Swarm Over Gallifeg.
pts 1& 2. 
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 16:33:17 +0800
From: Jon Fetter 
Subject: Docteur Qui in  "Swarm Over Gallifeg" (Episode I)

        As the linctus-shaped tardis spun through the infinite vortex of
time, tunes,  and space, the Doctor's quirky and whimsical companion
longjonz the savage was splashing in the tardis pool with the Doctor's
particular pet, Henrietta, a rare "visible" pygmy hippo.  longjonz was
feeding her  swamp-kumquats and watching their progress through the hippo's
digestive tract.
        The tardis' PA system  gwizzed on with a slurpy gwiz. "[gwiz]
longjonz, we're making an unscheduled stop.  Come to the control room and
don't forget to enclose Henrietta in her globe. [gwiz]"
        longjonz made her way through corridors lined with  banks of
stickleback and jellyfish aquaria, and averted her eyes from the aqua-blue
glow of the tardis' alt-universe-synchronizer, a massive stack of 1909
indian-head pennies.  The Doctor had told her that collectively the pennies
formed a "zaheer."  She had no idea what he meant, but lately they had been
on her mind quite a bit.
        The ending credits of "Piers Antony and Terry Prachett Present"
were scrolling down the main viewscreen as she entered the control room.
        "There's trouble on Gallifeg,  Quite a brouhaha" the Doctor said,
coughing and quickly changing the channel to the Pi-calculating channel.
        "Daleks? Mutant mooses?" she ventured.
        "No, even worse.  Even worse than mootant muses.  Bees. Evan
Fooking-Eb, Chief Pundit, has been stung.  Jelly baby?"
        longonzj frowned.  Obviously this was no longer a kiddie show.
****
        The tardis materialized in a small park  behind the  towering
Gallifeg Hall o' Records,  crushing countless Gallifegian mites, isopods,
ground beetles and other by-crawling invertebrates who had no relevance to
this story.
        The Doctor gave longjonz a long tapering feather mounted on a
headband.  "It's a prostethic hmuh.  It acts as an antenna and prevents
halitosis if used as vurt.  All residents of Gallifeg are required to be
tapped into the list 27 hours a day."
        longjonz placed it on her head and stepped out into the fuggy air.
She was immediately swamped by astrawberry  wave of information.  She
reeled and started to fall forward as the Doctor quickly zipped the hmuh
from her head.
        "I'll reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.  You should be able
to stand it now," he said.  "Come on K-9"
        longjonz replaced the hmuh.  In her mind she could "see" icons
representing the many realms of fegdom.  She selected "Hot Topics" and
found that most of the posts dealt with Evan Fooking-Eb.  Most showed
concern, but quite a few  seemed rather pleased with the turn of events.
Someone had even posted the lyrics to "Young Ben of the Hill."  Irish music
filled her brain as she scanned
 "A curse upon you Evan Fooking-Eb,
 you dissed my favourite band,
 I hope you'll soon rot in hell for the comments that you sent..."

**********<Cut for PBS fund-raising drive>************

        The Doctor and Longjonz made their way to Gallifeg General Hospital
through a garden of obscene flowers.
        The Doctor stretched his arms and inhaled deeply.  "Ah, the scent
of Mahogany Rushes..."
        "Doctor, what is that sound I hear all the time?" longjonz asked.
        "That, my gentle savage, is the music of RH.  It fills the air of
Gallifeg.  You can even go to Thaiwong, the most remote island of Gallifeg,
and still hear it there."
        "It seems a little nasal..."
        "Shh.  Don't criticize.  Someone could be posting this conversation
even as we speak.  You  might make enemies that way.  I almost dare to
think that the Chief Pundit's current situation was due to his lukewarm
reception of 'SH'."
        "Shh?"  said longjonz.
        "No, S-H."
        "This Pundit-Eb was stung by a bee because he didn't like an album
very much? What kind of place is this?"
        "We're standing on the home planet of the List-lords.  Anything is
possible."
        Another question occurred to longjonz.  "Doctor, should we say 'at
hospital' or 'at the hosptial?'"
        The Doctor looked at her strangely.  "I prefer to stay 'mum' on
that one."
        The Doctor strode on as longjonz confusedly contemplated a Horny
Mugwort abusing the stamens of a reluctant Dutchman's-breeches.

*****
        The Doctor and longjonz were met by Dr. Oberverry, a List-lord
survior of the horrific Canadian Recordable Media Tax War  (which had
nearly destroyed the Earth's music industry), now head of Gallifeg General.
He was accompanied by fellow refugee, Nurse Randi.
        Oberverry flashed a trowel and extended his hmuh in the secret
pretzel-shaped feg greeting reserved for 23rd-plane List Lords. "Doctor,
what brings you to our fine hospital?"
        "Something is rotten in Gallifeg.  Hello Nurse!"  The Doctor cried.
        "The only thing rotten is the Chief Pundit, I'm afraid."  Oberverry
led them to a Geigeresque-revival tank filled with a thick coffee-colored
fluid.  "Here he is, what's left of him.  I've never seen this kind of
reaction to a bee sting.  He's melting away into this brown mucous.  There
wasn't much we could do for him, since he couldn't tell us what kind of bee
it was, and you know Gallifeg has over 6000 species ranging in size from
the Western Nanobee to the Wooly Mammon Bee and its parasitoid the Shaggy
Furbee.  Leave it to the Cheif Pundit to have never taken a course in
Entomology."
        "mmug....great....wump....fool..gumpwum...dead!.....ia, ia,"
Fooking-Eb shlurpled and died.
        longjonz sniffled.
        "Don't worry, young Miss Savage," Oberverry said.  "List-lords have
multiple incarnations.  You're about to witness  a wondrous transformation.
Fooking-Eb will revert to newby-status for several days, until his brain
waves return to normal and his ego returns. And (he said with a grin) until
he's back to normal, he'll be like a babe in the woods on the list.  It's
quite humbling.  The first thing he'll do is whip off a
self-introduction...RH knows what bands he'll profess a liking for before
his memory clears.  I have  50 Megagelanic Mussells laid down that says
he'll list Marillion as best band of 2799."
        Everyone stared at the tank.
        "It should be any minute now," Oberverry said. "It's really quite
other-than-else."
        Everyone stared at the tank.  A stale bubble broached the brown
mucousy surface, giving off a stench of old topics.
        "I don't understand.   He had five more lives," muttered Overberry
as he picked up a sonic swizzle-stick and swirled it in the
goop-that-was-Fooking-Eb.
        "He's not transforming.  The mega-placenta has failed completely..."
        "Have you run an analysis on the brown mucus?" The Doctor asked.
        Nurse Randi handed a printout to the The Doctor. "Here are the
results.  At first we thought it was Kahlua that he's spilled on himself.
The results are very unusual, but we're 99% sure that the fluid consists of
lark's vomit."
        The Doctor drew out his own swizzle-stick, dipped it in the tank
and smeared a streak on a largely smallish medium plate that K-9 had
extruded.  K-9 started to whir and click, then spat out a ticker-tape
report.  The Doctor tore it off.
        "K-9 can distinguish between the gastric emanations of half a
million avian species, even more than the Fat Lady of Limburg.  Now, let's
see...your tests missed this ethyl-ketone group here..."
        The Doctor grew pale.  "It's quailspew.  Let's get out of here."
The four of them barely had time to do so before air tight barrier doors
slammed down and the tank was frozen in a cone of Cogent-Dizone.

**********<Cut for PBS fund-raising drive>************
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 01:43:24 +0800
From: Jon Fetter 
Subject: Docteur Qui in  "Swarm Over Gallifeg" (Episode II)

...and now back to Docteur Qui, available only on WFEG, thanks to your
generous contributions...

        The Doctor grew pale.  "It's quailspew.  Let's get out of here."
The four of them barely had time to do so before air tight barrier doors
slammed down and the tank was frozen in a cone of Cogent-Dizone.
        "Doctor, I just got an e-mail," longjonz said.
        "So have I.   It's a post to the whole list from Evan Fooking-Eb
announcing his own demise.  Nobody ever scoops, er, scooped him.  Sheesh,
he attatched a copy of Nick Cave's 'Lay Me Low' and a graphic of the new
EFE action figure.  Hmm, it features a complete body- map of acupuncture
points, a kung-fu grip that can crush execrable CDs, and it spews brown
phlegm if you tickle it.   Anyway, the message was sent from his home
address.  We may find some clues there."
        The Doctor and longjonz rented an lp hovercraft and foomed along
the hoverway towards the apartment block of Neo-Tudor pyramids in which
Evan Fooking-Eb had made his home.  It was a slow trip because the
Gallifegian traffic system was the most expensive in that arm of the Hairy
Stars galaxy, and the traffic council wanted to make sure that every
citizen got their monetary unit's worth.  This meant that everytime a
hovercraft approached a signal, it immediately turned red.  As this caused
a great deal of irritation, the signals would try to calm the drivers down
by blasting soothing prog rock at them.  So far the Doctor and longjonz had
been treated to "Lark's Tongue in Aspic", the middle fade-out part of
"Thick as a Brick,"some Pink Floyd, and a Carl Palmer medley.
        "Pink Floyd isn't prog-rock," longjonz shouted above the din.
        "Shhh..."The Doctor whispered.  "These traffic signals not only
have ultra-sensitive hearing but also ultra-sensitive opinions.  They are
loaded with cd-burners and supersonic phononeedles.  Otherwise no one would
give a fretted fripp about them and just  run the lights."
        They parked in the "Alpha Plus Only" section and entered the
pyramid.  They had to push though a massive stack of origami storks piled
in front of Evan Fooking-Eb's discard CD-studded door.  They entered the
first of his rooms, in which everything was blue, and after seven sharp
turns they eventually made it to the last room, his computer room, entirely
black.  Strangely, quail feathers were scattered about the room.
        "I don't like the look of that clock," The Doctor mumbled, scooping
up a feather.  "This is very strange.  These feathers are from Lafortyx
australis, the Lesser Outback Quail from  Earth.  I wonder how why they're
here in Evan Fooking-Eb's inner sanctum."

**********<Cut for PBS fund-raising drive>************

        longjonz immediately started to ask a million "What's this?" and
"Where is Klaatu?" questions.  The Doctor, unable to work, took her back to
the red room and pointed out a large, candy-like button on a low console.
        "Guard that button.  Whatever you do, DON'T PUSH IT," he said, and
returned to the black room in a huff.
        longjonz grew bored in several seconds.  She took off her
hmuh-headband, sat up on the console and "accidentally" pushed the button
with her butt.
        longjonz found herself on a path in a green woods.  The path was
flat and straight, but looking to the left she saw what looked like
clearing. She called for The Doctor several times without an answer.  She
must have been transported to some other planet, as she no longer saw
Gallifeg's familiar twin moons, Phear and Lowthing.  "I'll try over towards
that clearing ," she thought.
        The clearing was small, but in the middle shaggy toadstools
sporaginated playfully.  Under a tall, black, loosely-leafed tree on the
far rim stood a small wooden A-frame.  longjonz approached it and saw that
it contained a mahogany Syd joss.  Rustic offerings of popcorn and dental
floss were stuffed in its armpits. On seeing that the trail stopped there,
longjonz turned around and tried the other way, only to find a similar
clearing ahead, which slowly turned into a copy of the previous one.  She
sat next to the shrine in the cool shade of the black tree.  Cool
shade...black shade...STICKY shade!
        longjonz tried to sit up and failed completely.  She opened her
eyes and saw that a great kha-whoomp of black stickiness had fallen upon
her from the tree above, whose branches waved in a wickedly  whimsical way.
She heard a voice in her ear.
        "Wug, wug...wug wug...daed si luap...wuga wuga..." over and over.
        Suddenly the sound stopped and the  Syd joss, all 15 centimeters
tall, stood on her chest.  It started to sing, stopped, and started again.
        "Isn't it good to be lost in the woods, isn't it bad to die out
here....in the woods," it hollered as roots started to pull her slowly into
the ground.  Rootlets reached around, closed her eyes, and started to rub
her eyelids.  Immediately she experienced the most spectacular phosphors.
The roots didn't stop, though, and she started to feel dizzy.

**********<Cut for PBS fund-raising drive>************

        The Syd's song stopped in mid-word.  She heard it scamper away like
a wounded crab as her ears picked up a new song...

        "Hey Tom Brewertom, Tom Brew-a-beer-o,
        lives in the tulgey wood, and his socks are yellow,
        don't know my rhyming scheme, metre is all messed up really awful
doncha know?
        Let's build a fire now, and Dr. Sticky stop it why don't you?"

        longjonz popped out of the ground like a piece of toast.  Tom bowed
before her, and after some pleasantries offered to lead her to a place of
safety.  Waving his arm, a clear path appeared in the woods.  They walked
together for several hours, swatting bush-flies happily and stopping to
identify plants or start small bonfires.  As evening fell Tom left her at a
small inn whose joined buildings formed a croissant-shape.
        "This is the tavern of Lobsterman Burnbutter.  It has the best
home-brew in these parts.  I'll leave you here,  as I've got some bottling
to do."
        longjonz entered The Trancing Phony and took a seat far away from
the speakers.  There were the usual tavern sorts...two Gauls, one short and
the other big and fat ("He looks like Gerard!" she thought)...some fairies,
nymphs and The Pixies...Mr. Toad....a cat, a mouse and a dog in a police
uniform...and two guys aproaching her table.
        "I am known as Gandalf, though you may have heard of me before by
my other names.  I am Bayard in the North, Majikthise in the South, and..."
        "...and I am Mark of Glostershire," interrupted the second man.
        "What is that in your hand?" longjonz asked him.
        Mark of Glostershire waved it above his head, yelling "Pfnurrg!?!
Behold The Guitar That Has Been Broken!"
        longjonz reeled back, then jigged front.  "And what have you got in
your pocket?" she hissed.
        Mark of Glostershire reached into his cloak pocket and took out a
large cluster of radishes.  He started stroking them.  As if on cue,
Gandalf's head rolled back and toothpaste gushed forth.
        longjonz bolted out the door only to see a large hand descending
from the clear blue sky toward her.  She screamed
        and found herself standing in front of the low console, holding the
Doctor's hand.
        "You were in one of Evan Fooking-Eb's fantasy-porn holotapes. Take
a minute to calm down and then take a look at this Gothic window screen."
There was a gaping hole the size of a wombat in the lower left corner of
the screen, and a large, hairy, segmented leg  lay on the sill below. "It
must have gotten stuck in the screen on the way out.  This is a bee's leg
for sure, but I don't recognize the species.  It may  not be native.  Gnat
will know what it is.  But..."
        EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
(Broadcast stops as Nesmithian shock-troops assume control of the station)

__________________________________________________________________
"And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the
sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this
side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the
camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.  And the
people  stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day,
and they gathered the quails: and he that gathered least gathered ten
homers:  and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the
camp.  And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed,
the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote
the people with a very great plague.   And he called the name of that place
Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they  buried the people that lusted."
                                        -- Numbers 11. 31-34



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