“It’s as I said, Captain. They don’t have electronic display devices, and they just don’t trust anything not on paper.”
“Spock, do we really have to do this?”
“Captain, they may not have electronic display devices, but their high velocity X ray accelerators would penetrate our shields.”
“Can’t we just send them one of our data disks?”
“Not if you don’t want to glow in the dark.”
“Hmpf! Scotty! Do we have any printers on the Enterprise?”
“Any what, Captain? I dinna understand you.”
“Printers! You know, printers! Things that put marks on paper!”
“Captain, why would anybody wan’ to do somet’ing like that?”
“Here, Jim.”
“Bones, what is it?”
“It’s called a pencil, Jim.”
“And?”
“You can use it to write stuff on paper.”
“With this? Bones, have I ever asked you to do surgery with stone knives and bear skins?”
“Captain!”
“Yes, Chekov?”
“I believe that there’s an ancient printer on the museum deck.”
“Spock, what about it?”
“I believe Ensign Chekov is speaking of an old-style, laser-driven, electronic printer. Please wait a moment, I’ll pull up the relevant data on the printer and put it onto the forward display.”
“9700. But what’s with that disappearing X?”
“Captain, what does ‘9700’ mean?”
“Uhura, that must be the year this model was introduced.”
“Captain, it’s star date 2314.”
“Egads, a printer from the future!”
“Really, Captain, I think that it refers to the weight of the device.”
“Captain! Scott here!”
“Yes, Scotty?”
“Sulu and I have gone down the the museum deck. We have found the printer, and Ensign Sulu is looking through the documentation now.”
“Scotty? What does DJDE mean?”
“Why, laddie, it means Dynamically Jamming Document Eater.”
“Oh, and FRM? Does it mean Flippin’ Report Mangler?”
“Nae, laddie, I think it means Forms on Reports, Maybe.”
“Scotty, this is the Captain! What have you found?”
“Captain, we’ve foun’ a number of books printed on paper. Can you believe it?”
“Well, what do they say?”
“Captain, you know they dinna say anything; they’re not talking books. But they do talk about MO:DCA and AFP and PDL and all manner of things.”
“Spock, what does this mean?”
“Captain, MO:DCA stands for Moderately Obscure and Dubiously Constructed Acronym while AFP stands for A Frightful Paradigm.”
“And PDL?”
“Jim -”
“Yes, Bones?”
“PDL means just Plain Dumb Luck. Which is what we’re going to need to get this to work.”
“Captain?”
“Now what, Chekov?”
“The Bitoids have trained their high velocity X-ray accelerators at us! I think they’re going to fire!”
“Chekov, go to Red Alert!”
“Aye, Captain!”
“Warning! Warning, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!”
“Somebody shoot that robot!”
“We can’t, Captain. He’s been in syndication longer than we have.”
“Danger! Danger! Font List Overflow! DJDE Syntax Error!”
“Scotty! We’ve got to get that printer working now!”
“Warning! Inklist Mismatch! Approaching Disk Saturation!!!”
“Scotty! PLEASE!”
“Aye, Captain, I’m doin’ the best that I can!”
“Captain!”
“Yes, Spock!”
“The situation appears hopeless. – Wait!”
“Yes, Spock?”
“The transporter room is reporting that they are transmitting thousands of paper documents to the surface of the planet.”
“Captain, the Bitoids are deactivating their high velocity X-ray accelerators!”
“Thank you, Chekov! Scotty, what’s going on?”
“Captain, we got the auld printer working, and we’re printing enough copies of the treaty to fill the whole planet.”
“Scotty, Scotty, you’ve saved us once again! But, how did you do it?”
“Ach, Captain, you know I’ve never Metacode I didn’t like...”
Copyright © 1998 by William J. McCalpin. All rights reserved.