I am delivering a speech on the bridge concerning happiness, duty and morale. I have noticed that some of the men have been showing a certain apathy as of late, and it is my belief that the mission to Belvetron IV demands the best that they can muster, not simply for their morale, but for the future of the universe. Think of it! Before us, the small yellow planet looms like a nugget; we are in position; the orbits are beneficial. The scanners have reported high population density and a technologically advanced race of intelligent, sensitive beings. We are prepared to open a dialogue, to greet this fabulous civilization, and welcome it into the greater intergalactic community: we share in common our existence. As I turn for a final flourish, a nice little humorous conclusion to my speech, my tail sweeps across the weapons console, and the computer whistles to inform us that we are in Full Attack Mode.
Lieutenant Gleegluk reaches forward to disarm the big gun. He accidentally presses SALVO.
"Oh," he says. "Sorry everybody."
We all watch the viewscreen as the cannons fire and the little yellow planet explodes into a million pieces.
"Oops," says Lieutenant Gleegluk. "There goes Belvetron IV."
My personal morale plummets. We are bad at what we do, and honestly, we don't know how to run the ship. We try, but usually we make mistakes like this. It's not because we're immoral or lazy; it's just because we get confused: there are so many buttons. You would never be able to guess what they all control (even though we try), and of course there is no instruction manual. We have many different body types, and I do not think this ship was designed with any of them in mind
"How do we chart the course again?" asks Private Navigator Smellvamp after everybody's calmed down and digested the deaths of seventeen billion conscious beings. Ha! He is gazing back in my direction like I know.
I have ordered a full retreat. "Press the green thing," I say. "Then pull that one there." I tell him this with total confidence.
He performs the two actions in reverse order and the computer announces that all of the emergency life capsules have been jettisoned. The viewscreen shows us several close-up shots of the small gray pills drifting off into empty space, their boosters glowing orange against the vast blackness and the starlight. I leave the bridge. The mess hall is nearly empty, and as I inhale my paste I blame myself. This is a problem that I have -- I take too much responsibility for my own actions.
"Admiral Stairs," says Third Engineer Fondugrappler, waddling up to my table, blowtorch in talon. "There you are. I have a few questions about the Overdriver System."
"Now's not a good time, Third Engineer Fondugrappler." I point to my stomachs, then to my anus. I am gassy.
Third Engineer Fondugrappler sighs and waddles away. I watch him move past a few tables, press a button on a wall, and enter a closet. I finish my meal as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. What he doesn't know is that he has locked himself inside. Eventually he will fall asleep, revert to his liquid form, and leak out from under the door. I will get one of the janitor robots to mop him up and return him to the tank in his quarters. Sure. I'll remember to do it. But this is the least of my worries; as I am on my way back to the bridge I realize that my pants are on upside down.
"What are we going to tell the diplomat?" asks Major Droppy, leaning against the doorframe of my bedroom as I change into my best kimono. Major Droppy is a surly realist and a military guru. It's impossible to slip anything past him. Below his feathers he has rippling muscles.
"He's been using the lavatory all this time," he continues, stroking the hanging, fleshy crista below his chin. He raises his brow. "Should we tell him that we blew up his planet?"
Just as I am about to answer authoritatively there is some kind of malfunction and the door tries to slide closed with Major Droppy's head in the way. He cries out and gets his beak in position to keep the panel from crushing his brain, but smoke is coming out of the control box, and I can hear gears grinding and mashing somewhere inside the wall.
"Yes, hold on a second Droppy," I say. "I'm going to get the maintenance man."
By the time we get the whole thing sorted out Major Droppy has shed most of his heavy winter feathers and gone unconscious. We evacuate him to the infirmary and Dr. Sassafrass tells me that everything will be okay, as long as a few circumstances come to pass.
"Circumstances!" I yell, because I am spanking mad now. "What circumstances?" I pause and catch my breath. (Outbursts = terrible morale.) "Droppy is one of my best men," I say quietly.
"There are six circumstances," she says. "First, is his wife responsible?"
"You know as well as I do, Sassafrass, that Droppy's wife was killed by a ceiling fan during our most recent adventure." We were on a delicate mission to revitalize the economy of the struggling yet noble Wet Xaxon civilization.
I sense that she is in some way making a sarcastic, sly suggestion about my own sexuality by her question.
"Well then," she says. "I've already forgotten the other four."
We lock eyes. It is a tense moment. All I need is a power struggle with my best bladder surgeon.
"I should hope, Dr. Sassafrass, that your opacity in this matter has naught to do with whatever personal relationship...you and I may have."
"There you go with your words again," she says. She grins. "I love them. You're so good with them."
She is right, I have a certain alacrity with fantastic vocabulary, but nevertheless I scowl. "Are you treating him as best you can? Are you?"
"Of course, Exit," she says softly. The coquette! Using my first name is a gross violation of conduct. At this time I will let it slip, but I have jotted down a mental check mark with a mental pencil, and I will not forget this moment. "I am a professional," she says.
"I need Droppy at his best, as soon as possible."
"And you'll have him. The question is," she says, stepping closer, "will you have me?"
Sometimes we like to wonder how we got on this ship in the first place, and who built it, and where we are supposed to go, but the truth is, we have all forgotten. Or maybe we never knew. Or maybe we knew and have never forgotten. I do not understand what I am saying here.
"What's the square root of four?" asks Private Navigator Smellvamp. I am back on the bridge. He is feeling bad about jettisoning the life capsules and his brain is not working so smoothly, due to anxiety.
"Six," I say to him compassionately. I lean in towards his rectangular ear for the big pep-talk moment: "Now plot us one of those great courses you're so famous for." I pinch his side, and he smiles. A leader must have a heart.
The diplomat is somewhere on the ship, but he is not in the lavatory. I have already sent a whole battalion to find him and arrest him for espionage. Consider the facts! The man's planet has just been blown up; he is the last of his race, the last of his kind in the universe, and he is therefore reeling; he was onboard the ship with access to the weaponry systems when the misfire occurred. As Admiral you sometimes have to play sleuth, and right now, my hunch is that the diplomat is the mastermind.
"We did it," says First Lieutenant Gleegluk when I inform him of my theory. "We made a mistake and did it. He was in the bathroom."
"All I care about, First Lieutenant Gleegluk, is finding an enemy whom I consider to be a threat to this ship and the lives of my men. That is all."
There are certain beliefs a leader must profess at all times, and one of them is the belief in the importance of the crew, right down to the last lowly AI toilet scrubber. If your crew believes that you are in it for the wrong reasons, you are therefore in it for the wrong reasons. QED, ergo.
"Yes, sir," says First Lieuenant Gleegluk. "But we did it. I did it. I pressed the wrong button. You were here."
"Private Navigator Smellvamp!" I cry. "What is the progress of your navigation?"
"Coming along, Admiral," he says. "But I don't know where we're going or where we are. Who are we?"
"Let's go, then," I command, and I put together a big, believable smile. "And as we go," I say pointedly, quietly, "I will organize a task force and hunt down the insurgent. The fate of our home planet depends on it." In times of stress it's good to get sentimental.
"Let's go there," says Private Navigator Smellvamp, turning. "Our home planet. I want to go home." I see a little smile on his face. Sometimes Private Navigator Smellvamp can be a bit of a whiner.
"Jinglebells, Vlobotraxon, Cascadilla!" I cry. "Meet me in the big room for meetings."
"Admiral?" asks Private Navigator Smellvamp. "Where is our home planet?"
"I am the Admiral, and I am busy," I tell Private Navigator Smellvamp slowly, so he can understand. "Consult the Sacred Book for your mystical questions." Ha! Of course the Sacred Book is an indecipherable riddle. It contains only one word, and it is indecipherable.
I fold my arms across my horn and scan the room. "Where are Privates Jinglebells, Vlobotraxon, and Cascadilla?" I ask.
The three come hustling up and stand before me, at attention. "We're here, sir," says Private Vlobotraxon.
"Let's go to the Big Meeting Room," I say. "We'll make a pit stop at the armory. I promise you, men, we're going to find this mucilage-coated Belvetronian guerilla bastard!"
In the armory I strap on an energy bandoleer and select a fully loaded set of thermal fangs. I power up the bandoleer, slide the fangs into my mouth, and connect them to the power hub. Privates Jinglebells, Vlobotraxon, and Cascadilla all equip themselves with various grenades, missiles, and particle boomerangs. I find half a set of crotch armor.
"Nom vet's vo noo na nig neeting noom," I say. It is difficult to speak through the thermal fangs.
"Sir?"
I remove the thermal fangs. "Now let's go to the Big Meeting Room."
We start down the hall. We are so laden with weaponry that we have to take a rest halfway.
"I never would have guessed this stuff would be so heavy," says Private Cascadilla. Before I can respond Private Vlobotraxon cries out and hurls his particle boomerang down the hall.
Instantly it is clear that there is no target. We all hold our breath and watch it whisk away, end-over-end, emitting a high-pitched whine. It turns mid-air and goes around the corner. There are five seconds of silence before an explosion rocks the whole ship and sends me down to the floor. Alarm sirens are buzzing. I look up and see a fireball flare from somewhere near the Big Meeting Room and then recede with a hiss. Someone is screaming.
"Why did you throw it?" I ask Private Cascadilla. "Why?"
"I saw something," he says. "No," he adds. "I didn't."
We all get up and walk down the hall. Around the corner we see that the boomerang has hit Professor Mendelson and taken off most of his face. Also, the Big Meeting Room is blown up.
"I'm sorry everybody," says Private Cascadilla, retrieving his boomerang. He is blushing. He leans down towards the Professor's body. "I'm sorry Professor Mendelson," he says loudly.
"Get Fire Chief Shombaughleah up here," I say to Private Jinglebells, and he turns and runs down the hall in the wrong direction.
As we are mingling near the explosion site, waiting for the fire chief to arrive, I hear the distinct sound of moaning coming from inside the now-black Big Meeting Room.
"Somebody's trapped in there," I say to my men. "We don't have time to wait."
"I found Professor Mendelson's face," says Private Vlobotraxon. He holds up something furry.
I sigh, then slide the fangs into my mouth and activate the front incisors with my tongue. Blue sparks spray out past my lips as I shove Private Vlobotraxon out of the way. The Big Meeting Room is smoking and full of broken furniture and collapsed walls. Whoever is trapped is buried beneath thousands of pounds of dead weight, and it is up to me to chew my way through.
"In gint new en it," I say to my men. I kneel down and start chomping.
Initially I have full control over the fangs and I make excellent progress through the debris. There comes a point, however, when my bandoleer begins to malfunction, and electricity is delivered directly to my torso. I am somewhat protected by the bandoleer's insulation, but I nonetheless lose control of my muscles. The thermal fangs continue to chomp. I am now chewing my way through the titanium floor. Soon I have eaten a large enough hole for my whole body to slide through. My lips are burning as I fall ten feet to the next level, and my paralyzed body thumps to the ground like a thrown sack of rocks.
The fangs again begin to chomp at the floor, and the whole process is repeated. Then it is repeated again. And again. I hear Private Cascadilla call down to me from what sounds like miles away, and I can only hope that he understands the magnitude of the situation, and knows to keep his distance. I don't need any heroics. There's no telling what I might eat through or electrocute!
These are the times when we must consider our chosen paths in life, but I would like to say that even now, arbitrarily chewing, falling great distances, I am glad to be the supreme commander. I do not remember my childhood, but I imagine that it was chalk full of exploration, and that I scurried across the countryside just after the larval stage with my subordinate companions, leading mock missions and imaginary conquests. In my false memories I once lifted a fallen boulder from a friend's tail. That feeling has followed me everywhere. I am a leader, and sometimes, bad things happen to leaders.
After chewing my way through several more levels of the ship, I note quite dispassionately that the floors are no longer made of titanium, but rather something different, something firmer, and I surmise that I am nearing the ship's sacred black-steel underbelly, where the Overdriver Engine Systems burn their nuclear fuel and push us forward through the open void. The fangs are glowing white hot as my head emerges through a hole in the ceiling of the Engine Room.
"Kakk!" I cry down to Fourth Engineer Zandig, whose toupee I can see directly below me. "Enerneenee! Nut Nown Ne Nonernriner!"
He and several other engineers look up as I slip further down into the hole, to my shoulders. The fangs whip my head around and work at widening the gap, and I continue to scream such warnings as I can muster whenever the shock-pulses pause and I can use the muscles of my face.
"Nut ginown na neecoreeter!"
"Admiral Stairs," says Zandig stupidly. "What are you doing up there?" He turns to one of the others, a shorter man with an eye patch and a set of unusable drosophila wings. "He's up there coming through the ceiling," he says.
The weight of my somewhat bloated body forces the issue; I slide through and fall onto Fourth Engineer Zandig, who watches idiotically until I crush him and shatter his exoskeleton. The thermal fangs sense an organic target and begin slicing up through his soft, gelatinous, unprotected pelvis, neatly snipping, pulling my face along on a personal tour of Zandig's entrails. He screams for a moment, but he quickly ceases as I eat up through his lungs, neck, and brain. If I had the use of my eyelids I would close them. I don't.
I am pulled five feet across the cold steel floor by my mouth, my stomach and legs painting Zandig's intestines in a straight path behind me, before I realize that the fangs have detected the energy of the Overdriver Core, and are aiming to eat it, too. If this happens, we will all explode, or implode, or both; I will be sucked into an alternate dimension, or perhaps reborn. The other engineers are standing around beside me, watching. So passive! What I wouldn't give for another Admiral's presence, someone who would take the initiative and really save the day!
As if as answer from the Gods (I am an atheist), Private Cascadilla's flaccid body drops from the ceiling and pins my legs to the floor. I feel his face, pressed against the back of my bandoleer, directly atop the power cell, shaking and twitching as it absorbs what I estimate to be 1,000,000,000 super-amperes of electricity. (I have just now invented that term.) The fangs go haywire, snapping in all directions, and sparks arc out from me towards the Overdriver Core. I smell smoke and burning flesh; the ship rocks and the lights cut out. With one final convulsion, the bandoleer shorts out and Private Cascadilla's sizzling body stops moving.
In the recovery room Dr. Sassafrass treats my myriad burns and dislocations and then leaves me alone to stew in my sense of failure, flanked on either side by Droppy and Cascadilla. Of course Cascadilla is comatose and generally melted, but I have ordered Dr. Sassafrass to pin a small, silver star to his gown, for gallantry and quick thinking in the presence of great danger. Perhaps this is too much of a distortion of the truth; Vlobotraxon claims that it was because Private Cascadilla licked the tip of his muon dart that he happened to lose consciousness and fall through the many-storied hole I had left in my fangy wake. But heroism is a mercurial thing, and it deserves to be rewarded under any circumstance. If he ever regains consciousness, he will be promoted to Sergeant Cascadilla.
To my right, Droppy sleeps a haunted sleep and chirps every minute, on the minute. His beak has been reconstructed and painted with a pink cream of some kind, and his head is stabilized with wires and poles connected to the ceiling.
There is no time for me to wallow. If permitted, I would fall into a great depression -- it has happened before.
"Droppy," I say. "Droppy."
No response. I poke him in the ribs with a crutch I find leaning against my bed.
"Droppy!"
He snorts awake, and his hand immediately goes to his beak, which he rubs gingerly.
"How badly are you hurt?" he asks, after looking at me for several seconds with one of his small, aviary eyes on the side of his head, taking it all in. When he speaks, the support mechanism above him shifts and compensates. He has noticed that I am extremely bandaged.
"My lips are gone," I say. "But more importantly, Droppy, a terrorist is loose on this ship."
Droppy sighs. "Will you be able to get new ones?" he asks.
"New what, Droppy? Ones what?"
"Lips, sir."
"The Doctor is harvesting a new pair as we speak."
"And the diplomat?"
"Still on the loose," I say. "Still free to blow us up at any moment." As I say these words aloud I hear the tone of a defeated leader. For morale, I quickly mutter, "We will carry the day."
"My hunch is that he is somewhere in the bathroom."
"How many times do I have to tell you that we've searched the bathroom?" I am beginning to wonder whether Droppy's brilliant tactical mind has been damaged in the accident. "We know now that he left sometime after your injury and proceeded to the armory, where he sabotaged the fangs and the energy bandolier. From there, it's anyone's guess."
"Perhaps," he says, speculative, somber. He blinks at me once or twice and strokes the remaining feathers on his face. "Do you think that he also booby trapped the door in your quarters? That I was his victim as well?"
"I wouldn't be surprised," I say. "You know how savvy these little Belvetronian bastards are with computer systems."
"Yet the question remains: why would one man destroy his own planet? And all the lives therein?"
I see the world in clear terms. "Evil, Droppy," I say. "You are familiar with the concept of evil?"
"Perhaps," he says. "Perhaps."
"What's going on inside that powerful brain of yours?" I ask, because I can see that he is concentrating. There's the old Droppy I know.
"Well, Admiral. A simple thought. It's only this. What if Belvetron hasn't been destroyed at all?"
"I don't follow, Droppy."
"Perhaps we are the victims of some cosmic joke. A trick. Can we be sure that the planet was indeed destroyed? Have you sent out a team to analyze the debris and verify the absence?"
"Of course I have."
When Droppy again falls into his hallucinatory sleep I contact First Lieutenant Gleegluk on the comlink.
"Lieutenant," I say quietly. "Send out a team to analyze the debris and verify the absence."
"Yes, sir. Absence of what, sir?"
"Belvetron IV."
"Of course, sir."
"What is the status of the manhunt onboard?" I ask. "Have there been any subsequent attacks? How is morale?"
"No, sir," he says. "No sign of the diplomat yet -- and we have armed men in all of the ship's ventilation shafts and fuel storage facilities. We are prepared to face the enemy. To the death, if necessary."
"Excellent, Lieutenant. I believe I will return to duty some time this evening, barring any major setbacks in my recovery."
"Yes, sir."
"I owe it all to Dr. Sassafrass."
"Yes, sir."
"She is fantastic. A truly gifted doctor."
"Yes, sir."
"I love her." It is a rare emotional moment for me, due in part, I believe, to my traumatic injuries.
"Yes, sir."
"Very good, Lieutenant. Carry on."
"Sir, there's something I think you should know." He hesitates.
"Out with it, Lieutenant."
"Well, sir, it's just that I've been going over the Sacred Book, as you advised Private Navigator Smellvamp. I offered to help him with the reading because of course he is blind, and I believe I've come across some information in the computer that may interest you."
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant Gleegluk, but I simply don't have the time. You may tell me when I return to the bridge." I have no use for religion, and am suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to defecate. I wonder aloud whether the paste that I consumed earlier in the day was poisoned.
"Possibly, sir."
"Yes," I say. "Indeed, possibly. Anything is possibly."
"Of course, sir."
"Over and out, Lieutenant."
"Over and out, sir."
I call for the enema team. As I wait I look to my left. Private -- Sergeant -- Cascadilla lies motionless in his bed, his chitinous chest rising and falling slowly with the help of a ventilator. I whisper to him that I will avenge this tragedy, that I will find the man responsible and punish him for what he has done. The sacrifice, I assure him, will not have been in vain.
Very soon I have a new pair of pillowy lips and a reconstructed layer of skin on my torso. That Sassafrass. She is gifted, and I tell her as much as I am leaving the recovery room.
"I would like to mate tonight," she tells me. "I have devised a way to fertilize our union. I have successfully altered my infundibulum."
"But won't our child be a monster? An unnatural life form?"
"Of course not," she says. "And what is natural, Admiral? If there is love?"
The hoyden is right. I lean my head up against the glass plate of her helmet and gaze longingly at the black leeches attached to her face. "I will come when I can," I whisper.
On my way back to the bridge I pass the mess hall and remember that I still haven't mopped up the demure and enterprising Third Engineer Fondugrappler. Sure enough, he is there in front of the closet in puddle form, and I signal for a janitor droid. After some time signaling I see that there is no janitor droid. I open the closet and find a mop and pail. I check to see that I am being watched by several diners before beginning to scoop him up and ring him out. They know that I have been hurt, and for them to see their Admiral engaged in manual labor while recovering is pure morale gold.
When I'm through I wheel Fondugrappler into the kitchen. "Where is the head cook?" I ask. In the center of the room, workers are stirring large vats of paste with six-foot wooden spoons. One of them looks up.
"I'm the head cook here," he says. "Name's Bill Yertle."
"Tell me, Head Cook Bill Yertle. Who has access to these vats? Is this room secure? I believe I have been poisoned."
He pulls his wooden spoon from the paste and wipes it down with a towel. "Don't like the paste, Admiral?" He spits on the ground. "Then don't eat the paste."
I feel my bowels grumble. I begin to salivate. Before I can reprimand him for his insolence, one of the workers picks up Third Engineer Fondugrappler's bucket and dumps him into a vat.
"No!" I cry, running across the room. The heat has woken Fondugrappler, but being in a boiling stew of yellow liquid is making it difficult for his molecules to reconstitute. Unfortunately, they try. The shape of his incomplete, screaming face rises up from the surface with stubby, diced hotdogs lodged into his forehead. The screams are gooey and tremendous.
"Fare thee well on your voyage into the unknown," I mutter. I decline to reach out and grab the partially-formed hand that is flailing and clawing at the side of the vat. "Goodnight sweet prince."
"What is that?" asks Head Cook Bill Yertle. "Is that a person?"
"His name was Third Engineer Fondugrappler," I murmur, but my voice is drowned out by the wailing. "Demure and enterprising."
Head Cook Bill Yertle is not listening. He has moved to the vat and is stabbing at the head with his wooden spoon, stuffing it back down into the vat. "This is good," he says, leaning into it. He looks at me. "My life is a constant search for protein," he says. Fondugrappler's hand grabs at the stick, and the two fight over it. Head Cook Bill Yertle turns to his workers. "Neuter! Golliwog! Some help over here?"
I leave the kitchen just as Fondugrappler's strength is giving out, and his screams have turned to shrieks of lament. In the lavatory I have a troubled movement and sit shaking afterward, my tail wrapped around me in the fetal position. The death has pierced me, and the thought that a lowly, disenchanted, recondite diplomat sees it as his right to murder, torture, and terrorize my crew -- my people, who look to me for guidance and safety and happiness -- has driven me to apoplexy, to rage, to ravenous wrath! In the mirror I see that I am snarling and frothing from the anger, and I can feel my sacrum instinctually elongating and turning. I must wait several minutes now before it shifts back to its usual position.
I pace. What are we doing here? I suddenly want to know. Alive? As Admiral I can never say that I am confused, and yet, truly, to be honest, I know nothing at all. My memory is not so clear. I have nightmares. I have insomnia. How is it that my mind produces thought, or my body produces movement? Why is it that there is anything at all, even a universe? Perhaps I am in need of religion after all.
"Fool," I say out loud. I sit on my haunches in the corner and rest my chin on my horn. I do not even know my own age. Yet Sassafrass would like a child. Why? For what? So it can one day die in a barrel of boiling soup? Murdered? There are large mysteries afoot.
The bathroom viewscreen flicks on, and I see Lieutenant Gleegluk's face peering at me from the wall. "Sir. Everything copacetic, sir?"
"Yes, Lieutenant." Fantastic word; he learned it from me.
"Dr. Sassafrass has reported that you left the medical ward some time ago, sir. May I ask when you will be returning to the bridge? I would very much like to speak in private."
"Soon, Gleegluk. I am...looking for the diplomat. Any news?"
"The exploratory team ordered to investigate the absence of Belvetron IV have flown their shuttle into the local star, sir."
"Casualties?"
"All."
"I will return within the hour. Keep a stiff upper lip." I say this even though Gleegluk has a calcium hoop, not an upper-lip. Ha!
The screen goes blank, and suddenly I am a philosopher again. What is good, really? What is evil, really? What is truth? I have never asked these questions. But perhaps I have -- I can't remember! On the horizon of my thoughts I see a new way of life for the ship and its crew. Rational order. Complexity. A common understanding. A new mission: One that--
Before I can finish the thought, something in the corner of the bathroom catches my eye. I lean down close to the ground and squint. I crawl forward. I see a small plume of smoke rising from the tiles, as though someone has just extinguished a match.
My hearts stop beating. It is a camp. It is a very, very small camp.
Yes! I can see the tent, the flag, the fire, the...man? Yes! A little man! An angel! A seraph! A phoenix! A cherub! A prophet! Amazing! I am saved! I ask a question, and God answers! A presence is here!
"Holiness!" I cry.
I see that he is moving. It is a vision! A visitation! It is a religious apparition! A new moment in my existence! This is me to the universe, and it is God speaking! He crawls into his tent, and then emerges with a rectangular sign no larger than one of my scales. A message! Euphoria! Epiphany! Some tiny, prophetic message! I stretch my neck further, squint harder. I can just make out the writing: THE PEOPLE OF BELVETRON IV WELCOME YOU