The Zygote Crystal

by Ashley Thomas

I took another breath in and said, “Just let your hair relax and let’s get off the Mud Lizard, please.”

  “Are you sure you want me to do that,” she said.

  “Yes, I’m very sure,” I said through now tightly gritted teeth.

  In an instant I could move as Joosthava’s hair relaxed. She moved up and backward which was just as well as otherwise I would almost certainly have headbutted her, given the speed with which I sat up. I twisted on my butt sufficiently to look round and down at what was indeed a Mud Lizard. It appeared to have been knocked out cold by the combination of mine and Joosthava’s weight smashing into its body as we materialised.

  As I looked down I realised that the wetness I had felt around my tightly enclosed head had been Mud Lizard drool. I had landed with the back of my head in the hollow of the Mud Lizard’s chest with my forehead immediately beneath its chin. The hollow in the Mud Lizard’s chest seemed to be working as a bowl to hold excess dribble. And boy, as I knew from previous experiences, Mud Lizards had no parallel in the dribbling department. Resting on the Mud Lizard’s chest, just below the ‘drool bowl’ was a small black box that was flashing green and orange.

  An explosive situation

  By this time I had turned my body further around on my butt so that I fully faced the monster, with my legs splayed either side of its head. I am not entirely sure why I did this, it might have been better to move in the other direction but perhaps I was in shock. I put my hands up to the side of my face and my fingers sank into gooey mess, a bit like soft jelly, only stringier. As my face screwed up and my vocal chords began the sound that should ultimately come out as ‘YUCK’, I wondered whether one of the Mud Lizard’s eyes had twitched.

  I hadn’t wondered for very long when the Mud Lizard’s head came bolt upright in front of me between my legs. As its eyes fully opened, its lips started to part and I caught a glimpse of a quivering, gloopy tongue just waiting to wrap itself around me. I sat there and quickly determined that running was not an option. Quite apart from the fact that I was sitting down more of less with my legs wrapped around this thing’s head, even if I could run there wasn’t anywhere really to run to on a spaceship.

  So, given that I had no idea how to beg for mercy in ‘Mud Lizard’, I punched it as hard as I could square in its face. My fist swung round to the Mud Lizard with some force, as I had drawn my arm back and around myself as far as I could before letting go. I felt my knuckles penetrate soft, cold goo before connecting with something harder. The glaring eyes in the head in front of me froze and the tongue went noticeably limp at the blow. As I pulled my fist back ready to punch again, its head fell back to the floor with a squelchy thump.

  “Wow,” said Joosthava, “Cool punch.”

  I twisted my upper body and then legs around again, this time to face her full on and smiled, feeling rather pleased with myself. I rose up a little on one leg as I did so, but couldn’t quite force myself to stand up on my quivering legs so remained kneeling down.

  The black box

  Then I turned my head to look back again at the top of the prostrate upper body of the Mud Lizard. The black box I had noticed earlier remained on its chest. It was still flashing green and orange. “What’s this?” I said. After a brief moment of silence I continued with,

  “It’s the bomb isn’t it?”

  At exactly the same time Joosthava, standing behind me, said, “That’s the bomb.”

  So, that was confirmed then, I was now basically sitting not just on a Mud Lizard but also its bomb.

  “Right, don’t know where Cat is but let’s get this thing off this ship and into space,” I said.

  “No,” said Joosthava, “We don’t want to do that. You see the bomb is in a good place. We’re not.”

  “Excuse me,” I said as again I faced away from the Mud Lizard to look at her, “what exactly are you on about?”

  “We’ve materialised on the Mud Lizard ship rather than our own. It must have been cruising very near to where Mr. Cat was in your lightship just after he took-off. I suspect they were waiting to eMDaDD the bomb onto the lightship once it reached a certain height,” said Joosthava.

  “Ok,” I said, “I’m a little confused. Let me work this one through. I remember I came on this time vault to chuck a bomb off my lightship into space. So, what you’re telling me now is that we’ve materialised on the Mud Lizard ship by mistake and, in doing so, have fortuitously dispensed with the Mud Lizard bomber. Obviously therefore it’s best to leave the bomb where it is and get ourselves on-board our lightship with Cat where, at the moment, there is no bomb. Correct?”

  “Yes, correct,” said Joosthava, looking somewhat dumbfounded by my clear need to work through the rather blindingly obvious.

  I opened my mouth to speak some more but before I could say anything, two seriously sharp looking shards of Joosthava’s hair shot past either side of my face so close that I felt a slight graze on each cheek. Still with my mouth wide open, I was enveloped from behind in what felt like gallons of Mud Lizard drool. As it turned out, my punch had not been as ‘knockout’ as I had thought. The Mud Lizard had recovered quite quickly and its barbed tongue was heading for the back of my head when Joosthava acted. And boy had she acted. I looked behind me again, as I continued to kneel on the floor, at the now ex-Mud Lizard. I could see how Joosthava’s hair had sliced clean through the Mud Lizard’s head. Boy that was some hair gel she used. I made a mental note never to annoy her.

  “Well,” I said as I turned my head to face Joosthava again, “That’s put that slobbering monster in its place! Now, can you get us off this ship?” I added as I tried to finally stand up.

  “Yes I think so,” she said and with that, before I could actually get off my knees I was once again enveloped in ‘hair’ and passed through space and time in vomit-inducing fashion.

  Back to Cat

  This time we materialised in different circumstances. I was not rigidly enveloped by Joosthava’s hair for longer than necessary and I was able to move freely almost the instant the time vault ended. Very quickly I recognised my surroundings, despite the intense queasiness I felt, probably as a consequence of one ‘Joosthava time vault’ so quickly followed by another.

  Despite the familiar surroundings I still looked around me apprehensively, half expecting another nasty shock. I wasn’t disappointed, though this time the shock came in the form of Cat’s sarcastic little voice saying,

  “Good of you to drop-in. Please try not to throw up on any critical controls.”

  I leapt to my feet and promptly fell over as I tried to shout ‘Cat’. I slowly got to my knees and then my feet before staggering over to Cat, picking him up and giving him a great big hug as I said,

  “Cat. It’s you. I can’t believe it. I thought I’d lost you for good.”

  Cat’s neck went back, like the head of a tortoise into its shell, as I drew him close. His whiskers flared back as well and he exclaimed loudly, “Put me down you moron. What on Earth’s gotten into you. If this is some prelude to sticking me in something or setting fire to my whiskers I warn you now, you will regret it. My last service gave me several anti-social behavioural enhancements designed to help me fight off villains. However, as there isn’t too much difference between you and the average villain, I will have no hesitation in using them on you if need be.”

  I put him down at once beaming from ear to ear and said, “No problem Cat old buddy. My, how good it feels to begin to be insulted and threatened by you once again. And that’s despite the fact that I now know from Joosthava, that there is a lot about you which you have kept secret from me in all the time we’ve been together.”

  “I don’t keep secrets,” responded Cat, “I merely filter information so as not to overburden the limited intellect that you have.”

  “Thank you. That’s very thoughtful of you, isn’t is Joosthava?” I replied.

  Joosthava had remained quiet during our little exchange but now she spoke, smiling as well, “It is so good to see y
ou Mr. Cat, I thought we had lost you.”

  Cat looked at her and said “There was never any danger of that Joosthava. I knew that you would find a way to get back here. I am rather angry at myself for not being ready for something like this. It was annoying not to be able to use my portable eMDaDD to get the bomb off the lightship but the ‘idiot’ forgot to charge it. I mean I don’t ask him to do much but charging the portable devices was one job I thought I could give him without having to worry too much.”

  “Ah!!” I exclaimed, “I assume you mean me. And I did charge all my portable devices, you just didn’t give me enough time to charge up the eMDaDD. I meant to do it once we were on board if there’d been time. But unfortunately there was a bomb, as you know, that rather interrupted pre-flight preparations. And, I’d be obliged if you didn’t call me ‘the idiot’. I’d previously gotten used to ‘moron’ and consistency helps me to maintain stability and understanding in my complicated life. Thank you.”

  “No problem. Moron it is. Happy to oblige as ever,” Cat responded.

  “And another thing,” I said, “What do you mean you knew Joosthava would find a way to get back here?”

  Cat looked at me and said, “Just that. I know her well and I knew that with her special capabilities she could engineer a way to get us back to normal.”

  “I see,” I said, “And she has indeed used her skills extremely well to pull your fat out of the fire, with my help of course.”

  “Of course,” said Cat, “I knew you would help or at least try to. It’s just a shame that at the very last minute it may have gone rather pear shaped.”

  I twisted my head somewhat nervously from side to side and said “What do you mean ‘pear shaped’ at the last minute?”

  Cat looked straight back up at me and said, “Well you appear to have brought the bomb with you……”

  Behind you…….

  At those words I looked at Cat, then left and right of him, scanning the floor, the walls and any console surfaces I could see. “You’re pulling my leg, right. Ho, ho, ho, very funny.”

  “No”, said Cat “I am not. It’s here somewhere, my sensors know what to look for this time and they are picking it up.”

  He was serious, I could sense that. The bomb must be on board somewhere. But where? How? As I started to hyperventilate, my already wobbly legs began to buckle beneath me. I staggered backwards and as I felt myself starting to fall, my hands, which were now held out behind me, found the edge of one of the pilot’s chairs. I decided that if this was it then I may as well go comfortably seated, so I pushed up with my arms and semi-threw my body backwards into the upholstery of the chair.

  Well at least that was the idea. As I landed on the chair I felt like one of Joosthava’s rock hard shards of hair had just stabbed me in my right buttock. There was definitely a theme running through my recent life that seemed to have, as one focus, me falling over backwards and something sharp stabbing me somewhere in my rear end. This was not so much sharp however as hard and very uncomfortable. It felt like I’d sat on a hard ‘square something’. My mind focussed on ‘hard square something’. I remembered that the bomb on the Mud Lizard ship had basically been a metallic, and presumably hard, square box. But how could it be under my backside?

  I heaved myself back up from the chair and spun around but there was nothing on the seat. As I stared past the seat in front of me I could see in the darkened front screens of the lightship a fairly clear reflected outline of the front of my body. I could also see the back of my body reflecting back from other screens positioned on the wall immediately behind the navigator’s console. To my horror I noticed that my bottom was flashing alternately green and orange. As I reached my arms behind me in fear and I touched what I presumed was the bomb, hanging from the belt of my trousers. The Mud Lizard must have attached it to me after it woke up from my punch and before Joosthava kicked its butt permanently to wherever ex-Mud Lizards go.

  Don’t panic

  “Just stay calm everyone,” I said as I grasped what was behind me with both hands and pulled gently, to try to remove the bomb from my belt. However it would not come free.

  I then became aware of Joosthava standing behind me as she said, “Don’t pull. Stay still.” I felt her release the bomb from my belt and then gently pull it from my grasp. As I turned around and looked at her holding the flashing object she suddenly did the hair thing again and yelled.

  “We need to take it back!”

  Before I could even think ‘Oh no’, I was back on the Mud Lizard ship, this time in what appeared to be a different part of it. As I lay there with the bomb sandwiched between my stomach and Joosthava’s, I said to her, “Could you not have taken it back yourself and left me out of this?”

  “No,” replied Joosthava, “I have already told you I need your presence to vault as accurately as possible. I don’t think I could do it without making use of the vacant space you have in your mind and the connection we have made.”

  I wasn’t too sure I totally liked my mind being described as vacant, but this was not the time to object to anything she said, so I just responded,

  “Can we please get this bomb out of its current Inspector:Joosthava sandwich and leave it here, as we previously thought we’d done, and finally get back to Cat?”

  “Yes,” she said and relaxed her hair sufficiently for us to wiggle the bomb out from between our bodies and onto the floor of the Mud Lizard ship before her hair hardened again. Then all parts of my body melded with hers and for the fourth time in about 10 minutes, went off in random ‘dizzy’ directions as she vaulted us through time and space to arrive once again on our lightship, where Cat was waiting for us.

  Too many time vaults…..

  This time as I materialised, I knew that no matter how hard I tried, the contents of my stomach were without doubt going to erupt through the now trembling lips of my mouth. I dragged myself to the pilot’s chair once more and pulled myself into a half sitting half lying position. I groaned with ever increasing intensity as the room spun and I felt the inside of my mouth fill with warm, sweet saliva, a tell-tale sign that any moment soon nature would take its course.

  I focussed blearily on Cat and Joosthava and tried to say “I don’t feel well,” but it came out more like ‘eweucghh’ as my vocal chords refused to cooperate.

  I heard Cat say to Joosthava, “Time to take cover my dear. When he throws up it can get quite violent and indiscriminate.”

  As I struggled to contain myself and wondered if I could drag myself to the toilet, the bomb we had only just left on the Mud Lizard ship, or at least one exactly like it, materialised on my lap. My eyes felt heavy, my mouth opened and momentarily I forgot about being sick as I stared disbelievingly at the flashing bomb that was once again with me.

  Joosthava, standing on the other side of the bridge thanks to Cat’s vomit alert, said “Oh my, they must have eMDaDD’d it back.”

  Meanwhile, as I looked down at it on my lap my abdominal muscles finally started round upon round of uncontrolled contractions. The result was that I rather forcefully deposited the contents of my stomach down onto my lap and all over the bomb.

  The bomb, that had been flashing green and orange suddenly changed to flashing blue and red. I imagined this was not good initially and felt especially resigned to our fate as the blue and red flashing changed to just red. However, as I began to wonder what life might be like on the ‘other side’, the red flashing slowed and small blue sparks started to emit from the edges of the rectangular bomb. The intensity of the sparks increased, a little like a firework, and very soon streams of sparks were hitting me in the face. Some sparks were so intense that they brought with them globs of my vomit back off the bomb’s surface. It was almost as if the bomb was throwing up on me. You really have to agree that it simply doesn’t feel like it’s your day, when a bomb starts being sick on you.

  Then, it just stopped. No sparks, no flashing, nothing. Almost the instant that the flashing stopped our ligh
tship started to rock violently from side to side and I thought this was it. But actually I didn’t care because I felt so awful. I had decided that being blown up permanently couldn’t be any worse than what Joosthava did to me whenever she did the ‘hair thing’ and moved me from one space to another. I seemed to constantly be being ripped asunder and put back together again as a consequence of her time and space travelling skills. As a travel agent, of sorts, she needed to hone her customer care skills that was for sure.

  I’m still alive

  Then, as I wallowed further in feelings that I was convinced were the symptoms of death by being blown to bits, I heard Cat’s voice saying, “Well, how very interesting. We now appear to have a use for him. His vomit seems to be the perfect substance to defuse bombs that the Mud Lizards make. Well done vacuum brain, you seem to have saved the day.”

  “Yes, well done Inspector,” echoed Joosthava’s much less irritating tone, as Cat stopped talking.

  “Uhghh. Uhghh. Uhghh,” was all I could muster momentarily, especially as another bout of muscular contractions had caused me to vomit even more violently than before. I now lay on the floor, in a growing pool of intestinal gunge plus the apparently defused bomb.

  Cat intoned, “SaniDroid to the Inspector please.”

  I was quickly enveloped by the sonic cleaning powers of the on-board Droid for such things. The cleaning programme Cat had set it to was the kind I suspected was normally reserved for graffiti on walls. It lasted quite a short time but at the end, whilst my outsides were clean, my stomach felt more upset than it had before the cleaning had started. As if he could read stomachs, Cat immediately followed up the Fastclean with a MediDroid which administered a rather large tablet, presumably designed to settle my stomach. Obviously made in Franco-Bretagne, in administering the medication, the Droid took what it must have been programmed to believe was the shortest physical distance to where my problem lay. Accordingly, though my upset stomach rapidly started to improve, I was left clasping my behind and determined not to sit down for a while. How it had done that through what I was wearing was beyond me but ‘done it’ it had. I heard Cat guffaw and as I advanced menacingly towards him, Joosthava stepped between us with the usual smile on her face.