Bill, The Galactic Hero 6 - on the Planet Of The Hippies From Hell (8 page)

“My books!” cried Uncle Nancy.

“What — are they gone?”

“No — but look, they've ... they've changed.”

Bill looked down. Sure enough, they had changed. At first he didn't see it, but when he looked more closely, he saw exactly how they had altered.

What had once been DAVID COPPERFIELD by Charles Dickens was now PECS GALORE by I. Liftem, while WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy had become BICEPS AND TRICEPS by Bod Builder.

“My books. My great literature!” cried Uncle Nancy, even more disturbed over this than the loss of his dress. “It's all been changed into muscled moron crapola!”

“I smell a time-changer at work!” intoned Elliot Methadrine. “Definitely the work of that crazed hippie who just left — but how did he do it? I haven't got the faintest idea.”

Bill didn't have the faintest idea, either. He was too busy undergoing, first, shock, then the distinct beginnings of an anxiety attack. Imagine — a lifelong search for the Fountain of Youth (well, the Fountain of Vermouth, anyway) only to have that luscious flow yanked untimely from one's mouth. Horrors! He'd found Barworld and yet all that there was to drink was — he shuddered at the thought — health shakes?

“What.... What could that bowbhead hippie possibly have done?” he queried incoherently, his jaw flapping like a bar door in the wind.

“I'll tell you what he did!” Elliot intoned grotesquely. “I mean, really, are you that dense? He's gone back to the past and, changed history.”

Uncle Nancy looked despairingly at his books, tearing out handfuls of hair from his rapidly balding head.

“Does this mean — we've failed?” Bill mumbled, losing track of things.

“I don't know. Let's find out.” Elliot strode over to a hunk manfully gulping Evian water, dabbing at a sweating forehead between sets. “A question, sir. Is there still a war going on with the Chingers?”

“Chingers,” said the man with a definite Austrian accent. “Oh! Ja, ja. I remember them from my school lessons. Ja! Dey vere viped out like the wermin dey vere. A hundert years ago!”

“Well,” said Bill, “that's good news anyway.”

“Ja, unt dat vas by der Fourth Reich, too. Sieg heil!” said the Austrian, saluting a picture of a man with a very tiny mustache on the wall. “Der Glorious Fourth Reich, who also abolished alcohol unt tobacco. Und put der barbell on the map of history.”

“No more alcohol!” wailed Bill, dumbstruck. His personal universe had just ended.

“This calls for radical action,” said Elliot. He pulled out an ID badge. “My name is Elliot Methadrine and I'm with the Interdimensional Time Crime Enforcement.”

“The Time Cops!” said Uncle Nancy, clearly impressed. "Hey, you guys used to stop in all the time for free drinks and bribes.

“I thought you were with the GBI,” said Bill.

“No need for that cover now, Bill,” said Elliot, suddenly all business. “I was following a lead but it has just gone south. Too late to stop it now.” He turned back to the bodybuilder. “I need to requisition street clothing and weapons.”

“Ja. Sure,” said the muscle-bound fellow. “Vee got dat real love for der Police. Vee respect der Authority on Barbellworld. It vas der vish of our founder, St. Arnold, that ve be good, clean, reverent, sadistic muscle pumpers!”

“Fine, fine,” said Elliot. “Uncle Nancy — how does the Time/Space Plumbing work? Clearly the hairy guy did something in there. Where are the guts, the controls to the thing?”

“Well, hell if I know,” said Uncle Nancy, his big beefy face growing red. “I'm not a Time Sanitation Plumber. We use Chronos Sewage ourselves, and they take forever to get out here. We'll just have to go take a look, won't we?”

“Come on, Bill,” said Elliot Methadrine. “Let's get a change of clothes and then go have a look.”

Bill grimaced and shook his head woefully.

Talk about things going down the tubes!

Uncle Nancy showed Bill and Elliot to the bathroom.

“Revolting! Just look how this thing has changed!” groused the bartender, gazing around in horror at the colorful tile, the new light fixtures, the bidets, the vitamin and cologne vending machines. “Used to be just a trough and a thundermug. Oh yeah — and a rubber dispenser that was always broken or empty. Real homey and friendly with lots of grafitti. And I mean graphic grafitti.”

Bill, a little woozy, looked at the three bright white porcelain urinals. “Gotta go,” he mumbled.

“Not there, you idiot!” said Elliot. “Didn't you hear the man? That's the Time Vortex!”

Bill blinked. Funny, looked like a urinal to him. True, an unusually fancy, unusually clean urinal. “Sorry — I guess I can wait....”

The bartender and Bill stared, transfixed, as Elliot reached out a tremulous hand, touched the handle on the urinal, sucked in a deep breath — and flushed.

The results were far more dramatic than usual. It even beat the cheap vacuum potties on quickly assembled starships where chances were you finished your trip with a high squeaky voice.

“Wow!” Bill susurrated.

“Absolutely,” Elliot agreed. From somewhere, a small device with knobs and switches and an oscilloscope had appeared in his hands. “According to my Time Ticker — all we Time Police are equipped with these things — what we have here is a crack in Time far larger than anticipated. Yes — I can see how it was possible for that weirdo hippie to jump back through time and wreak havoc. This aperture you could fit an elephant through!”

Bill stepped back two paces and grabbed hold of the door latch of the bathroom stall for security. He felt like he was losing his sense of balance. He had the distinct sensation of being sucked into a mammoth Time Maw.

The Portal had replaced the porcelain facility completely. A scintillating light swirled and revolved and gave off sparks, whirling and growing. Dimly seen within this display was a control console, not unlike a multidialed TV set. As the Time-Wind pulsed, the screen flickered and displayed some highly interesting scenes.

Bill sniffed loudly. “It stinks,” he said nasally, because he was pinching his nostrils shut as he spoke.

“Of course. That is because the Time-Nexus is routed through Garbageworld on its way to linkup to Barworld. Depends on what part of the past you tune into,” said Elliot. “This particular era, for instance, is particularly offensive to members of our era.” He tapped his nose. “Which is why Time Authority knocks out its agents' sense of smell before we Time Dump.”

“And just what era would that be? That you're from I mean,” Uncle Nancy wanted to know.

“Classified information,” stated Elliot unequivocally. Hair waving, he looked down at his device. Its needles were swinging wildly. A hot red light flashed. And the oscilloscope was being particularly scilly. “Yikes!” intoned Elliot, looking alarmed and rather uncharacteristically out of control. “This time portal —”

“Don't tell me,” cried Uncle Nancy. “Something terrible is going to happen and we'll all be killed!”

“No. Well, possibly maybe yes. Anything could happen — because this thing, this Time Portal, and I find this difficult to comprehend, is sentient!”

“That's kind of a long word,” Bill explained. “It means, I guess — sentiment without the 'M' because it's not quite as emotional?”

“No, moron. It means alive! Alive and intelligent! Which is more than I can say for you sometimes!” Elliot Methadrine shook his head with alarm and amazement. “In all my eras as a Time Agent, I've never seen such a thing!”

“Alas, I encounter your deplorable type all too often,” a rich baritone bass said. British accent, deep-dipped with culture, heavily dripping irony and other metallic forms of humor. “Good day, you wretched deplorable excuses for biological self-propagation. In the words of my esteemed ancestors, Alexander Graham Time-Phone Machine, you rang?”

The Time Portal glowed ethereally, a fascinating sight. Its interior was imbedded with alien crystalline assemblages and jewellike appendages emanating rainbowed glow and pixillating auras, light arias and perhaps even light operas, Haydn perhaps, or Delius — or was that THE MIKADO by Gilbert and Sullivan in the background? Upon those aforementioned screens flashed candid scenes from intergalactic history. The signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Emperor's Annual Public Constitutional. Napoleon the Fifth's Battle of Watercloset.

“You.... You're a Time Portal?” intimated Bill, gasping gawkily with awe.

“Well, I'm certainly not a Time Potable, so please refrain from drinking me, you obvious lush! Nor am I a Time Portable. I am the full-scale, full-priced model — an Eton- and Oxford-educated Time Portal. And dear chap it is a pitiable shame that as worthy an intelligence as I am, I must respond to anyone who yanks my chain, so to speak. Especially noisome and illiterate obnoxious primates such as yourself.”

“Well, be that as it may,” intoned Elliot, rearing up to his full if meager height. “As you have just told us, in far too much detail, you have been summoned and you must help us!” Elliot flashed his Time Cop identification and then showed the Portal his Captain Cosmic Secret Decoder ring.

“Yeah, right!” said Uncle Nancy. “And first off we want to know where the hell did that hairy guy who zipped in here get to?”

“What's that, dear boy? Hirsute chappy, you say? Ah! Of course! You must mean that horrible hippie from Hellworld. Yes, quite! Why, I believe he went back into the past, and with the rather laudable ambition to change history. Either that or I plugged a few too many bloody nanodes into my quazoid last night.”

“Just take a look,” said Bill. “He must have changed something. This dump used to be a nice dump of a bar! Now it's a sweaty gym, run by goose-stepping weightlifters with German accents.”

“Hmm. Oh, my, yes. Well, that sort of thing does happen occasionally. You can't have Time Portals in this Universe and not get a few minor changes from time to time.”

“Minor changes!” expostulated Elliot Methadrine. “We're talking about a vast sweeping cataclysm! Why, I'm not even sure there's a Galactic Bureau of Investigation anymore!”

An amber light pulsed quizzically. “Oh?” said the Time Portal. “Well, then. Let's have a look into my Crystal Bowl.” From the bottom of the Portal's floor emerged a round bowl filled with scintillating liquid. In this liquid swam a goldfish. Pictures began to flash. Bill saw images of Panzer-tanks and Spandau propeller planes. Jackboots kicking galactic butt. Beer halls and pretzels everywhere. Hmm, he thought. Maybe this change isn't really bad. He loved beer halls and pretzels!

Finally, the flipping images settled upon a wobbling close-up of a sign. “There you go, lads!” said the Portal. “Images of the Way Things Are Now. 'GALACTIC BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION,'” he read. “You see, things haven't changed so much! One totalitarian government is much the same as another. I say, amongst all those amino acids and yogurt drinks out there at that refreshment station, I don't suppose you might find me a spot of tea and maybe a lightly toasted crumpet or two?”

Bill squinted at the sign. “It's a sign for a ship!” he exclaimed with some satisfaction at his astute powers of observation — although in truth he could read it better because he had a superior angle to the others.

“A ship?” said Uncle Nancy.

“Yes! See ... off to the side ... it says 'SS GALACTIC BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.'”

“Good grief, Bill!” said Elliot. “That's not a, ship! That's the SS! The infamous secret police of the Nazi party!”

Bill blinked. “Yeah. Well, what's the difference? Aren't you guys the infamous secret police who blackmail any politician who is at least one percent honest and always steal the spiked punch at the Emperor's party?”

“So they're the rotten bastards!” said Uncle Nancy. “I always wondered about that!”

Elliot Methadrine screwed his face up and pounded on the side of his head with his fists in total frustration. “Look, Time Portal! In the name of Truth, Order, Justice and Equilibrium in the Universe —”

“You got some Librium?” interrupted Bill. “I sure could use some.”

“Shut up, Bill!” Elliot suggested to the Trooper as he ground his teeth gratingly, then turned back to the Portal. “You have to help us avert this ... this chaos. You must take us back to the place in time where that hippie went to change the course of history. What he has done is terrible! Where was it?”

“Hmm? The Time that hirsute individual went? Why, I declare! It is rather boring, but demn me, I am driven to admit that it has completely slipped my memory. I suppose I could have a crafty riffle through my files and come up with the information. Though — do pardon my yawn — I must admit I'm not terribly motivated.”

“Oh ... and dare I ask just what motivated you to acquiesce to the hippie's demands?”

The light auras formed a quiescent Technicolor Cheshire cat grin. “Since we are being frank, dear boy — hard cold cash, actually.”

Elliot slapped his forehead with exasperation. “Just who the hell are you anyway, guy?” He took out a pen and a small spiral notebook. “I want your name, your serial number, your registration code with Intergalactic Time Machines!”

“Utter rubbish!” boomed the voice insouciantly. “Not applicable. For I am a member of an incredibly ancient, unregistered race of Time Portals. My name is Dudley D. Doo, Esquire, of the Noble Right Royal Transubstantiated Knights of the Temporal Jet Plane. My kind has been around since Before Time Began — and even earlier!”

“Before Time Began?” muttered Bill, trying to imagine that concept. But his mind, such as it was, got even more bent than usual in the process. “You mean, like before they had clocks and digital watches and stuff?” His brain suddenly grasped an important macroscientific concept. “You mean, back when bars never closed!”

“Precisely, chum. And what jolly days they were,” said Dudley. “But then, come to think of it, they weren't days, were they? Days hadn't been invented yet. Nor nights. It was just one continual spifflicated party, with time out for an occasional brawl or bash at the birds. Raucous and tiring — but what jolly fun!”

“Breathtaking!” breathed Bill, his eyes wandering off, his mind permanently bent now at the very notion.

“The Knights Temporal!” said Elliot, voice hushed now with awe. “There were rumors of you back at headquarters — and phone numbers in the loo, too! Why, we've found ruins of an ancient civilization from beyond recorded posterity! Could those have belonged ... to your kind?”