Kissing Baboons In The Jungle

Ah, the medicine's taking effect.  Johnny Black straight-up, two diamonds, water back.

Well, another year has passed and here we are celebrating the annual rite of fertility once again.  Happy Ishtar!  Amazing how the Babylonian pantheon still haunts us after thousands of years.  No matter how advanced we think we are, there's these little reminders that we are still slaves to ghost stories and superstitions.

At any rate, as several kind readers have pointed out, I've been on break around here.  After pumping out nearly 400 articles over the past two years (about one every other day), one just runs out of things to say for a while.  Instead, I've been focusing on my books and trying to catch up on email.

Email is my bane.  When you're a professional writer, doing things like keeping in touch with folks on a personal level seems like a busman's holiday.  It's easier to Skype, but that's problematic since I'm 12 hours out of sync with most of the folks I need to keep in touch with.  There's also the biennial Dear Mom letters that, no matter how I try, never fall short of 10-15 pages, 11-point type single spaced with minimum legible kerning.

The other major distraction has been buying a mountain villa.  Getting back to the Far Side Global Headquarters deep in the jungles of Borneo is a major effort, so we've taken the decision to get a Sub-Headquarters in the mountains south of the city.  It's still jungly and all, with monkeys and strange birds and hornets the size of hummingbirds, just a LOT closer, MUCH cooler and doesn't require a two-day 4-wheeling trip through mosquito-infested swamp to get to.  Most people think I'm kidding, but no.

In the hiatus, I have launched a new career.  I'm quickly becoming Indonesia's most famous stand-up comedians.  Now you may think that's no big deal, but in a country where stand-up has only been invented in the past year, that's no mean feat!  Asian humor runs along the lines of Three Stooges, Henny Youngman and Jerry Lewis (though they don't like the Western comedians).  For someone, especially a foreigner, to gain any amount of popularity doing Carlin/Wright/Lehrer-style material is pretty amazing.

At any rate, we're recording the shows so I can cut together a video for you, though I daresay a lot of it will be incomprehensible, since about half is in Indonesian/Javanese, and the rest relies on cultural familiarity.  Indonesians think it's hysterical.  Far Siders will at least discover I'm not just 2-D words on a page.

Some other notes: besides adding video, we've set up a mirror blog at augenguy.wordpress.com, which is slowly growing, though the content is the same (just behind a bit).  I hoping to release the first LFS e-book, which will be a humorous look at life in Indonesia.  With any luck, that will be out sometime this year.  LOL!  We STILL have plans to get the e-Bay store up and running, where folks can buy handcrafts and such that will directly support the craftsmen and artisans in the villages, and not some factory outlet operation.  A lot of woodcarvings and textiles that are completely unique in every sense of the word.

This past week has been rather fun.  A rash of old friends from past lives have popped up.  A couple even said they've been trying to hunt me down for years.  Hell, I said, all you had to do was Google my name!  You'll get a 1,000 hits, including this blog, Wikipedia, imdb, old articles and newspaper stories, even a couple of somewhat premature obituaries.  It's hard to live these days without leaving some trace on the internet, especially when one makes no attempt whatsoever to hide.  As I said to one, I'm all over the net like a bad smell.

It's funny how those things go.  For some reason, a time comes every few years when a dozen people will find you all at once.  The cyclical nature of life never ceases to amaze me.  It's like the spin cycle in a massive washing machine.  People, places and things seem to keep flying around, bumping into you on occasion.

There was a time, no too long ago, when most of the people you knew lived within 10 miles of you.  Now, I spend my days talking with folks in two dozen countries on six continents in a half-dozen languages.  Even when I'm at the Far Side Global Headquarters deep in the jungles of Borneo, I still get text messages, and occasional email, when the monkeys pedal fast enough.

Which brings us back to pagan rituals.  St. Tebow is gracing the front end of Drudge with an 'Easter message' for us, juxtaposed against three crosses, which of course is the logo for the Dutch bankster houses (see Amsterdam coat of arms).  The symbols are everywhere, when you know what to look for.

At any rate, sorry for the long silence, but know that I appreciate every reader more than you can know.  A special thanks to those who wrote in to check on me.  Still alive, for better or worse.  And yes, we'll continue to bring our rather strange view of the world to you on a regular basis, occasional breaks excepted.  And we'll continue to expand the Far Side into every nook and cranny of the internet, because as George Ure says, "Everything's a business model!"

Happy Ishtar and don't forget, there's layers of meanings behind everything you see and hear in the media.  If you think like that, you'll be less likely to fall prey to them.

By the way, a lot of people don't realize how soft and supple orangutan lips are.  I find myself strangely attracted to the beast.  And her breath wasn't too bad, either...

Sampai jumpa!

In The Beginning...

"What the hell was THAT?"

The leader was a very tall, willowy man with shocking blue eyes and a complexion so smooth and white, that it was nearly self-luminescent.  He was still wearing his flight gear, and the helmet made his head look much wider than it was.

"We're still scanning, sir, but it looks like they pulled the trigger," answered another man, very similar looking, but wearing brown instead of white.

"What do we know so far?" Enlil spoke with authority and the force of many centuries as a Supreme One.

Enke responded slowly, trying to grasp the scale of what he was learning from his station.  "It appears that Tiamat is gone, sir."

"Gone?"

"Yes sir.  Long-range scans show a lot of rubble where it should be.  There's a large HD signature in the region.  It looks like Cronus went through with it," his voice cracking with stress, as he struggled to maintain composure.  "From what I can see, Maret is still there, but it's in an erratic orbit, and there appears to be a large gash on one side."

"Is there any communications?"  There was an edge to Enlil's voice, something the others were unaccustomed to hearing.

Ishtar responded, "No, sir.  All channels are completely silent."

There was a long pause.  Everyone kept their eyes on their stations, while Enlil stared at the tactical schematic that was up on the main panel.  Where Tiamat should be, there was a rapidly expanding cloud of thousands of objects.  Even more alarming was a sphere around that, which showed as water ice.  It was already past Maret and moving fast.  It would probably arrive at Terra within a few sidereal months.

"Navagation, what are we looking at here?" Enlil's voice seemed on the verge of panic, which was deeply disturbing to the rest of the crew.

Oshirus paused before speaking, to make sure of what he was about to say.  "Tiamat has been destroyed, sir.  Those objects are fragments.  There is a sphere of water ice from the oceans that is expanding rapidly.  I estimate that it will arrive at Terra in approximately five of the local months.  Maret appears to be intact, but it's orbit is erratic.  I estimate that the entire opposing hemisphere has been buried in rubble approximately 20 kliks deep.  According to calculations, when the ice sphere reaches Terra, it will likely cause a flood of planetary proportions."

Silence again as everyone stared at the display in disbelief.  Cronus and Tiamat had been at war for centuries, but no one every thought it would come to this.  The Cronusites had created a weapon of of such massive destructive power everyone had assumed it would provide sufficient deterrent to open war.

The weapon was capable of drawing unimaginable power from the sub-space aether and was capable of pulverizing entire planets.  The only draw-back is that it would draw every ounce of energy from their entire system to fire it one time.  Everyone assumed that the threat of mutual destruction would be enough to stop them from actually activating it.

Enlil snapped out of his trance.  "Inventory!"

Oshirus spoke first, "We ejected the HD drive before entering the atmosphere.  All systems are online and functioning, except we can't go anywhere."

Ishtar was next, "Communications are fully functional, but we are not receiving any signals from any of the colonies.  None of the automatic nav systems are online anywhere in the helios.  All of the pulsar beacons are still functioning, so long-range navigation is possible."

"If we can get off this world," Enlil said half to himself.  "Oshirus, what is the status of Terra?"

"The Cronus project was nearly completed.  The atmosphere was nearly complete, though the CO2 levels are a bit low compared to Maret.  The gravity roughly six times our normal.  There are multiple species divided into five super classes.  There's a secret species that Tiamat had been developing, sir," he trailed off.

"A what?  What do we know about it?"

The display shifted and a window popped up on the right-hand side.  Two creatures appeared, along with various read-outs on their genetics and abilities.

"They look like us," Enlil said in a hoarse whisper.

"Yes, sir.  That was the reason Cronus attacked.  Tiamat wanted to take over Terra and create a...pleasure world.  The project was called Edun.  Cronus wanted to kill them off because they were an abomination."  Oshirus was uncertain of his own feelings on the matter, as well.  "From the intel we've been able to intercept, Tiamat was engineering a hybrid species as a slave class to mine strategic metals and minerals, as well as for...er...entertainment."

"What?  My cousin!  You're accusing MY family of genetic crime.  Watch your step, mister," Enlil said with genuine anger in his voice.

Oshirus was silent.  Enke and Ishtar turned quickly to their stations, so as not to incur the legendary wrath of Enlil.

Enlil collapsed into his chair and continued to stare at the display.  The entire group appeared to be deep in shock and thought.  Enlil wanted to retch his lungs out at what he was looking at, but he had to maintain composure or EVERYTHING was lost.

After a very long while, Enlil stirred and looked around at the small group that appeared to be the last survivors of Helios.

"We need to survive," he said, as if trying to convince himself.  "Can we breed with those creatures?"

Enke spoke up when no one else did, "According to what I'm seeing here, Tiamatians were already doing that.  Apparently, their city was a massive brothel, to put it mildly."

Rage appeared in Enlil's eyes, but he choked it back painfully.  "Get a team together and get as many breeding pairs as you can find.  Collect DNA from every land species you can.  Don't worry about the water creatures.  What's the story on the water ice?"

Oshirus cleared his throat, "According to calculations, it will reach Terra in roughly five months, eleven days, by local reckoning.  The amount I estimate to reach the surface will inundate all dry land.  It'll be a holocaust by any measure."

"We need help.  Save as many of the chimera species as you can.  We'll re-engineer the land animals after the flooding receeds.  We'll need seed from all the food-bearing plants, as well.  We don't have much time, so hop to it," Enlil said robotically.  He was running on pure instinct at the moment.  "Start designing a power plant using only local .materials.  I don't want to scavenge the ship, if we can possibly help it.  Did we lose anyone in the crash?"

"No, sir.  We have full compliment of 600," Enke reported automatically.

"Step to it, then."
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To be continued...