Michael S. Atkinson's Blog, page 33

The Problem of Doors, and Other Concerns about Space Travel

I’ve been watching the first season of Babylon Five recently, and before that I was going through Voyager and Deep Space Nine and TNG, all various incarnations of Star Trek.  Looking back on it now, there’s a few things about life in 24th century space that bother me. So, naturally, I thought I would blog about it.

1) Seatbelts.  Specifically, there are none. Whenever Captain Janeway is sitting in the captain’s chair and Voyager is suddenly attacked by the Kazon or the Borg or whoever they’re fighting this week, the ship lurches wildly, and she lurches with it. Pretty much anyone sitting down on a Star Trek ship is thrown out of their seat, or at least whiplashed horribly around, at least once per episode. So, my question: where are the seatbelts? They’re practically mandatory now, in the 21st century, such that you’re ticketed if you’re not wearing one, even if you’re only driving the car you bought from a little old lady who drove it to church on Sundays. Yet, at some point in the future, when mankind takes to space, we apparently decide as a species to forgo the seatbelt. We keep tricorders, comlinks, holograms, teleporters, on and on and on, but somehow in all this advanced tech we lose the most basic way of keeping someone secure in their. Curious.

2) Doors.

It happens a million times. The scene begins, intro music plays, and we see Captain Picard sitting at his desk reading over some report. There is a noise from the door, that little “dee-doot” sound indicating someone wishes to enter. What does Captain Picard, or Sisko, or Sinclair of B5, immediately do? “Enter!” The door slides open, and only then do they see who it is. This, to me, is a serious security problem. I haven’t gotten very far in B5 yet, so I don’t know what happens (and no spoilers, please), but in Star Trek: DS9, at least, several seasons take place during a galactic war. Even in the more peaceful Next Generation era, there were Borg to contend with, and Cardassians, and Data’s evil twin brother, and a myriad other security risks. Yet, apparently, there’s no way to check that the person ringing at the door of your quarters is in fact a person you’d like to see. It could be a Changeling, for all you know. Does that seem right to you?

3) Television

I know they’ve got holodecks and holo-novels and what have you. But is it a condition of space-travel that people forget about television and movies? I think maybe there were a few instances on Voyager where Tom Paris would watch some old Earth film, and in the first episode of Babylon Five we learn, hilariously, that Garibaldi is fond of Looney Tunes. But other than that, either someone’s reading a book (way to be retro), or they’re on a holodeck.  Apparently holodecks completely crowded out the television scene. Which is a shame, really, especially now that there’s so much good stuff on. Bashir and O’Brien can reenact the Battle of Britain, but they’ll never know about Francis Urquhart or Shawn Spencer of Psych, or (perhaps worst of all), they’ll never know about Doctor Who. C’est tragique.

4) Bathrooms

They may boldly go where no one has gone before, but how do they, y’know, go? Has this ever come up? I vaguely recall that someone apparently reviewed a map of the Enterprise on the Internet and located “refreshers”, which might be the Trek equivalent of bathrooms. I hope it’s true; otherwise, those five year missions are going to get really uncomfortable.

Abandon Ship?

The starship Coral reeled in silent agony through space, trailing fire and debris. In the remains of the sickbay on deck six, Jolene clung desperately to her proton blaster. The last she heard, the invaders had taken decks seven through twelve. That was before communications went dead. She hadn’t heard from anyone since. For all she knew, she was alone, a single frightened shade of auburn aboard a starship crawling with bunnies.

Jolene had seen them. She had emptied her blaster at them through the sickbay doors. They had moved on, but they would be back, she knew. Her blaster could only last so long before its energy cells gave out. She wasn’t in any shape to fight them physically. She could barely call for help amidst her coughing. Even when she managed a cry, no one came. The only sounds she heard were the ship’s alarms, wailing again and again.

Jolene, unlike some others, had never quite believed in the Great Paint Pot. But now, as she cowered behind a makeshift barricade of medical beds, Jolene whispered a frantic plea. “Oh, God….”

“Yeah.”

Jolene nearly unloaded her proton blaster again. “Wha-!”

The man put his hands up, trying to indicate she should calm down. “I’m here to help, all right?”

“You’re… you’re not…”

“I’m not the Big Guy, no. I’m what you might call a minor deity. Milroy Birnbaum, god of war. I’m here to stop this.”

“You can’t stop them,” Jolene said, stark terror in her voice. “They’re everywhere!” She fell to coughing again, thinking that now was positively the worst time to fall sick.

“They’re not everywhere. And even if they are, it doesn’t matter. I am Milroy Birnbaum, god of war. No bunny born can stop me.”

“I’ve never heard of a god named Milroy.”

“I said I was a minor deity. Anyway. How are you for weapons?”

Jolene held out her proton blaster. Milroy examined it with a critical eye. “Not bad. If you’re going blasters, the Miles 45 is the best. ’49 works too, but they burn out quicker. Still, we need more firepower. Can we make the bridge from here?”

“Yes, normally, but I don’t think the emergency turbolift works anymore.”

“Let’s just see.” Milroy marched to the turbolift panel and banged on the door. It squeaked open. Jolene followed nervously. “Bridge, now,” Milroy barked at the computer.

“I’m sorry,” it said placidly. “Turbolift systems are currently disabled. Please try manual transport-“

“You take us to the bridge right now, or I will rip every circuit out of this turbolift and replace it with scavenged parts from a garbage scow,” Milroy replied, almost as calmly.

“Very well,” the computer huffed. “Proceeding to bridge.”

The turbolift jerked and stuttered a moment or two, but eventually its doors crawled open to reveal the bridge. A small pack of bunnies had gathered around the science station. Milroy was still holding Jolene’s blaster; he cut down the bunnies without a second of hesitation. “Okay, we have maybe five minutes before backup gets here,” he said, running to the main command station.  “So we have about four minutes and fifty-eight seconds to get this thing to a more defensible position.”

Jolene wobbled over to the science station. “Elsine Three. Ice planet. We could hide there?”

“Nah. They’ll just bombard the planet with radiation cannons ’till it glows. We need something better.” Milroy paced rapidly back and forth. “Any planet we go, they’ll lay siege to. So planets are out. If we had an anti-gravity drive we could try a black hole, but we don’t. Nebulas are out. There aren’t stable wormholes in this sector. C’mon, Milroy, think…”

“There’s a hyperspace bypass one parsec over,” Jolene ventured. “I don’t think that’ll help, but-“

“A hyperspace bypass,” Milroy Birnbaum repeated. “Jolene, you’re brilliant. We’ll do it there.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“No time to explain. Strap yourself in, we’re heading for the bypass.”

Fortunately, the Coral was one of the few equipped with good old-fashioned seatbelts. She strapped herself in just in time. The Coral made a last shaky leap, its stardrive nearly burning out under the strain, but somehow it lurched far enough to the bypass gateway. Milroy seized the manual controls and aimed the starship right for it. Jolene closed her eyes, hearing the bunnies pounding at the bridge doors. “Hadley Baxendale,” she whispered as the Coral plunged into hyperspace, “I’m going to get you for this….”

For previous adventures in Hadley’s story, go here. Thanks for reading!

There She Blows

Last time in the Catrina Chronicles, our heroine was still on board the zeppelin of the time-traveling Captain Ahab, who had just sighted his nemesis, the infamous White Whale. We rejoin the thrilling chase, already in progress!

It was the whale, all right. The immense bulk of the creature gleamed brilliantly below them, as it rolled along the surface of the sea. Catrina had seen a few whales in her time, but she had only glimpsed them at a distance from the shores of Kumquat City. She had never been this close to one before. “So, there it is then,” she commented aloud. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to throw your harpoon at it then.”

“Ay,” thundered Captain Ahab, “Ay, I have chased him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round-“

“And round and round, all through the town,” Catrina interrupted. “Don’t lets go soliloquizing again. Honestly, I still don’t understand. It’s a whale. It bit off your leg, sure, but it didn’t mean anything. It’s only a great big fish!”

Ahab glowered at her. “‘Tis more than a big fish, missie. It is intangible malignity, it-“

“There you go again,” sighed Catrina. “You just can’t stop with the speech-making, can you?”

The captain was about to bellow something more at her when he caught a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. He whirled, and seized his harpoon. “He dives!”  Ahab howled in anguish. “He shall not escape me again!”

“Tell me something,” Catrina demanded. “What’re you going to do with the whale once you’ve harpooned it?”

Ahab, distracted, had been taking aim with the proton harpoon. Now he glanced back at her. “What?”

Catrina started again. “Once you’ve harpooned the White Whale, paid it back for biting off your leg, and so on. What happens then?”

The captain paused. He obviously hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“Are you going to eat it? Sell its oil off for candles? Stick a fin up on your mantelpiece? What?”

“I’ll decide that when I’ve harpooned him!” Ahab declaimed with a flourish.

“No you’re not,” said Catrina. “You’ll probably just give a really long speech about it, as it sinks to the bottom of the sea. You’re not nearly practical enough to make use of it. I know a merchant or two back home who could give a decent price for whale oil, very handy for lamps, but noooo. You’re just going to stick it like a butterfly on a pin. Well, I’m not having it.” She flung out her hand. There was a crackling of ice, and Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor!) broke free and hurtled to her.

Ahab leveled his proton harpoon. “Stand aside. I have faced you and your shovel before, and trapped y’ both in ice of your own creation. I’ll do the same again if ye don’t stand away and let me after that whale!”

“Yes, but this time I’m ready for you and your little proton shield harpoon,” Catrina said, brandishing the Shovel of Thor.

The captain raised his arm. The proton harpoon gave a menacing whirrrrr. Catrina clung to Mlrning and hoped against hope that this time the ice ray would work. Then, outside, she saw another flash of white. The princess’s mouth fell open in shock. The captain had been wrong. Moby Dick wasn’t diving. He was breaching.

With a massive spray of water and foam, the White Whale heaved itself up out of the sea. For one moment it hung suspended and shiny in the air, gleaming in all its mighty brilliance. Catrina thought she glimpsed its eye, for one second. It looked almost sad. Then, it plunged down again and hit the water with a thunderous smack. Catrina saw the flukes of its tail wave one last time as it dived beneath the waves, then a torrent of water blocked the zeppelin’s windows. The whole ship quaked violently and blurred about her. Then, so fast that it nearly turned her stomach, Catrina found she wasn’t on the zeppelin anymore. She was standing, still with Shovel in hand, on a cobblestoned street amidst a bustling city. A man in a top hat brushed past her. “Excuse me,” she said. “But can you tell me where I am?”

“London, ma’am,” said the man, tipping his hat politely. “Are you lost, pray? Do you require a constable?”

“Not quite yet,” Catrina replied. “One more question. What year is it?”

“Why, it’s the year of our Lord 1913,” he said, a little astonished that she shouldn’t know.

“Right,” said Catrina. “Now I require a constable.”

This has been another exciting episode in the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here. Thanks for reading!

And We’re Back

First of all, I want to apologize to those of you among my readers who were hoping for a new chapter in the ongoing adventures of Hadley Baxendale this week. Ordinarily I try to write a new Hadley story every Tuesday or so, in order to make the yeah write summer grid, and the speakeasy not-summer grid before that. Alas, I was somewhat busy Tuesday, as I was in the throes of taking the bar exam.  It is quite the intense experience. It was even more intense this year, since the test-taking software we used for the essay question part of the bar exam went and glitched on us.  There was some discussion about it on Twitter.

In any event, the bar exam is now over, and as I wait for the results and prepare to enter the world of actual legal employment, I have several weeks of honest-to-goodness free time. I don’t have to study, I don’t have to pore over outlines, I don’t have to feel guilty while watching Netflix because I really should be reading for Torts instead. And what that means is, I am back to writing. Hadley, Rain, Milroy Birnbaum (god of war) and, most particularly, Catrina, can all live again. Huzzah.

Also, I started work on a new full-length novel this afternoon. It was sparked from a conversation I had with a friend about The Problem of Santa. It will also be starring a spy-type character named Jason Waterfalls. As in, “Don’t go, Jason Waterfalls.” This should be fun.  And, eventually, after some editing, I do plan to self-publish it. And it will go on Goodreads and on Amazon, and I shall call it Squishy and it shall be mine, and it shall be my squishy friend- no, wait, hang on. That’s Finding Nemo. But the point still stands, to paraphrase the Tenth Doctor.

In any event, I just felt I should give you an update on things, loyal readers. And to wrap things up, here is a quote from P.G. Wodehouse I ran across this morning, which I think quite nicely encapsulates the writing style I like to aim for.

“I believe there are only two ways of writing a novel. One is mine, making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music, and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going down deep into life and not caring a damn.”

(My way is the first way, needless to say.)

Promises

“Ow…” Hadley said as her photons knit together. She’d lost her left arm again; it was flopping about in distress on the floor. From the look in Rain’s eyes, it was evident that the incarnation of Death had never hit someone so hard that their arm had come off.

“Hadley, look, I-oomph!”  Rain was having all sorts of new experiences that day. She had, apparently, never been punched in the stomach by a detached left arm before either. Acting on instinct, she seized Hadley’s arm and flung it back at her. She’d meant to knock the girl out, but Hadley caught it like the world’s weirdest football and stuck it back on again.

“O-kay!” Hadley yelled, her mauve eyes alight with the joy of battle. “Let’s try that again!”

“I’m Death, you idiot, you can’t kill me,” Rain started to explain. She was cut off as Hadley slammed into her. The incarnation of Death skidded backwards a pace or two. Her own anger flared, and she struck back, sending Hadley flying across the corridor again. This time Hadley hit the wall so hard that both her arms came off.

“What’re you going to do now,” Rain said coldly, “bite my leg? Get it through your head. You can’t kill me.”

Hadley’s left arm was on the move again. Rain ignored it. “Just give it up, Hadley Baxendale. You’re not getting past me, and you’re not signing a deal with the snake, okay? Deal with it.”

Hadley smiled, as her right arm skittered tiredly to her side and squinched itself on. “Thing is, I don’t need to get past you.”

“Finally. Now pull yourself together and let’s move. We-”

“At least,” Hadley went on. “Not all of me.”

“What…?”

Then Rain got it. She spun around, but it was too late. Hadley’s left arm had hopped onto the table. Her disembodied hand had grabbed the pen, and with a somewhat shaky flourish, had signed Hadley’s name to the contract. The snake, which had been watching the whole fight from a safe distance, smiled. “Good enough.”  There was a sulfuric flash. Hadley disappeared. So did Rain.

***

Jolene Kenneth, Auburn, First Officer of the starship Coral, had been somberly scanning the residue of the shattered planet from the science station on the bridge.  She was part of a recovery team, but there seemed nothing left to recover. Then, quite suddenly, the planet was there again. Jolene gaped as her sensors lit up. Everything seemed back to normal, except… “Captain?” Jolene said slowly. “There’s only two life signs down there.”

“Where’s everyone else?” the captain demanded. “There were three billion people on that planet!”

“There’s just two now. I’ll see if I can hail them.”

As she worked the communications, Jolene’s eyes burned, and she felt a sudden cough coming on. She reminded herself to check in with sickbay later. It was probably just a small cold. Nothing serious.

***

“Woohoo!” Hadley exulted, as she popped her triumphant left arm back on for what she hoped was the last time. They stood next to the same tree Hadley had started from, what seemed like ages ago, when she had only been trying to help the police solve a local murder. “We did it! We’re out of hell, my home planet’s back, Jolene’s got the creeping crud probably, and….”  She paused. Rain had an exceptionally dark look on her face.

“Okay, sorry about all that, but honestly, I don’t think it’s all that bad. We won, didn’t we?”

“Yeah?” Rain said. She waved around them. “Where’s all the people?”

Hadley wheeled. No one was there. “Um….”

“You didn’t happen to read that contract, did you? I assume the promise was that your planet would be restored? Did it say anything about the people on your planet?”

“Oh dear.”

Just then Hadley’s communicator chirped. She flipped it open, amazed that she could still get a signal when her world had apparently been depopulated. All she heard was static.

***

Jolene was hacking so hard she could hardly speak. “I can’t…quite…the frequency…excuse me,” she managed to her alarmed captain, and ran towards the sickbay emergency lift. An ensign moved to take her place. In the intervening seconds between her departure, and the ensign’s replacing her, a small sensor went off on her panel. The ensign, trying to get a read on the situation Jolene had left, missed the alert entirely. The bunnies were coming.

For previous entries in Hadley’s saga, go here.  Thanks for reading!

Choices

Hadley hadn’t experienced temptation much before. Being a sentient shade of color, she tended to see moral issues rather starkly. Things were right, or they were not. But now, standing in the valley of Amaranth, looking out at her former Gray boyfriend Casey, she faced a really serious dilemma.

The whole history of her tortured relationship flashed before her eyes. There had been enough drama to make a Shakespearean play. It had all been Jolene’s fault. That sneaky Auburn had cut in and swept him away. Just like that. She’d ditched her own companion too, a stolid Green. Cheating on one’s own boyfriend and stealing someone else’s was objectively wrong, wasn’t it? And so, Hadley thought, it couldn’t really be a bad thing if Jolene got what was coming to her, could it?

The snake coiled up beside her, waiting on her decision. “When you say you could do something about Jolene…” Hadley said carefully. “What, exactly, are you saying? Not something horrible like murder, right?”

The snake seemed astonished. “Of course not. We’re from Hell, after all. If there’s one guiding principle down here, it’s that everyone gets what they deserve.”

Hadley shivered. “I see. So maybe you could just inflict the creeping crud on her, or make her break up with him, that sort of thing.”

“Yes. Just that. Nothing too permanent,” said the snake.

“Right. And what do I have to do in return?”

“Nothing at all, really. Just leave. Get out of hell, and go back to your own planet, which we’ll restore for you. We’ll even inflict the creeping crud on Jolene for you, whatever you’d like. The only thing we want is that you leave Hell, and really, you don’t want to stay down here, do you?”

The beautiful flower-laden valley melted away, and suddenly Hadley was back where she had started, in a burning, rocky, flower-less cavern deep in the depths of hell. A single sheet of paper, written in flaring ink, lay on a little table nearby.

“So….” said the snake, gesturing with its tail to the paper, “do we have a deal?”

Hadley hesitated. She’d worked it all out morally. Jolene would only get what was coming to her. But still….

It was at this point that a good friend, or possibly a guardian angel, could have intervened and tried to warn Hadley of her danger. They might have observed that it wasn’t a good idea in generally to cut deals with giant talking snakes, especially ones representing the powers of hell. Unfortunately, Rain had arrived in the corridor just in time to hear the snake’s proposal. She responded in the entirely wrong way. “Oh, you idiot!”

“What?” Hadley said, aghast.

Rain face-palmed. “You idiot. I told you not to get separated. I told you to be careful. I even said you shouldn’t be here in the first place, and you go off and start making deals with the devil! In Hell, no less!”

“In point of fact,” the snake interjected, “as I have explained on several occasions, I’m not-”

“Oh, stuff it,” Rain snapped. “I wasn’t talking to you anyway.”

Hadley flared in anger. She didn’t like being called an idiot any more than anyone else. “Well, I was! And I hadn’t finished yet!”

“Honestly. You remember why I’m here? Why you’re here? Your stupid planet got blown up, the Bunniless Pit was opened, the whole universe is about to die in fluffy apocalypse and you’re worrying about your love life?”

“What do you care?” Hadley shot back. “You’re Death! You don’t care about anyone, you just show up when people die!”

Rain went very pale. “I do care. You have no idea. But this isn’t the time to go into that. You’re not cutting a deal with the snake!”

“Wanna bet?” Hadley wheeled around. The snake had been watching the argument with some interest. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll sign whatever-”

But Rain had shoved past her, and now stood in between her and the paper. “I said, you’re not cutting a deal.”

“Or what?”

Rain’s eyes blazed. “Don’t cross me, Hadley Baxendale. I’m Death, remember. I’m going to win this.”

Hadley blazed from her usual mauve to a furiously bright magenta. “Oh yeah?” She couldn’t quite move at light speed, but she could go fast enough. She flashed to one side past Rain. Rain reacted automatically. She’d forgotten her own strength. Mauve photons splashed against the walls of hell.

You can find previous adventures with Hadley here.

Regrets

She had gotten lost, somehow. Hadley Baxendale had tried to stay close behind Rain as they crept through the howling corridors and descended through pit after pit, but somehow they had been separated. It was so easy to get lost in the dark.  Now Hadley had no idea where in the hell she was.  (This was literally true: she had a vague sense that she was in one of the infernal region’s lower circles, but she didn’t know which, and hell had a deplorable lack of maps.)

“Okay,” she said bravely to herself. “We’re headed to the same place, anyway, right? I just have to keep going down, and I’ll catch up!”  Hadley was trying not to think of where she was headed. Rain had been all too clear. To find out what was going on, why the bunnies were loose, why her planet had been destroyed, they had to go to the source. The Big D. You Know Who. Old Scratch. Hadley knew of half a dozen other names. She didn’t like any of them.

She moved on, through the shadows, wishing that she wasn’t a living shade of mauve. Mauve wasn’t the stealthiest of colors. The funny thing was, so far she hadn’t been stopped. Hadley had thought hell was more crowded. Ever since she had lost Rain, she hadn’t run into a single demon, or monster, or human soul writing in eternal torment. Even the bunnies had gone.

She cautiously rounded yet another corner into yet another corridor, and quite unexpectedly ran into someone. “Oh, I beg your-”

It was the snake again. The same one she had met before. “You again,” it rumbled. “Miss Baxendale, I’m a little occupied right now.”

“Back!” Hadley shrieked at it. “Back, you foul thing! You’re the Dark Paint Stripper!”

“I am not,” the snake said wearily, “the Dark Paint Stripper. Or whatever name you choose to give him. I am only a deputy undersecretary. If you want to make an appointment with Our Father Below, you’ll have to call our receptionist department, between 3 and 4 A.M. on Tuesdays. Then fill out Form 876-9B, in triplicate, and sign it, and then initial your signature.”

“That’s awfully complicated,” Hadley said.

“We’re Hell. You expected good customer service?”

“Yes. Well. I really need to see You Know Who sooner. It’s an emergency.”

The snake chortled. “You want to see Our Father Below? The Dark Paint Stripper himself? And what do you propose to say?”

Hadley plucked up her courage. “He’s obviously unleashed the bunnies, and he’s destroyed my home planet!”

“And…?”

“And that’s wrong! And he should stop! Or else!”

“Or else what?”

Here Hadley had a problem. She had assumed that Rain would handle the “or else” part of the mission. Failing that, she had hoped that perhaps she could talk the Big Bad into seeing the error of his ways. She was beginning to think that wasn’t going to work.

“Listen,” said the snake. “I am only a deputy undersecretary, but I can see you are in over your head, Miss Baxendale. I can help. I can get you out of here. In fact, I can put in a word for you with my superiors. We can restore your home planet. We can even do more.”

Hadley was unused to dealing with the denizens of the lower regions. She didn’t realize her peril. So, she asked what seemed a simple question. “More? Like what?”

Suddenly everything blurred. Then sunlight, the first real light she’d seen since entering hell, spilled around her. Hadley gasped.

She was standing in a quiet gap between two rolling green lines of hills. It was the same spot where she had seen Casey last, where she had almost gone after him. They had argued, again, and he had walked away. She had meant to call the next day and explain. But she hadn’t. It was the only thing she regretted. She could just see the familiar Gray form leaning against a tree.

“Oh come on!” Hadley exclaimed. “I know what you’re up to, I’m not completely naive. Even if I wanted to go back to Casey, I couldn’t. We moved on. He’s with Jolene anyway. Jerk.” Hadley muttered a few uncomplimentary things. She’d never liked Auburns much. Especially not that Auburn.

“We could…” whispered the snake, “do something about Jolene.”

Hadley hadn’t considered that. “Could you? Well….”

For previous entries in Hadley’s Story, go here. Thanks for reading!

Best Laid Plans

“Candystriper!” cried the Malevolent Med-Student. “I’ve solved the equation! Finally I can create my zombie penguin army and rule the world! Quickly, to the Malpracticycle!”

“Um…”

“What?”

“I kinda borrowed the ‘cycle yesterday. And I kinda hit a building with it. Sorry.”

 

Splish Splash

“Ooh!” Candystriper gasped excitedly. “Just like you wanted! A mermaid!”

The Malevolent Med-Student sighed. “I wanted the Mega-Electron Radiating Mass Atomic Incinerator Device. Mermaid was an acronym.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“How did you find a real mermaid, anyway?”

“In the duck pond. Doy.”

In Which Catrina Quotes the Rule Against Perpetuities, to Great Effect

Last time in the Catrina Chronicles, our heroine was trapped on board the zeppelin of Captain Ahab, just as Starbuck had opened fire on it in his starfighter. This was a very awkward position to be in. Fortunately, Catrina had remembered at the last moment a magic spell that would save her….

Catrina skittered about on the floor of the zeppelin, having transformed into a newt. As a newt, she had managed to escape the ice that had frozen her human form to the wall. She had also escaped the attention of Captain Ahab, who was frantically working the zeppelin about the sky in an effort to evade the thunderous energy blasts from Starbuck. The captain was evidently returning fire as well, the zeppelin quaking with every shot. Any moment, Catrina expected the zeppelin to burst into flames and take the captain with it. The problem was, of course, that it would take her too, and she didn’t much care for that.

Worse, her newty form was only temporary. She would get better any second now, and she didn’t have a plan for what followed. “As if that’s my fault,” Catrina complained. “It’s been almost a month since my last adventure. I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to do! You can’t just set up a dramatic moment and leave me hanging like that!”

Catrina was, of course, unaware that her author was studying hard for the bar exam. Had she been, she might have sympathized. All she knew was that she had been waiting for a month, she was still a newt, and now that her story had started again, she was about to die. “Oh, sure. Kill me off, why don’t you,” she squeaked in her tiny newt voice. “It isn’t as if I haven’t been killed off before. Oh. Wait.”

At that inopportune moment, she got better. Quite suddenly she was human again, only now she was standing free on the bridge of the zeppelin, about five feet away from Captain Ahab. “By thunder!” the captain exclaimed. “You’ve escaped!”

“Yes. Yes I have. Excellent observa-” Catrina’s acid comment was cut short by a renewed torrent of energy blasts from Starbuck. Several alarms went off with shrilling cries.

A speaker crackled on the control panel. “Captain,” Starbuck said coolly. “You may not have noticed this, but your shields just failed. Another moment and your zeppelin will be destroyed. I’d rather not do that, since it rightly belongs to the Nantucket Star Alliance. You have one last chance to surrender and allow me to take custody of the ship and the proton harpoon.”

“Excuse me,” said Catrina, “I don’t care whether he surrenders or not, exactly. I only followed him because I was curious about what he was doing; apparently he’s on some crazy whale vengeance quest, and that’s not really my fight. All the same, I’m on the ship now, and if you blow it up I’ll go with it, and I’d rather not do that. So would you mind backing off while I have a civil discussion with the captain here?”

“I don’t know who you are,” Starbuck rejoined, “but if you’re with the captain, I will have no choice but to take you into custody as well. The Nantucket Star Alliance-”

Catrina was already upset at being left by her author for nearly a month. Starbuck wasn’t helping her mood at all. “I’m not being taken into custody by anyone, least of all your Nantucket Star Alliance.”

“Your shields are down. Mine are still intact. I am prepared to blast you out of the sky. I fail to see what you’re going to do about it.”

Now Catrina was really piqued. “Excuse me, sir, but I can do plenty about it. If you don’t back off with your starfighter in two minutes, I will….” she paused, glancing back at Mlrning, the Shovel of Thor. It was still encased in ice, frozen to the wall where she’d been a moment before. She could try to call it to her, using the mental summoning or whatever it was, but would the Shovel be able to smash through its own ice? That was a problem. In any event, Catrina suddenly had a more fiendish idea. “I will quote law at you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Starbuck said.

“The Rule against Perpetuities,” Catrina began, “states that no interest is valid unless it must vest, if it all, not later than 21 years after some life in being at the creation of the interest.”

“What are these dark words?” Starbuck exclaimed, aghast. “It’s worse than devil’s madness.”

Catrina plowed relentlessly on. “In the case of a taxpayer other than a corporation, losses from sales or exchanges of capital assets shall be allowed only to the extent of the gains from such sales or exchanges, plus (if such losses exceed such gains) the lower of (1) $3,000 ($1,500 in the case of a married individual filing a separate return), or (2) the excess of such losses over such gains.”

A whole new barrage of alarms went off, only now they were coming not from the zeppelin but from the speaker on the control panel. Starbuck’s ship, with what computerized intelligence it possessed, was rebelling in pure terror. “Stop that!” Starbuck yelled, both at his starfighter and Catrina in the zeppelin. “You’ve got no rights here! The captain will lead you to madness!”

“Now you’ve got one chance,” Catrina said. “Take your starfighter and go. You can pursue the captain once I’m off his ship and he leaves my world, but not till then.”

Starbuck’s answer was hidden in a burst of static. But when Catrina looked out the cockpit window, she saw his fighter turning back towards the ship for one last desperate firing run. “I didn’t want to do this,” she said. “But here goes. 28 U.S.C. 1391(b). A civil action may be brought in a judicial district in which any defendant resides, if all defendants are residents of the State in which the district is-”

The starfighter vanished in a spray of light. The shockwave rattled the zeppelin, but in a moment it had steadied again. Catrina sighed. She had just glimpsed something small and person-sized filing away from the ship in the last instant before it exploded. She might have mistaken, or it could have been debris, but it was just possible Starbuck had escaped. She hoped he had; she didn’t really want to dispatch anyone unnecessarily. In any event, he wasn’t a concern anymore. She rounded upon the captain. “Right. Now I’ve saved you, but I’m not going to help you go after your whale. So you put your zeppelin down, I’ll retrieve my Shovel and leave, and then you can go on your merry way. Is that acceptable?”

Captain Ahab laid a hand on the proton harpoon.  Catrina rolled her eyes. “Oh dear. Don’t tell me we’re going to do this the hard way.”

Just then, a new alarm lit up on the control panel. During the fight, the zeppelin had bounced across the sky for some distance. Little noticed by the combatants, they had wound up over the sea. Now the zeppelin’s sensors had picked up something in the water. Captain Ahab knew what the alarm meant. ” “There she blows!—there she blows!” He ran swiftly to the window of the bridge and looked down at the waters below.   A hump like a snow-hill!  It is Moby Dick!”

“Of course it is,” said Catrina.