Laetia and Fenton arrived at the bridge to a conversation between Jorge Schrotti and Blomar.
Schrotti was sitting away from the other two stroking his cat that he had recently brought aboard.
'Ah Dr. what who have you brought us here?' Blomar greeted them.
Laetia was still reluctant to acknowledge the state of affairs, being part of a pirate crew and having signed up, unwillingly, to an intergalactic tour de space. In her eyes this Blomar character was but a maniac driven by his unjustified arrogance and megalomania. In a way she wasn't far off from the truth, but her opinion wasn't shared by the nature of her reality and she wasn't stupid enough not to realize it.
'This is Mr. Claptrap, you have asked for him recently "Captain" ...'
'Good, good, is Mr. Clap in possession of his full mental prowess Dr.?
'As far as I can tell... "Captain".'
Fenton hated being talked about in third person in his presence but considered it prudent not to bring up the matter now.
'Oh hey, I know this guy, he works at the "Caribbean Bar" we used to have drinks there every once in a while when we completed a project. Nice place, good prices at happy hour too.'
Schrotti threw into the conversation.
What he didn't mention was that he and his pit crew were permanently banned from the place on account of stealing various inventory, including, but not limited to, toilet seats and an ice crusher that had served Schrotti well for years now and after expiring continued its service in Schrotti's employ as a makeshift random number generator by, not so much, crushing ice and counting the crushed cubes edges. It favoured the number eight but after being run sequentially for a while it would miraculously spit out slight variations of logarithm base 42 as Jorge pointed out to him after a serious series of well cooled test drinks.
'Alright Mr. Clap, what have you got for me? I take it you have been informed of the nature of our inquiry?' Blomar couldn't bring himself to call a man Claptrap without laughing out loud. The mere thought of it already forced a grin on his usually rock solid face. Claptraps being one of the worst class of robotic servants ever to be brought into existence by an equally ridiculous tech franchise of his home world.
Meanwhile, Fenton, who had lost even the last vestiges of his usual professional self-confidence he took a significant amount of pride in, fumbled around with something in his hand only to realize a moment later that the object of his unconscious gripping, pressing, and turning around was Laetia's hand. Dr. Laetia didn't seem to mind though, so he just pushed the thought back whence it came and answered:
'Yes. I believe the man you are looking for can be found by contacting the Hub-Man.'
'Who is that?' Blomar asked, more to everyone else in the room than Clappy, as he now referred to Mr. Claptrap in his mind in order to avoid accidental laughter.
Jorge and Schrotti exchanged a meaningful look before Schrotti, after once more stroking his cat and setting her down, drew a breath and thought about how to explain the concept of the Hub-Man to the uneducated.
'Hmm. The Hub-Man yes I'm sure he would know where to find pretty much anyone on this shithole planet. But his service comes at a price you might not be willing to pay. The Hub-Man isn't a simple information broker or patsy you can push around by strong arming.'
'Oh yea? Why is that?'
'Well for starters he isn't quite what you would think of as a person.'
'Okey what's his deal then?'
'Well if I told you about what the Hub-Man wants from you in exchange, he would know and the price would change, so I dare not give you more information about him than that. But know this; whatever it is you want from him, he can provide, provided you can pay up.'
'Very cryptic, intriguing though, I would very much enjoy meeting this man. So where do we find him?'
'Oh don't bother looking for him, he already knows where to find you and will seek you out on his own.'
'Nope. Not gonna happen. We are taking the initiative here, I don't like waiting for ominous people to come to me on their terms.'
George put a hand on Blomar's shoulder and pulled him back to whisper in his ear in a very uncharacteristic display of subtlety.
'You see Blomi, The Hub-Man is more of a legendary godlike ghost figure and has been known to vanish people without a trace. He's not someone to fuck around with so better leave this be and find another way.'
Blomar smiled like a mad man. He couldn't hold it in any more. This entire conversation was just so over the top ridiculous, starting with the Claptrap person and now a ghost god, shit just got real good.