| The Quest for Ultimate Knowledge It began on a warm evening, in a small and crowded diner in the shadier part of the galaxy. Willie turned to a grayish brown color and tried to hide under a table where he would be out of harm's way. He disliked crowded places, and generally avoided them. Willie was a ball of goo, who, for no apparent reason, floated at eye level in the air. No one, including himself, knows how this is possible. Normally his color changed with his mood, but it was also a useful camouflage. The reason Willie didn't like crowded places was because the busy people, rushing about from here to there, didn't seem to notice him, and he got bumped and smacked by others' swinging arms or shoulders. Only one thing was more embarrassing for a ball of goo than to be whacked, go flying across the room, and splat into a wall. He had tried changing to bright colors so he would be noticed, but he discovered this to be a bad idea, as some loud obnoxious woman usually saw him and thought he was some sort of vermin. Being intentionally whacked by a purse and sent flying across the room to splat into a wall was the most embarrassing thing that could happen to a ball of goo. Willie was in this diner because it was the only place on this desolate planet where there were other sentient beings. He'd been discovered by the crew of the ship he was stowed away on, and tossed off at the nearest inhabitable planet. Near the door, several beings started to clear a path. Rox was lumbering into the diner saying, "Food! Give food!" You see, Rox is not a particularly intelligent being; most would say he is quite stupid. He stands over 2 meters tall, and members of his race have been known to crush small spacecraft like soda cans when one is in their way. "All right, all right, sit down." Was the response he got from the waitressbot. "Give food NOW!" said Rox as he pushed the waitressbot out of his path, knocking her into the table that Willie was hiding under. The diner got quiet. A few people heard the sound of a faint splat as Willie hit the large illuminated menu above the counter. Rox suddenly found himself paralyzed and levitating half a meter off the floor. This upset him, but he wasn't intelligent enough to try to figure out why. A young man walked out of the back dining room, "all right, calm down everyone, nothing to see here," one of his heads said. His other head looked like it was in a trance, and as Rox seemed to forget that he was angry, he lowered to the floor and the second head's eyes opened and stared at him. "Behave yourself you semisentient abomination who dares to walk on two legs!" the second head said, with a woman's voice. Not many had noticed, but a woman's body had followed the two headed man out of the back room. It now seemed to trip over its own feet and nearly fell to the floor. This indirectly upset an entire table, because one of her high heels stepped on the tentacle of a man who very much resembled a squid. He jumped and squealed, and squirted purple ink all over a woman who had a baby in each arm. Three of the babies started screaming, and the other two giggled at them. The female head turned, "what am I doing?" she asked of the body. It gestured violently with its hands, as if scolding itself. It then walked up to the head and smacked her in the forehead. "I am so scattered these days! I stop to take care of something so simple as this," here the body gestured to Rox, "and I completely forget myself!" People were beginning to stare at this odd conversation, and this seemed to bother the first head. "Hi, I'm Jack," he said. "This is my sister Kim," his body gestured to its other head, then to the woman's body, "And that's her body. She's telepathic and telekinetic," he said proudly. This seemed to be a sufficient explanation for the crowd, as they returned to their meals. Jack and Kim returned to the back room to finish their meal. Kim turned to Rox as Jack walked away, "come stupid, I don't want you to disturb my meal again," Rox followed obediently. Willie had finally managed to peel himself off of the menu. This is nasty, he thought, it'll take me a month to get rid of all this grease! He was intrigued by Kim's telekinetic ability, and Jack seemed pretty good natured, so he followed them to see if he could get a ride off of this rock. He drifted into the back room to find Jack, Kim, and Rox sitting around three sides of a pentagonal table. He floated over and occupied the space above a fourth side. "Mind if I hover here?" he asked Jack. Jack looked at Kim, she nodded slightly, "sure," he said, "I'm Jack, this is my sister Kim, and that thing seems to call itself Rox." "I'm Willie," said the blob of goo. "I'm stranded here, and I was wondering if I could hitch a ride to someplace less," he paused, "greasy," he finished. "I don't take up much room. I don't eat, and I don't have any luggage." "Well," Jack replied, feeling Kim glaring at him, "We don't know where we're going from here, but I think we could make space for you." Kim's body reached out and smacked him in the back of the head. "Ow! What was that for?" "You know we don't have room!" was the response. "Sis, he's a ball of goo the size of my fist, and weren't you planning on taking that thing," he gestured toward Rox, "along to study?" "Oh fine, he can come, but he'd better not cause trouble." With this she glared, first at Jack, then at Willie, then she went back to her meal. "Yay! Thank you, you won't regret it," said Willie gleefully. Continued |