Chapter 4

The last criminal on our list was named Shoosh. He resembled an ostrich with two necks and heads. He stood over 8 feet tall when his necks were fully extended. We would have known that he was male just by the multitude of colors in his tail and the way it shimmered with iridescence, a beautiful sight under any circumstances. He was a lawyer and perfectly suited to the job: two-faced and a great show!

Shoosh's home was similar to Jak-Jak's in that it was made up of several building roofs butted together to make several acres. The whole thing was set up like an African plain with scrub grass and some brush here and there. The only building on the site was a small structure with transparent walls housing Shoosh's business office. Shoosh preferred to live in the open with no specific dwelling, which tied in with his phobia; Shoosh was as claustrophobic as Aha Jorse.

We had trouble figuring out a way into Shoosh's compound, since he had the area blanketed with a transporter dampening field. We finally selected ultra-light aircraft as our means of entry. There was nothing to learning to fly them; we had a computer-controlled flight and navigation system. We did spend a day getting used to the little dears, they were so much fun that we tended to forget why we were learning to fly them!

Shoosh did not employ a security team, preferring to do it all, himself. He was reputed to be a martial arts expert and more than proficient in all manner of personal weapons. He carried two automatic pistols in a "shoulder" harness like a Wild West desperado. His "hands" were his beaks, which were not rigid; they were mobile muscle tissue like a tongue, but much stronger and tougher. This was both advantageous and disadvantageous, since his eyes were virtually a part of his hands. With binocular vision at each hand, he could manipulate things with surprising precision.

His brain was buried deep within his body, so a blow on the "head" would not knock Shoosh unconscious. His reactions and reflexes were lightning fast because his nerves had to be super fast to compensate for the distance from his eyes to his brain. All in all, Shoosh was a formidable creature and not to be trifled with.

Our attack was scheduled for nighttime, as we hoped to catch Shoosh sleeping. This was a forlorn hope, since he was awakened by his antiaircraft defense system cooking in as soon as we got close. He had antiaircraft machine guns, radar and computer controlled, spaced around the edges of his compound. We were shot at as soon as we got into range and no amount of deeking and dodging could keep us from being hit by many bullets. The engines on all eight of our craft were put out of action shortly after the shooting started, but we had enough altitude that we were able to glide in to a landing on Shoosh's property.

Below a certain height, the machine guns stopped shooting and we were no longer pelted by the annoying bullets. We came down pretty well scattered over the landscape, and Shoosh attacked before we could gather together. I guess his first, and probably biggest, mistake was in making Augusta his first target. He jumped her and this aroused Cicero's ire like nothing else could have!

Shoosh ran up just as Augusta was climbing from her seat in the disabled ultra-light. She was still bent over when he arrived and he proceeded to kick her in the belly so hard that she went flying about 15 feet. This certainly would have killed an ordinary person of any species, but it only disabled Augusta for the time it took for her to catch her breath.

This made no difference to Cicero! He activated the shock defense of his suit and charged, full bore, at Shoosh. Cicero managed to grab Shoosh from behind and hold on tight as the electrical discharges ran through the villain's body. This should have been enough to incapacitate Shoosh, but his random thrashing about under the repeated electrical shocks, painful as they were, acted to Shoosh's advantage. One of Shoosh's hands, in its wild flailing about, connected with the side of Cicero's head and knocked him cold. Thus, Shoosh was able to escape and now two of our people were out of action.

Shoosh recovered almost immediately from the shocking experience and turned to face his next assailant, who was Jim. Jim, in his former life on Earth, had been a horse breaker and prided himself on his ability to ride anything that walked. Jim ran to Shoosh and grabbed one of his necks to use as a pivot. Jim vaulted to Shoosh's back and grabbed a neck in each hand to use as reins.

Foolishly, the rest of us stopped to watch, for we knew of Jim's reputation and pride in his ability. We should have rushed in to help, because Jim's ride was doomed to end in his defeat. Shoosh's necks were much stronger than any of us realized and he lashed both of them forward, throwing Jim tail-over-tea-kettle over Shoosh's heads to land in an ignominious plop at Shoosh's feet. Shoosh then kicked Jim hard enough to kill an ordinary being and left him semiconscious in the dust.

Justina screamed a war cry which would have frozen the nerve of any opponent and dove at Shoosh. She managed to grasp one of his ankles and jerk back with superhuman strength. This knocked Shoosh off his feet and Justina stood up, still holding onto the ankle. Though Shoosh must have weighed over 250 pounds, she leaned back a little and begin to swing him around her as she pivoted on her feet in a classic dance step. She looked like the typical hammer thrower in the Olympics as she swung Shoosh around and around. When she built up enough speed, she released him and Shoosh went flying through the air to land about 100 feet away, a bit stunned and disoriented.

Julia didn't give him a chance to recover; she threw a small flash/bang contact fuse grenade next to Shoosh and this was enough to knock him unconscious. We rushed over and bound him with cuffs before he could recover his senses; Shoosh was, indeed, a formidable fighter!

I sent Arthur to Shoosh's office to turn off the dampening field. Shoosh was transported to his holding cell alongside the other crooks and we called in some experts to go over Shoosh's records to see what was worth confiscating. Meanwhile, we went home to clean up.

Criminal law on Capital was somewhat similar to Napoleonic principals in that once you were arrested, you were guilty until proven innocent. Therefore, we had no trouble holding Aha Jorse and his henchmen while the local Capital police were investigating them.

At this time, we turned the whole case over to the Capital police. We believed that Tar Orlo's family and all of Gralxia were safe from this particular gang of crooks, so we announced to the Galactic Police Supervisory Council (GPSC) that we were available for a new assignment. While we were waiting, we had ourselves transported back in time to the ranch at the moment we had left for the Gralxia assignment.

Jim returned to Blister and resumed his job as marshal of the town. Cicero and I picked up our occupations as gunsmiths and the rest of the team returned to their former jobs. This lasted a week and we were getting pretty sick of the lazy routine when we got a call from Rik asking if we were available for a new assignment. We all answered in one word, "YES!"

The GPSC wanted to lend our services to a group of anthropologists and archaeologists who wanted to find out why the human race had disappeared from Earth in an alternate universe sometime around 2800 BC. They wanted to work in an area of the largest landmass and were in need of protection from the local animals and, possibly, humans. We agreed to take the job and collected our gear.

The scientific team particularly wanted our help because we were the only humans readily available and they might need a liaison with the local humans. Since most of the scientists were of the same species as Rik, they were afraid of an adverse reaction if they tried to talk directly with the natives.

We transferred to the shore of what would eventually become the Caspian Sea where we set up a base camp. Once we had the camp set up, the scientist sent out a number of flying drones in a effort to locate some local humans. The only people to be found were one family of four people: a man, a woman, a boy, and a girl.

The scientists held a meeting and decided that they had arrived just before the last of the humans had disappeared. This was such a small sampling of humanity that they would not be able to study them as they had expected, and they needed to shift back earlier in time. However, they might get some useful information if they made contact with these people. That's where we came in.