by Gene Cowan
The star Metilla Aurionsis slowly disappeared behind the large, craggy form of the planet Traken. But that's another story. Our story concerns that amazing space hero known as Mumford Resnick, the righter of wrongs, doer of things that need doing, and purchaser of more Pearl Drops Tooth Polish than any other being in the known universe.
At the time of speaking, Mumford was busily cleaning the control panels of his ship, the Stalwart, and humming the sort of nonsensical tune one always hums while cleaning with 409. As he reached a particularly whimsical part of the ditty, which sounded sort of like a Cole Porter song, the computer beeped a sort of tuneless little beep.
“Uh, Commander… we, uh, seem to have a little, uh, problem…”
Mumford put aside his cloth and trigger spray bottle.
“Do you know how many times you have said ‘Uh’ since you were hooked up?”
“Uh, somewhere around 9,765,425 inclusive, uh, plus one.”
“What's our problem?” asked our hero as he settled into one of those ergonomically designed command chairs.
“What do you mean, our problem? It's your ship!”
“Listen, computer, don't be a little snot about it, just tell me what's going on!” Mumford had reached that point of exasperation where that funny vein stood out on his forehead.
“We've, uh, received a distress signal from the, uh, Kasterborous sector.”
“Why don't the Time Lords take care of it? Why do I always get the dirty jobs?” remarked Mumford as he very neatly put the broom away in it's own special closet.
“You know them, with their ‘intellects vast, cool, unsympathetic,’ and all that,” replied the computer, as sarcastically as it's super megamemory silicon circuits would allow.
“Are there nasty aliens with funny bodies involved?”
“Uh, I think so…”
“Well, what are we waiting for?”
The sleek ship, with it's amazingly aerodynamic shape sped into infinity.
The star system Kasterborous, not unlike Sol, was circled by quite a few planets, among them, the well known Gallifrey, Mortgaard and Grendaal. But one planet, Freyr, has a problem. Which is not to say the others don't, for instance, Mortgaard is experiencing a shortage of gold, therefore, they cannot send out any more of the “Library Of Classics” Book Club Selections, until they import more gold for the gilded edges. Some alternatives were suggested, but when club members found that the 24 karat gold stamped on the imitation leather of “Five Simple Steps To A Teleport” was actually some platinum colored gold by a magic marker, they tried to overthrow the book club's board of directors, and plunged the planet into a depression, the likes of which had never been seen.