19
The
Mutant’s Tale
Most of the
rest of that day and the next was occupied by Ponicho Mull’s ceaseless stream
of chatter. BrTl couldn’t stand it: he blob-locked S-Budg to Dohra’s wrist
again and went and lurked on Level Blue, keeping a wary eye open for large IG
Militia beings with definite probes on their putative hips. Anyway, Trff was
keeping an eye on her: it didn’t really seem to mind Ponicho Mull, even if it
had agreed that strangling was the best thing that could happen to the being.
All grist to the Ju’ukrterian mill, no doubt.
The day
after that was the day that Trff decided, or discovered, whatever, that the
blobs on their own ship needed its presence, and took off in the pod. The
absence of the pod didn’t matter: in spite of the faint, lingering aroma of
dead plush-moss, he and Dohra could always sleep on Didg’s ship. Somehow these
comforting reflections didn’t stop him from getting very, very drunk in the
Level Pink ISLA bar that evening. He did manage to crawl back to Didg’s ship
with Dohra and S-Budg in tow, however.
But next
morning he awoke to a monumental hangover and the discovery that it was way
past breakfast-time and the two of them had gone off. He fell into a moogletube
and whooshed across to the centre of the spaceport complex and guess what?
There she was in the bar hearing all about how exciting it was on
Intergalactica, specifically in Intergalactica Central, and what wonderful
opportunities for further education the place offered, and something about
vacuum-frozen picnics, the lawns being any shade you cared to name. And which
small vlohffert being was not present
to undo the Thwurbullerian’s damage? Right.
Glumly he
sat down. “I’ve always thought Intergalactica sounded like the boring FW dump
to end all boring FW dumps,” he said glumly.
Dohra gave a
loud giggle. “BrTl, you’ve got a hangover! Have a basin of spring water!”
Yeah, well.
Pretty soon
Ponicho Mull came up and began agreeing with every word the Thwurbullerian said,
capping its stories with even more exciting—or boring—stories of his own about
F Senators and F Reppos and “charming” rich beings that haunted the dump,
meanwhile showering him, the Fix-It Being, with exotic and expensive gifts—none
of which were in evidence at this moment, a point that didn’t seem to occur to
Dohra—and blah, blah, blah… But BrTl couldn’t go to sleep, could he? Even if
there hadn’t been this throbbing pain in his head bone he wouldn’t have dared
to risk it. He did manage to suggest a few negative thoughts about Ponicho Mull’s
stories, but Dohra was just so excited by the colourful pictures of
Intergalactica she was getting from both of them that her mind was pretty well
unreceptive to negative thoughts. Certainly to those produced by his poor
powers—and he was all there was, wasn’t
he?
After a bit
Lu Rullan came up, and emanated shock and horror as it dawned what was going
on, but what good was that? He couldn’t stay, he was on duty, he’d only looked
in to say Hullo. And off he went, sending BrTl a last string of apologies and
accompanied by Dohra’s emanations of admiration: looking smart in his uniform,
yeah, yeah…
Then BrTl
found himself faced with a dilemma. Go off to contact Jhl and let it get worse
behind his back, or not go off to contact Jhl while it got worse and he couldn’t
figure out what to do about it? Um… What would she have done in such
circumstances? Er, beyond stopping plasmo-blasted Forty-Four in its tracks; she
was pretty modest about her mind-powers but he was in no doubt she could’ve.
Well, uh, was any action better than none? Not according to his instructors at
Space Fleet Academy—no. On the other hand they hadn’t actually expressed
admiration of the xathpyroid tendency to sit there getting further and further
wound up in the dilemma while the xathpyroid paranoia crept up closer and
cl—Er, yeah. So he got up and went off to contact her.
She sounded
very sleepy, ouch. Then she sounded very, very annoyed.
“Sorry,” he
said glumly.
“Keep OFF
the intoxicants from NOW ON!” she shouted. “That’s an ORDER!”
“Yes, sir,”
agreed BrTl miserably.
“YES, I DO
MEAN ALE AS WELL!” she bellowed.
“Yes, sir,”
he agreed meekly.
Jhl could be
heard breathing hard. Then she said: “Dare I ask, just by the by,”—ouch!—“if that comm-blob you’re
squashing in your great fist,”—hurriedly he relaxed his grip—“is the one Trff
cultured up?”
“Yes, sir.
Um, of course.”
“Then WHAT’S
IT USING OUT THERE IN THE POD, A MEGAZILLION GLPS BEYOND THE LAST BLACK HOLE?”
she bellowed.
Ooh, help.
This thought had never occurred to BrTl.
“Did it give
you its frequency?” demanded Jhl between her teeth.
“Um, no,” he
croaked. “I mean, no, sir. Um, I assumed it’d get in touch with me. Or you. Um,
it has got lots of blobs out there to… work with,” he ended miserably.
“Blobbed-out
bobs, as I understood it,” she said sweetly.
“Mm.”
“Then we won’t
contact it and ask it to fix the pink being at long-range, will we?” she said
sweetly.
“No, sir,”
agreed BrTl glumly.
Jhl breathed
heavily for some time.
Finally he
ventured: “Um, I know you’re fed up with the pink being and everything about
her and I’m really sorry—”
“Shut up, I’m
thinking,” she said mildly.
This sounded
slightly more hopeful, and BrTl was respectfully silent.
“When is her
transfer due?”
“An IG week
and a half. Fifteen IG days from now. It’s the Trans-Gal Loop Service, Route
756. It doesn’t go anywhere near Btcx,” he reported sadly.
“It wouldn’t
do, the vacuum-frozen dump’s on Route 84,613.”
He
brightened. “In that case, you could change at Njneeainwearia and come straight
here on Trans-Gal Route 93, it’s only four stops!”
“I could,
yeah. And you’re right, Trans-Gal Route 93 does leave every IG day, best ferry service
in the two galaxies. Unfortunately Trans-Gal Route 84,613 calls at Btcx every
other IG month, and it went two days ago. Taking with it, I might add, a load
of lucky Service clowns with more influence with the top sparf than I’ve got!”
“I geddit,”
he said glumly. “Sorry.”
“And NO, I
could NOT ASK HIM TO TAKE ME HALFWAY ACROSS THE TWO GALAXIES ON HIS
VACUUM-FROZEN MOODRA DYHILLIA AS A SPECIAL FAVOUR!” she bellowed.
“It only
crossed my mind for a fleeting—Um, sorry, sir.”
“Stop
sirring me, for Federation’s sake,
BrTl,” she sighed.
“Yeah. Okay.
Sorry, Jhl.”
“Look, if
you or Trff were in danger—”
“I know,” he
said quickly.
After that
he didn’t say anything, but Jhl could see what he was thinking. “Uh, BrTl,” she
croaked, swallowing, “I don’t even know this Friyrian captain, and I don’t
think Shank’yar knows him, either. Well, he sounds to me like a being with far
too much sense to hang out with the crowd of play-beings and qwlot-soaked diplo
clowns that he mixes with.”
There was a
certain confusion of personal pronouns here, but the pictures were very, very
clear, in fact horribly clear in the case of the Whtyllian, so he just agreed
glumly: “No, you’re right.”
“Added to
which,” she said cautiously, “we haven’t yet determined if the whole bit was
just in the pink being’s imagination, have we? –Wishful thinking,” she reminded
him.
“Uh—no. But
if you contacted him, as one captain to another,”—he tried to ignore the
picture she was sending of a blobbed-out hunk of rusting space junk lurking out
beyond the last black hole with one small, fluffy vlohffert being in charge of
it—“you could find out if it was true and, um, if it was, wouldn’t he want to
rescue her?”
“From a fate
worse than death?” said Jhl very drily indeed. “Well, perhaps he would, mm.”
“I see. You’d
have to make a fool of yourself, in mammalian terms,” said BrTl miserably.
“Sorry I suggested it.”
Jhl took a
deep breath. “Mok shit!” she said briskly. “Who in Federation cares if I make a
fool of myself in front of seventeen thousand vacuum-frozen Friyrians in their
gill-collars? Not to say,” she added very drily indeed, “in front of
vacuum-frozen Fleet Commander Shank’yar Vt R’aam of Whtyll! After all, I’m only
Wavey-Spacey, aren’t I, and Federation knows I don’t want another call-up like
this one!”
“Um, no,” he
said cautiously. “‘Course you don’t, no. Um, so you will?”
“Sure! What’s
the name of the ship, again?”
“I only got
this off her, but Trff thought it was accurate. Silver-Ash Flyer, Silver WF Line, Hinnover City to Orbiting Transit
Station 643 of Playfair One.”
“Great
splintered shards of quog,” said Jhl in awe. “One of the most boring routes in
the Known Universe. –Right, I’ll get onto it. Did you get his name?”
“Uh—well, it
sounded like a genuine Friyrian name to me. Captain Ccrainchzzyllia.”
There was a
strange silence echoing across the hyper-link in space or whatever in
Federation it was you blobbed onto when you blobbed onto a comm-blob tinkered
with by the aforesaid small vlohffert being. Then Jhl said weakly:
“Ccrainchzzyllia, like with ‘chzzy’ in the middle of it, yeah?”
“Yeah. Oh!
Hang on: the other day the Fix-It Being was going on about Friyrian names and
Dohra spotted—You don’t mean that ‘chzzy’ means it isn’t a lordship-type name
after all?”
“No,” said
Jhl in a hollow voice. “I mean that it’s a very high-up lordship-type name
indeed. Think the phrase is ‘one of the oldest families on Friyria’—oldest
culture-pods, to you.”
“Um, aren’t
they all from the same original germplasm, though?” he fumbled.
“Indubitably!” she said with a sudden laugh. “No, well, just a silly
saying. But it is a genuine lordship-class name. Possibly large parts—well,
some parts—of her story are true, after all. I’ll get onto it. Should get back
to you later today. Well—nothing else to do, here! Oh, and if by any mad ninety
megazillion-to-one chance our Chief Engineer should contact you, tell it to get
onto me ASAP, will you? Captain out!”
“Thanks,” he
said quickly. “BrTl—” She’d blobbed off. “Out,” he finished uncertainly.
Uh—well, not as bad as he’d feared. She must be desperate for something to do,
all right.
He didn’t
feel much like lunch that day, for various reasons, but managed to gnaw on a
juicy grpplybeast roast, refusing Dohra’s offer of some vegetables or a nice
salad to go with it. The thing was, herbo-carnivores tended to assume that
quantities of vegetable matter were good for the metabolism, whatever it was.
Her own lunch was all vegetable matter, ugh. That stuff that looked like
walking-chicken breast-meat, cubed, was actually some poisonously revolting
squashed, reconstituted vegetable something. Forty-Four was eating it with
enjoyment, too, and as far as he could tell this was not a ruse. Ponicho Mull
was only pretending to enjoy it, but the rest of his lunch was vegetable
matter, too. No, well, whatever blobbed you up, but why try to force vegetables
on a xathpyroid? Or on a mutant: S-Budg, growling horribly, was attempting to
dump the vegetable matter off his plate and onto the ISLA table, only to be
foiled, as usual, by the ISLA plate.
“Why did you
make him take that? He doesn’t like it.”
“He needs a
certain amount of vegetable matter and fibre in his diet,” replied Dohra
firmly. “Yummy worsnip, Budg! Yummy roast quoshy!”
“I’d call
them yucky worse-and-worse-nip and yucky burnt squashy,” noted BrTl.
Stop—it! she sent crossly. “Look, Budg,
Dohra’s eating it!” she cooed, taking a minute piece of his black and crimson
burnt-looking squashed thing. “Quoshy, it’s a lovely root vegetable, it’s
Nblyterian!” she reminded BrTl crossly.
“Squashy,”
said S-Budg experimentally.
“Quoshy,”
said Dohra firmly.
“SQUASHY!”
he shouted, hurling the plate to the fl—Uh, not. It came flying back and hit
him on the nose with a horrid “clonk!” before settling on the table again.
“See? The
lovely ISLA plate thinks you’re a naughty boy,” said Dohra crossly. “Eat that
lovely quoshy that the culture-pan went to all the trouble of making for you!”
“I WANT
MEAT!” he shouted.
“You’ve had
your meat. Eat that quoshy,” said Dohra grimly.
“NO!”
“Couldn’t
you—” began BrTl.
“No, he’s on
a protein high already,” she said grimly.
Perhaps he
was: it wasn’t easy to tell. Resignedly BrTl implanted the suggestion that
quoshy was really yummy, and S-Budg fell upon it ravenously. Likewise the other
thing, possibly under the impression that it was also quoshy. Uh—was he colour-blind?
Hard to tell, actually.
“Thanks,”
said Dohra on a weak note.
“Uh—did you
spot that?”
“Mm.”
Uh-huh. Was she getting better merely
because, in the wake of Trff’s tweaking or whatever it had been, she was
exercising her powers more, or had Trff done more than he, BrTl, had suspected,
or was there a Thwurbullerian digit or two— No. He didn’t want to end up on
Mullgon’ya like elderly cognate BrShl, thanks. Grimly he concentrated on his
meat and spring water…
“Then,” finished Ponicho Mull on a
triumphant note about fifty megazillion IG hours later, “of course F Minister meeanshinkreD py
hundreL in person contacted my F Senator, just as she’d promised me she would,
and so it was all fixed! Ck, ck, ck!”
“Very
satisfactory,” said Forty-Four valiantly.
“Yes, well
done, Ponicho Mull!” agreed Dohra valiantly, wrenching her attention off a
yellow-crested Nblyterian who was optimistically inspecting the pink ISLA bar’s
mannanna plant for signs of flowers.
BrTl just
glumly ordered another round…
“And
naturally,” finished Ponicho Mull on a triumphant note another fifty
megazillion IG hours later, “the company representatives all agreed that it was
impossible to go down that route, and that my suggestion was the only way to
fix it! And so an agreement was drawn up with Field-Marshal Bo Grn
Laallainweyigh, and the project was off and running, as they say! Ck, ck, ck!”
“Very good,”
said Forty-Four with a perceptible effort.
“What? Um,
yes, of course: excellent!” gasped Dohra, wrenching her attention off a cluster
of uniformed space cadets drinking nnru juice, playing Spinno with a credit
disc, laughing, hooing and whistling noisily, and just generally doing their
best to be a disgrace to the uniform…
“Then His
Gracious Holiness,” finished Ponicho Mull on a triumphant note another fifty
megazillion IG hours after that, “offered his actual appendage, and so it was all fixed! Mighty Moon-Glo Maxi Co. made a
mega-fortune out of the deal! Ck, ck, ck!”
“Um, yes,
their shares are quoted on the IGSE at ninety-three point seven igs after an
issuing value of twenty-five,” admitted Forty-Four somewhat limply. “So that
was your doing, Ponicho Mull? Congratulations.”
“Um, yes,
congratulations,” said Dohra vaguely, her eyes on a developing confrontation
over in a far corner between a Wynonian Bugler and a scarred Slgr, not to
mention the latter’s mutant Cxvrt Class, um, Two? Whatever, it was in a
bracelet, and every time the Slgr sneered it growled.
Ponicho Mull
was just embarking on yet another thrilling saga of his own remarkable
abilities when there was a slight stir in the room and all signs of
confrontation vanished. And a burly Meanker in the blue-trimmed black uniform
of an ISLA Warder came in looking round and emanating hopefulness.
“Ku Fellan!”
cried Dohra, bounding up and waving madly.
“Hoo, hoo,
hoo! There you are!” he said, coming over to them. “Got that mutant in a
bracelet, eh? Plasmo-blasted good idea.”
“It’s
keeping him safe,” explained Dohra over S-Budg’s growls. “Ssh, Budg! Ku Fellan
won’t hurt you! He’s our swiller! –Sorry: that’s a DorAvenian expression,” she
said to the stunned emanations from the warder.
“Uh—yeah.
Oh—right! Goddit! Thanks, xathpyroid.” His emerald eye swivelled in the direction
of BrTl’s beaker of spring water and he gave a muffled “Hoo!” but otherwise
didn’t comment. “I’m off duty: mind if I join you?”
Far from
minding, Dohra greeted the suggestion rapturously; and Forty-Four didn’t appear
to mind; so regardless of the fact that S-Budg was still uttering muffled
growls and the Fix-It Being had shrunk into his seat and was eyeing him in horror,
Ku Fellan sat down happily and generously ordered a round. Well, as ISLA
Warders went he wasn’t a bad being, though true, that wasn’t saying all that
much—and possibly his presence would shut the plasmo-blasted Fix-It Being up.
So on the whole BrTl didn’t mind, either.
Forty-Four
and Dohra in concert were just telling Ku Fellan all about the exciting story
that Lu Rullan had told them—one of
them with no ulterior motive—when S-Budg’s growls increased alarmingly, and up
came—
“It’s 62 and
310! Oh, look at you!” cried Dohra distressfully. “What happened to you? Oh, Musho, it’s you,” she said as TRAINER came up
to them. “What happened to the poor
beings?”
Wasn’t it
obvious? UrGur Blue 62 now had three and a half arms, and UrGur Blue 310 now
had half a nose. Well, he’d match that other clone, 78, had it been? No, well,
mirror-images, so to speak.
“Gidday,
Dohra,” growled Musho. “They been in a howdy-gurdy. Rolly Bollybeer Green, they
come up into our league, an’ they thought they was gonna take it out, see, only
our side powered away and took it out for UrGur, you betcha! Only their back
line, they got in a few good ones, see, an’ 310, he went down, only he took one
right out, you betcha! An’ Rolly Bollybeer
Green 33, it took out poor ole 62, an’ Coach, he said, comes of having mutants
on the team, what he never would, see? Poor ole 62, he was right out of it for
three IG hours.”
Any being
might have been forgiven for not understanding this speech, in fact even
Ponicho Mull’s mixture of offence and incomprehension was forgivable—though
that smell wasn’t Musho himself, it was the stuff he rubbed on the clones, it
did tend to cling when a being had its appendages in it every day—but actually
Dohra replied: “I see! Poor 62, does
it hurt dreadfully?”
“Nah! I took
out that Rolly Bollybeer Green 33!” he growled.
“He did get
in a good one: yeah,” noted Musho temperately.
“I took out
that Rolly Bollybeer Green 111!” growled 310 proudly.
“In
quintupled 5-D triangles: that’s one Rolly Bollybeer Green clone that’ll never
walk again,” admitted Musho with satisfaction.
Dohra
blenched but said valiantly: “Well done! Come and sit down. So, you’re on your
way home, are you?”
The two
clones just stared stolidly—though emanating, as much as they were capable of
emanating anything, pleasure at seeing her again—but Musho blinked a little and
said: “Uh—wouldn’t say that. Back to quarters. Uh—yeah, thanks, Warder, since
you’re buying, UrGur for us.”
“UrGur for
it!” shouted 310.
“UrGur for
THEM!” shouted 62.
“UrGur for
ME!” shouted S-Budg.
“Can he have
another, Dohra?” asked Ku Fellan on a weak note.
“What do you
think, BrTl?”
He thought
the mutant could sink twenty more that size—the tankards that the ISLA bar
served UrGur in were generously sized, but that didn’t mean they weren’t
optically altered as well—and remain unaffected. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. Thanks,
Ku Fellan. Uh—no, make it a maxi-galaxy shake for me, thanks.”
“On the
waggon, are you, xathpyroid cognate?” said Musho sympathetically. “Us clones
all know what that’s like—don’t we, clones?”
“Training!
NO BEER!” shouted 62.
“He’s got
it,” said the trainer comfortably.
“So where
are your quarters?” asked Dohra kindly.
Their
quarters were on Quarvaynia. Well, it was o-breather, true. And there were
large native herds of bovine quadrup—“MEAT!” shouted 310—Quadrupeds, quite.
There’d be no distractions, that was for sure. Well, the jugglers were good.
“They like
the jugglers,” said Musho mildly.
“Uh—yeah.
Was I broadcasting? Sorry.” BrTl tried to warn the being that Dohra was gonna
ask—Too late.
“So will you
take them to a Full Surgeon there?” she was asking anxiously.
“Uh—” Musho
looked round for help. Forty-Four was carefully emanating nothing at all. BrTl
was hurriedly doing likewise. Ku Fellan, with a certain amount of
fellow-feeling, was sending: She’s like
that. Can’t help it. The Fix-It Being was looking down his shiny black nose
in a superior way and emanating superiority. S-Budg and the clones were, of
course, just drinking their UrGur beer.
Finally the
trainer said feebly: “Um, we got like, a being: now, I’m not saying it’s a Full
Surgeon or nothing near it, only it’s not bad, we call it Doc. It’ll stick a
new arm on ole 62.”
Dohra
nodded, still looking anxious. “That’s good. And what about poor 310’s nose?”
“Uh—well,
thing is, ya got the wrong end of the ban-ban-ban, Dohra. The Ref, it suspended
him for the rest of the season, see? That’s why he’s coming back to quarters.”
“That clone,
I took him right out, Dohra!” he said
proudly.
“Um, yes,
310. Well, he deserved it, didn’t he? He was a bad being,” she said valiantly.
“Yeah! Them
bad-being clones, we take them out! Yay TEAM!”
“Yay, Team!”
she agreed, nodding brightly. “Um, I see, Musho, but couldn’t your Doc—um—you
know?” she said, touching her own humanoid nose.
“Well, I’ll
ask it. It never done a nose before, only I guess it could culture one up, why
not? It does arms real good.”
“Oh, good!”
she beamed. “Then you’ll both feel
better, won’t you, 62 and 310?”
“I feel
good, Dohra! UrGur for ME!” shouted 62.
“UrGur for
ME!” shouted 310. “I feel good, Dohra!”
“UrGur for
ME!” shouted S-Budg. “Dohra for ME!”
Yes, well,
that made it fairly clear, didn’t it? Surreptitiously BrTl checked that
bracelet out. It was holding up well, but on the whole it was a pity that he’d
given Dohra its key rather than keep it himself.
The clones
then demanded a story from Dohra but S-Budg shouted: “NO! My Dohra! Go AWAY!”
and so forth. After a little of this Forty-Four sent: Shall I? and BrTl replied: Be
my guest. So S-Budg stopped shouting, the clones stopped demanding a story
and sat back and drank their beer nicely, and Musho, emanating a wistful desire
to be able to control them like that, sat back and mopped his almost-mammalian
forehead—he had a dent for a goperball, too, so maybe he’d once been a
sports-clone himself—and Dohra told them a nice story all about her and her
little brother going on a fishing expedition.
A certain amount of checking revealed that the
clones didn’t understand what fishing was or what a boat was, let alone what a
brother was—though oddly enough they did get the point that he was an immature
male humanoid—and that S-Budg, who did understand about fish, was seeing
something about fifty times the size of the piscine beings that Dohra was
picturing; but at least no being was attempting to rip pieces off another being’s
anatomy right in front of the ISLA Warder. Or not in their corner: over the way
the scarred Slgr and his mutant Cxvrt provoked the Wynonian Bugler into hurling
itself at them. Ku Fellan remained unmoved, but two hefty IG Militia beings
lumbered in and removed all three of them.
Then S-Budg
decided it was his turn to tell a story—well, the repeated shouts of: “My turn
now! My TURN!” indicated he thought so.
Can he?
sent Ku Fellan dazedly.
Doubt it. You wanna volunteer to monitor
slash interpret? replied BrTl. Gee, no, he didn’t: fancy that. BrTl could
feel Forty-Four would rather hear what the mutant had to say—Federation knew
why: after all it had had a perfectly good DorAvenian story off Didg, what more
could the mutant possibly add? Oh, well, let him. If it got too bad he supposed
he could interpret. “Go on, Budg, swiller, tell us a story,” he prompted.
There was a big fish. Them three brothers, they went out to catch it! There was Gidg and Didg and
Lidg, he was only little. I catched the FISH! GRRR! Fish for ME! Dohra, you can
have some of MY fish! YAY!
The clones
and Musho brightened, and cheered.
Is
that it? sent Ku Fellan weakly, as Ponicho Mull gave a series of smothered
Ck, ck, ck’s, and Dohra clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Budg, cut
that out,” said a severe voice from somewhere behind the clones, and several
beings jumped ten IG fluh where they sat.
“You beings are letting him get away with a
load of space garbage,” said the owner of the voice, coming forward. “I’m
looking for a xathpyroid cognate called BrTl: that’d be you, would it?” he
said, taking off his DorAvenian helmet.
“Uh—yeah,”
croaked BrTl, staring. Humanoid faces were all very similar, of course, but if
this one wasn’t the clone of that Silver Warrior being in Didg’s story you
could certify, him, BrTl, as ready for Mullgon—
“Good to
meet you. I’m Lidgeonfyllewend np Afftn do’ DorAven,” the being said.
BrTl just
stared.
“Didg’s
brother,” said the newcomer. “Yeah, hi, Budg,” he said tolerantly as Budg got
up and bashed him on his half-armoured shoulder. “That’ll do: siddown.”
“Huh?”
groped BrTl. “Oh! Brother! Um, yeah, hullo, Lidgeon—uh—”
“Call me
Lidg,” said the young man on a resigned note. “Didg said he’d left his ship in
your care and that of your Chief Engineer: that right?”
“Um, yeah.
Trff’s not here just at the moment. The ship’s fixed. Uh—I suppose I should ask
to see your IG ID, but we can see that you’re Didg’s cognate, so I won’t.”
“This here
is Lidg! He’s my swiller’s little brother!” explained S-Budg helpfully, if
belatedly.
“That’s
right. Siddown and shut up, Budg. –Who in Federation managed to get a bracelet
on him?” asked the DorAvenian.
“Me,”
admitted BrTl. “Dohra’s got his key.”
“Didg’ll go
plasma-ballistic if he finds out you had him in a bracelet. Though for mine, he
could stay in it. I better take the key. Which one’s Dohra?” asked the young
humanoid with a pleasant smile.
There was a
short silence.
“Me,” said
Dohra, getting up, her face very red. “I’ve got his chain, see? He’s been
looking out for me, haven’t you, Budg? Do you want to go home with Lidg?”
“YAY! Go
HOME! See my SWILLER!” he shouted.
“Apparently
he does,” she said grimly, handing the chain to Lidgeonfyllewend. “Here’s the
key.”
“Thanks,” he
said, shoving the blob in a pocket. “Think I’ll leave him like this until we’re
in orbit round DorAven. Didg ever tell you beings about the time the
plasmo-blasted being tried to change the course just when they were going into
hyper-hop?”
There was
another short silence.
“No,” said
Dohra grimly, “but that’s hardly surprising, given that he doesn’t tell any
beings anything much. I’m afraid we’ve been using your ship. I’ll just get my
things out of it.”
“We’re going
home, Dohra,” said S-Budg on an uncertain note.
“Yes, you
are, Budg. You’ll see your swiller.”
BrTl got up
slowly. “Yeah. Um, so Didg couldn’t come?”
“No: he can’t
leave DorAven.”
Forty-Four
waggled its frontal lobes slowly. “I see. I’m very sorry about your close
affines’ deaths, Lidgeonfyllewend np Afftn do’ DorAven.”
“Uh—thank
you,” said Lidg, looking at the large being in considerable surprise.
“Oh, dear,
what a terrible tragedy!” twittered Ponicho Mull, looking avidly from one to
the other of them. “I see! Not
exactly affines, respected
Forty-Four: father and brother. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“Yes. I’m
very sorry,” said Dohra grimly. “Come on, BrTl, shall we get our things?”
“Uh—yeah.
Sorry, DorAvenian cognate,” he said awkwardly to the young humanoid. “We
thought it would be all right to use the ship, after Trff fixed it: it had to
take the pod, you see.”
“Of course,”
said Lidgeonfyllewend stiffly. “How much does the family owe you for the job,
Br-cognate?”
BrTl was about
to say “Nothing,” but to Blerrinbrig’s with the plasmo-blasted DorAvenian and
all his culture-pod! Trff had spent hours on the plasmo-blasted being’s blobs,
and Dohra had figuratively sweated blood looking after his hunk of a mutant
that was six times her size and as close to a walking nuisance as anything in
the Known Universe; and if chiefs of DorAven could afford that gold-encrusted
armour—he looked sourly at the extremely elegant gold-chased xrillion
half-armour the black-haired young man was wearing—they could
Vvlvanian-cursed-well cough up a few igs for Trff’s trouble! Not to say, for
their ship’s very sick account. So he told him what the job was worth and
watched grimly as the DorAvenian outed with a credit-blob and transferred the
igs to their ship’s account.
Then they
went back to the ship and rescued their stuff. At the last moment it dawned on
S-Budg that Dohra wasn’t coming with them and he started to make a terrific
fuss—but Dohra had had more than enough for one day, and so BrTl simply erased
the lot from what passed for the mutant’s memory-store. And that was that.
Lidg-whatever-his-name-was took off, and good riddance.
“Rather a
superior young man; though of course, if the father was a chief—” ventured
Ponicho Mull, who hadn’t spared them his presence throughout.
Shut—UP! replied BrTl angrily.
“Ouch!” he
gasped, clutching his head in shock.
“It’s all
right, BrTl. –I’m sorry if that hurt,” said Dohra grimly to the Fix-It Being.
“BrTl was only trying to protect me. But I quite agree: I thought he was a
horrid young man, he wasn’t kind to Budg, at all!”
“No,” agreed
Ponicho Mull weakly. “After all, the being is more or less a pet.”
“Yes,
exactly.”
“So, um,
back to the bar? Let me buy you a nice shot of Huyajhangwanian brandy, Dohra,”
the Fix-It Being offered, rubbing his head cautiously.
Dohra stuck
her chin out. “I’d love that, Ponicho
Mull. Thank you very much.”
BrTl could
see the being actually meant it. “Yeah, okay, we’ll do that. Um, and I suppose,
if you really wanna try a moogletube—”
Of course he
did. Resignedly BrTl wrapped them both up in pseudopods and put his arms round
them and told his neck-hair to do its best for them and—WHOOSH!
Dohra was
all right, she was used to moogletubes by now, but the Fix-It Being was very,
very shaken indeed.
“It’s always
like that,” she said, squeezing his little black paw kindly. “Do you feel a bit
squashed?”
“Yes!” he
wheezed.
“Just
breathe deeply and slowly,” she advised.
So they
breathed deeply and slowly and then Dohra took BrTl’s pseudopod in her other
hand, and they went up in a public lift-blob and back to the Level Pink bar,
paw-in-hand and hand-in-pseudopod. On the way two Gr-cognates and a Tr-cognate
were encountered, all of whom found the spectacle exquisitely funny, but BrTl
was way past caring. And if Didg had materialised in front of him at this
instant he’d’ve snapped the Vvlvanian-cursed being’s neck for him. Happily.
No comments:
Post a Comment