I woke up in the morning to find out I had floated up to the ceiling and become tangled in the light fixture while I was catching my forty-one winks, the extra wink being guaranteed by Vandium cruise lines and the crew of the cruise ship Excelsior. I vaguely remembered dreams of flying through vast open skies--something which would explain why I found myself perched like an eagle on top of a flagpole. I found the floor, and put on my coat and my velcro slippers. I was already wearing my gun.

I walked out into the corridor, tastefully carpeted in light red on three walls, my slippers gripping and letting go of the shag like an indecisive lover. Rip, rip, rip, I velcroed my way aft, looking for breakfast and maybe a hair of the dog that hadn't bitten me enough. In zero gravity, walking is a chore -- most people prefer to drift along -- but I had never learned how to maneuver with no down. I got so turned around trying to get to breakfast that I found myself staring back into my own cabin: upside down, no less. I decided to let my stomach run my feet, and under its capable guidance I found my way to the dining room.

***

I woke up that morning with a headache the size of a Buick and a lump on the back of my head to prove that I hadn't gotten it out of a bottle. Unless I had fallen on the bottle. I sat up. Or rather, tried to sit up.

Now, I've woken up in many back alleys, and even in a few dumpsters, but I had never before woken up in a self-compacting dumpster before. Sitting up was impossible. Breathing was disgusting, but I kept on with it, hoping it would get better. Putting the best face on things, at least I had time to think. I remembered the night before only hazily. I had been investigating something -- but what? I remembered being in a shootout with someone, but the gun had shot needles instead of bullets. It was pretty clear that whatever I had been doing, it had been even more stupid than normal.

My name is Spock. Sam Spock. It's not my fault: my mother was a hippy and my father watched too much Star Trek. I'm a private investigator.

My reverie was interrupted when the entire dumpster gave a jerk and began to move. I was being hauled away! I tried frantically to remember where the city sends its trash -- I hoped it wasn't an incinerator. I felt around, wiggling my fingers as much as I could in my somewhat constricted position. Under my left hand, I could feel a can. I ran my fingers over the label -- I have very sensitive fingers ever since the night in Cairo when -- but I digress. It was a tuna can.

Under my other hand was -- my heart skipped a beat -- a discarded zippo lighter. It was green. My fingers are indeed that sensitive. In the methane-rich atmosphere of the dumpster, the lighter could be my round trip ticket on the bus of freedom. I grasped it in my hand, and recited an old Egyptian prayer. Something about wanting my mummy.

***

About half way through a mountain of pancakes just like my ex-wife used to heat up in the microwave the ship's steward walked over to me. He looked like he had just backed a losing man in the suicide races.

"Excuse me, sir, are you Mister Samuel Speed?"

"No, the coat's just for show and the side arm's for picking my teeth. Yeah, I'm Speed."

"The Captain requests to speak with you."

"She can wait until my pancakes get cold."

The man looked pained. "It is a matter of some urgency, sir."

The Captain's office was small, located near the front of the ship. Inside, a large oak desk was tethered to the floor, top bare, and the walls were carpeted with one of those fractal-oriental patterns that makes my eyes hurt like I just left a four-day bender. Outside the port, ribbons of light writhed like mating snakes, glowing hot blue as we raced toward them. The Captain was a young dame, about twenty, blonde, and looking more like a cheerleader than a space-dog.

"Mister Speed."

"Miz Captain."

She smiled, tightly, like she was squeezing a lemon with her lips. "You signed the register as Samuel Speed, P.I. Are you indeed a licensed psychic investigator?"

I whip out my badge, silver star whirling in the air above the unit. "Actually, I found this in a carton of Cracker Jacks. What's your problem?" If the truth be told, I had to send away points from the back of my sugar crunchies for the badge. And three dollars to boot.

"Our problem is your problem too, Mister Speed. The chief engineer is dead. And the assistant engineer has disappeared."

I gave her my best piercing gaze. "So someone doesn't like technicians. Never liked them myself. What's the real problem?"

She turned away from me. "The real problem, Mister Speed, is that the Nspace engine that the Excelsior uses is an experimental model. Only the engineer and his second know how to use it. And if we can't get back to normal space soon..."

***

When I came to, I was dangling from a traffic light on the Avenue. Underneath me were the stinking and broken remains of the dumpster and the truck. A fireman was slapping my face. In case it worries you, he was on a ladder. He wasn't levitating.

After I explained to him that I didn't have anything to do with the explosion, I was just hanging on the traffic light because of my bad back, he let me go. I staggered to the curb and casually stole a bicycle.

When I got back to my office, I was badly in need of a drink. It turned out the flask in my desk was also badly in need of a drink, though, so we were both out of luck. I surveyed the top of the desk, looking at the papers piled everywhere and the obsolete computer. Obsolete already, and I had only bought the damn thing five minutes before on my way to the office.

Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door, and in burst a dame. She was tall, and red-haired, and looked like trouble. Two kinds of trouble, really.

"I can't believe you're still around to cause trouble, Spock." She glared at me harder than a father looks as his daughter's first date. I was really suprised that I had no idea what I had done to make her mad.

"I was, I mean, I was just, I was-"

"You don't even know, do you?"

I shook my head. "Haven't the faintest." I explained to her that I had woken up in a dumpster that morning and didn't remember what I had been doing the night before. She chuckled, and said she would go get something to help me remember. "Make it a double!" I said to her back as she left.

I sat in my chair -- it's a big leather one, made from real naugas -- and put my feet up on the computer. Something was bothering me, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I go up and paced up and down the room. Then it hit me. Literally.

***

"P.I. doesn't stand for perfect idiot. I know enough about Nspace flight to know we're in more trouble than a virgin in a volcano. All that remains is to discuss my fee: investigation doesn't come cheap. One thousand dollars a day, plus expenses." I drifted behind her desk and began to rifle through the drawers.

"Done. It's too much, but I don't see as I have any choice but to pay you."

I emerged from the drawer with a plastic bubble of scotch. "Good. Then you can write this under expenses and tell me everything you know." I tilted back my head and squirted the bulb into my throat.

She looked momentarily shocked, then regained her composure.

"That cost me over ten K to have shipped from earth."

I looked at her. "Do you want your problem solved, or not?" She glowered, then looked away. We both knew that I was holding all five aces in this game.

After a short silence, she started in: "I can't imagine who could have killed Mr. Wilson. And in such a horrible fashion. He was found in the front observation bubble, smeared all over the glass. We has to check the DNA to make sure it was him."

I thought for a moment. "All right, then, I'll need to talk to whoever saw the engineers last. In the dining room."

"Right away."

"After dinner."

She looked at me just like my ex-wife used to before she started into me for drinking a little. "Shouldn't you get a faster start?"

"Lady, I'll save your precious little ship."

She snorted delicately. "You're awfully confident. How are you so sure you can find out what happened?"

I turned to her and looked her up and down. She was only beginning to look indignant when I stopped her by holding up my hand. "You graduated from Tokyo Space Academy four years ago. You were promoted to captain a year ago, though this is your first voyage on your own ship. You favorite color is green, and your second favorite thing to do is play pool in zero gravity. You mother was named Samantha." The expression on her face did a turn so fast it left skid marks by her ear.

"I'm confident, because I'm just that good," I said, and stepped out of her office. I was glad I'd spent a few hours looking her up before leaving on the trip.

***

The door was flung open into me, and I tumbled to the ground. I looked up, and saw a man who looked like an orangutan on heavy steroids. Behind him, the red-haired woman was laughing, and I realized what was bothering me.

"That hair. It's not really red, is it?"

She stopped laughing. "Bruno, crush him!" The man mountain moved towards me, but I was too fast for him. I whirled around on my back, kicking him in the shins, in the groin, in the shins again, and one final time to the chin. As he fell, I leapt to my feet. I fight best from the floor -- it's where I get most of my practice.

She pulled a gun, and I leapt at her, throwing us both to the hallway floor. I struck the gun out of her hand, and grappled, trying to pin her.

"Hey, these aren't real either." My fingers, as I have said, are very sensitive. Suddenly I was the unhappy recipient of a sharp elbow to the solar plexus. She rolled free and pressed her stiletto heel to my throat. I laid as still as a flounder at the fish counter. Those things are sharp!

"So, Spock, you thought you could escape by playing dumb. You thought I would just let you get away, knowing what you know. Well, your number is up!" Bruno got up and grabbed the pistol. "I don't know how you got out of that dumpster, but I'm not going to make the mistake of leaving you to die again."

"Oh good. Does that mean you'll let me go?"

"No! I'm going to kill you now."

"But I don't know anything!" I protested. "I'm completely ignorant!"

"Ha." She turned, leaving Bruno to cover me. She sat down on my chair, and wheeled herself so that she could put her foot on my neck again. "I know you were the one who attempted to steal the professor's dimensional communication device from us. But you are too late. Soon, my allies and I will go on an unstoppable crime spree!"

"Right. The professor's device. Of course." I looked desperately around for something that could help me.

"I wouldn't expect such a man such as you to understand." I continued to look for help. Nothing within reach on the floor. Her red stiletto heel was no help either, nor were her sheer stockings, nor her legs, nor anywhere higher up.

"You really aren't a natural redhead, are you? I was only guessing before."

She stared at me for a moment, then stood. "I'm going to leave now. After I go, Bruno is going to kill you. Don't try to thank me." She swept out of my office.

***

A lot of people think that psychic investigator means I can go around sucking thoughts out of people's head and tossing rocks with my noodle like some sort of super-hero. It's just not true. I get hunches, my intuition is very good, and sometimes I can see the future -- like knowing it's going to hurt in the morning when I have ten shots of scotch in the evening -- but I can't lift a truck with my head any more than you can tie a knot in your neck.

I got back to my cabin very quickly, and drank more of the Captain's ten thousand dollar scotch. I decided to go have a look at the observation bubble to while away the time before dinner.

From the bubble, I could see the squirming star-field outside. As usual, it looked like Technicolor linguine and offered no solutions. I remembered my ex-wife's hair, which also looked like Technicolor pasta the night she left me for the transsexual hairdresser she said was more sensitive. I drank the remaining six thousand dollars as I thought about her.

Thus fortified, I headed aft, determined to look at the experimental engine. My velcro slippers made a noise like someone peeling a million band-aids off of a gorilla, and I was making good time. Just as I rounded a corner, though, someone barreled into me and ripped me off the floor. She was small, and wearing a black pull-over mask to go with the rest of her ninja outfit. We careened through the air, and I grabbed at her neck, coming away with a fistful of red hair.

She grabbed onto a wall bracket with her toes and swung me around hard onto the ceiling. I saw stars for a moment, but all of the scotch that I had inside me had a certain anesthetic effect, and I quickly pushed off the wall. I heard her crouching to leap up from the floor after me, so I pulled my flechette pistol and blew a few thousand ceramic slivers into the space behind me. The recoil slammed me into the wall again, and my scotch was wearing off. When I finally got my face out of the carpet, she was gone, leaving only a thousand tiny holes in the wall and my bloody nose to mark our combat. I checked my pistol. Only twenty thousand shots left.

***

Bruno stared at me with piggy little eyes and raised the pistol.

"Bruno. Buddy. Pal. If you don't shoot me, I could give you..." My eyes wandered frantically around the office, and my mouth wandered frantically around the sentence. "I could give you, you know, really great stuff, like, like..." Suddenly my eyes reported back. "Like a KiwiJR7500Pro Desktop System!"

He stopped, and looked at the computer. "Multimedia?"

"Cross my heart. Eight speed CD drive and 37 megabytes of RAM. Latest thing!"

He considered for a moment, then: "Nah. I saw one of those in the trash on the way here. Obsolete. All of the new ones have multithreaded operating systems." He raised the gun again.

"Safety's on."

"Thanks." He flicked it off. What was I going to do?

"I have six dollars and fifty cents in my pocket."

"Really?" He considered for a moment. "I guess that would do it." He pulled me to my feet, and I handed over the money. "I don't want to be, y'know, without compassion. That gives thugs everywhere a bad name."

I smiled. "I know what you mean. Thanks, man."

"No problem." He left the office, and I sank down in my chair. I knew I had only a limited amount of time before he discovered that it was only $6.45. I had to get to the bottom of this mystery. But first I had to get to the bottom of the bottle in my file cabinet. Unfortunately it was as dry as a camel's whistle. I decided to head to Archie's -- maybe he would be able to get me started on a refill.

***

Engineering was a lonely as a nun's underwear, and almost as cramped. In the center of the room was a huge machine, whining and sparking, more lights and sparklies than the '13 solar system fair. Normally, I have heard, the engine is covered by a protective web, to keep people away from it. This experimental model must have needed a lot of tinkering, though -- no cover. I attempted to launch myself towards a computer console on the other side of the room, but my left velcro slipper caught on my right leg, and I tumbled off in an entirely different direction -- directly towards the machine. The air began to crackle around me, and my hair stood on end briefly, before suddenly discharging onto my nose. I clapped my hands to my face, and incidentally covered my eyes. I reached out for something to halt myself, and my hand closed on a smooth metal rod. There was a sudden snap and the smell of burning hair, and I gracefully succumbed to the embrace of night -- my favorite mistress, if you don't count Alicia, of course.

***

Archie's was the sort of place where no one gets falling down drunk. The floor's too sticky: it's dangerous. Archie hoses it down once a fortnight, except he doesn't remember how long one of those is. I think his last estimate was about six months.

"Archie!" I said, smiling broadly.

"Spock!" He came running toward me. I opened my arms for an embrace, being as sensitive and new-age a guy as anyone. Boy was I surprised when he picked up the nearest unbroken chair and played a tune on my noodle with it.

***

When I came to, I was lying on a sticky floor with Archie and the Captain leaning over me.

"Ow." I was stuck to the floor like gum to the bottom of a chair, although how I really couldn't tell. "If I'm going to be seeing double, I'd like to see two of her." I told them.

"What?" They said together. "Who?"

"Oh, pull yourselves together." I let myself fall back into unconsciousness.

***

I awoke in my cabin on the Excelsior, with the captain's pretty face only inches from mine. I attempted to grab her and kiss her, but she was alerted when my arms got tangled in the sheet and floated back a few feet. I sat up.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you. I was dreaming you were a bartender named Archie."

"What? I think you should lie down again. You still aren't making sense." She put her hand on my forehead. "You took quite a zot from the engine."

I shook my head. "No. Things are just getting interesting." I swung myself off of the bed, and floated to the chair to grab my gun and holster. "I was attacked in the corridor just before I went to engineering."

The Captain gasped, her chest moving in interesting ways with the sudden breath.

"Tell me Captain... who on this voyage has red hair?"

She looked confused for a moment. "What?"

"The woman who attacked me was a redhead."

"Ah. Well..." She checked her data pad. "Um, no one."

"What?"

"Not a one."

"Damn." I rubbed my aching head. "Do you have any more of that scotch?"

She tossed her head, hair swinging in zero gravity. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"What time is it?"

"It's just after dinner, now. And as long as you're up, we can go talk to Ensign Flanders."

"Who?"

"As far as I can tell, the last person to see both of the engineers."

"Oh. How about some dinner, first? I'm hungry enough to eat a walrus."

***

"Captain, you are such a commanding presence --"

"SAM!" Archie slapped me across the face, but lightly. "Snap out of it so I can feel good about hitting you again."

I opened one eye and squinted at him. "You are not an improvement on the dream I was having."

Archie sighed and slid me a glass of beer. "You're too pathetic to punch. Have a drink."

"Don't mind if I do." I dove into the glass, then suddenly had a burst of memory. "Archie... why did you hit me with a chair?"

"Oh, don't get me started, after what you did to that poor woman, why I oughta --" He reached below the counter, to where I was pretty sure his shotgun was.

I hurriedly leaned forward and put my hand on his shoulder. I didn't fancy a perforation to go with my pummeling. "No, really, I don't remember anything about a woman." I thought a moment. "Unless she was a blonde. And I don't really remember anything about her, either."

Archie shook his bald head. "No. A redhead. You decked her and dragged her out of here last night before I could stop you."

Wheels turned in my head. "I think I may know the woman you are talking about. She and her muscular friend tried to kill me this morning. She's not the sort of woman you think."

"I guess not. So why did you hit her last night?"

I shook my head. "I don't remember yet."

He chuckled. "You did have a lot to drink."

"Why?"

"Something about a wake? I didn't know you had any friends, even dead ones."

A wake? But for who? "What was I drinking?"

"Monkey Elbows. You know, like your old professor friend used to drink. Rum and bananas blended together. With a dash of vanilla, and one of those little umbrellas."

It all came back to me in a rush. And I don't just mean the way my stomach felt after thinking about rum with mushed bananas.

***

Ensign Flanders spoke in a rush like the babbling of a brook that hadn't had anyone to talk to for months. "I was coming back from my last shift dinner which is at 0300 hours which is three in the morning and I was really tired so I didn't say anything to Mr. Wilson when I ran into him in the corridor but he was looking very excited and he actually stopped me so I stopped because he is a superior officer and he said eureka I've done it Flanders he said Flanders because that's my name and --" He took a long breath. "And then I said done what and he said I've perfected the interdimensional engine at least that's what I think he said and now we won't need to use Nspace any more and I said that I liked the way the stars go all ribbony and he said you can't stop science and ran off towards the front of the ship and I --"

"What about the assistant?" I turned around in my chair to face the captain. "What is his name, anyway?"

"Her name, Mr. Speed," she responded, "Her name is Alexandra Epsilon."

Alexandra? That name was important somehow.

"Anyway a couple of minutes later I ran into Alexandra only I nearly didn't recognize her and she asked if I had seem Mr. Wilson and I said yes he went that way and she said thanks and went after him down the hallway and as she left I asked her why she had a towel wrapped around her head but she didn't say anything but I guess she must have been sleeping because she was wearing these black pajama things too --"

"That's enough, Mr. Flanders." Alexandra? I could feel my intuition straining to close the gap, but it was still too wide.

***

"Alexandra! Her name is Alexandra Epigraph! She was the professor's assistant..." I groped around in my head for more. "She killed him!"

"No! A nice looking redhead like that?"

"She's not really a redhead."

"Oh. Is that why she killed him?"

I leaned over the counter and grabbed him by the collar. "No! No!" I let go of him again. "At least, I don't think so."

Archie walked to the other end of the bar and started mixing a drink in the blender, which pretty effectively killed conversation. It was like trying to talk to him through a weed whacker, only without the smell of grass cuttings.

I read somewhere that when things get slow in detective work, someone always walks in with a gun. That day was no exception. The guy was Bruno, and the gun was some sort of army surplus submachine gun.

"I've thought about it," he said, "And I really don't think I can betray Ms. Epigraph's trust in me by letting your live. I think you should help me actualize my newfound moral resolution."

Archie and I stood blinking stupidly, trying to understand what he had said. Seeing our confusion, he repeated himself: "Sam, I'm gonna kill you for Alexandra."

"What did he say the first time?"

"I don't know, Archie. Bruno, what did you say the first time?"

He let his cold metal buddy do the speaking for him, and it neatly ventilated my hat. If that sounds really impressive, I should tell you that my hat was still lying on the floor in the corner from when Archie hit me.

"Sorry," said Bruno. "It's the short barrel on this thing. Not very accurate." He flicked a lever. "I'll have to put it on automatic."

I wasn't listening really well, though, being more concerned with joining Archie behind the bar. As we crouched there, keeping low, he handed me a glass, and I took a swig.

It was a Monkey Elbow, and it was as bad as I remembered.

***

I was halfway through my walrus steak when the intuition I had been grasping for suddenly came to me.

"Get me the captain," I said to the waiter. "Tell her I've figured it out." He turned to carry out my request, and nearly bumped into the captain herself.

I said to her, "Black pajamas!"

She looked confused for a moment, and then said, "Sam, I know who attacked you. It was Alexandra. The sink in her cabin is covered with red hair dye."

"I was just about to say that!"

The Captain rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you were."

"It was the black pajamas." I sawed off another chunk of walrus, and, while I chewed, continued to talk. I've got a lot of bad habits. "So she must have been the one to get Mr. Wilson. The only question is why."

"What about how? He was smeared all over the bubble. There's no way she could have done that -- she wasn't big enough."

"So she must have had an accomplice."

"But who? And why didn't they both attack you?"

"That's because..." I paused a moment and wondered whether to go with the impressive lie, or to admit that I didn't know. "It's because her accomplices were from another dimension, and had to go back."

"I can't believe you just said that."

"Well, if it isn't dimensional travel, where is Alexandra now?"

The Captain had nothing to say to that. I merely smiled and started in on my smashed potato.

***

"Archie, why did you give me that? Now I'm really mad." I grabbed him and we rolled around on the floor for a moment, which was fortunate because Bruno put a line of bullet holes through the bar where our heads had been. I took advantage of the distraction to get Archie hard on the chin. He went out like disco.

As I lay on the sticky floor wondering what to do, I heard the unfriendly sound of Bruno loading a new clip. I tried to get closer to the ground, disgusting as that was, when suddenly my eye caught on the blender, still half full of Monkey Elbows, perched high above me on the bar. A plan was forming in my mind. I hoped it wasn't as stupid as it seemed to be.

Suddenly, the bar was lit up as bright as noon at Hiroshima, more light than had been inside that room since the beginning of time. The light actually cleaned dirt off the walls, it was so bright. A loud roaring noise came along with it, and the floor seemed to stretch underneath me like taffy. I knew that now was the time to go ahead with my plan. So, uttering a short prayer, I pulled hard on the blender cord, and it toppled off the bar.

***

After dinner, I headed back to the engine room. Surely, I reasoned, in a fight between engineers, the answer could be found in engineering. I had my flechette pistol out, expecting to run into the homicidal red-headed ninja named Alexandra again.

This time, I made sure to fasten a few safety lines before having a look at the engine. Drifting closer, I noticed that there was a hatch on the side of the biggest piece of the engine, something that looked like a cross between a steam boiler and an irritated camel. Reaching out with my gun, I tapped the door, and it swung open. Inside was a small black box, hooked to the rest of the engine by one thin wire. Next to it was an empty space shaped like another one.

If you ever need proof that evolution really hasn't gotten us anywhere, what I did next is pretty good: with enough curiosity to fuel a thousand of my monkey ancestors, I reached forward and pulled out the black box. It came unfastened pretty easily, and once I had it in my hand, I noticed that it had a button on it.

Of course, I pushed it. There was a brilliant flash of light, and a feeling like I was being turned inside out. Then I fell hard onto a sticky floor, and just after I hit, a blender full of an awful sticky mess fell onto my outstretched arm, coating the black box in goo. It promptly caught on fire.

***

Suddenly a rather handsome looking man wearing something that looked like a silver trenchcoat fell from the ceiling and hit the floor. The blender fell on him, and something caught fire. I jumped on him to try and put it out, but the jerk misunderstood me and pulled out a strange looking sidearm.

***

As I was trying to divest myself of the burning box, someone jumped on me, so I pulled out my pistol and tried to shoot him. Unfortunately, he spoiled my aim, so I ended up blowing a big hole in the bar we were fighting behind. I pushed him away and sat up. A sudden resemblance hit me like an asteroid.

"You look just like me," the stranger said. "What the hell is going on?"

"I might ask you the same thing. And where the hell am I?"

"You're at Archie's bar." He held up the limp arm of another man. "This is Archie."

"That's nice," I said, and stood up to have a look-see.

"Don't stand up," yelled my double. "You'll get your head punched like a ticket!"

I was already standing by the time he was finished with his metaphor, so I looked in the direction he was gesturing. A big gorilla of a man was lying bleeding on the floor, several hundred tiny flechettes having tenderized him in a permanent way. "You mean him?" I asked.

"You do know your coat is still on fire, don't you?"

No way I was going to let this baboon out-cool me, even if he was good looking. "Yeah." I pulled a cigarette from the bartender's pocket and lit it on my sleeve before putting it out with the seltzer sprayer.

***

I stood up to face the man in the silver trenchcoat. "Thanks for nailing Bruno. I was just about to myself, but you saved me the trouble."

"Sure thing."

"What's your name, anyway? I'm Sam. Sam Speed, psychic investigator."

I stuck out my hand. "Samuel Spock. I'm a private investigator myself." He shook it firmly. I like a guy with a good firm handshake, but this was really more than I had bargained for. When I shook his hand, my mind did a dip and twirl like I hadn't felt since the brown acid at Woodstock. I could tell from his expression that he was feeling the same thing.

"Great jumping Jupiters," he said, "you're me!"

I felt the same way. Except without the Jupiters.

***

"But if you're me --"

"Then that means that --"

"Alexandra must be --

"Alexandra!"

I stared at him. "Stop stomping on my sentences!" we shouted at each other. I reached over and clamped my hand over his mouth.

"As I was saying. This means that Alexandra Epsilon must have taken one of the black boxes and come here. But why? Ow!"

"Because," he said as I cradled my arching hand -- I hadn't been bitten like that since that night in Cairo -- "She needed to pick up her accomplice. Alexandra Epitaph."

"Who killed the professor for his dimensional communicator thingie!"

"Which is how they planned the whole thing!"

"And now they're --"

Our little reverie was rudely interrupted by the entrance of about twenty nine millimeter slugs into the room, followed by four legs worth of red-headed mayhem. Alexandra was still wearing her black ninja pajama outfit, and holding some sort of slug thrower. The other Alexandra had an automatic weapon, something like the one that the big man on the floor had. I observed all of this as I leapt through the air and came down behind a table, which I quickly flipped on its side. Sam Spock landed next to me.

"This is my table! Get your own!" he said.

"Sam. Do you know if Bruno's gun is loaded?"

"Yes, he reloaded it... ah, I get you." We both flattened as one or the other of them shot at us. The table shook, but held. "Twenty years of accumulated beer spills. Nothing goes through this baby," explained Spock.

"On three," I said, "you distract them, I'll go for the gun."

"I've got a better idea. How about you distract them, I go for the gun."

"No, I --"

"Wait a minute. Aren't you carrying a gun already?"

I looked sheepishly at the flechette pistol in my hand. "I knew it was there all along. I was just testing you."

"Right. You cover me, I'll go for the gun."

***

Speed leapt up and his gun made a whining noise like an angry Chihuahua, filling the air with buzzing ceramic fragments. I dove out, rolled, and grabbed Bruno's submachine gun. I was about to open fire when Speed yelled at me, "Don't hit Alexandra! She's got the black box dimensional device!"

I looked at the two women, who were picking themselves off of the floor. They looked at me. "Which one?" I asked. This was a mistake. Women, like all dangerous animals, can sense fear and confusion. The one in black pajamas leapt upon me in an instant, and before I knew what was going on I was flying through the air. I bounced off the ceiling and would have been seriously injured had it not been for Archie's body, which broke my fall. As it was, I decided to emulate the noble opossum, and play dead.

Through the big hole in the bar, I saw Sam Speed put his hands in the air. Alexandra grabbed his left arm, and Alexandra grabbed his right, and they hauled him outside. Normally, a guy bracketed like that would look happy, but Speed looked like a man marching to the chair.

I lay behind the bar and tried to figure out what to do. I almost got up, but after falling over again I decided that the time was not yet right for such drastic measures.

***

The two ladies bound me up with duct tape and threw me into the trunk of a black sedan, which they then proceeded to drive over all of the bumps within a ten mile radius. It was a really tight fit -- I felt like a canned ham.

To all tins there comes a can opener, and I was no exception. After about half an hour -- I have a very good sense of time -- the car pulled to a stop after some especially bone-jarring bumps, and someone flung open the trunk. I squinted, blinded like a bat in the sudden light. Strong arms seized me and lifted me out. Extremely strong arms. I opened my eyes, and found myself staring full in the face of a cross between an orangutan and Aphrodite.

"Who the hell are you?"

Alexandra, the one in the skirt, not the one in the ninja outfit, appeared over the ape woman's shoulder. "This," she said with a smile so cruel it would give a tax auditor the creeps, "is our third associate. Her name is Alex Oota Eep."

Alexandra Epsilon, in black pajamas, appeared over the other mountainous shoulder. "And you are her payment. She took quite a fancy to you when she saw your picture on the Excelsior's passenger list."

The woman under discussion grinned. Her canines were longer than my dog's, and twice as yellow. She laughed. Her deep base voice made me feel inadequate.

"Well," I said, "now I know how you splattered Mr. Wilson." I tried to smile. "So you can just surrender now. I've figured it all out."

Ms. Oota Eep gave me a squeeze, and the world faded before my eyes.

***

"Archie! I've got to borrow your car. I can? Thanks." Patting his back, I took the keys out of his pocket. I hoped he wouldn't wake up before I got back. Then I grabbed the only unbroken bottle of whiskey from the wall, and took a healthy dose to steady myself. It didn't work, so I sent a friend down to help with the job. Thus fortified, I staggered around back and got in Archie's car.

There was only one place they could have gone. Well, that wasn't strictly accurate. Better to say that there was only one place that they could have gone that I knew about. So I headed to the professor's lab, which was located in an abandoned factory outside of town. Old science guys with crazy hair always end up in places like that.

When I arrived, I knew that it was the right place by the sedan parked out front. I could tell from the make and model -- it was the sort of car a would-be transdimensional criminal would drive. And a piece of Sam Speed's stupid silver trenchcoat was caught on the hood of the trunk.

Stopping my car, I checked the ammunition in Bruno's gun. It was full: thirty little brass jacketed lead exclamation points ready to punctuate any sentence required. I crept into the factory through a side door.

Inside was one of the most horrible scenes I have ever been unfortunate enough to witness.

***

The ape woman was slobbering all over me as she dragged me around like a four year old's favorite rag doll. The two Alexandras -- well, two out of three, if you counted Neanderthal lady -- were busy with the black box, hooking it into something that looked like a cross between a helicopter and an octopus. Clearly that was a transdimensional travel machine.

"Oota!" said one, "Stop playing with him and give us a hand with this." They had both changed into black jumpsuits, and I couldn't tell them apart any more.

"What do we need from the Excelsior, anyway? Why do we have to go back there?"

"We have to make very sure that it is never found. Otherwise someone could duplicate Mr. Wilson's dimensional travel apparatus."

"Of course. You're so brilliant."

She preened a little. "I know. But where would I be if you hadn't contacted me with the professor's device? You are the brilliant one."

"You're too kind." They both laughed, high, cackling laughter that made my ears hurt.

Dropped by the hairy woman, I rolled against an old piece of machinery. Casting about with my eyes for something to help me out, preferably a drink, I saw that the metal case I was lying against had a sharp edge. Actually, it was written in very large letters across the side: warning, sharp edge. Do not lean against. I wriggled like an epileptic caterpillar until I got the cutting edge against the tape, and began to saw.

Unfortunately, just as I was finishing my labors, the three witches finished theirs. "It's ready!" said one. "Eep, grab your toy and lets go." The ape woman turned to face me just as I was getting up off the ground. She grunted and grinned. Suddenly the air was split by the sound of a rescue.

***

"That's far enough, monkey girl!" I swung down from where I had been hiding and landed next to Speed, keeping my gun trained on the big hairy woman. Behind her, the Alexandras started the machine. Immediately, the air began to smell of electricity, like the taste when you lick a battery.

The ape woman grunted and flung herself into the back seat of the machine, and it began to lift up into the air making a noise like a hundred bees in a tin pot.

"They're getting away!" Speed broke into a run and grabbed a dangling line.

"What the hell." I ran forward and grabbed his foot just before it rose out of reach.

"You idiot!" he said, "Why couldn't you have grabbed that rope?"

I looked at the indicated line and tried to shrug, which is hard to do when hanging on to a man's foot twenty feet in the air. Unfortunately no one ever got to appreciate how well I did it, because that was the moment when the universe turned itself inside out.

***

The sensation of interdimensional travel is not so bad the second time. Or at least, it's more expected, familiar like a hangover.

The dimensional travel ship arrived in the engine compartment of the Excelsior, and it was a tight fit. Alexandra sprung at me, followed closely by Alexandra. Luckily that left no room for Ms. Eep to work on me, but the other two were making things painful enough. "Spock!" I yelled, "Any time would be good now!"

That's when I noticed that the bottom of my pants leg was missing, and Sam Spock with it. I got time for one small curse before the two ladies pounded me like laundry and hung me out to dry on a convenient strut.

I was only out for a short while. Perhaps my head was growing used to being played like a bongo drum. This time I cleverly didn't open my eyes very far. Unfortunately, the savage woman noticed, and grabbed me in a big hug. Her senses were probably unnaturally keen from hunting pigs in the brush, or something.

The other two were packing the engineering compartment with explosives. They must have made an extra trip back while I was out to have so many. And cracking the Excelsior open in Nspace was one way to make sure the Captain went down with it. Along with everyone else.

"You won't get away with this!" I struggled against the hairy arms. "Someone will catch you!"

Alexandra giggled in a way I might have thought attractive in a woman not carrying twenty pounds of explosives. "Who's going to catch us? We can commit our crimes and then vanish away to another world."

"That's right. We'll live like queens!"

"We'll find a world and take it over!"

"And take whatever we like!"

They started laughing again, but they never got a chance to finish. There was a thunderous roar, and two men in space suits appeared in behind them. One of them flicked open his helmet.

"Spock!" I yelled, "About time you got here!"

Then the other one opened his helmet. "No, I'm Sam Spock. He's Sam Spiff!"

***

The three ladies weren't about to let us have a quiet discussion. They ducked behind the transdimensional ship and opened fire. Unfortunately for them, I'm an expert at zero gravity tactics ever since that case on space station Cairo. I flipped easily off the ceiling and came down in the middle of them. One power assisted punch to the jaw sent one Alexandra spinning away, out cold. Bullets bounced off my suit as I caught the other Alexandra in a hold and bounced her off the floor a few times. That left only the big one. I reached into the special pocket at my hip.

"Banana?" I asked. She took the fruit and munched on it happily.

"Nice job, Spiff." The other two Sams stuck out their hands, and I gave them each a shake.

"It's just lucky that Spock here landed in my office. And lucky that my spare pandimensional suit wasn't at the cleaner." We all had a laugh at that one.

***

After we got everything repaired and threw the Alexandras in the brig, and after Sam Speed collected his fee from the Captain, we headed to Archie's for a drink.

"This is some dive."

"Hey, are you ragging on my dimension?"

"No, I like it."

"It does look better without gunfire."

"Ah, you're just saying that." Archie came over and nervously set down a round of whiskey, with a pitcher of beer as a chaser.

"You know, the pandimensional investigation business is really booming," said Spiff. "I could use some help I can trust."

"You'd trust him? He's a no-good cheating lying scoundrel."

"But he's the same one I am."

"Seriously, though. What do you say?"

I looked at Sam Spock, and he looked at me. Just like looking in a mirror.

"I'm kinda a loner --"

"But this isn't really the same --"

We both shrugged. "I'm up for it." we said in chorus, and then broke out laughing.

I raised my glass. "To the Three Sams --"

Speed and Spiff joined in. "Pandimensional Investigators."

Archie had the last word. "Should I put all of you on one tab, or do you want separate bills?"

The sound of laughter and the clink of glasses filled the bar as we drank to our new partnership.

***

Things were quiet and happy until the next morning, when a woman knocked on our newly painted door. But that's another story entirely.