The Ill-mannered Door (humorous sci-fi)

41.1: Into the Dark

The transition from the bright sunshine above to the near darkness of the hold below made my eyes slow to adjust to the new environment, so I moved cautiously.

Once my vision improved, I found myself in a passage that ran toward the rear of the ship and led off toward the front. I reasoned that since most of the ship was toward the front from where I stood, so I turned in that direction. From somewhere in the distance up ahead, I could make out a flickering light, and I started to make my way slowly along the passage toward it.

As I went, I passed a mix of crew quarters and storage areas, all of which were dark, other than the little bit of light let in by the occasional small gap between the deck planks above.

The battle continued to rage up on deck, and I heard the clash of swords and the screams of those who had been unfortunate enough to find themselves outmatched. These sounds, combined with the oppressive near darkness I made my way through, began to play on my mind.

Now, my imagination has always been what you might call overactive, so it was more than ready to play havoc with me as I moved slowly along the passage, staring wide-eyed at the darkened shapes of what I hoped were nothing more than barrels, sacks, and other items stored for the voyage. That overactive imagination, however, assured me that everywhere I looked were swarthy sailors with long knives lying in wait.

The rational, scientific part of my brain did its best to poo-poo the idea, but after my encounter with ole Bart, my rational mind seemed to be scrambling to find some weapon it could use in the pitched battle it was rapidly losing for my psyche. For my part, I clenched the bat more tightly and moved along.

After I had moved a short distance down the passage, the Esmerelda suddenly rolled a bit toward my right and I stumbled. Then came a sudden thump, followed by a bang from off to my left. I jumped a good foot before turning to interpose the bat between me and whatever, or whoever, had made the noises.

Although my imagination gloated triumphantly that it had been right all along, the rational side finally decided that something had just fallen over and that it was perfectly safe to move along, though perhaps at an increased pace, just for good measure. So, that is precisely what I did.

Moving further down the passage, my hands began to ache, so I did my best to relax and try not to grip the bat quite so tightly. Breathing is good for relaxation, or so I'd been informed. Yes, breathing would help, I decided, so I tried some of that. I felt a bit better, and not quite as lightheaded. I was a firm believer in the whole breathing thing after that and kept right on doing it.

As I continued to walk at a more quickened pace, I began to make out the sound of someone mumbling to himself, and given that it sounded more frustrated than threatening, I pressed on.

I soon recognized that the mumbling voice belonged to the king, so I hurried ahead and saw that the passage emerged into a large hold. There, near the center of the hold, was the king, his back to me as he worked over a large shape that could only be the bomb.

The flickering light I had spotted from down the passage turned out to be an old lantern placed atop a nearby stack of crates, which provided most of the light. The rest came from above where a small amount of sunlight peeked in around the edges of a large section of the ceiling that looked removable. I guessed that was probably how the crew got the current cargo down into the hold.

There came a loud creak from a loose floorboard as I entered the room.

"Oooh," the king exclaimed and nearly fell as he spun 'round, clearly quite startled.

"It's me!" I assured him.

"Who?" he asked skeptically, moving to interpose the bomb between us.

"Thomas!" I said as I moved toward where the bomb had been placed near the center of this part of the hold.

"Oh yes, Thomas, of course," he said as I emerged into the light.

I saw some of his usual color beginning to return to his face as I asked, "Have you disarmed the bomb?"

"Not as yet, no," he said, resuming his work.

"Well, is it going to take much longer?" I asked.

"Of course, this isn't a quick and easy process you know, especially given this sort of lighting," he said, gesturing in annoyance toward the nearby lantern. "Do you know I can almost see what I'm doing at times? Simply smashing!"

"Yes, well, do you think you could hurry things along? I don't think we have much time."

"Oh, so you'd like me to rush this delicate, not to mention dangerous, process?" The king asked.

I shook my head with a sigh and said, "No, but I feel you could move it along just a smidge."

"Oh, you do, do you? And tell me, Thomas, just how much do you know about disarming nuclear weapons?"

"I've read some journals," I said with a nervous look back at the passage I had come from. My imagination swore profusely that it had heard something down the passage in the distance, but my rational mind reminded me of the harmless object which had fallen over moments ago and smiled smugly to itself.

"Oh yes, I'm sure you have. Please, I'll bet you don't even know what a nuclear physicist's favorite food is, do you?" he asked, looking down his nose at me.

I sighed heavily and said, "Oh, I don't know, is it fission chips?"

"Hah! No, it's fission... Nevermind."

The king then went back to working on disarming the bomb, but it wasn't long before he stopped again and said, "So tell me, Thomas, what exactly is your field of specialty? Chemical engineering or something? Biophysics?"

I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing, nor did I want to endure his insufferable elitism, so I simply said, "Wouldn't you like to know. And, even better, wouldn't you like to get back to work? It's only a matter of time before--"

"It's not oceanography is it, studying the mating habits of fish and all that? Zoology? Hmm, you don't look like the type who might hang about teaching primates sign language..." he said tapping an index finger alongside his temple as he stared up at the ceiling. Then he suddenly pointed that finger at me and said, "Oh... please don't tell me you're a geologist. One of those blokes running about mumbling to himself about stratification and all that rubbish?"

"Could you please get back to work?" I said.

Once again, I thought I had heard something in the distance, but couldn't see anything down that dark passage.

The king pondered a bit before saying, "You know, I could work more quickly if my feet weren't so sore from all of this standing. It's really quite distracting. Perhaps those posh new--"

I rounded on him to nip that firmly in the bud with, "You're not getting my new slippers."

"But--"

"No!"

He then went back to work with a huff, mumbling under his breath.

That's when I heard the unmistakable creak of the loose floorboard in the darkness behind me.