"Fire on the ship!" "It's streaking for reactors!"
She's breached! the tongues of fire
Lick up in the void . . .
She almost burns Orion.
The Captain drops from the bridge.
If her fiery comb hits the magnesium bolts
The warpdrive will go out.
They'll drop in infraspace on some uncharted timetrack
The leaking rhodium-uranium
May burn a crack in space.
"Collapse auxiliary universe.
Lose storage space on disk!"
The Captain furiously switches drives and diskettes.
Imaginative space opens out . . .
Transports the ship to Foamworld
Where the living fire goes out.
The crew take off their suits,
A cheer rings out:
"Captain, you saved us all!"
Then, hush: they see him and each other . . .
The Captain's skin is burned and dark.
A steel rod's in his head.
A steel hand's on his wrist.
He leans (they're green as grass),
And the sky of this planet is dissolving
Due to a syntax error in the program --
An infinite repeat.
The crew stare into a black stone:
They are stranded on this mudball:
The captain thinks he's God
Or Norman Bates.
# # # # #
Copyright 1983. Revised 2002.
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