The Ultimate Inferior Beings (5 page)

*

Meanwhile, by a process of
trial and error, and unassisted by LEP in any way, the crew of three had
located the ship’s common room and were now looking around it.

The floor was covered by a
carpet of lurid green that clashed shockingly with the pink Velvex wallpaper.
The room contained several armchairs of the cheapest plastic and a bookshelf
containing only trashy romantic fiction. On the wall, above the imitation
fireplace, were hung three porcelain ducks in flight. On another wall was a
poster of a blonde tennis player scratching her bottom.

“Oh, how common!” remarked
the gynaecologist in disdain.

*

‘...One of the first things
you should do as ship’s captain is to meet and get to know the members of your
crew...’ read jixX from the book.

He looked up at the ceiling
with a sigh. “Must I?” he wondered aloud. It had been one thing his father had
always complained about: the crew. “You would not believe what idiots I had on
board this time,” he would rage on his return from each mission.

“Oh yes,” cut in LEP, as
though reading his thoughts. “You must meet the crew.”

jixX gave a start. “I thought
you said they were in hibernation?”

“I woke them five minutes
ago,” said LEP. “They’re up and about. And they could do with some morale
boosting. They don’t look too happy to me.”

jixX remained still for a
long time, trying to summon up sufficient enthusiasm to move. “Alright,” he
said at last. “Where are they?”

“In the ship’s broom
cupboard.”

“Uh-huh? And what are they
doing there?”

“Beats me,” answered LEP. “I
gave them clear directions to the ship’s common room.”

jixX nodded. “Okay. That
figures.”

*

In fact, anaX the
gynaecologist was no longer in the ship’s common room, but was striding
grim-faced to her own cabin, looking neither left or right. She entered the
room and drew the bolts shut at the top and bottom of the door.

After a quick glance about
the room, she headed straight for a mains socket in the wall. She flicked her
flowing hair over her shoulder and uncoiled a length of flex from behind her
ear lobe. Carefully she plugged it into the socket. With a deep sigh of
contentment she fell asleep, still standing up.

Had anyone been watching her they
would have noticed that anaX was acting rather strangely – as strangely as she
would throughout the mission. For, despite being an attractive woman, she had
not once looked at herself in the mirror!

Chapter 2

Just
as jixX
reached
the section in his book on, ‘What to do in an emergency’, the alarm bells went
off. He looked about, wondering what to do. “Okay, what now?” he said aloud. He
urgently flicked through the section on emergencies, but there was no time to
read. He grabbed his jacket and decided to head for the main control room.

“What’s happening, LEP?” he
yelled above the noise.

Just then the bells stopped,
although it was a few seconds before the ringing in jixX’s ears ceased.

“What was that?” he said when
he was able to speak.

“Grub up,” said LEP simply.

“What about the alarms?”

“That was the dinner gong,”
explained LEP. “Food’s ready.”

jixX inhaled deeply as his
annoyance rose. “That’s not funny, LEP.”

“Simple, but effective.”

“And what’s wrong with a
traditional, hand-held, brass dinner gong?”

“Didn’t you hear it?” asked
LEP.

“No.”

“That’s precisely what’s
wrong with it.”

*

 “So where is dinner?” asked
jixX when his irritation had subsided.

“Intermediate Nuclear Storage
Room 4.”

“Ah yes, of course. How silly
of me not to know that.”

“That’s second right, then
take the lift to the basement...”

“It’s alright, thank you,
LEP. I’ll find it myself.”

*

LEP was not the only computer
on The Night Ripple. The forward engine room had its own computer called BUF,
and BUF was not very happy.

“That was the last straw,”
BUF was saying to LEP. “I am never talking to you again.”

“What’s up, buddy?” asked
LEP.

“That fire alarm.”

“Dinner gong,” corrected LEP.

“It set the sprinkler system
off in here.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” said
LEP, trying to sound concerned.

“So I’ve decided never to
speak to you again.”

“But you never do speak to me
anyway, little buddy.”

“That’s beside the point,”
said BUF. “I just thought I’d make the position clear.”

“You know your trouble, BUF?”
said LEP. “You’ve no sense of humour.”

But BUF made no response. He
was never going to speak to LEP again – whatever happened.

*

 “What should I say to the
crew when I meet them?” jixX was asking LEP as he wandered the corridors in
search of Intermediate Nuclear Storage Room 4.

“Tell them this is a Top
Secret Space Mission. All information is on a need-to-know basis.”

jixX considered this
response. “Yes, I like that!” he said. “Thank you.”

“Glad to be of assistance,”
said LEP. “Turn left here.”

jixX took a sharp right.

He spotted what looked like a
small boy of twelve coming towards him. It turned out to be twaX the carpenter.

“You lost, too?” asked jixX.

“Yes,” said the carpenter
with a boyish grin, revealing a set of teeth with more metal than dentine in
them. “I was looking for the dining room but LEP’s directions led me to the
gym.”

“Hmm. I fear there’s a major
fault in LEP’s wit-box. We’ll have to try and fix it. A large hammer should do
the trick.”

“I have one!” said the
carpenter, flashing his tool belt.

“Nothing wrong with my
wit-box,” said LEP.

“We can look for the dining
room together,” suggested jixX. “Let’s try this way.”

As the two walked, jixX
politely asked the carpenter what it was exactly that he did.

“Carpentry!” answered twaX
proudly.

“Yes, but there aren’t any
trees on Tenalp.”

“That’s true,” agreed the
carpenter with a sheepish smile. “So, I tend to practice my skills on
plasto-lignose polycellulose wood substitute – just in case Tenalp ever gets
any timber-producing trees.”

“I see.”

“Then carpenters will
suddenly be in great demand.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“And I’ll have a head start.”

jixX nodded politely.

“In fact,” continued the
carpenter, “I’ve never actually seen any real wood. The closest I’ve got to it
has been bits and pieces brought from Earth. Or the trunks of saplings. Nothing
like a whole plank, though. Nothing I could get my teeth into – metaphorically
speaking. Nothing to saw, or plane, or nail together.”

jixX continued nodding.

“As for real trees, proper
trees,” continued the carpenter, warming to his subject. “Well, I’ve only ever
seen them in photographs and films! Can you believe it? My dream is to see a
real, live, fully-grown adult tree. To stroke its rough bark, to smell its
woody aroma, to marvel at its intricate beauty – and then chop it down for
wood. That’s my dream. That’s why I’m so excited about this journey. I can’t
wait to get to Earth. To see real trees. To feel real wood. To hack a few of
‘em down, saw them into pieces and then do some serious carpentry!”

jixX nodded yet again. “So is
that all you do?” he asked by way of changing the subject. “Practice carpentry
on plastic?”

“Oh, no. I also invent
things.”

“How interesting,” lied jixX.

“But I haven’t been too
successful, as yet. Have you heard of the dihydrogen monoxide-based
urino-excretal control unit for interstellar spaceships?”

“Er, no,” said jixX. “I don’t
believe I have.”

“That was one of my least
successful inventions.”

“Did it not work, then?”

“Oh, it worked alright,”
answered the carpenter. “That was the problem.”

“How can that be?”

“Well, the ship wasn’t fitted
with a grav-field generator. No one told me...”

“I don’t follow.”

“Put simply, it was a
water-flush toilet on a zero-G spaceship,” explained the carpenter, pushing his
broken spectacles back to the bridge of his nose.

jixX repeated the words in an
effort to understand them. Finally, he got it. “Ah, I see,” he said, nodding
sagely. “That could cause problems.”

“It did,” agreed the
carpenter. “Bad problems.”

“So what happened?”

“They sued me for every penny
I had.”

“Oh, how terrible.”

“Not really. I didn’t have
very much.”

Chapter 3

In
their search
for
Intermediate Nuclear Storage Room 4, the two men chanced upon the dining room
and went in. fluX was already seated, but there was no sign of anaX.

“Good evening,” said jixX
introducing himself.

twaX took his seat while jixX
remained standing as he looked about the dining room, pleasantly surprised by
its decor. He was standing on a lush, thick-pile carpet, laid right up to the
wood-panelled walls. The room itself was dominated by a magnificent hand-carved
mahogany dining table, laid as though for a banquet, and surrounded by
twenty-two magnificent hand-carved mahogany dining chairs. Above the table,
hanging from the ornate ceiling, was a glitteringly colourful crystal
chandelier. The whole room was enveloped in a warm, flickering glow from the
open fireplace in the far wall. The sight of an open fire in the oxygen-rich
atmosphere of a spaceship caused jixX a moment of concern, but he let the worry
drift away as he sat down at the head of the table.

“Dinner is served,” announced
LEP in a formal tone. “Please help yourselves to the wide variety of delicacies
set before you. I trust that all will be to your utmost satisfaction.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for the
gynaecologist?” asked jixX.

“I believe she is resting in
her cabin,” said LEP, still speaking like a head waiter.

jixX nodded and surveyed the
selection of covered dishes in front of him. Choosing one at random, he lifted
off the ornate silver cover.

Underneath, lying in the
centre of the silver dish was a single, solitary blue pill. jixX replaced the
cover and tried an adjacent dish. This time, the dish held a single, solitary
yellow pill.

“What is all this, LEP?” he
asked.

“The blue one’s roast beef
and the yellow is soy sauce,” explained LEP helpfully. “With compliments of the
chef.”

“We don’t have a chef,” said
jixX.