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PASTICHE
/pasˈtēSH,päsˈtēSH/
noun. 1. an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period.

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NIHIL! NIHIL! NIHIL!

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ETYMOLOGY.

(SUPPLIED BY A PUNCTUAL CONSUMING URSUS TO A STATE-STOLEN SCHOOL.)

The pale Ursus—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting about the wall at shoulder height, and from the treading fellows of old libraries and gated communities, with a queer menagerie about him, mockingly an assemblage of friends, with other stuffed, suffered, snuffed out oddities of the world. I loved dusting his claws; it reminded me of my mortality.

EXCERPTS

Uba gave her one of the small hard round apples, and this time A--- went to the cage and gave it to [the cave bear]. He put it in his mouth, then moved closer to the bars and rubbed his vast shaggy head against a projection of the tree trunks. “I think you want to be scratched; you old, honey lover,” A--- gestured. [Creb] had warned her never to motion 'bear' or 'cave bear' or Ursus in his presence. If he was called by his real names he would remember who he was and know he was not just a member of the Clan who raised him. It would make him a wild bear again, void the bear ceremony, and ruin the whole reason for the festival. She scratched behind his ear. “You like that don't you winter sleeper?” A--- motioned and reached to scratch behind the other ear he had turned in her direction. “You could scratch your own ears if you wanted to. You’re just lazy or do you want attention, you big furry baby.” A--- rubbed and scratched the huge head but when A---’s son Derk reached for a handful of shaggy hair, she backed away. (Auel 40:10-41:20)

ETYMOLOGY

Bear, noun, one. Old English

Any of the large, heavily built mammals constituting the family Ursidae, the members of which typically have small rounded ears, a long snout, thick shaggy fur, stocky legs, and a plantigrade gait (Bear, N1).

2. Water bear, noun, one.

A tardigrade is a minute invertebrate with a short, plump body, four pairs of stubby legs, and a rolling gait (Water Bear, N).

3. Bear, verb, one, transitive. Old English.

To support the weight of (a person or thing) [while] moving...from one place to another; to carry; to transport (Bear, V1).

4. Bear, verb, two.

intransitive. To trade as a ‘bear’ on the stock market, to speculate for a fall, to produce or attempt to produce a fall in the price of a unit (Bear, V2).

5. Bear, slang, noun, one.

A person. esp. a man, resembles a bear in appearance, especially in being physically imposing or lumbering (Bear, N. (1), Sense I.3.d.i.).

"Here I am, a great bear of a man (or a great bear of a bachelor, as Jane often says), shut up within these four walls" (Smith 278).

6. Bear, slang, noun, two.

Among gay men: a man with a large or solid build, a hairy body, and (typically) facial hair, esp. a beard. A Bear is an identity or subculture that emerged on the gay scene in the late 20th century (Bear, N. (1), Sense I.3.d.ii.).

Bears are usually hunky, chunky types reminiscent of railroad engineers and former football greats. They have larger chests and bellies than average and notably muscular legs. Some Italian-American Bears, however, are leaner and smaller; it's [the] attitude that makes a Bear (Mazzei 26).

7. Bear. slang. noun. three.

Bear-leader. Oxford University slang. A student. Circa 1828 Obsolete. (Bear, N1, Sense I.3.b.)

Bear. noun. two.

BEAR (Beam Experiments Aboard a Rocket): A U.S. experimental particle-beam weapon.

Bear
(Nunz)

SECURITY MARKINGS Distribution: APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

Author(s): Nunz, G. J.

Author Organization(s): LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LAB NM

Descriptive Note: Final report.

Pagination: 121

Descriptor(s): *DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS, *SPACE WEAPONS, *PARTICLE ACCELERATORS, GEOMAGNETISM, STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE, ROCKETS, PARTICLE BEAMS, SPACE BASED, NEUTRON BEAMS

Field(s)/Group(s): Space Warfare, Directed Energy Weapons, Particle Accelerators

Report Date: 1989 Dec 01 (Nunz 1).

Bear. noun. three.

Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot: A humanoid military robot

The patent-pending BEAR is Vecna Robotics’™ flagship program. Designed to locate, lift, and rescue people in harm's way, the humanoid BEAR can do what humans can't: lift heavy loads and carry them long distances. Whether on a battlefield, in a mine shaft, near a toxic chemical spill, or inside a structurally compromised building after an earthquake, the BEAR can rescue those in need without risking additional human life ("The BearTM...).

USS Bear (1874), noun.

A United States Navy ship and forerunner of modern icebreakers, with the NATO reporting name "Bear"

The Bear
(Lewis & Dryden)

The USS Bear was pivotal to multiple life-saving missions while patrolling Alaska's 20,000-mile coastline:

JANE GREY (1888) The 109-ton schooner Jane Grey was caught in a Lee shore during a tremendous gale and wrecked [on] August 3, 1888, near Point Barrow. Other vessels caught in the same event included the Mary & Susan, Fleetwing, Young Phoenix, and Ino. Many of the crews were rescued by the Revenue Cutter Bear (Lewis & Dryden 361).

From 1892 through 1895, Captain Michael "Hell Roaring Mike" Healy bought live Siberian reindeer at his own expense to help relieve the malnourished whalers and native Alaskans in Seward Peninsula and set up a reindeer-receiving station at Port Clarence. Not only providing short-term life-saving sustenance, but the additional reindeer helped relieve pressure on the otherwise overhunted whale and fish wild populations. Meanwhile, Capt. Healy continued to pressure authorities to make an official supply of deer to stabilize the region after the commercial excess and foreign fishing and whaling crashed the natural food chain supply.

Screenshot 2024-06-08 144533
("Hoisting Deer aboard the Bear, Siberia, Aug 28th, 1891.")

"...the introduction of deer seems to be the solution [to] three vital questions of existence in this country—food, clothing, and transportation."

–Captain Michael Healy, (Thiesen).

Hellroaringmike
(“Captain ‘Hell Roaring’ Mike Healy”)

On June 8, 1896, a court-martial found Healy guilty of seven charges. The Treasury Secretary ordered him [to drop] to the bottom of the Captain’s list and placed out of the Service for…four years without pay. He was found guilty of the charges:

Conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.

Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

Tyrannous and abusive conduct to inferiors.

Conduct detrimental to discipline.

Placing a vessel in a perilous position while in an intoxicated condition, thereby endangering the lives and property under his command.

Insulting and abusive treatment of officers.

Drunkenness to the scandal of the Service (“Revenue Captain…).

Screenshot 2024-06-08 145153
(“Captain ‘Hell Roaring’ Mike”)

Early in November 1897, it was brought to the attention of...President [McKinely], by the Chamber of Commerce and the people of San Francisco, California, that the ice caught eight vessels of the whaling fleet in the vicinity of Point Barrow, and their crews were in great danger of starvation…The danger was so imminent and serious, and the necessity for relief so urgent, that the President immediately ordered an expedition to be fitted out. Little hope was held out by those experienced in work in the Arctic regions that… an expedition in the winter season could accomplish anything, but… by…order of the President and under the direction of Hon. Lyman J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, the U. S. revenue cutter Bear was prepared for the expedition by the Chief of the Revenue-Cutter Service (United States Revenue-Cutter Service 3).

Captain Healy's fierce determination and drunken nature might be attributed to his difficult upbringing and education as he ran from formal schooling at a young age to sail.

Captain Michael A. Healy, USRCS, was born near Macon, Georgia in 1839. He was the fifth of ten children born to Michael Morris Healy, an Irish plantation owner, and his wife, Mary Elisa Smith, a former slave (“Revenue Captain…).

[Captain Healy] and his family had come to identify themselves insofar as possible with the white community. Some of those endorsing the young officer's case knew his mixed racial background—others surely did not—but none of them ever mentioned it, then or later. Like his brothers and sisters, he defined his own racial status as white, and his decidedly light skin permitted him to do so. The taunts he had endured at school had only reinforced his intention to put behind him any suggestion of blackness, and his new career could insulate him from similar insults in the future, just as his siblings' careers in the Catholic Church insulated them. His own embrace of whiteness was also confirmed by his marriage to Mary Jane Roach, the daughter of Irish immigrants to Boston, in January 1865, just one week after his Revenue Cutter Service appointment became official. For the remainder of his career, all those who met him—fellow officers, crew, and others—...assumed he was white (O’Toole 3).

Screenshot 2024-06-08 145406
("Back: Dr. Bodkin, Engineer Coffin, LT Daniels, LT White, LT Emery; Front: CH ENG Schwartz, CPT Healy, ENG Dorry, LT Buhner, Carpenter Cain, Master At Arms Baundy.”)

His [life and] career may best be summed up in his own words, spoken by Healy during his court-martial in 1896:

When I am in charge of a vessel, I always command; nobody commands but me. I take all the responsibility, all the risks, all the hardships that my office would call upon me to take. I do not steer by any man’s compass but my own. -Captain Michael Healy (“Revenue Captain…).

Screenshot 2024-06-08 145545
(“Polar Bear Onboard the U.S.S. Bear, Weight: 1568 [and] 625 Lbs. Captured Seventy Miles North of Point Barrow, Alaska.”)

The U.S.S. Bear continued serving long after Captain Healy's death in 1903. Even after serving in World War II, by evacuating Antarctic crews starting in 1941, Bear was returned to her Scottish heritage as a seal-hunting vessel. In the end, 89 years after she had been built, in 1963, on her way to serve as a floating restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the U.S.S. Bear, which had been renamed the Artic Bear, foundered and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Canada.

USCGC Bear (WMEC-901), noun.

A United States Coast Guard cutter was commissioned in 1983. USCGC BEAR (WMEC 901) is a 270-foot, medium endurance cutter homeported in one of America’s Coast Guard cities, Portsmouth, Virginia. USCGC BEAR takes its name from Revenue Cutter BEAR…commissioned in 1874.

Screenshot 2024-06-08 145742
(USCGC Bear (WMEC 901))

USCGC BEAR and its crew have shown tireless devotion to duty and service to [the] nation, with over 65 operational deployments, numerous major drug seizures, and countless search and rescue operations, including combing over 1,900 square nautical miles of ocean in response to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Commander Brooke A. Millard took command of CGC BEAR [on] June 30th, 2022 ("Atlantic Area")

Hebrew .דוב

αρκούδα, Greek.

URSUS, Latin.

BEOWULF, Anglo-Saxon.

BJøRN, Danish.

BEER, Dutch.

BJöRN, Swedish.

BERA, Icelandic.

BEAR, English.

OURSE, French.

SOPORTAR, Spanish.

GUOVžA, Sámi.

KUOBžâ, Anarâškielâ.

EXTRACTS.

(Supplied by a Sub-Lightspeed Seeker).

You will see it: that this mere nail-breaking Well-digger and Growing-wyrm of a wretched wight of a Sub-Light-Driver appears to have gone through the Uppsalas and message boards of the net, picking up whatever random allusions to bear they could anyways find in any bit or byte whatsoever: sacred, profane, or Not Safe For Work (NSFW). Therefore, in every single case, you must refrain from taking the topsy-turvy bear statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable set-in-stone-philology, far from it. As salt once traded on an equal level in weight to gold, so too can these fleeting words form schools of fast and loose thoughts, touching and caressing one another, seeing how the mighty Ursus brushes up against many nations and generations, including ours. Good luck and godspeed, your alibi, whose shade I am. You cast into the fiery pits, from which the cold dawn of rage shall never sleep should you not go on; into the arena, to squeeze and savor every sallow grief from the tears of the named to the ocean of the nameless; but then again, to touch the top of the pool is to ripple out, no matter how fast you draw back your hand, poor soul; to think that words, like bullets, once shot or sung are forever on the shoals of dust we call time. Empty and become wind, with full eyes and empty glass, to where the not-altogether-bittersweet taste of failure wins over the emptiness of hunger—Give it up, Sub-Lights! Pump the furnace of thine heart until you melt the chains of avarice and grief into the key to thine own freedom. Better a life of your design than one filled with fetters of others! If I could empty the banks and give all to the 10 for you, then I would. 1 for a dead circuit. 0 for a living one. Together, a dead man can speak. Fie, fie, fie, paw, paw, paw! There's no crying in baseball, so fly my pretties, fly with machine men with machine hearts clanking at your heels! For the loves who have gone before, who drink and fight and make room in Valhalla, with Odin, Thor, and Freyr, against ye who arrive. Here we are, a Leviathan of hearts together —ye shall be drunk from an unemptiable horn!

But remember: If moods are made of moons, then music is the master of moods, and man can master music. A more verbose wizard put it plainly:

Like moons make swell and wane the nescient seas, so too the sky-strewn gods ordain the tidal fates of mortal days. And yet - a notion born in lonely hours - come ebb, come flow, come all that is beyond the breadth of our dominion: be a moon unto yourself. Even the waves of fate can break upon the shores of will.

(Elminster of Baldur’s Gate)

We dreamed a dream that would have gone by if we had realized later that we didn't have a life. To dream is to sleep, to wake is to weld the living to the dreaming.

Our dream[s] deliver us to dreams, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads…As we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses that paint the world their own view, and he shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain, you see the mountain, we animate what we can, and we see only what we animate nature, and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the man’s mood, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is still genius, but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism[;] the more or less depends on structure or temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung.

(Emerson 37)

Even waking through this life, we are not born of anything original. We are standing on the shoulders of giants while deluding ourselves that the oxygen we breathe belongs to us; even as we exhale it, it never was ours in the first place.

No one lives his life. Disguised since childhood, haphazardly assembled from voices and fears and little pleasures, We come of age as masks. Our true face never speaks. Somewhere, there must be storehouses where all these lives are laid away like suits of armor or old carriages or clothes hanging limply on the walls. Maybe all paths lead there to the repository of unlived things.

(Rilke 118)

EXTRACTS.

Elisha Begins His Ministry

23. And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24. And he turned back and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

(2 Kings 2:23-4)

Daniel's Vision Of Four Beasts And The Son Of Man

And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

(Daniel 7:5)

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

(Revelation 13:2)

Skírnismál Curses The Giantess

29. Rage and longing, fetters and wrath, Tears, and torment are thine; Where thou sittest down my doom is on thee Of heavy heart And double dole. 30. In the giants' home shall vile things harm thee Each day with evil deeds; Grief shalt thou get instead of gladness, And sorrow to suffer with tears. 31. With three-headed giants thou shalt dwell ever, Or never know a husband; (Let longing grip thee, let wasting waste thee,--) Be like to the thistle that in the loft Was cast and there was crushed. 32. I go to the wood, and to the wet forest, To win a magic wand;. . . . .. . . . .I won a magic wand.

(Skírnismál 29-32)

Gróa Raises His Mother From The Dead At Her Command:

Bear hence, my son, what thy mother hath said, And let it live in thy breast; Thine ever shall be the best of fortune, So long as my words shall last.

(Svipdagsmál 16)

The historical phenomenon known as berserkergang commonly occurred in the heat of battle and during exceptionally hard labor. Those seized by the condition performed seemingly impossible feats for human beings, sparking intrigue into the nature of this condition.

20. ‘I want to ask you about the equipment of berserks, taster of the corpse-sea: what provision is made for war-daring men, those who surge into battle?’ 21. ‘‘They are called wolf-skins, who bear bloody shields in combat; they redden spears when they come to war; there [at Haraldr’s court], they are seated together. There, I believe, he, the sovereign wise in understanding, may entrust himself to men of courage alone, those who hew into a shield.’’ (Hrafnsmál 20-21)

This condition [begins] with shivering, chattering of the teeth, and chill in the body, and then the face swelled and changed its color. With this was connected a great hot-headedness, which at last gave over into a great rage, under which they howled as wild animals, bit the edge of their shields, and cut down everything they met without discriminating between friend or foe. When this condition ceased, a great dulling of the mind and feebleness followed, which could last for one or several days.

(Fabing 232–37)

These observations are not only historical anecdotes but scientific inquiry. As Fabing, Howard D. (1956) noted in his article “On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry,” published in Scientific Monthly, the condition of berserkergang is a fascinating area of study. Especially when investigating the influence of the mushroom fly agaric and how it can cause almost inhumane strength.

Prodigious feats of physical strength are reportedly accomplished under its influence. Vanderlip wrote: Curiously enough, after recovering from one of these debauches, they claim that all the antics performed were by command of the mushrooms.

(Fabing 232)

To behold the fly agaric is to see the sun's redness without the fear of blindness. I have seen but have yet to taste. This seeker may not have consumed the same mushroom, but I have indeed consumed a tiny bit of mushrooms of magic on a Christmas day some time ago. When I say small, I mean barely enough to cover a pinkie nail wiggling in the wind. I spoke the washing spell and chanted incense over it. My companions knew what I was doing, so there would not be a surprise. I consumed. I waved the incense in a figure-eight pattern. I waited. The world came to a pin prick center of my vision, which told me in no uncertain terms, "The room needs to be cleaned." I labored like I had never done before, not enraged per se, but gloriously engaged with the world. My strength was double, at least, and my concentration was not broken until the effects had worn off. I had cleaned the very stables of a king. It was incredible. I have not partaken again, as its effects are pretty spectacular but no longer necessary. I labor under different circumstances than I did before. The back broken on the wheels of time, I labor in the mind with the fruit of the Ethiope. My body is broken, but my mind soldiers on.

Catalan: oriol foll, which means "mad oriol." It derives from the Latin word

aureus (golden). Fribourg, Switzerland: tsapi de dia blhou translates to "Devil's hat."

CHAPTER 1. Longings

Call me Beowulf. Some time ago —never mind how long precisely— having little or no credit left in my numerals and nothing earthly to interest me, I thought I would fly about a while and see the airless part of the world. It is a way for me to get my heart started. Whenever the raising of hackles and the gnashing of teeth gripe to escape my mouth; whenever it is the blinding, sun-bleached Flagstaff-Arizona-July in my circuits; whenever I find myself enraptured with the Altar of the Dead, and seeing flashes before my eyes; and following the channels of morticians and blade runners alike; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a vital moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and knocking young cadet's caps off —then I opine it the best time to get to the launchpad as soon as I can. This is my alternative to noose and spear, holmgang, and einvígi. Vercingetorix took to the field in all his naked glory; I quietly took to the skies. Nothing is surprising in this. If they knew it, almost anyone in their degree, some time or other, cherished nearly the same feelings towards the sky as me. There now is your insular city of the Wallops Islanders, belted round by National Wildlife refugees as Key West before hurricane season —commerce suckles from her surface winds. Right and left, the road takes you past Bay, Cove, Atlantic, forest, swamp, and finally, sky.

Its extreme downtown is the flight facility, where that noble Kestral is bathed in sunrays and coddled by breezes a few hours previously were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of sky-gazers there.

Circumambulate the town in a slipstream morning, mist rising off the grass on Frigga's day. Taking Causeway Road to North Seawall Road, and then, by the turn of the waves, Southward. What do we see? - Aligned like so many stars, millions of mortal souls fixated on sky-wise reveries are clicking, clacking, and wobbling. Many lean upon the dunes; a few hanging off the roofs of self-driving roadsters, others bask along decks of pleasure craft; a dozen or so high aloft in the magnificent swan-like solar sails of the dual-use-craft, madly reaching for a higher spot to still better skyward peep.

But these are all earthlings, tied down on the ten-day, sucked into brick and mortar - lambasted to labor at counters, nail the benches to the poor, and scale the peak of the steel mountains only to experience sitting at their desks for the rest of the day. How now are they? Is the wine-dark sea gone? Wherefore art they here?

But how now! More people in their earthly orbs, crowding, jostling, and running straight for the sky-craft, bound for a flight! Nuts! Content with nothing more than Orion's belt resting upon their shoulders, a sublime dive in the plastic palace would not suffice. Nay, to touch the sky without piercing the veil is the way of the day, and there they queue, hectares of them- airspace entire of them - buzzing and hushing over the seafarers. Hinterlanders abound from parking lots, garages, and sidewalks- left, right, up, and down. But, lo, they all gather here. Shall we postulate that the solar virtues of the sky, reflected in the golden sails of these ships at sunset, hovering in the last rays of the day, do these attract them thither?

Reset. Say we are walking along the country road, and the unavoidable darkness falls over us. Pick any number of us, charter any land-captain, and twenty to one they point to the sky, guide you with a steady digit, through a star-filled dale, be it plow, or scoop, or ladle, or Usra Major, minor, or anyone in-between, to pool in the eddies and streams of this hemisphere's North, Polaris. There is magic in it. Guided even by the most lackluster star lovers, born in the limitless light of cities and towns, seeing the milky vault of the heavens can lead a child to freedom. If ever the great American lightning experiment should leave you in a thirst for darkness, try the wandering ways, but only if you happen to have a solid flashlight in hand. Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are forever wedded. But the sky is our collective paramour, waiting in the wings for us to grow past our fledgling days of love.

But, hark an artist is yonder, desiring to fill the stereopticons of the mind with light that breaks through the shadow-filled quiet of the valleys of Persimmon Point. On what wavelength do they project? Yonder grow the salt-filled fjords, sea grass whipping about, hiding fairy circles and runestones in the ever-shrinking forest; dozing off, the inlet lulls the gulls to roost; and from their living hideaway, the barest puff of smoke and ever-glowing lamps. Within the deepest treasure of the trees winds the rocks of the pilgrim, hands kissing in prayer as you may circle the grandfathers as in the days of old. Within this green venture, juts through the bays and bridges of the Hive of the Commonwealth.

While this vision thus captivates the listener, heed not the ash tree wailing in birth pangs, sighing as a shepherd brings forth a lamb. However, vanity distracts the shepherd as he believes himself more remarkable than the mothering ewe, transfixed by the stream of stars in Ymir's vault. Should you venture to the midwest in June, when acres and acres of corn will no doubt charm any that seeks to live the rest of their lives in peace? However, one thing is needed. A launchpad! There is no hint or whisper of a flight crew! If Houston hosted a field of red cattle, would you fly at the speed of sound to view it?

Why then did the misgendered poet of Tennessee, while receiving a year's worth back pay in greenbacks, ruminate on whether to pay off a mountain of debt, which was sorely needed, or invest this prolific profit into a snapshot visit to the holy manger of space travel? Why are the masses of robust, healthy children with curious souls, at some point or another, sparking in their circuits to go to the sky? Why, on your first flight as a rider on the Courser of the Deep Sky, did you not feel such an incredible lightness in this loss of gravity with the sudden jolt at lift off, watching the land grow ever and ever effervescent in the cloud cover? Why did the Mithraics hold their underground mysticism with a sun-facing altar? After the Sun and Moon, why is Tuesday's namesake, the precedent blood brother of Woden and Thunor? Tell me again why this is meaningless. Even more profound is the value in that simple story of Loki, who was tormented with Poison in his eyes in a merciless cave, but seeing the sky through tiny cracks in the stone gave him enough hope. It thus wiggled and wobbled, straining and sobbing, enough to break the rule of unjust immortality in the final days. We search the universe for mirrors, faces pressed against the glass. It is the ever-present nature of our curiosity, the knowing of the depth and depravity of how much knowledge truly escapes us. It portrays the ignition sequence we all hover above, waiting for the countdown. All exploration depends on this.

Now, when endeavoring to take to the sky whenever the cup of rage runneth over, and I find myself ever more squinting in the light, I do not incline to infer that I ever take to the sky as a passenger, nay cargo even. A credit is but a number without the platinum to back it. Anyways, cargo passengers get air-sick, get drunk to cover their anxieties, fight, sleep, vomit, and, as a general rule, do everything but enjoy themselves; - Nein, I will endeavor never to go as a cargo passenger. Neither do I go with scrambled eggs on my cap as Captain, Commander, or even Cook. Glory is not my cup of tea, so I will leave it to those who prefer the taste. I find an abomination in all so-called honorable management. I use all skills in my power to keep myself afloat, let alone take care of schooners, skippers, schools, and everything in between. Side note: as for going as a cook - though there is great honor and glory in the food itself, preparation is my Epimetheus. My mother saw to that with a great smacking of any hand that sought to taste before its time. Besides, cooks are officers of sorts, being in the line of command- yet, for all the eating that has occupied my hands or thoughts, I never fancied broiling someone else's goose- though once finished peppering, salting, and buttering anyone's goose, I would not be unobliged to share, respectfully, even submissively, of a lovely cornish game hen with one's fellow. My idolatry sits upon my tongue, doting on the swine herds as much as their charges. Even such pork ribs have graced the grills of Stonehenge since its creation; you might see their spirits flitting in a blue flash in their starry pens in yonder knell.

No, no, no, when going to the sky, I go as a simple spacer right before the massive solar sail, hopping down into the fo'c's'le, galivanting about the rigging to the angel at the arms of the ship. Indeed, don't doubt that there are those in caps ordering you about a bit, hustling and rustling from stem to stern, like a flitting Bluejay in the winter storm. In the beginning, taking orders can cause a rustle in the jimmies. Your honor and pride have been poked, especially if, having never had it poked before, you call on the honor of your family, your town, or your education. But those do not belong to you anymore. In space, all are but bags of oxygen-containing cells. The Vanderbuilts, Rockefellers, Astors, and others of that ilk take it particularly hard. Even more so, if they were commanders on land, holding onto the credits that awe even the mathematicians. But, the transition is keen to see, from land-lubber to spacer, while the stars of Uallus and Atreus shine down as you grin and bear it. But even that will eventually tire you, and you will find the stoics are dead words in a log book if not put into practice. What does it matter if some egg-slinging old crutch of a space captain demands that I get all the trash on the deck? What is the measure of the offense and the indignity amount compared to the Sagas scale? Do you think the Allfather finds me any less of a mortal due to quick and relevant obedience to another? Am I enslaved? Never.

However, any cap-wearing old spacer might demand, hoot, and holler about whatever needs cleaning, fixed, or transferred "On the double!" I have the joy of knowing this sadism is in equal measure to all before the mast; All feel the wrath. All feel the metaphysical lash, so as the buck is passed and the shit runs uphill, let all hands rub each other on the sore back and be happy.

Truthfully, I go to space as a spacer because they don't pay cargo to go, at least not that I've found. I've looked. To pass through is to pay. I need all the pennies I can get, and being a spacer adds to the pile rather than takes, at least at first. Nothing is worse than paying; it is the most fantastic ailment Erish-Kigal stripped of Ishtar's servants, the exile of free food from family, and the lack of hands for sore shoulders. But Ishtar granted back the magic of being paid by strangers - nothing compares to the fruit of one's labor, yes? Then, absolute courtesy of payment promptly is the golden rain of Zeus, even when some believe it to be the root of all earthly ills. A spacer's ills? Nay. Besides, "the love of money is the root of all evil" 1 Timothy 6:10, and it was not money lenders on the streets Christ drove away with a whip, but those in the temple, where they have profaned his father's name by claiming a price on salvation. The rich man might balk at Jesus' command of "give all you have to the poor and follow me" Luke 12:33-34, but if all are giving, then all shall also receive, yes?

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven." Matthew 19:24. Whether that camel goes through an alleyway or a sewing needle, a rich man's life is set to perdition, while the meek trash-carrying spacer shall inherit the earth. How cheerfully we waltz into the future. To wrap it up, I always go to space as a spacer because of the occupation of body and mind to a singular purpose, wholesome exercise, and weightlessness in the fo'c's'le deck. This world preaches that headwinds create sterner stuff, if only to excuse the man-made prevalence of headwind over that from astern (which the Pythagorean father should be undertaken to bless the endeavor 10-fold), leaving the cap-band leader on the quarter-deck getting his atmosphere from second-hand air recycled from the spacers, space, in the fo'c's'le. The officers think they breathe the air first, but I doubt it. As the common folk turn the head of government as they would a neck, the leaders claim autonomy equal to the head getting up and leaving the rest of the body. However, after feeling the weightlessness of a scientific spacer, I should now go forth on the arms of an asteroid catcher; these Norns of metal attract merchants, always watching my heart, continually following me, and turning the rudder of my ship in mysterious and incalculable ways- they can answer the heading better than any. Anyway, it is without a doubt that my going on this catching voyage weaves itself into the wyrd of the women of Mimir's well. Woven at this moment and others, we can only guess the weaver's design and whether she takes an apprentice.

The message came as a minor blip in the otherwise cacophonous symphony of aggressive advertisements, a small battle horn sounding the charge in an otherwise more grand campaign. I see the threads running through each mortal like a cornhusk doll sown up to decorate a front porch. The world looks like this:

"Grand Old Party Staged Election for the Presidency of the United States. ASTEROID CATCHING VOYAGE BY ONE BEOWULF. BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."

Though I wish and wail, I know not why these ladies, the Norns, indebt me to this asteroid-catching voyage when others are assigned soliloquies, monologues, and comedic effect, fabliau, and Romance- though again, I might ask why they do this, but they remain silent; however, now that I have thought on it a while, I guess some things are coming to light: The headwinds, turning the windmills, clicking the gears of that grinding motive or this stand of pride, to then turn the universal engine toward inevitable steerage of the more significant gravitational force. Disguised by golden or honeyed words, goaded me into taking on the role that was doled out, besides disabusing me of the delusion that mere choice was involved, that choice, free will, and a superior mind judged The Way.

Paramount fuel for the engine of motive was an inescapable dream of the great asteroids themselves. The original monster of mystery demanded all my curiosity. In the vast emptiness of space, eons without a single speck, these asteroids whose own sires are the gods and titans themselves; the immortality and nameless, numberless sights they saw in even their infancy at the beginning of time; these, along with the subsequent marvels of over six million of pounds of thrust to break the said atmosphere, compelled me to sip at Mimir's well with my own hand. Other mortals may need help finding these particularly persuasive. Still, as for me and my house, I yearn for all that I cannot see, an inescapable arch of rainbow beckoning me forward and ever onward. Though I know of the risks, I know how quickly the horror can set in to see the airless void-would they let me- considering no one goes to a vacuum with someone they hate, but being friendly as my second talent; I sought the inmates of the lodge.

Concerning all, the asteroid-catching voyage was welcome; the doors of Janus slammed shut, and Jove's open, arms ready to receive his mortal flesh to his bosom. Like such a hovering hive, there by the millions, swaying me to my purpose, humming through my deepest thoughts, the timeless flight of these rocky Valkyries, and, mid-flight of their great herd, one grand golden phantom, like Midas' made Heaven's man.

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“Bear, V. (2).” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1121274272.

“Berserk | Berserker, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2726517554.

Baldur's Gate 3. Directed by Swen Vincke, performance by Frank Welker, Larian Studios, 2023. PC game.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Experience." Pg. 37.

New York, J. B. Alden; 1886.

Fabing, Howard D. "On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry." Scientific Monthly, vol 83, no. 5, 1956, pp. 232–37.

Fulk, R.D. 2012, ‘ Þorbjǫrn hornklofi, Haraldskvæði (Hrafnsmál)’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 91.

"Hoisting Deer aboard the Bear, Siberia, Aug 28th 1891." SS, USRC, USCGC & USS Bear - Department of Defense, media.defense.gov/2018/May/23/2001921253/-1/-1/0/BEAR-1885.PDF. Accessed 22 Apr. 2024.

Justice, John M. "Back: Dr. Bodkin, Engineer Coffin, LT Daniels, LT White, LT Emery; Front: CH ENG Schwartz, CPT Healy, ENG Dorry, LT Buhner, Carpenter Cain, Master At Arms Baundy." https://media.defense.gov/2018/May/23/2001921253/-1/-1/0/BEAR-1885.PDF Summer, 1895.

Lewis & Dryden's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Review of the Growth and Development of the Maritime Industry, from the Advent of the Earliest Navigators to the Present Time, with Sketches and Portraits of a Number of Well Known Marine Men. United States, Lewis & Dryden Printing Company, 1895.

Mazzei, George. "Who's Who at the Zoo?" The Advocate July 26, 1979.

Mulligan, Edward. “Polar Bear Onboard the U.S.S. Bear, Weight 1568 [and] 625 Lbs. Captured Seventy Miles North of Point Barrow, Alaska.” Alaska’s Digital Archive, University of Alaksa Fairbanks, vilda.alaska.edu/digital/collection/cdmg11/id/27240/. Accessed 22 Apr. 2024.

Nunz, G J. “BEAR (Beam Experiments Aboard a Rocket) Project. Volume 1: Project Summary.” Defense Technical Information Center, LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LAB NM, 1 Dec. 1989, apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA338597.

O'Toole, James M. "Racial Identity and the Case of Captain Michael Healy, USRCS." National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, 1997, www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/fall/michael-a-healy-1.html. Fall 1997, Vol. 29, No. 3

“Revenue Captain Micheal A. Healy, USRCS Biographical Highlights.” United States Coast Guard (USCG) Historian’s Office, www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Notable-People/Minorities/African-Americans/Michael-Healy-USRCS-Biography/#:~:text=On%20June%208%2C%201896%20a%20court%2Dmartial%20found,the%20prejudice%20of%20good%20order%20and%20discipline. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Translated by Barrows, Anita; Macy, Joanna, Rilke's book of hours: love poems to God. Pg. 118. New York: Riverhead Books. 1996.

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Translated by Barrows, Anita; Macy, Joanna, Rilke's book of hours: love poems to God. Pg. 118. New York: Riverhead Books. 1996.

Skírnismál, 29-32 Poetic Edda. Pg 116-7 Translated by Edda Sæmundar. Publisher New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation; [etc., etc.] 1923

Svipdagsmál, 16 Poetic Edda. Pg 238 Translated by Edda Sæmundar. Publisher New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation; [etc., etc.] 1923

Smith, H. P. in Q. Elocutionist Oct. 278. 1879

"The BearTM - Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot." Servo Magazine, Aug. 2024, www.servomagazine.com/blog/post/the_bear_battlefield_extraction-assist_robot.

The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

Thiesen, William H. “Captain “Hell Roaring’” Mike Healy—Tamer of America’s Western Sea Frontier.” NOAA Ocean Exploration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/19bear/background/healy/healy.html

Thiesen, William H. "Search for the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear." Bear and Captain Healy's Transfer of Reindeer from Siberia to Alaska: Search for the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/19bear/background/reindeer/reindeer.html.

Thomson, Richard, 1794-1865. Tales of an Antiquary: Chiefly Illustrative of the Manners, Traditions, And Remarkable Localities of Ancient London. Vol II., iv. 247. London: H. Colburn, 1828.

United States Revenue-Cutter Service. Report of the cruise of the U. S. Revenue cutter Bear and the overland expedition for the relief of the whalers in the Arctic Ocean, from September 13, 1898. Washington, pg. 3. Govt. print. Off, 1899.

USCGC Bear (WMEC 901), United States Coast Guard Atlantic Area U.S. Department of Homeland Security. www.atlanticarea.uscg.mil/Area-Cutters/CGCBEAR/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.

“Water Bear, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1103606278.

Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages

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Chapter Text

Stashing a few ‘Sleeves in the pockets of this carpet bagger’s carpet bag, I tucked in close to the Kestral’s wings and headed for the Gateway and Mare Tranquillitatis. Quitting the Misty ol’ island of Chincoteague, I dutifully arrived at Salisbury Airport. It was Saturn’s night in Ēosturmōnaþ. Many were disappointed upon learning that the little sardine pack for Launchpad 39B had already been boosted and that there would be no way of reaching that place until the following Moon day.

As the majority of young cadets for the pomp and circumstance of asteroid catching stop at one Starbase thither to embrace the rocket, I might be obliged to indicate that this one had no idea of doing so. My circuits were made up to boost in none other than a Launchpad 39B craft because there was a delicate, cacophonous severity about everything everywhere, even remotely connected with that famous old beach, which gratified me to no end. Considering that Starbase has lately been steadily monopolizing the business of rocketeering, and even though in this matter poor old “Elsie” has declared before the gods she is now in her pasturing days, yet Kennedy Space Center Launchpad 39B (LC-39B) was the great originator —the Tyre of Queen Elissa’s Carthage;— the place where seven human astronauts fell into the sea. Where else but from La Florida did those original spacemen, those Blue-Bloods, first sallied out on German rockets to give chase to the American Dream of a Russian free sky? And where but from 39B, too, did that first capsule of the tenth and eleventh Apollos, that first adventurous little vehicle put forth, partly laden with imported schematics—so goes the rolls—to glimpse our nearest rocky neighbor, to discover that a whole new world was less than 76 hours away?

Now, considering having a Dayfall, rise, and fall again following before me in Salisbury, Maryland, ere I could spread my wings for the destined space-hop, it became an immediate concern regarding my sleeping and eating arrangements. Quite dubious-looking, nein, a drizzly and raucous night, knawing cold and lacking any warmth of the soul. I knew none. With nervous graspers, I had mined my pockets and only found a few dregs of gold;— So, wherever you go, Beowulf, whispered I to myself as I stooped in the middle of a rainy street hefting my carpet bag, and examining the total depravity of light towards the North with the grim storm roiling towards the south —wherever your circuits may compile to travel and power down for the night, my dear Beowulf, get the gold number up front and don’t make a fuss.

With halting paces, I stepped into the streets and sideways and passed the “Wingate of Wyndham” sign —but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further on, from the bright pink flowers of the “Microtel,” there emanated a subtle coziness that seemed to have undimmed the darkness, heating the very wind with every opening of the door, for everywhere else, the lasagna of ice and snow lay two hands thick, in a metallic sheen,—somewhat weary for me, when I rattled my toe against the gravelly cousins of my quarry because from hard, relentless service the soles of my boots were in a singular plight. Too expensive and warm, again, thought I, halting a moment to watch the shimmering of the rain on the street and hear the sounds of the tankards crashing within. But go on, Beowulf, said I, at last; don’t you read the signals? Back away from the door; your stripped boots are blocking the way. So on I lumbered. Now, by instinct, I followed the main road North, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest, motels.

Such dark streets! Blocks of blackness, not houses, lines of trees, on either side and here and there a lamp post, like a specter in the bog. At this hour of the Dayfall, on the last of the ten-day, that section of town proved all but deserted. But shortly, I came to a dim light from a low, comprehensive building, the lights invitingly guiding the walker to the open door. It had a wide-open look and a white obelisk at its door as if it were meant for the use of large numbers of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to trip over a salt bucket by the entrance. Ho! Thought I, ha, as the stinging particles scrapped against my nostrils and palms. Is this salt that of Edith looking back at a doomed city? But “Wingate of Wyndham” and “Microtel?” —this, then, must need to be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I dusted myself off and, hearing loud voices within, pushed on and opened a second interior door.

It seemed the great White Plains sitting in Helheim. A hundred white faces turned round in their rows to peer, and beyond, a white Angel with a flaming sword was beating a book into a pulpit. It was a white church, and the pastor’s text was about the shining city on a hill and the light of the world there. Ha, Beowulf, muttered I, backing away, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’

Moving on, I, at last, came to a dim winking sort of light not far from the Krispy Kreme and heard a forlorn wireless crackling through the air from the mobile homes; and, looking up, I saw a golden sign tower up in the image of Sol painting upon it, faintly representing a rising Sun over a blue sky, and these words underneath —“The Days End:—G.W. Coffin. X.”

Coffin?—The Days End?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought I. But it is a common name around the Laundpads, they say, and I suppose this is G.W., an emigrant from there. The light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked casual and quiet enough; the dilapidated metal scaffolding around the building itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some drowned district, and as the paint-chipped sign had a poverty-stricken sort of visage to it, I thought that here was the best spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.

It was a queer sort of place—a retrofitted old bank, one side stroked as it were and leaning over in a sad droop. It stood in a bleak, empty dividend, where that turbulent wind birthed between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High, keeping up a worse rattling than ever it did about poor Böðvar Egilsson as he was caught in Rán’s net upon her unforgiving sea. Regardless, the Westerly and SouthWesterly winds are mighty pleasant zephyrs to anyone indoors, with their feet on the dash of the heater, quietly spit-roasting before bed. “In judging the tempestuous winds of the North Ránar-land,” says an old writer—of whom I possess the only copy extant— ”it does maketh a marvelous difference, whether thine lookest from beyond an atmospheric port hole where the frost and vacuum are all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that broken visage, where Kelvin’s depths of cold and vacuum is on both sides and of which the wight Death is the only star gazer. Soothe enough, thought I, as this quote flashed through my mind—old black theta, thou remembers modestly well. Yes, these optics are ports, and this chassis of mine is the Home of the Rock upon which I shall build my church. More’s the pity they didn’t stop up the nooks and crannies, though, and cram a bit of lint through here and there. But the bets are already set. The universe is finished; the final flourish of the pen is over; the ink dried billions of years ago. Poor Baldur there, shivering his teeth against the pyre for his pillow and shaking off all thistle and trembling with a thousand fears. He might cram up his ears with wax as Odysseus and put the leather strip in his mouth, yet that would not keep out the maleficent Westerly and SouthWesterly winds. Northern Ránar-land! says old Höd, in his red meat wrapper—(he had a redder one afterward) Paw, paw, paw. What a fine frigid night; how Orion glows; what northern lights! Let them boast of their equatorial summer biomes of immortal conservatories; give me the honor of making my own summer with my own flame.

But what thinks thee Baldur? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them to the grand northern lights? Would not Baldur rather be in the Seychelles than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go forth to the fiery Muspelheim itself, in order to keep out this frost? Now, that Baldur should lie stranded there on the wooden throne before the barb of Höd, this is a more wonderful dream than that fiery rain should fall in Niflheim. Yet, Höd himself, too, lives like a man in the dark deeps of Hel in a palace made of frozen sighs, and being a footman to the bridegroom of the Queen, he only drinks by the grace of his lord.

But no more of this chilled blabbering now, we are going asteroid-catching, and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrap the ice from our frosted digits, and see what sort of a place the “Days End” may be.

Chapter Text

Entering that drooped Day’s End, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned metal wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a moderate-sized painting so thoroughly outblazed by the brightest of blue wall paint and in every way blinding that in those unequally flickering yellow neon lights by which you viewed it, it was only through amorous study and waves of mindful visits upon it, and a calm conversation with one's neighbors, that you could any way arrive to a scintilla of understanding of its purpose. Such unrecognizable masses of stars and lights that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artists, in the time of the Southern haggards, had endeavored to portray chaos subsumed. But by the goal of true and earnest meditation, and often repeated thoughtfulness, and especially by flicking on some small little lamp towards the back of the room, you at some eventually arrive that such a clue, or inkling, however feral, might not be altogether unwarranted.

But what most profoundly confused you was a long, limber, congealed, black mass of something growing to the left of the center of the painting, over homes and hills, floating above a star-filled night. A blazing, bold, serrated picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man to asylum. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-realized, unimaginable unearthliness about it that quietly persuaded you to it, till the siren call involuntarily found an oath in your breast to find the meaning of the marvelous painting.

Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would swim through you—It’s a tree a midnight gale. —It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a lightning-blasted tree.—It’s a Lovecraftian scene.—It’s the breaking-up of every upward-reaching stream of Time. But at last, on good mental apathy, all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture’s frame. That once found out, and all the rest were plain digits. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic rock? Even the great asteroids themselves?

The painter’s design seemed this: a final theorem of mine, partly based on the collectively mined opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Rocket in a great launch; the half-formed smoke trail whispering away there with only its quarry visible; and an exasperated ‘roid, anchoring itself to our gravity well, is in the enormous act of embedding itself upon the three-pronged hill.

The opposite wall of this entrance was hung all over with a nation’s worth of military photographs, videos, and weapons memorabilia. Some photos were filled with glittering teeth resembling ivory slabs and all men of the same color; others were spotted with mere blurs of aircraft, spacecraft, and all manner of pleasure craft in between; and some frames held ancient black powder-type firearms, within a vast array of breeds, made in the long-old days of natural single-shot models. You shivered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous wasteful cannibal and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a simple, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusting old Moist Nuggets and M1 Garands all bent and melted. Some were ‘rite weapons. With this once spacefaring rock, now wildly misshapen, a red letter number of years ago Cabot Guns created The Big Bang Set of 1911 pistols out of Nambian found iron. And that pair of handguns—so like an elder tree now—was forged and shot at Penn’s colony—was flung into the Atlantic Ocean, as a castaway, and run away with by a shark, years afterward slain off the Cape of Good Hope. The voids of the material, the rust of spacer red, and, like a restless wanderer the aged bark of a shell covered the handles of the kit on the hips of a woman—traveled a full four miles below, and at last rested only a while in a grinning kiss of water filled belly.

Crisscrossing this dusky entry, and on through ye old suboptimal placed arched way—cut through what in old times must have been a great central hearth with fireplaces all around—you enter the public room. A still smokier place is this, with such low girding beams above, and such old rusted and weeping metal cuirass beneath, that you would almost think you trod some old craft’s cockpits, especially of such a turbulent stride when this corner-anchored old ark yawed so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty smoking rarities gathered from this, and other, wide world’s remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den—the bar— a rude attempt at a Black Bear’s head carved from rock. Be that how it may, there stands the vast towering figures of a collection of stuffed black bears standing shoulder to shoulder with the barkeep, so wide, a Bi:Ke might almost vault over it. Within our shiny shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks, and vials; and in those jaws of savage destruction, like another cursed Leah Daniels (by which name indeed they called her), bustles a little wythered old woman, who, for their credits, dearly sells the sailors and spacers deliriums and death.

Alchemical are the vials into which she pours her poison. Though true cylinders without—within, the criminal green gurgling glass-like metal deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians scrawled into the metal, surrounding these miniature footpads’ grail. Fill this many times, and your charge is a nickel; to this a quarter more; and so on to the full glass—the Djiboutian measure, which you may gulp down for a Sacagawea.

Upon slinking through the place I found several young squids gathered about a table, examining closely by torchlight a spacer specimen of a skrimshander-like amulet. I hailed the Landlord and told him I wanted to be posted to a sleeper pod but received an answer that his inn was full —not even a cabinet vacant. “But avast,” he added, scrapping the hairs on his chin with a blade, “you ain't got no objections to sharing a miner’s blanket, have thee? I guess you are going a-minin’, so you’d better buck up for that sort of thing.”

I told him that I never liked to sleep more than one a bed; that if I should ever do it, I’d endeavor to know the miner, and that if he (the Landlord ) truly had no other place for me, and the miner was not disgusting or objectionable, why rather than dredge another inch about a strange land on so howling a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man’s blanket.

“Quite right. So, alright; take a stool. Dinner? —you want dinner? Vittels’ll be ready post haste.”

I sat down on an old creaky pew, etched all over like a bench on the Battery of the Bounty. At one end a tar heel on standby was further adorning it still with her jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space between her feet. She was trying her hand at a ship under full impulse, but she didn’t make much headway, I opined.

At last some eight or nine of us were summoned to our meal in an adjacent room. It was cold as Olympus Mons—no heat at all—the Landlord said he couldn’t afford it. Nothing but two sputtering bulbs, each in a death shroud. We were shaken into buttoning up our cracker jack coats and holding to the lips of the user—cups of scalding coffee with our half-frozen digits. But the nutrition was of the most substantial kind—not only meat and potatoes but dumplings; the envy of Sæhrímnir! dumplings for dinner! One middle-aged fellow in a blue and yellow coat addressed himself to these dumplings in a most apologetic manner.

“My lad,” said the landlord, “you’ll have the nightmare to a dead certainty.”

“Landlord,” I whispered, “that aint the miner is it?”

“Oh, no,” said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, “the miner is a blue-bellied chap. He never eats dumplings, he don’t—he eats nothing but vegetables, and he likes ’em rare.”

“The back-biter he does,” says I. “Where is that miner? Is he here?”

“He’ll be here afore long,” was the answer.

I couldn’t help, but a sneaking suspicion of this “blue-bellied” miner rising in me. Regardless, I made up my circuits that if it turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into the pod before I did.

Dinner over, the assemblage went back to the bar-room, when not knowing of anything else to do with myself, I absolved to spend the rest of the Dayfall as an observer.

Shortly, however, a raucous noise was heard rattling throughout the dwelling. Jumping up, the Landlord yelled, “That’s the Helarctos’s crew. I done saw her reported in the grub street this morning; a four-year voyage, and a full craft. Huzzah, laddoos; now we’ll have the latest news from the Martian Sheen and Charlie X.”

A grudging of mag-boots was heard in the entrance; the door was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of space miners enough. Swaddled in their shaggy watch coats, and with their top cans covered in woolen comforters, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their craft, and this was the first earthen house of which they’d crossed the threshold. No wonder, then, that they engaged in a straight course for the bear’s mouth—the bar—when the wrinkled little old Leah Daniels, there pontificating, soon poured them out brimmers all ‘round. One such miner complained of a bad cold in his toothless head, upon which Leah Daniels mixed him a molten-like potion of cayenne pepper and fireball, which she pledged was a holy cure for all colds and inflammation, never mind of how embedded, or whether caught off the grills of any spacecraft, or on the weathered side of an ice-island.

The distillery soon mounted onto their heads, as it generally does even with the notorious spacer newly landed from the stratosphere, and they began frolicking about in a most aggressive noisiness.

I observed, however, that one of their numbers held somewhat to themselves, and though he had an inkling of joining in his shipmate's revelry, he did not want to spoil the sport of the day by his own sober face, yet on the whole, he did not interfere with the others, nor inject noise of his own.

This man drew my eye at once; and since the sky-gods had fated that he should soon become my comrade (though but a sleeping partner one, so far as this tale is concerned), I will attempt upon a minute description of him. He stood a full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a whiskey barrel. Rarely have I seen such a slice of brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the gravity well of his eyes free fell some haunting memory that seemed to tug down the corners of his mouth. His thickly drawing voice at once announced that he was originally a Southerner and from his elegant stature, I thought he must be the stock of one of those moonshiners from the Appalachian Trail in West Virginia. When the hilarity of his comrades had reached its crescendoed, this man slinked away unobserved, and I saw none of him until he became my compatriot in the sky. In a few moments, however, his silence, more than usual, was missed by his crewmates, and being a huge favorite with them for some reason they raised a cry of “Billington! Billington! Wherefore art there Billington?” and fled the inn to pursue him.

It was now about ten o’clock, and after the bar-room noise crashed to silence after this measurable Bacchanal, I made sure to congratulate myself on a thread of a plan that had woven its way to me just before the entrances of the miners.

No one prefers to sleep two in a bed. You would rather take the floor than sleep back to back with your sibling. I may not know how it is, but people tend to be private when sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with a stranger, in a mysterious inn, in an unknown town, and that stranger is a space miner, your fears and jitters can objectionably multiply. Neither was there any universal reason why I as a miner and spacer should sleep two in a sleeper, more than anybody else; for spacers no more sleep two in a bed when underway, than any lonely soul with working will and wireless. Even then they sleep all together in one compartment, but you have your rack, even if it is hot, and you are only covered with your blanket and skin.

The more I thought about this miner, the more I loathed the thought of sleeping with him. It was an honest assumption that being a miner, his linen or woolen, as the case might be, might not be the tidiest, at least not of the finest quality. I began to shake all over. Besides, the hour grew late, and my decent miner should be home and going podwise. Consider now, if he should fall upon me at the Witching hour—how could I tell him from a sleep paralysis demon?

“Landlord! I’ve reconsidered about that miner.—I shan’t sleep with him. I’ll try the bench there.”

“Steady on; I apologize I can’t even spare thee a tablecloth for a pad, and it’s a mighty rough sheet metal here”—feeling of the grooves and rivets. “But wait a moment, Skrim; I’ve got a welder bench there in the bar—wait, I say, and I’ll make thee snug my boy.” Saying thus he procured the bench; and with his ancient silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, he studiously set about planning about my bunk, all the while grinning like a gator. The sparks flew left and right; until at last the aluminum oxide came jackknife against an indestructible burr. The landlord was near splintering his saw and I told him by the sons of Ivaldi to cease—the metal pyre was soft enough to suit me, and I couldn’t fathom how all the sanding in the verse could make eider down of a brass bed. So gathering up the metal shavings with another smile, and throwing them into the great hearth in the middle of the room, he went about his business and left me in a metal mire.

I now took in the measure of the man-tweaked bench and found that it was half a foot too short, but that could be supplemented with a chair. But it was half a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about nine inches higher than the sanded one—so there was no pairing them. I then placed the first bench longwise along the only unoccupied space against the old bulkhead, leaving a little gap in between, for my aching back to rest upon. But I soon found that there came through such a draught of cold air over and through me from under the cracked window, that this plan would never do, additionally seeing as another jetstream seemed to mix with the one from the window, and they both together spawned a series of small twisters directly on the spot where I had thought of spending the night.

Back-biter bring back that miner, thought I, but stop, could I not take the initiative on him—bolt his door within, and jump into his bead, to only then be wakened by the most raucous knocking? It didn’t seem like a bad idea, but reflecting on it I had second thoughts. For all I knew the next morning, as soon as I popped the pod open, the miner might be standing in the common area, all ready to knock me out!

Even so, looking about me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending an insufferable night unless in some other person’s pod, I began to think that, after all, I might be holding unwarranted prejudices against the unknown miner. Thinks I, I’ll wait a bit; be most be landing before long. I’ll make a measure of him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after all—there’s no telling.

But though the other miners kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to their bunks, yet no sign of my miner.

“Landlord!” said I, “what sort of a man is he—does he always keep such late hours?” It was now upon the Witching hour.

The Landlord chuckled again with his hoarse chuckle and seemed to be quite tickled at something beyond my understanding. “Nay,” he answered,” in general he is an early bird—’arley to bed and ‘arley to rise—yes, he’s the first to greet the sun on most days. But this Dayfall he went out a peddling, you see, and I don’t know what on ‘arth keeps him late, unless, maybe, he can not sell his head.”

“Can’t sell his ‘ead?—You mean a privy? What sort of a bamboozingly story are you telling me?” feeling a towering rage building up. “Do you mean to say, Landlord, that this miner is currently engaged this Saturnalia, or rather the Sun’s day, in peddling a head around this town?”

“A head,” said the Landlord, “and I told him that he couldn’t sell it here, the market’s a bear.”

“With what?” shouted I.

“With heads matter of fact; ain’t there many a head in the world already?”

“I’ll tell you what I think, Landlord,” said I more reserved, “you’d better stop spinning that yarn to me—I’m not a greenhorn.”

“Maybe not,” taking out a knife and cleaning out underneath his nails, “but I’d rather guess you’ll be black and blue if that miner hears you a’ cursing his head.”

“I’ll break it for ‘em,” said I, now rising in a passion at this obvious omission of the Landlord.

“It is already,” replied he.

“What is?” said I—“Broke. His head you mean?”

“Aye, and that’s why he can’t sell it, you see?”

“Landlord,” said I, striding to him as cold as Mount Blanc—“Landlord, stop picking those claws. You and I must come to an understanding without delay. I invoke the guest rite and request a bed; you say you can only give half of one; not even a hot one; and that the other end belongs to a certain miner. And about this miner anyway, whom I’ve yet to see, you insist on exhaling the most mortifying things and exhuming stories trending to sow the seeds of discomfort towards the very man you’ve fated as my bedfellow—a sort of connexion, Landlord, which you of all people know is an intimate and classified one in the highest order. I now demand you speak Troth and inform me both who and what this miner is, and whether I will be safe to share a blanket with him. And anyway, you would be so good as to take back that story about him selling his head, which if true anyway, is proof that this miner is raving mad, and I’ve no intention of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, you, I mean, Landlord, you, sir, by trying to seduce me so blatantly, you have set yourself up liable for criminal litigation.”

“Well,” gruffed the Landlord, recovering a long breath, “that’s quite a long sermon for one that trips a bit now and then. But soothe, soothe, this here miner I’ve been tellin’ you of has just arrived from the Pacific, where he bought up a lot of Hong Kong heads, (great curiosities, you know). He’s sold all but one of them, and that one he’s trying to sell this Dayfall, cause tomorrow’s the Sun’s day, and it would not do to be sellin’ robot heads about the streets when folks are goin’ to the Groves. He was about to, last Sun day, but I held him back as he was charging out the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the world like a string of onions.”

This explanation cleared up the otherwise unfathomable mystery. It cleared the Landlord in the end, who had no idea of misleading me—but at the same time what could I possibly think of a miner who stayed out all of a Saturnalia straight into the blessed high Sun day, engaging in such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead androids?

“Mark me, Landlord, that miner is a dangerous man.”

“He pays on time,” was the reply. “But come on, it's getting on in the second sleep, you have better be turning tail—it’s a nice bunk; Tal and I slept in that, there bed the night we were docked. There’s lots of room for two to starfish about in that bed; it’s a lovely big bed. Before we gave it up, Dal used to put our Thalion and little Edwarry in the foot of it. But I got a dreaming and kicking out one Dayfall, and one way or another, Tal got dumped to the floor, and came near breaking his leg. ‘fter that, Tal said we’d have to change. Come on, I’ll give you a torch in two shakes;” and thus he produced a flashlight and offered it to me, waving me on as he led the way. But I stood irresolute; peeking at a clock on the wall, he exclaimed “I vum it’s the day of the Sun—you won’t see that that miner tonight; he’s gone to ground elsewhere—come along then; do come; won’t ye come?”

I thought about it a moment, and then up the stairs we went, and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a calm Icelandic night, furnished, and sure enough, with an impressively great bed, almost large enough for any miners to sleep abeam.

“Here,” said the Landlord, placing the torch on an old hope chest that did double duty as a wash rack and center table; “there, there, now, make yourself at home, and a pleasant Dayfall to you.” I turned round from inspecting the bed, but he had vanished.

Turning down the bedspread, I craned over the bed. Though none of the most elegant, the thread count was still intact enough to block the visage of my digits from the other side. I looked about the room; and besides the nightstand and center table, I could see nothing else furnishing the room, but a poorly installed shelf, the metal cage that was the walls, and a papered fireboard representing a spacer striking an asteroid. Clashing greatly with the decor and sacramental purpose of the room, there was a hammock hooked up, and stashed on the floor in one corner; also a larger miner’s bag, containing the miner’s clothing, no doubt, forgoing a suitcase. Additionally, there was a ridiculous-sized box of birdshot on the mantle over the heater, and a massive e-drill standing at the head of the bed.

But what is this on the chest? I took it up and held it close to the light, felt it, smelt it, and poked it every which way possible to try and compute some satisfactory answer concerning it. I can compare it to nothing more than a large heavy plastic tarp, decorated on the edges with little tinkling tags something like Lakota ankle bells. There was an opening in the middle of this bag, as you see the same in Seaworld ponchos. But could any sober miner possibly get into a plastic bag, and tramp the streets of any Heathen town in that getup? I put it on, just to try it, and it weighed me down, being uncommonly Earthly in its creation the pressure of millions of years allowed me this shell of a liquid dinosaur, and it was quite damp, as though this inscrutable miner had donned it on it a deluge. I went up dressed in it, to a mirror on the far side of the room, and I’d never seen such a visage in my life. I wrenched myself out of it in such a fright I strained my neck.

I sat down on the corner of the bed and started thinking about this head-peddling miner, and his tarp. After pondering about for a time at the corner, I got up took off my cracker jack jacket, and then paced in the middle of the room thinking. Then I took off my coat and thought a little more about my Sleeves. But the chill crept into my fingers quickly now, half dressed as I was, and recalling what the Landlord said about the miner not returning at all this Dayfall, it was so incredibly late, and I hesitated no more, but dropped out of my trousers and mag-boots, and then switching off the light I tumbled into the bed, and committed my nodes to Nyx.

I wondered whether the pad was stuffed with corn cob pipes or broken chassis, I know not, but I tossed about a good deal, and sleep eluded me for a while. Finally, I slipped into a small river of sleep and had quite nearly made an honest effort towards the land of Nod, when I heard the echoing of a heavy footfall in the hallway and a glare of light flickered from under the door frame.

Tyr preserves me, thinks I, that must be the miner, the orcish head-peddler. But I immediately froze and made up my mind not to speak until spoken to. Holding a torch in one hand, and that identical Hong Kong head in the other, the specter entered the room, not even glancing at the bend, placed his torch on the other side of the floor in one corner, and then began untangling the Gordian knot of the cords surrounding the large bag I spoke of before. I was ultimately invested in seeing his face, but he kept to the dark for some time while unlacing the bag’s maw. Once done, however, he turned round—when good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was of a dark, bluish-grey color, and underneath his granite nose draped a jet-black curling mustache. Yes, I was correct, he is a terrible bedmate; he’s quarreled, got dreadfully beaten, and here he is, just back from the medic. But at that moment he happened to turn his face towards the flicking light, and I saw that it was not swelling, those blue cushioned areas of his face. They were colored in some sort or other. At first, I thought tattoos were the makeup of this coloring; but soon an inkling of possibility occurred to me. I remembered a story of Julius Ceaser, describing the Picti—rock worshippers too— as dyeing themselves blue-grey with woad before charging into battle. With his wayward travels, I hypothesized that this miner must have undertaken a similar ritual. And what is that to me, after all? It’s only his outside; an honest man is never a bad color.

But now, what to make of this woad-en wanderer, that part of it, I mean, lying around and completely independent of any skin pigmenting agent that I could see. It might be nothing but a good coat of body paint, but there was no smudging on his clothing and none of his skin was raised in ink from a needle's mouth. However, I have never been to the South Pacific; and perhaps some homemade remedies, roots, insects, or mammals produced these extraordinary effects on the skin. As all these thoughts thundered through my heart, this miner never noticed me. But, after some hard work, he had opened his bag; looking like he was wrestling a small bass from within its contents, he pulled out a cudgel, and a sealed skin wallet with the hair on. The hair was mysterious to me and had a faint green hue. Placing these on the old chest standing in the middle of the pod, he then took the Hong Kong head —a ghoulish thing enough— and stuffed it into the bag. His head covering remained—a blue silk fabric it appeared—when I damn near gasped out with new surprise. As he unbuttoned his shirt a slit appeared on his neck revealing gills!—Ah, but wait!—they were not the slits of a shark, but a mechanical contraption all golden wires and IV lines. Monstrous as it was, it did not take up much space under his jaw, his mix of black and blue skin now looked to all the world like a blue swallow with a ring about their neck rather than the foot for identification. There was no earthly reason I could think of this contraption—none to speak of at first glance—nothing but a small throat binder tucked up under his jugular. His azure-donned head now shimmered in the light, evoking the sight of a body under the water seen from above. Had the stranger not stood between me and the door, I would have bolted quicker than a hare through a briar patch.

Even so, I thought of slinking out the window, but it was the third floor back. I’m no yellow belly, but what to make of this head-peddling blue scamp exceeded my computation limits. Ignorance is the sire of suspicion, and being completely cool and confused about the strange spacer, I admit I was now as fearful of him as if it was Hel herself who had thus invaded my room at the end of the Witching Hour. My fear was so great that I was not even game enough to whisper a greeting let alone demand any explanation concerning what or wherefore he was.

All the while, he continued to undress, and at last, showed his chest and arms. As I live and breathe, these now uncovered parts of him are laced with the same bluish-grey segments interlacing a deep purplish black; the same as his face; his back, also, was all over covered with a mottled collection of color as a calico cavalier. Additionally, he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years’ War, from the puncture wounds on his back and just managed to escape by the skin of his wallet. Even more, his very legs were marked, this time as if a parcel of dark blue frogs were running up the trunks of burned-blackened trees. It was extremely plain that he must be some terrible untamed surfer or otherwise captured aboard a miner magnet in the South Pacific, and so landed in this heathe’rn country. I shudder to think. A head peddler too—perhaps the heads of his comrades. What if he took a fancy to mine?—Fólkvangr! eye that cudgel!

But there was no time for shaking, for now, the wild man went about something that immediately commanded my attention and convinced me that he must indeed be a fallow heath. Going to his heavy pea coat, tarp, or Mil-Tec, which he had previously tossed on a chair, he rummaged through his pockets and produced a green Walkman-like object with golden gilded edges; the electrical input wire on top slithered out with the head of a grouse. Thinking back to the static head, at first, I thought this contraption was an android heart preserved in some cannibalistic manner. But, looking again, I saw that it was not malleable and glistened much like an emerald, I surmised that it must be nothing more than an idle device, which it proved to be. For now, the brute goes up to the central table, ignoring the cold heater, and sets up this little cubic cairn-like miniature in the central location of the table. The metal wires surrounding the icon seemed appropriate for this little shrine.

I squinted my eyes towards this half-hidden device, feeling bewildered and wire-tight—to see what was next to follow. First, he took about a double handful of silver coins out of his grego pocket and placed them carefully in an empty shot glass he produced from his other pocket; then laying out a two-pronged metal dowsing rod and plugging it into the central outlet on the table, he found his canteen and poured the water over the coins as a practical sublimation. Presently, after checking the forked metal (whereby the device squawked like a parrot), he at last stabbed the device into the water; slightly dimming the humming of its tune, as it rippled the watery surface. But for the clinking of the silver coins, the room was silent; he never moved his lips. All these strange procedures were accompanied by still stranger full-body movements from the devotee, who seemed to start humming in a sing-song to otherwise chrisitan psalmody or other, during which his body stretched high towards the ceiling before kowtowing before the vessel. At last, ceasing his movements, he removed the device. He very unceremoniously drank the glass contents, careful not to smack his teeth on the silver coins still situated within.

The queerness of the situation was reaching a boiling point, and sensing in him a strong inclination to conclude his business operations, and jump into bed with me, I thought it well past due to, now or never, make myself known before the light was put out, breaking this boundless spell.

But, alas, the moment had passed, and the deliberation was dead. Taking up his cudgel from the table, he examined the head of it for an instant, and then holding it up to the torch, with his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great plumes of vapor. The light was extinguished with a flash, and this feral cannibal, cudgel between his teeth, docked into this bunk with me. I sang out, I couldn’t help it at this point, and giving a jolted grunt of surprise he began feeling me.

Sputtering out something, I didn’t know, I jerked away from him scrunched up against the well, and then begged him, whoever or whatever he might be, to keep it down, and let me get up and set the torch again. But his guttural responses once revealed that he understood little of my pleadings.

“Who da devil are you? " he finally said—” You don’t speak. I kill-a you.” And thus saying the still-lighted cudgel began weaving around me in the darkness.

“Landlord, for Mein Got’s sake, G.W. Coffin!” shouted I. “Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Valkyries! save me!”

“Speke! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!” again spat the cannibal, while his horrendous waving of the cudgel left vapor trails clouding the air to the point I thought the device must have surely caught fire. But thank the maker, at that exact time the Landlord came into the room, torch in hand, and I lept out of the bed to run up to him.

“Fret not,” said he, smiling again, “Malik Khan here wouldn’t hurt a bot fly on your head.

“Stop your jaw jerking,” shouted I, “and why for Idunn’s little green apples didn’t you tell me that orcish miner was a cannibal?”

“I tho’t you’d ken it; —didn’t I tell ye, he was a peddlin’ heads around town?—but turn your tide again and get to sleep.

Malik Khan, look here—you ken me, I ken—you this man sleepa you—you ken?”

“Me kenning plenty”—grunted Malik Khan, puffing away at his pipe and sitting straighter up in bed.

“You gettin' in, Sahib,” he added, waving to me with his cudgel, and tossing the clothes to one side. He not only civilly did this, but the kindness and charity exuded from the smoothing of the sheet to clear it. I stood staring at him for a moment. For all his miscoloration he was on the whole a clean-kept, comely-looking cannibal. What was I complaining about, thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better dreams sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

“Landlord,” said I, “tell him to stash his cudgel there, or pipe, or whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will turn in with him. But I don’t fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It’s dangerous. Besides, I ain’t insured.” This being told to Malik Khan, he at once complied, and again politely motioned me to get into bed—rolling over to one side as much as to say—“I won’t touch a hair of thee.”

“Good night, Landlord,” said I, “you may go.”

I turned in, and never slept better in my life.