by Mort Gloss
****
"This stuff isn't too bad; it tastes just like cheap tacos," said Russ, sucking down the food emanating from a feeding tube. "Although," he added, "the texture is hard to get used to."
"Dude, quit talking," said Tom. "Every time you say something she looks at us like we're idiots." Rita, who stood on the opposite side of the circular pod with arms folded across her chest, shot Tom a look of disdain. "See?" he said to Russ.
"So we're just supposed to sit here in silence? Nice plan, loverboy." Russ quickly went back to sucking down the chunky liquid coming from the tube. "Get over here and try this; it will really surprise you."
Tom was barely paying attention, his eyes fixed on Rita. "We gotta figure out a way to talk to her," he half-mumbled. "There's gotta be a way."
"Well, let me think," said Russ between gulps of liquid taco. "In Star Wars, everybody pretty much spoke English, except Chewbacca, who kind of spoke monkey, I think. But Han Solo could always communicate with him. So, no help there." Russ wiped his mouth and began again. "It seems like everybody in Star Trek spoke English too."
"We could just learn her language," suggested Tom, not listening to Russ. "How hard could it be?" Just as he spoke, Rita hissed in his general direction.
"Harder than you think, Thomas."
"If Balloon can do it, I can."
"Well, by Jove, you've got it. You just figured out how all of us can communicate with all the Ritas of the Sombrero Galaxy: Balloon."
"It's going to really suck to have him translate every blasted word we say."
Rita snarled at them again as they talked. Russ gave her a half-smile and lowered his voice. "No, you idiot. I just remembered; in Star Trek they had some kind of translator device. All we need is a few of those things."
"Pure genius. So now we have to get our hands on the ball of power, plus a few Star Trek translators, if they exist."
"Focus, man. We can have Balloon build us a few of them. Problem solved."
"Of course!" exclaimed Tom, extracting another nasty look from Rita. "But wait, what if Balloon doesn't have all the stuff he needs to make them?"
"Relax, friend. It's already taken care of."
"How's that?"
Russ took a last sip from the tube and stood up from his feeding station. "Is it something we need?"
"Oh yeah."
"And didn't Balloon ask himself about 10,000 times whether he'd packed everything we could ever possibly need?"
Tom slowly started to grin. "Yeah, he did."
"Then you're golden, my boy. Now get over here and taste this taco stuff."
Tom obeyed, walking toward the feeding station. Without any snarls or hisses, Rita removed the tube used by Russ and attached a clean one.
"Thank you, Rita," said Tom, apparently forgetting his words meant nothing to her. She responded with a look of annoyance and sent a wave of noise from deep within her throat.
But Tom had finally stopped paying attention to her, his eyes fixed on the wall. "What the deuce is that?" he said.
"What the deuce is what?" replied Russ, walking over to his side.
"Look at this picture. That's just freaky."
Russ noticed the framed art on the wall of the pod for the first time. It appeared to be a cheap photographic print of what was originally painted. The print depicted an enormous, morbidly obese man with coke-bottle glasses, unkempt dark hair, and abnormally skinny legs. He stood before the sunset of two celestial orbs, his eyes squinting, his large waist hanging gratuitously over the beltline of his pants, his two hands placed respectively on his indiscernible hips. Behind him, and somewhat out of focus, stood a large redheaded female and two skinny men, one taller than the other. A rectangular box, which appeared to be in the same shape as the W.A.S.P., was partially pictured on the right side of the scene.
Russ' mouth dropped open. "What's going on here?"
