Chapter Six

It takes all sorts to make a universe

‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked the Medical Officer. Her three yellow googly eyes stuck out on stalks from her slimy green body and her six blue tentacles waggled in surprise. She looked like a cross between an octopus and a huge green slug.

‘I’ve absolutely no idea!’ said Maxie.

Yargal slithered over to Harvey. She prodded him with a squelchy tentacle.

Harvey stirred.

So she poked him again. ‘Are you all right?’

Harvey’s eyes flickered open and focused on Yargal.

‘AAAAAAARGH!’ he screamed.

The crew were stunned and horribly embarrassed. Never, in all their multiple intergalactic missions, had they seen anyone react so badly at the sight of a Yargillian.

In his defence, Harvey had never seen such a revolting alien in all his life – not even in a book.

But it takes all sorts to make a universe, and you really can’t go round passing out every time you meet an unusually ugly alien. It’s rude. And it’s pointless – they’re still going to be there when you wake up.

The crew stared down at Harvey crumpled on the deck. No one helped him up. Maxie was the first to speak. ‘He fainted! He actually fainted! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a captain faint before.’

‘He might be the youngest captain in the Known Universe, but he’s pathetic,’ said Scrummage.

Gizmo smiled smugly. ‘Computer: stand by to transport,’ he ordered. ‘Our visitor is leaving.’

And Maxie didn’t contradict him.

Time to go home

‘Righty ho!’ said the computer brightly. ‘I did try to warn you  … ’

‘Yes. Thank you,’ snapped Maxie. She glared at Harvey. ‘Fine captain you turned out to be.’

Harvey scrambled to his feet. Although he was pleased to be going home, for some odd reason he felt disappointed and hurt. Probably because we all want to be wanted – even by a team we didn’t want to play for in the first place. And we don’t want to be not wanted, even by the team we didn’t want to want us in the first place. Obviously.

‘Er  …  sorry,’ said Harvey, who couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘Yes-bye-thank-you-for-coming,’ snapped Maxie. She turned her back on him, pushed up her sleeves and busied herself with the flight controls.

Scrummage and Gizmo went back to their posts.

‘Computer: transport,’ ordered Gizmo.

‘Okey-doke,’ it replied and started to bleep importantly.

Harvey stood leaning weakly against the captain’s seat and gazing through the smeary vision screen at the awesome wonders of outer space. He clung to the arm of the chair and braced himself, expecting at any second to be flung a zillion light years across the universe and into his bedroom. He wasn’t anticipating a soft landing.

Yargal had stayed with Harvey.

‘Are you feeling better?’ she asked kindly, her yellow eye-stalks waving gently in front of his face.

Harvey gulped and forced himself not to react. ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said.

‘Shall I make you a little snack before you go? How about a sardine and chocolate pizza with barbecue sauce?’

Oh, gross, he thought, but not wanting to upset her he said: ‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’

‘Computer, why is he still here?’ demanded Maxie irritably.

‘Because I can’t send him back.’

‘Why not?’

‘I haven’t got his address,’ it said.

Interplanetary Postal address

‘Isn’t it on the SpaceMail he sent?’

‘No  … ’ said the computer crossly, its console lights flickering furiously. ‘And since I have an enormous 215 megatronbyte boogleplex memory, don’t you think that if it was I might have spotted it?’

‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ cried Maxie.

‘What’s your IP address, Harvey?’ interrupted Gizmo, looking up from the engineering desk and deliberately not calling him ‘Captain’.

Harvey looked at him blankly.

‘Your “Interplanetary Postal” address? You know, it starts with your planet number?’

‘Er  …  I don’t know.’

There was a stunned silence. In all their multiple intergalactic missions the crew had never met anyone who didn’t know where they came from.

(I’d guess that even on Earth that’s pretty unusual.)

A horrible thought struck Harvey. Although he had always wanted to be on a real spaceship, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be on this horribly grotty one  … 

Or stuck on it forever.