Chapter 1

"I shouldn't have to put up with this, you know," Richard grumbled to himself as he trudged through the endless corridors of the Titanic II, a huge submarine accidentally turned spaceship that was being used as a repository for all of Earth's historical artefacts. "It must be someone else's turn to be the butt of the jokes."

All in all he was having a pretty awful week and it was still only Wednesday.

It had got off to a bad start on Monday morning when he'd taken a tumble trying to get out of bed and bashed his head on his bedside table. Then, when he'd stumbled out to breakfast, his two so-called friends, Tim and Paul, had noticed him rubbing his sore head and teased him mercilessly for being so clumsy and, in their words, 'wimpy' about it.

After that they had spent their day amusing themselves playing practical jokes on him. They'd, very generously he thought, offered him the last fizzy drink from the fridge only to be completely covered in sticky liquid when it exploded as he opened it.

Then they'd asked him to change a blown light bulb but, as he'd inserted the new one, Tim had flicked the light switch and he'd nearly fallen off the stepladder with the shock as Tim and Paul fell about laughing.

By the end of the day he was simply very grateful to crawl back to his bed, desperately hoping that the next day would be an improvement.

He had been bitterly disappointed when he'd been rudely awakened on Tuesday morning by Paul shaking him roughly by the shoulder and yelling at him to get up. Whenever Paul woke up in a bad mood it was usually him who bore the brunt of it.

So he was dragged along to serve as general dogsbody for the day's cataloguing, fetching and carrying until he didn't know whether he was coming or going and being roundly insulted and shouted at at every turn even when he followed Paul's instructions to the letter.

Today they'd devised a new game called 'send Richard on as many fool's errands as possible'.

So far they'd sent him to get rubber nails and a glass hammer, elbow grease and currently it was striped paint.

Now, Richard wasn't nearly that naïve, he knew precisely what they were up to but he reasoned that if he went along with it at least he might get some peace and quiet. Anyway he was going to show them this time, he knew exactly where the striped paint was kept.

But it really wasn't fair and quite frankly he was getting fed up with being injured and humiliated for the others' enjoyment.

He was so preoccupied with self pity that he didn't notice the strange looking insect descend from the ceiling on a gossamer thin thread and land on his hand. That was until it bit him.

"AAARRRGGGHH!" Richard yelled, hopping up and down and shaking his hand wildly. But the bug hung on 'til it had finished its meal and then dropped to the floor, scuttling away into the shadows.

Rich inspected the damage. On the triangle of skin between his thumb and forefinger were two red pin-pricks from which blood was trickling freely. He searched his pockets until he found a relatively clean tissue and a small plaster, he'd sort it out properly when he got back. A chill travelled down his spine and he shook himself; he forgot how cold it got in the lesser used parts of the ship. He drew his jacket tighter around himself and continued on his search.

Later, while Tim and Paul got over their surprise at the tin of stripy paint dumped triumphantly in their midst, Richard went off to the bathroom to have a proper look at that bite, it was itching like hell and he was slightly worried to see that it was still bleeding, two red patches already showing through the plaster.

After he had washed and put some ointment on it he did his best to wrap a bandage around it one handed. It would be more noticeable but that couldn't be helped. Just as he was tying it off with his teeth a sudden attack of vertigo sat him heavily on the floor.

'No! Pull yourself together,' he told himself irritably, he couldn't afford to be ill, he got enough stick from the others as it was without giving them any more reason to pick on him. He pulled himself to his feet and tried to convince himself that nothing was wrong as he made his way back to the living room.

When he got back Paul gave the cue to play one of their songs and, in an effort to pretend all was well, Richard did his best to get all the right notes in the right order but he was rapidly losing the feeling in the fingers of his right hand and it wasn't long before he made a mistake.

"Rich!" admonished Paul shaking his head, "get it together."

He tried again but it was becoming simply impossible to play and in the end he gave up.

"Hey, Rich? Why have you stopped?" asked Tim quickly, putting his hand on Paul's shoulder before he could blow his top again.

Richard turned away, "My fingers have gone a bit numb, I'm sure it's nothing, just some kind of flu or something."

Paul suddenly looked genuinely concerned, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes! God, there's no need to get so worked up, it's probably just some kind of bug!" he replied, a little louder than he'd intended and forgetting for the moment quite how truly he'd spoken. Shame at his failure to hide this weakness from his mates was making him belligerent.

Later that evening over dinner Tim and Paul noticed that Rich was miserably pushing his food about his plate rather than eating it.

"Are you alright mate?" asked Tim.

"I'm not hungry. I'm going to bed," he got up and moved to go to his room.

The other two looked at one another, that wasn't like Richard; usually he was the first to finish and often had seconds.

"Are you feeling OK?" asked Paul.

"I'm fine!" he snapped, finding his patience suddenly wearing incredibly thin, "I'm just not hungry!" He slammed the door behind him.

Paul shook his head, "You know, I just don't understand Richard sometimes, he objects to our harmless pranks but you offer him just a little sympathy and he rejects that too."

"Well perhaps we have been overdoing it just a bit lately," Tim conceded, "or maybe he's right and he's coming down with the flu or something."

Paul groaned; whenever Richard was sick he kept up a near constant litany of low level grumbling that would last at least a week.

"Aw, come on Paul, he can't exactly help being ill, can he?"

"Perhaps not, but he could be a bit quieter about it," Paul muttered.