Chapter 12

The team was transported to Transylvania, along with all of their equipment. Only after a secure installation was assured did the Atrophs come over. The Atrophs had insisted on a concertina wire fence around the camp, even though the only known predators were the vampires and no fence was going to stop them! Nevertheless, the Atrophs were paying the bills, so Doug went along. Actually, Doug wondered why there was a camp, since the Atrophs would be spending the nights back on Earth-Alpha2. They had no interest in "roughing it."

Oh, well, you can get pretty much anything you want if you are willing to pay for it. This included a further safety measure: every Atroph was constantly monitored with a personally assigned transporter and would be pulled back to Earth-Alpha2 at the slightest indication of peril. Talk about paranoid!

The Team (they had dropped the name "Enforcers" as no longer appropriate), was assigned to be personally responsible for an Atroph, which meant that there could be only six members of the Atroph scientific group on Transylvania at any one time. Doug hoped that this gig didn't turn out to be a royal pain in the fundament.

The plan was for the initial tests to be on individual vampires. Once they had a base line, the scientists would try to examine a social group. Doug was asked to stun a vampire and bring it to the camp where the Atrophs could study it. The vampire would be released after it was measured and tagged. Of course, nobody consulted the vampires regarding this plan.

OK, the first problem was to locate a suitable vampire specimen. Doug used a surveillance portal to search the area. He found one hanging upside down from a tree limb not far away and had himself transferred closed enough to get in a shot with the stun rifle. He had arranged for a portal to be set up so that it could catch the vampire before it hit the ground and transport it to the camp. This went according to plan and an enthusiastic bunch of Atroph scientists quickly gathered around the stunned vampire.

Suddenly, there was mass hysteria as the camp was attacked by a swarm of vampires. Where the hell had they all come from? The attacking vampires didn't appear to be trying to hurt any of the humans or the Atrophs, just to rescue the original stunned vampire.

According to plan and contract, all the Atrophs were immediately snatched back to Earth-Alpha2 where they adjourned to the nearest available bar. Meanwhile, Doug recognized what was going on and ordered the Team not to shoot at the vampires. He was madly manipulating his trans-con, trying to find if there was a way to communicate with the obviously intelligent vampires.

Success at last! He heard: "Don't hurt any of the aliens!" and "Please be more careful with my wife!"

Doug said, through his trans-com, "Your wife is not injured, just sleeping! We have no intention of hurting anybody. Please talk to us. Your wife will wake up in about 15 minutes and be as good as new. This was all a stupid mistake on our part and we are sorry."

"How can you speak my language?"

"I am not speaking your language. I have a small machine which lets my brain speak directly to your brain. Your brain automatically translates what it receives. But the machine cannot read your mind. It only hears what you say."

"Very clever. Why did you attack my wife?"

"We are guards for a rather silly group of so-called scientists who wanted to study you without bothering to ask your permission, first. I am sorry for the misunderstanding. We did not realize that you were sentient. Please pardon us and let us be friends."

"Very well, we'll trust you a little bit. My wife is pregnant and I am concerned for her well being and the well being of our unborn child. I wish to take her home and make her comfortable. I will return in a few minutes if you wish to wait for me and talk."

"That will be fine. I'll wait here until you return, if you are not gone too long. Otherwise, we will keep watch on this camp and return when you do. Is that acceptable to you?"

"Yes, perfectly acceptable. Goodbye for now."

"Goodbye."

About an hour later, the vampire came swooping in to land beside Doug. "You were correct. My wife has regained consciousness and is in fine condition. What did you do to her?"

"I shot her with a weapon we call a 'stun gun.' It renders the target unconscious for a time dependent on the power setting. It can change from barely making you dizzy to killing you. Of course we never use the kill setting if we can possibly avoid it. There is a safety lock to keep me from using it accidentally.

"By the way, my friends call me Doug and I would like for you to do that. What may I call you?"

"My name is Urlic Atronson. Most people call me Urlic. You may do so if you like."

"Thank you, Urlic. Do you normally live in that cave we saw some of your people occupying?"

"No, certainly not. We are here on vacation. This is a rural retreat we use to escape from the hectic life in the city. Once a year we come here for two weeks. We use the opportunity to revert to our ancient hunting lives before we return to our sedentary lives as civilized people."

"Well, I'll be damned! Those stupid Atrophs saw your people here and just assumed that this was your normal life style. My people control the machines used to visit your planet, and we can keep the Atrophs away if they are a nuisance."

"Thank you. At the moment, we would not like to be treated as animals suitable for study. Though I suppose some of us would be willing to be laboratory animals if the pay were high enough. However, I make quite enough money as a chief accountant that I would not be a candidate for the job."

"Urlic, may I speak to your wife. I would like to apologize to her for the way we treated her."

"That's up to her. If you will wait here, I will ask her. No matter what she decides, I will return. I am enjoying our conversation."

Urlic flew off and returned a few minutes later with another vampire. "Doug, this is my wife. You may address her as Haloon."

"Good day, Haloon. I wanted to apologize for the disgraceful way we treated you earlier today. My employers meant no harm, but they were careless in the way they evaluated your people. Please forgive us and do not think too harshly of us."

"Certainly, Doug, I will forgive you. It was rather an amazing adventure that I will delight in relating to all my friends. In fact, I may tell the story so many times that some of them may get sick of hearing it!"

"What is your employment, Haloon?"

"I am a librarian, though I may become a full time stay-at-home mother until our child is ready for school. I haven't given much thought to that, yet, since I still have over a year to decide. What is it, exactly, that you do?"

"I am a professional protector. I contract to protect other sentient beings and their property from harm. It is really a hobby for me. I don't need the job for its monetary value, I just enjoy the challenge and the danger. My five friends and I have formed a team and we work together as a unit.

"On a different subject, do you think that your people would be interested in joining in our interplanetary trading combine. We have a method of traveling between planets that takes literally no time at all, so that we are able to visit anywhere we want to go. We have found that every culture we meet has some unique product which would be of interest to other sentient creatures. If you think that there would be an interest, I can arrange for a negotiator to visit you."

"I am the chief accountant for the largest trading company on our planet and I know that we are always interested in new business opportunities. I would be happy to introduce your negotiator to the appropriate people in my company."

"In that case, please excuse me for a moment while I communicate with the home office.

"Esther, please get one of George's negotiators here yesterday, if not sooner."

"Sure thing, Doug. I'll call right now."

"Urlic, we should hear something in a few minutes."

They talked of various things for a few minutes, when, suddenly, there was a POP of displaced air and a woman appeared next to the three people already talking. "Hello, my name is Joyce Kincaid. I've been sent here to talk to some prospective trading partners."