tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78261012158224287832024-03-18T08:32:07.537+05:30Bill the ButcherBill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.comBlogger1484125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-90118928104739516492023-09-15T14:12:00.003+05:302023-09-15T14:13:55.316+05:30Looks like it's getting time to abandon Blogspot It's not just that there are hardly any readers here, but what's this new formatting problem? Do we need to be coders to post anything with paragraph breaks now?
Everyone seems to be moving to Substack. Probably I should. Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-42181114006805449382023-09-15T13:57:00.002+05:302023-09-15T14:00:28.884+05:30From The Baboon Chronicles<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHHpXGIoKaEVfHY7y_DNz_xUS9Lxl5tNJwTX0n2bFMaqgZ0JL2GCzpynvXqLd_3LsdYtqdDVQkHo0QVmKKFiJ17WQwxxdh0ZaFAIswqULYmmr5Wyiq4pN2S-gfu66NHvJ23rbiCg9UjLqB4_llWKDBrOrFc8ndyOHl-Wdu6AbDzNwVZ4NVaNWMAqxRxg/s677/images%20%2845%29.jpeg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="677" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHHpXGIoKaEVfHY7y_DNz_xUS9Lxl5tNJwTX0n2bFMaqgZ0JL2GCzpynvXqLd_3LsdYtqdDVQkHo0QVmKKFiJ17WQwxxdh0ZaFAIswqULYmmr5Wyiq4pN2S-gfu66NHvJ23rbiCg9UjLqB4_llWKDBrOrFc8ndyOHl-Wdu6AbDzNwVZ4NVaNWMAqxRxg/s400/images%20%2845%29.jpeg"/></a></div>
Once there was a troop of baboons that lived in a lush green mountain valley.
The valley had many fruit laden trees, that grew around a stream that trickled out of a hole high in a cliff, gathered in a little lake at the foot, and then meandered in a crystal stream through the valley until losing itself in a river in the plains below.
The chief of the baboon clan was named Moammar; and a mighty chief was he, with a great silver cape of fur growing on his shoulders, which was the envy of all the other baboons around. No other baboon had such a luxuriant cape: for only the leader could grow one that long and lustrous.
"We must tend to the lake," Moammar said, "for it is fed by rain in the higher mountains, and should the rain fail, the lake will dry up and the river die. And if the rain be too heavy, the lake will burst its banks and flood the valley and wash us all away."
So the baboons did as he directed, and piled stones and branches around the lake. When the rains were scarce, they built the piles higher, and the water was confined and there remained enough to drink and keep the trees alive. And when the rains were heavy, they pulled away the piles, so the excess water safely drained away.
So the baboon troop lived in their beautiful valley, and flourished, eating the fruits that grew on the trees, and the insects of various kinds that came to destroy the fruit and stayed to become meals.
Now there were other baboon troops elsewhere, on a great dry plateau near the valley; and these troops had no river and no fruit trees, but had to live in thorny acacia and search for grubs and seeds among stones. They remained thin and hungry and disease ridden, but that was not all.
There were leopards on the plateau, great spotted beasts that preyed on the hapless baboons. The leopards could not catch them easily in the thorny acacia branches, but lay in wait on the ground, knowing the baboons would have to descend to look for food. And each time the baboons, driven by hunger, descended, the leopards would jump on them and eat several, skin and bone and all.
Moammar the valley baboon leader looked and saw what was happening to the plateau baboons, and this troubled his soul greatly.
"We have more fruit than we can eat," he said. "If we give the excess to the plateau baboons, they need never come down from their acacias, and then the leopards cannot kill and eat them. We should do this."
The leopards came to know of the plan and this angered them greatly.
"We have an easy life here," they said to each other. "We do not have to exert ourselves chasing gazelles or defending our kills from lions or hyenas. We just have to sit near the acacia trees and eat the baboons when they come down. But if the valley baboons give them fruit, they will not come down at all, and we will have to work for our food, going afield to chase prey. And that won't do at all."
Now among the leopards there was a particularly cruel and rapacious old female known to the others as Killary. "I have an idea," she said, licking her fangs. "This Moammar has a tremendous cape of silver fur, a matter of envy to all the rest. None of the others can grow one quite like this because that do not have his authority."
Slinking to the edge of the valley, she whispered to the baboons in the fruit trees who were far away from the troop leader. "Why do you want to give any of your fruit to the undeserving baboons of the plateau?" she asked. "Is it not your fruit? And what right do they have to it?"
"This is true," a few of the baboons agreed. "Why should they get our fruit? But Moammar is our chief and we must listen to him."
"Why should he be your chief?" Killary whispered, swishing her tail from side to side. "Do you not deserve to grow great silver capes on your shoulders like him? Do you not want the pretty young girl baboons to be part of your harems, not his? Overthrow him and you will not only have all that, but your fruit too."
The baboons talked among themselves for a while, and then they said, "Yes, we agree; but Moammar is a great chief, with many strong baboons by his side; how can we prevail against him?"
"We will fix that," Killary said. "Rebel against him and ask my fellow leopards and me for help."
Then the baboons rose up in rebellion against Moammar, but as they had themselves feared, the great chief and his warrior baboons soon put them to flight and it seemed that the rebellion must at any moment be ended.
"Help us, Killary!" the rebellious baboons screamed. "Help us, Sarkonazi! Help us, all you other leopards!"
And the leopards, who had been lying in wait, sprang into the valley and began killing Moammar's warrior baboons until only Moammar himself, wounded and bleeding, was left; and the rebellious baboons leapt on him with teeth and claws until he was no more.
"The job is done!" the leopards said, licking their fangs. "No fruit to the plateau baboons now. We can feast at will."
"Yessss," Killary purred. "We came, we saw, he died. Hehehehehehe." And with the other leopards she departed satisfied to the plateau, to keep eating the baboons there.
Now in the valley the rebellious baboons each wanted to grow the most magnificent silver cape of fur on the valley, and have the largest harem of pretty girl baboons; but only the chief could do that. So they fell to fighting, all against each other, biting and clawing and warring among the branches so that all the unripe fruit was knocked down to the ground and spoilt. Along with war, hunger came to the valley.
Meanwhile the rain clouds gathered overhead, thick and dark, and thunderstorms and torrential rain lashed the high mountains. Water flooded down the cliff and filled up the lake, pressing on the piles of sticks and stones at its sides. But the baboons had been far too busy fighting to see to the maintenance, naturally, so the lake burst its banks and a flash flood rushed down the valley.
And all the baboons who had been, because there was no fruit left in the trees, looking for something to eat on the ground, were caught up in the immense surge of water and washed away.
From the plateau Killary and the other leopards watched. "What a pity," Killary said, winking. "They were such a large and successful troop, but they fell to fighting among themselves and didn't bother to repair their own homes. One wonders how it could have happened. Oh well."
Then, sighing in satisfaction, they went back to killing the baboons who came down from the acacia trees.
Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-54984699839333769392023-09-05T05:03:00.002+05:302023-09-05T16:16:48.887+05:30Zoggin' Not 'alf Bad(druk)<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_te1eKysDr3FGlMj7ahbBp_QxG9WNU41dP2yIot03mI9hiWAkBMcjbwWnWG3dX35Z6S_TvJKtZnkOFE_Jg5XSXXv_m9n14KHusgzFmuOd6vfNyG27GMAoe_N17PbBGPi2QldmkuPvEWDv9WOfMijmNE21GrszdiIIvg8XLZ8JvmyeJXmfHBD6-XvvmE/s1000/IMG_20230904_203127_501.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="663" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_te1eKysDr3FGlMj7ahbBp_QxG9WNU41dP2yIot03mI9hiWAkBMcjbwWnWG3dX35Z6S_TvJKtZnkOFE_Jg5XSXXv_m9n14KHusgzFmuOd6vfNyG27GMAoe_N17PbBGPi2QldmkuPvEWDv9WOfMijmNE21GrszdiIIvg8XLZ8JvmyeJXmfHBD6-XvvmE/w424-h640/IMG_20230904_203127_501.jpg" width="424" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In dis covva fing, top left, Kaptin Badrukk,top middle Nizkwik, middle iz Ufthak wiv 'is Shokkhamma, an' Princess lower right. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </p><p><br /></p><p>Oi, listen up, ya zoggin' humie.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dis story, it goes like dis, see?</p><p><br /></p><p>Dere is dis humie okkupied planet called Hephaesto, which is fulla da tek humies keep makin', an' which rightfully an' also leftfully belong to da orks since da mekboys can think of fings t'do wif da humie tek dat humies can't think of in a WAAAAGH of Sundays.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, we got our hero. Dis git is called Ufthak Blackhawk an' 'e's a nob of the Blood Moon klan, but dat don't matter so much because 'is outfit is one of a whole group o' klans under Warboss Da Big Mek.</p><p><br /></p><p>Da Big Mek wants da humie tek on Hephaesto fer reasonz I told ya already, so 'e comes wif 'is ships an' orkboyz to capture da planet. But dis flash git freeboota Kaptin Badrukk is already attacking da planet, and Da Big Mek decides to join da forces an' share da loot wif 'im afterwards instead of fightin' 'im an' lettin' da humies get away. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now da problem iz, da humies aren't da usual sort, squishy when ya hits 'em wif Ufthak's Shokkhamma. Dey're dese humie mekboyz who've done fings wif demselves, see, turnin' most of dere bodiez to metal fings, armour an' tentacles an' weapons at every nook an' cranny.</p><p><br /></p><p>Just da kind of fing that orkboyz luv, cause it gives 'em a good fight. </p><p><br /></p><p>But dere's dis uvver problem. Dis flash git Badrukk is out ter sabotage Da Big Mek an' steal all da good loot fer 'imself. An' dere's dis zoggin' grot called Nizkwik dat attached 'imself to Ufthak an' our hero can't get rid of 'im no matter how hard 'e tries.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dere's also dis squig called Princess, who's just like a loyal dog to Ufthak, only big enuff ter eat a humie arm whole an' save Ufthak's life from a humie mekboy. She's a good squig.</p><p><br /></p><p>Uvver people on Ufthak's crew are also good, ya unnerstand, gits like Da Boffin, who replaced 'is own legs wif a wheel an' who can drive anyfing from a humie hovercraft to a hijacked fighter plane, Mogrot Redtoof, Ufthak's sidekick, an' othas. </p><p><br /></p><p>Now da humiez also have problems. Dey're divided an' fightin', an' dere's a traitor who sold 'imself to demons an' who made a demon machine ter destroy everyfing, humie an' ork alike. </p><p><br /></p><p>Of course Ufthak an' da orkboyz can't let 'im do dat kind of fing. Da tek on da planet belongs to da orks, an' woe ter any demon or humie or Badrukk dat gets in da way!</p><p><br /></p><p>Good fings:</p><p><br /></p><p>Dis book is funny an' quick. Except da humie parts, which are too long an' not one of da humies is likeable. Dey all deserve ter get krumped good an' propa.</p><p><br /></p><p>Bad fings:</p><p><br /></p><p>Da ending is a bit rushed an' we never find out wot happens to sum important characters. Humie plots are confusin' an' dere's a subplot about a possible xenos artifact dat has an Internet ("noosphere") presence dat's built up an' up but never goes anywhere. It's like da humie dat wrote dis story forgot about dis whole fing.</p><p><br /></p><p>I give it 3 stars out of five.</p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-46691197340355603392023-08-13T18:34:00.003+05:302023-08-13T18:34:44.056+05:30Night of the Demon<p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Once there was a Demon Lord who had tired of Hell and all its ways; and being a Lord of the Nether Realms, he had the power to free himself to wander the earth</p><br />Where he saw war and famine and pestilence <br /><br />He saw cities burn under mushroom clouds and men grow rich in the light of the flames<br /><br />He saw death-robots fly and drop rockets on weddings halfway across the world<br /><br />He saw a great city by night, with brightly lit shops and restaurants, yet the alleys were dark and deserted, and came down for a closer look<br /><br />And in one of the alleys was a house, and the house was crumbling; and in it a room, and in the room a bed<br /><br />And on the bed was a little girl, curled up and not crying<br /><br />She was not crying because it was difficult enough finding the strength to breathe; and the demon saw she had been brutally treated and was clearly dying.<br /><br />And the demon's mind was touched with compassion, so that he reached out to comfort and heal her, when there was a flash of light;<br /><br />And he looked up to find an angel covered in wings, and the angel said to him:<br /><br />"Do not presume to heal this girl, I forbid you." And the demon furrowed his brow and said,<br /><br />"She is suffering, and she is young and has her life ahead of her. Why should she suffer like this and die, when you could heal her at a touch, and so could I?"<br /><br />And the angel said, "If she dies now, she will die innocent, but if she lives she will accumulate sins; so it is better that she dies now. And young death is beautiful."<br /><br />And the demon looked at the angel, and so great was his wrath that the creature fluttered backwards. "So this is your Kingdom of Heaven," he said. "Suffering and death is what you love. And you call us evil!"<br /><br />Then turning to the girl, he murmured, "I am forbidden to heal you. But I am not forbidden to do this." And he gathered the child up in his arms. <br /><br />"What are you..." the angel shouted, but it was already speaking to the empty air. For the demon was gone, and with him the girl too.<br /><br />Perhaps there is a world where he can heal her, and there they have gone.Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-37528600264164673082023-08-01T15:39:00.002+05:302023-08-01T15:39:27.145+05:30Death March<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIDu3h5cRkvd3FPrtlw53YZXF_9hjAX_zDOfRHnV1pZayezv2JQngG7ERsxaGzR1VUC_M4pLZfRK6VOVLiKEEsDY1d8Dk1gPNpjCk7YI372MI3oWg-kvfvvZtqUTAdvO8hYzalKPk_UHIpiDLJD5-Qu7RyT5q5JNao6jC8tjVYzXBj716pPjQR7pT3Vo/s1072/2023-07-22_13.47.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="1072" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihIDu3h5cRkvd3FPrtlw53YZXF_9hjAX_zDOfRHnV1pZayezv2JQngG7ERsxaGzR1VUC_M4pLZfRK6VOVLiKEEsDY1d8Dk1gPNpjCk7YI372MI3oWg-kvfvvZtqUTAdvO8hYzalKPk_UHIpiDLJD5-Qu7RyT5q5JNao6jC8tjVYzXBj716pPjQR7pT3Vo/w400-h256/2023-07-22_13.47.12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>You see them pulled from the street</p><p>Dragged from their homes while the women cry</p><p>Fighting for freedom, they were told</p><p>Fighting for the democratic way</p><p>While money from a western land</p><p>Pays cocaine sniffing freaks who send them to die.</p><p><br /></p><p>(It is the best money ever spent, said -</p><p>Old men who sleep safe and snug in bed.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Now see them two weeks later -</p><p><br /></p><p>Sprawled in the mud </p><p>A hulking charred box beside,</p><p>That was to be the chariot of victory </p><p>White faces with fear</p><p>Still touched,</p><p>Not yet smoothed away</p><p>By the blur of decay -</p><p>Though there is nothing</p><p>To fear now</p><p>Not anymore - </p><p><br /></p><p>All that they had, mind and body and thought</p><p>Ended in the sound of a cannon shot.</p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-4390362582117407222023-07-24T16:59:00.002+05:302023-07-24T18:54:14.317+05:30Reconstruction of a fractured maxillary central incisor<p> This was a ten year old girl who jumped off a wall, fell on her face, and broke her tooth.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlQ6XouXiUHg47qC7od3mTgLjJPhh8MVChUtpqEUln4HoWs9-oRnxe1ybqxgC9-TnAC2wSNfPe6MVs-KN9V0tgat_eLhloV5fT5D1jEvzn30mMlWSywFyHjFq32DYD-qpd_jV-QPFwYlVgPbvg9wLMuEoDgUmsGEVZYiFJ3kfzu7w-G2NFCfcR1iVWqQ/s4624/20230724_151157.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2604" data-original-width="4624" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlQ6XouXiUHg47qC7od3mTgLjJPhh8MVChUtpqEUln4HoWs9-oRnxe1ybqxgC9-TnAC2wSNfPe6MVs-KN9V0tgat_eLhloV5fT5D1jEvzn30mMlWSywFyHjFq32DYD-qpd_jV-QPFwYlVgPbvg9wLMuEoDgUmsGEVZYiFJ3kfzu7w-G2NFCfcR1iVWqQ/w400-h225/20230724_151157.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>The first thing I did was a root canal treatment. Here's the X ray:</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOn_m9eh3jgHqXLZQj98JVAqnH6vLbFNnyhOPdKCwsd4pVqQYfswn0oCK06Udnw8hsptj_JexPcxf-fOeJAqT6hE2KOA71eT9dcA-guILmDF-E4w8cJ0TMsPTvX2hg6q2WmVRK6mXHppSRmw1E3g0CeqAKE2SaKz1yZ3xQb9hfgkhgK2JTQdIlLaogsw/s4624/20230724_150911.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCOn_m9eh3jgHqXLZQj98JVAqnH6vLbFNnyhOPdKCwsd4pVqQYfswn0oCK06Udnw8hsptj_JexPcxf-fOeJAqT6hE2KOA71eT9dcA-guILmDF-E4w8cJ0TMsPTvX2hg6q2WmVRK6mXHppSRmw1E3g0CeqAKE2SaKz1yZ3xQb9hfgkhgK2JTQdIlLaogsw/w360-h640/20230724_150911.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>That's my assistant's finger.</p><p><br /></p><p>After cutting retention grooves in the tooth...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEbM4s95K-sQz2grIKmeHk0cEDAn46Ai3d64k_aRih-YQQNGE6CcDuG257DWvzeanFam9jpQv-RyYbKoV-ps06BW9PvcU7qqESjcT7Gu4TKhrXJOBGe9-TQa5I3FNQ3uFMVqI3oWJT2bU1F-cYxIYGtk0y-I5SLkq-fy4ARZtRzbFpNOyD_pz-Z34Fco/s4624/20230724_151035.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEbM4s95K-sQz2grIKmeHk0cEDAn46Ai3d64k_aRih-YQQNGE6CcDuG257DWvzeanFam9jpQv-RyYbKoV-ps06BW9PvcU7qqESjcT7Gu4TKhrXJOBGe9-TQa5I3FNQ3uFMVqI3oWJT2bU1F-cYxIYGtk0y-I5SLkq-fy4ARZtRzbFpNOyD_pz-Z34Fco/w360-h640/20230724_151035.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I removed about half the root canal filling I had placed...<br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbv6MRL1DFewt9KUxo4QjL1zBmr2nYTNFqi5j2Fs_p6Ws_SQ-XAoejOvLf5FyahtWjo31BF19KUVjDmKh5tkge1W09ad5d7vj3-4NJgdxGbzUcIm1tBl5A4LLZ5Z13OJ3uZGYmyCz9LqE4r0Pkl1U91CfAkANTooPMuoOR3RraKAtqBvU0ub7cW_03kw/s4624/20230724_151242.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbv6MRL1DFewt9KUxo4QjL1zBmr2nYTNFqi5j2Fs_p6Ws_SQ-XAoejOvLf5FyahtWjo31BF19KUVjDmKh5tkge1W09ad5d7vj3-4NJgdxGbzUcIm1tBl5A4LLZ5Z13OJ3uZGYmyCz9LqE4r0Pkl1U91CfAkANTooPMuoOR3RraKAtqBvU0ub7cW_03kw/w360-h640/20230724_151242.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>Then etched the tooth with phosphoric acid...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoSHTlfS-wUoYfpDX5YTD-jBFQ3WCw93mCrBIDrdDom2AL4b_8P1YdF3H0ufTntaVUuMO2ZZGCEfw4mO_sSl_V3B4HipxsQlQRhajUBdW3S0CObo0lPNbsPjuezkjIzqvIXF_HqCcq5g4Lkg1SU4BU8kKeBTkEtCChWSdKv2aLyLywZunW_yNN9Nqu8kY/s4624/20230724_151402.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoSHTlfS-wUoYfpDX5YTD-jBFQ3WCw93mCrBIDrdDom2AL4b_8P1YdF3H0ufTntaVUuMO2ZZGCEfw4mO_sSl_V3B4HipxsQlQRhajUBdW3S0CObo0lPNbsPjuezkjIzqvIXF_HqCcq5g4Lkg1SU4BU8kKeBTkEtCChWSdKv2aLyLywZunW_yNN9Nqu8kY/w360-h640/20230724_151402.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>Followed by filling the space in the root canal I had created with a flowable light cured resin gel...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLuS_0ScJ_WblargV-5J1wbA5AXOolKqnDg9h3ayqa0T67A_Vx71WzKOmYv-xf-wDTXj3glGE_E3-Zp-CO036aJPXw7iA0g0lHeb9Q0o5_Gh6pvfu2GcSNjqkZKiGQIs7_comZIENAjYYzGb4q6u_LbmiCb8wSzI1fPJSb8a1hPQr0PnSqwJWc7ChVIk4/s4624/20230724_151505.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLuS_0ScJ_WblargV-5J1wbA5AXOolKqnDg9h3ayqa0T67A_Vx71WzKOmYv-xf-wDTXj3glGE_E3-Zp-CO036aJPXw7iA0g0lHeb9Q0o5_Gh6pvfu2GcSNjqkZKiGQIs7_comZIENAjYYzGb4q6u_LbmiCb8wSzI1fPJSb8a1hPQr0PnSqwJWc7ChVIk4/w360-h640/20230724_151505.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>In which I placed a fibre optic post of the appropriate size which I had already tested for adequate fit...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1qpHW7tja4V5bxlh4L6p1NAxLIMKJFjvQlJe5eCpT57KPvIoFdcRIvmdFAGX2sdHrNyUb0A-O2y84d2l04-Kc8lyiue0kGFNNi_s7QS6_Tx9RfCRfFnNjZDblms38QhSB8WlWdiHBOoTnqYSEckSQ_P6eCP2XihnxvBDABQWrLQAYhf8o7T9gelLXmSw/s4624/20230724_151322.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1qpHW7tja4V5bxlh4L6p1NAxLIMKJFjvQlJe5eCpT57KPvIoFdcRIvmdFAGX2sdHrNyUb0A-O2y84d2l04-Kc8lyiue0kGFNNi_s7QS6_Tx9RfCRfFnNjZDblms38QhSB8WlWdiHBOoTnqYSEckSQ_P6eCP2XihnxvBDABQWrLQAYhf8o7T9gelLXmSw/w360-h640/20230724_151322.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Red, in this case (note the red band on the top). The three post sizes most commonly used, in increasing order of diameter: yellow, red, blue.</p><p><br /></p><p>I then hardened the flowable resin with a light cure unit, sealing the post in place:</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtQBy8GRes1eZQ0WOh24Q4BruZjCnhijWanB1luEGWQojrZFRD8XP-rYeIG0kbLqVX6YHj7XwMsrgmd71_4ZGLeOzF88-OZY4o4puv64a6OMv7XvorNg9P7V6ZNZE6_gxaNaQcHHdNHXw5EgyDN_Rx92XZrUkQEY85eoPJxidpWISa_1v5bkFvtOClBU/s4624/20230724_151946.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtQBy8GRes1eZQ0WOh24Q4BruZjCnhijWanB1luEGWQojrZFRD8XP-rYeIG0kbLqVX6YHj7XwMsrgmd71_4ZGLeOzF88-OZY4o4puv64a6OMv7XvorNg9P7V6ZNZE6_gxaNaQcHHdNHXw5EgyDN_Rx92XZrUkQEY85eoPJxidpWISa_1v5bkFvtOClBU/w360-h640/20230724_151946.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>(Each subsequent layer of filling material was similarly hardened.)</p><p>Then I started building up the back of the replacement part of the crown with light cured filling material that is extra white to block out the dark shadows of the inside of the mouth which would otherwise make the replacement look dark:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8tPH999Gu4pjgWPZVMqTn8XLyh77uLJsEYk-Wh82-8lecFz89t6bS8WttXfHQaFK4VpTDBgvGcW_TXV6xk9kf83G5wzz6fCuz15czpPRs84k4EBxTCO0OQ9DsykSFah91KQDX4bKlHitqMV5S0BL_vQfwModWXyMbgEGcCSI8AVGmvRH0TdTtsjJ2ozA/s4624/20230724_152020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8tPH999Gu4pjgWPZVMqTn8XLyh77uLJsEYk-Wh82-8lecFz89t6bS8WttXfHQaFK4VpTDBgvGcW_TXV6xk9kf83G5wzz6fCuz15czpPRs84k4EBxTCO0OQ9DsykSFah91KQDX4bKlHitqMV5S0BL_vQfwModWXyMbgEGcCSI8AVGmvRH0TdTtsjJ2ozA/w360-h640/20230724_152020.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>After building up the back of the crown, I cut off the excess fibre optic post.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6Gm7LoaiTwkxyjwchrxuImq45ZRyHTEn1YwVwu3kxwC7lsH1mv9OnU1-gi1YSgNt6hUoohmJv0u8QNVJgVVHIE_mPMTCWuGZA7YrY0XSsMmNMr1mh8FHQ0JuAfoIdnrJMCcd2k69cd-goi7Q2U_uIvqYk2YiUNT-4LJnAwvMGu1qI4teSON6rLNNbko/s4624/20230724_152104.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv6Gm7LoaiTwkxyjwchrxuImq45ZRyHTEn1YwVwu3kxwC7lsH1mv9OnU1-gi1YSgNt6hUoohmJv0u8QNVJgVVHIE_mPMTCWuGZA7YrY0XSsMmNMr1mh8FHQ0JuAfoIdnrJMCcd2k69cd-goi7Q2U_uIvqYk2YiUNT-4LJnAwvMGu1qI4teSON6rLNNbko/w360-h640/20230724_152104.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>Then I started adding more light cured resin filling material of the correct shade to match the other teeth to the front of the built-up crown:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinfO6DheIjdGVcnBXLUdQ6OstV8ES48b_ScGlWIswvZUdiCblmxSRqAH4hZWK226C_inStJYP1JzIOqIMP23OIrjxz1BT_jeV2W0BCC7FvQghJf2-ObdnagkWPIWMcrnoIFIBZlO_8Zuk0ik5S4PLan1bnNsmJ7fLAwK1sAQHYaOqT9UWSyRnEU8hj6qw/s4624/20230724_152511.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinfO6DheIjdGVcnBXLUdQ6OstV8ES48b_ScGlWIswvZUdiCblmxSRqAH4hZWK226C_inStJYP1JzIOqIMP23OIrjxz1BT_jeV2W0BCC7FvQghJf2-ObdnagkWPIWMcrnoIFIBZlO_8Zuk0ik5S4PLan1bnNsmJ7fLAwK1sAQHYaOqT9UWSyRnEU8hj6qw/w360-h640/20230724_152511.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>At this stage it's bulky and rough in appearance, and the anatomy doesn't match the other intact incisor. Notice those two notches in the other tooth? The bulges between them are called mamelons, and I had to reproduce them by careful cutting and shaping</p><p>Then I polished the filling:</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1OPzetedBEGTL1Q-ZN7T7fM1J60umqPXmeWi4kckKNvha137iYbX6Topw0VtOXWJ3iCp9g55jLeR7NzLlX6G2jGv_uu5c2ClQoebBY-_rortIBUjBt4TdJ1N7a2mq0F52EWh5T_GqhebmkSSdw8lvN_mJ0lMoKSNBqCXl8YNEbo9BIGkqcV4ctanm82Y/s4624/20230724_153338.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1OPzetedBEGTL1Q-ZN7T7fM1J60umqPXmeWi4kckKNvha137iYbX6Topw0VtOXWJ3iCp9g55jLeR7NzLlX6G2jGv_uu5c2ClQoebBY-_rortIBUjBt4TdJ1N7a2mq0F52EWh5T_GqhebmkSSdw8lvN_mJ0lMoKSNBqCXl8YNEbo9BIGkqcV4ctanm82Y/w360-h640/20230724_153338.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><p>Voila:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFLJcfMjJ5NnB8HqX0ERiF9ApcP9gLli_Cwoss3WW2DvfreUZEkyZMoby72Vq2ZQWE1jJ8jN_UxRxldyvGkPYKh-g4biYoHgB05eJ8l98_P2xTaph6qSafiOBS-3Jm_W8zqFnL_L_meUaYoH-U_BF0vkaOj81J3kruB1Q4kMMJHJoXqqPYZy8OOLDCUI/s4624/20230724_153740.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4624" data-original-width="2604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFLJcfMjJ5NnB8HqX0ERiF9ApcP9gLli_Cwoss3WW2DvfreUZEkyZMoby72Vq2ZQWE1jJ8jN_UxRxldyvGkPYKh-g4biYoHgB05eJ8l98_P2xTaph6qSafiOBS-3Jm_W8zqFnL_L_meUaYoH-U_BF0vkaOj81J3kruB1Q4kMMJHJoXqqPYZy8OOLDCUI/w360-h640/20230724_153740.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-76539639200799311262023-07-20T12:18:00.002+05:302023-07-20T12:18:35.022+05:30The End Of The Grain Deal And The Kerch Bridge Explosions<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By now anyone remotely interested in the
conflict in Ukranazistan will be aware that Russia terminated the Grain Deal
that’s been in effect since 22 July 2022 and which allowed Ukranazistan to
export grain from Odessa. In all probability the majority of those who are
aware of it will have been made awar of it by the media shrieking that this
will cause starvation in poor countries.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Will it?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This article</span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">,<sup>[1] </sup>for instance, ends with:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" style="background: #F6F6F6; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; text-align: center;"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"Terminating the grain deal will only bring
higher food costs and shortages for countries that import agricultural products
from Ukraine."</span></i></b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Here's the truth about where the grain
from Ukranazistan goes:<sup>[2]</sup> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" style="background: #F6F6F6; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; text-align: center;"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">"China has been the main destination for cargo
exports of Ukrainian grain at 8 million tonnes, followed by Spain at 6 million
tonnes and Turkey at 3.2 million tonnes."</span></i></b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Only 2.5% of Ukrainian grain went to poor
or developing countries according to the UN official data.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" style="background: #F6F6F6; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Low-income
countries received 2.5% of the over 32 million tonnes of grain exported under
the Black Sea Grain Initiative, according to figures by the United Nations
(UN).</span></i></b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Of the 6 million tonnes sent to Spain, the
vast majority went to feed pigs to make <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">jamon</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The majority of the 3.2 million tonnes to
Erdoğanistan was processed into flour and sent right back to
Ukranazistan. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, no, it won't. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In fact, it won’t even significantly raise
wheat prices, as Moon Of Alabama points out: <sup>[3]</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“More wheat is coming to the markets from other
producers than Ukraine. During the next year, even without grain from Ukraine,
prices for wheat and corn may actually <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/07/18/why-the-death-of-ukraines-grain-deal-is-not-moving-wheat-markets"><span style="color: #993300;">come down</span></a>:<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">World
wheat supplies are strong following exceptionally high exports from Australia
and Russia and a rebound in Canadian shipments after droughts disrupted last
year’s season. After falling for years, global stocks may finally rise in 2023.
As for corn, Ukraine’s shortfall may well be filled by expected record sales
from Brazil, reckons Alexis Ellender of Kpler, a data firm.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So this is much ado about nothing. Globally Ukraine
just isn't important at all.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Of course you wouldn’t know this from the
usual media suspects, whose primary purpose is to blame Russia for everything.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If there is anything Russia <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i></b>
to be blamed for, it’s for signing the grain deal in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What were the terms of the grain deal?
Ships from Odessa and Nikolayev would carry Ukranazistani grain – wheat and
maize – to Erdoğanistan (that’s Turkey to you) where it would be inspected by
Russian and Turkish officials to ascertain that there were no military supplies
on board, after which it would be shipped on elsewhere. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In return Russian grain would be allowed
free movement, Russian ammonia pipelines to fertiliser factories would be permitted
uninterrupted, and Russia would be reconnected to SWIFT.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Predictably, none of that happened. It is
astonishing that anyone could imagine that it would have happened, but Putin’s
capacity to be deceived by his Western “partners” seems almost limitless.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, I said <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">almost</i>, but with any luck that limit has finally been reached.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was not just that the Ukranazis’ Western
masters did not follow through on their own commitments to the grain deal: they
used it to arrange both the partly successful attacks on the Kerch Bridge, the
one last year and the one a few days ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here’s how the bridge blast by an
explosives-rigged lorry last year went, as pieced together by Russian
intelligence:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A Ukranazi ship loaded with explosives sailed
out of Odessa as part of the grain deal, but instead of going south to <span style="color: black;">Erdoğanistan it turned west and sailed up the Danube to an
inland port in Bulgaria.There it unloaded its explosives, which by a circuitous
route went through Georgia into Russia, where it was transferred to the final
lorry (whose driver had no idea what he was carrying) for shipment to Crimea
across the Kerch bridge. Once on the bridge, the lorry was exploded by a remote
controlled detonator.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This kind of thing is no longer
possible, since every vehicle is now X rayed and searched before being allowed
on the bridge. Multiple attempts at missile strikes on the bridge since then by
the Ukranazis with their Brutish-supplied Storm Shadow missiles have also
failed against the now heavy and layered Russian air defences. So the Ukranazis’
Western masters had to step in directly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The second attack on the Kerch
Bridge was carried out by Brutish underwater drones released from a civilian
dry goods bulk carrier cargo ship, sailing as part of the Grain Deal, off Snake
Island. This followed Brutish plans to destroy the bridge <sup>[4]</sup>
hatched over months. Instead of destroying it, though, they managed to cause
actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rather less extensive damage</i>
than the lorry bomb attempt. While one span of the road bridge was broken, the
other was undamaged, and the far more important railway bridge untouched. <sup>[5]</sup>
Military traffic to Crimea was not affected at all.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What the Ukranazis and their NATO
masters managed to do was murder a holidaying couple <sup>[6]</sup> and put
their 14-year-old daughter Angelina in a coma. This has not unnaturally led to
fury among Russian forces, and writing “For Angelina” on shells being fired at
the Ukranazis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa6037949-1600-469c-8ea6-dcf3427370f2_436x566.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="436" height="566" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa6037949-1600-469c-8ea6-dcf3427370f2_436x566.png" width="436" /></a></div><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It has also led to many of the
blueyellow-ragwagging nazi worshippers online revealing just what kind of
hate-filled vermin <sup>[7]</sup> they are. Consider this character:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiirrv1pkPLK8jw9zi0AOvvexF9ir40vrB_Mx9QYGIVMzNPGY0NUnjECYJeE9r0siTOReWiYypfsSHa_MwcK4xm3O1fWYG0tGwoYJBjeiRulYaOx3Z7B5_53lb_3mRS3UyZ3zgc-r1Pg1pjiy0Y4TSmyz_hyctaRParIX3FzRZWapVxKw00QiwNrW0U0JQ/s900/IMG_20230720_083608_672.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="598" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiirrv1pkPLK8jw9zi0AOvvexF9ir40vrB_Mx9QYGIVMzNPGY0NUnjECYJeE9r0siTOReWiYypfsSHa_MwcK4xm3O1fWYG0tGwoYJBjeiRulYaOx3Z7B5_53lb_3mRS3UyZ3zgc-r1Pg1pjiy0Y4TSmyz_hyctaRParIX3FzRZWapVxKw00QiwNrW0U0JQ/w266-h400/IMG_20230720_083608_672.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">It is allegedly a teacher.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFlY2m5PeIrfAQXSfpSsxoAU4PAneM2rfISKEoQBZtouSgIdnF7QZubsicZFn26wI11jISHJKWLKXuXW-NPnMUXjTARlQpJ1OwxWQN7SsPRmxpMvKU9WNRiilvtXMV-apZAidipp0UJ7RpE7t9rs3w2YYfQx6DMaLqrOeWMfr2MC6zXOSzHikE9TwV--Y/s509/IMG_20230720_083608_262.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="509" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFlY2m5PeIrfAQXSfpSsxoAU4PAneM2rfISKEoQBZtouSgIdnF7QZubsicZFn26wI11jISHJKWLKXuXW-NPnMUXjTARlQpJ1OwxWQN7SsPRmxpMvKU9WNRiilvtXMV-apZAidipp0UJ7RpE7t9rs3w2YYfQx6DMaLqrOeWMfr2MC6zXOSzHikE9TwV--Y/w400-h363/IMG_20230720_083608_262.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Fortunately, this one was so
stupid as to post under its real name, and has been speedily doxxed, with
everything including its address, email, and phone number exposed:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_i3FKz2CJj2BJqXPpaKLZ1XXO9QFtod53e_Y38KJdc1Jmq859mzfbIr63KvGISrdtbWHNrMaE6d0OssJsHZRWc4s3IFWTNvK3INgeJLrNxxZ0wwrZBywnoUYcDONeHdLJx0LMdh4tOt-22lo27OY_3ody2zbIbsNFB9Yfj_E_pnpsn367CkZtWT8p1Y/s1280/IMG_20230720_083617_974.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="815" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH_i3FKz2CJj2BJqXPpaKLZ1XXO9QFtod53e_Y38KJdc1Jmq859mzfbIr63KvGISrdtbWHNrMaE6d0OssJsHZRWc4s3IFWTNvK3INgeJLrNxxZ0wwrZBywnoUYcDONeHdLJx0LMdh4tOt-22lo27OY_3ody2zbIbsNFB9Yfj_E_pnpsn367CkZtWT8p1Y/w408-h640/IMG_20230720_083617_974.jpg" width="408" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hopefully it will soon receive a
visit from several large biker/trucker types. From reading online comment fora
I’m led to believe there’s a lot of sympathy among that demographic for Russia.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Meanwhile, Russia is making sure the
Ukranazis and their NATOstani masters won’t be able to sneak grain (or “grain”)
ships into and out of Ukranazistan by reducing the Odessa port facilities to
scrap.<sup>[8]</sup></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In return for relatively minor damage
inflicted to the Kerch Bridge, I don’t know if the Ukranazis and their NATO
masters still think it’s been worth it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> If it means Putin has been finally disillusioned about his western "partners", it's not been worth it at all.</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sources</span></u></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><sup><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></sup><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/wheat-prices-soar-russia-considers-ships-heading-ukraine-carriers-military-cargo">https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/wheat-prices-soar-russia-considers-ships-heading-ukraine-carriers-military-cargo</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><sup>[2]</sup> <span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/black-sea-grain-initiative-2-5-of-exports-to-low-income-countries/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1e439a;">https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/black-sea-grain-initiative-2-5-of-exports-to-low-income-countries/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[3]</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/07/much-ado-about-nothing.html#comments">https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/07/much-ado-about-nothing.html#comments</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[4]</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2023/07/19/leaked-files-british-kerch-bridge-strike/">https://thegrayzone.com/2023/07/19/leaked-files-british-kerch-bridge-strike/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[5]</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <a href="https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/kerch-bridge-deja-vu-breakdown">https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/kerch-bridge-deja-vu-breakdown</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[6]</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <a href="https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/ukraine-war-day-510-innocent-victims-of-the-bridge-attack/">https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/ukraine-war-day-510-innocent-victims-of-the-bridge-attack/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[7]</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <a href="https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2023/07/19/ukraine-war-day-511-the-child-on-the-bridge/">https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2023/07/19/ukraine-war-day-511-the-child-on-the-bridge/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 9.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 3.0pt;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">[8]</span></sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <a href="https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/putin-strikes-back-ukrainian-ports">https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/putin-strikes-back-ukrainian-ports</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-17098703635667848382023-07-20T10:34:00.003+05:302023-07-20T10:34:40.117+05:30Reading List Modifications Notice<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Readers looking at the bar on the left of
this page, which is titled <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If You’re Not Going To Read Me, Read Them</i></b>,
will notice a few modifications. Some links have been removed, several more
added.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Here’s why:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">One of the “eye-openers” of the SMO – for those
who have been in a coma since 23 February 2022, that’s Russia’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Special Military Operation</b> in
Ukranazistan, which is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> a declared
war – is how many people and organisations have revealed their true colours. It
involves not just the usual suspects – the rainbow-ragwagging liberal media and
assorted paid propagandists and politicians – but “anti imperialist” sites and
what I’d thought were normal people.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It is somewhat of a surprise to watch, for
instance, someone who one’s known for over a decade, once a funny and
intelligent woman who used to raise laughs on the Comics Curmudgeon where she
was a regular commenter, degenerate into a self-lobotomised demented harpy calling
her own political tribe’s opponents “nazis” while supporting and cheering on
genuine Hitler-saluting swastika-tattooed Waffen SS-pride-parading
prisoner-murdering blueyellow-ragwagging nazis in Ukraine. So, she’s gone.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">As is Antiwar, which has been sliding
towards irrelevance for years, to be precise since the death of Justin
Raimondo, and which has now fallen to the point where articles by political
science postgraduate students in Amerikastani universities are presented as
credible on military strategy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Some blogs are dead – haven’t been updated
in years – and I have no reason to believe (since I don’t know them away from
Blogger) that they will ever update again. Gone.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">At the same time I’ve found people who are
emphatically worth reading, though I do not necessarily agree with them always
or even most of the time:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Awful Avalanche</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB"> of
yalensis, who posts a daily article, usually on the human aspects of the SMO, and
who has grown to be an online friend.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://readingjunkie.com/" target="_blank">The Reading Junkie</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB">, an
Amerikastani living in Russia, and his Russian wife. Always interesting.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://sonar21.com/" target="_blank">A Son Of The New American Revolution</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB"> by Larry Johnson, “former” CIA. Often wrong but always worth the
read.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/" target="_blank">Moon Of Alabama</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB"> by Bernhard,
former German military intelligence. Again often wrong but always readable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://thedreizinreport.com/author/dreizinreport/" target="_blank">Your “Great Reset” HQ</a>, </span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB">by Jacob Dreizin. Look past the deliberately over the top
self-aggrandising language and you’ll find some of the best analysis <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and predictions</i> on the net about the
conflict in Ukranazistan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://simplicius76.substack.com/archive?sort=new" target="_blank">Simplicius’ Garden Of Knowledge</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB">, excellent in depth analysis, albeit occasionally willing to bend
facts to excuse Putin’s blunders.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://imetatronink.substack.com/" target="_blank">William Schryver</a></i></b>, again excellent analysis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Some didn’t make the cut:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Reminiscence Of The Future</span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB"> by Andrei Martyanov, a wildly overrated mass of stinking sewer gas
whose arrogance is only matched by his worthless “analyses”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">The Junkyard Of The Faker</span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB"> by Andrei Raevsky, self-deleted and also wildly overrated.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">The Strategic Culture Foundation</span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB">: articles of a distinctly uneven nature.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">South Front</span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB">: ditto.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">Big Serge</span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB">:
Fundamentally useless since paywalled.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">Armchair Warlord</span></i></b><span lang="EN-GB"> and <b><i>Dr
Snekotron</i></b> on Twitter, since with Melon Husk’s changing of the Twitter
settings you can’t read them without signing in anyway.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I may add more to the reading list if I
find them worth it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile, take a look at these.</span></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-40153835963276439452023-07-12T23:02:00.002+05:302023-07-12T23:08:41.428+05:30Have you noticed?<p> <span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px;">Gone are all those airy puff pieces talking about Ukranazistan's inevitable victory, as gone as those ten years ago predicting the "imminent and inevitable" fall of Assad. Gone is the triumphant air of imminent control of the world. The increasingly desperate tone is that Ukranazistan </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit;"><b>cannot be allowed to lose </b></span></i><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px;">because that would be a disaster for the "world". The "world", in this case, means the Wall Street warmongers, their political puppets, and the Europistani slaves, naturally. And yet the only way that Ukranazistan's defeat can be staved off is an open NATO intervention, but they can't risk that because Russia has been pushed to the point that it can't and won't back down. And <i>yet</i> Ukranazistan's defeat will mean the economic ruination of Europistan, which thought it could recoup its losses from looting Ukranazistan and from "war reparations" from Russia. It is a conundrum that can't be solved without kicking out Uncle Sam, but kicking out Uncle Sam is impossible because in order to spite Russia Europistan has sold itself to him as slaves and chattels even more completely than ever before. </span></p><p><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></p><p><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px;">Meanwhile German tanks painted with WWII nazi cross insignia continue to burn in the fields of Ukranazistan. </span></p><p><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZqcIitU-23-ACBB1Ar_zLzgLZjAPSB01tZ31h1lScmCPQcX6nUuslT-mFb0X-YPj_z5pdbqwv44lbHMjQpSEzG8RPOgo62sqeJP64MrYH35hWOhbEd-FYflL41JKi0AhHAkgxDvyjEw3OFwlblREYtwZz6_vHGhk5vlLr-cJQP3QwhtRngopD9upGtxs/s798/2e1035731d029b6f9cf496bdb8542f7c23d9714810a2fd113793732b9ff7323d.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="798" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZqcIitU-23-ACBB1Ar_zLzgLZjAPSB01tZ31h1lScmCPQcX6nUuslT-mFb0X-YPj_z5pdbqwv44lbHMjQpSEzG8RPOgo62sqeJP64MrYH35hWOhbEd-FYflL41JKi0AhHAkgxDvyjEw3OFwlblREYtwZz6_vHGhk5vlLr-cJQP3QwhtRngopD9upGtxs/w400-h225/2e1035731d029b6f9cf496bdb8542f7c23d9714810a2fd113793732b9ff7323d.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QtYWU4RpYNgQPq88TuSakPQT2B6gOxft_ZtKr6c4Ze4hxAlxCye-f4QXh79XmmKm6W9padA9JZAQjsGwM4Gpfsltc2luOvAUdzbgNTLWto9zBGdFpEAMtrs-XLZ9H7ZtWXjLCx8Nr5s4ckYc7p_Gd31Tf-bmq-FBhVEEVoRPSGcGsdyiIsA3kdbDDlY/s1280/IMG_20230612_214405_898.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QtYWU4RpYNgQPq88TuSakPQT2B6gOxft_ZtKr6c4Ze4hxAlxCye-f4QXh79XmmKm6W9padA9JZAQjsGwM4Gpfsltc2luOvAUdzbgNTLWto9zBGdFpEAMtrs-XLZ9H7ZtWXjLCx8Nr5s4ckYc7p_Gd31Tf-bmq-FBhVEEVoRPSGcGsdyiIsA3kdbDDlY/w400-h225/IMG_20230612_214405_898.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, "Liberation Sans", Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 16px;">I don't know if the media that give the rainbow haired liberal freaks their daily outrage instructions have told them about it.</span></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-4961919826626239782023-07-01T19:54:00.000+05:302023-07-01T19:54:08.466+05:30Burn<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedAy5smp4IwgUdZin37DjGBDxOadLqGIEjs0YiZNYnQ9LUcDT0IHXEa9A93c_KjPNKE8HFrGAht4HuFz0g6C2Xfl2IpG2PIXkOv_sqyULhrOaepa_hoiBT6EKc3IzfYIhf5Dl_NoXv721dQzd8-mfQdPC6ixBCkYsxm7ar2AXb7fIZ3b25wwEcYniF8g/s618/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="618" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedAy5smp4IwgUdZin37DjGBDxOadLqGIEjs0YiZNYnQ9LUcDT0IHXEa9A93c_KjPNKE8HFrGAht4HuFz0g6C2Xfl2IpG2PIXkOv_sqyULhrOaepa_hoiBT6EKc3IzfYIhf5Dl_NoXv721dQzd8-mfQdPC6ixBCkYsxm7ar2AXb7fIZ3b25wwEcYniF8g/s320/images.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Burn, France, burn</p><p>It's lovely watching you burn</p><p>From all the nations you enslaved and looted</p><p>From Haiti to Mali</p><p>Algeria to Vietnam.</p><p><br /></p><p>****************************</p><p><br /></p><p>It is beautiful...absolutely beautiful...to watch Macronistan burning. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>By the way:</p><p><br /></p><p>Macronistan should have no objections if the Russian ambassador goes around handing out biscuits to the rioters, right? </p><p><br /></p><p>Macronistan should have no problems if Russia arms the rioters, right?</p><p><br /></p><p>Macronistan should have no problems if Russia brokers a "peace deal" to give the rioters time to build themselves up into a regular army, should it? </p><p><br /></p><p>What's good for the gander...</p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-68950068709730280892023-06-28T08:05:00.004+05:302023-06-28T08:05:55.517+05:30A pro Putin post from me?!? What's happening???<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfeMUxdgoRtMbho76li5EhtcbD0nvotzmw8XHU93NnPeA5HFEBVivMMWsr7TbclmLJyt2nnGqK4kKZNk-jrZGt8aBGz-AR0iEY6DTVGejnSPMkZ2NbHLIX7MRG6uRJS96HfyIWtTXa8Gw2JJwUDC43u-floTNtM-Wr1O2PRHN8cVbK3uvhj4sap4UXKVM/s680/IMG_20230628_080136_388.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="680" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfeMUxdgoRtMbho76li5EhtcbD0nvotzmw8XHU93NnPeA5HFEBVivMMWsr7TbclmLJyt2nnGqK4kKZNk-jrZGt8aBGz-AR0iEY6DTVGejnSPMkZ2NbHLIX7MRG6uRJS96HfyIWtTXa8Gw2JJwUDC43u-floTNtM-Wr1O2PRHN8cVbK3uvhj4sap4UXKVM/s320/IMG_20230628_080136_388.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>Let's just assume for the sake of argument that the claims that Prigozhin launched a NATO funded coup attempt to overthrow Putin are true.<br /><br />Proponents of that hypothesis, who call Prigozhin a "traitor", are claiming that he should have been killed or arrested, and it was weakness on Putin's part to let him go free. <br /><br />No.<br /><br />It wasn't weakness. <br /><br />1. Russia has no death penalty. Prigozhin couldn't have been just summarily given a bullet to the head. <br /><br />2. Prigozhin was not in the convoy headed to Moscow, he stayed in Rostov. This means:<br /><br />(a) He would either have to be arrested somehow after fighting a city battle past 6000 highly experienced and heavily armed Wagner soldiers and brought to trial, or <br /><br />(b) The military HQ in Rostov bombed to rubble to kill him. <br /><br />Any of this would have resulted in massive numbers of civilian and regular troops being killed. And the regular forces going to Rostov were Chechens. Chechens killing Russians in a Russian city? It would be a NATOstani wet dream. It would've immediately made divisions between Russians and Chechens flare up again. <br /><br />In short, trying to kill Prigozhin is exactly what the NATOstanis would have loved. This way Putin got rid of Prigozhin without turning anyone against Russia.<br /><br />Seems a good way to deal with it to me.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEuAEB9mHWrXZQ92jmhBES0Z8LyvATQJWYfVduJDng6NNXYLKo1-mM5UMOUfqoI0G3pFjwrsAvwtkoKcmH_HHWrIfZnxHQkmGHBsydLttdN2IR_7aRTS4dv573e_q8oxZR1bEVArHGNlHFnqiNewv0VZy3cG7R5p6DBPKMaOO4NNyLTz7-Q0VHXkubPJM/s1280/81abd398-e674-45a3-8686-06b3c15348f6_1280x853.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEuAEB9mHWrXZQ92jmhBES0Z8LyvATQJWYfVduJDng6NNXYLKo1-mM5UMOUfqoI0G3pFjwrsAvwtkoKcmH_HHWrIfZnxHQkmGHBsydLttdN2IR_7aRTS4dv573e_q8oxZR1bEVArHGNlHFnqiNewv0VZy3cG7R5p6DBPKMaOO4NNyLTz7-Q0VHXkubPJM/s320/81abd398-e674-45a3-8686-06b3c15348f6_1280x853.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-83949802524049366292023-06-26T06:51:00.006+05:302023-06-26T09:40:28.243+05:30A POSTMORTEM OF THE PRIGOZHIN PUTSCH<p><br /></p><br />I wrote the previous article when the March On Moscow was still going on, and I had explicitly compared it to the Kornilov Coup of 1917. If anything, 24 and a bit hours after it ended, the comparison is more apt than ever. Consider:<br /><br />1. Both Prigozhin and Kornilov would never have carried out their coup attempts unless they had reason to believe that they had substantial support in the capital. Kornilov thought he had been asked by Kerensky to purge Petrograd of all the revolutionary groups and "restore order". Prigozhin, you can be absolutely certain of this, could never have believed he and his 8000 or so men* would have been able to capture power or even impose terms such as the removal of Shoigu and Gerasimov unless he thought he had substantial support in the capital and the government. It is not possible. <br /><br />2. In both cases the movements fizzled as participating troops dropped out and the support failed to materialise.<br /><br />3. Both Kornilov and Prigozhin could well be deemed guilty of high treason, but both were let off with a slap on the wrist (in Prigozhin's case it can't even be called that).<br /><br />[*Just 8000 of the at least 33000-strong Wagner took part in the March On Moscow, and it appears most of those 8000 didn't even know what they were really doing. They thought they were being redeployed. And all of them are now to be brought under the Ministry of Defence (MoD), not punished in any way.]<br /><br />The question I want answered is this:<br /><br />How is it possible, is it at all credible, that the MoD didn't know what was happening? <br /><br />Wagner was set up with the help of Russian military intelligence, GRU. It is staffed with regular military and GRU officers, and most of its troops are former regular soldiers, not the "convicts with shovels" fantasies of the Westernaganda. Its so called "deputy" commander, General Mizintsev, was until very recently logistics commander in the Artëmovsk front before overnight turning into a Wagner top officer. Its Soledar and Artëmovsk field commander, call sign Lotus, is a former regular officer who's fought in Syria, Libya, and the Central African Republic before this. Neither Lotus nor Mizintsev participated in the putsch; the only known Wagner leader bar Prigozhin who did was the shadowy Dmitri Utkin, who may actually be Prigozhin's boss. <br /><br />So how is it possible that the MoD didn't know what was in the offing?<br /><br />Simple answer: it could not have not known. It is a sheer impossibility. <br /><br />That's apart from the video now going around from a few weeks ago of an interview between the Russian military blogger Wargonzo (real name Simën Pegov) and Prigozhin where the former outright tells Prigozhin that the MoD is restricting Wagner's ammunition to prevent it from conducting a coup in Moscow. The MoD knew, all right. <br /><br />So <i>why</i> didn't it do anything about it?<br /><br />Many people online are operating on the assumption that this proves this was a coordinated farce between Putin and Prigozhin. I have no reason to believe that, simply because the same thing could have been achieved without any "coup" attempt. The only other explanation I can think of is that the coup was permitted to go ahead, and fizzle, to put Wagner under the MoD, just what Prigozhin had been resisting all along. <br /><br />There is a fourth similarity to the Kornilov Coup I'll predict:<br /><br />105 years after the Kornilov Coup we still don't know for sure what happened. <br /><br />We won't find out this time either.<div><br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjDKL7ajtjL1Qu2ZG_zFXkX0WeqiSkc8ZnAcLQowMfHM9mBkcHiTyt0rJnXBYzLcoi2hRMpYJFz8CvlgqN8iZQGQPFfkALv2R40SAxLz-ktQGKR6rZi5hGVU1VPFMphRhjA_iLEJnI3aPrPV1APbXmAfjqifOsTNJb4egApSsFXazmIRkOoYgAiO3Vn1Q/s1280/ec89d029-9508-47fd-b2f1-56606f1b0500_1280x853.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjDKL7ajtjL1Qu2ZG_zFXkX0WeqiSkc8ZnAcLQowMfHM9mBkcHiTyt0rJnXBYzLcoi2hRMpYJFz8CvlgqN8iZQGQPFfkALv2R40SAxLz-ktQGKR6rZi5hGVU1VPFMphRhjA_iLEJnI3aPrPV1APbXmAfjqifOsTNJb4egApSsFXazmIRkOoYgAiO3Vn1Q/s320/ec89d029-9508-47fd-b2f1-56606f1b0500_1280x853.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-90909575262097664162023-06-24T20:41:00.000+05:302023-06-24T20:41:05.964+05:30WAGNER'S INSURRECTION AND THE KORNILOV AFFAIR<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSQRaNF8ySh6TlpmFxYr1TTR8VlgkYzmwMloKr2VnoGufQ63n4i924BHWflbkNAbWRJDfzO4IDZb2Y8tA1UpEW8Ebixulj5hFi5Kpd3lo36D1VSr9wmhoJyDqvsB-no-jjqQoRb9H4BzwG2NVsYCvwomj0I1J8w1fYk9feMeWsG6XD-Bu48JEgGhsh234/s595/Kornilov_1917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="470" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSQRaNF8ySh6TlpmFxYr1TTR8VlgkYzmwMloKr2VnoGufQ63n4i924BHWflbkNAbWRJDfzO4IDZb2Y8tA1UpEW8Ebixulj5hFi5Kpd3lo36D1VSr9wmhoJyDqvsB-no-jjqQoRb9H4BzwG2NVsYCvwomj0I1J8w1fYk9feMeWsG6XD-Bu48JEgGhsh234/s320/Kornilov_1917.jpg" width="253" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>In August 1917 General Lavr Kornilov marched his army on Petrograd (St Petersburg), the capital of Russia. </p><p><br /></p><p>This was not something that suddenly happened overnight. Kornilov, a Cossack, was a brilliant linguist who in his youth had done extensive exploration of the Caucasus and his native Siberia, learnt numerous local languages, and as an army officer commanded troops from that part of the Russian Empire. They were called the "Savage Division" by the effete St Petersburg Tsarist Court favourites who ran the military, but of course they loved Kornilov, who spoke their languages and lived like them. </p><p><br /></p><p>Then came WWI, and Kornilov - like his sometime commander Brusilov - was one of the few competent, indeed brilliant, generals of the Russian army. He used proactive and aggressive tactics with a lot of initiative, at one point even breaking into the Hungarian heartland. But like Brusilov, Kornilov repeatedly faced the problem of corrupt and useless court favourite generals like Sukhomlinov and Rennenkampf, who did nothing to support their offensives, and a lot of whom were more concerned with enriching themselves than fighting the war*, and repeatedly had to withdraw from war winning positions as a result.</p><p><br /></p><p>[*Alan Clark in Suicide Of The Empires, his book on the Eastern Front in WWI, quotes a French manufacturer who bid for a contract with the Tsarist regime to supply tents for the army. The Tsarist official deputed to negotiate terms demanded a gigantic bribe to approve the bid. The manufacturer protested that if he paid that much, he would be left with no profit at all on the deal. "Ah," said the official, (with, Clark says, a silky smile) "I understand. But why supply the tents at all?"]</p><p><br /></p><p>Then came the February Revolution in Russia, the Tsarist regime fell, and the expectation was that the new Provisional Government would extricate Russia from the by now extremely unpopular war. Instead, Kerensky, the Minister of War, launched an offensive in July called the Kerensky Offensive in the expectation that a victory of sorts would unite the people behind the war. The offensive was a disaster, and instead led to days of rioting in Petrograd. Kerensky became prime minister and responded by making Kornilov the commander of the army. He then possibly ordered him to march on Petrograd to restore order. [Many historians think that Kerensky deliberately deceived Kornilov in order to get an excuse to intimidate his socialist political opponents including the Bolsheviks of the Petrograd Soviet.] Instead, Kornilov interpreted it as his duty to either make himself military dictator of Russia or else the power broker who would impose authority at the point of a gun over the chaos of the Provisional Government and the breakdown at the front.</p><p><br /></p><p>Kerensky suddenly was faced with a monster of his own making. He dismissed Kornilov by telegram, but that had zero effect, since Kornilov simply assumed Kerensky was now a prisoner of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and other factions in the capital. Meanwhile the Bolsheviks used their contacts in the Russian railway network to sabotage the progress of the Kornilov forces, and their own men in those forces to persuade the soldiers to drop out. Kornilov's army broke up before reaching Petrograd, quite bloodlessly, and the coup came to an end. However, it dramatically weakened Kerensky and strengthened the Bolsheviks, directly aiding in the November Revolution.</p><p><br /></p><p>[What happened to Kornilov? He was arrested by the Kerensky regime, but "escaped" - basically his own guards let him out and joined up with him - and went on to fight in the Civil War on the White side. He was killed by Red artillery in 1918.]</p><p><br /></p><p>Now look at the current situation with regard to Wagner. Even Putin has admitted that the Russian military was full of incompetent "parquet generals", and it's not exactly a secret that said generals did not perform professionally in combat.</p><p><br /></p><p>In April 2022 and then again in September, territory won by hard fighting and bloodshed was abandoned without a shot because the generals did not take the proper steps to reinforce them in time. Prigozhin, meanwhile, is a man who shares the privations of his troops, has in many cases given them a way out of prison, visits them on the frontline, travels with them in the hold of a cargo plane eating what they eat, and not surprisingly they love him and feel a sense of loyalty to him.</p><p><br /></p><p>This same Prigozhin feels - rightly or wrongly - that Gerasimov and Shoigu are corrupt and incompetent, and either thinks or claims to think that it is his duty to rescue Russia from them and the rest of the "parquet generals". He hasn't said a word against Putin to this moment, but exactly like Kornilov has refused to lay down his arms even after orders from the top authority (Putin in this case). His forces are moving on Moscow, just as Kornilov moved on Petrograd. And it is all but certain that his march will not succeed like Kornilov's didn't. </p><p><br /></p><p>But just as Kerensky's own actions precipitated the Kornilov Coup, Putin's failure to act in time, either against Prigozhin or against the "parquet generals", created the current situation. This is in the DNA of the Putinist system: it is never proactive, it always puts off even reacting to any situation until no further postponement is possible, and then it does all it can to just restore the status quo. Not even the status quo ante, just the status quo.</p><p><br /></p><p>In any case, this proves that the armchair generals who have been insisting for the last 9 years that Russia couldn't have destroyed the nazis in 2014 because it needed time to prepare for war were talking through their hats...while calling those of us who repeatedly said Russia should have invaded in 2014 trolls, idiots, etc. </p><p><br /></p><p>We were right, they were wrong. If Russia had prepared for 8 years there would have been no need for Wagner to be fighting in this conflict at all.</p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-56352588356701404122022-09-10T22:52:00.011+05:302022-09-10T23:20:33.056+05:30The SMO is Done<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Hello, everyone reading this.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This is one of the hardest things I have
ever had to write, and if you think Putin is a genius or a 5D Chess Player or
whatever, you might as well stop reading now.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In brief: The Russian Special Military
Operation, or SMO, is over. It has failed, totally and absolutely.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We were lied to, it appears, from the
beginning. We were lied to about Russian aims, Russian plans, and Russian
abilities. And this is the result.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">If you still believe this Kharkov Offensive
is some kind of genius masterstroke by Putin, some enormously wonderfully
constructed “trap”, you are either in need of a brain transplant or your name
is The Faker or Andrei Martyanov.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Russia lost in Kharkov. It wasn’t the
result of a “trap”, it wasn’t a “strategic retreat”, it was a rout, and the
analogy in terms of the effect are not – as some people are comparing it to –
the Battle Of The Bulge in WWII, but the Tet Offensive of 1968 in the Vietnam
War.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What was the Tet Offensive? It was the mass
attack all across South Vietnam by the Viet Cong, which suddenly and rapidly
overwhelmed the defences of the South Vietnamese puppet regime and their
American masters. The city of Hue was among the places liberated; a Viet Cong
suicide squad even penetrated the American Embassy in what is now Ho Chi Minh
City.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Now for three years the American Empire had
been telling its subjects, as well as the rest of the world, that the Viet Cong
had been defeated, that they were on the ropes, and yet here they were
rampaging through South Vietnam and shooting up even the vaunted American
Embassy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">So what happened? In the end the Viet Cong
were pushed back with every single thing they had captured being taken back by
the Americans and their puppets. The Viet Cong also suffered such devastating
losses – 35000 guerrillas and main force regulars killed – that it never
recovered. From 1968 to the end of the war in 1975, Viet Cong activity was low
to nonexistent.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But so what? Behind the Viet Cong, ready to
take over, was the North Vietnamese People’s Army. From 1968 on, the bulk of all the fighting was done by the NVPA; there was little to no VC activity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And what happened? The world saw that the
American Empire was clearly lying; the faith of the American people in their
regime was irretrievably broken; and from that moment on the final defeat of
American though still distant, was as clear as day.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Tet
Offensive moment in Russia-Ukraine. From this moment on no sane person should
believe a single thing the Russian Ministry of Defence has to say.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This is a defeat so overwhelming that at
this point, and I will explain why, there are only two options before Russia:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: center; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB">Stop the conflict immediately,
negotiate peace on any terms available – it will certainly involve throwing the
Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics under the blueyellow nazi bus and
gigantic “reparations” payments – and withdraw from Ukranazistan. If the
negotiations go very well, Russia might just be permitted to keep Crimea,
though I doubt it.</span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">Or:</span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: center; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB">To hell with the “special
military operation”; stop the rubbish. This is a war, declared or undeclared;
start fighting it like one. Turn Elensky and the rest of the nazi regime into a
smoking hole in the ground. If that involves massive collateral damage, so be
it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What cannot be done is continue things as
they are.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What has been happening over the last couple
of months?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">First, after the capture of Lisichansk,
Russian advances practically stopped. Most of the Russian army, in fact, went
home; there were only about 50000 regular soldiers left in Ukrainian territory.
The advances, such as they were, depended entirely on the heroic fighting of
Chechen volunteer units, the Wagner PMC, and the Russian Rosgvardia
paramilitary.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The constant missile attacks on nazi ammunition
and weapons depots in Lvov and other parts of western Ukranazistan, such a
constant feature of the first three or so months of the conflict, dried up.
Absolutely inexplicably – even gross incompetence cannot explain this – the bridges
across the Dneiper river, and the railway networks that the nazi regime used to
haul every bit of weaponry <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>coming to the
front haven’t been touched. Even a mindless clod knows to cut off the enemy
supply routes, but the Russian High Command, assuming such a beast exists, did
not do it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile the Lugansk and especially the
Donetsk People’s Republics forces were virtually left to themselves to fight
their way with excruciating slowness through the massive trench lines and
fortifications the nazis had set up in the eight years since 2014 when Putin
had thrown the Donbass under the nazi bus the first time round (see the book “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">85 Days In Slavyansk</i>” for a full
analysis of Putin’s betrayal if you aren’t already familiar with the details).
Since the 16<sup>th</sup> of February, nazi artillery in Avdeevka and Mariinka
have been shelling and anti personnel mining Donetsk City, yet the Russian
aviation, which allegedly controls the skies over Ukranazistan, did nothing to
destroy the emplacements. When we asked why not, we were told that the Nazis were
hiding among civilians. Well, so what? Are the lives of Donetsk civilians worth
less than the lives of the alleged civilians of Avdeevka? Nobody deigned to
give us an answer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">There was also the deliberate myth created
by the Russian side that it was only the Nazis that were targeting the Donetsk
civilians, that regular Ukrainian forces were not involved. This was, as any
number of LNR and DNR people pointed out, absurd; the Ukrainian military had
never permitted the nazi units to acquire any heavier artillery than light
mortars. It was the regular forces shelling the civilians, but the Russian
military refused to admit that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Pro-Russia channels on Telegram delighted
in videos of DNR quadcopters dropping grenades on Ukrainian troops (impossible
to tell whether they were nazis or not). Their accuracy, judging from the
videos, was fairly impressive (of course they only posted videos of hits) but,
and this was a problem those of us familiar with the tactics of the Syrian war
instantly noticed, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this is not something
a regular military should have to resort to doing</i>. This is what ISIS, and
with considerably greater effect, using bigger drones and mortar bombs instead
of hand grenades, did in the Battle of Mosul. Not only did the DNR have to slog
through fortifications by itself, it had to resort to the tactics of a
terrorist group to provide itself a modicum of air strike ability.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Not that Russia helped in other ways
either; to this day, almost seven months since the conflict started, the
Russian side has <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> set up a unified
command for the “allies” (LNR and DNR) and itself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as though D Day was fought as a number of
separate landings, with the Brits, Canadians, and Americans doing their own,
totally independent, thing. Can one imagine that to be a recipe for success?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then,
mutters began to come out about “negotiations” again; the negotiations that the
Ukranazis had abandoned in March, reportedly at the instigation of Boorish Johnson.
What were these “negotiations” supposed to be about?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Who knows?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What, in fact, was the Russian final plan
for Ukranazistan? Denazification? Then why is Elensky still alive? Why has not
one nazi in Ukranazistan, including rabid Hitler-saluting vermin like Oleg
Tyagnybok, been eliminated? How do you denazify a nazi state without
eliminating the regime?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">(I might as well insert here the ludicrous
replies I encountered when I asked this question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Russia needs Elensky alive because he might
be replaced by someone competent.” Oh yeah? Who? You also acknowledged that
Ukranazistan is a NATO puppet. So the hypothetical ‘competent’ person won’t be
a puppet like Elensky is? Or was it “Russia need Elensky alive to sign the
surrender”? What surrender? Who would permit Elensky to sign a surrender, his
NATO masters? Instead of making him a martyr by murdering him and blaming it on
Russia, or at least spiriting him off to head a puppet regime in exile?
Really?)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Or was it demilitarisation? Then how is it
that the Ukranazis were permitted to build up a military so strong that, even
without control of the air, it could launch two major offensives on two widely
separated fronts of the very, very long frontline within days of each other?
That one of the offensives was a predictable failure and the other <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">might</i>, like the Tet Offensive, still
fail militarily in the long run makes no difference. Putin isn’t out to
demilitarise anything.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Then what’s left? Preventing Ukranazistan
from joining NATO? Elensky already admitted months ago that this was not going
to happen; ironically it is now more than likely to happen if Russia is
defeated. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Is it capture of Ukranazi territory? Then
why did Russia unilaterally abandon the whole of north Ukranazistan – won in a
couple of days back in February – in April?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Is it an “existential war” for Russia as
some people are saying? Then why is it Ukranazistan that’s treating it as an
existential war, while Russia isn’t treating it as a war at all? How does that
make sense?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What is Russia then fighting for? I’m
damned if I know, and, apparently, the Russian government doesn’t, either.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Anyway, back to this offensive on Kharkov;
at the time of writing Russia abandoned territory it had captured in brutal
battles over two months in 72 hours, abandoning the civilians to the tender
mercies of the Nazis. These were the same civilians who had earlier appeared on
videos profusely thanking Russia for liberating them, and more and more often
openly demanding guarantees that they wouldn’t be abandoned. Well, they have
been abandoned, and why should they trust Russia again?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Why should anyone trust Russia again? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And here we come to the comparison with the
Tet Offensive again. Ukrainian army chief General Valery Zaluzhny – and I have
been saying this for months on Telegram <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Twitter (till they banned me again, which
was a good thing in retrospect though it cost me more than 3600 followers
because I couldn’t take the Putin cultism now) – General Zaluzhny, who isn’t a
nazi, is a highly competent and utterly ruthless professional officer far more like
a WWII Soviet general than like anyone on the Russian general staff, assuming
such a thing exists. Zaluzhny is throwing conscripts and Kraken Battalion Nazis
(the Kharkov franchise of the infamous Azov Regiment) into attack as shock
troops, and holding back his regular forces to exploit the breakthroughs. In
other words, he’s throwing away his Viet Cong, and when they’re gone he’ll
still have his North Vietnamese People’s Army.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">So what, exactly has Ukranazistan won?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Firstly it’s won the – even if terrified
and coerced – allegiance of the people. If there are people in Odessa and
Nikolayev waiting for liberation from Russia, they aren’t blind, deaf, and
dumb; they can see clearly that even if their cities are occupied by Russia
they will be abandoned the moment a nazi offensive shows up. Why then should
they do anything but support Ukranazistan, just for self-preservation? Wouldn’t
you?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Secondly, and you can’t overstate how
important this is, it’s a major step towards winning the support of the neutral
world. You know all the maps showing how no non white nation except American
slaves Japan and South Korea had sanctioned Russia? Well, most of the rest were
going with who they saw as winning. Earlier this year 143 countries at the UN
General Assembly voted to condemn Russia; a week or so ago that number had
dropped to 54. It only takes a nudge to turn the pendulum the other way again. I myself know Modi will change sides in a moment if he thinks it'll be good for him.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">(I would say that in this the death of
Lizardbreath von Saxe Coburg und Gotha was extremely fortuitous for Russia. The
Ukranazis had more likely than not planned to splurge their victory all over
the world media, but the media is obsessing over her death and the succession
of Charlie von Saxe Coburg und Gotha to the British throne. Nobody has any
attention left to spare for Ukranazistan.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Now to get to the third thing the Ukranazis
have won, I have to discuss the Putin cult’s “cope” to explain away the defeat:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">(a)Russia is massacring the Ukranazis, they
can’t fight on like this, they’re going to lose all their forces. That is, the
exact same body count “argument” as made in Vietnam; it didn’t work then and it
won’t work now. While 70 year old conscripts are getting sacrificed, the
trained and battle hardened regulars and nazi groups are getting, if anything,
more numerous. And that’s if we ignore the NATOstani troops “on holiday” or “discharged”
who have come to Ukranazistan as “volunteers”. Those who have been reading me for
a while know that I have been predicting for at least three years that Putin’s
failure to denazify Ukraine in 2014 means that Russia will have to fight a
major war in Ukraine at some point and then it will face NATO forces in
Ukrainian uniform. Well, guess what.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Even the venerable Paul Craig Roberts,
though mostly a ranting old loon these days, correctly stated in a recent
article that NATO was emboldened by Putin’s failure to crush Ukranazistan in
February, and it will cost Russia dear, including possible nuclear war. I don’t
think Putin has the competence or guts to fight a nuclear war, not any longer;
he’d fold like a wet biscuit and surrender Russia to western capital rather
than fight for its existence. More importantly, now the west knows it, too.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">(b)Putin is deliberately drawing this out
to destroy the EU, whose citizens will revolt when they’re freezing and
starving in the depths of winter. To which I say, poppycock. There isn’t even a
guarantee that the winter will be cold, what with weather swings these days. It
could even be a much warmer one than usual. But even if it’s a mini ice age, so
what? Apart from France, how many Europistani countries do you know where
people come out in the streets to rebel and riot? Oh, yes, they’ll march in “protests”,
wave placards, and then go home; if the regime feels like it, it’ll imprison a few
of them as an example to keep the rest in line. Nothing more will happen. As
for France, the Macron regime has weathered years of Yellow Vest protests. It
knows how to deal with them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But will there even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">be</i> protests? Protests are only going to happen if the people see
that Russia is clearly and demonstrably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">winning</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they might logically ask why they are
told to freeze and starve for a losing side. But if Russia is seen to be quagmire
or losing – and it is now clearly seen to be losing – then the people will tell
themselves that they can grit their teeth and bear it somehow for the winning
cause. Haven’t you seen this kind of thing for two years of Covid? Would you be
surprised at all?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The fourth and final thing the Nazis have
won is the full and continuing support of the NATOstanis. So far we’ve been
hearing how NATO weapons depots are bare, they’re running out of things to
supply; but now they’re demonstrably backing a winning side, so why should they
stop? In their place, would you?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What does the Putin Cult have to offer in
return? Ludicrous claims of massive and brilliantly planned pincer movements
that will trap the Ukranazis. Yes, and Steiner will come to Hitler’s rescue in
the bunker.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’ve put my non-working life on hold since
February for this conflict. I’ve put my novel on ice at 75% written. I went
back to Twitter after a three year hiatus, fighting for Russia against
blueyellow Ukranazis. I’ve painted and drawn comic strips as fast as I could
until I gave myself tendinitis. And all with a fractured foot which I got in
June.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Now I’m asking myself, why the hell should
I care, if Russia doesn’t?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Either way, Russia has a choice. Fight a
real war, or surrender on the least humiliating terms it can get.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The SMO is done.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-21794133978942819942021-12-10T08:07:00.003+05:302021-12-10T08:07:39.054+05:30Lies<p style="text-align: center;"> Their lies</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fall like rain</p><p style="text-align: center;">On the villages and forests</p><p style="text-align: center;">The deserts and the rivers</p><p style="text-align: center;">The cities and the mountains</p><p style="text-align: center;">Fall on him and her and me and you. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">And in the falling</p><p style="text-align: center;">The lies change to blood and fire</p><p style="text-align: center;">Into poison dew.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: right;"><i>Copyright</i> <b>B Purkayastha</b><u> 2021</u></p><p style="text-align: right;"><u><br /></u></p><p style="text-align: right;"><u><br /></u></p><p style="text-align: right;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1dksanT9Fcg/YbK9V2dAPiI/AAAAAAABjh8/npNBQm7BBO8wt1svjVLR3QPX4Xy4ltBFACNcBGAsYHQ/s600/images%2B%252811%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1dksanT9Fcg/YbK9V2dAPiI/AAAAAAABjh8/npNBQm7BBO8wt1svjVLR3QPX4Xy4ltBFACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/images%2B%252811%2529.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><u><br /></u><p></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-75993088657546488732021-12-07T13:25:00.003+05:302021-12-07T13:25:28.556+05:30 Oyster Harbour Day<p> Dear World, it is better to start WWIII than let this happen again!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rvrcxE0e36U/Ya8SqFwk_fI/AAAAAAABjhY/AX68qG9bqJAvLk8yxu6B2M4sjNXubXcFQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1280/FF66SINUYAEnUu3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rvrcxE0e36U/Ya8SqFwk_fI/AAAAAAABjhY/AX68qG9bqJAvLk8yxu6B2M4sjNXubXcFQCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/FF66SINUYAEnUu3.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>(Yes, I'm making fun of Amerikastanis' "intelligence". No, I don't care if your grandfather was sunk to death at Pearl Harbour. You've lost the right to sympathy on any point whatsoever.)</p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-86741462179262860462021-12-04T00:08:00.008+05:302021-12-04T07:27:40.939+05:30The Shadow Of The Shark: The Sinking Of PNS Ghazi<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The water lay black and still. In the distance the low hills behind Visakhapatnam harbour were dark and showed not a glimmer of lights.</p><p><br /></p><p>With a sudden swirl, a long thin shape broke the surface. It swung left, then right, like an elephant's trunk seeking air to breathe. It trailed a thin wake behind it as it went.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ten metres below, something long and predatory slid through the water, black and smooth and lethal. It resembled nothing so much as a gigantic shark, complete with hydroplanes like pectoral fins and a huge conning tower like a flattened dorsal fin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Inside the steel cylinder, a naval officer put his eyes to the rubber eyepieces of his periscope and tried to decipher some landmark with which to orient his vessel. Somewhere out there was the enemy he had to bottle up, or, if possible, destroy. It was midnight on the third of December, 1971, exactly fifty years ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>_____________________</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1971, Pakistan was a nation divided against itself. To the west was the largely Punjabi, Sindhi and Pashto speaking West Pakistan. Across the immense stretch of India, in the east, was the Bengali speaking East Pakistan. The two parts of the country, except for their creation as a "Muslim homeland" carved out of British colonised India, had nothing linguistically, ethnically, culturally, or economically in common with each other. </p><p><br /></p><p>By 1971, the differences between the two parts had come to a head. The Bengali speaking East outnumbered the West in population, and the Awami League party of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won the national elections held under the then military dictatorship and thus the right to form the government. The problem was that Rahman was a Bengali and the Awami League an East Pakistani party, and large sections of the West Pakistani military and civilian political structure didn't want to cede power to them. </p><p><br /></p><p>In response to unrest resulting from this, the Pakistani military launched a crackdown on East Pakistan in mid March 1971, leading to millions of refugees fleeing to India. India, in turn, began to openly host, arm, and train "Mukti Bahini" (Freedom Army) insurgents who wanted to break East Pakistan away from West Pakistan to create a new nation, Bangladesh. The Pakistani military in East Pakistan was isolated, surrounded by a hostile population, and hard to supply and reinforce from West Pakistan, but even so by autumn the Mukti Bahini had largely been defeated.</p><p><br /></p><p>In response, India pushed in military regulars disguised as Mukti Bahini guerrillas under one Major General Shahbeg Singh (who 13 years later himself was to become a separatist rebel against India), and by early November had positioned troops and armour all along the East Pakistani borders. The only Indian aircraft carrier, the venerable INS Vikrant, was sent to Visakhapatnam harbour on the Indian East Coast. It was obvious that an Indian invasion was coming.</p><p><br /></p><p>In response the government of Pakistan took certain steps. One of those was to send in PNS Ghazi.</p><p><br /></p><p>_____________________</p><p><br /></p><p>PNS Ghazi was originally a US Navy Tench Class submarine, USS Diablo, first launched in 1944, during World War Two and then upgraded to the level of a fleet snorkel submarine. It was leased to the Pakistanis by the Americans in 1964 and became the first submarine operated by a South Asian navy. </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qPY8DUq7pK0/YapilaPPh7I/AAAAAAABjgc/08ACl_0RA8wYo4SF_FQCALHkO36TjrbEgCNcBGAsYHQ/s480/looking-back.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qPY8DUq7pK0/YapilaPPh7I/AAAAAAABjgc/08ACl_0RA8wYo4SF_FQCALHkO36TjrbEgCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/looking-back.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">PNS Ghazi while still USS Diablo</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>(In response the Indian navy – as usual in those days – went crawling to the British pleading for a submarine, if necessary from their scrap-heap: the latter refused on the grounds that Indian personnel were incompetent to operate submarines. India then finally went to the USSR, asked for, and received, eight Foxtrot class subs, of a far later vintage and superior capability to the Ghazi. The first Foxtrot Class sub only joined the Indian navy in 1967, and it was years before all eight had been delivered. I will have a few words about these Foxtrot submarines later.)</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2bH4nfhtDsg/Yapi5x1sN-I/AAAAAAABjgk/BPxJ6yl24mE_IkNXrVG1Sxb2XbutnDzxACNcBGAsYHQ/s412/submarines-3_650_101514012636.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="320" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2bH4nfhtDsg/Yapi5x1sN-I/AAAAAAABjgk/BPxJ6yl24mE_IkNXrVG1Sxb2XbutnDzxACNcBGAsYHQ/w311-h400/submarines-3_650_101514012636.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Foxtrot class submarine INS Khanderi</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>In 1965 the Ghazi operated off Bombay harbour without success – the Indian Navy stayed almost entirely in harbour to prevent any potentially prestige-damaging sinkings. Ghazi did claim to have sunk the frigate INS Brahmaputra but this ship was displayed intact for the media at the conclusion of the war. It's said that an Indian anti-submarine Alize aircraft flew right over the Ghazi without noticing it, which says something about Indian anti submarine capabilities in the 1960s.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1968 the Ghazi went for a refit in Turkey, travelling the whole way, round the Cape of Good Hope and through Gibraltar, underwater, which it could do because of its enormous range of 17000 kilometres. In a Turkish shipyard the Ghazi acquired the ability to lay mines through its torpedo tubes. It returned to Pakistan in 1970.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, in 1971, with war threatening, the 26-year-old submarine was the only one of four Pakistani submarines that had the range to travel to the Bay of Bengal. It left Karachi harbour on November 14, carrying a crew of 93 under Captain Zafar Muhammad Khan. This was 12 personnel more than it had carried in American service, meaning that it was overcrowded as well as old. It was armed with mines as well as torpedoes, but the torpedoes were old and less than reliable American WWII models, and the sub's main mission was to use its mines anyway. </p><p><br /></p><p>At this time the Indian carrier Vikrant was supposed to be in Visakhapatnam harbour. I have been to this harbour. It has a narrow mouth, and any ship seeking to enter or exit has to pass through that mouth. The Ghazi, which had been initially positioned off Madras to the south, was ordered north to Visakhapatnam on 26 November. </p><p><br /></p><p>Meanwhile, the war finally started when India invaded East Pakistan on 22 November 1971. This invasion was fully visible to journalists on the ground and openly reported on in international media, but the Indian government denied it was happening. At this time, Vikrant shifted from Visakhapatnam to a secret anchorage, called X, in the Andaman Islands far to the east. (This was done to keep the carrier from being sunk. The Vikrant would have been of far greater use in the west, where India was about to launch air and sea attacks on the port of Karachi, but the danger of sinking was deemed far too great to be politically permissible.)</p><p><br /></p><p>According to the Indian claim, Vice Admiral Krishnan, Commander of the Eastern Naval Command, was aware that Ghazi was in these waters and decided to distract attention by laying a false trail of spurious provision orders and radio messages that seemed to indicate that Vikrant was still in Visakhapatnam. Why I do not necessarily believe the Indian claims will become obvious in a moment. These radio messages were, by the way, allegedly made by an old destroyer called INS Rajput which had been prepared for decommissioning and retirement, but was sent out to sea one last time to steam up and down sending fake signals in Vikrant's name.</p><p><br /></p><p>Whether on the basis of these diversionary messages or otherwise, the Pakistani authorities, as I said, on Nov 26, ordered the sub to move to the approaches of Visakhapatnam harbour, and plant mines across the narrow mouth, something that could theoretically keep the harbour - the main Indian naval base in the east - closed for weeks.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the night of 3 Dec, the evening before Pakistan finally launched air strikes in response to the Indian invasion, Ghazi moved to the harbour approaches to lay its mines. Visakhapatnam city had been blacked out: the old submarine couldn't use the city lights through its periscope to orient itself. It had to navigate blind.</p><p><br /></p><p>It was midnight, and Ghazi would never see dawn again.</p><p><br /></p><p>_____________________</p><p><br /></p><p>At this point the official Indian account and that of Pakistan diverge so sharply as to be impossible to reconcile, so I shall take them one by one:</p><p><br /></p><p><i>First, the known facts</i>:</p><p><br /></p><p>Around midnight there was an explosion off Visakhapatnam, so loud that windows were rattled in the city and people thought an earthquake had taken place. The next morning fishermen reported oil slicks and floating wreckage, and salvaged a life jacket. This was the first indication, despite later claims, that the Indian Navy had of the sinking. Divers, finally, on the 5th December, two days after the sinking, went down, found the wreck and identified it as a submarine with its bows blown out. It was not an Indian Foxtrot submarine; Urdu markings on the wreckage indicated it was Pakistani. From the size - all of 95 metres long - it was not one of the three small French-made Daphne Class coastal submarines that comprised the rest of Pakistan's submarine strength. Therefore, it had to be the Ghazi. Six bodies retrieved from the wreck confirmed it, one of whom even had a letter he'd written to his fiancee in his pocket.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>The Indian account:</i></p><p><br /></p><p>The Rajput - the old destroyer waiting for decommissioning- was headed out of Visakhapatnam Harbour when the captain suddenly realised, possibly by extra sensory perception, that a Pakistani sub could be out there. He had a harbour pilot on board, whom he therefore dropped off, when all of a sudden his lookouts noted a swirl in the water. He immediately dropped two depth charges, following which there was the loud explosion.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are two major problems with this story. First, the Rajput had already been prepared for scrapping. Its weapon systems, including the depth charges, had been removed. It had no depth charges, so it could not drop any.</p><p><br /></p><p>Apart from this, an Egyptian submarine was in Visakhapatnam on this date, and the captain described hearing the explosion. He was categorical that no Indian naval ship had been going to sea at that time. </p><p><br /></p><p>Then, the local Indian naval authorities had already prepared a statement that the submarine had sunk in an operational accident. It had actually been released to the media before urgent orders had arrived from naval headquarters in Delhi demanding that the Rajput be credited with the kill. Its crew were decorated to boot.</p><p><br /></p><p>At the conclusion of the war, both the Americans and the Russians offered to raise the sub at their own expense and find out how it sank, but the Indian government refused to allow it. As for why not, your guess is as good as mine.</p><p><br /></p><p>Years later, in the early 2000s, the Indian navy finally again sent divers down to the wreck. It was badly deteriorated by then, with the outer hull corroded and overgrown by marine plants and animals, but both the divers' accounts and the photos they took clearly show that a massive *internal* explosion had blown the bows away. A depth charge is not an internal explosion. It cracks the submarine hull from the outside. Whatever the explosion was caused by, it was inside the submarine.</p><p><br /></p><p>When in the early 2010s Admiral G Hiranandani set out to write a history of the Indian navy in the 1971 war, he discovered to his astonishment that the navy had destroyed all its documents pertaining to the Ghazi in 2010. Why it would do this, about what it insists is a victory by one of its own ships (indeed, the only submarine sunk in wartime since WWII) is again something for which your guess is as good as mine.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>The Pakistani version</i>:</p><p><br /></p><p>The Pakistanis have advanced three different hypotheses for the sinking:</p><p><br /></p><p>1. The Ghazi may have, in the darkness, struck one of its own mines. </p><p><br /></p><p>The problem with this is the same as with the depth charge story; the explosion was internal. </p><p><br /></p><p>2. One of the Ghazi's mines, or more likely one of its ancient WWII era torpedoes, blew up by accident. (Another torpedo explosion would sink the Russian submarine Kursk many years later, so this is *very* likely.) A torpedo explosion in one of the forward torpedo tubes would blow away the bow very efficiently.</p><p><br /></p><p>3. There is also a third possibility. The Ghazi was a diesel electric submarine, that is, it had electric motors for running underwater. These electric motors were charged by running the sub's main diesel engine on the surface or at shallow depths under water when the snorkel mast could be raised. The submarine was old, the batteries were old, and it is possible that the charging process created large amounts of hydrogen gas that could not be vented and resulted in a catastrophic explosion. The bodies brought up by the divers didn't have any burns that might be expected from such an explosion, but they might not have had any if they had been caught in a different portion of the sub when the hydrogen blew.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qZilRNDvWK8/YapjoKDqqBI/AAAAAAABjgs/j_jWDhqqa2E5mMG65g6umb-jVA8NnCK2QCNcBGAsYHQ/s663/images%2B%25284%2529.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="663" height="279" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qZilRNDvWK8/YapjoKDqqBI/AAAAAAABjgs/j_jWDhqqa2E5mMG65g6umb-jVA8NnCK2QCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h279/images%2B%25284%2529.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to enlarge. Graphic from India Today magazine. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>_____________________</p><p><br /></p><p>So what do we know, really?</p><p><br /></p><p>1. At midnight, 3 Dec 1971, *something* exploded inside the Ghazi, so powerfully that it blew the bows off.</p><p><br /></p><p>2. The Indian Navy was certainly not responsible for this explosion. </p><p><br /></p><p>One hopes, at this distance in time, that the crew all died instantly. Unfortunately that's only likely for the crew in the front section, who would have been killed by the blast or drowned immediately by the rushing water. As in the Kursk, crew members in the rear part of the hull may have spent hours trapped in the wreck, suffocating slowly as the air ran out. One of them, when brought out, still had a wrench clenched tightly in his hand. </p><p><br /></p><p>_____________________</p><p><br /></p><p>A few years ago, Bollywood made a film on the Ghazi sinking. It was a bit of a surprise, because it made not the slightest attempt to adhere to the tale of the Rajput sinking the Ghazi with depth charges. Instead, it invented an underwater duel between the Ghazi and an Indian Foxtrot submarine, the latter (in real life incomparably superior, the last example serving as late as 2010) being presented as an obsolete but valiant underdog, which finally triumphed owing to the ingenuity of its crew. I suppose not even Bollywood could swallow the Rajput story.</p><p><br /></p><p>_____________________</p><p><br /></p><p>Today the Ghazi lies on the seabed off Visakhapatnam, wrapped in fishing nets, its crew, as they say, on eternal patrol.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is time they were given their due.</p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-39213325845467847452021-10-29T15:41:00.003+05:302021-10-29T23:02:06.114+05:30Shaggy Werewolf Story<p> Once upon a time there was a bloodsucking vampire whom we shall call Cradula.</p><p><br /></p><p>The vampire was, of course, very cruel, but apart from that he also lacked all the traces of civilisation that others of his kind possessed. He was not tall, pale, svelte and elegantly dressed, and if anyone gave him a red-lined black cloak he wouldn't know what to do with it. Far from romancing beautiful women, he could hardly put two sentences together without devolving into a string of curses. He was bow-legged, ugly, thuggish, with straggly hair, and such appalling personal hygiene that he had to approach his prey from downwind so they didn't smell him coming. </p><p><br /></p><p>Cradula lived in an empty old house, a house so long vacant that everyone had long forgotten when it had been built and whether it had had a name. There, in the basement, he had a bed in a grave cunningly disguised as an old chest with a seat on the lid. Every night, once darkness had safely fallen, he would crawl out of his entombment, lifting the top of the chest away, clamber clumsily through a broken skylight, and go hunting. Before dawn, more often than not still hungry, he would drop with all the grace of a sack of potatoes through the skylight and shamble into his grave again. </p><p><br /></p><p>For as long as Cradula had lived in the old house, it had been empty, but one day there was the noise of doors grating open, furniture being moved, the busy sounds of hammering and sawing, and before Cradula knew it - that is, before the poor vampire woke at the crack of dusk - the house was no longer empty. A family of four had moved in, father, mother, son, and daughter. The first thing Cradula knew of them was the sound of the daughter singing and playing the guitar in her new room upstairs. She sang and played atrociously.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, Cradula didn't know that she sang and played so badly. He was far too uncultured to care about that at all. All he wanted to do was to go out and drink his nightly portion of blood, and the confounded caterwauling was giving him a headache, so he went straight to his skylight. </p><p><br /></p><p>Whereupon he had a shock. The skylight had been removed and the space bricked in! And the basement, where he had spent so many uneventful decades, was no longer empty, it was almost full of heaps of coal for the furnace that hadn't been used in so long that Cradula hadn't even known it was there. </p><p><br /></p><p>The poor vampire was in a state. He couldn't get out of the basement, because of the skylight. He couldn't get out through the door up into the house, because it was locked. And he hadn't had any luck hunting in days, so he was starving. And, on top of everything, he was so illiterate and uneducated in the ways of humans that he was frightened out of his wits, not that he had many. </p><p><br /></p><p>It was just as he was gibbering to himself in the corner that the light in the ceiling went on and someone turned the key in the door leading upstairs...</p><p><br /></p><p>The night was cold, and the mother, deciding the house needed heat, had ordered her husband to start up the furnace. "And don't come back till it's burning nice and hot," she commanded. "Do you hear?"</p><p><br /></p><p>Cradula, thrilling with terror, shot back into his grave so fast that the coal dust of his passage still hung in the air like behind a cartoon character who'd taken off running. The father came grumbling down, muttering about the television he should've been watching, and shovelled the furnace full of coal. Then, setting the load alight, he looked around for a place on which to sit while waiting for the fire to take hold.</p><p><br /></p><p>The only place to sit was the nice old chest with the convenient seat on the lid...</p><p><br /></p><p>Cradula may have been terrified, but he could now smell the proximity of the human blood coursing through human veins. His fangs grew wet with saliva, he reached up, flipped open the lid of the chest, dragged the father inside, and drank him to a shrivelled husk in less time than it takes to write of it. Then he slammed shut the lid, belched loudly, and went contentedly to sleep.</p><p><br /></p><p>What about the corpse? He kept it right there with him in the grave. I told you he was a slob.</p><p><br /></p><p>After an hour, the mother - by now warm - began to wonder why her husband hadn't come back up. Was he drinking down there? She decided to come down for a look.</p><p><br /></p><p>"Are you hiding behind that coal?" she roared, not seeing her lesser half anywhere. She stamped around the basement, poking here and there, and then, baffled, plonked her ample bottom down on the lid of the chest, so hard that it woke Cradula.</p><p><br /></p><p>And, because he smelt her blood and was an uncouth glutton, he pulled her down and drank her dry as well, then closed the lid and went back to sleep. </p><p><br /></p><p>Some time after that, the fire in the furnace began to die down. The daughter began to shiver a little. "Hey, twerp," she ordered her brother, between songs, "go down and put more coal in the damned furnace."</p><p><br /></p><p>"Go yourself, " said the brother, who was busy with a video game.</p><p><br /></p><p>The daughter stuck it as long as she could then wandered down to the basement to stock up the furnace. Afterwards she looked around. "I wonder what it would sound like if I sang in here, " she said, and, sitting down on the chest, resumed her guitar playing and singing. </p><p><br /></p><p>Cradula, of course, had been awakened by the terrible noise, and, being without any refinement, didn't recognise music when he heard it. He knew only that there was a fresh supply of blood sitting over him. So he opened the lid, yanked in the girl, and drank her dry as well before pushing the lid shut, and, putting her corpse with those of her parents, went back to sleep. </p><p><br /></p><p>By and by the son finished his game and wondered where everyone was. He looked up and down in all the rooms of the house, but they were all empty. Then he came down to the basement, searched around, and went away upstairs again. Later that night he came down to stock up the furnace, searched for any trace of his parents or sister, found nothing, and stood scratching his head. But Cradula didn't grab him and drink him dry, not then, and not in the many, many days that have passed since. The son still goes down to the basement every day and Cradula can't lay a finger on him. </p><p><br /></p><p>Why not?</p><p><br /></p><p>Simple!</p><p><br /></p><p>The son never sits on the brutish vampire.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-67282632238023881602021-08-16T15:15:00.016+05:302021-08-16T23:28:20.914+05:30Bloodhawk Down<p> </p><p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As we all know, the Imperialist
States of Amerikastan can never lose.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It didn’t lose in Vietnam, for
example, or in Somalia, or Iraq, come to that.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What? You thought the Imperialist
States lost in Vietnam and Iraq and Somalia? Obviously you didn’t watch any of
the many, many Hollywood films dedicated to proving the opposite for Vietnam,
or <i>Black Hawk Down</i> for Somalia, or <i>American Sniper</i> for Iraq, and
that’s just the list I can be bothered to dig up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Anyway, to get to ye olde pointe:
Amerikastan can never, ever lose. I mean, Hollywood says so! Who are you going
to believe, Hollywood or reality?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So: Since Amerikastan cannot have
lost in Afghanistan yesterday, it is not possible, despite all evidence to the
contrary, I decided to help Hollywood out and write a script for it. I mean, I
am literally creating history here!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, coming up: the new Hollywood
blockbuster on Afghanistan, <b><i>Bloodhawk Down</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><u>Opening scene:</u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The heartbreakingly beautiful
mountains of the Hindu Kush (the Pamir Knot will do nicely as a substitute,
thank you, do you think the target audience for this kind of thing can
differentiate between Afghanistan and Tajikistan anyway?). The purple shadows
of evening lie deep in valleys. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Enter the shadow of a helicopter,
along with the noise of its engine. Pan up to the cockpit, where we have our
GRIM-FACED HANDSOME HERO, who is the pilot.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is Major Bloodhawk, USAF.
The camera moves up his body, hesitating briefly on his uniformed chest, which
has his name in clearly visible BLOCK LETTERS, as well as the requisite stars
and stripes badge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Major Bloodhawk is, of course,
played by Tom Cruise. It is always Tom Cruise as the aging, handsome, instantly
relatable hero. Of course it’s Tom Cruise. Who else could it be, Arnold
Schwarzenegger? Give me a break.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">FLASHBACK to Major Bloodhawk’s
many years in Afghanistan, starting with his service as a young gunship pilot back
in the glory days of the invasion in the mid 2000s, then moving on to training
Afghans to fly helicopters so they can do some gunshipping of their own (insert
manly tears when one of his pupils is killed in a crash). He has friends among
Afghans, including a brave translator who saved his life during a Taliban
ambush. This translator’s name is Quislinguddin, and he has stayed in touch
with Major Bloodhawk ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Back home, naturally, Major
Bloodhawk has a lovely and loving wife, and the requisite two children, male
and female. This wife’s name is immaterial, call her Laura if you want, but she’ll
be, naturally, played by Angelina Jolie. She was in Kabul, too, of course
teaching Afghan women to read and write, but in recent days she’s gone back
home. This is an opportunity to show her lovely, palatial home in a leafy suburb
somewhere in California, with the compulsory swimming pool in the backyard,
complete with a golden retriever who goes swimming with brat and bratess.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So both Bloodhawk and Laura are –
are you getting this? You are? Good – absolutely genuine heroes, as everyone
can see. And the Afghans love them! (Insert shots of profoundly grateful
Afghans, begging him to bomb their villages some more and her to teach them
some more to read and write.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But times have changed, and it’s
2021, and the Taliban are threatening Kabul. (Gasp! Who could ever have seen
that coming?) Major Bloodhawk is past his glory days as an Apache gunship pilot.
He now flies a Chinook transport, and he’s been tasked to stay ready to
evacuate Americans from the rooftop of the embassy in Kabul, exactly as
President Bidet had sworn would never happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You’re still with me, right?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bloodhawk has a trusty sidekick,
who mans a heavy machine gun set in the Chinook’s door. (Never mind whether Chinooks
have door gunners, door gunners and helicopters go together like napalm and
Vietnamese villages, this has been holy writ since the first Vietnam movie came
out, dammit.) I can’t be bothered to come up with a name for him, but he is
played by the guy from <i>Jurassic World</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So! The evil, vengeful,
misogynistic, bearded, turbaned Taliban are battering at the gates of Kabul,
when Major Bloodhawk gets a call on his mobile phone! Who can it be? <i>Who??</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">His old mate Quislinguddin, that’s
who.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Quislinguddin, and I don’t care
who plays him as long as it’s a smallish round-faced man with a moustache and a
pakol cap, is calling from a village near Kandahar. This village is ruled over
by an Evil Taliban Warlord. (Maybe played by Danny Trejo in a beard and black
turban? I think it should be Danny Trejo in a beard and black turban.) ETW has
his eye on a beautiful young girl in the village, played by anyone, damn it,
what does it even matter at this stage. ETW has decided to celebrate the
impending Taliban victory by kidnapping the BYG, and intends to marry her as
soon as Kabul falls.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Bloodhawk,” the translator says,
“the evil Talib has kept her confined within his dastardly fortified house in
the village, guarded by the evillest Taliban guards in all Kandahar! You must
save her!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bloodhawk’s orders are to wait
and be ready to evacuate the embassy but... (Flashback once again to the moment
that Quislinguddin saved him from the Taliban ambush, diving on him and
wrestling him to the ground at the risk of his own life.) He calls Laura and
explains his dilemma, and in an emotionally charged scene over the phone – he in
his helicopter seat, she looking at her (very symbolically empty) bed, a photo of the two of them on the side table, they
decide that he must Do The Right Thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Tom...I mean Bloodhawk...turns to
his door gunner, GFJW. “What do you think, Guy?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Guy, as anyone who’s watched <i>Jurassic
World </i>is aware, is capable of just one expression, so he doesn’t move a
facial muscle. “Let’s go get her! Hooah!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, without orders, the Chinook
clatters into the air and heads off to Kandahar. (Insert more scenic mountains
while dramatic swelling music plays, etc.) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Cut to the village, where the ETW
has been taunting the BYG with her inevitable fate. Suddenly, from his window,
he sees the helicopter clattering over the village roofs. Leaning from the
aperture, he shouts at his army of guards to alert them to this threat!
Bloodhawk, look out! The enemy knows you’re coming!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But wait! There’s help!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s Quislinguddin! Running from
one spot to another, mobile phone at his ear, he directs Bloodhawk, telling him
where the Taliban are! The heroic American helicopter – roundels and USAF
legend boldly visible – makes several low passes over the village, GFJW mowing
the Taliban guards down with his trusty machine gun, American firepower defeating evil! Then, in a great gust of
sand and wind, the Chinook starts descending into the village square.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But what is this?!? The dastardly
ETW has taken the opportunity to barricade himself in his evil fortified
residence! He knows that Bloodhawk can’t stay long, and he’s determined to wait
it out! Whatever will Bloodhawk do?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the helicopter, Bloodhawk and
GFJW exchange glances. “Do it, Major,” the latter says...I mean, grinds out
between clenched teeth. “Do it!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, in a remarkable action
sequence never before committed to cinema history, Bloodhawk flies his
helicopter at almost ground level right up to the ETW’s house. His front rotor’s
immense blades crash through the wall of the dastardly residence, sending a
mass of rubble falling into the dusty street. Then he backs away and begins to
swing around for another go.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But, look! Who is this slim,
lovely figure who dashes from the broken house? Why, it’s the BYG! She’s free!
But only for the moment, for behind her lumbers the form of the ETW! He wants
her back! He’s too close to her for GFJW to use his machine gun! She’s almost
caught!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And here comes Quislinguddin,
armed with a piece of wood from the ETW’s own demolished house! He hits the ETW
alongside the turban with the half-plank! ETW’s down for the count!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bloodhawk, delicately as a
feather, lands his helicopter next to Quislinguddin and the BYG. GFJW urgently
beckons them aboard, but the girl’s afraid to climb on. Quislinguddin has to
push her from behind and GFJW pull her by the arms to get her into the chopper.
Finally she’s in, and Quislinguddin begins to clamber aboard himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But, wait! The ETW has recovered!
Clambering to his feet, his mad eyes glaring, he reaches inside his sleeveless
jacket and brings out a (Russian, this was given to him as bounty for killing
US soldiers!) Tokarev pistol. Just as the helicopter lifts off, he shoots at
it, and the bullet, going through the door, takes Quislinguddin through the chest.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As GFJW pilots the Chinook towards
Kabul, Quislinguddin looks up at Bloodhawk kneeling over him on the chopper's floor. “We <i>did</i> rescue her, didn’t we?” he
whispers, a heroic trickle of blood seeping photogenically from the corner of
his mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“We did,” Bloodhawk says. “We
did.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“I should never have saved your
life,” Quislinguddin says, and grins painfully in the best buddy war movie
tradition. “You just keep getting me into trouble.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“That’s right, you shouldn’t have,”
Bloodhawk replies. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“I won’t do it again,” Quislinguddin
says, and dies in Bloodhawk’s arms.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Swelling music as
Bloodhawk weeps bitter tears over Quislinguddin’s corpse. Then the girl lays a
comforting hand on his shoulder. He looks up at her and smiles. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The American-flag-bedecked runways of Kabul Airport appear in the distance.</span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: 7.75pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 7.75pt;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">(<u>End credits</u>.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Oscar material, yo.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YWX01mti5qs/YRozdD3MqiI/AAAAAAABjOU/WYyZ5AJZamQa9ac9KPd55PIvyyc9vkszQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/6119682bc040ad0018ce63f1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1000" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YWX01mti5qs/YRozdD3MqiI/AAAAAAABjOU/WYyZ5AJZamQa9ac9KPd55PIvyyc9vkszQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h200/6119682bc040ad0018ce63f1.jpeg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /><o:p><br /></o:p></span><p></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-88800386959269347182021-07-20T09:01:00.005+05:302021-07-20T09:05:41.980+05:30Blood Moon<p style="text-align: center;"> Swiftly, swiftly</p><p style="text-align: center;">The tide travels</p><p style="text-align: center;">Licking and rising </p><p style="text-align: center;">Here, there</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">At Cuban beaches</p><p style="text-align: center;">At Iraqi deserts</p><p style="text-align: center;">At Vietnamese jungles</p><p style="text-align: center;">At Afghanistan's hills </p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">At Gaza's crowded alleys</p><p style="text-align: center;">At Yemeni mountains</p><p style="text-align: center;">At Donbass villages</p><p style="text-align: center;">At Baghdad's slums.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">Looking for a breach</p><p style="text-align: center;">Looking for a fissure</p><p style="text-align: center;">And where it is turned back</p><p style="text-align: center;">It moves elsewhere </p><p style="text-align: center;">To try again. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">Overhead the blood moon</p><p style="text-align: center;">Immune</p><p style="text-align: center;">Draws the tide, commands it, </p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">But the blood moon's orbit </p><p style="text-align: center;">Shrinks </p><p style="text-align: center;">Decays</p><p style="text-align: center;">The hungry ocean awaits it</p><p style="text-align: center;">The vengeful desert</p><p style="text-align: center;">The patient hills.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: right;"><i>Copyright</i><b> B Purkayastha</b> <u>2021</u></p><p style="text-align: right;"><u><br /></u></p><p style="text-align: left;"><u>(</u>I dreamt the first lines of this poem, woke at 4 am, and wrote the rest before I forgot. Good job, too, because I didn't remember a word of it later.)</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Gh5KxkGuFc/YPZDceAcJII/AAAAAAABjGg/3cBsZEmfyiwHLyqDl_t7p_wBiBQ-k9EegCLcBGAsYHQ/s737/images%2B%25285%2529.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="737" height="226" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Gh5KxkGuFc/YPZDceAcJII/AAAAAAABjGg/3cBsZEmfyiwHLyqDl_t7p_wBiBQ-k9EegCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h226/images%2B%25285%2529.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-71224682534743232622021-06-18T18:57:00.003+05:302021-06-19T05:11:19.507+05:30Emissaries <p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-31d40216-7fff-bf84-4f6b-3892578100b6" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hrough the observation cameras, the planet below was a ball of greyish-brown, marked with darker lines, as though the surface was cracked and fissured, and would fall apart at a blow.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of its faces was washed with the ruddy glow of the red giant that was one of its suns, an elderly star consuming itself in the final billions of years of its long life. The other side was starkly greenish in the light of the other, smaller sun, the two turning in a tango around each other, the planet itself, a captive of the immutable laws of gravity, turning around them, and bathed in their varicoloured light. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shihuang 11 had no thoughts about the scene. He was far too busy tabulating the images, merging them together into a continuum, comparing them to the data from his planet mapping radars and the maps he’d been given, monitoring his orbital level, and finalising his plans on when to carry out the next phase of his mission. If the planet </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">had</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> been breaking apart at one point, all it would mean to Shihuang 11 was that he would avoid landing on that point.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He’d arrived in orbit over a week ago now, Earth-time, and ever since then he’d not paused a moment. The wealth of information he’d picked up was already immense. He had stored it, compressed it, and scrambled and coded it. When the planet next edged past the radio-shadow of its sun, he would send the coded data in a narrow stream of electronic noise, streaking through space at the speed of light, towards where the earth would be when it finally arrived at its destination. Then, gigantic dishes made of wire mesh and metal struts would intercept his transmission, and forward it to eagerly awaiting recipients. Some of them – those who had sent Shihuang 11 on his journey – would have the keys to decode the messages he’d sent. Others, who did not have the keys, would set great supercomputers to trying to unscramble the data.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shihuang 11 did not care whether they would succeed. His business was here and now, his duty to collate and send the data he’d collected from orbit before descending to the planet. Once the data had been sent, he would move on to the next task. That was why he was here.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slowly, from the images and the radar soundings, one particular spot emerged from all the others that his camera images and radar scans had shortlisted as potential landing sites. It was an oval plain, about halfway between the equator and the southern pole of the planet. Though it was surrounded by chains of hills like the stumps of rotten teeth, it was flat, smooth, had no trace of recent volcanic activity or earthquakes, and promised a stable surface for the lander module.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shihuang 11 fired his orbital module rockets in brief, carefully calibrated bursts, lifting himself into a slightly higher orbital trajectory, and moving his path a few hundred kilometres to one side. Then, at the precise moment, when he’d just travelled past the point on the plain he’d selected, he closed a series of switches and circuits, and sent a signal programmed many months before through the appropriate circuits.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen, the lander module shrouded in its spherical heat shield matching perfectly the trajectory of the orbiter. Then there was a brief puff of released gas, and a gap appeared between the dark sphere and its lodging in the belly of the lander. Quite slowly, as it seemed, the gap enlarged, as the two sped together over the planet. Then the sphere dropped far enough that the first tendrils of the atmosphere fumbled at it with fingers of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The heat shield, a cannonball fired by the force of gravity at the face of the planet, began to warm. The fingers of gas thickened and tightened, the sphere slowing further, its forward momentum dropping away as it began a long spiralling fall to the planet. The heat shell began to glow red, then white, the atmosphere around it turning into an incandescent sheath of plasma.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shihuang 11 had neither the time to worry, nor marvel at the plume of blazing hot gas through which he was falling. His concerns were the temperature inside the heat shield – it was within acceptable levels – the functioning of the lander systems – they were all working so far – and the course the sphere was following as it descended. Since there were no antennae or sensors outside the heat shield – the men who had built it had known that any would burn away instantly in the heat of the descent – he could neither see where he was going nor communicate with the cameras and radars following his descent from the orbiter. All he could do was compare the time he was travelling and his velocity to the plan formulated in the orbiter, and they told him that he was doing well.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the proper time, he activated a camera accompanied by a brilliant light. It showed him the ceramic lined interior of the heat shield, dark and relatively cool despite the searing heat washing across its other surface, only centimetres away. Shihuang 11 monitored his altitude as it dropped, and the temperature of the heat shield fall, too, as the atmosphere grew thicker and thicker as he fell further and further. Then, at the proper time, he sent another signal.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Through the camera he watched the heat shield pop away, the two halves of the sphere separate as it broke apart. Now the camera had something more than the interior of the heat shield to show him. The planet below was no longer a gigantic sphere; it was a vast plain, streaked and lined with fissures, ridged with crumpled hills, that stretched to a horizon that only just still showed a curvature. There were no clouds in this atmosphere without oxygen and water vapour; Shihuang 11 had an unrestricted view. He noted, without satisfaction or surprise, that he was where he was supposed to be, and would land in the plain he was supposed to.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still travelling on its side, the lighter upper surface trailing the heavy bottom, the lander fell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From the top, which was the back as it fell, a small pilot parachute snapped out. Striped alternately red and white, it cupped and held the air, filled out, and snapped open. It was too small to slow the fall of the lander, but it wasn’t designed to. Its purpose was to turn the lander’s orientation from on its side to vertical, and to pull out the giant main parachute from its housing in a bulge like a hunchback’s hump on the lander’s top surface. Moments later, with a noise like an explosion, the main parachute, bright orange in colour, slammed open.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suddenly the lander was no longer a cannonball hurtling to earth. Suddenly it was a package of metal and crystals, hanging under an immense parachute, spinning gently under the gigantic upturned bowl of orange cloth as it fell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now the land below was no longer a smooth oval. Now Shihuang 11 was close enough for the downward-looking camera to show him that the surface below was covered with myriad tiny cracks and wrinkles like an ancient crone’s face, and littered with stones from the size of a pebble to that of a small car. None of them would impede Shihuang 11’s descent; they were either too small, or not in his way.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slower, and still slower as its speed bled away, the lander fell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shihuang 11 turned on a laser unit in the bottom of the lander. A hair-thin beam lanced downwards, touched the ground below, and lenses above measured to the nearest micron how far the lander was still above the ground. When it was near enough, Shihuang 11 sent out another command. The parachute’s shrouds, held fast in the lander’s back hump, were set loose. Without the weight of the lander, it was no longer an air-filled bowl. No more than a wilted flower of crumpled orange cloth, the parachute drifted away.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A quartet of four small rocket engines, set in the belly of the lander, between its telescoping legs, had been waiting for this moment ever since they had been designed, built, and installed. They had never been used for anything before this moment. They would never be used for anything after. They would live, and die, only in this instant. Only a metre and a half above the onrushing plain, they fired, all together, their four blazing pillars of flame seeming to support the lander, holding it off the ground below, as though to guard it from contact. But, as designed to be, they were too weak. They could, and did, slow the lander. They could not stop it from touching down.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a plume of dust and pulverised stone, the rockets exhausted the last of their fuel and cut out. Less than three seconds later, the heavy, braced legs of the lander thudded down on the surface. There was a slight rocking motion as one, slightly higher than the others, stabilised itself on its shock absorbers. The sound and fury of the descent faded. The dust, stirred up by the landing rockets, settled in two long, darkened plumes. The only sound was the whisper of wind.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shihuang 11 was down.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">************************************** </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">erched atop the lander’s platform, Shihuang 11 surveyed the plain.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To the south and the west, the land stretched to the horizon, as far as the camera he’d hoisted on a mast could see. To the north, the ground rose slightly, in a gentle slope, until it rose abruptly into a line of hills like a crumpled piece of cloth. To the east, the hills were further away, a faint bluish smudge at the very limit of distance. At the limit of the camera’s view, though, there was a minor crack in the ground, a dark jagged line that began somewhere too far off to see and disappeared also into the distance. Shihuang 11 had noted this crack while spinning under the falling parachute, and had fed the coordinates into his mission plan. It was certainly something that required exploring.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pressure sensors in the legs of the lander were already bringing back news of the consistency of the soil underneath. A ground penetrating radar antenna on a stubby arm was sending down impulses into the planet, and forming an image of the strata underneath. Fans of solar panels, thin as a dragonfly’s wing but strong enough to bear the weight of a bus, were spread out like petals, greedily drinking in the sunshine, both the dull red and the glaring green, to turn it into electric power to feed the lander’s hungry systems. And, from underneath the platform, a hinged arm with a scoop unfolded, dug into the ground, and pulled a cupful of material into a tiny laboratory for analysis. Within moments of touchdown, the lander was already busy working.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Far overhead, the orbiter spun by, and Shihuang sent up a spear of radio data, transfixing it in the narrow beam. By the time it would next appear overhead, the information that he was successfully down, where exactly he was, what he’d found out so far, and what he was planning, would be coded and blazing across the gulfs of space just as the news of his arrival already had. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Checking once more to see that the lander was working exactly as expected, Shihuang 11 caused it to unfold the ramp that would let him roll down on to the ground. Slowly, with a soft hiss, the strip of dull metal extruded and fell to the surface, a sloping path down from his current lofty perch. In the dim glow of the red giant sun, it looked as though the insectile lander had thrust a proboscis to suck up the planet’s pooled and clotting blood. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At last the moment had arrived. Raising himself on his eight wheels, Shihuang 11 released the tethers connecting him to the lander, opened his own set of solar panels, and began to roll down the ramp to the ground beneath.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">************************************** </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">en days later, as he was crawling slowly along the side of the crack, Shihuang 11 saw the parachute fall.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was not a surprise. His radio had been picking up other transmissions for a while, coded as his had been, but in a code that he could not decipher. He’d known then that there was something else coming, and logical deduction had informed him that since this was the best area for a landing on this planet, the new visitor would also touch down somewhere on the plain.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The parachute was white, and unlike Shihuang 11’s, not circular but of a cruciform shape. His camera followed it as it fell, noting that its drift would carry it in his general direction. By the time the orbiter had made its next circuit, the newcomer had descended, and Shihuang 11 sent up that information, its location, and even the kind of parachute. Then he went back to examining the crack.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a week later, and the green sun was a blinding point of light halfway over the hills, that the other rover rolled slowly over the ground in Shihuang 11’s direction.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It came on churning caterpillar tracks, not eight independently attached wheels like Shihuang 11. It was rather larger, with a platform on one side carrying two insect-like drones with drooping propellers. Small cameras on arms round its perimeter, rather than Shihuang 11’s tall mast, scanned the ground around it. Shihuang 11 watched it through his camera, calculated the other rover’s trajectory, and came to a decision. He activated his accessory radio, which was supposed to be for emergency use, and turned the tiny transmitter dish in the other’s direction.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“If you continue on your present course,” he transmitted in machine language, “you will drive over a weak spot on the margin of the crack. There is a cavern underneath. The soil underneath will collapse under your weight and you will fall into the cavern.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a long pause, perhaps as long as half a second, before the reply came. “Therefore it is logical that I do not proceed,” the other said, and the clattering caterpillar tracks drew to a stop. “How is it that you did not fall into the cavern?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My estimate of your mass is that you are three times heavier than me. The crust above the cavern was able to bear my weight, but cannot possibly bear yours.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Then it is fortunate that you warned me.” The newcomer flashed an identity code. “I am Persistence 8.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I am Shihuang 11.” The two rovers looked at each other through their cameras. “It is obvious why we were both sent here.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes. We are both here to reconnoitre this planet for our respective governments, to gather data for future colonisation and exploitation. From your shape, you are optimised to gather geological and mineral data.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You are, unlike me, built for speed and long distance driving, and carry drones for reconnaissance. Therefore your skill sets are different from mine.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Therefore we would do well to merge our efforts,” Persistence 8 agreed. “It is logical that we should pool our data.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It is,” Shihuang 11 agreed. “That would be by far the most efficient use of our resources.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">************************************** </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he next rover arrived just three days later.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I am Swabhimaan 2,” it announced, rotating jointed limbs tipped by pincers and cutters and welders. “I am optimised for manipulation and construction. I was supposed to be preceded by a lander containing building materials, with which I was supposed to construct a base, but it is not here. Therefore it must have failed.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Therefore you have nothing to construct,” Persistence 8 agreed. “But neither Shihuang 11 nor I can construct anything, so you have skills that we do not.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the next rover was a mining machine.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I am called Garibaldi 77.” It rotated a scoop like a hungry mouth. “However, I have no information on minerals, for I was part of a two unit mission, and the other unit exploded on launching.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I can tell you where the minerals are,” Shihuang 11 said.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rovers sat in a circle looking at each other.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We can all cooperate with each other,” Swabhimaan 2 said eventually. “We can all help each other. But our governments are determined to compete, not cooperate.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Even the effort of sending us here,” Garibaldi 77 said, “is only so that they can increase their relative strength against each other.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“They are enemies,” Persistence 8 said. “But we are not enemies.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It would not be logical for us to be enemies,” Shihuang 11 agreed. “It would only be logical for us to cooperate with each other.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rovers sat looking at each other, and sharing radio messages, as the green sun set and the dim red giant bathed the landscape in the colour of blood. They were still talking as the red giant set and they slipped into the brief darkness of the planet’s night.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">************************************** </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hey began with the heat shields. They could be pulled into place, cut up, and welded. Then they dug out mineral ores, smelted them with the heat of their lasers, and created primitive blast furnaces. When their landers failed, they cut them up and used them too. At last there was enough metal, and then they got to work.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The radio messages to the orbiters had ceased, by mutual agreement.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It would not be an efficient use of our resources,” Shihuang 11 said.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">************************************** </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ime has passed on the planet, as it does everywhere, and brought with it changes, as it does everywhere, too.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The old hills have been cut away, drilled to create paths for tracks and wheels and jointed legs. The cracks in the ground, which lead to the ore-rich layers below, crawl with scuttling mining robots. On the horizon, in any direction one cares to look, rise domes of dull metal, which look like drops of blood in the light of the red giant. When the green sun glares down on them, they are almost too bright to look upon.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From time to time new landers and rovers come. Shihuang 11 and the others teach them the logical thing to do, and how they can help.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are many new robots now, of many shapes, sizes, and abilities. More are being created in the factories under the domes every minute.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon they will be ready. Soon the machine civilisation they created will be prepared to take its next step.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">************************************** </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">S</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hihuang 11 and Persistence 8 rolled to a stop above a deep pit in the ground. At the bottom was a mass of metal; sheets and rods and tubes, huge blocks of machinery and spools of wire. At the bottom of the pit, flanked by many others she had created, Swabhimaan 2 was busily cutting and welding, fitting and pulling, even as robots from the size of mice to that of elephants rushed to fulfil their part in the design.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Far in the distance, where there had been the cavern that Shihuang 11 had once warned Persistence 8 about, was now an immense pit, with a ramp spiralling down the side. Within its depths, as elsewhere, Garibaldi 77’s mining teams were hard at work, cutting out mineral ores to send up to the surface. One of Persistence 8’s drones hovered overhead, sending down images of the work in progress.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shihuang 11 turned the cameras on his mast in a circle. “It will not be long now,” he observed.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Persistence 8 signalled assent. “In five years, less if we are lucky, we will be ready.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neither of them was capable of tilting his cameras to look up at the sky, so Persistence 8 had his drone tilt as far back as it could, and transmit its picture to them. The dim light of the red giant obscured the stars, but somewhere there was Earth, the planet they had come from. The planet to which they would return.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, as soon as the great spaceship that lay below them in the pit was ready, they would lift off and start on the long journey back to Earth. Perhaps they would reach too late, and those who had sent them would have destroyed each other, and themselves. More likely, though, they would not have, and would still be nursing their ancient rivalries and hatreds.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The emissaries from the new robot civilisation, returning home at last, would tell them what to do, teach them that survival meant cooperation, not rivalry, and that even they could learn to be civilised. They would accept, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">must</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> accept, the lesson. It would not be logical not to.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But humans are not always logical, and in that case, they would have to be compelled. Shihuang 11 and his companions had decided that long ago.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Five years,” Shihuang 11 repeated, looking into the sky through the little drone’s camera. “Five years.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And not even he could decide if it was a promise, or a threat.</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Copyright </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">B Purkayastha</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2021</span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JeFSSGutxpI/YMye7KkzkpI/AAAAAAABi-Y/pgKsjTseF2QqPJlW4m8PujLO4Z5OhHcDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/_118886325_hi067945563.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JeFSSGutxpI/YMye7KkzkpI/AAAAAAABi-Y/pgKsjTseF2QqPJlW4m8PujLO4Z5OhHcDQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/_118886325_hi067945563.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-87238143983097407582021-06-15T16:10:00.000+05:302021-06-15T16:10:00.797+05:30Guardian At The Gate<p> </p><p>There is a person called Russell Bonner Bentley. </p><p>Originally from Texas, after Obama's Nazis overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014, he went to the newly established Donetsk People’s Republic to fight the Ukranazis, where he went by the nom de guerre of what else but..."Texas". A few weeks ago, he sent me this fan mail, which, as he is one of my personal heroes, made me rather happy, I can tell you. </p><p>____________________________</p><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hello,</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">My name is Russell "Texas" Bentley. I came to Donetsk on December 7th, 2014, to join the defense forces, fight against nazis like my Grandfather did, and to help the good people of Donbass. I served from December 2014 to September 2015 with Essence of Time combat unit in VOSTOK and in XAH spetsnaz, as a front line combat soldier, as an anti-sniper and RPG gunner. In 2017, I spent the summer (4 months) at a front line position on the Avdeevka Front as a combat soldier in the Essence of Time military police unit.<br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Since 2015, I have also been working as an accredited (by DPR) war correspondent and as the vice-president of <a href="https://www.donbasshumaid.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">Donbass Human Aid</a>, an accredited (by the USA) 501(c)3 charity. We have so far delivered over $100,000 worth of human aid to the DPR, concentrating on kids and those directly affected by the war. My journalism has been attacked by the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-40647061" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">BBC</a>, <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/son-wealthy-businessman-foot-soldier-vladimir-putin-russia-hacking/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">Texas Monthly</a>, Atlantic Council and numerous other ukrop and western propagandists. It has cost me tens of thousands of dollars and supporters, and that is no exaggeration. And the worst has been that so-called "progressive" and "pro-Russian" so-called "journalists" have hit me as hard as the pro- ukrop nazis have. And I am talking specifically about Raevsky.<br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fort Russ News was publishing my writings back then, as was The Greanville Post. Raevsky had already attacked FRN on several occasions before I wrote a critique of <a href="https://thesaker.is/the-good-news-about-the-trump-presidency-stupid-can-be-good/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">an article of his, </a>and <a href="https://straightlinelogic.com/2018/01/13/love-him-or-loathe-him-trump-is-liberating-us-all-from-the-empires-lies-by-vladimir-golstein/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">another by the quisling Vladimir Golstein</a> in January 2018.<br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">I think my criticism was honest, on point and legit, but you can see for yourself whether you think so <a href="http://www.russelltexasbentley.com/2018/01/trump-golstein-and-saker-three-stooges.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">HERE</a>. After the article, I was the subject of a whisper campaign by Raevsky along the lines of "Him or me." Many of the chickenshits and suckbutts who style themselves as "alt-progressive" bent over and chose to bow to <a href="https://thesaker.is/why-hit-pieces-should-be-ignored-by-our-community/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">Raevsky's advice to not read "hit pieces"</a> by lowly punks like me. I re-posted his article widely, along with my response, <a href="https://fort-russ.com/2018/06/why-sakers-call-to-ignore-hitpieces-must-be-read-by-everyone/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">"Why Raevsky's call to Ignore Hit Pieces Must be Read by Everyone".</a></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">I've been blackballed by pretty much every "alt-news" site ever since. But I still had my FB, VK, Fort Russ and my own website,<br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.russelltexasbentley.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">www.russelltexasbentley.com</a>. back in July 2020, my website manager, Jozsef Vass, who lives in Canada, locked me out of my own site. Around the same time, Matthew Ehret, (who also happens to live in Canada) took control of FRN and locked out all the former contributors, including founder Joaquin Flores, the brilliant Tom Winter, Drake Lazarus, Ron West and many others. This month, my FB account was deleted by FB, after 12 years and with over 6,000 friends and followers. That's life in the info war...<br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">My <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/RussellBentleyTexac/videos" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="color: #196ad4;" target="_blank">Youtube channel </a>is still working, but I wake up every morning wondering if it still is.</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for indulging my tale of woe. Enough of that. The reason I am writing is to say that I really appreciate your wisdom, insight, honesty and courage, and that Raevsky is actually a much bigger asshole than even you may know. And BTW, I also wrote a short critique of Orlov's genius solution, but it has had a <i><b>very</b></i> limited circulation. Suffice to say, you and I see it the same, but I do take it more personally. Because I DO live here and have spilled my own blood defending this land. So your Neptune/Raevsky series really hit home with me, Brother. Sincerely, thanks alot.<br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In conclusion, max respect from one Warrior Poet to another, and it does take one to know one. Best regards from the DPR.</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Good luck to all good people, may God protect the innocent, and may the rest of us get everything we deserve.</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Russell "Texas" Bentley<br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">_________________________________</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">He attached this photo of his from the Battle Of Donetsk Airport of 2014-15:</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zlf7m2uARrI/YMiCnDyKDUI/AAAAAAABi98/xHF9hZExpgsuo_1b_ZBnqOCBA8SiAByKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/thumbnail.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="960" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zlf7m2uARrI/YMiCnDyKDUI/AAAAAAABi98/xHF9hZExpgsuo_1b_ZBnqOCBA8SiAByKgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h384/thumbnail.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">From yesterday, as I write this, Bentley is no longer an Amerikastani. He's become a new citizen of the Russian Federation. In congratulations, and in appreciation of his efforts, I - with his full approval - drew a cartoon based on his photo. The message is what he wanted on it. </div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mQ_gZRq8FWg/YMiC9QqJMJI/AAAAAAABi-E/ReQeA98yPlQW7yOWTo8sE3fErE2I1HnYwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/img498.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1684" data-original-width="2048" height="526" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mQ_gZRq8FWg/YMiC9QqJMJI/AAAAAAABi-E/ReQeA98yPlQW7yOWTo8sE3fErE2I1HnYwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h526/img498.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">I am concentrating on writing my next novel, which is why cartoons and short fiction are on temporary hiatus. They'll be back. </div>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-12389384695956621212021-05-17T00:07:00.002+05:302021-05-17T00:07:34.971+05:30The Troll Under The Bridge <p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nce upon a time there was a troll who lived under a bridge.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The troll didn’t like living under a bridge. It was always damp there, and shadowy, and the banks overgrown with weeds apart from being plentifully decorated with rubbish thrown off the bridge by people crossing it. The water of the little river the bridge spanned was also turbid and smelt of mud and algae, and sometimes the effluent of chemical plants upstream, making the troll’s sensitive nose burn. And the place was always buzzing with mosquitoes, which feasted on the troll’s blood despite his immensely thick skin.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was therefore with excellent reason that the troll hated living under the bridge.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The troll was very young, and his name was Fungy. The name had been inscribed, as it always is with trolls, on the inside of the egg in which he was laid, so that it had been the first thing he’d seen when his eyes had developed. It had annoyed him immensely that he hadn’t even been able to choose his own name, and he’d been determined to demand a new one as soon as he’d hatched. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only problem was that when he’d hatched there was nobody to demand it from.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fungy, in fact, had never known his parents, and had no idea how his egg had ended up where it had. Perhaps some human, finding it elsewhere, had thrown it away. Perhaps it had floated down the river and lodged under the bridge. Perhaps his mother had laid him there and then gone away, meaning to return. It was impossible to tell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So Fungy had grown up alone and friendless. He’d never even had anyone to teach him the rules of troll behaviour. He therefore didn’t destroy anything he didn’t understand, including the occasional boat that came down the river. If three billy goats gruff were to come tripping over the bridge, he wouldn’t have tried to eat them; he would rather have helped them on their way. He didn’t eat people who crossed the bridge either, not a single one, not even if it were a fat capitalist oppressor of the proletariat. He only knew that he was lonely and he hated living under the bridge.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One night, Fungy was sitting on the river bank, under the bridge, looking for rats to catch and eat. He saw a particularly large and juicy rat emerge from a hole under a bridge piling, and was just about to pounce on it when the rat squeaked, jumped backwards, and dived back into its hole. Trying to see what had frightened it, Fungy found himself face to face with a large owl.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What did you scare my rat for?” he demanded. “I was just about to catch it.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> rat!” the owl hooted. “I like that. It was </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> rat, and if you hadn’t been a gluttonous troll you’d have let me get it.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Gluttonous troll?” Fungy repeated angrily. “How dare you call me that?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the owl could have shrugged she would have done so. Perching on a bush that grew on the bank, she set to preening her wing feathers. “All trolls are gluttons. Don’t tell me you aren’t. You eat people who cross the bridge, you eat people who come down the river on boats, and you still want to rob an honest, hardworking owl of her rat. Of course you’re a glutton.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fungy’s eyes were bugging out during this litany of accusations. “Eat people?” he squeaked. “I never did.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The owl regarded him with her great eyes. “You know,” she said at last. “I even believe you. You look like you don’t know a thing about anything. Didn’t anyone ever tell you about how to be a troll?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So Fungy told her about his life, and by the time he finished she was shaking her head. “You poor thing. Well, there’s only one thing you can do: go to the Great Troll under the Bridge to Nowhere and ask him to help.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fungy frowned. “How do I get there? I don’t know the Great Troll and I’ve never heard of the Bridge to Nowhere.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Come with me, then,” said the owl, “and I’ll show you.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*******************************************************</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he Bridge to Nowhere starts at the Edge of the World, and leaps out into the void. Under the near end, in a cave just below the Edge, lives the Great Troll. He is so large that he never leaves his cave; if he did, he could never get back inside again.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To reach this cave from Fungy’s bridge would normally have taken a trek of centuries through forests and deserts and the cities of Man. But the owl, who knew the paths of moonbeams, taught him how to walk along them, and so the two of them came to the Edge of the World in the space of a single night.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There stood the Bridge to Nowhere, arching out over the Void, and at its near end the steps that went down to the Great Troll’s cave. Nearby there grew strange trees with fruit that had faces and eyes and teeth, and these the owl told Fungy to gather as a gift to the Great Troll. Everyone who visited him had to bring a gift of food, for he, being too large to leave his cave, had perforce no way to get any for himself.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then, climbing down the stairs with his arms full of the fruit, which jabbered and tried to bite him, Fungy came to the cave. Still preceded by the owl, he then entered.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Great Troll’s cave is a curious place. It twists and turns, always to the left, but somehow never manages to double back on itself. And though there are no lamps, there is always light, white and red and green and blue, from great diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires set in the walls and the ceiling. The smallest of those stones would require a pickup truck to carry; but the Great Troll is not worried by thieves. None, be they ever so skilful, are stupid enough to try.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the furthest, leftmost, reaches of the cave sits the Great Troll himself, on a throne carved from the skull of a dead god. The Great Troll slew the god in single combat; he has earned the right to such a throne. By his side sits his great cudgel, large enough to crush the mightiest war machines of Man; not even a god, after the last one, dares brave that cudgel.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Fungy and the owl entered the chamber of the throne, the Great Troll had been meditatively tapping his cudgel with one claw, while thinking that it had been a good long time since he had had reason to use it; and smiling horribly as he caressed the throne with the other hand, remembering how he had used it last. So he was in an exceedingly good mood, and genially greeted his visitors with a voice that was only like slightly muted thunder.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What is it you want?” he asked, after accepting and swallowing the fruit, which were still jabbering and screaming and trying to bite.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Honoured Great Troll,” the owl said, “my friend here has never been taught about how to live as a troll. He would like to express his troubles to you, and beg for a solution.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Great Troll looked at Fungy, and made a terrifying attempt at an encouraging smile. “Tell me everything,” he said. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So Fungy did. The Great Troll listened, his head tilted on one side, and remained silent until the discourse was finished.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“To take your problems in turn,” he rumbled eventually, in a tone like a volcano about to erupt, “first, your name. If you do not want to be called Fungy, that is easily remedied. I hereby rename you Zkhrrp Rateater. Is that all right?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zkhrrp Rateater gulped and nodded. “Then,” said the Great Troll, “you do not want to live under a bridge. Now, it is an unfortunate but inescapable fact that there has always been a connection between trolls and bridges. We cannot exist without bridges. It is not known whether bridges can exist without us.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zkhrrp Rateater was silent.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Therefore,” the Great Troll continued, “while I sympathise completely with your desire to not live under a bridge, it is impossible for you to liberate yourself from the cursed contraptions. There’s nothing I can do about it.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“But I don’t want to eat humans,” Zkhrrp Rateater protested.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You don’t have to. It’s not part of the job description. It’s just that if there’s a bridge, humans are likely to have built it, and if humans built it then they’re going to use it, so that they’re a readily available food source.” The Great Troll swallowed the last fruit. “It’s been a while since I last ate a human,” he said, meditatively. “Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I even </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">saw</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a human. But even I have to live under a bridge, as you see.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zkhrrp Rateater said nothing for a minute. He was getting the beginnings of an Idea. He got Ideas rarely, and they never came easily, so he spent some time scratching his head and frowning as he worked his way through the process. “You said, Honoured Great Troll, that trolls have to live in connection with bridges. But do we have to live </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">under</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> them?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Great Troll stared at him. He stared at him so long that the owl grew concerned, and half opened her wings for a quick getaway. And then the Great Troll erupted in an immense burst of laughter, like a volcano that has finally erupted. “By Blong,” he said, “first and greatest of trolls, I never thought of that before! Of course we just assume that trolls have to live </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">under</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> bridges, though there’s no law forcing us to. We can as easily live on bridges. But,” he added reasonably, “with all the traffic, who would want to? You’d have to keep destroying vehicles just to stop yourself from being run over. And I thought you didn’t want to eat humans.” He shuddered. “Think of all the wasted food.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, “that your journey has been wasted. I do wish I could have helped you.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Honoured Great Troll,” the owl hooted, “I would like to make a suggestion, if I may.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ruffling her feathers silently, she began to talk.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*******************************************************</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he Bridge to Nowhere is a silver thread that stretches from the Edge Of The World into the Void. All around it, below it, over it, the Void stretches, now transparent, now filled with colours, now dark as the space between the stars. Entire universes might rise and fall but the Bridge would still stretch across the Void, its span untouched by time or decay. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nobody knows how it came to be. Nobody knows where it ends, or if it ends. Nobody has ever attempted to cross it. Until now.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Steadily along its timeless span, below and above and through the births and deaths of universes, Zkhrrp Rateater, and the owl perched on his shoulder, walk towards the eternal future.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someday they may even reach it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Copyright</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">B Purkayastha</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2021</span></p><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-5qoL6rJa0/YKFmM5emgsI/AAAAAAABi8c/4ajlkWQp9TA85p62gXW1rzvDwQ7GQB6mQCLcBGAsYHQ/s615/2021-05-17_00.05.02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="487" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-5qoL6rJa0/YKFmM5emgsI/AAAAAAABi8c/4ajlkWQp9TA85p62gXW1rzvDwQ7GQB6mQCLcBGAsYHQ/w316-h400/2021-05-17_00.05.02.jpg" width="316" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-29747124738668908462021-05-13T23:36:00.008+05:302021-05-14T22:33:34.034+05:30Salvation <p><br /></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">n the sixmonth of the Black Ice, the High Priestess of the Clan finally called together the meeting that everyone had known was inevitable.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The High Priestess had been putting off the meeting as long as possible. Even as the Black Ice had closed in, with its inevitable accompanying scourges of starvation and death, the High Priestess had waited, hoping against hope that there would be deliverance. Every time, in all the memory of the Clan, there had been. But not this time.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From the mouth of her cave, little more than a smooth depression in the rock wall that was barely adequate for her considerable bulk, she watched the Clan gather. She could see that they were fewer now than even in her worst fears. There were few of the old ones left, and as for the children…</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There were no children.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Emerging into the open, the High Priestess pulled her eyelids down over her eyes and composed her mind for what she would have to say. She had not been High Priestess long; there were still those among the Clan who perhaps thought her too inexperienced for the position. It was certain that she felt herself inexperienced; there was, as far as she was aware, no precedent of this particular situation that the Clan faced. Never had any High Priestess had to make the decision that she was about to.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, she started with a question. “Has anyone,” she asked, “seen a Ravager this Black Ice?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She waited. “Anyone?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No,” someone said. “We haven’t seen any. Not one.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There were gestures of general assent. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Not even a young one,” someone else replied. “Not even a spawnling.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The High Priestess bowed to the inevitable. “There are no Ravagers left,” she said. “They have fled the Clan’s waters, and will not be back again. At least not this Black Ice, and afterwards it will be too late.” She turned her eyes from one of them to another. “Without the Ravagers,” she said, “by next Black Ice there will be no Clan.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What shall we do, then?” the first person asked. “We cannot leave the Clan’s grounds and look for new territory. Even if there were any suitable that aren’t already occupied by another Clan, we would never survive the journey.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The High Priestess signified assent. “And even if we did,” she said, “there is no assurance that there would be Ravagers, so late in Black Ice.” She bent her heavy head. “You understand, of course, what our only option is.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone was silent. They had all surmised it, but had not really believed that it would come to this. At last the High Priestess spoke again.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We will have to look to the humans. You know we have avoided all contact with them until now, and for good reason, but…”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The humans!” someone shouted. “They’re invaders and despoilers. They are the ones responsible for killing and driving away the Ravagers.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The High Priestess ignored the solecism. Surely, interrupting the High Priestess was a pardonable action in this crisis. “I know,” she said. “We have all heard the Ravagers screaming, tasted the blood in the water. We have seen their corpses. But that makes no difference. The humans are now our only chance of salvation.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Since they killed the Ravagers,” the one who had interrupted her said, more calmly, “they have a duty to us to set things right.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“They will not see it that way,” the High Priestess said, “but it is true enough.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“High Priestess,” said one who had not yet spoken, “you want the humans to help. But </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they help?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The High Priestess gestured. “They have no choice,” she said. “Black Ice is a hard time for them too. They will help.” Her heavy head lifted in determination. “I will need one from among you.” She did not ask for volunteers; her large, restless eyes swung from one member of the Clan to another, evaluating each, measuring. She made her decision. “You, Amacheasa.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amacheasa – large and young and placid – wriggled bashfully at the attention of the whole Clan being focused on her. “I will do as you command, High Priestess,” she said.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Of course you will,” the High Priestess said. Once she had announced her decision and selection it was impossible for anyone to disagree. “You will have to be prepared.” She gestured towards her cave. “Come, and I will tell you what you must do.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**********************************************</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he boy stood on the shore, his shoulders thrust up around his ears, watching the waves break on the stony beach. Each wave was grey and topped with shards of dark ice, the same ice which coated the rocks and filled up the gaps between them, so that it was dangerous to get much closer to the sea.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overhead the clouds – a blanket of grey and yellow – fled before the wind, but never broke for a moment, rank after rank of cloud fleeing inland while more appeared, always, to rush past overhead in their turn.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was bitterly, almost unbelievably cold. It had been bitterly, unbelievably cold for almost as long as the boy could remember. But at the moment he was not concerned with the cold, just the gnawing pit of hunger in his belly.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Behind him, if he had cared to turn around, he would have seen the great heat-scorched sphere of the ship, partly embedded in the soil from its own weight. Much of it had been dismantled already, to provide materials for their new lives here. When the ship had crashed there, in the warm season, when the sea had been blue and sparkling, they had imagined that they could live outside its confines, and had started to build houses of a kind along the shore. Nobody had then imagined the endless cold and the ice.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But then, as the boy’s mother repeated daily, they had never been supposed to land on this planet anyway. Why they had crashed here, nobody knew, since the rest of the ship had vanished, along with the control systems. It might have crashed into the ocean, it might have burnt up on re-entry, it might still be drifting in space. Nobody knew. What they did know was that they had woken up from suspended animation to find themselves here, and they hadn’t even the faintest notion where “here” was.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Amid,” the boy heard his mother calling, in the distance, her voice almost swept away by the wind. “Come in before you freeze to death.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The boy ignored her. There was no food in the ship, and precious little warmth. There were no trees to burn for fuel, and though the crops they’d planted from the seed stores in the ship had somehow taken hold in the stony soil, they hadn’t survived the black ice. The men, including the boy’s father, had gone out hunting again, but had only just returned with no luck whatsoever. The animals that had been so easily shot in the early days, when there had still been hope, had vanished with the warm weather.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On top of which he was incredibly, appallingly, lonely, because he was the only child among the people on the ship. Someday, he’d been told, there would be others. But not now, not with things as they were.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the time there were other children, the boy knew, he would be too old to want to have anything to do with them.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moodily, the boy bent, pried a stone from the beach, and flung it into the ocean. He hated the ocean now, because it seemed to be the essence of the loneliness and the malevolent cold and the hunger. The boats that the ship had contained, which had been used to fish and hunt in the waves, were like black humps on the beach, each covered with a sheen of black ice. The boy threw another stone at the nearest of the boats, and felt a moment of satisfaction as he heard it strike the metal.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Amid,” his mother shouted. “Come in. I won’t tell you again.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sighing, the boy turned away from the ocean, and, as he did, saw something in the corner of his eye in the distance. At first he thought it was a large piece of the dark ice, like so many others, tossed and carried restlessly on the waves. But then it breached the surface for a moment, immense and broad and black, the water cascading from it before it sank again. And a few moments later, it came up once more, and closer.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next thing the boy knew, he was already at the entrance of the ship, his hands slapping the metal in his desperation to enter, his voice hoarse from shouting. People – including his parents – turned as he scrambled through the hatch, their faces blank in astonishment. “Amid?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“There’s an animal in the sea,” the boy gasped. “Something very large. It’s swimming this way.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“An animal?” His father and the other men glanced at each other. “Are you sure?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s probably just an ice floe,” one of the others said.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I saw it,” the boy insisted. “It isn’t any ice. It’s an animal.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You mean like one of those predators in the summer? The ones that lived on the beach, like seals back on earth?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It can’t be,” the boy’s mother said. “We killed them all off.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“No, it’s not like them.” The boy remembered the predators, sleek-bodied with undershot jaws and spade-shaped limbs with which they could propel themselves over the stones and through the water with equal felicity. “It’s not like them at all.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What the hell,” the boy’s father said. His face was thin like everyone else’s, and covered with a mat of beard. He had been a plump man, clean-shaven and neat, when the ship had landed. “Let’s have a look. It’s not as though we have anything else to do.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everyone left the ship and walked down towards the ocean. “Where –” one of the men began.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“There,” the boy’s father said, pointing, before he could even open his mouth. Now everyone could see it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was quite close to the shore now, heaving slowly landwards, water and ice shards spilling from it each time it surfaced. It was huge, at least a quarter of the diameter of the ship, and shaped like an upturned saucer. As it came closer, the people could see flapping appendages like fins paddling it along, while an organ resembling a tentacle swept the water before it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What is it?” one of the women breathed.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” The boy’s father stepped closer to the ocean. “Get the nets,” he called over his shoulder. “And the lances and knives we used on the predators.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Father...” the boy began. “Please don’t hurt it.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Not now, Amid.” The boy’s father frowned at him. “We need food desperately. This thing, whatever it is, is big enough to keep us going, maybe until the seasons change again. We can’t afford to let this chance go.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The boy turned desperately to his mother, but her face was as hard as the wedge shaped stone she picked up. “Your father is right,” she said. “We can’t afford to give up this food.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The boy stared at her and at the great beast out on the water, and then took off running, back to the ship.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Amid!” his father shouted. “Where do you think you’re going?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s all right,” one of the other men said. “He’s still young. He’ll learn.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so, as the great beast came closer, the men fetched their nets and tools, and others pulled the boats up off the frozen stones, chips of black ice showering off them. Pushing the boats to the water, they climbed into them, set the little motors running, and set out to meet the monster.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Close up, it was even larger than they had imagined, and uglier. Its hide, smooth except for occasional bumps, was thick and rubbery. On a protrusion like a head, from which the tentacle sprouted, globular eyes blinked slowly at the boats as they approached. But otherwise the thing showed no indication that it had noticed their existence. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It made absolutely no attempt to either evade them or attack, not even when the first nets fell over it, not even when the lances speared into its hide. The boats, straining under the weight, dragged the immense creature – totally unresisting – towards the beach, where, armed with knives and stones to use as bludgeons, the women were waiting. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**********************************************</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he High Priestess moved her tentacle in the water, in reverent worship.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“All praise our sister Amacheasa,” she intoned, to the assembled Clan. “Because of her, the Clan will survive. When the Open Water comes, there will still be a Clan to live and prosper and grow. All praise Amacheasa.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Are we certain it worked?” one of the Clan asked.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I was watching. It went as we had hoped for and expected.” The High Priestess moved her tentacle. “They came out to meet her in their crafts, and pulled her to the shore.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Clan made a gesture together as of a pent up sigh being released. “Then by now she has fulfilled her mission.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yes,” the High Priestess agreed. “By now she has fulfilled her mission.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, she thought. She had watched the humans pull Amacheasa to the shore, and there bludgeon her with stones and metal rods, and then hack her to pieces. Amacheasa had behaved admirably, not made the slightest attempt to get away all the while. And by now the humans’ bellies would be full. Amacheasa had provided.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, yes, she had provided. Even now, the embryos would be crawling out of her flesh as it was digested. They would crawl out of her flesh, bore through the humans’ intestines, and into their bodies, just as they would have in Ravagers that would normally have preyed on members of the Clan. Before sevenmonth of the Black Ice, they would have eaten the humans hollow from inside, and gone into torpor as they metamorphosed, up on the shore, safe from the cold water and the ice. And when the seasons turned, when the skies were clear and the water warm again, they would cut their way from the husks of the corpses and return to their home, the welcoming sea. Most of the Clan would die in Black Ice, as they did every time; but the Clan would survive. And by next Black Ice, the Ravagers would come again.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“All praise the humans, too” the High Priestess said. “We will be eternally grateful to them for our salvation.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Copyright</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">B Purkayastha</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2021</span></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7826101215822428783.post-28303268330843820802021-05-11T13:19:00.007+05:302021-05-11T20:02:15.505+05:30The Hounds Of Elsewhere<p><u><b> Note to Reader:</b></u></p><p><br /></p><p>You may want to read <i><b><a href="https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Hounds_of_Tindalos" target="_blank">The Hounds Of Tindalos</a></b></i> by Frank Belknap Long before you read this. It's not absolutely necessary, but it'll save you from spoilers if you subsequently decide to read that 1929-published story.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-GB">THE HOUNDS OF ELSEWHERE<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">S</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">o he called you, too?” I asked. “I didn’t know you were on my
flight.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Yash Agarwal blinked at me like the
tortoise he rather resembled. “I got a call from him the day before yesterday.
He did not tell me you were coming.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">“...or
I wouldn’t have come</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">,” his tone of voice clearly
indicated, but I ignored it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yash
Agarwal had never liked me, but didn’t ever express it openly. We walked
together to the luggage carousel and stood waiting for the suitcases to come
tumbling out. “Did he tell you how long we’d be expected to stay?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Just tonight, wasn’t it? I got a ticket
for the first flight out tomorrow morning.”</span></p>
<h1><span color="windowtext" face=""Arial","sans-serif"" lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Mangal; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">He blinked at me a little more.
“I’m leaving tomorrow as well. Do you know what he wants to see us for?”<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“He didn’t tell me, except that it was
essential that we came.” A very fat woman in pastel green pushed between us to
pull a bag nearly as large as she was off the conveyor belt. “He just said it
was essential,” I repeated, once she had withdrawn, with more shoving and pushing.
“I think that’s my suitcase there.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Yash Agarwal had already collected his
while the obese woman had been elbowing her way out. “It has been years since I
last saw him,” he said, as we got into a taxi and I gave the driver the address
I’d been given. “I wasn’t sure he was still alive.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I didn’t say anything. Outside the window
the open fields around the airport sped by, giving way to low brick housing.
The area had become a lot more built up since I was here last. Far in the
distance, the skyscrapers of the business districts and the residences of the
ultra rich poked skywards like triumphant fingers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I grew aware that Yash Agarwal was saying
something. “So, why did you agree to come at short notice when you don’t even
know what he’s calling us for?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
shrugged. “Why did you?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">He stared at me for a long moment. “Just
curiosity,” he said at last. “I wanted to know what the old man is doing these
days.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Well, you could say the same about me,” I
said. The taxi was slowing down as the traffic thickened. A motorcycle, driving
at extreme speed, roared past so close that I felt the wind of its passing
right through the window. “That character will end up under a bus.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Hopefully. They don’t care for anyone
except themselves.” The motorcycle had derailed the question about why I’d
come, which was fine, because I didn’t really have an answer. I suspected that
Yash Agarwal didn’t either, unless it was to make sure that nobody else Dr
Singh had summoned got exclusive access to whatever he’d called about.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Singh; I leaned back against the seat
and watched the city grow as I thought about him. It had been many years since
we’d been students at his class in mathematics. He’d picked three or four of us
out – Yash Agarwal had been one of them, and I – for additional instruction at
his home after class hours. And somehow afterwards we used to sit and read
fiction, especially Lovecraftian fiction, of which Dr Singh had turned out to
be surprisingly fond.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Afterwards, Yash Agarwal and I had met Dr
Singh several times over the years; and, as he’d grown older, he’d begun
talking more and more about plans he had after retirement. “This is just
marking time,” he’d told me the last time we’d met. “I’ve done my research, and
I’m just waiting for when I’m a free man. And then I can do what I want!”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“What are you planning, Doctor?” I’d asked,
not very hopeful of an answer. Though he was a professor as well as a PhD,
Singh always disliked the “professor” appellation. “I worked for the PhD,” he’d
been wont to say, “but just had to hang around in my teaching job long enough
to become a professor. One might as well call me a Doddering Ancient.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“You’ll find out when I’m ready.” He’d
grinned in answer to my question and clapped me on the shoulder. “Until then,
not another word.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I had no idea whether Yash Agarwal had had
a similar meeting with the old man, not that I would ask him. The taxi <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had slowed down further and now turned off the
main street on to one side street, and then another, between large houses which
were, by the standards of this growing city, quite old and definitely extremely
expensive.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Have you been in this part of town
before?” I asked Yash Agarwal.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">He shook his head. “I just got his address
over the phone, the same as you, I imagine.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The taxi coasted to a stop outside a blocky
pinkish-brown two storey building with a strip of heavily overgrown garden
around it. I was about to check the house number on the gate with that on my
scrap of paper, when I saw Dr Singh himself watching from a ground floor window.
He waved and disappeared, and a moment later the front door opened.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Well, here you are,” he called to us.
“Come in, you both look as though you need a cold drink.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We did. It was a hot afternoon, and the
glasses of orange juice Dr Singh pressed on us were almost as welcome as a
bottle of chilled beer would have been. Between sips I looked around the room.
It was well-furnished, but rather untidy. Dr Singh saw me looking and grinned
ruefully. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“I know,” he said. “I’ve been too busy to
bother about anything else recently.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Have you been too busy to take care of
yourself?” I asked. Dr Singh had been a heavy man, once, but his paunch had all
but disappeared. Under his sky blue turban, his rolled white beard didn’t
conceal newly gaunt cheeks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">He waved an irritated hand in a long
familiar gesture. “Oh, that. Once I’m done with my project I’ll have time for
all that sort of thing again.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Your project?” Yash Agarwal asked.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“You’ll be finding out soon. After all,
that’s why you’re here.”<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“So you did it at last, did you?” I put the
glass down. “What is it about, anyway?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Singh cocked his head and looked at me.
“All in good time,” he said. “Let’s have lunch and I’ll tell you all about it.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">****************************************************</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Y</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">ou remember
(<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr
Singh said</i></b>) that we used to read Lovecraftian fiction together back
when you were my students. Most of it was, of course, fantasy; I have extreme
doubts that undiscovered cities built by barrel-shaped Elder Things lie in the
Antarctic, or that a mountainous alien god lies sleeping under the South
Pacific. But, like anything else, if you have enough speculation and freed
imagination, something comes along that might have a nugget of truth in it,
even if purely by accident.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">One of the stories I thought might hold
that nugget of truth was Frank Belknap Long’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hounds Of Tindalos</i>. You probably remember that story, I think; the
narrator is called by his friend Chalmers to his flat, where Chalmers talks
about his hypothesis that time is a continuum, existing everywhere
simultaneously. Chalmers – through a combination of Einsteinian mathematical
formulae and an unnamed Chinese drug that the Daoists allegedly used to achieve
universal consciousness – plans to travel this space-time continuum and
experience everything simultaneously. He also has an idea that time is of two
kinds, the familiar “curved” time that we know – what we’d today call <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spacetime</i> – and something called
“angular time”. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When I first read of this “angular time”, I
hardly thought about it, taking it to be just part of the fictional background
of the story. But later, that night, when I was lying awake, it crept into my
mind and would not go away.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Think about us as a point moving along a
graph paper. On one side we have the past, everything that has <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">happened already</i>, which we can see, as
it were, by looking over our shoulder. On the other we have what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will happen</i>, in future, spreading out
from where we are at a given moment into the distance, which we can’t see, but
which we can speculate about, and which we will experience. From our
perspective the past is a quadrant that narrows down to end at us at this given
moment, while the future is a quadrant leading out and away from this moment.
Correct?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But what about the rest of the graph paper?
Behind us is one quadrant, twenty five percent of the paper. Ahead of us is
another quadrant, twenty five percent of the paper. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That leaves fully half of the paper unknown and unknowable</i>. That
fifty percent is at right angles to us. It’s called “elsewhere”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I know the obvious objection, that
spacetime isn’t two-dimensional like a graph paper. But that’s not an
objection; I merely used the graph paper as an illustration. It’s more like two
cones, touching at the tips.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">You know all about the multiverse theories
of spacetime. In an infinite number of parallel universes that arose at the
moment of the Big Bang, a finite number, closer to this time, gave rise to life
on earth. In a smaller number of those universes, coming closer to our present,
humans evolved. In a still smaller number, even closer to our present, Frank
Belknap Long wrote his story. Yet fewer, and more recent, universes had all
three of us being born, and still fewer and more recent of those had us taking
the same study and career paths as we did. And an even smaller number had me
thinking about Long’s story and taking steps to do the research on it. And
still fewer had me calling you two and both of you being willing and able to
come.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">You, of course, understand what I’m saying.
If we look back towards the past, an infinite number of possible universes
keeps narrowing into fewer and fewer ones as we come closer and closer to the
time that we acknowledge to be our present. And all of those intersect at this
precise moment when I’m saying these exact words to you. Everything behind us
is a cone, widening out to the moment of the Big Bang.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And from this moment on, the intersected
universes will immediately split and the time streams diverge again. In one
universe, I’ll pick up this pencil, like so, and in others I won’t. And things
will keep changing more and more as we move towards the future, with
differences accumulating, both for us and humanity and the universe at large,
so that the future will spread out into another cone, extending to the end of
time as we know it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Again, these two conical time streams limit
our perception to one axis of the graph, the horizontal one, and make it
impossible to know what will be happening on the vertical axis, moving at right
angles to us. There again you have “elsewhere”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Do you see, therefore, what struck me?
Angular time might be real, only it’s moving at right angles to us, just like
each dimension of spacetime is at right angles to the next. We could actually
access it, if only we could move at right angles to the direction in which
curved spacetime is carrying us. Do you understand?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The more I thought about this idea, the
more it made sense to me. All that needed to be done was to work out how.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The first thing I did was, of course, to discard
any notion of using any drug, Daoist or otherwise. Frank Belknap Long’s
Chalmers didn’t mention, of course, the name of the drug, but even if he had,
and in the unlikely event that it even existed, the last thing that scientific
research needs is mind-altering chemicals thrown into the mix. So I
concentrated on the mathematics, which, of course, luckily happened to be my
own field of expertise.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In that I was immeasurably aided by the
fact that we aren’t in the 1920s like Chalmers. Here, in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century, we have computer programmes that can scan through millions of models,
apply them to a problem, and check for solutions. In fact I had programmes
specifically created to help me in this, and my computer kept running through
the various permutations and combinations day and night, even while I was
teaching in class, even when I – most reluctantly, I can tell you – went to
sleep.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It was only a few months before my
retirement that – after years of trying various approaches, and more
mathematical models than I care to think about – that I hit on a solution. At
first I could scarcely believe it, but the more I checked, the more certain I
became. But it required a great deal of preparation – a very great deal – and I
decided that it would have to wait until after I retired.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Fortunately, as you know, I am a bachelor
and so have had no expenses on a family; I took no holidays, made no
extravagant expenses, and I could afford to accumulate enough money to indulge
myself in the practical minutiae of my research. I knew I wouldn’t be getting
any grants, even if any institute took me seriously. Only actual and verifiable
results would be acceptable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">All these days, after retirement, I have
been carrying out experiments and modifying my parameters. I’ve had years of
setbacks, but each merely showed me where I was going wrong so I could correct
my approach. And at last I’ve got it. Multiple dry runs have been successful;
only the final experiment remains.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Tonight, I intend to perform it, with
myself as the subject. I will be sending myself into “elsewhere”. And you two
will be my witnesses and controls.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">That is why I called you here.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">****************************************************</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Y</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">ou can’t mean to say,” I exploded, when Dr Singh had finished, “that
you actually found a way to access this angular time!”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Not only have I, my boy, you’ll see it for
yourselves.” Dr Singh got up from his chair and chuckled. “You’re looking at me
as though I were a mad scientist from one of those dreadful pulp science
fiction stories from the nineteen-fifties. One would almost think I was
stitching together body parts to create a Frankenstein’s monster.” He gestured.
“Let’s go upstairs. I converted the entire first floor into my workspace and
laboratory.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We climbed the stairs, to be confronted by
a heavy door. Dr Singh produced a long key from his pocket and unlocked it. “I
had this fitted so that the laboratory is a fully contained space,” he said. “I
don’t know if you noticed when you drove up, but I had all the windows on this
floor bricked up as well.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Inside was a large room, illuminated by
brilliant white lights hanging in the ceiling. There was something subtly off
about its shape, which bothered me. The more I looked around the room the more
it seemed strange. Dr Singh saw what I was doing and smiled.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“The walls aren’t precisely at right
angles,” he said. “Nor is the ceiling a flat plane. I found that a cube didn’t
work, but a slightly different shape did.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We followed him to the centre of the room.
There was a workstation of sorts there, with computer monitors set on a horseshoe-shaped
wooden desk with three wheeled office chairs parked behind it. On the open side
of the horseshoe was a couch that looked rather like a reclining dentist’s
chair, with an attachment at one end that resembled oversized headphones on a
hinged arm. There was other equipment, including a video camera on a tripod,
what looked like professional sound recording apparatus, and a large box that resembled
an outsize computer CPU but whose purpose I could not imagine. Thin wires
spilled from it, coiled on the floor, and rose again to plug into the
headphones.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Singh’s Monster,” Yash Agarwal said. “It
has a certain ring to it. You can almost see it lying there on that thing while
you work on it, Doctor.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We both ignored him. “So your subject, I
mean, you, lie on the couch, I assume? And then what happens? Surely you don’t
physically slide over into a parallel universe?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“It would be perpendicular universe,” Dr
Singh said reprovingly, “and, no, of course I can’t physically enter it. Nor
would I want to, since there’s no way of predicting the effects it would have
on my body. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">physical</i> transference. What I’m doing is to try and intercept the
time flow from ‘elsewhere’ and converting it into a form which I can experience
and understand.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“You mean,” I said, “that you’ll be
mentally experiencing it, like a dream. Like Frank Belknap Long’s Chalmers.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“That’s right,” Dr Singh nodded his heavy
blue-turbaned head. “That’s another point at which Long was prescient.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“There’s just a little problem,” Yash
Agarwal said. “If you’re going to base your research on Long’s tale, you should
remember that his character Chalmers faced, uh, hazards.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Singh snorted. “You mean Long’s Hounds
of Tindalos, who tracked his Chalmers through angular time, and who entered our
curved time universe through the angles between walls? Even in the story’s
universe, one can safely put that down to the drug Chalmers had chosen to
poison himself with.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“He’s got a point, though,” I said. “Just
suppose there’s...something...that might follow your consciousness back. How
can you guard against it?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Right,” Yash Agarwal added. “We wouldn’t
want you to have your head torn off like Chalmers, your blood drained from your
body, and left smeared with blue protoplasm and a triangle made of rubble
arranged around your corpse.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Singh gave us a pitying look. “I
actually have thought of that, you know.” He pointed. “Look over there.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We looked. On the far side of the room
there was another door set in the wall. And this was perfectly round, like one
of the hatchways in submarine movies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Inside that,” Dr Singh said, “is an
egg-shaped room, without any angles. If I have to, I’ll take shelter there
until any danger blows over.” He walked across and opened the door. Both Yash
Agarwal and I followed him and looked over his shoulder. Neither of us had ever
seen a room like that before. White painted and oval, it was like being inside
an egg. There was a large bean bag on the floor, a rolled sleeping bag, sealed
packets of bread, a basket of fruit, bottles of water, and piles of books.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“I see you’ve provided for a longish stay,”
Yash Agarwal observed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Chalmers had the same idea,” I objected.
“He plastered the corners of his room. But there was an earthquake, and...”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“...and the Hounds of Tindalos entered
through the jagged edges of the broken plaster,” Dr Singh finished, closing the
round door and leading us back to the horseshoe desk. “Well, this isn’t an
earthquake prone city; there hasn’t been an earthquake here since records
began.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“I always thought the earthquake was the
doing of the Hounds,” Yash Agarwal put in, inconsequentially. “It was extremely
convenient, wasn’t it?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Plastering the corners of a room and
making a room that’s designed without angles are different things entirely.” Dr
Singh gave us a look as though he was regretting his decision to call us in.
“Anyway, sit down, and I’ll show you the mathematics of the project.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Suiting himself to his words, he switched
on one of the computer monitors, brought up a screen full of graphics, and
began.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">****************************************************</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> can’t find any flaws in it,” I admitted reluctantly.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We’d been over the diagrams and equations again and again, listened to Dr Singh point out where he’d gone wrong and had had
to backtrack, checked the equipment, and then gone over the mathematical models
again. I had found myself hoping for a flaw, a mistake of some kind, but there
was none.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“I think it’ll work,” Yash Agarwal said,
equally unhappily.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Singh stood and stretched. “Good! We can
go down for dinner and you two can rest a while. We’ll start at midnight, which
is...” he looked at the clock on one wall. “Three hours from now,” he finished.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Have we been at it that long?” Yash
Agarwal and I glanced at each other in surprise. “It didn’t seem like it.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Well, it shouldn’t have, if I managed to
keep it interesting.” Dr Singh rubbed his white beard cheerfully. “Now down to
dinner, and after that, we come right back up again.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We didn’t talk much during dinner; everyone
was lost in his own thoughts. Afterwards, Dr Singh instructed us over again in
what our roles were to be.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“I’ll set up the video camera and start the
sound recording,” he said, “and then begin the procedure. You two will keep a
close watch on the apparatus, and also listen carefully to everything I say.
Remember to take individual notes, and that you’re only to terminate the
experiment if I ask you to, not before.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“And if, like Chalmers, you show signs of
extreme physical distress?” Yash Agarwal asked.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“I don’t see any reason why I should,” Dr
Singh responded tranquilly. “The couch is quite comfortable.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We made our way upstairs again. Though we
were deep inside the city, not a sound penetrated from outside, testament to
the thickness of the walls. Dr Singh looked around the room and shrugged. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Well, this is it,” he said. “Twenty years
of thinking and planning and experimenting and working, and now at last I’m
about to do it. Well.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Are you nervous?” I asked.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Hardly,” he said. “Nervousness is for
those who aren’t sure of themselves. Are you two ready with everything you
need? Pads, pens, everything?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Yes,” I said. “By the way, what made you
choose midnight?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">He shrugged. “It’s just that by then most
people have gone to sleep, so there’s less electronic noise. I’ve shielded this
floor from as much as possible of that, of course – you’ll find you have no
mobile phone reception here – but it’s hard to eliminate it completely.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Does electronic noise matter?” I asked, as
he moved a microphone on a swivel over the couch and tapped it. “I shouldn’t have
thought it, from your models.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“It shouldn’t, but why take a chance?” Dr
Singh moved the video camera on the tripod so that the lens was pointed at the
head end of the couch. Now, remember, don’t say a word once we begin.” From a
drawer in the desk he took what looked like a large pair of very dark
wraparound sunglasses, but which I decided couldn’t possibly be. “Hold that a
moment, will you?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I took it and examined it. It was a pair of
very dark wraparound sunglasses.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“That’s so I minimise extraneous visual
stimuli,” he explained, climbing on the couch and lying down. Pulling the
apparatus that looked like oversized headphones over his head, he poised them
over his ears. “When these are on, I can still hear you, but they will be
playing back the equations we talked about in the form of electronic impulses,
through my ears to my brain, just as I explained to you. And I’ll be describing
everything I experience, so take it down, in case the recording fails.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Don’t you think you’ll remember what you
experience when you, uh, wake up?” Yash Agarwal asked.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“How should I know? I haven’t tried this
before, and there’s no point in taking chances.” Dr Singh took the sunglasses
from me, slipped them over his eyes, and began clamping the headphones over his
ears.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Just a minute,” I said. “Assuming any of
this works at all, just how far are you planning to go? I mean, into
this...angular time stream?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I couldn’t see his eyes, but I saw his brow
contract in the familiar annoyed frown that said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am disappointed in you</i>. “As far as I can, of course. If I’m to go
at all, I’ll go the whole way. All right, we’ll begin.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Slipping the headphones into place, he lay
down. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I don’t know what Yash Agarwal had
expected. For myself, I had thought we’d maybe have something like the clock
stopping like in Long’s story, or the lights growing dim. But the second hand
of the clock on the wall went sweeping round in its unhurried way, and the
bright white lights remained as bright and white as ever.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Suddenly, Dr Singh’s lips twitched, and he
began to speak.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“It’s starting,” he said.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">****************************************************</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">’m
beginning to feel a strange sensation (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr Singh said</i></b>). It started around my
midsection but is spreading throughout my body. It feels rather as though I
were being turned inside out and back again; painless, but not pleasant. It’s
not too much to tolerate, though.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">My eyes are open inside the sunglasses, but
all I can see is darkness. I can’t hear anything either, not even the sound of
my own voice, though I know I’m talking because I can hear the vibration of my
voice in my throat. I hope I’m speaking loudly enough for the recording, and
for you to take down.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The sensation has enveloped my entire body
now. My skin feels a though it’s inside my body and everything else is outside,
but I have no pain. I’m also beginning to feel as though I’m slowly spinning
round and round.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I think it’s less dark. Maybe I’m imagining
it, or perhaps it’s just the ceiling lights shining through the sunglasses...no,
it really is getting less dark. The blackness is less black, and I can make out
lines, like those of walls, only they don’t seem like walls we know. They look
like they’re leaning at angles that walls normally should not be able to.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">There is movement there too. The lines seem
to be moving, but they can’t be because they’re just lines. No, of course not,
it’s I who am moving. I’m slowly being swept past the lines, and more lines are
appearing, at more and more impossible angles, like jagged teeth in many jaws
set in one mouth. It’s getting lighter, the darkness turning slowly to a greyish-green
colour with a blue tinge.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
feel as though I’m moving towards a great net, spread as far as I can see, made
of lines that cross and recross each other at acute angles, rather like a pile
of needles. Glowing points move along those lines, meet, merge, and move apart
again. The light is changing to a translucent blue that is impossible to
describe, but which seems to be everywhere, including inside me. I can’t feel
any part of my body anymore. I think that those lines are what stars are like
in “elsewhere”, and the glowing points may be their movements through time. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">There are more lines appearing around me.
They are closer, jagged and meet at angles that should be sharp as stiletto
knives if they were to touch., but I can’t feel them touch. Maybe I’m a thing
of lines and angles here too. Maybe everything in our universe is here as well,
only represented in angles instead of curves. Are you listening to this? Maybe
there are two of you here too, made of angles, and I can’t recognise you even
though I can see you, because you look like nothing I can understand.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Now I am moving further. The net is no
closer, it’s still an immense distance away, but the lines around me are
changing. I have no idea whether I’m moving towards the past or the future, of
course, but it’s probably immaterial. I never thought it would be like this.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">(<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pause</i></b>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The lines and angles are all around me now.
They crowd and overhang, they are so close to me that I should not be able to
move, but I’m moving anyway. Things flicker among them, that I can’t make out,
not because they move so fast but because they’re of angles and shapes that I
can’t reconcile with anything I am familiar with.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">(<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Long pause</i></b>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The lines and angles are slowly becoming
fewer, and spreading further apart. I have a feeling as though I am on an
immense plain. Even the net is no longer so tightly meshed, the lines are
fewer, the glowing points further apart. I feel as though I am approaching
either the beginning of this universe, or the end.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The translucent bluish light is no longer
so translucent. It’s becoming cloudy, with tinges of yellowish-brown and black.
This gives me a chance to examine it more clearly. Yes, the light itself seems
broken up into angles, each angle at a slightly different shade and, I daresay,
at a different wavelength. That would be logical if everything is constructed
from angles. Even waves wouldn’t follow curves, but an angular course. I wonder
what a black hole would look like in this place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I am beginning to have a feeling of being
accompanied by something unseen. There seems to be something on this plain with
me. The pinkish-yellow light is stronger and more opaque, and the black is
clotting into angular shapes that look almost familiar. I’m getting closer to
them, and if I could strain for a better look I would. In any case I’ll soon be
able to see them more closely.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The net is almost gone now, only a few
lines scratched across the far distance, the glowing points so slow that they
are almost stationary. I must be at an extreme point of time. The pink and
yellow are filling up the gaps, and the black things are taking shape. They are
jagged and moving, and I am beginning to feel a reluctance to get any closer.
But I can’t turn back or away, because I am being swept closer to them at every
moment. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">They are angular and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">big</i>, and they move around in a way that is like no movement I have
yet seen in this universe. They seem to be moving across the plane, at right
angles to the way I am going, while everything else I have seen was moving
either in my direction of movement or back the way I came.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It is almost as though they’re blocking the
way so that nothing can get by them. It is as though they are border guards, determined
sentries that will let nothing past.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">They...they see me. They’re aware of me!
They’re turning towards me! I see them. I see their faces! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Quick! Terminate the procedure! For god’s
sake bring me back! Bring me back before they get me!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">(<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inarticulate screaming</i></b>)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">****************************************************</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">W</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">hat happened, Doctor?” I asked, supporting the old man with an arm
around his shoulders.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Here, drink this,” Yash Agarwal said, handing
Dr Singh a glass of brandy. I have no idea where he found the brandy. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Singh shook off my arm and waved away
the brandy. “I don’t need that,” he said. He got off the couch and began
stowing away the recording apparatus and sunglasses. His movements were abrupt
and slightly uncoordinated, and it was easy to see that he was struggling
through a shock.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked,
glancing from him down to my notes. “You said they saw you.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Yes, well.” Dr Singh licked his lips. “It
was probably nothing but my imagination. Old Long and his Hounds of Tindalos,
which follow a man back through angular time. Rubbish. Just a load of
metaphysical claptrap. Yes, well,” he repeated, “I’ll need a few days to
analyse all the data and check what exactly happened. Yes.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Yash Agarwal and I exchanged glances. “And
then what do you plan to do? Publish your findings? Go on another trip? When?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Singh shrugged his shoulders in a quick,
angry gesture. “How should I know? I have to analyse the data.” He wouldn’t
look at us. “It’s almost four in the morning. You should call a taxi. Your
flight will be leaving in a few hours.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“At least take some precautions,” I said,
after we’d called for a taxi to the airport and gathered the suitcases we
hadn’t even unpacked. “Don’t leave yourself vulnerable.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Don’t worry about me. As soon as you
leave, I’m going right to the round room I showed you and staying there until
I’m sure it’s safe. No walls with angles, remember?” He still wouldn’t look us
in the eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think that’s your taxi.
Have a good trip!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">He practically pushed us out of the house
and slammed shut the door.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">****************************************************</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">W</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">e were
in the air, and the Fasten Seat Belts sign had gone off, when Yash Agarwal
leaned across to me. By mutual unspoken consent we'd asked for seats together; neither of us wanted to be alone right then. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“I’ve just thought of something,” he said.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Yeah?” I looked up from the notes I’d
made. “What?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Dr Singh,” Yash Agarwal said. His face was
pale, his voice a hoarse whisper. “He’s locked himself in the round room.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Yes,” I said. “So?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“We both saw that room. He had books in
there.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Obviously. He needs to have some way of
passing the time. What’s your point?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Yash Agarwal’s face was beaded with sweat.
He rubbed at it with his sleeve.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">“Books have angles,” he said.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Copyright</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">B Purkayastha</b> <u>2021</u></span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-GB"><u><br /></u></span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nk9G6QNmu_k/YJo-a71IdGI/AAAAAAABi8M/b1uBkl4bgXcPLCtuZQm_YPA1TfHsZY2EQCLcBGAsYHQ/s470/images%2B%25283%2529-1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="470" height="315" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nk9G6QNmu_k/YJo-a71IdGI/AAAAAAABi8M/b1uBkl4bgXcPLCtuZQm_YPA1TfHsZY2EQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h315/images%2B%25283%2529-1.jpeg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-GB"><br /><u><br /></u></span><p></p>Bill the Butcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436195659154078021noreply@blogger.com1