It seemed that in the dimension my new friend was telling me of as we warmed ourselves next to his plasma furnace was grossly similar to my Earth, and his Earth. One nice thing about versing is bumping into the occasional person from Home, or from a world so close to home as to make no never mind.

The world of the tale had Jimmy Carter taking the place of some other geriatric rock star, and the American currency had to be re-floated after crashing from hyper-inflation in 1995, but other than that it seemed like home.

Except that six months before he arrived a large group of versers arrived, versed in, sprouted like malignant weeds in this decent world.



It is wise to remember, fellow verser or indigenous scholar who reads this work, that even though versers are often the trump card for the forces of good; a power that bends convention and plays by new rules can be used for the ill of the locals as well.

I’ve met a few versers who were openly malevolent. But most of the bad ones were well-meaning idiots who I would not have trusted as parking lot attendants, and they had the power to shatter lives and cities. I’m sure some might put me in that category as a well-meaning idiot, but I digress. These, the Pantheon as he called them seemed in Category One.

I think we, the responsible among the verser ‘community’ an admittedly odd and diffuse, but real thing need to consider more effective methods of dealing with such rogues.



One such group of rogues is the Pantheon of Olympus. According to the third-hand information that my tale-teller told me which he admitted is based on the word of a self-admitted liar by the name of John, alias Lord Apollo, the Pantheon started as Pi Omega Zeta at New Clarksdale University in the State of Ontario. Evidently a certain invasion of the North went differently in their home world than in mine.

They were watching Clash of the Titans and holding a drinking contest as they tried to remember the lines before the actor delivered them. Gathered close to their latest “investment”, a big-screen TV for their frat house those who cared and could still read could clearly see a Zenith(r) logo and a Scriff-eneabled logo.

The ending has a tragic inevitability. The stories divide, I am told, based on which ‘god’ is telling the story, but someone could not hold his liquour. He passed out, and dumped his keg-design mug of beer on the TV. Big explosion, and active scriff is flying everywhere in the room. The lot is killed, and most of them are scriff-infected and thus “survive” to be versed out of their original world into another.

I can only regard this as a tragedy for the Multiverse. I feel certain, that they were regarded as a bad element on their home world and among their frat brothers. They would have been a collection of waitress-pinchers, insurance and car sellers with a few television personalities, and one potential NFL player in their world. Relying on charm and deceit and big muscles and a past history as a football player to get by would have been their modus operandi. Perhaps, I judge them too harshly.

Freed of the constraints of their world, and faced with having to be on their own, and with truly unusual circumstances they did not do what some do. They did not hide, and they did not become better people.

They spread across the Multiverse learning new skills, and picking up exotic weapons. So far, so good, you say. But they got these weapons without the owner’s permission once they realized they were effectively immortal. Individually they realized that laws were a minor inconvenience to a verser.

After a number of worlds separate, they ran into each other again in what they came to call a gather world. Discussing the happenings of that night, and the movie Clash of the Titans got the idea tossed about to take over the world they were inhabiting. It worked well enough to make them want to try it again.

A gray army of CIA/KGB/Mossad hit teams took them out, and got rid of that world’s problem. I wonder what would happen to a verser who accidentally landed in that world. Yet another reason to clean up after ourselves, fellow versers.

Onward they travelled, and a few of them began to live the identity of Greek gods they had briefly assumed. I had heard rumours from another source of a verser named Hades who was involved in vile experiments. If he is connected with the Pantheon then they restrain him while he is in a gather world. Even the worst usually have some limits.

Their ruse of being Greek gods come back to Earth worked very well in the next gather world. So well, that in the end only their own weaknesses of character and perversities and suspicions caused them to bloom into mushrooms, mushroom clouds. They took each other out in a multi-sided nuclear war after ten years of living as ‘gods’ among men.

Again, keep in mind that this account, like the grafitti on Territory Promenades main wall in the ruins of the Third Stellar Empire’s capital, or the random verser bottles sent out by Baron Coronado across the verse, is based on hearsay. But, I advise caution if you meet anyone claiming to be a member of the Pantheon. There is reason to believe, my source claims, that one of the versers is on the good guys’ side, but I would remain suspicious. Such might simply be an act to recruit helpers for him to use to get his fellows in the Pantheon’s unending game of dominance.

The next gather world was abortive. Two arrived early and close to each other in time and space as often happens, and set up shop. Ares and Athena, the real ones, showed up. They were not amused. Supposedly two of the Pantheon have severe difficulties of an unspecified nature as a result of this. In general agreement, the whole group versed themselves out once they heard the tale.

And that brings us up to the present of the tale. Hades ruled San Fransisco, and Apollo had Los Angeles. They were sent on by a small gather of other versers. The ‘gods’ had tried to recruit them to be servant demigods, but that did not work out well.

My teller of this tale had been shot in the back by another of his companions after they finished Apollo. That is how he came here to this silent and deserted robotic cargo ship which is freezing again for some reason. His companion thought he was going to get a treasure first. Such is life and death among versers. Killing us is not the end of the story.

So, for all I know, the other eight could be still plaguing that poor world. But I do not think I will be here long. The temperature has dropped to negative thirty and is rapidly going lower. I wish I knew how to read the hieroglyphics on the control panels.



Tadeusz