Chapter Five: And Now for Something Almost, but not Quite, Entirely Unlike the Previous Chapters.

I knew it was going to be a bad day when I stepped outside and somebody threw a hover car at me.

...

Yes, ok, it was only a toy, but it did have sharp edges, and one of them hit me right in the eye. The somebody who'd thrown it was approximately four years old and trying to hide behind one of the potted plants outside my quarters. It[1] was grinning gleefully from ear to ear and making occasional snorting giggling sounds. I picked up the flower pot, emptied it over the child's head and then placed the child inside it. I would have done something more artistic with the plants, but I was already running late, and Florgurglarghurghglorgle Smith is not a man[2] you want to keep waiting.


Florg was sprawled majestically behind his desk when I walked into his office. In his mouth was something that was probably a cigar, if only because it was brown, vaguely cylindrical and lit at one end. He'd just taken a big bite out of the other end, leaving me enough time to close the door, sidle into the room and sit down on the extremely unstable swivel chair in front of his desk before he could actually say anything.

"You're late!" he finally boomed and threw the cigar over his shoulder, where it hit the wall with a wet fizz and was immediately swallowed by a small, furry spider.

I gave him my brightest smile, and replied: "No, I'm not. I've been here for ten minutes."

This seemed to throw him off a little. I could tell by the way his left eye rolled into the back of his head and twitched violently for several minutes. I continued to smile at him, and eventually the eye flopped back into place and began to look me up and down.

"Why aren't you wearing your uniform?"

My smile faded. "You know how much I hate all that shiny black leather stuff."

"It's in your contract!" He pointedly tapped the document, signed in blood, that was lying on his desk for just that purpose. I sighed.

"Fine. I'll get changed before I go. You want to tell me what this mission is about, then?"

Wordlessly, he pushed two photographs across his desk. I leaned over to examine them; this was too much for my chair, which collapsed and deposited me on the floor. Definitely not a good day today.

Florg laughed and laughed, until it looked and sounded as if he was choking[3]. I picked myself up, gave him an angry glare that he completely ignored, and began to examine the photographs. One showed a tall man, probably in his thirties, with long blond locks fluttering artistically in the wind. He was posing heroically: chest thrust out, stomach sucked in, hands on his hips and a smouldering look directed to the camera. The pink tutu he was wearing spoiled the effect a little.

The other photograph showed a younger man, as far as I could tell; I couldn't be sure, because most of the picture was taken up by a huge, incredibly tacky gold statue of some sort. I only knew I was supposed to be looking at the man next to it because someone had helpfully drawn a large red arrow pointing to him. From what I could make out, then, he was younger, darker haired, sensibly dressed, and less heroically posed. He was kind of cute, actually, in a blurry sort of way.

Florg had not, alas, died from laughter, and was still giggling a little when he leaned over and tapped the photographs with one claw. "Find them!" he boomed, and pushed a file towards me. As soon as I'd picked it up he turned away from me, produced a fresh[4] cigar from somewhere underneath his desk and began his attempts to light it. I assumed this signalled the end of our meeting, so I left the office.

As soon as I'd stepped outside, somebody threw a cat at me. Apparently this was to be the theme for the rest of my day. I looked around and spotted the same child who'd been outside my quarters; I knew it was the same because it was covered in mud and had a leaf stuck in its hair. I grabbed the child in one hand and the cat in the other, and went to look for the nearest airlock. Unfortunately, its parents[5] found us first and thanked me enthusiastically for finding their little darling; oh, and their son, too. I ignored them, gave the child an evil look, and finally headed for my ship.


Once there, I slumped into the pilot's seat with a sigh, programmed a course, swung my feet up on the console and opened the file Florg had given me.

Cosmo and Squid, eh? Well, they shouldn't be too hard to find...

--
[1] I couldn't tell if it was male or female. Come to think of it, I wasn't entirely sure it was even human.

[2] And by "man", I mean "polka-dotted being of unspeakable horror".

[3] I rather hoped he was.

[4] I use the term "fresh" loosely here.

[5] The child's, not the cat's. And definitely not the airlock's.