Mangled Meat Read Online Free Page B

tHE cREW. cONVINCE tHEM oF iTS iMPORTANCE. tHEY wIll nOT tRUST mE bECUASE i aM nOT hUMAN-:
    “Will do,” I said.
    See, what the OAC had been doing all along was not only analyzing displayed star charts in the victor and all the other displayed info, it also analyzed all of my triax-tomes and resonance scans of the VO’s body once I cut the suit off. I didn’t see these things, but the scans did.
    I read the output data over and over, all the while staring down at the naked and comatose body on the table. The long hair, the beard, the glazed eyes.
    Then I read the tome scans a last time.
    Healed-over wounds were present between the navicular and cuboid bones of the feet. Healed over wounds were present just under the pisiform and tubercle bones in the wrist. And one other healed over wound was present between the fourth and fifth rib bones on the thoracic cage.
    Then I knew.
    A fingerprint on the hull over twenty-two hundred years old? The OAC analysis of the victor’s star charts left even less doubt. The victor’s debark point had been verified by gauss trails: they’d been from earth somewhere between 29 and 33 A.D. from a place in the ancient Middle East referred to in Late Latin from Aramaic, a word meaning gulgū ltha, or Golgotha.
    When I explained to the rest of the crew exactly what this might mean...the strangest thing happened.
    The men who’d been raised as Christians quickly became atheists. And the men, like Yung, who’d been raised as atheists converted to the ranks of Christendom.
    But me?
    I guess I fall somewhere in between.
    This all happened on the third day. Seven more have passed since then, and I don’t know how much planar space we’ve folded since then, not with the i-grav engines running full tilt half way into the redline. Someday, yes, the VO will probably regain consciousness. But who knows how long that will take? Months? Years? Decades?
    Doesn’t matter.
    The star charts that were activated when I cut open the suit—they didn’t just indicate the debarkation point of the victor. Those charts also showed the final destination grid .
    We’re taking our passenger back to where he came from, and I want to see what’s waiting for us when we get there.

The Cyesolagniac
     
     
    Look at me...
    Heyton sat in the chair with his pants down. A glance across the squalid room revealed his pitiful reflection in the mirror: a ludicrous caricature.
    The magazine shook in his hands.
    If my dear dead parents could see me now...
    It had been the best business day of his life. He’d just flown in from Dallas, having sold the IAP system to the Texas State Police and two dozen county departments. Blocher, his boss, had had a proverbial cow. “Heyton,” he’d said, “I’m promoting you to deputy vice-president and I’m doubling your salary.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You just sold Texas! No one’s been able to do that!”
    “Tomorrow’s Florida, sir,” Heyton reminded. “Florida’s not a big interagency state, but they don’t like to be tag-alongs, either. That’s good for us.”
    Blocher sounded manic as Al Pacino. “Sell the IAP to Florida and I’ll triple your salary, Heyton!”
    “Not to sound conceited, sir, but if I can’t sell Florida... no one can.”
    Exhilaration turned Blocher’s voice to a wavering shimmy. “You fuckin’ rock, Heyton! You’ve got confidence and balls! You’re putting my company on the map and making the competition eat my shorts. Sell Florida tomorrow, and—to hell with it! I’ll make you exec VP and quadruple your salary.”
    “Mr. Blocher,” Heyton promised. “I’m going to sell Florida.”
    Yes, a good business day. Once all those Florida police chiefs heard that half of Texas law enforcement had purchased their processing system, they’d probably all buy it, too. Heyton felt confident. He was a superior salesman.
    But he had a problem.
    He hadn’t even had to show his ID to check into the room—that’s the kind of place it was. Dirty