Chapter 7

A contingent of scouts, all USTs, were sent to the region of the galaxy where these disappearances had happened. At first, there did not seem to be anyone in the vicinity, but a flash of plasma was detected in a nearby system. A UST was dispatched to Ixilon to investigate and its report was received with horror. Ixilon IV, a planet containing a barely sentient species of amorphous blobs of protein, simply was no longer there.

The people of Ixilon IV had no access to space travel since they could not yet comprehend how to function in space. It would have been impossible to find a more innocuous life form; there was just no rational explanation of why anyone would want to harm the people of Ixilon IV.

The one clue was a photo of an unidentified space ship in the vicinity of the Ixilon system caught just after the UST had arrived following the explosion. The spaceship appeared to be in the process of accelerating to light speed to return wherever it had come from.

It was too late to track the USS (Unidentified Space Ship), but they now knew that their suspicions of a deliberate act by a sentient being was causing the planetary disappearances was correct. More USTs were dispatched to the neighborhood where the attacks were taking place in hope of gathering more information.

An alarm system was set up to sound off whenever a USS showed up. Several USTs were kept in flight just below the speed of light so that they could be sent to the site of a sighting at a moments notice. Finally it came!

A fleet of 20 USTs were launched to the Norne system to intercept a USS when it appeared in the Oort cloud surrounding Norne. The USS appeared to be searching the cloud for a suitable planetoid to be launched at Norne III. The impact would vaporize the planet and all of its inhabitants.

The fleet of USTs caught up to the USS and disabled it with some fragmentation rockets. They wanted to capture the being inside, assuming there was one, or, failing that, haul the USS in for examination, hoping that there would be useful information aboard. Just as they were about to attach a tug to the derelict USS, it erupted in an explosion of major proportions, bad enough that the tug was damaged beyond its salvage value.

Just before the explosion, a sentient being had been detected at the controlls through the use of the universal translator. This detail made it obvious that there was a need for a means to disable the being inside the USS without killing it. The question was: how? A multitude of ideas were proposed, but one clever person suggested that they use a kinetic-warhead missile, but modify the warhead so that it could strike the USS on the edge and start it spinning without actually destroying the USS.

This idea struck a responsive chord in the funny bone of the committee members, and work was started on designing such a missile. It took about a month to come up with a workable design and another three days to get it loaded into the replicator computer aboard every UST in the task force. Fortunately, no USS had shown up during this development period, so nothing had been lost by the effort.

In fact, it was five more weeks before another USS showed up in the galaxy. USTs were rushed to intercept it in the Oort cloud surrounding the Oblisk system. The USTs followed the procedures from the first encounter and were able to prevent the USS from escaping. Before the USS could self-destruct, a padded missile was fired and it started the USS to spinning at a mad rate it could not recover from.

It took some careful flying, but a tug was able to get a line attached to the USS and it was towed to a convenient place for study. It was hoped that the being inside was still alive, but there was no way to know until the USS was boarded.

Two Marines were sent to the USS while wearing their energy-field space suits and personal antigravity belts. This combination would let them survive inside the USS, no matter what the atmosphere might be and not be bothered by the rotation of the craft, since their antigravity belts would dampen the effects of the inertia of the spinning craft.

They entered the USS at a service port they found and were able to get inside without letting the interior atmosphere escape. This was a good thing, because they were in no position to replace the chlorine and argon atmosphere on the spot. A sample of the atmosphere was taken and sent back to headquarters for duplication when it was needed.

The being inside resembled a spider with 10 legs, except that, upon closer examination, four of the legs had what appeared to be functional hands. The being was wrapped in a cocoon of its own arms and legs and appeared to be unconscious. A large plastic bag was used to capture the creature before the spin of the USS was stopped.

Shortly after the spin was halted, the creature regained consciousness and began to struggle. It appeared to be trying to reach a large blue button on the control console, but the Marines were able to prevent that.

The instruments attached to the plastic bag holding the creature determined that the creature inhaled the chlorine-argon mixture and exhaled a complex compound of chlorine and silicon along with the unused inert argon. A spacetub was sent to retrieve the prisoner, and the spacetub was fitted with a large polycarbonate cage to hold it and contain the appropriate mixture of chlorine and argon. The plastic cage had a scrubber attached to remove the exhaled compound and to replace it with more chlorine.

The creature was transferred to the plastic cage, and teams of investigators were sent to learn what they could, both from the captive and the USS. Other than being constructed of alloys highly resistant to attack by chlorine, little was learned by a quick survey of the USS; it was shipped to a special dry dock/laboratory where it could be examined in detail.

Meanwhile, the captive was handled with extreme care, since none of the sentient races of the galaxy had any experience with a chlorine-breather. It was hungry, but they had no idea what to feed it, so a search was made of the cabin of the USS to see if they could identify anything that looked like it could possibly be food.

Several items were found which might be eaten, so they were all replicated and brought to the creature. They were laid out on a platter and pushed through the small service air lock. One of the scientists there to study the creature said through his universal translator, "We found these items in your craft. Are any of them food?"

The creature was obviously startled and almost screeched, "HOW DO YOU KNOW MY LANGUAGE?"

The scientist, Ickthur, from Gamma Castor IV, answered, "I don't know your language. We have a machine which acts as a universal translator. It's sole purpose is to let us communicate. You should know that the machine refuses to translate anything but the truth, so please do not lie to us. And I will not lie to you. Now, please identify any food items so that we may feed you."

The creature pointed to one item and said, "That is the only food on the tray. I can eat that, but it is only candy I had along as a snack. There are no regular foodstuffs on my ship. It will keep me alive for a while, but when it runs out, what will we do then?"

"Don't worry, we have a machine which can make as much of that as you can eat. Are you hungry, now?"

"Yes, but I could easily eat 10 times what you have on the tray."

"Go ahead and eat that. I will order up more, and it will be here, soon. By the way, what is your name? I would like to be polite and use whatever you are commonly called."

"My name is Scragilitzonaptxxilongrafti, but you may call me Scrag."

"Thank you, and my name is Ickthur. Neither I nor any of my associates have ever seen anyone like you, Scrag. Where are you from?"

Scrag appeared to be trying to talk, but nothing was transmitted. Ickthur listened to the noise coming from the translator and said, "Scrag, you have just demonstrated the inability of the translator to handle lies. I have heard nothing but random noise coming from the machine as it tried to translate your last few statements. Please tell me where you are from, but this time, tell the truth."

"I cannot tell you that. I have been ordered to tell lies whenever anybody asked me for any information of that sort."

"Very well, let's try some other questions which you may be able to answer. Oh, one moment ... Here is the additional food that I promised you. We will talk some more after you have eaten."