The Interstellar Undertakers
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THE INTERSTELLAR UNDERTAKERS Paul S. Wesson Publishing Info THE INTERSTELLAR UNDERTAKERS A treatise on inebriation and tensor calculus Coffins and conviviality – two sides of the same coin? An account of the violent soft underbelly of the Galaxy Number theory and lust: a rapprochement The annotated version of one man’s search for justice in a spiral arm full of BS HOW TO improve your skills at pool and differential geometry Documentary excerpts about crazed attempts to control entropy Reminiscences of a thug with a Ph.D. A stupid story about stupid people doing stupid things The most epochal manuscript in the intellectual history of the Universe “You might not like it, but it could be interesting” (Jale of Acheron) 1 SPONNED! The ship Rigor Mortis slipped through greasy clouds and landed with a crunch on alien gravel. The pilot Jale, tired from a long trip in subspace, entered the appropriate octadecimal code and went aft to pick up the resulting shot of whiskey. Its smell reminded him of the hickory tree he and his brother had once chopped down and later regretted. But nostalgia and another shot of liquor gave way to practicality. There was work to do: people do not live by codes, but by what they mean. And the coffin in the hold meant a lot to the people of this planet. Jale entered the hold of the Rigor Mortis with his boots making more echoes on the metal plates than his ears could register. The ship’s illegal megamotors had been thrumming for too long, and it was only gradually that the noise in his inner ear died away, leaving him contemplating the coffin in silence. It was a masterpiece of necro-carpentry: slim and classic in its lines, and with a lid intricately carved into symbols that would make anybody’s passage to the future a sweet slide. Jale ran his hand gently over the edge, not touching the alien sacred symbols on the lid. The coffin was smooth as a baby’s bum, and he knew he had done a good job. Its blackness was deep and intense, but with suggestions of colours that his human eye found difficult to classify. The hatch started to open, and immediately a bar of painful light invaded the gloom of the hold. The antiseptic air was swamped by a fetid, diaparic gust. Leaving the coffin where it was, Jale walked to the hatch, jumped to the gravel, and looked about. “Photon, what a hole.” Turner and Dali combined, he thought. The sky was a tightly 1 Paul S. Wesson packed roil of various shades of grey and yellow that made the pilot feel as if he was standing under a layer of intestines. The ground was a hummocky expanse of sand and stones, interspersed with occasional patches of struggling vegetation that became green mirages on the horizon. The latter was broken to his right by a clutch of dilapidated buildings. Jale was sweltering. He ducked back into the hold and grabbed a thermosuit. In a corner where the sunlight did not penetrate, he pulled on the garment, noting as he fought with the seal that life in space seemed to add unwanted weight to muscles. Outside again, he adjusted the controls and almost immediately felt coolness attach itself to his skin. After a while, the sweat stopped running down from his hair. A cold grab in his crotch prompted him to readjust the thermostat. “No point in being a brass monkey.” An entourage had appeared, moving slowly across the space between the town and the ship. The hot air and the perspective made the group appear to attach itself more closely to the ground as it approached. Eventually, Jale could make out a group of insectoids, apparently arranged in some kind of hierarchy with an elder in the front. The pilot stood still as the group arrived and deployed itself, the elder at the centre. “You are Jale?” The voice had a curious clicking quality, but was easily understandable and there was no sign of a translating device. Its owner had chitinous wing cases, legs that were hard and thin and spavined, and a skull that looked desiccated. However, it had brown eyes that were so close to human that the alien aspect became irrelevant. “Yes, I am Jale. You wish to bury one of your kind?” The question seemed to cause the alien some confusion, and 2 Interstellar Undertakers Jale realized he had asked a gender-ambiguous question. After a pause, the alien said: “We are all of one kind. I wish that you should bury a special one. My brother.” Jale, now confused, also became wary. “How did you choose me?” “We know your history. We need somebody with the right…” The alien was clearly having trouble with words, but he replaced the unfinished sentence. “We require somebody with the correct relationship to the gone. My brother was the most special. All things must be done correctly.” The alien was staring at Jale. Brown eyes and blue eyes locked. Grief flowed along an invisible conduit, stronger from the one side because it was recent, but reciprocated by old pain. “Everything will be done right,” said Jale. * The main street of the town was a track of silt. But the ramshackle houses that lined it showed signs of attention and care. There seemed to be three hotels. One had a religious motif over the entrance, and since Jale was followed by a self-levitating coffin covered in alien symbology, he thought it prudent to pass by. The second hotel was in good shape, but on looking inside he perceived a group of older humans reclining in soft chairs and chatting with the air of a long-established clique. Thinking that he could always trek back to the Rigor Mortis and sleep there, Jale came abreast of the third hotel and stopped in the middle of the street. He could hear raised voices from inside, and presently a figure erupted from the front door. It landed in the road, raising a 3 Paul S. Wesson pile of dust that hung patiently in the air . Jale waited out the dust, and when its source got up, said “Is this place any good?” A bleary gaze tried to focus on Jale, but then attached itself with terror to the coffin behind. A faint, stuttering sound came that might have passed for an attempt at speech. But then the figure was off and running, finally to disappear in an alley. “No answer was the stern reply,” muttered Jale, as he entered the hotel. Coolness enclosed him. Turning off the thermosuit, he let cold air waft over his body from a series of regularly turning fans set in a high ceiling. The latter was intricately embossed, concealing a few lights that reflected off a shiny wooden bar. Behind, a short man was furiously polishing glasses. Jale slid onto a bar stool and waited. After a short while, the bartender plunked down the glass and walked over. Impressed by the black thermosuit and its wearer’s sobriety, the last traces of anger disappeared from his face. “What’s up?” asked Jale. “Oh, nothing much,” replied the bartender. He was a tubby person with wispy yellow hair, wearing a striped coloured shirt that would have interested a Neapolitan tent-maker. “Joe comes in here most mornings and stays til lunch. But sometimes he drinks a bit too much.” Jale grunted, and after a pause said “I need a room.” The bartender looked slightly surprised. “We’ve only got three rooms.” “Are they occupied?” asked Jale. “No.” There was a pause while the bartender sized up the pilot’s expensive attire. “Two are crummy, and the other is the wedding suite.” “Thanks for being honest,” said Jale. “What about the 4 Interstellar Undertakers wedding suite?” A look of pride suffused the waiter’s face. “Nice, chintzy furniture and a bidet. Even a little elevator that goes down to the kitchen in the basement.” “Kitchen?” asked Jale. The bartender’s happiness was replaced by regret. “It hasn’t worked properly for ages.” There was a hiatus. Then: “My name’s Jale.” “Mine’s Charlie.” They shook hands. Charlie picked up a glass and began polishing it fetishly. “Do you want a drink?” “No, thank you,” said Jale as he slid off the bar stool. “But you can put my coffin down in the basement.” There was no chink of dropped glass as he exited. * Underground, in a vault whose approach made a catacomb look like a nun’s picnic, Jale and Raknok sat facing each other. The table between them was a stone slab inlaid with cuneiforms. At right angles to theirs lay another table, which bore a corpse. The air was dank, and Jale took the opportunity to turn up the control on his thermosuit before he spoke again. “You offer an order of magnitude more than what I would normally charge for the job. Please explain.” The elder of the insectoid clan regarded the pilot gravely. “We have done our homework, Mr. Jale. We need a special person.” “We are all special,” mumbled Jale, getting up and starting to walk around the chamber. He disliked complicated contracts; and when offered a payment so large that he could retire from the undertaking business, he became suspicious about the 5 Paul S. Wesson implications of the deal. Stopping by the corpse, he looked down on an alien who was anatomically far from human, but somehow shriveled and sad enough to be classified as benign. “May I?” “Of course,” replied Raknok.