"Stan. Stan?" The Lexx's voice drifted faintly through the silence of his hollow mid-section. "Stan! I need you. Stan?"
       "Lexx? Where are you going?" 790's voice slipped out of his rhythmic cadence and followed The Lexx's pronouncement in a muted echo through the vast cavern behind the bridge and tried to worm its way through Stan's closed door and into his slumber.
       Stan frowned and mumbled, "Go away..." as he was rolled over onto his other side as The Lexx banked.
       "Lexx? What are you doing? Stop that, you idiotic insect!"
       A very faint alarm bell went off in Stan's head as 790's voice continued to impinge on his sleep muddled mind, but it was ignorable as The Lexx began to rock gently back and forth in a soothing horizontal sway.
       "TWEEDLE!!! ZEV!!!!" 790's voice bellowed as the sway turned into a series of violent, frantic jerks.
       Stan let out a pain-filled squawk as his head was smacked into the alcove wall and threw out his arms in an vain attempt to grab a hold of handfuls of Lexx-mattress as he was thrown about in the enclosed space. He managed to roll out of the nook and was trying to get back into his coverall as he slid back and forth across the floor when his door opened to reveal Zev in a crouch, her hands on the floor for balance.
       "ZeEeEvV! Lexx, stop!" 790's voice, which had been muted by the door earlier, now rang through Stan's cabin repeating the same mantra over and over. In combination with The Lexx's softer, pleading, "Stan! Stan! I need you!", it was a discordant wail that made Stan wince repeatedly. It was even bothering Zev, for he saw her shoulders twitch up and her nose wrinkle when the two of them would hit the last note of their litany.
       "What's going on?" Zev questioned tersely.
       "How should I know?" Stan grumbled back as he finally managed to wedge himself against a wall firmly enough to get his legs into the proper places of his coveralls.
       Zev moved one hand to scratch at her back for a moment, then turned in the doorway.
       "Hurry up!" The lithe young woman called over her shoulder as she scrambled on all fours into the corridor.
       "I am hurrying..." Stan muttered as he pulled the fastening tab up with one hand. He made a vain attempt to stand, then decided Zev had the right of it and crawled as quickly after her as he could.
       *Being half cluster lizard definitely has some advantages*, Stan muttered mentally as he saw Zev's boots disappearing through the bridge doorway as he cleared the corridor entrance. "I'm coming, Lexx!" he yelled in response to the insect spaceship's desperate-edged calls that hung in the air around him.
       He was answered by a particularly violent jerk that slid him to a hands breath of pitching off the wide ledge and down into the guts of his ship. He scrambled backwards and pressed against the wall and eyed the catwalk as his heart thudded in his chest. How was he going to get across that with The Lexx jerking about like a cluster lizard being teased with elctroprods? The answer seemed to come as The Lexx's violent maneuvers stilled and was followed by his very relieved, "aaaaaaaahhhh". Stan pushed himself up the wall wondering what in all the Hells was going on, and decided he'd better wait a few seconds to see if The Lexx was going to start acting up again before he headed out onto the catwalk. He counted to thirty and then stepped out cautiously onto the narrow span. His steps grew faster and more confident as The Lexx continued to lie still. Zev stepped through the bridge entrance and fixed him with her, 'you are so unbelievably incompetent' stare as he hit the middle of the walkway.
       "Hurry up, Tweedle!" she yelled, her accompanying frown turning her lips into a sensual pout.
       Stan knew that whatever was going on must be bad. Zev only called him Tweedle when she was really upset. I didn't matter, though. There was only so fast he was willing to go across the catwalk, and he had hit that maximum speed. Zev would just have to deal with it. Stan was ten steps from safety when The Lexx made a little, frustrated sound.
       "oh, no..." Stan whispered as the ship began to move in a slow sway again. He managed two more steps before The Lexx's motion had him enough off balance that he was pin-wheeling his arms and listing toward an edge. Zev's graceful fingers clamped onto the coverall over his chest with an incredibly strong grip and with a yank she jumped backwards, dragging Stan with her.
       "Lexx, what is the problem!" Stan yelled as they both tumbled onto the bridge.
       "This doesn't feel good. Make it stop, Stan. "
       "What doesn't feel good, Lexx?" Stan tried to keep the impatience out of his voice and didn't succeed at all as he struggled to get onto his hands and knees. Behind him, Zev grabbed 790's stand and held on to it and the robot tightly as The Lexx's movements grew more and more violent. Stan lost his balance and ended up on his stomach.
       "Tell him to stop moving, you..." 790 snarled.
       "Lexx, stop moving! This instant! I command it!" Stan yelled before 790 could finish and crossed his arms in front of his face to protect it from his head-first slither into the far wall.
       There was a pause, then a very reluctant, "Yes, Stan."
       Stan got himself into a sitting position and drew his eyebrows together as he felt the fine tremble going through the ship beneath his rear.
       "Now, what doesn't feel good, Lexx?"
       "This...feeling on my outside. Stan, make it stop," The Lexx pleaded.
       Stan exchanged a puzzled glance with Zev, who shrugged.
       "What kind of feeling is it, Lexx?" Stan asked in an attempt to pry a more descriptive explanation from the very young and inexperienced space craft.
       "It is...uncomfortable," The Lexx told them after a thoughtful pause.
       Both Stan and Zev rolled their eyes.
       "He's itchy, love light! If the waste of protein had even the smallest iota of intelligence, he'd be able to figure that out," 790 informed Zev with adoring tones.
       "You're itchy? All this because of an itch?" Stan stated with disbelief.
       "Is that what you call this feeling? Then yes, I am itchy. Make it stop," The Lexx sounded pleased that he now had a word to put to his uncomfortable feeling.
       "Where do you itch?" Stan asked as he stood and turned to face the view screen. He frowned at the cloud of dark grey particles that fogged the image. "What's wrong with the view screen?"
       "He's been scratching himself against an asteroid," 790 informed Stan. The robot sighed at Stan's blank expression. "He has scrubbed off a visually impenetrable cloud of dust particles," the robot continued with the tone one would use with a mentally challenged child.
       "I knew that," Stan grumbled at the robot, then staggered as the Lexx proceeded to begin to scratch once more.
       "Lexx, you've got to stop that!" Stan chided.
       "I will try, Stan," The Lexx answered in a subdued tone and kept scratching.
       "Lexx!" Stan added with a flare of anger.
       The Lexx stilled, though complained, "Make the itchy stop, Stan."
"We need to get him away from the asteroid," Zev stated what to her was the obvious solution to their problem with The Lexx's scratching dilemma.
       Stan nodded his agreement. "Lexx, move out of the dust cloud, please."
       "Yes, Stan. Will that make the itchy stop?"
       "We need to see what's causing it first, Lexx," Stan told his ship. "And it's just, 'itch'."
       He had his eyes on the view screen and so didn't see Zev scratch furiously at a spot between her shoulder blades. The young woman frowned to herself as the sensation receded and figured it must be a sympathetic reaction to all this talk of itching.........