
= TWILIGHT WORLD - Volume 4 Issue 1 (January 13th 1996) =====================


 You  can do anything with this magazine as long as it  remains  intact.  All 
stories  in  it  are fiction.  No actual persons are designated  by  name  or 
character and similarity is coincidental.
 This magazine is for free. Get it as cheaply as possible!
 Please refer to the end of this file for further information.


= LIST OF CONTENTS ==========================================================


 EDITORIAL
 by Richard Karsmakers

 JUST ANOTHER LIFE STORY
 by Chris Brookes

 LORD OF THE THINGS
 by Richard Karsmakers

 THE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE PECKERS
 by Richard Karsmakers


= EDITORIAL =================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 This  is  the  fourth  year  "Twilight  World"  that  will  be  riding   the 
cyberspacian waves as it were, with that new year stretching out ahead of us. 
It  is pretty certain that 1996 may see another change to  "Twilight  World", 
for  it is by no means guarenteed that I will retain email access  after  the 
summer of 1996. I am looking out for an Internet provider or something. If no 
fresh issues of "Twilight World" will appear after September, you'll at least 
know what happened.
 Anyway,  for now there is not yet a flimmer of a cloud in the sky, and there 
won't  be for at least another three issues.  Here it  is..."Twilight  World" 
Volume 4 Issue 1.

 Please spread the word, and the file, and have fun reading!


 Richard Karsmakers
 (Editor)


= JUST ANOTHER LIFE STORY... ================================================
 a monologue by Chris Brookes


 [A  woman  with  short  dark curly hair is on a roller  coaster  ride  at  a 
fairground.  It  is  the  last ride of the night  before  closing  time.  Two 
children are stood near by.  The ride starts,  and the assistant shouts "Hold 
tight!"]

 Too right I'll hold tight.  I hope those bloody kids are behaving themselves 
down  there...  mind you,  what sort of kids would behave themselves with  no 
parents around? I was well behaved, but that's probably because mother was so 
strict.  She wasn't strict with our Denise,  oh no, she got away with murder. 
She  was mummy's little girl.  There isn't that much difference  between  us, 
only a few years.  Everything I did wasn't good enough, but everything Denise 
did was wonderful.  Denise this,  Denise that. It makes me boil just thinking 
about it... I just wasn't appreciated whatsoever.

 Then there was the time when she got hurt, and mother couldn't do enough for 
her.  It was pathetic really.  Little miss was stood balancing on the  window 
ledge trying to open the top window, which was somehow jammed. She pushed the 
window  that  hard that when in jolted open,  she jerked backwards  and  fell 
about 5 feet...  on to me sat below her.  Mother screams and comes running in 
shouting "Denise!  Denise!  are you alright darling?" [The ride dips, and she 
let's out a loud scream] What about me?  I mean,  I was the one under 10  Ton 
Tess...  and was I Okay?  Well,  apparently this didn't matter to mother. She 
was only interested in Denise.  Denise this,  Denise that...  and do you know 
what really annoyed me?  My necklace. In her 'accident' she just seemed to be 
wearing a necklace of mine,  which coincidentally managed to get  broken.  It 
wouldn't  of mattered so much if she was wearing it with my  permission,  but 
she wasn't. She had just 'borrowed' it from my jewellery box.

 She's  got a habit of taking things without permission...  I suppose it's  a 
form of stealing really isn't it?  She even stole off mother once.  One  day, 
mother had gone round to see a neighbour,  and she had left me and Denise  in 
the house on our own. I was reading a magazine, and *she* was fumbling around 
the house quietly. I said "What are you looking for?" She said "Errr, oh, err 
nothing",  and  then she disappeared upstairs.  I carried on reading.  A  few 
minutes  later,  I noticed everywhere was quiet,  and so went to see  exactly 
why.  When I got upstairs,  I checked both of our bedrooms, but she wasn't to 
be  found in any of them.  There was no toilet upstairs in the house -  well, 
there  wouldn't have been in them days - so she had to be in  mother's  room. 
So,  I popped my head around the door... and got the shock of my life. There, 
before  my very eyes,  was my own sister routing through  mother's  emergency 
purse.  We both gazed at each other,  expressionless,  like we wanted to  say 
something,  but  didn't  know what.  [The ride reaches the top of a  dip  and 
stops] We both just stood there,  motionless. It was horrible. Then suddenly, 
she dropped the purse and ran out. [The ride starts its decent down the hill] 
She  couldn't even run very fast...  well not as fast as my  friend  Linda... 
well,  actually  she wasn't my friend because that was another thing she  had 
stole from me.

 [The  ride  reaches the bottom of the hill,  and then shuttles round  a  180 
degree curve. It then begins begins to drag up a long hill. The woman, coming 
up to her 40th birthday,  looked out of the side of the carriage to check  on 
the children. They stood patiently.]

 Things didn't seem to get any better when we were both a little older. I had 
starting  courting  with  a  lad  called  Paul.  He  was  nice,  caring,  and 
understanding. He was my first boy friend, even though I was nearly eighteen. 
Denise, then being about 15 had gone out with many boys, older and younger. I 
think she had even 'slept' with one...  or was it two?  Hmmm, two I think. Oh 
yes,  I remember, it was two. I could hardly forget because the first one was 
in fact Paul...  yes that's right,  the Paul that I was  dating.  Deplorable. 
When I found out,  I was of course brokenhearted.  And, to make things worse, 
when Paul found out I knew,  he dumped me.  Soon after he his real self began 
to come through. It's funny how you think you know somebody. He used to upset 
me  by  saying  Denise had bigger breasts than I  did...  and  other  hurtful 
comments.  None of the comments were true though...  he knew it,  and so  did 
I...  and besides, he never saw me naked anyway. He and Denise eventually got 
back together... so I suppose that's another thing she stole really isn't it?

 Stealing.  That's  was  Denise's speciality in them  days.  It  really  does 
surprise's me how she didn't turn out to be a crook or gangster and end up in 
irons with a gang of others.  Typically,  she did of course hang around in  a 
big mob of girls.  The hard crew of something.  One time, and purely to spite 
her,  I  followed her around for the day...  playing the big  sister  looking 
after the little sister routine.  She naturally didn't like it, and so for me 
it was a scream I can tell you. But as always... it backfired.

 When  I met her friends,  they made me do a task so that I could join  their 
group. I didn't really want to, but I went along with it anyway. It was quite 
puerile really.  The idea right,  was for me to go into the local  shop,  and 
steal a box of chocolates.  So,  in I went (nervous as hell,  you see, unlike 
Denise,  I'm no thief) and I slapped my penny down on the counter.  "Pack  of 
bubble  gum" I said.  There was no bubble gum on the shelf,  and so  the  man 
behind the counter had to go into the back-room.  It was just as I  expected. 
Quickly, I bent down and slid open the glass door in front of the chocolates, 
grabbed a pound box of Milktray,  and slid the door back.  Just as I  did,  I 
heard the shopkeeper coming back.  I stood up in a flash,  and fortunately  I 
was wearing a dress;  so I stuffed the chocolates up my dress and between  my 
legs. The shop keeper, unaware of this took the penny and put it in his till, 
well...  more of a little box actually.  At that point,  I was surprised  the 
look on my face didn't give me away,  because after all,  the chocolates were 
cold.  So,  there  we were,  both stood looking at each other.  The man  said 
"Errr... do you want anything else, young lady?" I said "No thanks". We still 
stood looking at each other.  I smiled at him,  Opps, no, I shouldn't of done 
that,  I think he was starting to get the wrong idea.  Panic time.  I  turned 
around,  and in very short hops,  I hopped over to the door.  The shop keeper 
must have thought I was utterly barmy. I opened the door, and hopped through, 
closing it behind me. I...had...DONE...it! None of them could believe it, and 
they all stood speechless. Then in a great plan, brilliantly executed, I made 
the fatal flaw.  Grabbing the box of chocolates from between my legs,  I held 
them in the air,  and waved them round shouting "I've done it!" Well,  I  was 
rather tickled pink.  To my misfortune, the shop keeper was still watching me 
through  the  glass window - I'm not surprised after  my  little  performance 
though.  Well, naturally, Denise and her mob all ran off and left me there to 
get the blame. I didn't even get to have the chocolates either.
 
 [The ride is now speeding down a steep hill, everybody is screaming. The two 
children, Philip and Georgina, are eating candy floss. Philip is the woman on 
the ride's son, George is Denise's little girl]

 So  a  few years on,  and I was to get myself a husband.  My  last  husband. 
Definitely my last,  I can tell you.  He was bloody useless.  He didn't  look 
after  Philip  whatsoever.  In fact,  the only thing he ever did  as  regards 
Philip  was  to play a part in his conception...  a very small part  come  to 
think  of it.  I knew it would be like that though.  Right from the minute  I 
went  into labour,  when a nurse had to spend 30 minutes phoning  around  for 
him. In the end, it turned out that he was in bed under a mountain of sheets, 
and he couldn't hear the telephone. So by the time he had dragged himself out 
of his pit - had something to eat first,  naturally - and got himself down to 
the  hospital ward,  I'd had the bloody baby already.  He falls  though  that 
door, takes on look at Philip and proceeds to come out with "Is that It? Nine 
months  of  agony for that?" It's not even as though he was  the  one  giving 
birth,  I mean he didn't feel any physical pain. I suppose he could have been 
a bit mentally disturbed by the whole thing. No. I don't think so actually. I 
wouldn't  have  said he had much of a mind to be disturbed,  because  he  was 
thoughtless. Thoughtless.

 There  was  one time when I was off-colour,  and Philip was giving  me  some 
trouble.  Mike was fast asleep in bed and just would not get up. I had a pain 
in my left leg,  and I could hardly walk.  At the time, I was upstairs trying 
to drag Mike out of bed with one hand,  whilst holding Philip with the other. 
"Look..."  I  said.  "Go away..." he replied.  I said "I need to  go  to  the 
hospital, it's my leg again." He would not reply to this. " Look I'm going to 
the hospital whether you drive me or not, I'm going to go if I have to bloody 
crawl there on my hands and knees" I said. The bloody tyrant still didn't get 
out of bed.  Sure enough though,  I started to go. There I sat, at the top of 
the stairs,  edging myself down them one by one.  Philip just balanced on  my 
knee.  Fifteen minutes later,  I had reached the bottom of the stairs and got 
my coat on.  I was still sat on my bottom,  I might add.  Philip was  dressed 
suitably,  so I opened the door and eased myself onto the step outside.  Just 
as I closed the door,  down comes the dictator cursing me badly.  "Okay, I'll 
drive,  you cow" I was not impressed.  But not being a person to cut my  nose 
off to spite my face, I went with time to the hospital.

 We nearly ended up at the hospital quite a few times,  come to think of  it. 
There was that time,  a good few years ago now,  where Mike had gone out  and 
left me with no money and no food at all.  Philip was whining because he  was 
hungry, and I was getting rather, well, tired of it all, to put it mildly. It 
didn't  happen every now and again mind you,  it was  every  night.  Well,  I 
wasn't going to be daft enough to let this continue.  I knew where he went to 
drink,  and so I wasn't going to stand for it any more.  [She sits forward in 
the  carriage]  I picked up the phone,  which was about to be  cut  off,  and 
dialled the Public House.  "Can I speak to Mike,  please?" I  said.  Somebody 
replied "Mike,  mmm...,  oh... yeah... Mike. No, I'm sorry, he isn't here." I 
did of course know that he was there.  "Oh,  okay then,  thanks." I said. Now 
Mike  didn't know this,  but a friend of mine lived just across the way  from 
this pub.  I phoned here,  and sure enough,  his battered car was in the car-
park.  "Can I speak to Mike please?" "Sorry,  he isn't here" came the  reply. 
"Well  what  is his car doing outside then?" Silence.  "Oh  yeah,  he's  just 
walked  in  now."  A few short seconds later,  a  throaty  voice  came  back. 
"Hello?" it said.  "Mike?" I enquired,  calmly. I just wanted to make sure it 
was the right person before I had a go at him.  "Yes" he said. Summing up all 
my courage, I spoke slowly "Get-your-arse-back-at-this-house-in-5-minutes-or-
you'll-find-all-your-shit-on-the-lawn." [She relaxes as the ride becomes more 
manageable] I meant business.  The phone went dead.  Sure enough, in around 5 
minutes, he was back at the house. God knows how, it's at least 15 miles away 
where he drinks.

 When Denise and I both reached adulthood,  at long last,  we began to go our 
separate ways.  Denise was marrying a man called Steve,  who was in the armed 
forces. I think going our separate ways is a bit of an understatement really. 
Denise moved to Germany with her man... if you ask me it wasn't far enough. I 
know  that's a bit of a bitchy attitude,  but she didn't get in touch  for  a 
good eighteen months.  It was one Christmas you see...  well,  about 3  weeks 
before and this letter lands on the mat.  It was explaining what a good  time 
she was having over there,  and asking if I would like to come and visit  for 
Christmas.  Ha!  What  a joke!  How was I supposed to get an  eighteen  month 
youngster  over there,  with all his Christmas presents,  and make  sure  the 
house  was looked after and find somebody to take care of the  dog?  I  don't 
think she realized how hard I was finding it to survive.

 I went.  It was after using a lot of my savings and organizing a  loan.  She 
seemed  happy enough.  It was quite a shock to her when she learned I  had  a 
child that was a year and a half old.  It took her nearly two days before she 
could  remember  his name.  It's not that difficult to remember  is  it?  She 
seemed  to have a habit of calling him "it" as well....  do you know  what  I 
mean?  Sort of purposely avoiding calling him by his proper name.

 [She looks over to see what the children are doing]

 Well,  for a few years,  me and Denise lost contact.  I was unable to hold a 
job for to long because I had to keep having time off when Philip was poorly. 
He was always ill with his chest.  Every time I got a call at work, I used to 
fear  the  worst.  Fear,  it's a funny thing,  isn't  it?  Fear  when  you're 
frightened, and fear when you're worried. I wonder if Denise had any when she 
came  back  to live with me after an  argument  with  Steve?  Cheek.  There's 
nothing  quite like it.  She just sauntered back to England and  expected  to 
live with me.  She had a lot of furniture.  I don't know where she got it all 
from.  Ever  since  then she's been lumbering me  with  her  responsibilities 
[looks  out  of  the  side  again].   Always  coming  back  to  me  when  her 
relationships  don't work out.  She even had a baby,  though I look after  it 
mostly now...  well not even me, Philip seems to like doing it. It's all just 
another life story really, isn't it?

 [Ride  stops,  and  she gets out.  Children side by  side,  they  leave  the 
fairground.]


= LORD OF THE THINGS ========================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers

 Warning:  This  story  has a passage where the word  "SHIT"  occurs  perhaps 
rather too frequently for those readers with a somewhat delicate taste.


 The stars gazed at him intently but silently.  He did not gaze back at them, 
nor was he silent.  He gazed intently at something else.  It was  round,  and 
increasing  its  size at an ever quickening pace.  He gazed at  it  intently, 
which  was  not unusual when taking into consideration that his  small  space 
vessel,  stolen on an obscure planetoid about two days behind him,  was on  a 
crash  course  with an almost insignificantly small  but  nonetheless  rather 
lethal-looking planet.
 He  had  always  hated  auto-pilots.  But now his hate  had  come  back  and 
quadrupled. This was the first vessel equipped with a suicidally insane auto-
pilot.  After  he had insulted it for the hundredth time,  it had decided  to 
plot a collision course. Death before dishonour, that sort of thing.
 Cronos Warchild, mercenary annex hired gun, swore never to steal a Japanese-
made space vessel again.
 The  auto-pilot sat staring at him,  smiling smugly.  A countdown  ran,  the 
words "Stuff it" above it on the plasma display.  It obviously had a sense of 
drama. Warchild couldn't find it in his heart to appreciate it.
 Life had already flashed him by on many occasions.  Rarely did a month go by 
without him having a near-death experience - reaper beckoning,  light at  the 
end of a tunnel,  green meadows filled with scantily clad valkieries  running 
to  and fro,  the works.  This time it was made ever so more intense  because 
there was no reaper.  No beckoning skeletal finger,  no empty eyesockets into 
which to see Time and The End Of All,  no life flashing by at the insides  of 
one's eyelids,  no nothing. All available mental slots were occupied fully by 
the ever growing planetary orb,  the lack of a friendly auto-pilot,  and  the 
incredibly  high likelihood of his life genuinely discontinueing  within  the 
next...er...
 "...44...43...42..." the auto-pilot's ignominious computer voice droned.
 Warchild's  fist  landed  on  the  display.   The  countdown  counted   down 
implacably. "And your mother, too," the display now read.
 Just  after  the  countdown had reached  "1",  the  cacophony  of  swearing, 
pounding and the fanatically absurd metallic laugh of the Japanese auto-pilot 
transformed  itself  into the cacophony of melting  metal,  breaking  boughs, 
grinding glass and a very loud but somehow quiet "thud".
 Somewhere  in that cacophony everything went black for a mere mortal  -  and 
not just because it was around midnight.

 Death owed Warchild a favour.  Death didn't like owing people favours. Death 
usually didn't go around owing favours to anyone,  not even to the very  gods 
themselves.  It  simply  wasn't done,  it  wasn't  proper  procedure.  Death, 
however,  is not half as bad as people think. Just to emphasize the exception 
to the rule,  he had lured himself into owing someone a favour, someone whose 
soul he would normally have had to reap just about...*now*.
 This pitiable human had once helped Death out.  Not particularly  well,  you 
had to give him that, but nonetheless it had warranted a debt.
 Death liked drama,  much in the way the now defunct Japanse auto-pilot  had. 
He  would  have loved to have his robes flap around him dramatically  in  the 
midnight wind, but there just didn't happen to be any. He beheld the wreckage 
amidst  which sat an unconscious mortal whom Death now owed no more  favours.  
He  turned  around  on  his heel - something he was  rather  good  at  -  and 
disappeared without a trace nor one of those proverbial puffs of smoke.

 Gfrzxs was born that night. So were about fifty of his kind. Their birth was 
slightly premature, and not particularly peaceful - it had involved something 
out  of  the  air crashing into their  Tree  rather  violently,  causing  the 
commotion  necessary for them to be shaken free and submit themselves to  the 
laws  of  gravity.  There  was an unspeakable noise,  followed by  a  lot  of 
hissing, like metal being cooled down by drops of dawn.
 Gfrzxs  opened  his eyes unto the lap of an unconscious  giant  that  looked 
totally unlike him - an alien of sorts,  certainly something totally  foreign 
to his tree. He sat silently, bewildered, not daring to move for a while.

 It is a universal aspect of all living things throughout the entirity of the 
multiverse to recognize a thing that their limited intellect can't understand 
and consequently label it "God".  A thought struck Gfrzxs.  This alien,  much 
larger than him and certainly much more omnipotent,  could not be  explained. 
Therefore it was God.

 At  that  very  instant,  as if destined to happen by some  kind  of  divine 
intervention,  the giant alien opened its eyes.  Gfrzxs startled but retained 
control over his limbs - all five of them - preventing them from shaking. His 
awe-stricken eyes beheld God.
 And God moved and cursed.
 The  sounds uttered by God can't be understood by mere mortals.  One has  to 
provide oneself with years of dedicated theological training, hour after hour 
of sincere meditation and the studying of libraries filled with Godly - or at 
least Divinely Franchised - tomes.  Alternatively,  of course,  one can  also 
just  rent  a  TV  channel and make other  people  believe  you've  done  the 
aforementioned,   which  usually  proves  much  more  financially  -  if  not 
theologically - feasible.
 Gfrzxs  didn't understand anything the God said.  He hadn't gained a lot  of 
life experience and thus,  much in the way humans tend to do,  he interpreted 
that which he heard and saw the way it seemed best to him: God was happy.
 He asked for a divine sign. Remarkably, he got it several seconds later.

 In  reality,  of course,  God was far from happy.  Even though he was  still 
alive,  his vessel has been utterly wrecked and he knew that chances of  life 
on any given planet are,  as has been capably and frequently demonstrated  by 
many  scientists and authors alike,  insanely close to zero.  He brushed  the 
small furry ball off his lap and folded himself out of the wreckage. It would 
take  an entire team of talented engineers *weeks* to repair  the  thing,  he 
guessed,  and  a  new  kind  of time reckoning would  certainly  have  to  be 
conveived  to estimate the time it would take if Warchild himself were to  do 
it, for obviously the chances of finding any talented engineers here would be 
smaller than the chances of finding a TV Preacher in Heaven.
 Also,  he found the air rather foul-smelling. Though not in any particularly 
definite ways, it seemed a bit toxic. Not deadly, at least not instantly, but 
nonetheless a bit toxic.

 Gfrzxs was caught off guard,  drooling exultantly in Divine Bliss,  when the 
God swept him off his Divine Lap. He landed amid several others of his kind - 
his  own brothers and sisters,  that had Parted from the Mother Tree  at  the 
same time.
 When  he had regained full awareness - after all,  one does not get  brushed 
off  the Godly Womb every day - he found his kindred looking at him in  utter 
awe.
 "Hail,"  one of the awestricken fellows ventured when he saw  Gfrzxs  seemed 
not about to say anything.
 "Er...hail you,  too," Gfrzxs replied,  nonplussed.  Whence came this sudden 
display of respect? His life had barely started and already he seemed to have 
acquired some sort of status.  And all he had needed to do was to get brushed 
off Heavenly Loins.
 "What's it like?" another of the enawed creatures now asked.
 "What's what like?" Gfrzxs wondered.
 "Him," the other creature indicated,  his voice hushed in as much veneration 
as it could muster, "the giant, er...*God*, you know."
 "He's sortof big, isn't he?" another now added.
 "They're supposed to be, Gods, aren't they?" yet another asked.
 None  of them seemed to know for sure.  It did sound logical  though.  Power 
came  with  size.  Gods  had lots of power,  so they were bound  to  be  big. 
Seriously big.  Or perhaps they just had to wear a beard and a robe. But this 
one didn't seem to, at least not from where they were standing. He surely was 
big.
 For a while none of them said anything.
 "What  are  we to do,  oh High Priest?" a particularly light green  ball  of 
fluff  asked,  scratching his bit on top where only minutes ago a branch  had 
been.
 Gfrzxs was getting nervous. And embarrassed.
 "Gfrzxs will do fine, thank you," he muttered, "I am no High Priest."
 Another silence.
 "But you've, er...*touched* God!" someone said.
 Surely,  mere  mortals weren't allowed to touch the Gods.  You had to  be  a 
Priest  to  be able to talk to them,  so you'd definitely have to be  a  High 
Priest  to be permitted to touch them,  or to have the Gods touch you  -  let 
alone have them unceremoniously brush you off their laps!
 "I seem to,  don't I?" Gfrzxs now said, fumbling his chin (which was located 
where,  logically, his groin would have to be). He was about to say something 
that  would have inspired several of his kind to pick up pens and  paper  and 
start  writing down gospels when a most terrific sound came  from  Warchild's 
spacecraft.
 It  was the sound of teeth gritting and joints cracking,  intermingled  with 
some  crafty curses the likes of which this planet had never heard before  in 
its billions of years worth of dedicated evolution.

 So  it  happened  that Cronos stretched his  limbs,  roughly  rubbed  a  few 
bruises,  uttered  another  few curses just for the hell of  it,  and  beheld 
approximately fifty furry balls of various colours that were lying,  for lack 
of a better word,  *prostrate* on the ground before him.  He had seen Moslims 
doing  this  sort  of thing before,  only they usually  didn't  direct  their 
attention  to  him  - nor were they usually  round,  furry,  and  of  various 
colours. Quite the opposite actually.
 "Whattaf...," he said, bewildered as usual.
 One  of the furry creatures,  he could see most distinctly,  was  scribbling 
down something short.
 "Huh?" he added.
 The furry thingy scribbled something more. A bit shorter this time.
 Gfrzxs considered the time ripe to erect himself and say something on behalf 
of his people.
 "Oh  Divine  Being  from outer space!" he yelled at the top  of  his  voice, 
"Hearken your humble servant!"
 It is another multiversal habit of people to address Divinities in a typical 
and somewhat silly way.
 Warchild  was  glad  he had bothered to visit  planet  Lobia  recently.  The 
inhabitants  of  that particular planet were particularly deft  at  designing 
hearing  aids  -  and rather fast,  too,  especially when  you  were  ineptly 
fumbling  with a killer gadget that could kill someone (say,  a  hearing  aid 
manufacturer)  quickly  and just as effectively.  He could  hear  the  little 
orange  furry  ball  say something in a high piping  voice  just  within  the 
hearing limits of the human ear.

 English  is  probably one of the least popular language when compared  at  a 
universal scale. A language spoken by approximately forty-three times as many 
people is Second-Dynasty Klatchian,  but then again this particular  language 
is dwarfed by the amount of people who speak Chinese - and not just on earth.
 Therefore Cronos was relieved but also rather puzzled at the fact that these 
furry  little  balls,  no bigger than a fist and living on a  world  multiple 
light aeons away from Earth,  spoke English rather well.  Without a trace  of 
accent,  even. Had he ever, he would have found it oddly similar to listening 
to the Nine O'Clock News.
 He didn't get far beyond thinking,  "Hey,  that's cool, they think I'm God," 
for at that instant there was a lot of light and a lot of noise (like  "ZAP", 
only  louder)  followed by a tremendous lot of smoke,  after which  a  rather 
unsightly space vessel was found to have located itself just behind the batch 
of little furry creatures.  A simple and rather silly tune was playing in the 
background.
 Warchild  uttered  his  by  now  familiar  phrase  of  bafflement.   Someone 
scribbled.
 A ramp extended itself from the spaceship, and upon it stood a most horrible 
creature that looked like it consisted mostly,  indeed almost only, of wings, 
eyes,  and sphincters.  He had seen this kind of monster before, but his mind 
had difficulty making the right connections.
 The horrid monster extended a leathery wing that clutched an elongated piece 
of metal and pointed down at the gathering of furry round things.  About half 
a dozen of what seemed to be its minions came flying awkwardly out of another 
opening  in the vessel's meteorite-pocked hull.  Without  losing  time,  they 
hoarded together about thirty of the furry little cute round creatures, their 
little  voices piping with panic,  and drove them onto the  ramp.  The  boss-
monster swiped once with a particularly evil looking wing, grabbing hold of a 
furry purple ball.  Huge jaws parted slowly but eagerly,  dark yellow stained 
fangs  gleamed  dolefully,  saliva dripped and drooled  expectantly.  With  a 
casual movement the screaming little cutesy-wutesy was flung inside the  oral 
pit of death. The jaws snapped shut mercilessly and the monster's eyes closed 
as  if  it was enjoying some particularly rare delicacy.  There was  a  short 
muffled noise of life being squashed out of a living creature, then nothing.
 The  furry balls left on the ground,  lucky enough not to have been  hoarded 
aboard  on  the  ramp that was already  folding  back,  were  hopping  around 
excitedly.
 "*Now*  you've gone too far!" one of them,  violently red with purple  dots, 
yelled.
 "We  will have you suffer under the wrath of God!" another cried at the  top 
of  its  voice.  It was Gfrzxs.  The little round thingy looked  at  Warchild 
expectantly.
 Some  others  shouted  in  agreement.  The monster seemed  not  to  find  it 
necessary  even  to look back over its hideously malformed  shoulders  as  it 
strode back into the spaceship,  spitting out some fur and licking its  wart-
ridden lips.
 "Up,"  the monster signalled just before the ramp flapped up and sealed  off 
the craft.

 It  takes much to damage Cronos Warchild's sense of  justice.  Usually  that 
just means a lot of money, sometimes not particularly much. But now something 
inside him screamed out in anger - maybe his female side,  always  suppressed 
but now finally rearing its feminine head.
 "Hey," Cronos thought out loud, "this can't be right."
 He  looked at the furry balls left over,  yelling and screaming just  within 
the specified limits of his hearing aid. He looked at the space craft.
 Already  there was plenty of smoke.  It seemed odd,  but the smoke  in  some 
eerie  way made the air seem less oppressive,  less  toxic,  *fresher*  even. 
Really weird.
 The craft would probably take off any minute now,  taking with it a bunch of 
frightfully  cute creatures that had proclaimed him "God" just  moments  ago. 
And  those  monsters  hadn't even noticed him,  not heeded him  even  in  the 
slightest possible way.
 He  felt  he had to do something.  But what was there to be  done?  His  own 
spacecraft was smashed beyond repair.  He had no weapons on him.  His  killer 
finger nail hadn't grown dangerous enough yet. Then an idea hit him. It hurt, 
but  pain  could be switched off by those trained the  way  Cronos  Warchild, 
mercenary annex hired gun, had been trained.
 At  the  precise  instant when the enemy  spacecraft  experienced  lift-off, 
Cronos took a mother of all breaths and leapt onto the vessel's landing gear.
 He reckoned it might take a while before he could breathe again.  He  closed 
his  eyes,  lowered his body temperature and slowed down his heartbeat to  an 
almost inhumanly low rate.  He drifted off in the area of consciousness  only 
preciously few people ever experience.
 Which is probably just as well.

 Shortly after the captors' departure, with Cronos Warchild clutched to their 
landing in semi-hibernation,  another spacecraft landed on the planet. Out of 
it  stepped  a man wearing a raincoat and hat,  carrying with  him  a  vacuum 
cleaner and one volume of an encyclopaedia.  He looked around  him,  studying 
the  trees.  Some of them had fluffy balls hanging on their  branches.  These 
balls seemed, in some extraordinary way, *alive*.
 A wide smile found its way upon the man's features. He took from a pocket of 
his raincoat a small cellular phone,  dialled a number and talked  agitatedly 
for a while.  After that he replaced it in the pocket whence it came, he took 
out  another device with which he sampled the air around the place where  the 
Captors' space ship had just left.  His smile broadened.  He got back to  his 
ship and left with what could not be anything other than haste.
 As if to relieve the tension, it started to rain.

 There was a light at the end of the tunnel.  And this time it wasn't an  on-
rushing train.  The light seemed reluctant to want to come closer - teasingly 
so. He tried moving his fingers and toes but found himself unable to. Usually 
this was the time when one would shout a bit. Warchild didn't. He was trained 
to  suppress  pain,  but he could also keep himself from  feeling  any  weird 
emotions. He did.
 Mysteriously,  there  was for an utterly brief instant the scent  of  honey. 
Immediately  afterwards  there was a totally different  scent.  More  like  a 
*stench*  actually.  And he recognised it.  His olfactory lobe has sensed  it 
before  on  numerous occasions.  Once deep within the bowels of a  castle  on 
Sucatraps,  for example.  Another time, longer ago, in the lavatory of a Thai 
Boxing school.
 It  was the unmistakable stench of the creatures to smell most viciously  in 
the known universe, and most likely beyond - the Mutant Maxi Mega Monsters of 
Multifizzic Omega.  Some way or other he always turned out winding up in  the 
vicinity of these ecological menaces.
 That was what tore him from his self-induced hibernation,  much in the way a 
nuclear  holocaust would a thoroughly enjoyable dream  involving  innumerable 
scantily clad members of the opposite sex.
 He didn't like it when he saw what caused the vile stench.
 Not at all.

 "Me keep him?" she asked her father,  trying hard to appear as ravishing and 
enchanting  as  she could,  which was difficult given the fact that  she  was 
basically one pussed-over wart with leathery wings,  plenty of eyes and about 
half a dozen anal muscles too many.
 "*Please?* Me keep him?"
 Her father's body language spoke volumes;  a few arseholes opened, excreting 
something  that looked like it was liquid and gaseous at the same  time.  His 
eyes rolled around, his wings flapped in an intricate pattern.
 No. She couldn't.
 "But he *ever* so cute," she insisted.
 Her father's body excreted,  rolled and flapped some more.  No way.  Deirdre 
was  not  going to get her way.  She usually did,  but  not  this  time.  He, 
Frothgar the Merciless,  would make sure she wouldn't.  He casually removed a 
remnant of purple fur from between two of his yellowed fangs,  then told  his 
daughter to lose herself.
 The stench was positively nauseating.

 Those monsters surely knew how to tie a good boyscout knot.  He hadn't  been 
able  to resist much against his bondage,  what with him still being  in  his 
semi-hibernative  state.  If  only he'd been able to,  he would  surely  have 
taught them a lesson or two.  One didn't need any gadgets to kill at least  a 
few,  as a warning.  But they had him meticulously bound and gagged before he 
had a chance at restoring his own physical state of being in full.
 And once he had, Deirdre had given him quite a nasty shock.
 Evidently  she had taken up an instant fondness towards the rather  squarely 
built human.  Perhaps she wanted to keep him as a pet,  or  perhaps...shivers 
ran down his spine at the mere hint of a thought about what she might want to 
do with - or *to* - him.
 Of  course  Warchild  was not one to complain  or  have  objections  against 
interest from members of the fair sex,  but the problem on Multifizzic  Omega 
was the fact that the principle of natural selection seemed to have gone  out 
of  its  way to produce a race of positively ghastly creatures in  which  the 
worst bits of anatomy were the only ones present in omnipotently copious  and 
berzerkedly glorified abundance.
 Never  had  he had anything against voluptuous maidens with folds  of  flesh 
aplenty, and not even the sight of zero-grav modules needed to keep humongous 
flaps of fat off the ground gave him enough reason to lose interest in a girl 
- but a vastly disproportioned monstrosity the likes of Deirdre could not  be 
rated  at any logically conceivable scale of bad taste.  Visions of  anything 
more  than casual social intercourse with this loathsome creature - and  that 
preferably  by means of interplanetary communication - filled him with  dread 
and disgust.  And that was even before he had seen her eat.  Positively  off-
putting, that was.
 Even so,  he wasn't sure where he'd be better off: With Deirdre, or with her 
genuinely evil father,  Frothgar the Merciless,  who seemed to have some kind 
of  leading position among the Multifizzians.  Also,  Frothgar's name  didn't 
bode well.
 "Well,  well,"  Frothgar  the  Merciless said,  flapping one  or  two  wings 
nonchalantly after his hideous daughter had finally left the  room,  sulking, 
"Me know your kind. You look for easy buck, no?"
 He  nudged Warchild,  who gritted his teeth and gave the monster  a  killing 
look, trying not to breathe in more than was strictly necessary. He tried not 
to breathe through his nose,  but the stench could actually be *tasted*, too. 
Horrible.
 "Your kind tasty,  you know,  yes?" Frothgar continued, as if partly reading 
Cronos' thoughts, producing a knife from somewhere. It caught a beam of light 
that glinted off its edge.  You didn't need to be a seasoned mercenary to see 
that it was razor sharp.  Frothgar opened the lid from a box that stood  near 
them,  and a blackened wing took from it a fluffy yellow ball. Warchild heard 
it piping in panic at the edge of his hearing.  Frothgar cut off a slice.  He 
opened his horrific jaws and tossed it in an casually as he could - which was 
not  very.  The piping stopped after another few slices had  been  ravenously 
devoured.  The remainder Frothgar threw back in the box.  The lid fell  shut. 
Frothgar laughed the laugh of the insane.
 Warchild was getting very angry.  Kidnapping the cutesy-wutesy creatures was 
one thing,  eating them with relish was another. God or not, he would come to 
their rescue.  Even Cronos himself didn't stoop that  low.  Kidnapping,  yes. 
Killing, sure. Torturing, why not. Eating, no way.
 He flexed his muscles,  ground his wrists together. He had to tear the rope. 
The hemp cut his flesh.  He felt the warmth of his own blood - more  steroids 
than anything else - running across his hands.
 So far the rope didn't budge.  Veins stood out on Warchild's head and  arms. 
There  was  a  sound,  barely audible.  The sound of  tiny  strands  of  hemp 
breaking.  Then a few more.  And more still.  It was getting louder now,  the 
rope  giving  up  the  struggle it was doomed  to  lose  just  because  ropes 
generally do in this kind of story.
 Frothgar  the  Merciless  beheld  the  struggling  human  and  grinned  with 
satisfaction.  His minions had all been their equivalent of  boyscouts.  They 
knew how to make knots.
 He  was about to eat his thoughts.  A good thing thoughts aren't  famed  for 
their  substance,  for one would have found it hard to eat them with most  of 
one's fangs knocked out by a human who had just found ways of getting untied.
 Ex-boyscout heads were going to roll.

 Warchild  had no idea where he was.  He *did* know he needed to get  himself 
back in order again.  His artificial hibernation had wrought havoc inside his 
body.  His  heart beat incontrollably,  he sweated rather more than he  would 
usually have,  and he panted as if he had just run a marathon on a  quadruple 
grav planet.
 He breathed in and out deeply several times.  He looked around  him.  Nobody 
seemed to be in pursuit - yet.  The stench was still vile.  Frothgar's palace 
didn't appear to be particularly big but the way out still seemed either  too 
far  off or too inconspicuous.  Or perhaps it was one of  those  Insta-Delude 
doors he'd read about once, somewhere.
 There was a sound coming from an adjoining corridor. Cronos fumbled with the 
latch of the first door he saw,  opened it and dashed in.  He closed the door 
about  half  a  microsecond before a couple of  heavily  armed  Multifizzians 
rounded the corner.
 Interestingly, the door had had a large "D" engraved on it.

 It was dark. Cronos fumbled around in it. He sincerely hoped these creatures 
had  invented light switches.  Approximately three seconds  later,  when  his 
probing  hands touched something like leather which resulted in  someone,  or 
some *thing*,  starting to croon excitedly,  he withdrew that hope.  Whatever 
was  in  here - and even a dimwitted person such as he had  some  startlingly 
definite  ideas  as to who it might be - he would like it a lot  better  when 
unseen.
 As  if  Deirdre had read his thoughts she deemed that  moment  opportune  to 
light  a few candles.  They shed their playful light on a table set for  two, 
located  in the centre of what could now be seen to be her boudoir.  She  had 
tried  hard to think of what a human might like for dinner.  Half of  it  was 
still  writhing  in  a bowl,  however,  so it was  rather  obvious  that  her 
knowledge  of  terrestrial  gastronomy  was,   to  put  it  mildly,   utterly 
nonexistent.  Her  sense  of romance,  too,  seemed  not  particularly  well-
developed  - or else she would not have put on the pink party dress  she  had 
masochistically  squeezed herself into,  nor would she have put on  what  she 
obviously considered the epitome of a nice background tune - Fart'n'Belch  in 
Phrygian C Major by Tama Von Bitegarden,  Chief Composer to the  Multifizzian 
Imperial  Court.  And  that  still left out the Eau De  Pigswil  that  wafted 
through the room, clinging to her form.
 "Finally,"  she  purred  in a way that  would  probably  appear  exceedingly 
enticing to any Multifizzian, "me have you alone, yes?"
 She moved in on him.  Cronos retreated,  not quite knowing what he'd have to 
do to get out of this predicament alive - or at least to get away unmolested.
 "Do you find me...sexy?" she asked,  lifting a few eyebrows in  wonder.  The 
quality  of  her  voice,  some  may have ventured to call  it  'husky'  in  a 
particularly Multifizzian way,  could have made the entire male population of 
the  planet  squirm in their seats.  She folded a wing behind  her  head  and 
blinked about half a dozen eyes luringly.
 "Er..."  Cronos said.  He had never been good at giving compliments  -  even 
worse now, what with there not possibly being any to give.
 This girl was very persistent.  "No" wouldn't do for an answer.  She  lifted 
her  skirt somewhat,  uncovering some more square inches of leg  -  including 
some sores that appeared to be frothing, oozing a dark yellow thick liquid of 
sorts.
 Cronos Warchild hated having to hit women.  He closed his eyes for a second. 
Angry faces flashed by. Female faces, connected to bodies with feet and hands 
that  had  hurt him,  shattered his macho  self-confidence.  An  itch  yanked 
through his groin for a fleeting instant of a moment. It wasn't a pleasurable 
one.  His  fist  flashed furiously,  fangs fell feverishly and a  dress  tore 
unsubtlely and rather too revealingly.
 Warchild  had  to  tear  his  gaze off her - like  many  humans  he  was  as 
fascinated  by  sheer hard-core ugliness as by beauty - and  legged  it.  She 
followed him outside into the corridor, staggering, muttering, trying to stop 
the blood pouring from her lips from staining her now tattered  dress.  There 
was the sound of armed guards close by.
 "Me wanth hith headth," she bellowed inarticulately, "on a plate!"

 The  corridor walls rushed him by.  They seemed too much like a maze -  but, 
then  again,  to  someone with the mental capacity of Cronos  Warchild  a  T-
crossing already resembled one. He had to get out, and get out fast. He heard 
the  clatter of armour somewhere not too far behind him.  Already the  stench 
was intensifying.
 A  couple  of  moments later he stood eye to eye  with  what  was,  even  to 
Multifizzian  standards,  one helluvan ugly mutha.  This particular  specimen 
wore  nappies and a NKOTB T-shirt.  He was fat - extremely so.  When  he  saw 
Cronos  he set some of his legs apart a bit,  put a wing on  each  knee,  and 
began to hop slowly and hypnotizingly from one leg to another,  letting go of 
some gaseous matter occasionally.  Frothgar's personal minions had closed  in 
and  were about to incinerate Warchild when the big fat ugly mutha shook  his 
head.
 "No," he intoned with authority, "he mine, yes?"
 The others lowered their weapons,  but hesitantly. At least they were in for 
some splattering and stuff.

 Far away in space, on the Smelliest of all Planets, Cronos was challenged to 
a match of Multifizzian Real Wrestling.  To the death,  most certainly.  His, 
most likely.
 His challenger licked his lips.  There were no fangs,  but instead some kind 
of metal denture,  the likes of which Warchild had seen in a James Bond  film 
once.
 The  fat  ugly  mutha  grinned asininely.  Someone was  going  to  get  hurt 
seriously, and it surely wasn't going to be him.
 Or at least that's what the monster thought.
 Cronos decided he would have to take the initiative.  No hopping was needed. 
Instead  he  launched his ever tremendous bulk at the  beast.  The  collision 
shook   the  corridor,   and  after  the  laws  of  physics  had  done   some 
contemplating, both of them crashed into - and *through* - a wall.
 Well,  at least they were outside now.  It would do better for this clash of 
the titans. Had Warchild finally found a matching opponent? Frothgar's guards 
stepped outside after them.
 The mutha shook his head,  dazed slightly. A brick or two were stuck between 
some of his wings. He shook them off.
 "Wow," he said, "you strong, yes?"
 Cronos nodded. This was going to be tough. Very.
 Now the Multifizzian charged for the attack.  A collision might prove fatal, 
so  Warchild stepped aside.  The monster crashed headlong into another  wall. 
This  time  the particular bit of wall against which he crashed  appeared  to 
have  been made rather more sturdily - it got damaged seriously,  but  didn't 
budge.
 The monster got up and again shook his head.  He checked himself for wounds, 
only  to end up gazing at his T-shirt,  a fingered wing pointing at the  torn 
NKOTB logo, trembling.
 "Now me angry," the beast bellowed, "and me kill you now, yes?"
 This  time the big mutha walked up to Cronos rather more  strategically  and 
grasped  our  hero in an inescapable killer embrace.  Ribs  could  be  heard, 
virtually  cracking,  still  holding - but not for  long.  Warchild  couldn't 
breathe.  He  kicked  the  monster in what he hoped would  be  a  groin.  The 
Multifizzian,  crying  with pain and anger,  threw the mercenary against  the 
wall.
 A scent of Incandescent Orchids spread itself.

 Cronos had barely gotten over this thing with Klarine Appledoor. It had been 
a  while  ago  now,  probably  a year or two.  He had  been  sitting  at  the 
Gargantuan Burger King,  alone, eating a MegaBurger of which one could not be 
sure about anything save the fact that it was huge and probably lethally  fat 
and morbidly unhealthy.
 He had been about to sink his teeth in it for a third of fourth time when he 
had  suddenly  seen the spitting image of his foster mum  in  the  Gargantuan 
Burger King toilet attendant lady.
 In her movements he had recognized the characteristics of the woman at whose 
place he had lived for so long,  the old peasant's widow who had so  lovingly 
raised him when his mother,  Adnarim the Beautiful,  couldn't. He had thought 
back about the days back on his home planet,  the times she used to read  him 
bed-time  horror  stories,  the  humble little cottage  in  the  sheep-filled 
meadows,  the  oatmeal breakfasts she had steadfastly prepared for  him,  the 
cat...no, *not* the cat.
 He  had swallowed the remainder of fat and cholesterol Gargantuans  lovingly 
called  a MegaBurger and had stood up and walked towards the elderly lady  as 
if drawn by a force outside of himself.
 "Er,  excuse  me," he had said,  tapping the woman on a  shoulder.  She  had 
startled,  looking up from a cleaning chore she had been doing.  He had  read 
her name tag as she erected herself.
 Kizmet, fate, Murphy, destiny, whatever. It had read "M. Appledoor".
 "Can  I help you?" she had said,  her voice old but her spirit  unmistakably 
and enchantingly young.
 Warchild had been lost in thought.  How could this have been? He had been in 
an  utterly remote part of the galaxy and had discovered a woman  who  looked 
like his foster mother and that might very well be the mother of Klarine, the 
girl with whom he had most violently fallen in love with thus  recently.  His 
heart beat in his throat.
 "Er...no,  thanks,  sorry,"  he had muttered unsurely,  a vision of  Klarine 
before  him  as clearly as his rekindled feelings of  wholeheartedly  devoted 
love.  He  had  turned  away from the toilet lady to go back  to  his  table, 
shortly after which instant his perpendicular movement had ceased due to  his 
gonads connecting with a "Have a nice Wee" sign on a pole connected immovably 
with the ground.
 He had turned red and purple,  probably with a bit of yellow too. When would 
he  ever learn to keep the switch on his Multi-Absorb Groin Protector in  the 
"on"  position no matter whether he was on a job or not?  And why the  *hell* 
didn't they attach these trivial signs to a wall, out of the way of knees and 
gonads alike?
 The toilet lady had seen it happen,  and had supported his  trembling,  hurt 
figure  as  well  as she had been able to.  She had been  frightened  of  him 
passing  out  on  her and taking her with him in  his  fall,  flattening  her 
elderly  shape exceedingly.  She had seen people on TV holding small  bottles 
under  noses  of dazed boxing champs,  so she had figured the  small  sampler 
bottle  of toilet refreshener she had carried in one of her pockets would  do 
the  job similarly.  Warchild had sniffed and,  miraculously,  the  scent  of 
Incandescent Orchids had made the pain gradually ebb away.
 The toilet lady had told him to keep the little bottle,  just in  case,  and 
Cronos  had stumbled out of the Burger King restaurant,  his  emotions  oddly 
disturbed with an arcane sense of sentimentality and loss.
 He  had  tied the sampler bottle on a rope around his  neck,  where  it  had 
remained ever since.

 The  big fat ugly mutha sniffed the air,  retching and shouting  abuse.  The 
other guards did about the same,  one of them already vomiting,  inordinately 
disgusted.
 Warchild,  still dazed from having been thrown into that rather solid  wall, 
discovered  that the cap on the little toilet refreshener sampler bottle  had 
unscrewed itself somewhat,  spilling some of the fluid.  It was the smell  of 
immaculately  cleaned hospital toilets,  known commercially as  "Incandescent 
Orchids",  but he loved it.  To him it was the smell of Klarine,  his  foster 
mum,  all the love in the world. He screwed the cap shut again. This heavenly 
scent  would probably linger for another while.  It usually did  in  hospital 
toilets, anyway.
 To  the Multifizzians the lingering scent appeared to be the  embodiment  of 
everything repugnant, vulgar, rancid, nauseating and distasteful.
 "You no fair!" the ugly mutha yelled,  trying hard to stuff as many wings in 
as many nasal cavities.  Frothgar's elite minions had already retreated  back 
through  the  whole  in the wall,  leaving behind a steaming  trail  of  oral 
excretion and gore - some of it still moving.
 "Incandescent Orchids" was potent stuff, obviously.
 The  big  ugly  mutha Maxi Mega Monster appeared to  have  protected  itself 
sufficiently against the scent now. Wings were stuffed up nostrils, and there 
were  still enough wings left to be a menace to Cronos.  He closed in on  the 
mercenary,  slowly  and  confidently.  Warchild suddenly had a  sudden  lucid 
moment  - one of his yearly few.  He unscrewed the cap from the small  bottle 
again,  poured a small quantity of refreshening fluid on his finger and, with 
his thumb nail, catapulted most of it in the direction of the monster.
 Although  an almost absurdly minute quantity of the stuff actually made  its 
way to the monster, the results were no less drastic. Hugely gaping, steaming 
holes  melted  away in the beast's body.  Wings fell  off,  sizzling  to  the 
ground, eyes closed in panic.
 "No!" it cried out, vexed, "You no beat me! Not allowed, no!"
 As  if the monster was starting to boil,  huge bulges appeared in his  skin. 
They  popped one by one,  revealing yet more smelly holes and flinging  blood 
and  gore  in  all directions.  Within about  twenty  seconds,  during  which 
Warchild  enjoyed  himself tremendously,  the last of the  Multifizzian  Real 
Wrestlers  had  been  reduced  to  a  blubbering  pile  of   jelly,   totally 
unrecognizable and decomposing ever more by the second.
 After  yet another few moments all that remained was the horrific stench  so 
typical of the planet and its inhabitants.
 There was no time to rest for Cronos yet.  He had to find some kind of thing 
with  which  to  more effectively spray the  toilet  refreshener,  a  syringe 
perhaps, and then get back to rescue what still remained of the cutesy-wutesy 
cuddlies that seemed to be the only beings in the universe who recognized  in 
him the power he knew he had.
 Careful  so  as  not to tread on too much of the vomit  and  assorted  other 
biodegradable  matter  he went into the hole in the wall.  The scent  of  the 
toilet refreshener was already wearing off.  It was pretty potent stuff,  but 
nonetheless it could not maintain its victory over the Smell of the Smelliest 
Planet for long.
 The corridors were empty.  He stepped through,  full of purpose.  He did not 
heed  the sound of a space craft that landed at the precise spot  where,  but 
minutes ago, an extremely angry and equally ugly fat mutha had stood.

 "Hmmm...," the man muttered,  turning up the collars of his raincoat, hoping 
it would somewhat diminish the effect the horrific stench had on his senses.
 "Hmmm...," he added, this time a bit more thoughtful.
 Multifizzic  Omega  wasn't a place where non-natives  liked  walking  around 
going  "Hmmm..." all the time.  At least not for any time longer then  a  few 
moments.
 A thought seemed to strike the man. Despite the utter misery of an intensity 
such  as Multifizzic Omega alone can inflict on a mortal,  the man managed  a 
smile. He had an idea.
 From  his  pocket he took the communication device  again.  He  communicated 
agitatedly for a while,  something involving the word "diesel",  then  turned 
around to his ship.  There was some smoke, some noise, and then the craft was 
on  its  way  to what would probably be a far healthier  and  certainly  less 
smelly planet.
 On his way he wondered where that hint of toilet refreshener could  possibly 
have  come  from.  As the answer hit him he smiled again,  shifted  gear  and 
accellerated to a higher Warp factor.

 Cronos' heart forgot to beat for a whole second when he recognized the still 
angry voice of Deirdre in a corridor not far enough from  him.  Instinctively 
he hid behind himself.  The stench,  which seemed to grow on him perpetually, 
made  it difficult for him to concentrate.  Sickbay.  He would have to go  to 
sickbay. The Multifizzians seemed a sick race. Their sick bay was bound to be 
big.
 He sniffed the air.  His carefully trained nostrils tried hard to filter out 
the  Multifizzian stench and perhaps find traces of ether.  Once he  found  a 
tiniest trace he tuned his senses to the scent.  He looked behind him,  where 
his  senses told him the minutest traces of ether had to be coming  from.  He 
gazed directly at a large red cross in a white circle, located on a door that 
stood comfortably ajar.
 Things were going smoothly.  Too smoothly even,  perhaps.  But,  then again, 
things usually go smoothly in this kind of story so he thought no more of it.
 He opened the door further, looking in. The sickbay seemed abandoned, except 
for  what  seemed to be a heavily sedated Multifizzian tied to some  sort  of 
bed.
 He  tiptoed in,  monitoring the room for the presence of a syringe  of  some 
sort.  He  saw one immediately,  lying on a shelf beneath the bed  where  the 
sleeping  Multifizzian  lay.  He  went to the  bed,  examining  the  sleeping 
monster. Even when sleeping, they smelled horribly. As if to demonstrate this 
fact,  one  of  the  anal  openings relaxed and let  go  of  some  gas  quite 
autonomously.  Warchild's eyes crossed for a while;  he had to hit himself in 
the face to remain conscious. Somehow he managed.
 When  the  terrible stench had gone back to its usual  level  of  intensity, 
Cronos bent to take the syringe.  There was a sound,  something like snoring. 
He got up, forgetting he was below a bed with a many-ton Multifizzian on it.
 Which was not a particularly smart move.

 Shit  was  falling  from the sky.  Perhaps this is not an  eloquent  way  of 
putting  it,  but  that was exactly what was  happening.  Dark  brown  clouds 
floated  across  the heavens,  dripping the  heavenly  excreta.  Thick  shit. 
Diarrhoea.  Smelly shit.  Splattering shit,  the works. The kind of shit that 
doesn't flush,  the kind of shit you feel needs to be rid of but doesn't want 
to.  All of it.  Naked females hopped into and out of vision,  glad  because, 
finally,  it was raining.  Raining shit.  They inhaled deeply,  savouring the 
smell as if they were using their lungs to taste some delicate wine. They let 
it  play  within their bodies,  sliver across their  enluredly  naked  skins, 
caress their short leathery wings.  They spread the shit across each  other's 
bodies as if it it was some kind of priceless and delicate ointment.
 He saw others mating in the shit-trenched meadows.  Dozens, or even more. It 
seemed  as if the world had transformed from rock into a soaking sea of  shit 
and  fervently mating creatures.  What with the Mutant Maxi Mega Monsters  of 
Multifizzic  Omega  only  being able to breed for about two  hours  every  41 
years, the whole planet was alive and getting down to it.
 An enormous piece of frozen shit,  about as big as a dove's egg, knocked the 
dreamer  right  in the face.  Wow.  Every Multifizzian dreams of  once  being 
knocked out by a large piece of shit.  It's the thing that Multifizzian  porn 
movies go on about all the time.  Multifizzians had given new definitions  to 
"Greek".
 The  earth  started shaking.  Perhaps he was atop a mating  couple,  but  he 
reckoned not as the entire earth seemed to be shaking now.  There was a noise 
of a head connecting to a stretcher, followed by a curse.
 He  saw all the mating couples look up at that curse.  It was  the  commonly 
used synonym for animal and human excreta,  a Holy Word not to be uttered  by 
any Multifizzian on the penalty of death.
 The dreamer woke up, staring up at an ordinary ceiling instead of the clouds 
of  shit he had dreamed he was walking under.  Waking up from the  utmost  of 
erotic dreams can make a Multifizzian very angry.
 Angry  enough  to tear to shred the belts with which he had been tied  to  a 
bed,  angry  enough  to react with instant and eager  hostility  against  the 
humanoid that suddenly appeared from below,  rubbing its head,  uttering  the 
Holy Word once more (and now even more emphatically).

 Before  he  knew  it,  Cronos Warchild had been hit  against  the  floor,  a 
previously sedated but now remarkably awake Multifizzian astride him, hitting 
him with as many wings and in as many different places as possible.
 This  sudden  turn of events had the mercenary annex hired gun  puzzled  for 
what was approximated to be 3 microseconds. His tutors, had they been able to 
witness this, would have turned away in disgust and would have retreated to a 
corner,  disappointed at Cronos' obvious lack of speed.  They would sit  down 
and pray for it to be only a temporary thing.
 Warchild was getting bruised seriously,  and the thrashing Multifizzian atop 
him had around his being a stench that was,  if possible, even more violently 
hostile  than that of those Cronos had come across so far.  The  syringe  had 
fallen  to the ground and rolled off to somewhere beyond his  reach.  At  the 
risk of spilling too much of the valuable fluid, Cronos attempted to keep the 
angry  Mutant  Maxi Mega Monster at bay with one hand  while  unscrewing  the 
little bottle's cap with the other.
 Incandescent  Orchid penetrated the air.  It worked instantly.  The  monster 
virtually leapt into a comatose state,  taking most of its weight down to the 
floor  next to Warchild.  Cronos pushed the remainder of the monster off  him 
and  went in search of the syringe,  which he found  remarkably  quickly.  He 
filled it with the scented fluid,  realizing he now had in his hands probably 
the most lethal weapon present on the entire planet of Multifizzic Omega.
 It  could  be  called a miracle that the sickbay fight seemed  not  to  have 
attracted  an audience.  Cronos pointed his ears and distinguished  only  the 
extremely  distant clamour of weaponry and the ever-present cries of  Deirdre 
reverberating agitatedly through the corridors.  His finely tuned and  highly 
optimized  hearing  aids  told him there was not a  soul  near  -  remarkable 
indeed.
 It took Cronos by complete surprise,  therefore,  when a particularly angry-
looking  Multifizzian's  laser  gun was shoved up his  left  nostril  at  the 
precise instant when he peeped out of the sickbay.  So much for quickly built 
Lobian hearing aids.  He made a mental note that,  should he ever get out  of 
this  alive,  he  would have to remember paying that particular  hearing  aid 
producer a deadly visit.
 For a moment Warchild thought of commencing defensive actions, but his enemy 
seemed to have a sixth sense.
 "Go  ahead," the laser-toting Multifizzian growled  ominously,  shoving  the 
gun's barrel somewhat more up Cronos' nose, "make my day."
 Warchild sighed.  He hated the kind of people (or monsters, for that matter) 
that  seemed  to spend their entire lives just waiting  for  that  once-in-a-
lifetime  experience when an occasion came by at which their  favourite  film 
lines  could be quoted with maximum effect.  Appearing to  surrender,  Cronos 
carefully let the syringe slip in one of his boots. The monster seemed not to 
notice,  but growled nonetheless whilst smiling the smuggest smile this  side 
of Klaxos Nine. It seemed to like this kind of thing.
 "Walk," the monster said, prodding the mercenary annex hired gun into motion 
in a way it had probably seen in a movie, too.

 Frothgar the Merciless was not having a nice day.  He sat on his  throne,  a 
bandage  tied  to his head to keep the ice against  his  painfully  throbbing 
cheeks  in place.  His jaws were swollen,  and occasionally a bit of  spittle 
mixed  with  blood  ran down his lower lip.  He constantly  had  to  suppress 
grinding  and gnashing his teeth.  He liked doing it but couldn't due to  his 
fangs having been knocked out by the same mortal that stood before him now, a 
laser up his left nostril. Deirdre stood next to her father, rubbing a tender 
bruise inflicted by that very same human.
 "Ath Eathe," Frothgar muttered.  The nasty-looking guard eased off, removing 
the  laser  from the position so uncomfortable to Warchild,  who  now  sighed 
somewhat - but not quite - relieved.
 "I  hatheth  you," Frothgar growled,  arising from his  throne  and  walking 
forward.  Cronos looked around and saw the box. The lid was slightly ajar and 
from it looked endearingly cute eyes belonging to hairy round creatures. They 
had  bloody stains on their ridiculously fluffy furs.  Someone would have  to 
pay for their suffering, and pay most dearly.
 Had  Cronos' hearing aids still worked properly,  he would have heard  "It's 
the Wrath of God,  yes,  It is!" at the edge of his hearing in  high,  piping 
voices.
 At  that  instant Frothgar mercilessly thrust forward a  clawed  foot  which 
landed smack in the middle of Cronos' private parts.  The momentum hurled our 
hero back quite a distance.  A grin appeared on his squarely built  features, 
however,  as he inwardly praised himself for having kept the Vital Switch  in 
the "on" position this time.  He feigned severe injury, however, which caused 
a frothing Frothgar to come closer with the intention to launch some  further 
vile  and no doubt cowardly attacks.  From a corner of his eyes Warchild  saw 
Deirdre laughing. Like her father, she was in serious need of a dental job.
 From his boot Cronos took the syringe. Already a hint of Incandescent Orchid 
filled  his nostrils.  He inhaled deeply the smell that could - and  would  - 
deal life and death.
 Frothgar the Merciless was now mere feet away from the mercenary annex hired 
gun.  The Multifizzian leader grinned fanglessly.  His enemy was  grovelling, 
having been dealt a paralysing kick that would even have rendered docile  the 
most  obstinate of Arcturian Megadonkeys.  The pitiable human would  be  like 
putty  in  his hands.  Cronos Warchild,  mercenary annex  hired  gun  infamed 
throughout the galaxy,  would die here and now.  He,  Frothgar the Merciless, 
would rid the multiverse of this dreaded force once and for all.
 He didn't get much beyond that line of thought,  though,  for at that moment 
part  of  the  fluid  contained  in the syringe  was  launched  and  hit  the 
Multifizzian  leader  straight  between some  of  his  eyes.  Instantly,  the 
monster's head turned to a blubbering and exploding mass of jelly.  His knees 
gave  way,  but even before there had been time for any dropped-off wings  to 
collide  with  the  ground  the fluid  had  done  its  purifying  work;  only 
Frothgar's armour and boots were left, smoking proverbly. The others, Deirdre 
included, beheld the scene for a few moments, paralysed with fear - then they 
dashed off, some of them already in the process of attempting to swallow back 
their most recent meals.
 Frothgar  the  Merciless was history.  There was no smoke,  no gore  on  the 
floor,  just two slightly damp boots and cheap body armour.  Wow.  This stuff 
was even more potent than Cronos had previously reckoned it to be.
 He snatched the box under his arm.  High piping voices accompanied him as he 
ventured his way through the palace's corridors. Miraculously, no Mutant Maxi 
Mega  Monster  deemed  it necessary to appear within  his  sight.  The  utter 
destruction of their leader had not just scared them out of their  wits,  but 
had simultaneously caused global warfare as to who was to be the new  emperor 
of Multifizzic Omega. Even without properly functioning hearing aids Warchild 
now  heard  curses,  death  cries,  the  sounds of  clashing  metal  and  the 
occasional zapping of laser guns in other corridors. Already there were fires 
burning and a final countdown running.
 "Self-destruct in about 2 minutes," a metallic voice with heavy Multifizzian 
accent  droned  through  some sort of  intercom  system.  Nobody  heeded  the 
message;  they  were  all too busy with their efforts to claim  the  emperial 
throne.  Cronos had no clue as to what would self-destruct in 2  minutes.  He 
couldn't care less, actually, as long as he and the rescued fluffies were off 
Multifizzic Omega by then.
 Luck  was with him.  After having turned a few corners he found  himself  in 
some kind of space craft hangar.  Two Multifizzian space ships appeared to be 
in for servicing,  one of which was probably sufficiently not taken apart not 
to  prevent  it from taking off.  There were a few dead  Multifizzians  lying 
spreadeagled across the floor, most of them in parts. These guys seemed eager 
for that throne.
 Cronos  went to what seemed to be the most intact space craft,  a Blurgh  XI 
Mark II.  He put the box, now containing the fluffy round ball-beings and the 
syringe, in the co-pilot seat and then jumped in himself.
 There certainly were lots of knobs,  dials and switches. They all had arcane 
scribblings  around them,  quite unfathomable.  There were a  few  artificial 
horizons too many,  three rear-view mirrors (of which two were busted) and  a 
thoroughly  uncomfortable  chair.  This  was not going to  be  one  of  those 
enjoyable flights home,  and not just because of the total absence of  lovely 
female Russian spies.
 He  randomly  flipped  some switches,  turned a few knobs  and  gazed  semi-
expertly at a few indicators. Just like in the movies, it did the job. Slowly 
the craft lifted itself off the floor,  like an enormous bug but far  uglier, 
bobbing a bit.  Cronos fingered something not unlike a joystick, which caused 
the whole thing to turn around its axis, seemingly at random.
 A few Multifizzians appeared in the hangar now.  Their faces seemed terribly 
agitated.  These  obviously seemed to have made some kind of pact - kill  the 
human first,  kill each other later.  Assorted laser weapons were fired, some 
swords were thrown at the craft, bouncing off the hull.
 "Self-destruct in sortof something like around 1 minute,  give or take a few 
seconds," the automated voice now droned.  The excess of external impressions 
of  impending  doom now obviously got to some of the  Multifizzians  present. 
They  started  shooting  and slashing in  random  directions,  often  causing 
instant death to themselves. Cronos made deft use of their confusion to try a 
small red button located in the immediate vicinity of the joystick. There was 
a  "ZAP" and a "SMASH",  followed by a gaping opening appearing in  the  wall 
ahead of him. He balanced the craft, longing to fly outside into the sky that 
seemed  to beckon him from beyond the hole.  He pushed forward the  joystick, 
closing his eyes.
 Little high voices piped once more in panic.  Their God might be divine  and 
all,  but rather obviously seemed not to have passed even the most elementary 
of Divine Air Traffic Schools.  Damaging the spaceship seriously, Cronos flew 
through  the  bit  of wall right next  to  the  gaping  hole.  Multifizzians, 
however,  seemed not overly confident of their own style of flying,  either - 
the  ship seemed to have been built to withstand such events and  jumped  up, 
enthusiastically if somewhat awkwardly, into the infinite reaches of space.
 Towards freedom.
 Behind  him,  there was a sound like someone breaking  wind,  only  somewhat 
louder. As he looked in one of the rear-view mirrors he saw the entire planet 
of  Multifizzic Omega envelop itself in gaseous matter,  the kind which  he'd 
rather  not hazard to further determine the basic substances  of.  There  was 
another sound, similar to the previous but again louder. Millions of years of 
exquisitely  evolved flatulence now had to pay the price.  And thus  exploded 
from  the  face  of the universe forever the  planet  of  Multifizzic  Omega, 
formerly the Smelliest Planet in the Multiverse.
 Warchild and the cutesey-wuteseys were safe, finally.

 There  was no way he could estimate the distance between the void  that  had 
once  been  Multifizzic Omega and the void that still  contained  the  planet 
where  these small furry creatures cohabited.  As a matter of fact he had  no 
clue  as  to that planet's whereabouts until some  enthusiastically  agitated 
small  creatures  came out of the box and started  programming  the  on-board 
computer.
 This was the kind of instant on which,  in humourous cinematographic  works, 
the protagonist looks into the camera and frowns at the  audience,  appearing 
surprised by this rather unlikely twist of fate.
 Cronos now seemed to be in hands more capable than his own - at least as far 
as navigation was concerned.  He fumbled with his hearing aids and found them 
operating quite normally again - maybe they had just needed the fresh air  or 
something.
 Actually,  the  air  wasn't *that* fresh.  Occasionally  a  waft  of...of... 
*something* came by. He had smelled it before, he knew, but he couldn't quite 
make  the  proper connections - which was something not  altogether  unusual. 
There  was bound to be some stench present,  after all it was a  Multifizzian 
ship. It smelled a bit like leather. No. Not leather. It was, it was...
 He knew what it was. It hit him, suddenly.
 It was Eau De Pigswil.
 Betraying  her  acute sense of drama,  Deirdre the Merciless,  last  of  the 
Multifizzians,  considered  that  moment opportune to reveal  her  suicidally 
enticing self.
 "Me now have you," she crooned excitedly, "we now all alone, yes?" She moved 
forward,  pushing  forward  those pieces of her anatomy she  considered  most 
attractive. She was actually physically drooling.
 Abhorred,  Warchild retreated as far as he could. The fluffy round creatures 
jumped to and fro, piping in their familiar high voices, trying to get out of 
the  way  whilst simultaneously attempting to save their  God.  One  of  them 
seemed to scribble down everything that was happening.
 Cronos' thoughts,  though not amounting to much, raced through his head. How 
would a God solve this?  He couldn't strike her,  for he saw that she  seemed 
intoxicated with erotic fantasies to such extent that she would probably,  if 
she at all noticed his bashings, be turned on by them.
 She stood between him and the box containing the syringe.  He cursed himself 
for  having parted with it.  Deirdre came ever closer.  Warchild had been  so 
stupid  as to let himself be cornered.  Her huge shape already  loomed  above 
him,  her  tongue licking her lips in anticipation,  various warts  excreting 
some extra ooze for the hell of it.
 Cronos was about to consider giving in,  hoping that this might increase his 
lifespan, when all of a sudden he found himself gazing dazedly at an enormous 
and ever increasing hole in the middle of Deirdre's body.  Through it he  saw 
about half a dozen furry cuteseys who had,  some way or other,  succeeded not 
only  in getting the syringe and figuring out what to use it  for,  but  also 
managed  to  actually  shoot  at  their  Antichrist  some  of  the  scent  of 
Incandescent  Orchid.  They  had hit home.  A few moments later there  was  a 
brittle  and  many-limbed skeleton,  some flesh still clining  to  the  bones 
hesitantly.  After another while even the bones were crumbling  apart,  their 
remains beginning their own life in zero gravity.  Various small particles of 
various bits of organs floated and ricocheted through the  craft,  dissolving 
into nothingness gradually.
 Within  about  half  a minute the last of  the  Multifizzians  had  vanished 
altogether,  the only memory of her being a vague waft of Eau De Pigswil that 
was quickly losing the battle against Incandescent Orchid.
 "Phew," Cronos sighed.
 The furry round creatures just hopped up and down happily,  insanely  joyous 
with the knowledge that they had saved God. The Divine One now owed them one, 
which was a lot more than most beings could say.

 A couple of hours later the last of the Multifizzian Space Crafts landed  on 
the planet of the fluffies.  It had been a close call,  for fuel had run  out 
somewhere  when  they  were about to land.  The craft had  crashed  into  the 
planet, but miraculously Warchild had only sustained some bruises and but one 
of the furry creatures had contused a limb.
 Cronos  was much abashed at what he saw when he got off and let the  rescued 
little  creatures go to join with their kindred:  Gfrzxs and the others  that 
had  been left behind looked rather unhealthy;  their furs weren't  healthily 
shiny  any more,  their eyes were half closed and they sat huddled  together, 
shivering as if with fever.
 The rescued ones dragged their fellow beings near to the smoking remains  of 
the Multifizzian space craft.  Slowly but certainly the sick cuteseys  seemed 
to  be getting better,  opening their eyes and rubbing their  furs,  inhaling 
deeply.  Warchild was about to sigh with relief when he had to stifle it.  He 
saw  that  the  creatures did not quite return  to  their  previous,  happily 
bouncing and shinily healthy state altogether. *Something* had caused them to 
get healthier a bit, but obviously there hadn't been enough of it for them to 
restore  completely.  Even as he looked at them,  some of them  were  already 
relapsing back to their sickly, pale, state.

 His  thoughts of doom were interrupted by another space craft landing  at  a 
safe distance.  Out stepped a man wearing a raincoat and hat,  holding in his 
arm something that looked like - and indeed which actually turned out to be - 
a small diesel engine.
 After  walking  up to a somewhat baffled (...) Cronos Warchild  and  putting 
down  the engine he took from a coat pocket a quill and an  important-looking 
scroll.
 "It seems we have a small problem here," he said,  "and it seems I have come 
at the right time to present its solution."
 He turned on the diesel engine. A few dark clouds of smoke bellowed from its 
exhaust.  Cronos couldn't suppress a cough.  Once it ran like it ought to the 
clouds seemed to lessen and there was only a vague scent of diesel fumes that 
pervaded the air.
 "Whattaf..." Cronos mused.
 The salesman, who knew he had done exactly what he needed to do at the right 
time,  the  right place,  and with the required !lan,  instead  of  instantly 
offering  his personal evaluation wordlessly pointed at the  furry  creatures 
around them.
 Gfrzxs  and his dozens of little friends now all looked as if they had  just 
dropped off the Mother Tree - alive and well,  healthy,  with shiny furs  and 
starlets  of  joy  gleaming in their little black eyes.  It seemed  as  if  a 
miracle had happened.
 "It's  simple,"  the salesman now explained,  "these creatures  have  had  a 
symbiotic relationship with their captors all along,  probably without really 
knowing anything about it."
 "Symbiotic?" Warchild repeated,  indicating he hadn't really known about  it 
all along either, not even quite grasping the sheer concept.
 "Yeah,"  the man resumed,  "each time when those Smelly Monsters  took  away 
some  of  these  furry fluffies,  they left behind fumes  from  their  rather 
archaic  diesel-operated  engines that neutralized a toxic  element  in  this 
planet's biosphere. In exchange for some of their lives being taken, the rest 
would be allowed to live."
 "Archaic?" Cronos asked, bemused.
 "Indeed," the man replied.
 Cronos knew there was something he wasn't supposed to understand.  There was 
a  glitch  in the theory that,  no doubt,  clever readers will  by  now  have 
noticed too.
 "Er..." he said, "how could they have lived before the Multifizzians started 
this...er...symposium?"
 "*Symbiosis*,"  the  salesman  explained,  "Well,  our  records  indicate  a 
meteorite  crashing  into this planet not too long  after  the  Multifizzians 
discovered these furry creatures to be some kind of rare delicacy.  The crash 
itself  caused no serious damage,  but it caused toxic gases to  be  released 
from deeper layers within this planet's crust,  most likely caused by massive 
dumping  of chemical and otherwise toxic waste by whatever  people  inhabited 
(and abandoned) this planet centuries ago."
 "Ah," Cronos said, after having been in thought for a while, "I see."
 The man seemed instinctively to glance at his shoulders,  brushing off  some 
dandruff from his coat.
 "I  am in a position to offer these furry round cutesey-wuteseys  this  here 
fine  diesel  engine with diesel fuel as much as health needs  warrant,"  the 
salesman now said, "in exchange for *services* rendered."
 "Services?" Cronos inquired. Finally a difficult word he recognized.
 "Yes,"  the  man  proceeded,  getting  the hang of  it  now  and  increasing 
enthusiasm carefully,  "we offer excellent labour conditions and we'll  bring 
back  each batch after,  say,  a month,  and get the new  batch.  All  travel 
expenses paid, of course, and excellent accomodation will be provided."
 "Labour?" Warchild asked. Another word.
 "Why certainly," the salesman now continued,  taking a breath for the  final 
bit of what he no doubt considered his most excellent offer yet,  "they  will 
be employed to hang under people's rear view mirrors."
 Warchild  let this sink in.  This certainly seemed quite a  generous  offer, 
especially what with all expenses being paid and all this *symposium* stuff.
 "You're their God," the man said,  quite seriously, "so you sign here on the 
dotted line." He extended the contract and quill.
 Another space craft landed behind them,  not the kind of exploration or  war 
craft  the creatures were used to see but instead a more  luxurious  civilian 
vessel  out  of  which  stepped three  gorgeous  stewardesses  who  by  their 
exclamations  and frantic behaviour betrayed a obsessive fixation  on  fluffy 
round objects.
 "Oh, how cute!" one of them said, enthralled.
 "Adorable!" another of them exclaimed, enchanted.
 "Look, they're *really* alive!" the last one cried, totally emblissed.
 Cronos signed something unintelligible on the dotted line.
 The  feelings  of affection between the gorgeous stewardesses and  the  cute 
fluffies  seemed  mutual.   Somewhere  deep  within  their  subconsciousness, 
directed  only by a long-forgotten gene of sorts,  a deep love towards  these 
soft-skinned and utterly huggable females developed.  Their happy jumping and 
hopping, if possible, continued now at an even more frenzied frequency.
 "It seems I have become...er...howdoyasay...er...superfluous," Cronos  said, 
finding  it  terribly  difficult to keep himself from  envying  those  little 
creatures who seemed to have forgotten all about him and now found themselves 
being pressed against pieces of luscious female anatomy he had only dreamt of 
ever touching himself, "can you take me with you?"
 "Sure," the salesman replied, "where do you want to go?"
 "Anywhere," Cronos shrugged, "anywhere."
 He joined the man as he walked back to his small space craft. Just before he 
got in he looked back.  He saw the first batch of fluffy creatures, guided by 
those  exultantly blissful stewardesses,  entering the luxurious  spaceliner. 
They were piping at the edge of his hearing,  or perhaps just beyond,  but he 
didn't really care what statements of joy and euphoria they uttered.
 Suddenly he saw Gfrzxs.  The small fluffy was standing behind him,  one limb 
extended.  Taking care not to maim the absurdly fragile armlet,  Cronos  bent 
down and shook it carefully.
 Gfrzxs  jumped off,  happy beyond description,  piping insanely to wait  for 
him,  wait for him. Cronos hadn't known these creatures could move that fast. 
Obviously,  possessing five limbs *can* increase one's speed.  Gfrzxs  jumped 
aboard  the spaceliner,  too,  welcomed by some assorted excited  utterances, 
both of his kin and of the girls.
 "Let's go," Cronos muttered to the salesman.
 They went.

 Original written in August and September 1993, based on a rough, unprocessed 
idea or two jotted down in May 1991.  One or two small things changed January 
13th 1996.

= THE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE PECKERS ==============================================
 by Richard Karsmakers

 This story might need a small introduction.  It was written quite some  time 
ago  when my best friend,  Stefan,  was in love with a girl that happened  to 
live in the same house as I,  a student floor or dorm or whatever you want to 
call it.  She made some pretty divine dessert, and this lead to the following 
(slightly over-the-top) story.


"Not even when we are drawn apart
 Nor when the fire is quenched in our heart
 Nor when evil tells us to 
 Or we're sure not to see next morning's dew
 And life will from our body ooze
 Will we stop eating Chocolate Mousse!"

                                                 The Chocolate Mousse Peckers

 It  was  deadly silent on the evening streets and the moon was  hidden  from 
sight  by thick clouds,  Empironda 7th 107 Emperial reckoning -  October  7th 
2124 in 20th century pre-Emperial reckoning.  The leaves rustled in miniature 
whirlwinds;  in the distance,  a church bell tolled eight. The rest was total 
silence.
 Or was it?
 The dark silhouette of a girl could be seen sneaking through the street, her 
feet making muffled sounds on the pavement.  She looked around constantly, as 
if she was afraid that someone might see her.
 She stood still for a moment when she heard the noise of an  engine,  slowly 
becoming louder and louder. Her eyes opened wide with fear and she dashed for 
the  next  corner.  The vehicle she had heard coming nearer turned  into  the 
street at that precise moment,  a beam of light tracking the pavement and the 
asphalt.  When the beam had found the girl, it remained fixed on her. Someone 
with a megaphone appeared through an opening in the vehicle's roof.
 "HALT!  Stop or we will open fire!". The echoes of the voice faded away into 
the nocturnal autumn sky.
 The girl halted for a second,  as if trying to decide what to do,  then  ran 
away with even more vigour then before.  A shot cracked through the darkness; 
the girl staggered for a moment,  then fell forward to the ground.  A  bottle 
fell from her pocket and broke to pieces on the street.
 The scent of oranges tainted the air.

 Soft singing could be heard from a house.  In its cellar,  some people where 
gathered together for a special occasion.  The songs where obviously  related 
to  a tradition of sorts,  since lyrics about history and endeavour could  be 
heard if one would take the trouble to listen more intently.
 The singing ceased when a man clad in black lifted his hand.
 "Where's  Samantha?," he asked,  "She should have been here an hour or  more 
ago!"  Concern could be heard in his voice and seen in his  eyes.  He  looked 
around him at the others that had gathered.
 Nobody  answered.   They  dreaded  to  answer,   for  there  was  only   one 
possibility,  surely.  They looked at two very old men that were also present 
in the group. These merely sighed deeply, then looked at a small table in the 
corner that contained a packet of milk,  a cup of cream,  some chocolate  and 
various other ingredients.
 A girl started to cry softly.  The man clad in black put his arm around her. 
"Melanie," he said softly, "she will probably have been held up somewhere, or 
might have had to take a longer route to avoid being tailed.  She's  probably 
just..."
 The doorbell chimed.
 "Silence!", the man whispered agitatedly, "that could be a group of Imperial 
Troopers! I will go and see. None of you utter a word!"
 He dashed up the stairs and closed the cellar door carefully behind him. The 
bell  chimed again,  and some knocking could now also be heard on  the  heavy 
wooden front door.
 The man took a gun from his pocket,  flicked the safety switch and  inserted 
it back in his pocket again. He heaved a deep sigh.
 The knocking persisted, only louder now.

 The  vehicle came nearer to the body and the broken bottle that lay  at  its 
side.  The engine roared and was turned off at several feet distance.  A door 
opened  and  a man came out.  He wore a green uniform and  helmet.  His  eyes 
looked blankly at what was lying on the street.  Blood oozed from a wound  in 
the body's back. The man, an officer of the Imperial Army, sniffed.
 "Cointreau," he said,  recognising the smell of orange liqueur, "another one 
of those C.M.P. fanatics." He bent down and searched the victim's pockets for 
some ID. He took out a small booklet.
 "Samantha P. Dean", he read aloud, "22 Crescent Cove, Student."
 "It's  those damn students all the time!  They're never satisfied with  what 
they have," someone in the vehicle said.
 The man that stood over the body nodded and climbed back in the vehicle.  It 
then  drove  away slowly,  its light beam probing pavement  and  asphalt  for 
others that dared deny curfew.
 The body remained in the middle of the street.  The pool of blood next to it 
grew bigger slowly.
 The body moved.

 The  man opened the door,  prepared for everything but what he saw:  A  girl 
hanging numbly against the door post, blood stained on her dress.
 "Samantha!" the man in black exclaimed while looking outside to see  whether 
nobody was around, "come in! Hurry!"
 He  closed the door quickly behind him after having helped the wounded  girl 
to get inside. "The Imperial Troops..." Samantha panted weakly, "they got me, 
thought they killed me...I couldn't...the Cointreau..."
 Next moment, she lost consciousness.
 The man in black knelt down,  holding her in his arms, swallowing hard. Some 
tears welled up in his eyes.
 The cellar door opened and some of the people entered the hallway.  They saw 
what had happened.
 "Curse those damn Imperialists!" one of them grumbled. One of the girls just 
wept.
 "Let's  bring her to a place where she can die in peace," the man  in  black 
said after some moments of silence,  "I think she deserves that;  she  always 
helped  faithfully  trying to supply us with one of the ingredients  for  the 
Divine Dessert."
 "What a shame that this should eventually happen on the commemoration of the 
158th birthday of Its Creatress," one of the old men, dressed in a ragged red 
'Miami  University' sweater that was largely covered by his long grey  beard, 
spoke slowly. His voice creaked, but in it could be heard still the vigour of 
its past.
 He was remarkably old yet strong, and known to be one of the founders of the 
'Chocolate Mousse Peckers', a group of intellectuals that was formed a little 
over a hundred years ago when the country was annexed to the Empire. They had 
been  outlawed by the Emperial government since the very first day  of  their 
foundation.
 Their name had been derived from the favourite dessert of both its founders, 
that was henceforth usually served at official dates and historical occasions 
such as this commemoration.  The actual Chocolate Mousse dessert and some  of 
its   typical  ingredients  (like  chocolate  and  Cointreau  liqueur)   were 
subsequently banned by the Emperial government as well.  It had become harder 
and  harder  to get the ingredients together for preparation  of  the  Divine 
Dessert for the official dates and historical meetings.
 The  other  of the two old men sat silent,  fingering his long  beard  while 
staring  at  a  picture  hanging  on  the  wall.   He  was,   just  like  the 
aforementioned man, tall and old; yet from his eyes spoke still eagerness and 
enthusiasm  of old.  He wore a dark green 'Classic Snooker' sweater and  wore 
spectacles.
 The others now also looked at the picture.
 There  was a picture of a girl dressed in a purple skirt on it;  a smile  of 
smiles ornamenting her lips.  Below it could be read,  in 21st century  post-
Emperial handwriting, something that would translate to "Alida". Its subtitle 
would translate to "Creatress of the Divine Dessert".
 "Yes,"  this  old man now said,  "Samantha indeed needs to be brought  to  a 
place  where  she can die in peace." He summoned two of the  younger  men  to 
construct a stretcher and carry Samantha outside through the back door.  They 
would  all defy curfew to bring their friend to a place where she could  have 
some last peaceful moments.
 "May  the Creatress' spirit by with us," the man in black whispered as  they 
all left the house.

 The moon had become visible now, and shed some light upon the forest and the 
group of people that now walked through it on narrow paths.  Some owls howled 
high  up in the trees,  and pairs of small eyes peering from  behind  distant 
trunks  could  be seen.  The forest was something quite  different  from  the 
stench  of the city and the constant pressure and violence there.  No  curfew 
existed  in the forest and life still more or less abided the laws of  nature 
in it. Serenity breathed from every leaf, every branch, every toad-stool.
 The  longer they progressed,  the louder a sound became;  the roaring  of  a 
waterfall. But nobody spoke. Nobody asked.
 "Here it is," the man in black said while raising his hand as they reached a 
small clearing;  they had now walked for more than two hours over the tiniest 
and  most secretive paths of the forest,  and the men carrying the  stretcher 
were  already showing signs of fatigue.  They now saw that the  clearing  was 
actually on the edge of a shallow lake, into which a cataract poured down its 
water.
 The two old men looked at each other and nodded.  Their eyes gleamed softly, 
as if they knew something great was about to happen;  as if they were to meet 
someone long ago lost out of sight.
 "Yeah, this is it," they both agreed.
 The man in black went ahead,  and was soon not visible any more through  the 
thick  of the night.  After a couple of minutes' silence,  they heard a  soft 
sound coming from the thicket.
 "The sign," the old man with the spectacles said while raising his hand.
 They all went in single file,  and disappeared behind the  waterfall,  which 
appeared silver in the light of the pale moon.

 There  was a rather long gallery they had to walk through.  At  about  every 
twenty yards there was a large torch that lit the walls and the ceiling  with 
shadows of playing flames.
 They  walked silently towards the brighter light at the end of the  gallery, 
from which soft sounds of chanting arose.
 The tunnel opened in a large hall like an enormous arbour,  in the middle of 
which there was an intricate machine.  Tiny puffs of smoke arose from it, and 
they  looked  at  the bent old men that kept the fire under  a  large  kettle 
burning softly.
 They  filled their lungs with the magic air,  closed their eyes  and  sighed 
deeply. No doubt: This was the unmistakable scent of oranges and chocolate so 
familiar to all of them; the fragrance of Cointreau and the other ingredients 
of the Divine Dessert.
 "Welcome!"  a  voice  that  could be heard to once  have  sounded  like  the 
clearest  water  sparkling forth from a mountain's well  said  gently  behind 
them.
 They all looked around and saw a small woman standing behind  them,  leaning 
on  a carven wooden stick,  accompanied by another woman with a  breathtaking 
hairstyle.  They were followed at a close distance by the man in  black,  who 
held a bowl in his hands. The two old men in the company swallowed something; 
their eyes moistened slightly. She wore a purple dress, partly covered by her 
brown  hair  that  curled  slightly at the tips;  in her  eyes  they  saw  an 
undefinable tinsel, a glittering that could easily be mistaken for simple joy 
but that was in fact a mixture of all the emotions ever cast upon her  during 
her long life.
 It also reflected sadness when she laid eyes upon the girl on the stretcher, 
blood  stained on her dress.  She slowly walked towards her and summoned  the 
two men carrying the stretcher to put it on the ground, gently.

 The Creatress knelt down next to the stretcher and touched Samantha's  hand. 
At that moment, the girl came to from what had seemed like a deep sleep.
 "The Cointreau..." she sighed,  "I have failed...This birthday didn't  bring 
any Divine Dessert...it's my fault...I have failed!" The girl closed her eyes 
again.
 The  Creatress  smiled  her smile of smiles and held  Samantha's  hand  more 
tightly.  "You  could  do  nothing about  it,  Sam,"  she  whispered  softly, 
"nothing. Nothing..." Her voice seemed to loose power and fade away.
 She held up her hand,  in which the man in black put a small spoon.  On  the 
spoon  was  some  brown  substance that they all  knew  only  too  well.  The 
Creatress lifted Samantha's head slightly,  and with her other hand she  held 
the spoon before the girl's mouth.
 "Here,"  she said with a voice that suddenly sounded young and fresh  again, 
"take this,  Sam." With that,  she put the spoonful of the Divine Dessert  in 
the girl's mouth.
 "This  was  specially prepared for you," the Creatress said,  "and  it  also 
includes a secret ingredient that I have saved for special occasions. Eat it. 
It will strengthen you."
 Everybody  was silent,  even the old men that had been swallowing  tears  of 
emotion for the last couple of minutes. Nobody dared even to breathe.
 It seemed like ages passed.  Still, nobody seemed even to breathe and nobody 
uttered even the tiniest of sounds.
 Then, Samantha opened her eyes.
 "More..."  the  girl whispered weakly into the  Creatress'  ear,  "...can  I 
please have some more?..."
 The  man in black filled the spoon once again and handed it back to the  old 
woman  in  the remarkable purple dress.  Again,  she gave the bit  of  Divine 
Dessert to the girl on the stretcher.
 Was  it  everybody's imagination,  or *did* Samantha seem  to  revive?  Many 
legends  of  old had been told about supposed healing powers  of  the  Divine 
Dessert, but nobody had really believed them - well, except maybe for the two 
old men.  These sat now crying their eyes out, overwhelmed by sudden emotions 
of  Samantha's miraculous healing mixed with fondest memories of those  great 
nights  out with the Creatress and the other woman,  Miranda.  It had been  a 
long time since they had seen them,  and they simply couldn't handle all this 
joy at once.

 As  Samantha  regained  colour on her face that had  been  deadly  pale  but 
minutes ago,  and as she sat upright on the stretcher,  the spoon went  round 
the company, and each of the members got a treat to the Divine Dessert.
 The  man in black came forward and started to sing.  The  others,  including 
Samantha sung with him:

"Again, we defied sadness of heart
 Life was brought to a new start
 We will lenghten freedom's ring
 For again we learned a thing
 Our fight is one we cannot loose
 Forever and ever: Chocolate Mousse!!"

 Original  written  in  January 1989.  Rehashed a bit  January  1996  (though 
nothing could remove the "over-the-top" besotted quality of the story).


= THE NEXT ISSUE ============================================================


 The next issue of "Twilight World",  Volume 4 Issue 2, is to be released mid 
March 1996. It will be uploaded to the FTP sites mentioned further down.
 The next issue will feature, probably, the following stories.

 IGNATIUS
 by Stefan Posthuma

 AN EVENING AT HOME
 by Roy Stead

 OH YEAH 3 - THE THIRD ENCOUNTER (AND OF A CLOSE KIND)
 by Stefan Posthuma and Richard Karsmakers

 GAUNTLET II
 by Richard Karsmakers

 And more, most likely.


= SOME GENERAL REMARKS ======================================================


 DESCRIPTION

 "Twilight World" is an on-line magazine aimed at everybody who is interested 
in any sort of fiction - although it usually tends to concentrate on fantasy-
and science-fiction, often with the odd bit of humour thrown in.
 Its  main source is an Atari ST/TT/Falcon disk magazine by the name  of  "ST 
NEWS" which publishes computer-related articles as well as fiction. "Twilight 
World"  mostly consists of fiction featured in "ST NEWS" so far,  with  added 
stories submitted by "Twilight World" readers.

 SUBMISSIONS

 If you've written some good fiction and you wouldn't mind it being published 
world-wide,  you can mail it to me either electronically or by standard mail. 
At all times do I reserve the right not to publish submissions.  Do note that 
submissions  on disk will have to use the MS-DOS or Atari  ST/TT/Falcon  disk 
format on 3.5" Double-or High-Density floppy disk.  Provided sufficient  IRCs 
are  supplied  (see below),  you will get your disk back with  the  issue  of 
"Twilight World" on it that features your fiction. Electronic submittees will 
get an electronic subscription if so requested.
 At all times, please submit straight ASCII texts without any special control 
codes whatsoever, nor right justify or ASCII characters above 128. Please use 
*asterisks* to emphasise text if needed, start each paragraph with one space, 
don't include empty lines between each paragraph and use "-" instead of  "--" 
(that's  the  "Twilight World" house style).  Also  remember  the  difference 
between possessives and contractions,  only use multiple question marks  when 
absolutely  necessary  (!!) and never use other than one (.) or  three  (...) 
periods in sequence.

 COPYRIGHT

 Unless  specified along with the individual stories,  all  "Twilight  World" 
stories are copyrighted by the individual authors but may be spread wholly or 
separately  to  any  place - and indeed into any other  magazine  -  provided 
credit is given both to the original author and "Twilight World".

 CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS

 I prefer electronic correspondence,  but regular stuff (such as  postcards!) 
can  be sent to my regular address.  If you expect a reply please supply  one 
International Reply Coupon (available at your post office), *two* if you live 
outside Europe.  If you want your disk(s) returned, add 2 International Reply 
Coupons per disk (and one extra if you live outside  Europe).  Correspondence 
failing these guidelines will be read (and perused) but not replied to.
 The address:

 Richard Karsmakers
 P.O. Box 67
 NL-3500 AB Utrecht
 The Netherlands

 Email r.c.karsmakers@stud.let.ruu.nl
 (This should be valid up to the summer of 1996 at least)

 WHERE TO GET "TWILIGHT WORLD"

 The current list of FTP sites where "Twilight World" may be obtained is:

 Server unix1.hials.no
 Directory pub/twilight.world/
 ftp://unix1.hials.no/pub/twilight.world/

 Server etext.archive.umich.edu
 Directory pub/Zines/Twilight_World/
 ftp://etext.archive.umich.edu/pub/Zines/Twilight_World/

 Server ftp.southwind.net
 Directory users/p/python/tworld/
 ftp://ftp.southwind.net/users/p/python/tworld/

 And the following html page can be referred to, too:

 http://arrogant.itc.icl.ie/TwilightWorld/

 The  latest three issues can be requested at me personally if you  mail  and 
ask.

 PHILANTROPY

 If  you like "Twilight World",  a spontaneous burst of philantropy aimed  at 
the  postal address mentioned above would be very  much  appreciated!  Please 
send cash only;  any regular currency will do.  Apart from keeping  "Twilight 
World" happily afloat,  it will also help me to keep my head above water as a 
student  of  English at Utrecht University.  If  donations  reach  sufficient 
height  they will secure the existence of "Twilight World" after  my  studies 
have been concluded. If not...then all I can do is hope for the best.
 Thanks!

 DISCLAIMER

 All authors are responsible for the views they express. Also, The individual 
authors are the ones you should sue in case of copyright infringements!

 OTHER ON-LINE MAGAZINES

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over  a thousand readers on five continents.  It publishes fiction  from  all 
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 It  is published in both ASCII and PostScript (laser  printer)  formats.  To 
subscribe,  send mail to jsnell@ocf.berkeley.edu.  Back issues are  available 
via anonymous FTP at network.ucsd.edu.

 CYBERSPACE VANGUARD:  News and Views of the SciFi and Fantasy Universe is an 
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science  fiction,   fantasy,   comics  and  animation  (you  get  the  idea). 
Subscriptions are available from cn577@cleveland.freenet.edu.
 Writers contact xx133@cleveland.freenet.edu. Back issues are availabe by FTP 
from etext.archive.umich.edu.

 THE UNIT CIRCLE is an original on-line and paper magazine of new art, music, 
literature and alternative commentary.  On-line issues are available via  the 
Unit Circle WWW home page: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/unitcirc/unit_circle.html
 You can also contact the Unit Circle via e-mail at zine@unitcircle.org.

 ESCENE is a yearly electronic anthology of the Internet's best short fiction 
and authors from existing electronic magazines. It is available via the World 
Wide  Web  and  in ASCII,  PDF and PostScript formats via  anonymous  FTP  at 
ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/eScene/>.  Contact series editor J.  Carlson at email 
address kepi@halcyon.com. The URL is http://www.etext.org/Zines/eScene/.

 EOF

