[ 45 ]

I COME TO FRIBBY’S RESCUE

When I burst into the spaceship, I’m shocked at what I find there.

I don’t see blood. I don’t smell blood either. And my horns are tingling like crazy. My scaly green body is flooded with WILL TO POWER and I whip my tail around behind me, keeping it ready to help propel me with lightning speed if I need to make any sudden movements.

Then I see her.

What is she doing?

Fribby’s staring out the fool windshield as if she is lost in thought. This is yet another characteristic of Fribby. She can daydream or get caught up in a memory so that she loses touch with the present. She’s the first machine I’ve ever seen that can drift right off in the middle of a conversation and get a vacant look in her eyes when she thinks what you’re saying is boring.

Now when Fribby hears me burst through the spaceship’s door she turns and looks at me. “What are you doing here, Weak Sauce?”

What’s going on? Where’s all the blood?

My tail is thrashing around behind me.

And then Fribby says: “I was just coming in to go to my next lecture in the Egg Hatchery. Professor Natch is giving a lecture this afternoon on Conquering Minor Planets and Laying Your Egg in Enemy Territory.”

And like I said, my horns are tingling like a bastard.

“Hey Weak Sauce,” she says. “Are we dead?”

I can feel a bunch of lava rushing to my skull.

“Don’t start,” I growl.

“I mean seriously,” she says, flapping her silver wings. “I’ve been thinking. Is it possible that right now we’re already dead?”

“Heck no, we’re not dead,” I growl. “You said you were bleeding. I thought you cut your leg!”

“How do you know we aren’t dead?” says Fribby.

“I just know, that’s all.”

“Have you ever been dead?”

“No, I haven’t ever been dead. Not in the way you’re talking about.”

Then Fribby peers at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time. “Hey Weak Sauce, your beak looks funny. What’s that big bump on your forehead? Hey, have you been crying?”

“Why’d you send me that message? I nearly killed myself flying back here!”

“What message are you talk—”

But then she claps a metal talon over her beak. It looks like she starts to step toward me but then her scaly body commences jerking back and forth and I can instantly tell that something is wrong. Her tail is whipping around behind her as if she has no control over it.

What the—?