The Pilots and the Passengers
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: You guessed it. I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: An AU future, and see below.
Authors note: This is a sequel to The Pilot, and The Pilots.
Author's note: Some sci fi fans may note some things that I have borrowed from other fandoms.
"Nothing." Kate said.
"This must be the place." Rick replied. "There are no other solar systems with four suns anywhere near here. There are three red dwarf suns in orbit around a G type star. It's been a hundred thousand years. Maybe there was a habitable planet here that got destroyed."
"The rocks floating around here wouldn't make a decent asteroid, let alone a planet. There's nothing here."
"Not quite nothing." Lindane said from the sensor console. The young girl had learned French, Vorlag and Kzin and had gotten bored. She had asked Rick if she could start helping out on the ship. After several days Rick had decided that by the time they got home, Lindane would be able to build a copy of their ship.
"Nothing is bluffing the vegetables." The Quinncunx muttered.
"What do you see?" Rick and Kate asked together.
"The largest hunk of rock here, maybe ten cubic kilometers, has an artificial structure on it. Looks like a dome."
Everyone gathered around the sensor console. Lindane was right.
"We'll check it out." Rick said. "Maybe it'll give us some clues about…whatever."
"Whatever creeps in this gritty pace." Announced the Quinncunx.
Several hours later they pulled into a large docking bay in the dome.
"You're sure there's nothing here?" Rick asked Lindane.
"There's zero power being used, no life signs, and no communications. This place is dead."
"Okay, do we all want to go in?"
Everyone was tired of life on the ship. Even the dead dome would be an improvement.
They entered an airlock.
"From the size of the airlock the inhabitants were either huge or they had lots of people show up."
Just as Rick spoke, the felt the rumble of machinery and a small blue and white robot popped out of the wall. It ran around them, making whistling and beeping noises.
"The dome is dead?" Rick said, sarcastically.
Lindane shrugged. "You saw the readouts. It was dead. Besides, one little robot doesn't mean much."
The robot stopped its whistling and beeping and went to the inner airlock door. It opened into a spacious room. The robot went inside, then turned around and whistled at them.
"It wants us to follow." Moecious said.
They went in and were very surprised.
"Nice." Rick said. "Marble floors, soft carpets, pastel paints, and soothing music in the background. And comfortable looking couches."
"And the atmosphere is exactly like Earth's. As is the gravity." Lindane said, checking her suit's sensors. "We can take off our helmets, at least."
"That's not all." Said Moecious, going over to a table. "They have Vorlag whiskey and my favorite bar food, just like at the Jolly Spacer."
"And a chili cheeseburger, with garlic fries and beer." Rick enthused.
"Fried orkna, just like my mother cooked." Skinny said.
Rick reached for the food only to have his hand slapped away by Kate.
"This might be a trap. How would anyone this far from anyplace know our favorite foods? They have Chinese food for me."
"And French onion soup." Simone and Jane said at once.
"Rijsttafel." Cried Andine. "Our favorite."
"This is tres suspicious." Simone said, loosening her blaster in her holster.
A door opened at the far end of the room and five women walked in. Five naked women with very familiar faces.
"That's me!" Kate shrieked. "That's us!"
"Those are our faces, all right." Said Simone. "But not the rest."
Kate walked over to examine her almost double.
"She's just short of two meters tall and the extra height is all in the legs. Plus her boobs appear to be about double D cups."
"Same with mine." Simone said. "But the hair on yours is lighter than your hair, and the hair on mine is darker than my own hair. Plus, their hair goes halfway down their backs."
"Much the same with my double." Jane said," However, my derriere is more…prominent."
Andine said nothing, but just glared at Rick.
Lindane carefully examined her double.
"She's a bit taller than I am, she has hips and breasts, as well as pubic hair. If I were to guess, I'd say this is me as a young teenager. Perhaps fourteen years old."
"Is this your idea of the perfect me, Castle?" Kate said angrily. "Of the perfect all of us?"
Further conversation was cut off by another female entering the room.
"At least he didn't give us three sets of boobs." Kate snarled.
Moecious looked offended. "I'll have you know that six boobs are perfectly normal for a Vorlag female, and this one is gorgeous. And, by the gods, look at her tail!"
The female Vorlag's tail was far longer and bushier than Moecious' own tail.
"You're excited by a furry tail?" Jane asked.
"You hairless humans will never know the erotic joy of sex with someone with a huge, bushy tail."
"Thank god." Rick muttered.
The door opened again. This time a female Kzin walked out, naked as all the other females had been.
Skinny took a step back.
"It can't be. It's my mate, Jezzail, dead for ten years. It can't be."
Rick thought he saw a tear in the Kzin's eyes.
"I suppose we can't blame Moecious and Skinny for imagining the sexiest possible members of their own races, but how Castle could imagine all five of us, including a child, like that is…"
Kate was stopped by the door opening again. This time it was Rick. Sort of.
Rick grinned. "It seems someone is imagining me as taller than Moecious, with a massive, muscular chest, six pack abs, heavily muscled legs and arms, a killer smile…"
"And a massive erection." Lindane finished for him.
Rick blushed. "Um, yeah. That."
"If you think that's what any of us are looking for in a man, Mr. Castle, "Kate said angrily, "then you are very sadly mistaken. We should leave."
The door opened again and a tall, golden robot walked into the room and walked over to the ladies.
"Excuse me for being late, but it's been so long since we've had anyone drop by. But, we exist to serve."
"You speak Anglic?" Kate said, surprised.
"I speak over half a million languages fluently." He said smugly. "What more can we do for you? Are the ladies my partner took from your minds satisfactory?"
"You took them from our minds? Not his?" Kate began to blush.
"Yes. Is there some sort of problem with the simulacrum?" The robot sounded worried.
"Yes." Kate spat out.
"I'm so very sorry, but we don't have a full set of specifications for your races' sexual mores. Have we erred?"
"This is a bordello." Lindane said.
"Quite right, young lady." The robot seemed happier.
"And you created five women who look like that? From our minds?" Kate was angry.
"I'm afraid that since there are five females of your race and only one male, that you'd want a similar number for your entertainment. If you'll just tell us where we erred, we'll be more than happy to fix it. We exist to serve you."
"That won't be necessary." Kate said coldly. "We're leaving."
"Can we at least eat?" Castle asked.
"Castle!" Kate barked.
"Can we get this to go?" Castle asked. Moecious and Skinny nodded.
"Castle!" Kate yelled. "We're leaving."
Kate and the other women headed for the ship. They weren't out of the airlock when the other little robot arrived with food for them.
"I don't know why I have to leave." Moecious grumped. "I'm fine with what came from my mind."
Skinny sighed. "It's best that I leave. Whatever she is, she is not my Jezzail. Farewell." The Kzin headed after the women, trailed by Rick and Moecious.
"I brought you your Chinese." Rick said once they were back in the ship.
"We will never speak of this again." Kate said icily.
Rick just smirked.
"Quoth the oatmeal, never coal." The Quinncunx said sadly.
The next planet was easy to find and equally easy to dismiss.
"There are no buildings down there." Lindane said,
"There's no anything down there." Rick replied.
"Not quite right." Lindane said, adjusting the sensors. "The oceans are teeming with life. But the biggest thing is a bit bigger than a plankton, although there are trillions of them. Absolutely no life on land though."
"Gives you an idea of what a blink in the scheme of things a hundred thousand years is." Rick said. "When the Old Ones or whatever you want to call them came through here, the plankton were probably half as big as they are now. It'll be millions of years before there are any land-dwelling creatures."
"I'll make a note of that on my calendar." Skinny said, sarcastically. "In the meantime, let's get going."
The next planet was certainly inhabited. They picked up radio transmissions from the planet, but oddly they were all the same: A song, repeated over and over.
"Well the party was nice, the party was pumpin' (Hey, Yippie-Yi-Yo)
"And everybody havin' a ball (Hah, ho, Yippie-Yi-Yo)
"Until the fellas started name callin' (Yippie-Yi-Yo)
"And the girls respond to the call
"I heard a woman shout out,
"Who let the Vorlags out,
"Who, who, who?
"Who let the Vorlags out?
"Who, who, who?"
Moecious ran to the sensor console.
"By the gods. It can't be, but it is! It's the Famous Lost Vorlag Monster Raving Looney Perpetual Party Planet. Found at last. We must land. Please! We must land at once!"
Rick looked at everyone else and no one disagreed, so, he headed for the planet. There was only one town that they could see and it wasn't that large, but when they landed, they found that it was very loud. There were at least five bands playing that Rick could see and he was sure he heard many more.
A conga line that looked to be a kilometer long danced through the streets as thousands of Vorlags cheered and drank, and drank, and drank.
A band playing some kind of steel drums set up in front of the ship and began playing.
"Jack be limbo, Jack be quick,
"Jack jump under limbo stick, '
"All around the limbo clock."
Moecious suddenly got a wild look in his eyes and jumped into the street.
"Everybody limbo!" He yelled. Then he began dancing under a stick held horizontally about a meter off the ground. When he danced under it, everyone cheered.
"That's nothing." Lindane cried out and danced over to the stick and pushed it down. Then she danced under the stick lower than any Vorlag could dance.
"She's the limbo queen." Yelled Moecious and everyone took up the cry.
Lindane was lifted onto Moecious' shoulders and carried off with Andine close behind.
"This looks like an old western town, from the holos." Rick said. "Dirt streets, wooden sidewalks and lots and lots of bars."
"Old western?" Kate asked.
"Like that holo that's been remade a gazillion times, the Wild Group."
Kate just shrugged.
"Shall we join the party?" Rick took Kate's hand.
"The Quinncunx should stay here." Simone said. "He could get stepped on, poor little thing. But Jane and I would like to go."
"I'll go too." Skinny said. "This looks like fun."
They walked through the crowd with the large Vorlags politely stepping aside for their small human guests and their somewhat larger Kzin friend.
"Wait!" Simone said. "I know that music. Over there."
A Vorlag orchestra was playing in front of a saloon. Rick thought he had heard the tune before, but couldn't place it.
"What is it?" He asked Simone.
"Jacques Offenbach, from Orpheus in the Underworld. The tune is usually associated with a dance called the can-can, which is…"
TBC