“You will be accompanied on this voyage by my butler,” she said. “At least then there will be some chance of everyone surviving your involvement. Omnitron, come in.”
What stepped from the shadows then was something like a man, but more like an espresso machine. It had the futuristic gleam that one associates with the hood ornaments of very fast hover cars, and an air of confidence not usually seen in the lower classes, especially the artificial ones.
“Omnitron,” Aunt Jabbatha said, “this is my famously worthless nephew, Werner.”
“Sir.” It tilted its shiny chin ever so slightly toward its shiny chest.
“You will make sure he gets on the shuttle and then onto the Chinless, Omnitron. If he does not fulfill his duties as I have detailed, you have my permission to twist off his ear. Ears are worth little. They can be grown on a saltine cracker these days.”
The robot bowed with a whir of well-oiled gears. “As you wish, Madame.” Then he lifted me up and tucked me under his arm as easily as a padded matron might hoist a small dog dressed in an embarrassing sweater, and carried me out of Aunt Jabbatha’s parlor.
“Try to get things right for once,” she called after me. “Don’t be a weed, boy!”
I wasn’t sure what a weed was—something that used to grow on the planetary surface, I suspect, before the Big Oh Dear—and so my flashing riposte was delayed until after the lift door had closed behind us.
“See here, Omnitron,” I said as I surveyed my cabin. “This will never do. Old Budgie has a stateroom the size of Berkshire, but I seem to have been stowed in one of the laundry room dryers.”
“I admit the room is not large, sir,” said Omnitron, “but it was the best that could be done with a last minute booking—the ship was quite full. All that was available was Third Class.”
The purser, who seemed to have taken against me since my first cry of “Yo ho ho! Where’s my bottle of rum?” as I walked up the gangway, surveyed me with cool disdain. Considering that he had those glowing red cybernetic eyes so many people are wearing these days, it was most unappealing. “Does sir have an objection to the accommodations?” he asked.
“Oh, of course not,” I replied, rapier-like. “Who could jolly well object to a stateroom the size of a face flannel? And where am I supposed to sleep?”
The purser again fixed me with his smoldering gaze. He was a small, thin man, the kind who look as though they only enjoy themselves at funerals. “Ah, but sir misunderstands. There is a bed. It folds down, thus.” He fiddled with something on the wall and let down what I swear was a child’s toy ironing board. It had a teeny tiny blanket, and a pillow that had probably been stolen from a gerbil. “I’m afraid those who wait until the last moment to book passage cannot blame the staff for the lack of choice, sir.”
“No,” I said under my breath, “but I can blame the staff for being unpleasant, abominable, red-eyed swine.”
The purser, who had been about to leave, turned and squinted his glowing cyber eyes at me, which gave rather the impression that a couple of maraschino cherries had leaped out of a Manhattan glass and rolled into a deep ditch. “Beg pardon, sir?”
“My master merely asked for some of that pleasant Andromedan red and white wine,” Omnitron cut in—quite deftly, I thought, for something that looked like a washing machine hammered into the shape of William Gladstone. This Omnitron fellow was nothing to sneeze at. “Mr. Booster likes to drink both sorts at the same time. Thank you for your help.”
“Hmmmph,” said the purser, and went about his business.
“Thank you, Omnitron,” I said. “Considering that you are a robot, you are still a vastly superior human being to that fellow. Did you see him sizing me up? You’d think I had snuck on board in a fishing net.”
“Quite, sir. A bad sort, no doubt. But now I think you had better put on your dress coat and make your way up to the Lido Deck. Your cousin and his friend will be there.”
“No time for a little room service, or a swift nap? That shuttle flight took it out of me, Omnitron. I had the vacuum-hose to my mouth the whole time. Dashed bumpy.”
“I’m afraid not, sir. But I understand your aunt has provided you with the wherewithal for a couple of free drinks.”
“Say no more—it’s Booster into the breach. Lido on, MacDuff.”
The scene on deck was quite cosmopolitan, with not only all manner of Earth quality present, but the wealthy and well-fed from many other colonies and alien cultures as well. In the midst of all those unfamiliar green and blue and occasionally downright startling faces, it took me no small time to locate Cousin Budgie, but at last I spotted his generous silhouette. Budgie is a well-fed sort himself, and his cummerbund bulged like a mainsail in a stiff breeze.
“Hullo, Booster,” he said as I walked cautiously across the antigravity dance floor. “What brings you out here? Didn’t think this was your sort of picnic. Because it costs money and all.”
I scowled as pleasantly as I could at this unneeded reminder of my current financial inconveniences, namely my continued debt-slavery to Aunt Jabbatha and the collection agents of several well-known Fleet Street touts. “Cheers, Budgie, old sprat!” I replied. “And who is this lovely young lady...?”
I almost didn’t finish the sentence, because in point of fact his companion was indeed rather lovely—no, rather stunning, to be brutally precise. Black hair, raven’s wing, that sort of thing, and a face like a Tanagra figurine, except less terracotta-ish, if you grasp what I mean. Clear, limpid eyes (Why do people say that anyway? Weren’t those a kind of shellfish once?) and a figure that, beneath her modest netwear, would have made a tea-sipping vicar choke on his profiterole.
“This?” asked Budgie. “This lovely creature is my fiancée, Krellita Thoractia Du Palp, from the planet Cunabulum. I suppose you ought to call her Krelly, like I do.” He turned to the wondrous female creature next to him. “Say hello to Wernie, Krelly, darling. He’s a bit of a worn old sock, but he’s good for some laughs.”
She greeted me demurely. Budgie went off to find more drinks.
“And how did you meet my cousin, hey?” I asked her. “House party? The Hunstman’s Ball?”
“His private cruiser crashed in the jungles of my home planet.” I could hear the tiniest trace of an accent. Ha, I thought. That proves she’s a gold-digger. She’s foreign! “I nursed him back to health,” Krellita explained, “and we became fond of each other. He is everything I ever wanted in a man. He is ideal.”
I watched Budgie coming back, doing a sort of clumsy samba to avoid spilling the three Scorpio Slings he was carrying. It was hard to think of my pale, pudgy cousin as a man, let alone an ideal, but I supposed that on whatever backwater world Miss Du Palp came from, the pickings might be a bit on the slender side.
“Yes,” I said, deciding to get to work. “And he’s coped so brilliantly with his illness.”
“Illness?”
“Oh, nothing serious. In most cases it has run its course and the victim is dead long before he reaches the homicidal insanity stage.”
She gave me a startled look, but before I could elaborate (and believe me, I was prepared to elaborate—I’d spent the entire shuttle trip up to the Chinless thinking up things to tell her to frighten her off) Budgie reached us.
“Oof!” he said. “What a crush! Some bounder elbowed me right in the brisket, Wernie. Can you imagine that?” He turned to his fiancée. “What do you say to a little whirl around the floor, my dove? They’re just starting up with the Neptunian Tango and the gravity’s turned way down low, the way you like it.”
“No, thank you, darling,” Krelly said, “though it does sound terribly romantic. You dance, if you’d like. I’ll watch.”
He shrugged and made his way off again in search of suitably bipedal partners, which were a bit thin on the deck tonight.
“Brave, brave lad,” I said, shaking my head in admiration. “He’s always put such a courageous face on things. Acts just like everyone else!”
<
br /> “Are you certain he has this...illness?” Krellita asked. “Because, well... we have plans.” She brushed prettily. “We’re going to have a family.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,” I said. “I’m quite certain good old Budgie will be an excellent papa, until he gets to the screaming stage.”
“Screaming stage?”
“Oh, you know, when the pain of the disease becomes so great that the sufferer begins to screech continuously and tear off their own limbs and skin. Same disease took Budgie’s uncle, poor old fellow. They found the old man’s bloody fingertips and nails all over the National Library, but nothing else of him. Sad. Their first edition of Burke’s Peerage was unusable afterward—they could never get the stains out.”
“Oh, my!” she said, those lovely clear eyes wide. “Why didn’t Budgie tell me this?”
“Oh, I’m sure he wanted to spare you the worry,” I said. “Most sufferers shoot themselves long before most of the other things happen, so it seldom gets to that point. He was just looking out for your happiness.”
Krellita Du Palp’s eyes now narrowed, precisely like those of any young tootsie on the make who has just discovered that her golden goose is really a sitting duck. (Or something like that. To be honest, I’ve never really got the hang of metaphors.)
I looked up to see Budgie dancing with a long drink of champagne from the Proxima colonies. His partner was nearly eight feet tall, so he was having trouble not treading on her feet. The trotters in question were about the size of my stateroom bed—small for a bed, but perhaps a touch overlarge for a young lady.
“Poor man,” I said, sipping my drink and reaching behind Krellita to the buffet table, having orbed a sumptuous, steaming ham that was almost begging to become part of Greater Boosterdom. “So brave, our Budgie, when he must already be losing control over his neuromusculature.”
“Excuse me, sir.” The familiar, chill tone brought me up short. It was my nemesis, the purser, his little artificial eyes glowing with schadenfreude. “The buffet is for First Class passengers only.”
Faced with this sudden assault on my person, I decided on a dignified retreat. I gave the attractive Miss Du Palp a conspiratorial wink, then took the ham and the Scorpio Sling with me, leaving Budgie and his ladylove to their romantic destiny, into the spokes of which I hoped I had just rammed a jolly large stick.
I may have taken a bit more ham than I should have, to be honest, but I hadn’t had any breakfast owing to my shuttle-impaired stomach works, and my appetite was back. Still, I could barely get the entire ham into the lift down to Third Class, and had to ask an old, limping woman to get out to make room. Such a grumpy look she gave me! I thought these cruises were supposed to make people cheerful.
“You should have seen me, Omnitron,” I told him. “I was nothing short of magnificent. As soon as I mentioned Budgie’s hideous illness, the young lady’s attitude changed like a shot! I’ll wager she can’t wait to be shut of him now.”
“His hideous illness, sir? As far as I know, young Lord Scallop suffers from nothing worse than a mild case of Venusian Drip, which can be easily treated these days with proper medical care...”
“I made it up! That’s the genius part, Omnitron, old bucket. She’ll never go near him now. Ah, I can hear her gnashing her teeth clear down here in the ship’s underbelly...”
“I suspect the sound you hear is me lowering your bed,” Omnitron said, folding down the tiny, handkerchief-sized platform with a squeaking, ratcheting noise like someone deboning a live rabbit.
“As I said, before some metal buffoon short-sheeted my commentary, ‘I can hear her gnashing her teeth.’ Young Miss Du Palp is no doubt furious at having sunk her claws into such a sad, doomed specimen of Earth manhood when she thought she’d bagged a prize.”
“You say that as though she is not of Earth herself, sir.”
“I should say not! Not an earthly thing about her, except for her quite astonishing beauty and shapeliness. And her jolly nice legs. I’ve never run across the Du Palp family before, but I must admit they do rather sparkling work in the daughter department, her avaricious man-hunting notwithstanding.”
“Did you say ‘Du Palp,’ sir? As in, the Cunabulum Du Palps?”
“Yes, Omnitron, I think that was her awful old planet, something like that. What of it? You have that cursed expression on your featureless face that I have already come to loathe, and your hydraulic tubes are practically rigid with disapproval.”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken, sir. Perhaps you should climb into bed. I will endeavour to hold it for you while you attempt it. The affair seems a bit...flexible.”
Flexible, hah! “Impossible” is the word Omnitron was too craven to utilize, but I will speak the truth and shame the Chinless. After struggling for an hour to make myself comfortable on that slice of Melba toast they called a berth, I decamped to the floor, which although not large enough even for a proper game of blow football, let alone the nocturnal thrashing of a Booster in his prime, was still much more spacious than the Procrustean saltine I’d been given to sleep on. Thus, when somebody knocked at my stateroom door shortly after two in the AM, Earth time, I had only to crawl a few feet to find out who had so cruelly disturbed my slumbers.
“Oh, dear Mr. Booster,” said Krellita Du Palp, “please don’t make me stand in the corridor. Someone might see me!”
“Hmmm? Oh, right. Can’t have that.” Although I couldn’t imagine why. As far as I knew, these cruises were like a Feydeau farce, with various coves and their hard-mouthed molls ducking in and out of each other’s staterooms left and right. Still, perhaps back on Cunabulum they were a modest bunch and didn’t like to be seen dashing about in their—I had to admit—somewhat spectacularly filmy nightwear. “Right ho,” I said when she was inside, which necessitated me speaking almost directly to her forehead, owing to the size of the room. “Now, my dear, what can Wernie do for you? A little counseling, perhaps? Are we having second thoughts about Lord Scallop?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Booster. Yes, you’ve opened my eyes! You’ve saved me from a hideous sham of a marriage!”
“Well, shucks, ma’am, as our American cousins like to say.” I was feeling quite proud of myself. Useless, Aunt Jabbatha? Wernie Booster, useless? Way-hey! “I’m sorry I have to be the bearer of such terrible tidings, dear lady. I only wanted to spare you any unnecessary heartbreak...”
“Budgie would never survive the rigors of conjugal expression,” she said. “But you, Mr. Booster—you are perfect! Healthy as can be, and with a fine appetite!” She leaned closer, which in those intimate confines actually caused her chin to press rather discomfortingly against my Adam’s apple. “Do you care for me, Wernie? Just a little?”
I was nonplussed, as the French say, and my usually considerable aplomb was also slightly undercut by the very thick, musky-sweet scent Krellita was giving off. I could not help thinking of her shapely lower limbs and how much like springtime they had made me feel back on the Lido Deck. “Of course, I find you a very admirable woman,” I began. “Sensible, too, with your unwillingness to yoke yourself to a shambling near-corpse like Cousin Budgie. But that is all I’m prepared to say at present...”
“Kiss me, you romantic fool,” she said, then sort of attached her mouth to mine.
Now, I don’t want you to think your humble narrator is anything less than a man of the world, but I must confess I’d never thought kissing could be quite like that, sort of...probing and...well, biting. At one point, as things were getting a bit too hot and heavy for my way of thinking, I actually felt something in my throat that seemed to be her tongue, except it was far too long and sort of scaly. It also seemed to be...jointed? Here, the Booster lexicon falters.
“Say, now,” I squeaked, “what are you doing, Krellita? I mean, Miss Du Palp, of course, since we hardly know each other. I mean, my stateroom, middle of the night and all, you hardly dressed...I mean, isn’t this a bit of a rum do?”
She laid a cool fing
er on my lips. “Oh, Wernie, you silly boy, it’s all right! We’ll be married soon, so there’s nothing wrong with it!”
Even with the scaly, jointish, tonguelike thing no longer lapping at my uvula, I confess I choked and spluttered for a while. Do you remember how I explained that “service” was the second most feared word in the Booster dictionary? Now I can reveal that the arch-curse “married” is the Booster champion of champions, an utterance whose doomful sound turns women into grinning monsters itching to plan things, including the end of a fellow’s freedom.
“M-M-Married?” I finally managed to say. “Hold on, there, dear lady. I think you have the wrong end of the stick...”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m sure it’s a lovely stick, anyway. And I know I probably do things a bit differently than you—we’re a bit of a backwater planet in some ways—but you’ll come to relish it.”
“Relish what?” I said, but she had turned away from me, not that she could go very far in that doll’s house of a cabin.
“Don’t look!” she said, and began to undo the straps for her gown. “Turn around! Don’t be so eager, you naughty boy!”
“Eh, um, well, perhaps we should slow down for a moment and take stock of things,” I said. “I mean, you’re a lovely girl and all, but you see, I have a number of irons in the fire just now, and when you don’t attend to them—well, you get frightfully hot irons, for one thing...”
“I knew it would be like this,” she declared with the dreamy sound of a chubby schoolboy regarding a stolen éclair. “Both of us eager, panting for consummation, our breasts heaving with desire...”
“Come now,” I said, and reached out to grasp her shoulder, despite its alarming nakedness, because I was thinking about shaking a little sense into her. “If anybody’s breast is heaving around here, it’s not mine, Miss Du Palp. No, at the moment my breast is heaveless—positively torpid.”
“Don’t look yet, darling,” she said as she shucked off the rest of her outfit. “It’s bad luck for you to see my final form before I’m ready.”