Tales From The Third Moon: The Squadron Commander's Tale

The Squadron Commander’s Tale

“You-it should ask her-it,” said Trff for the megazillionth time in the last IG week.

“It’s pointless, I can see perfectly well that it’s all messy in there!” retorted BrTl crossly.

“It could ask her-it,” it offered.

“And do what? Given that you can’t tell which bits are real and which aren’t now, what difference will any remark that comes out of her mammalian mouth make?”

“None,” it said tranquilly. “But at least some being will have asked her-it.”

BrTl got up. “I’m gonna have a second helping of breakfast. And when I get back from the counter, you-it will have absorbed—physically absorbed—fifty percent, min., of that plateful of agar-agar, or I'll know the reason why! –That’s an order, Chief Engineer!”

“Yes, sir,” it said meekly, starting to siphon the muck up. BrTl went off quickly to the serving counter: he hadn’t really believed it’d work.

Dohra had just joined them with a plateful of very strange-looking breakfast and BrTl was about halfway through his roasted haunch of nyr, having discovered that if you told the servo-mech you were from Gall’ay’a, where they originated, you got the real thing, lordship-type fare though it was generally considered elsewhere in the two galaxies, when Didg came up to them looking grim. Also a bit different than usual—

“What’s the matter, Didg?” gasped Dohra. “You’ve got your cloak on!”

And he-it’s depilated his-its face-hair, noted Trff.

Oh, yeah, that was it. The straps went across the chest and over the double-barrelled blaster’s holster-straps—well, good, that would help to prevent any being’s ripping the thing off his back—Huh?

Didg was saying: “I’ve got to get home to DorAven. Had an urgent message from Ma: my oldest brother’s had a bad accident—not likely to live—and Pa’s in a really bad way, had a stroke, they think he may not recover.”

“The ship isn't ready,” said Trff simply, while other beings were gulping out expressions of sorrow and concern.

“I know that, Trff, swiller: I’ll have to leave it in your care: that okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can. Uh—look, I’ll have to leave Budg behind, too: Ma’s sent me a First Class ticket all the way, but she hasn’t sent one for him—well, never could stand the poor old swiller—and, uh, anyway there’s no way they’d let him in First Class without a bracelet on, even if I had the igs.”

“We’ll look after him,” said BrTl kindly. “Well, Trff can make him believe you’ve never left, if you—No? Just as you like. Don’t worry, Trff’ll keep him happy down with the blobs, and me and Dohra’ll see he gets the right amount to eat, won’t we, Dohra?”

“Yes. Not too much sugar, and watch out for the protein highs,” she said, smiling anxiously.

“Yeah. Thanks. Uh—I should be back within the IG week, depending on how it goes.”

“That’s all right, Didg, swiller, we’ll be here!” Trff assured him.

“Apparently,” agreed BrTl. “Got time for breakfast? On me.”

Didg sat down with a sigh. “Just a k’fi, thanks, swiller.”

BrTl went off to get it. The servo-mech charged him three igs for it, even though he said all the right things, but presumably this was either because it was breakfast-time and any order was three igs, or not.

Forty-Four and the Feeny-Argyllians with their Flppu came up while Didg was sipping it and of course had to express concern and etcetera. The Thwurbullerian volunteered to help keep an eye on Budg and Didg accepted its offer without managing to disguise the feeling that it’d do a better job than BrTl, Trff and Dohra combined. Dohra must have caught it: she went very pink but said nothing.

Didg’s connection left from Level Purple. Just as well Trff had a handy lift-blob waiting for them.

Level Purple. O-breather. VIP lounges, sim-lounges, bars, fine selection of boutiques, whllubbly-gell baths, fluorogas pools. Access to Tourist Halls by First-Class Tourist Pass only. All passes must be shown.

They looked uncertainly at a view of greyish-purple mist.

“Show your passes as you get off,” said BrTl mildly, getting off.

The Feeny-Argyllians began to panic, so he said heavily: “Not really, One and Two. Just get off. There’s no step: this is Level Purple.”

So they stepped off—“Ooh!”—“Ooh!”—And found that nor there was. And wasn’t it purple! Refined, though.

Uh, don’t think I don’t wanna be seen off, BrTl, swiller, ventured Didg cautiously, but what happens if an actual being asks to see your passes?

Trff makes it believe it has, he replied simply.

You oughta make more use of that being! he replied, shaken.

It’s not always possible, like for instance in large IG C&E halls where there may be as many as two thousand beings standing around— Not that it couldn't, but then it might be too tired at the point where Jhl needed it to do something important like nudging the blobs into hyper-hop.

On ordinary levels of course you just got stopped by the being on duty at the gate but here on Level Purple a purple-clad being that wasn’t in Space Patrol at all—possibly it was an ISLA being but that sure wasn’t any sort of ISLA uniform that BrTl had laid visual organs on heretofore—stepped forward and, bowing deeply, said: “Good morning. I’m afraid it’s passengers only past this point, respected traveller and guests.”

They watched numbly as a second purple-clad being—this one was female and verging on the Pleasure Girl type—assisted Didg tenderly onto a luxurious seat on a tran-pod train on which there were no other beings, handed him a purple flower and a glass of purple liquid, patted his mammalian forehead, what was accessible for the DorAvenian helmet, with a purple senso-tissue, and finally waved him on his way, smiling and smiling…

“Wave!” gulped Dohra, suddenly realising he was actually going.

Hurriedly they all waved to Didg in his solitary splendour on his tran-pod train.

“What was that purple drink?” croaked BrTl numbly.

“Whtyllian grape juice,” explained Trff.

“Mm,” agreed Forty-Four. “Not even reconstituted.”

“Uh—you mean wine?” he groped.

“No. Real fresh grape juice,” said the Thwurbullerian heavily.

“He told me,” said Dohra dazedly, “that he doesn't even like fruit juice!”

“Exactly. What a waste,” said the large being sadly. “But that’s First Class for you.”

Dohra was holding out her paw—hand, so BrTl kindly shot out a pseudopod for her to hold. “Um, BrTl, if his oldest brother duh-dies,” she said in a shaking voice, “and his fuh-father too, you realise he’ll be a chief?”

He had sort of thought that that was how it worked, only he’d sort of hoped he was wrong, well, mok shit! “Ugh.”

“Ow!” she gasped.

“Oh, Federation! Sorry!” Hurriedly he released her hand.

“It’s all right, you didn’t really squeeze,” she said bravely.

“Let me see,” said Forty-Four quickly. “Tut, tut.” It produced a small blob from the folds of its Thwurbullerian garment and applied it. “Better?”

“Ooh, much, I can’t even feel it! Thank you, Forty-Four.”

“You’re welcome, Dohra. Er—I think we should prepare ourselves for the fact that his father probably will die, and the brother, too: I doubt if his mother would have sent for him if it hadn't been a genuine emergency.”

“That’s right,” tootled One and Two, the narrow heads on the elegant elongated necks bending to peer anxiously at her.

Dohra bit her lip. “Mm, I think so. Um, but won’t he have to come back for Budg and his ship?”

Silence.

Finally Two said bravely: “I think he may send a being for them.”

“To collect them,” clarified One glumly.

“Really?” she said feebly.

“Yes,” they tootled sadly. “I think so. Beings like chiefs have plenty of beings to send.”

Dohra was now looking as if water was going to come out of her eyes at any moment. “Mm.”

“Never mind,” said BrTl quickly. “Shall we all go and have a drink—Er, not at Level Purple prices, no, Trff, you’re right. Well, back down to good old Level Pink?”

So they returned thankfully to Level Pink and, early though the hour was, had suitably sustaining beverages. Feverfew tea in the case of the Feeny-Argyllians, but Forty-Four graciously allowed Dohra to have something called a “hot cotty” which turned out to be a concoction of boiled spring water, New Rthfrdian grapefruit juice, rau-mushroom sugar, and qwlot. Very little of the last in proportion to the first. It came with a slice of something on the rim but Forty-Four prudently removed that as the servo-mech held it out.

She declared she felt better when she’d drunk about a quarter of it and even managed to note without letting the water come out of the eyes that she’d always wanted to see Level Purple, so that wasn’t too bad. After that they only had to get over ZrMl’s turning up and wondering with horrible cheerfulness why they were all looking so glum.

So he had to sit down and have a stiff qwlot—double—and after that he was softened up enough to let Forty-Four con him into agreeing to tell a story. To take their minds off it.

In that case it better not have any chiefs in it, sent BrTl sourly.

Huh? Oh! No. You do realise, Br-cognate, that if the chief and the eldest cognate die Didg will have to stay and be the next—All right, no need to mind-blast me! Um, a xathpyroid story, then?

Yeah, “The First Gr-Cognate’s Great Fluhgrunder Kill.”

Hah, hah. Um…

“What about something that happened to you when you were on duty, Zr-cognate?” suggested BrTl kindly aloud.

“The xathpyroid story of the Great Fluhgrunder Kill would be very interesting, though,” prompted Forty-Four.

“It takes seven IG hours to get through the first verse, Forty-Four,” replied ZrMl politely.

“Er—not verse, surely, Commander?” it said weakly.

“There are fifty-two of them,” he said uncertainly. “Maybe you’d just call it a part?”

“I—No, no, if you say it’s a verse, I’m sure you're right. I did once hear a version of it, but it can’t have been…” Its voice faded away.

“That would have been a summary,” said BrTl helpfully.

“Y—Er, yes. It had many rhetorical devices, though,” said the large being weakly.

The two xathpyroids emanated blankness.

“Er—repetition, and rhyming and assonance, and what I think was onomatopoeia, though it may have lost something in the translation, and—er…” It paused. Certain beings looked at it expectantly, though not the two xathpyroids. Finally the Thwurbullerian said weakly: “And what I perceived as sound effects, though of course—”

“Oh, yeah, they have those. It would still have been a summary, though,” said BrTl cheerfully.

“Yes,” agreed the Squadron Commander.

“It sounds most interesting!” tootled the Feeny-Argyllians.

Don’t, warned BrTl grimly.

Do you think I wanna be stuck here reciting for the next three hundred and sixty-four IG hours? replied ZrMl indignantly.

Three hundred and seventy, the last verse is longer.

Oh—yeah. Uh—give them a sample?

That’ll probably shut it up, yeah.

“I could give you a sample, Forty-Four,” said ZrMl in a weak voice.

“Oh, lovely! Thank you so much, Commander!”

“A real xathpyroid story! Lovely!” tootled the Feeny-Argyllians.

“Lovely! Only is a Fluh-being anything like a Flppu?” squeaked S-Fl’Chuyilleea.

“Nothing at all. More like a giant fish, only it lives on land,” explained BrTl.

“Oh, good,” it said. “I thought that all beings starting with ‘Fl’ were like Flppus, silly me!”

“That is reasonable,” said Dohra quickly just as BrTl was opening his mouth. “Flppu names all do start with ‘Fl’, don’t they?”

“Yes, because that shows you’re a Flppu!” it squeaked.

Right, going round in circles, sent BrTl as Dohra’s mammalian brow was seen to wrinkle. I’d drop it, in your mammalian shoes, or we’ll be here about as long as it’d take to tell the full version of “The First Gr-Cognate’s Great Fluhgrunder Kill.” And be warned: you’re gonna get the Zr-cognate version.

“Shall I start?” said ZrMl on a glum note.

“Start by all means,” replied his fellow-xathpyroid courteously.

So, with a quick glare at BrTl, the Squadron Commander began:

Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, grrr, GRRR! Rrrr-aa-AACH!

“Just a moment, Commander,” said Forty-Four quickly, holding up a giant appendage. “I’m afraid there’s something wrong with my translator.”

“And mine!” gasped Dohra.

“And mine!” tootled the Feeny-Argyllians.

“Mine’s growling!” squeaked the Flppu.

“Um, I don’t think there is,” admitted ZrMl. “Did it come over as ‘Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, grrr, grrr! Rrrr-aa-aach’?”

“Mm,” admitted Forty-Four.

“Louder, though,” said Dohra cautiously.

“Oh, much louder!” agreed the paired beings.

“There’s nothing wrong with any of these translators,” reported Trff. “Though it wouldn't call Dohra’s a grade-A, super-duper, maxi-galaxy one by any means.”

Dohra smiled limply. “So it was meant to sound growly?” she ventured.

“Yes,” agreed the two xathpyroids.

“I do apologise,” said Forty-Four hurriedly. “Please go on.”

Resignedly ZrMl went on:

Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, grrr, GRRR! Rrrr-aa-AACH!

GRRR-RRR-RRR-AACH!

Gr-cognates, Gr-cognates, Gr-cognates, GRR-AACH!

Rrrr-rrr-aarrrr-rrrr-RAACH! Rrrr-rrr-aarrrr-rrrr-RAACH!

Gr-cognates, Gr-cognates, Gr-cognates, GRR-AACH!

GRRR-RRR-RRR-AACH!

Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, grrr, GRRR! Rrrr-aa-AACH!

He paused. “Was that better?”

“Oh, much,” said Forty-Four quickly.

“I heard some words,” ventured Dohra.

“‘Gr-cognates’: yeah,” agreed BrTl. “If he was a Gr-cognate himself you’d have heard a lot more of that, but most of us don’t bother. Why don't you skip the next thirty-two lines, ZrMl?”

“Wait!” cried Forty-Four. “What are they?”

“Well, approximately—and I’m afraid you beings aren’t picking up the changes in tone—‘Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, grrr, grrr! Rrrr-aa-aach’,” said BrTl mildly.

“There are a lot of changes in tone,” agreed ZrMl, also mild.

“I can hear them!” squeaked S-Fl’Chuyilleea.

I don’t think it can!—I don’t think it can! warned its masters.

Nor do we, agreed ZrMl. “All right, I’ll skip the next thirty-two lines, shall I? No, hang on, BrTl, I can't do the tone-shift without sliding into it.”

“All right, then, skip the next thirty.”

“Okay.”

Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, grrr, GRRR! Rrrr-aa-AACH!

Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, grrr, GRRR! RRRR-AA-AACH!

Rrreeow-eoow, grrr, grrr, GRRR, GRRR! RRRR-AA-AACH!

RRRR-AA-AACH!

GRRRR-AA-AACH!

GRRRR-AAA-AACH!

GRRRRR-AAA-AACH!

GRRRRRR-AAAA-AAACH!

GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF!

Flu-oooh-oooh-grunder! Flu-oooh-oooh-grunder! GRRAFF!

GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF!

Flu-oooh-oooh-grunder! Flu-oooh-oooh-grunder! GRRAFF!

GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF!

Flu-oooh-oooh-grunder! Flu-oooh-oooh-grunder! GRRAFF!

GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF! GRRR-AAFF!

“Then you repeat that forty-seven times,” he explained politely, ignoring the fact that the Flppu had dived beneath its masters’ couch as the first “Flu-oooh-oooh-grunder!” rang out across the now fast-emptying pink ISLA bar.

“Repeat ‘Grrr-aaff, grrr-aaff, grrr-aaff’?” asked Forty-Four cautiously.

“Uh—no— Federation, did it really sound like that to you? Uh, no, like from where I said ‘Fluhgrunder’ for the first time, up to that last GRRR-AAFF!’ Um, we’d call that twenty-one turns, dunno what you beings’d call them.”

“I got ‘turns’,” reported Forty-Four cautiously.

“Yes. Hang on, I'll say it in Intergalactic. ‘Turns’.” He looked at it expectantly.

“Yes, that did come over as ‘turns’; how very, very interesting!” said the Thwurbullerian pleasedly.

“Like in ‘Take turns’?” asked Dohra dubiously.

“Yes, because each one is a turn,” replied ZrMl seriously.

“Popular etymology,” murmured Forty-Four to itself. “Fascinating. Er—thank you, Commander,” it said quickly, waggling its frontal lobes a little. “I don’t think there’s any need to repeat the twenty-one turns forty-seven times. But may I just ask, what comes next?”

“Next you repeat it from the beginning.”

“All of it?” gasped Dohra.

“Sure. Eighty-three times. I mean, you have to say it all eighty-four times in all.”

“Eighty-four… twenty-one,” murmured Forty-Four to itself.

“The Third School professors’d tell you the numbers are significant, yeah,” said ZrMl indifferently. “We had a numerical system to the base seven back in the old days.”

“Of course!” Forty-Four agreed, emanating pleasure.

“Did we?” said BrTl blankly.

“Yes! Those stupid sums in tenth-year First School!” he said impatiently.

“Oh! Yeah! Add six and five and express it to the base seven. Pointless.”

“Fourteen,” said Trff kindly to Dohra. “As you-it would look at it.”

“Trff, did you have to?” said BrTl crossly. “She’ll be puzzling over it for—Oh. Good idea. Yeah, think about it, Dohra. Put a seven where you’d expect a ten to be. –No, well, most of the traditional stories are pretty bad, Forty-Four, but that should give you an idea, I think?”

“Oh, certainly! Thank you so much, Commander ZrMl!”

“Any time,” he said, clearing his throat cautiously. “Sorry about this, Br-cognate, but I think I’d better have a Rolly’s Rwthwarian ale.”

And forthwith a servo-mech produced giant quantities of it, and he rinsed his throat thankfully. And, once the Flppu had been retrieved from underneath the couch and assured there were no more growly stories with Fl-beings in them and restored with some of the Revivifying Gall’ay’an Star-Apple Juice which had replaced the Refreshing Gorbachian Plum Juice as the bar’s very special offer, he told a real story.

The command was out beyond Blerrinbrig’s—four fighter groups, that’s forty squadrons, and three cruisers plus escorts, under the command of Admiral Morr V Peth. The Admiral was using Captain GrPv’s Intergalactic Explorer as its flagship, but she was almost managing to bear up without actually signing herself in on Mullgon’ya. Though the formal dinners with the Phang-Phangian senso-orchids on the table every night were starting to get on her nerves. Uh—maybe you’d better explain to your Flppu now, One and Two, that they’re not edible, they’re like, um, table ornaments; it could save confusion. Thanks. –Yes, that’s right, Dohra: it would’ve been like the admiral that your cognate’s Service friend had to serve: admirals tend to be like that.

There’d been a bit of trouble with some Crazed Patriots, but we’d mopped them up, all right, and blasted that artificial moon they’d been using as their base into a megazillion, megazillion dust particles, and most of the inhabited planets in the sector—cNorry, Baggadoria, Meshapinter and so forth—that had been sort of thinking they might like to side with the Crazed Patriots against the Federation had changed their minds, funnily enough, so there wasn't that much left for our squadrons to do, and we were all hoping for a bit of home leave when the orders came down that our squadron was being assigned to patrol duty in Baggadorian space. If you’ve never heard of Baggadoria, don’t panic, it’s an FW dump that you wouldn't want to’ve heard of, and at that time, not even in the Federation. H-breather, if it matters.

Uh—well, they’re Baggadorians, Dohra. Um, bluish, I suppose. Most xathpyroids don't consider them attractive, if that helps. Yes, that’s right, you’ve got the picture! Well, almost, those are their visual organs, not their hands, actually. –No, One and Two, they’re vegetarians, actually. Yeah, isn’t it?

As FW dumps at the back of Blerrinbrig’s go the planet was fairly advanced—nothing like what a xathpyroid’d call homey, mind you—but they had blobs and their dwellings were quite roomy. And they had some real fast ships—or had had, most of them had got a bit dented during that skirmish with the Crazed Patriots that their government was now trying to claim they hadn’t been involved in. This was slightly difficult because at the same time a large disaffected group—something to do with politics on their world, but don’t ask me what—was lurking on their farthest moon getting off pot-shots at us.

Group-Leader ZrHl wanted to go in and clean them out, and us Squadron Commanders all agreed, of course, but no: Captain GrPv, who was co-ordinating the operation, reckoned that for political reasons we couldn’t do that. So what we hadda do was hang about waiting until these Baggadorian rebels tried to take a pot-shot at us and then cut them down to size, only without blasting them to the Third Galaxy, because the Captain had orders to see what their ships were carrying. Well, don’t look at me, I protested but Group-Leader ZrHl said did I wanna make it formal, so I stopped. So we just patrolled up and down until a rebel got bored enough to try something silly and then two of our ships’d zap it with our blasters on Stun—right, Br-cognate, a pincer movement, they never seemed to expect it even when we’d got a half-dozen of them that way. The only things they seemed to be carrying were themselves and a lot of almost clapped-out weaponry. Well, and a few IG-illegal recycled blobs. Whatever the top sparf was looking for, it wasn't that, for sure. Uh—their ships were a load of old space junk, Trff, I think you’re reading me ri—Yes, you are.

This went on for several IG months, and as you can imagine the Wing Commanders began to report that their pilots were getting plasmo-blasted bored. Well, bored and edgy: nothing worse, any commander’ll tell you, because they’re apt to go and do something plasmo-blasted silly just to relieve the boredom. So finally Group-Leader ZrHl had a word in Cap GrPv’s ear and she got the Admiral to agree to a spot of FW duty, each squadron in turn. Well, even FW duty on an FW dump like Baggadoria makes a change from sitting out in space at the far end of Blerrinbrig’s waiting for a hunk of space junk to stick its neck out and get it whacked off. Or stunned, in this case. At least it meant that we’d be able to give the pilots a bit of R&R.

When it was our turn to go down of course we found that it was about as thrilling as we’d thought: like, four times a local day a few of our wings’d make a low pass over the vacuum-frozen dump, just to show them that the Federation means business: the pilots grumbled, but they had the good end of the ban-ban-ban: any being with more than one bar on its shoulders ended up sitting at a desk shuffling text-blobs and making out plasmo-blasted reports that the top sparf weren't gonna read unless and until Vvlvania froze over. As if ya couldn’t’ve guessed.

R&R was real exciting, too: they never heard of qwlot, or maybe it wasn’t suited to the metabolism or whatever; anyway, our spacers were doing their best to introduce a bit of life into the dump but it was an uphill struggle. Uh—bar-fights and street-fights, mostly, Dohra. No, well, I’m not saying your average Baggadorian could face up to someone the size of Captain GrPv, but they’re a well-grown race, and not bad scrappers. Ears? Uh, it’d take more than a Baggadorian or three to get an ear off a xathpyr—Oh, their ears! Not sure what they use for ears, actually. Noses? Well, one or two of our spacers ended up with a scar or two, yeah, but I can’t tell you about the Baggadorians because I’m not absolutely sure they had any. Those knobs aren’t noses, no, I do know that because—Uh, never mind. But they’re definitely not noses.

So I’m out for a stroll with Wing-Co ZrTl and Wing-Co GrTv—um, yeah, Dohra, GrTv is a female name, but she wasn’t as big as the Captain, though a pretty hefty being, you wouldn't want to bump into her in a dark alley on an FW dump on the far side of Blerrinbrig’s, you goddit—and we find ourselves in this real up-market section of the conurbation that we haven’t been in before. Not a bar in sight, in fact not even a lumo-blob sign in sight, and all high, shiny towers with nice-looking lifters parked in the vehicle slots. Yeah, lots of Crmrokkos, Trff: even a few Super Maxis. We’re just about to turn tail when this being comes out of one of the towers and asks us in politely for a drink. –I can feel what you're all thinking and yeah, we assumed it was a trap, too, in fact GrTv had her blaster in her fist before the being had finished bowing.

Our translators were coping pretty well with the Baggadorian dialects by this time, so when ZrTl snarled: “Take a hike, FW!” the being got the point. So then it insisted on showing us its ID—I can feel what you’re all thinking, and we thought so, too—but according to it, it was a Baggadorian politician, quite a high-up one. Well, if it had been a Federation one it would’ve been a Senator, okay? It was having a party, or so the story ran, and reading between the words—which was plasmo-blasted easy to do, the being had almost no idea of shielding its thoughts—it wanted to show off by having three Federation officers come, because none of its boring FW pals had managed to get anything but a couple of the Admiral’s aides along. –Lieutenants, Dohra. Uh—no, no: second-lieutenants, one bar on the shoulders, goddit? Good.

Well, given there were three of us and given we’d blob-mapped the whole FW dump and there was no way our IDs weren’t being tracked by the command’s scanners— Just to be on the safe side I blobbed onto squadron HQ and made sure they had our co-ordinates and told them exactly who this politician said it was and what it was inviting us to. And up we went. Uh—a proper lift-blob, yes, Dohra, what else? Oh. No, like I say, this was a real up-market area.

The being’s slot was pretty big, as you can imagine, and fully lined in something that looked expensive. Um, and weird lumo-blobs: kind of, um, ornamental ones, One and Two, that’s about all I remember—Oh, seen them in J’rd’s, have you? Well, there you are, then: I said it was an up-market area. The being didn’t have qwlot but it had nnru juice—dare say it was smuggled, BrTl, yeah, but it was the genuine article—so that was all right. All the beings—um, well, yeah, silly garments, Dohra, it doesn’t seem to matter what species, does it, that sort of being always wears silly garments—uh, where was I?

Oh, yes: all the beings wanted to meet us and some of them wanted to mingle neck-hair, but fortunately I managed to make GrTv understand that it was just ignorance and it takes all sorts to make a Known Universe before she actually disintegrated any being.

They asked some pretty feeble questions, of course, but we were all used to flat-worlding, so that was water off a grqwary’s back.

Finally they all seemed to be either passed out or heading for home, so the senator-being, let’s call it BfFo, that’s as close as I can get to it, kindly gave us a lift back to squadron HQ in its Zwp. Well, it was only a Mark II but in good condition, I’ll say that for the being. It wanted to come in and look around, what in Federation it imagined there was to see don’t ask me, but that was okay, I was expecting it and managed to shut GrTv up before she’d completely shoved her hind appendage down her throat, so the being came in, and gee, saw all the desks and the piles of vacuum-frozen text-blobs, and went home happy.

Of course we assumed that was it, and promptly forgot about it all, only two days later I got a call from the Captain herself. Old BfFo was an even more important politician than what we’d worked out it was and we’d made a favourable impression on it—proves the being couldn’t mind-read worth an ig, yes—and to cut a longish and painful story short, it wanted us and a small ship, quote unquote, to carry out a delicate mission. I could hear Cap GrPv putting those quote-marks round “small ship”, you betcha Space Issue boots, so I didn’t say a thing. Except, when my neck-hair had started filtering again: “What sort of delicate mission, sir?”

It was to go to the moon where the rebels were still lurking, what was left of them, and get the being’s cognate off of the dump. Alive. Had they kidnapped the being? I asked. No, it was one of them, but BfFo was convinced that once it was brought home it’d see reason and etcetera. Dare say most of you have been through something of the sort with a not-very-mature cognate in your time, or at the least know a being who has.

So I said: “Pardon me for asking, Cap, but has BfFo got any idea how we’re gonna sneak up on this dump and rescue this cognate, given that we look so like them Baggadorians and our ships look so like them clapped-out hunks of space junk that are all these rebels have got left?”

Of course all she said was: “Irony doesn’t suit you, ZrMl. It’s entirely up to you, but given the way the being’s cosying up to the Admiral, I’d think of something, if you don’t want your Service career to go straight down the moogletube. BfFo can give you the cognate’s ID, that may help. Captain Out.”

Then I had to break the good news to the two Wing-Cos, that was fun. Fortunately all the HQ furniture was solid Service Issue, not the local junk. I gave GrTv the job of selecting the weaponry, it seemed suited to her mood, and ZrTl was deputed to find a suitable “small ship.” Then we sat down for a preliminary planning session.

Next morning the hangover hadn’t even had time to start dissipating before old BfFo turned up with what it claimed was this cognate’s ID. Given that it wasn’t that dissimilar in kind from IG IDs, it was a great pity that the command hadn’t blob-mapped the plasmo-blasted moon while they were at it, wasn’t it?

After the being’d gone the other two came in cautiously so I imparted this thought to them and after they’d got some spring water down them they started to look thoughtful and eventually GrTv said: “Hey, maybe we could blob-map it!”

“You and your hypered-up mapping-blob, this’d be, would it, Wing-Commander?” I enquired coldly. Because you see, the thought had occurred to me some time since, and it was N.B.G., as we say in the Service. Um, No Blobs Go, Dohra.

“Yeah, but couldn’t we get hold of one?” said ZrTl.

“Not unless one of you is a very close cognate indeed of a Mapping Engineer,” I replied politely, so he shut up like a dendrion nut. Um, no, well, part of my point was that he and I were distant cognates, Dohra.

After that we just sat there and brooded for a while.

Then GrTv said: “Look, even if we land on this moon in one piece we’ll never do it, Commander, so as I see it, it’s a choice between dead or really sticking our necks out.”

I could see where she was going with this, but I wanted to see if she'd have the guts to actually say it. “And?”

“Kidnap a Mapping Engineer,” she said simply.

“Good one,” said ZrTl sourly, it was obvious he was wishing he’d thought of that. “Then which of us has got the mind-powers to control a mapping-blob?”

“Not me, I'm only a Wing-Co,” she said, looking hard at me.

“I'm only a Wing-Co, too,” he agreed, getting the point and looking hard at me.

“Given that the alternative is ending up very dead on or about this moon, I’ll give it a go,” I said. “You two can do the kidnapping, it’ll give you something useful to do, while I finish off these piles of text-blobs for the top sparf. Well, ya didn’t think they’d go away just because I’ve been give a delicate mission for a plasmo-blasted FW politico, did you? Go on, get on with it.” So they went off to get on with it and I sat down with the piles of text-blobs…

Don’t ask me how they did it, but they turned up around dinnertime with a large parcel which when unwrapped, in spite of the legend “J’rd’s” emblazoned on its wrappings, actually contained a Mapping Engineer. He was a Slgr, and not in a very good mood, but given that your average Slgr is less than a tenth the size of your average xathpyroid and given that GrTv was well above average, there was wasn't much he could do about it, was there? He nobly refused to have anything to do with the actual mapping so ZrTl, who was getting twitchy—well, they’d missed lunch—gave him the choice of being reduced to very small pieces with the crunchers or helping, so he agreed to help. With the proviso that he’d be able to claim later he was forced into it.

“You were forced into it, you intergalactic clown,” said GrTv shortly, picking up the wrappings. –She was starting to feel peckish, too.

“Don’t wrap me up again, Wing-Co!” he wailed.

So she just zapped him with her blaster on Stun and put him in a cupboard and blob-locked it, and on second thoughts—after all, blobs were his speciality—melted the blob down with her blaster. And then we all went off to the Mess. –Plasmo-blasted recycled mato-meat and some sort of small local meat-bearing animal that was barely a mouthful, and stop sniggering, Br-cognate!

After dinner we got him out of the cupboard, wrapped him up again, signed out for a spot of leave, and went off to our small ship. GrTv was carrying the bundle under her arm and making like she always recycled her J’rd’s bags, geddit?

Eh? Uh, she’d been known to patronise the basement Food Hall in a few branches round the two galaxies, Dohra, if you call that shopping. Put it like this, three locals rushed up to her breathlessly and asked her if she really shopped there and was it as galaxious as they’d heard before we reached the ship.

Um, well, she did growl a bit, Flppu: yes; but female-tended xathpyroids usually do that. Uh—no, me and BrTl are both male-tended.

Anyway, we got to the ship and took off, no prob’. We had a bit of trouble waking the Slgr up, but he finally came to and we got into position near enough to the moon to blob-map it, but far away enough to be able to spot any rebel ship before it spotted us. Uh—ZrTl was on watch, Dohra, but of course the ship was on full alert, too. Er, no, dare say your Silver-Ash Flyer couldn’t, no: it’s only a passenger liner, isn't it?

Thanks, Forty-Four, I really need a refill! …That’s better.

So GrTv and I sort of stood over the being and first he said his brain wasn’t in full working order, so GrTv offered to fix it with her blaster, and then he said he couldn’t do it without nourishment so she offered to break bits off him and feed them to him, so then he got the point. He said I’d better help because usually you have a ring of them all round the world doing it. Well, of course it was only a moon but I saw his point and did my best to concentrate on his plasmo-blasted mapping-blob. Um, well, you beings won’t ever have watched the process before, so I’d better explain that there’s nothing to see. But when it’s done it you can ask it to display any grid reference or find any ID, and it will. If your ship’s got the right sort of blobs, then you get the mapping-blob to feed the intel into them, only our small ship, quote unquote, wasn’t up to that.—Dunno what it was, Trff: put together locally from bits of several other ships, ’ud be my guess.—After a bit the Slgr said it was almost done but he couldn’t finish it unless we got round to the far side of the moon. Like where we couldn’t see, as of this moment, geddit? So ZrTl checked it out and there didn’t seem to be anything lurking back there, but who knew? Could’ve been a whole rebel fleet and this Slgr could’ve been sending us right into the middle of it for spite. –No, he probably wouldn't have survived, Dohra, only Slgrs tend to be like that. GrTv offered to take him round there in a pod but we couldn’t afford to lose her.

Finally I decided to play it as safe as possible, so we swung wide of the moon in a big arc and then set a course for the back side of it. And gee! Five million or so glps out, guess what pops up with its plasmo-blasters trained on us? GrTv was on weaponry, of course—she’d given the Slgr a dose of Stun to keep it quiet—so that was the end of that rebel ship. SPLAT! ZZZZ! KAPOOSH! Gone.

“Look out!” shouted ZrTl. “Reb at nine o’clock mark seven!” SPLAT! ZZZZ! KAPOOSH! Gone.

“Yeah, well done, only now they know we’re here,” I noted, standing the ship on its tail and side-slipping to the right as another one came at us out of what the pilot might’ve imagined was our blind spot, easy to see it’d never fought a xathpyroid crew before.

SPLAT! ZZZZ! KAPOOSH! Three nil to our side.

“If this goes on,” noted GrTv happily, “we’ll’ve wiped out the whole pod of them and we won’t even need the Slgr or his vacuum-frozen blob.”

She had a point. They sent up two more, these ones might have imagined they were making a pincer movement, hah, hah. SPLAT! ZZZZ! KAPOOSH! times two. Five nil.

After that they stopped, though possibly GrTv was right and they were re-grouping.

Then ZrTl had a really brilliant idea. “Hey, Commander, them rebs won’t have probes or like that, so if we put a shield right round this ship, they’ll think we’ve given up and gone!”

“Why’d we leave when we’re winning?” asked GrTv.

She had a point, but on the other hand, it might give us a bit of peace to get on with the job. Only thing was, could Mapping Engineers do their vacuum-frozen mapping through a shield? –No, you’re right, Trff, they can’t. Though you’re probably right again and the blob could’ve, all by itself, only that Mapping Engineer, he was pretty Service Issue.

We put a shield up anyway and had a think about it. No-one came up with an actual solution, so I decided to let GrTv have her way and get out there in a pod with the Slgr while the ship stayed shielded.

“There they go,” noted ZrTl redundantly.

“Stay alert!”

After a bit he said cautiously: “Can you feel anything, Commander?”

“No.”

After a bit he said cautiously: “Can you fee—”

SPLAT! ZZZZ! KAPOOSH!

“Another one to us, and will you stay alert?”

After that he just concentrated on keeping watch for rebs.

Then the pod came back and GrTv reported: “He reckons he’s finished, sir. Could you feel anything?”

“No. And if there are any claims the ship’s shield has to be lowered for this vacuum-frozen blob to pick stuff up, I warn you now, Slgr, I shall be very, very annoyed.”

So he said sulkily: “A mapping-blob’ll pick up anything it’s cultured to pick up through anything less than a World-Shield.”

“All right, pick this up,” I suggested, holding out old BfFo’s blob.

Gee, it picked it up. Well, a huge great sim-pic came up right in front of us, successfully blocking the view from the forward port, with a whacking great blue-white sort of lumo-blob sign in the middle of it, flashing up the cognate’s ID. And after GrTv had forcibly moved the Slgr and the blob to somewhere where they weren’t completely blocking my view, she had a good look and admitted: “It looks like a real map ref., sir. And the ID matches the one ole BfFo gave us, for what that’s worth.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s as good as it’s gonna get. You can get that Slgr out of my sight, thanks, Wing-Co, I’ve had it up to the neck-hair with the being.”

Stun! She’d done it before the words were out of my mouth.

After that we had the choice of going down to the surface to grab the cognate, or not. After ZrTl’s recent performance I wasn’t too sure about leaving him in charge of the ship, but on the other hand, GrTv was a much handier being to have at your five in a fight. –Yeah, you’ve got it, Dohra: based on the IG ten-hour day.

So we got in the pod and went. There was no atmosphere but on the other hand there was no light and nothing much else, either, so if that Slgr had done his job we didn’t calculate it’d take too long, and our FW packs were Space Issue, of course. After a bit GrTv sent: A pod of them, sir.

Eh? Uh, no, Dohra, you’ve got the wrong end of the ban-ban-ban. I meant “culture-pod,” see? Uh, yeah, Trff’s right: figuratively speaking. Um, well, no, Trff: in humanoid terms she-it—Vvlvanian curses!—she probably wouldn’t call it a brood-pen, figuratively speaking or not, but whatever blobs you up. –A nest of them? Baggadorians aren’t avians, Dohra! …Oh. Oh, well, whatever blobs you up.

Anyway, we calculated there were about a dozen of them in there: none of them could shield worth an ig. I had the mapping-blob and it isolated BfFo’s cognate—let’s call it the Bf-cognate, shall we, it’ll be simpler—over in a corner of what seemed to be the main room of the hut thing they were in. –Nothing like a Space Issue tent, for those beings that are wondering! Built from bits of space junk, best guess.

Stun them? sent GrTv.

Unfortunately the mission didn’t include taking them out, and it wouldn’t have been altogether easy to miss the Bf-cognate, not through those space-junk walls and with the blaster arcs set real wide. Mind you, GrTv had one in each hand and a spare in a pseudopod. So I sent: On my mark. Three, two, mark! And we stunned the lot of them.

Then we just walked in, grabbed the Bf-cognate, and walked out. Simple.

We got back to the ship without being spotted and ZrTl reported that everything had been quiet there. So, what with the real squash it had been in the pod coming back, and the fact that our small ship was nothing that you could’ve called roomy, I let GrTv shove the Bf-cognate in the hold with the Slgr. Uh—not all that much atmosphere, but they both had FW packs, Dohra.

The Bf-cognate came to after a bit and started yelling about being kidnapped but after what ole BfFo had said we were expecting that, so GrTv just gave it another dose of Stun. And the Slgr, just for luck.

And we landed with no trouble—well, our spacers were on duty, what being was gonna question its own Squadron Commander?

GrTv and ZrTl were all for dumping the Bf-cognate on ole BfFo right away and getting shot of the whole thing, but given that I’ve been round the two galaxies and back a fair few times, I called up Captain GrPv and reported success.

“Well done, Commander,” she said, real dry. “Give us a look at this Bf-cognate, then.”

So GrTv shoved him in front of the comm-receiver.

“Yeah, well, one Baggadorian looks like another, but that ID matches Senator BfFo’s blob, all right,” the Cap conceded.

That was a relief. Well, I mean, if it looked like a match to a full captain, no-one was gonna be able to blame us if it turned out we’d got the wrong being. Uh—well, any number of reasons, Dohra. Like, maybe it was a decoy because the rebs knew ole BfFo was gonna try and grab the cognate back. Goddit? Good.

Then she said: “I won’t ask for details, ZrMl, but if you like to get that Wing-Co of yours to shove a certain mapping being in front of that comm-receiver—”

So we did it and the Cap removed any slightest memory the being might’ve been inclined to have of anything related in the slightest to anything that had happened relating to our squadron, zapping, moons, etcetera, and in fact the whole of the last three IG days, just to be on the safe side. –Dare say she coulda done it more delicately, Trff, yes, but who was gonna point that out to a female-tended xathpyroid full captain? –Right.

And after that we took the Bf-cognate round to ole BfFo’s slot. –The Slgr was still out of it, Dohra, so GrTv just made a J’rd’s parcel again and told off a passing Space Patrol Corp to deliver it to the being’s quarters.

Well, that was that, and the two Wing-Cos rolled off to the nearest bar to introduce pkwr to the locals.

But that isn't the end of the story, so don’t applaud yet, assembled beings! Or ya can, if it blobs you up. …Thanks.

That was nearly the end, but not quite. Because two local days later ZrTl comes into my office emanating some real strange emotions and says: “Don’t tell me I’m ready for Mullgon’ya, sir: just blob onto the local news.”

So I did. And there’s ole BfFo making a speech. Gee, guess what? Ole BfFo’s faction has captured the Rebel leader, and it’s now in a bracelet, and the whole pod of remaining Rebs on the moon has been wiped out. And just to prove it here’s the Reb leader! Yep, that’s a bracelet, all right.

ZrTl’s clearing his throat, only he doesn’t need to: I’m already reading the Reb’s ID. Because while one Baggadorian does look very like another Baggadorian, not all of them have a flap missing from just that spot or a sort of singe-mark right across that particular part of the visible anatomy. Gee, guess who? The so-called Bf-cognate, right!

After quite a while ZrTl croaked: “Do ya reckon Cap GrPv knew?”

Uh—well, best captain I ever served under, but top sparf is top sparf, even when they’re xathpyroid, so all I could say was: “Your guess is as good as mine.”

We didn’t have to wonder all that long. We’d blobbed off and were just having a restorative nip from the Emergency Only supply when GrTv burst in.

“We know,” said ZrTl quickly.

“Yeah, and do ya know THIS?” she bellowed. Gee, the sim-receiver came on without any being having to prod it with their toe, musta picked up something in her tone. And whaddaya know? There’s Admiral Morr V Peth, in person—never knew it was down on the plasmo-blasted FW dump, right—appendage-in-appendage with ole BfFo, announcing that Baggadoria has applied to come into the Federation!

Yeah, well, typical, don’t all emanate it at once. So we finished the Emergency Only supply and went off to the Mess and drank it dry.

The beings who had earlier applauded loudly were now just sitting looking limply at the Squadron Commander.

Finally BrTl noted sourly: “That’ll’ve been xathpyroid paranoia, I don’t think!”

“Er, no, well, that is how these things are done,” said Forty-Four uneasily. “And I do apologise for any suggestion of a reference to paranoia that might have been picked up from me: it was entirely unintentional, I do assure you.”

Space garbage, sent Trff to the two xathpyroid cognates. The being’s categorised both the choice of the story and the method of telling it as typifying both xathpyroid paranoia and the xathpyroid conscious enjoyment of such. Mixed with the typical xathpyroid disillusionment.

SHUT—UP! replied its ship-companion.

It shut up, and apart from the sour messages of Typical coming from all round the Level Pink ISLA bar, no being emanated anything very much for an appreciable period.

The Squadron Commander's Tale

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