STAR SPECK: DEEP SPACE MINE

                                PROPHET MORON

                              by Stanley Dunigan


   In his quarters, Quack was thrashing about in pleasure as a woman from
YAUAR (Yet Another Unknown Alien Race) vigorously massaged his ears.
   "Keep that up and you'll get your gross stumpbolts for half-price,"
Quack lied, mentally upping the actual price by another ten percent for
good measure.
   "Oh, Quack, you absolute doll!" the woman shrieked happily, nearly
tearing his ears off in her joy.
   Just as Quack was about to propose other forms of physical stimulation,
his doorbell rang.
   "Ah," he said, getting up to answer the door. "That must be the
Psorexian brandy I ordered to get you drunk...I mean, for us to enjoy
together."
   "Take a hike!" Rum, Quack's brother, shouted as soon as the door was
open. "Hit the trail! Vamoose! Scramola! And so on."
   "Rum!" Quack snapped angrily. "Can't you see I'm `busy'?" He winked
repeatedly and pointed to the alien woman, who was waiting patiently by the
diminutive couch.
   "It's not my fault, Brother!" Rum whined, nervously glancing over his
shoulder. He gasped as two figures loomed in the doorway. "He's here!"
   As the two figures entered the room, Quack could see that one of them
was a tall, dumb-looking Hugeperson servant, and the other one was a short
and fat person with a large, pointed hood covering his head and shoulders.
   Suddenly, Quack noticed that the hooded guy was carrying a gnarly old
staff with a gold top that was carved into a crude likeness of the First
Fingerii of Fortune and Fame.
   "Greed Naggus Zork!" Quack gasped in awe, deducing that it was indeed
that wrinkly personage hiding under the hood. "What has he done?" he
whispered into Rum's ear. "Joined the KKK?"
   "No, Brother," Rum said. "He's become the Unknown Fingerii Comic."
   "Eeeeyouzah!" Zork said, tap-dancing crazily about the room. "Hyuk, hey,
Quack! How many Fingerii does it take to change a lightbulb?"
   "I-I don't know," Quack stammered in confusion. "How many Fingerii does
it take to change a lightbulb?"
   "One billion!" Zork screeched with great hilarity. "One to hold the
lightbulb, and 9,999,999 to turn the planet! Hee, hee, hee, hee!"
   Quack just stood and stared in horrified disbelief.
   "Come now, Brother," Rum said as Zork's servant made impatient "get out"
gestures. "We must leave. You too, Miss YAUAR."
   "Why?" Quack demanded. "What is he doing?"
   "It looks like he's taking over the place," Rum said observantly as he
shoved a protesting Quack out the door.

   Doctor Basher was busily "working" on the medical computers in the
infirmary when Commander Crisco called him up on the intercom and told him
to report to wardrobe immediately.
   "Dang it, Commander," Basher whined, "I'm about to make a record-
breaking high score of 3,000 points on the DSM-MAN game. Can't it wait?"
   "Nope," Crisco said. "Move it, bub."
   Angrily turning the computer off with his fist, Basher got up and
stomped out the infirmary door and headed off the set to the wardrobe room.
He was so upset, he didn't notice that the camera crew was carefully
following him and getting everything down on film.
   "All right!" he griped, throwing the wardrobe door open and stomping
inside. "What -?"
   "Surprise!" the entire cast of DSM yelled, flipping on the lights and
throwing confetti all over the stunned doctor.
   "Huh?" Basher said, open-mouthed.
   "Listen to this!" Crisco said, revealing a datapad with a grand
flourish. "The nominees for this year's Dontcarington award for the most
blatant medical blunders are: Dr. Cardorkian, Dr. I.B. Quack, Nurse Sockit
Tuya, and...ta, da! Dr. Hooligan Basher! Yeah!"
   Everyone yelled and cheered and grinned stupidly.
   "I-I don't know what to say," Basher said, obviously at a loss for
words. "I would like to thank all of my dead patients for making me what I
am today, and for not bringing any malpractice suits against me, and -"
   "Oh, can it," Hax interrupted him. "I'm the one that got you nominated.
I pulled a few political strings, passed a few strategic bribes, and all
that sort of thing. That reminds me, you owe me about fifty bars of old-
stressed platinum for that."
   "Great," Basher grumbled.
   "Hey, cheer up!" Kuta shrieked ecstatically. "Your three-hundred-page
essay about the harmful effects of DSM programming on the average
television viewer was fantastical and ground-breaking, or at least that's
what Hax says. I really couldn't stay awake past the first paragraph or
so."
   "Er, thanks," Basher stuttered.
   "So how does it feel to be the youngest doctor to ever be nominated for
the Dontcarington award?" O'Bruin asked.
   "Just great, Chief," Basher said, throwing the drink he had been handed
earlier onto the floor. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some serious game-
playing to do." He turned and stomped out the door.
   "Hee, hee," Crisco said with a forced smile, inwardly resolving to
pummel the bratty ingrate soundly for ruining the mood of the party.

   Later on, after the party had broken up, Hax hunted Basher down and tore
into his head.
   "Ow!" Basher yelped in pain. "Stop pulling my hair, Jacuzzi. That's a
naughty little girl."
   "You are such an ingrate!" Hax snapped at him. "After all the trouble
and expense I went to to get you nominated, you could at least look a
little happier about it."
   "The Dontcarington award is meant to be the crowning achievement of a
professional quack doctor's career," Basher explained. "Do you know what
the life expectancy of a Dontcarington award winner is? Well, I'll tell
you. It's usually no more than a few days, because the jealous losers
always perform flagrant medical blunders upon the winner's body in order to
further their own careers and increase their chances of winning the award
next year."
   "I see," Hax said blankly.
   "Good," Basher said in the voice of a little child trying to sound like
an adult. "So you see why I'm totally sure that I'm not going to win, and
I'm not going to think another thing about it. So there!"
   "Right," Hax mumbled as the doctor pouted and strutted off to begin
writing his acceptance speech.

   Quack stumbled into the quarters he now shared with Rum, tired after a
long, hard day at the bar. He ordered a large glass of lemonade from the
replicator, but immediately spilled it when he accidentally stepped on an
empty bottle that was lying on the floor.
   "Rum!" he screamed in fury. "Rum!"
   "Yes, Brother?" Rum asked, appearing in the bathroom door. He had a
small electric drill in his right hand, which he was using to clean the
folds of his right ear.
   "Look at this mess!" Quack yelled angrily, gesturing around at the
discarded bottles, TV dinners, old PlayFingerii magazine centerfolds, and
some unrecognizable bits of smelly alien underwear that covered most of the
floor and furniture.
   "Well, duh, Noggin is the clean-up kid," Rum explained, "and he's off
visiting his godfather on our home planet Underhand this week, so I guess
you'll just have to wait 'til he gets back."
   "No, I won't!" Quack growled. "I've had enough of you and your gross
habits, Rum! You're a slob, you pick at your ears too much, and your
incessant teeth-grinding at night is driving me crazy!" I'm sure you can
imagine, dear readers, that a Fingerii grinding his teeth is a most
fearsome thing indeed.
   "And look at this!" Quack shrieked in sudden pain. "Look at this!
Everything in this room is stolen from my warehouse. Rum, I'm gonna get you
for this!"
   "Oh, yeah?" Rum countered, waving his ear drill threateningly in Quack's
face. "You just try it, Brother. I'll drill you good."
   "That's it!" Quack yelled, stomping out the door. "I'm just gonna have
to tell the Greed Naggus that he'll have to go practice his stand-up
routines somewhere else."
   "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Brother," Rum said nervously as Quack
banged on Zork's door.
   "But you are me," Quack said, smashing Rum up against the door and
ducking out of sight around a corner.
   "Duhhhhhhh," Rum drooled in panic as he heard movement inside the room.
   Suddenly, the door flew open, and the Greed Naggus stood there in all
his wrinkly glory, the pointy hood gone.
   "Aaaaaah!" Rum screamed in fear, falling to his knees and praying.
   "Rum, my boy!" Zork squealed ecstatically, pulling Rum to his feet. "So
good to see you! Come right in!"
   "Ta, da!" Quack yelled, jumping out of hiding and shoving Rum aside.
"Here I am. I am here. Thank you very much. Thank you."
   "I was afraid you'd pop up," Zork sighed. "Oh, well, I guess both of you
should see my latest and greatest triumph. I'm sure you'll really like it.
It's what I'll be remembered for for all time."
   Quack was about to ask what it was, but suddenly noticed that all the
furniture in his room was gone, leaving a large cubic area of empty space.
   "Where's all my priceless furniture?" he gasped in dismay.
   "It got in my way," Zork said with a dismissive wave, "so I gave it all
to the poor and destitute. I'm sure they'll benefit from it greatly.
Besides, I've decided to go cubist. I like that art form."
   "Then go sign up with the Dork," Quack griped, "and leave me alone."
   "Hee, hee, hee, hee," Zork laughed in his high-pitched, irritating
voice. "You're quite a comedian, Quack. I didn't think you had it in you.
But that's good, because it'll help you appreciate my great contribution to
the universe. Maharajah Doo-doo, the book."
   Grunting and groaning, Zork's Hugeperson servant handed him a large
hardcover book and then collapsed in a corner and began much weeping and
wailing.
   "Wow!" Quack said, taking the book from Zork in reverent awe.
   "Enjoy," Zork said, taking his sobbing servant and departing. "I'll be
back later to see what you think of it."
   "Rum," Quack breathed in ecstacy after Zork was gone, "do you know what
this is?"
   "A new set of Rules of Underhandedness?" Rum asked pessimistically. "I
had a hard enough time memorizing the first set, with all its tedious `thou
must cheat', `thou must steal', and `thou must commit an adult and collect
his insurance money' rules."
   "No, you idiot!" Quack snapped. "This has to be Zork's memoirs. All
bigtime famous people write their memoirs when they get old and wrinkly
(and sometimes even before then). Why, I'll bet Zork has revealed the
whole, detailed story of his success right here, and we're going to be the
first ones to profit from it. Think of it, Rum! Before long, you could have
your own bar on a rickety wreck of a station. As a matter of fact, you
could have your own rickety wreck of a station!"
   "Ohhhhh, boy, Brother!" Rum said excitedly, jumping up and down with
joy. "Hurry and open it, so we can get started with the profiting."
   "Okaaay," Quack said, slowly opening the ornate front cover and
revealing the title page. "`Fools of Acquisition, a joke book written and
revised by Greed Naggus Zork.' Huh?"
   Quack and Rum stared in confusion at each other for a few moments. Quack
shakily turned to the first page of the book and read the following: "Fool
#1: How many 20th-century humans does it take to change a lightbulb? Five;
one to hold the lightbulb, and four to turn the ladder."
   Quack and Rum blinked in horror at each other for a few moments, and
then totally freaked out.
   After they had worn themselves out screaming and running around in a
panic, Rum picked up the book from where it had been dropped on the floor
and went and sat on the window ledge and started to read some more of the
Fools of Acquisition.
   "Fool #2: How many 21st-century humans does it take to change a glow-
panel? Thirty; one to hold the glow-panel, and twenty-nine to move the
ceiling up and down."
   "Oooooh," Quack moaned, holding his stomach.
   Rum skipped ahead a few pages. "Fool #15: How many Klingtos does it take
to change a lightbulb? Two hundred: one to hold the lightbulb, four to turn
the ladder, and one hundred and ninety-five to fight off all the Klingto
renegades who have allied with the Rumulans in an effort to sabotage the
lightbulb changing."
   "Aaaacccck!" Quack gagged, falling to his knees.
   "Fool #448: How many cubbyhole aliens does it take to change a cubbyhole
nightlight? Three kabillion zillion: one to hold the cubbyhole nightlight,
and...uh, the rest to turn the galaxy."
   "Aaaauuuggghhh!" Quack cried, thrashing about on the floor. "Hold,
enough!"
   "Just one more," Rum said. "I'll skip to the end. Fool #1,000,001: How
many morons does it take to write a Star Trek parody? Just one, but he'd
better have a few hundred bodyguards with him if he ever goes anywhere near
any sort of serious Trekkie gathering."
   Quack leaped to his feet and rammed his head against a wall as hard as
he could in an effort to make the terrible jokes go away. Unfortunately,
since he was in a parody, he didn't have a chance of succeeding.
   "Ooooh," he moaned, staggering over to Rum and taking the joke book from
him. "Zork's gotta be up to something big. There's no way he would waste
his valuable time on a dumb joke book if there wasn't a fantabulously huge
profit to be made from it."
   "Maybe joke books are big sellers somewhere," Rum said excitedly. "Maybe
he can make a fortune off of this one."
   "Where in a parody would a joke book sell for anything?" Quack snapped
at his dumb brother. "No, it's gotta be in code, or something. Lemme see.
Maybe if you read the first word of every joke in order." He handed the
book back to Rum, who proceeded to read, "How...how...how...how...how...how
...how...how...how..."
   "All right, forget that!" Quack snapped, grabbing the book back. "Hmmm.
Maybe if we held the pages up to the light." He tried holding a page up in
front of the window, but then remembered that it faced the dark depths of
outer space, and slammed the offensive volume closed in disgust.
   He tried reading the book upside down, taking a bite out of it, rubbing
it and making a wish, and even singing Fingerii financial hymns while
standing on top of it. Nothing worked.
   "I give up," Quack panted in exhaustion. "Let's just go away, and try to
forget this whole thing ever happened. Play dumb, in other words."
   "D-uh, no problem, Brother," Rum said agreeably as he followed Quack out
the door. "I can do that real good."

   "How...how...how...how...how," Quack was mumbling later in his bar,
still trying to make sense of Zork's new book. "How now, platinum cow? No,
that can't be it. How do you do? Naw. How! Me Big Chief Laugh-in-the-Face.
Gah!"
   His dejected mumblings were interrupted by a noisy Greed Naggus stomping
in and loudly ordering drinks for everyone and advertising his new book.
"Only three stripes of old-stressed platinum at dumb bookstores
everywhere!" he proclaimed happily.
   Everyone grumbled and went back to what they were doing.
   "Hmph," Zork snorted. "A pack of humorless slobs. I'll have to do
something about that."
   "Can I get you something?" Quack asked him. "Some beetle juice,
perhaps?"
   "No, no," Zork said, "I can't drink that stuff after seeing that awful
Earth movie by the same title. Besides, beetle juice may be funny to you
and me, but it's not funny to the beetles!"
   "Uh, right," Quack said, smiling obsequiously.
   "Say! I haven't told you the good news, have I?" Zork exclaimed all of a
sudden.
   "G-good news?" Quack stuttered weakly.
   "Yes!" Zork said happily. "I met that nice Miss YAUAR in the corridor
just a few minutes ago and managed to convince her to buy several crates
full of my joke books instead of your gross stumpbolts. Isn't that just
marvy?"
   "Buh! Uh! Whuh!" Quack spluttered in rage.
   "I knew you'd be thrilled," Zork confided with a wink.
   Quack stomped on Zork's toes and walked off, large volumes of smoke
billowing out from his ears.
   "Aw, don't go away mad," Zork whined after him.
   "I'm confused," Rum said, as if that were something new and different.
   Zork gave Rum a careful looking-over. "Rum, my boy," he said, standing
up and taking Rum's arm in his, "walk with me. I have something very
important to discuss with you."
   Nodding nervously, Rum allowed himself to be carried off, leaving the
bar unattended.

   "Beep, boop, beep," the electronic dartboard said as Chief O'Bruin threw
his three darts at it. "Your total score is now 675."
   "Lucky," Basher growled as O'Bruin retrieved his darts and got out of
the way so the doctor could throw his.
   "Ha, ha," O'Bruin laughed when Basher missed the board all three times,
and the dartboard reported that his cumulative score was still zero. "I
like this lots better than racquetball."
   "I'll bet," Basher grumbled. "After all, I won all 9,450 games that
we've played since Kaka left for Banjor again. What do you think of that?"
   "I think that if I had me drearies, you'd be shipped off to Banjor for
the rest of the season, too," the chief replied, throwing his darts again
and upping his score to 725. "Also, I think that you haven't a chance of
winning the Dontcarington award."
   "Is that so?" Basher growled, throwing his darts hard enough to make
them stick into the cargo bay's duranium walls.
   "Yeah, that's so," O'Bruin said, increasing his score to 800. "You're
incompetent, and you've screwed up bigtime on many occasions, but you just
haven't done that little extra something that makes a quack doctor truly
great."
   "Well, we'll just see about that," Basher said. He took careful aim at
O'Bruin's head while he was retrieving his darts, and managed to pierce the
chief's jugular vein on his third attempt.
   "Awwwwk," O'Bruin gasped, sliding to the floor as blood spewed out of
his neck like a fountain.
   "Now, Chiefie ol' kid," Basher said happily as he dragged the bleeding
victim to the infirmary, "let's just see how good I am at quacking up!"
   "Me and my big mouth," O'Bruin groaned.

   When Quack entered Zork's quarters again, he naturally expected it to be
the same old empty cube room. However, much to his surprise, the place was
filled with shiny new computer consoles, and half a dozen Fingerii were
bustling about the place busily.
   "Brother!" Rum greeted Quack happily. "So good to see you. Welcome to
the new sector headquarters of the Fingerii Benevolent Association."
   "Huh?" Quack gasped in open-mouthed amazement.
   "It's Greed Naggus Zork's new charity institution," Rum explained. "Its
full name is the Fingerii Benevolent Association for the Aid of the Poor
Humorless Souls of the Galaxy, but we call it the Fingerii Benevolent
Association or just Fingerii B. Ass. for short."
   "That last one is certainly appropriate," Quack observed. He bonked Rum
on the head with a large datapad and dragged him across the hall to their
quarters, where he threw the dizzy dork on their lumpy couch and started
yelling at him.
   "What in the poverty-pukin' heck is going on over there?" he loudly
demanded. "What is this `benevolent' crap? Has everybody gone nuts?"
   "But, Brother," Rum pleaded, "it's not crap; it's a very worthy cause.
You know how many poor humorless souls there are in the galaxy. Why, we
have some of the worst right here on this station. Take Oddo, for
instance."
   "You take him, I don't want him," Quack snapped.
   "Ha, ha, you see, Brother? Your wonderful sense of humor is an absolute
treasure, but not everyone has such a gift. We must help those poor,
destitute individuals at any cost!"
   "Listen to you," Quack sneered. "`Gift', `at any cost'. You've gone
positively, sickeningly PUman! They're the ones with all the charities and
money-pleading preachers and all that sentimental garbage. We're Fingerii;
we are greed!"
   "Greed is in bed," Rum told him, "asleep. We must awaken to a new, more
humorous future. After all, there's no telling how long our tireless author
is going to keep this parody series going. He may do all of our fourth and
even fifth season shows, if we don't get canceled before then. We've got to
help him out!"
   "How could Zork do a thing like this?" Quack whispered, stunned beyond
the capacity for anger. "And how could my own brother join him in such
blasphemy?"
   "Duh, he said I'm gooshy and squishy and smooshy and all like that
there," Rum said. "He said he could mold me into a newer and funnier
Fingerii, maybe even funnier than you and the comedy routines you do with
Oddo."
   "Not a chance!" Quack snapped. "Rum, can't you see? Zork is sick, or
insane, or controlled mentally by real stupid aliens, or something like
that. We've got to help him before he brings doom upon us all!"
   "Duh, doom?" Rum asked, quivering in fear. "What doom?"
   "Do you realize what the Fingerii nation will do to Zork and all of his
followers once they find out that he now values something as silly as humor
over the great, almighty concepts of profit, greed, and avarice? Why,
they'll take him up on top of the Fingerii World Trade Center and drop him
like last year's garbage."
   "Duh, eek!" Rum screeched. "Do you really think they would do that,
Brother?"
   "Yes, they would," Quack said, nodding emphatically.
   "And to me, too?"
   "I would do it to you personally," Quack assured him.
   "Uh, then we better, like, stop him, or something, right, Brother?" Rum
asked.
   "Yes, but how?" Quack chewed his lower lip in consternation, and ended
up having to be rushed to the infirmary for emergency lip care. That gave
him an idea.

   "Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee, hee," Zork laughed as Dr. Basher gave his
massive earlobes a ticklish examination. "Stop it, that tickles!"
   Zork grabbed Basher's instrument and jabbed it repeatedly against the
doctor's ribs by way of revenge.
   "Give me that!" Basher snapped. "What do you think you are, a doctor?"
   "Same to you, my good fellow," Zork giggled. "So how am I?"
   "Yeah, yeah!" Quack and Rum panted. "How is he?"
   "Just fine, I'm very sorry to say," Basher pronounced. "You may leave
now."
   "Wait!" Quack yelled, shoving Zork back onto the examining table and
grabbing Basher by his kneecaps. "There's something very definitely wrong
with him, and you've simply got to find out what it is!"
   "Oh, shove off, Quack," Basher said irritably. "There's nothing
medically wrong with him, and that's final."
   "Oh, yeah, you silly quack?"
   "Look who's talking!" Basher sneered.
   "If there's not something wrong with him, I'll make something wrong with
him!" Quack screamed dementedly, grabbing a nearby laser scalpel and waving
it around alarmingly.
   "Stop that, Quack!" Basher yelled as he dove for cover.
   The maniacal Fingerii shot laser beams all over the infirmary in his
mania to injure Zork, but only ended up cutting his own left foot in half.
   "Aaaaggghhh!" Quack wailed as Basher forced him onto a medical bed and
strapped him down.
   "You lie still if you want me to put your foot back together," Basher
told him.
   "Well, I think I'll be moseying along now," Zork said, getting up and
walking toward the door with Rum and Maharajah Doo-doo in tow. He handed a
large bar of old-stressed platinum to Basher. "It's only money. Give it to
your favorite charity. So many needy, so little time. I think I'll give
that extremely valuable thing-a-ma-bob I have to the Banjorians for free;
maybe it'll loosen them up a bit."
   Quack thrashed on his bed in utmost agony.
   "I love doing that to him," Zork whispered to Rum on their way out.

   "Hurry up, you dumbo!" Quack snapped at Rum as he tried to open the door
to the Naggus' shuttle with a hammer and chisel. "I don't want anyone to
catch us at this. And besides, my foot still hurts."
   "I'm sorry, Brother," Rum whined. "I'm going as fast as I can."
   "What happened to all that technical lock-picking expertise you had back
in that `Necessary Oddo' episode last season?" Quack whispered angrily.
"You broke into Pally's old shop in no time at all."
   "Waaaaah! I'm sorry, Brother," Rum cried in despair. "I guess the script
authors screwed up and violated my character profile that time, or
something, because I have not the foggiest notion of how to pick this lock.
Waaaaah!"
   "Hush up!" Quack hissed at him. However, it was already too late. A
tall, looming figure appeared and glowered down at them.
   "Uh, heh, heh, hiya, Maharajah Doo-doo," Quack stuttered, smiling and
sweating profusely.
   Doo-doo pointed a large, nasty-looking phaser at them.
   "Aaaaaaah!" Quack and Rum both screamed as Doo-doo pressed the trigger.
   "Huh?" they both said in confusion as the shuttle's door slid open.
   "Oh, I get it," Quack quavered in relief. "It's the old remote-control-
that-unlocks-the-door-disguised-as-a-phaser trick. Man, nobody would think
of stealing that from you if they intended to break into the shuttle, would
they? Heh, heh."
   Doo-doo just frowned and gestured for them to accompany him inside.
   When they did, Quack gasped and pointed at a large, glowing box that was
sitting near the pilot's seat.
   "That must be it!" he gasped in delight as he approached the thing
carefully.
   "What, Brother?" Rum asked nervously. "It looks like bad news to me,
whatever it is."
   "Exactly!" Quack said triumphantly. "This has got to be what's causing
Zork to act all dorky all of a sudden. It must have done something really
bad to him. Look at the way it glows!"
   "What do you suppose it did?" Rum asked, gazing at the box fearfully.
   "I don't know," Quack said, backing away, "and I don't want to find
out."
   "Be brave, Brother," Rum said. "After all, it's for a good cause." He
carefully turned the box so that the ornate doors in the side were facing
Quack, and then he opened them.
   "Nooooo!" Quack wailed as the world whited out.
   "H-h-h-hello?" he stammered nervously as the vast whiteness resolved
itself into a parody (how quaint) of his bar. "I-i-is anybody t-there?"
   "Eh, heh, heh, heh," a familiar laugh came from behind him. Whirling
around, he came face-to-wrinkly-face with Zork. "Confused, Quack? Don't
know where to turn? Afraid for your future? Well, you should be! Hee, hee,
hee, hee!"
   Quack watched in stunned amazement as Zork flashed in and out, and
jumped all about the place, seemingly tireless.
   "W-what is this?" Quack managed at last. "Where am I?"
   "Nowhere particular," Zork cackled. "Just around."
   Quack summoned up all his courage to ask the big question. "What
happened to you, Zork? Why are you so humorous and unprofitable all of a
sudden?"
   "I'm glad you asked me that!" Zork said gleefully, waving his staff and
changing the scene.
   Suddenly, Quack found himself a contestant on Jeopardy, with Zork as the
host.
   "And your Final Jeopardy answer is," Zork said with a flourish as one of
the Jeopardy answer cubes lit up, "`This powerful set of beings dorked
around with the Fingerii Greed Naggus' mind.' You have ten seconds to write
down your answer, and do remember to phrase it in the form of a dumb `who
are' question."
   Ten seconds later, Zork pointed to Quack and said, "Let's see what
contestant number one's question is. Ha! `Who are the QT?' That's rich! You
lose, sucker!"
   "But -" Quack spluttered.
   "Now let's see what our second contestant put," Zork said, pointing to
the Fingerii standing at the booth next to Quack's. Quack leaned eagerly
over to see if he could read the answer, but just as he was about to, the
scene whited out again.
   "Hey!" Quack protested. "I didn't get that last answer. What was it?"
   "Well, I see we've got PR_PH_TS on the board now," Pat Zorkjak said as
the ugliful Fingerii version of Vanna White turned over the R. "And now
it's Quack's turn to spin the Wheel of Fortune."
   Still blinking from the shock of transition, Quack leaned down to the
big wheel that was in front of him and the other two players and gave it a
strong spin.
   "Hooray! Big money!" he yelled and clapped, getting into the spirit of
the game. The wheel stopped at the $200 mark. "I'd like to buy a vowel,
Pat," he said.
   "What'll it be?" Zorkjak asked. "A, E, I, O, or U?"
   "Um, lemme see," Quack said thoughtfully, staring at the word and trying
to decide. "I think I'll take a U."
   LOUD, ANNOYING BUZZ SOUND!
   "Oooooh, so sorry, Quack," Zorkjak said with an exaggerated look of
pain. "You lose again. Good grief, you couldn't find answers if they were
kicking you in the ^&@@s."
   "I can't help it!" Quack yelled as he was whited back to the fuzzy,
unfocused bar scene. "How am I supposed to know how an Orb of the Prophets
could...wait a minute!"
   "There you go," Zork said, ending the vision with a wave of his gnarly
staff.
   "Brother, are you all right?" Rum asked worriedly as Quack came to his
senses. "You were just standing there and staring blankly for nearly thirty
seconds."
   "Yeah," Quack said distantly. "Excuse me for a moment while I break into
Zork's personal notebook."
   Rum and Doo-doo looked at each other nervously as Quack did just that.
   "Ah, ha!" Quack quacked with joy a moment later. "Zork stole this orb
from a museum on Badassia III, and took it straight into the cubbyhole.
After hovering inside for only a few minutes, he turned around and came
here, and that's when this miserable episode began."
   "So how does that help us cure him?" Rum asked stupidly.
   "Don't you see? He took the orb into the cubbyhole with him so that he
could talk with the beings that the Banjorians call the Prophets. They can
see into the future, and he wanted to get the inside dope from them so he
would know all about future Star Speck series before they even began, and
could therefore do them himself first and make all the profit off of them."
   "Wonderful!" Rum crowed. "But what went wrong? Instead of setting up a
Star Speck studio to begin filming on, he started that funny charity thing.
Why?"
   "I'm not sure yet," Quack said, striding purposefully for the door, "but
I do know that whatever answers there are await us out there, in the
cubbyhole. Come on, and be sure to grab a Zork-sized sack along the way."
   Nervously, Rum and Doo-doo did as Quack requested.

   As Basher was typing frantically on a large datapad that he had with him
as he sat in the cafeteria, a long, thin string of ooze started dripping
down from the ceiling and into the opposite chair.
   "Eyaaah!" Basher screamed in fright as the ooze started to build up into
a vaguely humanoid pile.
   "Oh, Oddo, it's you," he breathed in relief when the caramel cadaver had
fully formed. "What's the idea of the gross entrance?"
   "I like to sit down a little at a time," the Odd One informed him.
   "And exactly why did you decide to sit down right there?" Basher asked.
   Oddo leaned forward and spoke in a confidential whisper. "I heard from a
friend's friend's wife's brother's second cousin's aunt's monkey's uncle
that Dr. Cardorkian ain't got a prayer of winning the Dontcarington award."
   "Izzat so?" Basher said skeptically.
   "Yes, it is," Oddo assured him. "From what I heard, he carefully saved
the life of a drowning child just the other day. That's sure to disqualify
him for the Dontcarington, wouldn't you agree?"
   "Sure," Basher said. "Fine. But so what?"
   "With Cardorkian out of the way, anyone could win, ya get me?"
   "Forget it, Oddo," Basher said, shaking his head emphatically. "There's
no way I'll win with all those other careless quacks in the running. It's
simply not possible. So get that out of your oozy little head."
   "If you believe that, then why are you writing a two-hour acceptance
speech?" Oddo asked with a sneer.
   "Huh?" Basher asked, trying to look surprised.
   "I know that's your acceptance speech," Oddo said, pointing to the large
datapad which Basher was futilely trying to hide. "It's written all over
your face."
   Basher carefully washed his face off, then said, "So what if it is a
small, humble acceptance speech? I decided that I should write one just in
case."
   "Humble?" Oddo asked incredulously. He elongated his neck until he could
move his head across the table and peer at Basher's datapad. "`I would like
to thank all of you sick and injured people who have made it possible for
me to be the most massively cool quack doctor in all of history.' Haw!"
   "Oh, go away!" Basher growled, giving Oddo's head a solid whack with his
datapad. The head went bouncing all around the room, causing the overly-
extended neck to get twisted around several tables and customers.
   "I certainly hope that will teach you," Basher said triumphantly as he
went back to his speech composing.

   "Ooooh, yes, I can certainly sympathize with your problem," Zork was
saying to some unseen person on the desk monitor in his quarters. "Having
`Gilligan's Island' as your only comedy show is a horrible thing indeed.
I'm sure I can arrange to have several DSM episodes sent down, especially
the ones with me in them. They're guaranteed to be tremendously hilarious.
I'll also throw in some cartoon adaptations of Mr. Dunigan's parodies, even
though they aren't exactly the funniest things ever written. Hee, hee,
hee."
   Suddenly, he looked up and noticed that Quack, Rum, and Doo-doo were
standing in front of his desk and looking thoroughly disgruntled.
   "Hold on a minute," he said to his correspondent, pressing the pause
button. "Now, what can I do for you gruntlemen?"
   Quack grunted and gestured, and Doo-doo violently sacked the Naggus and
threw him over his shoulder.
   "Oh, goody!" Zork squealed in delight. "I love football! This is what
they call `sacking the quarterback', right?"
   As they trudged down the corridor to the Naggus' shuttle, Quack tapped
the bag sharply. "Are you all right in there?" he asked.
   "Sure thing!" Zork said happily. "As a matter of fact, this all reminds
me of a great joke I once heard from some former pirate associates of mine.
There were these three guys, see, and -"
   "Unnnngggh," Quack moaned, holding his ears (no small task) as Zork
gabbled on.

   "`- and that's why I'm dead now,' he said to me," Zork cackled, finally
delivering the punch line as he was tossed into the copilot's seat on the
Fingerii shuttle.
   "Good luck, Brother," Rum said as he and Doo-doo ran for safety.
   "Hey, you chickens!" Quack yelled after them. "Oh, well. I guess I'd
better get this show on the road. Launching now."
   Moments later, they had entered the cubbyhole and begun a very bumpy
ride through its glowing, glooky interior.
   "W-w-what's h-h-happening?" Quack asked as he and Zork were thrown all
over the cabin.
   "Mmmmmppphh," Zork said, having gotten a mouthful of sack.
   Quack decided to remove the sack so Zork could breathe again.
   "'Bout time!" Zork gasped. "Now where have you taken me, you naughty
boy? Japan, or something?"
   "No, the cubbyhole," Quack said. "I don't know why it's shaking us
around so. Did that happen when you visited it before?"
   "Yes, it did," Zork said. "The cubbyhole aliens know that they have to
make another `appearance' on our show, and they're not very happy about
it."
   "Who would be?" Quack snorted. "Is there any way I can communicate
directly with them?"
   "Sure," Zork said. "Just white out and see lots of fuzzy, phantasmagoric
images. After they insult you a bit, speak your mind to them. If you need
help getting started, open the box and gaze at the orb. It'll retard the
ol' retinas sure enough!"
   Deciding he'd better hurry before the beat-up old shuttle (which Zork
doubtlessly bought at a bargain basement) got shaken to pieces, Quack
hurriedly flung the box open.
   In a soundless flash of lightning, he was transported to a white void,
which soon filled with scary, dramatic flashbacks of his experiences on
DSM.
   After the slide show was over, one of the cubby aliens took on the form
of Kuta and said, "It is a corporal."
   "No, it isn't," a Crisco look-alike countered. "It's a sergeant."
   "Corporal!"
   "Sergeant!"
   "Corporal!!"
   "Please, sirs, or whatevers," Quack interjected, holding his hands up
for peace. "I'm just plain old Mr. Quack, of Deep Space Mine. I've come to
talk to you about Zork. You do remember Zork, don't you?"
   "Yes, of course," a Maharajah Doo-doo imitation said, not being under
the Hugeperson oath of never speaking aloud on a Star Speck show that the
real Doo-doo was under. "We played that game. Nearly finished it, too. We
just couldn't figure out how to get into that darned white house."
   "Uh, right," Quack said, "but I was talking about the Greed Naggus Zork,
a corporal who came to see you earlier."
   "What is `earlier'?" Kuta-like asked.
   "I mean that he was here before," Quack said, then slapped his forehead.
"Oh, you timeless aliens are so much trouble to talk to!"
   "Well, we don't like talking to you, either," Criscoid pouted.
   "So make it fast," Kuta-alien said, frowning at the intruder.
   "Okay," Quack said, taking a deep breath. "YoumessedupZorkandmustrestore
himandmakehimlikehewasthankyouverymuchamen."
   "We made Zork into what your people once were," Kuta-creature haughtily
informed him. "He's much better that way. Humor over profit, I always say."
   "I'll bet you `always' do," Quack muttered. "Look, if you don't put him
back the way he was, our show will be constantly intruding on you. You'll
never see the end of corporals, sergeants, captains, and major-generals!"
   "He's right," a Haxian apparition sighed. "I guess we'd better set the
Zork back, though I do so love messing up corporal beings. They really
deserve it, y'know."
   "It's against all moral and civil rights!" Quack ranted. "It's a sin!
It's indecent! It's -"
   "Okay!" the cubby aliens all yelled at once. "We'll do it! Anything to
shut you up!"
   "Why, thank you," Quack said politely as he whited back to Zork's
shuttle.
   "Well, ya big joik?" Zork snapped ill-temperedly. "Did you do whatever
it was you came for? Can we go back now?"
   "Zork!" Quack gasped happily. "You're back!"
   "You bet I am!" Zork said. "And I'm going to make those Banjorians pay
through the nose to get this orb back."
   "Yuck," Quack said, "but I love it! C'mere."
   "Cut it out!" Zork screeched angrily as Quack clumsily grabbed him in a
great big hug.

   A few days later, the entire cast was gathered around a small television
set that was tuned in to the Starbeat Medical Channel, which was
broadcasting the Dontcarington award ceremony.
   "And it gives me some small pleasure to announce this year's winner of
the Dontcarington award," the pompous big-shot announcer said after a long,
boring speech. "The envelope, please."
   Someone off-camera handed him a small manila envelope, and he made a
big, slow production of tearing it open and hunting for his glasses.
   "Come on, hurry up!" everyone but Basher, who was too petrified to even
breathe, yelled impatiently.
   "Oh, hold your horses," the announcer said as he put his glasses on and
scanned the page briefly. "And the winner is...Dr. B- ah, ah, ashoo!"
   "Yay!" everyone yelled. "Hooray for Dr. Bashoo!"
   "Excuse me," the announcer said. "I sneezed. The winner is...Dr. B.
Quack!"
   "Aaaarrrggghh!" everyone but Basher, whose jaw was polishing the floor,
screamed in disappointment.
   "Duh!" Basher drooled. "Uhhh. Ook! Gah!"
   "Oh, well, better luck next time, Hooligan," Crisco said, patting the
shocked doc on the back and strolling away.
   "Keep up the bad work, and you just might win it next year," Kuta
consoled him before she, too, left.
   Everyone else mumbled something unintelligible as they went back to
their posts.
   "You seem to be taking this well," Hax said to Basher, who was now
jumping around the room and acting like an insane chimpanzee.
   "Beweebe me, I'ma notta," Basher said in a strange voice as he bounced
off the walls.

   "Aaaa-choo!" Zork said over and over as Rum and Quack escorted him and
Maharajah Doo-doo to his shuttle. "Dang it all! Where could I have picked
up a cold in this episode? It doesn't make any sense!"
   "You probably caught it from Quack when he hugged you earlier," Rum
said.
   "Hush up, Rum!" Quack snapped. "I don't have a cold. He must have just
been weirdly affected by those cubbyhole aliens when they set him back to
normal, or something."
   "That reminds me," Zork said from the coin doorway. "What happened to
all that money that my silly-dilly self invested in that consarned charity
thing?"
   "I have no idea whatsoever," Quack said, wide-eyed.
   "Me, either," Rum swore, shaking his head a bit too vigorously.
   "And what about that horrible joke book that I...I mean, he wrote?"
   "All copies have been hunted down and destroyed!" Quack proclaimed.
   "Except the one in my head," Rum said. "I thought those jokes were so
funny, I memorized them all!"
   WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
   "Have you forgotten them yet?" Zork asked a reeling Rum after hitting
him on the head with his heavy staff several times.
   "Duh, forgot what?" that amnesiac asked.
   "That's better," Zork said as he entered the shuttle. Doo-doo paused
long enough to pick Quack up and kiss him on the lips, and then followed
his master inside.
   "Pah! Ptooey!" Quack spit, frantically wiping his lips on his sleeve.
   "Well, I guess that wraps up another exciting Zork episode," Rum said as
he and Quack walked slowly back to the bar. "I really can't wait to see him
again next season."
   "I sure can," Quack said, rubbing his empty pocket. "I didn't make the
least bit of profit off of this season's visit."
   "Not to worry," Rum said, showing Quack a large sack of platinum pieces.
"I stole enough of Zork's money to keep us both in the orange for the rest
of the year."
   "You guzzled money from the Naggus?" Quack asked in astonishment.
   "Surprise," Rum said. "Happy birthday."
   "Ruuuuum," Quack said respectfully, putting his arm around his beloved
brother. "Father would be loud. In his praises, that is. Come along, and
we'll decide how to split the profits."
   "Um, actually, Brother," Rum stuttered as Quack led him off into the
episode-set.

                                   THE END