Climatic Calamity (part 24)

Rarely does pathos rear its head in the Earplug Adventures; but episode 24 gives it a go. Read on…

The Captain had raced to the auto-destruct compartment: the return journey took more than three times as long to complete…

“Guests,” the Captain used an all-encompassing term for the four beings that stood before it, “I have the sad duty to inform you that the Catering Assistant won’t be accompanying us on our journey back to Earth.”

Celestino’s talent meant that the robot need not have uttered another word through its cheap plastic forward speaker: he already knew the truth. But Erronious, Hellfire, and Peggy required further information.

“Yeah?” Erronious spoke into the brief silence that followed the Captain’s opening gambit, “why’s that then?”

“Because,” the mauve robot replied, “the Catering Assistant will replace the auto-destruct trigger. It will blow up the ship manually.”

Naturally the reluctant pea farmers complained bitterly. They said lots of rude words. One of them was ‘bum’. And another one was ‘carp’, or a word that looks very similar when written down. But it was to no avail, and soon the black robot departed upon its final mission.

After Celestino had urged Erronious and Hellfire to follow the Catering Assistant with the words: “I think it has something it would like to discuss with you before committing suicide,” the Captain and First Officer looked at each other.

“There goes a brave robot.” The Captain said quietly.

“Not sure I could do it Sir.” The First Officer replied. “Not in my specifications, I’m sorry to say. Will you be mentioning it in despatches, Sir?”

“Oh absolutely.” The Captain replied in an instant. “If one existed, I’d demand that the Catering Assistant – stroke Fifth Officer – received a medal posthumously. But, rightly or wrongly, that is not the robotic way.”

A short while later the two earplugs joined the Catering Assistant as it prepared to insert a widget into a thingamabob…

They didn’t try to dissuade the black robot: but they did suggest that it express its feelings. So it did:

“You know that belief that earplugs have about a life after physical oblivion?”

“Silicon Valley?” Hellfire suggested.

“That’s the one.” The Catering Assistant replied. “That belief has the dead crossing a vast bridge from this life into the next.”

“That’s right.” Erronious said. “It’s supposed to be very beautiful.”

“Well,” the robot continued as though Erronious had not spoken, “there is a faction of robot-kind that has a similar belief. They believe that a huge, lumpy, yellow bridge separates here from there…

…and that we see the ghosts of lost ships on the way across it. Further, once we have completed the passage, we are taken into the embrace of cyber-heaven.”

“Are you one of those who believe?” Hellfire asked gently – almost hopefully…

The Catering Assistant’s ocular devices shifted to the ceiling. “I’d like to imagine it’s true.” It said. “But I have no proof: nothing tangible: any empirical data.”

“Bah,” Erronious scoffed. “You don’t need them: you just need faith. If you can imagine it – that makes it possible. Anything that’s possible is certainly probable. If you – and others like you – can imagine the huge, lumpy, yellow bridge; the ghosts of lost ships; and cyber-heaven, it’s probably because it’s real. Just believe in it enough, and you can make it happen. Bon voyage, Fifth Officer of the Drunkard’s Vomit: may you watch her sweep silently by as you cross the bridge.”

As the two earplugs made their farewells, the bridge crew had lifted the Drunkard’s Vomit so that it hung above the brightly-lit towers of Vacuum City…

Then, pushing the forward thrusters to the max, the submarine space freighter blasted free from the planetoid’s feeble gravitonic attraction…

Thereafter, having gained sufficient distance from the planetoid, the life-boat, containing the crew and passengers of the Drunkard’s Vomit, departed the main hold at high speed…

Then, as the submarine space freighter slid back towards the planetoid, the Catering Assistant hit the destruct button…

Green lights indicated that the device had activated. The ship was only seconds away from total destruction. But then something completely unexpected happened…

“Ugh?” the Catering Assistant managed before dissolution, “I feel myself being disassembled and taken…where…?”

However any potential thoughts were circumvented when the ship’s hull exploded spectacularly in several directions…

This exposed the engine core to cosmic radiation, to which it was sub-atomically allergic. The result was the Wonky Supreme Being suddenly becoming aware that the gig was up – permanently…