SF: Universal Solvents #15

[Gary]

                               UNIVERSAL SOLVENTS
                              (a Tale of Sfstory!)
                                   Episode 15
                                     "Umber"
                                       by
                                  Gary W. Olson

                                      -~-_-

<<Zeta Ricola Beta>>

      Had it not been for all the people trying to kill him, Bagelos 
reflected, he would have enjoyed his time on the planet Zeta Ricola 
Beta.  The forest he had been hiding in for the bulk of the past 
three days was rugged but pleasant, with few biting or stinging bugs 
and even fewer large animals with sharp teeth.  The air was warm in 
the daytime and only slightly cooler in the evening, and was neither 
too dry nor too humid.  And large sections of it were being destroyed 
on a semi-regular basis, which pleased the evil Space Villain in him. 
It would make a fine vacation spot, he decided, once he was Ruler of 
the Universe.
      A blast from a military-grade nuker slammed into the tree trunk 
next to him.  Bagelos immediately took to his heels, sprinting 
through the underbrush with an urgency that had become all too common 
to his movements.  It told in how quickly he felt himself tire, in 
how he gasped for air with every step.
      For monks, Bagelos thought, they seemed very keen on using 
high-tech weapons to turn him into a high-tech blood smear.  But 
then, they had a powerful space armada, a force field that prevented 
all unauthorized entry into their solar system, and Space knew what 
else.  What had he expected, enigmatic sayings and lots of zoom-zoom 
martial arts action?
      A shot exploded near his foot, and he picked up the pace of his 
frantic flight.  Even as he did, the somewhat rusty entrepreneurial 
wheels of his mind started to turn.
      *They're monks,* he thought.  *Like Space Heroes can't resist 
alluring Space Ingenues and cats can't resist paper bags, monks can't 
resist learning zoom-zoom martial arts and the enigmatic sayings that 
go along with them.  If I, Bagelos, open an Evil Dojo of Martial Arts 
Villainy here, I, Bagelos, should be able to make enough money to 
fund my plan to take over the Universe!  Yes!  That will work!  I, 
Bagelos, shall--*
      "Whump!" said the mighty oak in front of him as Bagelos ran into it.
      "Ow," Bagelos commented as he fell backward onto the dirt.
      Bagelos looked up through a haze of blinking lights, swirling 
stars, and tweeting birds to see three heavily armored Soldier Monks 
(whose slogan, Ohm All That You Can Ohm, Bagelos frequently heard 
whenever he snuck into a dwelling in the nearby town to steal food, 
drink, and Internet access).  He tried to fire a laser at one of them 
from the big red ruby that covered his left eye, but only heard a 
weak fizzle.  Out of power, curse his luck.
      And soon, perhaps, out of life.  The Monks did not look like 
they were about to say anything enigmatic, or anything at all.  All 
three simply raised their nukers, pointed them at various parts of 
his trembling body, and squeezed triggers.
      At the exact same time, a stunning (in the same loose sense that 
being smacked in the back of the head with a lead pipe can be 
considered so) harmonica rendition of "She Bangs" ripped through the 
scene.  The atrociously atonal sound wreaked havoc with the delicate 
internal circuitry of the nukers, causing them to backfire with loud, 
messy, but (from Bagelos's lie-down-point) very positive results.
      "Friend Bagelos!" a high-pitched voice exclaimed.  "There you are!"
      "Quooth!" Bagelos replied.  "You found me again!"
      "It was not easy, friend Bagelos," the insectiod Wzaxtil said as 
phe made phis way through several clumps of underbrush.  "You did not 
show at the rendezvous point last night.  Some nice monks showed up, 
though, and offered to show me how their weapons worked if I did not 
tell them where you were!"
      Bagelos struggled into a roughly standing (if wobbly) position. 
"And did you?"
      "Did I what?"
      "Tell them where I, Bagelos, was."
      "I did not know where you were," Quooth replied, as phe 
scratched phis ear (located in the center of phis chest) with a 
feeler.  "So I used my Holy Harmonica to play the Song of Finding 
Friends, which wzaxtils have used since time immemorial to find lost 
friends.  I did not detect you then, sadly, but when I finished, I 
looked up and discovered the monks were gone!"
      "Was this... Song... the same one you just played a moment ago?"
      "Why, yes, friend Bagelos!"
      Bagelos looked around at the smoking spots on the ground where 
the Soldier Monks had once been standing.  He nodded once with 
satisfaction.
      "Well, then," Bagelos said.  "I, Bagelos, thank you for so 
diligently finding me.  But now I, Bagelos, think we should split up 
again--"
      "But I have found the Sacred Temple of the Ancestors," said 
Quooth.  "Is that not what you seek?"
      It was, a fact that caused Bagelos to become vexed.  He had 
hoped to find it first, thus making it much easier to ditch Quooth on 
his way to gaining great amounts of money and power to be put to 
Space Villainish use.  Bagelos sighed, and decided he would simply 
have to wait for another opportunity--
      "KILL!!!!!!!"
      The voice (which really did deserve all those exclamation 
points, so strongly did its owner feel about the sentiment voiced) 
rolled through the forest.  Bagelos spun, and nearly fell again.  The 
voice had come from one of the most damaged sections of the woods.
      Scant seconds later, its owner barged into view.  He was fairly 
largish in both height and width, and most of that bulk seemed 
composed of muscle (including the part between his ears).  He wore a 
somewhat ragged looking Time Police Academy Commandant's uniform, 
which did nothing to contain the umber glow that radiated within. 
His eyes, in particular, had a savage glow that made Bagelos deeply 
uneasy.
      "Why, hello, friend Zark!" Quooth exclaimed.  "What a surprising 
and fortuitous coincidence to find you here!"
      The name Zark reminded Bagelos of one of the insanely violent 
maniacs who he met on the space station Freedonia 5 a few years ago, 
during the conclusion of the Shadoe War.  A maniac named Zark Flyby. 
A heavily armed maniac named--
      "Quooth!" Bagelos commanded.  "Play your Song of Finding 
Friends!  Quickly!"
      "But, friend Bagelos," said Quooth, "I already know where you are!"
      Twin beams of horrific cosmic energy shot out of Zark's eyes and 
obliterated a swath of forest just inches to Bagelos's left.  Bagelos 
had no idea if Zark meant to miss, or was just really easily 
distractable, say, by a falling leaf or somesuch, but did not want to 
stick around to give Zark another shot.
      Zark was using the power of the Proofs, and that was, in 
Bagelos's book, really bad news.
      "Right," said Bagelos, "I, Bagelos, have an idea.  You, Quooth, 
lead me to the Sacred Temple of the Ancestors as quickly as possible 
-- if at all possible faster than Zark here."
      "But we have only just re-encountered friend Zark again," Quooth 
protested.  "Surely we should exchange pleasantries--"
      Zark fired again, this time annihilating a tree stump just in 
front of Bagelos.
      "That is about as pleasant as it's going to get, Quooth!" 
Bagelos declared.  "I, Bagelos, command you to... 
ruuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnn!!"
      Quooth ran.  Bagelos ran.  Zark destroyed more of the forest, 
then ran after them.
      Above, the sky began to deepen into night.

                                     -~-_-

<<In orbit around Alpha Rio VI, The Planet of Casinos>>

      "Now entering orbit around Alpha Rio VI, the Planet of Casinos," 
the voice of Shoon-Ma echoed over the alien ship's PA system.  "Dr. 
Von Spleen, report to the bridge at once!"
      Dr. Bing Von Spleen looked up from his workspace, not at the PA 
box above the door but at the two red-velour-shirted zombies to 
either side of it.  They blinked, slowly, turned their heads to look 
at him, slowly, nodded, slowly, then walked toward him.  Slowly.
      He picked up the pinkish pill and contemplated it.  So small, so 
innocent, so much like the many other pills he had seen (and 
ingested) in his years as Patron Saint of Drug Abuse.  And so, so 
much more powerful.  The single pink pill was the pinnacle of his 
spamological reasearch, the ultimate product of his formidable 
knowledge of the properties and uses of that fearsome substance known 
as Spam.  It was the product of the revelation he had been given by 
TH1K1 three days before, and the fulfillment of what Shoon-Ma wanted 
him to accomplish.
      *If only Shoon-Ma knew,* he thought, *that it won't be his 
Champion who gets this little pill...*
      The zombies finally reached him, and made erratic but 
nevertheless comprehensible 'go that way' gestures with their laser 
weapons.  Dr. Von Spleen put the tiny pink pill in an otherwise empty 
Altoids box, tucked the box in a pocket of his lab coat, and let the 
zombies escort him to the door.
      Ten minutes later, he was on the bridge of the ship.  The 
breakfast buffet was gone, and the bridge was restored to its former 
exceedingly black and menacing state.  Shoon-Ma hovered before the 
viewscreen, which showed a large picture of the Planet of Casinos.
      "Impressive, Doctor," the ur-Bagel said in its George Clooneyish 
voice.  "Is it not?"
      Von Spleen regarded the Planet of Casinos.  The atmosphere was 
severely distorted by epic quantities of neon light boiling up from 
every land mass and most of the ocean surface.  The numerous gigantic 
floating gambling palaces that floated over the other numerous 
gigantic land-bound gambling palaces gave the planetary surface, as 
seen from orbit, a distinctly slithery and shifty quality.  There 
were so many advertising satellites, attack satellites, and other 
space flotsam circling around that Von Spleen had the impression that 
the planet was some form of elderly entertainer who, in a feat of 
stunning denial, put on enough jewels to make any onlookers freeze 
like banana-bloated monkeys in the glare of the reflected light.
      "Eh," said Von Spleen.  "It's okay."
      (Von Spleen's lack of enthusiasm was not feigned, as this was 
not the first time he had seen the surface of the planet -- only the 
first time while sober.  Prior to this, anytime he had seen the 
surface of the Planet of Casinos, he had been completely out of his 
mind on assorted illicit substances, to the point where he thought 
the planet *was* a banana-bloated monkey.)
      "Sajon is on the surface," said Shoon-Ma, "secure in the false 
belief that he has escaped from me... and from his destiny.  We shall 
show him the truth, shall we not, Doctor?"
      "Hmmm?" asked Von Spleen, who was looking for wherever the food 
had gotten to.  "Oh,  yes.  We're all over that.  Yes."
      "And how shall you give Sajon the cosmic powers he requires to 
take back the Proofs?"  A not-so-innocent question.  Von Spleen knew 
very well that Shoon-Ma knew what Von Spleen had produced, ever since 
increasing monitoring and security following the unfortunate incident 
three days before when his test subject, Benjen, escaped from 
custody.  Had the ur-Bagel been an instructor in some villainous 
equivalent of Interstellar University, Von Spleen thought, he would 
have been a shoo-in to teach Precocious Yet Evil Coyness in Modern 
Space Villainy 401.
      Von Spleen removed the Altoids box from his pocket, opened it, 
and showed Shoon-Ma the little pink pill.  "Within this pill is the 
sum total of my genius in Spamological research and manipulation! 
The one who ingests this pill will have power beyond imagining, and 
yet will be totally subservient to your will, as per your specs."
      "The one being Sajon, of course," Shoon-Ma replied.  It hovered 
closer to him, exuding a sort of vague, bagelly menace.  Von Spleen 
wondered if it was all the carbs in Shoon-Ma that made him so good at 
that.  "You wouldn't be entertaining any ideas about ingesting that 
little cosmic pill yourself, would you, Doctor?"
      Von Spleen, who had been entertaining exactly such an idea, 
shook his head and said, "Of course not.  Thanks to some random 
ABPSARI interference, I can't ingest, inject, insert, or otherwise 
experience mind-altering things of any kind.  And there's nothing 
more mind-altering than this."  He closed the Altoids box and tucked 
it back in his pocket.  "Furthermore, per your specs, Sajon's 
biological profile was coded into the release mechanism.  Only he can 
unlock the cosmic potential inside this pill."  An unfortunate truth, 
one forced on Von Spleen by Shoon-Ma's constant watchfulness, though 
Von Spleen had a plan for getting around that at the appropriate 
point.
      "Then... hand over the Altoids box, Doctor," said Shoon-Ma. 
"And I shall... release you, as I promised."
      Von Spleen rolled his eyes.  "I'm not some wet-behind-the-ears 
gullible Space Hero, Shoon-Ma.  Sajon's transformation won't be 
complete without a final modulation signal from me, using only a code 
I know and can reproduce.  A code I will send only after I am well 
outside any good possibility of being recaptured by you."
      Shoon-Ma thundered and cursed at him for a number of minutes. 
Von Spleen did not catch much of what was said until the end, when 
Shoon-Ma calmed down a bit and said, "Are you sure you're in a 
position to make demands, Doctor?"
      Von Spleen adjusted his posture.  He lifted one foot and placed 
it on a chair in classic 'knee-up' style.  He puffed out his scrawny 
chest, made his hands into fists and jammed them against his waist, 
lifted his chin and cocked an eyebrow.
      "How's this?" he asked.
      "Damn," said Shoon-Ma.  "Your Demand-Giving position is too 
good.  Very well, you shall live... provided you do not renege on 
your word.  If you do, the universe shall not be big enough to hide 
you from my wrath."
      "Yeah, yeah," said Von Spleen.  "I--"
      He stopped talking as a shudder ran through the floor and up his 
feet, nearly knocking him onto his ass.  It was followed by several 
other shudders, causing the Doctor to abandon his Demand Giving 
position and adopt a more appropriate Holy Needlewarp What Was That 
position.
      Shoon-Ma examined the sensors.  "Hmm," he finally said.  "That 
shouldn't be."
      "What shouldn't be?"
      "According to the computer," said Shoon-Ma, "this entire ship 
will self-destruct in ten minutes.  Which is weird, because I thought 
the ship didn't even *have* a self-destruct."
      "We can get back to my ship," said Von Spleen.  "If it's still 
in the hold."
      "I had it disassembled to prevent you from escaping," said 
Shoon-Ma.  "Furthermore, there are no escape pods left.  We are... 
trapped!"
      Von Spleen thought furiously.  The solution did not take long to appear.
      "Can you open a communication line to the planet?" he asked.
      "Yes," said Shoon-Ma.  "But why?  Do you know someone down there?"
      "Well... let's say someone knows me."
      Shoon-Ma bobbed in the air.  Von Spleen assumed that was a nod.
      The clock continued to tick toward zero.

                                      -~-_-

<<The Nega-Cell, in Nega-Space>>

      "It's no good, Ronald," Norman said, as he removed the 
electrodes from places on Ronald where he and Ronald formerly thought 
electrodes would never be applied.  "It would be a great party trick, 
if we ever got invited to those sorts of parties, but your 
nipple-twitching abilities aren't strong enough to power our escape 
through this Nega Transporter door."
      He and Norman shook their heads, paused, thought, then looked at 
Kitty Hitowers.  Kissy paused in her screaming long enough to give 
them a glance so withering that death by phaser blast actually seemed 
sort of preferable.  Norman quickly tossed away the electrodes and 
looked at the door that was all that seperated himself, Kissy and 
Ronald from the group of people who were all too prepared to 
administer said death.
      "Come out!" the voice of the High Spock called from beyond the 
locked door.  "There's nowhere for you to go!  We control the only 
way in or out of the Nega-Cell, and you don't!  So... um... so..." 
There was a pause, in which Norman could imagine some hurried 
consulting with other members of the High Spock's gang, Team E. 
"So... so put that in your tricorder and smoke it!"
      Ronald looked around, desperation making his eyes dart about 
like sugar-crazed weasels.  Norman could understand why.  The High 
Spock obviously did not know there was a Nega-Transporter, another 
doorway out of the Nega-Cell, in the room they were in and which Toni 
Willians formerly had been.  But, without a means to power up the 
Nega-Transporter, that did them, in the technical parlance, a 'fat 
lot of good.'
      "We've only got one chance," said Ronald, his usually sharp, 
nerdy voice taking on a nearly Patrick Stewart-like resonance. 
Norman made a silent note to check out the 'Sound Like Picard in only 
Twelve Weeks' audio programs that Ronald had been listening to before 
their current assignment.  "If we generate a spatial anomaly using 
the Nega-Transporter, the reversed polarity circuits of our 
non-functional personal nukers, and the text of the speech where Kirk 
tricked Nomad into blowing up, we should be able to travel back in 
time to last week, where we can convince Toni Williams not to keep us 
locked out of this room for three days while she goes away to do 
whatever it was she was doing while she was pretending to be a 
captive here.  Quickly!  Disassemble your nuker!  Take out chip 
BX-247--"
      "Ron?" asked Kissy.
      "Not now," Norman said, as he extracted the requested chip and 
handed it to Ronald.  "Just keep screaming like you were before.  The 
volume should cover up what we're trying to do."
      "There's something--"
      "I forgot!" Ronald exclaimed.  "My PDA, with all the scripts for 
all the episodes of every series, is in the High Spock's possession! 
We'll have to enter the speech manually!"
      "But how?" asked Norman.  "There's no speech module, or keyboard, or--"
      Suddenly and without warning, the Nega-Transporter glowed a 
brilliant yellow, and emitted an industrial-type 'I'm on, and I want 
the world to know' sort of noise.  Ronald and Norman looked at Kissy, 
who was lifting her finger from the transporter's side.
      "It was just in power-save mode," Kissy said.  "It didn't make 
sense to me that it wouldn't have power.  I mean, how would Toni get 
back, if it was powerless?"
      Norman stared at Kissy.  Ronald stared at Kissy.  Kissy cleared 
her throat.  Norman and Ronald shifted their eyes so they were 
staring at Kissy's face.  Kissy cocked her head in a 'what?' sort of 
pose.
      "Thanks," Ronald finally said.  "That was... um... quick thinking."
      "You would have thought of it," Kissy replied.  "In fact, it's 
not like anyone has to know that I thought of it..."
      "Really?" Ronald asked.  "Thanks a lot.  I was kind of hoping 
you'd say that..."
      "...for an additional thousand, on top of what you've already 
agreed to pay in commission."
      Norman gaped.  Ronald gaped.  Kissy cocked her head in a 'what 
you gonna do about it?' sort of pose.
      Then the door exploded into the room, sending big pieces of 
metal everywhere.
      "A thousand it is," said Norman, as thick smoke obscured his 
view of Ronald, Kissy, and just about everything else.  The glowing 
frame of the Nega-Transporter was barely visible.  "But how do we 
keep them from following us?"
      "Hey, Vernon!" Ronald yelled.  "How'd your last math test go!"
      Norman's eyes widened.  Nobody... *nobody*... called the High 
Spock by his real name unless he was looking for twelve different 
kinds of trouble.  And nobody... *really nobody*... brought up his 
math test scores (which were not all that great, and terribly at odds 
with pretending to be logical all the time) without upping the 
different kinds of trouble count to roughly a zillion.  Norman hoped 
Ronald knew what he was doing.
      Suddenly, the smoke was lit by numerous bolts of phaser fire. 
None of them hit, because nobody in the room could see much of what 
they were doing, but there was only a little time.
      "Into the Nega-Transporter!" Norman exclaimed.  He ran for the 
glowing rectangle of light.
      The rectangle pulsed once... then twice.  Norman hoped that 
meant Ronald and Kissy made it through.  He was close.  He leapt--
      Something exploded in front of him.  Sparks struck his face just 
before the carpet did.
      Norman's brain, at that point, decided that the best tactical 
response to the situation was to pass out.  So it did, despite 
Norman's protests.

DID RONALD, NORMAN, AND KISSY ESCAPE TEAM E?
WILL VON SPLEEN AND SHOON-MA ESCAPE THEIR SOON-TO-EXPLODE SHIP?
WILL BAGELOS AND QUOOTH ESCAPE ZARK?
CAN ZARK'S BRAIN CELL HANDLE A MULTISYLLABIC WORD LIKE 'ESCAPE'?
WILL ANY OF US ESCAPE A SEQUEL TO THE 'NICK AND JESSICA VARIETY 
HOUR', OR WHATEVER THAT WAS CALLED?

SFSTORY.  The few, the proud, the posting.
--
The Sfstory FTP Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~swede3000/index.html
--
Gary W. Olson
swede3000 at earthlink.net