Chapter 10

The meeting to address the full ruling council was scheduled for five days hence. The spiders who had seen Doug felt that it would take that long for the rest of the council to be prepared for the shock of seeing a being with only four limbs. The usual procedure was followed in which the unsuspecting spiders were shocked by the weird sight that Doug presented in a series of still photos. This was followed up by a video of Doug moving around on only two legs. Doug had offered to stand on only one leg for the video, but the producers thought such a sight would be too shocking for the council members to see, especially since several of then were rather elderly.

When the day finally rolled around (the spiders observed a 22-hour day), Doug was hustled out of his sealed chamber into a cocoon-like device which protected him from the chlorine in the atmosphere. He really did not need it, but his hosts had gone to a lot of trouble to arrange for it, so he used the device to move to the council chamber.

Inten had ordered a special transparent box for Doug to use to speak from, not because Doug needed it, but because it would make the councilors feel safer and more secure. Doug did insist on walking from the transportation cocoon to the chamber, just to show that the video was truthful and not a fake.

Doug arrived at the council chamber well in advance of the scheduled time of his address, but he waited until every councilor was seated before he walked to the sealed chamber. He didn't want anyone to miss a moment of his grand performance.

Inten introduced Doug with a short speech which told who he was and both reasons why he had been sent to them. Doug opened his part of the show by describing the replicator and demonstrating the one he carried with him. This demonstration created quite a stir among the councilors, since they, too, could see the advantages to their people of a economy of surplus. Once Doug had the councilors all worked up and about to mob him to get replicators, he spoke about his other reason for visiting their galaxy.

Doug told them, "We have irrefutable evidence that some organization, probably a part of your government, is attacking and destroying our planets. Let me show you what I mean. These are still photos taken from a video made by a remotely controlled spaceship of a planet being destroyed. You will note that the destruction is caused by a large mass of rock flying at high velocity and striking the planet in question with enough energy to cause both of them to disintegrate in a ball of plasma. Here are pictures of the system taken before the destruction and after.

"Please note that the rock was towed by a spaceship of unquestionable Andromedan design. The rock was pulled from the system's Oort cloud and accelerated to approximately 30% of light speed before it was released to strike the planet.

"The hard part to fathom is why this planet was destroyed. There is no question that the destruction was deliberate, and that it was done by someone from your galaxy. But we wonder why this planet was chosen for destruction, since it was fully occupied by approximately eight billion sentient creatures at the time of the attack!"

This caused a gasp to come from virtually ever throat in the audience. Before anybody could say anything, Doug continued, "Six other planets were destroyed before we could document it, but each one was in a different system, and each destroyed planet was the only one in the system on which sentient beings lived! I ask you why your government would sanction the destruction of approximately 45 billion sentient beings who were innocent of any intent of harming you?"

Pandemonium reigned! The meeting was disrupted by a near riot as all but one member of the audience reacted in horror to the disclosure Doug had made. It took half an hour to restore some semblance of order, and virtually every spider in attendance shouted the question of "Who was responsible?"

Doug answered, "We don't have proof of this, but we have good reason to believe that the destruction was ordered by your CIA."

Pandemonium returned! Demands were shouted for a full investigation of the charges. Most councilors wanted to shut down the CIA until their innocence was proved—this was probably impossible, since how do you prove a negative? Other shouts were for the closing of the Ministry of Information and Communication. Still other shouts were for the impeachment of Minister Hanglointherlastimmenos.

Order was restored and Doug was about to speak again when 40 spiders in an unfamiliar uniform ran into the meeting chamber and stationed themselves around the room. Minister Hanglointherlastimmenos marched up to the podium and uttered one word, "SILENCE!"

A stunned silence followed this command and Minister Hanglointherlastimmenos continued to speak. "LISTEN TO THIS! I AM STAGING A COUP! UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, ALL PERSONS IN THIS ROOM ARE UNDER ARREST BY THE ORDER OF THE NEW RULER OF THE GALAXY! LET IT BE KNOWN THAT I AM THAT RULER!"

By this time, all of the spiders in the strange uniforms had drawn guns and were pointing them, threateningly, at the councilors. Doug didn't recognize the weapons, but he could make a pretty good guess that a wound from them could be fatal. In any case, the councilors appeared to think so and acted accordingly.

Hanglointherlastimmenos launched into a long and wandering speech in which she proclaimed herself the only person in the galaxy fit to rule, since she obviously was the only one who recognized what an abomination that Doug and the people of his galaxy were.

She listed her points against the people of the Milky Way galaxy: they were oxygen breathers, most of them had less than 10 limbs, and they allowed males to be equal or even superior to females. All of these things were an affront to right-thinking spiders, and the practitioners had to be destroyed. As leader of the Andromeda First Party, Hanglointherlastimmenos was exercising her duty by deposing the ruling council and taking over the government. She had a radio and TV address scheduled for this evening in which she would explain the facts of life to the citizens of Andromeda. Following the address, she expected the rightness of her actions and the supremacy of the AFP to be recognized throughout the galaxy.

Hanglointherlastimmenos rambled on for nearly three hours, but her speech could be summarized in three sentences. 1. She and the AFP were taking over the galaxy, lock, stock, and barrel. 2. She was in charge because she, alone, was qualified to know what was best for all the people of Andromeda. 3. Anybody who disagreed with her would be interned in concentration camps, and those who could not be "reeducated" would be killed.

Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot all occurred to Doug as he listened to Hanglointherlastimmenos' speech. There were shades of jihad thrown in for flavoring, but the spiders didn't have a god they could call on for justification the way the mullahs did. Anyway, Doug knew that he was going to have to take direct action pretty damned soon if the spiders didn't do it.

At least Scrag was not in immediate danger. Doug had sent her home to be with her family while he took care of the political maneuvering he had in mind. He knew how to find her, so he was prepared to pick her up as soon as he got away from this nut Hanglointherlastimmenos. He stayed quiet while the councilors were marched away to detention, but he knew that he was in for trouble as soon as Hanglointherlastimmenos remembered that Doug was still on the stage.

Hanglointherlastimmenos turned to Doug as the last of the councilors were being marched out. She said, "I won't kill you, yet, because I may have a use for you. However, I have no qualms about letting you suffer, so I will just leave you in that box until I need you. I assume that you will get pretty hungry and thirsty while you wait, but I think that is justified to show my contempt for your kind. Right now, I am thinking of using you as a zoo exhibit as a prime example of what I want to eliminate from the universe." With that little speech, Hanglointherlastimmenos stalked from the stage.

Doug expected that he might need a weapon with some stopping power before this adventure was over, so he replicated a .45 1911A1 automatic pistol and holster. Just in case, he also replicated six clips, fully loaded, so that he wouldn't have to fool around if he got into a bind. He also replicated his favorite snack, a hot Ruben sandwich and a cold bottle of beer. He set the empty bottle in the corner of his "prison" for Hanglointherlastimmenos to puzzle over after Doug left.

Doug decided that he was lucky that Hanglointherlastimmenos was so damned egotistical. Any sane person would have tried to take the replicator away from Doug before leaving him unguarded. Hanglointherlastimmenos had probably been so filled with her on selfrighteousness that she completely forgot about the replicator when she started his coup.

Doug had debated simply killing Hanglointherlastimmenos, but he was afraid that her minions might kill a lot of people in panicked retribution. He figured that he could kill Hanglointherlastimmenos anytime he wanted to, but there were some things that he needed to do before he took care of that chore.

His first goal was to rescue Inten and get some guidance from her. Doug pushed the door open; Hanglointherlastimmenos had not even bothered to lock it before leaving. That proved that Hanglointherlastimmenos was not as smart as she thought she was.

Doug went out the exit that the captives had used as they were marched out. The doors and corridors were very wide and high in order to allow easy passage for the spiders, so Doug had no trouble flying down the corridor by means of his antigravity belt. He did fine until he came to a junction of corridors. Which way to go? For lack of anything better, he just kept going straight ahead. He knew that he couldn't keep going straight ahead forever, but he had to find somebody he could ask for directions.

At last! Doug spotted a spider standing at another corridor intersection. She was wearing that AFP uniform, so Doug figured that she would be a good place to start asking questions. The spider had her back turned, so she could not see what was coming up behind her; even though she had a double handful of eyes, they all pointed to the front. The antigravity belt was silent in operation, so Doug appeared apparently out of nowhere.

He came up behind the spider and tapped her on her back. She snapped her head around, saying, "Who the shit is sneaking up on me?" As it happened, she turned the wrong way, so she could not yet see Doug. She turned the other way and saw him hanging in the air, courtesy of his antigravity belt. The spider promptly emptied her bladder and intestine and fainted!

Doug was happy that he was encased in his protective forcefield, so he did not have to smell the result of his surprise. He did curse, though, because he had no idea of how to revive the spider from her faint. He waited around for a few minutes and even tried slapping her face a few times. Nothing worked, but he held his impatience in check for a while longer, and she revived.