Let me tell you good people, when the starving Russian cosmonauts killed and ate the first sheep in the shuttle, it was an appallingly messy business. In the weightlessness of space it is quite impossible to keep things tidy while butchering a sheep – it is not an easy thing at the best of times. Up until then, no one had ever tried to kill sheep in an orbiting space shuttle and it must have quickly became obvious to everybody on board that there were very sound reasons why this was the case. It is probably fair to say that the slaughter of sheep in a space shuttle is, like marriage, not something to enter into lightly.
Both of our intrepid space Kelpies were unnerved by how quickly the shuttle crew had gone feral. They figured it must have been some kind of primitive instinct that caused the crew to then set up a spit roast over a blazing fire in the middle of the shuttle cargo bay as they did. Everyone knows that fireside feasts in space shuttles are universally flagged as “inappropriate” behaviour in most space shuttle operation manuals and it is fair to say that everyone in this shuttle, including especially the sheep, from that point on, spent a lot of their time watching their backs.
It wasn’t just tense in the shuttle, it was gloomy too. After the fire, the window glass of the shuttle absorbed something unpleasant that made it go opaque. If things had seemed bad to all on board before the windows went blank, they were bleak beyond belief after that happened. Being cut off by their last (visual) link with mother earth like that was the last straw for all on board. After a while, the CSIRO boffins joined in the killing and feasting as well. It was hard for the kelpies to imagine how things could possibly get any worse.
But they did. With all the feasting, the sheep started to run out…. And, as the sheep began to run out, “kelpie casserole” was heard more than once to be mentioned by some of the crew!!! It was scary as hell, but hardly rocket science. When those filthy, ragged, bearded maniacs ran out of sheep and started starving again, the Kelpies figured they themselves would most likely be next on the menu. Not nice to be thinking about, what with all the other stress of having recently been abandoned in space.
The Kelpies agreed between themselves that if it did actually come to that, they weren’t going to go down without a fight like the silly sheep did. They knew that without opposing thumbs (which has always been the kelpie’s principal handicap), they were going to be at a very serious disadvantage when things went critical. They determined that should the need arise, they would stand their ground, fight like fury and either hold them off or go down together – very Kelpie that is!
TO BE CONTINUED… What will become of our famous and beloved Kelpies in the failing shuttle mission?... Will Kelpie pie actually end up on the mad mission crew menu???... Will the Kelpies have to pull down a CSIRO boffin to feed everybody?? Too horrible to think about!!... Don’t you believe it – They say worse things happen at sea.. I don’t think so!...Don’t miss the next exciting episode of “PLANET OF THE KELPIES”… Tune in for episode four…