The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs Read Free Book Online Page B

operations are underway, the surgeons passing organs and instruments back and forth, slipping on the bloody floor. Brains are slopped from one pan to another like scrambled eggs.
    "Move over! I got a pregnant wart hog here."
    Each day, stretchers loaded with patched-together animal cadavers are carted off for autopsy, and some to Recovery. It is surprising that the animal subjects were able to exhibit any behavior for study after such surgery, but some of them were able to walk, bark, howl and snarl.
    There were no meows, since Joe would have no cats in the Zoo, nor any raccoons, skunks, minks, foxes, lemurs or any creature with a high cuteness rating. He did not want even to contemplate or describe dubious surgery on these creatures, mute evidence that at one time a Creator with skilled, delicate and loving fingers drew breath on planet Earth, before the bad animal, Man, put an end to creation and so brought the evolutionary process to a halt.
    For Man is indeed the final product. Not because homo sap is the apogee of perfection, before which God himself gasps in awe—"I can do nothing more!"—but because Man is an unsuccessful experiment, caught in a biologic dead end and inexorably headed for extinction.
    "All right, boys, let's cut our way to freedom."
    The hybrid concept underlies all relations between man and other animals, since only a being partaking of both man and animal can mediate between two species. These are blueprint hybrids, potentials rather than actual separate beings, capable of reproduction.
    It is the task of the Guardian to nurture these half-formed creatures and to realize their potential. Some beings are bought with terrible suffering; others fail completely. All previous instructions, all guidelines, all past experience, count for nothing here. . . .
    He holds the animal spirit gently to his chest, palms crossed. The first of its kind, the only one of its kind, turns to Him with total trust. There is no one else. And he must accept total responsibility. No one else is there. What does the creature need? He must find out and provide it, at any cost. The apprentice Guardian, apprenticed no longer.
    Once you are in the field you are absolutely on your own. It is up to you to invoke the aid you need, by the intensity of your need. There has been much talk of love on this planet, and after all is said and done—and more is said than is done—few realize that there is a love more intense than any love of man for woman, or man for man, a love that is neither sexual nor religious. The love for a creature that you have created from your whole being transcends any other love.
    And you do die of it, to lose the only thing your whole life means, every breath, every gesture, all the weariness and pain for this one act—such grief can kill. He begins to understand why people will do anything to avoid it. But he cannot avoid it. He has assumed the role of Guardian.

    Outside a Palm Beach bungalow waiting for a taxi to the airport. My mother's kind, unhappy face, last time I ever saw her. Really a blessing. She had been ill for a long time. My father's dead face in the crematorium.
    "Too late. Over from Cobblestone Gardens."

Chapter 03
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    Neferti is eating breakfast at a long, wooden table with five members of an expedition: English, French, Russian, Austrian, Swedish. They are housed in a large utility shed, with filing cabinets, cots, footlockers, tool shelves and gun racks.
    The Englishman addresses Neferti: "Look at you, a burnt-out astronaut. You are supposed to bring drastic change . . . to exhort!"
    "It is difficult when my exhortations are shot down by enemy critics backed by computerized thought control."
    "Critics? Stand up! Exhort!"
    Neferti experiences a sudden surge of energy. He soars to the ceiling. The others continue eating. The Russian is studying graphs on the table between mouthfuls. Up through the ceiling. He encounters a blanket of compacted snow. He breaks through the snow into a