Chapter 5
"AAAAAGH!!!!! HELP, somebody! I'm being KIDNAPPED, no, I'm being MURDERED. SOMEBODY please HELP ME!!!"
Slung across Jumba's shoulder, Pleakley pounded his fists hysterically against Kweltekwaanian's back, screaming and shouting all the while.
After he'd finished entering in the locking code on the hatch door, Jumba finally put him down.
Pleakley immediately threw himself against the hatch, scrabbling for purchase, but it wouldn't budge. Still shrieking his head off, he pulled vainly on the latch with all of his might.
Jumba backed away. He thought it best to just let him be for a minute. A little shouting never hurt anyone, or at least so went the Jookiba family motto. It would probably help work off whatever tension the Plorginarian no doubt still had over this morning's shock. Besides, Jumba needed to focus his attention on working the controls of the camera-sized device that hung around his neck, newly perfected this afternoon. It had worked fine on the tomato-plant trial run, but there was always a bug or two that didn't come out until after the first couple of uses. He turned a few dials and lifted it up to eye level.
There was a very bright flash.
This was it. The end. Goodbye, cruel world, too harsh for delicate souls like Wendy Pleakley.
Eye screwed shut, Pleakley flattened himself up against the hatch, spending all of his breath in one last, long wail.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!" Inhale. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
"Could you be calming down, please?! I am not going to be hurting you. Murder – honestly! Be getting grip on yourself, my friend."
Panting, Pleakley sagged against the door latch, letting his forehead rest on the cool metal.
"Don't do that do me!" With shaking arms, Pleakley pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Don't you DO that to me! Do you hear? Ever! I was so scared. . .I, I thought..."
"You thought what?" Jumba shot back, letting a flash of aggravation get the better of him until he pulled his attention away from the device in his hands to Pleakley's half slumped form. Face buried in his hands, shoulders shaking softly, Pleakley was crying.
Jumba put his device down, leaving it to hang from his neck by its thin strap, and stepped forward to kneel in front of Pleakley. In an instinct to comfort his friend, Jumba raised his hand to hover for a moment over Pleakley's shoulder before deciding that after all that had passed between them, his touch might not be welcome, and letting it drop to his side.
"Pleakley, you must know that I would not want to do anything that would be hurting you. Ever."
Pleakley quickly wiped his face, nodding and trying his best to appear recovered. "I know. I thought, well. . .I just wasn't thinking, that's all. I've just. . .It's just all been so. . .well, you know."
Jumba nodded. "Yes. I know."
Pleakley dabbed his cheeks with a handful of his sarong. "And you really did scare the living goo out of me. What was that thing?"
"That. . .thing? OH! You are meaning my new Insta-Geneto Medic Diagnosticator!"
"Insta-whaa?"
"Am still working on name. ...Anyway, it is taking instant diagnostic workup of your insides, so that there is no need for medical examination you have been so worried about." Jumba stood up and patted the little device.
"My. . .insides?"
"Yes. All right here." Jumba looked into the viewer and pressed a few buttons to make sure it had been captured properly.
"My insides? Right there? The ones you're looking at right now?" Pleakley got up to tentatively reach out for the device.
"Yes, there they are. Hold on, you can look after I'm done."
Cheeks flushed, Pleakley reached up to try to swipe the device from Jumba's hand, but only succeeded in knocking it from his fingers.
"Hey!"
Pleakley reached again for the device, but Jumba raised it up out of his reach.
"Hey – I am working here!"
"Did you ever think that maybe I don't want anyone looking around at my insides without my permission?"
Jumba considered this. "Well, then may I be having your permission?"
Pleakley frowned. "No, you may not!"
"Oh come on now, be reasonable!"Jumba could only cater to Pleakley's mood swings up to a point – this was going too far. "You should have had examination weeks ago. At this point it has become absolutely imperative!"
"What could be so important that you would need to completely ignore that little Galactic Empire charter about personal health privacy?"
"I am evil genius! I am needing no reason to break Galactic Empire charters, although in this case I happen to be having some very good ones – like plorg-morphosis, like life and health of my best friend, like whether or no you are even now carrying a little Jumba inside of you because of. . .what happened last night."
"What happened last night. . .happened. There's nothing to be solved by you tinkering around in MY insides. . ." Pleakley stopped for a moment. "There aren't any little Jumbas, are there?"
Jumba blinked stupidly, as though the possibility had only now just sunk in. He looked into the diagnosticator and pressed a few buttons.
"No. There aren't."
Both of them let out the breath they'd been unconsciously holding.
"But. . .there might have been," Jumba started again, trying to regain his momentum. "You should have let me conduct an examination weeksago!"
"I. . .didn't want to."
"By the great Kweltika, WHY?!" Jumba felt that he'd just about been pushed to the edge. "Even now, your are refusing to do anything!! Did you want yourself to be ending up this way? Was this all some big plot, to. . .crawl into my bed and, and seduce me?"
Startled, Pleakley backed away, shaking his head.
"No. I didn't. . . I never wanted to become like, like this, or to make you do. . .anything that you didn't want to do. I'm sorry. I really am. I just wasn't. . .thinking." Pleakley wrapped his arms around himself.
"I just. . .I've always felt, well, sort of wrong. Just. . ..wrong." Pleakley gestured awkwardly to himself, to his body. "Most of my life, anyways. Running off to work for the Empire, studying alien cultures at the academy. Dressing up so I could be someone else. But I then came here, and I fell in love with you. . .and somehow I started to feel right."
Eye downcast, he shrugged. "When I started getting sick, I just didn't want to believe it, you know? I kept telling myself that it was some sort of flu, or maybe some sort of inter-planetary allergy. It was STUPID and I know it was a MISTAKE. . .I just didn't want to believe that it really was all wrong, that there was just something wrong with me."
Pleakley set his jaw and lifted his eye to meet Jumba's. "And it's not like we can do much about it now is there? I'm going to call Galactic Control tomorrow, tell my family and Madame Councilwoman. I was planning to resign anyways, as soon as we caught the last few experiments. I can catch a passing cruiser to Ploozork and try to find a good doctor. I know there's some treatment available."
"You're going to be leaving?" Jumba felt the anger flaring in his nostrils evaporate. He knew that Pleakley's condition was serious, but it hadn't even crossed his mind that it might be that serious – serious enough to take Pleakley away from Earth and the home they'd settled into. And somehow the way that Pleakley was being so matter-of-fact about it was more disturbing to him than he would have thought possible.
"Oh, my friend. . .I am so sorry. I had no idea that this was being so hard on you. I will help you, if you want me to, or we could be getting doctor to come here, no? It cannot be as bad as you are thinking. Not bad enough to leave."
"No, Jumba. . .please. . .don't," protested Pleakley as Jumba gathered him up to give him a comforting hug.
Jumba could feel Pleakley begin to tremble in his arms. His breathing suddenly became erratic. Looked down into Pleakley's face, Jumba could see that he was biting his lip so hard that he was nearly drawing blood.
With a strangled whimper Pleakley threw himself upon Jumba, arms and legs wrapped, lips crushing, pelvis grinding involuntarily in a manner so vulgar and feverish that Jumba was himself caught breathless, eyes wide and motionless for a moment. None-too-gently, Jumba threw Pleakley off of him.
"See?! You don't know how hard it is just to control myself! I can't stay!!" Pleakley lay where he'd landed, no longer able to hold back the sobs that bubbled up from his chest.
Stunned, Jumba took a step back. He stared at his friend, crumpled and broken on the floor in front of him, and felt numb. He sat down on one of the seats still left in the gutted ship.
Looking down into his diagnosticator, Jumba pressed a few buttons to scan quickly through the new cache of files. It was as bad as Pleakley had feared. Not only had his standard male Plorginarian reproductive organs been replaced by those of a more Kweltikwaanian, female variety, but his very genetic structure had sampled and incorporated Jumba's Kweltikwaanian genes to make Pleakley suitable for cross-species fertilization. Not that it could exactly be called cross-species – Pleakley wasn't strictly Plorginarian anymore.
Pleakley was his own species now, with only one possible mate in the entire universe – Jumba. They were his genes now fused with Pleakley's own, and they were his genes that Pleakley's instincts were driving him to pursue for in-utero procreation.
The instinct to reproduce was one of the strongest motivations for all known forms of life in the universe, second only to the survival instinct. Some victims of plorg-morphosis were known to have gone insane from lack of reciprocation from their chosen 'mates', depending on how far along they were in their condition. Pleakley was further along than Jumba had thought possible. Jumba put the diagnosticator down, running his hand over his head.
Jumba's keen intellect was telling him, coldly and matter-of-factly, that leaving was indeed the only solution for Pleakley. All of the treatments available for his illness, long, risky, and expensive though they were, could only be found off-world, probably in one of the facilities on Ploozork, or possibly in one of the research stations orbiting Andali. And even then, if anything was effective, there was nothing that could erase the genetic link that he and Jumba now shared. If they ever came into contact again, chances were good he would revert right back to his current state. Which meant, plainly, that once Pleakley left, he and Jumba could never see each other again. Jumba would even be willing to wager that Pleakley's doctors were also going to forbid communicator contact, letter-writing, postcards, cross-galactic flash-code signals. The only thing that Pleakley could do at this point was to leave and try to forget Jumba entirely, assuming that they didn't simply perform a precision lobotomy to physically remove all of his memories of the last few years.
No. No. Pleakley was the best friend he'd ever had. They were 'ohana. Jumba loved him. This couldn't be the only answer. Since when had Jumba Jookiba ever settled for a standard, mediocre answer?
Jumba slowly opened his eyes and looked over at Pleakley.
His friend was trying his best to rub his cheeks dry, one hand pressed against his mouth in an attempt to swallow his sobs like one would hiccups. He looked up, and for a second while their eyes met Jumba could almost feel physical heat emanating from the desire in his gaze before Pleakley forced himself to look away again.
Jumba carefully lacing his fingers together. "Pleakley. . ." he began. "Were you knowing that on my planet, even today, the population is divided into ethnic tribes? There are. . .about a dozen or so, settled on settled on different parts of the land, on the water, and also on the off-world colonies – Maleznika, Seniikal, and so on. Others in the Empire are thinking that when they see a Kweltikwaanian, it is just a Kweltikwaanian, but oh no." Jumba smiled knowingly and waggled his finger from side to side, always somehow pleased to reminisce about his home planet. "A Kweltikwaanian from the tribe of Aseni, for instance, is being miles different from a Kweltikwaanian from the tribe of Vienik, just as my tribe, Ramitak, is different from, say, Birano or those no good Amanis." Jumba shook his fist in honour of old rivalries.
"Is being of course, much co-operation between the tribes, and still we only get two seats on the Galactic Council, but still, Ramitak is being different from Birano is being different from Amani." He spread his hands and shrugged.
"And. . .there is a custom on my planet, which has been a custom of all the tribes for many centuries. You see, every so often, there may happen that two people from different tribes are falling in love, and so in order that they can stay together, one of them must leave their tribe and join the tribe of the other." He folded his hands.
"Then, for the rest of their lives, there is a responsibility owed to the one that left their tribe. They left their tribe, you see – their family, friends, way of living, for this other person. That person cannot now be leaving them or treating them badly. . .must take care of them, respect them, be there for them.Is being a very important duty. In my language, is called Melaan." Jumba smiled comfortingly at Pleakley, waiting for him to see the obvious parallel, but Pleakley still didn't seem to be as happy as Jumba seemed to think he should be.
"So. . .you think you owe me this 'melaan' now?" Pleakley shook his head. "You don't. There's only one person who fell in love here."
"You were the one who fell in love, yes, but I. . .do love you." Jumba said gently. "It would not be a heavy burden. I would be honoured. . ."
" –to what? Even if you did owe me 'melaan', this is a completely different situation, Jumba!" said Pleakley, anger finally making him rise to his feet. "Stop being so stupid and. . .making me think that there's anything you can do to make this situation better. You. . .already help take care of me, and respect me and everything. There's only one more thing want from you now," he hissed.
"I know," Jumba stated evenly.
Pleakley gulped. "You'd better not be suggesting what I think you're suggesting. I. . .couldn't," he said with obvious effort, wrapping his arms around himself in what may have been either a self-reassuring or a self-restraining gesture. "I couldn't make you do something as. . .disgusting to you as. . .as last night."
Jumba shook his head. "Last night was not disgusting. Surprising, yes. Strange. . .a little. Possibly will take some getting used to before is being completely comfortable. But honestly. . .did I look very disgusted?"
Pleakley bit his lip, looking down and still trying not to let the impossible possibility into his mind that this might be true.
Jumba sighed. "One of panels here folds down into a bed, and little girl was saying that they will be making roast of chicken tonight, so we will not have to be home for. . .at least an hour." If this was the alternative to losing Pleakley altogether, then so be it. Jumba didn't know how to make it any clearer that he really didn't mind.
"Pleakley. . .do you know how long has been since someone was crawling into my bed and seducing me?"
While the substance of which Pleakley's arms were made wasn't exactly rubber, it was surprisingly close in cellular structure.
The Plorginarian made a running leap into Jumba's arms. They shared a growing smile and, once a proper angle was worked out, a long, curious, but satisfying kiss.