Marjorie on Mars... with who?

Unending BE - episode 107276

"And I don't know what colony you've escaped from, but you look like you can be of some use around here... we're sort of short on your kind around here, and a Forgotten pleasure slave is a good addition. So, missy, what settlement are you from?"

"Er, actually, I'm from Logesburg, Idaho. Earth.... look, it's a huge mess to explain, but-"
"Do I look like a fool?" the man replied, now visibly angry, and slapped Marjorie. "A Terran wandering in the Iron Plains without a filter mask? You'd have been dead in minutes. Well, little liar, consider yourself lucky: the Ras wants to see you. And he's much less considerate with you mutant freaks." Marjorie registered that this man had some kind of accent, although she couldn't quite pinpoint what.

The man quickly bolted a chain on Marjorie's collar and, to her surprise, gave her a sort of grey poncho to cover herself with before leading her outside the shack.

Marjorie could see that the small dome covered what basically looked like an Old West-ish mining town with a few twists; in addition to the strange animals she saw, which looked very much like woolly ponies with two tails and a very little head, she saw a couple of people -- probably soldiers or militia -- riding on what looked like early electric cars. The dome had one main gate, next to which were parked twelve enormous machines whose purpose she could not quite tell.


She was led across the small settlement to the only three-storied building, an otherwise unremarkable construction which was made of rock like almost everything else in the town (the only exception being a large warehouse next to the machines). To her amazement, she saw some Fascist insignia at the door -- and the man gave the Fascist salute to the guard, who answered sloppily and made a catcall in Marjorie's direction.
The building was part house, part administration facility, as the secretary on the ground floor could testify. "She's the new arrival, hmm? Let me see if Don Enzo can see you two." the secretary said to the man, in Italian. Marjorie was surprised to see that she could understand it, but hid the fact since obviously her captor didn't know. Fascists on Mars? What was going on?

"Go right in." The man yanked Marjorie's chain and opened the armored door. Now she recognized the accent as Sicilian... what the hell?

  1. The Ras' apartment follows pretty much an Arabian-ish fashion. The fat, balding man looks at Marjorie and seems pleased...
  2. It seems that Marjorie's suspicion of being held by a cross between Fascists and the Mafia was correct. But what are they doing on Mars? And why is the calendar saying 1985?
  3. Something else...
Go back - Go to the parent episode.

Conrad Volkov

Fri Oct 20 15:40:31 2000