Bononos

by RainerSalt

The Emperor's battlecruiser The Commissioner was huge—two foreboding kilometers of steel, eternium®, and duct tape. And it was designed to be foreboding. It even had three high-powered radio emitters, one FM, one digital, and one modulating pheromones, all of them constantly transmitting brooding doomsday music to anyone who would listen—music custom-composed by a genetically resurrected Hans Zimmer.

Its mission was to explore the unknown nooks and loops of the multiverse, to find new planets and new life.

But not just any life.

Its mission was to find taxable life.

Life that could be welcomed to the bosom of the Empire. Life that would pay taxes for that privilege.

After months of travel, The Commissioner had arrived in a particularly remote nook of the multiverse and was orbiting a planet sporting large, peaceful oceans dotted with small islands.

There was life down there. Life sitting on a shore, lost in speculative conversation.

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"The next one, the next one will be real big." Loptrunk was sure of this. There was no doubt in his mind and no hesitation in his heart.

"Naw." Lagnose, sitting on the beach at Loptrunk's side, shook his head. "That can't be."

But Loptrunk was right. There it came, the big wave. It hissed as it ascended the sand, glittered as it passed the marks left behind by those before it, and made the sound of a million ants tap-dancing as it licked the pebble that Loptrunk and Lagnose had placed a hand's width above the wetted section of the beach.

Loptrunk grinned happily.

Lagnose passed him a Bonono. "You win, congrats. You're simply the best waveguesser of this whole planet."

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Far above the two waveguessers, and completely unbeknown to them, Captain Sharpsnittle sat on his red sofa on The Commissioner's bridge. He eyed the planet in the XXL-sized monitor in front of him with a mixture of boredom and irritation.

"It's green and blue." He inhaled the pinkish smoke of a fag of Ecrivain's Specials to soothe the headache the primordial sight gave him. "Pre-industrialized. There may not even be taxable life down there."

"Er..." Sinkle, his First Officer, cleared his throat. "Let's not come to premature conclusions, Sir. I'm sure you remember the planet Pfft, Sir. It was first considered a barren, post-apocalyptic wasteland. But the ghosts haunting it had developed an advanced system of horror story trading. And once they had been made part of the Empire, this trade turned out to be highly taxable. The Emperor's treasury still thrives on the license fees it earns with the stories' broadcasting rights.

"Sure, but this one is obviously not a post-apocalyptic wasteland." The captain jutted his chin at the screen. "It's not even apocalyptic. It's all just stupid forests and flat seas. No signs of intelligent life, no trading nor earning, nothing to take into the Empire's fold for taxing the hell out of it."

"You may be right, Sir. But after having traveled so far to get here, reason dictates that we have a closer look. We're here for exploring new planets, after all. For science, Sir"

Captain Sharpsnittle sighed in resignation. "For the Toad King's sake... Okay, get some soldiers to move this sofa to the shuttle."

"Sir... we don't have no soldiers. As you know, they got replaced by robots."

"Ah, yes... I remember. So get the damn robots to move the sofa. And tell the science staff to be ready at the shuttle in 15 minutes."

"I'll tell the robots, Sir. But, Sir... as to the science staff..."

"Yes? Have they been replaced with robots, too? Boffinbots?"

"No, Sir. They got sacked, Sir... too expensive, and not necessary for tax rising."

"Then, how are we to... scientifically explore a new planet, pray?"

"They've given us a Twitter account, Sir. We are encouraged to... tweet anything scientificky."

"I see."

"Excellent, Sir, because I don't."

The captain shook his head. "Really... No scientists, nor soldiers... Next thing you'll tell me we're the only humans on board of this whole dreadnought-class battle cruiser."

Sinkle studied his fingernails. "Sir?"

"Yes, what is it now?"

"We are the only humans on board of this whole dreadnought-class battle cruiser."

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Loptrunk and Lagnose had, in the meantime, moved the pebble a hand's width higher up the beach.

"That will be a real tough one to crack." Lagnose was skeptical. "There haven't been waves that high for weeks."

"Believe me, today's the day." This was a big-wave-day, and Loptrunk felt it.

They both munched on Bononos as they sat there. The fruits hang in fat clusters from the Bonono trees behind them, ready and eager for picking.

The waves rolled in, none of them strong enough to kiss the slowly drying pebble or even come close to it.

A rumbling noise made the two watchers look up. Above them, they saw a roundish object glittering in the sun.

"What, for wave's sake, is that and what does it do up there?" asked Loptrunk.

Lognose tugged his nose. "Search me. Seems to hang in the air."

"Why should I search you? And... it doesn't hang. Look, it descends."

And descend it did. Quickly. Doing so, it extended three spindly legs, each of them ending in an oversized duck's foot. With a splash, it landed—or watered—in the shallow water, a stone's throw away from them, settling in the sand a foot below the ocean's surface.

The impact triggered a wave. A big one—for local standards at least. It was a nose high, maybe more. It raced to the shore, up the sand, over the pebble, and nearly reached the feet of the two watchers.

"I told you, today's a big-wave-day!" Loptrunk got up, excited.

Lagnose rose, too. Together, they took a careful step towards the water, where the big wave was in hasty retreat. Doing so, it nearly toppled the pebble.

"Right again, as usual." Lagnose rubbed his nose. "Did we ever have a wave like that?"

"That one was really huge, right," replied Loptrunk. "It almost moved the pebble. Have you seen that?"

"Yes, it just washed over it. But—"

"Greetings, gentlemen."

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Captain Sharpsnittle viewed the two figures on the beach with fascination. They looked like humans. Only their noses were... long. Not long in a Paris Hilton or Adrien Brody sort of way, but elephant-ish—small trunks dangling over their mouths all the way to their chins.

And they were stark naked.

And male. Which added more dangling to their appearance.

And they were staring at a pebble sitting in the sand at their feet.

Gentle waves moved around Sharpsnittle's knee-high boots, reminding him of the dreary, untaxable mess he was in.

"You're sure the universal translator is working, and these creatures are sentient?" the Captain asked while diplomatically holding down the 'mute' button on the device he held in his hand.

Sinkle shrugged. "The translator recently ran out of warranty, and you know how they build these things..."

"This doesn't count." The universal translator suddenly said in perfect synchronicity with the lip movements of one of the naked ones. It—the translator—was semi-sentient (and often more sentient than those using it) and eager to prove its worth.

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"It does count. It was a wave." Loptrunk was adamant.

"True..." Lagnose hesitated. "But the wave wasn't... natural. Not normal. It was caused by this... thing." He waved his hand towards the sea and looked up from the sand. "...and these people."

Loptrunk raised his gaze, too. Two creatures were standing in the ankle-deep water before them. They looked almost normal, except for their noses, which were short on the verge of ridiculous, as if broken off above their lips. And the two were wrapped in some strange, green-brown-black-patterned stuff. They definitely lacked in things dangling.

"Greetings, once more," one of the wrapped ones said. Or rather, a white box he was holding said the words, but his lips moved, too.

"Be the waves with you," Loptrunk replied, remembering the formal greeting reserved for welcoming strangers on the rare occasion there were strangers to welcome. "How can we help you?"

The wrapped visitors waded out of the water, stalking it like two birds, then planted themselves on the beach. Their smiles looked friendly enough.

"I am Captain Sharpsnittle," the man with the box said, then waved it at his companion, "and this is First Officer Sinkle.

Loptrunk inclined his head in acknowledgment. "I am Loptrunk, and this guy here is Lagnose, we—"

"The Emperor Raoul XII the Taxing, the Toad King's Right Hand and Purse, extends his greetings," the box and its carrier interrupted. "His Emperorship may be willing to welcome you into the Empire's fold after we have investigated your level of economic prowess."

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Captain Sharpsnittle's heart sank as he saw the two long-nosed natives staring at him in apparent incomprehension. His salary was paltry and didn't pay for the bare necessities, and his bonus depended on the income from the planets he 'explored' in a given year.

Still, he gave them his best smile. "We need to know about your economy, your trading, your industry, etc."

The faces still were as perplexed as before.

He decided to use more primitive concepts. "Do you have money?"

The translator's display flashed a message. "Money: untranslatable," it said, in reproachful letters. This did not bode well.

He had to try something more basic. "Are you trading?"

"Trading?" one of the natives replied. "Like what?"

Captain Sharpsnittle took a long breath, trying to stay calm. "Let me give you an example. What's that you're holding in your hand? Looks like a fruit."

"Ah, that?" The man held up the longish, yellow-black thing, which looked a bit like a huge wasp's business end, but longer. "That's a bonono. You should try some, they are excellent around here." He placed the bonono in the Captain's hand.

"Thanks. What I wanted to know, though, is how you got it. Did you trade it?"

The two natives stared at him for a moment, then they burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" The captain was confused.

"Why should we trade bononos? We pluck them from the trees. Should I go to good Lagnose here, a bonono in my hand, and ask him to trade his bonono for mine? Really?" Loptrunk hooted again.

Them having a sense of humor gave the Captain some hope. Humor was entertainment, and commercial entertainment was taxable. "So, besides eating bononos,how are you spending your days here?"

The one called Lagnose had recovered from his laughing fit and wiped tears from his eyes. "Why, we watch waves. And we guess how much sand they'll cover before stopping." He motioned at the beautiful beach scenery surrounding them.

That didn't sound taxable at all. Looking at the dangling parts of the natives before him, Captain Sharpsnittle had another idea, though. "And what about your women? What do they do all day long?" Females of any species were known to be prone to spend and keep the economy thriving in ingenious ways their male counterparts could never match.

"Ah them..." Loptrunk replied, "that's something different. They spend..."

The Captain's heart joyfully skipped a beat at the word 'spend'.

"...their time watching the bononos grow."

Lognose nodded vigorously. "They grow real fast, you see. Some can go all the way from a small stub to full length within ten days."

The Captain inspected the bonono in his hand while, in the back of his mind, hope had just decided to take a vacation somewhere far away. But he gave his luck one last try. "And apart from wave watching and bonono watching... do you people do anything else?"

"Ehm..." Loptrunk tugged his nose. "Yeah. Sure... You know. We make... er... kids, you understand?"

The Captain had the impression that some of the dangling before him was gaining substance. He quickly raised his hands. "Yeah, sure. I see. No need for details."

The dreadful bottom of reality alighted like an elephant's arse on Sharpsnittle's brain. There was nothing taxable here. They'd have to go back to The Commissioner, to its two kilometers of uncaring steel, eternium®, duct tape, and dull robots, to spend another couple of boring months in search of another planet that might be welcomed to the Empire's bosom. He looked at his First Officer, who looked back at him, a perfect mirror of his feelings.

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The two strangers standing before Loptrunk were pale. Their initial smiles had fled their faces, which were now all sagging skin, drooping corners, and way too short noses. Their apparent despondency pained him, even though he didn't have a clue what was ailing them. They definitely needed cheering up.

"You haven't tried your bonono yet," he said.

The one called Sharpsnittle turned the fruit in his hands, obviously clueless how to proceed.

"Pull the green leaf." Lagnose pointed at a single, small, rigid leaf adorning one end of the fruit.

Hesitantly, Sharpsnittle did so. With a satisfying, plopping sound, the fruit's brown flesh came free and could be extracted from the husk in one piece, still clinging to the leaf.

"Looks like a popsicle," Sinkle said.

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Sharpsnittle carefully brought the popsicle-thing to his mouth, briefly wondering if he should make a tweet of this experience. The whole situation had a weird, mad feel to it, so it was probably science.

This fruit might be poisonous for humans, but the concept of poison paled in view of the months on The Commissioner that awaited him. So he bit off a piece.

Chocolate... Vanilla... A hint of banana... But, at the same time, as refreshing as a glass of fresh, cold orange juice with a touch of ginger.

A sigh of bliss escaped his lips, and he handed the fruit to his subordinate.

Sinkle nibbled it, and his frown dissolved, a smile replacing it. The smile was followed by a grin. "Wow!"

An idea dawned on Sharpsnittle.

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A stone's throw from the shore, the shuttle was slowly gaining brownish streaks of rust. And somewhere above them, the battlecruiser circled the planet, its mechanical inhabitants idling with innate patience.

"The next one!" Sinkle's finger shook with excitement as he pointed at the wave rolling towards them. The finger was as naked as the rest of the man.

"Mph." Lognose was busy with a bonono.

"No, my friend," Ex-Captain Sharpsnittle said, a serene expression on his face. "We'll have to wait for two more. With this kind of wind, it's always the third one in a group that's the strongest."

Lagnose nodded. "You may be short-nosed, but you've gotten the hang of the waves. And your gift has made wave watching even more pleasurable."

Sharpsnittle moved an affectionate hand along his red sofa, which they had dragged from the shuttle to the beach, months ago. Fortunately, it was large enough to seat four.

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