Cal opened his mouth, but Mech jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t. I mean it. Just don’t.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Cal said.
“Yes. Yes, you were.”
“Guys!” snapped Loren. She glared at them both, then focused on Tim again. “Sorry about them. You were saying?”
“The bomb,” said Tim.
Loren blinked. “Sorry?”
“I believe he said, ‘the bomb,’ ma’am,” said Kevin.
“What about the bomb?” asked Cal. “We told you, it wasn’t us.”
“No. And I believe you. I trust you completely,” said Tim.
“Well thank you, Timbo. That means a lot,” said Cal.
“Also, I scanned through your time lines and checked,” Tim continued. “Can’t be too careful.”
“Oh. OK,” said Cal. “That means a little less, but… go on.”
“I want you to help me find out who made the bomb, then assist me in bringing them to justice.”
Mech’s eyes narrowed. “What’s in it for us?”
“Hey, come on, Mech!” said Cal. “The guy’s here pouring his heart out and asking us for help. What are you, a monster?”
Mech shifted awkwardly, but said nothing. Cal shook his head reproachfully, then turned back to the Time Titan. “I mean, I assume there is something in it for us, yes?”
“Oh yes!” said Tim.
“Great!” He stood and extended a hand. “Then you, my friend, have got a—”
“The satisfaction of knowing that you’ve helped ensure the continued stability of the time stream.”
“—fonking nerve sneaking onto our ship and laying this shizz at our door,” Cal concluded, turning his would-be handshake into an reproachful point. “Satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills, Timbo. So, much as we’d love to help…”
“You don’t understand,” said Tim. Even without the gizmo he’d worn on his neck earlier, his voice reverberated around the Untitled. Cal stepped back and lowered himself into his seat again. Tim took a breath, composing himself, before continuing in his normal voice.
“The kind of technology required to do what was done aboard that cruiser – the kind of power it must have taken… I’ve never known anything like it.”
Cal swiveled his hips, making his chair swing from left to right. “Well, that’s very interesting, Tim, but I don’t see what it has to do with us.”
“What if it happens in a city next time? A school?” Tim asked. “What if someone detonates such a device in the heart of a sun? Whole systems could be wiped out. Billions could die. Or worse, might never have lived. Would you want that on your conscience?”
Cal shrugged. “It’s not our problem, so it wouldn’t be on our conscience.”
“I can see back along your time line, Cal. I can see what makes you who you are,” said Tim. “We both know full well that it would. It would be on all of your consciences.”
Miz flicked her eyes up from her fingernails. Tim didn’t look at her, but pointed, just briefly. “Less so her.”
Splurt rippled around Cal’s neck. “And I have no idea about that thing,” Tim admitted.
Cal drummed his fingers on his arm rests. He rubbed his tongue across the front of his teeth. It was nice having all of them back. He’d missed those little guys.
Swinging his chair, he turned to face the others. “What do you say, guys? Want to help save the Universe?”
Tim gave a half-chuckle. “Well, I’m not sure it’s quite—”
“At-at-at!” went Cal, holding up a finger. “Timbo, I’m trying to help you sell this shizz here. Best if you don’t interfere.”
“Right. Yes. Sorry,” said Tim.
“Can you just stand there for the new couple of minutes and maybe not listen?” Cal asked him.
Tim blinked. “Not listen?”
“Put your fingers in your ears or something,” said Cal. “It’ll just take a minute.”
The Time Titan looked down at his unfamiliar clothes for a moment. “But—”
“Just cover your ears, already!” Miz snapped.
Tim jumped in fright, then clamped his hands over the sides of his head.
His pants, which he had been holding up, fell down. Everyone on the bridge – including Splurt, and very possibly Kevin, although it was hard to know for sure – stared.
“I tried to warn you that would happen,” Tim said, his voice a little louder than normal.
Nobody replied for a while, then Cal closed his hanging-open mouth. “Jesus. OK. My fault. Uh, maybe just go out into the corridor?”
“What?”
“Go into the corridor!” Cal shouted.
“Right-o,” said Tim. He turned, hands still clamped over his ears, pants still around his ankles, and shuffled off the bridge, his butt cheeks only half-hidden by his too-long football shirt.
Once the door had closed, Cal turned back to the others. “Holy fonk!” he exclaimed. “Did you see the size of that guy’s wang? It was huge.”
Loren shook her head curtly. “Can’t say I noticed.”
“How could you not notice?” Cal asked. “I thought he had three legs at first! Jesus.” Leaning back in his chair, he jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door. “No wonder that guy can bend time and space. His penis probably does it all on its own.”
Loren shook her head again. Her blueish skin had taken on a purple tinge around the cheeks. “Can we talk about the bigger issue here?”
“Trust me, ‘issues’ – if that’s what you kids are calling it these days – they don’t get much bigger than that one.” Cal puffed out his cheeks. “I mean, where does he keep it? No wonder he wears a dress.”
“Can we please stop talking about—”
“I’m amazed he doesn’t need a fonking wheelbarrow.”
“OK! He has a big… member,” said Loren. “Good for him. Let’s move on. Are we going to help him or not?”
“I’m starting to think we should,” said Cal. “If we hang around with him, maybe his enormous wang will rub off on me.”
He replayed that sentence in his head.
“That didn’t come out the way it was intended.”
Loren rolled her eyes and turned to Mech. “What do you think?”
Mech nodded. “Yeah. It was pretty big.”
“Not about that! Forget his penis.”
Kevin’s voice piped up. “Oh, I think it will be rather a long time before any of us can do that, ma’am,” he said. “It’s taking up a full trillionth of a per cent of my databanks.”
Loren threw up her arms. “I give up.”
“Which doesn’t sound like much, now that I say it out loud, but it is,” Kevin concluded.
“Want to know what I think?” asked Miz.
This took everyone by surprise. Miz rarely voiced her opinion willingly, unless it was in the form of withering comments about Loren’s flying ability, landing techniques, or general personality.
“Are you thinking, ‘If that’s what it looks like when it’s limp, then what the Hell does it look like…?’” Cal began, then he caught Loren’s glare and swallowed the rest of the sentence before it could reach the end. He cleared his throat. “Because I’m definitely not thinking that.”
“I’m thinking we should do it,” said Miz. “We should, like, you know, help or whatever.”
“You do?” said Cal, trying to hide the surprise in his voice, but failing completely. “I mean, you do, huh?”
“There were, like, kids on that ship,” said Miz. She sounded distant, remembering something that had technically now never happened. Her voice became softer. Softer, Cal thought, than he’d ever heard it. “She had this dress on. She looked all, like, proud, or whatever.”
Miz wriggled in her chair, suddenly uncomfortable as she realized the others were all staring at her. She shrugged, and her shields were suddenly up again. “But do what you want. I don’t care,” she said. “And yes, for the record, that thing was huge.”
Cal dipped his head towards her in a
nod of gratitude. “OK. Good contribution. Gold star for Miz. Mech? What do you think?”
“About the bomb thing. Not his penis,” Loren made clear.
Cal sighed. “Loren, can we stop talking about the man’s genitalia for a minute? We’re having an important discussion here.”
Loren’s eyes widened for a moment, then became narrow slits of annoyance. She glared daggers at Cal, but he just smirked and kept his eyes on Mech.
“Sorry, Mech, you were saying?”
“You wanna know what I think? I think this whole thing is crazy,” said Mech. “But I don’t see how we got much choice. Like the man says… Weapon like that? Could rack up one nasty big body count.”
“And he did restore you back to normal,” Loren pointed out.
“To my prime,” Cal corrected. He flexed his muscles to demonstrate, but it didn’t really do much to prove whatever point he was trying to make.
“Either way,” said Loren. “You kind of owe him one.”
“I let him borrow my pants,” said Cal.
“But not a belt, sir,” Kevin pointed out.
“No. In hindsight, that was a bad call,” Cal admitted. He shrugged. “Well, I guess this is happening. Space Team is saving the galaxy! Again.” He thrust a hand up in the air. “Group high-five!” he cried, but there were no immediate takers. “Anyone? No?”
“I’m doing it, sir,” Kevin informed him.
“Thanks, Kevin. Much appreciated,” said Cal. “Anyone else?”
Splurt became an unsettlingly human-looking detached arm and held himself up in the air just as Cal had done.
“That’s not quite what you’re meant to… Know what? Forget it. Good job, you guys.” He shot pointed looks at Mech, Loren and Miz. “Not you guys, who all let me down badly, but Splurt and Kevin, who did their best. And that’s all I ask for.”
He considered this. “Well, that and for Miz to stop opening the bathroom door when I’m in the shower, but that’s it. Those two things are all I ask for.”
He considered this, too.
“And your undying loyalty and respect. But other than that…”
“Just shut the fonk up and get the man back in here,” Mech barked.
“Uh, before we do,” Loren began. Her chair creaked beneath her as she shifted her weight. “There’s something… I mean…”
She felt the weight of everyone’s gaze on her, tensed for a few seconds, then exhaled and relaxed. “It’s fine.” She caught Cal’s eye. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Is it about the toilet seat?” Cal asked.
“We’ll talk about it later,” she said again, then she turned back to the front and took a renewed interest in the controls.
Cal watched the back of her head for a while. “Uh. OK,” he eventually said, then he turned to the door. “Kevin, open up so we can get Tim back in here.”
“Very good, sir.”
The door swished open. Cal and Mech – who were the only two currently looking in that direction – both hissed and grimaced simultaneously as they were met by the sight of Tim bending over and trying to retrieve his fallen pants. He still had his hands over his ears, so was having to do so using just his elbows, which was proving exactly as difficult as it probably sounds.
“Oh God! Oh God, no,” Cal blurted.
Loren and Miz both turned to the door, then recoiled as if they’d been physically struck.
“Ew!” was all Miz had to say on the matter.
“Man, I did not need to see that,” grunted Mech, turning away.
“How do you think I feel?” Cal asked. “At least you can have your brain reformatted!”
“I ain’t a fonking robot,” said Mech. He glanced back over his shoulder. “And why are you still looking?”
“Jesus, why am I still looking?” Cal wondered, quickly spinning his chair back to the front. “Kevin, get his attention and tell him he can take his hands away from his ears now.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Also, were you recording any of what just happened?”
“All of it, sir.”
“Then burn the footage and eject it into space,” Cal ordered. “We do not want to stumble upon that again.”
It took a minute or two for Kevin to convey the message to the Time Titan. Cal spent it with his eyes closed, trying to think of beaches or flowers or puppies or anything else that wasn’t a half-naked elderly man’s gently splayed buttocks.
When Tim finally returned to the bridge, hands gripping the waistband of his borrowed pants, everyone made a very deliberate effort not to meet his eye.
“So, uh, we had a chat, and we decided we’ll help you out,” Cal informed him. He was struck by an overwhelming urge to giggle, but bit his lip and managed to hold it in.
“That’s tremendous news!” said Tim. “If you hadn’t agreed, I’d have been in rather a tight spot.”
“Right,” Cal cheeped.
“Really in a hole.”
Cal bit his lip harder. He heard Mech’s shoulders rattle as the big cyborg tried to stop them shaking, and saw that Miz had a hand clamped over her mouth, holding it shut.
Cal nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
“Shafted right up the—”
Cal was the first to go. He exploded in a fit of the giggles, which opened the floodgates for Mech, Miz and even Loren. The bridge echoed with the sound of their hysterics.
Tim watched them, bemused, as they all laughed until they cried.
“Did I miss something?” he asked.
It took Cal several seconds to pull himself together enough to reply. “No. No, it’s… Oh, God,” he wheezed. “Phew. No. No, it’s nothing. We were just remembering a joke we were told once by…”
He was off again. He clutched his sides, his face turning purple as the harrowing hilarity of it all overcame him once more.
Four minutes later, when he and the others had finally laughed themselves out, Cal patted both sides of his face, stretched his jaw a few times, wiped away his tears, then risked meeting the Time Titan’s gaze once again.
More laughter fluttered in his chest somewhere, but he managed to stamp it back down. “As I was saying, we’ve decided to help you out.” He quickly held up a finger. “Please, don’t say anything there.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“OK. Good. So, we’ve decided to help you out,” Cal reiterated. “What do you need us to do?”
“Well, I suppose we should start by finding out who built the chronal weapon,” Tim said. “As I say, I’ve never known of such technology. Whoever built it must be a genius.”
Cal nodded. “So you thought you’d use a genius to catch a genius. I like your thinking, Timbo.”
“You ain’t no genius,” Mech replied.
“Maybe not in the traditional sense of the word,” Cal admitted. “But if we open up the criteria a little…”
“To include people who aren’t geniuses?” asked Loren.
“Exactly!” said Cal. He frowned. “What were we talking about?”
“Using a genius to catch a genius,” said Tim.
“Right! So we were.”
“And we were also establishing that you ain’t no genius,” Mech added.
“You’re right. I’m not,” Cal conceded. He spun his chair to the front, a grin lighting up his face. “But we know a man who is!”
There was a long moment of silence.
“So, like, are you going to tell us who it is?” asked Miz.
Cal sighed. “That was supposed to be a big dramatic moment,” he said. “Jesus. It’s like you people have never even seen Star Trek…”
TWELVE
“ARE you sure you’re hailing him?” Cal asked.
Mech muttered something quietly, then raised his voice. “Yes. Like I said eight times already, I’m sure I’m hailing him.”
Cal tapped a fingernail on his arm rest and gazed down at the planet below. “Are you hailing on all frequencies?”
Mech turned from the screen.
“Say what? What the fonk does that mean?”
“You know. Like, don’t just hail him on one frequency, hail him on all frequencies.”
“I’m hailing him on the motherfonking comms frequency. It’s the only frequency we have.”
Cal blinked in surprise. “We only have one frequency? That can’t be right.” He looked up to the ceiling. Splurt had disappeared up there somewhere an hour or so earlier, shortly after they’d entered warp, but that wasn’t who Cal was looking to talk to. “Kevin?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Quick question. How many frequencies do we have?”
“I’m not sure. Would you like me to check?”
“Please.”
“Very good, sir.”
Cal clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth while he waited.
“I’m telling you, man,” said Mech, but Cal held up a hand for silence.
“Hold on. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
They waited some more.
“Sixteen thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven, sir,” Kevin announced.
Cal leaned forward in his chair. “Ha!”
“No. Hang on.”
There was another moment of silence.
“One, sir. Sorry, I was looking at the wrong column.”
“God. Seriously?” asked Cal, sinking back in his seat. “Well… can we get more?”
“I told you, man. I told you I knew what I was doing, but you had to keep sticking your damn nose in. You couldn’t just leave it in my hands.”
“Quick question for you this time, Master Mech,” said Kevin. “Did you mean to press the ‘mute’ button?”
Mech’s smug expression froze on his face. His eyes darted to the console in front of him. “What? Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I meant to press the…”
He saw Cal. The grin he wore was almost slicing his whole face in two.
“Fonk you, shizznod!” Mech muttered, then he jabbed the button and went back to hailing on their one and only available frequency.
“You sure this is a good idea?” Loren asked, looking back over her shoulder at Cal. “This guy’s pretty creepy.”
“He’s not creepy. He’s just… eccentric.”
“He made, like, a gajillion clones of himself,” said Miz, not looking up from her fingernails. “That’s pretty creepy.”
Space Team: The Time Titan of Tomorrow Page 13
