The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: December 21, 2008

Inside Scoop page 1


A FED CHRISTMAS STORY

by Jezz

"Ahhh! Quiet at last"

Even with his nerve endings still twitching from the subsonic vibrations of the lifting shuttle craft, Morduk felt the palpable relief of the absence of other humans on the asteroid. A few minutes earlier the lobby had thronged with people heading for every corner of Sol, waving their goodbyes and shouting their messages of goodwill to all and sundry. But not Morduk... It wasn't that he didn't like people, quite the opposite in fact. But the frenzied departure at this time of year was difficult when he was the only person staying behind.

The old construction worker shuffled off towards the great workshop, past the empty reception desk. At the door he stopped and looked over the vast weightless void that was the hollowed out center of Magrathea. He had never got used to the sight, not in all his long years of operating the city sized machines that packed the dirt, poured water and chiseled mountains and canyons onto the designer planets produced here. Three of them sat there now, slowly spinning, half completed, one partly covered by glistening ice, another speckled with azure lakes and verdant forests over the northern hemisphere but still grey and bare in the south. The third was an incomplete barren sphere. Morduk could just make out the final chunk of planet in the grasp of a stationary world-mover, waiting to be fitted into the sphere when the designers and workers returned from the Christmas break.

Oh how he had loved Christmas when the children were small. The excited giggling as they tried to sneak back down the stairs shortly after bedtime on Christmas Eve, only to be kindly but sternly shooed back to bed by Anthea. The warm comforting scent of cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven on Christmas morning, the wide eyes and sounds of joy from the children as gifts were unwrapped, the laughter when the inevitable badly knitted sweaters from Auntie Lucin were modeled by everyone... those happy holidays were over. The children had grown and moved out to make their own way amongst the stars, and Anthea, his beloved Anthea, gone now for many years, but sometimes he still felt as though she were standing beside him, especially here at the edge of the workshop, looking out upon all they had helped to create. Perhaps it was the impossible perspective of the vast workshop that caused his old rheumy eyes to water and perhaps not.

Morduk moved slowly through the asteroid facilities, quietly accomplishing all the tasks he had done at this time of year since Christmas had become a solitary affair. They were simple enough tasks. He sharpened Slarti's pencils to a fine point, tidied one designer's workspace, fixed a mal-adjusted chair in another, stashed a soft, warm blanket under the reception desk for the scantily clad receptionists during those times that the HVAC systems had a mind of their own. Doing these small things were his way of giving something to every person that worked on Margrathea. They would go mostly unnoticed, of course, but he never expected or wanted a thank you. His reward was knowing that he had managed to do some little thing for each person. And if someone did notice he would smile as they tried to work out who had done it. They never did.

Morduk was hanging two freshly pressed shirts in the security office when he saw the movement on the screen and stopped at the desk for a closer look. Nothing should be moving... except him and the occasional cleaning module. But there on the screen was the face of a gold tinted android with an immobile but rather unfortunate expression and waving arms. Morduk quickly turned up the sound and was almost immediately sorry he did.

"Sure... leave me to deal with it all. It's not as if anyone cares what happens here when you all go off to celebrate. Just blame the android when things go wrong. I mean that's what I'm here for, isn't it? To get the blame..." the monotone voice droned on seemingly ad infinitum without giving the slightest clue as to the nature of the problem. Morduk felt a tickling on his bald scalp and took a moment to fish a few bread crumbs from a bag he kept in his pocket, sprinkle them on the desk and then gently remove the twelve legged spider from the top of his head for the twentieth time that day and set it on the desk next to the crumbs before turning his attention back to the screen.

"I'm here," he said with as much patience as he could muster, "now tell me what the problem is. Where are you?"

"See for yourself," replied the android, morosely. The screen flickered for a heartbeat then refocused to show the control center of one of the world-mover machines, except all was not as it should be. Panels from the control console were strewn over the floor and something brown and furry was hunched over amid the exposed wiring, three arms moving at lightning speed... three arms? Oh gods! A Watchmaker? Morduk's mind reeled at the thought. Nobody would be stupid enough to take a motie watchmaker from Starbase One, would they? But then there was that flashy new designer who thought all the equipment here was outmoded and needed to work better... Morduk ran to the workshop entrance. He had to see for himself. He breathlessly prayed that he was wrong but he could see for himself that he wasn't. The enormous machine was moving and pushing the unfinished planet segment in front of it, moving directly towards the workshop entrance... but the other two planets were in the way! Morduk watched in horror as the pushed fragment brushed lightly against the forest world, wiping a hundred square miles of woodland from the surface and taking some of the greenery along for the ride. He raced back to the security office, ignoring the fatigue in his legs and the strange surging feeling in his arm. Grabbing a security intercom unit, he studied the scene inside the mover on the small screen as he made his way back to the workshop. Something was different. He could hear the droning voice of the android.

"Oh great.. it gave birth to another one. Not that I'm not grateful for the fixed power coupling after being tossed aside like an old shoe and left here as useless instead of being repaired earlier. Humans are thoughtless creatures. But now it might decide I should be a toaster or a trash compactor..."

Morduk had reached the air sled that could take him out to the errant world-mover. He strapped in and shot out into the vast space that held the half completed planets. As the sled ate up the distance Morduk tried to get more information from the android. The watchmaker was still working on the controls as its spawn clung to its fur. A light blinked on the mover console and after only a moment of hesitation the watchmaker stripped a vinyl chair and quickly manufactured what looked like a plastic bubble with a clear screen and five protuberances "Great Hazed above!" Morduk gasped as he realized that the creature had made a space suit from a chair covering, computer parts and silicone paste.

"It's evacuating the air from the control room. It knows you're coming obviously. Not that I need air but it would be nice to be asked once in a while. Nobody cares what androids need anyway..." the android droned.

"Get out of there! Meet me in the docking bay. Leave the camera running." Morduk snapped out the commands as if he were used to doing so. Strings of Christmas lights and baubles that someone had used to decorate the air sled bobbed and bounced as Morduk executed a sharp turn into the bay, only to be thrown back out by some unknown force.

While Morduk sat stunned in the sled, the android announced drolly that the watchmaker seemed to have found a way to magnetically polarize the bay so it would repel the sled. Morduk thought for a moment as he looked at the narrow bay door. He had to get in there and stop the watchmaker. Now it had given birth, if he remembered his Motie anatomy correctly, it wouldn't take long for one of them to change sex so they could mate. They bred like wildfire and if they managed to get off the mover and into the asteroid facilities, it wouldn't take them long to make some sort of transport from the equipment on Margrathea. Then they would spread through Sol like a dose of Venusian flu, changing any piece of technology to suit their purpose and finding a way to destroy anyone who got in their way.

Morduk brought the sled engine up to full and shot like a bullet through the narrow bay door, turning the sled sideways as the magnetic force tried to repel the invader. It worked! The sled lodged fast in the doorway and Morduk, somewhat shaken and aching, climbed out into the bay. The android was there and talking about how the corridor between the bay and the control center was now oxygen free, and since the sled was lodged fast they would be stuck here... but Morduk had a plan.

He spotted what he needed in the corner of the bay. He would have to work fast. The green plasteel crate ought to work fine. Morduk pulled an old pocket-comp from its pouch on his belt. Anthea had given it to him for Christmas the year they had married and it hadn't worked properly since her death. It was out dated and mostly useless but he had refused to throw it away because it would still show the holos of himself and Anthea in their younger years and the holos of the children that were stored in its drive and couldn't be transfered. Morduk opened the hinged crate lid and looked longingly at his old pocket-comp before setting the alarm for three hours later, knowing it would whine and bleep error messages within the next few seconds, he dropped it into the crate. He thought for a moment about sending the android in with the crate but then discarded the idea. This particular android seemed too lost in its own troubles to be trusted to properly accomplish what needed to be done.

Morduk took a few deep breaths before plunging through the inner door into the airless corridor. By the time he set the crate down outside the control room door and hunkered down beside it, his heart felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest and his lungs screamed for air. The baleful bleeping of the pocket-comp proved to be just too much for the repair-driven watchmaker to resist. As the miniature suited form climbed into the crate to retrieve the broken computer, Morduk slammed the lid closed. The strain of carrying the crate back to the bay while holding the lid shut was almost too much. His legs were like lead and only pure force of will got the old man back to the bay where he sat on the crate gasping air into his deprived lungs. The pain in his chest didn't seem to abate as he instructed the android to bring him some of the red safety tape from the tool cupboard in the bay. Together they tied the strong tape around the crate so that the lid couldn't be lifted and as an afterthought, Morduk drilled a couple of small air holes, put one more loop around the green crate and tied a bow on top.

An earsplitting proximity alarm sounded. The android announced in a matter-of-fact monotone...

"We are about to hit the ice planet. We don't have control of this machine. If we aren't smashed to a pulp, chances are we'll ricochet into the cavern wall or the front of the workshop and the resulting explosion will fry us. We're doomed. Magrathea will be destroyed most likely anyway so what's the point of living. Might as well just sit here and wait to die."

No! Morduk was not about to accept that! Think man, think! Morduk had operated these machines for most of his life. He brought up schematics in his memory and in a moment of pure inspiration he saw it. There was a safety valve to close off the fuel on the outside of the mover by one of the pushing arms. It was close... no more than a hundred meters from the bay door.

Morduk stood. His old body protested against every step he took. He carefully untangled the string of lights and baubles from the sled and used it to make a carrying harness for the crate. Then he clambered through the stuck sled and dropped onto the walkway that ran along the side of the mover towards the pushing arms. The android followed, muttering complaints every step of the way. He found the valves quickly. The pushed planet fragment blocked the forward view totally from this position but Morduk knew the ice planet was close... too close. Even with no fuel, momentum would carry the fragment and the mover into the ice planet. Morduk did the only thing he could do. He shut down the off side fuel lines and left the near side running at maximum.

The pressure on Morduk's chest felt unbearable. His breath came in rasping sobs as he put every ounce of strength he had into turning the valve wheel... and suddenly it was done. He had done all he could. He could feel the oscillation in the huge planet-mover through his feet as it started to turn... but would it be enough?

He leaned back against the hull and for the first time noticed something quite strange on the edge of the massive planet fragment in front of them. There on what should have been barren rock was a patch of soil and a fir tree standing upright. The tree had been ripped from the forest planet during the glancing blow, obviously. What unlikely chance had left it standing planted on this fragment was unknown, but there it stood so bravely in the face of destruction and Morduk wanted to cheer. He couldn't get back to the asteroid facilities, but maybe he could get to that little tree if he could walk out along the arm. If they were to crash into the ice planet he could at least see it coming from there. And if not... well it was as good a place to wait as any. As pain stabbed viciously through his chest again, Morduk lurched out along the arm towards the fragment and the little tree. He had no strength to speak to the android anymore but he felt the metal arm that lifted him and carried him forward.

Anthea whispered, "Not long now, my love. It's almost time to come home."

........................

Slarti was not happy! He could see the damage on the two planets as the air sled sped towards the spinning fragment and the mover. The long gash in the forest would take longer to fix than the lighter grazing on the ice planet... not devastating but quite annoying just the same. The nervous maintenance officer was briefing him en-route.

"The controls in the mover have been ripped apart and put back together. But we don't know what anything does anymore! We are going to have to take everything out and start over to get the mover working again. It's in that tight turn because the fuel to the boosters on one side has been shut down. We think that someone did that to stop the fragment crashing into the planets or the wall... but we don't know how it all started."

The comm unit beeped and a strained voice reported, "Mr. Slarti, Sir... please land on the fragment by the support arm. There's something I think you should see."

Slarti impatiently strode through the small crowd gathered on the edge of the fragment, ice crystals crunching underfoot. They must have stuck to the fragment after it grazed the ice planet, creating a white layer of ice and snow on the otherwise barren fragment. He stopped. He stared.

There in the middle of the patch of glistening snow stood a little fir tree, decorated with blinking Christmas lights and baubles and dusted with glittering ice crystals. The lights were plugged into the power unit of a depressed looking android who held a green box wrapped in red ribbon on his lap. Leaning against the android was old Morduk. He must have passed away days ago sitting by the little tree in the snow but something about the cold, pale lips suggested a smile.

A security officer was questioning the android who replied gloomily, "Why bother? You won't believe me anyway. He said to tell you all not to open the present unless it's on Starbase One"

Slarti turned his gaze to the android and said quietly "Just tell me what happened, Marvin."


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