Here We Go Again

by Jeffrey Somogyi

everything in-ship and out shake. Through the view-port, the pilots saw the Professor freeze in his tracks, then slowly - very slowly - spin on his heel until he was facing the forest of trees once more. It wasn't bravery, but more of an "I’d rather see it than imagine it" action.

  With another tearing crunch of ground-shaking, a... something came bursting through the tree-line. A few more shuddering thuds and the thing had lurched its way into the middle of the field. Even at this distance, it was clearly, horribly visible due to its gargantuan proportions. For the most part, English doesn't have enough letters to spell the words that fear makes as it scrambles a rational brain, so there are no dictionary words to describe what now loomed before the ship and crew. If you created a sentence containing the words, ‘big’, ‘teeth’, ‘scales’, 'stygian', ‘red’, ‘horns’, ‘big’ (again, for there was just so much of the thing), ‘salivating’, and ‘mouths, too many of’ it wouldn’t even begin to convey the horror. It was, to put it more eloquently: Page 11 of "A Child's First Coloring Book". The one penned by H.P. Lovecraft.

  Fear made the Professor's mind have strange thoughts, at this moment. For some reason, he thought about the old logic puzzle about travelling half-distances and the inability of an object to reach its destination. Except, in his scenarios, no matter how many times he mentally ran it, the professor could not cover more than half the distance between him and the ship before the monster covered all the half-distances between it and him. It seemed quite unfair, he thought, that only he was constrained by first-year philosophy-course rules and that the hideous thing got away with illogical murder, every time.

  Thinking in halves was not going to help him get back to the ship a whole, so he abandoned the thought of running at all. The thing cocked its obscene head to one side and flared its, well, let's call them nostrils a few times.

  Over the intercom, the pilots could hear the Professor mumbling, between heavy, terrified breaths, "I am not an arrow. The ship is not a wall," over and over.

  Never taking his eyes off the scene unfolding out the view-port before him, the pilot leaned forward and whispered into the microphone, "Remember your training, Professor...." Then he leaned back, slowly, as if any swift motions would startle the monster into doing something horrible. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the co-pilot had gotten a soda from somewhere and was noisily sucking on the straw.

  It seemed as if time slowed down. No one dared move. Even the co-pilot let the straw slip from his lips. Almost immediately, he began contorting his mouth and stretching out his tongue, searching for the lost tube, rather than tear his eyes away from the tense scene.

  Against all sanity and self-preservation, the man outside began to move. The Professor, with sloth-like speed, reached his right hand around to his left side and unzipped a small pouch on his orange spacesuit. Reaching inside, he began to pull out something long, thin, and wet. Still moving oh-so-slowly as to not frighten or overexcite the monster, he raised the object over his head. Though his hand was already shaking, the Professor added a bit more shake, deliberately. Thumbing his external speaker to 'on', he called out, "Fish Fish! Fish Fish!"

  The grotesque creature was unmoved by the display – much to the relief of the Professor. "Fish fish! Nice fish!", he repeated.

  The pilot leaned forward, enrapt. The co-pilot leaned forward, still blindly hunting for his straw and making the most ridiculous faces, because of it.

  The thing in the field leaned towards the Professor, balancing itself on its against-all-odds-of-evolution front-most appendages. The Professor swallowed hard enough to be heard over the intercom inside the ship, but he resumed his shaking of the fish. "Nice fish! Nice Fish! Want the fish?" the Professor said, his voice cracking.

  The monster seemed to consider the question by tilting its ‘head’ back to the other side. It was such a familiar action - one they’d all seen puppies do dozens of times in cute posters and commercials for toilet paper - that all three of the grown men watching said aloud, "Awwwwwwww!"

  Relaxing a bit, the Professor took a hesitant step toward the beast. "That’s right! That’s right! Nice fish fish for the good boy!" He raised his free hand up and out to the side, as if to show the animal he was unarmed. "Who’s a good boy?! Who’s..."

  It was at that moment that the Professor's fish-holding arm disappeared, replaced by a fountain of blood. It was so fast none of the men saw it happen - least of all the co-pilot who took that very moment to cast his eyes soda-ward to find the errant straw - it would have to be watched in slow-mo, later, to see all the gory details - if you're into that kind of thing.

  With a swift swallow and the passing of another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, the rest of the Professor vanished into the monster, leaving nothing behind but a disturbing slash of red on the green grass of the field.

  The pilot exhaled slowly, trying to relieve the tension of the last couple of minutes.

  "Damn," said the co-pilot, "we video these events right? I'll have to review that one in slow-mo, later. I'm into that kind of thing. Now what?"

  "Right! Now we call it in!"

  "Um...," said the co-pilot, reaching for the manual again. "Exactly what are we calling in?"

  "Just have to call HQ and tell ‘em we have another species for their carnival."

  "But, surely! I mean... the Professor! I mean... it ate him, right? I mean, I'll have to watch the tape, later, but, I'm pretty sure..."

  "You saw it pause, right? Look it up in the handbook, if you want. Rule... um... well, I dunno. Goes something like, ‘It hesitates before it eats them, something something, tame enough for Earth-side something something’, or something... Hesitation means it’s not too vicious that it can’t be... what’sit... domesticated. And boy, will the kiddies back home love watching that thing!"

  "Yes, I suppose they would, but...."

  "Oh, and while I call it in, could you go down and collect it? Just put it in the hold with the others, would you? It should be getting groggy by now – we lace our Professors with sleeping drugs, just in case."

  "What?"

  "Oh, and start the de-vatting process on another Professor, won't you? Actually. Best do that first, before you go outside."

  "Right. Um. So. I'm to... to go out there?!" the co-pilot stammered.

  "Co-Pilot Forty Four!" The pilot barked, "Do you have a problem following your orders?!" The co-pilot snapped to attention.

  "No, sir, Pilot Six, sir!"

  "Good! Then go to it!" the pilot jacked his headset into the main relay and punched in the number to Earth headquarters. The connection ring-a-linged in the pilot's ear. The co-pilot hesitated at the door, a look of math upon his face.

  "That is an order!" The pilot shouted, and the co-pilot scooted off, on double-time.

  The pilot heard the click as an inter-space connection was made to the company's offices.

  Across the vast distances of space, a disinterested voice said, "Thank you for calling P.T.B.& B. Company, operators of the greatest show in the universe. Your call is important to us, please hold."

  Calliope music was piped in over the pilot's headset. "Typical!" the pilot mumbled, rolling his eyes. Then he settled back in his chair and waited for the next thing to happen.

  ###

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