When Vramin and Madrak enter here, fresh through the gateway from Blis, they deposit their charges upon that ancient table, made all of one piece out of a substance pink and unnatural which Time itself cannot corrupt.

This is the place where the ghosts of Set and the monsters he fights rage through the marble memory that is wrecked and rebuilt Marachek, the oldest city, forever.

Vramin replaces the General’s left arm and right foot; he turns his head so that it faces forward once more, then he makes adjustment upon his neck to hold the head in place.

“How fares the other?” he inquires.

Madrak lowers Wakim’s right eyelid and releases his wrist.

“Shock, I’d suppose. Has anyone ever been torn from the center of a fugue battle before?”

“To my knowledge, no. We’ve doubtless discovered a new syndrome-‘fugue fatigue’ or ‘temporal shock’ I’d call it. We may get our names into textbooks yet.”

“What do you propose to do with them? Are you able to revive them?”

“Most likely. But then, they’d start in again-and probably keep going till they’d wrecked this world also.”

“Not much here to wreck. Perhaps we could sell tickets and turn them loose. Might net a handsome penny.”

“Oh, cynical monger of indulgences! ‘Twould take a man of the cloth to work a scheme like that!”

“Not so! I learned it on Blis, if you recall.”

“True-where life’s greatest drawing card had become the fact that it sometimes ends. Nevertheless, in this case, I feel it might be wiser to cast these two upon separate worlds and leave them to their own devices.”

“Then why did you bring them here to Marachek?”

“I didn’t! They were sucked through the gateway, when I opened it. I aimed for this place myself because the Center is always easiest to reach.”

“Then suggestions are own in order as to our immediate course of action.”

“Let us rest here awhile, and I will keep these two entranced. We might just open us another gateway and leave them.”

“’Twould be against my ethics, brother.”

“Speak not to me of ethics, thou inhuman humanist!-Caterer to whatever life-lie man chooses! Th'art an holy ambulance-chaser!”

“Nevertheless, I cannot leave a man to die.”

“Very well… Hello! Someone has been here before us, to suffocate a toad!”

Madrak turns his eye upon the goblet.

“I’ve heard tales that they might endure the ages in tiny, airless crypts. How long, I wonder, has this one sat thus? If only it lives and could speak! Think of the glories to which it might bear witness.”

“Do not forget, Madrak, that I am the poet, and kindly reserve such conjectures to those better able to say them with a straight face. I-“

Vramin moves to the window, and “Company,” says he. “Now might we leave these fellows in good conscience.”

Upon the battlements, mounted like a statue, Bronze whinnies like a steam whistle and raises three legs and lets them fall. Now he exhales laser beams into the breaking day and his rows of eyes wink on and off.

Something is coming, though still unclear, through the dust and the night.

“Shall we, then?”

“No.”

“I share thy sentiment.”

Sharing, they wait.

SEXCOMP

Now everyone knows that some machines make love, beyond the metaphysical writings of Saint Jakes the Mechanophile, who posits man as the sexual organ of the machine which created him, and whose existence is necessary to fulfill the destiny of mechanism, producing generation after generation of machinekind, all the modes of mechanical evolution flowing through man, until such a time as he has served his purpose, perfection has been reached, and the Great Castration may occur. Saint Jakes is, of course, a heretic. As has been demonstrated on occasions too numerous to cite, the whole machine requires a gender. Now that man and machine undergo frequent interchanges of components and entire systems, it is possible for a complete being to start at any point in the mech-man spectrum and to range the entire gamut. Man, the presumptuous organ, has therefore achieved his apotheosis or union with the Gaskethead through sacrifice and redemption, as it were. Ingenuity had much to do with it, but ingenuity of course is a form of mechanical inspiration. One may no longer speak of the Great Castration, no longer consider separating the machine from its creation. Man is here to stay, as a part of the Big Picture.

Everyone knows that machines make love. Not in the crude sense, of course, of those women and men who, for whatever economic purposes may control, lease their bodies for a year or two at a time to one of the vending companies, to be joined with machines, fed intravenously, exercised isometrically, their consciousness submerged (or left turned on, as it would be), to suffer brain implants which stimulate the proper movements for a period not to exceed fifteen minutes per coin, upon the couches of the larger pleasure clubs (and more and more in vogue in the best homes, as well as the cheap street-corner units) for the sport and amusement of their fellows. No. Machines make love via man, but there have been many transferences of function, and they generally do it spiritually.

Consider, however, an unique phenomenon which has just arisen: the Pleasure-Comp-the computer like an oracle, which can answer an enormous range of inquiries, and will do so, only for so long as the inquirer can keep it properly stimulated. How many of you have entered the programed boudoir, to have enormous issues raised and settled, and found that time passes so rapidly. Precisely. Reverse-centaur-like-i.e., human from the waist down-it represents the best of two worlds and their fusion into one. There is a love story wrapped up in all this background, as a man enters the Question Room to ask the Dearabbey Machine of his beloved and her ways. It is happening everywhere, always, and there can often be nothing quite so tender. More of this later.

Now comes Horus who, seeing Bronze on the wall, deposeth and saith: “Open this damned gate or I’ll kick it down!”

To which Vramin makes reply over the battlement, saying:

“Since I did not fasten it, I am not about to undo it. Find your own entrance or eat dust.”

Horus does then kick down the gate, at which Madrak marvels slightly, and Horus then mounts the winding stair to the highest tower. Entering the room, he eyes the poet and the warrior-priest with some malevolence, inquiring:

“Which of you two denied me passage?”

Both step forward.

“A pair of fools! Know you that I am the god Horus, fresh come from the House of Life!”

“Excuse us for not being duly impressed, god Horus,” says Madrak, “but none gave us entrance here, save ourselves.”

“How be you dead men named?”

“I am Vramin, at your service, more or less.”

“… And I, Madrak.”

“Ah! I’ve some knowledge of you two. Why are you here, and what is that carrion on the table?”

“We are here, sir, because we are not elsewhere,” says Vramin, “and the table contains two men and a toad-all of whom, I should say, are your betters.”

“Trouble can be purchased cheaply, though the refund may be more than you can bear,” says Horus.

“What, may I inquire, brings the scantily clad god of vengeance to this scrofulous vicinity?”-Vramin.

“Why, vengeance, of course. Has either of you vagabonds set eyes upon the Prince Who Was A Thousand recently?”

“This I must deny, in good faith.”

“And I.”

“I come seeking him.”

“Why here?”

“An oracle, deeming it a propitious spot. And while I am not eager to battle heroes-knowing you as such-I feel you owe me an apology for the entrance I received.”