CHAPTER 23
Emerging from a Wormhole with an Empty Stomach
The thing about hurtling through time is that there are far too many things about hurtling through time to even begin attempting to convey to you in a manner that won’t take up several human lifetimes. So I’m just going to try and keep you up to speed on the more important things pertinent to our journey and hope you don’t get too lost. You will almost certainly get too lost. Don’t worry, this is your fault, not mine nor the fabric of space and time’s. But try your best to keep up will you?
The first thing that happens when you emerge from a time travelling wormhole, no matter who or what you are, is that you start evacuating whatever body you happen to have in a rather disgusting manner. It is inevitable that after you have done so, for a ridiculous amount of time, you will pretend as if you have not done so, and go about some sort of mediocre task avoiding eye contact with your fellow time travellers. This is not difficult, as thanks to the obligatory mind-bending psychedelic light-show you’ve all just experienced, your eyeballs will be twirling about like a pinwheel or one of those lollypops you get at Disneyland. Then (always at the exact same time as your fellow travellers) the guilt, shame and sloppiness is finally outweighed by the tremendous need to eat. When you have no food, the need to eat is a dangerous need indeed. This is discussed in detail in Horaticus Neil Travensenzels classic Cannibalizing Your Crew After Emerging From a Time Portal: How to End Up Eating Dinner Rather than Becoming It. Unfortunately all of the members of Obotron 1 had indeed read this book several times by now, and had stealthily thwarted the other two’s relentless attempts to eat them. When alas it was realized the stalemate would not be broken, and treaties began to be drawn up rationing out each others smaller limbs and not so vital organs in a timely manner, a simpler solution presented itself.
The telescreen flickered and the crew members from a trailing Obotron stared desperately and hungrily into the screen. They were in fact trying to very rationally explain the situation they were in and help solve the problem of feeding everyone and cleaning up all the evacuated fluids and such; but good luck trying to get Wilx, Rip and Krimshaw to listen to a word of it. All they heard was “Hey, look at us, a whole expendable and not terribly important to anything or anyone ship chock full of tasty morsels that’ll stop you from having to ration out each others limbs and not so vital organs in a timely manner.”
“Splendid good point,” praised Wilx. The crew members beamed with pride.
“Stellar work team,” exclaimed Rip. The crew members patted each other on the backs and smiled and laughed, ecstatic to have contributed something to anything for the first time in their existence.
“I’ll have the one on the left with all the fat hanging down,” salivated Krimshaw. The crew members dismissed this is as nonsense. What did he know, he was just a silly Greeg all dressed up, not a respectable leader of a fleet of Obotrons like Wilx and Rip.
They would have re-examined that last line of thinking if they had any frame of reference to do so. They would have had a frame of reference to do so if they hadn’t been savagely devoured in a chaotic and wholly shameful display of spit roasts and improvised marinades made from the evacuated ickiness of other crew members. But sadly, they had. None of them had the good fortune to have brought a copy of Cannibalizing Your Crew After Emerging From a Time Portal: How to End Up Eating Dinner Rather than Becoming It on board with them. This was a rather silly move, considering the amount of time they’d spent doing nothing at all after realizing there were no towels to fold. But the kind of folks that are crew members in luxury fleets are not great independent thinkers. They tend to just follow the orders of whatever seemingly intelligent being is at the helm of the main ship and not ask too many questions, no matter how ridiculous or perilous they may be, or how clearly they are being influenced by his gambling drunkard of a co-pilot. After all, if he can afford to fly around a priceless fleet of Obotron 7 space ships and idly fill them up with crew members, clearly he must know a great deal more than the crew members about all sorts of important things. The crew members could never dream of owning even one ship, let alone the whole fleet. Even if they pooled all their salaries together, they could still only fill up a half a tank of investment bankers at best. The way they looked at it, they should feel lucky to be involved in anything as expensive and theoretically important as whatever it was that Rip and Wilx were up to. This knowledge of their own lack of importance and self worth kept most of them going, not just in this job, but in their lives as well. Blissfully thinking they’d scored a sweet gig and not wishing to rock the boat, they’d remain dedicated and content right up until the moment things got a bit dicey for the fleet. When things got a bit dicey for the fleet they were the first expendable pieces of cargo that the trio in charge had no issues with throwing overboard or, in extreme circumstances, eating.
12 fully crewed ships and a very heartily overstuffed crew of three in a shiny Obotron 1 drifted on into the nearest galaxy searching for a place to fuel up on investment bankers and restock their food supply, completely unaware when they were. One ship, devoid of crew, and thus useless, was set on fire and lost forever. Not by the crew of the Obotron 1, but by angry protestors of the recently formed Obotronian Crew Members Who Demand The Right to Not Get Eaten By The Three Nitwits Running This Fleet If There’s No Food About and We’ve Just Emerged From a Time Travelling Worm Hole. They organized their movement from within the ranks of all the Obotron ships and brought their coalition to the scene of the heinous massacre. They decided the most poignant statement they could make was to set the ship on fire in protest and martyrdom, quickly ending the newly formed movement and annihilating any of the small amounts of crew members in all the remaining ships who could be stirred to fight for themselves and their fellow crew.
Incidentally, this series of events would be the opening chapter of the upcoming Revised, Rapple Skin Bound, Flexy Covered, Extra Limited Edition of Hypocrisy Inaction: The Plight of the Pointless Protester.