Lost in Space: "Wanted Man…"

Summary: Smith's past...And the Space Tribunal catch up with him.

Stranded once again due to needed repairs on an unknown planet in a star system far from Earth (or Alpha Centauri), the Robinson, Major West, Dr. Smith, and the Robot are about to encounter an old foe. Several, actually.

Part 16...

"Mr. Zalto…" Smith frowns. "How dare you, sir?! Causing me so much bother!"

"Careful, Dr. Smith…" Zalto sneers, "You might wish to use your last moments to more profit…" slightly stunned as Penny fires at him.

"Oh, please…Lasers?" Zalto grins, his shield sparkling.

"Humans like them." Farnum shrugs. "Primitive but effective if you've no shielding…" grin.

Zalto, catching on, directs an energy beam at Farnum, the showman still by his controls… Farnum's shield sparkling…

"Took the liberty of raising internal force fields when I shieldscreened against you, you incredibly cheap quack." Farnum smiles.

"Ah…" Smith beams. "Seems the shoe is now on the other alien foot, Mr. Zalto. Oh!" As a furious Zalto directs energy surge his way…A sparkling about Smith now.

"Don't you harm Dr. Smith!" Penny cries, rushing at Zalto, waving gun.

"No, dear child!" Farnum cries. The shield protecting her moving with her and colliding with Zalto's throwing her back on the ship's deck. "You can't harm him that way. You'll only hurt yourself!"

"Penny, dear, please stop!" Smith urges. "We have this miserable miscreant contained now."

"Ummn…" Farnum hissed.

"Let me at him…! Break his shield, boss!" Nancy cries.

Well, at least I'm back to "Boss", Farnum thinks.

"The Great Zalto is not that easily defeated!" Zalto sneers. "And you're the cheap fraud, Farnum! With your phony zoo and space circuses full of robot duplicates and holographic copy frauds for the ignorant…Sold your soul to any other malevolent force recently?"

"That was me…" Nancy sighs.

"Is his effect fading, Farnum?" Smith whispers, having sidled over to Farnum, who shakes head.

"Afraid not, the internal shields are only weapons defensive."

"Can you break his shield, as the lady suggests?"

"Takes time…I'm trying to pinpoint his shield frequency." Farnum whispers back. "He's focused on you, keep him distracted. Use your best talent, Smith. Your hokum."

"Indeed." Glare.

Still…

"I'll have my revenge yet." Zalto fumes. "Oooh. Did you really have to shoot him, little girl?" eyes his puppet robot.

"Indeed, she did." Smith stepping forward. "And now, Zalto, before Farnum summons the Space Tribunal to bring you to justice, why not tell us why you thought to be a millstone round the clearly Providentially protected neck of one Dr. Zachary Smith."

"You know why, Dr. Smith." Zalto, narrow range. "You ruined my greatest feat of magic, the one that would have made me immortal."

"And killed me, you failed to mention that, sir." Smith frowning.

"Kill him!" Penny cries, rising from the deck.

"Anyway, you oughta be grateful to me, Dr. Smith!" Zalto, exultantly. "My spell/bioengineered ultra-frequency subquantum neural field has made you potentially the Sexiest Man Alive in the Entire Galaxy…And any you may pass through during the night. Well, as you travel and encounter other females, of course."

Smith staring…What?

"Yes, every female you encounter will become obsessed with you…In fact, I project estimate within one year, if you were to live so long, 70% of the females of the Galaxy will find you not only irresistible but that object of desire they can't help but pursue. You would, if you lived, be on the holographic cover of every glamour rag in the Known Galaxy. Smith, the Sexiest Man Alive, in this Galaxy."

"They will?" Smith eyed him.

"Well, of course, you'll almost certainly be dead by then. If not at my merciful hands, at the hands of the males of the Galaxy…Particularly the warlord types. You know, like that fellow 'The Ruler' you've encountered? Those hypermacho types, humanoid or otherwise, don't take kindly to their females…Wives, Queens, concubines…Dumping them. Particularly for someone like you, though you hardly matter but as a target for their rage." Zalto leers.

"And at last, my revenge is complete and Zalto's name will be spread across the Galaxy! As it should have when I sent you to destroy that moon."

"It would have killed me!" Smith notes. "You lied to me about those neutronic missiles, sir!"

"And you said you had an honest face!" Zalto rages. "But my revenge is not simply on you or this two-bit moustache twirling huckster Farnum B…"

Grrr…Farnum eyes him narrowly…Stroking mustache.

"…But on all those who once scorned Zalto the Magnificent. Now the Galaxy will pay, and boy, will they, to get their hands on this. Why, with a few easy modifications it'll work on males too…And all and any other genders! One could make oneself Emperor of the Galaxy…And none of that pathetic conquest boasting crap of some pathetic planet storing cloned soldiers, this is for real…"

"Indeed…I should wonder why you didn't use it yourself? Become Emperor." Smith eyes him shrewdly. "Is there perhaps some defect in the spell/device?"

"Certainly not…I just happen to be a big picture kinda guy. I can't get bogged down in the details of Galactic rule. I'll just be Chief Advisor." Zalto tries, offering confident air.

"Indeed…?" Smith, narrow look. Zalto sighing at last…

"Ok, ya got me." Shrug… "There is a defect to the spell field. The affected only get increasingly bound up to the subject. In the end, they won't let you alone, Smith. They'll hang on your very word, want to touch their beloved, hold him, fondle him…Take home pieces."

"What?!" Smith stares.

"Sooner or later, they'll crush, smother, love you to death Smith. It's unavoidable…" Zalto beams. "And it will happen to any petty tyrant hoping to use it to conquer the Galaxy. So, you could say I'm actually protecting the Galaxy from scum like you." Grin. "At an incredible profit, natch." Nods.

"Zachary Smith is not 'scum' you cheap huckster!" Nancy cries. "Darn tootin'!" Penny agrees.

"Tootin'? I've no translation…" Zalto stares at Farnum…Who shrugs.

"Well…You've got to remove it." Smith insists.

"Now, why should I do that?" Zalto grins. "I didn't do this for your benefit, as an old friend, Dr. Smith. This is revenge…Served red-hot, with Love. You should've let me kill you the easy way. But, hey…What a test of the field?…And what way to go, eh? Oh, and I've detected your attempts to lock on to my shield, Farnum." Wags forefinger. Disappears.

"Mr. Zalto! Come back, sir. You third-rate nostrums peddler, and hocus-pocus swindler!" Smith cries.

"Please, come back!"

"Well, if you put that way…" Zalto reappears. "Nah, just yanking the chain…" evil leer. "Bye, bye, Dr. Smith. Oh, one suggestion." Raises finger… "You might survive a bit longer by keeping yourself totally isolated from all members, humanoid or otherwise, of the female persuasion. After all, the more you encounter, the more they want to encounter you. Ha, ha, ha, ha, hah!" Disappears. As do the remains of his robot.

"Is he just…?" Smith, to Farnum as Penny and Nancy look about.

"No, he teleported back to his own ship I'd say." Farnum notes.

"Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear…Condemned to an existence of total solitude and that likely not for long…Given the persistence of the ladies obsessed with me." Smith sighs.

"Well, if you'd just stay with me, Dr. Smith…And we go off somewhere…" Penny, hopefully.

"My dear girl…" Smith sighs. "Not only would I never condemn you to such a fate, your father would hunt me down, quite rightly."

"That's right, I'm the far better choice. I'm an adult without ties, but the Boss. And I have the tech to protect you, Dr. Smith." Nancy, eagerly.

Farnum, slight beam…Well, at least I've 'ties' to her. Hmmn…

"I'm detecting a disturbance in space near us."

"Hey, I'm back!" Zalto's face appearing suddenly on a holographic viewscreen. "Hello, Dr. Smith…" the puppet robot beside him.

"Nah…" Zalto smiles at the surprised faces of Penny and Smith. "I just transferred the memory bank to my spare. You folks still owe me one Catorian puppet robot, you can order via the Celestial Department Store, code ZXV-399.1. If you live long enough, it might encourage me to be more merciful in how I kill you."

"A puppet robot who is not pleased, little girl, at being shot." The puppet robot glares at Penny.

"Zalto…" Farnum smiles at image. "You must know my ship not only is far larger and more powerful and shielded that your pathetic little tub, but I have offensive weapons."

"Which is why I'm keeping just out of range while I transmit your coordinates to the Tribunal." Zalto grins. "But I'm afraid your communications are jammed so their ships will blast you out of space, for the greater good of the Galaxy."

"I thought you said you leave me to be killed by the victims of your spell." Smith eyes him.

"Well, I guess I have an honest face, too. And no intention of letting you hide on some isolated world somewhere, like the young lady suggested." Zalto, chuckling. "Though it is Plan C, just in case."

"Get us outta here, Boss!" Nancy cries.

"Hmmn…He's…" Farnum began…

"…Neutralizing the space about our ships for hyperspace travel, my dear…" Zalto finishes. "You folks are going nowhere." His face blinking as Farnum glares and activates controls.

"Mr. Farnum?" Smith turns to him.

"The intrepid Farnum B surrenders to no quack!" Farnum cries. "And I have a debt to my human friends to pay!"

"Boss, no!" Nancy cries, realizing. "What's happening?!" Penny cries. Zalto's small ship now on holographic screen, closing fast.

"Oh, the imminent pain!" Smith cries.

"No, Farnum! Stop!" Zalto realizing as well as Farnum's huge ship on local thrusters heads at his.

"Farewell, my friends!" Farnum, grandiosely, as all but he, including the deactivated female robot, disappear from the ship. Which closes on Zalto's ship even as it tries to thrust away, shields colliding and violently shorting out with violent blast.

"Same time, pathetic humans…Same fan-fiction site…" the puppet robot leering at us.