by James Warner
I don’t know how to describe this. I think I screamed. I know I fainted into a space-hardened veteran of nine years of exobiological exploration lying on the padded floor in an incongruous lump of synthetic and natural beauty. It was pretty damn embarrassing! And all because there sat a humansized azure-colored octopus thing eating what I would have sworn was a human limb. Not exactly the 6 foot 4 inch blond bachelor I had mocked up! I believe I actually thought for an instant that this creature had devoured my future lover! Whatever the explanation, I was out cold!
Mephistopheles lumbered (skittered? crawled?) over and sprinkled water on my brow. Soon the drops of water from his pitcher were mixing with the tears from my reviving thoughts, “another eleven horny months in space.” Oh, I’d get to like him, I was sure. The computers never really made a mistake. And he was very considerate; probably due to the teasing he’d received as a Midshipman at the Academy. But a sex symbol he was not!
“Captain, are you all right? Do you need anything from the medical bay?” he asked as I regained my composure.
“No, I’m fine. Just a little, uh, you know – too much shore leave,” I lied.
“Of course, sir.”
Meph was very solicitous, helping me up, helping me sit in one of the chairs in his lab. We talked about inane things I don’t remember. His tentacles felt like human flesh instead of the slimy octopus texture I expected.
“Welcome to the Silver Hornet, Mephistopheles. I finally said as I recovered my sense of propriety.
“Thank you very much Captain, I’m really looking forward to serving under your command,” he replied. I left for my cabin, my flush of embarrassment slowly fading.
I sat in my cabin looking into the mirror, feeling like Alice in that fabled Wonderland. Somewhere in that reflection of a beautiful young woman was a future man – if only I could figure out the where and how.
After my latest escapade while drunk I had realized I was getting tired of one-night stands for four weeks and the endless sands of the mythical planet Dune the other eleven months of the year. The tears get awfully salty and aren’t at all good for my complexion. I couldn’t admit it to myself yet, but I was getting ready to settle down after nine successful years exploring the unknown vastness of our galaxy. I would be celebrating my 30th birthday on this mission. I didn’t want to think about it.
Chapter 2.
“Meph, tell me about your home world,” I said, sitting in the small galley with him, sipping a root beer. He was drinking something called ‘slunah’ that he had programmed the food synthesizer to manufacture. I wasn’t quite ready to try it yet.
Mephistopheles was an interesting being. He was about the same mass as the average human, but his shape, oh that was very unique. His head and torso was all one blob, about three and a half feet high. This carried his two large deep green colored eyes, nose slits, ear holes and mouth. He looked like a cartoon. Then he had four tentacles at the bottom of that which he walked on. They were about four feet long and had a soft mitt and opposing “thumb” end that he could use for gripping.
Growing out of the sides of his torso, very near his walking tentacles, were four more manipulation tentacles about four feet or so long. Each had three fingers and a thumb end. He could scuttle on all eight tentacles, but usually stood on the bottom four and used the top four for manipulation, gesturing and who knows what else. He had an endoskeleton rather than an exoskeleton, but it was very flexible – more like a cat than a human. His tentacles were designed more like a tail, with continuous graduated small bones making them very flexible and also very strong.
As I grew to know him better I noticed there was variegation in his azure coloration, lighter at the top of his head and darkening to the ends of his tentacles. He was hairless. His mouth appeared to be that of an omnivore, with two sets of incisors and the rest much like a human’s mouth. His eyes were the most striking feature. They were very large and round, more like those of a squid, with two sets of eyelids – one set transparent and one normal flesh. His irises were round and a very pretty deep green in color. It was obvious his genotype was evolved for deep-water life.
“Well Captain, our planet is an aquatic world. We don’t have continents like Earth, but instead several large islands about the size of Australia or Antarctica spread all around the world.”
“What’s the climate like?” I asked, getting interested.
“Wet, mostly. Since we have more ocean than
Earth, it tends to rain more on any given island.”
“How did you get interested in electronics on a water world?” I asked, fascinated by the idea of water and electricity commingling.
“It is an international passion. We have had annual competitions for centuries for who can design the most unique and outrageous gear. That’s how I first came to the attention of the Admiralty.”
“Oh really? What did you do?” He had me now.
“I built my first waveslide reflector and nearly destroyed the Admiralty ship that was judging the competition. It was an accident,” he added, hastily.
“I can imagine. So what happened?”
“The Admiralty ship had fired a small energy beam at the device to test it. I was supposed to train the reflector onto an old ocean liner in the harbor that was scheduled for scrap. But in my excitement I forgot to aim it properly and the reflector reflected
the energy beam back to the Admiralty ship.”
“So that doesn’t sound so bad. What then?”
“The gun mount, the gun and the hull for a hundred feet all around it were vaporized, leaving a gigantic hole in the ship that had to be patched before they could leave,” he said shyly.
Meph said this with his eyes studying the brown padded deck. I thought it was funny as hell.
“Why was the destruction so intense?” I asked, remembering we now had a more advanced version of this device on Sassy.
“The waveslide reflector acted like a laser, reflecting the energy back and forth in a magnetic field chamber until it blasted out at about ten times the initial power. The whole setup was confiscated by the Admiralty as partial payment for the damage and I was, I guess you’d say ‘encouraged’ to enlist at the Academy.”
“Wow, Meph, that’s really something. And now we
have a version of that device, right?”
“Oh no, Captain. The waveslide reflector I installed in the Hornet has been thoroughly redesigned and modified. It is at least a hundred times more powerful.” He grinned at me, downed his drink and got up from the table.
“Excuse me Captain, I have to prepare the lab for
your inspection.”
Sassy was bulging with new equipment thanks to Mephistopheles, or Meph as I had nicknamed my new First Mate. Besides being a trained Archaeologist, I’m well versed in armaments and also am a pretty good biologist. But I know just enough to get in trouble from electronics. Oh I can repair the circuits in Sassy. After all, how hard is it to plug in a board module? But Mephistopheles’ setup was way beyond my ken. And his name was too long.
I had been dimly aware of his species and knew from the assignment data that he was the first of his planet to graduate from the Admiralty Academy on Earth. That meant he was something very special and I filed it away in my mind under “unknown assets”.
Chapter 3.
“Well Captain,” Meph’s all too human voice rang out from the lab, “I guess it’s time you learned about this equipment.”
I had finally given in to the Captain’s obligation to know every bit of equipment in her ship. But I was reluctant to go back to Academy after all these years. Still, it was fascinating.
“Right Mate,” I said as I walked into his inner sanctum with some trepidation. “I studied those holos you lent me. But this is better than eight hours of holos!”
Those cubes had been hell. I’d had to look up in the Dictopedia at least one word on every screen!
“So where do we start?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of my
good sense.
We were a few days out of port on our initial launch vector and our post launch mission orders hadn’t been sent to us yet, which in itself was somewhat unusual. I didn’t know how long we would travel on this course, but at least it gave me time for school.
“Right here,” Meph said, pointing with an azure tentacle to a small pod on the work desk with several colored activators. He punched the green one and small lights went on all over the flat black wall of translucent material, showing lit dials, buttons, screens and panels. Several screens jumped to life with various messages in Meph’s native language, which I hadn’t a chance of deciphering so soon.
“That, Captain, is the ON button.”
“What about the others?” I saw there was a red one, a yellow one, a blue one, a… “Say, these are the primary and secondary colors!”
“Right Captain. This control center is designed for
operation by any Earth-normal sensed entity.”
“Oh.” His engineers sure had done their homework.
“The red button,” he continued “is the OFF button. The yellow initiates surveillance equipment; the blue one sets up screens; the orange button arms the offensive weapons and the purple one activates the battle display,” he finished in a rush of pride. I was getting to like him.
“Just a moment. What’s this about weapons, screens and battle display? Sassy’s already the best equipped Scoutship in space!”
“Well, yes,” he replied, somewhat bashfully. “That’s why I applied for service with you. You see my hobbies are battle history and electronics. As far as I know, you now have the best armed battle command ship in the fleet.” I sat down slowly in the chair beside the console. “Not,” he added in haste, “that I expect to need it.”
It all made sense to me now. The Admiralty was tired of me killing off good officers, but didn’t want to put a damper on the most successful Scout Captain in the fleet. So they gave me the most bloodthirsty recruit in history, assuming he’d be able to survive my misadventures. How about that?!
“That’s impressive, Mate. Show me.”
Meph pressed the yellow and lavender buttons. “I’ve been crawling the walls waiting for that order, Captain,” he said as the room lights dimmed and the center of the room filled with a holo star chart. I noticed a green light that I assumed was our ship moving amongst the small white lights that were probably stars. I could see a dashed line projecting our course and several blue star bases including Hamarabus, which we had recently left behind.
“The surveillance mode automatically charts everything within sensor range and adds new systems and bodies to the database in real time as they are detected.”
“What are those other red and lavender lights and course lines?” I asked.
“Well, the lavender ones are ships with ID modules and since the others are red, they are unidentified ships, with no ID module, or the ID module not working.”
“No ID? That’s supposed to be illegal. Oh. How can you sense them so far away?” One of the ships was over a light year away, according to the scale of this display.
Meph looked a bit shy. “Well, I designed the sensor units. They operate in hyperspace, picking up all the reflections as well as any comm, so they have practically unlimited range.” He touched a different button and the display shrank, to be filled with the entire charted quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy we were in. The lights filled the room and I could hardly make out details.
“Wow. Now that’s impressive. And look at all
those red blips over there. What’s that?”
“Oh, probably the main Pirate base, or” he added
hastily “a mining colony.”
“Does the Admiralty have one of these?”
“No, I’m afraid not. You see Captain, I used the pay from my last two missions to design and purchase the components. I haven’t had a chance to publish or even tidy up my notes yet.”
“Oh.” I said, the implications of what I was seeing beginning to sink in. “Then on this prototype you
can actually chart anything, anywhere…”
“Oh, no,” Meph interrupted. “Sir, we have to have a locus, a stable point in the area. That’s us. We’ll still have to go there for this thing to be able to chart the area.” He noticed my far away gaze. “Shall I continue, Captain?”
“Oh yes, of course. Tell me all about the weapons.”
“Well sir, they aren’t weapons in the usual sense at all.”
“Oh?” I was sure saying that a lot.
“Actually, they are anti-weapons.” He saw he had my curiosity. “They are entirely electronic. If we are fired on by an energy beam we have three options: dissipate the energy with the Silver Hornet’s quite ample shields, convert the energy to our new storage banks with my converter/reversal shields or reflect the energy beam with my electronic waveslide dish back to its origin.
“If we are attacked by a particle weapon or missile, we have two options: let the Hornet’s shields handle it or let the converter shields energize and store the mass as energy.”
I stood up, somewhat at a loss for words, with my mouth parted in an appropriate expression of awe. I brushed my hand gently along the dark Plexiglas wall.
“Um, I see. Look, Meph, am I right in assuming that this ship is the only ship in the known universe
so equipped?”
“Well Captain, you see, this is all just a hobby and, well, I’ve never had a chance to try all this out in a real ship…”
“That’s all right, Meph,” I interrupted, smiling.
“We’ll give it a good shakedown. What’s next?”
I spent the better part of two hours there, soaking up as much as I could of quasi-particle physics and scalar wave propagation. Finally, my head was swimming with so many great (and fearful) ideas I had to call it quits.
“Look Meph, my head’s full. Let’s get lunch and I’ll
show you my hobby.”
“Great Captain. This is the best tour of duty I’ve ever had.”
We spent a week like that. Me getting my head crammed with electronics, Meph getting exposed to my xenological holo gallery of alien creatures and places, a collection that would soon include my First Mate. I suppose we were both getting an education in what we needed most. I hoped his was less painful than mine.
Chapter 4.
When our orders were finally sent to us, we had been leisurely cruising from the Earth quadrant into the next, partially explored quadrant. The sensors got a good workout plotting ID and non-ID ships and a few small previously uncharted navigational hazards.
Meph’s equipment transmitted direct to the Admiralty’s mapping section computer on hyperspace channel Delta, so I was reasonably sure no humans knew how sophisticated a setup we were running. I liked it that way. I had him transmit all his notes straight to the Galactic University’s library computer where they would be tied up in red tape for years; long enough to ensure the technology became public domain. Nothing against the Admiralty, but I’ve always felt technology was for use, not to be hidden in the archives of some dank and dusty secret warehouse.
Our orders were to proceed along our present course to the farthest outpost in the next sector. Last Chance Bar And Grill the planet was called. Some attempt at humor I suppose, although with the survival rate of private explorers the name had more truth than humor.
I hadn’t been to Last Chance before. My explorations had all gone in toward the galactic core. But the reputation of the place as a rambunctious and profitable enterprise carried far and wide.
I looked thoughtfully at the star map in the battle bridge. We had transferred the controls for Meph’s gadgets and this display to Sassy’s battle bridge where there was more room. I’m a real nut for elbowroom. Don’t ask why I chose the career of starship captain, usually the most claustrophobic job in the universe. Anyway the star map fit nicely in the center of the battle bridge and I was watching our progress toward Last Chance. Meph was scanning my colle
ction of holos, as usual. I suppose he gets tired of humans and longs for someone a little less, well, anthropoid. I’ve never asked him, but he spends most of his time in the electronics lab or studying my collection when he’s not teaching me about Sassy’s new toys.
The data in the Admiralty database indicated that about 20 years ago Last Chance Bar and Grill was founded by three wealthy ex-Scoutship captains – three of the very few who survived their 20 year tour of duty. Two of them married, got some friends together and colonized the planet that was actually an Earth-type moon that orbited a large gaseous planet around a rather Sol-type sun. The third co-founder was a silent partner and stayed in the Admiralty. He wasn’t named in the reports.
