William S. Burroughs (37 page)

"I think it
might be wise to put in the extra gas right now in case we have to
lift off in a hurry...
"

"Not a breath
of air...
'
Where the dead leaf fell there
did it rest.'
"
No leaves, though.
Just misshapen bulbous bushes six to eight feet high bearing a purple
fruit covered with soft down.

"There is
something here that is just awful," Kim says.

The balloons are
moored and inflated with extra gas. Tony shows Kim and Schindler how
to let out gas and bring the balloon down when they are clear of
the crater. They leave the harnesses on so all they have to do
is hitch up and cast off...Kim looks at the three pink balloons.
Rather like a hitching rail. Kim remembers his "strawberry."
Quite suddenly the equine went berserk and attacked him, ears laid
back, teeth bare, striking out with its front hooves...Kim pivoted to
the side and shot the beast in the neck, severing an artery. The
blood spattered him as the animal sank to its knees, eyes wild.
Another shot in the side of the head and it rolled sideways, kicked
three times, and died.

Tony is sweeping the
crater walls with his binoculars. Schindler is examining the flora,
which, even to Kim's untrained eye, seems remarkably uniform...The
plants are growing along the riverbanks. The stems are covered with
fine purple tendrils exuding a crystal gum. Kim steps to the
riverbank. The water is sluggish. He sees no sign of fish or frogs or
water spiders.

Schindler is taking
specimens..."A completely unknown species...And what is more
remarkable it seems to be the only or certainly the predominant
flora... Usually in a valley like this, no matter how inaccessible,
there will be some variety of plants
...
seeds
dropped or defecated by birds...
"

"What birds?"

"Uh
...
yes...
"
Schindler looks about uneasily...Not a sound or sight of bird or
animal or insect, just the slowly moving water and the bulbous
plants...

"They look like
seaweed," Kim says.

"As a matter of
fact
..."

Schindler is setting
up his camera tripod and snapping pictures...

"I say, you
chaps," Tony calls..."I saw something move...
"
He points toward the crater walls... "Over
there."

Schindler points his
camera with telescopic zoom lens...He picks out what looks like a
red-ass monkey about eighteen inches in height
...
foetal, almost transparent, he can see the black viscera through soft
crystalline pink flesh
...
he makes out
something attached to the creature just below the navel
...
hummmm,
he remembers an Egyptian bas-relief with erect penis, the penis
high, located just below the navel...What he saw was a sort of
bladder or balloon floating in front of the monkey...Click
click
...
They are advancing cautiously
toward the crater wall... One specimen, which had apparently been
foraging, retracts the bladder into its body and scampers for the
cliff.

"My God,
hundreds of them." Click click
...
"My
God, what's that STINK?"

Tony sniffs
appraisingly..."Rotten blood...I smelled it in Belsen...We were
moving in, trying to intercept a top S.S. war criminal
...
slipped
by us...The S.S. had machine-gunned the inmates they were piled
up three-deep soaked in blood
...
many of
them had been bayoneted or killed with knives...Been there three
days...There's no stench like it...It seems sweet, at first. You
wonder what sort of flower could smell like that...You take a deep
breath and puke your guts out...It's rotten and musty and the
sweetness catches in your throat...Not a sharp smell, like
carrion...It's smooth and it creeps into you...Even after work crews
in gas masks had taken the bodies away and swabbed the floors down
with carbolic solution the smell was still there...Once you smell it
you never forget it. This is close enough...
"

And now they
hear
it...The voice of that smell
...
a thick
slimy whisper that sticks to them like rotten garbage
.. .
an ancient evil crooning sound that stirs and twists in
their throats, the converse between the creature and the bladder.

Along the crater
walls they see warrens worn smooth by countless years...Here the
monkeys have taken refuge, peering out with dead undersea
eyes...

Click click click
click...It comes to Kim in a flash. The Museum of Natural History in
New York
...
life cycle and preserved
specimens of a certain deep-sea fish that lives in lightless depths.
(This is the Lophiform Angler fish. The female is about fifty times
larger than the male.) During intercourse the male gets attached to
the body of the female and is slowly absorbed until only the
testicles remain protruding from the female body...He remembers the
sick horror he felt
...
so much worse than
spiders or scorpions that simply eat the male on the spot...He can
see the whole life cycle...The bladder is the female that slowly
absorbs the male...The bladders are in fact immortal, using male
after male.

"Should we
attempt to capture a specimen?" Schindler asks doubtfully.

"Shit no,"
Kim says..."Let's get the fuck out of here."

"All
right...Just let me finish this roll...
"
Click click click.

"Ten-second
intervals...You go first, Kim."

Kim doesn't argue.
It's like one of those flying dreams where you soar up like a
rocket...Looking down at that deadend pool of rotten blood he
didn't even feel curious to know more.

"Je n'en veux rien savoir...
"

Now he is clear of
the crater, drifting thirty feet above the ground. He can see the car
beneath him as he opens the valve to release gas and the balloon
settles.

As soon as his feet
touch the ground he steps free of the harness and opens the valve all
the way and moves quickly out of the way. The balloon jets fifteen
feet in the air and collapses on the ground in a heap, like one of
those awful bladders.

They are all
assembled and the balloons deflated...

"I move we
leave this shit right here
..."
Kim
says, pointing to the balloons
...
"God
knows what they may have sopped up... Our clothes too, we should burn
every stitch as soon as we get back to base...
"

As they drive back
Kim hears choppers overhead...

"Put your
little foot put your little foot put your little foot right in,"
Kim hums.

It's a long hot
dusty ride and Kim concocts a poem to allay the discomfort and
boredom...

The heart of the
rulers is sick

And the High Priest
covers his head

For this is the song
of the quick

That is heard by the
ears of the dead

The widows of
Langley are long in their wail

And the idols are
broken in the temples of Yale

And the might of the
asshole unsmote by the

sword

Hath melted like
snow in the glance of the bored.

The town of Ganymede
has grown into a settlement housing fifteen hundred technicians,
scientists, and military personnel, with air-conditioned Quonset
huts, a bar, a movie, and a choice of restaurants. A black M.P.
checks their passes and directs them to a decontamination station.

An hour later,
showered and scrubbed with carbolic soap, wearing clean khakis, Kim
feels approximately clean but every now and then he gets a whiff of
the vile smell of the bladder monkeys. After three stiff
gin-and-tonics and a hookah of hashish he feels better still.

They are eating in a
pizza place out by the airport. Kim saws at the rubbery crust.

"I didn't bring
you out here for the cuisine, my dear," Tony says, looking at
his wristwatch.

A chopper is coming
in for a landing and clearly in trouble, wobbling from side to side.

"Looks like the
pilot's got a skinful
..."
someone says
at an adjoining table...

"You can say
that again," Tony mutters.

Fire trucks and
ambulances are already on the runway, sirens blaring.

"Watch."
Tony takes out his binocular camera and Kim does the same...

The doors of the
chopper burst open and three men lurch out...

Click click
...
The
ambulance crew rush forward to help, then start back in
horror...Click click
...
The faces are
demented, inhuman, throats hideously swollen and covered with
pustules...Click click
.. .

They are yacking
like ventriloquist dummies, and Kim can see something stirring and
twisting in their tumescent throats, choking words out. Bloody spit
hangs down off their chins in long streamers...Click click
. . .

"Let's get out
of here fast...
"
Tony says. He throws
a note on the table and they sprint for the parking lot...

Before they reach
the car, the voice rings from loudspeakers.
.
.

"Notice to all
personnel...This is an emergency measure...The streets are
closed to all civilian personnel
..."

"Hope to God it
starts...
"
The motor turns over...

"...
or
pedestrians...If you are inside, stay where you are...
"

A guard is hooking a
chain across the exit and locking it
...

"Otherwise
proceed
immediately
to the nearest shelter...
"

"Hey
YOU
...
STOP." The guard holds up his
hand and reaches for his
45.

Tony accelerates and
knocks the guard over the chain and across the street. The broken
chain whips around the car with a crack like a rifle shot. Tony takes
a right, tires screeching.

"Repeat
...
The
streets are closed to all unauthorized personnel...Violators
will be shot on sight...
"

Sirens,
searchlights
...
Tony ducks as machine-gun
fire shatters the windshield...He pulls the car off the road and down
a steep slope, scattering a herd of goats...A screech of brakes
behind them as the police car pulls up
—
a
light searching the slope.

The car splashed
through an irrigation ditch and turned left on a dirt road. The
sounds of pursuit were sucked out as if run backward.

"Here's where
we shift vehicles."

Just ahead was a
carriage. They got in and Tony gave directions to the driver in
a dialect unknown to Kim...

"He is Malay,"
Tony explained as he settled back and lit a cheroot. A beggar child
padded alongside and Kim flipped him a coin. They drove for perhaps
an hour...The night air was balmy, and hot around the edges. Kim
could hear crickets and frogs.

Occasionally they
passed mud huts with thatched roofs.

And there was the
dirigible ahead, moored to a tower...The Commander waved to them...

"Well climb
aboard, you blokes... We're all revved up and ready to go...
"

Two Malay servants
helped them carry their gear up the ladder and deposited it in their
luxurious cabins...

"You understand
the Big Picture, old thing. We are retracing our steps in time
like a film running backward, breaking the immutable rules of the
universe and all that rot...
"

"And about time
too."

Dinner was kulan
steaks...

"They are
practically extinct, you know," Tony told him between mouthfuls.

"Bring on the
whooping crane," Kim whooped. "And a dodo-egg omelette...
"

The Commander
laughed heartily and twirled his mustache. Kim stretched
luxuriously, savoring the vintage Burgundy like a fifteen-year-old
schoolboy on holiday.