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

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
                                                       - Isaac Asimov

     While we waited for Melvin, Zot, and Rhye to wake up, Zordoff and I
taught Chester and Donald how to play Pac-Man.  The game wasn't very
different from the Earth version.  After I mastered the unfamiliar
controls, I was able to surpass everyone else's scores.
     Every few minutes we had to brief Chester on the rules and tell him
the object of the game.  Fortunately, his temper only flared twice.  The
first time was when he lost his first Pac-Man.  We had to re-explain
that he was supposed to eat the dots, not yell "Attack" and chase the
ghosts.  The second time was when Donald laughed at him because he was
out of energizers and was being chased by all of the ghosts who
proceeded to trap him in a corner.  Donald lost his new set of teeth,
but then, that was probably his intent.
     Rhye and Zot woke nearly simultaneously.  They both seemed a little
confused, and Zot said something like "1/2 P x 1/2 R = Meridon squared."
 He smiled and helped Rhye to her feet.  They both came over to watch us
play Pac-Man.
     After scoring one million points, I turned to Zot and Rhye and
asked them if they wanted to play.  Rhye was busy looking about the room
and shaking her head in what appeared to be disgust.  Zot merely nodded.
     Rhye said suddenly, "If you'll excuse me, I have a few things to
do."
     I flushed and said, "Oh...  Uh...  sure, I didn't even, uh, think
of, uh, you having to, uh, do your, uh, things.  How silly of me."
     Rhye gave me a weird look as she entered the elevator.  The strange
smile on her face and the elevation of her eyebrow told me that my
irrestible charm had been at work again.  "Later, babe," I called, and
turned to see that Zot had doubled my Pac-Man score.
     Snort, who had left the bridge to find something on which to blow
his nose, returned.  "Hi Batt.  How's Belvid?"
     "Out cold.  We think that he'll be up shortly, though, because Zot
is awake and they were both taken out at the same time during the
battle.  Zot says we should allow him extra time because he was soused."
     "I said, 'deeply intoxicated,'" supplied Zot, scoring another
20,000 points effortlessly.
     "Yeah.  Well, he'll be out a while longer," I said.
     Donald made his way to the garbage disintegration module and
deposited his handful of teeth into it, then rejoined the Pac-Man
spectators.
     At this moment, Snort loosed a mighty sneeze.  "Blaaaaahchoo!!"
     Chester turned slowly from Zot's steadily increasing score to glare
at Snort.  "What?" he growled.  "What did you say?"
     "Duhthig, I just sdeezed," said Snort as he sdeezed again. 
"Blaaaahrchoooo!"
     Chester's frown deepened, and he started making a funny noise, the
kind of noise that would come from a garbage disposal that was full of
nails.
     Everyone on the bridge tensed.
     "You said 'Blaaaaaahrchoooo?'" Chester asked as he continued making
the strange garbage-disposal-full-of-nails sound.
     "Doe, uh, I said, uh, ah, ur, BLAAAAAAAGHCHOOOOO!" sdeezed Snort.
     Everyone backed away, except for Chester, who had caught the full
force of the sdeeze.  He wiped his face on his sleeve.  While Chester
was busy, Snort seized the moment, and, with a heroic surge of
adrenaline, fled.
     Melvin chose that moment to wake up, struggling groggily to his
feet as Snort rushed past him.  In this state it took him a few seconds
to fully comprehend the situation.  It looked to Melvin as if Chester
were barreling right toward him.  Melvin's reason abandoned him and
instinct took over.  He knew what he had to do.
     Melvin took off.
     Chester immediately abandoned Snort in favor of Melvin, who was the
closer and slower target.
     As the chase commenced, we relaxed and went back to watching Zot
play Pac-Man; he had accumulated another hundred billion points.  And he
was still on his first Pac-Man.

                                 * * *

     Melvin tried to pick up speed, but he was still weak from his
accident (and his hangover).  He managed to catch up with Snort, who was
burdened down with his bagpipes.  Chester wasn't far behind.
     "No one says 'Blaaghchoo' to me and gets away with it!" Chester
roared as he thundered down the corridor.
     Melvin glanced back over his shoulder and wished that he hadn't. 
Chester was gaining, his face the ugliest contortion of wrath that
Melvin had ever seen.  He had no idea what the word "Blaaghchoo" meant,
but he had the feeling he would find out.  Snort clarified the meaning
for him.
     "BLAAAAARGHCHOOOO!!" he sneezed, the force of his sneeze doubling
him over.  Melvin ran into him and doubled over as well.  Chester just
ran into the two of them without even trying to stop.
     "I never said..."  Melvin started to protest just before Chester
collided with them.
     WHAP!
     The three of them lay in a disorganized heap for a while before
Melvin gathered the courage to ask, "Uh, Chester, uh, aren't you going
to pulvierize us or something?"
     "No, why would I do something like that?" Chester asked, confused. 
"I only just metcha, didn't I?"
     "Uh, yeah, uh well, it was just that you were saying something like
'No one says Bl...'"
     "BLOOOOOOOORMP," Snort supplied with his bagpipes, barely in time,
before Melvin finished the word.
     "Well, Matt..."  started Chester.
     "Melvin," corrected Melvin.
     "Right.  Melvin, I just never 'spected anyone to say that to me." 
He smiled broadly and looked down the corridor.
     Melvin looked to see what Chester was looking at.  Chester was
looking at Rhye, who was emerging from a supply room with a bucket and a
mop.
     "Just what are you planning to do with those?" Melvin demanded,
glaring at her from beneath Chester's bulk.
     "Stuff," she answered simply.
     "And just what do you mean by 'stuff?'"
     "Clean, stupid."
     "Your quarters?"
     "No, the whole ship.  You've got some pretty messy spots, but I
think I can clean this pigpen up."
     "PIGPEN!" Melvin exploded.  "I'll have you know that this pigpen,
as you call it, happens to be the home of eighty nerds who toiled for
months to get it looking like this!"
     "Why, then, did seventy-nine nerds desert you?"  She smiled.
     "They didn't desert me," cried Melvin desperately.  "They're just
on vacation.  Yeah, that's it, and FILBERT just happened to schedule
them all for the same month."  Melvin managed a weak smile.
     "Oh," she said as she walked away.
     "Don't let me catch you doing anything even resembling cleaning in
this ship, do you hear me?" Melvin screamed at the top of his lungs.
     She continued walking down the corridor.
     "HEAR ME?!" Melvin yelled, shaking his fist at her.
     She turned the corner.
     Just then, Melvin noticed that he, Chester, and Snort were still
lying in a pile.  "You guys okay?" he asked as he struggled to extricate
himself from the pile.
     "Swell."
     "Barvelous."
     "Well, then, let's..."
     "Uh, AH, UR..."
     Melvin looked at Snort in panic.  "No, Snort, don't..."
     "BLAAAAAARGHCHOOO!!"
     "Sneeze," finished Melvin.
     "GRRRRRRRRR..." growled Chester.
