knows what happened in that room and is in a position to use it to stop Danzig - we can't use the information without risking giving away our location. You have to rejoin your crew, rescue Bob and unlock what's in that head of yours so you can stop Danzig before your crew get themselves killed or - worse - manage to bring him here."

"But I don't understand, why would they be looking for you here? This place is a myth, no one knows for sure if it even really exists..."

Beefheart took a long slug of the rum and furrowed his brow as realisation slowly began to dawn, like the first watery sun of spring creeping across an arctic tundra after months of darkness.

"One of our technicians opened a portal on your plane to try to lure the pope's spies into a trap. We hoped to send them back to the Dark Ages where their fanatical views would be considered heresy and they would be burned as witches by their own ancestors.

The plan worked and we disposed of a whole operational cell setting Danzig's work back by years, but the portal was left open too long and your comrade sent something through in the mistaken belief he could retrieve it the next time it was opened. Your crew have been looking for it ever since."

Beefheart sat in stunned silence, mouth agape, struggling to regain the power of speech. His doppelganger sighed, looked at his feet for a moment, then turned turned to face him and confirmed what Beefheart had already begun to suspect.

"That's right.... Midway is what you know as.... Blogadoon!"

Sudden Discomfort

In these enlightened times, most right thinking persons (as opposed to " Right" thinking") were against the killing of sentient or even semi-sentient beings for pleasure. There were, of course, a few exceptions and the hunters were quite vociferous in their opposition to laws banning the killing of other life forms solely for personal gratification.

Politicians, lawyers and activists wrangled for centuries until at last a solution was arrived at which all concerned finally - however grudgingingly - agreed to. The rationale was this:

If the hunters want to hunt, let them - but let them hunt each other.

There were a few token voices of dissent but secretly even the hunters were overjoyed. At last, they would get to waste someone with a gun and no one would call a bad on them. And so it began, the great Hunting Forest Reserve planets of Ursa Major. The rules were simple:

1. To avoid anyone gaining a tactical advantage, all hunters were to carry biometrically tagged weapons and ammunition that could only be used by their owner, so there was no possibility of anyone stockpiling weapons when killing the opposition.

2. Everyone landing had to carry enough supplies to last at least two weeks, preferably containing grain alcohol and tinned beans, although these were not compulsory.

3. No one was allowed to stay longer than three weeks and, to ensure this rule was enforced, all candidates were implanted with a time limited biopoison which would release a powerful coagulant into anyone unwise enough to outstay their welcome. Miss the last bus home and you'd congeal into a giant scab within seconds.

White Boy Bob was, however, a Frequent Fryer at Ursa Major Beta. Pondering Beefheart's sudden demise and apparent attempt to communicate from beyond death, he crouched in a patch of swampy undergrowth, motionless, scarcely breathing lest he disturb the party of hunters checking their weapons a few inches in front of him. Newly arrived, they were in the "Yeah! Woah, yeah!" stage of psyching each other up and reassuring one another they were indeed "total bad asses".

Once they'd finally high fived each other for the seventeenth time, they flicked their portable cannon controls from "Safety" to "Extreme Hazard" and steeled themselves to set out into the jungle.

"Perfect", thought Bob and had just begun to tauten his finger on Stella's trigger when the lead hunter's face exploded all over him. Unflinching, Bob watched with an amused if confused air as each of the remaining hunters looked from one to another in shock for a second before each suffering a similar fate. Bob remained motionless and waited for the barbecued flesh smoke and blood vapour to disperse in the mist, careful not to reveal himself to whoever had made such short work of these newbies. As he watched, a shadow detached itself from the Banyan tree opposite and coalesced into the unmistakable form of a member of the Secure Hostage Intercept Team. It reached a blood spattered hand down to the cloaking unit on it's belt and flicked it from Stealth to Dispersal mode. Unable to see the figure directly, Bob knew he would now only be able to detect it in his peripheral vision but to turn his head would be to reveal his own location.

"Shit!", he thought, "...Interceptors...I don't need this...."

The S.H.I.T.'s were the law's last line of defense in certain parts of the galaxy, the kind of regions where distinctions between legal missions, black ops and out and out piracy tended to be blurred and no one on either side of the law, Bob included, would have anything to do with them if they could possibly avoid it. But why were they here? It wasn't like they needed an excuse to waste people - it was in their job description.

Bob concentrated his attention on the very edge of his vision and was sure he could see a shadow moving away from the clearing in front of his hide and off into the jungle. With aching slowness, he carefully rolled his eye a few degrees to his right, only to find himself looking down the charred muzzle of a Rezznor 8000 Particle Disruptor. The same weapon, he assumed, which had so recently turned the faces of four hunters into marinara sauce.

"Is this your hide, sir?" chuckled the shadow.