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

CHAPTER TWO

"I think, therefore I am -- I think."
                                                     - Professor Wizdumb

     I woke up.  This seemed to be turning into a bad habit.
     I opened my eyes with minimal pain.
     I closed them.
     I opened them again.
     I closed them again.
     I did this a number of times and lost track of whether my eyes were
opened or closed.  This was easy to do, since it was so dark that I
couldn't have seen my hand in front of my face.
     Could I be dead?  Could this be the afterlife?
     I dismissed this possibility.  It was obvious that I still existed,
and my body was present and accounted for.  No, I wasn't dead.
     There was only one thing to do.  I had to get up and find out where
I was.  I moved my arm experimentally.
     I would say that the pain blinded me, but I couldn't really tell if
it did or not, since I couldn't see anything to begin with.  But the
sheer intensity of the pain told me that I was in bad shape.
     Slowly the pain subsided and I tried again.  There was no pain now,
so I gradually moved the other parts of my body until I was satisfied
that I was all there.
     So what did I do now?
     I closed my eyes in contemplation.  Or did I open them?
     I blinked and stood up.  There was no sense lying around there all
day.
     As I rose to my feet my stomach, with a sickening wave of nausea,
told me to lie back down.  I ignored its warning, and my knees (who
happen to be good friends with my stomach) promptly collapsed, causing
me to topple over and smack my nose on the floor.  My head sang.
     After my stomach had satisfied itself that it was still in charge,
it sent a second message to my knees and I was permitted to stand up.  I
edged my way across the room, and my hands came into contact with an
opening in the wall.  A doorway, I deduced brilliantly.
     I walked through it with growing confidence and soon came into
contact with another wall, this time with my face.  My nose made way for
the wall, bending to one side, and my head sang again.  That tune was
getting too familiar for my liking.  
     I turned and began walking down what seemed to be a hallway.
     Suddenly, I heard a blood-curdling growl in the darkness.  I stood
absolutely still.  My pulse raced as I tried to imagine could make a
sound like that.
     After several minutes, nothing more had happened, so I started
walking again.  And I heard another growl.
     It seemed to be coming from behind me, and it sounded closer.  I
quickened my pace, barely keeping panic in check.
     Another growl resonated through the dark corridor.  It was much
louder than the last one and it seemed like there might be more than one
of whatever was making the noise.  My panic broke out of check and I
broke into a run.  I still wasn't feeling very good, but it's amazing
what fear (and a little adrenaline) can do.
     I ran and ran, faster and faster, increasing my speed with each
growl.  They were really getting close now!  Sheer panic had me running
at Olympic velocity.
     Yet another growl reverberated through the darkness and I put on an
extra burst of speed.  That extra burst of speed was wasted, because
about a second later I encountered a wall.
     My nose, I feel, had been pretty tolerant of my mistakes, but
everything has its breaking point, and that turned out to be my nose's. 
I surrendered, sliding down the wall to collapse on the cold, hard
floor.  I just sat there, holding my nose, and humming that catchy tune
that my head was singing.
     My nose had drawn my attention from whatever had been chasing me,
until I heard another growl.  It seemed to be right in front of me.  I
looked up in terror, but it was so dark I couldn't see anything.
     My subconscious mind is very good with images and presented me with
a sequence of black-and-white monsters from old movies.
     I screamed.
     I had finally figured out where the noise was coming from, and I
screamed in sheer relief, the scream turning into an insane laugh.
     The noise was coming from my stomach.
     We had been going through some rough times, my stomach and I, and
it hadn't been fed all day, except for part of an egg and some toast
that morning, and the W & W that Melvin had given me.  Those were long
gone by now.
     I guess I deserved what my stomach had done to me.  After all, we
were both in this thing together, whatever the outcome.  If there were a
way to get rid of it, believe me, I'd be the first in line, but that
remains an impossibility.
     I had other things on my mind just then, so I had to let my stomach
off with just a warning.  It gurgled in triumph, then executed a few
acrobatic maneuvers just to show that it was not a body organ to be
trifled with.
     Just then, a door beside me slid open and the lights flashed on. 
As my eyes adjusted, I recognized the silhouette of Melvin Blunburger.

                                 * * *

     Melvin's face shocked me into reality.  Events came rushing back to
me.  I suddenly remembered my lunchtime conversation with Melvin.
     I must be on Melvin's starship.  Normally, like any sane person, I
would reject the idea as an absurdity, but there was the nerd himself,
wearing a wide purple tie, a plaid sports jacket, and green pants.
     "Hi," he burbled.  "I thought I heard a noise out here.  I was just
about to check on you."
     I stared at him in disbelief.
     He noticed my nose.  "Oh, geez, Matt.  What happened to your nose?"
     I indicated the dent in the wall and let him figure it out for
himself.
     "Oh."  He looked at me, my nose, and the dent in the wall, trying
to calculate the impact velocity necessary for my nose to cause the
dent.  He frowned.  Then he shrugged and smiled again.
     "So, how are you feeling?" he asked brightly.
     "Uh..." I started.  My stomach finished for me: "Gurgle-gurgle
slosh!"
     He noticed.  "You must be very hungry, Matt."
     "Uh.."  I started again.  "GURGLE-GURGLE SLOSH!" my stomach agreed.
     "I was going to get a chocolate milk and maybe a few sandwiches. 
Care to join me?"
     This time I didn't even get a chance.  "ROAR SPLASH GURGLE CHIRP!!"
     "Come along, then.  I might have something for your nose, too."
     Melvin led me through the corridors.  I noticed that as we walked
along, the lights turned on and off automatically.  I thought about that
for a while, and considered asking Melvin about it.  My stomach though,
would hear nothing of it.  "SPLOOSHIN GURGLE-DUMP PARF," it demanded,
and that settled it.
     Melvin treated me to a veritable feast of peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches, all freshly synthesized by the galley's food machine.  I
didn't want to seem to be a pig, so I stopped with a meager five
sandwiches and three glasses of milk.
     To the casual observer, it probably seems that my stomach has
control of my body, but this is an oversimplification.  When my stomach
is full, it can't send its disruptive messages through my body, so if I
want to lead a normal life, I must keep my stomach happy.
     "Full yet?" Melvin asked, starting on his eighth sandwich.  He
could eat many more than I could since roughly half of each sandwich
ended up on his face, or his clothes, or his hands, or his lap, or the
floor.
     "Yeah," I said.  "Did you say you had something for my nose?"  Now
that my stomach was full, my brain could turn its attention to other
matters.  Pain impulses were arriving from all over my body, and my nose
really smarted.
     His eyes lit up.  "Why, yes, I do."  He walked to the food
synthesizer and punched a few buttons.  The machine buzzed and Melvin
took two slender cucumbers, about the diameter and length of my little
finger, from the slot.  He handed them to me.
     I looked at them dubiously, then started to eat one.  "No, no," he
said.  "Put them in your nasal orifices."
     I stared at him, uncomprehending.
     "Your nostrils, I mean," he clarified.
     I looked at Melvin sharply, then inspected the cucumbers.  "Up my
nose?  What are they?"
     "Why, they're cucumbers, of course.  They're from a planet called
Vlasic 7.  They're used mainly for seasoning, but they also have
powerful medicinal properties."
     "Oh," I said.  I looked at the cucumbers again in light of this new
knowledge.  Though they still looked the same, a sharp pain convinced me
to stick one up each nostril.
     Much better.
