32

While Demi considered the best option for an apology present for an immense, alien, organic ship, that still felt justifiably miffed, Friss continued to try to explain the final part of his plan. The final heist. He had abandoned the Matryoshka doll analogy, though still had the dolls open and sitting in front of him, and had decided to boil everything down to the facts. This, of course, did not sit well with Briyun and now Friss glared at the stoat-like creature, tapping the head of the smallest doll in a fashion that screamed 'I am not annoyed! I always tap dolls hard enough to crack the surface!'.

"So, there's a 'hole' in 'space' and it's 'black'? It 'eats' everything that comes near it and 'nothing' can escape it, not 'even' light?" With every instance of obvious quotation marks, Briyun's pudgy fingers and long claws curled, illustrating the quotes. She didn't need to do that, but she did it anyway, and not always for the right words. "I'm not buying it? And this 'black hole' is at the 'centre of the galaxy' and is 'super-massive'? Nah, mate? Where does the 'hole' go to? Answer me that?"

"I don't need to 'answer' anything! It's a 'fact'! Literally everyone knows about black holes! Everyone!" Friss joined in the air-quotes game and had a marginal degree of greater success at it. "Why are you still here? Your job is done. Off you go. Toodle-oo. Your cheque is in the post."

Friss turned away from Briyun and focussed his attention on Demi, Lap and Bognrd. Except Demi had fallen into the trap of wondering whether she should get Lodka flowers, which never ended well for any party, Lap had wandered off to play with their cuddly toys in a corner, rustling to themself in a way that sounded more than a little like a Thrash Metal lullaby, and Bognrd was putting the finishing touches to a mountainous cake that looked so sugary and sweet, Demi could feel her teeth rotting and arteries closing at the sight of it. She desperately wanted to eat it. All of it, including the intricately detailed hard sugar representations of the crew and Lodka.

"And miss all the 'fun'? Not a chance, Frissa?" Briyun looked around for somewhere to sit, but Lodka, in her petty, vindictive revenge, refused to provide any seating. That they still had floors to walk on was due to Demi hugging a bulkhead and apologising upon returning to the ship. "Nah, mate? I'm in unto the end, so to speak? Even if your plan is complete hooey?"

"Hooey?" Friss' eyes bulged as his fingers gripped the flesh floor before him. "Hooey? I haven't told you the plan yet! I've just had to spend fifteen minutes explaining a fundamental fact about the universe that you, for some reason, seem to think is 'made up'! Hooey?"

Friss took a breath. Then he took another. He looked about to take another and Demi wondered whether he was hogging all the breaths to save for the next time Lodka shot them out into space, but then he spread his fingers, calming himself, before gathering up his Matryoshka dolls. He stood up, moved to where his captain's chair would normally sit, looked around as though lost before stomping his foot.

A necklace was out, Demi mused. She'd never find one with a chain long enough to fit the ship. Chocolate? Without knowing if Lodka ate chocolate, or anything at all, Demi put that apology-present idea on the back-burner for the moment. In fact, she had to put everything on the back-burner as the view screen showed they were nearing the exit of the Flesh-Route in which they travelled.

She girded herself, getting ready for the inevitable, nauseating moment that Lodka spewed them back out into real space. It didn't help. Thankful that she had never had to comfort cheese sprayed from a can, Lodka entered real space and Demi tried to hold onto lunch she had eaten decades before. She knew that was impossible, but it was the only way to describe how horrible the entire experience was.

Real space folded around them and the view screen now showed something Demi had never even considered she would ever see. Partly because floating so close to a black hole was not exactly cruise liner, sight-seeing material, but mostly because she simply had no interest in such a thing. She had interest in it now, as she watched the accretion disk of the black hole spin in the infinite black.

"That's not even 'black'?" With a scoffing snort, Briyun waved a dismissive hand and headed toward the doorway to the bridge. "My followers won't find that interesting at all? Laters? I'm going for a brew?"

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" This, of course, was a very likely occurrence. All the doors upon Lodka were flesh constructs and more than capable of hitting someone, especially with Lodka still more than a little unhappy. Unfortunately for Friss, Lodka didn't hit Briyun with anything, let alone a door. "What followers?"

An excited rustling, crackling, crunching, tearing string of noises erupted from Lap and Friss had to tear his narrowed eyes away from Briyun, completely failing to bore burning holes into her back, and see what had got Lap so animated. It could as easily be something as simple as one of Lap's cuddly toys beating another. It wasn't simple. It was an alert flashing on Lodka's flap-of-flesh view screen.

"RESTRICTED AREA - DWAIt CORPS PERSONNEL ONLY." The 'only' stood in larger letters than the others and flashed an angry red colour, faster than the other words flashed. "TRESPASSERS WILL BE VAPORISED, PROSECUTED AND QUESTIONED - IN THAT ORDER!"

A friendly tune accompanied the warning message. All harps and cymbals, xylophones and jaunty guitar riffs. It was, as expected, a complete mess as far as music went, but very friendly, in a threatening kind of way. Demi looked toward Friss, who appeared lost without his captain's chair to pose thoughtfully upon. He lifted his foot, placing it on nothing, and rested his elbow upon his knee, stroking his chin, a look of intense concentration on his face.

"It's probably automated. Probably." He had to put his foot down as he had started to wobble. He looked at Lap, but Lap could do nothing. Lodka had taken away the navigation console, too. "Lodka, be a dear and turn about, best speed away from the black hole and, after a million kilometres, engage cloak."

Everything that Friss asked Lodka to do did not happen. He waited a few seconds, eyes flickering between Lodka's walls, Demi, Bognrd and Lap. Nothing continued to happen and Lodka drifted ever closer to the black hole. With a flourish of trombones, a new warning message appeared upon Lodka's flesh view screen. It looked even more angry than the first message, in a sterile, yet somehow friendly sort of way.

"THIS IS NOT AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE - TURN ABOUT, LEAVE AND WE'LL SAY NO MORE ABOUT IT." The music that accompanied this message had elements of mournful violins and cellos, the occasional bark of a saxophone and an undercurrent of finger clicks. "CONTINUE ON THIS COURSE AND YOU WILL FIND DWAIt CORPS HAS A LARGE NUMBER OF VERY POWERFUL WEAPONS THAT WE ARE DYING TO TRY OUT ON IDIOTS. YOU, IF IT NEEDS POINTING OUT, ARE THE IDIOTS. GO AWAY. NOW!"

As though to illustrate the point, a multitude of dots began to appear on the view screen, appearing around the black hole. Dots that had little identifying tags, such as 'multiple warhead missile launcher', 'plasma-based destructo canon', and 'rocks - big ones'. It seemed clear that whoever sent that message was neither lying, nor messing about. Friss, no doubt, had expected this but had failed to inform anyone else.

"I was not expecting this." He started to pace in the spot where his captain's chair should sit. Rubbing his chin didn't help matters. Nor did biting his fingernails. "It was supposed to be easy. In and out. Get the thing. No big deal. But, no, Lodka has to throw a hissy fit. I need a plan ... no, I need ... suggestions. Yes! Suggestions! Anybody?"

"I'M THINKING OF ADDING MARZIPAN TO THE CAKE!" Bognrd waved a blunt knife, dripping with practically liquid icing toward Friss and then to Demi. "DOES ANYONE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MARZIPAN?"

"What? No! I don't have a ... wait! That's not made from pistachios, right?" Friss pointed an urgent finger to Bognrd and looked about as serious as Demi had ever seen him. Bognrd shook his horned head. "Good. Great. Marzipan it is."

"ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO PISTACHIOS?" Half-turned back to the cake, Bognrd spun back, the icing falling from the knife to the flesh floor, where it disappeared. "FOR FUTURE REFERENCE!"

"No." Friss furrowed his forehead, his mouth downturning, single eyebrow raising as though Bognrd had asked the single most inane, nonsensical question ever uttered in the history of lifekind. "Why? No matter. I need suggestions before ... that! Before that happened! Brace for impact!"

He looked around in desperation, searching for something to grab hold of, but Lodka had all but stripped the bridge bare of everything. He dropped to the flesh floor and grabbed hold as tight as he could. Demi was almost certain that wasn't going to be very secure at all and wondered whether she had enough time to run down to the hangar bay and strap in to Zapasnoy's seating that wouldn't disappear because of a wholly understandable snit.

The rapidly approaching missiles, plasma-based destructo beams and surprisingly large rocks appeared to suggest she did not, in fact, have time to run down several corridors, flights of stairs, more corridors, through rooms that had no discernible function, through yet more corridors and a door that, for no understandable reason, stood half the height of every other door on. the ship. She did not have time at all.

She only wished she'd managed to apologise properly to Lodka. Perhaps with an amusing greeting card?