BLEEP!
BLEEP!
BLEEP!
A few hours later, Harvey was woken by an urgent bleeping. It was Maxie at the flight control desk, trying to raise him on intership SpaceTime.
Sleepily Harvey shoved Snuffles off his legs and then scrambled over the giant hound to the monitor in the wall and clicked Connect.
‘Sorry to wake you, Captain, but I thought you might like to know we’ll be at Quasar Quick Fix and Quality Parts in a few minutes.’ And before Harvey could reply, or even smarm down his unruly mop of curly hair, she bleeped off.
‘Gizmo, you were meant to wake me!’ said Harvey crossly as he strode onto the command bridge.
‘There was no need, sir, I was quite competently in command,’ replied Gizmo casually, still sitting in the captain’s chair.
‘Thank you,’ said Harvey dryly, ‘but I’ll take command now.’
‘Are you sure, sir? I mean, have you had any breakfast yet?’ said Gizmo, making no effort to get up.
Harvey gave him a pointed stare and Gizmo reluctantly left his seat. ‘Officer Scrummage, give me a status report, please,’ said Harvey.
Scrummage yawned, scratched his huge belly and assured Harvey the container cargo was still safely attached to the nozzle of the Ultrawave 3.2 Vac Tube.
A few moments later Yargal brought Harvey a banana and chocolate breakfast pizza. Which should have been great. But she hadn’t been able to resist adding some tuna and chilli cheese melt to jazz it up. Oh, yuk.
Could have been worse, thought Harvey, taking a bite. At least there’s no rocket fuel sauce.
Tucked away in a quiet corner of Galaxy 43b, Quasar Quick Fix and Quality Parts is one of the biggest spaceship scrapyards in outer space. Hundreds of broken down and abandoned spacecraft of all different types just hang there. From a distance it looks like a small asteroid belt. But as you get closer you can see the shapes of the various spacecraft. And as you get closer still you see the state of them – tatty and decrepit.
(Not as tatty and decrepit as the Toxic Spew of course. You know, the more I think about it the more I realise how brave the crew are just to go in it.
It’s a miracle it’s still flying, it really is.)
As the little garbage ship neared the yard, Maxie cut the engines back and expertly slid the ship into orbital drive and they slowly circled the scrapyard, looking for the best route in between the ships.
Harvey was stunned that so many spaceships had all just been abandoned.
‘Where have they all come from?’
‘Everyone chucks away their old spaceships when they upgrade to a new one,’ said Scrummage.
‘Doesn’t anyone want them?’
‘Nobody would be seen dead in a tatty old out-of-date spaceship,’ said Maxie.
‘Apart from us,’ said Gizmo gloomily.
‘But it’s so wasteful!’ cried Harvey.
‘What do you do with your old spaceships in your galaxy then?’ asked Maxie.
Harvey suddenly realised he had no idea.
(As a matter of fact, for a planet that hardly does any space travel, your little planet has chucked huge quantities of space scrap into its orbit. You have no idea how much cosmic garbage there is floating about 250 miles above your head. There’s about half a million bits of it, from flakes of paint to entire satellites.
And just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do something about it. It’s like shoving everything under your bed and saying you’ve tidied your room. It’s a disgrace.
I dread to think what your skies will be like if you ever launch a serious programme of space travel.
So there’s no need for you to feel smug, is there?)
Harvey didn’t get a chance to answer Maxie’s excellent question because just at that moment the computer blipped into life. It had finally noticed the ominously large spaceship that seemed to be following them.
‘I hate to interrupt you, Captain, because I’m sure you’re terribly busy doing something desperately important like eating your breakfast. But I thought I ought to let you know there’s an ominously large ship that seems to be following us.’
‘What?’ cried Harvey and the entire crew in one voice.
‘What sort of ship?’ said Maxie.
‘An ominously large one,’ said the computer.
‘No, stupid,’ said Maxie impatiently, ’I mean is it friendly, or … or … is it a pirate ship?’
‘How would I know? Why don’t you ask it! And may I remind you I have a 215 megatronbyte boogleplex memory, so don’t call me “stupid”, stupid!’ snipped the computer, bleeping off.
‘Computer, contact the ship and ask them to identify themselves,’ ordered Harvey. The computer didn’t respond. It was sulking. ‘Please!’ added Harvey. There was still no reply.
‘I’ll do it, Captain,’ said Gizmo. And he busily flicked switches on his engineering desk. Then he flicked them again, but more urgently. ‘They’re not responding,’ he said.
‘Try again,’ said Harvey. Gizmo did so, but there was still no reply.
(Again, I don’t want to alarm you. The ship-to-ship SpaceTime system on the Toxic Spew isn’t exactly in good nick, and sometimes it works so badly it would be better to just shout. Except that of course sound doesn’t travel through space. So it might just be that the other ship simply didn’t get the signal, and there’s nothing to worry about.
On the other hand, the brave but mucky crew of the Toxic Spew might be being chased by some of the most vicious and ferocious space pirates in the entire Known Universe, and Beyond.
Who knows?)