Sam Boone’s Dry Run
by Bud Sparhawk
Illustration by Kelly Freas
Sam’s problems began as he was heading toward Bingnagia, a planet where, his agent Ahbbbb had said, with surprising faith in him, there was a simple problem that he could solve in a matter of moments—a trivial matter that required only the simple laying on of Sam Boone’s very human hands, to put it simply. So convinced was she of his ability to bring the matter to a close that she had booked passage for him on a Blattskitt liner that was to depart just a week after his arrival on Bingnagia. “Shouldn’t take you more than a few days to clean everything up,” she’d said with confidence.
She’d gotten a cabin on a Glimmora freighter for him. “These are first-class accommodations,” she’d hummed reassuringly, as her tendrils beat a rhythmic tattoo on the inflated bladder at her throat. “You will not be disappointed. They are so excited about transporting a human that they’ve added a wide selection of Earth delicacies.”
These assurances of a gourmet feast and luxurious accommodations were uppermost in Sam’s mind when he threw open the door to his cabin and saw what appeared to be an alien approximation of a musk ox staring at him.
It was a good imitation, lacking only the ox’s delicate beauty of line and grace. Where a musk ox’s horns would be, six rope-like tendrils erupted. Every one of these was in constant motion, a swirling mass of six snakelike appendages. The pseudo-ox was using the sharp tip of one of these to scratch its neck, just below its mane of thick hair.
Sam found the creature’s stare to be very intense. The intensity was understandable, since the blue-haired alien had four complex eyes on each side and each one was independently focused on Sam’s personage. It made him extremely uncomfortable to be the center of so much attention.
“Greetings,” Sam said with as much bonhomie as possible and waited for his faithful portable translator, a marvel of Rix engineering, to convey his opening expression of friendliness to his unexpected traveling companion.
Snorf! the alien belched loudly as it swiveled three of its eight eyes to glance around the room while keeping Sam fixed with the other five. One of the snaking tendrils started to extend in Sam’s direction and then diverted to scratch the corner of the ox’s puce lips, just above its long, green beard. Snorf, the near-ox belched, repeating its earlier entreaty.
Sam reacted quickly as the expanding wave-front of the alien’s breath reached his nostrils. A single whiff of the stomach-churning combination of halitosis and swamp gas was all it took to make Sam beat a rapid retreat. Snorf! the alien repeated as its lower jaw moved slowly from side to side and all eight eyes lazily returned to fix on Sam.
For some inexplicable reason the translator remained silent, giving Sam no indication of whatever it was that the alien had Snorfed at him. Sam worried that perhaps the Snorf-eze language wasn’t within the translator’s data banks, which, he thought, would be a fine kettle of fish: How could he share a cabin for the weeks it would take to reach Bingnagia if he couldn’t even converse with his traveling companion?
“There seems to be some sort of problem,” Sam said, pressing his lips close to the microphone grille of his silver box so there would be no mistaking his desire to communicate. The translator’s speaker remained mute, unwilling or unable to produce a single, decent Snorf. Sam was infuriated with the stubbornness of the little ma-chine. “Damn it!” He slapped the translator’s case with his hand—hard. He got nothing but a stinging palm for the effort.
The machine still refused to produce a decent Snorf.
While this was taking place, the ox-thing appeared to have lost interest in things Samuel and stuck its head into the opening of a large sack hanging from a hook on the wall of the cabin. Two of the alien’s tendrils stretched the bag’s opening wide enough to allow entry of the exobiotic-ox’s huge snout. Loud chewing and smacking sounds came from within as the ox’s head moved back and forth.
Sam considered the situation. The Rix translator had never, not once, failed him before. In every situation the machine seemed to adapt itself well to the speech mode of every intelligent alien he’d encountered.
“What if,” he said aloud, “this alien isn’t intelligent? What if it has no language?” But that would be ridiculous. Why would anyone pay cabin-class simply to transport some galactic livestock? The fee for cabin-class interstellar transport was far too expensive to make that, a possibility.
Then another thought, a more frightening one, dawned. What if this ox-thing was his as-vet-unmet cabin-mate’s pet? The idea that he would be sharing his room with something that would make this creature a pet was daunting. Still, it was a possibility: he’d not had that much experience with the galactics to understand some of the subtleties of their various cultures.
Sam’s train of conjecture was interrupted by a hissing noise that quickly built into a roaring crescendo. With dismay Sam realized that the sound was coming from the ox’s nether regions, just below the tangled ropes of its two tails. As the sound died away the cabin quickly acquired an overpowering aroma. Sam’s nose shut down at the first hint of the odoriferous gas. Acting quickly, his brain frantically instructed his lungs to stop breathing, lest he inhale more of the noxious fumes. Staggering backward, Sam fumbled for the door latch, and desperately flipped it so he could escape into the passageway.
As the door slid shut behind him, he took a deep breath of relatively fresh air to clear his nasal passages of the stench. As soon as he had his respiration under control he reflected on the situation. There was no way he could tolerate sharing a cabin with a creature that was more offensive than a campsite full of bean-fed Boy Scouts. And, unlike the aforementioned scouts, he couldn’t even talk to it! No, the situation would have to be reconciled. He went forward to complain.
After considerable searching through the organically convoluted passageways of the Glimmora freighter, which led him in turn to stockpiles of sticky tape, condoms, and sunglasses for the galactic trade, he managed to reach the command compartment, the nerve center of the freighter’s operations. A seemingly haphazard arrangement of dials imprinted with Glax figures, glass gauges filled with some thick liquid, and glistening readouts in a riot of colors dotted the walls. In the center of the forward panel was a phloomb generator, no doubt the heart of the ship’s operation. It was the typical bridge of an interstellar ship.
The only problem was, there was no crew in sight.
“Welcome to Glimmora Freight Lines Glizma-class service,” an annunciator annunciated in dulcet tones, albeit at about ninety decibels or more. Sam’s somewhat trusty translator converted the ear-shattering din into reasonably understandable Glax. “This ship is equipped with the latest designs to provide safe, efficient, and faultless transport.”
“Er, where are the captain and crew?” Sam asked hesitantly, wondering just where the voice was coming from.
“Welcome to Glimmora Freight Lines Glizma-class service,” the din replied. “This ship is equipped with the latest designs to provide safe, efficient, and faultless transport.”
Sam hesitated before saying anything else. A small voice inside was telling him something that he didn’t want to hear. “Ah, is this ship automated?” he asked.
“Welcome to Glimmora Freight Lines Glizma-class service,” the ship responded. “This ship is equipped with the latest designs to provide safe, efficient, and faultless transport.”