But Who Yet Materialized

Captain Jameson T-Shirt can not deal well with the strange mix of wavers coming from Planet Ozone Mk-2. Another star ship, a Deity 6H6 vessel is in the area. At the helm of that ship is Kirk's old pain in the food chain, Harry Mudd. Onboard Mudd has powerful stuff running. None of the pirate's cargo are flesh and blood women today or tonight. None are technically jailbait as the Federation numbers go. Or slave colonists from Revulon, stripped of their compacts. The android babes are only dancing, and wearing chastity belts for illusion. The electronic chastity belts looked better than panties, Mudd thought. Even better than garters. The dancing robots look like real human females and all wear denim. They wear colorful tee-shirts and western-style shirts. Then over their bell-bottoms the entertainers wear the chastity belts. If the android females do not wear tight-fitting jeans or bell-bottoms they wear short skirts Donovan might find appealing on neon nights. Sardonically, Mudd has all the android women password-protected. He found the human prototype for The Urgents on Planet X-Tr8. He used KC because she made the best whiskey sours and because of her tie-dyed cotton shirts. The androids slowed their dancing and awaited Mudd's next command. As well as some cosmetologicals.

Pick-A-Card's Old Grand Dad is in the same quadrant as both Capt. T-Shirt and Harry Mudd, but in a later time slot. Pick-A-Card is The Shadow of the 129 solar systems. Occasionally a rum runner, half-evil, half-good and also likes to leer. Lucas is the kind of starship captain who always has extra grooming utensils. He has extra baking soda he brushes his teeth with. He smuggled that from the Vector System. Dave owed it to him, in the captain's mind. Pick-A-Card's ship always has to wait for supplies and fuel, hanging around and watching Asian elephants having sex on The Next Discovery.

Captain Pick-A-Card has had to discipline Mannu-Wharf. The Captain relegated Wharf to the ship basmement. Wharf hollers down in the basement, which is also the galley. His deep voice is muffled and basically Wharf is talking to himself, though he can be heard from time to time in the corridors of the the ship. Pick-A-Card toys with the idea of sending Wharf down some war paint.

"I am going to get Captain T-Shirt. He cheats at seven card, he lies to women about his past missions. I know Kirk's past achievements as a swaggering space captain. He also found a way to rig the holodeck, him and Sortie. The last time I went to the Holodeck for some relaxation I thought I was in Jurassic Park. Kirk should stay on his own ship."

Pick-A-Card had decided to put Wharf on detention for his flirtations with a new yeoman. The two were fondling openly on the main deck. And there was a yellow alert because of an alien ship. What else is new, right, the moody captain mused. Is there not always a yellow alert because of a passing alien ship? The last logged passing of one read that it was a commercial cruiser. It was selling ice cream. Lt. Commander Ketone-Trois had a hankering for lime sherbet that would not stop.

Pick-A-Card said "You are Betazoid? You require cold confections? You can't hold back until we get to the next port?

The commander thought. The next port? Why no. I don't think that I can. If I wanted to I could wait. Ketone-Trois knew the Captain could not read minds.

Wharf had found the wine coolers down in the galley made from the giant grapes of Nebuleen. Hopefully, the Klingon would soon pass out...but after he would be singing folk songs and ballads of the Klingons. To be heard all over the second class starship.

The wavers from Planet Ozone are still bugging Captain T-Shirt. He is trying in vain to have a meeting with an admiral's aid, getting frequency feed-over from a soccer game on a close frequency. Then a camera finds a fan at the soccer game. The fan has a hand-held device that detected what star fleets were in the area. And who was up there. The fan looked up at the camera.

"It's Captain T-Shirt of the Starship Carotene!"

Kirk thought. Somebody give that guy an I-Pod. A faulty one.

The soccer fan is looking at the captain through the main telescreen. Like the guy was looking through the third wall. "Hello Captain T-Shirt."

About this time space captain's communicator beeps.

"Are you on television too, Captain?" It was Mudd.

"What are you doing here, Harry Mudd?"

"Well...they said it was harder to mess up the future than screw up the past, so here I am."

"Who is they, Harry? Isaac Asimov?"

"I have a clean record, Jeremiah. So far. Right now I am carrying entertainment, and none of them need a green card, a blue card, or a red card."

"Where did you get the hardware and the software? Are you carrying androids, Harry?"

Lt. Chelsea Lightspeed, the communications officer, spoke. She had been listening to the soccer game when she got a message that Pick-A-Card wanted to speak to Kirk.

Put him on, Lieutenant. T-Shirt thinks, I'll speak to both of them. What else do I have to do, right?

"Hold that thought, Harry. Captain Pick-A-Card. This is the Captain of the Starship Carotene. Aren't you just a little bit out of your area?"

"Have you forgotten about our poker game we have every solar year?"

Captain T-Shirt stretches, yawns. "Well, it's your money, Captain Pick-A-Card."

---

The Captain of The Enterprise was having real trouble out here in space, so far from a good racquetball court and a dry sauna. Mudd was on board, flanked by two guards and with a healthy stack of chips. Pick-A-Card was holding his own with ten red chips and a few blue and white. T-Shirt had four doubloons he had been saving for a rainy day and it looked like rain. The Enterprise Captain had a pair of kings and an ace of diamonds. Mudd had a better hand. It was always hard to know what cards Pick-A-Card was holding with the patch over his eye. A crew member who usually tended bar in the lounge was dealing. She was doing a good job, being very fair but she was keeping an eye on Mudd. Scotty was taking a brief hiatus to play cards with the other men but he was not a very good card player. If he had left off the scotch he'd be doing better--Scotty was down to only eight chips. The chief engineer was too emotional, and sounded like steam when he got lousy cards. He called when the dealer offered another card, and so did the captain. Mudd took one. Pick-A-Card took two and T-Shirt rubbed his clean-shaven chin.

Mudd won the last hand with three jacks. T-Shirt had to go back on duty, and so did Scotty. Just as the game ended, Commander Socrates walked into the game room.

"I need to speak to you in private, Captain."

Captain Jeremiah T-Shirt went to stand in the corner with his first officer.

"Yes, Socrates?"

There is a vessel that appears to be lost in the vicinity. One of the navigators said to me that the purple and yellow starship looks like a cross between a yellow submarine and a Jefferson Airplane."

T-Shirt placed his jaw in the palm of his hand. The Captain showed no emotion. Like it was just another day at work. He might have been playing poker and winning.

"Psychedelics, Socrates? Or some blue agave tequila?"

"The crew member, sir?" Socrates was more confused.

"Could you get the captain of the vessel on screen?"

"Only audio sir. Someone saying "far out" over and over again.

"Well, Socrates, we do know our navigator is not intoxicated. Someone else on deck validate the submarine and the The Airplane?"

"Yes, Captain. Lieutenant Lightspeed."

"Well, we will have to direct their ship home. I had a dream last night. What a lovely dream it was."

Socrates, the half-human, tries hard not to act condescendingly toward his captain.

"I don't believe that should be a problem, captain. It's MAKING them go I worry about."