Captain Disaster Three - Wormhole
Sep 10 '03 (Updated Feb 21 '06)
The Bottom Line Episode 3 in the all-singing, all-powerful series that's loved by literally ones of people...
Captain Disaster.
Episode Three.
WORMHOLE.
"Did you know that freak wormholes in the galaxy are always popping up and threatening the space-time continuum?", asked Captain Disaster, who was reading an old science mag called 'Far Fetched: The Best Imitation'. As he was the only person in the room, it would appear to the casual observer (and you get surprisingly many in orbit around Neptune these days) that he was talking to himself. But, in fact, and as we all know anyway, he was talking to Zero-bit, the ships computer with an attitude problem worse than that of a wart-hog who hogs his warts.
"Of course I know that, dimbo, I've got an IQ of over 6,000!", replied Zero-bit.
"In that case, how come you're so thick?"
"I don't know."
Wormholes are, in fact, extremely rare, as there aren't that many Space-worms. Space-worms are unusual creature in that they are made from pure nucleonic power, and are about fifteen light-years long. Apart from those things, however, they differ vastly from the wrath of an average housewife. Their sole purpose seems to be that of wrecking the universe, which is pretty stupid as that would result in their destruction as well, but then they're pretty stupid creatures. Wormholes are, contrary to some extremely far-fetched ideas (such as that they're caused by butterflies), caused by space-worms boring holes from one dimension into another. Wormcasts in space are quite another matter, but we won't go into that right now....
"Oh look, that's a pretty wormhole!", piped up Zero-bit.
"Get real! That's not a wormhole, that's a..... a..... that's a wormhole. Oh. What's a wormhole doing here, just outside junction eleven then?"
"Beats me. It seems to be quite a new one, too."
"How can you tell if it's new or not?"
"Er, well you wouldn't be able to because I filter it out before it gets to the cabin, but boy do they smell!"
"Aha. So, is that good?"
"Well, good and bad for the same reason. We might see a space-worm."
"Why would that be good?"
"Because we'd be the first ones to ever get pictures of one, and we could sell them and get mega-rich! Even richer than your relatives were in the height of their richness. And famous, we'd be famous beyond our wildest dreams!"
"My wildest dreams are rarely about being famous, but we won't go into that right now, ZB. What's the bad news?"
"We'd get fried if we got within 100 million miles of the thing."
"Aha. So, is that bad?"
"Weren't you listening to me?"
"No, I was just reading the autocue. Damned thing must have gone up the creek again."
Zero-bit suddenly noticed something. "Hey, do you see that?"
"See what?", asked Captain Disaster, but then he noticed it too. Below the ship, on the surface of Neptune, there were burn marks all along the North side of the East end of the South face of the Western hemisphere. It didn't look good. "And look!", yelled Captain Disaster hysterically, "there's the Space-worm!"
The Space-worm, in all its natural splendour, looked exactly like a row of suns joined together, except that it wasn't round, it wasn't the colour of most suns, and it had a big notice on it saying "I do NOT look like a row of suns joined together, and if anyone says otherwise then outside, now!", not to mention that you couldn't look at it anyway because you'd be blinded straight away.
Captain Disaster gazed at the Space-worm for hours, quite unaware that it was supposed to blind him, and not wanting to conform to normal rules anyway.
Zero-bit decided that it was time to try to communicate.
Fortunately, and as with all good sci-fi (on TV at least), somehow the creature could speak flawless English.
"Excuse me you big thing that looks like a row of suns joined together, doesn't it kind of bother you that you're threatening the space-time continuum? I mean, what kind of a social life does someone like you have anyway?", asked Zero-bit with some bravado, not to mention a great deal of natural stupidity.
"Firstly, I do not look like a row of suns joined together. Secondly, I have a very happy and fulfilled life, with many social functions included in my busy schedule. Thirdly, I just happen to like jumping through different dimensions. So there."
"But that's not the point. Don't you realise that if you keep doing this sort of thing, there will be no more universe for you to lead your fulfilled life in, or have social functions or a busy schedule or anything?" Captain Disaster had, for once, said something quite sensible. Once he'd realised that, it took him a
full week to recover.
"Oh, OK then. I'd never really thought of it that way before. Thanks for telling me, and I'll let my mum know, too."
With that, the Space-worm went off into another dimension, which seemed to suggest he'd missed the point somewhat. And, for the first time, a human being saw what a wormcast in space looked like. And he retched continuously for eighteen hours, after which he vomited for twelve hours, spewed up for fourteen and a half hours and finally was sick in a bucket containing seaweed and lemons, for some strange reason. To make matters worse, despite all of Zero-bit's efforts, the air-conditioning just couldn't cope with trying to keep that smell out....
Captain Disaster and Zero-bit did receive an invitation to Megamorphic city for their troubles. They didn't, as they'd hoped, receive any money, but they were turned into dung beetles for a day, free of charge. When asked about their experiences as dung beetles, they said that it had been a day full of "interesting and varied challenges." Quite how they turned a computer into a dung beetle and back again is something we won't go into here, but Bill Gates, eat your heart out.
Meanwhile, there was a distress call being sent out from a ship somewhere close to Delta Pavonis. In our next exciting episode, Captain Disaster and Zero-bit team up with a team of interplanetary mercenaries, and go somewhere else. The distress call remains unanswered, and the crew of the ship die horribly and needlessly of radiation poisoning, but hey, that's life!
Copyright 2003 Dave Seaman
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Read my review of
Red Dwarf Series 1-4
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This story can be downloaded for free as an audiobook in MP3 format from: http://www.darscom.net/free_mp3_audiobooks.html
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