CAPTAIN MAKEMAKE TELLS ME ABOUT THE MAN IN RED

Aug 3rd 2011, 14:29 by E O Hatterpol | 1228 AU FROM SUN

CONFUSED, I frowned.  Captain Makemake leered good-naturedly at me.  We stared at each other in silence.

Then I asked a question I wish I hadn't.

"IT WAS because of 'the man in red'?  Weren't you babbling about that guy when I put that bottle in your head, yo?" I wondered, still dangling awkwardly in the air.

"I wasn't babbling, barf breath - I was trying to TELL you something."

"Nope; you were definitely prattling on about something or other, something about crazy dreams--"

"About going crazy IN your dreams," Makemake corrected.  "The man in red will come to you when you're asleep and drive you mad.  I should know; it's happened to me."

"You expect me to believe that the boogerman is going to come and get me?" I said arrogantly.  "What's he gonna do - leave a dollar under my pillow when he finds a tooth?"

"He's already gotten you."

"He has?" I asked, much less confident.

"He has.  I saw him get you when that backstabber Colonel Condor was taking me through the Starbase.  I saw you go down.  Remember seeing anything in--"

"Red," I finished, screwing up my face in half-comprehension, half-skepticisim.  "Not seeing," I continued slowly, "but feeling.  I felt the colour red, and-- and I saw all these words written in red, so many I couldn't really remember any particular one, but I can remember the whole thing.  I don't know how to explain it; it's really weird."

"He tricked me," Makemake confessed.  "Came to me and said YOU could tell me how to get to a planet with unimaginable riches and no defenses to protect itself against pirates.  It was perfect.  Only thing is, he told me about you but never told you about the Homesphære."

"Wait," I said, shaking my head.  "You mean to say the whole reason you attacked the Flybrary was because the same guy who put all those words in my head told you I had information that I didn't - and still don't - have?!"

Makemake nodded.

"Don't trust him when he finally does come for you, because he'll trick you, too.  He'll ask you to do something just like he asked me, and who knows - maybe you'll end up like me, thinking you're going to get everything but ending up with nothing, in jail, a long way from home, with nothing left of your mind but the few shreds INSANE enough to hang on!"

A crazy smile split across his face, lighting up his eyes with malicious intent.  He stretched his free arm behind him; I thought he was going to punch me right in the face!  But then--

"E O!  I'm here-- excuse me, yes, I can be in here, I'm from the Help & Welcome Department, please make way-- I'm here, E O!  What's going on?  Where are you?"