Crossover Meme - first results
The first two results of the conversational crossover meme. (And years may have passed since the last time I did it, but I still fail on the 'no explanations' part, but I refuse to be sorry for that!)
For
swordznsorcery: Evy Carnahan meeting Dayna Mellanby. (Blake's 7/The Mummy):
Entombed (G, 693 words.)
“So,” said Evy, who tended to have a one-track mind when it came to excavating powerful ancient artefacts, even in the face of strangers dropping out of nowhere and landing right next to her in the otherwise sealed-off tomb. “I don’t suppose you know how to get through that wall?”
Dayna picked herself up and brushed the dust of a thousand years from her clothes. “I don’t even know where I am or how I got here.”
“Well, the only way that I know of is to get your hands on the Lost Key of Iseum,” said Evy. “And there’s only one of it and, as it happens, I’ve got it - oh!” She stopped abruptly as Dayna held out an identical, if slightly more worn, small stone object.
“Not as unique as you thought,” said Dayna. She shrugged. “Typical.”
Evy studied the two artefacts with great interest. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I wonder. That might explain it!”
“Explain what?”
“Well, what if this chamber isn’t strictly speaking a place in the usual sense of the word? What if we’re in a sort of, well, limbo? So we could both have picked up the same Key, only at different times. Although, if that’s true, then why aren’t there more of us here? Hmm, it’s a theory, but it could use some more work. If only we had the time…”
Dayna folded her arms. “Look, all I know is that Tarrant and I were down in this old vault, looking for - well, that doesn’t matter, but I picked up this, turned around and I landed here. And if I don’t get back soon, he’s probably going to make a mess of the whole mission.”
“Oh, dear,” said Evy with genuine sympathy. She knew that feeling. She was already busy trying not to worry too much about what sort of ill-advised things Jonathan and Rick would be getting up to now that she’d vanished. “Still, the only way out for either of us right now is through that wall. Do you think you can help me?”
Dayna grinned. “Well, I could blow a big hole in it. How about that?”
Evy heaved a disapproving sigh. “And I don’t even think you’re American.”
“No, but I know what I’m doing when it comes to explosives, don’t worry.”
Evy shook her head. “We’re in some sort of mystical nether-place inside the long-lost tomb of the Forgotten Pharaohs - and you’re completely, absolutely sure that it’ll be quite safe to blow things up?”
“Have you got a better plan?”
“I,” said Evy, brandishing the object in question about, “have a book! Well, a scroll in this case, but it comes to the same thing.”
Dayna wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ll stick with my idea.”
“No, no, no, no - wait!” Evy let the scroll unroll, falling onto the stone floor and over Dayna’s feet. She ran her finger down the text, mouthing words under her breath. “Aha! Yes, this looks like it!” After all, she thought, crossing her fingers with her free hand, no harm ever came of reading out ancient Egyptian texts in mystical places. Well, not very much harm, or at least, they’d always been able to prevent the world ending up till now, so it was worth a shot…
She stepped forward and proclaimed the incantation as boldly as she dared, and then held her breath, waiting for everything to fall in on her, or for angry Mummies to burst out of the carvings on the walls. Instead, a glowing golden line appeared in front of them in a rectangular shape, before burning brighter yet until it faded and all that was left was a door - a door into an inky, unlit corridor beyond. Evy beamed at Dayna, with ineffable smugness. “There, see?”
“Okay, fair enough,” said Dayna. “You’ve got a scroll. I get it now.”
Evy patted Dayna’s hand. “Never mind. I’m sure we’ll need those explosives later when horrible undead things start trying to kill us.”
“In that case,” said Dayna, giving an even wider grin and putting her hand to her gun, “what are we waiting for?”
They stepped out into the darkness together.
***
And for liadtbunny: Georgina Jones meeting Vila. (Adam Adamant Lives!/Blake's 7).
Wrong Number (PG, 1208 words.)
“Right,” said Vila to Orac, “this had better work or else I’m going to start using you as a footstool.”
“There is no question. It will work,” Orac said. “Now, begin transmitting the message.”
Vila picked up the small microphone on a wire that was now attached to Orac’s inner workings. “Hello there, is that Galactic Station 5? This is an SOS. Well, no, not an SOS, or only half of one. Or a double one. What I mean is, you’re in big trouble and so am I if you don’t listen.”
“Um, hi, no,” said a female voice on the other end of the line. “Definitely not any sort of station. It’s a terrible line, too. Did you say Paddington Station? I can find the number if you want.”
Vila glared at Orac. “No, look, you must be on Galactic 5. Or, okay, if not, then you’re down on Elysium, right?”
“Hey, who is this? I’m not on anything!” There was a pause. “Who put you up to this? Was it Stephen? Or Joe? I bet they’d think something like this was funny. Well, it isn’t, so push off and bother someone else, thanks.”
“It’s not a joke,” said Vila hastily before she cut him off. “I don’t know where you are, but I’m in big trouble and so’s Galactic 5 and this is an SOS call.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“The sort with guns,” said Vila. “And bombs. Nasty things like that with a tendency to go bang just when you don’t want them to.”
“Oh,” she said. She seemed to be taking him seriously now. “Zoinks. I see. You want Mr Adamant! Why didn’t you say so?”
Vila seized on that. “Yes, yes, that’s right! Put me through to Mr Adamant. It’s urgent - a matter of life or death.”
“Well, he’s not here, so you’ll have to give me the message but I’ll scoot round there straight after and tell him, I promise.”
“Look, are you living in the dark ages?” said Vila. “Just switch me through to this Adamant bloke - or whoever else is in charge there.”
“Hey, this isn’t the Post Office, you know.”
“What’s a post office? I’m stuck here on Elysium’s moon and I’ve got to get hold of someone in the space station or the planet. I don’t suppose,” he added somewhat desperately, “that you’ve got Avon there, have you? Or Cally?”
“Space station?” said the girl. “Planet? Oh, this is a prank, isn’t it? Well, all right, you got me. You really had me going for a minute there. So, well done you and whatever idiot put you up to it, but I’ve got better things to do with my afternoon. You interrupted the most groovy song, you know. So, bye, spaceman!”
Vila groaned inwardly. Trust Orac to somehow go and hook him up to one of those backwards settlements living in the pre-space age. “Um, no, wait. Look, have you got a big radio tower near you or something? If you broadcast my message from it -”
“Honestly,” said Georgina, “I might have believed you for a minute, but I’m not stupid. I mean, if I went off to the headquarters of British Telecom or the BBC or wherever and said there was trouble on some space station and they had to send a message into outer space, they’d lock me up.”
“Well, they’ll shoot me if they find me.”
“Shoot you? Where are you? Hey, you don’t really believe all that stuff about planets and space stations, do you? You ought to get some help.” She sounded concerned enough now, but about all the wrong things.
Vila thought about what to say, but he was fast coming to the conclusion that this was a complete waste of time, which he should have realised in the first place, since it was Orac’s idea. “Well, where are you that you don’t know about Galactic 5 and the Federation?”
“Me?” She laughed. “I’m in London in 1967 and the aliens haven’t landed yet, or at least, if they have the BBC is keeping super quiet about it.”
“London? 1967? What calendar are you going by?”
“Oh, it was just a free one I got out of a music magazine, but I’m pretty sure it’s got the dates right.”
“Er, okay, thanks,” said Vila. “You know what, I’m sorry to have bothered you, miss. Thank you for your, um, help.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “Because you don’t sound it, and if there really are people with guns, like I said, I’ve got a friend who can help. He’s marvellous at fighting crooks and villains and all sorts of rotten people. And I’m not too bad myself - when he lets me.”
“He sounds great,” said Vila. “Very useful. Wish I could call him in. But I’m going to sign off now and have another try and getting Galactic 5, only this time,” he added, as he switched the microphone off and kicked Orac, “hopefully in the right century!”
“Communication across time is a major scientific breakthrough - something which has never previously been accomplished. Naturally, you would not appreciate -”
“Well, it’s not much use if this entire moon explodes in a couple of hours with both of us on it, is it?”
“A mere minor error in my calculations - the co-ordinations were correct spatially but not temporally.”
“Even I know that Galactic 5 isn’t Earth. You got it completely wrong, so just come out and admit it!”
“Time and space are complex. Everything in the universe is moving - given a difference of several thousand years, spatial co-ordinates were only incorrect within an extremely narrow margin.”
“Ha,” said Vila. “A likely story, I don’t think. Now, come on, let’s try again. And try not to get me hotwired into the Supreme Commander’s private comm-lines!”
While Orac whirred beside him, lights flashing, as the wretched machine recalculated, he thought about the girl. She had sounded nice. He imagined her as being young. And blonde. And pretty. With great legs, because why not? And he was willing to bet it was safer than here in 1967, even with all the pollution and rioting and germs and diseases and things they had back then. He sighed and toyed with the idea of asking Orac if he could manage actual time travel instead of just accidental miscommunication across the millennia, but stopped himself, because Orac would probably put aside the boring matter of preventing the explosion to try it, and that would be bad for everyone.
Still, he thought, it might be worth just asking sometime later if and when they got back to the Liberator in one piece. Some quiet evening when Avon was busy and Cally was communing with moon discs and Dayna and Tarrant were using each other for target practice. Although, on the other hand, it’d be just his luck to get Orac to try it and then find out the stupid computer had killed the wrong bloody butterfly or somebody’s grandfather and Vila no longer existed or they’d created some weird twisted dimension where Avon was even more evil than usual and had a beard or something and nobody wanted that. Everything was bad enough as it was.
***
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
For
swordznsorcery: Evy Carnahan meeting Dayna Mellanby. (Blake's 7/The Mummy):
Entombed (G, 693 words.)
“So,” said Evy, who tended to have a one-track mind when it came to excavating powerful ancient artefacts, even in the face of strangers dropping out of nowhere and landing right next to her in the otherwise sealed-off tomb. “I don’t suppose you know how to get through that wall?”
Dayna picked herself up and brushed the dust of a thousand years from her clothes. “I don’t even know where I am or how I got here.”
“Well, the only way that I know of is to get your hands on the Lost Key of Iseum,” said Evy. “And there’s only one of it and, as it happens, I’ve got it - oh!” She stopped abruptly as Dayna held out an identical, if slightly more worn, small stone object.
“Not as unique as you thought,” said Dayna. She shrugged. “Typical.”
Evy studied the two artefacts with great interest. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I wonder. That might explain it!”
“Explain what?”
“Well, what if this chamber isn’t strictly speaking a place in the usual sense of the word? What if we’re in a sort of, well, limbo? So we could both have picked up the same Key, only at different times. Although, if that’s true, then why aren’t there more of us here? Hmm, it’s a theory, but it could use some more work. If only we had the time…”
Dayna folded her arms. “Look, all I know is that Tarrant and I were down in this old vault, looking for - well, that doesn’t matter, but I picked up this, turned around and I landed here. And if I don’t get back soon, he’s probably going to make a mess of the whole mission.”
“Oh, dear,” said Evy with genuine sympathy. She knew that feeling. She was already busy trying not to worry too much about what sort of ill-advised things Jonathan and Rick would be getting up to now that she’d vanished. “Still, the only way out for either of us right now is through that wall. Do you think you can help me?”
Dayna grinned. “Well, I could blow a big hole in it. How about that?”
Evy heaved a disapproving sigh. “And I don’t even think you’re American.”
“No, but I know what I’m doing when it comes to explosives, don’t worry.”
Evy shook her head. “We’re in some sort of mystical nether-place inside the long-lost tomb of the Forgotten Pharaohs - and you’re completely, absolutely sure that it’ll be quite safe to blow things up?”
“Have you got a better plan?”
“I,” said Evy, brandishing the object in question about, “have a book! Well, a scroll in this case, but it comes to the same thing.”
Dayna wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ll stick with my idea.”
“No, no, no, no - wait!” Evy let the scroll unroll, falling onto the stone floor and over Dayna’s feet. She ran her finger down the text, mouthing words under her breath. “Aha! Yes, this looks like it!” After all, she thought, crossing her fingers with her free hand, no harm ever came of reading out ancient Egyptian texts in mystical places. Well, not very much harm, or at least, they’d always been able to prevent the world ending up till now, so it was worth a shot…
She stepped forward and proclaimed the incantation as boldly as she dared, and then held her breath, waiting for everything to fall in on her, or for angry Mummies to burst out of the carvings on the walls. Instead, a glowing golden line appeared in front of them in a rectangular shape, before burning brighter yet until it faded and all that was left was a door - a door into an inky, unlit corridor beyond. Evy beamed at Dayna, with ineffable smugness. “There, see?”
“Okay, fair enough,” said Dayna. “You’ve got a scroll. I get it now.”
Evy patted Dayna’s hand. “Never mind. I’m sure we’ll need those explosives later when horrible undead things start trying to kill us.”
“In that case,” said Dayna, giving an even wider grin and putting her hand to her gun, “what are we waiting for?”
They stepped out into the darkness together.
***
And for liadtbunny: Georgina Jones meeting Vila. (Adam Adamant Lives!/Blake's 7).
Wrong Number (PG, 1208 words.)
“Right,” said Vila to Orac, “this had better work or else I’m going to start using you as a footstool.”
“There is no question. It will work,” Orac said. “Now, begin transmitting the message.”
Vila picked up the small microphone on a wire that was now attached to Orac’s inner workings. “Hello there, is that Galactic Station 5? This is an SOS. Well, no, not an SOS, or only half of one. Or a double one. What I mean is, you’re in big trouble and so am I if you don’t listen.”
“Um, hi, no,” said a female voice on the other end of the line. “Definitely not any sort of station. It’s a terrible line, too. Did you say Paddington Station? I can find the number if you want.”
Vila glared at Orac. “No, look, you must be on Galactic 5. Or, okay, if not, then you’re down on Elysium, right?”
“Hey, who is this? I’m not on anything!” There was a pause. “Who put you up to this? Was it Stephen? Or Joe? I bet they’d think something like this was funny. Well, it isn’t, so push off and bother someone else, thanks.”
“It’s not a joke,” said Vila hastily before she cut him off. “I don’t know where you are, but I’m in big trouble and so’s Galactic 5 and this is an SOS call.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“The sort with guns,” said Vila. “And bombs. Nasty things like that with a tendency to go bang just when you don’t want them to.”
“Oh,” she said. She seemed to be taking him seriously now. “Zoinks. I see. You want Mr Adamant! Why didn’t you say so?”
Vila seized on that. “Yes, yes, that’s right! Put me through to Mr Adamant. It’s urgent - a matter of life or death.”
“Well, he’s not here, so you’ll have to give me the message but I’ll scoot round there straight after and tell him, I promise.”
“Look, are you living in the dark ages?” said Vila. “Just switch me through to this Adamant bloke - or whoever else is in charge there.”
“Hey, this isn’t the Post Office, you know.”
“What’s a post office? I’m stuck here on Elysium’s moon and I’ve got to get hold of someone in the space station or the planet. I don’t suppose,” he added somewhat desperately, “that you’ve got Avon there, have you? Or Cally?”
“Space station?” said the girl. “Planet? Oh, this is a prank, isn’t it? Well, all right, you got me. You really had me going for a minute there. So, well done you and whatever idiot put you up to it, but I’ve got better things to do with my afternoon. You interrupted the most groovy song, you know. So, bye, spaceman!”
Vila groaned inwardly. Trust Orac to somehow go and hook him up to one of those backwards settlements living in the pre-space age. “Um, no, wait. Look, have you got a big radio tower near you or something? If you broadcast my message from it -”
“Honestly,” said Georgina, “I might have believed you for a minute, but I’m not stupid. I mean, if I went off to the headquarters of British Telecom or the BBC or wherever and said there was trouble on some space station and they had to send a message into outer space, they’d lock me up.”
“Well, they’ll shoot me if they find me.”
“Shoot you? Where are you? Hey, you don’t really believe all that stuff about planets and space stations, do you? You ought to get some help.” She sounded concerned enough now, but about all the wrong things.
Vila thought about what to say, but he was fast coming to the conclusion that this was a complete waste of time, which he should have realised in the first place, since it was Orac’s idea. “Well, where are you that you don’t know about Galactic 5 and the Federation?”
“Me?” She laughed. “I’m in London in 1967 and the aliens haven’t landed yet, or at least, if they have the BBC is keeping super quiet about it.”
“London? 1967? What calendar are you going by?”
“Oh, it was just a free one I got out of a music magazine, but I’m pretty sure it’s got the dates right.”
“Er, okay, thanks,” said Vila. “You know what, I’m sorry to have bothered you, miss. Thank you for your, um, help.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “Because you don’t sound it, and if there really are people with guns, like I said, I’ve got a friend who can help. He’s marvellous at fighting crooks and villains and all sorts of rotten people. And I’m not too bad myself - when he lets me.”
“He sounds great,” said Vila. “Very useful. Wish I could call him in. But I’m going to sign off now and have another try and getting Galactic 5, only this time,” he added, as he switched the microphone off and kicked Orac, “hopefully in the right century!”
“Communication across time is a major scientific breakthrough - something which has never previously been accomplished. Naturally, you would not appreciate -”
“Well, it’s not much use if this entire moon explodes in a couple of hours with both of us on it, is it?”
“A mere minor error in my calculations - the co-ordinations were correct spatially but not temporally.”
“Even I know that Galactic 5 isn’t Earth. You got it completely wrong, so just come out and admit it!”
“Time and space are complex. Everything in the universe is moving - given a difference of several thousand years, spatial co-ordinates were only incorrect within an extremely narrow margin.”
“Ha,” said Vila. “A likely story, I don’t think. Now, come on, let’s try again. And try not to get me hotwired into the Supreme Commander’s private comm-lines!”
While Orac whirred beside him, lights flashing, as the wretched machine recalculated, he thought about the girl. She had sounded nice. He imagined her as being young. And blonde. And pretty. With great legs, because why not? And he was willing to bet it was safer than here in 1967, even with all the pollution and rioting and germs and diseases and things they had back then. He sighed and toyed with the idea of asking Orac if he could manage actual time travel instead of just accidental miscommunication across the millennia, but stopped himself, because Orac would probably put aside the boring matter of preventing the explosion to try it, and that would be bad for everyone.
Still, he thought, it might be worth just asking sometime later if and when they got back to the Liberator in one piece. Some quiet evening when Avon was busy and Cally was communing with moon discs and Dayna and Tarrant were using each other for target practice. Although, on the other hand, it’d be just his luck to get Orac to try it and then find out the stupid computer had killed the wrong bloody butterfly or somebody’s grandfather and Vila no longer existed or they’d created some weird twisted dimension where Avon was even more evil than usual and had a beard or something and nobody wanted that. Everything was bad enough as it was.
***
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: