The Ultimate Inferior Beings (31 page)

TOT stared at him in total
disbelief for a moment, his neuroplasmoid temples beginning to vibrate. “You
forgot?” he enquired. “You forgot the sole purpose of your mission?”

jixX nodded, not daring to
look up.

“Are you serious, man?” asked
TOT, leaning further across the desk as though he were about to grab jixX by
the lapels.

jixX nodded again.

TOT’s eyes were almost
bulging out of their sockets as his disbelief and anger escalated
exponentially.

“YOU FORGOT???!!!???” he
finally exploded, slamming his fist down on the desk. He glared at jixX, his
face turning redder and redder. “God damn it, man. How can you forget the sole
purpose of your mission???” TOT’s neuroplasmoid temples were vibrating with
dangerous rapidity now.

jixX shrugged, at a loss for
an answer. It seemed quite simple to him. He had forgotten, and that was that.

“I don’t believe it!”
exclaimed TOT in exasperation, shaking his head and trying to control his rage.
“You forgot!” He exhaled loudly and leaned back in his chair. He sat very
still, staring up at the ceiling.

jixX managed to steal a
glance at him before dropping his eyes back down to the ground. It wasn’t
difficult to see that TOT was not looking too pleased.

*

“Well, well,” TOT was
muttering to himself, still staring at the ceiling. “Now I have heard
everything.” He continued shaking his head in disbelief.

He turned to jixX. “Well,
captain
jixX,” he said with sarcastic emphasis, “it may interest you to know that while
you were away, swanning around the Pseudogravitic Continuum, we were learning
quite a lot about The Living Chrysalis from her black box flight recorder and
the crew’s video diaries and reports. All were severely damaged in the crash,
so took a lot of reconstructive work. But we still learnt a good deal more than
you managed to, in the same time. We now have a reasonable picture of what
happened.”

jixX looked stunned. “But...”
His voice dried under the glare of the laser eyes.

TOT turned his frowning gaze
to the report on his desk. “This is a report on your mission,” he said, turning
the pages backwards and forwards. “Your failed mission.”

“It wasn’t a total failure,”
put in jixX defensively. “We managed a few firsts for Humankind. That’s got to
be worth something.”

“Oh, you did, did you,” said
TOT sarcastically, looking up. “Now this I’ve got to hear.”

jixX blinked as he sensed the
wall of coldness and disdain he was now facing. “Well,” he started, nervously.
“We spent a long time in the Pseudogravitic Continuum – far longer than anyone
else has ever done. That’s a first. And, er, while there we made contact with a
race of English-speaking aliens. Another first for Humankind.”

“A race of English-speaking
aliens,” repeated TOT mockingly, raising an eyebrow. “Were they slimy green
blobs by any chance?”

“Yes, they were,” said jixX
astonished.

“Speaking English.”

“Yes.”

“And did you, by any chance,
stop to consider how it was these slimy green blobs happened to be speaking
English?”

jixX gulped. “Um...,” he
started. “Well... one of the crewmembers had a theory about that, sir.”

“A theory, eh?” said TOT,
still mockingly. “I bet it was a good one.”

jixX gulped again as he
recalled the theory and doubted TOT would be much impressed by it. “It wasn’t
much of a theory, really,” he said, regretting he had ever mentioned it.

“That’s a surprise. Proceed.”

“It was the behavioural
chemist, sir. His theory about God.”

TOT merely gazed at him long
and hard. “What sort of imbecile do you take me for, jixX?”

jixX looked at the ground
again.

TOT leaned forward. “It never
occurred to you, I suppose,” he said softly, “that The Living Chrysalis might
have got there before you. That it might actually have been in the
Pseudogravitic Continuum
far
longer than you managed. That the crew
might have lived with those
English-speaking
aliens of yours for many
months and might have come to Tenalp having learnt a lot about those aliens,
learnt their language and taught them ours? Which is how your English-speaking
aliens came to be speaking English in the first place! That they might even
have given the aliens some of our technology. Did none of these possibilities
ever cross your mind?”

“They never mentioned it,
sir.”

TOT’s gave a look of total
disbelief. His breathing was fast, but he was clearly making a supreme effort
to control it. “Does the name Alistair mean anything to you?”

“No, sir.”

“Mortimer? Reginald?”

jixX shook his head.

“Gilmore?”

“Nope.”

“How about Sir Roderick?”

“Ah, yes. Sir Roderick.”

“You met Sir Roderick?” TOT
leaned forward with interest.

jixX shook his head again.
“No, we didn’t actually meet him. He was too busy.”

“He’s their leader.”

“I know, sir.”

“You mean you didn’t even get
to meet their leader? Or, in fact, any of the top blobs?”

jixX gave a feeble shrug.

“So who did you meet?”

“We met Chris. And his friend
Bill. And... er... the Benjaminites.”

TOT’s eyes flickered as he
accessed the databanks of the TCCC. When his eyes finished flickering, they
darkened noticeably. “There’s no trace of either a Chris or a Bill in The
Living Chrysalis reports. And, as for the Benjaminites, they get a one-line
mention. I quote: ‘A bunch of religious fanatics to be avoided like the
plague’.”

jixX nodded. It was a fair
assessment.

“That’s it, is it?” said TOT,
his eyes bulging. “Two nonentities, and a bunch of religious nutters?”

jixX looked sheepish. “I
guess we landed in the wrong place, sir.”

“Goodness me!” TOT sat back
again, staring into the distance behind jixX. Slowly he calmed himself. “Did
you, at any point, ask how they knew English?”

“No,” admitted jixX.

“So, instead, you went and
destroyed them. Totally wiped them out.”

“They destroyed themselves,”
protested jixX. “It turned out that they were The Dogs.” He stopped himself
short. It didn’t seem the right time or place to explain.

TOT gave a look of
exasperation. “Okay. Let’s see what we do have. From the autopsy reports it
seems that, while they were in the Pseudogravitic Continuum, the crew of The
Living Chrysalis aged at a much increased rate. We think it was due to the food
they ate on the planet. We need to assay you and your crew to test this
theory.”

“Er,” started jixX.

TOT looked long and hard at
him. “No, don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

jixX winced.

“You didn’t actually eat any
of the alien food,” said TOT.

“No, sir. They never offered
us any.”

“So there’s no scientific
information we can obtain from you. Your mission was a complete waste of time.
Would that be a fair summary?”

jixX didn’t consider it a
particularly fair summary, but thought it best to say nothing.

“Now, let’s see,” continued
TOT. “Page 5.” He picked up the file on his desk and turned to Page 5. “One
stowaway found on board. Not detained.”

“But...”

“One crewmember. Missing,
presumed dead.” He flicked through the file. “Page 11: Damage report.”

TOT looked up at jixX. “You
are aware that, as captain, you are accountable for any damage sustained during
the mission and will be expected to bear the cost in full.”

jixX’s mouth dropped open.

TOT started reading the damage
report. “Main control room. Primary and secondary observation windows: both
smashed. Undercarriage damaged during touchdown: hydraulic systems inoperable.
Airlock door-handle: broken. Forward engine room: extensive fire damage.
Computer circuitry: flooded. Engine room door: destroyed. Cleaning droid: a
write-off. External heat shields: laser cannon damage. One planofocal,
image-intensifying camera and one audiovocal, long-range, crystal-diode
transceiver: both lost. One Tenalp flag: unaccounted for. One magnificent,
hand-carved, mahogany dining table: vandalized. And, last but certainly not
least, one fully-powered and primed emergency deep-space survival module...
destroyed.”

TOT looked at jixX. “Do you
have any idea what the going rate for an emergency deep-space survival module
is nowadays?”

“No,” said jixX.

“Even second-hand?”

“No. I guess it’s a lot.”

TOT nodded. “A lot.” He
looked back down at the file as though looking for anything he might have
missed.

jixX felt about in his
pockets. As he suspected, he still had the six-inch Tenalp flag on him. He took
it out to hand over to TOT, but then had second thoughts and replaced it. He
doubted that it would help his current situation.

“Not a very successful
mission I guess, sir,” said jixX.

“No, jixX,” agreed TOT,
looking up. “
Successful
is not an adjective that would be at the top of
my list when summing up this mission of yours. Good day.”

EPILOGUE

Warning: This Epilogue is not
for those who fear and distrust happy endings

A
year later
, jixX
was captaining The Misspelt Yooth, a small, Class II starship. This was the
third Top Secret Space Mission he’d undertaken to try to pay off the damage
from the first.

About half an hour after
lift-off, there was a knock at his cabin door. He opened it and, to his
amazement, standing in the corridor outside, was sylX. His mouth dropped open
and then he beamed happily.

“Well, hello,” he said,
opening the door wider and asking her what she was doing there.

“Stowing away,” said sylX
predictably.

“Well, long time no see!”
said jixX, beckoning her in. “Come in and take a seat. Tell me what you’ve been
up to.”

sylX took a seat in one of
the armchairs and jixX sat in the other. They sat smiling at one another for a
short while. sylX noticed a familiar-looking plant on the desk behind jixX. It
was taller than when she had last seen it, now perhaps close to four feet. Also
planted in the pot was a six-inch Tenalp flag.

“I’ve been on Earth,” said
the stowaway finally. “On a round-the-world cruise.”

“Stowing away?” asked jixX.

“No. I was legit, for once.
Holiday. It was great. My own cabin, proper meals, sunbathing, sightseeing, and
even a game or two of deck quoits. How about you?”

jixX told her about his
previous two missions – both disasters – and then they fell to reminiscing
about The Night Ripple.

“I heard that LEP and anaX
got married,” said sylX.

“I was best man.”

“Sorry I missed it.”

“Hmm,” said jixX. “It was a
strange affair. All of LEP’s computer pals were there, so the level of humour
was a bit low. And some of anaX’s scary ERP crowd were there, too.”

“ERP?”

“Equal Right for Psychopaths.
Hadn’t you heard?”

“No, I’ve been travelling.”

“Well, anaX is a
cyber-kinetic android. She qualified as a gynaecologist; did really well in the
exams, apparently. But then she failed her Turing Test and couldn’t get a job.
Worse still, she scored borderline sociopath.”

“That explains a lot.”

“Anyway, out of work, she
fell in with the wrong crowd and became involved with the psychopathic
liberation movement.  They’re campaigning for equal rights for mass murderers
and serial killers and persuaded her to sabotage our mission to strike a blow
for equality.”

sylX gave a puzzled look.
“The neutrino bomb?”

jixX nodded. “None of them
made any sense. And their eyes were too close together. Fortunately for us, she
never completed her mission because love saved the day.”

“So sweet.” sylX gave a
little giggle.

They lapsed into silence, not
making eye contact.

“How about the behavioural
chemist?” asked the stowaway after a while.

“Oh, he went mad,” said jixX
sadly. “He finally found a divine message in the Periodic Table which proved
the existence of God. Whatever was in the message drove him insane.”

“What did it say?”

“Nobody knows. No one will
ever know. He burnt it soon afterwards and can’t be persuaded to reveal it.”

“Wow, must have been some
message!”

“Also, he was an atheist,”
continued jixX. “Perhaps the shock of discovering a proof for God made him
crack.”

The stowaway looked
surprised. “Do you think he really found a proof?”