The Search for Spark

by Steven Erikson

  On the main screen, Bang reappeared amid a smoky, sparking, body-strewn bridge. “Such bright colors! Smash and bam and we flew about and about we flew, here and there, smash and bam! Bang I did, my head, and Bang I am, ow. But what a fine day! My torpedoes are all fine and about to fire! Surrender now to Bang and I’ll send you to your Captain! One big family in the mines of Rude Pimente!”

  “Very well, Supreme Drench-Master. We are evacuating to our escape pods and sending them your way. They’re the red-painted ones. Galk? Please oversee the evacuation, using the red escape pods, please. Oh, and Drench-Master? We have so many, we’ll need to fly to all of your ships if that’s all right.”

  “Perfect! Yes! Abandon your vessel before we destroy it!”

  “First wave of, uh, escape pods on their way, Commander.”

  “Thank you, Galk. Drench-Master, have you acquired them yet?”

  “Captured by our superior tractor beam! Their measly defenses overwhelmed! Yes, we have them all, on every ship! Opening them now … oh, massive detonations, all containment breached. You should have told me your crew members were all explosive. Now Bang I was and Bang I am no more, oh my!”

  Sudden static as all the Radulak vessels blew up.

  Sin-Dour sighed. “Tammy? How go the repairs?”

  “Oh we were fine, Commander. I was just kidding with all that. But admit it, it made things more exciting, didn’t it?”

  “Helm, resume course for Rude Pimente.”

  “Like, yes Commander, but not till someone gets rid of this poo beside my right foot.”

  “Gross!” cried Spark. “Whoever would have done that?”

  NiNE

  Gasping, Hadrian pulled himself onto the last landing by the surface-exit door. Molly squirmed from his arms and jumped upright. “Well that was the best nap ever! I feel so refreshed! Captain Betty,” he called out down to the landing one level below, “wake up now! You’re almost there! Are you feeling as spry as I am? In fact, I’ve never felt so energetic! I mean—”

  “Shut up!” Betty snarled from below. “I didn’t sleep at all! Had a damned multiphasic jammed into my side, and this chief engineer sweats deadly psychotropic toxins. I’ve been fighting off snake-headed bat-winged hamsters for like hours!”

  Moments later Buck and his charge crawled into view, the chief engineer on his belly clawing at the steps with bloody fingers, his eyes bulging. “Captain,” he moaned, “I may never walk again. My legs. Dead. Lifeless. Deadweights, lumps of bloated meat. Legs, sir, deader than dead. Just … dead.” On his shoulders just behind his head squatted Betty, swatting at invisible flying hamsters.

  “We made it, Buck,” said Hadrian, pulling himself to a sitting position with his back to the door. He pointed to a corner. “And there, furry parkas and pom-poms—oh, those must be mitts. And big furry hats, too, and mukluks. We’re all set to brave the fierce arctic weather as we finally make our escape.”

  Betty leapt from Buck’s shoulders. “That’s what you think.”

  Hadrian frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “What he means,” Molly chirped up, “are all the assassins waiting for us on the other side of that door, that’s what he means.”

  Betty walked over to Molly and hit him in the head with his stick. “Idiot!”

  “Well,” said Hadrian, “I was wondering when they’d show up. Just our luck, huh? Now, Buck, it’s time to get into that winter gear.”

  “What?” Buck’s eyes were wide. “Go out there and get assassinated? Not a chance! Besides, I told you: My legs don’t work anymore.”

  “Hand me your multiphasic, will you?”

  “What? My—okay, sure, why not? Can’t wait to see you take on all those assassins with a multiphasic, hahaha! You can toothpick them to death. Or take a wrench to their knuckles—but I wonder: Will they let you get that close? I mean, I wouldn’t. No, I think I’d stand maybe twenty feet away while I unload a clip of depleted uranium bullets into our bodies, making us dance in slow motion with every explosive, blood-spraying impact. And then I’d throw a couple grenades over to make sure—”

  “You’re babbling, Buck. Just give me that multiphasic.”

  Buck tossed it over and then fell back. “Now my arms have stopped working, too. No wait, look, I can flop them around, isn’t that nice?”

  Collecting up the multiphasic, Hadrian said, “So flop over there and get into those furs. You too, Molly and Betty.”

  “That’s Betty and Molly!” snapped Betty. “Not that I’m clinging to outdated hierarchical conferring of no-longer-applicable authority in order to bolster my shattered ego or anything. It just sounds better. Betty and Molly, see? Not Molly and Betty—no, that sounds all wrong.”

  “Just get into some furs, will you?”

  Molly had hopped over to the winter gear and was picking through it. “I don’t see anything my size here,” he said. “Hold on, this fur—aack! It’s Klang!”

  Buck rattled a mean laugh. “Gives new meaning to Klang rip-offs, doesn’t it? Hahaha! Go on, Molly, be a Klang wearing a parka made of Klang fur! Try on those Klang mitts, too! And that Klang hat! Hahaha!”

  “Buck,” Hadrian warned. “You’re being somewhat insensitive.”

  “Uh,” said Molly, “you misunderstood me, Chief Engineer. These furs really are Klang rip-offs. They only look warm, when in fact they’re useless. They have no insulating properties at all. It’s the kind of product we’re flooding the Terran market with at the moment, since only idiots would actually buy this crap. Uh, no offense or anything.”

  “Oh great!” Betty snapped. “Now we freeze to death even before the assassins can gun us down and blow us up! What kind of pathetic escape is this? Oh wait, it was all a trap. I keep forgetting.”

  “Besides,” offered Molly, “we won’t be the ones getting gunned down, Captain Betty! Remember? It was our job to deliver the Terrans to the assassins, and we’ve done just that! Just think, they’ll reduce our multiple life sentences to just one life sentence!”

  “You’re right! I’m feeling better already!”

  Buck struggled to get into a fur parka while still lying on the floor and flopping about his dead arms and legs. Glancing over, he saw that Hadrian had dismantled the multiphasic. “What are you doing, sir? You broke it! Now we’re toast!”

  “Nonsense, Buck. I’ve just accessed the Arrayed Singular Duplatronic coelements of the transmultiplier phase component of the Quantum Perambulating Governor.”

  “You huh?”

  “The multiphasic’s laser pointer, Buck. Now, just a tweak here on the tiny Irridiculum lens, like so, and then invert the Prism Inverter, like this. Now, disable the Governor’s energy-output limiter, like that! And voilà! Laser pointer turns into a Quantum Multiplier Duplatronic High-Energy Disintegrating Gigajoule Laser!”

  “Holy crap,” said Buck. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Years of brain-addling drugs?”

  “Hmm, could be. Well! What can I say? It was worth it, dammit!”

  Hadrian stood up and began donning furs. “Now then,” he said, pulling on a furry hat. “Shall we brave the blistering icy cold of Rude Pimente’s inhospitable surface, which, while utterly covered in ice and snow, appears to have abundant oxygen in its atmosphere and how precisely does that work? No matter. You ready, Buck?”

  “Hard radiation cracking the frozen water into constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen on a seasonal basis, depending on the planet’s rotation around the red dwarf.”

  Everyone stared at Molly.

  Who shrugged. “I just made that up, but it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”

  “Captain,” Buck said, “I still can’t get up, sir.”

  “Can you worm along?”

  “Well, uh, I guess.”

  “That’ll do.” Hadrian turned to the door and pressed the large exit button. There was a hiss, a billowing of icy snow, and then the door swung inward.

  They found
themselves staring at a snowdrift that stopped at about chest height.

  “Leave this to me!” cried Betty, jumping forward with his stick, which he used to begin digging a tunnel. “It’ll be a tight squeeze for you Terrans but for me and Molly, why, it’s perfect!” Snow flew and in moments Betty had vanished down the small round tunnel he’d made.

  Sighing, Hadrian set the laser on dispersed beam. He waved it at the drift. It melted in a slumping gush of water in which Betty now began drowning. Hadrian stepped forward and picked the Klang up, gave him a shake, and then set him down.

  Before them was a nice slope leading upward. Hadrian set out, clambering up the ramp.

  Betty glared at Molly and lifted his stick threateningly. “Not a word, Molly.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything, Captain,” Molly replied. “I mean, it was a brilliant means by which we could get out of here before the Terrans, permitting us the opportunity to warn the assassins that Hadrian was now armed and dangerous. Only once more Captain Hadrian Alan Sawback outwitted you. In fact, thinking on it, you’ve been bested by him at every turn. It’s hopeless, in fact. I don’t know why you keep trying.”

  “You know what, Molly?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to tell the assassins that you were a collaborator, so they shoot you too. What do you think of that?”

  Molly scratched his chin with one small talon. “I thought you evil antagonists were supposed to be polite.”

  “I am! I’m telling you beforehand, aren’t I?”

  “That’s true.”

  Buck was now worming his way up the slope, backside humping, mitten-clad hands flapping and flopping, legs dragging. Betty jumped aboard for a ride to the top and a moment later Molly joined him. They settled down on the soft furs covering Buck’s back.

  “I’m always polite,” Betty said. “Under normal circumstances I’d also be impeccably dressed, filthy rich, and surrounded by beautiful females. Alas, for now, all I have is my politeness.”

  “It’s not just politeness, of course,” Molly pointed out. “It’s evil politeness.”

  “I can accept that in principle, Molly. But the specific distinction still seems a little bit vague.”

  Buck slid back down to the bottom. “Crap.” He began again.

  “Can you elaborate?” Molly asked.

  “Well, take Captain Hadrian, right? Hero. Genius. Handsome. Sexually frustrated. Yet he remains polite even when destroying thousands of Radulak and countless other aliens. But it’s a different kind of politeness, isn’t it? Or is it? Is his politeness only acceptable and deemed ‘good’ because he’s a hero, a genius, and as sexually frustrated as all of his greatest tabloid-reading fans? As for me, veteran of countless sex-swarms, blissfully sociopathic—I mean, I wouldn’t shed a single tear seeing you gunned down by assassins, would I?”

  “That must be it, Captain!”

  “What?” Betty wanted to know. “What’s it?”

  “Well, he’s handsome. Whereas you’re just a bedraggled half-drowned meerkat-alien-DNA-hybrid with a bent snout and a clipped ear and smelly glands under your lower jaw. Cute, if only at a distance, but handsome? Hardly.”

  “I just realized I can’t have you assassinated and you know why, Molly? Because all evil antagonists need a minion, someone blindly serving the guy who never wins, which makes you about as dumb as that fur hat you’re wearing. Whereas I, as the eternal optimist, well, I make full use of my limited cunning in my perpetually hopeless quest to defeat my nemesis, meaning I remain destined to survive just about anything, if only to guarantee a return engagement!”

  Buck dragged himself over the lip of the icy ramp. Molly and Betty hopped off and dusted themselves down.

  Hadrian was perched nearby on a block of something that might have been snowy ice (or icy snow) but looked suspiciously like spray-painted Styrofoam.

  Buck rolled onto his back, blinked skyward. “Hold on,” he said, “it’s not very cold out here at all!”

  “Precisely!” said Hadrian. “Apart from the installed Freon elements surrounding that exit hatch, the rest of this snowy icy landscape is fake. I’d wager the ambient temperature to be seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit, making these non-insulating Klang furs ideal.” He looked around. “Little different from a mild winter day in California.”

  Betty flung his stick to the ground. “Where are the damned assassins?”

  “Over here,” answered a familiar voice, and from between two white mounds of carved Styrofoam blocks slithered Felasha, followed by six Radulak mercenaries bearing enormous weapons.

  “Such a long wait for you!” Felasha said. “We took the Freight Elevator, escaping the final destruction of everything and everyone barring the Fluoridian, of course, whom we last saw running that way,” and the Purelganni pointed with one flipper. “But now here you are, ready to die—you are ready to die, aren’t you?”

  “Not me!” shouted Betty. “I delivered the Terrans single-handedly, Wondrous Felasha of the Downy White Fur and Huge Soft Downy Puppy Eyes!”

  “Single-handedly?” Molly asked.

  “So you did,” Felasha agreed. “But alas, we need to kill you too, to cover our tracks.”

  Betty sagged. “It’s just not fair, is it? Did you hear that, Molly? Now she has to kill us, too.”

  “Well, actually, she was only talking to you,” Molly pointed out.

  “No she wasn’t!”

  “Yes she was.”

  “Felasha!”

  “Oh, I like the smaller kitten, Molly, is it? Yes, very cute, with a certain air of possession and subtle cleverness. I think I’ll keep him!”

  “Betrayed by my own minion!” Betty hissed.

  “Enough chitchat,” said Felasha. “Radulak mercenaries, you are now free to kill the Terrans and that Klang there.”

  “Wait!” cried Betty. He pointed at Hadrian. “He’s armed with a multiphasic! Look, he’s calibrating the setting even as I speak! That laser pointer will now fracture its gigajoule death ray to take down all six Radulak!”

  Felasha laughed. “Hahaha! A multiphasic on laser pointer setting! Oh dear! Oh my!”

  Hadrian fired. The six Radulak all toppled with neat round holes in their foreheads.

  “Oh crap,” finished Felasha.

  “I’ll take the Purelganni!” shouted Buck, flopping over toward Felasha.

  “Do you think you’re being funny?” Felasha asked. “You’re not, you know.”

  They slammed into each other, flippers batting and slapping and, uh, batting.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Betty. “Here, let me use my baseball bat!” He leapt into the fray and began bashing Felasha on her head. “Take that! And this! And this and that! Die, horribly cute Purelganni! Die!”

  Eventually, all three battlers were exhausted. Betty staggered back, his stick a battered, broken shaft of pulverized wood.

  “It was just a stick,” Molly pointed out. “I could’ve told you, you know. Not a bat. Especially not a baseball bat. A bad killer always blames his weapons.”

  Felasha groaned. “I feel as if I’ve been massaged by a Finn.” She twitched. “Not that bad, actually.”

  Buck dragged himself to one side. “Sorry, Captain, I’m spent. Done in.”

  “Of course you are,” Felasha purred, “while I might very well be pregnant.”

  “What?”

  At that moment, Hadrian, Buck, Molly, and Betty all displaced, leaving Felasha alone with six Radulak corpses.

  She looked around. And then froze as she saw a dozen Newfoundlanders in the distance. “Oh no! Must. Rush. Back. To. Elevator! Mpfm, mpfm, mpfm.”

  Did she make it? We’ll never know.

  * * *

  No! She didn’t! Oh my by’s a by! If only she had used her cuteness for goodness instead of evilness, eh?

  TEN

  “Welcome back, Captain,” said Sin-Dour in the Insisteon Chamber. “I am happy to report the destruction of the rogue Radulaks and their secret Ec
ktapalow partners.” She then nodded to the parka-muffled figure standing to one side. “And, as it turns out, I didn’t need to send the adjutant down to effect your rescue after all.”

  Hadrian hopped down from the platform, doffing his winter clothes. “What a shame! I mean, Adjutant, you have no idea how cute you look in those furs! Why, you can rescue me any day in that fetching outfit.”

  Lorrin Tighe threw down her mitts and began removing her parka. “You just won’t let it go, will you? No! Don’t you dare kiss me!”

  “I’m just so delighted to have you on board—I mean, really on board, Adjutant. It would’ve been a respectful smooch, honest.”

  “I don’t care!” she snapped, flinging the parka to one side. “If you need me—in a professional capacity—no, not like that, asshole—I’ll be in the bar!” And off she stormed.

  “Sir,” said Sin-Dour after a moment, “what’s wrong with the chief engineer?”

  Buck had flopped down from the platform and was now slithering toward the door like a big fat furry seal.

  “Ah, well, hard to say, 2IC, but I’m sure there’s drugs for whatever it is he’s got. Buck! Head down to sickbay, will you?”

  At the door, Buck twisted his head round. “Really, sir? I mean, should I? My arms are dead. My legs are dead. I have Klang fleas in my hair and I may well now be infected with Purelganni STDs. A trip down to sickbay? A visit to Doc Printlip? Hmm, maybe on my next break.” A moment later he slithered out into the corridor and the door irised shut behind him.

  “Asylum!” cried Betty from the Insisteon platform.

  “Actually,” said Molly, “we’re now members of the Affiliation, so we can’t claim asylum, Captain Betty. Well, okay, not actual members yet. Provisional Status, so no asylum option for us! We’re Almost Citizens so we don’t even need asylum. Especially since all the trade rights instantly accorded us have left the authorities in chaos, and especially now that the Galactic Immigration Department has been privatized and subcontracted to Klang Pan-Everyone-Gets-In-For-A-Price (barring Klang, of course, who get in for free, free!) Inc. In which I have shares, by the way. Oh, and it’s Betty who has fleas.”