The Ronald Anthony Cross Science Fiction & Fantasy MEGAPACK® by Ronald Anthony Cross

Author:Ronald Anthony Cross [Cross, Ronald Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2019-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

TWO PLOTTING PODS

Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, May 1989.

Monahan Trump was only certain of one thing: he had a hangover. It was a bad hangover, the worst kind. It was the kind of hangover that made you feel like you had waked up on an alien spacecraft. Shanghied.

Merciful Lord in heaven, Monahan thought, I must have got so drunk last night at Dirty Mulligan’s that I’ve ascended into the D.T.’s, where I’ve got to live out what’s left of my poor miserable life in a drunken dream world. It’s evil spirits that have done this to an honest hardworking man like myself.

At the thought of spirits, he surreptitiously gave a pat or two to his clothing to make certain that he had not, in his drunken state, become miraculously transformed into the sort of prudent fellow who puts away a pint or so half empty in his pocket for the morrow, when he knows he will need it for sure. His worst fears were realized. As usual, he had drunk it all last night.

Nothing for it, he sez to himself, but to get up on his own two feet and face up to whatever situation he’s got himself into square on and see if it’s got a drink to offer a man who needs it.

But once he got up and explored the room he was confined to, he felt himself begin to sober up in an almost instantaneous, if thoroughly unpleasant manner. What had first entered his mind as a far-fetched, colorful explanation for his surroundings had now to be reconsidered in a serious light. First guesses he had often found to be the best guesses. A spacecraft was his best guess. Very alien.

He could feel the adrenalin pumping through his veins, if not completely sobering him, at least altering the quality of his high to the kind of intense neurosis that is more identifiable with our more normal operating state of “Jesus, how do I get out of this one?” consciousness.

A very weird thing happened then: two round hard giant seed pods riding on some kind of many-legged insects popped out of a suddenly open shaft in the wall. “Hi ho sliver,” one of them shouted aloud as he galloped over to Monahan to draw up his prancing many-legged steed to a flashy, self-consciously dramatic halt. The other seed pod, the larger one, trotted over in a more leisurely fashion.

Two more insects came through the chutes, and after a bit of searching about with their antennae, headed over to join the group.

Monahan’s eyes showed him the pictures, but his brain just would not compute them. He just stood there with his mouth open, looking and looking but unable to think or speak at all.

“Greetings, Mr. Monahan Trump, from two pods, as conveyed by the foremost expert in the English speakbox among pods—myself, Mr. Good Seed. Allow me to introduce my business associate, Mr. Deceptive Pod.”

“Good afternoon,” Mr. Deceptive Pod said through, Monahan guessed, one of the tiny metal boxes that adhered to his—its—back.

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