Space Team: Planet of the Japes

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “No, it’s all still gone,” he confirmed.

  “Son of a bedge!” Mech cried, his hands balling into fists.

  “Did you get a trace on them?” Loren asked. “Whoever hacked us?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I have pinpointed their exact whereabouts,” said Kevin.

  “You have? That’s great!”

  “Just my little joke,” Kevin said, chuckling lightly. “I have absolutely no idea who or where they might be.”

  Loren dropped into her chair and stared blankly at her controls. “Our money. All that money.”

  “Obviously, it’s not great news,” said Cal. “But we’ll figure something out. The money doesn’t matter right now. What does matter…”

  He turned to the screen. “…is that.”

  Mech stepped closer. The map was frozen on there, the line terminating at a lonely-looking planet orbiting a small-ish red sun.

  “What is it?” Mech asked.

  “We think it’s a big map,” Loren said.

  Cal gestured to himself, Miz and Splurt. “Well, we know it’s a big map. Loren apparently only thinks so, but we’re hoping she’ll catch up.”

  “A map?” said Mech. “Where did it come from?”

  “Far as we can tell? From inside your head,” Cal said.

  “Your missing two per cent,” said Loren.

  Cal joined Mech at the screen. “Seen it before?”

  Mech shook his head. “No. I mean… No, don’t think so. It don’t look familiar.”

  Cal pointed to the planet. “Can we find out where that is?”

  Loren tapped her controls, then banged the console a few times with the side of a fist. Miraculously, the image unfroze, and a zoom rectangle appeared around the highlighted planet.

  Cal’s eyebrows crept higher and higher on his forehead as he read the text box that appeared next to the magnified image of the little red and yellow sphere. There wasn’t a whole lot of text in the box, so it didn’t take long, but he read it three times in case he’d made a mistake.

  “Funworld,” he said. “A World of Fun. Well, they really went above and beyond with the sales pitch, didn’t they? The marketing guys must have pulled a double shift to nail that one.”

  He looked around at the others. “Ever heard of it?”

  Loren shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Not me,” Mech added. “That is one truly awful name, though.”

  Cal looked back at Mizette. “Miz?”

  The wolf-woman tutted and looked up. “What?”

  “Ever heard of this place?”

  Miz rolled her eyes, then made a show of very deliberately looking at the screen. “Sounds lame,” she said.

  “Well, that settles it,” said Cal. He jumped into his chair and fastened his belt.

  “Settles what?” asked Mech. “We need to get our money back.”

  “The money’s gone, let’s put it behind us,” Cal said. “I mean, the failure to keep hold of it rests entirely on your shoulders, but… bygones, right? Let’s move on. You messed up. We all know that. We all hold you responsible, but what’s done is done.”

  “Fonk you, man!”

  “It’s gone. It’s in the past. You’re forgiven,” said Cal. “This is more important.”

  Loren turned in her chair. “What is?”

  Cal grinned. A mystery. An actual honest-to-God mystery.

  No. Better than that.

  A space mystery.

  “Loren, fire up the engines,” Cal said. “Space Team is going to Funworld!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  A vaguely oval-shaped planet hung in space ahead of the Currently Untitled, half in shadow. Clouds marbled the surface, offering only glimpses of reds and yellows below.

  “It doesn’t look very fun,” Miz pointed out.

  “Are you kidding me?” said Cal. “Look at it. It’s not quite round. That’s fun.”

  “Actually, it suggests a degree of core instability, sir,” said Kevin.

  “Which is fun,” Cal countered.

  “If you consider potentially devastating seismic activity ‘fun’ then yes, I suppose it is.”

  “There you go!” said Cal. “Loren, take us in for a landing.”

  “I can’t,” said Loren.

  “Hasn’t stopped you trying before,” Miz muttered.

  “No, I mean the planet’s shielded. We can’t get through.”

  “Oh,” said Cal. “Oh. Right. So, what do we…?”

  His voice tailed off as the incoming transmission icon illuminated on the screen. Loren answered it, and the whole screen was painted in a series of green and orange vertical stripes.

  A drumroll rattled out through the speaker system. It ended with a badum, a tish, and a loud, comical honk, and then a small, wiry-looking man with a brightly painted face exploded through the colored stripes, revealing them to be nothing more than a large sheet of flimsy paper.

  “Layyy-dieeeeeees and gentlesquirts!” the little man cried, in a voice like fingernails being dragged down the inside of Pee-wee Herman’s voice box. He let out an exaggerated guffaw of laughter, then squeezed a pump in his hand until water spat from a plastic flower on his lapel. “Welcome, to the funnest place in the whole wide universe – Funworld!”

  “Is this live?” Cal asked.

  Loren shook her head. “No, it’s a pre-recorded welcome message. We must have triggered it when we came out of warp.”

  There were more comical honks, then a number of whizzes, pops and whooshes like fireworks going off in the distance. On screen, the little man pulled on a hat with a miniature windmill on top. It spun, blowing multi-colored bubbles from a hole in the front. He jigged around, popping them, laughing the whole time.

  “OK, so this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Cal said. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

  Sensing Cal’s discomfort, Mech made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “No way, man. If the map in my head told us to go here, then we’re going here.”

  “But look at that… that clown,” said Cal, nodding at the screen. “I hate clowns. And I know what you’re going to say, ‘Everyone hates clowns,’ so let me clarify that statement - I really fonking hate clowns.”

  Mech fought against the grin that tugged at his metal jaw. “What you talking about? That ain’t no clown.”

  Cal frowned for a moment, then widened his eyes in surprise. “Don’t. Don’t you dare.”

  “It’s a…”

  “I’m warning you, Mech.”

  “…space clown,” Mech said.

  Cal stared at him, aghast. “I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you used my own thing against me.”

  “Your own space thing,” said Mech.

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Cal pointed out.

  “You mean it don’t make space sense,” Mech said, then he shook his head. “I’m gonna stop now. I’m actually annoying myself.”

  On screen, the little clown dude produced something a bit like a trumpet, and blew a long, continuous and deeply unpleasant note that outstayed its welcome by a clear twenty seconds.

  He blew until his cheeks turned red, then finished with a sort of spluttering gasp that was presumably supposed to be funny, but instead made Cal wish him actual bodily harm.

  “Laaay-dies and gentlesquirts,” he said, despite it not having been even remotely amusing the first time, and having aged poorly. “To fully welcome you to our world of fun, it is my pleasure to present to you the founder of Funworld, the Captain of Comedy, the Joke-Jester-General, the one… the only…”

  “He is totally dragging this out,” Miz sighed, looking up from her claws.

  “…the one and only…”

  “You can say that again,” said Mech.

  “Miiiiiiiiiisteeeeer…”

  “Jesus, is this guy being paid by the hour? Spit it out, already.”

  “Thurp Tingle!”

  The image changed to show a much more somber-looking man in a top hat and long gray coat tha
t was wrapped around him like a cloak. A single hand extended from within the coat, its manicured black fingernails wrapped around the crystal top of a walking cane.

  The brim of his hat cast much of his face into shadow, but his eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. The tip of a long, hooked nose and the straight line of a thin-lipped mouth were the only features on display. Wrinkles ran like trenches between the corners of his mouth and either side of his pointed chin, making him look like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  Cal really hoped he wasn’t. Clowns were bad enough. Clowns led by a sinister-looking sentient dummy? That was fast approaching ‘nuke from orbit’ territory.

  “Welcome, traveler,” Thurp began.

  From off screen, the space clown said, “Tingle-ingle-ingle-ingle,” getting quieter and quieter like a fading echo. Irritation flickered, just briefly, in the shadows of Thurp’s face, before he rallied.

  “Thank you.” He nodded off camera to his left, then opened his mouth to speak again. The parp of a horn made him jump. He shot the off-screen space clown a look of utter contempt, his eyes flashing dangerously, then turned to face the camera again.

  “Welcome, traveler,” he said again. He paused for a moment, clearly expecting another interruption. When one didn’t come, he continued. “Welcome to everything you have ever wished for. Welcome to a world built just for – no, not fun. For you. Yes, you. You sitting there in your vessel. This – all of this – is my gift to you.”

  “Nice of him,” said Cal.

  “Here on Funworld you will find whatever your heart desires. Happiness and laughter? Of course. Danger and thrills? If you wish. Adventure? Mystery? Intrigue?” He smirked, just a little. “Romance? Passion? Love, even? Your wish is our command. Your desires are ours to deliver. Your pleasure, our priority.”

  “This is more like it,” said Cal, confident that clowns – space or otherwise – wouldn’t feature anywhere in his desires, unless co-starring with a length of sturdy rope, a set of bolt-cutters and a military-grade flamethrower.

  Thurp hobbled a few paces closer to the camera, and the shadow drew further down his face until all that could be made out were his eyes, sparkling like stars in the darkness.

  “Everything you wish for awaits below. If that isn’t of interest, I shall bid you farewell, and thank you for listening.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But if you enjoy the idea of your every desire being meticulously attended to, then please make haste to—”

  A different, more mechanical voice cut over his. “Docking Platform Two.”

  “—where one of my colleagues will be waiting to greet you. Until then, I wish you a safe—”

  Something creamy and pie-like splatted against the side of his head, accompanied by a hoot of laughter from off-screen. Thurp Tingle turned sharply, raising his cane, but then the feed ended, and was replaced by the Funworld logo, with an image of a bare-chested green clown leering out from behind it.

  A moment later, the logo vanished, too, and a view of the planet returned. A targeting reticle popped up, highlighting an orbiting platform hanging just outside the planet’s shield. Docking Platform Two, Cal assumed.

  He looked around at the others. “So? What do we think?”

  “Honestly, sir?” Kevin replied. “I think we should fire the Omega Cannon and get out of here as fast as we possibly can. This whole place gives me the heebie-jeebies. A world of limitless pleasure, indeed! Who would be interested in such a thing?”

  “Haha. Yeah,” said Cal. “Who’d be interested in something like that?”

  Miz raised a hand. “Uh.”

  “Yeah, totally a rhetorical question,” said Cal. “We’re going, clowns or no clowns.”

  * * *

  A set of clamps attached themselves to the Untitled’s landing legs, locking them to the deck. This annoyed Kevin no end, but Cal ignored his complaints and led the others down the ramp towards Docking Platform Two.

  Just before he reached the bottom, Cal turned to the others. “Now, has everyone been to the bathroom? We don’t know when we’ll next get to go.”

  “Shut the fonk up, and get going,” Mech spat. “We ain’t children.”

  “Last chance,” said Cal. “This is your last opportunity to… Actually, I need to go.”

  Mech rolled his eyes as Cal darted back up the ramp, passing the others at the top and scuttling off to the bathroom.

  The others waited. Mech tapped a metal foot. Loren crossed her arms and leaned against the edge of the hatchway.

  “Smell anything?” Loren asked.

  Miz pulled a disgusted face. “Ugh, no, you weirdo.”

  “No, not from the bathroom, I meant…” Loren gestured down the ramp at the patch of floor they could see. She crossed her arms again. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Cal emerged from the bathroom. “There,” he said. He made it a full two paces before turning. “Forgot to wash my hands. One minute.”

  He vanished back into the room again. Loren bent forwards, trying to scope out a bit more of where they’d landed, but the ship’s overhang meant she couldn’t see more than a few feet.

  Ideally, they’d have been given a clear view of the interior when they’d docked, but Loren had come in at an unconventional angle (she hesitated to use the word ‘wrong’ to describe it, even if the others didn’t share her reservations) and they’d come to a stop facing directly onto a high, featureless wall.

  They’d spotted another ship on a different landing pad when making the final approach, but she’d been concentrating too hard on not hitting it to notice much about it, other than that it looked expensive.

  Cal emerged from the bathroom again, wiping his hands on his cargo pants. “There, all done,” he said. “No-one else?”

  “No!” Mech said. “Let’s get a move on. I want to find out what the fonk is going on.”

  Loren raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Kevin, are you still working on processing the data from Mech’s… whatever?”

  “Data, ma’am?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah,” said Mech. “You know, about the planet? You were going to rerun the memory dump, and try to figure out why I had a map in my head pointing to a funfair.”

  “A fun planet,” Cal corrected. “Let’s not cheapen it.”

  “Who was?” asked Kevin.

  “You,” Mech replied. “You were.”

  “Was I, sir? Oh. I mean, yes, yes, of course,” said Kevin. “It’s well underway. Definitely. Going great guns so far.”

  Mech’s jaw tensed, but he resisted the urge to start an argument. “OK, then. Good. Let me know if you find anything.”

  “Will do,” said Kevin. There was a pause. “About…?”

  “The memory dump,” said Cal. “The map.”

  “Of course, sir,” said Kevin. “I’ll see if I can find one.”

  “Great,” said Cal. He started down the ramp, then stopped. “Wait, one what?”

  “A map. I’ll see if I can find you one.”

  Cal met Loren’s gaze, just as she rolled her eyes.

  “No, we’ve got the map,” said Cal. “The map was in Mech’s head. We want you to figure out why.”

  “Oh. That’s easy,” said Kevin. “Presumably because someone put it there. Mystery solved.”

  “We know someone put it there!” Mech growled. “We want to know who, and why. What’s here, and why did someone hide a map to it in my data banks?”

  “Right,” said Kevin. “Why didn’t you just say? I’ll get on it at once.”

  Mech opened his mouth to reply, but Cal put a hand on his arm and gave an ‘it’s not worth it,’ shake of his head.

  “Good stuff, Kevin. Keep us posted,” Cal said. He skipped down the ramp, pausing only to shout back over his shoulder. “Splurt, you coming?”

  A flailing green shape shot between Mech’s legs and half-slid, half-rolled down the ramp. Splurt was the same color and consistency as ever, but maybe twice the size, and notably more human-shaped. He had stubby ar
ms and legs, but no hands or feet at the ends of them. His eyes now gazed out of a vaguely head-shaped bump, and atop it he wore a yellow cap with the Funworld logo embroidered across the front.

  A matching t-shirt covered the top part of his torso, the bottom half as squidgy and semi-transparent as ever. In one fingerless fist he clutched a Funworld flag, which he waved excitedly as he bounced up and down on the spot.

  “Where’d he get that stuff?” Miz asked.

  Cal bent down and tried to pluck the hat from Splurt’s head. It remained firmly attached. “Yeah, it’s actually him,” Cal said. “He didn’t get that stuff, he is that stuff.”

  Ruffling the top of Splurt’s head, Cal shot him a grin. “Excited, little buddy? You ready for this?”

  Splurt nodded enthusiastically. Cal took him by one arm-stump and began walking out from beneath the Untitled. “OK, then,” he said. “Let the fun begin!”

  They emerged onto a gun-metal gray concourse that had very clearly seen better days. The walls were patched in darker and lighter shades, suggesting damp or other stains had been painted over in the past, with no real care or attention.

  Several lights were out across the landing area, while a handful more flickered and buzzed, sending shadows scampering across the pads. A murky blue liquid dripped from one of a number of rusty pipes running along the ceiling, before plopping into a bucket that had been positioned on the floor below it.

  Posters of the Funworld logo – complete with semi-naked clown mascot – adorned the walls, but they were all peeling at the corners, or torn across the middle or, in one instance, had several penises drawn on with a space Sharpie.

  Cal let out a little “Ha!” at that. Clearly penis-based graffiti was funny no matter where you were in the galaxy.

  The ship they’d skimmed past when landing stood on the next pad over. It was maybe a third of the size of the Untitled, and looked classy more than flashy. It suggested vast wealth to Cal, but the kind of wealth that doesn’t feel the need to draw attention to itself.

  Of course, he had virtually no knowledge of space-based vehicles whatsoever, so this was a complete guess. It could have been a cleaner’s ship, for all he knew. Hell, maybe it wasn’t even a spaceship at all.

  Along the concourse sat something that looked like a small garbage truck with wings. The Funworld logo was printed on the side, but peeling badly at the edges. There were some portholes running along the ship’s hull which Cal thought were tinted, but then realized were just dirty.