CHAPTER 11

Bill's rear end was singed. His stomach, filled with beer, sloshed and swung back and forth as he ran, panting and gasping, with Elliot gasping and panting and trundling along at his side. There were arrows zipping past his ears, lightning bolts from the clown god cracking at his feet, and off to one side just what they didn't need: that damned Cue-tip thing, snarling and hissing, coming toward them looking extremely on the bad-tempered side.

All in all, Bill wondered, close to exhaustion, if maybe he hadn't been better off back in the middle of that sacrificial fire, bombed out of his gourd on Foster's lager and about to be booted out of life well before he'd even been born.

"The doorway to the tunnel!" cried Elliot, dodging an arrow. "Where'd you say that doorway was?"

Bill — stumbling, cursing, and in the act of dodging an arrow himself — was hard-pressed to answer.

"There's that other damned Aztec god, Bill!" moaned Elliot. "You said the doorway was somewhere near the lizard god, so where is it? Hurry up, man, or if the Indians don't get us, that monster will!"

Bill could see that Elliot was quite correct. Cue-tip, mightily peeved and hissing with joy upon seeing the man who had just escaped its jaws within its sights again, roared and snarled and trundled toward them, obviously bent upon Bill's total destruction, mastication, digestion and undoubtedly elimination in more ways than one.

"The tunnel!" said Bill. "Right! It's over there!" His pointing finger wobbled as he tried to point in the direction where he'd seen that mysterious opening to the other world alluded to by Cue-tip.

"Bill!" cried Elliot. "I don't see it!" He cried desperately, recoiling as he ran — which is very hard to do. "I DON'T SEE IT BUT I DO SEE THAT GOD, AND THAT MONSTER IS HUGE!"

Sure enough, the saliva-dripping jaws of Cue-tip, to say nothing of the hissing rattlesnake kirtle and the scorpion-tail claws, were nearing them with extreme rapidity.

"Kill them!" ordered Thunder Bluster. "Shoot them!"

Another volley of arrows tore through the air. Bill did not exactly duck this time, though the consequence of the next event served the same purpose: he tripped. He tripped on a rock, and in doing so managed to knock Elliot Methadrine down as well. But good fortune doth come. Occasionally. For they both went down in a tumble, and the just-released hail of arrows tore through the airspace they had just occupied, banging and thunking into various parts of the anatomy of the Aztec god called Cue-tip.

Now it is written that even monsters of legendary nature are supposed to have been of flesh and blood, or something disgusting roughly resembling flesh and blood, so when Bill looked up he expected Cue-tip to be at least bleeding a little bit — and hopefully mortally or immortally wounded.

Instead, he was startled to see the Aztec god going through strong reactions of a decidedly electronic nature.

One of its lizard heads had been blown clear off, exposing wires and computer components. Most of the arrows had bounced off its chest, but the ones that had connected were now fountaining showers of sparks. The snakes wiggled and squirmed, bolts of static electricity snapping between them.

"Argh! Zap! Snap! Crackle! Pop!" crackled Cue-tip. "Kill the infidels! Bowb the Emperor! Fie Fi Fo Fum Fizzle!"

It then slowly keeled over, spasming and spuming fire and sparks, to hit the ground with a decidedly metallic crash.

"You aboriginal Indian idiots!" cried Chief Bluster. "You shot the god."

"This I do believe," moaned Buffalo Billabong, "Is what might be called in the old outback definitely bad news!"

"Infidels!" exhorted the clown-cloud god, zipping over on its cloud. "They must not be allowed to escape. My wrath is mighty, let me tell you, and there are going to be some roasted redskins around here if —"

It was an ungodly sight, for the god never finished its goddamn sentence. Because a sudden arc of energy blasted up from the wreckage of the fallen Cue-tip, an arc of corruscating crapola, connecting with the cloud and exploding in its interior with a massive bang. Instantly coils and transistors rained down, along with a great splash of water that slammed onto the Indians, dousing them thoroughly and plopping them headlong into an instant lake of mud.

"Robots!" said Elliot. "Bill, both those gods were robots! Do you know what that means?"

"Not good! If this means that I'm back on the Planet of the Robot Slaves, then we are in for it."

"We're still in the same place, you idiot. There has got to be an explanation but this is not the time to worry about it! If you want to worry, look over there — keep moving!"

Bill looked. Sure enough, there in the canyon wall was the tunnel entrance. A section of the rock wall was rolling back with a grating, rock-against-metal sound.

"See!" said Bill. "What did I tell you?"

"Well don't just lay collapsed there like a dead bug! We've got to get moving before those Indians recover!"

Bill was thus properly motivated. He scrambled up from the ground and galloped for all he was worth toward the beckoning cave entrance, Elliot thundering along at his side. But the portal was only ajar enough to allow one and a half persons in. Driven on by fear and the urgent sense of survival, the two hit the opening at precisely the same time, wedging themselves into the opening like comedians in a really crappy movie. But there was no polite give-or-take now, no you-first-old-buddy stuff here.

"Troopers first!" shouted Bill, giving Elliot the elbow as hard as he could.

"No! I'm the Time Cop! I declare this a priority order and insist that I go first!"

After a few moments of intense discussion on the matter, and some desperate shoving, their mutual desire to save their butts drove them into close embrace and popped them through. They stumbled on into the darkened tunnel, Elliot falling flat on his face on a metallic floor and Bill smashing into a bulkhead.

The tunnel door slammed behind them.

Bill immediately smelled the difference. Whereas the outside had been fresh and dry and desertish, sort of smelling like standing in front of a good air conditioner, this dimly lit corridor smelled old, metallic and musty — with just a trace of pizza in the air. In short, it smelled like the infamous old Italian starship Bill had once served on, from the planet Mondo Pizzaiola, the S. S. KAKABENE.

"Wait a moment," said Bill, climbing uncertainly to his feet. "Starship! This place smells like the corridor of a starship!"

"Exactly, Bill," said Elliot, rubbing his nose. "That's why I pointed out the wobbling sun."

"Why should a starship corridor be attached to a desert canyon wall?" asked Bill, thoroughly baffled and buffaloed by the mystery.

"Don't you understand, you ninny? Didn't the fact that those gods were robots mean anything to you? It's because —"

Elliot broke off, horrified, interrupted by a figure coming forward, pushing something long and ominous in front of him. Strangely sinister-looking too, thought Bill, squinting fearfully into the dimness. Some kind of terrible savage weapon? Some grim lesser god to avenge the ones they had knocked off?

No, actually, he could see as the creature came closer. See what hideous artifact it was pushing before it —

A broom.

And pushing the broom was a large brawny man in a khaki jumpsuit. He had thick shoulders and not one but two heads.

It was too late to hide, so Bill just walked over and held out his hand in traditional Phigerinadon greeting to janitors. "Howdy, neighbor."

"Greetings, guys," said the longer-haired head of the two-headed big guy. "What are you strangers doing here? We usually sweep up nothing but bones and skulls hereabouts. Never had ourselves a couple of live people before, have we, Bill?"

"Nope, Bob. We sure haven't. A yup, a yup," mumbled the other head, with short spiky hair and moronically vapid features.

"We're Bill-Bob!" explained the friendly custodian. "We're of the New People!"

"Duh — yeah! We're moo-tated moo-tineers!" drooled the other head.

"Perhaps you mean to say that you are mutated mutineers?" suggested Elliot hopefully.

"No, we worship the Holy Cow, from which all things drip, including intelligence," said Bob. "You've got to excuse my inferior half. He was behind the door when they passed out the brains!"

"Damn, Bob! I was? I wish you would have called me. I always wanted a brain!"

Bill was horrified at this dreadful spectacle before them!

How could someone so stupid possibly be named "Bill"?

And then he had a thought.

"Oh. You must be one of those Bills with only one L," he said.

"Nope!" said the moo-tant. "I'm a Bill that's got THREE Ls!" said Billl proudly.

"No you don't, ninny. You've got two!"

"Two? I want another one! I've been cheated!"

Bill, disgusted with the argumentative mutant, was about to kick the creature where it would do the most good, but Elliot took matters immediately into hand. "This really is absolutely ridiculous. Bill-Bob, or whoever you are — we are agents of justice. I assume that you can take us to your ship's officers, to whoever is in charge here!"

"Officers? In charge?" Bill glottled, his stupid expression mirroring that of the cretinous Bill facing him.

"Bill, you really are an incredibly ignorant victim of military brain-washing. Hasn't any of this filtered through that great gob of gristle on top of your shoulders? The valley, the wobbly sun, the robots, the two-headed mutated mutineer with the broom — and here's the clincher, the metallic corridor?"

Bill muttered and scratched his head. "This one's a toughie, Elliot. Maybe it turns out that the ancient American West is a much weirder place than anything in the comix, that's for sure!"

"No, you gormless government-issued gob-brain. We're on a spaceship. We haven't gone back in time at all! That unreliable Time Portal took us to the wrong place! That hippie didn't come here; he's gone someplace — some time entirely different!"

"Golly," muttered the moronic mutated mouth, "that fellow sure uses long words. What that first word mean? The long one: 'no'?"

Bill pondered the idea and did not understand it at all. "Come on, Elliot, why would someone put a desert and a valley on a giant spaceship?"

"Why would anyone put you on a starship? That's the question I've been asking myself, Bill."

"Look," said Bob. "I hate to interrupt this convivial discussion, but I've got a hell of a lot more sweeping up to do before I get my evening bowl of gruel and cup of milk in reward. Do you want me to take you to the bridge or not?"

Elliot skipped and capered with joy. "You see! You see, Bill, he said bridge. So there must be a bridge. And the bridge must be on a spaceship. So this is a starship!"

"A bridge could be across a river, too," Bill muttered darkly, still not sure just what the hell was happening.

"I feel that I must warn you though," warned Bob. "The captain's really a bit loony. Gone clear out of his mind, if you ask me. It takes one to know one and I know one not one neck away from me. But we moo-tated moo-tineers, we've learned our lessons. We just do our menial jobs, try to forget the past, go to church on Sunday, no more wanking on the planking — and we keep our noses clean. Which is especially hard when you've got two noses, right Bill?"

"Dat's right, Bob. Whatever you said. It's dem long words again, like 'I' and 'me.'"

"Let's get to it then, huh," Elliot muttered impatiently. "But first ... is there any chance that we can get a look at that sun? I find it most intriguing — not to say impossible inside a spaceship."

"The sun? Sure thing! The solar footplate engineer, he's a good buddy of mine!"

"What kind of engineer did you say?"

"Ah, come on ... I'll show you exactly what I mean." The two headed moo-tant gestured.

Bill and Elliot followed the shambling figure down the long, curved corridor. After a long and tiring walk, they reached a door that squeaked open when Bill-Bob grabbed the handle, put his weight upon it and hauled. They all stepped through.

Bill had seen some remarkable not to say interesting things in his life, but this took the brass battleship.

Bill-Bob, Elliot and Bill stood upon a ramshackle metal platform a few feet above a chintzy tinfoil and papier-mache surface that stretched to the horizon. Painted blue, with rust and rivets showing through in places. It didn't make sense. Train tracks stretched out across it. Bill jumped down, walked along the tracks a bit — then looked up.

And dropped, whinnying with terror, fingers clamped to the tracks. For above him was the desert, the rocks, the Indians. And he was falling toward them!

"Falling! This is the end!" he screeched.

"Knock it off, cretin!" Elliot sneered, walking over and standing beside him, bending to pull his clamped fingers loose from the rail. "You're not going to fall — even though you are standing on the sky...."

"You think that makes it any better!"

"Look, dummy — am I falling? Or our two-headed guide? We're inside a hollow spaceship, that's all. Which is spinning in space so everything is held to the inside by centrifugal force. You have heard of centrifugal force, haven't you?"

"Yes — but I forget."

"Educational standards are not what they should be. Look — what happens if you fill a pail of water, tie a rope to it and swing it around your head?"

"I get wet?" Bill said hopefully.

"Yes — you probably would. But anyone else would swing it fast enough in a circle so the water wouldn't come out —"

"Thar she blows!" the two-headed janitor shouted.

The sun was coming toward them across the sky-ground, accompanied by a distant tooting. As it came closer the sun grew dimmer and they could see a dilapidated steam engine on the track ahead of it.

"Casey! Casey!" the moo-tant hailed.

"Yo, Bill-Bob! How they hanging?" said the man in the cab of the engine as it approached. He pulled a cord attached to a steam whistle, and the whistle blew like a lost and hopeless soul dropping down through the void into purgatory. Or something like that. Then the engine went through a cloud and they saw the special effects generators that hummed and cranked, projecting cloud images onto the sky, weaving out their webs of cheesy cinematic magic upon the unsuspecting tribes of warped Indians on the desert below.

But the most incredible sight was still the old-fashioned steam-engine train on rusty steel railroad tracks, struggling to drag the weight of a fusion-generated sun across the "sky."

"Wow!" enthused Elliot. "Talk about Apollo and his chariot! This baby has the old myths beat by a mile."

"Wuzzat?" said Bill.

"Never mind. Mythic allusion beyond your education and/or intelligence, Bill."

Still, it was quite a sight, a railroad train hauling a sun across a fake sky. And Bill now could see why the sun had been wobbling so much — the track was clearly old and dilapidated, and if the sun and the train were not tilting and shifting preciously all over the place, the track itself was. Bill, peering down at the sight from his vantage point, got nauseous just observing this twisted parody of nature.

"Astonishing, wouldn't you say, Bill?" Elliot observed. "You see what I mean? That's a whole captive universe down there."

Bill looked dubious. "More like a giant sandbox!"

"That's Casey Moo-Jones, the artificial sun engineer. Casey, these guys say they're time-travelers who've come here by mistake!"

The big, red-faced man spit out a stream of tobacco juice, then bit into a chunk of tobacco and chomped, eyeing the newcomers. "Why'd anyone want to come here, 'cept by mistake?"

"Can you tell us something about how this place got to be like this?" asked Elliot.

"Damned if I know. How come I got three thumbs?" The engineer held up his blackened digits in triple illustration.

"Because you're a moo-tation, Casey!" Bob laughed.

"Holy Cow! That's right. Well, 'scuse me guys, but ole Betsy here's acting up again, and I got aways to go before I hit sundown and can turn her off." He pointed over to the edge of the cheap theatrical panorama. "Then I gotta haul this dilapidated old thing around the ridge track and set her up for tomorrow's run. Whew — what a grind!"

"Well, Casey," said Bob, "we all know that you can do it. Haven't missed a day yet, except one or two when you ran out of coal, but we all enjoyed the extra night's sleep. Except the Indians of course. See you."

"I hope so — just as long as the old sun keeps on rolling along! Now you better take these newcomers up and introduce them to the captain. Remember to watch out for the bad moo-tations though, fellows. Well, gotta get moo-ving! Ain't no milk run, I'll tell you that. Har har."

The two — no, three moo-tants laughed at this bovine humor; then Casey Moo-Jones pushed on the creaky mechanical throttle and it ground and hissed steam and chugged forward, dragging its bright, glowing baggage behind it.

"How instructive — no wonder you people mutate!" said Elliot. "That sun looks dangerously radioactive."

"The sun?" Bob waved away the notion. "Naw. You should see the breeder reactor that powers this boat. You could grill an entire herd of cattle on it!"

"Blas-phem-y!" moaned the moo-Bill.

"Oh, that's right," said moo-Bob. "We don't eat hamburgers or steaks or any beef on this vessel, 'cos of the offense given to the Holy Cow, praises be to Her Holy Udders!"

"Religious discussions later," Elliot broke in. "That bridge you mentioned. You'll take us there next, right?"

"Oh yes, no problem."

"But Bob," said moo-Bill. "Uh, you remember what happened last time!"

"Don't worry about it, brother! All you have to do is keep your mouth shut! You think you can go for an hour without saying anything stupid?"

"Duh — can I say something smart?"

"Let's not risk your judgment. Just keep your trap shut, okey doke? We don't want to hear nothing like 'generation ship.'"

"Okey doke!"

The moo-tant clamped his teeth tightly shut.

"What's this captain you've been talking about?" asked Elliot.

"You'll see."

"You think I can use his radio? Maybe I can patch it to communicate with my superiors!" Elliot looked hopeful.

"You're going to have to talk to the captain about that first," said moo-Bob. "Let's go. Hey, brother. This is sure a heck of a lot better than broom duty, huh?"

"Mmmmmmph!" said moo-Bill, unable to say much with his mouth closed.