Cheering for the Rockets
A Jerry Cornelius Story
“I call it retrospeculation.” A goat bleated. Professor Hira came waving out of the nearest black tent. With their vehicles, the Berber camp was the only shelter in a thousand miles. The plucky little Brahmin had an arrangement with the sheikhh. He was still wearing his winter djellabah. He had his uniform cap on at a jaunty angle. Behind him, above the dark folds of heavy felt the tribe’s cycling satellite dish forever interpreted the clouds. “Anyway. What does geography mean now?”
“Lies…”
“Too right. You dissed the whole fucking world, man. Then you ojayed it. But not forever. You were neither brave, free nor respectful. Once we couldn’t use your engines what could you offer us except death?” Shaky Mo stepped in the general’s lap, crossing to the useless desert cruiser and climbing slowly up the camouflage webbing to his usual perch on the forward gun tower. “Not that I approved of everyone leaving the U.N.”
“We are the U.N.,” explained General Fors. “At least let me keep my Ferraris.”
“Your mistake was to get up the Mahdi’s nose, mate. A poor grasp of religion, you people. And what’s worse, you have bad memories.” Pulling down the general’s shades, Mo set himself on snooze. Gently, his equipment fizzed and muttered, almost a lullaby. He swung slowly in his rigging. From his phones came the soothing pounding of Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes.
To be fair, General Fors had got up all their noses. Leaving old Lady Brunner wandering about in the dried-up oasis, the rest of them moved into the desert leviathan’s shade. They felt uneasy if they wandered too far from the huge land-ship Her Kirbyesque aesthetics were both comforting and stunning. But her function left something to be desired. The General Gordon had been breaking down ever since they’d fled Khartoum. The vehicle had been the best they could find. At a mile to the gallon it wasn’t expensive to run. The world was full of free gas. From somewhere inside the ship their engineer, Colonel Pyat, could be heard banging and cursing at the groaning hydraulics and whispering cooling systems. Sometimes it was hard to tell the various sounds apart. The machine had its own language.
Jerry wondered at the sudden sensation in his groin. Was he pregnant?
He paused and looked up at the pulsing sky. At least they’d had the sense not to fly.
