Spaced Out Too - part 2 of 3

Chapter Twenty Five

The Davarian Buster Cluster Triple System – Tri-Star A, ten years later…

All good things must surely come to an end. So thought Bruce as he set about undergoing all the processes needed to off load his bunch of freeloaders at the looming busy spaceport that now filled most of the cruiser’s front viewer screen. Firstly there was the docking clearance to be obtained from the local traffic officials, then the actual connection process itself (which he did with his eyes closed, just for the hell of it), the thawing out of the bio-component of his crew which he had left to this late stage so that they wouldn’t get in his way, and the arranging of their port passes which involved bribing above said authorities to look the other way since he was arriving in a craft that didn’t actually belong to anyone on board. All duties laborious, dull, and completed surprisingly quickly.

[Story note: While the officers who oversaw operations of the space port could not in all honesty be said to be extreme law abiding citizens, they did give scant deference to it in order to extort sizable bribes from those who were even less legal loving in the scheme of things. It’s just how things worked out in the semi-lawless outer spiral arm bad lands. The price for getting them to look the other way was quite steep though, and sometimes cost an arm and a leg. Literally! In our small group’s case, however, the matter was settled by the confiscation of the vessel that they were suddenly unable to find ownership papers for. Indeed, not a pink slip in sight, so as to speak!]

The trio of cryogees came out of their land of cold induced nod more or less in equal fair condition, though as it was Lisa’s first time she seemed a little less with it than the other two. Yet after a couple of pick-me-up pep pills they were soon back to their old normal selves. At least as normal as they had been prior to the journey in any case. Bob and Zed were really champing at the bit to get to the space anchor bar while Lisa was happy just to take in the otherworld like scenery of a totally different set of astronomical delights, and the exotic life forms to be encountered there. Bruce trudged along behind them, as he had no idea of what to do next and hoped something would pop up to assist him in this dilemma.

[Story note: Around the brightly shining Tri-Star A floated an assortment of varying worlds. Some were small rocky numbers, others much larger gas filled globes, and a handful were a combination of both types with delightfully chewy centers. Of these, two unremarkable planets orbited in the right zone conducive to supporting life, and were called Grondo and Nurkoid. By an incredible coincidence during planet formation at the birth of this particular star system each sphere happened to be almost identical in terms of size, mass, orbital distance from their parent star, and geo-atmospheric make-up, resulting in a near mirror image of each other. Therefore Nature took the easy and logical way out, as it is wont to do, by using the same biological template on both environments, thereby rendering each orb’s ecology almost exactly the same. There has been quite a bit of sibling rivalry between these double worlds over the eons since sentient life has evolved near simultaneously on each one, ranging from slight unpleasantness up to outright mind boggling rudeness. In the end the Grondoers, in a pique of extreme petty mindedness, claimed to be the older, and thus wiser, civilization since they could trace the beginning of their origins right back to a good six minutes earlier than those on Nurkoid. Truly a case of survival of the fastest! With such a relaxed attitude that comes from the smug knowledge of being the elder, or first born, they settled back and partied like never before, only taking time out to occasionally poke fun at their nearby neighbours in the form of ‘Nurkoid’ jokes. Fortunately these days this behavior doesn’t degenerate any further than a jolly good bout of name calling for old time’s sake, since at this late stage of bilateral social development both groups are, by and large, fairly peaceful and reasonably polite in their emotioganic profile. The precursor to this late amiable condition was the eventual realization that they had quite a nice little earner going on with regards to interstellar trade, as it was their dual good luck to be situated on the main western arm trunk route and thus a vital stopping off point between the Thrombian system and the Orion nebula. So they put their pointless bickering aside and skimmed some of the cream off the lucrative passing traffic in the form of docking taxes, supply of provisions, and niceness tariffs for those who were even the slightest bit less agreeable than their own good selves.]


Once all formalities and transactions were satisfactorily completed the planet was opened up to all and sundry who wished to visit its surface, and any of the much more interesting subterranean grottos that lurked beneath it.  Bob, Zed, Lisa, along with a recalcitrant Bruce, set off in an entirely different direction towards a little known and much seedier side of the complex to the well disguised entrance of the humorously dubbed ‘Rex’s Roid Rage’.

[Story note: ‘Rex’s Roid Rage’ is a franchise of less than reputable space bars operating in the outer worlds, and therefore far removed from the crippling bureaucratic and financial control of the Central Hub Council. Their founder, Rex Ramroid, initially started his first one in a deserted mining asteroid floating about in the Poryblon system, and its notoriety and popularity rapidly increased until he was forced, by analytical hyper market forces, to expand into what has since become a chain of identically tacky venues dotted across the entire western spiral arm and its sub-branch, each one more or less equally dingy in internal appearance. Tired of tearing around this little back water of the galaxy, with the added danger and uncertainty that goes hand in hand with such endeavours, Rex has lately decided to settle down on a nice stable space port, his current abode being this very one at Grondo, and now only occasionally ventures out to visit his other ‘digs’ on mad away trips with a select group of equally dodgy hanger-oners.]

The Rage’s were secretive boozeatoriums purely because their owner preferred them that way. Knowledge of each location was passed around by word of mouth, assuring that only the ‘right’ types knew of their existence, and admission was begrudgingly granted after a timely visual going over by the door guard, a specially bred species whose optical faculties covered every part of the light slice of the electromagnetic spectrum from ultra violet right through to infra red. They could spot a trouble maker at the drop of a hat, and a very small one at that. Maybe even just a cap.

Bob sauntered up to the entry point of this particular dive, an innocuous looking access hatch officially marked ‘Danger. Emergency evacuation airlock. Exit only’, with an added crudely written sign tacked over the top helpfully pointing out that it was currently ‘Out of order. Due for repair soon. Use at own risk. This means you, so don’t say we didn’t warn you ‘cause we did!’, and gave a confident jaunty little rap on its metallic skin. A small slot eventually slid open once it was apparent that the source of this noisy and repetitive annoyance wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, and a low growl rumbled through it at them. “Waddayawan?” “Just admission to your excellent establishment for myself and my three colleagues here, my good man “, Bob chirped gaily, then quickly added “We’ve come to josh with the Rex-meister!” The eye on the other side of the obstacle blinked rapidly and changed colour several times in due process. Then it did it all again, backwards this time, and narrowed slightly, hovering in one particular frequency for a moment, as if it wasn’t quite sure if it liked what it was looking at and through. Bob, for his part, flashed his pearly whites and kept his upper lip rigidly stiff. Even his lower one smartened itself up a bit, and presently another growl, a fraction tamer than the first, bid them to enter. “Orrite”, it confirmed, and the door opened just wide enough to allow them passage in single file. “Thank you, mega man”, Bob oozed faked gratitude. The gate guardian grunted, or sniffed. Bob wasn’t sure which one it was but pressed on regardless. “Yeah, man, like, thanks.” Zed was more genuine with his sentiment. The being repeated the sound. Yes, no doubt about it this time, it was definitely a sniff. Lisa paraded past with a slight wave of her hand and a half apologetic smile, unsure of what to say as she was still coming to terms with the until recently absurd notion, to her at least, that her species wasn’t the only sentient life form in the universe after all. ‘Species shock’, she would later put it down to. Another crude noise issued forth. As Bruce trundled through he let out a bored metallic beep and the bestial bouncer not only gave him the mother of all sniffs but actually licked his head as well. The security chief didn’t trust androids, believing that for some reason they didn’t seem quite kosher, and wanted to get the full range of senses going on this one before letting him in. By now the cybot was well used to such indignity when it came to mistreatment by organos, and suffered this latest humiliation in silence. The portal protector merely grunted this time and turned back to resume staring at the slowly closing hatch as the mini caravan proceeded on its thirsty way into the dimly lit inner recesses of the joint.


Chapter Twenty Six

Approaching the bar, which was only slightly better lit than the rest of the surrounding room, they came to a screeching halt at the sight of the massive form leaning both on and behind it simultaneously. He seemed to be of the same species as the one blockading the front entrance, only three sizes larger and ten shades meaner. “Yeah?” he demanded of the group in an ominously threatening tone. Bob was the first to break out of the thin trance-like state that had enveloped all but Bruce upon the appearance of this colossus. “Hello there, sir. May I be so bold as to enquire if the owner and self-styled legend Rex Ramroid is about?” he pattered, trying to disguise his fear with forced light banter. “Yeah”, repeated the gigantean, then returned to stolid silence. Bob swallowed hard and forged ahead with his opti-speak. “Is Rex about, then?” “Yeah”, the growing nemesis of Bob’s upbeat dialogue continued, warming to his uni-syllabic mantra. :Well then, can we see him?” The stagger juice supplier frowned slightly, a little annoyed with being forced to break his run of affirmatives with a less buoyant negative. “Nah.” Bob decided to push his luck and go for broke, even after the bartender had lifted the bulk of his huge frontal expanse and plonked it onto the counter’s surface in a show of self-indulgent authority, allowing the organic punctuation mark to ripple forth until Bob found that he was being pushed back by the mini avalanche of over-caloried tissue. “Why not?” This latest question clearly urked the bio mountain no end, for it required him to think hard in order to solve this new poser, and in the process making him use more words than he normally would care to utter. After a strained moment a scowl broke through the tension and Bob’s answer splurted forth, albeit in a stilted sort of way. “’E’s not ‘ere.” Okay, it was actually only three tiny words, but, for someone who worked in near silence more often than not, it was at least one more than he usually cared to issue and therefore constituted a valid enough reason for allowing a bead of sweat to break out on his massive brow from the strain of it all. However, due to the immense scale of size involved it was hardly noticeable, and evaporated almost as soon as it had begun to run down the boney ski jump of his nose. “But you said he was about!” Bob protested, raising his voice in exasperation, and succeeded only in gaining the attention of several sets of glowing eyes dotted around the darkened cavern, all of them appearing none too friendly like. The barkeep stiffened, and fired his retort. “’Bout due. Back soon. P’aps.” A new linguistic record had just been set, for although each breath carried no more than the standard pedestrian two word mono-vocablic clinches the big guy felt justifiably proud of using them all in one reasonably long sentence. Well, lengthy enough for him anyway, and he closed his eyes momentarily for a mental battery recharge. Bob turned to the others and shrugged a ‘What now?’ Stirring at last, and having decided that he had expended more energy on these pleasantries than was worth the trouble, the beast rolled himself off the bar and resumed glaring sullenly at the quartet. Bob realized that no good could come from any further interrogation, and so switched to a different line of inquiry. “In that case, may we have three alpha shots please?” The drink dispenser, delighted at being back on familiar territory where brain pain was kept to an absolute minimum, almost broke into what might loosely be considered the closest thing he could get to a relieved smile, then checked himself and snarled “’kay.” The tension now apparently broken, the staring eyes all turned back to their business and seemed to wink out one after another.

Three super slurps later and the effects were contrastingly etched upon the faces of their consumers. Bob’s lips had curled into an exaggerated and frighteningly satisfied grimace while Zed’s expression was slightly more relaxed than usual, if that was at all possible. Lisa’s eyes crossed, and she was having the Dickens of a time trying to convince them to return to their original posture. Only Bruce, who habitually abstained from what he regarded as such base behavior except for the odd can of oil mixed with a dollop of degreaser that he snuck from the ship’s stores once in a while when he thought that no one was watching, stayed in his normal mode, sullen and bored. A good match for the bar bio’s current outlook if ever there was one. After a couple of moments Bob regained his senses and ordered another round, then slyly took in the layout of the ‘rage’, looking for possible escape routes when the time came for settling the tab. They took their new batch of mind altering rot gut to an empty table set deep in the back of the room and reposed themselves around it for a spot of relaxation and meaningless banter. As Bob sat there pondering his next move a wrinkle of concern creased his normally placid brow as it soon became apparent that due to a devious design flaw there was absolutely no way of ducking out of the joint unobserved. The bastards! To boot, he had very few Galactic Credits in his possession (cash being the only acceptable method of payment at the ‘Rage’, for sneaky tax avoidance reasons) and felt no desire to part with them unnecessarily. To complicate matters even further, if that was at all possible which indeed unfortunately it turned out to be, not a pool table or wocket wacker existed in the entire area, the favoured method of duplicating his meager cash flow. This was a place of serious drinking, and no frivolous distractions were allowed to get in the way. The entire lounge area seemed to be given over to a sea of benches and trestles utilized in varying degrees by equally diverse life forms, all gathered around a rather large stage set slap bang in the centre. Bob’s now photonically adjusted eyes noticed that the mini drink platforms were arranged as if to lurk at the edges of the podium waiting to devour any unwary or clumsy performer, and the assortment of garments scattered on the floor did nothing to dispel this impression. A servo-roid did the rounds, slowly retrieving these discarded items of apparel. On closer inspection, however, the previously noted empty space wasn’t quite as desolate as first thought. Several metallic poles sprouted from its surface and disappeared through the low ceiling while around them banks of lights were hung and aimed squarely at the base of each of these tensile erections, though as they weren’t currently in use it was anyone’s guess as to which colour and frequency of the electro-magnetic spectrum each cam might belong. They just stared quietly down and remained obstinately blank. When Bob’s wandering thoughts finally returned home, washed up, and kicked back they slowly came to the realization that the intrepid band of newcomers were truly in a pickle, one which had been taken out of its jar, placed in a bind, squeezed into a tight spot, stuffed firmly behind the eight ball, and sent packing up the proverbial creek with the customary missing paddle. In short, things looked fairly grim on the drinks card front. Deep in Divonion do-do, one might say. Should they cut their losses, pay the tab, and head down to the planet unfulfilled in the forlorn hope of scamming enough credits for a new supply of throat oil, or stick it out and hope for the best when prospects for the said ‘best’ weren’t boding all that well at that particular moment? Bob made up his mind in a flash. “Another round, anyone?”


Chapter Twenty Seven

As has been mentioned before, the number Three is pretty special to some beings scattered throughout the galaxy, and so as it is the author’s wish not to offend anyone in this matter, even remotely by accident, it has been decided to omit chapters that are a product of this ethereal digit. It is in this vein that this chapter (being 3x3x3) has especially been given a wide berth as being triply potent. Please enjoy the continuation of our tale in the next segment.


Chapter Twenty Eight 

BONG…ONG…NG…G!

The shattering base laden sound of a huge gong being energetically struck shook the room, rattling the bottles above the bar and breaking the humdrum background noise of clinking glasses and happy chatter. The boss was back!

At the summons of this percussive alert the big bar guy instinctively ignored Bob, who had just arrived back at the slosh counter to order phase three of his drinking plan, and spun his considerable bulk around surprisingly quickly to hit a button on the rear wall which in turn kicked an ear-splitting recording into action. Trumpets blared, cymbals clashed, and a regal musical march pompously forced itself into the venue’s ears and other sound vibration receptors. A spotlight stabbed down over the entrance corridor, brilliantly illuminating the privileged posse that was slowly heading towards the expectant hoard.

In strode Rex, ahead of a lengthy troupe of dodgy looking ego strokers and ‘yes’ entities. The door guard, having bolted the front entrance behind its master, thus effectively locking everyone either in or out, bounded about him in a show of overwhelming emotional loyalty. Rex occasionally patted his mucho-eager pet on its lumpy hairless head and the being slurped at his hand, annoying its master just a tad. In the dark recess Bob’s teeth gleamed in a wickedly widening smile. His drinks ticket had just arrived and it was play time!

[Story note: Rex Ramroid, the previously mentioned owner of a string of equally disreputable space port bars scattered about the semi-lawless outer western spiral arm of the galaxy was, it must be said in all fairness, a self-made man. This is not to say that he actually built himself in the way that one might piece together a robot part by part. No, nothing as weird as that. But he did construct his vastly wealthy empire entirely from scratch through suspect deals occasionally peppered with back-stabbings and double-crosses, and ergo felt that he rightly qualified for this somewhat egocentric title. In that vein, one of his oft repeated boasts was that no matter where he stood in any of his many ‘Rages’ he could exclaim to all and sundry “This place is the centre of the universe!” Yeah, well maybe. However, while not being anywhere near remotely physically possible to prove one way or another, the sentiment wrapped up behind his proud claim was that he wasn’t actually speaking at all cosmo-spatially. Yet, in Rex’s defence, and to settle down those annoyingly pedantic nit-pickers, since no one had actually bothered to measure said universe any point in it had the potential to be its exact middle, and many dubious operators took a running stab at claiming that unearned honour. A much less often mentioned fact was that he was also a bit of an inventor. His two greatest glories were in the related fields of hospitality and gastronomy. They were as follows: 1) Hollow Hotel Soap – it literally washes away in your hands, so that you don’t get those annoying little left-over bits, and 2) The Garlic Gravy Chili Chicken – where he spliced garlic and chili DNA and added them to a chicken embryo, along with a side gravy chromosome, to make for a ready flavoured and self-saucing bird. All in all he was obviously a real go-getter, and not a humanoid to do things by half. ]

The cheered mob reached the bar and fanned out into their respective pecking order, with Rex naturally in the centre. He glanced around, taking in the varying adulation of everyone present, and started to do a semi-jig on the spot in the extreme joy and pride that comes with the knowledge of being top dog in a pretty nifty kennel. He stopped abruptly in mid-hop, however, when he spied Bob staring his way. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t me old mate Bob Barina! How the quadaxiel are you, my good grazallion?” he piled on the charm as he went over to his best customer, using Bob’s latest known galactic alias. Not picking up on the booze boss’s slip of the tongue, he returned the silent compliment in good kind.
“Rex Ramroid, me old bhartflubbelly! Couldn’t be more better for the seeing of you! How the plexaurious are ya?”
“Oh, you know, doing alright. Can’t complain, really”, came the rehearsed reply, after which they went into an overly long and unnecessarily complicated hand and foot shake. Silence then settled between them as they stood regarding each other, though with the traditional formalities of their shared home planet greeting completed it didn’t last long. Rex took the lead and dived into the business at hand. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Thought you’d never ask”, Bob readily agreed with a wicked grin, the sort that would have gotten six of the best at any good private old authoritarian-styled school. Then he hastily tacked on “And if it’s not pushing the friendship too much, would it be okay to make that a couple more for my friends over there?” He pleaded his request by waving his hand casually in their general direction.
“No bother”, the Rexmeister smiled a thin tight lipped one, clearly thinking that it actually was. However, ‘The more, the merrier’ was one of his sub-mottos, and so nodded his consent to his amply bodied employee. The bar beast snarled at what it considered to be the growing pain in its amply proportioned gluteus maximus but Rex silently waved it down and so it set about its task obediently, albeit extremely begrudgingly. When they were ready Bob gathered up his ill gotten booty with hurried gratitude before anyone could change their minds and started back for their table.
“Come and meet the gang”, he invited back over his shoulder, almost as an after thought. When Bob was on one of his famous binges politeness regularly took a back seat. So far removed, in actual fact, that it was usually consigned to another room entirely.
“Why not? I’m always in the mood for a party”, Rex followed, slyly motioning his raggard group to stay where they were for the time being.

On the way over Bob nodded towards a darker corner of the lounge where Bruce was plugged into a wall recharge socket. “That’s our android ‘A4’, though for some weird reason we’ve taken to calling him ‘Bruce’. We left him over there because he doesn’t handle his electro-juice at all well. He’s sort of a two byte screamer”, he joked. Rex laughed, waving his hand in front of his face in an odd fashion, and played along.

Arriving at their seats Bob distributed the thirst quenchers around the table and made room for his old Rigillian school mate. “Rex, you already know Zed.”
“Hi, man”, Zed offered a brief greeting before surrendering to his more base desires by taking a ravenous slurp from his newly acquired elixir.
“Yeah, hi to you too”, Rex absently muttered, having just had almost all of his attention stolen by the sight of Lisa sitting there in what appeared to him, in that light, to be a particularly demure fashion.
“Oh”, Bob noticed, and a glob of possessive jealousy leapt up towards his mouth but only managed to get as far as sticking in his craw, “And this is Lisa, from Earth.”
“Charmed, to be sure”, Rex turned it on more than a tad and decided to let it flow for a while, just for the sheer exhilaration and fun of it. The thrill of the chase, with a rather tasty morsel at the end for his reward. Bob hated watching him do this corny routine, his ‘home swing’ so to speak, especially when it was to someone he liked. Quite liked, in fact. A lot! He bit his lip and steeled himself as Rex swarmied on. “Earth, eh? Such a long way to come for a drink. I’m flattered!” he tried with a dash of humour, hoping it might break the ice and warm up the frosty front that her sixth sense seemed to have instantly erected between them. The ice stiffened in response and took him square on, while the front set itself in and was under no pressure, either high or low, to move along anytime soon.
“Hi”, she replied, feeling very self-conscious under his unrelenting gaze, which she was really starting to resent. After an uncomfortable moment she felt that perhaps she ought to add something extra to this conversation, at least for her companions sake, so she continued. “Yeah, well the guys were coming this way. You know?” Deep in her mind she heard the lame tones of her words and bit her lower lip in anger and embarrassment at her weakness, and the vulnerability of being caught up in this crazy situation seemingly on her own. Sub-consciously she lowered her head to look down at the table and moved an almost imperceptible micron closer to Bob, having made an instant decision that she didn’t like this new guy for all the usual ‘anti-sleazy type’ reasons. Especially the self-appointed power that they appeared to love wielding over others of less well placed stations in life. This bloke may be the top tiered life form here, but put him on her patch back home and then see how he fared! However, in deference to Bob and Zed she would keep this particular feeling to herself and be civil, for now at least. Rex, not one to miss a trick, indeed where his love for, and ability of, making females of any species feel down right uncomfortable had long been honed almost to sporting form, smiled at her a little longer than social decorum would have generally allowed for. As far as he was concerned the ice could go to blazes and melt in its own good time, and it could take her cold front with it. He’d soon find a way of warming her up!

Reluctantly, he slowly returned his attention to his main man in a half-resenting fashion. Forever the consummate performer, in a flash he had changed his persona back to normal parameters again ensuring that Bob was none the wiser to his true intentions. “So, buddy, long time no see, as the two mexa fish-wranglers said when they met in the wastelands of Xynophina Six. Ha!” Bob winced, then dutifully forced a false laugh. Somewhere in the back of his mind a tiny voice started screaming out a warning of dire danger, but was having a hell of a job being heard over the rushing waterfall of free alcohol cascading along his auditory canal. Even in his inebriated state he knew that all did not seem to sit quite right with his host’s overfriendliness, though as he couldn’t put a finger on the source of the problem there and then he decided to use his whole hand instead and grabbed the glass lurking in front of him.
“Yeah, mate”, he slurred back, “I’ve been kinda busy of late.”
“No doubt”, Rex replied, and hurriedly continued. “Anyway, you’re here now, and that’s the main thing!” Bob’s diminutive internal defender decided to try again, and louder. ‘Danger! Warning! Something’s really up, trust me! I’m not kidding!’ This latest effort met with even less success than before, so it gave up and crawled off for a well deserved nap. At least it had tried to do its bit for the team, and its duty had been properly discharged. ‘Be this on his own head now!’ it huffed tartly.

Rex gazed around the table, and his lust-filled eyes fell once more upon Lisa. By now, all drinks aside, she was really resenting his fixated attention, and it was only her precarious position that stopped her pointing out this fact to him. In all truthfulness, had she gone ahead and done so it would have turned him on all the more. Some dudes are just like that! “Why don’t we take this party to my private booth?” he slyly suggested, “We’ll all be much more comfortable there.” Lisa flashed an alarmed glance at Bob, who as usual totally failed to notice her concerned look, nor picked up on the repercussions of this innocent and generous sounding idea. Nothing stirred in the back of his head anymore, save for a slight rhythmic buzzing which he put down to the superior quality of Rex’s really relaxing rot gut that he was copiously consuming, but turned out in all reality to be the sound of  his warning buddy snoring its wee head off. Anticipating a long session of even more free booze both he and Zed rapidly agreed and rose to follow their most hospitable host, dragging a very reluctant Lisa behind them.

Once inside their snug side suite Rex sent out an order for another round of knee weakeners, along with a side platter of nibblies, then leant back with the others to watch two newly arrived naked and copiously oiled performance artists, one of each sex, do a private showing of a Davarian cultural mating wrestle dance, with stylized kick boxing elements thrown in for good measure and lively entertainment. The fact that they were both physically very well endowed in various respective departments didn’t seem to get in their way to any degree, nor slow them down in their ritual love battle. It all just added to the fun. The lads ogled the display unashamedly, while Lisa, whose face was rapidly growing the colour of a Pertaxuan mega beetroot, didn’t know where to look so stared at her shoes instead. After a brief while though the double deadly effect of alcohol and curiosity got the better of her and she gave up her moralistic pretense in a ‘what the hell’ sort of fashion and sneaked a few fairly lengthy peeks at the energetic and gleaming pair who were, by that point, in the full whirthering heights of climatic ecstasy. From his middle seat Rex noticed her slowly changing condition, and smiled inwardly. All was going according to his plan very well indeed.

A short time later the carnal combatants finally completed their deeply spiritual and erotic display, and took leave of their audience to a rousing round of wild applause from the guys along with a smattering of stunned polite hand clapping from Lisa. A drinks droid then entered the room bearing the requested rejuvenating cargo on a large platinum tray. Rex did the honours, handing out each container with considerable flourish and showmanship. Then he sat back and carefully nursed his own. Not that his drink was ill in any way, it was just that he felt it needed a little t.l.c. and was prepared to be quite gentle with it. Pity the same couldn’t be said to be true of the other doctored ones that were being rapidly partaken on both sides of him due either to unabashed gluttony or to hide its consumer’s mortified embarrassment. Besides, as he would have plenty of time to finish, he didn’t see the need to rush the pace. Just lean back and enjoy sipping the sweet nectar of success. Oh, but life was grand! “This place is the center of the universe!” he shouted in toast-like fashion, much to the mild amusement of nearly everyone present.


Chapter Twenty Nine

Meanwhile, way out in empty deep space on the other side of the star system Sol things were not going at all well for the intrepid scaly pair of reptoid bounty hunters. They had just had their day ruined when they discovered, during a pre-stasis check, that their pesky prisoner appeared to be missing, yet again!

[Story note: The use of the time measurement description of ‘day’ in deep space, and for that matter any other period that may seem familiar to the followers of this fabulous, adventure packed tome, is a completely arbitrary one. It is a dash of simple whimsically emotive notion designed to bring some mental comfort to those partaking in said story. Indeed, it is to save any further confusion on this point that the author feels a reminder must be mentioned that the problems associated with applying a standard time zone to cover the multitude of differing astrophysical orbital periods throughout the galaxy have already been discussed in an earlier story note in Book One. Therefore it has been deemed best not to harp on the pedanticness of this concept any further, and simply accept it for its meager literary worth. Just thought that it was important to point this out so that the tale may flow further along, relatively uninterrupted so as to speak.]

Vicious looks were exchanged. Guttural growls were bandied about. All sorts of ill-mannered crass communications filled the confines of their medium sized cosmic cruiser, none of which could, in all honesty, be said to warrant printing here in the interests of  both good taste and wholesome reading.

After a while they grumpily settled down to consider their next course of action. Since anywhere near intelligent thought was something evolution had deprived their species of all those many millions of years ago they instead resorted to their base instincts and took their frustrations out by banging on the cockpit control panel. Not an overly wise move to be sure, though, as has just been stated . . .  Oddly, as it turned out, fortune didn’t seem to only favour the brave but had a rather soft spot for the dim witted as well, and, feeling sorry for the dipsy duo for just a moment or two, sent serendipity riding to their aid, albeit on the back of a rather short and shaggy astral pony.

One lucky claw strike hit the bug signal detector switch, and it started beeping audibly once more. Looking down at it they gradually realized that their quarry’s tell-tale tracker was still active. Momentary confusion slowly lifted as this new turn of events worked its way snail paced into the cramped confines of their reptilian brains. Their dumbfounded looks gradually evapourated, being replaced by an evil gleam in their eyes as the notion simultaneously hit them that the one thing they really enjoyed above all else was the thrill of the chase. To be fair to their intended victim, this was one department that Bob had never disappointed them in. Together as one they threw their heads back and emitted an ear-splitting howled roar into infinity and beyond. With delicious savagery they turned their cruiser around and the hunt was back on!