Space Quest 6
by Findar to Silimaur


Chapter 1 

It was a grimey little bar, the type you usally find in seedy spaceports on remote desert planets waiting for their messiahs to arrive and lead the natives on a blaze of glory. This was in fact not the case with this paticular drinking establishment. Although the bar was indeed attempting to appear like one of those disreputable havens of scum and villiany; however it was only doing so in the hope of attracting intergalactic tourists. Actually, much of the plant Gareana was like that, from the fake mining colony to the far north (all the minerals having long since been sucked from the arid soil) to the spaceport in the far south where the bar was located; the spacport's buildings complete with spray-on dirt. 

The interior was illuminated only by the light blue, flickering lights of insect zappers hanging from the ceiling and from the iradescent blue tables. Smoke from a dozen varieties of illegal substances mingled with the raw stench of alcohol and unwashed alien bodies, creating an odorous miasma that hung in the air like a limp rag. A incessant noise which, by some extremely twisted race, might be considered music rent the air. Most of the beings in the bar were doing their utmost to ignore it (at least those beings who were unforunate enough to possess the auditory organs to detect the musi--er, the NOISE). There was the usual wide variety of races that supposedly populated such bars, all of them doing their best to look dangerous, fingering (those that possessed fingers) their (fake) weapons and glaring (those that possessed eyes) over their drinks. 

At the very end of the bar sat a humanoid male, who was attempting to blend into the shadows as much as possible. His face was hidden by darkness, but had anyone cared to notice him (which they hadn't) they would have seen that he was wearing the distinctive uniform of the StarCon Federation, the style indicating that he was some sort of menial laborer. The man was talking to the bartender, or rather, talking at the bartender. The bartender was studiously ignoring him. 

"It's not like it's a very good sort of lifestyle, saving the universe and stuff," the man said. 
"Mmm." 
"I mean, you meet people in all the wrong circumstances. Usually, they're trying to shoot you. And the ones that aren't trying to shoot you are trying to kidnap you, or eat you." 
"Mhhm." 
"I really should have just stuck with janitoring. Straightforward, honest, clean work." 
"Yeah." 
"Well, maybe not clean. In fact, pretty much un-clean, really. But straightforward and honest. Nobody trying to shoot at you." 
"Uh-huh." 
"It wasn't such a bad life, janitoring. Sure, it was full of mindless tedium, low pay, and lousy working conditions. And come to think of it, just about everything else on the food chain sort of despises you. But aside from all that it was really quite an okay line of work." 
"Hey, who ordered the uvula spritzer?" 
"You know, I sometimes get the feeling that nobody really listens to me. Even I don't listen to me. I talk to myself, but I don't hear me." 
"Sure." 
The man sighed and finished his beer, setting the empty mug down onto the bar's smooth, iradescent surface. He gazed into the empty glass longingly. 
"I don't suppose," he said, hopefully, "that you could use a janitor?" 

Another Space Quest, another Roger......Elsewhere in the multiverse, Savior of Xenon Roger Wilco's badly damagedSUX Multi-Terrain-Space-Time-Continum Craft™rocketed out of control millions of miles above the atmosphere of an unamed, unihnabited planet. Looking through the rear view mirror, Roger could see the shapes of two heavily armed Sequel Police assasination ships rapidly closing in on him, their weapons blazing. The phraseObjects in Mirror are Closer than They Appeardid not ease his nerves.The bastards,he thought to himself. They'd devastated his homeworld and sent him flying through so many different time periods he no longer knew where or when he was. Gritting his teeth, Roger realized he didnt stand a chance against the Sequel Police pilots. He also realized that he had only one option left, an option that made him want to let the Sequel Police have him. But no. He'd come this far, hadn't he? Muttering a prayer to the janitor gods, Roger flicked the switch that would activate the time-rip transfluxers, and braced himself as the craft lurched sickingly before plunging through time.....

Chapter 2 

Miles beneath the Keronian surface, away from the blazing furnace of the sun and the monstrous orats, grell, and sleazy used-spaceship salesmen lived the race of beings known as (not too surprisingly), the Keronians. They were a pacific, scholarly race that had simply wanted to be left alone, and had long ago made the decision to move underground, where they became one of the very few races to create a semi-utopian society. 

As the eons passed, the surface of Kerona changed. Most of the surface-dwelling inhabitants where either eatten by the orats, or by the grell, or were cheated by the used-spaceship salesmen*. A few interstellar rest stops sprang up like zits or pockmarks on the big, sandy butt that was Kerona. And beneath the ground, the Keronians quietly continued their existence...... 

There emerged, eventually, amongst the Keronians, a small group known as the TimeSeers. They trained the natural precognitive sense possessed by all Keronians** to extent where they could see quite a ways into the future. The TimeSeers generally kept what they saw to themselves, although in times of great temporal crises they would relate to the rest of the Keronians what they had seen, or rather, forseen. They were treated with great respect, although to avoid being pestered by people wishing to know the future, the TimeSeers spent most of their time in a hibernation-like trance, awakening only to tell the rest of the Keronians of their visions. 

At the same time that a certain janitor was scrubbing floors in a tourist-y bar half-way across the galaxy, all of the TimeSeers simaltaneously opened their mouths and screamed (which produced a noise that, while unpleasant, was an improvement over the "music" described in Chapter 1). Their eyes snapped open and their metabolisms, which had slowed to a crawl within the hibernation trance, revived. 

Within the corridoors and caverns of Kerona, the newly-awakened TimeSeers ran through the halls, overwhelmed with confusion and terror. 

(Chapter 2 to be continued later)VROOMFONDEL 


*Which usually ended in death, since the type of spaceships sold by the Keronian used-spaceship salesmen have a nasty habit of exploding. 
**It is believed that primitive Keronians evolved this sense while still on the surface. With limited precognitive senses, they could tell when a used-spaceship salesmen was going to cheat them, which was often...