“You see, G and K, we two,” Kato began, motioning to himself and Bosco, “are Marines. We protect the other explorers from our crew.”
“Yes,” said Bosco, “Matt and Stevie are sailors, so we have to take care of them.”
“OK,” Gx!pk replied. “You two protect the others, what do 'sailors' do?”
“They help run our ship,” Kato explained. “And when we are in port they move things on and off the ship: cargo, supplies and such.”
“Right,” added Kq*zt, “so these two are poo haulers.”
“What!” Jacobs and Hitch exclaimed in unison.
The Marines literally laughed so hard they cried. It was several minutes before Kato and Bosco recovered enough to continue the conversation with the puzzled lava creatures.
* * * * *
Eventually, the wrinkles in communication were smoothed out and Earthlings'
faux pas
regarding the gem pit was corrected. The crew of the Peggy Sue spent four more days getting to know their new found friends, the lava creatures. An understanding was reached with the inhabitants of the metal moon and promises were made regarding future visits by ships of the Orion Arm Trading Company. Finally, with everyone secure on board the shuttle, preparations were complete to return to the Peggy Sue.
When the Earthlings departed the metal moon, Gx!pk and Kq*zt were on the surface to bid them farewell. Both had morphed into large humanoid doll shapes, like basalt Pillsbury Doughboys. In their blob like heads openings formed—two eyes and a mouth, glowing bright red-orange from the living lava within.
Hitch and Jacobs were at one of the shuttle's viewports, getting a last look at the little world that definitely had been more than they expected.
“Look at that, Matt. G and K came to say good bye.”
“Yeah, Stevie. They look like a pair of jack-o'-lanterns.”
“You know, I think I'm actually going to miss them.”
Chapter 17
Main Lounge, Peggy Sue
The shuttle had returned, its crew and cargo of scientific samples safely secured aboard the Peggy Sue. In the main lounge, the Captain and First Officer were sitting at the big table in front of the large viewport. They were enjoying a well deserved drink, in celebration of a job well done, when Bobby and Mizuki came into the lounge.
“It looks like we are just in time,” said Bobby, as the couple approached the table, “before these two drink the bar out of the good stuff.”
“Pull up a chair, pardner, and have a little Chateau de Gobbler on me,” replied Billy Ray, raising a glass with a half inch of amber fluid sloshing about its bottom.
“Beth, I can't believe you are drinking whiskey,” added Mizuki, taking a seat at the table. Beth's usual was a hard to find gin named Hendrick's that was infused with the essence of roses and cucumber.
“Yes, the Captain prevailed on me to join him in a traditional toast to a successful enterprise. According to him, this requires a proper spirit—like straight Kentucky bourbon—not a 'foreign' inebriant such as gin.”
Billy Ray waved to Jimmy Tosh, who was behind the bar. “Bring a couple more whiskey glasses and a bottle of 101, if you please Mr. Tosh.”
“I comin' right over, Captain,” the Jamaican barkeep replied, assembling the required supplies. Bobby could not resist teasing his friend about his drinking preferences.
“Ah yes, a taste of the Kickin’ Chicken, the Dirty Bird. The only way to celebrate!”
Though a well respected potable, Wild Turkey was not considered a particularly upper class drink. It was, however, fabled in literature, music and film as the drink of the working man.
“How can you disparage Jimmy Russell's masterpiece? It's been described as a big bodacious bourbon; complex, languorous, rich, elegant and powerful; the Clint Eastwood of whiskeys.”
“How many of those has he had, Beth?” asked Bobby. “He's starting to wax poetic about booze.”
Beth raised a single eyebrow and shook her head slowly. Jimmy sat two squat glasses on the table and poured several fingers worth of golden liquid into each. Mizuki sniffed at her's tentatively.
“It smells of honeysuckle and old leather,” she said looking at the Captain, raised brows bespeaking more than a modicum of doubt.
“Don't let it lull you into a false sense of security, Mizuki,” Beth cautioned. “It starts out with sweet berries and vanilla overtones but quickly moves to a peppery wallop.”
Jimmy looked at the Captain, who nodded, signaling him to refill Beth's glass and his own.
“Go ahead and pour one for yourself, Mr. Tosh, we are celebrating a number of firsts. Our first new species, our first new allies, our first successful trade.”
“Thank you, no, Captain. I a Rastafarian, and we only partake of natural things. Alcohol is a fermented chemical that does not belong in de temple of I body. Better to smoke the holy herb marijuana, which is natural, opens de mind and assists in reasoning.”
“Well, it's yer loss, Jimmy. Just leave the bottle.”
“Right, Captain. Just signal if you need more.” The Rastaman departed with a big smile on his face. As far as he was concerned, a happy Captain meant a happy ship.
Mizuki hazarded a sip. The whiskey's complex bouquet exploded on her tongue as the smokey liquid burned its way down her throat. Not accustom to drinking whiskey neat, Mizuki's eyes began to water—she tended more to fruity drinks adorned with little paper parasols. Blinking, she sat the glass back on the table and gasped.
“Smooth.”
This remark caused Bobby to snort, sending some of the 101 proof liquid fire up his nose. The Sailing Master coughed while the others laughed.
“Watch it, Bobby. Yer feelin' that Wild Turkey's bite.”
“Right,” Bobby croaked.
“Now that wasn't a quote from Shakespeare.”
“No Ma'am. That would be ZZ Top's
Arrested For Drivin' While Blind.
” Billy Ray leaned back contentedly and took another sip of his whiskey.
“I didn't think you liked country music, Billy Ray,” said Mizuki, now recovered from her first sip and cautiously attempting a second.
“I wouldn't call ZZ Top 'country' but they are from Texas. In fact, that song is off their fifth album,
Tejas.
” Billy Ray's taste in music tended more toward progressive rock than blues or rock & roll. Oddly, it was Beth, a Londoner of Ethiopian extraction, who liked country music, particularly the older stuff by Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Charlie Pride and Willie Nelson.
“So what's the final analysis of our new rocky friends, Mizuki?”
“According to Ahnah and Will, with some help from Sami, the lava creatures are a true silicon based life form. Exactly what their internal structure is like, what functions as genetic material or even how they move is a total mystery. We do know that they feed by melting their way through the moon itself.”
“That must be where all those passageways came from.”
“Correct, Bobby. They melt and absorb the material, incorporating some elements into their bodies while storing and eventually excreting others.”
“That would be the source of Hitch and Jacobs' mother load of gemstones.”
The men suppressed chuckles; Beth rolled her eyes as Mizuki continued.
“Yes, their gem pit was, indeed, the lava creatures' latrine.”
“You know, we should find a better name for them than 'lava creatures'. It doesn't seem proper.” Beth was big on propriety, particularly after a few drinks.
“They just call themselves 'people', but I think we should call them 'Horta',” said Bobby without hesitation.
“Why 'Horta' for heavens sake?”
“The Horta were a silicon-based lifeform from Janus VI in the original Star Trek TV series. They also dug tunnels through the planet they lived on, though their physiology was nothing like our new friends.”
“Hey, I remember that episode! It was called
The Devil in the Dark
. Sounds like a great idea to me, Bobby.”
Bobby raised his glass in enthusiastic agreement. The two women looked at each other as if to say “Men!” in the way that women do when confronted with inexplicable male behavior. Mizuki pressed on with the Science Section's findings.
“It would be fascinating to have a better understanding of their metabolism. The only thing we are sure of is that they are kept in a partially molten state by heat from internal nuclear reactions.”
“Yer joking? Those boulders, sorry, I mean Horta are little mobile nuclear reactors? If that don't beat all.”
“Natural fusion reactors are all around us but natural fission reactors are much rarer, though they do exist. The natural reactors at Oklo in Gabon, Africa, for example.”
“That's why they referred to the depleted uranium rounds fired by the Marines as 'food',” Bobby noted.
“And that's why they were happy to take us on tours of the moon and to talk about their history in exchange for a few thousand rounds of 15mm railgun slugs,” added Beth.
“I guess ol' Jack Haldane was right: 'Reality is not only stranger than we suppose but stranger than we can suppose'.”
“
Hai
, as long as we remember the words of Max Plank: 'One must be careful when using the word,
real'
.”
“What?” asked the puzzled Captain.
“Never get into an epistemological discussion with a physicist,” said Bobby by way of explanation. Mizuki smiled and Beth started to giggle.
“I think I need another shot, pardner.”
“Amen, brother.”
Crew Lounge, Lower Deck
In the crew's lounge there was also drinking going on. In celebration of finishing their visit to the metal moon and its strange inhabitants, the Captain had expanded the quotidian booze ration. All the participants in the initial exploration of the moon were present. Even Umky was having a drink with the human members of the crew.
“It's about time we had a bit of grog,” said Jay Taylor. “I was stuck on the shuttle for four days and I'm as dry as a dead dingo's donger.”
“You should have been with us, primate. Playing tag with moving boulders.” Umky raised a two liter bottle of blackberry brandy above his head in a two pawed grip, sucking enthusiastic on its protruding straw.
“You should have seen Cmdr. Danner knock that boulder out of the tunnel with the hover sled,” said Vinny, illustrating the collision with his hands. “That rock popped out and into another, and another, like a break shot in pool.”
“You should have seen Cmdr. Danner and Dr. Ogawa fly across the chamber and bounce off the boulders themselves,” replied Umky, lowering the brandy bottle, now half empty. “The Doc whipped out that sword of hers, swung it around and made a perfect landing, just like in a Jackie Chan movie.”
“Jackie Chan was Chinese,” observed a slightly tipsy Tamara, “Dr. Ogawa is Japanese.”
“Haven't I told you? All you humans look alike to us.”
“Huh?”
Tamara's puzzlement allowed Hitch an opening to join the conversation. “Hey, you should have seen the front end of the hover sled—totally stove-in, smashed the controls and everything.”
“Yeah, the engineering gnomes will love that,” added Kato.
“What's this about you and Jacobs discovering a sacred alien site and almost causing an inter-species incident?” asked Kate innocently. She had been prepped by the Marines before the two petty officers arrived.
“What we found was fantastic!” said Hitch.
“What you found was a latrine,” said Bosco.
“Yeah, we found these two at the bottom of the aliens' dump station playing in lava creature excrement,” added Kato.
“Da, gives new meaning to the phrase, 'in deep shit'!”
Those assembled found this hilarious.
“OK, OK,” said Matt, trying to maintain some dignity. Reaching into his back pocket, Jacobs pulled out a cloth bag closed with a drawstring.
“Just so you know, here is some of the alien 'poo' as they called it.”
As he moved to dump the contents onto the table the others moved back hastily, some covering their drinks. What came out of the bag was a collection of exquisite gemstones—rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires. The sailor, who had been an amateur gemologist in his youth, had cut and polished the stones to enhance their brightness and beauty. The assembled crewmembers were awestruck.
“
Oh. Mine. Gott.
” said Kate. Vinny emitted a low whistle.
Matt was wearing a Cheshire cat grin and Stevie, his partner in crime, could not resist.
“I guess, if you are all so offended by the stuff we excavated from the latrine, you really don't need to take your share at the end of the voyage.”
“Now don't be hasty there, Mate,” said Jay.
“I don't care what you had to crawl through to get them,” Tommy Chen enthused. “How much of this alien poo did you collect?”
Jacobs could not keep the smugness out of his voice. “A bit over eight metric tonnes.”
“That's got to be worth...” began Kashi Ademola.
“About a fortune,” finished Hitch.
“Not a bad day's work for a couple of alien turd wranglers,” said Umky, summing up the situation. Everyone laughed again, this time including Matt and Stevie.
Science Lab, Deck Two
Betty White secured the sick bay and headed forward to have a drink in the main lounge. Fortunately, no one had been injured during the exploits on the metal moon. Still, Betty was finding things a bit boring on board the ship at present. In the passageway she ran into Joe Rogers.
The American climatologist was headed for the science labs across from the Medical Section. Aft of the lounge and equipment spaces the Medical section took up the starboard side of deck two, while the Science Section occupied the portside. He smiled and nodded to the ship's doctor, but seemed a bit distracted.
“Aren't you coming to the lounge for a drink, Joe?”
“I don't think so, Betty. There are still some tests I want to run on those core samples we collected back on the dead planet.”
“Those samples aren't going anywhere, you should take a break. There will be other, hopefully more alive worlds to analyze in the future.”