The origin of the term Hemegohm's Tendril is uncertain. It is believed to be of military origin, possibly coined in response to drug abuse among soldiers in off world locales. Though its true meaning is still under debate, it is often applied to one of the known chronic side effects of the illicit drug Tigrizine (or Tigris), characterized by repeated sightings of spider-like creatures, generally thought to be hallucinatory in nature. Despite their alarming tendency to worsen and intensify over time, such hallucinations or "invasions" usually acquire mystical or divine stature among those afflicted. The United Galactic Military has studied these psychic infestations, but their results are still highly classified. Though the World Order has banned the drug on Earth and quarantined the Tigris solar system, the substance's popularity has only increased since the trial of Simon Shadow in 2167 (see Drug Abuse, Polyintoxicants, Simon Shadow, States of Consciousness, Tigris Quarantine, and Tigrizine).
From the entry Hemegohm's Tendril
Bendil Universal Encyclopedia
“There was at some point a first miracle. Some first occurrence of profitable circumstance. That is why we are in this business—this religion thing we do so well. That is why it is our right to make a profit—and to spread our ways across the frontiers, unifying and pacifying as we go.”
Pad Q. Glibbert’s eyes shone like tiny, piercing fires. The audience before him applauded, filling the vast League of Faiths Pavilion with a white noise of approval. There were no other sounds—no swelling of voices—only applause, deep, even and powerful.
“Six thousand years ago,” he continued, “there was a man—a great man—a shaman, for lack of a better term. This man once faced his terrifed tribe in the midst of a drought. Besieged by a ceaseless swarm of questions, he took up his staff and spear and ascended a sacred mountain, determined to find the water that his people needed to survive. But he was not just searching for water—he was searching for understanding. He wanted answers that would not come to humanity for many thousands of years—and in some strange way, I believe he sensed his place in the sequence of human ascension. He sought only to glimpse truth—not possess it, for he knew his life span was inadequate to deliver true understanding.”
“Today, as many of you now know, we have obtained that truth. We are the extension of that distant shaman—every one of us—but not wholly, for there is another side to this ancient story. I firmly believe that we are descended from this man’s rival—another shaman—who happened upon his own answer to the riddle of the drought. His weed-addled mind had been shown the most valuable thing of all—the power of endings—the power of apocalypse.”
The applause came again; Glibbert had stood before his constituents many times—had received dozens of ovations—it was habit for them to applaud, and it had begun to bore him; it interfered with his sense of rhythm and the ultimate delivery of his message, despite the fact this his ideas were well-known by now; he held up his hands to quiet them all, to dispense with these decorative responses. The crowd, however, would not have it, and continued. Glibbert smiled and glanced to his right, where his assistant Vissoon stood off stage; the man grinned knowingly, shrugged, held up his hands in answerless pride. As the noise began to wane, Glibbert gave Vissoon an appreciative nod, and spoke:
“Think of it, my friends—an ancient shaman climbs a mountain, and is met only by the mystery of an arrow in his back. We know this man existed. His remains have been in a museum on Earth for many years now. The cause of his death is quite clear. Did this shaman have time to run? Did he even have the chance to face his attacker? I think not. His quest to save his people came to an abrupt end, as he tumbled headlong into a crevice, propelled by that crude arrow. Did he die for his people? Simpler folk would say as much, for in time, the rains came; but as the land came to life once more, that rival shaman, the one who fired the arrow, found his power had grown; he'd woven a mountainous tale of death into a sacred story, thereby altering the consciousness of his own tribe. From the mountains he discovered the power—and the logic—of human sacrifice.”
“And so the rains came,” declared Glibbert, his fist slamming into the podium’s edge. “Coincidence, of course—the most powerful force in human civilization; it is the true gift—the true mystery. It still drives us—ever onward. But look at us—we are all good citizens, are we not? We have built our churches with quality in mind, with comfort as our goal. Having escaped the womb of Earth, we now grow—and live to further ourselves. We are all pious—we put our faith in coincidence and the masses bow down to us—and so why shouldn’t we profit from that? Why do some characterize our great spiritual achievement as wrong? I assert that we are the saviors of our civilization. I believe that it is our right—now, and in the future—to reap the profits of the Great Experiment.”
Glibbert scanned the throng—now a roiling mass of approval. His eyes wandered along the front row; he recognized many faces, and smiled at a few. They were the latest yield of the Great Experiment—new inductees into the League of Faiths, from colonies far and wide; Arch Fellows from the Western Edge sat harmoniously with Grand Magisters from the East; the seats adjoining theirs were taken by the Lord Rival Penchants of the Northern Frontier, and flanking them were the ever-patient Plaid Adventists from the Galactic South. Glibbert’s sense of timing dictated he continue, but a sudden succession of green flashes refracted across the podium’s surface, and then along the right side of his face, leaving irritating streaks within the confines of his eye; at that same moment, other similar flickers came from below—reflecting from the glittering raiments of those in the front row.
Glibbert looked off stage for Vissoon but the man had vanished. This fact generated a moment of unease, but he rationalized that perhaps Vissoon had already taken action; his assistant had often done so in the past, when an unruly room had imperiled one of his speeches; of course, this was his crowd, these were his people. Why would they deliberately cause a disturbance? Breathing deeply, he considered the spectators in the vast upper balcony—the stoic, ever-watchful forms of the United Galactic Military. Whereas in previous decades the military’s presence might have alarmed him, he now felt calm; things were different now between the League of Faiths and the military, and he was glad of it. He waited for the wave of applause to crash and dissipate before continuing.
“Our presence here, on the eve of the year 2200, is a symbolic gesture, more powerful than any of you can imagine. We represent a union of colonized worlds, held together by a profitable and expansive web. We are pushing the chaos of the faithless further away from the centers of old empires. When I first spoke before you, now over forty years ago, I was merely a guest speaker—one among many—promoting my book called Religion for Fun and Profit. Some of you may have read it.”
Pockets of laughter—some of it savoring the statement as if it were the most sacred of in-jokes—could just be heard in the vast room.
“The people of the Galactic Societal Organism want answers, my friends. They don’t want to think. Answers are what we give to them. We know the truth—as do many others; but knowing the truth is a far cry from understanding it and applying it to one’s own existence. We are the caretakers of this vast body. We are indispensable. We are demigods among the backward—”
The green flash came again, stinging his right eye. Fear surged; he felt—pain? And there was now a dancing black spot within his eye—no matter where he looked, a dreadful circle of nothingness evaded his focus.
“I’m sorry, but—I’m having—I can’t—”
His agitation was showing, his hands shielding his eyes from the glare of the stage lighting; the crowd before him reacted. Heads were turning. Glances were exchanged.
Glibbert needed Vissoon, and he sighed, relieved, when he perceived movement on the stage; someone had stepped from the darkness. Peripherally, he could see the familiar patterns of Vissoon’s robe.
Imploring his assistant to join him, Glibbert felt awkward in the moment that followed. Vissoon remained still, as if turned to stone, his robe discolored—spattered with something dark. His face was lost within the shadow of his cowl.
Glibbert knew only confusion. “Gentlemen, forgive me,” he said to the crowd, “I seem to have a problem—”
The shimmering flare that came next surprised everyone in the room. Glibbert’s headless body slumped forward, colliding heavily with the podium.
Those who had, by coincidence, made eye contact with Glibbert just prior saw only an implosion—a noiseless, sterile, and savagely brief sinkhole in the fabric of reality. It had been directed, this negation; it had come from the other man standing on stage, and it had taken anything it touched with it—Pad Q. Glibbert’s head, a section of wall on the far side of the hall, and the life of an unfortunate pedestrian outside.
The assassin who wore Vissoon’s bloodied robe strode quietly forward, holding a dark weapon, and with a robotic turn, unleashed its power upon the dignitaries at the front, skipping merciless spheres of negation across their numbers like stones on the surface of a lake. Heads imploded. Bodies collapsed. Limbs vanished. At the back of the room, great apertures were instantly punched through the walls.
Amid the resultant chaos, just behind the sixth row, Meinolf Gloomdred, Starless Magnate of the Unholy Mass, suddenly felt relief; his simmering resentment of the event planners who’d placed him so far back had dissipated as quickly as the bodies of those who’d been seated in the front row. Struggling to stand, his aged body failed him. Terrified people were pouring across the rows, and he was pushed to the floor, where his oversized, ceremonial phallus collided with his chin. The painful knock triggered a theatrical ejaculation sequence, and he found himself covered with a fragrant spattering of simulated semen.
“Damn thee!” he cried, gripping spastically at the spewing, metallic glans. His bony fingers could barely contain the flood. Powerless to correct the malfunction, he crouched, directing the discharge over his shoulder. He slowly made his way to the aisle.
At the same moment, a squad of soldiers were descending through the air from the upper balcony, guns ablaze. The stage, with its scene of decapitation, was ripped apart.
Somehow immune to the intersecting barrage, the assassin turned and transformed; the human shape shifted into a pattern, lenticular and sparkling—and then faded, leaving a spider-like construct of light in its wake. The podium was caught in the cross-fire, shattering, collapsing. The soldiers pounded onto the stage, their goggles affording a glimpse into every known spectrum; all they found was a tantalizing trace of gamma radiation, but it was enough to prompt another storm of gunfire, which shredded the expansive League of Faiths tapestry beyond. The soldiers quickly formed a barrier, their backs to the crowd. Behind them, the seating area was an undulating mass of destruction. Many lay dead, unrecognizable—their bodies neatly, bloodlessly carved into horrific new shapes. The medics, flooding the hall, quickly accepted there was nothing they could do. No one—not even the soldiers—had seen such a weapon before. Great shafts of space now extended downward into the hall’s foundation, spewing gas and flame from ruptured power and sanitation lines.
The crowd continued its struggle to escape, pressing and pushing, trampling and snarling; and while most were trying to get out, one among them was stomping and clawing his way toward the stage.
“Out of my way,” Gloomdred demanded.
“Not now, Meinolf,” someone said, trying to get around him.
“Turn that fucking thing off,” said another, wiping the still-flying simulated semen from his face.
Gloomdred launched a foul gaze in as many directions as his neck would allow, but it was met with indifference, if met at all. He continued to fight against the flow, his malfunctioning phallus bestowing an unintended crowd-parting utility. Eventually, he climbed the stairs to the stage, where the marines formed a porous barrier; most of them were still fixating on the area where the assassin had vanished, but one took note of Gloomdred's arrival, raising his weapon, his face contorting. Gloomdred's phallus was clacking now, its reservoir of fluid finally running dry. The soldier, bewildered, turned his attention to the stage again—to something that made a bit more sense, if only marginally. Encouraged, Gloomdred edged closer to the body of his headless mentor, Pad Q. Glibbert. The decapitation was clean, surgically precise, and the implications were vast. There would now be promotions—true advancements—within the League of Faiths. He had been overlooked in his later years for such positions, stigmatized, perhaps, for misdeeds that would now seem trivial. The League had been attacked, and it would, no doubt, need the kind of leadership he could provide. He’d been around—on the colonial forefront, the rotting edge of open warfare—for years. He was supremely qualified.
To Gloomdred’s right, and talking excitedly, a team of technicians was examining an array of items left behind by the assassin, including the weapon itself; it was a pistol of obviously unknown origin and power. Gloomdred decided to get closer, within ear shot, perhaps to get his hands on the thing, but as he moved, something crunched under his heel. At his feet was a pouch—more evidence of the assassin's handiwork—shiny black, embroidered, spilling an array of tiny, crystalline tablets or pills. The technicians had seen his approach.
“Don’t move,” barked the lead, motioning to the rest of his team to intercept.
They swarmed around Gloomdred, pushing him aside. Within seconds the analysis was complete. "It's Tigrizine. Extreme purity."
When they flipped the pouch, Gloomdred gasped at the design on its face.
“Shadow!” he hissed.
A flash of intense nervousness had gripped him, far below the belt. He sensed a bombardment of questions, but a familiar feeling of threat, of conflict and defeat, flooded his body; he couldn't answer. From stage right, another group of technicians had pulled the stripped body of Glibbert's assistant Vissoon from the shadows. The man's lifeless face was pale, drained of color. Gloomdred looked to those around him, and then back at the pouch. It was the Sacred Symbol of Delb—the sign of a long-dead god—a farce. His fresh memory of the assassin, a hooded figure in a borrowed, bloodied robe, replayed itself in his mind. The gait of the figure, the height, the build: had it been Simon Shadow? The man had disappeared en route to prison, long ago, never to be found. If it had been him—what had he become?
“It can’t be,” he whispered.
“You know this?” asked the technician.
Gloomdred’s eyes traced it—concentric circles, stitched in silver, filled by a maze of interior parallel and perpendicular lines. How long had it been since he last saw it? Twenty years? Thirty? Perhaps more. Of all his memories, of all his failures, those of the colony called Reetar burned the brightest, lit in perpetuity by the planet's twin suns. His mind drifted to the past, to a time when he'd been a fugitive, hiding in a cave north of Reetar Colony. He realized that some part of him was still trapped there, surrounded by the artifices of his trade, hounded by visions of his failed vendetta against Simon Shadow.
“This symbol—please,” begged the technician. “What does it mean?”
Gloomdred looked away, trying to regain his calm. His thoughts of promotion—of renewed power within the League of Faiths—abandoned him. The weight of his wet robe seemed unbearable, and he quickly pulled the release cord on his ceremonial phallus; it thumped to the floor.
“It means nothing,” said Gloomdred, his throat constricting.
Before anyone could ask for clarification, he hobbled away, desperate to escape the pavilion.
The Profits of Apocalypse © 2009 by James Kracht.
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.