Read Online Bill 3 - on the Planet of Bottled Brains by Harry Harrison - Free Book Online
Authors: Harry Harrison
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to cross a range of mountains. That was doubly annoying, because he was sure that range hadn't been there when he'd first noticed the light. It had to be the computer's work, putting those mountains there. In fact the computer was probably behind the light, too, setting him up for even deeper disappointment in its sadistic mechanical way. Yes, he was doomed, yes he was! Why go on? He might just as well lie down in the mud and see if he could virtually drown. But that would mean giving in to a sadistic collection of transistors and wires. Was this the way it was going to end? Not with a bang but with a short-circuited sizzle.
“Never!” he groaned aloud, then started coughing and sneezing. “Give in to a crappy machine! Not me, not macho Bill! I have survived, ha-ha, far worse. I'm a real winner, I am. No surrender! Onward!”
Cheered on by this masculine bullshit he forced himself to his feet and staggered on, no surrender! Even though his lungs were puffing like a bellows gone berserk, even though the mountains ahead of him presented themselves, on closer inspection, as steep ice pinnacles with screaming winds howling among them, and him without a crampon. Good guys win! The phallus forever!
Despite all this it was no go. Exhausted he slumped back, tired, finished. Without crampons he could not go on, despite the best will in the world...
But then he remembered his clawed foot! Yes, of course, his lovely alligator's claws! A natural crampon, born from a lab-mutated foot bud! He wasn't licked yet!
Bill tore off the clumsy wrappings that kept his foot from the metaphoric cold, the coldest kind of cold there is. One foot wrapped, the other unwrapped, he stood for a moment, then, throwing caution to the winds, and commending his soul to the great Tribunal in the sky where troopers collect their final medals and ultimate demerits, he tore off the coverings from the other foot, too. Although it was a normal foot, it had been so long since Bill had cut his toenails that he found now that even with that foot he could get good purchase on the icy metaphor. He scrambled up, panting, grinning, his taloned claw striking deeply into the adamantine ice, while the other foot scrambled for a foothold in the slightly softer sub-adamantine ice. His hands clawed at the sheer face, finding here and there little wiry vines that had withstood the cold and were deeply rooted enough to give him additional leverage. He pulled himself up the cliffside, onward, onward, while insane lights exploded in the sky and he could hear an orchestra in his head playing the 1812 Overture. And then, suddenly, he was on the crest of the summit. He took one more step. He was over the top. He looked eagerly down the downslope of the icy summit, and beheld a sight he had not anticipated even in his wildest imaginings.
There, sitting in a little natural hollow in the slope, was Brownnose. In front of him there was a fire, and Brownnose was feeding small phosphorus logs into it. These, mounting high in the air, and giving off phosphorescent sparks and also emitting a violet glow, were the source of the light Bill had seen in the sky.
“Brownnose! What are you doing here?” Bill asked.
“Bill! Gosh, how great to see you!” Brownnose looked much the same as at their last meeting. Perhaps his freckles were more pronounced due to the cold; possibly his hair, sticking out from under a fur-lined parka hood, was a little less orange than formerly. It was not impossible that there was another line or two in his face. But despite these changes wrought by time, the evil cosmetician, it was the same old Brownnose, Bill's former friend, a man desperately eager to prove himself and win back the love and respect of his friends, the other troopers, for some idiotic reason known only to himself, or, failing that, at least to have them stop laughing at him.
Bill squatted down by the fire. The phosphorus sparked and flashed, but Bill was too numb to even feel the pain when
“Never!” he groaned aloud, then started coughing and sneezing. “Give in to a crappy machine! Not me, not macho Bill! I have survived, ha-ha, far worse. I'm a real winner, I am. No surrender! Onward!”
Cheered on by this masculine bullshit he forced himself to his feet and staggered on, no surrender! Even though his lungs were puffing like a bellows gone berserk, even though the mountains ahead of him presented themselves, on closer inspection, as steep ice pinnacles with screaming winds howling among them, and him without a crampon. Good guys win! The phallus forever!
Despite all this it was no go. Exhausted he slumped back, tired, finished. Without crampons he could not go on, despite the best will in the world...
But then he remembered his clawed foot! Yes, of course, his lovely alligator's claws! A natural crampon, born from a lab-mutated foot bud! He wasn't licked yet!
Bill tore off the clumsy wrappings that kept his foot from the metaphoric cold, the coldest kind of cold there is. One foot wrapped, the other unwrapped, he stood for a moment, then, throwing caution to the winds, and commending his soul to the great Tribunal in the sky where troopers collect their final medals and ultimate demerits, he tore off the coverings from the other foot, too. Although it was a normal foot, it had been so long since Bill had cut his toenails that he found now that even with that foot he could get good purchase on the icy metaphor. He scrambled up, panting, grinning, his taloned claw striking deeply into the adamantine ice, while the other foot scrambled for a foothold in the slightly softer sub-adamantine ice. His hands clawed at the sheer face, finding here and there little wiry vines that had withstood the cold and were deeply rooted enough to give him additional leverage. He pulled himself up the cliffside, onward, onward, while insane lights exploded in the sky and he could hear an orchestra in his head playing the 1812 Overture. And then, suddenly, he was on the crest of the summit. He took one more step. He was over the top. He looked eagerly down the downslope of the icy summit, and beheld a sight he had not anticipated even in his wildest imaginings.
There, sitting in a little natural hollow in the slope, was Brownnose. In front of him there was a fire, and Brownnose was feeding small phosphorus logs into it. These, mounting high in the air, and giving off phosphorescent sparks and also emitting a violet glow, were the source of the light Bill had seen in the sky.
“Brownnose! What are you doing here?” Bill asked.
“Bill! Gosh, how great to see you!” Brownnose looked much the same as at their last meeting. Perhaps his freckles were more pronounced due to the cold; possibly his hair, sticking out from under a fur-lined parka hood, was a little less orange than formerly. It was not impossible that there was another line or two in his face. But despite these changes wrought by time, the evil cosmetician, it was the same old Brownnose, Bill's former friend, a man desperately eager to prove himself and win back the love and respect of his friends, the other troopers, for some idiotic reason known only to himself, or, failing that, at least to have them stop laughing at him.
Bill squatted down by the fire. The phosphorus sparked and flashed, but Bill was too numb to even feel the pain when
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