FORBIDDEN BLUFF

This is an AU based on the second-season episode entitled "Forbidden World."

            "You'll go if we have to carry you out." John Robinson had just said those words to Smith in his sternest, no-nonsense tone.

            But this time, backing away from him across the control room, and away from the airlock, Smith retorted with false bravado, "I don't believe it! You're bluffing! You wouldn't!"

            Robinson's and West's eyes both lit dangerously, and West savored his words, "Wrong answer!"

            Both men started toward Smith from opposite sides of the astrogator.

            Hastily, Smith glanced at Mrs. Robinson, and saw in her eyes that he had just made a grave, possibly dreadfully serious mistake.

            "Um...wait...!" He attempted to verbally backpedal.

            "You dared us??!" Robinson challenged.

            "You dared to dare us???!" West warned with exuberance. He was enjoying this.

            "Um...no! I changed my mind!"

            "Too late!!"

            Gasping in fright, Smith backed into the far wall and could go no farther. His palms plastered themselves hard against the wall to either side of him, as if he wished to push himself through it.

            "No!! Please!!! Don't get rough with me!! It isn't necessary! I'll go after the Robot! Please!!!" His trembling hands rose before him, feebly trying to ward off an attack. He begged, "Don't hurt me!! I'm fragile! I'll...do whatever you want!!"

            "And let you think you can get away with trying to dare us?!" retorted Robinson.

            "And let you dare to accuse us of bluffing??!" warned West. "You're going to learn never to do that again!!"

            "Oh, please, I already have!! I'll never do it again!! I surrender!! Oh, don't hurt me; I'm afraid of you!!!" Tears rolled down Smith's face, and he sobbed aloud. "Please!! Please!!!" As they reached him, he cried, "Oh no!!!!"

            Robinson grabbed one arm and yanked Smith forward, nearly wrenching the appendage out of its socket. Smith screamed in pain. West buried his fist in Smith's middle, causing the older man to cry out and double over in agony. Robinson bent and caught Smith's midsection with his shoulder in a fireman's-carry.

            As Robinson straightened and turned to carry Smith to the airlock, the older man screeched, "Your shoulder is digging into my guts!!! You're hurting me!!! You're hurting me where he just hit me!!! Please stop!!! Let me go! I'll go!! I'll do anything you want!!!"

            As Robinson reached the airlock with his squalling burden, West punched the buttons to open the airlock doors.

            Robinson dumped Smith outside unceremoniously. "Don't come back without the Robot!"

            West seconded the motion. "If you come back here, the Robot had better be with you, or you'll see how much rougher we can get!"

            Much later, after telling the Robot everything that Robinson and West had done to him, Smith added, "The professor and the major did at least say that they would come after me, if I did not return with you, to save us."

            "We can hope that they will be able to find us," responded the mechanical man.

            "I'm not sure that 'hope' is the right word. After what they did to me, I fear them more than I do this Captain Tiabo. He seems more or less a harmless eccentric."

            "So do you," retorted the Robot. "Which only proves that appearances can be deceiving."

            "Oh, hold your tongue!"

            Smith looked up at them with trepidation when Robinson and West entered the cave. The threat of their well-aimed laser guns easily subdued Tiabo; they tied him up with alacrity. Then, they approached the two prisoners with their guns still drawn.

            "No please! You wouldn't!" Smith implored with hands raised.

            "Don't be ridiculous, Smith!" admonished West. "We're only shooting the chains off of you."

            "Hold still, both of you," commanded Robinson.

            They complied, Smith with his eyes squeezed shut in terror. The 'boom' of disintegrating chains made Smith scream in fright. The two men eyed him ruefully in return.

            The Robot immediately moved to follow his rescuers. But Smith remained pressed against the cave wall.

            "Coming?" prodded Robinson.

            "May I say something?" Smith requested timidly.

            "If you must." He sighed.

            "At this moment, I'm more frightened of you two than I am of him." Smith indicated the tied Tiabo with his eyes. "Look, I'm sincerely sorry. I had no idea that you gentlemen would be so offended by my simply voicing my wishful skepticism regarding the veracity of your threat."

            West retorted, "If you were any kind of a man at all, you would have known how offensive that was!"

            Smith stared in bafflement. "Do you think me a woman???"

            "No," West responded ruefully. "I think you're a poor excuse for a man. Listen, you challenged us to prove that we meant what we said."

            Meekly, Smith responded, "That...wasn't my intention."

            "Well, just what was your intention?"

            "Merely to express the hope that you didn't mean it."

            "Hope, huh? Well, I trust now that you know that we mean what we say??"

            "Yes, but...."

            "But what?" West demanded sharply.

            "Please don't be angry. I'm only trying to understand." His trembling hands made a pleading, placating gesture.

            "Well??" West demanded with thinning patience.

            "Both of you have, at one time or another, threatened to break my neck. Must I believe that you meant that, too?? That you would have actually done it???"

            "Depends on how angry you had made us."

            "Oh my god!" Smith paled dramatically.

            "Look, let's table this discussion until we're back at the ship," ordered Robinson. "Let's go."

            Hours later, long since back at the Jupiter II, Smith gingerly approached Mrs. Robinson. "May I talk with you, please, Ma'am?"

            "Of course, Dr. Smith." She smiled gently.

            "You knew, didn't you? Somehow, the moment it happened, you knew what I really meant, but you also knew how the two men would take it. I could see it in your eyes: you knew that I was in serious trouble with them that I was not going to be able to get out of, without getting hurt."

            "That's right." She regarded him sympathetically.

            "And there was no way that you could have stopped them, explained to them, gotten them to stop long enough to listen to you."

            "No. They were too angry. I truly felt sorry for you, and helpless to change the outcome."

            "Thank you for your kind thoughts and understanding and compassion, in any case."

            "Well, I wish I could have done more. If it makes you feel any better, I have since talked to John and Don, and explained your differing viewpoint, and I think that they get it now."

            Smith nodded slowly, wordlessly.

            "Are you all right, or are you still hurting?"

            "Both places still hurt." He touched his gut and his left shoulder.

            She looked sad, but said hesitantly, "I know that this isn't much comfort, but I assume that you know that they could have done much, much worse to you, as angry as they were."

            He nodded. "I'm sure that that's true. Still, if this experience has taught me anything, it's that men of their type are potentially very, very dangerous."

            Reluctantly, she was forced to agree.

            At that instant, Smith looked up in time to see Robinson and West step out of the shadows. He gasped dramatically and tears formed spontaneously. "Oh no," he murmured almost reverently, in deep fright. "How long were you there, listening?"

            "The entire time," Robinson replied, but without rancor.

            Smith hung his head in a peculiar combination of fear and embarrassment.

            Making an honest effort not to gloat, or to enjoy saying it, West remarked, "So men of our type are very dangerous, eh?"

            Smith nodded mutely, thoroughly intimidated.

            "Well, I guess we just don't know what to make of...men of your type."

            "No. I suppose not," Smith whispered.

            Robinson offered, "For what it's worth, I think that we understand you a little more now."

            "Thank you," he replied meekly. "I'm very grateful that your wife was able to help you to see the harmlessness of my meaning. I could tell that I still had not managed to adequately explain myself while we were in Tiabo's cave."

            West admitted, "Well, we...still were not overly inclined to listen."

            "That is very gracious of you, sir." Smith chose his words carefully. "I...realize that...the way that I am is quite annoying to you two gentlemen, but...truthfully, I don't know how to be...anyone other than who I am."

            Robinson nodded slowly. "We'll try to be...a little more patient with you. A little more...willing to suspend our assumptions of your meaning, before we react. And, I'm sorry that we hurt you."

            Amazed, Smith fumbled for words, but managed, "That is...generous of you, sir. And I'll make an effort to...choose words with greater care." He faltered, coughed, and winced.

            West tsked. "You really are still hurting, aren't you? Is there anything we can do?"

            "I wouldn't know what. But your kindness in wishing that you could help is very gratefully appreciated." He raised his head and solemnly vowed, "I promise that I will never knowingly, intentionally, provoke you two into hurting me. Never! Please believe me, that will never be my intention! I simply wouldn't!" Smith's eyes were once again tearing up as he said that.

            Robinson and West were both clearly moved by Smith's unconditional self-subordination.

            Spontaneously, Smith's tears spilled and flowed, which seemed to make him more uncomfortable than it made them. "I'm sorry!" His voice was filled with tremors. "I didn't mean for this to happen, either."

            The two men regarded him forgivingly, and slowly, carefully approached, slightly alarming him.

            "Don't be afraid," Robinson said gently. "We're not going to hurt you." To Smith's astonishment, he placed a comforting arm around the older man's shoulders, where he sat with Maureen.

            West squatted in front of him, and took his hand almost tenderly. "Maureen suggested that John and I treat you as we would Will, when you're upset...as well as when we're angry."

            Smith's eyes shone. "Why? Because I'm an overgrown child?"

            John, Don, and Maureen all hesitated.

            Smith smiled beatifically. "Because you're not wrong. That's exactly what I am. Thank you for realizing."