CHAPTER 17 (Poetry from Commander Scorpion to Captain Hotshot)
In retaliation for the wicked prose foist upon my unwary soul (see Chapter 16), I have sent the following bit of drivel back to Captain Hotshot, aka, Hotty, aka, Houdini, aka, that devious bastid of the seventh displaced temporal command found only on holodeck fouur.
I pushed my ethereal craft through a temporal port.
The experience was mirrored in my holoclone.
The half dimensional Bandersnatch was short.
I was cocooned within my thought alone.
Aboard the Frivolous Cake, adrift on a pointless sea,
There echoes laughter of a Bandersnatch.
As wisps of mist, feint, I grasp, me to me.
My self, my being, my essence, can’t catch.
………
( interlude of indeterminate time )
………
Hark! My thoughts! My own!
Hark! I am!
What?
From whence did I come?
First thoughts are hidden.
Have they been erased?
What of my cognitions before this life?
Were they thoughts at all?
Were those much greater than these?!
Must we learn such bounded thinking as this?
We learn so much, so fast, so without bounds!
We were as genius all!
We learn to think and learn.
We become less able.
We learn not to learn.
We learn not to think.
No expanded cognitions.
Alas, are my thoughts my own?
Alas, what am I?
……
Deep artificial voice of a holocloned Bandersnatch -- Mortal! (Hee haw!!!! NEXT... )
……
As the above bit of philosophical perambulations found their way into the net, Galaxywide News sent a reporter to interview Commander Scorpion.
Reporter: When I asked the Commander to explain himself for this furious outpouring of such mellifluous prose and where the inspiration came from he explained it thusly...
Scorpion: Having recently been on a short hop between the planet Wellever located far out on the interior lateral arm of the Defendrite Galaxy, Captain Hotshot and I were on our way back to Starbase Command when we came across an emergency beacon. You can imagine our surprise to encounter a beacon while deep in the fourth level of hyperspace as there was no recorded evidence to suggest this was possible.
We quickly applied our emergency breaking system in order to render whatever assistance might be possible. Dropping into normal space at a dead stop our navigator located the beacon. In horror we watched as the last flickers emanated from what appeared to be a late model Studebaker-Gryphon Mark IV Cruiser collapse in on itself as if it was being consumed by some invisible bit of dark protoplasm. I promptly sent out a probe to see if we could detect any life boats or other survivor craft. It was hopeless.
In fact we watched our probe as it seemed to suffer the same fate as it maneuvered close to where the last sighting occurred. Fearing the worst I asked our ships resident zenobiologist for his analysis of the situation. He promptly replied, "Get Us Out Of Here!!!" It was then that I remembered ... , "Aaaahh! Yes indeedy!
That’s one of them neofangled faux Defendrites. I remember it from a symposium I went to a few months ago on the new genome planet they made. You probably heard about the disasterous lab accident(s). The lead presenter cautioned me to use caution and keep my ship at least a few light years away. He said he had heard that some of those nasties are quite voracious and hungry and hostile too!"
Looking again out the viewport the large ectoplasm was pulsing with a light blue glow and it appeared to be moving this way. I asked Ensign Charles, "That one looks like a young one, and not quite fully formed. Did you see the hapless vessels it has consumed? They are faintly visible when the pulsing color shades towards red."
The experience was so unnerving that it caused me to lapse into a fromellium fugue, which induced the flow of prose in question.
With that he said, "Well, I gotta get dressed for the Activerian Emperor’s 9th birthday party. I hate pomp and ... well ... pompous ... a___s. (asps)
Ta Ta ... errr .. SALUTE! Cmdr. Scorpion
I pushed my ethereal craft through a temporal port.
The experience was mirrored in my holoclone.
The half dimensional Bandersnatch was short.
I was cocooned within my thought alone.
Aboard the Frivolous Cake, adrift on a pointless sea,
There echoes laughter of a Bandersnatch.
As wisps of mist, feint, I grasp, me to me.
My self, my being, my essence, can’t catch.
………
( interlude of indeterminate time )
………
Hark! My thoughts! My own!
Hark! I am!
What?
From whence did I come?
First thoughts are hidden.
Have they been erased?
What of my cognitions before this life?
Were they thoughts at all?
Were those much greater than these?!
Must we learn such bounded thinking as this?
We learn so much, so fast, so without bounds!
We were as genius all!
We learn to think and learn.
We become less able.
We learn not to learn.
We learn not to think.
No expanded cognitions.
Alas, are my thoughts my own?
Alas, what am I?
……
Deep artificial voice of a holocloned Bandersnatch -- Mortal! (Hee haw!!!! NEXT... )
……
As the above bit of philosophical perambulations found their way into the net, Galaxywide News sent a reporter to interview Commander Scorpion.
Reporter: When I asked the Commander to explain himself for this furious outpouring of such mellifluous prose and where the inspiration came from he explained it thusly...
Scorpion: Having recently been on a short hop between the planet Wellever located far out on the interior lateral arm of the Defendrite Galaxy, Captain Hotshot and I were on our way back to Starbase Command when we came across an emergency beacon. You can imagine our surprise to encounter a beacon while deep in the fourth level of hyperspace as there was no recorded evidence to suggest this was possible.
We quickly applied our emergency breaking system in order to render whatever assistance might be possible. Dropping into normal space at a dead stop our navigator located the beacon. In horror we watched as the last flickers emanated from what appeared to be a late model Studebaker-Gryphon Mark IV Cruiser collapse in on itself as if it was being consumed by some invisible bit of dark protoplasm. I promptly sent out a probe to see if we could detect any life boats or other survivor craft. It was hopeless.
In fact we watched our probe as it seemed to suffer the same fate as it maneuvered close to where the last sighting occurred. Fearing the worst I asked our ships resident zenobiologist for his analysis of the situation. He promptly replied, "Get Us Out Of Here!!!" It was then that I remembered ... , "Aaaahh! Yes indeedy!
That’s one of them neofangled faux Defendrites. I remember it from a symposium I went to a few months ago on the new genome planet they made. You probably heard about the disasterous lab accident(s). The lead presenter cautioned me to use caution and keep my ship at least a few light years away. He said he had heard that some of those nasties are quite voracious and hungry and hostile too!"
Looking again out the viewport the large ectoplasm was pulsing with a light blue glow and it appeared to be moving this way. I asked Ensign Charles, "That one looks like a young one, and not quite fully formed. Did you see the hapless vessels it has consumed? They are faintly visible when the pulsing color shades towards red."
The experience was so unnerving that it caused me to lapse into a fromellium fugue, which induced the flow of prose in question.
With that he said, "Well, I gotta get dressed for the Activerian Emperor’s 9th birthday party. I hate pomp and ... well ... pompous ... a___s. (asps)
Ta Ta ... errr .. SALUTE! Cmdr. Scorpion
posted by Mike and Tina at 5:41 PM
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