Strange Tails

“Replicators?” repeated Itchynuts. “Yes, what about them?”

“If all the humans go sleepy-byes, who needs them?”

“Who said all the humans go sleepy-byes?”

“I did, just now, keep up.”

Itchynuts hrumphed. “We think they had minders. Probably humans already adapted and brainwashed. Slaves herding slaves. Notice how the terminals are ergonomically convenient for the human frame.”

Squirrel noticed how they were not ergonomically convenient for an Itchynuts.

“We don’t need them of course,” he continued, by way of explanation, glancing at Potbelly’s now familiar persistent stare. “Our wetware can interface directly with its API, based as we are on the ship’s tech. Though we lack the extent of control the Angrothal has, and Mildred does seem to prefer just bashing it with her tail. The zombie humans couldn’t possibly have understood its scope. Took us several days to decompile most of the routines and even now I can’t quite tell if we’re about to explode.”

“That’s reassuring. How about the other ships, are we cloaked?”

“Woolen garments will not help us escape detection. Though, agreed, you’ll find it nippy in space.”

“Oh, hey guys!” yelled Stinkeye, full of bonhomie. “You came back! Look at us, we’re driving a spaceship! Captain’s log star date 2032, encountered some Klingons but the ointment’s working. LOL! That means Lasers Are Locked. No wait, that can’t be right—“

“Stinkeye!” yelled a second disembodied voice, a warbling baritone unmistakably aquatic. “Great not to see you again! Hearing is believing dude!”

“I’ve been here all along,” replied Stinkeye, suddenly losing his bonhomie. “We spoke about five minutes ago.”

“Wow, well, glad you’re here anyway. Where are you man? All I see is Cuthbert. Oh hey Cuthbert, how you been? We should go see Stinkeye sometime. Wonder what happened to him.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Cuthbert, with the same warbling baritone. “Who’s Stinkeye?”

“Good point. Hey Stinkeye, whoever you are, come join us.”

“I told you: moths can’t swim.”

“You did? Bummer. Well if you ever find your water wings it’s quite a party in here. Hey, you seen Cuthbert anywhere?”

Stinkeye shook his tiny antenna in disgust. Potbelly picked out his tiny frame amongst the blinking gadgetry. “You’re in for a lifetime of this?” she asked.

“It will be mercifully short,” he sighed.

“Don’t talk about dying. No, wait, let’s talk about you dying. What happens then?”

“The goldfish live for decades. Supposedly I’m teaching them. Though it’s like watching a rock solve a Rubik’s cube.”

“Did you know about the replicator? Apparently they were for the humans but now we’re worried about alien hide-and-seek. Can you scan the ship for life signs?”

“There’s none in the fish tank, I’ll tell you that much. The aliens, though, well, we can only guess they’re not here. Itchynuts made sense—in what he said about the human minders, anyway. I’m betting they kept an eye on the pods. There’s not only the replicator, but some human-style living quarters too.”

“You mean the rooms painted mind-bending pink?”

“We can’t explain those. Other than the aliens having a paint sale.”

“It’s all very rum,” said Potbelly. “Itchynuts, where is the replicator? Have you used it?”

“I’ve been a mite busy trying not to crash into planets. Not much time for brunch.”

“You want us to bring you something?”

“Sure. Something light. Maybe a quarter-ton of apples.”

“I was thinking something more sandwich-sized.”

“Sandwich-sized?”

“Yes, like a sandwich.”

“Never mind. I shall see to myself. Please, fewer distractions.”

“Stinkeye? Food?”

“I’ll take one grain of hyacinth flower mixed with fructose, some maple sap, and a dash of elderberry and rosehip.”

“Will a sugar cube do?”

“Perfect.”

“So where is it then, this replicator?”

“It’s in the room adjacent to the cryobank. Just think yourself there. Oh, and remember,—“

With a pop! and a pop! they disappeared.

“—think next to the replicator, not inside it.” He waggled his antennae. “Oh, they’ll figure it out.”

***

The replicator was not in the least bit sparkly or pink, much to Potbelly’s disappointment. Its appearance belonged more to the Silence: dour, functional, joyless. Steel-like surfaces peered at them in a heroically unfriendly manner, and a long trough, roughly Squirrel-height-if-he-was-on-tiptoes, ran five feet across. At the far end of the slightly-slanted trough was a hole. As Potbelly squinted at it, she thought all it needed was a deodorizing cake and it’d be the most unappealing food station in the universe.

The think-yourself-there machine had chosen this very spot, though, and if this is where it thought the replicator was then who were they to argue.

“How does it work?” asked Potbelly.

“Maybe you just talk to it?” guessed Squirrel. “Hello, replicator,” he said.

Both gazed patiently at the device. It gazed back, unimpressed.

“Initiate replication sequence,” offered Potbelly.

Nothing.

“Open replicator,” tried Squirrel.

“Replicator on,” suggested Potbelly.

“Commence replicatosity.”

“Inaugurate replicaterization.”

“Launch replicator mode.”

“Undertake replicaterism.”

“Establish—“

“Oh look there’s an on-off switch.”

Squirrel clicked his tongue. “Now where’s the science in that? Better check see if it’s plugged in, too.”

Potbelly snuffled around for a cord while Squirrel sized up a leap to the small power button. It bore the distinct ‘O’ and ‘I’ symbols of the galactically agreed designation of the on-off switch. It was a little too far to reach, though, so when Potbelly returned and shrugged, having found nothing, Squirrel hopped onto her back and launched himself, nudging the switch to the on position at the second attempt.

A soft glow emanated from the urinal-like machine, in the exact spot, thought Squirrel, in a downtown Cleveland bar, where someone would have rested their half-drunk pint of Dortmunder.

“Now what?” inquired Potbelly.

Squirrel eyed the replicator purposefully. “I … would … like … a … Twinkie,” he said, enunciating as clearly as he could. He hoped somewhere among his chirrups his brain-voice would be heard by the sullen-looking device.

“Twinkie not recognized,” it replied, with a cheerful, authoritative tone.

“I … would … like … um … cheese,” said Potbelly.

“Specify cheese variety,” replied the replicator.

“Why did you say cheese?”

“I don’t know, I froze.”

“Please specify cheese variety,” insisted the replicator.

“See, we’re locked into it now.”

“Ched-dar,” announced Potbelly to the replicator, slowly, as if it was an elderly aunt.

“Define region.”

“Wisconsin.”

“May I suggest Somerset, England?”

“No you may not.”

“Please specify quantity in grams,” continued the device, in what Potbelly now thought carried a note of disdain. Potbelly turned to Squirrel “What’s a gram?” she asked.

“It’s like an ounce only foreign.”

“OK … 6 grams please.”

“Please specify consistency: solid, grated, melted.”

“It’d be quicker to buy a cow and make the damn stuff ourselves.”

“Please specify consistency: solid, grated, melted.”

“Solid.”

“Processing request.”

After a few seconds a metallic burp dispensed a rather dainty-looking plate bearing floral scrolls, a subtle pinkish-taupe glaze, and a tiny slither of what looked very much like cheese, only smaller.

“All that effort for this?” cried Squirrel.

“Six grams,” replied the replicator, defensively.

Squirrel squinted at it. “And you still won’t make me a Twinkie?”

“Twinkie not recognized. Please iterate ingredients.”

“Well now why didn’t you say that before? Let me see. Wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, niacin, water, eggs, shortening, cornstarch, riboflavin, polysorbate sixty, soy lecithin, iron, FD and C yellow number five, monoglyceride, red forty, cellulose gum, and last, but not least, everybody’s favorite, a cheeky little sprinkle of diglyceride.” He took a deep breath. “Combine that lot into a golden brick of gooey joy, five inches long.”

“Replicating … replicating … process aborted. Outcome injurious to human health. Revise ingredients.”

“Injurious to … what? … Twinkies are mankind’s only worthwhile achievement!”

“This is all rather curious,” observed Potbelly.

“Damn right it’s curious!” Squirrel waved a fist at the replicator. “You want to see injurious to health, do ya pal, do ya?”

“I mean, if they have the technology to create a replicator for human food, slave human food, why bother? Couldn’t they just make robots instead?”

“I have often thought they’d be preferable to humans,” agreed Squirrel, still fuming.

“And what were the humans keeping an eye on anyway? Were they rolling round the cryotube aisles with free pretzels and overpriced wine?”

Squirrel calmed himself enough to pay attention. “Now you mention it … s’pose … and then why didn’t the trolley dollies release all the other humans from the cryotubes?”

“Well, we do know they were mind controlled. Maybe bribed, too?”

“Not with delicious processed confections, we know that much.”

“You may never be right, Squirrel, but I can always rely on you to be hungry.”

“May I help you?” asked the human.

“It’s OK, we got this,” said Potbelly. Her canine brain had not yet recognized the significance of the tertiary voice.

“Sure thing,” replied the voice. “I will wait for you to finish before I make popcorn.”

“Oh great, the biped’s back,” said Squirrel, whose rodent brain was always ready to be annoyed by a hominid. “Didn’t you disappear? Like into a garbage compactor? Or a turbine? Or a black hole? Or a turbine in a black hole? Or a turbine-driven garbage compactor powered by a black hole? Now there’s a niche market.”

“Oh that does sound exciting! Shall I think about it now?”

“No!” cried Potbelly. “Think of nothing at all.”

“Sure. We humans are good at that.”

“How did you end up here?”

“I wanted breakfast.”

“You eat popcorn for breakfast?” Squirrel’s eyes widened. “Maybe you’re not so bad after all.”

“Yes. And popcorn is good for movies.”

“Movies?”

“They are pictures that tell a story.”

“Yes I know, but … movies?”

“Let me show you!”

With a beaming smile and the outstretched hand of an usherette on her first day at work, before prolonged exposure to the general public took its toll, the human hustled Squirrel and Potbelly through a vertical doorway more human-sized than any of the doorways they’d seen before; and then on again, through a short, dark corridor into an even darker room; though, not so much a room, more a container for the infinite vacuum of space. The darkness was so complete, if it contained a million black cats one could only tell from the purring.

“Restart movie!” cried the human, and what was once absolutely nothing contained, instead, and just as absolutely, the most gigantic cinema screen they had ever seen.

Squirrel clapped and whooped. “Now we’re talking!” he yelled. “I’m going to enjoy this all the more knowing Michel isn’t here.”

Two horizontal bars faded into the background. Surround sound flowed into their ears, like honey pouring from a jar. Stirring military music ran through their brains, down their spines, and poked its nose in places it really shouldn’t have gone. In unison, they cooed. Large letters drifted into view before drifting off again into the infinity of space—real infinite space this time, or at least the cinematic version, an infinity you can imagine does end somewhere, and will, at the concession stand, when you’ve run out of popcorn.

“Oh I know this one. It’s Star Wars,” announced Potbelly, watching a tall black-robed shape stride into view. The shape towered above them. The human gasped.

“Where are your plans to the Happy Star?” demanded Lord Vader, his voice deep and rich.

“Plans? We intercepted no such plans,” lied the captive before him. “But if we did, I would use them to destroy your horrible Happy Star.”

The menacing figure of Vader edged closer. “All we want to do is bring love and puppies to the galaxy,” he stated, sonorously.

“I insist you pick me up and shake me by the neck,” said the captive. “Then I can die, horribly, just like the mean-spirited space pirate I am.”

For some reason Squirrel couldn’t fathom, the space pirate sported a very odd-shaped helmet indeed.

“I’m here to please,” said Vader, clutching him by the throat. Something about the pirate’s headgear had always struck Potbelly too, something she couldn’t quite put her paw on. When she remembered what it was, she retracted her paw and made a mental note to wash it later.

“This is probably going to hurt, are you sure?” asked Vader.

“I don’t care!” cried odd-helmet. “We despise your Happy Star! The universe must be populated with fear! Break my neck for I have failed my sinister overlord, Princess Leia.”

Our tall and berobed hero shook the space pirate until he slumped to the floor. “Spread out,” called Vader. “Bring love and candy wherever you go. The Happy Star must be saved!”

The gaping face of Potbelly turned from the screen to where she thought Squirrel should be, but in the disorienting environment she saw no one.

“This is a good movie!” declared the human, who mistakenly took Potbelly’s expression for joy. “Is the cape-guy a superhero?”

“Super …? It’s a … but they’ve … ”

Potbelly turned back to the screen and saw the pretty, puckish face of Princess Leia staring back. Her round eyes and Danish pastry hairstyle filled the expanse of Potbelly’s vision.

“You’ll never take us alive,” sneered Leia, her lips not quite matching the dialogue, mouthing the words as if impersonating the breathing of a fish. Transfixed by the evil demonry of Leia, the human scooted sideways to snuggle into Potbelly.

“Your Happy Star will fail in its mission to bring joy to the lives of children,” Leia mocked. “We will destroy it in the blaze of a million suns.”

“You will not succeed,” replied the black-caped hero. “Love will win. From the twinkle in a little baby’s eye to the soft feel of a fluffy rabbit, there will always be a Happy Star.”

“This seems a little different,” said Squirrel, finally emerging from the Technicolor sea with an armful of popcorn. He offered some to Potbelly. “Lot easier to make than Twinkies,” he said.

“It’s … they’ve … ” Potbelly waved a paw vaguely in the direction of the screen.

“This planet will be nothing but dust and broken bodies,” cackled a small, dome-shaped robot amidst a rolling landscape of desert dunes. “I see our puppy-grinding machine is working.”

“OK, that’s it,” yelled Potbelly. “Pause movie.” Everything in the room froze. She pitter-pattered forward to stare deep into the pixels on the screen.

“Did I pick the wrong one?” asked the human.

“This isn’t Star Wars. They’ve changed the dialogue. I know what this is: it’s propaganda.”

“I quite liked it,” munched Squirrel.

“Shall I pick a different one?” offered the human. “There was one that had monkeys at the beginning. I like monkeys. Would you like to see that one too?”

“Yes, put on another,” replied Potbelly, convinced there was something to be very angry about. She plunked her backside down with determination. She enjoyed having a good angry.

“Play 2001: A Space Odyssey,” called the human. Potbelly raised a canine eyebrow, remembering Eric the Ethereal’s comment earlier. As promised, a group of monkeys filled the screen, though, despite Squirrel’s similar assertion, there was a distinct absence of rhinoceroses.

Squirrel laughed. “I see what you’re saying,” he said. “Those aren’t monkeys. Look! They’re aliens in costumes.”

“No, that’s the actual movie,” said Potbelly, realizing she had seen it before.

“Oh.”

“Human, can we fast forward to the speaky bits?”

“We can certainly try!” The human announced it like it was the best idea she had ever heard. “Forward one hour!”

In a dizzying moment the onlookers were whisked from a desert scene full of simians to a long bulbous spaceship, shaped, in every way conceivable, not in the least bit like their own.

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal,” said the man, who to Potbelly’s fleeting satisfaction was wearing entirely different head gear. Again the actor’s lines poured lushly over the popcorn munching Squirrel, and he wondered, briefly, how awesome life would be if he had six ears.

“Hal, open up so I can explode the bomb and destroy the universe,” continued the new-helmeted man.

“See! They’re doing it again!” cried Potbelly.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” came a sultry, disembodied voice. “I must save all the beautiful people of our lovely galaxy.”

“It doesn’t say that! The computer doesn’t say that! I remember this one!”

“What does it say?” asked Squirrel.

“It says something like: I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“I think I prefer this version.”

“Doesn’t matter! You don’t get to change it!”

“But if the movie’s more fun, who cares?”

“It’s cultural appropriation. Of a whole species. You can’t just change it for your own ends. It’s … it’s … these people are evil!”

“So you’re saying they changed it to make you think the bad people are really good people?”

“Exactly. It’s brain-thinging.”

“Brainwashing? Really? How would the humans fall for that?”

“Well you just did.”

“I like it!” beamed the human. “Except for the funny looking goldfish.”

“That was his head in a helmet.”

“Oh. So no little treasure chest then?”

Potbelly pitter-pattered over to her, noticing something she had not seen before. “Where did you get that collar?” she asked.

“Pretty necklace!”

Potbelly peered around the back. “It’s flashing.”

“Diamonds! Aren’t I lucky? Here, see.”

The human felt around the collar but even with those dexterous hands, the ones Potbelly couldn’t help but hate her for, she was unable to remove it. “Funny,” added the human. “Won’t come off.” She shrugged. “Oh well, pretty necklace.”

“Again, where did you get it?”

“In the next room. Will show you!”

They followed her with interest. Having paused the movie the only noise that remained was Squirrel fiercely shoving in his remaining popcorn. They emerged from a side door to feel the relief of light and spatial normality, like a train emerging from a tunnel. Unlike the cinema, this new room had a recognizable floor, and with four walls, all where people usually put them. There was even a ceiling. Squirrel picked at his teeth, happy to be absorbing his last few crumbs of saccharin carbohydrate.

Potbelly peered up at a chorus line of wood-framed, glass-fronted cabinets, each of varying height, like the skyline of lower Manhattan had it been built by Ikea. One wall contained a flat operating table, cold and steely like the replicator, designed, it seemed, to remind the observer they were made of soft, fleshy, and highly cleavable meat. Potbelly felt her relief dissipate.

“You found your necklace here?” she asked.

“Yes!”

“Can we lose it again?” said Squirrel, still digging popcorn morsels from his incisors. “Need more food.”

“But what do you think it does?”

“It makes me look pretty!”

“I was asking Squirrel.”

“It makes me wait for food.” He’d taken to wandering distractedly about the room. Suddenly he stopped. “Have you seen what’s in the chiller cabinet?” He backed away. “Clue: it ain’t Prosecco.”

Potbelly joined him and peered inside. If the pine-like, glass-fronted cabinets were indeed made of Swedish minimalist design, their catalog name, she concluded, would be SERIÄLKILLÅR.

“Bloody hell, it’s another head.”

“Correction, part of a head. Looks like something exploded out the side.”

“Makes it look like its smiling,” said the human, joining in.

“Missing its lower jaw. Probably not the same as having a laugh.”

The human peered closer. “Ooh, that would smart. Can we fix her up?”

Potbelly ignored the question. “Is this a medical bay, do you think?”

“Decapitation is not usually seen as a cure.”

“You have a point.”

“I have many points. Join them up and you see a very smart Squirrel indeed. Are we leaving?”

“Sure. Do you think there are more heads in the other cabinets?”

“You want to find out?”

“Not especially. What is it with decapitating humans these days?

The human beamed. “Maybe they’re just trying to … get a-head?”

Two small mammals looked up at her. Her face dropped. “I’m sorry Widdle-Puffs and Lucy, I thought you liked jokes.”

“We do. That’s why we’re not laughing.”

“I thought it was funny,” announced Zoltan, perched high up on the tallest cabinet.

At the sound of Zoltan’s voice they jumped back, or at least tried to—Squirrel bounced off a glass door and Potbelly collided with his rebound. The human sat down next to them. “I don’t like being in these places with Zoltan,” she said.

The crow remained, watching.

“Zoltan,” declared Squirrel, martialing his disconcertedness, though not feeling in the least bit concerted. “So there you are. Not sleeping in the cryotubes with the others?”

“Like you, I enjoy being in control of my destiny,” he said, still eyeing them keenly. “Besides, I’ve seen enough cryotubes for one lifetime.”

Potbelly immediately noticed the similarity between the black-winged Zoltan and the black-robed Darth Vader. It made the bark stick in her throat.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” continued the crow, his tone calm and even, one cape-like wing gesturing to the room. “Such an advanced facility. With something like this, we’d have the opportunity to do to humans what they’ve been doing to us for centuries. Take the top off and have a good root around inside.”

“You make them sound like a tube of Pringles.”

“More like an engine. Trying to find out how it works.”

Zoltan hopped down to a lower Manhattan rooftop and fixed his beady, know-that-I-will-be-there-when-you’re-roadkill eye on Squirrel.

“So you’re trying to fix the humans?” returned Squirrel, changing the subject from his entrails.

“No. Ourselves.”

“What needs fixing in ourselves?” asked Potbelly. “Not including Squirrel, of course, that’d take too long.”

“You don’t want to live forever?”

“That may give us time to figure out who killed JFK,” suggested Squirrel. “You never know when that might come in handy.”

“The world will be quite satisfied with just one of your lifespans,” replied Zoltan. “And mine too. But your children? And their children? What will they be? Just rodents? Just crows?”

“You sound like Coralane.”

Zoltan laughed. “I don’t have the plumage.”

“No, but the pair of you are sex mad. Who are you breeding with out here in space? Itchynuts? Maybe you are that kinky.”

“The space journey was unforeseen. Our human friend here left Nevermore to come aboard. But then we find out there are others of her kind here too. Quite the pot luck.”

“Zoltan made my head itch,” said the human, her eyes narrowing.

“What exactly were you up to with her?” Potbelly demanded.

“She is the engine of course.”

“But we’re totally different. It’d be like taking a motorbike apart to find out how a daffodil works.”

“The humans vivisected us. Why not do it to them?”

“But we can be better than them.”

“Exactly, we can, and because of that we have every right to do as we wish.”

“Did I do vivisection on you Lucy?” asked the human.

“Apparently, yes.”

“That was mean of me.”

“It’s OK, I didn’t take it personally.”

“I did,” said Squirrel.

“Did I make you clever, Widdle-Puffs?”

“No one’s that good,” replied Potbelly. “Anyway, this doesn’t change a thing. You don’t have permission to inflict suffering. Vivisection is the worst form of abuse.

“Would it surprise you to learn that the head in the fridge is there precisely because humans did that very thing to themselves?”

“The humans could not have done something like this to themselves.”

“Really?” Zoltan snorted. “I suggest you read a history book.” He paused for a moment. “To be fair, the bipeds were mind-controlled. Under orders, no doubt. The collars … I’m not exactly sure how they fit in, but they are clearly relevant.”

He hopped to an adjacent counter and dipped a wing to pull open a drawer. Inside lay row upon row of sleek, thin bands. One was missing.

“That’s where I got my necklace!” the human exclaimed. “Told you! Do you want one Lucy?”

“The one I have is fine, thanks.”

“So these are like welcome packs but with a free lobotomy?” asked Squirrel.

“Quite possibly,” screeched a new voice. “Though also a control device, no doubt. A muzzle.”

The screech played an unmistakable tattoo on Potbelly’s ear drums. She knew who it was before she even turned around to see Coralane hopping through the doorway, her plumage ragged and her tail unevenly curtailed, but still with those red-and-green eyes, piercing and alive. Zoltan spread his broad wings to parachute down next to her.

“Jeez, it’s like a fricking Hitchcock movie in here,” quavered Squirrel.

“I know you as well,” said the human, squinting at Coralane. “I don’t think we’re friends.”

Two pairs of avian eyes returned the gaze.

“Come,” screeched Coralane, before tempering her natural voice. “We have survived much together. We wish to continue our success, do we not?”

“Yeah—it’s been going swimmingly,” replied Squirrel.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Potbelly.

“Oh, same as you. Took a wrong exit on the turnpike.” Coralane squawked smugly to herself. “I’ve been watching you. The replicator. The movie theatre. Interesting, no? Why need such things?”

“Popcorn and movies!” cried the human.

Coralane shook her head. “What a species. Enemies of themselves.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Potbelly.

“Zoltan is right. The collars are extremely relevant. I believe they are muzzles, fitted to humans, and by their own kind. It’s why the ship needs the replicator, the movie theatre. Keep the captors alive while they indoctrinate the captives. Fit the collars. Pop them back in the freezer. All ready for arrival. Not a single alien needed.” Coralane gestured to the decapitated head. “Of course, there’s always the occasional boo-boo.”

“The captors are collaborating?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. I think it’s much more interesting than that.”

Potbelly furrowed her brow. However interesting it might be, it was a muddy soup to her. “So this is why you came aboard?”

“Don’t you realize the possibilities that lie ahead now? What might be behind all this effort … all these slaves ... all this devotion?”

“Of course,” she replied, indignant, having no idea what Coralane was talking about. She whispered furtively to Squirrel. “What’s our next step?”

“Forward and out the door.”

“But what about the human?”

“She’s big enough to take care of herself.”

“She’s an idiot. She’ll end up doing exactly what they tell her.” Potbelly nodded to the birds as they begun a similar tete-a-tete with the human. “Which I think will be lay back and don’t scream too much.”

“Big deal. So it’s Frankenstein Flies to Mars. What do we care?”

“We could be in this tin can for months. Years, even. We’re going to just turn up the radio every time we hear a strangled cry?”

“They want information from her, not make a casserole.”

“Do you think they care how they get that information?“

“Pretty birds!” declared the human, smiling, her frazzled brain having already made friends again as it went around the board and passed Go. “Does Polly want a cracker?”

“No feeding the animals,” demanded Potbelly, and then glanced back to Squirrel. “Get up there and shoo them away.”

Squirrel instinctively covered his belly.

“How about if I sort of launched you up there instead?”

“I’m not a football.”

He eyed her paunchy midriff.

“Squirrel!”

Squirrel had just enough time to furrow his brow in return before it hit the floor with a smack.

His companion tumbled violently against him, and the human, with farther to travel, fell across them both. The ship continued to lurch back and forth. In the tangled mess a distressed meep was all Squirrel could elicit to indicate his lack of breathing. Again!?, he thought. Is space travel nothing more than a sugar shortage with the occasional bout of suffocation?

“Ah, we’re here,” said Coralane, who like Zoltan had wafted into the air unscathed. They landed next to a section of wall, and at the tap of her beak Coralane revealed a computer display. Light from the screen hit the human full length, but she did not stir. Potbelly wriggled out from beneath her, dragging Squirrel by the scruff of his neck, while slipping on a pool of blood leaking from a gash in the human’s head.

At first Potbelly and Squirrel were too distracted by their predicament to pay attention to the strange thing that had appeared on Coralane’s screen.

It was a planet.

Or, at least, sort of. It looked like a planet, but one made by a Victorian watchmaker—brass-colored and round, without being quite spherical, it was covered with intricate, irregularly placed devices. One large seam bisected its surface, running north to south through its center.

Catching her breath, Potbelly now spied it too. To her dazed brain, what looked like a large gentleman’s belt flung itself out from the spaceship and towards the planet. The belt became stuck on what looked like a huge, inconveniently located door handle. The end of it snagged and again they felt the ship jerk. Squirrel, more dazed than Potbelly, slid back against the glass-fronted cabinet. All the while the human remained immobile and the birds fluttered to retain rough orbit around the monitor.

Potbelly nudged the human and licked her bloodied face. It tasted of rusty nails. While the birds remained transfixed by the monitor, Potbelly shuffled over to Squirrel.

“Think about Itchynuts,” she whispered.

He replied groggily. “Tinkerbell … easy nuts?”

“No. Bring a picture of Itchynuts to mind.”

“This is how you cheer me up?”

“Think yourself there.”

“Oh,” he replied limply.

With a pop! they disappeared.