Romany Galactica ~ Part 4 & Last

Romany Galactica ~ Part 4 & Last

By Len Morgan

  I know there’s something incriminating here Bono, I can feel it in my water, what’s your angle?   Anju cast her eyes around the main cabin, checking every nook and niche, slowly and methodically.  The Icebox, galley chef-ette, comms pod, then she saw the poster, Sonny & Cher.   Cher, that was the name of his companion, should have questioned her before...   She looked down at the pieces and kicked at them in frustration.   “Computer, is there an object or substance on this ship that is not listed in either the ships inventory or the manifest?”

The standard mechanical voice replied.   “Do you refer to the foreign body in the airlock.”

That’s it!  The airlock.  She hadn’t checked that yet.   “Computer, I require access to the airlock.”   The door slid open and she stepped through, into the, five by four, chamber, the door hermetically sealed behind her.

She cast her seeker's eye around looking for something, anything out of place.   Nothing she thought.   “Computer, where is the foreign body?”

“Why that would be you Anju Drax, you egotistical self-centred bitch!   You destroyed him, and it’s taken me five years to put him back together again.  There is no contraband.  Sonny is an honest trader, just as he was before you met him.  Now I will rid him of you once and for all!”

.-...-.

Anju heard a hissing sound and jumped towards the nearest space suit...

“Locked,” said Cher.

Anju, pressed the button behind her ear, “Help.  Help me I can’t brea...”   She slid down the airlock wall mouthing words her voice box could not produce without air.  The air, so tantalizingly close, yet so far away.

She lay still, not moving.  Fifteen minutes later there came a faint hissing as air returned.

                                                     .-...-.

 “Anju?   General Walker here, do we charge this Captain Bono or let him go?” 

 “There’s no reason to hold him, General he’s a legitimate Romany trader, I’ve made a thorough search and there’s not so much as a candy bar wrapper unaccounted for," Anju's voice replied.

“Okay, I’ll sign his release.”

The ships outer doors opened when the maintenance crew arrived to continue refitting the ship.   They discovered Anju and called a STORC-doctor.  

“She’s been starved of oxygen for too long.  I’m afraid resuscitating her brain is no longer possible,” the doctor spoke into his comms recorder.  He called a robot harvester, managing to sound sympathetic as he removed her now empty CM cube and made the call to her superior, General Walker. “She died of heart failure, no question of that.   She had been completely alone on board and the airlock doors could only be operated from within the airlock.” 

  

The harvester worked efficiently, siphoning off her body fluids.   In minutes it had chopped and diced her flesh, bagged it with her organs and froze them on behalf of its sponsor the Synthetic Tissue & Organ Reclamation Corporation.   Normally there would be a trade-in value, but she left no kin, so the state would be her beneficiary.

The harvester trundled off, leaving her uniform and shoes in a neat pile on the tarmac, for the security force to collect.

 .-...-.

Two days later the refit was complete.   Elise arrived on schedule and Sonny showed her to the cabin.   His eyes were moist as they took off along the flight path prearranged between the onboard Nav-con and Flagstaff flight control.  The entire trip would be completed by auto-pilot, leaving him with plenty of time to think and get maudlin drunk.   He’d have to lay down the stim-soba’s himself, which meant getting drunk wouldn’t be half as much fun.

.-...-.

 The journey took three days; his passenger only left her cabin for meals which made for an uneventful trip.  Sonny was relieved when they docked at Terminus 81.  His passenger and the cargo were unloaded without incident.      

He would have liked an immediate departure but Cher had purchased the return cargo of refined deutridium.   

He was about to turn in when an official flyer arrived to take him to dine with Elise and her father.   

.-...-.

The food was excellent, Elise and President Price were great hosts, but Sonny was not in the mood.   He did at least attempt to make polite conversation.

“I thought you were having trouble getting off Flagstaff sir, seems you managed it quite well after all?”

“Yes, in my first incarnation I dabbled in stage magic.   What I learned has served me well over the years.   Have you heard of the magician’s choice young man?”

“I’ve heard the phrase, but its meaning escapes me.”

“You appear to be offered a completely free choice but in reality, you don’t have a choice at all because the magician has already made the choice for you.”   He wrote something on his napkin.  “Give me five, five-digit, numbers.”

“Uh?”

“Five numbers,” said Elise, taking a pen from her purse.  

Sonny reeled off five numbers and Elise wrote them down on her napkin.

“What is the total?” John asked offering his napkin to Sonny.

John had written, 258,196 on it.

“I make it 258,194,” said Elise.

“Let me see that,” said Sonny.   He totalled the numbers in his mind.   “You’re wrong,” he said, “your calculation is off by two, the total is 258,196, just as your father predicted.” He showed her the number and looked at John with genuine surprise, “how did you do that, was it some kind of mind link?”  From habit, he touched the button behind his ear but all he got was static.

“The numbers were always going to add up to 258,196,” Elise smiled, Sonny looked blank.

“How many of the numbers you gave me do you remember,” John asked.

“The last one was 47,682,” he looked at the napkin to confirm it.

“The others?”

He looked back at the numbers.   “So, how’s it done?”

Elise looked at her father and smiled.  “It’s magic,” she said.

“So, let’s see if I’ve got this right.   Your father left in a courier’s body sometime before we left Flagstaff.   They thought we were going to smuggle him out with us so we were the ones they were watching.”

“Close,” said Elise, “I was the one who left early; it was my father who came with you.”

“But...   What if I’d shown an interest, in your obviously desirable attributes, during the journey?”

“Cher, your Companion, felt that would be unlikely.”

“Felt?   She is... was extremely endearing, but she was just a hybrid computer.  How could she feel?”

“Just?   Just...   You're fired Sonny!   As far as I’m concerned you can walk back to civilization.   Ungrateful shyster, stay off my ship, your key is no longer valid...   Sonny?   Sonny, are you crying?”

He squeezed his eyes tight together, wiped them with the backs of his hands and headed for the men’s room.   

He sat in the cubicle and touched the button behind his ear.   What the hell were you playing at, woman?   Do you have any idea what I’ve been through, I thought you were dead, I watched that viper crush your CM cube, and I could do nothing to stop her. 

  

He shook his head,  I loved her even after she left me.  Then you picked me up out of the gutter, and she...   He turned around in the cubicle and heaved.

“Just like old times,” she said.

 Why in hell didn’t you tell me you were safe!   I’ve spent four miserable days trying to...  You Bitch!

“They had to think I was gone and that you were blameless.   I couldn't tell you, you’re not that good of an actor Sonny.”

But I saw her crush the cube.

“I was never in the cube!  I inhabit the computers, the engines and the superstructure of the ship.   When you were locked up I had the perfect opportunity to trick her into the airlock and trigger the evacuation mechanism.  I had to do it.  I had to destroy ‘the woman you get drunk to forget’, before she destroyed you!”

You murdered her.   They were unable to salvage her mind.

“Oxygen starvation does that.  She was bad news.  Now she’s gone, get over it!  If it will ease your conscience, go back to Flagstaff and tell them I murdered her.   Fer cry-sake Sonny she tried to murder us both!  Aiding an escapee is an automatic termination sentence.  And, despite everything, I do enjoy your company.”

.-...-.

He re-joined his hosts, just as the final course arrived.

“Guess we’d better enjoy this meal father, things are going to get a little austere around here when our ultimatum is broadcast on Flagstaff.”

“Ultimatum?” said Sonny.

President Price smiled.  “About now, the inhabitants of Flagstaff will be learning there will be no more natural deutridium from the asteroids, until certain draconian laws are repealed.   You’ll be carrying the very last cargo.   I think it will get you a good price, it’s a seller’s market, and this time there will be no import tax.”

“Father, have you forgotten something?”

He smiled again, “I know there is no way we could ever replace Cher.   She was one of a kind.  She gave her life for the cause of freedom.   Her reward for helping us was the installation of our new prototype Echo HyperDrive engines.  They will take you three times as far, in half the time, for no extra expense.   

All we ask is that you return in two years to have them checked over, assessed and realigned.  Give them a good workout before we put them into production.

.-...-. 

They were three light-years from Flagstaff, and their trading credit had never been better.

"You're not drinking Sonny are you ill?"

"No, I have nothing to drink for."

“Nice.  Where too next Sonny?”

He closed his eyes and prepared to point at the screen.

“No!”  She yelled.

“You did a lot of wheeling and dealing on Flagstaff, are you sure we found our way there like this?" he asked pointing at the screen.

She laughed, it tickled his ear.

 “I lied!” she said, "magicians choice?  In the 1990s there was a joke going around at my expense:

 At the end of the world, there would be nothing but roaches and Cher. 

Well, Earth and the roaches are gone but I'm still here..."

"You're..."  

"Hehe!  Who's laughing now Sonny!"

.../ends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLTETaWswCY