Starship Armstrong - Season 1

Part 6 - The Serfs of Al-Qaum (VI)

A few hours earlier...

"What does any of this have to do with improving farm yield?" asked Turlin Marlowe.

"Absolutely nothing," said Dr. Kang "Just look at all this equipment? You don't think I need these sort of resources to evaluate farms do you? That kind of work is background noise for a mind such as mine. I could do it while I sleep but it is your profound fortune that I am giving the matter my waking attention. Just not all of it. That would be a criminal waste. So no, setting up all of this equipment doesn't have anything to do with increasing farm yield, but it justifies my presence here wasting my time worrying about the efficiency with which you make semiedible vegetable sludge. Now, if you have no further asinine questions I need to make sure my assistants calibrated the graviton radar properly."

Marlowe decided to let the matter rest. In his short experience with Dr. Kang he had learned that it probably wasn't worth trying to interfere with him.

"So what are you occupying your mind with, if not farming?" asked Marlowe.

"I have very little confidence you would understand. It wouldn't be worth my time trying to explain this to you, but if you insist on making the effort you can speak with one of my assistants. Not McAfree, she knows what she's doing, she's actually valuable. Talk to Wagner."

Wagner looked up from calibrating the graviton radar improperly to bristle at the insult.

"Alright then, Wagner, what can you tell me about what you're doing here," asked Marlowe.

Dr. Kang took Wagner's place at the graviton radar's control panel. Wagner rolled his eyes.

"We got some unusual readings on the wide spectrum scanners when we were analyzing your soil composition. Levels as high as 25 parts per million of bucolic miasma, which unless there's some kind of highly advanced secret underground civilization on this moon is non-indigenous," Wagner laughed, indicating that this was a joke, and so Marlowe laughed to give the impression that he understood "Dr. Kang thinks there's some kind of crashed starcraft left over from the imperial age so we're going to see if we can't bounce some gravitons off it. To be honest we could probably be using a less obtrusive scanning method but Dr. Kang really wanted to use the graviton radar."

"You think there's an ancient starship buried under here?" asked Marlowe.

"Well maybe more like a cutter, although it could be something bigger," said Wagner.

"What are you planning on doing with the ship if you find it?" asked Marlowe.

"If you're worried about salvage rights, don't be," said Wagner "We won't be contesting your claim. Dr. Kang just got distracted by the miasma and then he had the idea to get out the graviton radar, and so we're probably going to be here for a while. Starcraft is just his current hypothesis. It could be nothing."

"How long is a while?" asked Marlowe.

"Do you use Earth time here? Do you know what a standard hour is?" asked Wagner.

Marlowe nodded.

"Lots and lots of those," said Wagner.

"And what about the farm?" Marlowe almost pleaded.

"Oh Dr. Kang wasn't lying when he said he was working on it," said Wagner "As a byproduct of his curiosity this farm is getting about the most thorough scanning in it's history. We're definitely going to be able to suggest something that will help when all is said and done."

"Well there's that," said Marlowe, not relishing being down here for that long.

"Vostok to Dr. Kang. Come in Dr. Kang," came a voice from Dr. Kang's communicator, which he had discarded atop one of the equipment boxes.

"Wagner, could you get that?" asked Dr. Kang.

Wagner picked up the communicator.

"Dr. Kang's assistant Ensign Wagner speaking, may I help you?"

"We're coming in to pick you all up, pack up your stuff and meet us at the rendezvous point. The Captain wants to speak to Mr. Marlow," said the voice on the comm.

"You tell the Captain that I'm in the middle of something and can't be reached," said Dr. Kang "I'm not leaving here until I'm finished. If she wants to leave this system without me she can do so and explain herself to the Foundation."

"I can hear you, Dr. Kang," said the voice on the comm "You're yelling."

"I'll go back," said Marlowe "She said she wanted to talk to me, I think you can all handle yourself from here without my help."

Marlowe took the communicator from Wagner.

"I'll be at the rendezvous point in five minutes," said Marlowe.

Marlowe picked up the jacket he had removed and put it back on, before jogging off towards the rendezvous point.

Dr. Kang waited until Marlowe was completely out of sight before he laughed and said:

"Bucolic miasma?"

"That was the best I could come up with when someone puts me on the spot like that," said Wagner.

"You shouldn't have said there was a starship," said McAfree "Now Marlowe is going to be wanting to hear about our results. The Al-Qaum government will want to salvage this phantom starship of yours."

"So we'll just lie and say it was nothing. We got false readings because we didn't operate our equipment properly," said Wagner.

"Nobody would believe that," said Dr. Kang "That's an absurd premise. I don't make mistakes. The next time we speak with Marlowe I will craft the perfect lies to make him believe whatever I want. Manipulating Marlowe is clearly not something I can delegate. I will be doing all my human chess playing personally from now on."

"Do you need any more help?" asked Wagner.

"I am almost finished undoing the damage from your earlier help," said Dr. Kang "You new job is to not distract me. You're doing terrible so far. Are you ready with the reciever?"

"Ready when you are, Doc," said McAfree.

"Then let's meddle with the fundamental forces of the universe," said Dr. Kang, firing the graviton radar.