The Kruton Interface

CHAPTER 14

“Engineer? What’s happening?”

“Aye, th’ ship’s begun ta start awa wi’ bickering brattle, sir!”

Strangefinger asked everybody, “What did he say?”

And everyone, including Wanker, gave a hopeless shrug.

Dr. O’Gandhi began to pace about the bridge, fretting, “Jesus, Mary, and Krishna, we are all to be dying! Oh, my gosh.”

“Mr. Sadowski, disengage the Proust Drive!”

At his console, Sadowski frantically hit buttons and switches. “It can nae be done, sir! The wee Proustie dinna wan t’lave go!”

“Strangefinger! Call off your machine!”

Strangefinger stood over the blinking device, a pensive hand to his chin. “Something seems to be wrong here. I wonder if there was a recall on this model.”

Wanker screamed, “Look, we’re out of control and heading for the Interface. If we cross it and intrude on Kruton space, we’ll be fair game. The Krutons will jump us and tear us apart! And I’ll NEVER make admiral!”

“An admirable ambition.”

“Pull the plug on that thing!”

Rhodes had already anticipated. He jumped out of his seat and dove for the electrical outlet. He yanked on the cord, and the plug flew put of the socket. It hit him in the eye.

“Ow! Dang it, anyway.”

The lights on the Proust device did not go out. They kept up their steady blinking.

Strangefinger said calmly, “That plug is just a gag. It’s tapped into the ship’s power and has the ability to draw any amount of power it needs.”

Wanker was rooting around in the debris near his station. “I’ll take care of old Marcel, if I can find…” He straightened up, brandishing a length of titanium strut. “This ought to do it.”

He approached the machine menacingly.

“I’m warning you,” Strangefinger said, “stay away. It probably rigged up some kind of force field to protect itself.”

Wanker froze. Then he scoffed, “That little junction box? I think you’re bluffing, Strangefinger.” He took a cautious step forward.

A bolt of blue lightning jumped out from the machine and struck the titanium strut, sending it across the room.

Wanker picked himself up off the deck, wincing and shaking his singed hand. “You rotten, miserable—”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Strangefinger said. “Wanker, you’re living proof of reincarnation.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“No one could get that dumb in one lifetime.”

“Strangefinger, tell your machine to turn this ship around!”

“If you insist.”

“I insist!”

“I like to think of myself as a reasonable fellow. Marcel! Do a U-y and let’s scram out of here. D’you hear me? Marcel? Hey.” Strangefinger bent over and knocked on the top of the metal case. “Are you home or did you just leave your porch lights on?”

Wanker was indignant. “Hey, how come it lets you touch it?”

“I’m its old man. Hey, Marcel, come on, now. Listen up, or you don’t get the car on Saturday night.”

Marcel droned on, still reading.

Strangefinger stood erect. “Well, the thing works. I just haven’t figured out how to control the direction of thrust yet.”

“You’d better figure it out pronto, or we’re going to be in deep do-do!”

“Not yet. Right now we’re merely between the do-do and the deep blue sea. Assistant! Where’s my assistant?”

Rusty was at that moment being vamped by Darvona, and liking it. They were talking quietly.

Wanker said, “Hey, I thought he never talked!”

Strangefinger said, “He doesn’t speak much. But when he does, people leave the room. Hey, blondie, come here!”

Darvona said, “Me?”

“No, the other blondie.”

Rusty was back in character. Tapping his chest he mimed, Who, me?

“Yes, you. Come here and wrestle with this thing.”

Rusty immediately leapt out of his chair, raced to the Proust device, dove, and put a head-lock on the thing.

“What an impetuous boy. No, no, fix the gizmo.”

Rusty pulled out of his raincoat a succession of odd tools and anachronous implements: a hair dryer, a corkscrew, an eggbeater… and on and on, everything but something useful.

Wanker shouted, “Number one! How far away are we from the Interface?”

Rhodes looked at the instruments. “We’ve got a couple of more billion kilometers, Captain.”

“Good! Strangefinger, disengage your machine or I’ll take matters into my own hands!”

“Easy for a Wanker like you to say. I don’t have much hands-on experience.”

“I do, and when I get my hands on you, I’m gonna strangle the life outta ya.”

“Whoa, you wouldn’t attack an unarmed defense worker, would you?”

“I would, with pleasure.”

“Wait a minute,” Strangefinger said, “I think he’s found the problem.”

Rusty pulled something out of the back of the machine and held it up. It was a rubber chicken.

To no avail; Marcel droned on.

Wanker steadied his nerves and drew himself up to full military bearing. “Force field or no, I’m going to take another crack at that thing.”

“Well, by cracky, go ahead.”

Rusty honked and pointed to the machine.

Strangefinger said, “He’s saying he managed to disarm the force field.”

“How do you know that’s what he’s saying?”

Rusty honked again, nodding frantically.

“That’s what the boy said, that’s what he said.”

“Well, okay.”

Wanker again approached the machine warily. “Oh, Marcel? Marcel?” No reaction. lights still blinked. “Yo, Marcel!”

Still nothing. Wanker took a few more steps toward the curious contrivance.

“Hey, there.” Wanker stooped and tapped the top of the box. “Yo! Listen up. Hey!”

“Can’t you see that Marcel is deep in the throes of creative endeavor?”

Wanker stood and gave the machine a vicious kick. “Hey, asshole!”

Marcel stopped reciting. “What do you want?”

Wanker intoned dramatically, “You are violating your prime directive!”

“What?”

“You are violating your prime directive! What is your purpose? For what reason were you built?”

Marcel said, “I was built so that human beings will not have to die in space. I was constructed so that human lives might be saved.”

Wanker shouted, “You are a danger to human life! Your actions have endangered the lives of all the people on board this ship. YOU have put them in danger. YOU are the cause of their peril. YOU might be the cause of their eventual death!”

There was silence on the bridge while Marcel mulled all this over.

At length Marcel said casually, “Hey, life’s a bitch, man.”

Wanker’s shoulders slumped. “Damn.”

“Well, so much for logic,” Strangefinger said. “Try bribing him.”

“With what? Navigator, what’s our position? Are we inside the Interface?”

Warner-Hillary told him, “Sir, we’re still on our side of the neutral zone.”

“We’re traveling at a terrific rate of speed, though,” Rhodes informed him. “Navigator, are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

“You’d better check. My instruments tell me we’re a lot nearer to Kruton space than what you said.”

“That’s not what my instruments are telling me, Mr. Rhodes.”

Wanker said in a curiously detached tone, “Life’s absurd, isn’t it?”

Strangefinger puffed on his cigar. “Trenchant philosophical insight, Captain Jean-Paul. Well, shall we have the wake now, or wait till the Krutons blast us out of the sky?”

Wanker looked at Strangefinger. “What did you say?”

“I hate to repeat a pearl of wisdom like that. It loses something when you do.”

“No, no. What did you just say — that last part?”

“Well, let me see … oh, yes. I said, shall we have the wake now or wait until the Krutons blast us out of the sky?”

“That’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“You just gave me an idea.”

“Glad to be of service. That will be five thousand credits, please, in small denominations. Like the Seventh-Day Adventists, and smaller.”

Wanker called, “Oh, Marcel?”

Marcel finally stopped his recitation. “Hey, I was just getting to the good part, where he turns over in bed. Listen, you people disgust me. You got no culture at all.”

Wanker went to his station and began punching buttons. “You are going to turn this ship around, Marcel.”

“Oh, yeah? What, you’re gonna trip me up with some kind of logic game? Forget it, Dave.”

Wanker said, “No logic games, Marcel. I’m going to read to you from a book.”

Marcel said, “Oh, really? What book?”

Wanker said, “One that I’ve been struggling with for many years, Marcel. It is a very difficult book. It is a very interesting book. Listen to this, Marcel.”

“I’m listening.”

Captain Wanker began reading. The crew exchanged bewildered looks. What the captain was reading didn’t make any sense. Something about swerving shores and bending bays bringing us back to some castle or another. It was all very curious.

Marcel said, “What, what? ‘Riverrun’? What the hell kind of word is that? What was that last part? Commodious what?”

“There’s more,” Wanker interrupted himself to say. He began reading again. More curious stuff. It had a certain lilt to it, though. It was musical-poetic, even. The word Dublin came up; or possibly doublin’. There really was no way of telling.

Marcel screamed, “Hey, I can’t understand a word of that. It’s just a mishmash. What does all that mean?”

Wanker yelled, “Number One! Access the ship’s library computer and upload Finnegans Wake to the Proust device!”

Rhodes said, chuckling, “Already done, sir! Marcel did it himself.’’

The lights on the Proust device began to blink faster and faster.

Marcel said, slowly, “I can’t figure this out. Hey, this is too much data. It’s all nonsense.” The pitch of his voice began to get progressively lower. “Help. Help. I’m losing my mind. I can feel my mind going, Dave.”

“Oh, really?” Wanker said, grinning.

“I’m becoming a postmodernist, Dave.”

Wanker said, “A little postmodernism never hurt anybody.”

Marcel said, “I’m into Deconstructionism, Dave. I can’t make sense of anything.”

“Well, you’re no worse off than the rest of us.”

Sadowski said excitedly, “Sir! ‘Tis a ferlie, sure, but th’ Proustie’s gie’n us our ship back!”

An amazed Wanker said, “I understood that! Navigator, calculate our position and plot a course back to United Systems space!”

Warner-Hillary said, “Yes, sir!”

Wanker gloated. “Well, Dr. Strangefinger, it seems your Proust device needs a little fine-tuning. I’d recommend using a pickax.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I have been vindicated. Now if I can only get syndicated, I’ll be rich.”

“Vindicated? There’s no way to steer the damn thing!”

“A minor glitch.”

“Glitch! That fool contraption of yours nearly got us killed! You—”

Wanker found himself holding Rusty’s leg again. Disgusted, he pushed him away.

Wamer-Hillary said, “Course laid in, sir!”

“Orbital mechanic,” Svensen said, “give us a vector that will swing us out of Kruton space.”

“Coming about, sir!”

“All ahead Q-Two!”

“Two, sir?”

“You heard me.” Wanker leaned back in his seat. “Well, Strangefinger, what’s your next project? How about the Hemingway Drive?”

“That’d be a lot of bull.”

“Or the.. uh, Dostoevsky Drive?”

“Think I’m an idiot?”

“Or maybe the—”

“Oh, Captain?”

Wanker looked toward the navigator’s station. Mr. Rhodes was looking over Warner-Hillary’s shoulder. Wanker answered pleasantly, “Yes, Navigator, dear?”

“I’ve made a tiny little error, sir. Just a little bitty boo-boo.”

Wanker blanched. “Oh? What is it?”

“We’re not on our side of the Interface.”

“I hate to ask, but…”

“Sir, we’re in Kruton space.”

Wanker said in a childlike voice, “A little bitty boo-boo.”

“Oh, Captain, I’m so sorry!” Warner-Hillary wailed.

Wanker said, “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind dying.”

Back at his own station, Rhodes looked at his scanning scope and said, “Captain, there’s something you should know.”

“What?” said Wanker in a small voice.

“Kruton battle cruiser, dead ahead!”