"All ours already, I'm afraid. You'll have to think of something else."
The first officer conferred with some of the other crew. The Captain was staring into space with a blank look on his face. By Centauran tradition, anything going on so far above his head was obviously beneath him.
"Well?" the voice echoed.
"Information?" said the first officer.
"Good," said the voice patronizingly. "Tell me something I don't already know. What's a quetzal? What rhymes with orange? Who won the 1991 Stanley Cup?"
"I don't know," said the first officer, hitting the end of his rope. He started crying.
"You people," said the voice, "Okay, I'll make it easy. Who are all those fat women on board the Gerrald?"
"Fat women?" said the second officer, taking over for his superior who was trying to curl fetally against his bindings.
"Look, damnation, I just want to know if the large number of fat women on the ship indicates the presence of the Fat Ladies' Mafia."
"Fat Ladies' Mafia?"
"Hopeless. Where's the Captain?"
All the members of the crew who had hands free pointed. "Hum?" said the Captain.
"That?" bellowed the voice.
"He's not much," said the second officer with a certain degree of satisfaction, "But he's all we've got."
X
Minnie and Annette rounded the corner into another empty hall. Bobby trailed behind, studying the sprinkler system. Multitudes of first-rate questions were presenting themselves to him.
Suddenly, a door swung open, and Minnie found herself face to face with a man dressed in a space suit. Before she could even gasp, Annette had grabbed the young man in a stranglehold, one thick arm pressed under his chin and the other pointing the laser disruptor at his head. The door swung shut behind him.
"Quiet," hissed the big woman, "Or I'll blow your head off."
Minnie's eyes opened wide in shock. Annette gritted her teeth, and grinned. "I love this stuff."
"Please, don't hurt me," said the pirate in a choked whisper. "I'll do anything you say."
"All right, Mr. Turncoat Pirate, where are they holding the prisoners?"
The pirate motioned to his throat and Annette eased off on her hold to let him speak more easily. "They're scattered around the ship in all the big rooms."
"Who's in there?" asked Annette, indicating the room he'd just left with her elbow.
"I don't know," he said, "a bunch of guys with blue hair and a whole bunch of fat women."
"How many? The fat women." Her chest was heaving, some kind of reaction to anticipation, Minnie guessed.
"Fifty or so," said the pirate, and collapsed in a heap.
"You didn't have to hit him," said Minnie reproachfully.
"Sorry, dear," said Annette. "You didn't really just expect me to say, okay, dear, just keep quiet and don't run for help while we go in and rescue an elite fighting force to take the ship back from your friends?"
"Well, no," said Minnie.
"Good," said Annette. "Bobby! Come on, you two. We've got some rescuing to do." She rubbed her hands together gleefully. "I love this stuff, I really do."
At the pudgy woman's instruction, Minnie positioned herself by the door. Annette flung open it, and the two of them rushed in, brandishing their weapons. Bobby trailed a little behind, smiling broadly.
"Oh," said Annette, "You have it all in hand."
The fifty fat women in the room cheered and indicated their former captors, stretched unconscious on the floor. The blue-hairs had congregated near the back of the room, looking nervous.
The room was the Gerrald's ballroom, a huge place with a high, domed ceiling and hideously ornate purple mouldings. Minnie was fascinated, and set her dicta-typer on a table. She wandered around the circumference of the ballroom, while Annette conferred with one of the fat ladies, blissfully unaware that wherever she went, the fat ladies began talking in quick, excited little whispers.
"Oh, Minnie dear," shouted Annette from across the room. Minnie was engaged in studying a grotesque candlestick. "Come here and meet Drusilla, my second-in-command."
Minnie crossed the room quickly, and the eyes of fifty fat women followed her. She stuck out her hand, and Drusilla shook with a grip that wouldn't have shamed Godzilla.
"Nice to meet you," gasped Minnie.
Drusilla's eyes glowed. "I can't believe I'm finally meeting you, Miss Minnie. Your mom is so great. This is the best day of my life."
"Now," said Annette, "All we have to do is decide what Minnie's going to say to the pirates."
"Agreed," said Drusilla. "All our lives are in her hands."
Minnie nodded, then panicked. "What do you mean, what I'm going to say?"
"You outrank us all," said Annette. "It's natural that you should be the one to negotiate with the enemy."
"Hold on," said Minnie, her voice going up a few semi-tones. "I've never done anything like this before."
"There's a first time for everything, dear," said Drusilla in a conciliatory tone.
"But - " said Minnie.
"All of us are counting on you," said Annette, and fifty fat women made puppy dog eyes at Minnie.
"All right," said Minnie finally. "I'll do it. But I won't have any more fighting." She picked up her still unused dicta-typer and removed it from its wrapper. "I aim to prove that the word is mightier than the sword."
The door chose that exact moment to burst open in a blaze of completely unnecessary pyrotechnics. When the smoke cleared, there were two shapes at the top of the stairs leading into the ballroom.
One was seated in his standard carrying-chair, held aloft by six sweating stewards: the Captain.
The other was human in shape, but its face was absolutely grotesque. Tusks grew out of several parts of its head. The eyes glowed red, and bulged out from their sockets by half a foot. Behind this creature stood the pirates, fifty humanoid cutthroats, looking mean as kicked tomcats.
"Who is leader here?" bellowed the man-like thing.
Minnie stuck the dicta-typer under her arm and steeled herself for a confrontation. "I am," she said.
What happened next was totally unexpected. The thing dropped to its knees. "My lady," it said.
"Excuse me," said the Captain, oblivious to the group dynamics as usual but finally recognizing something he could deal with. "Does this mean you're ready to negotiate? I look down on you too, now."
"What do you want from us?" said Minnie, gripping her dicta-typer more firmly.
"Only to gaze on your beauty for eternity," said the thing.
"I agree your lowness is greater than my lowness, Sir Ugly," said the Captain. "I swear my loyalty to you and fifty generations of your descendants."
"What?" said Minnie. "You mean rape and pillage and booty, don't you?"
"You are a dulcet dream of gossamer music drifting through the endless reaches of space, a symphony of light, a vision of harmonies."
The Captain's eyebrows furrowed. "Why will you not speak to your grommeting servituder? I am sorry for that insultation in the time directly preceding this one about your lack of facial graces." He was perturbed now, speaking so quickly that for once, there was actually a flow to his words.
"I want to negotiate for the release of your prisoners, and the return of their property," said Minnie, struggling with the Captain's sudden deference to the stranger, and with the difficulty of crossing verbal swords with an enemy who refused to be contrary.
"Anything you want, sweet beauty," said the thing.
"Well," Minnie began, and was interrupted by a rising howl from the far side of the room. Every head in the room turned in surprising unison - to see that all the blue-hairs had congregated in the centre of the ballroom dance floor.
They stood in a circle, holding hands and howling like rabid animals.
Minnie stared, as their outlines blurred, and suddenly their human shapes melted away. In their place suddenly stood a group of giant blue rats.
"Space rats!" hollered Annette, and dove under a large table. Fifty fat women followed suit, each using a different table, of course. Annette emerged from under the tablecloth with a huge semi-automatic laser.
"SSSooo," hissed the largest of the space rats, "Our nemeses, the Fffat Ladies' Mafffia have followed ussss yet again, even into ssspace. Do not meddle, sssssilly women. We ratssss are bent on universsal domination and nothing will sssstop ussss."
"A pretty speech, Rat," said Annette. "We of the Fat Ladies' Mafia are well aware of your petty plans to conquer Earth starting by taking over the Neo-Parisian fashion scene. Our hairdressers have infiltrated your organization, and even as we speak, our agents are moving in to paralyse your operations on Earth."
"Nnnnoooo!" screamed the largest rat, "It cannnnnot beeee! Our plan was fooool-prooooof!"
"Then you didn't reckon on the size of the fools in your organization," said Annette with a smirk. "I've been in constant light-speed communication with Earth. Face it, Ratty, dear, you are finished."
"We can sssstill destroy the line of ssssucesssion to your Mafiossso Queennnn!" screamed the large rat. "Tooo bbbbattle, ratsss! Kill the Fairy Godddd-dddaughter, Minnie Finssster!"
"What?" said Minnie, backing up a step.
The rats rushed toward her, a wall of blue fur and claws, screaming in unison, "The ratsss must prevaillll!"
"Must you always scream?" asked Bobby, and was pushed under a table by his wife.
"Have at it, ladies," yelled Annette, brandishing her weapon, and all the other fat ladies sprang from under the tables, large guns blazing.
