It was now 7 pm.
Guybrush had considered skipping the meeting, just to make a point, but in the end turned up ten minutes beforehand. Wally was already here. They sat down at the table and waited.
"Why do we call the bedrooms on this ship 'sleeping quarters'?" wondered Wally. "There's only three of us."
Elaine entered the room. Her hair was tightly combed, and she still managed to convey a sense of authority and power in her uniform. She remained standing. "All right," she said, "I called this meeting because there are some things we need to discuss."
"Let's hear them," said Guybrush.
"All right. Firstly, the sleeping arrangements. I'd like to convert that spare room as a bedroom." She looked at Guybrush. "Is this all right?"
Guybrush nodded. He looked at Wally. "Wally? No objections?" Wally likewise nodded.
"Good," said Elaine. "I realise nobody's really happy with the arrangement. I don't like sleeping on a couch, you don't want to give up the space, and Wally-"
Wally blushed.
"It's the best we can do," said Elaine. "Number two: I need clothes. I didn't ask you this morning, partly because I was dreading the answer and partly because you were a bit crusty. So... do you guys have any spare clothes?"
"Yeah, we do," said Guybrush. "They all look like these ones, however. And I don't think Wally's would fit you."
"They might," said Wally defensively. "Do you want to try them on, Governor?"
"After the meeting," said Elaine. "Number three: we need to discuss ways of getting back."
"Okay, that might be fun," said Guybrush. "Wally, any ideas?"
Wally shook his head. "I'm sorry, Elaine. I couldn't think of anything."
"I've had a few thoughts," said Elaine. "I'd like to hear what you think of them."
"Shoot."
"First one: We put ourselves in suspended animation, and program the ship to fly us home."
Guybrush was talking even before she finished. "There's a few things wrong with that. First, we don't have a suspended animation booth. Second, we don't have enough fuel to travel that distance faster than light."
"You do have sleep-inducing chemicals, though, don't you?" said Elaine. "We could use those, and build suspended animation booths."
"That doesn't solve the fuel problem," said Guybrush.
"Well, we could fly the journey at below light speed," said Elaine.
"Are you mad?" exclaimed Guybrush. "That'd take more than forty thousand years!"
"We'd be unconscious," said Wally.
"We'd be dead!" retorted Guybrush. "I'm sorry, but we don't have the chemicals, we don't have the medical equipment, and we certainly don't have the hermetically-sealed suspended animation booths you'd need to do something like that. It's not an option."
"Okay, I wasn't holding out much hope on that idea anyway," said Elaine. "My second idea was that we use the portal stones."
"No," said Guybrush instantly.
"Hey, you can't just say no like that," said Wally. "You haven't even heard Elaine's plan-" Guybrush glared at him.
"I realise that the chances of returning directly to Earth are infinitesmal," continued Elaine, "but there's no reason why we can't keep trying. Maybe we might end up close enough to fly the remaining distance back."
Guybrush stood up, and rummaged around in a drawer. He came back to the table holding a pen and a piece of paper. "All right, let's do a back-of-the-envelope calculation," he said. He began scribbling furiously. "We're forty thousand light years from earth, so let's say these portal stones have a range of eighty thousand light years. That could be an underestimate. Assuming we're full up on fuel - we're not - this ship can fly fifteen light years at faster-than-light speed. So each time we use the portal stones, we've got a 0.0000035 percent chance of success. If you tried it a million times it's still less than 4 percent."
"Those figures can't be right," said Elaine.
"They're in the ballpark. Even if I'm a couple of degrees magnitude out, it still makes your plan impossible. Also, if we repeatedly use the portal stones, the net effect will be to drive us further and further from Earth."
Guybrush looked up from his paper. "In any case, I don't trust any figures in relation to those portal stones. I don't believe their effect is governed randomly. First time we used the portal stone, it took us to the Hermit's asteroid, the guy who first discovered these things. If that's down to plain chance, then I'm a three-headed monkey. Now I find we've been plonked on the doorstep of what looks like an inhabitable planet. Maybe these sorts of planets are very common in the galaxy - maybe not. It's too much of a coincidence."
Elaine seized on his words. "Exactly. The most likely place those portal stones will send us is back where we came from."
Wally suddenly sat up straight. "Like when we left the Hermit-"
"Wally, it wasn't like that-"
But Elaine had also taken a sudden interest. "Wait, what's this you're talking about?"
Wally started talking very fast. "Well, when we first used the portal stone we were in open space, and under attack from Upchuck. It took us to a hemmed-in part of the asteroid belt, where the Hermit lived. When we'd repaired the ship and left the Hermit, we shot the portal stone to get out. And it took us back into open space."
"It didn't return us to the same location," said Guybrush.
"It was in the ballpark," said Wally.
"Probably only because single portal stones have a small range. We've got two portal stones, and it won't work like that..."
"How would you know that?" said Elaine. She'd become very excited. "I say we use them right now. Can't end up worse off-"
"NO!" shouted Guybrush. He drew out his blaster and pointed it at Elaine.
There was a short period of silence. Elaine said, "You're pointing a blaster at me."
"Sorry," said Guybrush. "But you were getting a bit too excited there. You were about to rush off and blast the rocks. Now we're all going to wait here for a few seconds and calm down, and then I'll tell you why you're never using those portal stones while I'm on this ship."
Guybrush sat back, keeping the blaster pointed squarely at Elaine. A few seconds passed before Guybrush put the blaster down - on the table, within easy reach.
"Now," he began, "let me acquaint you with the hard facts, Elaine. Like I said, this ship has a range of fifteen light years. At the moment, we're almost right next to a planet that should be able to supply us with fuel and water. If we use the portal stones, that won't be the case. They might send us right out of the galaxy. If we keep using them, that's almost certain to happen. And just suppose the portal stones choose that moment to stop working. What happens? We might survive a few months. No longer."
He paused, thinking, then continued. "What I'm trying to say is we can't take anything for granted. Those portal stones may not work randomly, but we have no idea how they do work. I'm not putting my trust in something we don't understand. Nobody's shooting those stones, and that's an order."