Space Team: Sting of the Mustard Mines

by Barry J. Hutchison

  Garunk put his hands on his hips. Or roughly where everyone assumed his hips probably were, at least. “So, that’s your ship down there, is it?” he asked, his voice taking on a reproachful tone.

  Loren opened her mouth to reply, but Cal clamped a hand over it. “If we say ‘yes,’ are you going to kill us?”

  Garunk shot Cal what would probably have been quite a salacious look, had it not been for all the mud almost completely obscuring his features. “Try me,” he said in a slightly breathless sort of whisper.

  “It’s our ship,” Mech confirmed. “But we didn’t mean to crash it.”

  “We got shot down,” Loren said.

  “Well, of course, you did,” said Garunk, giving her yet another slap on the arm and caking her skin in brown gloop. “There’s no way that Teela Loren would just randomly crash a ship for no reason!”

  Miz snorted. “I thought this guy said he knew you?” she remarked.

  Garunk turned and clapped his hands above his head several times. “OK, attention everyone, attention. No one defiled the siltch, OK? It’s all just been a misunderstanding. I vote we call off the murders. Do I hear anyone else in favor?”

  To Cal and the crew’s dismay, nobody offered their support.

  “Come on, I just need one person to second the motion,” Garunk said. “Then we can all go home and put our feet up.” He waited. “No one? Seriously?”

  “Uh, can I second you?” asked Cal, raising a hand.

  Garunk gave him an admiring glance. “Any time,” he said. “But let me check with the Slurrata. Hey, Grandma? Can the beefcake second the motion?”

  The Slurrata seemed confused, as if everything was moving too fast for her to keep up. “Well, I mean, there’s nothing specifically in the rules about—”

  “Great! Then motion carried,” said Garunk. He clapped his hands again, flinging flecks of mud in all directions. “That’s it. Show’s over folks. Back you go. Class dismissed! B’bye now. B’bye! Nothing to see here. Move along.”

  “Uh, wait,” said Cal.

  Garunk spun like a catwalk model and sashayed over to where Cal was standing. He towered above the much shorter Cal, gently oozing mud onto his boots.

  “Yeeeees?” the Slurrit asked, drawing out the word in a way that somehow managed to sound incredibly suggestive. “What can I do you for? Ooh! Cheeky!” He gave himself an admonishing slap on the wrist again. “I mean what can I do for you?”

  Cal smiled weakly, before jabbing a thumb in the direction of the siltch. “Any chance you guys can help us get our ship back?”

  Six

  Cal squeezed himself through the canyon and into the cave with the dancing digital flames.

  “Yoo-hoo!” he called, casting his gaze across the empty cave. “Anyone ho-ulp!”

  A hand clamped across his mouth from behind. Something short and stabby jabbed into his throat.

  Cal could think of five different ways to get himself out of this situation. Unfortunately, four of them required various other members of the team showing up to rescue him, and the fifth involved sobbing uncontrollably until he was released out of sheer pity and embarrassment.

  As luck would have it, he didn’t have to rely on any of them.

  “You’re alive,” said Konto, removing the blade from Cal’s windpipe. “That’s unexpected.”

  Cal rubbed his throat where the blade had been pressing. “Yeah. I’ll be honest, I sort of hoped you were going to turn up and do some kind of last-minute heroic rescue for a while back there,” he said. “I totally had you down as that guy.”

  “Afraid you had me down wrong,” said Konto, sliding his knife into a sheath on his thigh. He sat down by the fire and glanced past Cal to the entrance. “The rest of them dead?”

  “Nope. All still alive,” said Cal.

  Konto looked surprised by this news. He took a bowl of something gray and gritty from the floor, then dug in a spoon. “I guess you haven’t met the Slurrits yet.”

  “Oh, no. We did,” Cal said. “Turns out Loren and one of them go way back. They’re actually really nice. You know, when you get past the whole monster mud-people thing. They helped us get our ship back.”

  Konto stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth. He stared at Cal in disbelief for a while, then shoved the spoonful in his mouth and chewed. “Well,” he said through a mouthful of the lumpy slop. “You’re just full of surprises.”

  “You have no idea,” said Cal. “But we have a problem.”

  “Growlers?” Konto guessed.

  “No. The Slurrits are keeping them away,” Cal said. “Oh, and FYI, if those things are ever bothering you in the future, grab ‘em by the balls.”

  Konto dipped his spoon back into his bowl. “Sorry?”

  “The balls. Just go right ahead and grab those suckers. Totally at your mercy.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Konto said. “So… your problem?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Cal. “See, here’s the thing, between getting repeatedly shot by missiles, or torpedoes, or whatever they were, then the subsequent crashing, sinking, and being lifted to the surface by hundreds of mud-people, the ship has taken some damage.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Konto.

  “No. It’s a miracle it wasn’t blown to pieces months ago,” Cal admitted. “You have no idea how many times I’ve left the shower running.”

  He wiped a spot on the rocky wall with one finger and examined the tip, as if checking for dust.

  “What do you want?” Konto asked. “Spit it out.”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Cal began, activating one of his better smiles. “We’ve got a doohickey on the ship that can make replacement parts, but it needs raw materials.”

  Konto stared back at him, saying nothing.

  “We’ve got some stuff,” Cal said. He tapped his chin with a fingertip. “Duriun, maybe?”

  “Durium,” said Konto.

  Cal nodded. “Yes! That’s it. We’ve got that, but we need this other stuff to make one of the things.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to bamboozle me with your technical jargon,” Konto said.

  Cal blinked a few times. “Huh? Oh. You’re kidding?”

  “Yes,” Konto confirmed, his face utterly deadpan. “I was being humorous.”

  “Awesome,” said Cal. “And hilarious. Well done.” He ramped his smile up to the next level. “So, anyway, what we really need is a selection of base metals. You know, space steel, space iron, that sort of thing? I suggested Mech take off one of his feet, but he declined pretty forcefully.”

  “Space iron?” said Konto.

  “Bingo!” replied Cal. “Exactly. Space Iron. I knew you’d get it.”

  Konto slurped another spoonful from his bowl. “I don’t. Get it, I mean. What’s this got to do with me?” He held up a hand before Cal could reply. “Wait. Actually, I know exactly what it has to do with me.”

  “You do?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Konto said.

  “Ha! Good one,” Cal laughed.

  Konto’s expression remained completely impassive. “That wasn’t a joke.”

  “Classic!” Cal grinned. “But seriously. We got to talking and we – by which I mean Mech and Kevin – figured out where we can get all the space metal we need.”

  “You did, did you?”

  “Yes,” said Cal. He took a deep breath, then quickly blurted out the rest of the sentence. “Can we have your bike?”

  “Can you have my bike?” Konto repeated.

  “We don’t have any money, exactly, but we can give you something better.”

  Konto narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  Cal had been hoping he wouldn’t ask that yet. He hesitated for a second, trying to come up with something.

  “Friendship,” he offered.

  “No, thanks.”

  “The greatest currency of them all,” Cal said, miming a rainbow shape with both hands and really trying to sell the idea.


  “It’s still no. Anyway, it wouldn’t do you any good,” Konto told him. “It’s all Durium and nanomesh. It wouldn’t give you what you need.”

  “Fonk. Really?” Cal said. He eyed the bike longingly. “You’re not just saying that?”

  “You’re not getting the bike,” Konto told him. “Forget it.”

  Cal folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. “OK, fine. I have a Plan B.”

  “Good for you,” Konto told him.

  “You want to hear it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Garbage,” said Cal. “You said you worked in garbage, right?”

  “No,” said Konto.

  Cal frowned. “Huh? I’m pretty sure you did.”

  “I mean no, I won’t help you,” Konto clarified.

  “But you do work in garbage?”

  Konto sighed. “Yes. But I’m not helping you.”

  Cal puffed up his chest. “Oh yeah? Well, maybe I’ll make you help us.”

  “You won’t,” Konto said.

  Cal deflated. “Well, no. Obviously. You could probably kill me with just your eyebrows.” He puffed out his cheeks, trying to come up with an alternative approach. “What if I asked really nicely?”

  Konto considered this. “I don’t know. Give it a try.”

  “Please help us,” said Cal, locking his fingers together in prayer. “Pleeeease.”

  “No,” said Konto. “But good effort.”

  Cal tutted. “Fine. Then can you at least point me in direction of the where you keep it?”

  “Keep what?”

  “The garbage,” said Cal.

  “The garbage?”

  “Is there a fonking echo in here?” Cal asked. “Yes, the garbage. Is there, like, a junkyard, or something?”

  For a moment, Konto’s face came close to registering something like amusement. He scraped up the final dregs of his porridge-like gloop with his spoon, shoveled it into his mouth, then stood up.

  “You know what? I will take you,” he said.

  Cal perked up, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “You will? Seriously?”

  Konto nodded. “Seriously. I’ll take you to where we put the garbage, but that’s it. You have to go in and get it yourself. Deal?”

  “Absolutely!” said Cal. “That’s great. I just need to gather up some metal parts, maybe a few space tin cans or—”

  Konto made a dismissive gesture to indicate he didn’t care. “You can get whatever you like,” he said. “As long as you understand that I’ll wait for you outside.”

  “Outside. Awesome, no problem. Just wait until I tell the others that you’re not a horrible selfish shizznod, after all. Boy, will they have egg on their faces?” said Cal. “I really appreciate you doing this, Kont. Can I call you Kont?”

  “No, you cannot,” said Konto. He brought his hand up to his mouth, partly to wipe away any stray food fragments, but mostly to hide his smirk. “Besides, you might not want to go thanking me quite yet...”

  Cal stood on the edge of a diving-board shaped platform, conspiring to keep as much of his weight as possible on his back foot so he didn’t fall into the swirling morass of smoke, steam, and liquid below.

  It had taken around twenty minutes to get here on the bike from Konto’s cave, not including the brief delay at the start when the bike had first accelerated, and Cal had immediately fallen off. The bike had growled across the desert, hurtling down the dips and leaping the dunes. The tires carved a trench through the sand, before some sort of air jet at the back blew up a cloud behind them, obscuring their tracks.

  Cal was almost beginning to enjoy all the bouncing and skidding when a row of large industrial vehicles had appeared over a ridge, perfectly silhouetted against the giant outline of a Destitution moon, and Konto had announced that they had arrived.

  At first, Cal had thought the ground beside the machines was being pulled open by hundreds of cables as thick as his wrist, creating a half-mile-long fissure in the sand. It was only thanks to an explanation from Konto, some closer examination, and a bout of violent retching that he realized the truth.

  “A stomach?” he said with a grimace. “You built a giant fonking stomach in the desert?”

  “Well, not me personally,” said Konto. He stood beside Cal, the toes of both feet protruding over the edge, the five hundred foot drop into a giant stomach apparently not causing him any concern. “And we didn’t build it, we found it. Decades back.”

  “You found it?” said Cal, stepping away from the edge before vertigo kicked in. “You found a giant stomach just lying around the place?”

  Konto nodded. “That’s right. Turns out there are a few of them dotted around the planet, mostly just below the surface. We call them the Guts.”

  “Man, the naming committee must’ve pulled an all-nighter on that one,” Cal said. “And you don’t think that’s weird? That there are stomachs all over the planet? You don’t find that odd?”

  “Sure I do,” said Konto. He shrugged. “But you travel in space long enough and weird becomes the norm.”

  “You traveled in space?” Cal asked.

  Konto nodded.

  “Right. I mean, cool. I didn’t know,” Cal said.

  “No reason why you would.”

  “No, I guess not,” Cal agreed. “How long were you out there?”

  “Like I said,” Konto replied. “Long enough.”

  He gestured into the stomach. The cables had it peeled apart and pinned open like the subject of some science experiment. A sulfurous, eggy sort of smell rose from the pit, assaulting Cal’s nostrils and making his own stomach churn unpleasantly.

  “You’re looking for the garbage? That’s where we put it,” Konto said.

  “Great,” Cal sighed. “Of course you do. You couldn’t have just piled it up and left it to rot like normal people.”

  He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. They tasted exactly like the stomach smelled. “Can we get down there?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you get stuff back?” Cal asked.

  Konto frowned. “We don’t. It’s garbage. Why would we want it back?”

  “OK, fair point. But, what if someone falls in?”

  “Then, we send our condolences to the family.”

  “Shizz,” Cal spat. He forced himself closer to the edge again and peered into the morass of luminous green stomach acid and billowing steam clouds. “I guess everything is going to have dissolved by now? Been digested, or whatever?”

  “Maybe,” said Konto. “Sometimes deposits build up along the stomach walls. We haven’t done a lining flush in a while. There’s probably a lot of junk accumulated in some of the folds.”

  Folds. Cal shuddered at the word. It somehow made the whole giant stomach thing seem all the more vivid and real.

  “So, there might be some scrap metal down there we could get back?”

  “No,” said Konto.

  Cal tutted. “But, I thought you just said…”

  “We aren’t getting anything back,” Konto said. “I told you, I’m waiting outside.” He pointed to the platform at his feet. “This is outside. You’re on your own from here.”

  Cal looked down into the stomach again, then around at the various industrial vehicles parked between the cables, their paint flaking, their metal pitted with rust. “What about those?” Cal asked. “What are they made of?”

  “Nothing that’ll help you,” Konto said. “Anything built to last around here is Durium or Nanomesh. Not what you need.”

  “Fonk,” Cal muttered.

  He peered down into the pit again. The stench made his eyes water. His gag reflex started doing warm-up stretches as it limbered up in anticipation.

  He looked at the cables pulling the fleshy outer lining of the stomach open.

  The long, sturdy cables.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he groaned.

  “What now?” Konto asked. “Ready to head back?”

  “I wish,” Cal said
. “Mech says we need space metal, so space metal is what we’re going to get.”

  He took off his leather jacket, folded it neatly, then thrust it out to Konto. Konto made no move to accept it, and the jacket fell onto the platform when Cal released his grip. Neither man commented on it.

  “I’ve got a plan,” Cal said. He winced. “But I really wish that I didn’t.”

  Seven

  Konto sat on his bike, the engine purring, the comm-light on the curved dash blinking furiously in time with the voice that came crackling through the speakers.

  “This was a terrible plan!” Cal coughed. “Seriously, why the fonk didn’t you stop me?”

  Konto turned and looked at the length of cable attached to the back of the bike. It ran in a straight line up the fleshy embankment of the stomach wall, before disappearing over the edge. As he watched, it twitched and jerked like a fishing line with a catch on the hook.

  “I did,” said Konto. “I asked if you were sure.”

  “You call that trying to stop me!” Cal protested. “You should’ve punched me unconscious and tied me up!”

  Konto shrugged. “You’re an adult. Reckoned you could make your own decisions.”

  “Do I look like I can make my own decisions?” Cal yelped. “Are these the actions of a man who can make his own decisions?”

  Konto regarded the twitching cable again and shrugged. “You want to get yourself killed? Who am I to judge?”

  “No, but you don’t have to fonking help me do it!” replied Cal, the high squeal of his voice making the bike’s speakers peak. “I swear to God, this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”

  He said that, but it wasn’t actually the most ridiculous thing Cal had ever done. A few months ago, before he’d been abducted and dragged unwillingly into adventures in outer space, it might have been almost the most ridiculous thing he’d ever done. Now, though, it would barely crack the top ten.

  Still, dangling there from the length of cable above a vast pool of luminous alien stomach acid, using his t-shirt pulled up over his nose and mouth as a protective face mask, he certainly felt ridiculous.