Melinda and the Little Green Men

by Andrew Roller


Melinda and the Little Green Men

Table of Contents

Chapter One - A Sad End

Chapter Two - A Castle for a Queen 

Chapter Three - Incommodious

Chapter Four - The Sewer Room

Chapter Five - The Teleport Threat

Chapter Six - Neverwhere

Chapter Seven - Permanent Perigee

Chapter Eight - Losers Welcome  ( Especially )

Chapter Nine - Buried Alive

Chapter Ten - Gone Away

Chapter Eleven - Dead Broke

Chapter Twelve - Grave’s End

Chapter Thirteen - Audition

Chapter Fourteen - Heavenly Flush

Chapter Fifteen - Coffined

Chapter Sixteen - The Big Bang

Chapter Seventeen - A Sucky Day

Chapter Eighteen - Examination

Chapter Nineteen - Expelled

Chapter Twenty - Enslaved

Chapter Twenty-One - The Bugler

Chapter Twenty-Two - The Gates of Salvation

Chapter Twenty-Three - The Amateur Genius

Chapter Twenty-Four - Pooper’s Paradise

Chapter Twenty-Five - Eisegesis


Melinda and the Little Green Men

by Andrew Roller

Chapter One - A Sad End

It was their last day on earth.  The two girls, playing in the field in their suburban neighborhood, didn’t know this.  If Melinda and Emily were ever to return to earth, it wouldn’t be for a very long time.  

Melinda was ten years old.  I could say that she looked “striking”.  Or I could use some other politically correct term.  In fact, she was very lovely.  Her lank, flaxen hair fell to her slim waist.  A white string bikini clung to her svelte figure.

Emily was seven years old.  Her short red hair fell to her shoulders.  Stout, she resembled a girl version of Winnie-the-Pooh.  Emily wore a one-piece floral print swimsuit.  Both girls had on rubber flip-flops.

Emily was clever.  Though she was only seven years old, she wore a red fireman’s hat with the number “21” printed on it.  Emily hoped that her hat would fool people into believing that she was older, or even that she was a fireman.

On this bright sunny day, something flashed in the sky.  Both girls saw the silvery disc as it caught the sunlight.  Emily was quick to figure out what it was.

“It’s a flying saucer!” Emily said.  Melinda, who was taller than Emily, watched it with her friend.  The saucer sailed over the neighborhood.  As it approached, the girls saw it clearly.  It had a flat circular base, and a domed top.  A line of porthole-like windows encircled the lower part of the dome.  There was a front-facing windshield. 

The saucer, and its shadow, skimmed over the field.  The saucer’s shadow briefly engulfed the girls.  Then the saucer passed over a treeline.  It settled into tree-dotted scrubland.  From that place came a sound of snapping tree limbs, and of brush being crushed.  Silence followed.

“Let’s go!” Emily urged.  Both girls wanted a closer look at the flying saucer.  It was unimaginable that such an object could land in their neighborhood!  The girls had no idea that they would soon be swept up in an ongoing galactic war.  They rushed into the treeline.  Then Melinda and Emily crept into the shady brush beyond. 

The saucer was there.  It stood on metal legs, hulking amid the surrounding trees.  An electrical hum, like that put out by high tension wires, came softly from the saucer’s smooth hull.  

An airlock opened in the side of the saucer.  A stair-equipped gangplank descended.  Then, as Melinda and Emily watched, a line of little green men came down the gangplank.  The men were about as tall as the girls.  They were carrying a pink worm.  It was a big worm, as big as a little green man.

The men laid their worm down on the grass.  The last men in the group had brought shovels.  The shortest of the little green men was in charge of the men.  Named Chirpley, he set several men to work digging a hole.

Emily crept forward.  Melinda tried to stop her, but decided to accompany her.  The little green men saw the girls.  There was a mutual cry of surprise from both parties.   The men stopped their digging.  Emily asked what they were doing.

“We’re digging a grave,” Chirpley answered.  He and the other men stood with solemn faces.  Emily, who sometimes went fishing, said that it was odd to bury a worm.  She only dug worms out of the earth.

Chirpley stood straighter.  He, like his fellows, had a round head.  Two green antennae stuck out of the top of his head.  He was without clothing, except for a white loincloth that, being puffy and full, resembled diapers.  Chirpley wore white gloves.  On his small feet were big, rhinestone-studded cowboy boots.

“This is no ordinary worm!” Chirpley told the girls.  “It’s our queen!”

“Except she’s dead now,” a second little green man said.  He looked much like Chirpley, with a round head and antennae.  He wore a loincloth, gloves, and cowboy boots.

“She was a very old queen,” a third little green man said.

“So, since she’s dead, we must bury her,” a fourth little green man said.  There were, in all, a dozen of them.

“Stand aside!” Chirpley told the girls.  It didn’t matter that the girls were already at a distance from the dead worm.  Chirpley rarely missed a chance to look important.  Even in front of little Earth girls.

The little green men dug their grave.  Or, rather, a few of them did, while the others watched this with Melinda and Emily.  Chirpley supervised.

The dead queen was buried.  The little green men had just filled in her grave when someone, off in the trees, yelled,

“Attack!”  Stones and handfuls of dirt flew from the treeline.  Several little green men were hit by the stones.  A stone banged off of Emily’s Fire hat.  She and Melinda screamed.  So did the little green men.  The men ran back aboard their flying saucer and, as neighborhood boys whooped and hollered, and threw more dirt and stones, Melinda and Emily followed the men.  

No sooner had the green men and the girls rushed into the saucer, than something came out of it.  Two somethings, in fact.  They were grotesque.  Ghosts, they resembled white sheets torn by the wind from a clothesline.

The boys charged from the trees.  They were attacking through the shady brush when the ghosts set upon them.

“OOOOOO!” the ghosts howled.  The boys screamed in terror.  They fled back into the trees, and into the field.

The saucer hummed more loudly.  Its gangplank retracted.  Just before the ship buttoned itself up, the ghosts zipped back inside of it.  The saucer whisked into the sky.  It disappeared beyond the clouds.

Within the saucer, Melinda and Emily cringed before the ghosts.  These hung over them, looking horrid.  The ghosts had blank, bulging eyes, and gaping mouths with fangs.  They had scared the boys, and were now scaring the girls.  To the little green men, they were damn annoying.

“Our spaceship’s haunted,” Gauss apologized.  He was one of the men.  He and several of his crewmates, though dressed like the others, also wore utility belts.

“But we got it at a discount,” a fellow crewman said.  The green men stood with the girls on the saucer’s bridge.  To one side was the closed airlock.  To the right, and to the rear, the bridge opened onto other rooms.

The saucer was named “Regoob”.  Compared to a military cruiser, it was a little ship.  Yet Regoob was plenty roomy.  Its many spaces held a number of unwanted passengers.  But these occupants were mostly small, and furtive, unlike the two hovering ghosts.

One occupant was big.  He was a worm, like the men’s dead queen.  He slithered about in the saucer’s recesses.  Except now.  Curious about the girls, this worm peered from a shadowed corridor.  Then, he did the one thing that he was known for, and named for.  He farted.

“Farrrrrrrrt!”  It was a big, smelly fart.  Both girls clutched their little noses.  The little green men did the same.  The ghosts, who had been so hideously maleficent, fled.  An embarrassed Fartley slipped away into the ship.

“Peeyou!” Emily cried.  Melinda echoed her.  The girls made for the airlock.  That’s when they realized that Regoob was airborne.  In fact, the little saucer was far beyond the Earth.

“We’d better go home,” Melinda said.  Emily wasn’t so sure.  The saucer’s pilot’s seat, before its dashboard and its windshield, struck her as inviting.

“Can I drive?” she asked.  Since no one was, at the moment, controlling where the saucer went, she figured she might try.

That’s when Gauss saw the Moon approaching.  It was approaching fast.  He gave a cry of alarm.  The other men, now seeing what he saw, gave panicked yells.

Emily jumped into the pilot’s chair.  Grabbing the saucer’s yoke, she steered the ship clear of the Moon.

“Hooray!” the little green men yelled, with Melinda.  Emily continued to fly the speeding saucer.  Gauss gave her driving tips.

Soon, the ship was approaching Jupiter.  As anyone who’s watched the film “2001:  A Space Odyssey” knows, or even the film, “Starship Poopers”, Jupiter is no ordinary planet.  It’s a gateway to other parts of the galaxy.

Emily couldn’t resist flying through a galactic gateway.  Regoob sped toward Jupiter.  The planet soon filled Regoob’s windshield.

Within Jupiter’s clouds was a bright oval.  This wasn’t Jupiter’s red spot, but a metal doughnut.  This doughnut, however, was slender.  It was dotted by circular lights.

“Head for the center!” Gauss said to Emily.  She did.  Regoob shot through the slim doughnut and into hyperspace.

A kaleidoscope of colors streaked past Regoob.  They were very pretty.  The girls remarked upon them as Regoob tunneled through our galaxy.

The little saucer popped from hyperspace.  It sailed among the ordinary stars again.  Ahead was a ringed planet.

“That’s Quigley!” Zolna, one of the little green men, told the girls.

“We live there, in a castle.” Gauss said.

“A castle!”  Melinda was impressed.

“Does your castle have a fireman?” Emily asked.  The answer was “no”.  So Emily, who was now Regoob’s pilot, asked to be the men’s fireman as well.  The men agreed.

This left Melinda wondering what she could be.  Before dinner, of course, since she still hoped to get home soon.

“You can be our queen!” Zolna told her.

“I’ll be the princess!” Emily said.  She was still intent, too, on being the men’s fireman and pilot.

“I’m the king!” Chirpley said.  This brought Fartley-like noises from the other men.  So Chirpley settled on being what he already was, the men’s captain.

Somewhere in the ship, Fartley ensured his place in this little world, by farting.

Quigley loomed.  Space traffic was flowing toward the purple planet.  Quigley was belted by shimmering rings.  But their colors clashed.  Melinda remarked on this.

“It’s better than having no rings at all, like Earth,” Chirpley riposted.  He did not mention that planet Quigley lacked a moon.

Emily followed the space traffic into Quigley’s atmosphere.  There, the ships scattered to their destinations.  Emily, directed by Gauss, flew over a city.  Its buildings, compared to those on Earth, were outlandishly shaped.  Beyond the city lay a beach community.  And then, shining to the sunlit horizon, was a lavender sea.

“Land there,” Gauss told Emily.  He meant the far side of the beach community, near the seashore.  Emily put the saucer down in a patch of sand.  

Regoob stood upon its metal legs amid other parked spaceships.  Makeshift buildings were also neighbors to to Regoob.  No castle was in sight.  The sea lay near.


Chapter Two - A Castle for a Queen

Zolna opened the airlock.  Its gangplank lowered, and the men and the girls disembarked.  The hour was noon.  It was hot.  There was a salt tang in the air and, in the distance, the waves could be heard as they broke along the shore.

Chirpley led the party along a sandy trail.  It wound between the spaceships and the homes.  Hofsted, the fattest of the little green men, waddled at the file’s rear.  He complained about leaving the ship.

“We’ll be at our castle soon,” Chirpley said.  

The beach community slumbered in the seaside air.  There were odd odors.  These smells, of cooking food, caused Hofsted to say he was hungry.  The men ignored him.  A seagull sailed overhead.

Creatures gazed here and there from the spaceships and from the homes.  Their alien faces startled Melinda and Emily.  It was as if they’d wandered into a back lot on Star Wars, full of extras in outlandish costumes!  Some of the aliens were surprised to see the girls.

“What are Earthlings doing here?!” an alien asked.

“There goes the neighborhood,” an alien, observing the girls, lamented.

Chirpley heard this.

“Commoners!” he riposted, to his alien neighbors.  “Show some respect for royalty!”  Melinda realized that Chirpley meant her, and Emily.  She blushed.  As for Emily, she trotted along with a self-confident look.  She’d piloted a flying saucer, and now she was the inheritor of Luke Skywalker’s realm.  Plus she was a fireman, and a princess.  This was a fine day!

The trail led onto the beach.  It was mostly vacant on this weekday, with a few bathers and seagulls.  Chirpley indicated a large sculpted heap of sand on the shore.  It stood just above where the inrolling sea boiled.

“There it is!” he said.  He and his crewmates beamed at Melinda and Emily.

The men had built a big sand castle.  It had some attractive towers, a wall and a moat.  Several small flags, in various colors, decorated the edifice.  An old door lay across the moat.  It gave access to a hole in the ground, that the castle enclosed.

Emily was entranced.  When the men invited her to come inside, meaning down into the hole, she agreed.  Melinda cautiously accompanied them.  As she did, she seemed to hear her name on the wind.  But she saw nothing unusual, besides the bathing aliens and the seagulls.

Zolna led the group into the hole.  He did so with a flashlight.  Several other men lit flashlights too, as the group entered the hole.  

The hole had a stone staircase.  It had been carved by time, and by an intelligent hand.  Sand dusted or clung to some of the steps.  So did seaweed and seashells.  These also cluttered the floor of the cave that the stairs led down into.  An old stove sat in the cave.

“This is Mr. Lehman’s cave,” Zolna told Melinda and Emily.

“We used to be his gardeners,” Hofsted said proudly.

“Gardners?” Melinda asked.  She saw only stone, and the oceans’s detritus.

“It was an easy job,” Hofsted admitted.

“He’s a sailor,” Chirpley said.  

“But he’s disappeared,” Gauss added.  “We don’t see him anymore.”

“That’s too bad,” Melinda said. 

An apparition appeared on the stairs, near the lowest step.  Melinda yelped.  Emily gave a gasp of surprise, and the men gave startled cries.

“Melinda,” the ghostly figure said.  It resolved itself as a tall, slender boy.

“You’re human!” Emily gasped.  The boy’s image remained streaked with transmission lines, as if it were being beamed into the cave from far away.

“Quiet!” the boy snapped at Emily.  She gasped anew.  So did Melinda, and the others

“You’re my bride,” the boy told Melinda.  The bikini-clad girl shrieked.  

“I’m King Kleigowski,” the boy said.  “From Earth, of course.  My galactic fleet will arrive in a moment.  Stay here as it attacks.  Then, I will land, and we’ll be married,” the boy said to Melinda.

Seawater spilled down the stairs.  The boy’s image vanished.

“My God!” Melinda gasped.

“She’s not marrying you!” Emily, finding her courage, told the place on the stairs where the boy’s image had been.

More seawater came down the stairs.

“We’d better go,” Zolna said.  “The cave floods at high tide.”

Emily scrambled up the stairs with Melinda.  The men followed.  The tide was boiling about the castle.  In the clear sky above, thunder sounded.  Then sirens began to wail in the distance.  Kevin Kleigowski, who had been terrorizing the galaxy’s far side for some time, was now attacking Planet Quigley!

Melinda and Emily ran with the men from the beach.  They headed back to Regoob.  All about them, the beach community was coming alive to the danger that thundered above.  A battle was underway in the sky.

Melinda and Emily ran up the gangplank into Regoob.  As the crew came in after them, a seagull flew into the ship.  Emily reclaimed her place in the pilot’s seat.

Regoob took off.  Other spaceships were beginning to rise from the land too.  Suddenly, a transmission forced itself onto a television screen on Regoob’s dashboard.  A man in a military uniform issued a warning.  His insignia showed that he was a Quiglian general.

“Attention all civilians!” the general warned.  “We’re under attack!  Do not leave Planet Quigley!  All civilian spaceships are grounded!”

“We’d better land,” Hofsted said.

“Ignore that!” Chirpley shouted.  

“But—“ Melinda gasped.  Emily flew stolidly higher.

“We’re soldiers!” Chirpley said.

“We’re volunteer lifeguards,” Zolna said.

“Good enough!” Chirpley retorted.

The saucer was now climbing at an eye-popping speed.  It cleared the clouds, and the sunlit sky.  The starry cosmos opened before it.  The ship sped toward the nearest ship in the Quiglian fleet.  The Quiglians were locked in a battle with King Kleigowski’s ships. 

As Regoob closed on the big Quiglian cruiser, the general reappeared on the saucer’s dashboard T.V.

“Stop!” the general ordered.

Chirpley drew himself up to his full, diminutive height.

“Sir!” he told the general, with an irked look.  “I am Chirpley Superlapee.”  To Emily, Chirpley said, “Full speed ahead!”  Then, for effect, he added, “Don’t shoot ‘till you see the whites of the their eyes.”  Since he was sounding very important, Chirpley added, “Your money or your life!”

The saucer rushed at the cruiser.  As it loomed, Emily began to think that going full speed ahead might not be a good idea.

Then she realized that they were too close to the cruiser to stop!  As a collision became obvious, she leapt from the pilot’s seat.

“Duck!” Emily called to Melinda.  Samuel, the seagull who’d flown into the ship, drew himself up to his full, diminutive height.  He did so on the floor, where he’d settled by Melinda’s feet.

“I, Miss, am not a duck!  I’m a sea-“ Samuel began.

Melinda felt a sudden tingling wash over her.  She was standing somewhere else, if still beside Samuel, as the bird finished giving his species.

“-gull,” Samuel said.

They were all someplace else.  That is, the girls, the men, and whatever else that had been on the saucer’s bridge, was now in a jail cell.  The jail’s front wall and it’s door consisted of iron bars.  A heavy white mist clung to the jail’s ceiling.

The saucer was nowhere to be seen.  But there was a low hum, that is common to spaceships.

A tall boy came to the cell’s door.  Melinda gasped.  So did Emily, as cries came from the men.

“It’s that boy!” Melinda yelped, alarmed, to cries of alarm from her cellmates.  She cringed.  So did Emily, and the others.

“Call me Kevin,” the boy said.  He grinned at Melinda.  “You’re lucky I’m around.  Your little friend ( he meant Emily ) crashed your saucer into a Quiglian cruiser.”

“I’m not marrying you!” Melinda said.

“Me neither!” Emily said.

“Me neither!” Hofsted said.

Kevin laughed.

“You’d better let me do the thinking,” he told Melinda.  “My teleport ray couldn’t reach you on planet Quigley.  You were too far away.  So I told you to stay.  And what did you do?”  He grinned, and not pleasantly.  “You fled, of course, directly toward me!”

As Kevin spoke, the mist coalesced.  Suddenly, it was no longer a mist, but a pair of fanged, bulging-eyed ghosts!

“OOOOOO!” the ghosts howled, at Kevin.  The boy ran shrieking out of the jail cell.  A moment later, tingling engulfed Melinda.  Everyone else in the cell was caught in the same sensation.  Then, as suddenly as they’d arrived, the captives all disappeared from the jail cell.


Chapter Three - Incommodious

Melinda sat on the floor.  Her head rested against a tiled wall.  A sink was above it.  Around her, in disorder, lay a number of little green men.  Emily sat nearby.  Samuel, lying near Emily, righted himself.  He flew up and about in a mist that floated along the bathroom ceiling.

They’d been teleported again.

“Where are we now?!” Emily asked.

“I’m in a toilet!” Chirpley shouted, from a bathroom stall.  “Help!”

The men and the girls gathered themselves.  Some of the men, being teleported to the bathroom, had landed in toilet stalls.  Chirpley hadn’t just wound up in a stall.  He’d been planted with such force into a toilet that his bottom was stuck in the hole at its base.  Toilet water surrounded his semi-submerged figure.  He gazed helplessly from the commode.

“Don’t flush it!” Chirpley cried, of his toilet, as the girls and some crewmen piled into his stall.  The group couldn’t help laughing.  Chirpley, however, didn’t laugh.  Being stuck in a toilet was not his idea of a good time,

Emily and the crew pulled Chirpley out of the toilet.  He was unhurt.  His body was wet in places.  His diaper-like loincloth was soaked.

A woman screamed.  Shouts came from the men who hadn’t crammed themselves into Chirpley’s stall.

Kevin had teleported his captives from his spaceship to a Quiglian one.  Specifically, he’d teleported his captives into a ladies’ bathroom aboard the Quiglian ship.

“Eeeeek!” the woman visitor screamed.  “There are men in the bathroom!  In the ladies’ bathroom!”  Soldiers arrived.  When they learned that the men in the women’s bathroom had also crashed their saucer into the Quiglian ship, they arrested them.  Chirpley and his crew were brought before General Grouchley.  They were accompanied by Melinda and Emily.

General Grouchley commanded the Quiglian fleet.  His flagship was called The Drut.  It was this that Regoob had crashed into.  

George Grouchley was big, fat and green.  His uniform strained to contain him.  It was he who had grounded all of Quigley’s civilian ships, and who’d ordered Regoob to stop.  It was he whom Chirpley had disobeyed.

Chirpley stood to attention before General Grouchley.  He did so with wet pants, from the toilet.  Gathered behind Chirpley was his crew, and the girls.   The volunteer lifeguard saluted the general.  This did not improve George’s mood.

“I understand you were in the ladies’ bathroom,” George said to Chirpley.

“Yes, sir,” Chirpley answered.  “I was stuck in a toilet.”

“Your saucer crashed into my ship!” George told Chirpley.

“Yes, Sir,” the volunteer lifeguard replied.  Emily slipped partly behind Melinda, to escape the general’s eyes.

“We’ll need a new ship,” Chirpley told George.  “To continue our noble fight against King Kleigowski.”

“Kleigowski’s fleet is in full retreat!” George told Chirpley.  “I’m not sure what happened.  One minute they were attacking, the next — they were fleeing!”

“I may know why - “ Chirpley said.

“Obviously, I’m an even better general than I knew,” George concluded.  He eyed Chirpley.  “Get your stinky saucer out of my ship!  And stay out of the ladies’ bathroom!”

“Yes, Sir,” Chirpley replied.

Several women came screaming into the general’s presence.  

“Help!” the women shouted.  “Our bathroom is haunted!”


Chapter Four - The Sewer Room

Regoob had smashed through a large glass panel in the hull of The Drut, near its stern.  Doing so, Regoob had plunged itself into a big cesspool.  Much of the cesspool’s contents had emptied into outer space.  This left the saucer at the bottom of the big cesspool, in such sludge as remained.  The cesspool stank.

Repair ships had plugged the hole in The Drut’s hull.  The big, open cesspool was in The Drut’s sewer room.  This was a big, high-ceilinged room, with a crane.  As Regoob’s crew arrived, along with the girls, the crane lifted Regoob out of the cesspool.  It plopped the saucer, with a clang, onto the sewer room’s floor.  A work crew gathered about the stinky craft.

Chirpley strode up to the work crew.

“I am the captain of this august ship,” he said, in a tone that he hoped sounded important.  Chirpley had a high voice.  But now, his voice was mouse-squeaky, for he was holding his nose.  So was his whole crew, and the girls. 

The work crew was wearing disposable masks.  One of them regarded Chirpley, who remained in wet pants.

“You own this piece of shit?” the workman asked Chirpley.  “It’s going to need a lot of cleaning.”

“We’ll wait until you’re done with it,” Chirpley said.

“You’ll clean it now,” a workman told Chirpley.  “General Grouchley wants you, and your saucer, off of his ship!”

“Oh!” Chirpley said.  “We must have important duties awaiting us.”

“The general just wants you to go!” a workman said.

Meanwhile, back at the ladies’ bathroom, a priest had been called.  He was exorcising the bathroom of its two ghosts.  Ladies waited with rising anxiety as this holy procedure proceeded.

“Hurry up!” a woman complained.

“I have to go!” another woman said.  

The priest paused in his incantations.  He assured the ladies that they wouldn’t have to wait long.  There was no need to go elsewhere.  The priest was a speedy priest.  But, if he were to rush, in an unholy way, the ghosts might not be exorcised.  So the priest proceeded with due reverence for the divine.  And the ladies waited.  With rising anxiety. 


Chapter Five - The Teleport Threat

Regoob left The Drut.  That ship, and its fleet, were now returning to planet Quigley.  Emily was piloting Regoob.  She was doing so with the purpose of learning to fly it better.  

Melinda was aboard Regoob.  So was everyone in Regoob’s crew.  Samuel, the seagull, had again invited himself aboard.  The ghosts, exorcised from the ladies’ bathroom, were aboard Regoob too.

On the saucer’s bridge, teleportation was being discussed.

“People teleport all the time on Star Trek,” Emily said.  Chirpley had seen the show.

“We call it ‘Apes in Space’”, he said.  Emily scowled at him.

“Who knew an ape - I mean, a human - would invent teleportation?” Gauss asked.  Melinda asked what he meant.

“No one in the galaxy can teleport,” Gauss said.  “Except, now, Kevin Kleigowski can.”  Everyone on the bridge considered this.

“We need to stop him,” Melinda said.

“Yes!” Emily agreed.  “He could attack Earth!”

Chirpley saw a chance to be important.  Standing straight, though he was still short, he said,

“Men!  We must go after King Kleigowski!  We must climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, and go where only apes in space have gone before!”

Gauss hastened to a computer.

“I’ll see if I can find the king’s fleet,” he said. 

“Maybe we should ask for help from General Grouchley,” Melinda said.  Chirpley bristled.

“I’ll be in command of this mission,” he said.  “Since it was my idea!”

“General Grouchley didn’t do anything to defeat the king,” Zolna said.  “It was our ghosts who scared him off.”

“I found him!” Gauss said.  He meant the king’s fleet.  Gauss told Emily what direction to fly in.  She did so.  Chirpley, pleased, began to practice a victory speech.

“I came,” he intoned.  “I saw - “

“And I got stuck in the toilet,” a crewman said.


Chapter Six - Neverwhere

Kevin Kleigowski was angry.  The panicked retreat of his fleet had put his ships into disarray.  The fault was his own.  His fleet was crewed by robots.  Their purpose was to obey.  

Kevin stood on the bridge of his flagship, Teliot.  He spoke with his robot admiral, Dolt 0001.  

“Take the fleet through a hypergate,” Kevin ordered his admiral.  “We’ll reorganize ourselves on its far side.”

“Yes, Sir,” Admiral Dolt answered.  Kevin’s fleet was soon flying toward a distant gas giant.  There, it would pass through the planet’s hypergate.

Unknown to Kevin, a little saucer, flown by a seven-year-old girl, was hot on his trail.

Kevin’s fleet neared the gas giant.  As Regoob closed on the fleet, Gauss told Emily,

“Hurry!  They might go anywhere in hyperspace!”

Regoob snaked among the disordered vessels.

“Land on Teliot,” Gauss told Emily.  “That’s the king’s flagship.”  

Teliot was a big cruiser.  Emily zipped above it.  She put the small saucer down amid the outbuildings that topped Teliot’s hull.

The cruiser, and its accompanying fleet, passed into the gas giant’s hypergate.

Emily yawned.  She was in a flying saucer in hyperspace, atop a galactic cruiser, but she was also a sleepy seven-year-old.  Melinda shared her sense of exhaustion.  She said so.

“And I need a bath,” Melinda said.

“I don’t need a bath!” Emily said.

“Emily Fortley, we will both take a bath!” Melinda said.  The little green men escorted the girls to a bathroom.  The area included a laundry room.  When the girls were bathing, they found that they weren’t alone.

“Hey!  Quit looking!” Emily said, spying the ghosts in their bathroom.

“Shoo!” Melinda scolded.

The ghosts, sniggering, slipped away.

Melinda and Emily bedded down in a bedroom aboard Regoob.

“Good night, Emily,” Melinda said.

“Good night, Melinda,” Emily said.  Neither girl could guess what the hour was back on earth.  Then both got a rude reminder of where they were.  Fartley trumpeted a loud goodnight in the near distance.  The girls escaped the ensuing smell by falling asleep.

As for the little green men, they were concluding their day.  They soon bedded down in the room with the sleeping girls.  The saucer, atop Teliot, was still passing through hyperspace.

“I don’t know where the king is going, but he’s going a long way,” Gauss said.

“He could be going in circles,” a crewman said.  “To throw off pursuers.”

“We’ll board Teliot tomorrow,” Zolna said.

“We can’t do that until we’re out of hyperspace,” Gauss said.

“When we are, I’ll lead the way,” Chirpley said.  “Hofsted?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Bring a trumpet.  I’ll need you to blow it.”

“Sir?” Hofsted asked.

“Huh?” Zolna asked.

“It will be a great heroic deed to capture King Kleigowski,” Chirpley said.  “When we charge him, Hofsted can blow the trumpet.”

“What about all of his robots?” a crewman asked.

“We’ll charge them too,” Chirpley said.  “Zolna!”

“Yes?”

“You bring a trumpet too.”

“Maybe we should just bring Fartley along,” someone said.

“Yes!” Chirpley said.  “We’ll have loud farts, and loud trumpeting, and then I’ll say ‘Charge!’.  Very loudly.”

“After we leave hyperspace,” Gauss said.

With this, the little green men went to sleep.  

“Melinda.”

The 10-year-old sat upright.  She’d gone to bed wrapped in a dry bath towel, but now she was in her bikini again.  

She wasn’t aboard Regoob.  She sat in a field of pale mushrooms.  These grew suddenly taller, on long stalks.  They became a forest of mushrooms.  The mushrooms shaded Melinda from the high sun.  Through sprouted undergrowth, a path trailed off into the tall mushrooms.

Then an old man appeared.  Using a gnarled branch for a cane, he followed the path.  He saw Melinda and spoke.

“Melinda.”  He said this at a distance.  However, Melinda heard it as if he were beside her.  She even smelled his breath.  It had an odor of onions.

Melinda stood.

Suddenly, the man was before her.  His stooped figure was tall and commanding.

“I want you,” he rasped to Melinda.

The blonde frowned.  At least, she told herself, she was face-to-face with the person they’d been pursuing.  She did not call him king.

“Kevin.  You look awful,” Melinda said.

The man scowled.

“I’m done with Kevin,” he said.  “Kevin’s attack on Planet Quigley failed.  I don’t like failure.”

The man smiled at Melinda.

“Kevin bores me,” he said.  “You don’t.”  The man took Melinda’s arm.  She found herself walking with him, despite not wanting to.

“We’ll rule the universe,” the man told her.

“I don’t want to,” Melinda said.

“I’ll build you a fleet of spaceships,” the man said.  “Or, rather, I’ll show you how.  And you’ll have robots to man them.”

“Do it yourself!” Melinda said.

“I can’t,” the man said.  “I’m very old.”  He sighed.  Gesturing to the mushrooms, he said, “We’re not really here, you and I.  You’re dreaming in bed.  In the saucer.  And I’m in my coffin.”

“You’re a vampire?!” Melinda gasped, recoiling.

“No,” the man said.  He stopped walking.  Melinda, her arm still in his grip, was halted by this.  The man faced her again.  Taking her hand, he kissed it.  Melinda, though still appalled by him, felt herself blush.

“Call me Zirconia,” the man said.  “I was born into a world like your own.  A world without star fleets, and without robots.  But technology was advancing.  If I could only arrive in the future, I told myself, I could harness that technology and conquer the universe!”

Melinda found that she was curious.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I went to sleep,” Zirconia said.  “I found a way to sleep for a very long time.  It’s a sleep like death, but it’s a death for the living.  This allowed me to arrive in the future.

“But I’m old now.  So I need help.  I used a web site to lure Kevin into outer space, and to put him to use.  Oh, he can cause trouble!  Wars.  But, in the end, he conquers nothing.  And, anyway, you look better in a bikini.”

“I won’t help you!” Melinda said.

“Perhaps I should try Emily,” Zirconia said.

“Don’t touch her!” Melinda gasped.

“So you’ll help me?”

“No!”

Such was the force of Melinda’s will that she awoke from her dream.  She sat up in bed.  She realized that one of the little green men was watching her in the dark room.

“Which one are you?” Melinda asked, groggily.

“Gauss,” he replied.  “You shouted something.”

“I had a bad dream,” Melinda said.

“After we deal with Kevin, we’ll take you home,” Gauss said.

“Yes,” Melinda agreed.  “Yes.  That will be very nice.”  She pulled the covers back over her.  But, as she lay abed, she wondered, ‘If we catch Kevin, but leave Zirconia free, what will happen?’  She feared for Emily.

When the girls awoke, the saucer was still riding on Teliot.  That ship, and its fleet, were still in hyperspace.

Aboard Regoob, Roast squid was for breakfast.  Melinda and Emily declined.  Both girls were hungry.  But the men’s refrigerator, in the commons room, held little that the girls found edible.  In fact, the fridge mostly held scientific samples.  These were not meant to be eaten.  None looked edible to the girls.

The men were enjoying their squid at the dinner table.  As Gauss ate, he was doing calculations on a paper napkin.

“I hadn’t considered the anthropic principle,” he said.

“I want Sugar Spells!” Emily whined.  It was a brand of cereal.

“There are no Sugar Spells in outer space,” Melinda told her.  “We’re just going to have to try eating squid.”

“For breakfast?!” Emily scoffed.

“We’ll wait until lunch,” Melinda said.

“The king might have Sugar Spells,” Gauss said.  “Since he’s from Earth.”

Zolna gave Gauss a look of disapproval.

“You just want to try out your theory,” he said.

“What theory?” Melinda asked.

“Does it include Sugar Spells?” Emily asked.

Gauss explained.  Hyperspace was a pressurized system.  Though air hadn’t been detected in it, it might be present when an anthropos was.

“Except, nobody’s tried to walk around in hyperspace,” Gauss said.

Zolna looked at their captain.

“Chirpley will lead the way,” he said.

“I’m having more roast squid,” Chirpley said.

“Well, I guess we can put on spacesuits and try it,” Melinda said.

“We don’t have any,” Zolna said.

“Where’s that bird?” Gauss asked.  “We could send him outside, and see what happens.”  Everyone looked around.  Samuel had been gorging himself on the squid.  But, suddenly, he had absented himself.

“He’s a coward,” Chirpley scoffed.

“I’ll go,” Gauss said.  His theory, as it turned out, was correct.

“Space is not blue and birds don’t fly through it,” Gauss said.  “But there’s air.  At least, there is for me.”

“Me too!” Emily said.  

“Emily!” Melinda said, as the redhead went with Gauss.

“You’re not my mom!” Emily told her.

“And you don’t know about Zirconia,” Melinda thought.  She decided to accompany Emily and Gauss.

Emily led the way across the top of Teliot.  The hull’s top fascinated the redhead.  There were miles of pipes, and of metal-housed cables.  Junction boxes jutted to Emily’s height, or higher; there were pumping stations.

Emily walked quickly and ran.  She got considerably ahead of Gauss and Melinda.

The blonde called to her.

“I’m hungry!” Emily said. 

Gauss gasped.

“We’re leaving!” he said.  He meant, from hyperspace.  A hole that was as black as midnight had appeared in the distance.  The colors of hyperspace, streaming by, looked to be spilling from the black hole.  In fact, that black, round, tunnel-like exit was where hyperspace ended.  Beyond lay the vacuum of space.

“We’ll die!” Melinda gasped.  She realized, with horror, her situation.  She was in her bikini atop a galactic cruiser.  Emily, in her one-piece, was no more protected than she.  Gauss was in a loincloth that looked like a diaper.

“Head back to the saucer!” Gauss said.  Emily, seeing the danger, turned hastily around.  Then she tripped and fell.  She struggled, but didn’t rise.

“My foot’s stuck!” Emily cried.

The black hole grew bigger.  Melinda screamed.  She realized that there was no time to reach Emily, and then get back to the saucer!  She ran ahead to her friend anyway.  So did Gauss.

The black hole loomed like a huge, malevolent sun.  It was a sun without light, bearing only death’s eternal darkness.  Gauss freed Emily’s foot.  The three, panicked, threw themselves flat onto the cruiser’s hull.  Emily began crying.  Melinda began praying.  She tried saying The Lord’s Prayer.  But, since she couldn’t remember more than its first lines, she repeated them.

“Our Father, which art in ‘ergency…”

Melinda found herself reading a word that was printed on the hull beneath her.

“A hatch!” she cried, with abrupt recognition.  Printed across it was this word:

“Emergency.”

Gauss saw what she saw.  He stood, and yanked the hatch open.  Then he and the girls went into the hatch, and down a ladder that serviced it.

Gauss was the last one through the hatch.  He shut it as Teliot passed through the black hole, and out of hyperspace.  The cruiser was again in normal space.  Teliot’s accompanying fleet exited from the hypergate too. 

Kevin headed his fleet toward the planet Noirepyh, or “Noir” for short.  This planet was warmed by a feeble sun.  Eons ago, the sun had exhausted its nuclear fuel.  But Noir had boasted an intelligent civilization.  

This civilization had found a way to put its sun on life support.  Now, eons later, Noir’s civilization was gone.  All that remained of it was a lone man.  He was a man who had slept for a very long time, in a coffin, with a dream of conquering the universe. 


Chapter Seven - Permanent Perigee

Melinda stood washing her hands in a bathroom.  She was aboard Teliot.  Emily, flushing a toilet, exited a stall in the bathroom.  

“At least that boy has decent bathrooms,” Emily said.

“That’s the problem,” Melinda said.  She looked at Emily.

“Wash your hands,” Melinda said.  Emily, grousing, did so.

“You’ll make a great mom,” Emily told her friend.  She did so with a sour look.

“We need to disable Kevin’s ship,” Melinda said.  When she left the ladies’ bathroom with Emily, she asked Gauss if he could do that.

“I could try,” Gauss said.

“Good,” Melinda said.  Emily reminded Melinda that she was hungry.  Melinda agreed to join Emily in a search for food.  She told Gauss to try to break Teliot’s engines.  He agreed.

“We’ll meet up later,” Gauss said.

“Yes,” Melinda said.

The plan seemed to be a good one.  Teliot had long empty hallways, lit mostly by overhead lights.  It, and its many spaces, seemed to be largely unoccupied.  Gauss headed for Teliot’s stern, and its big engine rooms.  Before doing so, he told the girls where they would likely find the ship’s cafeteria. 

It was Emily who located the cafeteria.  She and Melinda entered it.  The place resembled a cafeteria at school.  But it was uninhabited.  The girls went to the cafeteria’s kitchen.  There, they found boxes.  They hoped that the boxes held food.  In fact, the boxes only held ‘food’ for robots.  The girls unpacked lubricants like antifreeze and motor oil.

“You’d think they’d at least have Sugar Spells *flavored* motor oil,” Emily sighed. 

“Get down!” Melinda said.  Emily did, as sounds came from the cafeteria’s dining area.  Both girls were soon peeking above the boxes.  From the kitchen, they saw a pair of robots.  The robots stood in the dining area.

“Hello!” a robot shouted.

“Serve us!” his companion said.

“Don’t hide in the kitchen!  We demand service!” the first robot said.

“Omigod!” Melinda gasped, to Emily.  “They know we’re here.  They think we’re robots!”

Emily adopted her deepest voice.

“The cafeteria is closed,” Emily said, in a mechanical tone.  “Go away!”

“Yes!” Melinda seconded, in her deepest voice.

“We don’t take orders from kitchen bots!” a robot replied.

“Serve us!” the first robot demanded.

A third robot entered the dining area.  Or, rather, a cleaning cart rolled in.  It was equipped with a mop, a bucket, a broom, a dust pan, and other cleaning items.  At its front, it had a robot head and a torso.  The torso had robot arms.  The cleaning cart addressed the two ambulatory robots.

“Get back to work!” the cleaning cart told them.  “It’s not time to eat.”

“We’re hungry!” one of the ambulatory robots replied.

“We don’t take orders from a cleaning cart!” the other bot said.

The cleaning cart’s torso stiffened.  The cart held its head high.

“I am Admiral Colt 0000!” the cleaning cart said.

“Since demoted,” one of the ambulatory bots answered.

“By King Kleigowski,” its companion said.

Admiral Colt grabbed the broom from his cart.  He twirled his broom like a baton.  Then, as the two robots cringed before him, the admiral struck them with the handle of his broom.  The admiral was so swift with his broom that he struck them a number of times.

“Yeeow!  Ow!  Ow!  Yeeouch!” the two robots cried.  Then they ran out of the dining area, and back to work. 

The admiral gazed at the kitchen.  It caught sight of the girls.  Both girls ducked behind the boxes again.  But it was too late!  The admiral, still wielding his broom, rolled quickly into the kitchen.  The admiral saw the untidy mess of boxes that the girls had opened.  He commented on this with disgust.

Then the admiral spied the girls.  The admiral was perplexed.

“You do not compute,” Admiral Colt told Melinda and Emily.  “You’re small, but not green.  You are the king’s species, but you’re not the king.”

Emily wasn’t ready to give up on pretending.

“I am a robot,” she said, in a mechanical tone.

“You don’t look like a robot,” the admiral told her.

“We’re a new kind of robot,” Melinda, speaking mechanically, said.

“What are your ranks?” the admiral asked.

“They’re so high, you’re not allowed to know!” Emily told him.

“Don’t bother us,” Melinda told the admiral.  “We must clean up this mess.”

“I’ll clean it,” the admiral said.

“Yes!” Emily agreed.

Melinda looked at Emily.

“I guess we’ll keep this cleaning cart,” she told her.  “Since he’s willing to work.”

“Yes!” Emily said.  She regarded the admiral.  “Do a good job.  Otherwise, you’ll get thrown in the trash.”

The admiral set to work cleaning up the mess that the girls had made.  Melinda and Emily, no longer feigning that they were robots, fled.

The girls went to Teliot’s bow.  There, they came upon double doors.  These led onto a balcony.  The balcony was above the main floor of Teliot’s bridge.

The bridge’s large forward windows gave a view of the stars, and of Planet Noir.  Teliot was now in orbit around the planet.

Robots manned the bridge.  They did not see the girls.  The ready room for Teliot’s captain faced onto the balcony where the girls stood.  Emily peeked into the room.  Its big picture windows gave another view of the stars.

“Nobody’s home,” Emily said.  Both girls went, quiet as mice, into the ready room.  It held a big desk, and a big swivel chair.  There was more office furniture.  Along one side of the room, there was a small kitchen.  The girls went to the kitchen.  There, Emily found a box of cereal.

“Yuck!” Emily cried.  The box of cereal wasn’t Sugar Spells.  Kevin’s face adorned the front of the box.  The cereal that the box held was called, according to the box, “Kevin O’s”.  They were indistinguishable from Cheerios.

Melinda found some Nutty Butty nutrition bars.  She began eating the wholesome bars, commending them to Emily.  The redhead, munching on Kevin O’s, shoved a Nutty Butty bar into her mouth.

The door to the ready room opened.  A surprised yelp came from both girls.  Kevin had entered the room!  He was carrying a big Lazar gun.  It was a Gatling model, whose weight he could barely manage.  Emily stared at Kevin, and at his gun.  Emily’s cheeks were stuffed with Kevin O’s.  A Nutty Butty bar was stuck halfway into her mouth.  Melinda, her own mouth full, stared at Kevin too. 

Kevin grinned.

“I’m glad you’ve decided to marry me, Melinda.  I’ve been watching you since you entered the bridge.”  He’d been doing so via the bridge’s security cameras.

“She’s not marrying you!” Emily shouted to Kevin.  Emily had unplugged her mouth to speak but, since it was still full of semi-chewed food, this ejected from her mouth as she spoke.

“Disgusting!” Kevin said.  He kept his Gatling leveled on the girls.  “I hope you’re an obedient wife, Melinda,” Kevin said.  “Otherwise, you’ll get holed.”  Kevin found this to be extremely funny.

Suddenly, there was a sound like a thunderclap.  The whole ship shook.  It did so with such force that Kevin lost his grip on his Gatling.  The gun hit the floor.  It slid away from Kevin as the ship pitched to one side.  Kevin was sent sliding after his gun.  Meanwhile, in the kitchen, both girls had been toppled onto the floor.  The Kevin O’s were spilled, and the Nutty Butty bars scattered.

“What’s happening?!” Kevin shouted.  Melinda, picking herself up from the floor, guessed:  Gauss had blown up one of Teliot’s engines!

The ship leveled itself.  Yet, it was now falling toward Planet Noir.  The stars beyond the ready room’s windows were rising out of sight.

“Run!” Melinda screamed to Emily.  The redhead, picking herself up, grabbed a Nutty Butty bar.  She then ran after Melinda.  The girls left the ready room, and the bridge.

A small hangar was near the bridge.  It held escape pods.  Each pod was shaped like a ball, and had big windows.  It could hold several people.  Melinda ran into the hangar, Emily on her heels.

Suddenly, something grabbed Emily.  Melinda whirled around in surprise.  The cleaning cart had been searching for them!  Now, it had found them!

“You’re not a robot!” Admiral Colt barked, to Emily.  He held the small girl in his mechanical grip.  The redhead struggled, but she couldn’t escape him.  Admiral Colt glared at Melinda.

“King Kleigowski has alerted everyone to your presence,” the robot said.  “You’re going to jail!”

“Omigod!” Melinda gasped.

“We already been in jail!” Emily yelled.  Which was true.  Except, now, there were no ghosts around.

Just one little green man.  Gauss dashed into the room.  His delight at locating the girls was instantly tempered by the presence of Admiral Colt.  But, Gauss was now armed.  While exploring the ship, he’d acquired a Lazar pistol.

Gauss shot out one of the cleaning cart’s wheels.  Then, on the same side of the cart, he shot out a second wheel.  Admiral Colt screamed as he toppled onto his side.  As he fell, he lost his grip on Emily.

The redhead ran to Melinda.  Gauss dashed to the girls.  The three of them scrambled into an escape pod.

“Ejaculate!” Emily cried.  The pod remained put.

“Eject!” Gauss cried.  The pod released its clamps that held it to the floor.  Suddenly, Kevin ran into the hangar.  Gauss and the girls saw him through the pod’s windows.  Kevin saw them.

The king aimed his Gatling at the pod, and at its occupants.  Suddenly, the pod ejected itself from Teliot.  Kevin’s blast of Lazar fire tore up several pods in the hangar.  However, the pod that he had wanted to shoot was gone.

“Help!” Admiral Colt, lying on the floor, yelled to Kevin.  The king ignored him.

Admiral Dolt dashed into the hangar.  To Kevin, he cried,

“Sir!  We’re losing altitude!  We’re going to crash!”

“I know that, Dolt!” Kevin answered.  He dropped the Gatling.  Kevin yanked a small device from his pocket.  It was a portable teleporter.  Kevin spoke into a telecommunications device.  This was pinned to his shirt.  He addressed the ship and its crew.

“Route all power to my teleporter!” Kevin ordered.  Shock registered on Dolt’s face, along with that of Admiral Colt.

“Sir!” Dolt objected.  “That will blow more of our engines!” 

“That’s why God invented escape pods,” Kevin replied, sourly.  As for himself, he had no desire to flee in a pod.  It would get him no farther than Planet Noir.  

That is, a pod would get him no farther than Zirconia’s world, with its jury-rigged sun.  Kevin had failed to conquer Planet Quigley.  Now, he was losing his flagship.  Kevin had no desire to face Zirconia in such a circumstance.

Kevin’s order to his ship was obeyed.  Power flowed into his transporter, maximizing its range.  Kevin vanished as another of Teliot’s engines exploded.  Admiral Dolt was knocked to the floor.

A pair of robots ran into the hangar.  They were Dee-53 and Dumb-51, the bots that Admiral Colt had disciplined.  

“Get me into an escape pod!” Colt told the robots.  Though he was floored, he was not a bot that Dee and Dumb dared to disobey.  The two bots righted Colt.  They shoved him, on his two remaining wheels, into an escape pod.  Admiral Dolt joined them.

“Hey!” Colt barked at Dolt.  “Get your own pod!”

“Ejaculate!” Dumb ordered the pod.  The pod remained put.

“Eject!” Dolt ordered.  The pod released its clamps that held it to the floor.  Suddenly, Teliot shook again, as another one of its engines blew up.  The pod holding the robots shot out of the big ship.

Teliot continued to fall toward Planet Noir.  It’s situation was now hopeless.  Its remaining engines were straining to compensate for the ones that were gone, while also trying to stop Teliot’s fall.  Another of Teliot’s engines exploded.

It did so as two escape pods plummeted toward Planet Noir. 

Aboard Escape Pod 013, Colt realized that he had a use for Dolt.  He hit his fellow admiral over the head with his broom’s handle.  He did so very hard.  He aimed for the weakest point in the robot’s skull, and hit it.  Dolt was knocked unconscious.

Dee and Dumb stared at the result.

“Put my head on his body,” Colt told them.  

“On Admiral Dolt’s body?” Dee asked.

“Yes!” Colt said.  “Get out the tool kit.”  

Dee and Dumb obeyed Colt.  The pod landed on Planet Noir as they got out the pod’s tool kit.  Then, as the pod sat on the planet’s surface, Dee and Dumb set about putting Colt’s head on Dolt’s body.

Escape pod 012 landed on Planet Noir.  Gauss got out of the pod.  It was dusk.  On Noir, lit by a feeble sun, dusk lasted all day.  The stars twinkled above an autumnal landscape.

It was not a lovely landscape of bright leaves.  Life struggled to grow on Noir.  Many of the trees dotting the land were dead.  Where vegetation survived, it was mostly weedy.  The still air evoked that of a morgue.  Silence prevailed.

Gauss told the girls that it was safe to exit the pod.  Emily was already doing so.  Melinda followed.  Suddenly, a bright streak lanced toward the horizon.  Teliot was diving to its final resting place!

The big ship passed beyond the horizon.  It struck Noir and exploded.  A fireball blossomed.  Seconds later, a wave of heat washed over the girls.

Above, in the night sky, Kevin’s fleet was left leaderless.  The ships circled each other aimlessly, or began to drift off on their own.

“The men!” Melinda gasped.  Had Regoob left Teliot in time?  There wasn’t any quick way for her, Emily, or Gauss to find out.  Perhaps there was no way at all.


Chapter Eight - Losers Welcome  ( Especially ) 

Sunset painted the western sky.  The moon called Sal Sagev was blessed by a normal sun.  However, the moon itself was a desert.  It was also seismically active.  Ancient gravity generators, built by a vanished alien race, gave the moon gravity equal to Earth’s.  But time, and earthquakes, had disabled or destroyed some of the generators.  Which is why, now, Sagev had but one habitation.  It was a big building, dating from a lost Colonial era.  In its current incarnation, the building was a casino.

A fountain fronted Casino Elayor.  Colored lights illuminated the fountain’s jets, which were currently at a low ebb.  They would soon be playing showily again in the warm desert air.  But not before a boy plopped into the pool that embraced them.

Kevin Kleigowski made a splash at Casino Elayor.  Literally:  by teleporting into its fountain.  The boy cursed.  The jets of the fountain shot high.  Some of them splashed down onto Kevin.  He cursed again.

Fortunately, nobody saw his arrival.  The casino’s clients, such as they were, were within the big building.  Elayor catered mainly to the marginal elements of the galaxy:  prospectors, itinerant laborers, and wandering traders.

Kevin got out of the fountain.  Wet as a duck, after a rainstorm, he looked around.  Elayor was gaudy, but it didn’t strike him as promising.  It looked like a tacky old dame outfitted for a night on the town. 

Except, there was no town. 

Kevin got out his transporter.  He fiddled with it, but it had only a little power.  To take him anywhere, it needed something like a galactic cruiser’s power output.  Kevin stuck the transporter back into his trousers’ right pocket.  At least, the transporter was still operational.

He yanked out his electronic wallet.  It still worked too.  The thing was loaded with Quirts, which were used throughout much of the galaxy.  It paid to be king.  Even if he’d lost his fleet.

Kevin walked to Elayor’s entrance.  He was passing through its twin glass doors when a uniformed guard stopped him.

“Hey!” the guard, named Krej, said.  “No tramps!”  He ordered Kevin out of the building.

“I’m not a tramp!” Kevin answered.  He was about to say that he was a king, when it occurred to him that he had nothing of use but his wallet.

As it happened, Elayor’s proprietor was nearby.  Named Regaw, he was an emperor penguin.  This penguin wore a black dinner jacket and bowtie, plus a white dress shirt.  He hurried over to Kevin. 

“Let’s not be hasty!” Regaw scolded his guard.  “Sir,” Regaw told Kevin.  “We welcome everyone, provided you have money.”

Kevin brandished his wallet.  Without showing how much it held, Kevin said, 

“I have money.  Give me your best room!”

Regaw looked nervous.

“Sir, our best room is expensive,” Regaw said.  “May I suggest a budget room?”

“Your best room!” Kevin insisted. 

“And, pray, who shall we be accommodating?” Regaw asked.  

“King - I mean, Count Riches.”

“Count Riches!” Regaw said.  The penguin was impressed.

“Say,” Krej cut in.  Suspicion showed in his features.  “Aren’t you that boy who’s been terrorizing the galaxy?”

“A relative,” Kevin answered.  “Nothing to do with me.”

“You’re a relative of King Kleigowski?!” Regaw asked.

“Yes,” Kevin said.  “And I’m wealthy, like he is.”

“Well!  I insist that you have our best room!” Regaw said.

The penguin escorted Kevin away from Krej, and from the entrance.  The pair were passing through the big gaming room when Kevin glanced at a craps table.  A player there was rolling the dice.  As the dice tumbled across the table, Kevin happened to stick his hand in his trousers’ right pocket.  He absently touched his teleporter.

“Sixes!” the player cried.  He’d rolled a winning pair of dice!

Kevin started.  Walking on with Regaw, he wondered if he had somehow affected the dice.  Kevin paused by a second craps table.  A player there rolled the dice.  Kevin, watching, touched his teleporter again.  The dice came up as sixes again!

“Sir.  Your room?” Regaw said to Kevin.

“Never mind that,” Kevin told Regaw.  “I’m gambling!”

“Yes!” Regaw said, with pleasure, knowing nothing of Kevin’s discovery.  “Fortunately, sir, our gaming room is fit for a king!”  When Kevin gave him a sour look, Regaw added, “Or a count!”  

The penguin wasn’t sure if Kevin was being truthful about his identity.  But what did it matter, if he was about to gamble?  After all, the odds at a casino always favored the house.


Chapter Nine - Buried Alive

The interior of Escape Pod 012, like its hull, was circular.  A cushioned bench took up much of the pod.  The bench was, like the pod, deeply curved.

Melinda, Emily, and Gauss had decided to bed down in the pod.  They slept on the bench, each one of them doing his best to conform his body to the bench’s curved shape.  They slept head to toe; that is, Melinda was stuck with her head by Gauss’ feet.  Gauss’ head was by Emily’s feet.

In her sleep, Emily found herself in a field of pale mushrooms.  These, growing swiftly, engulfed her in a forest of the fungi.  Their umbrella-shaped tops cast Emily into deep shadows.  A path trailed off through the mushrooms.

An old man appeared on the path.  Helped along by his cane, he walked toward the redhead.  To Emily’s surprise, he knew her!

“Emily,” the man said.  His breath smelled like onions.

Then the man was standing over Emily.  He smiled at her.

“I’ve waited forever for someone like you,” he told Emily.  “It’s time that you got the space fleet that you deserve.  It’s time that Planet Quigley got the leadership that it deserves, from you!”

“I’m sleeping,” Emily realized, and said this to the man in her dream.  “Go away.”

“Earth needs you,” he told her.  “I’ll make you Empress of Earth.  Empress Emily!”

Suddenly, Emily saw herself in a royal carriage, being drawn by fine horses.  Kids everywhere cheered her on.  She showered them with candy and gum.  Then, standing tall at a podium ( despite being short ) Emily read a proclamation.  There would be no more school!  If anyone went to school, it would be the teachers, and the parents!  A crowd of children cheered Emily.

The redhead liked the idea of being an Empress.

“Can I be a fireman too?” she asked the man.

“Yes!” he said.  “Come to me, Emily.”

She obeyed.  Not waking, Emily rose from the bench in the pod.  She left the pod and sleepwalked.  The moon was up; it lit her way.

Emily saw an orange glow in the distance.  Ash, carried by the wind, was falling upon the landscape.  But Emily was untroubled.  She was an Empress now.  She had only to reach Zirconia.

Emily soon found a graveyard.  It was ancient; many of the tombstones were cracked or broken.  Time had worn away the graves’ inscriptions.

One of the mausoleums was not what it seemed.  It didn’t hold a corpse.  It housed a man.  Zirconia had built this mausoleum eons ago.  Then he’d pretended to die.  He’d had himself buried.  There, in a coffin, he slept through the ensuing years.

Now, he was calling Emily.

She entered the mausoleum.  She stood in a dark room.  There was another door at the room’s far end.  Emily, feeling her way, found this second door’s handle.  She opened it.  Emily stepped into another room.  It was pitch black.  However, it was producing a steady electrical hum.  
Emily closed the inner door.  This shut her in the room’s blackness.  Suddenly, the room flooded itself with electric light.  Emily awoke.

“Where am I?!” she gasped.  The room’s walls were lined by banks of computers.  A coffin lay at the room’s center.  It was connected to the banks of computers by wires and tubes.  There was a smell of alcohol and formaldehyde.  

“Hello, Emily!” a voice said.  The redhead looked swiftly about.  Somehow, the voice was familiar!

“It’s me, Emily!” Zirconia said.  His voice boomed from the computers.  “I’m in the coffin.”

Emily rushed to the coffin’s side.  There he was!  The old man from her dream!  He had long scraggly hair; grey hair, and a grey scraggly beard.  He was dressed in a hospital gown.  He appeared to be sleeping.

“As you can see, I’m quite harmless,” Zirconia said.  His lips didn’t move.  His voice came, with confidence, from the computers.

Suddenly, a chill stabbed through Emily.  She shrieked.  Emily realized, with horror, that she was now in the coffin.  She was inhabiting Zirconia’s body!

“Wow!  It worked!” said the girl who stood by the coffin.  Then the girl fell on the floor.  

“I’m going to have to get used to this body,” Zirconia said.   He was now inhabiting Emily’s body!

“You tricked me!” Emily shouted, from inside the coffin.  Her lips didn’t move.  Her closed eyes made her look like she was asleep.  But her voice, now sounding like an old man’s, boomed from the computers.

“Excuse me,” Zirconia said, from Emily’s body.  “You have to go to the bathroom.”  Zirconia, as Emily, stood.  She managed to totter off to the bathroom.

“Oh, yeah.” came from the bathroom.  There was a sound of porcelain striking porcelain.  Zirconia, now lacking an important part, since he was now a girl, sat down to pee.

“Get me out of here!” Emily shouted, from the computers.  She remained in Zirconia’s coffin-held body.

“I have a sudden craving for sugary cereal,” Zirconia said, as he used the toilet.

“Help!” Emily shrieked.  Then, as Zirconia, still in her body, flushed the toilet, the coffin-held Emily began to cry. 


Chapter Ten - Gone Away

Melinda awoke in the dusk-like dawn.  She screamed.  A fire was raging across the landscape.  She looked about in the pod.  Emily was gone!

“Gauss!  Gauss!” Melinda cried.  She shook the little green man awake.  He saw the fire, and screamed.

“Where’s Emily?!” Melinda shouted.

Gauss looked about in the pod, then at the fire outside.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “But we’ve got to go.  The fire’s coming right at us!”  He scrambled out of the pod.  Melinda, assuring herself that Emily wasn’t somehow inside the pod, followed.  

The blonde scanned the landscape.  The fire was closing in on herself and Gauss.  Teliot’s crash, to Noir’s surface, had started the fire.  Melinda ran with Gauss across the dry, weedy ground.

Suddenly, Regoob came flying down from the sky.  It landed nearby.  Its airlock opened, and its gangplank descended.  Zolna appeared in the airlock.

“Hurry!” he shouted.

“Where’s Emily?!” Melinda shrieked.  She called Emily’s voice at the top of her lungs.  She kept crying out Emily’s name as Gauss forced her to accompany him into the saucer.  Regoob left.  The fire soon burned where it had landed.

All day, the saucer flew over Noir.  Its crew searched for Emily.  Melinda searched too, as did Samuel the Seagull.  All they found was the remains of a civilization that had died eons ago.  There was no Emily.

Regoob flew into outer space.  It left Noir behind.

Melinda sat in the bedroom, crying.  The little green men did their best to console her.  So did Samuel.

Gauss sat down on the bed beside Emily.  Putting his arm around her shoulders, he said,

“You’ll feel better when we get to Elayor.”

“What’s that?” Melinda asked.

“A casino,” Gauss answered.

“Oh,” Melinda sniffed.  Sourly, she added, “I suppose that will help!”

“We’re running out of supplies,” Gauss said.  “We’ll get more at Elayor.”

Melinda looked at Gauss.  Tears stained her face.

“We’ll buy them?” she asked.

“Well,” Gauss said, his tone uncertain.  “We’re going to apply for jobs there.  As entertainers.  We have a pretty good act!  Elayor will hire us, and then we’ll have money.”

“All I care about is Emily,” Melinda said.  Fresh tears appeared on her face.

“We all feel the same way,” Gauss said.  A stern note entered his voice.  “Look, Melinda.  You’re 10 years old.  Old enough to understand this sort of thing.  We couldn’t stay on Noir.  Nothing’s there, and we’re out of supplies.  So we have to go to Elayor.  For the moment.  Then, we’ll search more for Emily.”

“Alright,” Melinda said.

“You’re still our queen,” Gauss said, hoping to cheer her.

“Yes.  Of course,” Melinda answered. 


Chapter Eleven - Dead Broke

This was the worst night of Regaw’s life!  The penguin stood in Casino Elayor’s big gaming room.  He watched, at a distance, as Kevin won again.  Count Riches was enjoying his second night at Elayor.  The boy stood at a craps table.  He’d acquired a host of admirers.

Kevin, playing a new round of craps, rolled the game’s dice.  He kept one of his hands firmly in his trousers’ right pocket.  There, he kept one of his fingers against his teleporter. 

The teleporter did not have the strength to teleport his body.  However, it could teleport his thoughts - at least to the dice.  Kevin could make the dice show whatever number came to his mind.  If he wanted to roll a four and a three, he got that.  If he wanted to roll double sixes, he got that.  The gathered crowd cheered his victories.

His admirers did not include Regaw.  The penguin’s casino was nearly out of money; Kevin was winning it all!

Krej, Regaw’s guard, spoke to the penguin.

“Sir, some little green men want to see you,” Krej said.

“Do they have money?!” Regaw asked.  Desperation showed in his penguin face.

“Er, no, Sir,” Krej said.  “They’re hoping you’ll hire them.”

“And pay them with what?!” Regaw asked, his voice low.  “We’re broke!”

“They say they’re star performers,” Krej said, of the little green men.  “If they are, perhaps people will come to Elayor to see them!”

“Yes!” Regaw said, the thought brightening his face.  He gestured at the gaming room’s players.  “To Hell with these miscreants, and that damn count!  Elayor will become a capital of entertainment!  A family destination!  Elayorland!”

“Very good, Sir,” Krej said.

“Take me to the little green men!” Regaw ordered.  Krej did.  


Chapter Twelve - Grave’s End

Zirconia, who was now in Emily’s body, stood on the charred ground.  For the first time in eons, he was again breathing real air.  

Or, rather, Emily was.  Zirconia was feeling less and less like an old man, and more and more like a little girl!  He was no longer immobile and weary.  He, or rather, she, was full of big plans and boundless energy!


As for the real Emily, she remained trapped in Zirconia’s body.  She was in Zirconia’s coffin, inside his mausoleum.


A fire had swept through the graveyard.  Standing in it, Emily watched as a spaceship descended through Noir’s atmosphere.  It was crewed by robots.  Emily had called to it from within her mausoleum.  The spaceship would take her to her gathering galactic fleet.

That is, to Kevin’s fleet, which she now owned! 

The spaceship landed.  A robot exited the ship, along with two others.  All three robots saluted Emily.

“Empress Emily,” they said.  “We await your command.”

“Fly me to my fleet,” Emily said.  As she boarded the spaceship with the robots, she asked, “Have you begun building my dreadnought?”

“Yes, your majesty,” one of the robots replied.

“When it’s built, we’ll conquer Planet Quigley!” Emily said.  She smiled.  “And then, as a favor to a friend, we’ll conquer Planet Earth!”

“Yes, your majesty,” the robots replied. 


Chapter Thirteen - Audition

The little green men were in Casino Elayor’s theater.  They’d invited themselves onto the theater’s stage.  A girl, in a bikini and flip flops, stood in the theater’s seating area.  One of the little green men stood beside her.  He was a short man, likely the shortest of the bunch, but he was wearing a big cavalier hat.  It was trimmed with an ostrich plume.

“I am Captain Chirpley,” the man said to Regaw.  “You are honored to host, in your grand establishment, Queen Melinda.”  The bikini-clad girl blushed.

“I understand that you want to perform,” Regaw said.  He’d had enough of visiting aristocrats.  He’d have paid to get rid of the count in his gaming room.

“We found an opening in our calendar of engagements,” Chirpley told Regaw.  “So we chose to grace you with our presence, and that of our Queen.”

“Yes, yes,” Regaw replied.  “If you’re going to perform, then do it.”

“This will be a dramatic performance,” Chirpley said.  “With juggling.”

“Okay!” Regaw said.  The little green man turned toward the stage.  Hastening there, he said, 

“Hofsted!  Announce us!”

The fattest of the little green men, standing with his fellows onstage, put a trumpet to his lips.  He proceeded to blow the loudest trumpet noises that Regaw had ever heard.  They were also some of the worst noises that had ever afflicted his ears.

In fact, everyone except Hofsted was soon covering his ears with his hands.

“Thank you, Hofsted!” Chirpley cried.  He had to yell this several times before Hofsted stopped trumpeting.

Then, from the parking lot, there came a loud fart.  Melinda sighed.

“Fartley,” she muttered.  At least he was still aboard Regoob.  The saucer was sitting in Elayor’s parking lot, with its airlock and windows open, to air it out.

Chirpley was now onstage.  He and the little green men mounted unicycles.  A number of them began to play ukuleles.  Chirpley, in his big feathered cap, began to recite dramatic lines:

“To poop, or to hold it:  that is the question.”

“All the world’s a bathroom, and people use each other like toilet paper!”

“‘A urinal!  A urinal!’ said the man in the women’s bathroom.  ‘All my kingdom for a urinal!”

Meanwhile, Zolna and Gauss juggled rolls of toilet paper.

Then Hofsted collided with Zolna.  They both fell down.  Chirpley, running over their fallen bodies, toppled to the floor too.  In the ensuing seconds, all of the little green men collided, and fell into an untidy heap.  Chirpley cursed his crew.  Hofsted, trying to make light of the matter, or to make it look planned, grabbed his trumpet.

“The end!” Hofsted cried.  He began ardently trumpeting again.  Everyone was soon shouting at him to stop.

“That’s the worst performance I’ve ever seen!” Regaw shouted.  “I wouldn’t hire you incompetent boobs if you paid me!”

All this noise was drawing people from elsewhere in the casino.  Including Kevin.

“Melinda!” the boy said, seeing her.  The bikini-clad girl gasped.  Shrieks of recognition came from the little green men.

Kevin strode up to Melinda.

“I’ve been discourteous,” Kevin said.  “I trust you’ll forgive me.”

“You tried to kill me!” Melinda said.

Kevin turned to Regaw.

“I insist that Melinda have your best room,” Kevin said.  Then, recalling that he occupied it, he said, “I mean your second best room.”  Kevin brandished his wallet.  “Give Melinda and her companions whatever they please.  I’ll pay.”

Melinda was dumbstruck.  Chirpley, coming from the stage, overheard Kevin.

“It’s a deal!” Chirpley said.

Melinda decided that discretion, in this instance, was the better part of valor.  She made no objection as Regaw gave her and the little green men his second best room.  The penguin also made supplies available for the saucer. 


Chapter Fourteen - Heavenly Flush

Melinda and the little green men shared Elayor’s second best room.  They slept soundly that night, and well into the next day.  The little green men ordered lots of room service.  Melinda was able to eat food that she liked.  The little green men favored roast squid.

At noon, Melinda decided to take a long bath.  She was sponging herself when the building began to shake.  Melinda screamed.  She heard cries from the little green men.

Melinda scrambled out of the bathtub.  Running to the bathroom door, she flung it open.  

“What’s happening?!” Melinda shouted.  

“Earthquake!” Gauss said.  One of the little green men whistled at Melinda’s nude figure.  She blushed.  When the shaking subsided, she went back into the bathroom.

Five minutes later, Melinda was out of the bathroom.  She was in her bikini.  She felt guilty for luxuriating in the hotel.  They must return to Noir, and find Emily!

The little green men were still lounging about and eating.

“Are we ready to go?” Melinda asked them.

“We’re still packing the saucer,” Chirpley said.

“You’re eating,” Melinda said. 

“Kevin’s paying,” Hofsted said, speaking with his mouth full.

“That’s no reason to abandon Emily,” Melinda answered.

“We’ve hired a cosmic investigator,” Gauss said.

“What’s that?” Melinda asked.

The suite’s door chimes rang.

“That’s probably him,” Gauss said.

“Tell him to send more room service!” Hofsted said.

Melinda went to the door.  Opening it, she found a 13-year-old boy!  He was taller than Melinda.  The front of his dress shirt had popped free of his belted shorts.  His big belly showed, along with his navel.  Shaun Litton wore knee high white socks, with hard soled, polished black shoes.

The boy introduced himself to Melinda with shy courtesy.

“You’re a comic investigator?” she asked, as he came into the suite.

“A *cosmic* investigator,” Shaun corrected her.  “I restrict my investigations to matters beyond the Earth.”

“You’re from Earth?!” Melinda gasped.

“Yes,” Shaun said.

“But how?” Melinda asked.

“I needed to go to the bathroom,” Shaun said.  “So I used a bathroom stall.  I was sitting on the toilet when I noticed something!”

“What?” Melinda asked, albeit with a chary expression.

“There was no toilet paper!” Shaun said.  “Imagine that!  The Library of Congress, in Washington D.C., and they were out of toilet paper!”

“What did you do?” Hofsted, still eating, asked.

“I flushed the toilet,” Shaun said.  “That’s when I learned that the bathroom stall was a spaceship!  It’s outside now, in the parking lot.”

“I wondered why a bathroom stall was in the parking lot,” Zolna said.

“I used it,” Hofsted said.  “Thank God I didn’t flush!”

Shaun gave him a peeved look.

Melinda swallowed, hard.

“So you’ve come to help us?” she asked Shaun.

“Yes,” Shaun said.  He grinned at Melinda.  “I work for free for girls in bikinis.”

“We’ll pay you,” she said.

Zolna looked at Chirpley.  The captain knew what Zolna was thinking.  Kevin was paying their bills, but he wasn’t giving them money.  They had as few quirts now as they’d had when they’d landed.

“The main thing is to find Emily,” Chirpley said.  Pushing his food aside, he hopped down from a bed.

“Yes!” Hofsted agreed.  “But first, let’s order more room service!”


Chapter Fifteen - Coffined

It was daytime on Planet Noirepyh.  Not a bright, sunny day, but a twilight that lingered for hours as the infirm sun sojourned across the sky.  Night, lurking, plotted its return.

Regoob had landed by Escape Pod 012.  The pod was a burned-out shell of itself.  Here on the world of the dead, the fire that Teliot’s crash had ignited had swept over the land.  The fire’s bright, hot ferocity was now gone.  Only the charred earth remained.

Melinda had disembarked from Regoob.  So had the little green men, and Samuel the Seagull.  They stood waiting for Shaun Litton to land.  He was flying to Noir in his bathroom stall.  The stall, which was able to close itself off in order to fly through the vacuum of space, appeared in the gloam.  


The stall made an odd sound while flying.  It mechanically huffed and puffed:

“Ahooog!  Ahooog!  Ahooog!”

Nonetheless, it came speedily.  As it landed, a flushing sound was heard.  The stall’s door soon opened.  Shawn, upping his trouser’s fly, came from the stall.

Melinda, watching him, blinked with surprise.

“I hope you have toilet paper now,” she said.

“I do!” Shaun reported.  “They had a lot of it at Elayor.  Hopefully, they won’t miss it.”

Shaun surveyed the landscape.

“There’s on old graveyard that way,” he said, pointing beyond a hill.  He’d seen it as he flew in.

“We checked it,” Zolna said.  “No Emily.”

Shaun considered this.

“Did you go into the graves?” he asked.

“Go into the-?!” Hofsted gasped.  “Why?  Do they have food in them?”

“One must think logically,” Shaun said.  “Your friend was last here.”

“Yes!” Melinda said, Gauss agreeing.

“But she’s not on the ground.  Therefore, perhaps she’s under the ground.”

“The fire could have gotten her,” Gauss said.

“Or someone could have taken her!” Melinda said.

“But we have no leads on either conjecture,” Shaun said.  “So let’s try the graves.”

They went over the hill to the graveyard.  The fire had passed through here.  The graves were blackened by the flames that had briefly lived in their midst.  Hofsted, surveying the tombstones, said,

“I don’t know if I have the stomach for grave robbery.”

“Check the mausoleums,” Shaun said.  “See if you can get into any.”  The little green men and Melinda spread out cautiously among the tombs.  Samuel stuck close by Melinda.  Shaun accompanied her too.  

Though Shaun was present to find Emily, he mostly trailed just after Melinda, and watched her bikinied behind.  Melinda paused in her steps.  Turning to Shaun, she told him, crossly, that Emily wasn’t in her ass.  This produced considerable laughter among the little green men.  Shaun blushed.

Zolna found his way into a mausoleum.  He reported that he couldn’t get through its inner door.  Gauss had brought along the gun that he’d gotten on Teliot.  He used it on the door.  This broke it open.

Zolna was the first through the door, followed by Gauss.  They entered a room.  It was pitch black, but an electric hum was emanating from its walls.  There was a medical smell to the place.

Gauss felt for a light switch.  As he found it, activating the room’s lights, an ancient voice asked,

“Who’s there?”

“Good God!  Look!  A coffin!” Zolna exclaimed.  Gauss leveled his gun on the coffin.  Melinda, Samuel, and the other little green men came into the room as Gauss and Zolna went to the coffin.

“There’s an old man in it,” Gauss said.

“Melinda!” came from the computers.  It was an old man’s voice.  The blonde shrieked.

“Run!” she cried.  “It’s Zirconia!”  Samuel flew out of the mausoleum as Melinda turned to flee.

“Melinda!  It’s me!  Emily!” the computers cried.

“No!  You’re Zirconia!” Melinda said.  To Gauss, she said, “Shoot them!”  She meant the computers.  Gauss moved to obey.

“Don’t!” the computers shouted.  “I’m Emily!  Really!”  After a pause, the computers, in Zirconia’s voice, said, “I know what size panties you wear!”

Melinda gasped. 

“What size panties do I wear?” she asked.

Zirconia, through the computers, told her.  And ‘he’ knew because it was really Emily who was in Zirconia’s body.

Melinda came to the side of the coffin.  Staring down at the old man in it, she began to cry.  Emily told her more things that only the real Emily would know.  Some of these things were about Melinda, and, of these, some of them made Melinda blush.  They were all boomed out from the computers.

“Okay!  Okay!  You’re Emily!” Melinda said at last.  She needed no more proof, by way of intimate details about herself, being broadcast to everyone in the room.


Chapter Sixteen - The Big Bang

As Emily proved that she was in Zirconia’s body, a spaceship settled onto the graveyard’s grounds.  It did so with stealth.  Its occupants, a girl and three robots, snuck up on the mausoleum.  Then, Emily, in Zirconia’s body, stomped into the mausoleum.

“Get out of here!” she cried to Melinda, and to the little green men.

“Get out of my body!” Emily, in Zirconia’s body, shouted from the computers.

Suddenly, a tall, fire-blackened robot came running into the mausoleum.  It was Admiral Colt.  Grabbing Emily, he screamed,

“You are not a robot!”

Zirconia, in Emily’s body, was terrified.  Zirconia zipped back into his own coffined body, leaving the real Emily in Colt’s grasp.  She screamed.

Emily’s robot bodyguards began beating on Colt.  He dropped Emily and ran.  The bodyguards chased after Colt.  Suddenly, the bodyguards encountered a fire-blackened Dee and Dumb.  These two robots began beating on the bodyguards.  Colt joined in.  The six robots, all once members of the same crew, beat on each other in what became a disorganized frenzy.

“I have failed,” Zirconia moaned, from the computers.  He said this as Emily picked herself up off the floor.

“Melinda!  It’s me!” Emily cried.  The two girls jubilantly embraced.

“Activate the self-destruct mechanism,” Zirconia said, through his computers.  The computers’ steady hum grew louder.

“Holy shit!” Shaun cried.  Gauss quickly grasped what he understood.

“We need to leave!” Gauss shouted.

“Yes!” Zolna agreed.  The computers’ hum had become a shrill wail.  

The little green men ran out of the mausoleum.  So did Shaun.  Their hasty departure, flooding past Melinda and Emily, spurred the girls to flee too.  Samuel was already flying from the graveyard’s grounds to the saucer.

The little green men, Melinda, and Emily joined Samuel inside Regoob.  Shaun shut himself in his bathroom stall.  It lifted off, as did Regoob. 

In the graveyard, Zirconia’s mausoleum exploded.  The blast threw chunks of stone and dirt into the sky.  It knocked the senselessly fighting robots to the ground.  It made the ascending Regoob shudder, along with Shaun’s bathroom stall.  The boy flew off in his own direction.

Aboard Regoob, Gauss asked the girls where they wanted to go.

“Kevin’s still on the loose,” Melinda said.

“He’s nothing without Zirconia,” Gauss conjectured.

“Perhaps,” Melinda said.

“Our castle might not be flooded anymore,” Chirpley said.  “We could go to there.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” Melinda said.  “It’s a nice beach.”

“Yes!  We can relax, and not have to worry about school!” Emily said.  She climbed into the pilot’s seat.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Gauss asked her, concerned.

“Cowabunga!” Emily said.  The saucer lurched as she shot it, at maximum speed, in a forward direction.  It was a few minutes later when she located, with Gauss’ help, the nearest gas giant.  She used its hypergate to get to Planet Quigley.


Chapter Seventeen - A Sucky Day

The day was warm, but cloudy.  Melinda and Emily lay on their backs on beach towels.  Melinda had long, lank golden hair.  Emily was a redhead.  The girls hoped for more sun as they lay on their backs by Planet Quigley’s lavender sea.

The little green men were working on their castle.  It was still a castle made of sand, that surrounded a hole in the ground.  But the little green men were exerting more effort on it than Melinda had seen them apply to anything.

“I think they’re trying to impress us,” Emily said.  She was still in her floral print swimsuit.  It was a one-piece.  Emily had laid her fireman’s hat aside.  She wore flip-flops, as did Melinda, since both girls had just laid down.  Melinda was in her white string bikini.

Melinda and Emily gazed at the clouds.  Watching these, the girls played at conjuring images from them. 

“Look!  A camel!” Emily said.  The stout seven-year-old pointed.

“A camel?” Melinda asked.  She was a slim, leggy ten year old.

“A camel,” Emily repeated.  “It has a hump in the middle.  That cloud, there,” Emily said.  Before Melinda could find it, Melinda saw a cloud that had wings.

“Look!” Melinda cried.  “A dragon!”  Emily soon spotted it.  She agreed that it was a flying snake.  “It looks mean,” Emily said.  The redhead shuddered.

Emily saw another cloud.  This one, catching the rays of the sun, broke free from the others.  Emily rendered a verdict on it.

“A triangle.  It’s boring,” Emily scoffed.  Melinda didn’t bother to look for the boring cloud.  Catching sight of another cloud, she said,

“Look!  An apple!”  

Emily had little interest in the apple.  However, to please Melinda, she attempted to find it.  Then the redhead noticed something.  The triangular cloud, glinting in the sun, was coming closer!

“That’s an odd cloud,” Emily observed.  The triangular cloud seemed to be approaching them.  Its underside, no longer reflecting the sunlight, grew dark.  “I don’t like that cloud,” Emily said.  Melinda saw the cloud.  It was now easy to spot.

“It’s dark like a rain cloud,” Melinda said.

Emily jumped up.

“It’s not a cloud at all!” the redhead concluded.  The triangle dove toward them.  Melinda jumped up.  Emily grabbed her fireman’s hat.  She was putting it on, both girls looking up at the triangle, when it stabbed at them with twin beams of light.

The girls were snatched from the ground.  They screamed as they rose, swiftly, into the sky.  The beam that held each girl trapped her voice too.  The girls were not heard as they were whisked into the triangle’s interior.  The triangle, which was a spaceship, bolted into the sky.

You might wonder that no one saw Melinda and Emily disappear.  The beach had few bathers on this weekday.  However, a man did see them get snatched.  His name was Douglas.  He lived in a home that faced onto the beach.  Douglas, in his bathrobe, had stepped outside to fetch his newspaper from his porch.  That’s when he saw the girls disappear.  This was unfortunate, Douglas decided, if he’d seen it correctly.  But it was nothing like having one’s entire planet destroyed, to make room for a Volgon bypass.  Douglas decided he needed some coffee before he intervened.

The spaceship, having captured a pair of interesting specimens, zipped back into the heavens.


Chapter Eighteen - Examination

The Tractor Beam that had sucked Melinda into the spaceship deposited her onto a table.  It was a medical exam table.  Emily was delivered, by her Tractor Beam, to a medical table too.  She lay near Melinda.

A dozen robots surrounded the table.  A motley bunch, they proceeded to grope and prod the girls.

“Eeeeek!” Melinda screamed.  Emily screamed too.  Both girls shouted words that girls their ages aren’t supposed to know.

The robots were pleased.

“The specimens arrived alive!” a robot reported.

A walrus, approaching the robots, spoke.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” the walrus told his robots.  “Don’t use our Tractor Beam to empty our sewage tank!”

“Yes, Sir,” a robot said.

As she ceased being fondled and poked, Melinda noticed that she now smelled like a toilet.  Emily had a similar odor.  Both girls scrambled from the tables.  The robots, crowded around them, kept them from fleeing.

The walrus watched the girls.  He nodded his approval.

“Sprightly,” he said.

Melinda and Emily stood in a big dingy room.  The lighting was spotty.  Some spaces in the room were illuminated, others harbored deep shadows.  Objects were piled everywhere.  Items were scattered on the floor.  The room had the look of a dumpster’s interior.  A stale smell hung in the air.

The walrus was standing upright.  He was big and fat.  His attempt at a nautical uniform consisted of mismatched items of clothing.

“Let us go!” Emily demanded.

“Who are you?!” Melinda, gazing at the robots and at the walrus, demanded.

“Cage them,” the walrus, who was named Mr. Ttub, told his robots.  “They’ll fetch a good price at auction.”  The robots, still clustered around Melinda and Emily, grabbed the girls.  Both girls began kicking and screaming.  But the robots, who’d handled many specimens, held the girls tight.

Suddenly, something exploded somewhere.  The whole spaceship shook.  Stacks of items crashed to the floor as Mr. Ttub fell down.  The robots fell too, as did the girls.  Melinda and Emily shrieked.  Shouts and yells came from Mr. Ttub and his robots.

Melinda and Emily disentangled themselves from the fallen robots.  The girls leapt to their feet.  As they did, a voice cried from the spaceship’s bridge:

“The pirates!  It’s the pirates again!”  A spaceship, manned by pirates, was firing on Mr. Ttub’s vessel.  His ship was struck again.  An explosion sounded as Mr. Ttub’s ship violently shuddered.  Melinda and Emily were toppled onto the robots. 

Mr. Ttub cared only about his belongings.  That is, his fallen stacks of objects.

“My things!  My precious things!” he cried.  The pirates fired on Mr. Ttub’s spaceship again.  He surrendered.

The pirates’ spaceship docked with Mr. Ttub’s vessel.  This wasn’t the pirates’ first robbery of Mr. Ttub.  In fact, they were becoming regular “customers” of the walrus.

As the pirates boarded Mr. Ttub’s ship, they sang:

“Yo!  Ho!  Ho!  We make a lot of dough!
God only knows where it all goes!
A pretty maiden in every port
We give them all a lot of sport!

We’re pirates!  Yes, mateys!  We sail across the sea
While the hangman’s noose swings empty!
Treasure abounds!  Pleasure abounds!
We’re pirates!  Yes, indeed!”

Captain Blight led his pirates into the big, cluttered room.  Mr. Ttub, sitting upright on the floor, clutched a pile of his possessions.

Captain Blight was a short man, with a black tricorn hat.  He wore a black duster coat that, being too long for his body, trailed on the ground.

Blight found the walrus’ possessions to be unimpressive.  Referring to them, he asked Ttub,

“Don’t you empty your trash?!” 

“We’re not trash!” Emily said.

“Well!” Blight said, seeing Melinda and Emily.  The girls remained surrounded by Mr. Ttub’s robots.  “Here’s some lovely lasses!”  Blight said.  His pirates agreed.

“Sweet!” a tall, mustached pirate said of the girls.  His name was Fletcher.

Chumley agreed.  A big, portly pirate, he said of the girls,

“We need wenches.” 

The pirates were all attired in eighteenth century garb.

Suddenly, Melinda realized that they were human.  She blurted this out, in surprise, as the robots grudgingly released her and Emily to the pirates.

“Yes, Missy,” Blight said.  “We got caught in a storm off the coast of Bermuda.  The next thing we knew, we were on a spaceship.  Not that we knew what it was at the time.  The aliens who’d caught us thought that they could sell us.”  Blight chuckled, as did his men.  “I guess those aliens hadn’t met pirates before.”

Melinda soon pieced together Blight’s meaning.  These pirates had been sailing in a ship on the ocean.  They’d wound up in the Bermuda Triangle.  There, they’d been kidnapped by aliens.  The pirates had taken over the aliens’ spaceship.  They now flew it themselves.

“Those aliens tasted very good,” Chumley said, when Blight had spoken.

The pirate ship had a big bulbous nose.  It had a long, cylindrical fuselage.  Its stern was flanked by two large Latorcs engines.  They were globe-round.  The pirates’ ship was named Sinep.  Melinda, brought into Sinep with Emily, found that this ship smelled worse than Mr. Ttub’s spaceship!

“It’s a garbage scow,” Fletcher said.

“It had plenty of leftovers when we got it,” Chumley said.  “Eating those, and the aliens, we didn’t have to buy food for months!”

Garbage remained in the ship’s corners and in its farther recesses.  It also held stacks of objects.  However, these looked to have more value than what Mr. Ttub hauled around.

Sinep uncoupled from Mr. Ttub’s vessel.  Blight had no further interest in the walrus, his stuff, or his junkyard robots. 

“Where are you taking us?” Melinda demanded.

“Ecinev should be good,” Blight said.  

“It’s very romantic,” Fletcher told Melinda, with a grin.  She rolled her eyes.  Emily looked ready to spit on the man. 


Chapter Nineteen - Expelled

Dr. Theophilus Quack was flying in a small spaceship.  He was flying in the sky above Planet Noirepyh.  Doing so, he was looking for survivors.  

Days earlier, King Kleigowski’s big ship, Teliot, had crashed onto the surface of Planet Noirepyh.

Quack spied a lone robot.  The robot was walking across the burnt ground.  Quack landed near the robot.

“Admiral Colt!” Quack gasped, as the robot hastened to him.  Colt, Quack saw, was no longer a cleaning cart.  He had legs.  But they, and the rest of Colt’s figure, had a charred look.  Quack soon learned that Colt had been caught in a fire.

Colt boarded Quack’s vessel.  The admiral insisted on piloting it.  Colt flew to the gas giant of Nrutas.  Attempting its hypergate, the admiral crashed into it.

Quack’s ship fell into the gas giant.  It crash-landed on a tall mesa.  The robots managed to get free of the broken craft.  Then a pterodactyl swooped down from the sky.

It was a huge bird.  It snatched and swallowed the admiral.  Then it snatched and swallowed Dr. Quack.   Later, the bird defecated the indigestible robots.  It did so on another of the tall mesas.  

Colt sat atop a mesa.  He was slimed by bird poop.  

“Once, I was an admiral in King Kleigowski’s fleet,” Colt reflected, aloud.  “Now, I’m excrement!”

Dr. Quack sat beside Colt.  The doctor was also slimed by bird poop.  Feeling sorry for Colt, he said,

“You’re still an admiral to me.”

“This is all your fault!” Colt said to Quack.

“You’re the one who insisted on flying my ship,” Quack replied.  “One would think an admiral could pilot a ship through a hypergate.”

“Your ship was dinky!” Colt said.  “An admiral knows nothing about little spaceships.  Give me a galactic cruiser!  I’ll fly it well!”

“Because you’ll have someone else flying it, at your command,” Quack pointed out.

A pterodactyl appeared in the distance.

“Hide!” Colt cried.  Quack joined the admiral in scrambling behind some boulders.  The pterodactyl flew on.

The mesa that the robots occupied was one of many.  Each mesa stretched skyward like a spindly stalagmite.  It was a long way from the mesa’s top to its base.  

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Colt said.  The orange sky stretched for miles above and below them.

“You have a good grasp of the obvious,” Dr. Quack said.

Colt grinned at the doctor.  

“I’m glad you’re here,” he told Quack.

The doctor, suddenly dubious, asked, 

“Really?”

“Yes!” Colt said.  “I can throw you overboard if I get bored!”  Colt indicated the mesa’s rim.

For awhile, both robots said nothing.  Then Quack muttered,

“At least one can look on the bright side.”

“The bright side?!” Colt roared, as a pterodactyl circled near, riding currents of air.  “What’s the bright side?!”

“We’ve made a scientific discovery,” Quack said.  “There is, in fact, life on Nrutas.”

“And it poops!” Colt said. 

Suddenly, both robots screamed.  A pterodactyl landed on the mesa.  It eyed Admiral Colt.  Then, it snatched up the robot, and swallowed him.


Chapter Twenty - Enslaved

Sinep closed on Planet Naeco.  Melinda sat in its hold with Emily.  The hold was dominated by pools of shadows, which a handful of electric lights only partly dispersed.  Other lights were present.  However, they no longer worked.

The pirate crew had gone to other parts of the ship.

“Do you have a better idea?” Melinda asked Emily.

“Than being slaves?” Emily answered.

“Than playing along,” Melinda said.

“No.” Emily admitted.

Fletcher came into the hold.

“Look sharp!” the pirate told Melinda and Emily.  “We’re getting off here.”

“Where’s here?” Melinda asked.  There was no view of outer space from the garbage scow’s hold.

“Ecinev,” Fletcher said.  

Planet Naeco was a blue Earth-like world.  However, some centuries before, global warming had flooded the planet.  All that remained, today, of dry land was a cluster of islets.  These were all within sight of each other.  Most of them were joined in some way, usually by a bridge.  Collectively, the islets formed the City of Ecinev.  

Ecinev’s buildings were now mostly dated by age.  This gave them a romantic appeal.  Canals threaded their way through the city.  Gondolas plied the canals, and the city’s lakes and lagoons.  Fleets of fishing vessels, departing from Ecinev, sailed Naeco’s world-encompassing seas. 

Modernity had stamped itself on the city.  Roads ran through it.  Bridges, spanning the waters, connected the islets.

Sinep landed in Ecinev.  It put down in a parking lot.  The lot held many spaceships.  Their shapes and sizes varied.  As for the occupants of Ecinev, whether locals or visitors, they were stranger than in most parts of the galaxy.

The pirates disembarked from Sinep.  They required Melinda and Emily to come with them.  This proved easier than the men had expected.  As soon as Sinep was opened, fresh air, bursting with sunshine, flooded the ship.  You couldn’t have paid Melinda and Emily to remain aboard the stinky garbage scow.

The sea was visible from the parking lot.  It sparkled in the afternoon sun.  Seagulls flew above the sea’s distant swells.  The air was sultry.  It held a salt tang.

A sun-yellow car threaded its way through the parking lot.  A sign on its roof read, “TAXI”.

“There it is, captain,” Mr. Chumley told Captain Blight.  The taxi that the pirates had called, from outer space, drew up beside the men.  Two heads popped out of the cab’s driver’s side window.  Melinda shrieked.  So did Emily.  The two heads shared a single body!

“You George the First?” the driver asked Captain Blight.

“The one and only,” Blight replied.  His men snickered.  

The pirates put Melinda and Emily into the taxi’s back seat.  Fletcher joined the girls in the back seat, as did Chumley.  These two men flanked the girls.  Captain Blight got into the cab’s front seat.  The other pirates were left standing by Sinep.  The cab departed.

“Slave market?” the cabbie asked Captain Blight.

“Yes,” Captain Blight replied.

“We’re not slaves!” Emily piped up.  One of the driver’s heads looked at the girls.  It did so in the car’s rearview mirror.

“How much you selling them for?” the driver asked Captain Blight.  The captain looked at the driver.

“Think you can afford them?” he asked the two-headed man.

“Are they trainable?”

“Fillies are always trainable,” Blight said.  He gave the driver a significant smile.

“My wife would kill me,” the driver sighed.  “Anyway, I’m not much into Earthlings.”  He regarded the captain.  “No offense, but an Earthling only has one head.  Everybody knows that two heads are better than one.”

The captain made an indignant noise.

Chumley, who sat on the driver’s side of the back seat, leaned forward.  Chumley produced a knife.  He put it to one of the driver’s necks.  The driver squealed with fright.

“If you want to keep both of your heads,” Chumley told the driver, “You’ll shut up!”  The driver did. 

The taxi arrived at the slave market.  This was a decrepit fairground.  A sign on the fairground’s fence read,

“Foreclosed.  Bank Owned.”

It was unlikely that anyone would acquire the property.  For, since the fair had been built, it had been overrun by the sea.  Rides remained standing.  But they were in disrepair, and they trailed off into the ocean.

The afternoon tide was rising.  It would claim, for a time, what remained of the fair.  The tide did this every day.  However, there was time enough for a slave auction.  Buyers, and others, had crowded into the fairground to be part of the event.  The slaves, too, were present, as was the auctioneer.

The pirates got out of the taxi.  They took Melinda and Emily with them.  From the cab, the driver was saying, nervously,

“Always a pleasure to give a free ride!  Yes!  Always a pleasure to give a free ride!”  Then, he drove swiftly away, glad to still have both of his heads.


Chapter Twenty-One - The Bugler

The crowd was a motley assortment of creatures.  As for the slaves, they were being assembled upon an old wooden stage.  The auctioneer stood on the stage too.  His name was Odlid.   

Odlid was a tall, slender man.  He wore a boater.  Three ribbons, circling his hat’s brim, trailed off behind it.

The auctioneer’s outfit was powder blue with gold trim.  It consisted of a short jacket worn over a waistcoat.  With these, he wore tight, knee-length pants, and a cape.  His fingernails were polished.  Rouge highlighted his cheeks, and his eyes were accented by mascara.

Odlid saw Captain Blight and his party as they made their way through the crowd.

“George the First!” Odlid cried, from the stage.  “You grace us with your royal presence!  And with more slaves!  This is such a pleasure!  Everyone, welcome his majesty, George the First!” 

The crowd duly cheered.  Melinda, subjected to their sudden attention, blushed.  Emily did too; she was also drawing interested looks. 

Then, as swiftly as the girls had drawn everyone’s notice, they lost it.  The pirates brought Melinda and Emily onto the stage.

Odlid drew “George the First” aside.  The auctioneer’s look of delight was gone.

“Earthlings?!  You want me to sell Earthlings?!” Odlid asked Captain Blight.  “I hope you’re not expecting them to fetch much.”

The captain looked irked.  So did his men.  Nervously, Odlid said,

“I’ll do my best to sell them.”

“We hope you will!” Chumley said, in a menacing tone.  Odlid took offense.  Blight left the stage with his men.  As he did, Fletcher whispered to Chumley.

“Dolt!” Fletcher told Chumley, of Odlid.  “You can’t threaten him!  His brother is the chief of police!”

“Oh.” Chumley said.

The pirates joined the crowd that stood facing the stage.  A green six-year-old boy tugged on Captain Blight’s trousers.  The captain looked down.

“The redhead,” the boy said, of Emily.  “Is she good at homework?”  

“Why, yes!” Blight assured the boy.  “You want to buy her?”

“I have 15 quirts,” the boy said.  Captain Blight frowned.

“That’s not very much,” he said.  Emily was glaring down at the boy.

“I’m not a slave!” she cried.  “And neither is Melinda!  We’re from Earth!”

This brought chuckles from the crowd.  Of the galaxy’s many locales, Earth was one of its most primitive.  There wasn’t a single McSquid Restaurant on Earth!

The last slave arrived.  It was a hulking green beast.  Its whole figure was covered with scales.  It had a long, swishing tail.

The creature’s eyes bulged.  It had a long snout and short wings.  A smile spread artlessly across its face, showing its teeth.  The creature was named Elgub.  Its thick neck was collared.  Its owner brought it onstage by its leash.

Odlid cast a wary eye over Elgub. 

“We sell useful slaves,” Odlid told Elgub’s owner.  The owner, a small man, gave a weary shake of his head.

“I’ll take whatever you can get for this thing,” he said.

“Well,” Odlid said.  “In that case-  Alright.”  The small man left Elgub on stage.  He disappeared into the crowd.  A minute later, he’d slipped out of the fairground.

The slaves were as varied and strange in their appearance as the audience was.  Odlid opened the bidding.  Various slaves were purchased.  Melinda, and Emily, were not among them.  Nor was Elgub.  

As the auction continued, the tide rose.  The rear ranks of the crowd exclaimed at the rising sea.  They pushed forward onto the dry ground that remained before the stage.

At the same time, the number of people present was beginning to thin.  The best slaves had been bought.  Their new owners had left with them.  

The six-year-old boy bid on Emily.  In response, she said to him from the stage,

“I hate homework!” 

“How about you?” the boy asked Melinda.  “Are you good at homework?” 

“No!” the blonde said.  

To Captain Blight’s dismay, the little boy left.  Melinda swallowed hard as Captain Blight glared up at her, and at Emily.

Only the girls and Elgub remained onstage with Odlid.

“Little Earth girls!  Get your little Earth girls!” the auctioneer beckoned.  He surveyed, with dwindling hopes, what remained of the crowd.  “Get a big green beast!” Odlid said.  Looking Elgub over again, Odlid said, “God knows what you’re good for.”

Perhaps Elgub understood this remark, and took umbrage at it.  Maybe he sought more attention.  Or, possibly, he was simply happy to stand in the sun, before the rising tide, and announce his joy at this to the world.

Elgub lifted his trunk.  The beast drew a deep breath.  Then, as it stood facing the crowd, it blew forth a blaring trumpet-like sound.  This issued with a great gust of wind, and an enormous amount of snot.

The blast hit the crowd.  It bowled over these people, including all of the pirates.  Long strings of snot were flung upon them.

“Augh!”

“Eeek!”

“Auuckck!” came from the downed crowd.  The snot clung to them.  It had a unpleasant odor and taste.

Melinda saw a chance to escape.

“Run!” she cried, to Emily.  Both girls bolted from the stage.  To their shock, Elgub came stumping after them.

The tide continued to rise toward the stage.  As the crowd began to recover, they dashed, cursing, into the sea.  It was the only way to get the snot off of themselves.  Captain Blight and his men swore as they joined the group in the water.

Odlid had no desire to stick around.  Taking his earnings, he left the fairground.

Melinda and Emily were now out of the fairground.  There, they again met the six-year-old boy.  He’d seen Elgub’s nasal performance.  The boy, whose name was Barfolomew Timov, was still laughing about it.

“I’ll give you 15 quirts for him!” Barfolomew told the girls, of Elgub.  

“He’s not ours to sell,” Melinda answered.  Elgub guilelessly grinned.

Barfolomew pointed toward a canal.  “My gondola’s over there,” he said.  “Motor-powered.  I’ll give you and your creature a ride where you like.  Then, let your creature decide who he goes with.”

“That’s reasonable,” Melinda said.

“I’m not doing your homework!” Emily told Barfolomew.

Melinda glanced rearward.  The crowd was coming out of the fairground!  Among them, wet as caught fish, were the pirates.

“Captain Blight!” Melinda gasped.

“C’mon!” Barfolomew urged.  He, the girls, and Elgub hastened to the boy’s gondola. 


Chapter Twenty-Two - The Gates of Salvation

It was not a romantic gondola.  In fact, it was a sewage boat.  A long cylindrical tank took up much of the passenger cabin.  The gondola’s stern was curved, not pointed.  An outboard motor was at its stern.

Barfolomew helped Melinda and Emily into the boat.  Elgub clambered in.  The gondola nearly tipped over as the creature added its bulk to the boat.  Melinda and Emily shrieked.  Elgub, his big dumb face grinning, sat down the wrong way in the boat.  He faced backwards, toward Barfolomew.  The boy was in the boat’s stern.

Melinda and Emily sat by the sewage tank.  They faced forward.  The sewage tank was before them.  It ran all the way to the gondola’s bow.

“This boat stinks!” Emily said.  She was holding her nose.  So was Melinda.  Barfolomew, at the boat’s stern, attempted to start its motor.

It wouldn’t start.

The pirates rushed at the boat.  Chumley brandished his knife.  Captain Blight, reaching under his duster, pulled out a sword!

“Give us our slaves!” Blight demanded.  The pirates made to jump into the boat.

Suddenly, Elgub raised his snout.  He aimed it at Barfolomew!  The boy’s eyes went wide.  Then, he ducked.

Elgub greeted the day with a happy blast of his trunk.  Snot flew from it.  The gondola was propelled along the canal.

The gondola slipped off among the buildings beyond the fairground.  Barfolomew got his motor to start.  The boat sailed farther into the canal-riven city of Ecinev.

“It’s pretty,” Melinda said, of the old buildings that lined the canals.  She said this holding her nose.

“It’s pretty stinky!” Emily said, of the boat.  Holding her nose, she demanded to be let off.

Barfolomew complied.  He helped the girls out of his boat.  Elgub remained seated backwards in it.

“I guess he wants to stay with me,” Barfolomew said.

“Hopefully, he won’t blow his nose on you,” Melinda remarked.

Barfolomew sailed off with the beast.  The girls let go of their noses.

“What do we do now?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know,” Melinda replied.  The girls had climbed onto a dock.  It served the adjacent buildings.  A woman’s voice came from a nearby apartment.  She began to sing:

“The Holy Donkey Heavenward bound.

In the night without a sound.

Carrying Susej on its back.

To save all people from worry and lack.

The Holy Donkey!

Oh, Holy Donkey!

You are the key!

To financial prosperity!

If only we would believe 

Tithe to the donkey and you will see

Oh Holy Donkey carry me

To riches that are beyond belief!” 

Melinda and Emily followed the sound of the woman’s voice.  Stepping onto a porch, they opened its sliding glass door.  The girls peeked beyond the door’s veiling curtain.  They saw a tidy, well-furnished room.  A woman stood in it.  A former naval officer, she now regarded herself as a prophet of God. 

Prophetess Profit saw the girls.  Ceasing to sing, she cried,

“Praise the Lord!”

The large woman was attired in a rochet.  Over this, she wore a cerise mozzetta.  She wore a gold necklace.  Its pendant was a quirt sign.  This consisted of a “Q” intersected by a vertical line.

Prophetess Profit, known to her neighbors as Sally Macs, welcomed the girls into her home.

“I’ve prayed for children.  And here you are!” Sally told Melinda and Emily.  “Would you like something to eat?”

Emily regarded the big green woman.

“I don’t want to eat squid,” she said.

“You don’t want to eat squid?!” Sally asked, surprised.  “What do you like?”

“Macaroni and cheese,” Emily said.

“We’re from Earth,” Melinda said.

“Earth!” Sally said.  “Clearly, the Lord has recruited you to life’s finer life!  Ecinev is the finest city in the galaxy!  And I know all about training recruits.  Did you know that I spent 20 years in the navy?”  As she spoke, she beckoned Melinda and Emily into her kitchen.  The girls let her take them there.

Sally cooked an Earth-like meal for the girls.  As they ate, she told them she had a church.

“It combines love for the Holy Donkey with love for Ecinev,” Sally said.  “God and city.  City and God!”

Her theology held little appeal for the girls.  Sally, seeing this, said,

“You’re recruits.  I don’t expect you to understand right away.”

She had the girls clear the table.  Melinda and Emily were also required to wash the dishes.  When they were done, Sally said,

“It’s time to read scripture.”

“Actually, we’d like a bath,” Melinda said.  Even Emily wanted one.  The girls also said that they were sleepy.

“Of course!” Sally said.  “You’ve both come so far!”  As she took the girls upstairs in her apartment, she said,

“We’ll begin your training tomorrow.  I’ll blow a whistle promptly at 0500, so that you may arise.”  Sally took the girls into a bathroom.  Then, she said, with sudden enthusiasm, “Let’s see you stand at attention!”

Sally stood at attention.  The girls followed her lead.

“Now, salute!” Sally ordered.  She showed the girls how to do so.  They copied her.  Sally was pleased.

“Let’s see you march in place!” Sally ordered.  She did so.  The girls did the same, though Emily marched falteringly forward a step or to.  Her flip-flops, like Melinda’s, slapped the floor.  

The girls giggled.

“Quiet in the ranks!” Sally barked.  Melinda and Emily ceased to laugh.

“I expect you to pray to the Holy Donkey before going to bed,” Sally said.  “Do you know how to pray?”

“Yes,” both girls replied.

“Very good,” Sally said.  “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

The woman left the bathroom.  It was still daylight outside.

Emily looked at Melinda.  The blonde, returning her gaze, said,

“I’m taking a bath.”

“And then?” Emily asked, as they both began stripping naked.

“Then we become atheists,” Melinda replied.  “And go AWOL.”


Chapter Twenty-Three - The Amateur Genius

Melinda and Emily left Sally’s home.  They did so without alerting her to their departure.

A house was behind the woman’s apartment building.  It sat in a fenced yard.  The fence was made of upright wooden planks.  Here and there, planks were missing.  Wherever there was a hole in the fence, there was an abundance of weeds.  Many of the weeds had grown tall.

Emily slipped through a hole in the fence.  Melinda reluctantly followed her.  The girls stood in the home’s weedy backyard.

The home’s curtains were drawn.  The place looked completely neglected.

“Maybe it’s haunted!” Emily said.  The thought seemed to entrance her.

“Just what we need,” Melinda said.  “To escape into a house full of ghosts.”

“We could be ghostbusters!” Emily said.  The thought captivated her.

The girls walked through the tall weeds to the home’s back porch.  Emily tried its back door.  It opened!  The girls crept inside.  The rooms were deeply shadowed.  The only light in them came from outside, through the curtains.  

“No ghosts,” Emily whispered.  She was disappointed.

The girls went through several rooms.  None had been cleaned in a long time.  Each held a disordered array of dusty items.  Stacked boxes stood among the furnishings.  Some of the stacks had toppled over.  Books spilled from them, along with assorted objects.

Emily found her way into the kitchen.  Melinda followed.  The kitchen was anything but homey.  Dirty dishes were piled in the sink.  The counters were covered with clutter.  Among the things on them were a blender, a toaster, piled papers, and assorted containers.

“If we lived here, we wouldn’t have to wash the dishes!” Emily said.

“Unless we wanted a clean dish,” Melinda replied.

Leading the way from the kitchen, Emily went to the bathroom.  It stank.  The toilet’s lid, and its seat, were raised.

“A man must live here,” Emily said.  She went to the toilet.  A stifled yelp came from her.  “It’s full of turds!” Emily said, of the toilet.  The water in the commode was yellow-brown.  It held a luxuriant growth of algae.

The girls dashed out of the bathroom.

They proceeded on through the house.  Outside, the sun was setting.  Its light put an orange glow in the curtained windows.  The light in the home was ebbing to total darkness.

“We need to leave,” Melinda said to Emily.

“Maybe the ghosts will come out now,” Emily said.  She opened a door.  Emily gasped.  So did Melinda.

This room was quite large.  It was a cluttered mess.  However, it was also crammed with glass beakers and tubes.  These were fired, in places, by sterno cans.  Liquids bubbled in sealed, heated flasks.  Fluid ran through the seemingly endless lengths of glass tubes.  The whole mass of tubing and flasks rested on several big dining tables.  The tables had been pushed together.  In a corner of the shadow-filled room was a loveseat.  It was strewn with junk.

“It’s a science lab!” Emily gasped.  “Someone’s making something.”

“Who?” Melinda asked.

“Nobody’s here!” a voice cried.  The girls nearly jumped out of their swimsuits.

“Who’s that?” Melinda demanded.

“Nobody!” the voice said.  It was absurdly high-pitched.

“You can’t be nobody,” Emily said, in the darkening room.  The burning sterno cans glowed.

“Maybe it’s a little girl,” Melinda said.

“Yes!” Emily agreed.

Suddenly, a man jumped out from behind the loveseat.  He was short and bald.  His round face had small, squinty eyes.  He was naked, except for his soiled underpants.

“I’m not a little girl!” the man said, hotly.  His skin was bright orange.

“We’re sorry,” Melinda said.  “We’ll go.”

“The bathroom’s that way,” the man said.

“We’ve seen the bathroom!” Emily said, with disgust.  “Do you know how to flush?”

“Flush?  The toilet?!” the man asked.  “Do you think that I, Eggbert P. Krod, winner of the Junior Achievement award in Chemistry, have time for a toilet?!  A scientist must remain focused.  Ever since the year 22,679, when I won my award - at age eight! - I have relentlessly focused on science.  Especially chemistry.”

A flask exploded near him.  He was nearly hit by flying glass shards.  The girls shrieked.  

Fluid pooled amid the broken remains of the flask.  Liquid escaped from a connecting glass tube.  Eggbert rushed to the tube.  He turned a valve on it.  This stopped the tube from emptying out all the fluid that the tubes held. 

“See?!  See what happens when I’m interrupted?!” Eggbert asked.

“We’ll go now,” Melinda said. 

Eggbert looked around.  At his height, he’d barely been able to reach the tube’s valve.

“Where’s my stool?” Eggbert asked.

Emily looked around.

“I don’t see a stool,” she said.

“The bathroom!” Eggbert said.  “My stool’s in the bathroom.”  He hurried past the girls, and out of the room.  Melinda stepped from the room.  Emily stayed behind.  Melinda turned to fetch her.  As she tugged on Emily’s arm, hoping to take her from the room, Eggbert came running back.  “My stool’s not in the bathroom,” he said.  “I even looked in the toilet.”

“It might help to turn on a light,” Emily said.

“No lights,” Eggbert replied.  “I haven’t paid my electric bill in years.”

“Let me guess,” Melinda said.  “No time?”

“Exactly,” Eggbert answered.  “You’re getting to know me quite well.”  He went to the loveseat.  There, he found his glasses.  They were big and round, with black rims.  They had thick lenses.  He put them on.  Eggbert’s eyes looked huge behind his glasses.

“My!  You’re in focus now!” Eggbert said to the girls.  He gave them an appreciative whistle.  “You can be my assistants,”  Eggbert said.  When he said “assistants,” he emphasized the word’s first syllable.  Eggbert found this pronunciation quite funny.  The girls didn’t.

“We’re going,” Melinda said.

“Feel free,” Eggbert said.  “Then you can help me.”

The girls left the room.

“No ghosts,” Melinda said.  “Just turds, and a nut.”

“And a lot of junk,” Emily said.  “I’m ready to go.”

“Not to the bathroom!” Melinda said.

“No,” Emily agreed.

The girls left the house the way that they’d come.  They went to the nearby dock.  The canal was full of shadows.  The day was nearly gone.  Soon, in this last refuge on sea-drowned Naeco, it would be night.


Chapter Twenty-Four - Pooper’s Paradise

A boat came along the canal.  It held a dozen people.  The boat, called a “community taxi”, gave free rides to the public.  It stopped alongside the dock.  Someone got out of the boat.  Melinda and Emily got in the boat.  They sailed in it to Banana Beach.  The beach was popular, especially with tourists.  At night, its buildings were festively lit.

The sun had set.  The dark, endless sea lay under a star-laden sky.  Melinda and Emily went into a beach bathroom.  Flies were buzzing about in it.

“Look!” Emily whispered to Melinda.  One of the toilet stalls was occupied by a creature with three webbed feet.  The feet were green.  Suddenly, a long pink tongue shot up from the stall.  It snatched a fly.  The creature in the stall ate the fly.  It did so smacking its lips.

Then, the creature caught another fly.

“Ick!” Emily cried, along with Melinda.

Something exited from a farther stall.  It was a fire hydrant!  Traditional in shape, it was bright red.  Its bonnet was raised.  A pair of eyes peered out from under the bonnet.  An arm extended from each of its side outlets.  Feet extended below its base.

A boy followed the fire hydrant out of the stall.  Melinda, seeing the boy, cried,

“Shaun Litton!”

The fire hydrant looked at the girls.

“I’m not Shaun,” the fire hydrant said, irritably.  “I’m c-3ponme.”

Shaun had landed his bathroom stall in this ladies’ room.  He’d done so in a space that was used for a shower.  The girls told Shaun this.

“Ooops!” the boy said.  “I guess I’d better move my ship elsewhere.”  He smiled at the girls.  “Want a ride?”

“In your bathroom stall?!” Emily asked, alarmed.

“You can also use my toilet, if you need to,” Shaun said.

The creature who ate flies snatched another one out of the air.

“Let’s go!” Melinda told Emily.  The girls made to enter Shaun’s stall.

“Oh, God!  Must I ride with still more inferior species?” c-3ponme groaned.

A dog came into the beach bathroom.  Wagging its tail, it went quickly to c-3ponme.  The fire hydrant shrieked as the dog sniffed it.  The fire hydrant dashed back into Shaun’s stall.  Shaun had trouble keeping the dog from entering his stall.  When Shaun had wedged himself into the stall, with the girls and c-3ponme, he managed to shut the stall.

A white porcelain toilet dominated the stall.  A roll of toilet paper hung on the stall’s right wall, by the toilet.

“Well, here you are!” Shaun told Emily.  “All the comforts of home.  In a spaceship!”  He activated the ship.

“Ahooog!  Ahooog!  Ahooog!” came from its engines.  Beyond the stall’s door, the dog whined.

“You can use my toilet too,” Shaun told Melinda.

“No thanks,” Melinda answered.  

Emily needed Shaun’s toilet.  Standing by it, she began squirming about.  She did so with her thighs together, as the spaceship left the ladies’ room.

“Don’t let me and a fire hydrant keep you from going,” Shaun told Emily.  

“I don’t wish to see an inferior species pee!” c-3ponme said.  “Especially in this dump of a ship.”

“The Turdis is not a dump,” Shaun said.  “It’s brilliant!  Who knows how many aliens visited Earth in this bathroom stall?  

“All these years, humans have been searching the heavens for aliens.  They should have been searching for aliens in their bathrooms!” Shaun said.

“Don’t look,” Emily said.  “I’m going to pee.”

Shaun, c-3ponme, and Melinda averted their eyes.

Emily found that she needed to do more than pee.

“Oh, God!” c-3ponme groaned.  “Never let me fly with inferior species again.”


Chapter Twenty-Five - Eisegesis

The Turdis sailed off through the stars.  It wasn’t a pretty vessel, or a grand one.  It wasn’t even very large.  But it did have a toilet, and a fire hydrant.


“Earth has billions and billions of bathroom stalls, any one of which may be a spaceship!”

- Carl Saga.


THE END


Copyright 2023 by Andrew L. Roller.  Melinda and the Little Green Men is a trademark of Andrew L. Roller.