The Ultimate Inferior Beings (28 page)

“This is my job,” she
reminded him. “Remember?”

“So all that talk about wanting
to learn more about the Mamms?”

“Just a ruse,” said the
stowaway.

jixX had to hand it to her:
she was good at her job.

“Where are we going?” he
asked her.

“You’ll see,” she said as
they reached the ship’s boat hangar. Inside were the four deep space emergency
survival modules. The stowaway led the way through. They walked past emergency
deep-space survival module number 3, with its dangerous and unauthorized cargo,
but didn’t stop. Finally, they entered a small room adjoining the boat hangar,
known as the auxiliary atmospheric distension room. sylX went over to the far
wall and knelt by a ventilator grille. She beckoned jixX over.

“Here, take a look at this,”
she said as jixX crouched down beside her.

jixX looked where she was
pointing. There seemed to be some substance on the grille. He peered more
closely and drew back with widened eyes. He had little difficulty recognizing
it. “Looks like a drop of green slime,” he said.

sylX nodded, a stern look on
her face.

“Probably Chris’s,” said
jixX, although he knew that Chris had not been down to this part of the ship.

sylX shook her head.

“Or Henry’s?”

sylX shook her head again.

“Randolph?” tried jixX, but
on seeing the expression on the stowaway’s face, added, “No, not Randolph.”

jixX looked again at the green
slime, and then a horrible thought occurred to him. “You don’t think it’s...”

“Yes,” said the stowaway,
nodding grimly. “It’s Jeremy. He must be on board. This slime’s still fresh.”

Chapter 2

The
two exchanged
worried glances and then both turned to stare at the ventilator grille.

“Any idea where he is, LEP?”
asked jixX in a whisper.

“Somewhere in the ventilation
system,” said the computer, also in a whisper. “Outside my sensory range.”

jixX nodded. “Okay,” he
whispered to the stowaway. “Let’s try this.” He knelt down on the floor beside
the grille, and shouted loudly into it, “Right, Jeremy. We know you’re in
there. We have the whole ventilation system surrounded. Come on out, with your
hands up, and no one will get hurt.”

His words echoed eerily along
the shafts and passages beyond the grille. Then, as the echoes faded, sylX
knelt down next to him and they both strained their ears for any sounds of
movement from within.

Almost immediately they heard
a faint cry of “Dogs!!” ringing out from some far-off passage and echoing
around the vent system for several seconds.

They sat up, their worst
fears confirmed: not only was Jeremy on board, but his voice had returned.

*

 “Any ideas what we do now,
LEP?” asked jixX, again speaking in a whisper.

An echoing scream of “You
will die, Dogs!” blasted from the ventilation system.

“Smoke him out,” suggested
LEP.

“And then what?”

“Tie him up.”

“Very funny.”

Suddenly, sylX got to her
feet. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll be back in a second.”

“What is it?” asked jixX,
following her to the door.

“Stay here,” insisted the
stowaway. “In case he comes out.”

There was a resounding yell
of “I am the Chosen One!” from the ventilator grille.

sylX slipped out of the
auxiliary atmospheric distension room and into the boat hangar beyond.

jixX turned back to the
ventilator grille and watched it nervously.

“Where are you, you Dogs?!”
came the scream from the grille, seemingly much closer now. “Prepare to face
your death!”

“He’s getting closer,” said
jixX.

“What we need is a cunning
plan,” said LEP.

 jixX waited for more. “Go
on.”

“Oh, I don’t have one yet,”
admitted LEP. “But it’ll be a cracker when I do.”

“I shan’t hold my breath.”
jixX started to pace the room.

The ventilator system had
gone quiet.

jixX slowed his pacing and
looked across at the grille again. As he did so his heart stopped. For there,
oozing from the thin, wire mesh of the grille, were a huge number of long, thin
strands of green slime – each of which was square in cross-section – dangling
towards the floor. As jixX watched in horror, more and more green slime pushed
through the mesh and coalesced on the floor.

Just then, sylX returned, and
she, too, stopped in shock at the sight of Jeremy squeezing himself into the
room. Together they watched the mass of slime grow and grow until, finally, the
last part of it fell to the floor in one large dollop making a loud, squelching
plop as it did so.

There, before them, stood
Jeremy the Mamm alien, looking shaken and disorientated.

“Ah, there you are, you
Dogs!!” he screamed when he had fully reformed and got his bearings. “You will
shortly die.”

*

jixX looked over at the
stowaway, wondering what her idea had been. She was holding a large, black
plastic bin liner. He looked at her quizzically, which made her quickly put it
behind her back, out of Jeremy’s sight.

“At last,” Jeremy was saying.
“Just as Benjamin prophesied.” In a flash he whipped out two slimy arms and
grabbed the two nearest heavy objects from the floor. He was now armed and
dangerous: in one green slimy limb he had a hammer, and in the other a large
adjustable spanner.

jixX and sylX stepped back,
hardly daring to take their eyes off him. sylX fingered the black plastic bag
behind her back. If only she could get close enough to jump him... She would
need a distraction.

“Why?” she asked him. “Why
are you so determined to kill us?”

Jeremy grinned evilly. “I’m
glad you asked me that. Well, there are many reasons.”

“Go on,” she urged as she
edged closer.

“First and foremost,” said
Jeremy, “you are The Dogs and, as such, must be destroyed before you destroy
the Universe. That, obviously, goes without saying. And, as I am the Chosen
One, it is my duty to kill you. And, by killing you, I will prove to everyone
that I am the Chosen One.” Jeremy paused, enjoying being the centre of
attention and not noticing that sylX had edged even closer to him. “I guess I
have a deep-rooted psychological need to prove myself in this way.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But I’d rather not talk
about it.”

“Oh, please,” said the
stowaway, making another tiny step forward. “I’d really like to know.”

Jeremy looked thoughtfully at
her. “Oh all right,” he said at last. “You’re both about to die, so it won’t
make any difference if I tell you.”

sylX nodded and shuffled
forward a little. jixX edged forward with her.

“Well,” started Jeremy. “I
have a terrible secret.”

“You do?” they both said
simultaneously.

Jeremy nodded, but paused,
wondering whether he should go on. “You see,” he said. “I’m not really a slimy
green blob.”

“You’re not??” they both
asked, astonished.

“No,” said Jeremy. “What you
see is a disguise.”

The humans exchanged
bewildered glances.

“In reality, I’m a slimy
yellow
blob. To disguise this shameful fact, I have to eat lots of vegetables to beef
up my greenness. And I
hate
vegetables!” He gently brushed away a tear,
before continuing. “You see, I had a deprived childhood. The pool from which I
evolved had too little chlorophyll and was small and hidden behind rocks, so it
never got much sunlight. The other blobs laughed at me, calling me names and
considering me inferior. I resolved to prove I wasn’t inferior, so I trained
myself to eat vegetables (yuk!) and joined the Benjaminites.”

sylX tightened her grip on
the opening of the bin bag behind her back. Her muscles tensed as she gently,
gently leaned forward. She readied herself to dive. Any moment...

But then she eased off. It
was no good; she was still just too far away. It was far too risky.

“I had to join them as an
impostor,” Jeremy was saying, now in full flow. “They already had their
allotted ten members. But I was so good that they never doubted me and never
noticed that they were one over their quota. I was a good Benjaminite. They
always said I was a good Benjaminite.”

Jeremy lapsed into silence.
Then, suddenly, he looked up. “Anyway,” he said. “I can’t stand around chatting
all day. Do you have any last requests?” He raised the hammer and the
adjustable spanner.

The two humans looked at each
other in panic.

“Er, excuse me,” said LEP
with a cough. “
I
have a final request.”

Jeremy jumped back, startled,
and glanced nervously about him, wondering where the voice was coming from.

“That’s LEP – the ship’s
computer,” explained jixX quickly. His heart skipped a beat. Had LEP just come
up with a brilliant plan?

“LEP?” repeated Jeremy, still
looking round. “Is he a Dog?”

“Sort of,” said jixX. “He’s
rather inferior in the wit department.”

LEP resisted the urge to
comment.

Jeremy considered the
request. “Alright, then,” he said good-spiritedly. “I will allow you one final
wish.”

“Thank you,” said the two
humans. “That’s very kind.”

“Well, I’m not all bad, you
know,” said Jeremy.

They raised their eyebrows.

“Go on, then,” said Jeremy,
slightly impatiently. “What’s this last request?”

“Er,” started LEP as the two
held their breaths. “Would you be so kind as to get into the large plastic bag
that sylX is holding behind her back?”

Their hearts sank with a
thud. LEP had just blown everything.

“What plastic bag?” asked
Jeremy.

Reluctantly, sylX brought the
bag from behind her back.

“See it?” asked LEP.

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“I’d like you to get inside
it.”

“What for?” asked Jeremy
suspiciously.

“It would make my day,” said
LEP not untruthfully.

“Mine too,” added sylX
quickly, hoping all was not lost.

Jeremy turned to jixX. “And
you?”

“That’s my last wish, too.”

Jeremy looked at them
doubtfully. “This plastic bag. What does it do?”

“It has many uses,” said
jixX. “Holding things... and so on.”

“You’re not going to run away
and hide as soon as I get in, are you?”

“No, no,” they both assured
him.

Jeremy hesitated.

“Please,” implored sylX. She
knelt down, placing the bag on the floor and holding it invitingly open.
“You’ll need to put down the hammer and spanner before you get in.”

Jeremy gave a long sigh. “I
don’t know,” he muttered, more to himself than to the others. “I just don’t
understand you inferior types.” Then, to the utter amazement of both humans, he
approached the bag, put down the hammer and large adjustable spanner, and
slithered straight in.

As soon as he was in, sylX
closed the bag and tied a knot in it.

“Well done! Well done!” said
jixX, giving her a pat on the back. “That was brilliant, sylX. I can’t believe
he fell for it!”

LEP cleared his throat. “It
was my cunning plan,” he pointed out.

“Ah, yes,” said jixX. “Well
done to you, too. LEP.”

“Thank you.”

“So what do we do with him
now? We can’t take him back to Tenalp. Goodness knows what he’d do there!”

“Hey!” called Jeremy from
inside the bag as sylX lifted it off the floor. “You said nothing about tying
the bag up!”

“Send him home to Ground,”
suggested LEP.