Seabourne Finds a Shiny

[Jonathan Seabourne]

"I don'ts like it, Mr. Seabourne. Don'ts like it one bit."

"Unfortunately, that puts it in a rather large category of things better known as 'the observable universe', Sam. You'll have to be a bit more specific with your scorn for this particular bauble."

"There I begs to differ, cap'n. Never one to complain, you know. Never one to tell a thing it's an abomination, would be rude, ya see? The neighbors would talk, and we know how chatty the peaches can get. Mum raised me right, Mr. Seabourne, but this is a thing man was not meant to know."

"Perfect for the man who knows nothing, then! As as your resident wisest-of-all-men, ipso facto we keep it."

"Ya can'ts be serious."

"Only when I'm joking. Besides, we constantly carry boxes of shinnies, trinkets, odds and ends, and are the sector's premier stocker of "what" in both "not" and "have-you" varieties. What's one more mysterious crate?"

"It's more like 10 more mysterious crates."

"It's the size of a beach ball!"

"Aye, but anything you put nears it starts acting funny, and that's funny by our standards. I put it near the peaches earlier-"

"Can't trust the syrupy buggers any farther than you can throw them."

"Can't agree with you enough on that, captain. I told Jimmy to keep an eye on them, which naturally he took to mean get in a staring contest with the cans."

"Good man, seems reasonable so far."

"Except he says he won a round against them."

"...alright, consider my concert thoroughly dissed. We can't just go throwing this out an airlock, but I'd rather not fly around with a Nomad Power Cell any longer than I absolutely have to."

"Preferably before we run into any Order or LSF boyos. Might be wise to avoid the route to Delta for a bit in favor of the French Connection."

"Hell, the UC might be the best ones to help move this thing. Why do you think the Brilliance had it? And what was it doing near Vaitupu?"

"Prob'ly the same thing we was, Cap'n, namely dicking around. Only difference is the Widdershins managed to fly away from the planet."

"Probably because at this point our ship is rather indistinguishable from a debris field that happens to be constantly travelling in the same direction."

"Right you are, Cap'n."

"Fine, I'll send out some messages, contact some people, see if we can't find this shiny a home. Someone's willing to pay for a bowling ball that sparkles backwards, I imagine."

"So long as yer friends ain't willin' to kill for it, I imagine we'll get along just fine."

"Oh, I doubt they'd call us friends, but they might be rather indistinguishable from the real deal. Well, indistinguishable enough, I suppose. Especially if you squint."