‘That does it,’ shouted Captain Humberg, wiping his face with the sleeve of his uniform. ‘These practical jokes have to stop now! I swear, when I find out who is behind this moronic behaviour, the perpetrator will spend the rest of this mission confined to the brig... or something worse.’
The twenty members of The Telegraph crew sat in silence as the captain stormed out of the conference room. Not one of them made an effort to inform the captain that a piece of analogue messaging tape had been stuck to his back and was flashing ‘KICK ME’ in neon green.
A half-hour later, Captain Humberg had calmed down enough to allow Dr Jones into his quarters.
‘I tell you, Doc,’ snapped Humberg, ‘this crap has got to end. It’s all fun and games now, but if one of these stupid pranks messes with a deployment, the entire mission could be ruined.’
‘Oh, I don’t think whoever is doing this will do anything drastic. So, what if someone loosened the cover on the salt shaker; that won’t destroy the mission?’
‘No, but it did screw up my beef stew. We only get one meal with real food a week and whatever idiot is behind all this had to mess with one of my favourite meals.’
The doctor shook his head and sat on the edge of the captain’s desk. ‘We are halfway through an eight-year mission; it’s only natural that the crew needs to blow off some steam. I think a few practical jokes is a harmless way for them to do so.’
‘The first three ships never had any problems like this. I never heard one report of any issues when the colonists were taken to Brayon V. Why does it have to be my ship?’
‘Well,’ said the doctor after a short pause, ‘our mission is different. We aren’t just going to a new planet. Setting out the communication relays is tedious work. The crew is under a lot of pressure each time we set up a relay station.’
The captain started pacing; a difficult task considering that his cabin was barely a ten-foot by ten-foot square. The fact that it contained his bed, a desk, and a storage trunk made walking back and forth that much more difficult. ‘I don’t care if the perpetrator is blowing off steam, it’s still unprofessional and undermines my authority.’
‘You aren’t the only one being pranked. Yesterday, I was using the microscope to examine a blood sample and when I finished, I had a big black circle around my eye. I didn’t even notice it until an hour and two patients later.’
‘Like I said, these pranks better stop. We have a deployment in two days and we can’t afford to have some jokester cause a screw-up.’ Humberg pivoted and began walking back across his quarters. His hand brushed against his desk, knocking a picture of his parents to the floor.
When had someone drawn a moustache and goatee on his mother?
‘Boy, the captain was really pissed,’ announced Ensign Margeret Tou while she stepped into the lower half of her extravehicular movement suit. She reached down and grabbed the top portion of the space suit and began to slide her arms into the sleeves.
‘He’s going to be more upset if we mess up this deployment,’ replied Specialist Abraham Bellow. ‘You just need to focus on the mission at hand.’
‘Who do you think is pulling all these pranks? I thought it was Dr Jones but then I saw him with a big black ring around his eye. Hilarious.’
‘You know what wouldn’t be hilarious? Not timing the deployment correctly.’ Abraham removed Tou’s helmet from a nearby shelf and prepared to place it on the ensign’s head.
‘I know one person I don’t suspect at all,’ continued Tou. ‘You, you don’t have any sense of humour.’
‘I’ll tell you one thing I don’t think is funny, not getting the communication satellite in synced orbit.’
‘You’re just upset because someone glued your shoes to the floor.’
Ignoring the ensign, Abraham lowered the helmet onto Tou’s suit and clamped it into position. ‘How’s that?’ he asked.
Tou was giving a thumbs-up sign when the captain’s voice came over the ship’s intercom.
‘ATTENTION, CREW!’ exploded from every speaker on the ship at a decibel level that threatened to shatter the entire crew’s eardrums. The initial blast was followed by an even more painful screech of feedback. After a moment, the captain spoke again at a more tolerable level. ‘Damn it, who was messing with the audio levels again?’
The captain continued without waiting for a reply. ‘All systems are a go for deployment. The mechanical arm is in place. Satellite Placement Crew, please begin the spacewalk. I am commencing the countdown to the end of the optimum deployment window. You have exactly thirty minutes on my mark. Mark.’
Ensign Tou and the second member of the Placement Crew, Lieutenant José Álvarez, climbed into the airlock and the door shut and sealed behind them. They each attached their tethers to the wall and watched as the outer hull of the ship opened. The two astronauts stepped through the opening. Free from the artificial gravity of The Telegraph, they started floating upward. Soon, they used their propulsion packs to manoeuvre themselves toward the large mechanical arm that extended from the top of the ship. Attached at the far end of the mechanical arm was the satellite. It was about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.
Making her way to the satellite, Ensign Tou removed a spanner from the tool belt of her spacesuit. She began to loosen one of the bolts holding the satellite in place. A slight tingling sensation began to form on the top of her head. Instinctively, she reached the spanner toward the top of her helmet and tried to scratch her head. This did no good. Before long, an irritating itch was digging its way into her scalp.
Realising the futility of trying to scratch her head while it was contained within the helmet that gave her oxygen and kept her alive, she tried rapidly moving her head from side to side, hoping that the top of her scalp would be able to reach and rub against her helmet. This action also failed to bring her any relief. The itch was beginning to spread. She tried to return her focus to her task but found it nearly impossible as the intense need to scratch was now working its way down both sides of her head. If only she could grab her ears and dig into them with a hairbrush or a fork.
‘How are things going, Tou?’ The call from Lieutenant Alverez came from the helmet’s built-in speakers. She desperately wished that Alverez’s sound waves could somehow satisfy the intense itching sensation.
Pressing the communication button on her suit’s shoulder, she replied. ‘I’m having a little trouble removing my bolts.’ She tried to give her assigned task renewed attention, but it was difficult with thousands of imaginary ants crawling around her scalp.
‘Well, hurry up. I’ve almost got my side ready to release.’
The act of deploying the satellite, while seemingly a simple task, required the utmost in precision. The Telegraph had already established five other satellites orbiting different planets between Earth and Brayon V. Each of the satellites they deployed had to be in orbit around a planet. Even under the best of circumstances, there would be long periods when the communication relays would be off-line due to one or more planets in the relay system being behind their sun. It was only when all the communication satellites were aligned with each other that the Earth would be able to send and receive messages with the colony on Brayon V.
Deploying the satellite outside the prescribed window could lead to unnecessary breaks in communication lasting weeks or even years.
By the time Ensign Tou removed the third of six bolts, her entire body was one massive, tortuous tingle. It took all of her willpower to continue working and not rip her suit off and rub her back against the mechanical arm.
‘Less than two minutes to optimum deployment,’ came the call from the ship. ‘Countdown commencing. T minus 100.’
The fourth bolt came free. Instead of catching it as she was supposed to, Tou watched it float off into space. She pushed her communicator button. ‘Alverez, I’m going to need some help. I still have two more bolts to release.’
‘What?’ shouted the speaker inside her helmet.
She worked vigorously at the fifth bolt.
‘T minus 60 seconds.’
Tou wanted to push the button and call for more help, but couldn’t afford to take the time. She also desperately wanted to roll around on a bed of nails but that wasn’t going to happen either. The fifth bolt was barely turning. The spanner kept sliding off, since it was difficult to grip with thousands of pins being stuck in her hands.
‘T minus 45 seconds.’
Something nudged her slightly, and she almost dropped her spanner. Luckily, she maintained her grip on it and renewed her attempts to remove the bolt. Lieutenant Alverez began working on the sixth bolt.
‘T minus 30 seconds.’
The itching sensation was reaching a crescendo. Not a single spot on Tou’s body was free from the enormously potent need to be scratched.
‘T minus 15 seconds.’
Somehow, she continued to turn her bolt. It broke free from the satellite just as the countdown announced, ‘T minus 10 seconds.’
‘9.’
‘8.’
Alverez pulled out the final bolt.
‘7.’
‘6.’
Tou’s body was on the verge of exploding if she could not find some way to satisfy the itch.
Alverez nudged her and motioned toward the release lever above Tou’s head.
‘5.’
‘4.’
She grabbed the lever and pulled her legs up, bracing them against the mechanical arm.
‘3.’
‘2.’
With all her strength, Tou pulled the lever, using her legs to push off from the arm.
‘1.’
The lever gave way, releasing the satellite into orbit around Brayon V.
‘0.’
‘What the heck is wrong with you?’ shouted Alverez’s voice inside her helmet. ‘You could have ruined our entire mission.’
Ensign Tou didn’t say a word. She was already using her propulsion pack to head back to the ship.
The airlock door had barely opened when Tou shot past the captain, the doctor, and a half-dozen other crew members. She tossed off her helmet, unzipped her exterior movement unit, and rubbed her back against the storage cabinet where the space suits were kept.
‘What happened out there?’ asked the captain, the displeasure dripping from his voice.
‘She couldn’t even get her assigned bolts in the allotted time,’ answered Alverez. His level of disdain was only slightly less than that of the captain.
‘I’m sorry,’ squealed Tou as she dug her fingers into her scalp and began moving them all about. ‘My whole body... it itches... it won’t stop.’
‘That’s no excuse for failure to perform...’
Dr Jones interrupted the captain. ‘Excuse me, Sir.’ He held up Tou’s helmet for the captain to examine. ‘Someone filled the Ensign’s helmet with itching powder.’ He reached into the helmet, touched the powder with his finger, and sniffed it. ‘I don’t know exactly what it is. Someone must have made it from the ship’s supplies.’
Captain Humberg and the three next highest-ranking officers on The Telegraph stood around the conference table.
‘Thank you for coming,’ said the captain. ‘We have much to discuss. Please, be seated.’
The captain and the others settled into their chairs.
PFFFT
Humberg quickly jumped to his feet. He grabbed a pink bladder from his chair and dropped it on the desk. Dr Jones was only minimally successful in containing his snicker.
‘How in the heck did someone get a whoopie cushion onto the ship?’ asked Captain Humberg, exasperated.
Chief Science Office Amy LaFluer picked up the device and examined it. ‘It appears to have been made using the ship’s 3-D printer. It’s constructed of thin plastic instead of rubber.’
‘Can you go back and look at the 3-D printer logs and see who was using it when this was made?’
‘Of course,’ replied LaFluer. She pulled a portable computer from her pack and began typing at a furious pace.
‘How can whoever’s doing this keep getting away with it?’ Captain Humberg shook his head. ‘We have had the crew paired up for two weeks. The pairs are rotated daily to ensure that there aren’t two people behind the pranks. Yet, they keep happening and no one says that they have seen anything. Is it possible that they are all in on it?’
‘I doubt Ensign Tou would have subjected herself to that itching powder. It took two days and twenty-three showers to get rid of it. And I’ve had nearly half the crew see me about some form of practical joke-induced problem since we started pairing them up. Yesterday, Specialist Bellow came to me to check if he was growing. Turns out, someone has been slowly hemming the bottom of his uniform pants to make them a tiny bit shorter every day.’
‘Who is doing this? How are they getting away with it?’ Humberg wanted to pound the top of the table but didn’t. There was a strong possibility the action would trigger some sort of pie-in-the-face moment.
‘Captain,’ announced LaFluer, setting her small computer aside. ‘I can find when the whoopie cushion was made but whoever did it gained access the printer without using their official ID code. It was done late at night when only a few crewmembers were on duty. None of their logs report seeing anyone or anything out of the ordinary.’
A knock on the conference room door interrupted any further angry questions from the captain.
‘Come in.’
Lieutenant Alverez entered the room and saluted the officers.
‘What is it, Lieutenant?’ asked the captain with renewed calm.
‘Well,’ began the young crewman, ‘I was playing a game on my computer, during my break, when my character lost its last life.’
‘That’s too bad, Lieutenant,’ interrupted Captain Humberg, ‘but that’s not something you need to report to me about.’
‘No, that’s not it,’ said Alverez. ‘You see, I decided to go into the computer settings and try to erase my last playing session so that I wouldn’t have to start the game all over again. It’s taken me eight months to get this far.’ After a brief pause, Alverez added, ‘Because, I only play the game when I’m on break and not all the time. Usually, I spend my free time studying ship manuals.’
‘Get on with your story,’ ordered Dr Jones.
‘You see, while I was messing with the settings, I noticed that my computer had been used about a dozen times, going back months, while I’ve been on duty.’
‘That just sounds like more of our prankster’s work. Were the keys switched around or something?’
‘No, Captain. What’s odd is that every time it was used, it was to access a data file about Earth life.’
‘And?’
‘The file was about old Earth practical joke customs.’
‘What?’ asked Dr Jones. ‘Why would anyone on this crew have to learn about practical jokes?’
For the first time in months, a smile formed on Captain Humberg’s lips. ‘Because the jokester isn’t a member of the crew.’
Captain Humberg walked over to the intercom located on the wall. He pushed the button only to be met with a painfully loud screeching sound. Calmly, he reached over and returned the volume knob to its proper setting.
‘Attention, crew. I need everyone to report to the conference room in a half-hour. Bring your code deciphering algorithm.’
Ensign Margaret Tou checked her watch. She turned toward her partner, Specialist Bellow, and raised two fingers. Three other pairs of crewmembers were scattered about the cargo bay.
‘This is very strange,’ said Tou. ‘Why did the captain have to encode the order and why are we doing this in the first place? If there is a stowaway on board, we’d have found them by now. It’s been more than four years.’
Bellow shook his head and held his finger up to his lips. ‘Shhh.’
Tou shrugged and continued walking between the stacks of crates that occupied about half of The Telegraph’s main storage hold. Most of the large boxes were filled with dehydrated food or vitamin-enriched field rations. The good food, the stuff they only got to eat once a week, was stored in a special freezer section on the main deck. Here, in the lower bowels of the ship, was where the day-to-day meals were kept, along with other necessities like replacement uniforms and toiletries.
Tou held up a single finger.
She swept her finger downward, indicating that it was time.
Slowly, everything in the cargo bay began to float upward. With the ship’s artificial gravity deactivated, anything not tied down would rise off the floor. Tou and Bellow surveyed their area.
Ensign Tou gasped. Without a word, she used the jetpack she was wearing to propel herself forward. Bellow followed suit.
The pair soon found themselves face to face with two of the oddest-looking creatures imaginable. They had to be aliens. The strange beings reminded Tou of the antique Cabbage Patch Kids that she had once seen in an American toy exhibit at the Smithsonian. The aliens were the same size as the dolls, though their skin was green, they were bald, they had a single antenna sticking out of the top of their head, and their fingers were disturbingly long. Come to think of it, they didn’t really look that much like Cabbage Patch Kids.
The tiny creatures tried to swim away from the approaching crewmembers. Without propulsion packs, they were unable to do so. They were waving their arms and kicking their legs but not going anywhere. One of them did manage to get itself so tangled up in dental floss that it looked like a caterpillar in a freshly spun cocoon.
Tou and Bellow each grabbed an alien.
The two aliens sat in the same conference room chair. Captain Humberg and Dr Jones sat across from them. Six guards stood around the captives, ready to grab them if they tried to make a run for it.
The creatures did not indicate any inclination toward trying to get away.
‘We are sorry,’ said the alien sitting on the right side of the chair, ‘we had no intention of causing you any problems.’
‘Yes,’ added the second, ‘we were just trying to have some fun. Your race has a highly developed sense of humour and we were just enjoying it.’ It, like its partner, spoke perfect English.
‘How did you get on our ship? When?’ asked the captain, not accepting the apology.
‘That’s a funny story,’ said the first alien. ‘You see, we had just been allowed to leave our planet...’
‘Banished, actually,’ corrected the second. ‘Our people don’t all share Acbo’s and my love of all things humorous.’
‘Yeah, Zignar is right, “banished” is a better word,’ continued Acbo. ‘They sent us on a mission to set a record for the most times orbiting our planet. They said that after a couple of thousand turns around our world, they might let us back... if we learned our lesson.’
‘And...’ Humberg made a circular motion with his hand, trying to get the aliens to get to the point.
‘We were on orbit number two hundred thirty-three when we saw your ship come to our world,’ answered Zignar.
‘When was this?’ asked Dr Jones.
Acbo thought for a moment, counting on his grossly elongated fingers. ‘About nine of your months ago.’
‘That would be when we made the fifth satellite drop,’ interjected Captain Humberg.
‘We used our emergency space suits and entered your ship through the opening for the large mechanical arm,’ said Acbo.
‘We observed you for a while, learning your language and technology,’ continued Zignar.
The aliens continued their story, alternating comments.
‘It was easy hiding and getting food from your large storage area.’
‘We especially enjoyed listening to many of your humorous statements.’
‘I still laugh about the time Ensign Tou said that her shoes hurt her feet.’
‘We appreciated your humour so much that we decided to do extensive research.’
‘That’s when we discovered your fantastic art form called the practical joke.’
‘We just had to try some.’
‘I guess we got a little carried away.’
‘What are we going to do with them?’ asked Dr Jones, when the aliens finally paused. ‘We can’t turn the ship around and take them back to their world. We have to keep going to Brayon V.’
‘I know,’ said the captain.
‘We don’t want to go back,’ said Acbo. ‘Please, let us stay with you.’
‘We will have to send a message to Earth about having discovered a new... intelligent species. Since the communication system isn’t finished, the message will take a long time to reach Earth. We’ll just have to confine the aliens to the brig until we finish our mission and get to Brayon V. Let command figure out what to do with the alien planet once our communique reaches them.’
‘We don’t mind being placed in your ship prison,’ said Zignar. ‘It is much more spacious than our satellite was. However, Captain, we will require a henway.’
‘What’s a henway?’ asked Captain Humberg
‘Oh, about five pounds,’ said Acbo.
After about a full minute of ecstatic laughter, Zignar caught his breath enough to ask, ‘Will you still allow us to listen to your crew? It is greatly entertaining to us.’
‘Yes, of course. We’ll have someone visit you daily. We want to learn all we can about your home world,’ said the captain.
Dr Jones smiled. ‘I think I have an even better idea. You will find it very entertaining.’
‘Great,’ said Acbo, ‘we have a deal. We will refrain from practical jokes and you will provide us with humorous interactions.’
‘We should shake on it.’ Zignar extended his right hand toward Captain Humberg.
The captain shrugged before reaching for Zignar.
‘Stop!’ shouted Dr Jones. He grabbed the back of the little alien’s hand and turned it so the palm faced upward.
Resting in Zignar’s palm was a tiny hand zapper. ‘We had to try one last time.’
Dr Jones and Captain Humberg sat in the captain’s quarters, enjoying a celebratory beverage.
‘I’ve got to say,’ announced Humberg, ‘giving the aliens access to Three Stooges videos was a brilliant idea.’
‘We’ve only given them one so far. They’ve watched it forty-seven times and still laugh just as hard as they did the first time.’
‘For what appears to be a very intelligent race, they sure have a strange sense of humour.’
Dr Jones thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think it’s their entire race, it’s just those two. I think I understand why their people put them up in that satellite.’
‘You know, I like them,’ said Captain Humberg. ‘Heck, they even gave me a gift from the stash of our supplies they had hidden away.’
The captain picked up a can of cheese puffs from his desk. ‘I’ve never heard of this brand before. Do you want some?’ He began to undo the cover.
‘Wait, don’t do that,’ called Dr Jones, but it was too late.
The spring-loaded snake hit Captain Humberg right in the nose.
