A Cure for Cancer: The Cornelius Quartet 2 Read online

  Also available from Michael Moorcock, Titan Books and Titan Comics

  A NOMAD OF THE TIME STREAMS

  The Warlord of the Air

  The Land Leviathan

  The Steel Tsar

  THE ETERNAL CHAMPION SERIES

  The Eternal Champion

  Phoenix in Obsidian

  The Dragon in the Sword

  THE CORUM SERIES

  The Knight of the Swords

  The Queen of the Swords

  The King of the Swords

  The Bull and the Spear

  The Oak and the Ram

  The Sword and the Stallion

  THE CORNELIUS QUARTET

  The Final Programme

  The English Assassin (April 2016)

  The Condition of Muzak (May 2016)

  THE MICHAEL MOORCOCK LIBRARY

  Elric of Melniboné

  Elric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate

  MICHAEL MOORCOCK’S ELRIC

  Volume 1: The Ruby Throne

  Volume 2: Stormbringer

  A Cure for Cancer

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783291793

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783291786

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First Titan edition: March 2016

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © Michael and Linda Moorcock, 1971, and Multiverse Inc. Revised version copyright © Michael and Linda Moorcock, 2016, and Multiverse Inc. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are TM and © 2016 Michael and Linda Moorcock and Multiverse Inc.

  Edited by John Davey.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  A CURE FOR CANCER

  Illustrated by Malcolm Dean

  For Langdon Jones

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Parts of this novel originally appeared in Fate, Prediction, Record Mirror, New Worlds, Billboard, Headquarters Detective, True Life Confessions, The Village Voice, Guns & Ammo, Scientific American, Time, Interavia, Motorcycle Mechanics, TV and Movie Play, Man’s Magazine, Screen and TV Album, New Man, Silver Screen, Titbits, The Observer, Reveille, The Plain Truth, Science Horizons, Daily Sketch, Vogue and other British and American magazines and newspapers to whom acknowledgements are gratefully made.

  NOTE TO THE READER

  This book has an unconventional structure and, like the other books in the tetralogy (like the overall tetralogy itself), is developed and resolved in something approximating sonata form: Introduction; Development (1 and 2); Recapitulation; Coda.

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ALSO BY MICHAEL MOORCOCK

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  NOTE TO THE READER

  1. DIAGNOSIS

  PRELIMINARY CONSULTATION

  1. A troll across the rooftops

  2. ‘Broken blossoms’ lover in garden sex fest!!!

  3. Wild whirlybird in one man war!!

  4. Sing to me, darling, in our castle of agony

  5. Mystery of yowling passenger in snob auto

  6. Dangerous dude’s dream of destruction

  TISSUE SAMPLE

  1. 50,000 victims of kill-crazy Prince Charming

  2. Ex-bank clerk slave girl in private sin palace

  3. US Navy ships turned ‘pirate’!!!

  BLOOD SAMPLE

  1. Dope pushing preacher was peeping tom

  2. Danger! Hitch-hikers who pose as journalists

  ANALYSIS

  1. Blonde mistress of Nibelburg’s tower of terror!

  2. Presidents in parade scandal!

  3. Transvestite orgy in Paris hotel

  4. Our night of horror

  5. Fly your eggs right down their stacks!

  RESULT

  1. America takes ‘no nonsense’ line

  2. His choice: die now or rot tomorrow!

  3. My deadly mission

  4. Sing high, sweetie — for tonight you fry!

  5. Amnesia: why you get it

  6. What was secret of ‘thing in the cellar’?

  2. EMERGENCY OPERATION

  ANAESTHETIC

  1. Lynda Bird to wed George Hamilton?

  2. My teenage wife won’t let me out of her sight

  3. How a banana endangers the Lennon sisters

  4. Why Connie threatened Eddie with a lawyer

  5. The secret Mia won’t tell Frank

  FIRST INCISION

  1. How much longer can this last????

  2. It’s a fad, dad!

  3. The erotic ghosts of Viet Nam

  INFECTION EXPOSED

  1. I died on the operating table

  2. He won’t have to beg me — tonight

  3. A psychologist reveals the sexual overtones of the monster movies

  4. The beauty the Reds can’t forget

  EXTENT ESTIMATED

  1. Mail order bride from Pennsylvania

  2. How soon legal polygamy?

  3. The old Hollywood spirit never dies

  TRANSFUSION

  1. How the Israeli war solved a rape murder!

  2. Why artists are going back to realism

  STITCHING

  1. Ashamed — when he saw the marks on my body

  2. I’ll make him pay for what he did to me

  3. My sleep-talking shocked my husband

  4. The rape-goon who took a nap with a corpse!

  5. The game’s the same, the players change, but the stakes are still your guns

  6. Live, work, fish and hunt in nature’s wonderland!

  7. Cops who are hell on pillheads

  3. SECOND OPERATION

  LIGHTS

  1. UFOs are unfriendly, up to no good, and some of them are truly dangerous

  2. Ignore advice to strip at high speed

  3. The new RM top 50 chart explained

  4. My husband is a “speed freak”

  CUT ONE

  1. Ecological effects of the Viet Nam war

  2. Gallagher to form label in thrust overseas by MCA

  3. It’s KLM’s 50th anniversary. We thought you’d like to share a few happy moments

  CUT TWO

  1. Scream and die, European commie homos, in Yank ‘cleanse and burn’ offensive

  2. The man behind the face that 350 million TV viewers know as The Saint

  EXTRACTION

  1. Outlaw in the sky

  2. Beyond the X ecliptic

  3. The prison of the stars

  SATURATION

  1. Bizarre fatherhood trap exposed!

  2. Doctors prove sex guilts make you impotent!

  3. The nympho Cossack queen of the bloody steppes

  4. I trained the nude girl boxers of Bangkok

  5. Swamp lust!

  6. Just found: $
10,000,000 in pirate treasure! Millions still untouched!

  4. FINAL OPERATION

  RADIATION TREATMENT

  1. Come away Melinda

  2. That’s no way to say goodbye

  3. Sisters of mercy

  4. Love me do

  5. It’s hard to be a saint in the city

  6. Brighten your night with my day

  CHECK TEMPERATURE

  1. What’s wrong with US medicine

  2. Damned virgins in the devil’s lair

  3. So you want to be a rock and roll star?

  PULSE CHECK

  1. One too many mornings

  2. I’m so glad

  3. I don’t live today

  RESPIRATION CHECK

  1. The stranger on the whole road

  2. A sweet little schooner

  OPERATION SUCCESSFUL

  1. The olfactory code

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

  1. DIAGNOSIS

  Terror is the most effective political instrument … I shall spread terror by the surprise employment of all my measures. The important thing is the sudden shock of an overwhelming fear of death.

  —Adolf Hitler

  PRELIMINARY CONSULTATION

  HERE on the top of a modern and reputable London store lives a garden of incredible beauty one hundred feet above Kensington High Street—the shopping centre of the Royal Borough of Kensington—The gardens embrace some 12 acres, and comprise an Old English Garden, Tudor Courts and flower beds, and a Spanish Garden with Moorish pergolas and a Court of Fountains.

  DERRY & TOMS FAMOUS ROOF GARDEN

  1. A TROLL ACROSS THE ROOFTOPS

  The time might be 31 July, 1970.

  London, England. Cool traffic circulates. A quiet, hot day: somewhere in the distance—a bass tone.

  In High Street, Kensington, where the trees of Hyde Park creep out among the buildings, stands the age-old structure of the Derry & Toms department store. Tier upon impressive tier, it is proud among its peers.

  On the roof of the store, in a lot of rich earth, grow shrubs and trees and flowers, and there are little streams and ponds with goldfish and ducks. Who better to describe this roof garden than those who built it? In the 1966 edition of their brochure, Derry & Toms said:

  “They are the only gardens in the world of such large dimensions at so great a height, over 100 ft. above ground level, overlooking London with St. Paul’s in the distance. The gardens are 1½ acres in extent and comprise an Old English Garden, Tudor Courts and Flower Beds and a Spanish Garden with Moorish Pergolas and A Court of Fountains. The water for the fountains, the river and the waterfall, is drawn from our artesian wells 400 ft. deep. The depth of the soil averages 2 ft. 6 in. and the distribution of weight of this and the masonry used was arranged by the Company’s architect when planning the Derry and Toms building. The Gardens took three years to build and were opened in May 1938 by the Earl of Athlone, K.G.

  “From the balconies that adjoin the gardens you have the opportunity of enjoying the most magnificent views of London. You can see the spires and towers of the Kensington Museums, the great Dome of St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral—the Albert Hall, Albert Memorial, etc.”

  * * *

  In order, the captions to the pictures read:

  1. A delightful view of the Court of Fountains

  2. The water for the fountains, the river and the waterfall is drawn from our artesian wells four hundred feet deep. The depth of soil averages 2 feet 6 inches and the distribution of weight of this and the masonry was arranged by the company’s architect when planning the Derry and Toms building.

  3. The Spanish Gardens

  4. Fully matured fruit-bearing trees stretch up towards the sky.

  5. Aerial view of the Spanish Garden where palm-trees and grape-vines live the year round.

  6. Corner of the Spanish Garden showing the Well of St. Theresa in a cobbled court—with vine-covered walls.

  7. Another view of the Spanish garden—showing the spire of St. Mary Abbots Church in the background.

  8. (Opposite) The magnificent Court of Fountains

  9. Flowers bloom in profusion and green lawns flourish.

  10. (Below) The Tudor Gardens

  11. Views of the Spanish Gardens

  12. The campanile and convent with fountain in foreground—so typically Spanish in atmosphere.

  13. Vine-covered archways leading to the Court of Fountains—all this one hundred feet above the traffic of London!

  14. This garden has a world of pleasure in’t.

  (SHAKESPEARE)

  15. The Tudor Gardens

  16. Entrance to the Tudor Gardens—you go back through history to the beginning of the sixteenth century.

  17. Henry VIII might well have wandered through this garden and plucked a red rose for Anne Boleyn.

  18. Another view of the Tudor Gardens and its carved stone archways and red brick paving.

  19. A waterfall feeds a meandering stream.

  20. Ducks on the Woodland Garden lawn

  21. The Sun Pavilion Restaurant with its umbrella-shaded balconies—a modern restaurant in the quiet setting of an English garden.

  22. The waterfall—shaded by quiet trees alive with the gurgling of water and the twittering of the birds—like a rendezvous in the country.

  23. Again the Sun Pavilion Restaurant—here you will find peace and pleasure—high above London—overlooking the Woodland Gardens.

  On summer afternoons ill-clad ladies wander through the gardens; they wear felt and fluffy nylon hats, suits of linen or rayon or double jersey, bright scarves tied cowboy-fashion about their throats. The place is the last retreat in London of the female of an old and dying English race—the “Waites-dwellers” as they have often been called, although many live in pre-Waites communities and some do not always own Austins. She comes to Derry’s when her shopping is done in Barkers or Pontings (they are all next to each other in the High Street); only here may she with some certain safety take her middle-class tea.

  There are walls about the retreat. One wall has a locked gate. The key to the gate is owned by the man who secretly owns the chain of stores on this block, as well as other similar substantial properties throughout London.

  Now, below, we hear the sound of drowsy mid-afternoon traffic. The banner of D&T hangs limp against its staff. Not far away is the Kensington Gardens Hotel and the Kensington Strip, with its bazaars and eateries and bright lights. Not far from the Strip, to the west, is secluded Kensington Palace Gardens, vulgarly called Millionaire’s Row, the avenue of the Embassies, running beside Kensington Gardens where the statue of Peter Pan still plays its pipes near the sparkling Serpentine. Derry & Toms faces towards North Kensington, the largest and most densely populated part of the Royal Borough, the most delicious slum in Europe.

  It is almost teatime.

  2. ‘BROKEN BLOSSOMS’ LOVER IN GARDEN SEX FEST!!!

  Within the vine-covered walls of the Dutch garden the sultry sun beat down on colourful flowers and shrubs.

  There were tulips like blue velvet, tulips of red, yellow, white and mauve; daffodils; pink and scarlet roses, chrysanthemums, rhododendrons, peonies. All the flowers were bright and all the scents were sweet.

  The air was hot and still; there was not a trace of a breeze; but in one part of the garden a patch of cream daffodils began to move; they soon became violently agitated, as if invisible stallions galloped through them. Stems bent and broke. Then the daffodils stopped moving.

  Almost immediately a nearby field of white and red tulips began to shake and thresh.

  There was the smell of lilac, very heavy on the air, and the tulips groaned, leaves slapping against leaves.

  When they had stopped, the roses in the next bed fluttered and bent, scarlet petals falling fast, thorns tearing, branches shuddering.

  Finally, when the roses were calm again, a huge bed of mixed snapdragons, pansies, meadowsweet, ivy-leaved toadflax, irises, h
ollyhocks, narcissi, violets and sunflowers burst into life; petals shot into the sky, leaves erupted in all directions; there was a great, wild, lush, ululating noise; then silence.

  * * *

  Lying between damp, ivory thighs, Jerry Cornelius sighed and smiled into the unseeing face of Captain Hargreaves, member of the US military advisory commission in Europe and a fine greedy girl.

  Jerry’s skin, as black as a Biafran’s, glistened, and he thought about all the kinds of girls he had known as he took in the flowers above his head and then Flora Hargreaves’s slowly cooling eyes. He rolled like the surf; reached across the soft earth for a cigarette.

  A bass tone. He glanced at the sky. It was clear.

  When he looked back Flora’s eyes had closed and she was sleeping, her auburn hair burnishing the pillow of crushed petals, her perfect face at perfect peace, the sweat drying on her sweet body. He bent and lightly kissed her left breast, touched her smooth shoulder, got up and went to find her uniform where she had folded it beside the patch of cream daffodils.

  A man in his late twenties, with a healthy, muscular body, a large Liberty’s neo-Art Nouveau wristwatch as a bangle on either wrist; his skin was ebony and his hair not blond but milk-white. Jerry Cornelius was a revolutionary of the old school.

  Humming an early Jimi Hendrix number (‘Foxy Lady’), Jerry sought his own clothes. He found them on the grass close to Flora’s olive duds. On top of the pile lay his chromium-plated vibragun which he now picked up and holstered, strapping the holster to his naked body. He pulled on his lavender shirt, his red underpants, his red socks, his midnight-blue Cardin trousers with the flared bottoms, the matching double-creased high-waisted jacket; he smoothed his long white hair, took a mirror from his pocket and adjusted his wide purple tie, looking at his face as an afterthought.

  A very negative appearance, he thought, pursing his lips and smiling. He picked up Flora’s uniform and laid it near her; then he walked through the sunlight and flowers, knee-deep, towards the garden gate.