Andrew MacLaren-Scott's Blog, page 115

Night in the ruins

Further adventures after Report on Sample 717, following on from here...

Much later, deep into the dark night, Edrig and Adrig sat together on a convenient crumbling stone ledge protruding from the rough grass of a thickly wooded area in the middle of the ruined city, with crumbling and precarious high shells of ancient buildings rising into the darkness around them.

Their new companions had started a fire by skillfully scraping stones against the abundant dead wood that lay conveniently all over the place, and amid the loud crackling and spitting of combustion the high orange flames were erratically lighting the trees and bits of wrecked civil stone that jutted up beside them.

There were twenty three of these people, Edrig had counted, so twenty five beings around the fire in all, and so far as he could make out they were the only intelligent life in the entire place, accompanied only by the primitive sounds of little woodland creatures and the sparkling of stars in the gaps between dark clouds.

A large stone trough not far from the fire was filled with what seemed to be a thick sludge of fermented apples and a few berries.

'Beer', Adm had said while pointing at it and offering Edrig and Adrig small leather vessels with which to scoop up some of the foul-looking bubbly liquid and drink. All of their new companions were drinking, including the two small children and one heavily pregnant woman, so despite some reluctance both Edrig and Adrig had scooped up a little and prepared to take a sip.

'Technically cider,' I suspect, Adrig had pointed out to Edrig, to which Adm had just said, 'Huh' as he watched with an encouraging smile. Adm seemed a kindly man, Edrig was thinking, as he resisted the urge to gag at the stench of the brew. Indeed they all seemed very friendly and kindly, and he had quickly noted that there were more women than men. Just six men, two of whom looked very old, although Adrig had whispered that they looked rather like the prematurely aged victims of radiation poisoning.

'There may be an opportunity for us here you know,' whispered Edrig, as he nodded towards a few of the women who did not seem to be associated with any of the men, but Adrig was too preoccupied with the attempt to swallow some of the liquid, since a refusal to do so would surely offend.

'Consider this my boy,' Adrig said quietly to Edrig as they both held the vessels near their lips. 'Our chromosomes will be so much more resilient than theirs. Our enzymatic repair systems more robust. And our exposure to radiation will be much less than they have had to endure.'

'Yuh speek funny,' Adm observed, twisting his brow into a puzzled frown.

'Oh well then,' said Edrig, 'Here we go.'

And when they drank they found the liquid to be surprisingly sweet, and surprisingly tolerable, but also rather shockingly strong.

'Oh my goodness,' said Edrig, spluttering a little.

'Well, well!' Adrig managed.

'Gud! Well!' Adm declared, then pointed to the trough and offered, 'More then. More then.'

And after sitting down and finishing their first small portion, they did indeed quite soon return for more, and they also picked up some strips of something that looked like cooked meat that had been shown to them, and they drank a little from another trough that was filled with water.

After initially being very interested in them and coming up to look them over, the others all withdrew a little and left Edrig and Adrig to their own space on their own little stony bench.

'Let be till when,' they heard Adm announce, with a tone that suggested he might be in some sort of command, or at least in a position of respect. 'Let set,' he then added. 'Let set in.'

And so Edrig sat beside Adrig once again, as Adrig sat beside Edrig, on a sort of a bench and drinking a sort of beer, not long after they had been sitting doing much the same in very different circumstances on Sample 717.

'This is alright you know, my lad,' Adrig began. 'That fire is lovely and warm and this drink is starting to really kick in.'

'Yes, my head is feeling it a bit now. Quite nice,' Edrig responded, 'but it is still another pickle, another big pickle, is it not?'

'Ach... a mere minor pickle compared to the pickle we might have been in with the Ladies and the Lady Lords back home. Drink up. And this is quite interesting really, all this ruined mess, you know, sociologically speaking... And you know, I am not at all sure that these fine people know what this place ever was. I was listening to some of them speak and managing to follow little bits of it. They seem to be in wonder at it all and they keep talking of the far high lands. I am not at all sure if these people have any idea of what a city is, or ever was. These, eh... survivors, perhaps... from the far high lands. Perhaps with more sturdy chromosomes too. There will always be survivors, at least usually, of those best fit to survive whatever befalls a large population.'

'Oh... Yes... It really is kicking in now. Quite lovely!'

'Are you even listening to me Edrig?'

'Yes. Yes. Very interesting. But this drink. This warm fire. Those few young ladies over there. Quite lovely.'

And just as Edrig spoke, one of the quite lovely ladies approached the edge of the fire, stuck a long sharpened wooden pole into the ground, and began to dance around it as everyone started to clap and chant.

'Oh... My... Good... God... Edrig... Look. She is pulling her gown off over her head.'

'Quite lovely,' sighed Edrig, as the dance and the evening moved on, and the naked dancing lady cast wierd and entrancing shadows against the trees and ruins around them.

Still Tay

Contact

Further adventures after Report on Sample 717, following on from here...

Adm and Eva turned in the direction of Edrig's sneeze, gazed across the dusty chamber, and as Eva took a step backwards Adm shouted out, 'Peeps!', in obvious amazement.

Edrig looked at them, while Adrig was still looking in alarm at Edrig as a result of the sneeze.

'Peeps?' muttered Edrig. 'What the heck does peeps mean?'

In the meantime Eva had rushed over to the top of the stairwell and was screaming downwards. 'Peeps. Ther peeps up topped! Peeps!'

'Ah... I think they may mean people,' Adrig suggested quietly. 'A related language to 717 English perhaps, but not the same.'

'Are we locked onto some sort of rescue system?' Edrig asked, concerned.

'I doubt it my lad. Although I don't know. I suppose they must monitor us somehow as we're only meant be here for half of an orbit, but... Uh oh...'

Adm, who seemed a young and powerful man, was advancing carefully towards them, then he stopped about five paces away and looked down at the two slumped superior beings from afar.

'Ho peeps,' Adm said, and he gave a friendly little wave.

'Hello,' said Edrig.

'Hello? Whay Hello?'

'Oh... Perhaps I mean Ho, eh? Yes Ho.'

'Hah. Ho...' said Adm, while Eva had by then advanced to beside Adm, and then she said, 'Ho peeps.'

'Well this is going okay,' Adrig told Edrig, 'So far.'

'Sofa?' said Adm, with a puzzled tone.

'This,' said Edrig to Adrig, 'May not be easy. Indeed it may be rather complicated.'

Adm smiled at this. 'Compaycate,' he said with a grin. 'Hay yah. Compaycate. But Ho. Hip up?' and he offered his hand to Edrig to help him up, and Edrig accepted the offer and was soon standing and still feeling the firm grip of this stranger's hand on his.

Adrig had hauled himself to his feet also, and so the four beings stood there looking each other up and down. Adm and Eva were smiling, but Edrig and Adrig bore expressions of concern. All four were in similar deep brown roughly shaped fur gowns, but Adm's and Eva's were much more worn and battered than Edrig's and Adrig's rather shiny new ones.

'Gud,' said Adm, reaching out to feel Edrig's clothing while nodding his head approvingly, but then he looked down, pointed at Edrig's bare feet and declared, 'Uh... Noh sneaks.'

'No sneaks?' said Edrig, then looking at the rough leather bindings that covered Adm's feet he realized that shoes might be the issue.

'We have no sneaks,' he said to Adrig. 'I think we are going to need some sneaks.'

Adrig just looked bemused. 'I want to go home,' he told Edrig in a despairing tone. 'Or back to 717 with my credit card for a hotel and some blueberry muffins and coffee, and beer, and pole dancers.'

'Hah!' said Adm, his face lighting up. 'Poley dance?' And he gestured towards Eva who laughed and began to wiggle her hips and twist her torso from side to side. And she had rather slim hips and a rather well-endowed upper torso, as Adrig and Edrig had both noticed. She was like a rather lovely 717 lady, not a big horrible Lady from home.

'Good God!' exclaimed Edrig.

Adm frowned at this and waved his hand about as if to indicate the ruins all around them.

'Bad God,' he announced sadly. 'Or noh God... Biggy Booms of older days bust all.'

'Biggy Booms?' muttered Adrig quietly. 'Biggy Booms? Oh dear my boy, oh dear. I fear we may have arrived in a land after the nuclear phase went wrong. Went, eh... boom, as he says. And we may indeed be standing in rather radioactive dust.'

'Oh,' said Edrig. 'That doesn't sound too good.'

'No,' agreed Adrig. 'However... trying to be positive... we may also have found a pole dancer.'

At this Eva smiled another alluring little smile, flicked her long if rather lank and dusty brown hair, and gave them another wiggle of all that she had to wiggle at them, which was quite a lot.

'I don't suppose they have any beer though.'

Adm grinned and nodded vigorously.

'Beer,' he said, while pointing directly downwards. 'Beer in buggy basins down.'

'Oh... Though radioactive beer, I fear.' said Edrig. 'How long is half an orbit, I wonder?'

'It would be six months on 717,' Adrig offered while looking out of the window gap again towards the sky.

'It would be nice if the planetary dynamics of this one involved a faster spin.'

Prompted by the word 'spin', Eva began to spin on the spot, while smiling and laughing and wiggling and wobbling some more as Adm began encouraging her with steadily quickening clapping of his hands.

'She's lovely,' said Adrig.

'Yes lovely,' agreed Edrig.

'She's mine,' said Adm firmly, pointing at his chest.

Tree time

Topped tower

More of the draft sequel to Report on Sample 717, following on from here...

Edrig was leaning against what seemed to be a dusty concrete wall, staring out through a ragged hole in the wall opposite with rusted and crumbling iron reinforcements protruding from its edges, and he was observing white clouds drifting slowly across a blue sky. A blue sky, he pondered. The same as on 717 then. Hmm...

He was cold and uncomfortable, which was unsurprising since his naked body was covered only by a roughly cut and scratchy animal fur which formed a sort of a gown that reached down to just beyond his knees.

Adrig, leaning against the wall beside Edrig, was similarly dressed, but he was looking sideways through a rectangular hole in the bare masonry that he took to be the remains of a window.

'I think we may be very high up,' Adrig murmured.

'Shhh,' Edrig commanded, 'I think someone is climbing up towards us.

And it was true, for the man who called himself Adm appeared at the top of what looked like a ruined stairwell about twenty paces from Edrig's worried face, walked over to the hole that Edrig had been looking through and looked downwards. He too was dressed in a roughly cut fur covering.
Adm and his few companions were the first to enter the city since its ruination, although they couldn't know that, and they had explored very carefully while happy to find a plentiful population of little creatures that they could capture often enough to keep them sustained. There was much more life here than in the high mountains they had grown up in. The old streets were now largely woodland, full of scurrying small things, beneath the population of soaring and fluttering birds. Nothing big though, strangely. No big cats, although they had spotted a few small ones that had been quick to run away.
It had been a long journey for Adm and his companions, from the high and hot lands into these more mellow places, enjoying increasing rainfall as they travelled, followed by many long days of creeping into the ruins, listening and looking for other people, but finding no sign. And then reaching the high but wrecked centre, and exploring a few lower levels of the buildings before beginning to climb cautiously up to where Adm then stood, at the highest point in the whole incredible conurbation. He could see three of his less adventurous companions far below, looking like tiny insects to him, and he waved at them and cried out 'Ho!', but could discern no response. Did they even know he had reached the top? He shouted out again with, 'Ho! Am topped!', but they showed no sign of hearing him, although a female voice that he recognised as Eva's called out, 'Neer up,' from a little way below.
The arrival of Adm and Eva had stirred up the seemingly ancient concrete dust that covered the floor.
The dust dissipated outwards and drifted towards Edrig and Adrig.
Then Edrig sneezed.

Directions in Shadowland

The banishment

More of the draft sequel to Report on Sample 717, following on from here...

'My goodness,' said Edrig towards the dozing Adrig as they found themselves wakening in the morning while still lying on the rugs in the interrogation suite. 'My goodness that was an exhausting evening.'

'But not altogether an unsatisfactory one considering what was expected when we sat in that damn prison pod,' said a sleepy Adrig while yawning widely.

'My head feels very odd,' said Edrig.

'Mine too, and my poor apparatus feels numb. Just had to check it was all still there.'

'Me too. Hardly any feeling left down there at all.'

'But the threat of an electric stinger stick discharged into the bare backside does motivate you somewhat, eh?'

'It does indeed. We were lucky we only got threats.'

'Very lucky indeed. Thank goodness for the strength of the testosterjuice.'

'But why are we still in here? Still locked in I presume... Oh, and no doubt still being listened to and recorded, remember.'

'Ah yes. The dear Ladies. Better than the one who is now gone though.'

'Gone so tragically. Ha ha!'

'Well I'm tired, and I'm warm, and I'm going back to sleep if they will allow it.'

'Me too. Much to sleep off.'

'And much numbness to try to rub away.'

'Well you can do that for yourself my friend, ha ha.'

'Ha ha indeed.'

And they drifted off to sleep again, until wakened by three Ladies entering in their black gowns and bearing electric stinger sticks. They were different Ladies from the night before.

'Stand up. Sit down. Over there...' The orders came sharp and brusque.

'Stand up... Swap seats... Sit down... Stand up... Ha ha! We do love playing with our prisoners don't we? Stand up again... Sit on his knee... Get off... Stand up.... Now you sit on his knee... Give him a big kiss on his cheek... Aw... Ha ha. So funny!'

Edrig and Adrig complied with every instruction, with their sense of humiliation reaching a peak and then eventually just subsiding into weary submission as the teasing continued.

'Stand up. The punishment has been decided,' one of the dark Ladies eventually declared.

'Oh...' muttered Edrig, while Adrig just stood wobbling a little.

'One Half-Orbit Study Banishment to 718.'

'Eh?'

'Yes silly man. Study Banishment to 718, and your report had better be good. You think that doesn't sound so bad do you?'

'Well...'

'You think that will be fun?'

'Eh...'

'My goodness your language is limited, isn't it?'

'Well...'

All three ladies shook their heads.

'718. No money. No credit card. Not that they would help you much there anyway. No communifier. No stunner. No nothing. Just you two alone in, eh... the basic coverings... and a study report to research. Ha ha. How nice.'

'Eh... What sort of sample is 718, my Lady?' Adrig dared to inquire.

'You don't know?'

'Eh...'

'Oh for goodness sake. I've had enough of this. Be gone now, and good luck.' And she pointed at the doorway behind them, causing Edrig and Adrig to turn and hobble off rather delicately in the direction of her pointing, with the parts between their legs still rather numb.

Interrogation

More news about the dear duo of Report on Sample 717, following on from here... 

Having been roughly hauled from the prison pod on their arrival, Edrig was rather surprised to find that he and Adrig were made to sit down in front of one of the youngest of the Lady Lord's... the dead Lady Lord's... assistants in the interrogation suite beneath her former quarters. This seated Lady was so young and so lacking in fat compared to most of the rest of them that she was almost acceptable, Edrig managed to ponder in amongst all the emotions of fear and dread. Four other more fearsome Ladies stood on either side of the interrogator, and each of them was armed with an electric stinger stick which Edrig hoped was to prevent any attempt at escape rather than for any more sinister purpose. He had heard bad tales about the use of electric stinger sticks by Ladies in a temper.

The lights were low. The Ladies were all in their blackest gowns, and the small, young and not so fat one in the high seat bent forward and began to speak.

'Have you two got any idea what we can do to you in punishment for the murder of a Lady Lord?'

Edrig felt faint. Adrig sighed and slumped and trembled, seemingly trying to speak but clearly unable to do so.

'Murder?' Edrig managed to squeak. 'Not murder. Not murder but... but...'

'But how do I know she's dead anyway?'

'Well yes, actually,' Edrig continued, although that was not what he had been thinking of saying at all.

'You are very lucky, very lucky indeed, that Engineer Macrig took some freelance monitoring precautions.'

'Oh...'

'So to summarise briefly, a Lady Lord... Your Lady Lord, dies before your eyes and what do you two do? You follow procedures of course. Don't you? Did you?'

'Well we...'

'Yes?'

'We were in shock my Lady,' Adrig suddenly offered.

'Ah! So Adrag has found his voice eh?'

'Adrig, my Lady.'

'What?'

'It's Adrig my Lady, not Adrag.'

'Oh... And do you think I give the slightest little damn what your stupid name is you idiot of a man?'

'No my Lady. Sorry.'

Despite her tone Edrig was feeling somewhat more relaxed already, and his mind was busy trying to figure out the stage that things would have developed to back here on his remote outpost base, where he had lived out all of his years.

'Are you the new Lady Lord here then?'

'Huh! Do I look like a Lady Lord you fool,' she sneered, turning back to Edrig.

This was a difficult question, for what Edrig and Adrig thought a Lady Lord looked like was very different from what the Ladies would think.

'Eh... well... You... You certainly look worthy of being a Lady Lord, my Lady,' Edrig dared to say.

'Shut up you ridiculous twit!' came the instant reply, 'although you are quite sexy I suppose, in a squirty little way. Hmm...'

Edrig shut up as commanded. Adrig shifted uncomfortably in his seat. One of the standing Ladies casually slapped her electric stinger stick against her calf and offered Edrig a sinister and leery smile.

There then followed a rather long and convoluted attempt at explanation, with Edrig and Adrig seeking a stumbling consistency as they each offered parts of the story.

'We were in shock,'

'We needed fluids.'

'We made a mistake.'

'We thought it was just fruit juice.'

'It was their beer.'

'It affected us badly.'

The seated Lady looked at them in turn as they spoke, and listened with an expression of contempt as the account developed.

'So,' she said eventually, 'You abandoned the remains of your dead Lady Lord, got deeply drunk, and threw your stuff away... oh, but then there is the matter of the false message from your dead Lady Lord's communifier, isn't there? The wicked wicked message.'

'We were very drunk.'

'It was an accident,'

'A disaster.'

'A tragedy.'

The seated Lady suddenly smiled, and some of the standing ladies giggled, which puzzled Edrig greatly.

'A tragedy?' their interrogator queried. 'Really?'

The emphasis in her voice was loaded with what almost seemed like sarcasm.

'Yes, really my Lady Lor... eh, my Lady.'

'Ah... not really Edrig,' the seated Lady said quite softly after a rather long pause. 'You know us ladies here are actually quite glad to be rid of the nasty old bitch.'

Edrig and Adrig gasped in unison.

The standing Ladies began laughing, and the seated Lady leaned back in her chair and suddenly called out, 'Fetch the young lad some testosterjuice. Ach and the old fellow too, Testosterjuice! Fetch the Cannabinised testosterjuice and get the pair of drunken oafs some alcoholicky things to drink too. There are nine of us here to be satisfied. Rejoice!'

And the other Ladies all thrust their electric stinger sticks in the air and screeched in unison: 'Rejoice!'

Soon some loud and cheerful music began to blast from the sound system, thick rugs were pulled out from a cupboard and laid across the floor, and the nine Ladies began circling Edrig and Adrig as the testosterjuice and alcohol arrived on a robotray wheeling silently into the room.

Caught

More news about the dear duo of Report on Sample 717, following on from here...

'I think I know what this is,' said Edrig as consciousness returned and he opened his eyes and found that his opened eyes revealed exactly the same scene as his closed eyes, which was largely just blackness, but blackness lit up by occasional crazy flashes from the nervous signals deep within his eyes or brain - he wasn't sure which, but he was fairly sure about where he was.

He could feel Adrig's side resting rather heavily against his own, and he gave it a nudge with his shoulder to check if Adrig was awake, or to prompt him back into awareness if he was not.

Adrig grunted.

There was a pause, while Edrig absorbed the blackness all around him and took note of the gentle hum and the somewhat sickly sensation of spinning.

Adrig said, 'Oh...', and rather despairingly, it seemed to Edrig.

'I think I know what this is,' Edrig said again, while his stomach filled with a nervous queasiness and his mind attempted to calm a rising panic.

'So do I,' offered Adrig, wearily.

'It's a prison pod, isn't it? A prison pod taking us home.'

'I fear so my lad. I do fear so.'

Edrig pondered this agreement about their predicament for a while.

'This is worse than a pickle,' he continued.

'Yes. Worse than a pickle. More like a... Well... worse than a pickle, that's for sure.'

'I've still got my can in my hand too,' said Edrig, rather surprised.

'Hah... Me too! Not even spilled by the feel of it.'

The prison pod spun on. So sinisterly dark. No flashing lights. No flickering screen.

'Might as well drink it,' Adrig suggested after a while. 'We may need it.'

Edrig managed a weak smile to himself in the darkness before he felt and heard the chink of Adrig's beer can against his own.

'Cheers my boy. And good luck.'

They drank deeply from their cans.

'You know all those sayings,' Edrig began, 'about what really matters is not the situation that you find yourself in but the attitude you take to the situation?'

'Ah yes... Those ones.'

'Well I think they may be needed now.'

'And put to the test, eh?'

'Yes.'

'And remember everything we are saying will be being recorded now, including this.'

'Oh... Well then... But... We've done nothing wrong, have we?'

'Eh... Nothing at all,' said Adrig, unconvincingly.

They sat in silence some more, while the pod's gentle hum was joined by the sound of a few more gulps of beer in the darkness.

'We never saw that coming did we?

'They just land on you like nets, I've heard, and suck you in. Or like flies caught in a cup.'

'Or in the web of a big bloody spider. Oh...'

'Bless the Lady Lord,' Adrig finally declared. 'The new Lady Lord.'

'Oh...', muttered Edrig, thinking deeply, before adding lamely, 'We were in shock my man, in shock. Such a dreadful thing, the death of a Lady Lord. We reacted in shock.'

'Yes. Such a dreadful thing. Such a shocking accident.'

'The Lady Lord is dead... Bless the new Lady Lord.'

'Yes indeed... Bless...'

And after another silence there came the sound of further gulping, followed by the crinkly metallic crushing of empty beer cans in nervous hands.

And the prison pod spun on.

Out of a clear blue sky

More news about the dear duo of Report on Sample 717, following on from here...


 The two stranded travelers ventured out into the beauty of late morning.

Adrig sat by Edrig and Edrig sat by Adrig on a bench by a pond in warm sunshine.
'It really is a very fine day Edrig.'
'It is, Adrig.'
'And this beer in a can is a fine idea.'
'It is a very fine idea indeed.'

And they supped the nectar of Sample 717 in serene silence, content.
While high above and behind them, moving very fast towards them out of the clear blue sky...
 came the thing that they didn't see coming.