STARSHIP OF FOOLS - (C) 1986 Jerry Kindall and Rex Crossley

CHAPTER ONE

"May you live in interesting times."
                                                       - Chinese curse

     I woke up.
     This is the way I usually begin my day, except when my intuition
tells me that the day is not worth waking up for.  On these frequent
occasions, I sleep late.
     My intuition told me that today was going to be a passable, if not
great, day, so I shut off my alarm, got up, and did all the things
people do so that they can go downstairs and face others at breakfast.
     This preparation was always inadequate, since I was going
downstairs to face my parents.  I could never be prepared enough for
that.
     An unusual blanket of calm silence smothered the kitchen.  With
luck, this meant that they had finally run each other out of the house.
     No such luck.  Both of my parents were already in the kitchen,
sitting at the table, drinking coffee, which they both hated with a
vengeance.  Then, turning toward me in perfect sync, they gazed at me.
     I looked at them in shock.  Then I shrugged.  I couldn't think of
anything off the top of my head, but more unusual things had happened to
me in my life.
     I took two eggs out of the fridge and a skillet out of the cabinet.
 I always make my own breakfast so my parents don't fight over who has
to make it and what I should eat.  As I put a slice of bread into the
toaster, I glanced over at my parents.  They were both still gazing
placidly at me, and now they were even smiling.
     I almost dropped the eggs in surprise.  I hadn't seen them smile in
eons.  Some would say that they should never have been married.  I
agree, but then, if they hadn't married, I wouldn't exist.
     That smile bothered me.  I was sure I had seen it before.  It
wasn't a normal kind of smile; it almost screamed "WE REALLY DO LOVE YOU
EVEN THOUGH WE'RE ABOUT TO STICK A KNIFE IN YOUR BACK!!!"  Definitely
not a smile you see every day.
     I managed a nonchalant smile back in their direction.  The skillet
was hot, so I cracked both the eggs into it and began to make my
breakfast.  As I did, I mentally went through my daily routine.
     Monday: a bad way to start the week.  Get up, get dressed, get
breakfast.  Go to school.  Struggle to wake up... another day in the
life of Matt Baker.
     The eggs were finished.  I put them on a plate.  The toast popped
up, right on time.  I spread butter on the slice of toast, got a glass
of milk, and walked hesitantly to the table.
     One more glance at their placid, smiling faces, and something
clicked in my mind.
     Any time my parents had something terrible to tell me, they ganged
up on me and smiled.
     I could do nothing about this situation, except eat.  Yes, eating
was always a good solution.  I sat down, picked up my fork and dug into
my eggs.
     "Ahem," my father coughed.
     I looked at him expectantly.  He said nothing, and when he
continued saying nothing, I went back to my breakfast, which, to my
stomach, was much more important than any coughing my father might be
inclined to do.
     "Uh," said my mother.
     This time I glanced up only briefly, a flash of annoyance in my
eyes at this interruption.  They certainly were being extremely vague
about something.
     "Matt," started my father.  I looked up, irked.  My stomach was not
too happy that its food supply was constantly being interrupted.  Seeing
the obvious malice on my face, and fearing for his life, he stopped.
     As I returned to my breakfast, my father's courage returned. 
"Matt, last night your mother and I had a talk."
     I looked at him in confusion.  Then I realized that, for once, he
had the right word.  He actually meant "talk" and not "shouting match." 
"What about?"
     "Uh, you know, you, me, your mother.  The family."
     "Why?" I asked bluntly, a dark cloud slowly forming in my mind.  I
began to suspect that my intuition had been wrong in allowing me to wake
up that morning.
     "What I'm, uh, trying to say is, uh, that we decided it might be
better for all of us, you know, you, me, your mother, the family, if we
just..."
     By now I had a firm idea of what the bad news was.
     It was big.
     It was bad.
     It was ugly.
     It started with a "D."
     "If we just got a Divorce," he concluded.
     I dropped my fork, which clattered on my plate in the sudden
silence, flipping an especially slimy piece of egg into my dad's coffee.
     My heart leaped into my throat, then rebounded off the roof of my
mouth back to its proper place.  My stomach became so excited that it
almost regurgitated my breakfast.
     I was not exactly crazy about the idea of a Divorce.  I had adapted
to the strange lifestyle of keeping out of my parents' way when they
were in foul moods.  My home was already screwed up; if it got any
worse, I'd have to adapt all over again.
     My mother babbled something about how it just wasn't working out,
and that they both loved me very much and that they wanted to do what
was best.  They thought it would be best for all of us if they got a
Divorce.
     My dad chugged his coffee, nodding in agreement, and suddenly
gulped, grimacing.
     My emotions were in chaos.  I felt a sharp pain in my head; I think
it was my intuition burning out.

                                 * * *

     I left the house in a state of confusion.  Most of my breakfast was

still where I had left it.  My dad was still staring at his coffee cup.
     I arrived at the bus stop fifteen minutes early.  Only the Homo
Delinquents (that was what I called the subhuman species of students at
our high school) were there that early, getting in one last smoke before
school.  I spent most of my time inhaling secondhand cigarette smoke
(and other types of smoke as well).  A great follow-up to getting dumped
on by my parents.
     One of them offered me a cigarette.  "Hey, wanna smoke?"
     "No, thank you," I declined politely, wanting desperately to shove
the offered cigarette up his nose and set his hair on fire.  Except that
fire doesn't burn in a vacuum, which was what the inside of his head
was.
     Trying to be objective about the whole thing, I understood my
parents' point of view.  They were right: in the long run, everything
would be better for them (and for me) if they got their Divorce.  But in
the short run, it perturbed me a lot.  It seemed to me that they hadn't
considered my feelings at all.
     At last, the bus came, saving me from black lung disease.
     The bus was packed; my stop was the last one, and I was the last
one to board the bus.  There was only one seat left.  It had been left
that way on purpose.
     I approached the seat with trepidation and more than a little
embarrassment, thoughts of my parents' Divorce pushed back for the
moment.  For in that seat sat the one individual that no one on the bus
would sit with, or anyone in the entire school, for that matter.  People
didn't like to sit with him, talk to him, or look at him.  They didn't
even like to think about him.
     In that seat sat the ultimate nerd.  His plastic pocket protector
was stuffed with pens and pencils.  His thick horn-rimmed glasses were
perched on his nose at an odd angle.  The books on his lap were pushed
up by his bulging calculator.
     Melvin Blunburger.  This kid's picture was in the dictionary next
to the word "nerd."  And I had to sit next to him.
     I drew in a deep breath, gathered my courage, froze my expression,
and sat down.  I felt as though everyone on the bus was looking at me. 
My face grew red with embarrassment.
     He had only been going to our school for a few weeks, but it was
amazing how much of a phenomenon he had become.  A phenomenon like the
San Francisco earthquake or the Chicago fire, that is.  Incredibly,
horribly, he seemed to recognize me.  "Hi, Matt," he bubbled in that way
only nerds can, his eyes gleaming with alarming eagerness through his
cokebottle glasses.  I drew back, balancing myself on the edge of the
seat and almost falling into the aisle.
     I could hear the whispers already.  He knew my name.  Therefore, I
must be one of his friends.  I would be nobody.  My social life was
ruined.
     My paranoia eased.  No one was staring.  No one was going to start
any vicious rumors.  Melvin started talking, and I let him, only half
listening.
     The cheery yellow-orange bus pulled up in front of the cheery
red-brick high school, while all the cheery students waited anxiously,
eager for another cheery Monday of school to begin.  The rising sun was
reflected cheerily in the reinforced steel-and-glass doors.
     Crap.
     As the passengers filed off one by one, I heard Melvin say
cheerily, "Thanks, Matt.  You're the first person who's ever really
listened to me."  I stared at him like he was some kind of disease.
     I got off the bus.  An eager student, anxious to be in class,
shoved me, and not much later the ground shoved me as well, except much
harder.  My books went flying.  A sudden gust of wind flipped open my
notebook, blowing away my twenty page typewritten term paper that I had
spent a month preparing.  It was due that day.  I tried to gather the
pages up, but it was useless.  Caught in the midst of the stampede from
the bus, they had been trampled beyond recognition.  I gave up.
     Something was telling me that it just wasn't destined to be my day.
 I tried to brace myself against the sense of impending doom I felt. 
Numbing myself to disaster made me feel a little better.  Life would
somehow go on.
     I hoped.

                                 * * *

     "Hi, Tammy," I said, relieved, to my girlfriend.  It was nice to
see a friendly face after the morning's disasters.
     Tammy, however, was gazing and smiling at me in much the same way
my parents had.  I felt a sudden sinking sensation.
     "Um," she started.  She was cute when she said "Um."  Actually, she
was cute all the time, but particularly when she said "Um."  "Look,
Matt.  I like you, I really do.  But I've decided that it just isn't
going to work out with us."
     I goggled at her, wondering if she had found out somehow that I had
sat next to Melvin Blunburger on the bus.  My fear of social catastrophe
was coming true.
     "I still like you, Matt.  But only as a friend.  Here's your ring
back."  Tammy, now my ex-girlfriend, tossed it to me.  I fumbled the
pass, and my two-hundred-dollar class ring rolled into the girls'
restroom.
     Tammy walked off, arm in arm with Gene Schmidt, who, after barely
graduating from high school, would get a football scholarship to State
and graduate with a Ph.D. in Basket Weaving.  If Melvin was the picture
of a nerd, Gene was a Polaroid of a dumb jock.  I stood there staring at
Tammy as she walked away.

                                 * * *

     "I'm from a planet in the Arcturus star system," Melvin told me. 
He had decided that I was his friend, and, judging from his limited
definition of the word, I guess I probably was.  After all, I had sat
next to him on the bus.  That means friends for life.  My social life
was ruined.
     "I'm a scout," he went on, eyes gleaming eagerly.
     "Oh, really?" I replied absently, inspecting my fingernails for
dirt.  "I thought you were a nerd."
     "Yes, but I prefer the term 'mentally gifted.'  I am quite normal
in my own planetary society."
     I almost laughed at that.  It would make a great movie.  Planet of
the Nerds!
     Melvin was eating his lunch, a process which involved getting food
all over his face.  I sat across the table from him, not eating, and
trying not to watch him.  I was really hungry, but I had left both my
lunch and my wallet at home.
     I tried to look at Melvin objectively.  Yes, he definitely did look
like he was from another planet.
     Melvin, noticing my rumbling stomach, offered me a handful of
mashed potatoes.  "Want some?"
     "No thanks," I declined.  The way my life was going, I'd probably
end up dropping it on the floor.
     Melvin leaned closer to me, and I leaned away in panic.  "I've set
the teleporter on my ship with my remote control."  He patted his bulky
calculator, smearing mashed potatoes all over it.  "I'm teleporting up
and leaving Earth orbit in three hours," he told me conspiratorially. 
Then he added, "Don't tell anyone; this is confidential information."
     If I could get anyone to believe me, they'd probably applaud
Melvin's departure.  "So why are you telling me?" I asked.
     "Well," he mused, not really sure himself.  "Do you want to come
with me?  Naturally, it's against the rules, but you're the only friend
I've made here."  He smiled crookedly.  "Besides, rules were made to be
broken."
     I thought about his offer.  Leaving all my problems behind on Earth
sounded great.  "Why not," I said, deciding to play along.  It wasn't at
all difficult to believe that he was from another planet.  All I had to
do was look at him.
     "Here, then," he said, producing a small piece of candy from his
pocket and sliding it across the table to me.
     I wiped the mashed potato off of the candy and inspected it.  It
was orange, with a white letter "M" inscribed on it.  "An M & M?" I
asked uncertainly, wondering how long it had been in his pocket.
     "No, you're holding it upside-down," he told me.  "It's a W & W.  A
neurodepressant candy-coated chocolate drug capsule.  You'll need it for
the molecular transfer beam.  The experience could be very painful
without it."
     "Oh," I said, and cautiously chewed the W & W.  It tasted just like
an M & M, so I swallowed it.
     "There are also other forms of this drug capsule, known as the E &
E and the 3 & 3," Melvin informed me.
     The bell rang.  It was time to go to another exciting class.  "See
you in three hours," Melvin said.
     I tried to imagine how people would react when Melvin suddenly
disappeared.  They probably wouldn't notice.  

                                 * * *

     Three hours later I had thoroughly forgotten about my encounter
with Melvin.  I was resting in the restroom when two tough-looking Homo
Delinquents walked in.
     "Hey, beat it, wimp," one of them said.  I had always found it just
short of amazing that their semi-intelligent species had developed a
slight understanding of the English language and an equally slight
ability to speak it.  I ignored them and hoped they would go away, a
tactic which I had previously found effective.  Most solitary Homo
Delinquents are all talk and no action unless they are with a large
group of their peers, so when you ignore them, they don't know what to
do, and so leave you alone.
     As my luck would have it, though, they wanted to smoke a joint and
they didn't want anyone hanging around.  In their culture it is
considered a very personal thing to smoke a joint, and if you ask
someone to smoke with you, it means that you consider them a close,
trustworthy, personal friend.  For this reason they don't want just
anyone standing around when they smoke; the other person just might get
the wrong idea.  The Homo Delinquent culture (if "culture" isn't too
strong of a word for what they have) is based on drugs, sex, heavy
metal, and, well, I guess that's about it.
     "Hey, dintya hear?" asked the other one, reminding me that one of
the other distinguishing characteristics of Homo Delinquent is its
inability to start a sentence with a word other than "hey."
     "Hey, let's teach him a lesson 'bout proper respect."  His tone was
menacing, and I knew then that my intuition had failed me again.  It was
too late to get out of this mess alive; I was in way too deep.
     The second guy held me down while I watched the first one's fist 
sailing toward me in slow motion.  My life flashed before my eyes.  It
was a very boring in-flight movie.
     The fist neared my face, but before it could hit me, something else
did.  Something like a hundred jackhammers, twenty-five Hell's Angels,
and the morning after a wild party, all rolled into one.  I took the
only possible action: I passed out.
