Could this be Yakh or Ulth?
It ‘started’ a little as I looked down at it and so in fact did I. I have to say it seemed immediately much friendlier than the other Mud Lizards, even the Jurassic ones, so it made me think it might well be an infant. I'd never thought before, because I’d only ever encountered fully grown Mud Lizards, but obviously they must have children. I mean they couldn't be born fully grown could they? Well, obviously not given what I was staring down at.
It seemed to want me to follow it and shuffled off in the opposite direction taken by the group of Mud Lizards that had been surrounding me earlier. Its non-threatening nature made me inclined to go along with it, which I did. Down one passageway, then another and another and another until I had absolutely no idea what direction I was now facing.
Then, as I stepped through a roughly hewn doorway I realised I was walking into a trap. Just in time I saw the trailing gooey tongue stretched out across the floor in front of me. Whether the intention was to trip me or grab me by the legs or both, I didn't know, but I skilfully hopped over the beast’s appendage and moved rapidly a few yards forward. I turned as I pulled the Extermatron from my right pocket. My practice kicked in and I crouched lightly on the balls of my feet, reaching a state of near perfect balance. I stared back and saw, either side of the doorway that I'd hopped through, what I presumed to be Yakh and Ulth. Of course, this wasn't a conference so without name badges I had no idea which was which.
One of them was impressively large. Presumably, a lizard who liked to snack a lot, it was a very round blob of seriously creased skin wrapped around goodness knows what innards. On the other side was the mini Mud Lizard I’d followed. Obviously not an infant, or if it was, it was a seriously disturbed one. The big one belonged to the tongue, and my face grimaced as it slowly started to retract it, making a noise like someone sucking a very thick virtual milkshake through a very thin straw. As the tongue disappeared the flesh of the beast became noticeably less loose. I guess it had to pack that massive tongue away somewhere.
I know, I’ll intimidate them
Though I realised they almost certainly would not understand a word I was saying, I decided as before that if I spoke authoritatively, they should at least get some of the message, so I started by saying, “Listen you low life scumbag monster dogs of the Universe, I’m warning you, come one more step towards me and I’ll use this.”
I waved my right hand which was holding the Extermatron in their direction. To my intense surprise, the little one spoke back to me in near perfect Earth language.
“You Inspector are the monster, and we intend to take you back with us to the Mud Lizard leadership on Amora in one piece, to be dissected over many years and live the pain of a thousand lacerations.”
I gulped a little and thought that if I’d known the little wretch was going to understand me I might not have been quite so rude. Anyway I decided to continue to be dominant and responded with, “I give no second warning. Make one move towards me and I will expunge your very existence.”
I felt quite triumphant at my use of the word ‘expunge’ but that didn’t last long as the little one’s tongue started to emerge from its mouth and extend in my direction. My eyes widened in horror as his appendage headed towards me. He might be small I thought but he must be totally hollow inside, because what was coming out of his mouth seemed fatter, gloopier and already longer than the big Mud Lizard’s tongue I’d already seen draped across the doorway.
“Ok, you monster, I warned you,” I cried!!
Just as in practice, I crouched still lower to stabilise my body and I flicked my right wrist powerfully to extend the Extermatron, whilst at the same time stretching my right arm out in front of me. This was all good and worked perfectly. There was the sound of metal sliding on metal as the handle of the Extermatron extended and then the familiar click, as the lock joining the extending handle to the barrel end of the gun engaged. So, all great except for the fact that the lock decided not to lock with the result that the barrel end of the gun flew off the end of the handle at high velocity as I completed my wrist ‘flick’.
To my horror I watched as the gun flew across the space between me and the Mud Lizards and hit the fat one full on in the face, right between what I presumed were its eyes. He collapsed in a heap and I was left there standing with the totally pointless gun handle aimed at Mr. Mini Mud Lizard. Mini, as I might have referred to him if he were a beloved pet, took my defencelessness as an opportunity to extend his tongue even further. I thought about running but could see no sensible place to run to. I did my best to fend off the wiggly appendage as it coiled around my lower legs, but there was little I could do once it had established a grip. I was dragged to the floor quite quickly and whilst still struggling, thumped over the head by the larger Mud Lizard, who had by now recovered from being smacked in the face by the Extermatron. My eyes glazed over and I lost consciousness.
I don’t know how long I was unconscious for but when I came round I quickly realised that my head was about the only thing that I could move. The rest of me was attached firmly to a metal post in the floor. My head was at the floor end and as I lifted it as best I could towards my chest, I could see my feet at the end of my outstretched legs above me. I was secured at various points along my body by bright orange metal bands, which were attached to the post.
My initial feeling was understandably a fearful one but I tried hard to calm myself. I reasoned that losing control of my bladder whilst immobilised upside down would not be the cleverest thing to do. I drew in deep breaths and contented myself with thoughts of Cat bursting in at any moment, along with Joosthava and Krokus, to rescue me. From my upside down position I could see no one. As I moved my eyes around my immediate environment as best I could. I called out to ask if anyone was there but there was no response.
Time passes
After what I figured must be at least an hour, nothing had happened other than the fact that my head felt a little odd, presumably due to the fact that most of my blood had by now travelled there. In addition I was beginning to struggle to breathe as easily as I normally would. Where was Cat?
Suddenly, what I recognised as Mini’s stumpy little legs appeared in my field of vision. I forced myself to look up for a moment but all I could really see was its slightly rotund belly sticking out over what I presumed were its knees. I let my eyes drop back to a more horizontal plane, they felt slightly more comfortable that way, and then Mini spoke,
“So Inspector, we have the Zygote Crystal and now we also have you.”
“Thanks for the information,” I said “but I think I knew the second bit and had generally presumed the first to be the case.”
Mini continued, despite my show of verbal bravado, “We will return shortly to Amora where our leader, the Great and Wise Almund, will embrace the crystal and evolve. His new intelligence and powers will then help us obliterate humans and Earth and before conquering the rest of the Galaxy and Universe.”
I twisted my head in quizzical fashion and said “Excuse me, did you say Almund? Are you telling me that your boss is a nut?”
This particular piece of verbal bravado stumped Mini for a moment and he moved out of my line of sight. I heard him grunting and screeching, presumably in communication with the larger Mud Lizard for a few seconds.
He then switched back to Earth language and said “Very funny Mr Inspector,” before slamming the end of his tongue into the lowest part of my abdomen allowable without the most personal of invitations, which I hadn’t given. The inevitable pain that erupted yet again in my basement department was made infinitely worse by my inability to move anything other than my vocal chords. I emitted a long high pitched squeal-sobbing noise as I thought how unlucky I was that Yakh and Ulth could understand what I was saying. The whole verbal bravado business was so much safer when the recipients of the ‘verbals’ didn’t understand a word. I decided to abandon any further thoughts of bravado of any nature at this point. I also wondered how
the Mud Lizards knew that the basement department was the place to hit a fella, if you really wanted to make his eyes water!
My heart had sunk. I'd always been scared of being hurt, especially physically and always feared dying alone and slowly. I mean who doesn't? But actually, all of a sudden I began to feel as though I’d accepted it. Cat couldn't find me because my tracker had come off. I was in the hands, or rather tongues, of monsters who for some time now had had a ‘Wanted Dismembered’ notice out on me. I was in a physical position that was going to kill me eventually, it felt like I wasn’t far off death now. Even if I didn't die here I was going to be taken to Amora where they would torture me and show me parts of me that I didn't know I had. It was hopeless.
Then, as if by divine intervention, Cat was there. It was him wasn’t it? Was I dreaming? I was. He was in my head scrabbling around on a hill. Grass all around. I was heading west I thought when Cat’s voice said in my head, “Keep that brain cell of yours focused on me and on your surroundings. Obviously if you could engage two brain cells on this, one for each task that would help.” Now I was sure I must be dreaming. Cat would never admit to the possibility that I might have more than one brain cell, never mind use more than one at a time, assuming I had at least two. But the voice kept on, kept encouraging me, and I have to say none too politely, to stay focused. So I did. It kept me occupied. There was not much else to do hanging upside down the way I was.
As I concentrated, I saw Cat’s surroundings change and I saw Joosthava and Krokus following him. I was certain I was hallucinating in my increasingly light headed state, but as Cat’s voice continued to cajole me to concentrate, so I did. I opened my eyes as wide as I could and moved them from side to side and up and down, like a PhotoDroid panning the surroundings. Ha ha, I was dying and slowly morphing into a home security device, showing the owner that back home a couple of Mud Lizards had burgled their apartment.
Cat in the head
Cat continued to nag away at me in my head as I carried on doing my best to focus. And then as if by magic, he and Joosthava and Krokus fell out of my head. And there they were in front of me, getting me down from the post that I was up-ended on and stretching me out on the floor. It was good this hallucination. I really liked it.
And then Joosthava was cradling my head in her hands and holding the lip of a cup of water to my lips. I drank some gratefully and as the fluid flowed down my throat I realised I was alive. This was real. My friends were here to get me. I managed quickly to sit up a bit, looking at the three of them so happily. I couldn’t get up completely and could hardly speak. I tried but not much came out. As I held Joosthava’s hand I looked across the room and to my horror saw Yakh and Ulth behind my 3 friends. I tried to shout out a warning but again nothing audible came out.
Krokus must have noticed that I was a little agitated and staring beyond him, because he turned around. He had an Extermatron in his hand. Thank goodness I thought, but then no. He must have been impressed by my demonstration on the space mining platform of my quick draw. As he saw Yakh and Ulth he crouched down and did the ‘Inspector wrist flick’. I was powerless to warn him that the manufacturer of the Extermatron probably didn’t recommend the wrist flick approach. Lo and behold the end of Krokus’s Extermatron shot off the handle as he ‘fast extended’ it. This time both Yakh and Ulth were alive to the additional danger of the Extermatron and the larger of the two ducked as the gun flew over and past them. By now Joosthava and Cat had also turned their bodies to face the threat.
Before Joosthava could bring her hair into play, Mini, I still didn’t know whether he was Yakh or Ulth of course, fired a weapon he held. Glittering lights spread across the space between us and suddenly it was not only I that could not move. All four of us became covered by ‘sparkly’ particles from the weapon and, as they reached us, each particle sent out multiple threads of gold and silver that wrapped around in ever more complex and tight patterns. Almost instantly Joosthava and Krokus were immobilised, joining me in a near state of paralysis.
Cat was also encased but he continued to hover and float around. The large Mud Lizard flicked out his tongue and grabbed him with it, forcing him to the ground. Mini opened up a small metal container and the large Mud Lizard then pushed Cat into it, whereupon Mini closed and locked the lid. Oh dear I thought, Cat really didn’t like to be shut in boxes. There would be hell to pay when he got out. However, as I thought that, I also realised we were now sunk. There was no one left to save us. We would be transported back to the present time on Amora. The Mud Lizard leadership there would gain access to the Zygote Crystal and evolve rapidly into goodness knows what that would then destroy Earth and take over the Galaxy. I reminded myself yet again that I would be dismembered, slowly and painfully. This was something to be honest I had always thought should definitely be on the banned list of what is permissible to do to an enemy, or even a friend come to that!
Cat in his box
As I wondered if now was the right time to start to beg and plead, I suddenly realised that in my head I could see Cat inside the box that he’d been put in. I could also hear Cat and he seemed to be chanting. I had rather thought he was a nutcase really and finally, as my life began its final journey to extinction, I had hard evidence of this.
“Azz-Lex, Azz-Lex, Azz-Lex” he kept repeating “I have no choice. I have no choice. I had hoped that the moron would be enough to thwart the Mud Lizard plans. Ordinarily there is nothing like a total incompetent to bamboozle low life villains, but somehow the approach has failed. I have no choice.”
At this point in time I really had no real appreciation that, in some mystical way, I had started to be able to communicate with Cat through my head. But I knew something was going on as I definitely seemed to be hearing him from within the box he was enclosed in. I could also see him in the box. So, I decided to join in.
“Azz-Lex,” I said, “Whoever you are I would just like to point out that I am not a moron nor am I incontinent. Ok, occasionally my bladder can be sensitive in life threatening situations but hey, bladders were not designed with threats to one’s life in mind.”
I heard Cat say, “Oh for crying out loud. ‘Incompetent’, you ‘incompetent. Why exactly are you still alive?”
“Oh that’s charming” I responded, “After all I’ve done for you. I hope you never get out of that stupid box. And anyway, how come I can even talk to you?” I enquired.
“We have a connection. That’s really all you need to know,” said Cat. He then continued, “Why did you have to invent your stupid, stupid wrist flick draw with the Extermatron? That weapon was supposed to ensure we could deal with these two Mud Lizards and regain possession of the Zygote Crystal. Why could you not just sit quietly and read the instruction manual instead of pretending to be some sort of Galaxy Wars gunman trying to outdraw the villains?”
Oh how I wished I could squeeze his scrawny neck using this new communication route I had with him but I couldn’t, so instead I responded indignantly,
“Is it my fault that the build quality of Extermatrons may not be what they used to be. I mean could you not get guns from a reputable supplier rather than a second-hand market toyshop!!”
Cat had gone quiet. He wasn’t responding. His eyes appeared closed and his whiskers were stretched backwards and placed tight against the sides of his face. I‘d only ever seen him do that before when he was about to fall from a great height, that was before the technicians introduced his hovering capability. Something’s definitely going on I thought.
I now found myself looking around the cavern we were in and noticed that the Zygote Crystal, which the Mud Lizards had placed in our view, also seemed to have something going on. It was starting to glow purple around its edges and seemed also to be pulsating gently. The image in my eyes was of the Zygote Crystal at the same time as Cat’s image was in my head and I could see that he had also started to glow purple and pulsate. I momentarily glanced down at my own body just to check I wasn’t glowing purple too,
but I was just my usual dishevelled and ruined self. Krokus and Joosthava were not glowing either. So whatever was going on ‘glowing wise’ was definitely a ‘Cat-Crystal’ thing.
Sparks and bright Colours
By this time Yakh and Ulth had also noticed that the crystal was up to something. Mini shuffled over to it but, as he got to about a metre from it, an arc of squiggly magenta sparks shot out and hit him in the middle of his body, moving him forcibly back by several metres. The big Mud Lizard immediately fired the same weapon that Mini had used on us and the crystal became covered by a web of strands similar to the ones that held us tight. Meanwhile in the box, I could see that Cat’s purple halo was getting thicker. This had the effect of making him look quite spiritual I thought, though he was pretty spiritual anyway, being inside my head as it were.
My eyes then focused on the Zygote Crystal for a moment. It emitted a thick curly purple line which went up into the air, waved about a bit, and then flew like an arrow to connect with the box that Cat was in. Inside the box I could see in my head that Cat was now really, really glowing, almost solid purple, all over.
He said nothing when I asked “Are you feeling alright? You look like a very large furry plum. I’m not sure that can be good.”
Silence was not normally one of Cat’s virtues. Was the crystal trying to kill him I wondered? Yakh and Ulth were also appearing quite concerned, based on their agitated movement. Naturally, I couldn’t be sure that they looked concerned because in my experience your average Mud Lizard only had one expression, and that mostly involved a lot of tongue.
The image behind my eyes now shifted to the outside of the box Cat was in, and I lost the mental picture of him inside the box as it did. The box was starting to bulge in the middle of the lid and there was a clear stretching of the orange bands that had secured the lid to the box base. Next, clear gaps started to open between the edges of the lid and the edges of the box itself. These gaps grew, the bulge in the top spread and then similar bulges became apparent in the two sides of the box that I could see. I wondered what might be going on inside and what was happening to poor old Cat, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus on him again. All I could see now though was mostly blackness inside the box with small chinks of light here and there. I couldn’t discern any of Cat’s characteristic features. I opened my eyes again and saw that the box had continued to expand and stretch until finally, the inevitable happened.
The Zygote Crystal Page 17