“Oh very well,” sighed the admiral, “even though you know I always save the best for last, you can eat the nether regions.” He handed over the bottom half of the proto-Klang.
Bang grimaced with her many discolored fangs. “I but tremble in anticipation, Supreme One.”
“Cease trembling! This is not war! This is peace!” In a fit of rage Bill-Burt flung the half-eaten corpse away. A flurry of other proto-Klangs converged on the bedraggled body. In moments even the bones were gone. Hackles rising and slather slathering, Bill-Burt snarled and said, “We win this treaty with fever-dry Terrans and so achieve undistracted focus on destroying Ecktapalow! Then, with those fools suspended in a sea of deadly slime, we break the Terran treaty and descend in a galactic tsunami of snot and spit, drowning every Affiliation planet, moon, moonlet, and space station in glorious ejaculation of righteous dominance!”
Bang swelled her chest. “Yes, Supreme One! Patience indeed. As the famous Radulak wordsmith Drencher Brian Zeuss once said: ‘Spit loud, I am lucky to be what I am! Thank slimeness I am not just a spurt-clam or a dry-ham or a dusty old jar of sifted powderberry jam!’”
The admiral snorted twin globs of lumpy snot at her XO’s feet in appreciation, while the other officers on the bridge sucked back thickly all that was lodged in their nostrils and made murmurs of impressed swallowing gulps and ruminations.
On the main screen before them, well beyond the T-Terminator Station and the Radulak-Exclusion Zone and against the backdrop of the Kittymeow System of Red Dwarf, three rocky planets, four gas giants, and two icy planetoids, a scurry of pathetic Affiliation vessels waited with screens down, like so many polyps ripe for the plucking. The admiral pointed. “Look! I see the Terran flagship, AFS Portentous Smug Pomposity … but where is the AFS Willful Child?” She twisted round and sent a slimy salvo into the back of the head of the officer at comms. “Get me the Terrans!”
“Perhaps,” ventured Bang, “the famous Captain Hadrian Sawback, treacherous desiccator of three thousand Radulak warriors and three drench-masters and three Bombast warships, is simply on board the flagship?”
“No! Not as I commanded! It must be both Captain Hadrian and his vessel!”
“Admiral Prim on screen!” cried the comms officer with an obsequious spurt of thin slime into the side of the admiral’s face.
The image shifted to reveal the ghastly pallid muted dry-skin alien face of the Terran admiral, which now smiled. “Supreme Admiral Bill-Burt, a pleasure to see you again!”
“I in return shiver in constraint with bloating indeed swollen bile sacs thus suspending natural desire to destroy you all with pungent expurgation, Admiral Prim.” Then Bill-Burt half rose in her chair. “But know this! The absence of the Willful Child has been noted! Our glands pucker in disappointment and begin to glitter in failing patience! Soon they will drip beyond all quivering flexion—”
“On its way, I assure you, Supreme Admiral! As we stated earlier, the Willful Child was on patrol in Sector Twenty-One, near the Polker Rim, and so it will take some time to reach us. We all want this to work. You need to have faith.”
Snuffle-Drench-Master Bang stepped closer to the screen. “Tremulous challenge, such words! Faith? Did not wordsmith Drencher Brian Zeuss once proclaim: ‘I meant what I said and I said what I meant. A Radulak’s faithful one hundred percent!’”
The Terran’s pinched dusty smile grew somewhat strained. “I’m sure you mean the famous and much beloved Terran writer Dr. Seuss—”
“Again!” Bang snarled in a spraying flurry of furious spit. “Stealing famous Radulak geniuses of Radulak history! You humans are shameless!”
“Slime back a step, Snuffle-Drench-Master,” commanded Supreme Admiral Bill-Burt. “Swallow your bile at once—we are not here to list all the horrible cultural appropriations for which Terrans are galactically infamous. They do the best they can, one must note phlegmatically, being naturally pitiful and without honor. Admiral Prim! We shall employ our native twenty-four-hour clock signifying one point eight nine Raduworld days and the instant this clock completes its complete round of arbitrarily designated hours, we shall depart in most acrimonious exudation of bitter anal squirt and our war with you shall resume!”
Admiral Prim blanched and then recovered. “Supreme Admiral, the Willful Child is already in T-Space, approaching with utmost haste. These accords are essential for galactic peace and we both understand that—”
“Not galactic peace!” snarled Bill-Burt. “Peace simply with you Affiliationists, so that we can concentrate on destroying the Ecktapalow. And once we have done that, why, we shall break the treaty and attack you by surprise!”
“Ah,” said the human. “I see.”
“It shall be Captain Hadrian Sawback who will broker this deal, Admiral, as a matter of hopeful naiveté soon to be drowned in a deluge of pragmatic opportunism. And all honor once attributed to Captain Hadrian shall be obliterated in recrimination, thus absolving you of all blame.”
“Oh!” said Admiral Prim. “I see! Well! Then you have my absolute word, Supreme Admiral. Captain Hadrian’s arrival is imminent. You will have your man. Guaranteed.”
Snuffle-Drench-Master Bang leaned closer to Bill-Burt. “Supreme One,” she whispered, “I have reviewed your last outburst and I fear that you may have given away our intention to betray the Affiliation.”
“What?” Bill-Burt hissed back. “I did no such thing! Or shall we announce a bridge consultation?” And she smiled up at Bang.
“Uh, of course not! No need for such extreme measures, Supreme One. I am now certain that I misheard your words.”
“Indeed you did! Now, recoil a step from my presence, lest the human begin to suspect we plan treachery—or worse, that we mean to kiss.”
Bang quickly retreated.
Bill-Burt pointed again at the Terran on the screen. “The clock has begun ticking! I hear it even now. That ticking—it’s the clock, yes? What infernal technology makes it tick like that? Gah! It’s driving me mad!”
Hairball System, eleven light-years from Kittymeow, Planet Backawater, continent of Desertica, town of Modest Spaceport but Many Dusty Bars …
The Hooded Man had walked into town from the desert. Which is pretty much what everyone had to do, this being a generic desert planet. He strode down the main street, deftly avoiding rickshaws mired in sand and the bustling mayhem of the market dealing in salvaged machine parts collected from enormous abandoned spaceships strewn across the dunes, consisting primarily of unsold last year’s models deposited on Backawater by various overproductive manufacturers foolishly riding the bubble just recently popped by cheap Klang knockoffs flooding the market.
The Hooded Man paused upon seeing the creaking, sand-blasted sign of YOU’VE SEEN THIS BAR BEFORE, and, adjusting his hood to further hide his face, he made his way over.
Ducking through the entrance he paused in the cooler shadows to peer into the gloomy low-ceilinged room within. All sound fell away and the fifty or so other patrons all paused to study him from beneath their hoods.
When he slowly drew back his own hood, the others all gasped.
The gasps turned to stunned disbelief when the Varekan actually smiled. “That’s right, my friends,” he then said. “I have good news! Such good news that once you hear it all your misery will end, your angst will vanish, and your epigenetic existential despair will be swept away.” He spread his hands. “My name is Gruk. Gruk the Prophet, the Savior, the Expected One—”
“Hold on,” said a patron. “We weren’t expecting you.”
“You are wrong, friend,” said Gruk. “I feel the yearning in your heart, the longing for salvation.”
The patron’s buddy nodded and nudged his companion. “He’s right, Forlich. Just yesterday you wuz moaning ’bout salvationing.”
“That was ‘salivating,’ you idiot. I was trying to remember the last time I saw a woman. I mean, what’s with this planet anyway?”
Gruk held up his hands. “And women sh
all find you!”
“You say what?”
“Gaggles of women! On cushions and lounging in shallow pools of rose-scented water! Giggling and demure, bold and coy, inviting and remote—indeed, all the variations you can imagine to soothe your lonely soul, or at least confirm your deep-seated misogynistic tendencies.”
Now he had the attention of every hooded man in the bar.
Gruk’s smile broadened. “My friends! I offer you all this, for this one-time-only discounted price of $19.95 per person. Cash only no refunds. Limited guarantee ceases thirty seconds following completion of contract. Upon signature the contracted party agrees to supply his/her own weapons and participate in all necessary subterfuge towards the acquisition of a deep-space-capable starship, ideally hijacked from the Affiliation Fleet in fact the Willful Child would be perfect but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Now gather round and be counted among my first disciples, thus according you untold privileges and wealth.”
“Hang on, I didn’t quite catch some of that—”
Gruk waved dismissively. “Fine print details, nothing too onerous. We can discuss them in detail later, once you’ve signed the contract.”
Forlich’s companion held up a hand.
“Yes, my friend?”
“There’s a Hooded Prophet over at Overflow Bar offerin’ salvation at $18.95. Just sayin’.”
“Ah yes, but it doesn’t come with my exclusive thirty-second money-back guarantee, does it?”
The man frowned. “No, suppose not.”
“My friends! Time is short! The offer stands and the sands of time are running down, grain by grain. The window is closing, it’s the last train out, we’re at the bottom of the ninth on the one-yard line, and—” He checked his watch. “—oh my, is that the time?”
“Wait! Don’t go!” and the man who was named Forlich stood up. “I may be a cautious soul, but what the hell, I’m in!”
All at once the rest of the patrons were on their feet, knocking over chairs and dislodging tables, hoods awry as they crowded Gruk with proffered thumbs eager for the contract signature pad.
THREE
Her antitronic processor clicking and whirring in momentary confusion, Beta blinked at her hand that was resting on the chief engineer’s shoulder. “What is that doing there?”
“Sorry, what?” Buck DeFrank continued adjusting calibrations using his multiphasic manipulator.
“My hand is on your shoulder, Chief Engineer.”
“Ah, yes. That. Well, since I’m accessing your contingency delimiter, I needed to put it somewhere. Don’t worry though. You’ll get it back once I’m done here. Besides, before your most recent reboot about five seconds ago, you did say and I’ll quote: ‘I’ve got to hand it to you.’”
“I did?”
“Yup.” Buck then settled back and pocketed his multiphasic. “There! Done!”
“I do feel better,” Beta observed. “Shall I give you a hand?”
“The other one? No thanks. In fact, let’s reattach this one, shall we?”
“You are a most considerate engineer, Buck DeFrank. Although your elevated endorphins suggest an untoward and deviant sexual stimulation presumably associated with you resting my disarticulated hand on your shoulder. Perhaps a meeting with Dr. Printlip is advised.”
“What? Me? Ridiculous, don’t be silly.”
“Now your heart rate has increased, with an attendant surge in elevated—”
“Cut it out! Look, Beta, stop monitoring the biological functions of other people, will you?”
“My empathy level is high with you, Chief Engineer,” Beta said as Buck screwed her hand back on. “Perhaps this is because we are both in the habit of crashing, me as a result of programming glitches and you following the depletion of various pharmaceuticals. Furthermore, I believe an empathetic relationship with one’s mechanic is well-advised, under the circumstances.”
“You do, do you? How, uh, sweet. Now, speaking of Printlip, I have an appointment with our good doctor. Annual checkup—”
“I did not realize that ‘annual’ was a weekly designation. You are in need of more drugs.”
“You’re correct that I had my annual checkup last week. This is just a follow-up.”
“Yes. More drugs.”
“Okay fine, damn you! Look, claustrophobia is a real thing, you know! Treatment is ongoing—”
“Drugs. Yes.” Beta stood. “Now, do I have leave to return to the bridge, Chief Engineer?”
“Well, since I haven’t heard a glitch in the past four minutes, I’d say sure, good to go, Lieutenant.”
“You appear to have a multiphasic tool in both front pockets.”
“I don’t have a thing for androids!”
“There are more pathetic obsessions available to your species,” Beta said. “Although none come to mind at the moment. Thank you for the repairs. I will leave you now after pointing you to that closet over there. Best you alleviate your deviance before visiting the doctor.”
Buck scowled at the closet door. “I can’t,” he said in a growl.
“Why not?”
“Jensen’s already in there.”
* * *
“Ze kultural manifesstationz are most profffound,” said Mendel Engels. “Iz it not difficult to disagree, Doctor?”
“Mhmm,” Printlip replied, making another note with the pen in the third hand on the right, holding the notepad with the second hand, while on the left another pair of hands were flipping through the Affiliation Species Index, Medical Guild, human chapter, while the fourth hand held another pen, hovering momentarily over another notepad, this one gripped by the fifth and sixth hands. The Belkri’s first hand held a third pen up near its anus-shaped mouth, tapping the lips (after all, while anuses generally have no lips, or if they do, then they must be very thin, if somewhat glisteny, but surely an oral apparatus has lips, sometimes smacked, occasionally licked, often pursed if not puckered, but then, the same with anuses so, ergo, anuses have lips).
“Ze argument iz zimple, mein doktor. Value zyztems are arbitrary, nein? But labor, ah, labor! Dis, az Marx visely pointed out, iz de kapital, ja, de kapital. Yet!” and the anthropologist held up a finger, “de inclusion of monetary equation imposes a zecond level of abbztraction, vun dependent on a mutual artikle of vaith—”
“Excuse me, Professor? Vaith?”
“Ja! Ja ja, vaith! Eff, eay, ai, mit tee und ach. Vaith!”
“Mhmm.”
“Zo! Vhere vuz I? Ah, zis! Dizpenze mit de artificial abztraction, reeztableesh proper value for labor in mutual benefit und appropriate revard. Outlaw uzeless und haremful zpeculation on zuch tings az kurrency exchange, vutures, deregulation, und other valse value attributz und reazzert proper traditional reciprocity. Und den apply incorruptible lawz of civeel behavior applied to everyone regardlezz of ztatuz. Enshrine ze worth of cooperation over competition und put in ze jail all ze bankerz, politicianz, economiztz, und media tycoonz und vailing dat, shoot dem all und proclaim a holiday in ze name of peace, vealth, and univerzal prozperity.”
“Mhmm. Yes, well,” said Printlip, settling back in the round cuplike chair the doctor had had especially made in the matter replicator, “I am afraid the diagnosis remains unchanged, Professor.” One pen tapped the Affiliation Species Index, Medical Guild. “You remain utterly insane. Accordingly, I have no choice but to put you back in long-term suspension.”
The professor sighed. “Oh vell. Nonethelezz, my vaith in humanity remainz.”
“Yes, precisely,” Printlip pointed out. “You have just succinctly described the definition of psychosis. But let us remain hopeful that one day you will come to comprehend reality, in all its nihilistic, grimdark horror of meaninglessless and hopelessness and pointlessness.” The doctor drew in a deep breath and continued, “And here it is my duty once again to point out that we have drugs capable of inducing said existential crises, very effective at obliterating optimism.”
“Nein! Nein! No drugz!”
“Or alternatively, behavior modification therapy, employing excerpts from ancient but still effective Scandinavian police procedural dramas and the occasional epic fantasy bloodfest punctuated by graphic rapes of just about everyone with tits.”
“Nein! No more! Ze horror! Ze horror!”
Printlip deflated with a deep sigh. Then reinflated. “Very well, into the icebox with you, Professor.”
“Unteel next month, den?”
“Indeed! It’s essential you keep up good spirits, insofar as anyone staring into the abyss is capable of achieving within the accepted parameters of sanity.”
Mendel Engels rose. “Ja ja, ze abyzz.”
Printlip gestured with one of the hands holding a pen and Nurse Nipplebaum approached. “Please escort the good professor to his suspension chamber,” Printlip said to her. “And then you and I shall resume resuscitation procedures in the back room.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
* * *
“There used to be a holographic fantasy chamber aboard all Affiliation starships,” Galk said as he leaned on the bar in Set to Stun. He sipped at his Misanthari martini. “But the mainframe kept crashing with memory overloads. You’d be amazed how much porn can fit inside a neutratronic processor.”
Nina Twice grunted, and then grunted again. She studied the glass in her hand, squinting at the cloudy amber liquid. “I just now realized how much I hate wheat beer.”
“So drink something else.”
Sighing, and then sighing again, she set the glass down on the counter. “I swear that sometimes I’m actually living in a hologram. I mean, just an empty existence made up of some kind of timeless null state, and then, suddenly, here I am, at the bar sitting beside you, drinking this Darwin-cursed abomination of a beer.” She gestured over at the strange woman working the bar, who now approached.
The Search for Spark Page 2
