Aboard their spaceship, the Inspector was desperately trying to navigate through an asteroid belt. Cat, lounging on the dashboard, watched him with a mix of amusement and disdain.
As the Inspector pressed as many buttons as he could on the console in front of him he exclaimed, “Blast it, Cat! These asteroids are coming out of nowhere! We need to recalibrate the G-Soft navigational system!”
Cat yawned before replying “Or you could just admit that your piloting skills are about as refined as a three-legged Bognor Beast in a Strictly Come Prancing contest.”
The Inspector glanced across at Cat and sarcastically replied, “Your helpfulness is as overwhelming as always, Cat. Remind me again why I didn’t opt for an intelligent parrot as a companion? Or indeed, a totally brainless Parrot!”
Cat responded, “Because even a brainless parrot would outsmart you, and we both know your ego couldn’t handle that.”
The Inspector continued to grapple with steering the ship to avoid the asteroids coming at them and almost npw shouted “Focus, Cat! Any brilliant ideas on how to get us out of this cosmic bowling alley?”
“Well, you could stop panicking for starters. Just activate the auto-pilot, and let’s plot a course around this. I don’t fancy becoming space dust today because you can’t think of the obvious.”
“Ahh”, said the Inspector as he smacked the auto-pilot button) “There, happy now? Auto-pilot’s on. It took you a while to remember that didn’t it? I swear, sometimes I think you forget you’re a robot and here to protect and serve me.”
Cat responded, “And sometimes I think you forget you’re a tax inspector and idiot, not a starship captain. Stick to your audits, leave the flying to me in future.”
“I’ll have you know, Cat, I’ve navigated through worse than this!”
Cat, with a monumental dollop of sarcasm replied “Oh, indeed. Like the time you navigated us into a black hole’s cousin, the slightly-dark-and-depressing hole.”
The Inspector responded defensively, “That was one time! And we got out, didn’t we?”
“Yes, after I recalculated our trajectory. You were too busy letting your amoeboid brain be mesmerised by the pretty swirling colours.”
“That swirling vortex was scientifically fascinating, thank you very much. I was observing it with science uppermost in my mind,” said the Inspector.
“Science in your mind. If you mean how do we explain the space between your ears scientifically, I agree with you. The fact is your lack of any intellectual capability beyond trying to make yourself look clever got us very close to being obliterated. As I just said, you should stick to counting, ideally in multiples of 10 to keep it as simple as possible, and leave the cosmic wonders to those with more than a passing interest in self-preservation and science.”
The Inspector bristled at the insults and then smirked, “Ah, but where would be the fun in that, Cat? Adventure is the spice of life!”
“And recklessness is the folly of the totally bonkers. But who am I to argue? I’m just a ‘robot cat’ with an apparent knack for saving your hide.”
The Inspector sighed and said “I do appreciate it, Cat. Even if you are an impossibly smug, fur-coated, indestructible Einstein .”
Cat stretched his front legs out and replied “And I tolerate you, Inspector, despite your constant need for heroic antics that have no basis in logic or any form of intelligence. Now, if you’re done playing asteroid dodgeball, I suggest we refocus on our mission.”
Inspector: “Right, the mission. Off to PZZSXAMIX. Let’s hope, since Mr. Snosrap’s demise, that planet puzz, erm, muh,thinggamy is more cooperative than these asteroids.”
Cat, settling down now for a nap, replied “One can only hope. And please let’s try to avoid any more ‘slightly-dark-and-depressing holes’, shall we? When we arrive I will teach you again how to pronounce puz-axa-mix. Like the autopilot it really quite straightforward “
“Agreed, Cat. Smooth sailing from here on out, you can trust me”
“Oh good grief,” said Cat, “You have got to be joking.”
The Inspector and Cat 