Three kinds of danger
‘Now what’s happened?’ asked Harvey anxiously as Scrummage shot to his feet.
‘Nothing to worry about!’ replied Scrummage lightly, but he rushed off the command bridge with alarming and suspicious speed.
‘I’ll come with you!’ called Harvey, jumping out of the captain’s chair.
‘No need sir, it’s all under control,’ lied the Rubbish Officer through his teeth and pelting off, the doors schwoooshing shut behind him.
‘Can I offer you a cup of coffee, Captain?’ rasped Nerdie, whirring up to him so Harvey might hear him over the deafening whooping.
‘Not now, Nerdie,’ said Harvey, giving the robot a withering look, which was of course, completely wasted on the droid, before ordering the computer to cut the alarms on the bridge.
Scrummage hurtled down to the Vacuum Control Centre in the ship’s hold to check that his sticky-tape repair to the hosepipe was working.
It wasn’t.
Steam poured out of the pump and the pressure dials read:
DANGER!
SERIOUS DANGER!
and
EXTREME DANGER!
‘Fluttering puke!’ he groaned, frantically strapping more tape around the hose.
‘Bridge to Scrummage,’ radioed Harvey, worriedly. ‘Is everything all right down there?’
‘Um …’ replied Scrummage, trying to untangle a length of sticky tape from his fingers. Then, not wanting to fess up to Harvey that everything was absolutely and completely and totally NOT all right, he added: ‘I’m just a bit tied up right now, Captain.’
So, back on the bridge, Harvey asked the computer for an update instead.
The computer’s lights flashed on and off importantly for a few moments, then it said confidently: ‘Well Captain, I don’t like to worry you, but
a) there’s a nasty crack in the subcarrier overlay cover of the nanodrive belt, and
b) three of the flange brackets have snapped right off, and
c) there’s a bit of sticky toffee pudding trapped in the hyper-vacuum nodes, which is causing a bit of a system breakdown … failure … meltdown … thing.’
‘Are you making this up?’ asked Harvey.
‘Yes,’ admitted the computer. ‘I’ve absolutely no idea what’s going on down there.’
Don’t even ask, just run!
In the pump room Scrummage, on the other hand, was horribly aware of what was going on. The pressure dials now read:
INCREDIBLE DANGER!
UNIMAGINABLE DANGER!
and
DON’T EVEN ASK, JUST RUN!
Bravely (or possibly gobsmackingly stupidly), Scrummage ignored the flashing lights and shrieking alarms and was just tearing off another bit of sticky tape when
KA-BOOM-SPLAT!
The vacuum bin exploded.
It was so loud they could hear the explosion on the bridge.
‘Scrummage?’ called Harvey through the radio. ‘SCRUMMAGE!’
There was no reply.
Harvey tore off the bridge, closely followed by Snuffles.
When they reached the Vacuum Control Centre, Harvey was hit by an appalling smell. It was like rotten eggs, mouldy blue cheese and soggy cabbage. Gagging badly, Harvey doubled over, trying not to throw up, while the Hazard Hunting Hound went bananas.
(If you’ve been following the story properly, you might be wondering whether he went bananas like your yellow Earth ones or like the bouncy blue outer space ones.
For the record – he did a lot of bouncing, but didn’t go blue.
And can I just ask you something? Since, your Earth bananas just lie there doing nothing more interesting than going from yellow to black with a brown spotty phase in between, why do Earth people say someone ‘went bananas’ when you mean ‘went crazy’?
Now that is crazy, if you ask me.)
GRRRR, WOUFF, WOUFF!
ARROUUUU!
went Snuffles, barking excitedly and bouncing about.
The stench made Harvey’s eyes water so much he could hardly see. But through the plasti-glass window he could just about make out the crumpled form of Scrummage collapsed and coughing on the deck. A decidedly unhealthy looking thick yellow fog curled around the room.
‘SCRUMMAGE!’ he yelled. There was no response.
Harvey had no idea what the sickly smog was, but he knew he had to get Scrummage out – and supanova fast!