


Chapter One:  CONLOG 

        By the third blim Treflin 
?'s eyes were open and she was reaching for the ? switch.  By the ! blim she was swearing somewhat absently that probably she should have gotten a Memoryphone instead.  Not that there were any real diferencec she could detect, but it seemed that this damn thing was always breaking down and the Telemind shops were never open or those unpleasant little recorded wafers never remembered your message as they so nasally promised to do.  She walked across the room to shut it off.  Who could consider buying a new unit now?  The economy had begun to slip after the second Scandinavian Wars, and Treflin knew that it was a time for buying bricks, not plants.  She had a plant, it was true, but she'd made the rather extravagant purchase as a tribute to Melin and Forsander.  Her younger brother and sisterhad both been killed fighting in those Scandinavian battles and then been processed into Excrecrackers, and she herself had been forced to leave her homeland for Francanada afte the defeat of the Eastern United States four years ago.

        "Only four years ago," she thought, smacking the Telemind sharply until it seemed reluctantly to agree to operate.  "Now if Melin and Forsander had joined up with the Carp Minority Tribe supporters they might be alive today, or at least employed."

        Slowly, she shifted her skin-grafted Smegophone to a moe comfortable position in her lap, absentmindedly stroking the alarm button.  Her fingers twitched spasmodically as a Sensory Seven pill erupted in her secondary abdomen, signalling that a pneu-alien force had taken up space in the neighboring time-floss zone.

        "Conlog, conlog!" screeched the Telemind, drawing her attention back to the first sentence.  "Your Key to Proximity pneu-rated at 'hopelessly overmulled;' suggest reevaluation of Karmora, !, credit rating.  You thank me."

        Chagrin welled up inside of her plastonose as she discovered that, sure enough, her Proximity Key, which she had left coconsciously to the Disaporasor for an extra Earth-week, conspicuously registered 'hopelessly overmulled' in glowing white alphanumerics.

        "Well, there goes the neighborhood," she thought bitterly, unless I can get Paroofa to put a lien on my plant."

        Anxiously, she hummed his number into the !.

        "What is your Key to Proximity?" buzzed a distant mechancal voice.

        "Overmulled," thought !.

        "Is that 'almost,' 'very,' 'inconsiderately,' or 'hopelessly'?"

        "Hopelessly," thought !, with some embarrassment.

        "Somewhat sorry, but your communication cannot be completed at this time.  Please prepare for electroshock penalty."

        And before ! could disconnect the !, her head and nose rocked from the impact of a long-wave Miserizer.  'This simply will not do,' she thought, as an overwhelming longing for a Memoryphone gave way to troubled unconsciousness.






Chapter Two: DELAYED CONQUEST

        With the advent of the soda-powered Sonic Detronizer, Mad Luigi was finally able to realize a life-long whim and launch an attack against Saturn.  The ringed planet's ano-atmosphere defenses were no longer a match for the unlikable Terran, who counted among his weapons the Molecular Mutation Miserizer (patent 005342411).  In addition, his arsenal on Venus was second or third to none in the galaxy.  Defensively, the fortress featured a Biofeedback Disrupter, a forcefield of toxic waste products and, most horrid of all, the infamous Chaperone Clonezone, where 60 well-heeled automatons lurked ominously to act as tour guides to any unfortunate sentient beings who wandered too close to the facility.  Most quickly succumbed to overexposure, but others -- particularly the cosmoaccountants -- not only survived by often signed on for employment there, selling insurance or addresing space envelopes.

        Only one living entity had ever successfully crossed the Clonezone alone, the Wadk of 40-2p B system of Deneb, whose silicon molecular configuration was undetectable by the clones.  The Wadk was done in by the forcefield, however, as it attempted to make a pass at a frozen mound of ejectamenta and was spurned for nine long Earth-years.  (So much for building sand castles out of a Venusian toilet.)

        With confidence oozing like a menstrating space sponge, Mad Luigi hovered high over Saturn, just out of range of the planet's comparatively primative surface-to-space missiles.  The Saturnians had never gone in for extensive defensive measures because a remarkable natural forcefield emanating from the planet's rings had, until now, effectively shielded out undesirables.  In fact, the third planet had established talking colonies in ridiculously distant nebulae before technical chicanery could advance far enough to diddle with this hard to figure phenomenon.  But the Saturn folks hadn't merely been lounging about during those years...far from it.  They had evolved through all eight levels of telekinesis, teleportation, telegraphy, and even (it was reported) televisor repair training.  Rumor had it that they could send unwelcome relatoids to Pluto without so much as battng a chewpore.

        A comotion from the Scramble-o-phone distracted Mad Luigi.  His new anti-communication device had intercepted a mesage from the Lunch County Development Center down on Saturn. Destined for the Likable Triple Cities on Mokus 5 in Andromeda, the signal normally would travel through third class space channels and arrive, folded, stapled, but mostly intelligible, in an Earth-week.  But with the Scramble-o-phone's unintentional interference, galactogenevic rules specified that the message must now be retransmitted at pneu-stellar speed -- including Special Handling -- which would rush the signal to its destination inside of an Earth-hour.

        Furious but sporting, the testy Terran flung himself don on the floor of his armed space trawler, squashing many of the spacebugs which, up to now, had lived there in peace and harmony.

        The Mokus 5 community represented an unknown factor to mad Luigi, and since he was unable to decipher the message, he didn't know what their interest was in this minor planetary annulment.  Better the conquest should begin early, so that by the time the communiction was received, it would be too late to act -- Saturn would be Terran territory.

        With a flourish from the trumpet and a groan from one of the dying bugs, Mad Luigi flashed a Sensory Six signal to his rented fleet of eight spaceships...and his historic onslaught began.






Chapter Three: YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIBBING

        ! ! once again stood by the Toroid Dunker Cup, considering caraway and gefilte fish circles, rent-controled mangers and infanticide bargain basements.  A belch from the Dunker Cup brought her back from Sensory Seventh heaven.

        "Mgrpff," she exclaimed, as dozens of lukewarm toroids filled her hands.  'No more neuro-guava stress this week,' she thought hopefully as the steady glippity-glop of the toroids noodled her ano-brain beyond oblivion.  But before another thought-pattern could disrupt ?'s lobotomic mindspan, handsome cousin Kiborde jumped from his bunnysack and screamed.

        "More gapes, more tapes, more staples, more waffles, and more scofflaws!"

        Treflin had long since learned to ignore this behavior, common to all postgraduates of the Graduating Post Verbal Enigma Academy (AVEPG2) in Troy, Trisuita, fourth sector.  As his pants melted before his rhetorical persuasions could save them, Treflin turned aside in disgust.

        "Cotton candy will not do, Kiborde, no, no, no!"

        Although Kiborde was 48 Earth-years old, he needed such mindless banter to save his sanity for senility.  He would certainly have to hold onto some level of boredom before this story ended, and his life, having been pre-programmed by the Snugglophone Hyphenation Authority just before he entered AVEPG2, would end late enough as it was, without all this meddling by boxes of pink and green toroids skipping about his megakitchen.

        "Treffie no want to blow my nose now or ever, she hate green stuff with toroidies, huh huh!  She like funny circly thing better than Kibbie, yes yes!  Treffie think cotton candy taste like Excrecrackers and no good for pants or nose, right right!  I hate Treffie now and later and tomorrow, so so!"

        Treflin spat into her cup and fed it to Kiborde.  "There there, Kibbie, Treffie doesn't want to see such a fine fine graduate of AVEPG2 to go thirsty.  Now eat your pants with some nice Toroids.  I have this pretty little blue one that will help your poor waffling, stifling, strifling, sifting, wafting and drafting headache.  Eat one and see the prety spit get all soaked up."

        Kiborde took a slobber, and quick as a nomo-phosphoidite in heat (a precious commodity in these ano-kinetic days), he died.  Treflin called in the Academy Guardgnomes, and as the GG's gleefully gathered the gummy graduate into their bunnysacks for reprocessing, she considered what her next move would be.  The Aid to Descendent Children program had put a dropdeadline on Treflin's new application, and the rest of the funns would be funneled to her Frozen Family Tree Preservation Foundation in Minerva, Ketchup, fourth sector.

        With that thought, her toroids burped, sending her promptly into Resettlement Bin R-43 (TK), and ending her concern as the Wadk Clergy dipped into her toasted body with their Astrospoons.  Hearty, carefree and uplifting laughter filed the pseudonight air, as the Wadk ministers enjoyed their Toasted Treflin Souffle.

        "Rfhgy miljgeth klorjgu, ytti?" called several in unison, as peals of high-pitched Wadkian jollity erupted from every befornersiph.  And such was the warm-hearted (if indeed they had enough hearts to go around) ending to that summer's eve.






Chapter Four: WADK IS SPELLED WITH AN 'A'

        Now it seemed Treflin [
 could no longer exist as a complete human entity following the Wadk party; but politics being as it is,        found herself fashioned into the Excrecrackers that the Wadks offered each week to the general population, mixed of course with grape juice, that traditional 20th Century cure for Mythingitis.  Since the Excrecrackers were shipped into all the various clonezones (batched, of course), Treflin (or Treflins, as she was now 60 dozen crackers) would self-energize by nanobits until she could reassemble her former being.  Unless possibly she were eaten first.  And that would mean another reprocessing and another energy loss, and that's certainly another story.

        It was Tuesday by the time the Tenth Clonezone had been traversed, and the Wadk Clergy of Beltsville, Mistal, eleventh sector, snapped open the crates.  Those energy nanobits entered the Oblivion Central Computatime Facility nearby, and before the Wadks could guffaw (it wasn't really a guffaw...just sort of a series of muffled grunts that sounded like stained new Krystoflex), she had reconstituted.

        "I'm not the least bemused by this turn of events," she said, but to no avail as the Wadks had given up hearing since the days of the Tum's World Transfer.

        "I'll teach you all to mess with a First-Order Emissary of the Inter-Mutant Galactic Associated Malpractice League!"  And with that she sent forth an organized flurry of megathoughts, melting many Wadks into the pools of the unsweetened chocolate from which they had developed centuries earlier.  Since their (now) silicon-based molecular structure was no longer a protection from the Clone Field Batallion, the appearance of a severe uprising was flashed through Intime Computagraph 16 to the master Wadk/Clone Disarmament Oversight Force in sector 10-B.  True to their assignments, the Krafgs in charge overlooked this severe warning as well, merely reassigning the entire Cloneforce from sector 11 to sector 15, safe from the melting Wadks and Treflin's shouts.

        About that time, Melin and Forsander, in their third incarnation since the Scandinavian Wars, greeted Treflin with warm, delicate drools.  She wiped the slippery stuff all over heself and drooled back.

        "Welcome," she cried simultaneously with herself.  "I had hoped that the Miserforce Life League would let you come in.  It's good of them to do that, especially in these hard times."

        But in sector 11 there were NEVER hard times, and the Miserforce Militia swooped doen, plucking Treflin away from her siblings and forcing her to do Multipenance by eating leftover 20th Century cornflake tablets between bits of a reconstituted McGuffyburger.  She vomited.  The Miserforce was pleased, and released her to convalesce in the ninth sector Pod for the Unwished, Unwashed and Unwed (known generally as the PUU&U), which had been established, fortunately, 13 years before as a replacement for the FrugaHomes that bred squallor and misery for the enlightened 22nd Century Unicommand Welfare Disbursement Center.

        But, as she faced her first hours in PUU&U, Treflin began to sense the loss of her Smegophone, as well as all those Sensory Seven pills she had forgotten to take during her days spent as boxes of Wadk Excrecrackers.  The twitching became unbearable, and she sought to rescind her contributions to the Frozen Family Tree Preservation Foundation.  But it was too late.  Mum and Daddy would be there for dinner, and she had no choice but to eat them -- such were the rules of the ninth sector's PUU&U.  Melin and Forsander wet their exopants in sympathy, and prayed for another chapter.



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