In answer to that question, I think the words are ‘close to nil. You see my physical condition often precludes rummaging about my bedroom in search of characters, set, props etc. And thinking up story lines is nigh on impossible. But I have little moments of clarity when ideas pop into my head. Getting them down on paper is another thing though. I now get tremours, so it’s so easy to write in spider’s scrawl. Then there is the typing. Oh the bloody typing. I was ham-fisted before; now I’m unintelligible. Why hit one key, when it’s just as easy to hit five? So the sensible course of action would be to gently remind readers of the body of my work and rely on Old Glories. But when was I ever sensible? Written very faintly in the darker recesses of my DNA maybe. Recently I came up with the name Fenland Deerstrike. “Gotta use that.” I gasped enthusiastically. This, of course required a short story at the very least. Enter the sequel to The Discovery. What happened to Susan and Nobby as they flew away from Mars in their time ship – destination: the future? Well, as I imagine you’ve guessed already, I’ve found gaps in my strange existence, large enough to write the opening few page. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to share the opening shots with you now, and hope I can get inspired sufficiently to carry on. After all, there’s nothing quite like an Earplug Adventure!
Earplug Adventures: The Oblivion Wave
Tooty Nolan
© Paul Trevor Nolan 2025
Prologue
Operatives well versed in temporal dynamics could often be identified by their reticence to you use terms such as ‘back in the day’ or ‘in almost next to no time’ because these terms (although understandable) made no sense to someone who possessed the ability to move him or herself back and forward through time. A temporal operative would never think wistfully of their time in a particular location on a specific date: instead (assuming they weren’t busy doing something else) they would don a disguise or render themselves invisible, and go visit in the first person. So when the term ‘mere hours had passed before’ to Susan, the huge green amorphous blob that had accompanied The Age of Stone into the Museum of Future Technology…

…those were subjective hours. Indeed measurable time had passed since the armoured personnel vehicle had driven away from the Time Ship that had been exhumed from the Martian polar ice sheet a short while previous…

…But slightly longer since Susan had experienced her first (and hopefully her last) showdown with the temporal terrorist, Xon Bonkers…

…who, once he had been bettered by the combined efforts of the Future Museum of Mars’ leadership, had been packed into suspended animation and was now due for a return trip to the future…

Of course – being a…um…being from the future – Susan had volunteered to pilot the time ship alone; but one of the…how shall we put it? The less popular of the museum engineers – he being Nobby Hollister – had managed to stick himself to Susan with emotional superglue which meant that the little guy now found himself embarking upon an adventure into his future.
Chapter 1
To say that Nobby Hollister was excited about the immediately upcoming trip understated the results of any medical checks that someone might have cared to make of him. His pulse raced and his blood pressure would have been considered slightly stratospheric. But Nobby cared not two hoots for his long-term wellbeing and general physical condition: he was going on a space flight through time! Well he hoped he was. One of the pilot’s seats seemed to fit him perfectly: Susan however was doing less well…

Unlike Nobby, she was not amused.
“You know what I’m going to have to do.” She said grumpily. “I’m gonna have to cram all my bulk into a form that will fit that chair. That means molecular compression. I don’t like molecular compression, it makes me feel sick.”
“How so?” Nobby inquired.
If there was an analogy with your body form,” Susan said slowly as she visualised Nobby comparatively tiny physique, “I would liken it to you eating several bowls of boiled cabbage, washing it down with a family tub of vanilla ice cream, and finishing it off with a two litre bottle of lemonade whilst attempting a military assault course and a bit of pot-holing to wind down with at the end of the day.”
Nobby regarded Susan’s vast bulk. “That’s a lot of molecules you’ve got there.” He observed, “Maybe it would be better if you took yourself to the corridor outside and shouted instructions to me through the ajar door. I can pilot this: you just tell me which buttons to push at what time. Hey, and it’s not like I’m a rank amateur: I’ve covered thousands of kilometres aboard Frisby Mumph’s planetary terraformer; that’s gotta count for something.”
Susan, she had to confess, was tempted by the offer: nevertheless she chose to take responsibility and ‘do her duty’. As a result of this decision Nobby was subjected to some unholy wailing and horrendous squelching noises, which culminated in…

…an earplug-sized Susan and a broken flight control seat.
“Ah,” Susan looked at the resulting mess, “you’re an engineer, Nobby: surely you can shove those errant parts back beneath the hood? We’ll be on our way in a jiffy.”
Nobby didn’t enjoy having his engineering talents called in for examination:
“Yeah, alright,” he replied. “Watch and learn.”
Five minutes later…

“It looks a bit rickety.” Susan opined. “But at least all the bits are back inside. Shall we dare test it?”
“The ship won’t fly itself.” Nobby replied.
However, when they tried to close the hood fully by backing up and sitting on it, both heard a sound that could not be described as inviting…

Susan sighed: “I think we’re going to be keeping the watching throng a while yet.”
Nobby merely produced a profanity that began with “Oh”.
He also had the idea of searching the ship for a reel of normally ubiquitous ‘gaffer’ tape…

“It fixes all things, does it?” Susan inquired doubtfully.
“It’s used by all the leading Formula One race teams.” Nobby replied. “Not to mention prototype space craft, Rodney Bunting’s Attack Scooters, and everything that comes out of the Punting-Modesty Munitions Company.”
Susan was impressed. “Exalted company.” She said. “You check behind the blue doors; I’ll take the red.”
Cutting a long and exhaustive search short, the daring duo duly discovered that which they sought. After applying the gaffer tape to all the panels that had previously sprung open, followed by a few that showed hair-line cracks, Nobby quickly threw himself into his chosen pilot’s seat…

“Hey,” he cried out in triumph, “this baby is fit to fly!”
Sadly these words were to prove less than prophetic. When Susan eased her now massively diminished bulk into the adjascent seat…

…the resultant creaks quickly ascended through the mechanical sympathy register (MSR) into distinctively futuristic ‘boings’ and ‘thwacks’.
“Of course,” Nobby cried out whilst slapping his forehead, “you take up less space, but your mass remains the same. You’re gonna have to lose weight, Susan, and lose it quick. We both know what that means, don’t we?”
Susan didn’t say anything immediately: she was too busy calculating the effects upon her intellect, were she to disconnect five sixths of her shape-shifting body. Could her primary sub-unit handle the strain of flying a time ship to a precise location in both time and space? Was there somewhere aboard ship where those five sub-units could reside safely, with some entertainment that would keep them from getting witless, eating burgers, and tearing themselves loose – demanding to re-assimilate with the Susan primary unit?
Nobby must have noticed these thoughts pass across the green creature’s (subjectively) quite pleasant visage:
“Nah,” he said to Susan’s unspoken concerns, “They’ll be fine. We just need to find a nice room, without a view, in which they can revert to a primordial green slop.”
Although the vessel had been roughly recconnoitred previously by William of Porridge and Lillie Whitewater, there remained several levels and compartments that had not received the attention of a sentient being in yonks. Consequentally more than one room were discovered to contain very little beside stale air, junk, and something that both adventurers hoped was mere regular spider’s web…

Eventually though a compartment that contained the bare minimum for Susan’s sub-units was discovered. Shortly Susan disassembled and sent those sub-units to explore their new surroundings…

Having quickly done so those sub-units dissolved into a glutinous slop which spread across the floor…

Susan then led Nobby from the room. Looking back she noted that already her main body had decided to assume a more practical semi-solid state…

“Good idea, girls.” She said. “You never know how quickly I might need you to spring into action.”
© Paul Trevor Nolan 2025
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