Way... Way Out

[First lines]

Narrator:
This is Colonel John "Shorty" Powers in Lunar Launch Control. This story takes place near the turn of the century -not the last century, the *next* century. Nothing very much has happened since the 1960's: There as still a United Nations, and peace in the world... or at least what we have come to accept as "peace".

Ponsonby:
I'm afraid the fertilizer has hit the ventilator sir!

[loading the sex-crazed Schmilap onto the return vessel]

Pete Mattemore:
When do you untie him?

Hoffman:
When I rendezvous with Deuce in the main ship, and get some help.

Schmidlap:
NOTHIN'S gonna help ya Hoffman! You no good dir...

[Hoffman yanks the cord on Schmidlap's suit radio. Schmidlap continues shouting in silence, until quieted by a few blows by Hoffman to the side of his helmet]

Pete Mattemore:
What happens when Schmidlap gets back, and there's girls all over the place?

Hoffman:
Oh I don't know... I honestly don't know... If I could just get him to go back to Divinity school...

[Mattemore staggers into Quonset's office in spasms, propped up by Ponsonby]

Harold Quonset:
What's going on?

Ponsonby:
I don't know. I- I just got him out of them centrifuge and... and... [places Mattemore in chair] there it was.

Harold Quonset:
[to Mattemore] Does that thing always affect you like that?

Pete Mattemore:
No... NO, uh, only when it turns... only when it turns.