Cal’s chest heaved with relief. “Oh, thank God.”
“Rest assured, I wasn’t watching, sir,” Kevin continued.
“Well, good. That’s… good to know.”
“On either occasion.”
“Right, that’s… Wait, what do you mean ‘on either occasion’? How do you know how many occasions there have been?”
“Uh… lucky guess, sir,” said Kevin.
Cal raised a reproachful finger to the ceiling. “OK, that’s it, Kevin, you’re officially barred from my room. Or Loren’s room.” He shot Mech a sideways glance and lowered his voice a fraction. “Or the engine room.”
“Hold on, what? The engine room? Aw, man, that’s the room I go into,” Mech protested. “Why’d you have to do it in there? You ain’t even allowed in the engine room in case you break something.”
“I did break something,” said Cal. “A several-year-long dry spell. And a hip.”
Mech’s expression twisted in such disgust it looked like his metal lower jaw was trying to chew his own face off.
“Kidding. I’m kidding. Nothing happened in the engine room,” Cal said. He pointed to where Mech was sitting. “Now, that bench, on the other hand…”
“Shut the fonk up,” Mech told him. He picked up the Operation board and put the final nail in its coffin by crushing it between his hands. “Oh, and a piece of advice?”
Cal’s eyes gave Mech the once-over. “Like… sex advice?”
“Hell, no!” Mech spat.
“Phew!” said Cal, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. “That’s a relief. Shoot.”
“You might want to stop calling her ‘Loren.’”
“You mean during—”
“I mean at any point,” said Mech.
Cal frowned. “What? But, why? That’s her name.”
“It’s her surname. I mean, I ain’t no expert, but when people are in a relationship they, generally speaking, call each other by their first names,” Mech said. “How would you feel if she started calling you ‘Carver’ all the time?”
Cal gave this some consideration.
“Aroused?”
“Forget it,” said Mech. “Sorry I said anything. I thought you said you were going?”
“I am, I am,” said Cal. He turned to face the food replicator again. “But since I’m standing right here… one Banoffee Pie, please. Easy on the cream,” he said, then he immediately reconsidered. “In fact, wait. No. Double cream.” He patted his stomach. “But shave the ends off the banana to compensate.”
A red light illuminated on the replicator and a buzzer sounded. “Denied,” said the machine’s computerized voice.
“Denied? What do you mean, ‘denied’?” Cal demanded. “What’s the matter, are we out of Mush again?”
“No, sir,” said Kevin. “Mush capacity is at eighty-six percent.”
“Oh.” Cal gave the replicator a push, rocking it back a fraction. “Then why isn’t it working?”
“Mistress Loren told it not to, sir,” said Kevin. “She was concerned you were rather overdoing it.”
Cal stared at the ceiling in horror, then back at the machine. “Overdoing it? What’s that supposed to mean? I haven’t been overdoing it. I’ve been doing it the exact right amount!”
“You have gained eight pounds in six days, sir,” Kevin said.
“Holy shizz, seriously?” Mech snorted.
“That’s travel weight,” Cal insisted. “It’ll fall right out of me when we land. It’s just retained water.”
“It’s definitely retained something,” said Mech, looking him up and down.
“Hey, it’s not like you can talk,” said Cal, crossing his arms across his middle. “I mean, what do you weigh? Eight-thousand pounds?”
“I’m two feet taller than you,” Mech pointed out. “And almost exclusively made of metal.”
“Sure. Go ahead. Make all the excuses you want, big guy. But, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem,” said Cal. “I want you to think about that. Those are wise words.”
“I don’t have a problem,” Mech said. “I am literally built to be this weight.”
“Wise words, Mech,” Cal whispered, backing out through the door. “Wise words…”
When he had backed all the way out of the kitchen, he turned to face the front of the ship, then doubled over when a curved blade was plunged into his stomach all the way to the hilt.
The sudden violent bending action brought Cal face to face with a shark-like snarl.
“Ha!” shouted Tyrra, the last survivor of the Symmorium race. “Bested!”
“Ow! Jesus! What is it with you, you little psycho?” demanded Cal, leaning a hand against the wall to steady himself. He called back along the corridor. “Miz! Miz? She’s stabbed me again.”
“You mean I bested you again,” Tyrra hissed. “That’s the fourth time.”
“I know it’s the fourth time,” wheezed Cal, partially straightening. “You know how I know it’s the fourth time? Because you’ve stabbed me four times.”
Wincing, he gestured to the handle. It jutted from his stomach, a patch of crimson staining his t-shirt around where the blade had entered. “Can you hurry up and pull it out?”
“No. You pull it out,” Tyrra said.
Cal’s lips went thin. “You know full well that I faint when I have to pull it out, young lady,” Cal said. “We’ve been over this.”
Tyrra grinned, showing her teeth. “Yes. I like watching you fall down. It is amusing.”
Cal glared at her for a few moments, trying to admonish her with his mind. When it became apparent that this technique wasn’t proving fruitful, he went back to shouting for Miz.
“Miz, can you come out here? Your fonking… protégé, or whatever she is, is getting out of hand.”
The door to Mizette’s room slid open with a ssshk that sounded not unlike a sigh of resentment.
“Ugh, why are you shouting me?” asked Miz, her huge, shaggy frame ducking through the doorway and into the corridor. “What do you want?”
“Honestly? Not a lot, Miz. I don’t ask for much,” said Cal. “Some cardboard over the windows. Everyone’s undying loyalty and admiration. The occasional pie. Oh, and also…” He pointed to the knife in his stomach. “For this to stop happening.”
Miz’s eyes went to the weapon, then past Cal to where Tyrra was standing tall and proud. “You got him again, huh? Cool.”
“No, not ‘cool,’” said Cal. “This is not cool. This is assault. No, worse, this is attempted murder.”
Miz tutted. “Like, what’s the big problem? It gives her something to do to pass the time, and it’s not like you don’t heal up in seconds.”
Cal couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “What’s the big…? OK, one, I might heal, but my t-shirts don’t, and I’m very fond of some of these guys,” Cal said, tapping the face of Golden Girls actress, Betty White, who adorned the front of the shirt. “Two, I might heal now, but it ran out once before and I don’t fancy having a metal spike in my belly when it wears off next time. And three—and this is a big one—it fonking hurts. A lot. Not to mention the emotional trauma that goes with being knifed out of nowhere when you’re least expecting it.”
He leaned in Miz’s direction and lowered his voice. “Yesterday, she got me on the toilet, Miz. On the toilet. I mean, is nowhere sacred?”
Miz rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Fine. Whatever. Tyrra, stop stabbing Cal.”
Tyrra gasped. “You’re taking his side?”
“What side? There is no ‘side’ here,” Cal said. “This isn’t a nuanced discussion. You keep sticking knives in me!”
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Tyrra warned. “You’re not my parents!”
“Exactly,” replied Cal. “So, we’re under no obligation to put up with your shizz. We could toss you out the airlock any time we like.”
Tyrra eyeballed him. “I’d like to see you try!”
“I’d get Mech to do it,” C
al said. “So… ha!”
Mizette stepped between them. “Alright, alright. Like, just stop, already,” she said. “Tyrra, you shouldn’t stab Cal, OK?”
“What if he deserves it?” Tyrra asked, holding Cal’s gaze with her shiny black eyes.
“Oh, then that’s totally fine,” said Miz.
“No,” Cal protested. “Not fine. Totally not fine. You are not to stab me under any circumstances. Ever.”
“Even in the bathroom?”
“What are you talking about? Especially when I’m in the bathroom!”
Tyrra tutted moodily, as if she was somehow the wronged party in all this. “Fine. Give me back my knife.”
“With pleasure.” Cal offered his stomach to her, then had second thoughts. He stopped and drew back. “In fact, you know what? No. I’m keeping it,” he said. “It’s confiscated. I’m leaving it in there, and you’re not getting it back until you’ve had a good long think about your—”
He yelped as Tyrra caught the handle and yanked the blade free.
“Bested,” she told him, then she shoved him against the wall and skipped off along the corridor in the direction of Miz’s room.
“What can I say? She’s got to learn,” said Miz.
“I agree. Education’s important,” said Cal. He rubbed the edges of his stomach wound as the flesh knitted itself together again. “But how about teaching her something that doesn’t involve her stabbing me in the ass and torso for no reason whenever she feels like it? Math, maybe. Math is useful. Teach her math.”
Miz and Tyrra exchanged glances, then rolled their eyes in near-perfect unison. “Whatever,” they both said, then they stepped into Miz’s room and the door sighed closed behind them.
Cal exhaled slowly and shook his head. “Kids.”
Three
“What happened?” asked Loren, turning in her seat as Cal strode onto the bridge, poking at the hole in his t-shirt. “Did she stab you again?”
“Yes, she stabbed me again,” Cal confirmed. “The little psycho. I swear, this can’t go on. Isn’t there, like, an orphanage we can drop her off at? Like a space orphanage?”
Loren looked shocked. “We can’t do that. You know what happens in those places?”
Cal slumped into his chair, still trying to figure out if there was some way of salvaging the shirt. Short of some form of wizardry, though, he suspected not.
“I mean, I’ve never really looked into it, but from what I understand they sing and dance for a while, then Daddy Warbucks comes and picks them up,” said Cal. “It’s a pretty great system.”
“Maybe that’s how it works on Earth,” said Loren, although even she had a sneaking suspicion that it probably didn’t. “Most orphanages I’ve seen are workhouses. Or worse. We can’t put Tyrra into one of those.”
“Can’t we, though?” asked Cal. It really had been a great t-shirt. “She’s a tough kid. She’ll probably be made, like, house captain within a week. She’ll be running the place in no time. I mean, is it the hard-knock life? Sure, but… She ruined my Betty White t-shirt, Loren. Betty White!”
Loren shot him a sympathetic look. “You must really love that shirt.”
“I do!”
“I know. You’ve had it on for four days.”
Cal did not miss the slightly accusatory tone of that remark.
“Really? Four days?” he asked. He looked down at the smiling face of Betty White, then sniffed her forehead. “Huh. I guess it is a little funky.”
“And tight,” said Loren.
“It’s not tight!” said Cal. “Betty White’s head is meant to be that shape.”
Loren regarded the image. “Oh. Right. Sorry, I thought she was human.”
“She is fonking human,” said Cal. He craned his neck so he could see the image on his chest. Now that he looked more closely, Betty’s eyes did seem a little farther apart than he remembered, and her head had a football-shaped quality to it that didn’t seem quite right.
“OK, it’s a little tight,” he admitted. “But that’s travel weight. It’ll fall right out of me.”
“Everyone had better watch their toes when it does,” said Loren, smirking just a little.
“Hilarious,” said Cal. “Well done.”
“Thank you,” Loren replied.
They sat for a while in a slightly awkward silence, then both spoke at once.
“So—”
“I was—”
They both stopped.
“Sorry, you first,” said Cal.
Loren shook her head. “No, it’s fine. You go.”
“No, it’s fine, you—”
“Cal,” Loren said sharply. “What were you going to say?”
Cal decided it was probably best if he went first. “OK, so here’s a funny thing. Mech and I were playing Operation—I won, by the way.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. It’s all in the psychology,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “Anyway, we got to talking, and he said it was weird that I still call you ‘Loren.’” He gave a half-laugh. “That’s not weird, is it?”
“No, that’s not weird,” said Loren, laughing along with him. “I mean… OK, it’s a little weird, but it’s fine. It’s completely fine. Call me what you like.”
Cal clicked his fingers. “I could call you ‘babe.’”
“Don’t call me that,” Loren warned.
“OK, yes, that’s fair. I won’t call you that,” said Cal.
“Sugartits?” Kevin suggested.
Cal and Loren both looked up.
“Sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” said Kevin. “I’d appreciate it if we never spoke of that again.”
“I think we all would,” Cal said. He adjusted himself in the chair. “Would you prefer me to call you Teela?”
“Me, sir?”
“No, not you!” Cal sighed. “Look, could you just give us a little privacy, Kevin?”
“Not really, sir. I’m hardcoded into the flight deck systems,” Kevin said. “I could stay very quiet, though. Would that help?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” Cal said.
He and Loren both waited to see if Kevin was going to respond. When he didn’t, Cal asked the question again, making it clearer who he was aiming it at.
“Would you?” he asked Loren. “Prefer me to call you Teela, I mean?”
“Totally up to you,” said Loren. “Your call. I don’t mind, either way.”
“OK, so—”
“But it is my name. My first name, I mean. It is my first name.”
Cal clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “It’s just… when I say ‘Teela’ I think of Teela from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and I want to start making Ram Man jokes.”
“Oh,” said Loren, flatly. “I see. So, my name’s a joke to you?”
“No! That’s not what I mean. It’s a great name. I love it,” said Cal. “It’s just…”
Loren gave the rest of the sentence a few seconds to arrive. It didn’t.
“It’s just what?”
“It’s a big step, you know?” said Cal.
“I’m not asking you to marry me. It’s calling me by my name. How is that a big step?” asked Loren. “And… what? Are you saying you don’t want to take big steps?”
“No! I mean, yes! I mean, that’s not what I’m saying,” said Cal. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “It’s just… Look. Can we discuss this at a later date? It’s been a long trip. I’ve recently been stabbed in the intestines. I’m not really thinking straight.”
“Fine,” said Loren, a little coolly. “It’s not a problem. We don’t have to discuss it at a later date. Call me whatever you’re comfortable with. There’s nothing to discuss.”
Cal groaned inwardly. “It’s just… I’m climbing the walls here. That’s all. I swear, if I have to be trapped on this ship for much longer, I’m going to lose my mind.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad, sir,” said Kevin, breaking his short silen
ce. “And I say that as someone who is trapped here on a permanent basis.”
“I rest my case,” Cal concluded.
He was about to promise Loren that he’d call her by her first name in the future when something hard cracked across the back of his skull, and pain came rushing into his head.
“Ow! What the fonk?!” he yelped, spinning in his chair.
Tyrra stood before him, a small mallet in her hands. “Ha! Bested!” she shouted at him, then she turned and sprinted out the door and into the corridor before he could reply.
“Did you see that?” Cal asked, turning in his chair. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”
“I didn’t even notice her sneaking up,” said Loren. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“Not from where I was sitting!” Cal shook his head. “She has to go. This can’t go on. I’m going to be a nervous wreck.”
“Why?” asked Mech from right behind him. As if to prove his own point, Cal jumped in his chair and screamed.
“You see that? You see what she’s done to me?” yelped Cal, gesturing out along the corridor. “You see what you’ve done to me, you little psycho?”
“We talking about Tyrra? Is this the stabbing thing?” asked Mech, clanking his way to the front.
“Yes, it’s ‘the stabbing thing.’ Only now she’s started hitting me with a little hammer,” Cal said. “I mean, that’s not right, is it? That can’t be allowed?”
The grin on Mech’s face made his feelings on the matter very clear.
“Well, obviously you’re going to approve, because you’re a big metal sadist, but…”
He ran out of steam and sank down into his chair. “Are we nearly there yet?”
“Ish,” said Loren.
“What do you mean ‘ish’? How ‘ish’?”
Loren consulted her instruments. “I’d say we have about… three more days.”
“Three more days?!” Cal sobbed. “That’s, like, eight space weeks.”
“This was your plan, man,” Mech reminded him.
And it had been. The team had endured a lot together over the past few months. They’d faced many hardships, overcome sizeable obstacles, and briefly been given front row seats to an elderly gentleman’s anus.
The Hunt for Reduk Topa Page 2