"From the very beginning, we have wondered how life began, what our purpose is and where we are headed." "We have struggled to understand time, matter, the infinite universe, who we are and if we are alone." "Great minds have imagined the most wonderful and the most terrifying answers to these questions." "We invite you to join us on this great expedition." "As we seek to improve and refine ourselves, to elevate humankind to its consummate form, hat will become of those who are less than perfect?" "You can't go out." "It's the first hand." "I fold." "You are so full of it." "Do it, Sharon." "He's lyin'." " Play the game." " I call." "Read 'em and weep" "Four kings." " Damn." " I told you." "You didn't have to listen." "Shuffle the cards." "I can't take anymore." "All right!" "Who the hell's gonna clean this garbage up and blow it outta here?" "Okay, okay." "Volunteers?" "All right, you-- you, you and you." "Yeah, that's right, the Dullard sisters." "Get over there." "Cleanup on aisle 13." "Come on, move!" "Seriously, I had one of the very first geno-pets." "They hadn't worked out all of the bugs, so it shifted species depending on my mood, but... it was a really good companion." "I named her dolly, after that sheep with the big hooters." "I miss that cat-- that dog--that thing." "You know what I miss?" "A healthy bowel movement-- a real big, round cookie, baby-- one that only happens when you've been eatin' real food." "Do you remember real food?" "Not really." "One, two, three!" "So long, Riila." "Mango." "Very piquant." "Easy." "Thank you." "I am..." "I am extremely whipped." "Riila never manifested herself for the K.P. shift." "Odious though it may be, I worked both." "Do I make myself pellucid?" "Eight detestable hours." "I may have to kill that woman." "You're too late." "Riila?" "I was perturbed she didn't wish to do her garbage shift." "Would you kindly be quiet?" "Now it seems she is the garbage shift." "Fortuitous I didn't knock over the plant." "Well, if you had, there'd have been two all-meat pizzas floating' out there." "As I've always said, Bedzyk, you're a kindly, thoughtful man." "Just passin' the time till it's my turn" " to go out the garbage port." " I am Samswope!" "No, you loathsome creature, I am Samswope!" "Come on, Bedzyk, it's not that bad." "At the very least, we are still alive." "We'll find a landfall." "We will..." " All in the fullness of time." " Ah, come on, Sam." "Been to all six terraformed sites in the system, some of them more than once." "It's always the same" ""Keep moving, scum." "Hit the road." "Get lost, and take this piece of junk with you."" "If we had any sense, we'd fly this garbage scow right into the sun-- and better still, crash it right up there." "Ah, yes-- into the bosom of our succoring Mother Earth..." " Up there, down there." " Wherever." "Adieu and bide thee well, dear, sweet Riila." "What is she, the third this month?" "The fourth?" "Sixth." " So we're down to what, 96?" " 93." "Two-thirds of our original little party of discarded freaks, dead and gone." "It's tragic, just tragic." "We've been orbiting too long." " What are you going to do?" " What am I gonna do?" "In spite of your surely, one might even venture taciturn, nature, mon ami, you remain an imposing and, whether you like it or nay, a de facto executive figure aboard this enchanted scow, the mutant horrors of which hold you" "in the very highest esteem." "And I suspect, beneath your snarls, you actually care what happens to them." "I'm just a passenger, pal-- just another steerage-class passenger, and I got my ticket to prove it." " I..." "I want to go home." " Yeah, me, too." "I wanna go home." "I-I wanna go home." "Off you go, then." "Ah, Bedzyk, exit the mere passenger, replaced by the sublime poet-philosopher." "Oh, that's why everyone looks to you, you know." "Apathy prevails here on the good ship "gulag,"" "A.K.A. "The riggum express."" "But you're the one who gets up and does something-- if not every time, at least with sufficient frequency that your nobility rises like the rose mountains of Mars above the apathy." "Everything I do, you could do." "You jest, sir." "You jape." "You jive." "I laugh at your jackanapery, squire." "No, really, you could run this place, Sam." "You got two heads." "Do you in fact know-- to *** away from the previous bull-pucky" "Why we call the sickness that condemned us to this floating prison-- what we affectionately refer to as "the blood poop"" "Do you know why we call it "riggum,"" "as previous generations called theirs "the pox"" "or "yellow fever" or "A.I.D.S."?" "I--I'm sorry, Sam." "I gotta get some fresh air." "Yes, well, we could all use some fresh air." " I wanna go home." "I wanna go home..." " Ah, smiler, my old friend." "I wanna go home." "Home." "Home." "I wanna go home." "Do you know the etymological basis of the nom de blood poop "riggum"" "for our communal sickness?" "Well, it began as transmutational blood poisoning-- wildly stupid and inaccurate term, just as chronic fatigue syndrome was Epstein-Barr, or mono" "Listen, I gotta go." "No, no, no." "Then--then they abbreviated it to T.B.P., whence came "tepee."" "But native americans decried that as racist, so they started calling it "blood mutation"" "or "blood poop"" "Utterly disgusting redneck term." "And finally, after a million people had it, they took it seriously, particularly when the President of Uruguay grew e1even extra noses on the back of each hand, and they called that-- ta-da!" "The birth of the blues!" "I'm only kidding." "They called the sickness what it really is..." "Random idiopathic genomic mutation-- the acronym--R.I.G.M., or "riggum."" "Now wasn't that an informative interlude?" "Philistines." "I am festooned with Philistines." "I was just telling Sharon here how much I miss whisper chips." " Really?" " You remember, don't ya?" "Opening the bag without a sound, the feel of that first little crisp chip, jumped right out of the bag, and you caught it on your tongue, and then the funny little hiss when you bit down." "Of course, I remember when chips made a crunch and pissed off everyone around you." " Yeah." "Barbaric." " Exactly." "Excuse me." "I never tasted any kind of chip at all." "Oh, darlin', the things you've missed-- the popcorn, the beer-battered flurge, sonic potatoes!" "Hi, Bedzyk." "Lookin' good, sis." "Now that, my friend, is an eye." "Some hell of an eye, let me tell you!" "Yeah, that is an eye only to die for." "You could plotz from an eye like that." "Ah, the tuchis is not easily dismissed either." "What do you mean, the tuchis?" "What are you, a pervert?" " Yeah?" " Bedzyk, that you?" "No, it's somebody else." "Come on, will you stop cranking' me?" "Is that you, Bedzyk?" "Harmony, this is Bedzyk." "What?" "We got a ship comin' in, dead-on trajectory from Earth." "Yeah, so?" "So I checked the ephemeris and the new E.T.A. readout, and there's nothing supposed to be there." "All right." "So our loving friends and neighbors have sent us an unscheduled load of toilet paper." "Why bother me with it?" "I'm a tourist here myself." "Come on, Bedzyk." "They'll dock in eight hours." "What the hell do you want me to do?" "Well, call me in eight and a half hours if you're desperate for my company." " I'm gonna turn on the light." " What are you doing?" " I want to turn up the light." " Don't." "Don't." "You know I don't like that." "How long have you been here on the gulag, Annie?" " You know." " I can't remember anything." "Time just runs together out here." "Come on, how many years has it been?" "14." "I was 16 when they crashed the "Coventry" on Callisto" " and took me to the settlement." " You were a kid." "How long were you on the "Coventry"?" "I was, uh... 22," "I think, when I was discarded, so that'd be five or six, something like that." "Do you ever wonder why you were discarded, Annie?" "Yeah, I do, but it's that thing about Malthus." "At least, that's how they always explained it to me-- too many people on Earth, no place to stand, the sheep look up." "Yeah, that's what they always say" ""It's too crowded." "Somebody's gotta go." "Why not send the infected ones?"" "I don't buy it." "So what is it then, hmm?" "You ever hear of father Damien?" "No." " Who is he?" " He was a priest." "He worked with lepers." "See, they used to send people with leprosy to this island to die, okay?" "Like they shipped us up here, to the gulag." "Where are you going with this, hmm?" "The real reason they sent us out here, Annie, is because they can't stand to look at us." "It's the ugliness that scares the hell out of 'em, not the infection." "We're just like those lepers." "You read too much." "Listen, love," "I'm no fan of our neighbors from Earth, but I don't think even they could be that cruel to..." "To exile us with no landfall ever, just because we repulse them." "Out of sight, out of mind." " And there's a big ship coming in." " Oh, yes." " Maybe it's good news." " Oh, good news!" "Yeah, good news is comin'." "Yeah, next week." " Let me turn up the lights." " No, don't." " Annie, I like to look at you." " No." "It's not" "No." "I..." " It's me, this ridiculous arm." " It's not you, Bedzyk." " You are lovely." " Yeah, I'm gorgeous." "Really." "I love looking at you." "I just..." " I just have..." " Baggage." "Please." "Annie, all over the system, people make love to each other with the lights on because they like to look at each other." "I'll tell you what-- I--I'll give you" "$2 in small change if just once... we could pretend we're normal." "Did you just say "normal"?" "Bedzyk?" "Yes?" "It's Harmony Teat." "That ship is docking right now." "What should I do?" "Why don't you take that ship and" "Has it been eight hours already, Harmony?" "Six, ship time." "I didn't figure it so good." "Sorry, boss." "Have they declared themselves?" "Get that ham-fisted jackhammer you call an arm and your fat ass over to control now!" "It's an emissary yacht from Earth Central." "What's going on?" "Ephemeris time 0-0-0, and he's sweet." " Nice." "Very, very nice." "Nice." " Coupled and locked in." "Bam!" "Did I do a job, or did I do a job?" "I'm one hell of a navigator." " Did they hail us?" " Not yet." "Guess we're being thrown out of here." "You think?" "Yeah, probably." "All right, let's hail them." "Attention, Earth vessel." "Attention, Earth vessel, do you read me?" " What are they, deaf?" " Could be." "Attention, Earth vessel." "Listen, guys, save yourself the effort, okay?" "We are leaving Earth space." "What is this?" "Maybe they're all dead and purple and full of maggots in there, you know?" "Tongues hangin' out, guts spilling' out of their noses, eyeballs all..." "One can only hope." "I don't get it." "They're here." "We know they're here." "Why won't they talk to us?" "They've undogged their debarkation port and cycled ours." "They're boarding us." "Home." "Home." "W-w-we're going home." "All right, open it." "Hello." "I was sent from Earth Central to make you a really terrific offer." "My name's Curran, and you must be the captain." "I wanna go home!" "Home!" "What year is it on Earth?" "Quiet!" "All right, listen up!" "Now you all wanted to go to the terraforms." "Have we been to the terraforms?" " Yes!" "You wanted to go to Europa." " Have we been to Europa?" " Yes!" " Have we been to Mercury?" " Yes!" "Have we been to Venus, Callisto, Ganymede..." "Yes!" "Yes!" "Twice-- twice we went to Ganymede." "All right, then back off!" "Back off." "Let me talk to this guy." "I'll tell you everything in five minutes." "Oh, yes, my captain." "Come on." "We can talk in the cathedral." "The cathedral." "Drop to your knees and pray." "Reminds me of the rain forests my grandparents spoke of." "Plants are life-- the very air we breathe." "That's 'cause you bastards never sent us new scrubbers, and the original crap they put on this garbage scow broke down years ago." "Harmony, make sure we're left alone, huh?" "All right, speak your piece..." "Shove off." "Stop sucking' up our air." "I've been invested with the most important mission people of your home planet have ever mounted." "I represent every member of the Sanhedrin of Earth central." "Yes, how profoundly moving." " And your name is Curran?" " You can call me Barney." "Well, Mr. Curran, or Ambassador Curran, or Plenipotentiary High-mucketty-doodle Curran, we perceive your vast importance." "Now just get on with it." "Captain, could you introduce me to your associates?" "Okay, Sam." "Well, uh, this is Harmony Teat." "I... uh, we are Samswope, the captain's right arm." "I am Samswope." "Let me see if I can guess, Mr. Sanhedrin Earth neighbor." "You want us to move our little load of misfits off orbit L-5, or we'll blast your asses away." "Oh, no." "N-no, it's not that at all." "And in fact, I don't think that any of us down there have an idea of how hard it's been for you people." "Without the lubricant, huh?" "Just spit it out." "Bedzyk, let him talk." "You were the control that skimmed us in." " Lovely job--like a ballet." " Hey, Curran--riggum." "Beg your pardon?" "R.I.G.M." "R..." "I..." "G..." "M. The blood poop." "Random idiopathic genomic mutation." ""The sickness."" "The gift that keeps on giving-- like another head." "Do you think that Earth Central hates you, that we don't feel you pain?" "God, it's been 37 years." "You--you have to believe that we feel the guilt and torment of what the former generation did to you." "Oh, that's why you never send get-well packages" " or toilet paper?" " Mr. Bedzyk and I need to tell our happy little band why you're here, sheriff." "So go ahead." "Uh, by the way, I notice that you're a healthy, arrow-slim normal lad." "Did they pick you preferentially, to give us a little tweak of the antennae?" " Oh, god." " You're one of us." "The runnies." "That's how darting priest went." "Remember, Bedzyk?" "And gary what's-his-name, the one that drank the can of lye." "They sent you to be a passenger." "What'd you do, steal the yacht?" "It's getting worse..." "much worse-- the sickness--riggum." "But why'd you come to us" "What, to tell us we were gonna have to double-bunk?" "Th're gonna send a--a couple of hundred more discards up here to our floating swamp?" "If it were that, we wouldn't send hundreds." "We'd send hundreds of thousands." "It's spreading-- changing us like a tidal wave every day." "There is no day here-- also no night." "Every day is every day." "Sam, let him tell it." "After the first wave of discards..." "After all of you..." "left, it spread from continent to continent." "We don know how." "We didn't know the-- the vector of contamination-- if it was fleas, ticks, animals, people." "We didn't know." "But there was a spray-- um, germicide or pheromonic, I don't know." "I'm not a biologist." "But the Sanhedrin sprayed the entire planet, and it worked-- for about 11 years." "And then the sickness mutated around it-- got stronger, smarter." " Damn riggum." " Got even tougher." "The rigmarole." "Something in the spray itself activated a trigger in the nucleus of the plague virus." "Everyone was hit." "There's no chance to isolate it or for quarantine." "So what, we're the ones who got off easy?" "Is that--is that what you came to tell us?" " That is a bit rich." " It got so bad, people evacuated the cities, started living in sterile shelters and domes underground." "We thought it was all over." "And then a doctor, a hungarian, came up with a serum." "Do you hear what he's saying?" "Don't you get it yet?" "A cure." "The only thing that stops it from spreading." "It's a--it's a serum synthesized from prepandemic enzymes that are only found in blood, in... in the blood of..." "Of discards." "Of us!" "Are you kiddin' me?" "You want our blood!" "Here I thought I'd lost my faith in the wickedness of mankind." "Y-y-you want us to save you?" "Hey, Barney" "Hey, you got a world full of freaks up there, huh?" "Why don't you use them?" "Better yet, why don't you pop into one of your own puky veins?" "Hey, you could save the whole world yourself." "We're no good." "The sickness changed us." "Our blood doesn't secrete the same enzymes." "Well, then you and the world have crapped out, because I wouldn't take a whiz on you if there were flames shooting out of your eyeballs." "If you'd listen to my proposal," "I think you might well reconsider." "It could change the lives of everyone aboard this vessel" " Oh, sure it will." " If you would just listen" "I'm not gonna listen to you." "You got nothing I want to listen to." "No!" "Comin' home!" "Comin' home!" "Baby Jesus--Jesus loves me!" " Grab him!" " Hallelujah, Jesus!" "Hallelujah!" "I'm goin' home!" " Smiler, no!" " I cannot wait!" "I'm goin' home!" "I'm goin' home, baby Jesus!" "I'll talk to the captain." "I'll talk to him." "You know how to use this thing?" "Yeah, Harmony taught me." " What happened?" " Smiler lost it-- tried to bring us down." "Tried to kill the cathedral-- merely succeeded in killing Harmony Teat." "Well, where is he?" "Chucho red's got him locked up in the lazarette." "Well, you're still here?" "It's important that I finish what I was going to say." "Well, if it's important, you'd better finish." "You all need to know that we care." "What happened to you is happening to us, only faster." "We've watched people change right before our eyes." "No family is untouched." "My wife..." "On behalf of Terran Central, if you agree to help us, we're prepared to let your ship land and house all of you on Earth." "You'll be home again." "You'll--you'll breathe real air." "Feel real land." "What happens if we decide not to give you our blood?" "Yeah, that's right." "He wants our blood." "You'll come out here and take it anyway, won't you?" "No, of course not." "No, we'll send an emissary to another ship, but I hope that won't be necessary." "What do you think, we're a bunch of idiots?" " You won't give us anything." " Yes, we will." "I swear." "Oh, god, you're a liar, Curran." "You're an errand boy wearing a sailor suit." "You're their lapdog with a bad case of the mange." " You'll say whatever takes." " Please." "I suspect that I'm not isolated in my naked, desperate, pain-filled need to return to the planet of my youth." "This isn't home, Bedzyk." "We want to go back to Earth." "All of us-- we want to go back home!" "There is no Earth!" "Not for us." "Not now, not ever." "It's what these people do, Sam." "They lie to get what they want." "How could it possibly be to our detriment, old friend?" " He said we could go back home!" " And he's lying!" "Let him screw around with somebody else's ship--not mine!" ""Mine"?" "Get out of the way." "I'm gonna throw this lying pissant off the ship." "They are not gonna let us get any closer to Earth!" "Can't you pathetic freaks ever realize that?" "You must disabuse yourself of this paranoia, this hatred." "Simply put, they want what it is that only we can provide." "We need what they have-- our home!" "Home?" "Are you really that stupid?" "You are as close to a friend as anyone I've known, and whether you like it or not," "I consider you to be an equal." "I don't mind if you think I'm a fool, but don't ever talk to me as if you think I'm one." "Oh, come on, Sam." "You're smarter than this." "They're nothing but a bunch of backstabbing, arrogant liars." "Cease and desist." "Your authority has been superseded, and you have been supplanted." "So now we're a democracy, eh?" "Yesterday, it was "Aye, aye, captain."" "Today "You're superseded."" "As distressing as it may seem, yes." "How about you, Annie?" "Where do you stand?" "I'm sorry, Bedzyk." "Look, you're so angry, you're not seeing any of this clearly." "I see it real clear." "You people..." "Anytime anything ever went wrong, you came runnin' for me, didn't you, huh?" "Something had to be done, some decision had to be made" ""Where's Bedzyk?" "Go get Bedzyk." "Get Bedzyk."" "And this--this-- this Earth scum shows up with the runnies." "He holds up this bright and shiny new lie, and you all sit up and wag your tails." "It is not my most fervent wish to expire on this galactic latrine." "Listen to me." "We will take care of all of you." "We have huge plots of land in South America-- rugged land, I'll admit-- but there's plenty of room for all of you." "Don't listen to him!" "Never trust an Earthman." " Never!" " Bedzyk, shut up!" " Annie?" " It's what we all want, Bedzyk." " Get off my ship!" " Bedzyk, stop!" "Sam..." "Annie..." "Now you've done it." "Get your medical teams up here and start with the bloods." "We wish to go home, Ambassador Curran." "We wish to go home now." "Ah!" "Once again, the manifestation of the venerable, idiom-precise Dr. Janet Goldstein, savior of our misbegotten compatriots" " both here and on Earth." " Samswope." "It's good to see you." "Your work here approaches a denouement." "We finally hit our quota today." "The rescue vessel is on the way." "I wonder who's more excited" "Your people or mine?" "What?" "Oh, I admit, before this operation commenced," "I felt a flourish of cynicism-- a touch of the old vampire, don't ya know?" "You've done well, Samswope." "You've saved the world, and you've saved your people." "We couldn't have done this without you, and no one's ever gonna forget that." "Well, shucks, doc." "I'll be superamalgamated." "Are you ready to give one last time?" "Old girlfriend?" "Could we just finish this?" "Samswope?" "Samswope." "I have an update on the rescue vessel" "E.T.A. six hours." " Thank you, Annie." " Roger that." "You don't seem particularly excited." "Ah, but I am." "Six hours..." "There's more than enough time." "Barely enough to master all the outlandish permutations of this connubiation custom." "Steve's wedding?" "But of course, my darling." "This is a first, isn't it?" "Truly." "Never happened when Bedzyk was running things." "Then again, we didn't have much to celebrate." "What?" "It was not my intention..." "I didn't mean to kill him, frenchy." "I swear to God." "He was going to ruin everything." "You did what you had to do." "You gave us hope." "You gave us back our home, Sam." "Here we go." "Wow." "Okay." "Just a little bit right there." "Brothers and sisters, mesdames et messieurs, freaks and frogs, flotsam and jetsam, we are aggregated here to witness the tri-binding of a trio of our assembly in Holy Matrimony...." "Steve, Sharon, Bucky." "It would be remiss of me not to make mention of the fact that this moment is without precedent in the annals of our ordeal." "This is the first wedding we've ever had here..." "A symbol of new beginnings bespeaking our imminent departure for a home to which we feared we might never return." "Steve, do you take these other two to be your lifelong lovemates?" "I do." "Bucky, do you take these other two to be your lifelong lovemates?" "I do." "Sharon, do you take these other two for your lifelong lovemates?" "Okay." "All of which have the merit of being acceptable answers to the query just posed." "Steve, Sharon, Bucky," "I have the distinct pleasure in pronouncing you men, women, bisexes, bivalves, baby-blue husbands and/or wives." "Sam?" "They're here." "They're docking." "Come!" "Let us greet the engines of our salvation!" "Ambassador Curran, welcome back." "You arrive at the most appropriate moment." "The very thought of our repatriation is..." "No!" "No!" "No!" "Am I Samswope?" "Somebody clean that up and blow it out the garbage port!" "What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds."