Frontal Lobotomy

"*BANG!*" shouted West.

His audience of rough dockworkers jumped. He smiled. That was twice he'd gotten them now. He continued his story...

*Bang!* went the judge's enormous iron gavel as he brought it down with thunderous force on the stone benchtop sealing Gromit's fate. "Motion to stay the execution of the tribble denied!" grated the old Klingon judge. "Next case!"

I couldn't believe it! Even Max, who claimed to loathe the tribble, looked almost distraught.

I went to see where they were holding Gromit. It was a warehouse-type building near the courthouse. Inside, Gromit was sulking a few feet in front of me in the center of a big cage meant for a much larger animal, ignoring me. "Is there anything I can get you?" I asked.

No acknowledgment.

"A snack maybe?"

No reply.

"A jelly donut?"

Gromit turned around to face away from me.

A feeling of dread was growing in my gut that this whole mess was my own fault. I had to find out the truth about something.

"Gromit, there's something I have to ask you." Even though the tribble looked like he still wasn't listening, I pressed on. "I was thinking of the time we met back on Rigel II... and uh... I know I never really asked..." How to ask Gromit this now? Finally I just blurted it out. "You did *want* to come along with me back then, didn't you? I just took it for granted. I know we never discussed it, but.... I would hate to think that you came along and stayed with me all of this time just out of some kind of misplaced sense of duty when you'd rather have stayed wild and free in that Rigelian cabaret club....

Gromit shuffled around a bit, but made no answer.

"You wouldn't do that, would you?" I paused while Gromit continued shuffling uncomfortably. "Yeah, I didn't think you would."

Just then the door to the cell clanged and rattled as the guard unlocked it from the outside. "Leave, human," snarled the surly Klingon.

I turned to leave, but Gromit lunged toward the door in a desperate last attempt to escape. I jerked my hand away from the wildly agitated tribble and cradled my wrist in my other hand.

The door clanged shut sealing the angrily croaking Gromit inside and the guard stomped off, but I just stood there, confused. Were Klingons right? Were tribbles a threat to the galaxy? Was Gromit a menace? I took my hand away from my wrist, and the hand came away red with blood from the fresh bite mark on my wrist.

I went back to the *Rocinanté*. When I got there, Max was nowhere to be found. About half an hour later, I heard the alarms go off somewhere in town. Somehow I knew it was from the warehouse where the animals were being kept.

Well, there was no way I was going to let a bunch of Klingons kill my best friend. If he was reverting to his wild state again, I would be the one to put him down. I owed him that much at least. I got my old TR-116 out from under my bunk and ran off in search of him.

I went northeast out of town because that was where the wilderness was the thickest, figuring that if Gromit wanted to return to the wild that was where he would go.

After a few miles I came across the backside of a camouflaged Quonset hut. The back door was open, so I peeked inside, and saw row after row of shelves and low tables with animal cages on them. Before I could check it out though, I heard voices from around the other side of the building, so I went that way.

I was just in time to see the front door burst open and a stampede of small yelping animals come tumbling out, and at their lead was Gromit riding on the back of a galloping targ! Max was also there -- obviously she had been the one who sprung Gromit from the pound -- as well as the red-faced Klingon dogcatcher.

There was a fire in the grizzled warrior's eyes as he raised his disruptor and pointed it at the fleeing tribble. Max shouted something at him in his own language, but he just roared back at Max "Out of the way, female!" and took aim.

"Wait!" I shouted and ran up beside the Klingon and Max. "Put down your gun! That tribble is mine, and if anyone has to shoot him it's gonna be me."

The Klingon lowered his disruptor, not quite sure what was going on.

"West, you can't," said Max.

"I have to," I said, and flipped the targeting monocle over my eye. I raised the big rifle to my shoulder and swung it around to point at Gromit, who was still racing away from the scene on the back of the targ. It was a duty I had to perform, much as I hated it. I knew what wild out-of-control tribbles could do to a planet's ecology.

The image of Gromit centered in my crosshairs, but something at the back of my mind was bugging me -- something wasn't right with this picture. What were all these domestic animals doing here? ...In the middle of a forest? ...In a secret camouflaged warehouse?

I remembered all the 'Lost Pet' flyers I had seen in town, and put two and two together. They must be stolen! I knew Max and Gromit had nothing to do with it, so that just left...

I swung my rifle around toward the Klingon dogcatcher just in time to see the old warrior pointing his own sidearm at me. I squeezed the trigger and shot the disruptor right out of his hand. He bellowed with rage and frustration, pulled a mek'leth out of his belt, and came at me with murder in his eyes.

Max strode forward and clobbered the Klingon with a mighty boot to the head. He dropped like a sack of neutronium.

"So you see," explained West to his audience, "Gromit wasn't trying to run away and revert to the wild, he was just trying to save all those kidnapped animals the crooked dogcatcher and judge were stealing.

The Lurian sitting next to West at the bar just stared blankly at West for a few long seconds. Finally, he just said, "You don't expect us to buy that, West, do you?"

Behind him, an overweight Bolian said, "Why would a bunch of Klingons want to steal dogs and voles?"

"Are you kidding?" replied West incredulously. "Do you have any idea what vole snouts go for on the G'kra black market?" He did his best to appear shocked and dismayed that no one knew that.

A snaggle-toothed Yridian on West's other side said, "Sounds like that woman of yours saved your sorry butt."

There was a general murmur of agreement to that. As his disgruntled audience slowly dispersed back into the smoky depths of the Salty Spittoon bar, West finished off the last of his Open Grave and thought about Max.