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\title{We're all Bozos on this Bus}
\author{\copyright1990 Kay Shapero}
\date{Kay.Shapero@f524.n102.z1.fidonet.org}
\maketitle
\setcounter{page}{54}

{\it \noindent
{\Large W}hat happens on an exploratory mission in outer-space is heavily
dependent on with whom you go exploring.\\}

{\noindent \Large W}ell,  it happened like this\ldots                             
                                                                 
     We were all sitting around the briefing room conversing and generally 
wondering what the fates and the high command were going to send us this 
time for a captain, seeing as how our last one had reportedly vanished, 
screaming into the night, when the door opened to admit a tall individual. 
 
A very tall individual. A fourteen-foot tall individual.  A fourteen-foot 
tall Bjoran individual with a vaguely sour look on his face.  Lirarl, the 
biochemist, leaned over and whispered to me. ``D'you suppose that's him?"           
 
     I whispered back. ``If he is, I sure hope you brought enough dye\ldots"

     Sure enough, he introduced himself as Gregor Gohkra, our new commander 
and proceeded to explain the details of our next mission, namely taking a 
look at the planets, if any, of a couple of stars and checking them for 
anything of interest. I must say that there is one thing for which I
occasionally envy those overserious vulpine hotheads the Altani, and that is 
their telepathy, as it would have been interesting to see how much, if any, 
of the annoyance our new captain was trying to hide was due to something 
about the mission itself, and how much was due to being picked to command a 
ship crewed entirely by H'Reli. I wondered what he did to deserve {\em us}.

     The ship went into Jump with no problems past the usual accompaniment 
of urping crewmembers. Including the captain --- entertaining, that,
considering the legendary cast-iron stomaches possessed by the Bjora. But then, 
nobody ever quite gets used to Jump nausea. Once the ship was safely underway,
there were a few days before anything of interest happened, thus 
giving Lirarl and me plenty of time to coat part of the back inside section 
of the captain's spacesuit with a colorless substance guaranteed to dye 
that portion of his fur brilliant yellow. All for naught, alas, for when we 
did encounter something and he ordered everyone into suits, he wore the 
one from his cabin locker instead.  We hadn't gotten to that one, since the 
lock on his cabin had thus far proven impossible for me to pick.

     Anyway, the emergency in question involved the presence of four other 
ships, one large, and the rest small.  Upon contacting them, we found that 
they were Hegemonic, a liner and three scatterships respectively, crewed 
largely by Altani. The positions of two of the scatterships as they
approached our general area would have made things perfect for a slalom run, 
but the captain, the spoilsport, wouldn't let me try it. How am I supposed 
to maintain my reputation as a hot pilot if I never get to try anything 
interesting? Oh, well, I suppose the Altani might have decided to be obnoxious
about it --- they do get upset at the strangest things.  
                     
     I suppose I'd better introduce the rest of us. The commander, you 
already know about, and the biochemist.  I'm Yealurowluro, the pilot (and 
part-time communications officer), and the others on this trip were as 
follows:                      

\begin{description}                                                       
        \item[Srilurow:] Power systems engineer        
        \item[Lawaro:] Geologist                 
        \item[Aryialo:] Electrical engineer           
        \item[Rawlaow:] Astrogator                
        \item[Ailurowlurr:] Geologist and medical expert  
        \item[Sawalaro:] Weapons expert
        \item[Wailuro:] Survival expert
\end{description}

     The ship itself was designated with some long string of numbers and 
letters that I'm not going to bore you with, but we always called it ``The 
Boomerang" because, as Lirarl put it ``No matter how many times you throw it 
away, it always comes back and hits you in the back of the head\ldots" 
which, judging by the assignments we've drawn is probably the opinion of 
the High Command. Some people have no sense of humor.           

     Several days later, about thirteen silvery ovoids, each somewhat 
smaller than our ship, turned up and arranged themselves about the Jump 
drive pylons. I slowed down a bit for a closer look at which point one of 
them moved forward and nudged the hull (I nudged the whateveritwas back, 
eliciting an annoyed look from the captain), then dropped back when we sped 
up. So I tried to contact it and it replied with something that overloaded 
the communications gear and blew out part of the board (eliciting another 
annoyed look from the captain). We finally guessed that they were a small 
variety of space whale (space dolphins?) who merely wanted to ride our 
shock wave for a while. Eventually, they left, too fast for me to try 
longer range communications which was to the relief of Aryialo, who had just
finished fixing the gear.

\begin{center}
* \ \ \ \ \ * \ \ \ \ \ *
\end{center}

     Lirarl and I had a conference.

\begin{description}             
\item[He:] ``Figured out the lock on the captain's cabin yet?"
\item[Me:] ``Nope. Looks like we can't get at his spacesuits, sigh."
\item[He:] ``What'll we do, then?"                                     
\item[Me:] ``Lessee\ldots What does he have, or where does he go that he can't 
lock up or guard?"                                      
\item[In unison:] ``The Head!"                           
\end{description}

     Few crews can have watched their captain's every move quite as much as 
we did for the next few hours.  But at last, he was observed entering the 
aforementioned facility, we waited 10 seconds, and I hit the gravity 
switch. Immediately, the 5 second warning sounded, followed by the loss of 
all gravity. And I waited another 10 seconds, then switched it on again, 
figuring that while the gravity on/off warning usually gives people time to 
brace themselves, in this case\ldots  Well, while none of us ever found out 
precisely what happened in there, he did take rather a long time to come 
out again.                                        
                                                       
     Onward to the first system we ventured, with the captain, who of course
had no idea exactly who had pulled the deck out from under him and who was
somewhat annoyed with all of us. Naturally, this gave all those who weren't in
on the gag plenty of incentive to come up with their own.         
                                                       
     Prime candidate for most interesting object in the system of the first
star was a planet located in the habitable range, complete with plants, 
animals, water and so forth. Mapping from polar orbit showed a big magnetic
anomaly which turned out to be nine miles of very wrecked spaceship, so we 
went down to look at it, landing about five miles away in a forest clearing, 
due to the usual captainly paranoia.                          
                                                       
     Speaking of captainly paranoia, it soon became obvious that, since I 
was the only decent pilot on board, I was not going to be allowed to go 
over to the wreck with any of the exploratory teams. After being stuck 
inside this undersized flying object for over a week, too! The party that 
did go included Wailuro, as survival type, and Lirarl on one grav sled, 
plus Lawaro and Aryialo in another. At least they did carry remote cameras
so that the rest of us could see what was going on. The wrecked ship
appeared to have been designed for beings considerably {\em taller than the
captain}, about twenty feet to be precise, a judgement confirmed by the 
discovery of a humanoid skeleton in the remains of a rubberish outfit.
                                                       
     While all of this was at least mildly amusing, being stuck inside was
a considerable annoyance, so I pretended to be off to the head. Instead, I 
went aft where nobody was likely to spot me, got out a light environmental
suit as did Sawalaro who had joined me somehow on route, ducked out the 
airlock and spent about 15 minutes looking about, keeping  well out of view
from the bridge. While it was hardly as pleasant as being outside on a 
planet where we didn't need suits and could breathe fresh air, it still 
helped ease the irritance of being stuck inside so long. Apparently fifteen 
minutes was long enough for the captain to get suspicious, because we
returned inside barely in time to respond to a roll-call. I dare say the 
captain may have found it suspicious that we answered from the place we 
did, but he could hardly prove anything.               
                                                       
     Soon, the exploratory team found a still functioning artifact --- a 
twenty-foot tall, operational security robot which took an immediate
dislike to them.  Deactivating it was an interesting experience, to say the 
least, but they did manage it and then asked if the captain would please send
a couple more grav sleds out so they could bring the thing, and the
skeleton, back to the ship.                                         
                                                       
     ``Captain?" I inquired, hopefully.                 
                                                       
     ``No!"                                             
                                                       
     And he proceeded to send Sawalaro and Srilurow (the latter in scout 
grade powered armor) instead. Grrrr\ldots

     While they were headed out, I took advantage of a couple of free 
minutes and left the bridge, this time for the captain's cabin. As I hadn't
managed to pick the lock, I poured epoxy into it instead. We'd see if he 
liked being locked out as little as I did being locked in.

     They had just loaded up the robot plus the skeleton when another 
robot turned up, just as pugnacious as the last one\ldots This time, the 
resulting fight munged one grav sled, Lirarl's left arm (sliced right off), 
and everyone's peace of mind. It also left the captain with a problem, 
namely who to send out with Ailurowlurr, who was the closest thing to a 
medical officer we had on board.

     ``Look", I said, ``I'll wear powered armor. I'll wear {\em marauder} armor, 
for crying out loud. If anything bothers me, I'll personally sling it into 
orbit!"

     ``Oh, all right."                                  

     So I finally got out to the ship after all. It was marginally more 
interesting seen close up. And the flight out and back was no trouble at 
all.

\begin{center}
* \ \ \ \ \ * \ \ \ \ \ *
\end{center}

     Several hours out from the planet, the captain decided to go to his 
cabin with results that were heard all over the ship. Marvelous stuff, 
epoxy. I think Ailurowlurr was about to go offer him a firmer to use as a 
cutting torch, when the captain solved the problem by ripping the door off 
its hinges. Bjoran muscles are pretty good, too.

     The next few hours were spent replacing the door at the captain's 
orders while he sat in his room so we wouldn't do anything to the contents.

     Another conference.                               

\begin{description}                                      
\item[Me:] ``Well, he's learning."                                             
\item[Aryialo:] ``Maybe. But while he's in there, he can't watch us out here. 
As long as he's going to go ripping doors up, let's make this one as flimsy 
as possible.''                      
\item[Me:] ``You do that while I make up about a dozen duplicate keys."
\end{description}
                                      
     After all, he hadn't said {\em not} to\ldots               

\begin{center}
* \ \ \ \ \ * \ \ \ \ \ *
\end{center}

     The first planet of the next system was a rather scorched bit of rock
entirely too close to the primary for my tastes. We took the usual mess of
pictures and departed for planet number three taking three *urp* jumps. 

     Figuring that it was about time to branch out from physical practical 
jokes, I next acquired a bottle of beer from Srilurow when he wasn't
looking (he was spending most of his free time bugging the captain's quarters 
while the latter was on the bridge), wrapped it up nicely, put a tag on it
addressed to the captain, and left it on his acceleration couch, where in 
due course he found and unwrapped it with such caution that I was almost
sorry I {\em hadn't} used contact paper. Eyeing the enclosed bottle as though he
expected it to explode momentarily, he thanked us all, patted Aryialo on 
the head, and removed the beer carefully to his cabin. I hoped he would have
great fun trying to figure out what was wrong with it since, unless
Srilurow was booby-trapping his private stock, nothing was. Mind games, anyone?

     The planet looked like something one might actually care to live on. 
Certainly someone had, for a temperature anomaly we noted from orbit proved
to be a ruined city which was especially good at soaking up the sun's heat
and reradiating it at night. We landed five miles away, as usual. I glanced
at the captain, hopefully.                                             

     ``Forget it."                                      

     Sigh.                                     

     The exploration team consisted of two grav sleds, one containing 
Wailuro and Ailurowlurr, the other, Sawalaro and a lot of equipment. All 
three were in scout armor (the lightest form of powered armor), while 
Srilurow, who wasn't even going along, was ordered to stand by in marauder 
armor (two more steps along the scale between suit and ship) at the ship in
case of trouble. Once again, they carried cameras so we could see what was
going on. There was little to see but buildings and indecipherable street 
signs (all duly recorded), until Wailuro spotted a car parked on one of the
streets. He investigated, pulling at the door which promptly and
enthusiastically came off in his hand.

     I glanced over at Rowlaow. ``Think the captain's been giving lessons?"

     I was universally ignored as Wailuro reported a life form inside which 
closely resembled a twelve legged tarantula, and attempted to catch it in 
a specimen container. Skitter, skitter, skitter, {\em whap}, skitter, skitter, 
skitter, {\em whap}\ldots it took him three tries to catch the thing by which
time most of us were betting on the spider.                                 

\begin{center}
* \ \ \ \ \ * \ \ \ \ \ *
\end{center}

     A couple of hours later, they reached the center of the city, to find 
a building in somewhat better shape than those they'd seen earlier. It was
about twenty or thirty feet tall, with huge double doors which showed no 
interest in opening until someone poured penetrating oil on the frozen 
hinges. Inside, the building appeared more like three hundred feet tall, 
leading us eventually to the conclusion that power sufficient to operate 
holographic projectors was still on.

     Next morning, the exploration team went back out to the building, 
suited as before (with poor Srilurow still standing by in marauder armor, 
back at the ship) and investigated, finding a central dais with a 
head-setted chair in which Ailurowlurr had to be prevented
from sitting. General poking around located a shaft beneath the dais
leading down into a lot a gadgetry associated with a power plant as well as a
lot of little thingies closely resembling robotic versions of that spider 
(not that there's much difference, at that). So they closed it up and 
continued looking around.

     Something of a lull having come up, I decided that this was a good 
time to slip the hygroscopic stuff Lirarl had given me (stuff starts as a 
powder, but absorbs enough from the air to get really slimy in a few hours)
into the captain's bed. Unfortunately, the captain proved to be {\em on} it when
I opened the door with my copy of the key. Oops\ldots

     ``Hi there", I observed brightly. ``You seem to have left your key in 
the hall and I thought I'd bring it back to you." 

     He silently fished out his key and showed it to me.

     ``Well, I found this one in the corridor\ldots"       

     This met with a notable lack of belief, and the captain promptly 
confiscated the key and started in on a rather comprehensive lecture on the
subject of my perfidious doings. I stood there admiring his oratory for a 
while, then handed him a dagger and exposed my throat. He broke off in
mid-harangue with the most beautiful double-take I'd seen in a long time, 
paused a second, then took the dagger, grinned, said something about that 
not being necessary and held up one hand.  His claws, unlike the dagger, 
were not made of rubber; I thoughtfully went elsewhere.

     The captain turned up on the bridge shortly after I did and insisted 
on being given all of the duplicate keys. I think he got most of them, at 
that, but it was at this point that we were distracted by what was going on
out at the exploration site. Since the captain had carefully ordered that 
no one was to disturb, or especially to sit {\em in} the chair on the dais, 
Sawalaro, her curiosity finally getting the upper hand, had sat {\em on} it\ldots
and quickly sprang back off of it again, with a glazed expression. 
Seems that not only did the thing increase the psionic capabilities of 
anyone using it for as long as they did so, it also increased them
exponentially for every second of operation. With all the new data being piled on 
her each second, she'd been lucky to keep her sanity. At least the effect 
did not seem to last once she got off again. Predictably, the captain 
ordered everyone out of the building.

    Elsewhere, the explorers found a skeleton, sort of\ldots well, a couple of 
bones. Fortunately, they also found what appeared to be a library with five 
paintings of the locals who resembled six-foot teddy bears (mini-Bjora?), 
and {\em lots} of books. 760 of the latter were removed very carefully so as not 
to let them fall apart, and brought back to the ship.                   
                                                       
     After debriefing, Sawalaro went straight to the brig. The captain
ordered the rest of us not to smuggle anything in to her, which is probably 
why Ailurowlurr, having already sneaked her a handful of keys to the brig 
(don't ask me where she got them\ldots {\em snicker}) promptly retired to the food 
facilities out of sight of the captain and concocted an entire plate full of 
fancy hors d'oerves and then brought them down to the brig. She was about to 
hand them to Sawalaro when the captain, who'd been watching the whole 
thing from the brig surveillance remote, hit a switch, causing 
the door to the next cell to swing open. Ailurowlurr took the hint, gave 
half of the hors d'oerves to Sawalaro, and proceeded into the next cell 
with the rest of them. I hope she didn't mind Sawalaro's flute practice.

     We finished mapping the planet and departed, only to spot something about 
eighteen feet long and missilish, with a stylized bird figure painted on 
it, falling into the system on a hyperbolic curve. Tracing its path
backwards, we figured it might have come from the first system we looked at. At
any rate, while we didn't know for sure what it was, it did give off rather
more radiation than the background, so we settled for nudging it into a 
stable orbit with the tractors and left it. Let someone else try to figure 
it out if Fleet was really that curious.

     Shortly thereafter, it became apparent that Srilurow wasn't the only 
one who'd bugged the captain's quarters, for the captain returned to his 
cabin to find a large sample of Bjoran pornographic art on one wall of the 
corridor, speakers inside his room broadcasting bawdy Bjoran music, plus a
small but active device squirting Bjoran pheremones into the air. The 
captain may or may not have been amused, but he {\em did} promptly give his cabin
a thorough going over, removing {\em all} of the bugs, speakers, cameras, etcetera, 
etc\ldots Sigh\ldots

     We didn't see much of interest on the way back with the exception of 
six small ships we didn't recognize --- we left them alone, they left us 
alone; plus an Altani armored scout with whom we exchanged howdies. It can 
be fun to see the expression on an Altani's face when s/he realizes there's
a H'Reli on the other end of the conversation.                                      

     A few hours from our destination, the captain decided to hold suit 
drill, presumably with malice aforethought, for the suits smelled even 
worse than usual. Of course, none of us said anything, with the exception 
of Srilurow, who promptly asked ``Captain, have you been putting air
freshener in the suits? Mine smells much better than that marauder armor did."      

     When drill was over, it soon became obvious that the smell was going 
to linger in our fur for quite a while, even for Aryialo who'd noticed the 
stench and switched quickly into the suit in his cabin locker. So we all 
took to hanging around the captain until he got sufficiently annoyed to 
order us to go wash up. This we did and noticed that, thanks to the 
suits, everyone but Aryialo, Lirarl (in sick bay), and the two in the brig
now had tails brightly colored in various shades of photographic dye (mine
was cyan). This gave me an idea, so I got hold of various dyes and, rather
than try and dye my tail to match the rest of me, patterned the rest of my
fur. This caught on beautifully, and the good ship Boomerang soon had the 
most Technicolor crew in space.

     The rest of the trip was rather hectic, what with various members of 
the crew trying to pull something equally interesting on the captain, who 
wasn't venturing out of his cabin without his suit, but soon we were
sufficiently busy with approach that nobody had time for anything sneaky. I did
have hopes for the frictionless goop I spread on the captain's acceleration
couch, but when he came out for final approach he wasn't wearing his suit 
for a change and managed to notice it before he sat down. Oh well, it did 
cause him to go back to his cabin for the landing; so after we touched 
down, Aryialo and I sloshed the rest of the frictionless lubricant down the
hall outside of his door. I hear it took him an hour just to get out\ldots

     And that, my friend, is how this fad got started.  Now, would you 
prefer your ears pink or international orange?

\newpage
\ \\
\vspace{7in}
\ \\
Some people say virtue is its own reward,\\
But when the surf comes, I'm gonna get my board.\\
I've my own ideas about the righteous kick,\\
You keep the reward; I'd just as soon stay sick.\\

\begin{tabbing}
\ \ \ --- \=Nathaniel Pryce\\
\>{\em np2@doc.ic.ac.uk}\\
\>Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London, UK\\
\end{tabbing}

\end{document}

