The Clone Comes Through

3

The Clone Comes Through

    Wake up! Wake up, Little Mistress!

    Su screwed her eyes tight closed. “Where’ my Loo’er?” she muttered, groping for her.

    “Thank the Federation! How do you feel?”

    “S’not breakfas’ time yet,” she muttered.

    “Don’t go to sleep again! Wake up!” SU! Wake UP!

    Su opened her eyes slowly. “Eh? Whassatime? Where’s Phyoowella?”

    The clone bent over her anxiously. “Never mind the plasmo-blasted Loogher: are you all right?”

    “Uh—yeah,” she said groggily, blinking. “I feel a bit sick, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two.”

    “Yes,” he said limply. “Yes. Never mind, Young Mistress.”

    “You called me Lil’ Mistress, before,” she said, yawning widely. “Ooh, ’scuse me! I thought we were back home, and we were gonna have breakfast on the verandah like we used to, just you and me, and the Looghers and the Flppus. ’Cos Mum’d be gone off to her office in town at crack of dawn.”

    “Yes, but that was a long time ago,” he said soothingly.

    “Yeah, I was half asleep,” said Su, looking round her at the stasis lounge of the PBTT. Stasis, or at any rate the sort that the engineers claimed was necessary to get you safely into and out of collapsed space, used megazillions of blobs, so it was far too expensive for beings to have separate stasis cabins: the passengers all had to share the big lounge, so as the blobs could—uh, not concentrate, but the blobbish equivalent of it. “Is it time to wake up?”

    Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two bit his lip. “Yes. Sort of. Sit up, Young Mistress.”

    Su sat up groggily in her extremely comfortable stasis couch—they were lined with flop couch stuff, so they adjusted to your individual shape. “Ooh, the straps have come undone,” she noticed. “Hey, we must be nearly there!”

    “Um—not quite,” he said in an odd tone.

    Suddenly Su paled, and clutched at his arm. “Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?”

    Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s handsome golden-brown face was as expressionless as ever, but his eyes were anxious. “I’m afraid so,” he said grimly.

    She swallowed hard. “Are we gonna be stuck out in space for the rest of our lives?”

    “It’s not that bad. We’re about eighty percent of the way there, and the First Officer has managed to send a message to the next Intergalactic Relay Station.”

    Eighty percent of the way to the Federation in a blobbed-out ship was pretty much the equivalent of being stuck out in space for the rest of one’s life: Su frowned, and said: “Trff always reckons that those things draw on so much blob power that one message an IG year is about all they can handle.”

    “Er—yes, something like that. The message will be relayed, but the Station’s blobs will have to—uh, well, I’m no engineer. Blob themselves up, is how the First Officer put it.”

    “I see. Did you talk to him, then?”

    “Yes.”

    “Did he say what went wrong?”

    “He doesn’t know, Su: all he knows is that the ship suddenly came out of collapsed space. The drive blobs are holding up, is about all he could tell me.”

    “What sort of an engineer have they got? I mean, what species?”

    “Not Ju’ukrterian like Trff, unfortunately,” replied Vt R’aam Thirty-Two on a dry note. “A Belraynian. She reported that all the blobs are in working order, and it must be the fault of the pwld.”

    “Gee, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, she’s an engineer, what’d you expect her to report?”

    “I know. But I think that’s as clear as it’s going to get. She was unaffected, but her Assistant Engineer is dead, I’m afraid. See if you can stand up. Give me your arm.”

    Su got up slowly, assisted by the clone. “I’m all right, except I feel a bit sick. Are we in hyperdrive?”

    “No,” he said tightly.

    She concentrated for a moment. “Great splintered shards of quog, have we stopped?”

    “Yes.”

    “Dad’ll go mega-ballistic!” she croaked.

    Undoubtedly he would—though at the moment this was the least of their worries. “Yes. Sit down again, Su: there’s nothing we can do, and the First Officer doesn’t want us rushing all over the ship,” he said firmly.

    Su sank down onto the edge of the stasis couch. Vt R’aam Thirty-Two sat down beside her and took her small, hot hand firmly in his long, cool one. “The ship is more than capable of feeding us all for several lifetimes,” he said on a firm note.

    “I see,” said Su in a small voice.

    “However, it does seem as though some of the passengers and crew have not survived the shift from collapsed space.”

    She gulped, and looked fearfully over at the other stasis couches.

    “The couches which have not opened contain dead passengers,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two steadily.

    “I see.” The lounge held thirty couches. There were at least twenty of them that were still closed. Su looked up at him fearfully.

    He squeezed her hand hard. “Phyoowella’s all right: all of the pets seem to have come through it, but after I’d checked whether they needed water or nourishment I put them all back to sleep—just ordinary sleep, of course: it seemed the most sensible thing to do.”

    “Yes, they’d be a bit of a nuisance, ’specially those two Flppus that belong to that Friyrian ladyship.” Su looked nervously over in the direction of the Friyrian’s couch. Three of the couches over there were open, but empty. “Did they take her away?”

    “No: the three Friyrians are all right, but they wished to go to their VIP cabin.”

    “Goddit: they kicked up a fuss, eh?”

    “Mm. Well, they are beings with a certain sense of their own importance,” he murmured.

    “You said it! But Dad said that those ones don’t come from a very high-up family,” she remembered.

    “I think that possibly increases the need to insist on their privileges,” he murmured.

    “Yeah!” she agreed, grinning at him. He smiled back, but Su’s grin quickly faded and she said in a very low voice: “Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, what’s gonna happen to the dead ones?”

    “We thought it would be best to leave them: the couches are completely sealed, you see.”

    “Yes,” she said, nodding. “That does seem sensible.”

    “I’m glad you think so. One of the Whtyllian ladyships had hysterics at the idea and had to be carried off to a VIP cabin.”

    “Was that the one with the fat bond-partner?”

    “Mm. He’s with her.”

    “Right, well, that accounts for another two, then, but there’s more empty couches. Didn’t you say the First Officer said we oughta stay here?”

    He sighed. “Yes. There are ten surviving passengers, including the two of us. The three Friyrians, the Whtyllian couple, and one of the lorpoid trios—not the trio whom you rather liked, I’m afraid.”

    Su’s eyes filled with tears, but she nodded, and said nothing.

    “The two female lorpoids became very angry when the Friyrians wished to go to their cabin, and then when the Whtyllian was taken to one, it made it worse. I’m afraid they’ve gone off to the purser’s office to ask for the VIP cabin which is now surplus to requirements.”

    “If I was in charge I’d turn the heat off in the plasmo-blasted VIP cabins!”

    “I believe the First Officer is planning to,” he said tranquilly.

    “Good. Um—suh-so frteR and blndreL didn’t make it?”

    He shook his head. “None of the Nblyterians survived, I’m afraid, Su.”

    “And—and none of the other humanoids except us and those two Whtyllians?”

    “That’s right.”

    A tear trickled down Su’s round cheek.

    “The First Officer assures me they would have felt nothing,” he said kindly.

    “Yeah, but he can’t know, can he?” said Su grimly.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two didn’t attempt any platitudes, he just squeezed her hand very hard and said simply: “No.”

    Su was silent for a while. Then she said grimly: “You keep on saying the First Officer. What about the Captain?”

    “Dead, I’m afraid.”

    Her brow furrowed. “I see. I s’pose he doesn’t know whether the Captain died first, like of natural causes, and then the pwld went pflooey, or the pwld gave out first?”

    “He didn’t mention it,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, looking at her with considerable respect. “But I must admit that was the thought that occurred to me, too. They do say that the pilot has to have something approaching a mind-symb with the pwld.”

    “Yeah. I s’pose she wasn’t very old, but she wasn’t that young, was she?”

    “No, though I don’t really know very much about the Nblyterian lifespan. She certainly struck me as a mature being, however.”

    Su had been terribly impressed by Captain bershandraG: she nodded hard.

    The clone took a deep breath. “One of the two stewards has survived, but not the cook. The Navigator and his assistant are both dead, as are the Purser and her assistant. I don’t think you saw the Friyrians’ personal attendants: they were travelling with the crew. All three of them are dead, too.”

    Su had gone very white: the Navigator had been a xathpyroid, a Br-cognate.

    “Yes, I’m afraid it will be very upsetting for Commander BrTl, and all the Br-cognates,” he said steadily.

    “Mm.” After quite some time she said: “So does that only leave the First Officer and a steward?”

    “And the engineer,” he reminded her.

    “Yes. I meant, um, sort of up on our deck,” said Su numbly.

    “Oh, I see. Yes, that’s quite correct, Young Mistress. These PBTTs aren't very large, of course. I doubt if they’d even have a Purser’s Office if—er—if the line didn't think the passengers would expect it.”

    “No. –It’s something about the mass-energy ratio, BrTl did explain it to me once,” she added dully. “Um, is there any actual food in the galley, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two?”

    “Are you hungry? I could investigate.”

    “No, I’m not hungry,” said Su quickly. “I was just thinking, if there’s any vacuum-frozen food left, we better eat that up first before we start using ship’s rations.”

    “Yes, of course; very sensible. As soon as the First Officer comes back, we’ll ask him if he’d like us to manage that, shall we?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Meanwhile, I’ll get you a drink of water," he said, making to rise.

    Su pulled urgently at his sleeve. “Don’t!”

    “It’s all right,” he said kindly: “the recycler is just over th—”

    “Not that! Steaming Vvlvanian magma pits, we’re stuck out in space eighty percent of the way to the Federation, am I gonna throw a wobbly if you walk out of the room, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two?”

    Many female humanoids—the hysterical Whtyllian being a case in point—would have considered that a very good reason for doing so. He smiled, just a little. “No; I do beg your pardon. I see, you're worried about the blobs?”

    “Yeah. That recycler, it is a blob, see. I mean, like, they all are, really, aren’t they, the engineers just tell them to look like whatever. Acksherly, if you could tell it just to look blobbish, I think that might help conserve its power.”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two did not betray his considerable shock at the discovery that the young mistress knew how capable he was with blobs. “I think it might, yes,” he said calmly. “Very well, I’ll try. But we will need to keep one blob as a recycler. I suppose it’s possible to live on unreconstituted space rations, but I wouldn’t care to try.”

    “Mum and BrTl did once. She said they were putrid, it was like eating dust,” replied Su on a detached note. “Okay, I would like a drink of water, thanks. And you better get one for yourself,” she added firmly.

    “Thank you, Young Mistress,” said Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two sedately, crossing over to the recycler.

    Su watched with interest. In about two IG microseconds the recycler shimmered slightly, lost its smart pale blue, gold-trimmed appearance that toned delightfully with the décor of the passenger stasis lounge, and just looked like any blob—blobbish, in short.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two sipped his water placidly, watching Su drink thirstily. “Better?” he murmured.

    “Yes! Ta!” she gasped. She took a deep breath. “I was thirsty last time, after we went into stasis to get into collapsed space. Does being in stasis always make a being thirsty?”

    “It’s said to, yes. Ah… I wonder if it would be appropriate to reduce the strain on the blobs by getting rid of all the rest of this pale blue?” he murmured, glancing round the room.

    “Rhoofer shit, is that all blobs, too?”

    “No, but it’s done by blobs.” He looked at her expectantly.

    “Don’t look at me!” said Su with some vigour. “Even if I did order ya to, it wouldn’t cut no ice with the Powers That Be if it was the wrong thing!”

    “No. The Tri-Galaxy PBTT Line, in this instance,” he murmured.

    Su snorted vigorously. The plasmo-blasted line was a company on its own or something—BrTl and Trff had explained that, but it hadn't made sense, because then Trff had said it was owned by Whtyll WS Inc. and the Federal Government of the Federated Worlds of the Two Galaxies between them. Could you get more Powers-That-Be than that?

    “Not much, no,” he murmured, and Su laughed suddenly, and then looked guilty.

    “It’s all right, Little Mistress: life must go on,” he murmured, and Su nodded, and blinked, rather, but said gamely: “Yes.”

    “Um, I think I will,” he murmured.

    Su just waited, so he did it. Just as the walls were revealing themselves as unpolished xrillion—like the companionways on Mum’s old ship! she realised, blinking—the three surviving lorpoids came back into the lounge, emanating annoyance. Su eyed them cautiously: in their place, her main emotion would’ve been relief that the other two bond-partners had survived.

    The senior female bond-partner, very thin like all female lorpoids but distinguished by a very disagreeable expression, immediately gave a shrill whistle in her throat, which all of the passengers during their three IG months’ travel in collapsed space had had more than enough time to realise was a lorpoid expression of annoyance, and snapped: “Was that your clone, humanoid?”

    “Eh?” replied Su, doing her best to emanate total blankness.

    “No!” wailed the junior female, clutching at the stout male’s hefty right arm: “No being did it: the blobs are all dying, we’re going to crash!”

    “We can’t crash, we’re in space,” noted Su stolidly. The younger bond-partner was almost as disagreeable as her senior: perhaps she took her tone from her.

    Their male bond-partner usually emanated superiority: he was emanating it now, on top of considerable alarm that he wasn't managing to hide. Especially since his pale grey skin had taken on a yellowish tinge. “No,” he croaked, “but if the blobs are dying—”

    “It was the clone, Poppo, you intergalactic idiot!” snapped the older female. “I felt him do it! And if you can’t say anything sensible, Well’ndii, be quiet!”

    “But Tinadjiy, my polly—” began the stout Poppo.

    “If the blobs were dying we’d all be dead, what do you think’s creating the atmosphere in here?” she snarled.

    “Um, atmo-blo— Oh,” he said weakly.

    “Yes,” she returned with grim pleasure. “This humanoid’s clone turned the walls off, and I’d like to know who authorised him!” She glared at Su.

    “Don't look at me, lorpoid, I never felt nothing,” returned Su cheerfully.

    “My feeling is,” said Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two in a very respectful voice, “that we need to conserve blob-power for essential purposes: atmosphere, heating, and food.”

    Su looked at him dazedly: she was almost sure he’d put it that way on purpose! “Um, yeah, he’s right,” she croaked.

    “We’re all going to die!” wailed the younger female lorpoid, throwing herself into her bond-partner’s arms. He put two of them round her but used the third to reach out and touch the wall gingerly.

    “Xrillion,” Tinadjiy pointed out grimly.

    “Uh—yes. Um, maybe we’d all better sit down, polly?”

    “Sit down?” she snorted. “We’ve been asleep for goodness knows how long! But you can put her down. And then you can get that steward in here and arrange for a sim-receiver.”

    “Um, yes. Um, in here?” he said limply, carrying Well’ndii, who was now emitting a mournful sort of whistling moan, over to her stasis couch.

    “No, in that freezing VIP cabin!” she shouted.

    Oops! thought Su happily, avoiding her clone’s eye. And wondering whether she ought to point out to the lorpoids that a sim-receiver was only a blob and if they used one it’d waste blob-power—and anyway, what did they imagine they were gonna receive out here, between the galaxies?

    There is a selection of recorded programmes for the enjoyment of the passengers, Young Mistress.

    Yeah? Well, if ya know that, maybe ya know if viewing them’ll waste blob-power! returned Su smartly.

    Yes. But it might shut them up.

    Su watched numbly as he went over to the lorpoids, bowed respectfully and said: “Please allow me to fetch a sim-receiver, respected beings. I should mention, however, that if we are stranded for a while, all available blobs may be needed for other purposes.” The lorpoids were emanating blankness, so he added smoothly: “At need it could be cultured up and used for any useful task.”

    “Yuh—uh— Could it? But who would do that?” croaked Poppo.

    “The ship’s engineer is qualified, respected sir.”

    “You mean the engineer’s not dead?” cried the thin Tinadjiy.

    “No, madam.”

    She gave an angry whistle. “Then why can’t we have some heat in the VIP cabin?”

    Gee, it hasn’t sunk in yet! noted Su.

    No. She’s not particularly intelligent, and extremely obstinate—but then, they’re all terrified, the clone sent tranquilly in reply. “I would imagine that the First Officer and the Chief Engineer have decided that the blobs would be better used as life support, madam,” he said very politely.

    “That’s sensible, Tinadjiy,” offered Poppo.

    She gave him an evil look out of her three bulgy lorpoid eyes. “Very well, Poppo, have it your way. But don’t blame me when supper-time comes round and you can’t watch Morpo’s Law!”

    “Ooh, do you get that at home?” asked Su eagerly.

    “Naturally,” replied Tinadjiy in a very superior voice indeed. “A bond-partner wants for nothing in Poppo’s house, I can assure you.”

    “Six fish ponds,” agreed the stout Poppo, nodding pleasedly. The bobble on his little round lorpoid hat nodded, too; Su looked at it dazedly.

    “Delightful, respected sir,” murmured the clone.

    Su jumped as his mind-prod reached her—gee, it felt just like one of Mum’s. “Yes! Lovely!” she gasped, as he bowed, his face as usual expressing nothing, and went out—presumably, to fetch a sim-receiver. “So, um, where are you from, may I ask?”

    Still emanating superiority, Tinadjiy told her kindly that they lived on Intergalactica, the Federal planet itself, in one of the choicest suburbs: Verdant Valleys. Largely lorpoid, of course, but with one or two quite pleasant humanoid residences. Only two IG hours by the Very Rapid Bubble Train from Intergalactica Central: quite convenient, really, though of course Poppo usually flew his lifter in to work. Su didn’t have to ask what he did: he was emanating loud and clear: Civil servant: IG Civil Service. She’d been privileged to hear Dad’s opinion of them, but did her best to smile and nod admiringly.

    “We usually go to a pleasure planet—a nice one, of course—for our vacations,” added Poppo in a mournful tone.

    “I see: you’ve been on holiday in the Third Galaxy, then? I thought you might have been out on business,” said Su politely.

    “No. The pollies wanted to come,” he said with a sigh, suddenly sitting down heavily on his stasis couch, “and with the lorpies all at Third School except for the last three—they’re in their last year at Second School and the school had arranged for a class trip—well, it did seem like the ideal opportunity.”

    “Our mistake,” noted Tinadjiy grimly.

    Su bit her lip. “Um, yeah. Um, so where would you usually go? I mean, like, where did you go last year?”

    They brightened. Even Well’ndii sat up a bit and looked livelier.

    “Actually, we went to Carnuva,” revealed Tinadjiy in a frightfully offhand voice.

    Help: the intergalactic dump where Uncle J’f had his plasmo-blasted nirvana garden! The stout Poppo was blahing on about the delicious reetli fruit—that’d be right, those were the ones that Mum claimed dropped into Uncle J’f’s waiting mouth every other IG microsecond as he lay back on the— Right, plasmo-blasted pink beaches. “Um, yeah, it sounds lovely,” she said weakly.

    It was, of course, though Tinadjiy didn’t mind admitting that the prices were extortionate—extortionate! They would be, the place was full of vacuum-frozen intergalactic clowns like Uncle J’f that thought nothing of spending a raft of super-igs on one dinner. For one being. Or at the most, two.

    Poppo then supposed kindly that Su had never been anywhere.

    No, well, she'd been to Athlor’s Planet with the actual Athlor, and to BrTl’s Planet with the actual BrTl—true, they were vacuum-frozen hunks of frozen gas—and to New Nblyteria for a whole year, where she’d gone to the local school and lived like a Nblyterian, and to New Jishowulla when she was very little and had thought that Thwurbullerians were for riding on, a bit like giant looghoids, and had been kindly given rides by, not necessarily in this order, a senior Professor of Geology, a Rear Admiral and a retired F Senator— Forget it. She’d never been anywhere.

    Fortunately Vt R’aam Thirty-Two then staggered in with a huge sim-receiver, he must’ve got it out of the spare VIP cabin, so the lorpoids were stopped in their flow and sat up eagerly to watch it. Or argue over it.

    The day didn’t get much better but then, stranded out in deep space eighty percent of the way to the Federation, had any beings expected it to? Considerably before dinnertime Su and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two adjourned by mutual consent, they barely had to exchange a mind-message, to the galley, where they got stuck into preparing a meal for the remaining passengers and crew, incidentally discovering that none of the vacuum-frozen vegetables had survived the sudden shift out of stasis. Though the Whtyllian blue kale was no loss.

    But it’s delicious, Young Mistress, he sent.

    Only to a Whtyllian! replied Su smartly.

    Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two smiled weakly and got on with explaining to the one remaining culture-pan how to fake up something that’d strike the surviving Whtyllian couple as being hashi’mah’hshi. Su didn’t ask why in Federation he was bothering, she just got on with helping him. And chop everything what for the lorpoids? Oh, all right, whatever blobbed you up, but you’d think they could’ve salvaged one competent tidy-blob from whatever the First Officer had whisked all the tidy-blobs off to but three.

    “This is gonna be a real nirvana garden,” she noted grimly, chopping reconstituted mato-meat, not meat at all but some vegetable thing, and possibly the most tasteless substance in the Known Universe, into very small, neat cubes. “And I dunno if you noticed it back when we were all awake—I mean, like in collapsed space—but them two Whtyllians loathe the lorpoids—not just Poppo and his bond-partners, they loathed Koko and Rwijjii and Fnadjii as well—and them three Friyrians, they loathe everyone!”

    “Friyrians always do, I’m told. And not ‘them two” or ‘them three’, please. Let me see. Hmm… Those cubes could be neater.”

    “It’s wobbly!” said Su indignantly.

    For an instant, Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s wide, strong shoulders shook silently; he looked, in fact, so incredibly like Dad that Su blinked. Then he said unemotionally: “So it is; I do beg your pardon. Holding it lightly will help, I think.”

    Taking a very deep breath, Su got on with chopping mato-meat into very small cubes, holding it lightly…

    “At least the pets all came through,” she said with a sigh at the end of the long, weary day, tucking the bedcovers over the already snoring Phyoowella.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two was making up the spare bed in her cabin for himself: the First Officer and the Chief Engineer had turned all the heating off in the cabins the passengers’ servants had been using and closed down that area entirely. “Yes, one good thing,” he murmured.

    Phyoowella doesn’t understand at all, she sent.

    He straightened and turned, smiling. “No, and long may it remain that way!” he said gaily. “Now, pop into the hygiene cabinet, little mistress, and then we’ll put the light-blobs out.”

    “Light-blob, singular,” she noted, duly popping—and heroically refraining from rolling her eyes until she was in there. Okay, she was slow, but it had finally dawned: Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, curse him for the vacuum-frozen clone that he was, was actually enjoying this plasmo-blasted emergency!

    Two IG months dragged by in the blackness of deep space. It only took the middle-aged Whtyllian couple a full IG month to emerge from their cabin and address another being—and that only because, Su and her clone determined with considerable annoyance, they’d been reading the passenger list and had worked out who Su’s father was. The Friyrians weren’t as bad—or, put it this way, since they were Friyrians they were as bad, but they inflicted themselves and their superiority on the other passengers in the stasis lounge pretty often. Especially, as far as Vttrfeamiyyia, the female-tended one, was concerned, when Tinadjiy and Well’ndii were watching the Romance Service, which they did with monotonous regularity every afternoon at six o’clock, IG time. This was the time at which the new episodes of Nirvana City and At Koomy’s and Poomy’s Slot “always” came on, they informed Su with tolerant superiority. It had taken a while, but then it had dawned: some being had taken it upon himself to reorganise the, uh, contents?—whatever—of the sim-receiver so that the programmes matched the Services available on Intergalactica! On being taxed with this piece of underhanded, crafty, sneaky piece of blob-tinkering, Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had merely flashed his pearly Whtyllian teeth in a grin.

    By the end of the first IG month it was apparent that the younger male-tended Friyrian had worked up a crush on Su. You couldn’t get the Intergalactic Encyclopaedia on a tinkered-with sim-receiver out in the blackness of deep space between the galaxies, so she couldn’t check it to make sure of her facts, but she was pretty sure it was because Friyrians didn’t like doing without it, whatever their sex tendency, and there was no-one else of a suitable species, age and gender on board. As young B’ttrwullguffnia was as superior as his parent, Vttrfeamiyyia—somewhat confusingly to the humanoid mind Vttrfeamiyyia had sired him while male-tended—Su wasn’t all that keen, though, true, there was no-one else on board of a suitable species, age and gender—except, gulp, the First Officer.

    The passengers hadn't seen much of him during the three IG months between the two periods of stasis—it had mostly been the gregarious xathpyroid navigator or the Captain herself who had socialised with them—so it was a real shock when First Officer H’msm called them all together in the stasis lounge the first day after the accident and addressed them formally and it dawned: he was quite a lot younger than her brothers and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, in fact he’d only be about twenty-six in New Whtyllian years: a humanoid from C’T’rea. He appeared very, very tense, and when Su sneaked a look at his mind she saw that it was almost completely locked down—not shielded, more as if he’d decided not to look at his thoughts himself. The more she thought about this phenomenon the queasier Su got, so she firmly stopped.

    And realistically, if the poor being did lose his mind, what difference would it make? The ship wasn’t going anywhere. Though there was the thought, with only a placid Belraynian engineer in charge of them, would the ship’s blobs even bother to maintain the life-support functions? Er—better not brood about that one, either.

    Early in the second IG month of their period in the blackness of deep space Su gave in and let B’ttrwullguffnia do it. Well, Asteroids of Jollifer, it was better than brooding. Or watching the dumb Romances. And there wasn’t much else to do on a stranded PBTT, that was for sure! And B’ttrwullguffnia wasn't that bad. Well, up himself—yeah. But that came with the territory. He was quite good at sex, so that was a plus. Well, knew a bit more than any of the dumb boys she'd done it with back home—put it like that. Like, usually you could count up to five between the time they got your top off you and the time when they went bang up there and collapsed on you with a grunt. If they were real experts, like, say, W’msn, N’v or Kntor Upahdeey’ah (the one was of C’T’rean descent, the other Whtyllian, didn’t seem to make no difference), up to seven. Gee. Wow. Like, out of this universe. B’ttrwullguffnia had known enough to get down there with his tongue and soon Su had been writhing and shrieking so much she had actually forgotten to count. Though after doing it a few times with him she'd realised—while it still wasn’t bad that he got down there with his tongue—that it was a technique he must of learned up, because when he got up there, whether or not he’d given her the treat of the tongue first, he went bang before you could count to three.

    Of course it wasn't all that easy, on a stranded PBTT with the heat turned off in large parts of it, to find somewhere private to do it. And while B’ttrwullguffnia was eager enough to contemplate doing it in a freezing-cold spare cabin, Su certainly wasn’t. So she decided they’d better use her cabin, blob-locked for privacy. And not mentioning the point that blob-locks were as fttzi-flies over the blooming snu fields to the mind-powers of Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two—mere nothings, right. Well, he usually checked before he barged in. And too bad if he didn’t. Well, Asteroids of Jollifer, she wasn’t volunteering to freeze, and it was usually her that was stripped of her clothes, B’ttrwullguffnia wasn’t too particular about removing his own. See, what it was, the pale cream colour of her skin turned him on. Okay, fair enough, the pale turquoise colour of his skin turned her on, and he had a real nice figure, tall and slim—but a bit hippy, well, went with the territory if you were male and female, eh? B’ttrwullguffnia at the moment was very male, which he assured her was normal for male-tended Friyrians and he’d heard that male humanoids, snigger, snigger, were real small? N’v and Kntor certainly hadn't been, so Su was able to disabuse him of that happy prejudice. She didn’t volunteer that he was bigger than them, he was conceited enough as it was. Only unfortunately he asked her. Well, lying wouldn’t of helped, would it? So she admitted he was, and gee, that made him want to get right up there and go bang again. Su let him, why not? No skin off her olfactory organ.

    By the end of the second IG month in the blackness of deep space, Su was aware that Vt R’aam Thirty-Two was real fed up—real fed up—with her and B’ttrwullguffnia doing it in their cabin: more specifically with her and B’ttrwullguffnia doing it, but the in their cabin bit was also really getting to him—but so WHAT? Gee, if he didn't like it, let him speak up like a man, instead of sulking like a plasmo-blasted clone!

    A third IG month crawled by in the blackness of deep space. Tinadjiy and Well’ndii had a screaming row over the Number Three lover of Koomy in At Koomy’s and Poomy’s Slot—or rather, over whether Koomy should, could or would dump her/m. Well, that was the ostensible reason. Actually it was just because their nerves were on edge. Then Vttrfeamiyyia and her bond-partner, a very up-himself male-tended Friyrian by name Pozzgwllnaabniia, had a screaming row over Vttrfeamiyyia’s watching the Romance Services in general and supporting Well’ndii’s stand on the Number Three lover of Koomy in this specific instance. Or, because their nerves were on edge—yeah. Then the two Whtyllians had a really screaming row over Federation-knew-what, it started in their cabin and their mind-shields were so strong that no-one was capable of perceiving the reason—except, presumably, Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, but Su was not gonna ask him. However, they came out into the stasis lounge and continued it for the benefit of the other passengers. It was almost as good as At Koomy’s and Poomy’s Slot, really: certainly the male Whtyllian bond-partner seemed to have had even more lovers than Koomy and Poomy put together, while the female bond-partner had managed to get in a few on her own account. Ooh, male ones and female ones, it got more like At Koomy’s and Poomy’s Slot by the minute: only needed a male-female one to make it an exact—

    “I CAN HEAR WHAT YOU’RE ALL THINKING!” screamed the Whtyllian ladyship at the top of her lungs.

    There was a sudden silence in the passengers’ stasis lounge. Beings avoided other beings’ visual organs and no being emanated anything. True, Phyoowella continued her happy, mindless humming.

    “And keep that creature QUIET!” she screamed.

    Su jumped ten IG fluh where she sat. “Uh—Phyoowella, Ladyship? Um, but she’s only a Loogher, she can't help—”

    “Or I'll send it to the RECYCLERS!” she screamed.

    Phyoowella got that: possibly because it was a threat that in his more heated moments, Leader Lord Shank’yar Vt R’aam had been heard to use around the house. She gave a terrified shriek and tried to bury herself under Su’s stasis couch.

    “No— Phyoowella, stop it! Come out of there! She didn’t mean it!” she gasped.

    Wailing horribly, Phyoowella continued to try to dig herself head first into solid xrillion.

    “Shut it UP!” shouted the Whtyllian ladyship, clapping her hands over her humanoid ears.

    “Leave the creature be, Gw’dl-i’in, it’s a harmless being well below Class 390, with even poorer mind-powers than yours!” shouted her bond-partner irritably.

    “How DARE you address me like that in front of these—these—”

    Menials? sent Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two very coldly and clearly indeed.

    “I don’t think so,” he said coolly, stepping forward into the sudden utter stillness of the stasis lounge. “Lady Su, please take your Loogher to your cabin,” he added smoothly. “Ask the hygiene cabinet to give her a warm, soothing drink—it will know.”

    Goggling at him, Su grasped Phyoowella’s paw. Lady Su? Had he lost it?

    “My Lord,” he said firmly to the puce-faced, spluttering Whtyllian Lordship, “do us all the immense favour of taking Lady Gw’dl-i’in to your cabin. It will, I may add, be the last day you will have the use of the facility, as the blobs in the VIP section are about to be diverted to better use. And Poppo, if you can’t control your bond-partners—and one concedes it can’t be an easy task—then their sim-receiver privileges will be rescinded as from today and the three of you may confine yourselves to your cabin.”

    “Whuh-what?” stuttered Poppo, his plump, pale grey cheeks darkening.

    “On whose authority?” spluttered the Whtyllian Lordship angrily.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s wide mouth firmed. “Mine,” he said grimly. “It may have escaped your notice, with all the racket that’s been going on in this lounge, but First Officer H’msm has just collapsed under the strain of his responsibilities.”

    “I—I thought I felt something different,” quavered Su, turning very pale.

    “Yes,” he said indifferently, his glance just flickering over her. “You did. If you practised using your mind-powers, they could be quite good. You may not have the intellectual capacity of your siblings, but you have far more intuition. Take that Loogher to our cabin, please.”

    “Yes,” said Su in a tiny voice, going out with her Loogher.

    “Well?” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two to the now very pale-faced Whtyllian Lord.

    “Who’s going to command the ship?” he croaked. “The Chief Engineer?”

    “The Chief Engineer is a Belraynian, barely capable of controlling the hyperdrive blobs—as witness the fact that she hasn’t managed to get us any closer to the Intergalactic Relay Station in three IG months. I shall command the ship,” said Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two grimly. “Unless there are any other volunteers?”

    Silence.

    “No, I didn’t think so,” he said on a dry note. “Well?”

    “Uh—yes, certainly, my good fellow! Take over, by all means!” stuttered the Lordship. “Uh—now, come along, Gw’dl-i’in, better lie down, mm? My apologies, assembled beings,” he added sourly. “I can promise you it won’t happen again.”

    “But he’s—”

    “We know he’s a clone, Gw’dl-i’in: who else is there?” he said angrily. “Do you want to use the VIP cabin while you still can, or not?”

    Evidently she did, because she accompanied him in dead silence.

    “Um, sorry,” said Poppo humbly. “Come on, pollies, nice lie-down, eh? Um, what about our cabin, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two?”

    “What? Oh, that’s all right, Poppo,” he said in a vague voice, smiling nicely at him. “We’ll keep all the life-support systems going in our corridor, mm?”

    “Yes. Jolly good,” said Poppo, shepherding his bond-partners out. “Now, now: no fussing, pollies, you can feel for yourselves that the ship hasn’t spun out of control!”

    “It’s floating in space,” said Vttrfeamiyyia limply as the door closed after the trio.

    “Quite, madam. I’m afraid you and your family will have to change cabins, too.”

    “Yes, of course. Come on, Pozzgwllnaabniia. –B’ttrwullguffnia! Are you just going to sit there?”

    B’ttrwullguffnia gave his parent an unpleasant look. “Yeah.”

    Shrugging, Vttrfeamiyyia led her bond-partner out.

    “Gee, wish I’d had a recorder-blob handy,” noted B’ttrwullguffnia snidely.

    “Very amusing, Young Master.”

    “Same to you, clone. Can you drive a thing this size?”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two eyed him drily. “Can you?”

    “Me? No way! And in case you were wondering if Pozzgwllnaabniia might fight ya for the honour, he’s only a plasmo-blasted merchant, and I don’t know why Father took up with him!”

    “Quite. And s/he?”

    Vttrfeamiyyia’s offspring shrugged. “Never been any good with blobs. Guess that leaves you, clone.”

    “I guess it does,” replied Vt R’aam Thirty-Two steadily, going over to the door. It opened and he went out.

    There was no command that the young Friyrian was aware of, but the door closed smoothly after him. B’ttrwullguffnia made a sour face, but nevertheless seized the chance to order the sim-receiver: Switch to the Fight Service: AmmnammyPol kick-boxing! It flickered up and he settled back on his couch, closing his mind to all other considerations.

    “At home,” said Well’ndii in a bewildered voice, “we just tell the culture-pans to culture up a nice dish of whatever it might be, and—and it comes out all nicely chopped.”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had decreed that all passengers must share all of the tasks pertaining to their comfort, including those of food preparation. On the whole, Su felt that she and Phyoowella, with a bit of help from Mk-Mk, the steward, could have coped much better without them. “Yeah?” she replied kindly. “Those must of been real up-market culture-pans, eh?”

    “I—I suppose,” said Well’ndii uncertainly. “We mostly buy them from J’rd’s, of course. There is a nice branch in Verdant Valleys, quite near us, but we usually go to the big downtown one.”

    It was big, all right, if that picture she was broadcasting was anything like it. About the size of the whole of New Z’therabad, actually. “Uh-huh. We don’t always use culture-pans at home. Our Cook’s got a couple of nice ones, but she often just cooks over a fire.”

    “Over a fire?” gasped Well’ndii, recoiling.

    “Yeah. Oh, sorry, was I broadcasting a picture? Sorry. Yeah. That’d be real primmo to you, I guess, but we’re used to it. It makes the meat taste real good. Um, sorry, Well’ndii, I was forgetting that lorpoids don’t eat meat. Fish is good like that, too, see?” Kindly she sent her a picture of a big Whtyllian blue carp sizzling on First Cook’s grill.

    “That does look good,” admitted Well’ndii. “So you get the same sort of fish we do?”

    “Uh—not exactly. That’s a blue carp, right? We eat them a lot, only they’re not native to the planet.” Well’ndii was now both looking blank—once you got used to the lorpoid physiognomy it wasn’t hard to interpret it—and emanating blankness; and Su, asking herself desperately why she’d started, struggled on gamely: “We raise them in ponds.”

    “Oh! So do we! That’s just like Poppo’s fish ponds!” she cried, getting the picture.

    Su sagged. “That right?”

    “Ooh, so your Dad’s just as nutty over his fish ponds as Poppo is?”

    Su had to clear her throat: she hadn't meant that to come over. “Pretty obsessed, yeah. Well, he is an obsessional being, I gotta admit.”

    “That’s just like Poppo!” she beamed.

    Er—right. Yeah. “Yeah. Uh—hold the knife like this, see? And don’t hold the mato-meat too tight: hold it lightly,” she instructed limply.

    Obediently Well’ndii got on with carefully and slowly chopping the reconstituted mato-meat into tiny neat cubes, holding it lightly…

    “I fail to see,” stated Vttrfeamiyyia coldly, “why the food has to be chopped for the special benefit of the lorpoids.”

    “Yeah? Ladyship Gw’dl-i’in failed to see that, too,” replied Su indifferently. “Well, I told her it’s got something to do with the milk of human kindness, only as you’re a Friyrian, I guess that won’t wash, huh?”—She was meanly aware that Vttrfeamiyyia was floundering as one Bluellian expression after another flowed smoothly past her turquoise ears.—“Put it like this, it’s got something to do with common sentient beingness, Vttrfeamiyyia, not to say charity.”

    “Charity!” she snorted.

    “Yeah, well, with wanting to eat, too: if I tell Vt R’aam Thirty-Two you wouldn’t help with the food preparation, he’ll—”

   Gee, Vttrfeamiyyia was carefully and slowly chopping the reconstituted mato-meat into tiny neat cubes, holding it lightly…

    “I can’t,” said Su indifferently. “I got too much to do. And acksherly, I’m sick of it.”

    “It’s since he appointed himself captain!” shouted B’ttrwullguffnia angrily. “I bet he’s got at your mind!”

    “He could well of done, I wouldn’t know a thing about it. Thought your superior Friyrian mind-powers could tell, though?”

    “Very FUNNY!” he shouted, retreating.

    Shrugging, Su got on with it. Some kind of Whtyllian pudding, the Lordship had explained it to her in great detail, into the bargain sending it to the culture-pan: so if it came out all wrong, he could blame himself. True, there was no Whtyllian cows’ butter left on board, they’d long since finished that, and no grqwaries’ milk butter, either, but the culture-pan claimed it could reconstitute the latter from ship’s rations…

    “How’s it going, Su?” he asked, coming into the galley some time later.

    “Um, well, the culture-pan reckons it’s done, Lord B’nji: have a look.”

    Cautiously he looked. “I say! That looks splendid! Well done!” And well done, culture-pan!

    “Ta, I think!” said Su with a grin.

    He winked. “We won’t tell her La’ship what’s in it and she’ll never notice a thing!”

    “Yeah,” she agreed weakly. “So, um, how’s it going, down in the drive chamber?”

    He winced. “That Belraynian’s pretty hopeless, I’m afraid; but between us, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two and I have managed to ginger up a few more blobs. The drive blobs seem to think they can make it to the Intergalactic Relay Station.”

    “Seem to?” echoed Su in a hollow voice.

    “Well, they’re not my blobs,” said the burly, middle-aged Lordship in apologetic tones to little, plump, untidy Su. “The odds look good, though. And I’m sure Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s right and we’ll stand a much better chance of being found—uh, rescued, of being rescued—if we’re closer to the Relay Station.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Su on a dry note. Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had already announced to the assembled passengers and crew that they would aim all their efforts at getting to the Intergalactic Relay Station, from where they could be rescued without delay. “Hey, do ya reckon this pudding can be chopped up into lorpoid cubes?”

    “Old S-Pnn’ii used to cut it up for me and my siblings when we were in the nursery; why not?” he said cheerfully.

    It was very spongy—but then, would chopping spongy faked-up Whtyllian pudding into cubes be harder than chopping reconstituted mato-meat? “Right. Wilco,” said Su with a wink.

    The burly Lordship went into a spluttering fit, owning as he wiped his eyes: “I suppose we all have got rather ship-shape and Space Issue since he took over—but he’s making a Vvlvanian-cursed good job of it, me dear!”

    “Yeah,” admitted Su, smiling at him “I know. Hey, could you remind Pozzgwllnaabniia it's his turn to give me a hand?”

    “Right you are, me dear. I mean, aye, aye, sir!” said the Lordship cheerfully, saluting her. Su collapsed in helpless giggles and he went out looking very pleased with himself.

    The stout Pozzgwllnaabniia panted in a few minutes later, also looking very pleased with himself. “The inventory’s nearly finished, and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two himself praised it: he didn’t think it was possible to do such an organised job without benefit of blobs!”

    “Good,” replied Su, smiling at him. “So, what's the picture?”

    “Oh, not nearly as bleak as we thought, my dear. Certainly more than enough ship’s rations to keep us all going for several lifetimes, and the cargo holds have yielded a positive treasure-trove, so to speak!”

    “That’s good. Ooh, real nuts, eh? They’ll make a nice change.”

    “Yes, very true—though I’m afraid you can’t use them until the inventory’s complete, but it won’t be long now!” He then emitted the Friyrian tinkle that was the equivalent, according to pitch, tone and intensity, of a humanoid or Nblyterian giggle, chuckle, snigger or laugh: since this particular tinkle was perilously near a snigger, Su eyed him warily. “And there was a sufficiently large area devoted to the containment of ooff-puffs: in their immature stage when we first went into stasis, or so the ship’s manifest has it!” he said on a coy note.

    “Um, that right?” she croaked. Gee, no prizes for guessing what small spherical jade green being was responsible for that!

    “Mm. They came through the initial period of stasis magnificently—which, you know, one had not heard that ooff-puffs could: because after all, they are living entities, but not sentient, are they?”

    “Yeah, um, think the word might be ‘fungus’.”

    “Of course!” he said, extra-cordially, with a smothered tinkle. “And the ones we were allowed to try during our three months in collapsed space were delicious!”—Maybe they had been, if you had the stomach for anything like an ooff-puff while you were in collapsed space—yeah. Su gave him a jaundiced look.—“But alas, the unexpected jolt, or whatever it was, coming out of stasis before we were supposed to, has turned them to slime.”

    “Ugh, yuck. So, what else have we got?”

    Brightening, Pozzgwllnaabniia proceeded to tell her.

    The IG ton of mwopplell from New Jishowulla was the most interesting item by far: they could make some nice puddings out of that. Though exactly why it was being shipped on a PBTT when it could have been instantaneously transp—

    “Not without paying the freight charge!” wheezed Pozzgwllnaabniia, tinkling madly.

    “Right. Well, Thwurbullerians are rather like that,” said Su weakly. “Hey, those fish eggs: they are preserved, eh?”

    “Mm? Oh, certainly, my dear. Salted; rather like New Rthfrdian caviar. Why?”

    “I just thought that if by any chance they were fresh and they’d managed to come through the jolt out of stasis okay we could of raised up some nice fresh fish.”

    “Oh, I see. Well, we might try growing plants: there are several bags of seeds that the Captain was taking home to Nblyteria: as far I can make out from the steward’s rather muddled account, she intended making a garden. Would be that be right? One doesn’t make one’s own garden, at home,” said the well-off Friyrian.

    “Yeah, she’d of been one of those beings that likes mucking round in the garden—um, planting little trees and sticking seeds in the ground and hoping they’ll grow.”

    “Oh, I see! That’s your mother, is it, my dear? What a handsome being!”

    “Mm,” said Su, with sudden tears in her eyes. “She likes getting out in the garden and growing things.”

    “Yes, of course,” he said kindly. “Great splintered shards of quog, are those hairy pwoggy-klingles she’s picking?”

    “Um, yeah, the vines grow all along the verand— Gee, huge green lumps, do ya? We don’t seem to be allergic to them hairs at all. Hey, but I tell ya what, never let a Flppu near a spiny ban-ban-ban plant!” With great relish she told him the story of Fl’Oo-ooueroii, the spiny ban-ban-ban, and the blood poisoning.

    The wealthy merchant went into such a fit of tinkles that he had to sit down and have a drink of water. “Oh, dear!” he said, snapping his fingers for senso-tissues, forgetting that Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had had them all gathered up and fed to the drive blobs. Helpfully Su handed him a cloth. “Er—thank you,” he said weakly. “I haven't laughed so much in years! It’s such a pity we haven’t got any dirt to put the seeds into—”

    “But ya can!” she cried excitedly. “I dunno how, but it’s called hypo—um, not hypochondria, um, hypo-something, and you do it with water!”

    “Oh, good. We’ll ask Vt R’aam Thirty-Two.”

    “Yeah, he’ll know,” agreed Su, beaming. “Hey, maybe Poppo would like to help!”

    “What? Oh—if he must,” said Pozzgwllnaabniia with a shrug.

    Their new captain was on the bridge—as usual, these days. But he received the deputation very courteously and explained exactly what it was that Su had meant.

    “Water?” said Poppo, brightening.

    “Mm. Hydroponics,” repeated Vt R’aam Thirty-Two carefully.

    “Water, eh? I could definitely help you with that, Su, polly-lolly!” the lorpoid said eagerly.

    “Sure,” replied Su amiably. “Only watch out for—” Watch out for Phyoowella, the minute she spots anything that looks like a pool or a pond she tries to swim in it or drink out of it or both.

    We’d better put the tanks up on tables, then. What do you think, Pozzgwllnaabniia?

    Good idea! replied the Friyrian, not seeming to notice that he was exchanging mind-messages with a mere lorpoid. Now, the room will have to be at a reasonable temperature; shall we see what rooms might do?

    Poppo agreed happily, and the two went out together.

    “Gee, that went good,” said Su limply.

    “Yes. It was a very good idea: it’ll give Poppo something to do.”

    She stood on one leg, emanating uneasiness. “Um, yeah. Um, that wasn’t why I brung it up. Um, I mean, all I thought was we might be able to grow a few salad plants or like that.”

    “Yes, I realise that,” he said placidly, not commenting on either the grammar or the body language. “I strongly doubt that those two between them will be able to produce so much as a bean sprout, but never mind, it’ll take their minds off our situation.”

    “Yeah.” Su looked nervously round the bridge. “Um, what is our situation?”

    Raising his eyebrows very slightly, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two ordered the forward port Shades up!

    Su gasped, and grabbed at the back of the empty co-pilot’s seat.

    “Mm, a great deal of nothingness out there,” he agreed drily.

    She swallowed. “Are you ever gonna get it going, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two?”

    “I think so. The blobs know me pretty well, now.”

    “How is the hyperdrive?” she asked in a hollow voice.

    “It seems fine.”

    “Uh-huh. So ya reckon,” said Su in an artless voice, carefully avoiding his eye, “that we can make it to the Intergalactic Relay Station under hyperdrive?’

    There was a little pause. Then Vt R’aam Thirty-Two said without emphasis: “Don’t hint, Su.”

    “Okay, I won't hint!” she retorted crossly, reddening. “If ya don't get the hyperdrive going, will we make it to the Relay Station with just ordinary drive power?”

    “No,” he said baldly.

    Her rounded jaw hardened. “I get ya.”

    “I know you don't understand very much about hyperdrives—”

    “I understand that much!”

    “Yes. I was just going to say, if we could manage to attain the same sort of interaction between the pwld and the hyperblobs that your father’s Expedition Fleet ships had, we would make it to the Relay Station easily. In fact, we’d have a very good chance of getting all the way to the two galaxies. But that sort of drive is exponentially faster than mere hyperdriving.”

    Su was now very pale. “Yeah. Thought so.”

    He took a deep breath. “I can’t risk trying it. Not without determining whether it was a fault in the pwld that dumped us out of collapsed space.”

    “Couldn’t we vote on it?”

    He smiled a little “Very democratic. You are your mother’s daughter! –No, we could not vote on it, and please don't mention the idea, or anything at all about this conversation, to any of the other passengers. Not even B’ttrwullguffnia: he’s bright enough, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also very silly.”

    “Yeah. He’d let it out to his mum in a fit of spite or something, and then we’d really be in the grqwary gizzard soup!”

    “Yes.” The slanted azure eyes twinkled. “How are the ladies’ aerobic exercises going?”

    Su gulped. Vttrfeamiyyia and Lady Gw’dl-i’in had at first been very annoyed to be ordered by Vt R’aam Thirty-Two to take their turn at cleaning the companionways and cabins, since the tidy-blobs had had to go to the drive. But then her Ladyship had realised it was wonderful exercise: and once she’d got Su to supply some polishing cloths for the feet as well as the hands, there’d been no stopping them. And Tinadjiy was now joining in with just as much enthusiasm. “Real good,” she admitted.

    “Good!” he said with a laugh. “Anything more to report, First Cook?”

    “Hah, hah,” she said limply. “Um, no, acksherly, Captain. It’s funny: all the beings seem to have… Dunno. Got used to it? Or—or adapted or something?”

    “Yes,” he said tranquilly. “Sentient beings do tend to. It helps, having something to do.”

    “Yeah. Uh—hang on. You didn’t take all the tidy-blobs on purpose, did you?”

    “Mm?” he replied in a vague voice. “Oh—no.”

    “Sorry, you’re busy, aren’t you? I can see you gotta concentrate: I better go.”

    He looked up at her apologetically. “I have to concentrate most of the time, I’m afraid, Su.”

    “Yes,” she gulped. “I’ll go.” She turned for the door, but stopped, and said in a small voice: “I could bring you something real nice for your dinner, if you like.”

    “Mm? Oh. No,” he said firmly, twisting round in the pilot’s seat. “No privileges, Su.”

    “But since you’re the Ca—”

    “No,” he said definitely. “Not even for rank. Off you pop.”

    Glumly Su popped. It was only an experiment: the culture-pan had been sure it could produce a real nice little nutty pudding with some of those nuts from the hold…

    “Thank you, Su,” said Chief Engineer Shpeldruw dazedly, as the Ship’s Cook presented her with a tray on which reposed a charming little pudding and one real senso-tissue.

    “You’re real welcome, Chief Engineer. ’Tisn’t fair, the way he makes you stay down here in the drive chamber all the time!”

    “What?” she said vaguely. “Oh. I don’t mind. The blobs do seem happier if I’m here, he’s right about that.”

    Space garbage. A blob was a blob, it could not feel happy, because it wasn’t sentient within the Meaning!

    “Hush,” said the Belraynian mildly. “He thinks emanations might affect them.”

    This was space garbage, too: Su had it on the authority of Commander BrTl himself, but she did her best not to emanate anything and, explaining that that was her senso-tissue, it had been recycled and he didn’t know she still had it, but the Chief Engineer could give it to the drive when she'd finished with it, if she liked, quickly slid out.

    Another month slipped by in the blackness of deep space—then another, and another…

    “I've called you all together,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two in a firm voice, “because I’m going to start the drive, and I think for safety’s sake everyone should be strapped in. The pets as well, of course.”

    “Fl’Zhennullerii doesn’t have to go into the pets’ cabin, does it, Captain?” asked Tinadjiy immediately. The turquoise Flppu was actually the property of Vttrfeamiyyia, but somehow over the past months Tinadjiy seemed to have adopted it. It was, or such was her claim, very intelligent for a Flppu. Certainly it watched the Romances with as much interest and fervour as she did. And having lived in various Friyrian households, where the usual complex family relationships of the hermaphrodite Friyrians prevailed, it had about as many tales to tell of the doings of assorted bond-partners, offspring, cognates, and other related beings as she did.

    “Not if you strap it in, Tinadjiy,” replied their Captain firmly.

    “Oh, thank you, sir! I’ll do that. –Fl’Zhennullerii, we’re going to sit on our lovely flop couch!”

    “Ooh, and watch the Services, madam?” it squeaked.

    “Um, soon,” said the lorpoid weakly.

    “On the other hand,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two on a grim note, “Phyoowella does have to go into the pets’ cabin. Strapped into her couch, please, Su.”

    “Yeah,” Su replied glumly. There had been a near-disaster quite recently when Phyoowella had got into the hydroponics cabin. Fortunately New Nblyterian choo lettuce was a very hardy plant…

    “Are you gonna use the hyperdrive, sir?” croaked B’ttrwullguffnia. –Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had most certainly not asked anyone to call him sir, so why almost everyone was doing so, was not absolutely clear.

    “Not immediately, no. I’ll go into hyperdrive if the blobs seem settled.”

    B’ttrwullguffnia’s neck-gills opened and closed once. “Yeah,” he said faintly.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two waited but although he could certainly read that the young Friyrian was thinking it, no remarks were passed about the dangers of going into hyperdrive with a drive full of blobs that had never been intended to be drive blobs, plus hyperblobs that had been involved in a still-unexplained crash out of collapsed space.

    “The hydroponics room will have to be well battened down. Emergency covers, I’m afraid,” he said firmly to Poppo and Pozzgwllnaabniia.

    “Dear, dear, dear! The New Nblyterian matos won’t like that, I’m afraid,” replied Poppo, with a sad little whistle.

    “Poppo, dearest,” said his junior bond-partner on a firm note, “New Nblyterian matos are almost as tasteless as the real—”

    “We couldn’t know what those seeds were!” cried Pozzgwllnaabniia indignantly.

    “No,” agreed Well’ndii pacifically, “but I’m just saying, although you’ve got them doing very well, they won’t be much loss.”

    “I was wondering about the New Whtyllian kinkerberries, Pozzgwllnaabniia,” said Lady Gw’dl-i’in.

    Several people had also been wondering about the kinkerberries. In fact so had Phyoowella, to judge from the excited whoop she gave. They all looked anxiously at the two gardeners.

    “Oh, I don’t think there’ll be any problem there,” said Pozzgwllnaabniia importantly. “Eh, Poppo?”

    “No, no: they look so delicate, but they’re a very hardy plant: very hardy indeed!” he said happily.

    “Will they like having lids on them, though?” asked Well’ndii dubiously.

    “Lids!” he snorted. “Not lids, polly! Covers.”

    “Um, yes, Poppo. Will they?”

    “They’ll be fine. Well, shall we get on with it, Captain?”

    “Yes, thank you. Oh: and Poppo—Pozzgwllnaabniia,” he said as the two headed for the door: “when you’ve got everything battened down, back in here, please.”

    “But sir—” began Poppo.

    “Of course, Captain,” said Pozzgwllnaabniia quickly, grabbing one of Poppo’s stout arms and pulling him out. The word “water” might have been discerned by those with acute hearing, and a picture of the hydroponics room under several IG fluh of water might have been received by those with mind-powers as the two of them retreated.

    “Er—need me, Captain?” said the Whtyllian Lordship on a hopeful note.

    “Just stand by, I think, Lord B’nji.”

    “Right you are, sir. The blobs know me, I grant you that. Don’t know that I’ll be of much use, though. But I’ll stand by, never you fear!”

    “Can I help, sir?” croaked B’ttrwullguffnia.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two sighed a little. “If you’d offered earlier, I'd say yes: but as it is the blobs don’t know you, do they?’

    “See?” said Vttrfeamiyyia pointedly. “Next time, try to cooperate instead of slouching in front of the plasmo-blasted sim-receiver! –Come along, Su, my dear, I'll help you with that Loogher.” She took one of Phyoowella’s hands in a firm grasp.

    “Thanks very much, Vttrfeamiyyia,” said Su in some relief. She doesn’t like being strapped into her couch.

    I know, agreed Vttrfeamiyyia, and the two of them led Phyoowella out.

    “Send me a message, my Lord, when everyone’s ready,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, going out.

    “You heard the Captain: get onto your couch and do the straps up,” said the Whtyllian Lord firmly to B’ttrwullguffnia.

    B’ttrwullguffnia got onto his couch, glaring. “Send him a message! He’ll know, and he knows we know he’ll know, so why’s he bothering?”

    “Perhaps it has something to do with manners,” said Lady Gw’dl-i’in sweetly. “Well’ndii, my dear; I think we’d better check that the gym equipment is battened down.”

    “Oh, my goodness, yes, Gw’dl-i’in; you have such a head on you, my dear!” agreed the lorpoid, and the two hurried out.

    “Let me help you,” said the Lordship with a smile, going over to where Tinadjiy was struggling with the turquoise Flppu’s straps.

    “Oh, thank you, Lord B’nji!” she gasped. “They’re so stiff!”

    “No, no, me dear: just think ‘Straps on,’ at them. Quite firmly, y’know?”

    “Everyone knows that!” cried B’ttrwullguffnia scornfully.

    Neither of them looked up from the Flppu, and he hunched into his straps, scowling.

    Everyone was ready and Lord B’nji had sent his message, but nothing had happened. B’ttrwullguffnia had already threatened to undo his straps and order the sim-receiver to blob onto a Sports Service and been duly flattened by everyone else. After some time of just lying back strapped in Pozzgwllnaabniia and Poppo began to exchange mind-messages about the hydroponics room which as time crept by began to verge more and more towards the getting-up-and-going-to-see type of message…

    You may feel sick, Su. Just hold on, it won’t last.

    Su gasped, and jerked sharply in the grasp of her straps.

    B’ttrwullguffnia began angrily: “Is that him? Is he gonna—”

    But before he could finish, the drive came on with a just-discernible whining noise, the turquoise Flppu and Su both let out loud squeaks, and the ship moved forward smoothly.

    “That seems all right!” said Lord B’nji on a bracing note.

    “Very smooth,” agreed Well’ndii.

    “Yes, very,” allowed Tinadjiy supportively. “Ssh, Fl’Zhennullerii, everything’s all right!”

    Until he goes into hyperdrive, thought B’ttrwullguffnia glumly to himself, trying very hard not to hang on to the arms of his couch.

    The ship flew on smoothly…

    After quite some time Su said very faintly: “I think he’s running checks.”

    “Yes!” replied B’ttrwullguffnia angrily. “And if you can feel that much, ask him how much longer we’re gonna have to sit here doing noth—Ow!” he gasped.

    “You asked for that,” said his parent with grim satisfaction. “Thank you, Lord B’nji.”

    “My pleasure,” said the Whtyllian drily.

    “Why’d ya have to do that? Now I’ve got a terrible headache!” wailed B’ttrwullguffnia.

    “Good,” noted Vttrfeamiyyia brutally. “And shut up, or it won't be a mere mind-prod you feel next time!”

    B’ttrwullguffnia lapsed into pouting silence, and the ship flew on smoothly…

    Your arithmetic isn't quite accurate, my dear.

    Su jumped ten IG fluh in the grip of her straps.

    I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, sent the Whtyllian Ladyship. I was about to remark, that although your arithmetic isn't quite accurate, you’re correct in concluding there’s no hope of reaching the Intergalactic Relay Station at this pace. We need to go into hyperdrive for that.

    Yes, I know, Lady Gw’dl-i’in, agreed Su glumly.

    Just hold on, she sent kindly. You may like to try this mind-exercise to occupy the time. She demonstrated.

    Su gulped. It was not only exactly like one of Dad’s plasmo-blasted mind-exercises that he was always nagging her to do, but it also bore a remarkable resemblance to one of BrTl’s, that he’d told her, more than once, couldn’t do her any harm, and might do her some good. Taking a deep breath and girding up her mental loins, she began grimly to concentrate on it…

    Very good, sent Vt R’aam Thirty-Two approvingly. Commander BrTl would be pleased with you. Hold on.

    There was a sickening jolt and a moment’s sensation of cold nothingness—and then they were in the absolute stillness of hyperdriving.

    —That or dead. Not dead, she could feel everybody’s minds! Su opened her eyes quickly.

    “That was all right, wasn’t it!” beamed the Whtyllian Lordship. “Very smooth!”

    Su’s jaw sagged.

    “Oh, yes! Just like being on a real ship!” cried Well’ndii pleasedly. “I don't mean that— You know what I mean!” she said with the lorpoid whistling laugh.

    “Excellent. You’d think he’d been doing it all his life!” agreed Poppo.

    What? Surely someone besides her must have felt— Cautiously Su took a look at B’ttrwullguffnia’s mind. Hadn’t felt a thing. There was just a grudging admiration for Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, plus the usual jealousy of him. Gulp. Cautiously she peeked at his mother’s mind: the Friyrian’s shield was usually too powerful for her to see anything much. Um… no. Nothing. Um, hang on. She stopped trying to look and just let herself feel. Great splintered shards of quog! Apparently Vttrfeamiyyia hadn't felt anything either. “Um, did anyone feel anything?” she croaked.

    “No!”—“Not a thing!”—“Very smooth!”—and so forth, came the chorus of replies. Gulp. Had she— No, she couldn't possibly have imagined it.

    You didn’t imagine it, Su. None of those beings have a fraction of your sensitivity: as I’ve told you, you have a highly intuitive mind. Trust your instincts more.

    Um, yeah, replied Su limply. Um, congratulations, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two.

    Thank you, he replied, as calm as if he’d just served afternoon tea on the verandah at home, the vacuum-frozen clone! Su took a deep breath.

    I wonder, could you possibly make me a cup of zi?

     Nuh— Um, there isn’t any zi, we’re on the plasmo-blasted PBTT, replied Su limply, wondering if, in spite of the successful hyperdriving and the clone’s apparently calm demeanour, the being had lost it, after all.

    Oh, nor there is, how silly of me. Well, any sort of hot drink would be very welcome, thank you, Su.

    Straps off! sent Su, wondering if they would— Gee, they did, so either they were hyperdriving along perfectly safely or Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had kidded the ship as well as himself— Better not think that way. “I'm gonna make some hot tea for everybody,” she said firmly.

    “Not feverfew,” said B’ttrwullguffnia quickly.

    “Shut up,” replied Su grimly. “You’ll drink what ya get, and like it!” And she marched out of the stasis lounge, head held very high, her legs just starting to shake. CLOSE! The door of the lounge slid silently to behind her and Su collapsed onto the fake wtmyrian carpet that adorned the corridors in the passenger areas.

    Just as she was wondering if she was gonna be able to get up again the door slid open silently and the heavy-set Pozzgwllnaabniia appeared. “Thought so,” he said mildly, as the door closed at his back. “Try this blob, Su, my dear.”

    “Shouldn’t you of given this to the hyperdrive?’ said Su faintly, taking it.

    “We need some first-aid remedies,” replied the Friyrian mildly. “Just hold it to your nose, my dear.”

    “And—and sniff?” she faltered, thinking of Mum’s tales of Aunty Pt’Rshaa and her never-ending chemo-blobs.

    “No!” said the Friyrian with a faint tinkle. “It’s a decent one: just breathe normally.”

    So Su breathed normally and almost immediately felt much, much— Hastily Pozzgwllnaabniia reclaimed his chemo-blob. “That’s enough, I think!” he said with a merry tinkle. “Come along! Feverfew tea, wasn’t it?” He helped her up and they headed for the galley.

    “Pozzgwllnaabniia,” said Su slowly as the culture-pan obediently produced cups of steaming feverfew tea.

    “Yes?”

    “Um, did you really not feel a thing when we went into hyperdrive?”

    “Not a thing!” he said cheerfully. “Uh—great splintered shards of quog, did— You did, eh? Well, all I can say is, if it was like that, I'm plasmo-blasted glad I didn't feel it!”

    “Yeah. Um, but I never thought I was particularly sensitive to blobs.”

    Pozzgwllnaabniia set out several of the filled cups on a tray. “I’ll take these along to the stasis lounge.” He went over to the door but paused. “Possibly it wasn't that you were in touch with the blobs, so much,” he said lightly, “as with the Captain.”

    Su’s mammalian humanoid cheeks went very red.

    “Well, he is your clone, after all, isn't he?” said the Friyrian cheerfully, going out. Close! Su thought she heard a faint, and somewhat ironic addition of Not to be anything-ist as the door closed, but it was so faint she couldn't be sure. She picked up the remaining cups and went out with them, refusing grimly to think for so much as an instant about what Pozzgwllnaabniia might have meant to imply.

     “Thanks,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, seizing a cup eagerly.

    “That’s okay,” said Su awkwardly. He was looking very strained and the normal golden-tan sheen of his skin had been replaced by a horrid bluish-grey tinge.

    He drank thirstily. “That’s better!” he said with a sigh.

    “Have another.”

    “That's yours,” replied Clone Vt R’aam Thirty-Two firmly. “Drink it up.”

    “Yeah, um, can I sit down?” said Su weakly.

    “Federation! I’m sorry, Su: sit here.”

    Numbly Su sank down onto the co-pilot’s seat with her feverfew tea. “Are we gonna stay in hyperdrive now?” she asked after quite some time.

    “Yes. The blobs are fine—you can feel that, I think?”

    She nodded. “How old were you when the Expedition Fleet got to New Whtyll?” she asked abruptly.

    His finely-modelled lips twitched just a little but he said in his calm way: “I’m thirty in New Whtyllian years and you're twenty, Su, and you were only two when we made it: work it out. Your arithmetic can’t be that bad.”

    “Were you monitoring us?” said Su after a dazed moment in which it dawned that he must’ve picked up the exchange between her and Lady Gw’dl-i’in.

    “Not really. I can't help picking you up,” he said mildly. “I’ve been looking after you most of my life. –Twelve.”

    “Eh?”

    “I was twelve when the Expedition Fleet reached New Whtyll.”

    “Oh! Um… right, ya would of been.” Su stared at the view of nothing from the forward port. “Ya know what the first thing is I remember about you?”

    He did, of course, but he smiled a little and murmured obligingly: “What?”

    “I was in my cot, its bars were blue, and you were giving me a piece of mn-mn, you had your white jacket and white baggy pants on and a yellow flower pinned to the jacket that smelt all spicy.”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two got a strong whiff of Gr’mmeayan cinnamon mixed with the almost-but-not-quite-rotten, sweet tropical fruit odour of a very ripe mn-mn. “Of course! I’d forgotten about the flower. It was one of the first yellow Phang-Phangian senso-orchids that your Cousin G’gg had managed to raise successfully on planet, and he was very annoyed to find that your mother had picked a whole flower stalk—just casually, in passing!” He laughed.

    “She would!” admitted Su, grinning. “We woulda been in the old house then, that right?”

    “Not quite. We were all still in Expedition huts. You would have been nearly three.”

    “I can’t remember the huts at all,” said Su on a regretful note.

    “They were very cramped and uncomfortable. We were all very glad to get out of them.”

    “Yeah… I wish I could remember more,” she said vaguely. “Uh—s’pose I'd better get back to it, they’ll all be thinking of their dinners.”

    “Mm. Take some tea to Chief Engineer Shpeldruw and Mk-Mk.”

    “Mk-Mk’s already made some Belraynian movva soup for them, he was just taking it down to the drive-chamber when me and Pozzgwllnaabniia got to the galley. ’Tis only some vegetarian thing, isn't it?”

    “Yes, why?” he murmured.

    “He said he’d give some to the pets as well.”

    “It won’t do them any harm. In fact in Phyoowella’s case it may do some positive good: the Belraynians claim it has a soothing effect.”

    “Yeah? Well, good, I’ll try it on that plasmo-blasted turquoise Flppu, too! But I tell ya what,” she said, going over to the door.

    “Mm?”

    “I wouldn’t of thought Chief Engineer Shpeldruw needed calming,” she said pointedly, going out. Close!

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s wide, lean shoulders shook silently for some time. He looked, in fact, quite horribly like Leader Lord Shank’yar Vt R’aam.

Next chapter:

https://theadmirableclone-sf.blogspot.com/2023/12/rescued.html