Space Team: The Search for Splurt

by Barry J. Hutchison

  Loren swung her rifle down into her hands. “Sorry? Didn’t catch that,” she said.

  The Zertex crew snapped to attention. Loren nodded. “Better,” she said. “We’re going to be headed through the woods, and apparently the one person who knew his way around this place has turned to dust. Don’t ask. Everyone stick close. If you fall behind you stay behind. Is that clear?”

  A hand went up. Loren turned to the Zertex man. “What?”

  “I, um, I need to go to the toilet.” He lowered his hand, wilting under Loren’s gaze. “Sorry.”

  “Fine. Go,” Loren sighed. The man nodded gratefully, then darted behind a bush. Loren swept her gaze across the rest of the group. “Anyone else need to use the bathroom?”

  Four more hands went up. A woman raised her hand midway, then tilted it from side to side, indicating she wasn’t sure. Loren pinched the bridge of her nose between finger and thumb.

  “You’ve got two minutes,” she announced. “Then we leave. So pee quick.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t a pee I—” the woman began, but Loren held up a hand to stop her, mid-sentence.

  “Two minutes,” Loren told her. “Time’s ticking.”

  * * *

  Cal was passing the pits when he saw her. It was the robotic eye that gave her away, blazing like a red sun when she scraped back her hood. She stood in the wreckage of her stadium seating, the front of her robe trailing over the edge of the hole below.

  “I knew you’d come back,” Vajazzle said. Her voice was a whisper, but it carried cleanly through the still night air. “I knew you couldn’t leave him.”

  “Where is he?” Cal demanded.

  “Where do you think?” asked Vajazzle, a smirk tugging at her puckered mouth.

  Cal paused. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “In the ship?”

  “In the pit, you imbecile,” Vajazzle hissed. “He’s in the pit.”

  “Right, right. Gotcha,” said Cal. “Yeah, that’s good. That’s really dramatic.” He shrugged. “Or, you know, it would have been if I hadn’t messed it up. Sorry about that. We can try again, if you like? You go from ‘Where do you think?’ and then I’ll jump in with my line. It’ll be fine. No-one will know.”

  “What are you talking about?” Vajazzle spat. She shook her head, as if annoyed at herself for even asking the question. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. Just get in the hole.”

  Cal approached the pit. “I bet you say that to all the guys,” he said, stopping where the ground fell away. The dino-Splurt stood in the flickering torchlight of the pit, grimacing up at him and showing more teeth than Cal could count.

  “Hey, buddy,” Cal called, waving down at him. “I’ve come to rescue you. What’s say we team up and kick shizz out of this crazy space witch? It’ll be just like old—Wargh!”

  Vajazzle yanked a hand towards her, and Cal felt an invisible force pull him forwards. He tried the arm-flapping thing again, with exactly as much success as before, then plunged to the bottom of the pit.

  His feet hit the ground and he dropped to his haunches, then stood up. It would’ve been an impressively dramatic entrance, had he not immediately started to bounce up and down on the spot, crying, “Whoa, did you see that? I landed like a champ,” and giving himself high-fives.

  When he finally stopped celebrating, he turned to Splurt. He made it as far as a hopeful, “Now, buddy,” before a fist the size of a boulder smashed into the side of his head, crumpling his legs beneath him.

  “Ow,” Cal groaned, clutching his jaw. He was on his knees. He couldn’t quite remember when that had happened, but he suspected it wasn’t the best place to be. His feet? Now, his feet would be an excellent place to be. Better than his knees, anyway.

  If only he could remember where he put them.

  Splurt lunged.

  “Wait!” Cal wheezed, then another hammer-blow struck him across the cheek and the ground followed up with an uppercut to his chin.

  Coughing and spluttering through a mouthful of blood, Cal flopped onto his back. “I’m not going to fight you, Splurt. I know you won’t hurt me. Not really.”

  Splurt caught Cal by one leg and spun. “Or maybe you will,” Cal managed to splutter, and then he was hurtling through the air. His back met the pit wall. His body went one way, while all the air in his lungs went the other. He hit the ground hard and tried to push himself up on his arms, but his arms had obviously gone off to find his feet, and he just lay motionless on the ground, instead.

  There was a ringing in his ears. Not that this was his most pressing problem, but it was fonking annoying, all the same. Over the high-pitched whine, he could hear Vajazzle cackling and shouting something to him, but his brain was too scrambled to figure out any of the words. Probably nothing complimentary.

  He could hear – or possibly just feel – Splurt’s thunderous footsteps getting closer. They weren’t far away. He had two or three seconds, maybe a little more.

  There was another sound, too. A voice. Nagging and incessant, right at the edge of his hearing. “Get up, Cal. Get up right now!”

  Familiar. Definitely familiar.

  Mech? No, too high-pitched.

  Miz? Too animated.

  Loren? Possibly, but… no. It sounded too concerned.

  “Get up! Hurry!”

  Wait. He had it.

  With a Herculean amount of effort, Cal tilted his head, just a fraction. A man stood there, dressed in a lilac bath robe and slippers. “Tobey Maguire?”

  “Yes! And you need to get your shizz together, ASAP,” Tobey Maguire urged. “I mean it, you’re about to be trampled into a paste here.”

  Cal looked around him. He was standing up now. Or, more specifically, he was floating in an upright position above his own fallen body. Splurt and Vajazzle were both frozen, as if time itself were standing still.

  “Jesus. Am I dead?” Cal asked.

  Tobey Maguire shook his head. “No. I mean, not yet, but any second now. This isn’t real. You’re about to pass out.” He gestured around them. “This is all in your mind.”

  “Right. Right. Gotcha,” said Cal. He looked Tobey Maguire up and down. “What are you wearing, by the way?”

  Tobey looked down, tightened the belt of his robe, then folded his arms. “No time for that,” he said.

  Cal shrugged, then pushed his arms out straight in front of his chest, scooped them around like he was doing the breast stroke, and swam over to Splurt. An immense feeling of sadness and regret washed over him as he looked the dinosaur-like figure up and down. “I think I may have made a mistake,” he admitted. “I thought I could talk him round.”

  “That thing?” Tobey Maguire snorted. “Are you nuts? Look at it! With the spikes and the teeth and everything. That’d chew you up and spit you out, that thing. And it’s going to, too. In about… ooh… four seconds.”

  Tobey Maguire caught the expression on Cal’s face, and sighed. “Look, I know how you love the sound of your own voice, but maybe talking’s not the right approach. You think Vajazzle bent him to her will by having a chat? She broke him.”

  Cal frowned. “What are you saying, Tobey Maguire?”

  Tobey Maguire shrugged, then raised his fists and shadow-boxed the wall. “I’m saying, maybe you need to beat some sense into him. Give him the old Cal Carver one-two.”

  “Are you insane? Look at him! I can’t fight that!”

  Tobey Maguire smiled. It was meant to look learned and wise, but actually made him look a little bit simple. Cal chose not to mention it. “You can if you believe,” he said, packing the line with such pathos and drama that Cal felt momentarily outraged the guy had never bagged an Oscar. Or even, as far as he could remember, been nominated.

  Sure, he had Teen Choice Award nominations coming out of the wazoo, but…

  “Cal!” Tobey Maguire snapped. “Are you listening? I said you can if you believe.”

  “Believe?”

  “Yes. Believe,” confirmed Tobey Maguire. “Also, you just got ab
out thirty to forty years of Grimmash life force pumped into you. That’s also going to be helpful.”

  Cal’s ghost or soul or whatever the Hell it was rushed across the pit, zooming back towards his body. “Oh, looks like you’re up,” said Tobey Maguire. He winked. “Go get him, Tiger.”

  Tobey Maguire vanished.

  Then reappeared again.

  “Oh, and duck,” he blurted.

  Time sped up. Cal rolled backwards just as Splurt’s rhino-like foot came smashing down on the spot where Cal’s head had been.

  Cal realized, to his surprise, that he was on his feet. The sensation he’d felt when Tullok had grabbed him by the face warmed his bones again. Concentrated joy.

  But no, not joy. That was just how it felt. Concentrated life.

  Concentrated power.

  Splurt’s fist arced through the air in an overheard smash. Cal raised a forearm, blocking the blow before it could strike home. He, Splurt and Vajazzle stood in silence, all three pairs of eyes locked on the spot where Cal’s arm was keeping a towering dino-monster’s at bay.

  “Haha!” Cal flexed the fingers of his free hand, feeling the strength pump through them. He clenched them into a fist. “Well this is fonking awesome.”

  THWACK!

  Splurt’s tail whipped around. Cal saw it, but had no time to react. It caught him just above the knees, spinning him around in the air.

  To everyone’s surprise – mostly his own – he flipped a full three-sixty and landed on his feet. “Oh man!” he ejected. “Vajazzle, please tell me your robot eye thing was recording that. Otherwise, no-one is ever going to believe me!”

  Splurt swung with a vicious backhand strike. Cal ducked it, and a deep-rooted fighter’s instinct drove a punch into the monster’s exposed side. It was a left-hand blow, and not particularly well executed, but it was enough to make Splurt’s face contort in silent discomfort.

  Cal bounced back a few paces, fists raised.

  “What is this?” Vajazzle demanded. “How are you doing this? Tear him apart!”

  Splurt pounced, both arms outstretched, grabbing for Cal’s throat. Cal saw the attack coming in plenty of time – possibly even before Splurt had even moved, he thought – and side-stepped out of his path.

  Placing his hands on Splurt’s armored back, Cal ran forwards, using the dino-thing’s own momentum to slam him hard against the pit wall. The impact cracked the rock, sending a mini rockslide tumbling to the ground.

  Splurt bounced back, only to find Cal on all fours directly behind him. As his legs met Cal’s side, Splurt’s heavy tail and armor-plating dragged him backwards. He hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud, and then Cal was on him, kneeling on his chest, driving a devastating right hook into the side of his head.

  “Get up!” Vajazzle hissed from the top of the pit. “Get up and finish him. Now!”

  “Alternatively, stay down,” Cal urged, smashing another fist across Splurt’s cheek. It was like punching solid rock, and his knuckles would probably have something to say about it in a couple of hours, but for now they weren’t complaining too much.

  Splurt twisted, sending Cal sprawling off him. Cal tucked and rolled as best he could, and got to his feet while the dino-thing was still trying to get up off his back. Splurt jerked and struggled, like a six-hundred-pound man trying to do his first sit-up in decades. Cal’s instinct was to help him, but there was only one way to help his buddy now.

  “Get up, you… freak!” Vajazzle hissed.

  Cal kept his gaze on her as he stooped to pick up a chunk of rock that had been knocked loose when Splurt had hit the wall. He found a fist-sized pieced with a sharp, jagged end, then strolled over to where the dino-thing was still attempting to sit up.

  “You know you can get up any time you like, don’t you?” Cal said, tossing the stone into the air and catching it. Splurt’s eyes fixed on him, his mouth curling into a noiseless growl. “You know this isn’t actually you?”

  Cal saw something flicker behind the monster’s eyes. He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. She’s got you thinking you’re a dinosaur Hell beast, but you aren’t. You’re an adorable blobby little bamston. You’re my adorable blobby little bamston, Splurt.”

  Cal gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his rock. “And while it pains me to do this, it looks like it’s going to be up to me to jog your memory.”

  * * *

  Miz led the way through the trees, her nose low to the ground, her ears pivoting like radar station satellite dishes. “He went this way,” she said, between sniffs. “The scent’s recent. He can’t be far.”

  “Getting across the sand is going to be the difficult bit,” said Dronzen. “The worms will be all over us.”

  “Can’t we, like, just send some of your people out to distract them, while we make a run for it?” Miz suggested.

  There was a worried murmuring from somewhere near the back of the line. “Can we not do that, please?” a Zertex voice suggested.

  “Yeah, I think that might be a bit… er, inappropriate, maybe,” said Dronzen.

  “Why?” asked Miz. “It’s not like they’re important. They don’t even have names.”

  “Of course they’ve got names,” said Dronzen. “Why wouldn’t they have names?”

  Behind them, Mech shot Loren a sideways glance. “They got names?” he whispered.

  Loren pulled a beats me face and shrugged in response.

  “I just been calling them ‘Zertex Guy One,’ or whatever,” Mech continued. “Not one of them even tried to correct me! Man, now I just feel awkward.”

  Miz looked back over her shoulder at the sea of faces trudging through the dark. “Seriously?” she frowned. “All of them?”

  “Of course, all of them!” Dronzen cried, but there was a hint of amusement in it. “They’re not just a nameless group of victims-in-waiting, they’re people. They’re good people.”

  “Huh,” said Miz. She tutted in annoyance. “Well that sucks. That totally makes things more difficult.”

  “We’ll deal with it when we get there,” said Loren. “Now hurry. We need to find Cal. Before it’s too late.”

  * * *

  Cal slammed the rock against the side of Splurt’s face, widening the gash that had already split across the dino-thing’s cheek. With each blow he rained down, Cal stifled the urge to sob.

  “Come on! Stop me doing this!” he pleaded, smashing the rock down again. Dark blue blood pooled on the ground behind Splurt’s neck, as his eyes swam in their sockets. “Come on, this isn’t you, Splurt! This isn’t you!”

  He hammered the rock down again. Again. The wound widened. Cal fought the rising urge to throw up and dug the pointed end of the stone into the gouge. “You can stop this, Splurt. You can stop me!”

  Roaring, Cal leaned his weight on the rock, pushing it deeper into the open flesh. Splurt’s hulking frame convulsed beneath him. “Please,” Cal begged.

  As he pushed, the texture of Splurt’s head changed. The rough, scaly hide around the wound became green and slick. It wobbled and quivered like half-set jello.

  Cal gasped. His face filled with hope. “Yes. Come on! There’s my boy! There’s my--”

  Splurt’s head exploded, spraying green goo across the ground. Suddenly finding himself with nothing to lean against, Cal fell forwards, sprawling onto the cold hard rock.

  Without getting up, he turned. Splurt’s dino-like body lay still. Inert. Not moving. His head was… well, his head was gone. A smear of green gloop on the ground, nothing more.

  “Splurt?” said Cal. His voice echoed strangely around the pit. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Splurt? Buddy?”

  A slow clap rang out from on high.

  “Well done, Mr Carver. You won,” said Vajazzle. “Not in the way you intended, I’m sure, but you won all the same.”

  She was suddenly right there, standing over him. Her hood was up and things writhed and wriggled beneath her robe. He barely noticed.

  Cal
let the rock fall from his fingers.

  “Splurt?” he croaked.

  “You know you couldn’t have beaten him, don’t you?” Vajazzle said. “In a fair fight, I mean. Even with whatever you’ve done to make yourself stronger. You couldn’t beat him. See, I’ve used him to take down whole armies of those savages. Dozens of them, all at once. He’s fought creatures four times his size and he has killed them all, and yet you – Cal Carver, a lone Earthman with a lump of rock – were able to beat him to death single-handed.”

  Vajazzle squatted down, blocking Cal’s view of the body. “You know how you were able to do it, don’t you? You know why you were able to?” she whispered. “Because he remembered. Not all the way, of course. Not rationally. But deep inside somewhere. Deep down, where it counted, he remembered you were his friend, and he couldn’t bring himself to fight back.”

  She watched Cal’s face fall, then she pouted her bottom lip like a sad toddler. “I know, it’s upsetting, isn’t it? Poor thing. After all he’s been through.”

  The ground rumbled, but it wasn’t an earthquake. Not this time. Vajazzle pointed upwards just as the shadow of a Thunderfoot tank passed by the top of the pit. “Your other friends are going to die, too, you know? They’ll be coming after you, following your trail. When they reach the edge of the forest they’ll be so busy worrying about the sand worms they won’t have time to react to my tanks. Then – boom! Gone.” She leaned in good and close. “All of them.”

  Cal shook his head. “N-no.”

  “Yes. You think you feel alone now, last Earthman in the universe?” Vajazzle sneered. “Give it five minutes and you’ll grasp the true meaning of the word.”

  She stood up, then a sharp laugh ricocheted around the pit. “Relax, I’m kidding! You have nothing to worry about,” she said. A tentacle snaked out from beneath her robe and wrapped around Cal’s throat. “Because you won’t even be alive in five minutes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The tentacle drew tight across Cal’s throat, squeezing so sharply and suddenly he felt his head was going to pop like the cork of a Champagne bottle. He grabbed for the tentacle, but it was oily and slick and impossible to hold onto.