It was twenty-four hours after the party and about forty-eight hours since the melters had been turned on. Given the information they had discovered on the remotes it was a very confused group that had returned. They had made their way down the cleared area on the outside of the dome by cutting circular stairs in the wall with Eon in the lead. Once on the bottom of the dome they encountered a door. Eon had stopped and was looking suspiciously at the door. Krass next in line quickly looked around the explorer and started cursing.

“Would one of you like to tell us what the heck is going on now?” Doc Patterson asked trying to get past the priest for a better look. Krass as calm and rational as normal replied quickly. “The fragging buttons are written in ENGLISH! STANDARD FRAGGING ENGLISH! Where’s the FREAKIN TELEPATH!” He turned menacingly on Drassel. “YOU IDIOT, YOU MORON. They’ve got to be in the ships computer. We’ve been hacked! I’ll bet if we try to get away now the fragging ships won’t even start. I vote we destroy the place and salvage the debris. There goes our profit.”

Drassel angrily shook his fist at Krass’s helmet and it was a large fist. “I didn’t let them in LAME-O. You still got me locked out of the freaking thing remember? They couldn’t have gotten in during the frozen stage. They just had their power turned back on in the last 48 hours. I’ve been locked out for much longer than that! If they broke in they broke in past the GREAT KRASS security. Nope this one is all on you WONDER BOY! You’ve screwed the pooch. I’m not taking the blame for you on this one, again.”

Ronilion spoke up over the noise, “Sheesh Krass, get a clue. Drassel is right. We need to get the ships checked. We need to find out how they did it. Not only did they do it but also how much did they get and how bad can they hurt us with it. If they drained all threes ships databanks were screwed, because that means they got the Star Charts that show them how to get to Earth as well. We need to find out how bad we have been compromised. Anything else is just a waste of time.”

Krass looked at Ronilion angrily. “I vote we run like Hell. Do you realize that to do all the things you want, I would have to make the journey back to the ship? That will take a day at least. Then I have to start going through the code of all three ships computers line by fragging line. We are talking somewhere in the order of several billion lines per computer. How many years do you want to wait for my report?” He turned angrily and kicked Drassel hard in the privates, more in frustration than with any thought that he would actually hurt him through the armor. Drassel grunted, the blow was unexpected and even though it was mostly blocked it was painful. Unfortunately for Krass it was not incapacitating either and did little to slow down Drassel’s retaliation. He leapt on Krass and the two started to slam each other. The others backed off watching.

While the distraction was going on Doc Patterson had gently pulled the priest over near the door. Smiling slightly to himself as the priest watched intently, he pushed the button and entered the airlock. The priest saying nothing followed him in, curious as to what the doctor was up to. The door closed silently behind them both. Once inside they both heard the sound of air hissing and then the far door opened and they were inside the dome. Both stopped in shock as the door closed again behind them and suddenly changed. The airlock doors now looked like a large glass revolving door showing a busy city street. It was not this relatively minor change though that had them looking.

The changes on the door went unnoticed because they appeared to be in an Earth style lobby of a fabulous resort HOTEL and they were staring at the crowds of people moving about on their tasks. Bellhops and ushers moved quickly and desk clerks were available. “May I take your luggage Sir?” asked a well-appointed bellhop. Both were too stunned to answer immediately but Patterson spoke on his radio to the priest. “This is NOT good and certainly is no where near what I was expecting. It’s too anti-climatic”

The priest smiled tightly and after carefully checking the atmosphere readings on his helmet he took it off slowly. “You my friend are entirely too paranoid as is your usual demeanor. Even if this is a stage set for us it, which it most certainly is, it does not mean they are malign in their intent. I suggest we take the parts as they have been established and get on with the job of figuring out what is going on.”

He handed the bellhop his helmet and started to take off his suit, which he also handed over. Patterson glared a moment and then shrugged and did the same. Followed by the priest and the bellhop Patterson boldly went to the front desk and asked for the concierge. A distinguished older gentleman immediately was summoned. “May I help you Sir?”

Patterson noted that the voice was rich, cultured and controlled. The pronunciation was perfect. This thing MIGHT be a robot because it showed little expression or surprise at two men with spacesuits in his lobby. He would make further tests. This appeared to be a five star establishment and he was going to enjoy it while the idiots outside were fighting. “Were we expected?” He asked almost dreading the answer.

“No Sir, you were not expected but you are welcome even without a reservation. You are quite in luck as the facility is not full at this time. We shall have no problem accommodating you. Would you care to register?” He motioned for a desk clerk and a tall blonde approached with a quick smile.

Patterson noted that she was very female though conservatively and expensively dressed. Her limbs moved in a normal fashion and she seemed anatomically complete. He watched her green eyes and the pupils did react to light. She appeared to be breathing. If this was a robot it certainly was realistic and she seemed to show some emotion behind a professional demeanor. She was wearing a hint of perfume and he also could smell after-shave and expensive soap on the concierge. Would a robot need aftershave or perfume and would they even think of it after looking through standard ships files? Perfume was not something that would be covered at length there. The show so far was flawless and he was intrigued.

To Luddington it looked like Patterson was in love or at least in lust. He smiled and stepped forward while his companion seemingly stared at the girl in shock. She was pretty in a healthy sort of way but he wanted to continue to see what would happen. “Yes, I would love to register for an indefinite stay. We’re here on business you understand but it may take us sometime to settle our current affairs. Do you take credit cards?”

“The desk clerk smiled brightly, “Of course Sir. If you need additional funds you will find we have ATM’s at several inside locations or we can handle any transactions required at this desk. Here is a guide to the Hotel.” She handed him an old fashioned Brass Key. The priest was confused and it must have shown on his face for the girl immediately spoke again.

“You will find that as you travel the key will light on the handle. Just name where you wish to go and it will light when you come to confusing turns or twists showing you the route you should take. It can navigate you anywhere in the hotel environment. It is keyed to your voice patterns only. She also handed the Doctor a key, as well as an information packet. “That will complete the registration process, gentleman, we hope you will enjoy your say at Hotel Xanadu. If you require anything do not hesitate to seek out any member of the staff.

Suddenly Patterson spoke, “I would like to make a collect call, can I do that?” The clerk smiled, “Of course Sir, this facility can easily handle your request.” James looked at Luddington intently who nodded and smiled. Patterson pulled out a number to one of his old girl friends back on Earth and handed it to the clerk. I would like to make a private collect call to this number how soon can it be arranged?”

The clerk looked at the number and motioned for an usher. “If you will just follow the usher Sir, the call will be ready in the private area.” Bemused Luddington and Patterson followed the usher to a room with thick rugs, heavy curtains and tapestries as well as antique Earth style furniture all tastefully appointed. Several works of art adorned the walls, and a small bar was in the corner. Patterson went and poured himself a stiff drink and smiled. It WAS the REAL stuff and the best he had drunk in months. At least the aliens seemed to know their booze.

The usher pointed to an antique phone on the table. “Your phone call is ready Sir, you may leave when you wish or if you require further assistance you have only to press this call button. I will place your luggage in your room.” He quietly departed and shut the door.

Patterson picked up the phone and was shocked when he started to talk to the person on the other end. . He became even more shocked as he closely questioned his old girl friend. He tested and tested trying to trick the person at the other end of the call to no avail. When he hung up he had no doubts that he had somehow made a collect call to Earth. His head reeled at the thought of the charges! How did they do this?

The priest his face pale picked up the phone and dialed the offices of his Church. He spoke for several minutes to whomever he was talking with but Patterson could only hear the priest’s side of the conversation. “Yes, I understand,” he stated obviously trying to convince the person on the end of the line. Patterson refilled his glass with a double shot as he caught only parts of the conversation his mind continued to race with questions.

The priest continued to try to convince them on the other end. “ I AM on the mission. Yes it really is me and I am not on Earth. No, this isn’t a joke. Go ahead ask me anything. No I am not hiding and we are actually calling you from the dig site here on a frozen planet. Yes, I know it is hard to believe but you’re not going to believe what we are finding here. This place is giving us so many unanswered questions. Would you believe I am in a luxury HOTEL on a phone under the mantle of a frozen dead planet and that we started this whole mess with a couple of melters? Yes, can you get this call traced? I would like to know how the heck they’re pulling this one off!”

He waited a bit while the trace was being set up and accomplished. “I wonder what the collect call charges will be on this one?” He mused as he waited. Minutes later he got several answers he didn’t like. “ Yes, I see, OK, then you better alert BuCol on this and drag in the Federal guys. This one is a doozy. Bye.”

He turned to Patterson as he hung up. “You are not going to believe this. The call is somehow going through the satellite network and down into the standard grid. How the heck it’s getting TO the satellite is a big mystery. It appears we are actually making calls directly to Earth. We can’t even do that with our current technology. At least Earth has a warning. They were certainly not expecting to hear from me, they thought it was a prank call at first. Oh by the way it appears the Hotel didn’t send this call collect, it seems making calls LOCALLY are free as part of the Hotel services.”

Patterson looked wide-eyed at the priest who was dead white and looking really scared. He was not hiding it well and Patterson could hear his own voice crack in response. “LOCALLY? I would hate to see what they consider long distance! We are sixty light years out from Earth. Now we instantaneously contacted the Earth on a telephone and had a crystal clear connection and we were able to talk in real time with no lag. They set it all up in less than five minutes after being frozen into fish sticks for thousands of years and they had no clue we would even think to ask for a phone call to Earth. We already know we are not on Earth so why should they even try to fool us? If they ARE hostile we’re screwed! So I guess we might just as well play the game. I’m for lunch.”

Luddington looked almost sick, “How can you think of your stomach at a time like this? We are so far in over our heads it’s scary. These have to be robots.” The doctor smiled, “Easy, my friend. I’m hungry. I’m tired of ships rations. I want to see if the food is as good as the booze and finally the real killer excuse, the condemned should enjoy a hearty meal!”

The doctor turned and walked away jauntily. Luddington after hesitating a moment reluctantly followed and mumbled as they opened the door, “Somehow that last line does NOT make me feel any better. Do you realize the power we’re facing here? People frozen for thousands of years just do not jump up and open a resort hotel.”

Patterson smiled back at the earnest priest, “They obviously do here. Go with the flow padre. That’s the problem with you priests you know, your great on dogma and following rules but book learning is not intelligence. You need to learn to deal with new situations better.” There voices faded away in the distance leaving a silent room behind.

Chapter 20: “My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Anyone who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.”

Outside and still unaware, of what was going on Eon watched the fight between Devlin and Greg with disgust. He waited long enough so that the pair were starting to look tired and then pulled out his shotgun and stuck it in Devlin’s face. “Make my day, PUNK!” The fight stopped instantly as both men assessed the threat. Shotguns could be notoriously messy on a spacesuit and two spacesuits in close proximity could be even worse.

“Now listen you idiots, I realize you really can’t DO much to each other in space suits but I would like to get on with the mission and get some data and samples OK? We have a lot of unanswered questions and I can’t afford the luxury of watching you too act like sheep in heat while there is so much going on that hasn’t been answered.”

Ronilion spoke quietly from the background, “Don’t mess with the Dome.” Eon ignored him and continued. “Krass, I want you to go back with Drassel and give him access to the computers. I want you BOTH to start checking all the ships and the systems to see if we have any options. I don’t want anyone inside the dome until we finish checking things out here, Understood?” Krass and Drassel looked at Eon in disgust but said nothing while the shotgun was still pointed in their general direction.

Ronilion chuckled, “Sure I understand but while you guys were busy rearranging the landscape and making threats the doctor and priest already went in. I know, because I watched them do it.” He finished with a smile. “Since I am not the ground leader I saw no necessity to stop them. You either control your men or the situation controls you.”

Eon glared, “I told those idiots no one was to go in! Don’t they listen? Stupid thought, obviously not! He put the shotgun away and keyed his radio. Turning his back to Krass, Drassel and Ronilion he yelled. “Patterson, Luddington get back out here NOW you two Bozo’s!” Krass was glaring at the back of the explorer with a murderess gleam in his eye and both Ronilion and Drassel expected the worst. They would not be disappointed.

Patterson answered almost immediately, “Frag off nimrod, we’re enjoying dinner. I’m having the Surf and Turf Menu, Prime Angus Beef steak with Lobster while my friend here did the Greek menu and went for the Sardeles Pastes, which looks like fragging sardines, in olive oil and lemon. He has something called Medusa sauce on it. Actually it doesn’t look half bad and I tried some of the sauce on my lobster. It was pretty good. Luddington is drinking ouzo with that. While I went with a nice Madeira.”

“Shut UP,” stated Eon in disgust, “I’m not interested in a recitation of gourmet’s daily. You’re suppose to be out here working as a team and no one was supposed to go in till I gave the OK, I am the explorer after all.”

The priest spoke apologetically, “I think we are past that point now and I certainly had received no orders that we were not to go in. Your closing the door after the horse escaped Mr. Gunray. Why not be reasonable and join us in here?” At that point he calmly turned off his communicator and went back to eating.

Patterson laughed harshly and looked in the view screen on his communicator. He calmly and deliberately flipped Eon THE BIRD! “Explore this Duckweed!” He stated calmly with a smile. “In case it hasn’t occurred to you yet, Mr. Leader. If this place was hostile they could probably wipe us out like a bug on platter. So rather than sit out there and watch a stupid fight on ice with the moron brothers, we decided to come in and get some real information and some real work done. Besides, you couldn’t lead buzzards to a dead carcass. So shut up and let me get on with my job. You know, the one I am getting paid for? Which by the way does not include babysitting howling ass holes like you!”

Eon showed him the shotgun on his screen, “If you don’t come out I’ll come in an get you both he threatened.”

“Now that’s cute, but not too awfully smart.” stated Patterson, “If you get hurt who is going to put you back together? I don’t think our hosts will take it too kindly when I tell them that there is a psycho with a shotgun outside threatening me. As a matter of fact,” He could be seen motioning a waiter over. “Yes Sir? Is the food satisfactory?” The waiter looked like any normal waiter in a top-notch restaurant. Ronilion was very interested. Patterson nodded in the affirmative.

“The food is excellent but I’d like you to alert Security that there is some Riffraff outside and one of them has threatened me over the phone with bodily harm and he has a shotgun.” He smiled at Eon maliciously as Eon fumed.

The waiter seemed unconcerned, “Yes Sir, I will alert the management at once and the miscreants will not be allowed to interfere with your stay here. We are used to handling such individuals. You may be assured that you will not be interrupted.” Patterson laughed, “Oh by the way do you see that particular one?” He showed him Ronilion in the screen of the communicator.

“Yes Sir,” the waiter said calmly. Patterson continued, “That one is a servant. You can allow him in but I strongly desire he be placed in the servants quarters.” He turned off the communicator he was carrying.

Outside standing on the ice planet, the remainder of the party fumed. Krass though laughed and was largely ignored by the others, which was just what he was testing. Krass while appearing to laugh and be at ease was just as angry at Eon’s threats as the doctor had obviously been and he had not enjoyed the experience of looking down the barrel of a shotgun. He had bided his time while Eon screamed and waved the gun around and finally had put it away.

That of course was why he had chosen a needler as a personal weapon. A needler was discreet and you could load tranquilizer darts into it. The best part was that in a spacesuit glove you could palm it and the needles could penetrate around the armor pieces of a suit if you could aim it properly.

The joints on most suits were normally the weak points. They HAD to be soft and relatively flexible to be able to move such suits around. Sure metals overlapped over the joints but as people moved around normally it always exposed, for a few short seconds, areas where a very small round might penetrate to the flesh. The big problem was you had to be very close to be able to do it. Everything had a weakness and needlers were not known for penetrating power. The needler was too light a weapon for that.

He waited until Eon had put the gun away and as he turned around to berate the others, then when it was least expected, he stuck the barrel of the needle pistol in the joint of Eon’s shoulder while his back was turned and shot Eon with a three round tranquilizer burst at close range. He was not sure one needle would penetrate the thick joint even at close range so he fired the three to insure that at least one would make it. Eon in sudden shock tried to turn around and sat heavily on the ground. “Your attack lacks any honor,” he mumbled and then he fell backward to the ground with a crash. Luckily the suits self-healers were already sealing the punctures so little air and heat were lost.

“So sticking a shotgun in my face while I was fighting was honorable right flatulence breath? Well Honor doesn’t mean much when your dead does it ass wipe?” Krass stated snarling. He glared at the others, “Anyone else want some?”

Drassel and Ronilion looked at Krass with neutral expressions. Krass warily watched them for possible retaliation. The situation was tense. Drassel moving slowly kept his hands well away from his knives and nodded. “For once Krass I agree with you. He deserved it. I will make no move against you but I cannot say the same for anyone else. Now if you don’t mind my asking what do you intend to DO with him?” He pointed at Eon. “We can’t leave him out here and you sure can’t kill him.”

Ronilion carefully kept his assault rifle pointed downward as well. “I tend to agree. Murder is not a good thing and there might be hell to pay if you go any further.”

Krass watching carefully placed the safety on the needler and obviously put it away as he spoke. “I did this in the interest of self preservation. This idiot was yelling, screaming and waving a shotgun around. He has threatened four people so far and sooner or later he might have pulled the trigger. I am going to confiscate his shotgun.”

He quickly picked up the shotgun, took the bullets out and gave it to Drassel who stored it away on the back of his suit in a holder. After a quick search of Eon’s suit, Krass also took the rest of the bullets and any other tools that could be used as weapons. Krass was paranoid so there wasn’t much left in the suit when he got done. He continued talking as he made the search.

“I insured that he was only tranquilized. He will wake up in about twelve hours with a splitting headache, but it will have no lasting affects. This way the fool might learn when to draw a gun and when NOT to. I decided to take no chances with his irrational behavior. If I had further choice I would have him locked in a Brig someplace. I don’t think he should be in charge of an OUTHOUSE! Anyone who has to resort to a shotgun to lead is NOT the kind of leader I want. Now I suggest we get on with this and cut the stupidity.”

“Doc and the sky pilot have already gone in and I suggest we bring that in with us.” He pointed down at the snoring Eon. “Call it, heads or tails.” Drassel looked at Devlin in disgust and grabbed Eon by the arm and dragged him bumping across the ice and into the airlock. Once inside he pushed the button and started cycling through.

Devlin took out his communicator and hit the doctor’s emergency call. “Hey doc, I just shot Eon,” The doctor was heard yelling but Devlin ignored the comments. “ Drassel is taking him into the dome.” The doctor hears some muffled shouts in the background* “OH, Ronilion says he wouldn't trust your hairy palms with his goldfish so he's going to let the alien what-ever-they-are handle the situation. Hope you're enjoying your food, see ya later.”

Chapter 21: “By all means, let's not confuse ourselves with the facts!”

Doc had shut off his communicator when he had finished talking to Eon. However in just minutes later the communicator suddenly turned itself BACK ON! With a raucous shriek that could be heard throughout the restaurant and had all the guests and waiters looking his way, the doctor angrily pulled it back out. Even as he was turning down the alarm with his response code the high volume voice of Krass was suddenly heard throughout the room.

“Hey doc, I just shot Eon,” the doctor tried to get a word in edgewise. “You did what?” Patterson asked in surprise. Unfortunately in this mode with Krass still talking it came out as only a slightly garbled voice on the other end. Krass meanwhile continued as if laughing, “ Drassel is taking him into the dome.” The doctor heard some muffled shouts in the background* “OH, Ronilion says he wouldn't trust your hairy palms with his goldfish so he's going to let the alien what-ever-they-are handle the situation. Hope you're enjoying your food, see ya later.” The voice cut off abruptly but the loud and insane beeping continued.

Patterson was angry but recognized the call of duty. Doctor’s communicators were very different from the standard ones most people carried. You could never really shut them off. On everyone else’s comm. unit was a red button marked just for medical emergencies. Once pressed it sent out a coded signal to the medical unit he carried. The unit would respond by turning on and locking the volume on high while issuing a shriek guaranteed to wake the dead! Krass had obviously known this and recognizing that the doctor had his comm. off had taken the luxury of activating the annoying backup!

Patterson and the priest quickly arose and informed the waiter to bill the meal to their room along with a tip. The waiter was sympathetic recognizing a medical emergency and had also alerted the lobby and Medical team of the Hotel as well. They would meet the doctor there. Patterson smiled; at least the hotel team was more efficient than the bozo’s who had caused this mess.

What Krass might not know was that whoever pushed the Medical button could not turn it off! Much like a fire alarm it now would send a continuous beacon to wherever they were. Since it was obviously Krass’s comm. unit it would allow the doctor to track wherever he was until he put in the specialized code on Krass’s unit to shut the feature off! Krass might not we aware that he could now be tracked and traced by the doctor and that the doctor could activate other features in the comm. unit as well, by remote control. Patterson smiled.

Bu-Col had recognized that a person might fall unconscious or that they might be in a field situation where they would have to be located quickly. At least now that he had taken the call he could turn down the volume and the alarm. The part that bothered Patterson was that Krass had obviously shot Eon. He could guess why but the circumstances would now be rife for some more prime stupidity. The nice thing was that Luddington also had some Medical training and could assist him. That at least was helpful.

When Doc walked into the lobby he was not surprised to see some strange things. Drassel was out of his spacesuit and was leaning against the wall with legs spread. The police were handcuffing him and they had confiscated a shotgun he had been carrying. Patterson smiled; it was obvious that security had taken seriously his report that he was being menaced by Riffraff with a shotgun. Eon was lying on a rolling gurney and had also been removed from his suit. The hotel doctor nodded as Patterson came up while the priest went to ‘rescue’ Drassel from arrest.

The doctor wasted no time in small talk. “What do we have?” The response was immediate, “I’m Doctor Hiram Schultz. It appears that three hardened plastic slivers were shot into the patient and entered by way of the supraspinatus muscle. The darts contained a drug our people believe to be a strange cross between a COX-2 inhibitor and curare with overtones of neo-scopolamine. We will need more lab tests for that one. The patient is in stable condition at the moment, Dr. Patterson, and requires no life support. We estimate that the drug will be flushed from his system in roughly ten hours although the patient will have one heck of a headache. I also realize that you are on vacation but if you wish you may use my facility or I can continue to monitor the case. How would you like to proceed?”

“I think I’ll let you guys handle it if it’s all right with you,” stated Doc acting unconcerned. The only thing I want input to is this. He quickly made some notes and passed them on to the other Doctor. The doctor looked at them dubiously. “Are you sure the patient desires this kind of radical procedure?” He asked in bewilderment. Doc smiled back, “Oh Yes he has been contemplating it for some time and I am sure you will find all the permission slips duly notarized. Doc Patterson smiled brightly.

Chapter 22: “Today, if you are not confused, you are just not thinking clearly.” Devlin Krass to Ronilion

Ronilion and Krass had waited for a few moments as the airlock cycled Drassel and Eon through. Ronilion looked at Krass evenly and spoke quietly. “You realize that the shotgun you gave Drassel just set his hoop up to be arrested by the authorities inside? I can’t believe you set him up with something so patently stupid.”

Krass smiled thinly, “That boy is not the brightest light in the cosmos is he. I never give out anything for free to anyone. There’s always a price. I learned that lesson from an old X-girlfriend called Arase when she hung me out to dry. Now that lady was a real slice of Hell,” he stated almost fondly.

“Krass is out for Krass now and you guys are just a fragging convenience, like a drecker. My first thought was to give the shotgun to you but then I came to my senses when I realized it was TOO easy and that you would be too smart to take it. If I offered it to you and you didn’t take it then Drassel would be wary and start thinking about why he shouldn’t take it. I knew that if I gave it to Drassel first you would not say anything to him about the danger unless it would get him killed. The best part was that Drassel doesn’t have a gun and might feel the need for one now. His greed did him in. See I have learned to use other peoples greed against them and it only took me three lessons.” Krass smiled brightly.

“Embarrassing Drassel through his own actions is something that you usually won’t say anything about to stop it from happening in the lame hope that he will be more wary next time. If it looked like something that might get him killed you would have squealed to him. You would have squealed in a heartbeat just to see me in trouble. So that was the best part of my plan, because it makes YOU a part of it just by you saying or doing nothing to prevent it. Once again it proves that no one can trust you; situation normal.”

Krass chortled as he relished his own brilliance, “You didn’t tell Drassel when you had the chance proving that my theory was correct. That act of neglect kind of makes you an accessory doesn’t it? So since you didn’t tell you must agree the Drassel deserves this, which he does. We are both agreed that Stupidity is it’s own reward, isn’t it swamp root? Anyway it will do him some good to have to THINK for a change rather than mouthing his stupid theories and platitudes. He can go bore the cops for a while. That is where that baboon belongs, in a cage with people watching him. I say we give it about fifteen minutes for the ruckus to clear and then we go in.”

“You’re a real piece of slime.” Ronilion stated bluntly. “Every time I watch to see how low you’ll stoop you reach a new level of rottenness. Even Drassel is not so thick headed that he’ll not eventually realize that you set him up. He may decide to take a more permanent resolution when dealing with the Krass situation. Right now he still thinks your part of the team, I am not sure how long that will last. I doubt that the ‘people’ inside will do anything overt to him at this stage of things but I still think that what you did was not a good thing for any of us overall. Enough lectures though, I assume you have a plan of action? I think you should share it with me while we’re waiting for the debris to clear from your latest rancid brainstorm.”

“I’m not telling you dooddly-squat. Anything I tell you will just be used against me anyway. I have no plans to advertise my intentions to these aliens over an open radio either. If these guys could get into the computer, what makes you think they aren’t listening over our unscrambled comm. transmissions? We already know that they learned as well as taught all their people to speak and probably write Standard English in the day and a half it took us to get here. You guys have been yakking like your secure and making all this, ‘I’ll study this and I’ll study that,’ comments like you haven’t a care in the world. Given how fast these people work they can anticipate anything we do with a minimal amount of lead-time. Well I have no intentions of giving them any such advantage!”

Krass suddenly stepped into the airlock by himself and pushed the button leaving Ronilion outside until the airlock recycled again. He actually had the gall to smile and wave as if this was the most pleasant thing in the world. Ronilion smiled too, for he had hoped that Krass would do just that. What he wanted to do was best done in privacy and as Krass had pointed out, radios could be overheard.

Krass had completed the recycle of the airlock and just before entering the Hotel lobby itself he took off the suit and remaining in his ships coveralls he stepped into the building boldly. He was not what you would call a fashion plate.

As the door open he smiled and bellowed across the lobby, “Where are the hookers?” He looked at the concierge, “You running this flea-bag? I asked a question, where are the hookers?” Even as he bellowed a bellhop was taking his suit and escorting him to the front desk.

“ I assume you would like to check in, Sir, before you ask for guest services.” The bell-hop stated just loudly enough to be heard.” In a voice Krass had to strain to catch though he also heard, “I’ll bring some pictures around later that you might find interesting during your stay.” Krass decided to say nothing for now. He would go ahead and register. He wasn’t worried about the cost. After all he had the ships credit cards! It was so RIGHT that Ronilion had made him the ships supply officer. He smiled brightly at the female clerk as she looked warily at him.

“Hi baby!” stated Krass happily. “I am the Great Krass. I am sure you have read all about me and my exploits in the government and scientific community. I want you to know that I am here incognito and I don’t want a lot of fans crashing the doors. This is a vacation.” He winked at the girl. The concierge approached quietly and nodded to Devlin.

“Of course Mr. Krass, you have been expected. The instructions have been quite clear from your people to ours. We have reserved the top floor suite of rooms in your name. The Security Force you require is already on hand. The Hotel tailor is already working on a suitable wardrobe as well. The barber and masseuses are also present. The newspapers, television, holographic units have been warned that you will grant interviews as you see fit but that you are to be undisturbed. The mayor and governor send their greetings and have requested that you have lunch with them at your convenience.”

“You didn’t forget the Hot Tub did you? It has to be large enough to hold at least twelve people.” Krass stated irritated as he looked closely at the concierge. The man never even flinched. “You will find that the facilities in your suite have the hot tub you requested and it will hold more than 50 people let alone a dozen. However, there is a smaller one in your suite as well that will accommodate a dozen people. As for the ‘Entertainers’ you have requested as part of your entourage, they are awaiting your screening after you’re rested.” Krass nodded happily.

“I have been instructed by the management that your stay with us will be complimentary of course. It is not everyday that we have someone of your stature and fame. If there is anything you require please let us know immediately. We have also reserved a Daily reservation in your name for meals at the famous Chez Michael and at the local Playboy club. You will find also a complete line of credit, identity cards, and several major credit cards for your use. We hope you enjoy your stay at the Hotel Xanadu Mr. Krass.” Krass smiled, this was more like it! It sure beat having a shotgun stuck in your face. He thought of Drassel’s probable accommodations and got a warm fuzzy.

Chapter 23: Some people are like Slinky’s, not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Greg Drassel was sitting in a police station and was definitely NOT comfortable. The police had confiscated his knives and the shotgun as well. They had also taken his personal belongings like his communications unit and tools. He was left sitting in a cold room with what he recognized as a two-way mirror and a small security camera that was obviously watching him. He had been waiting for several hours.

After a long wait two detectives finally had come into the interrogation room. One very large individual with heavy dark sunglasses and wearing a sports coat with a mismatched tie glowered at him. The man was tall and in good shape. He wore his blonde haired, cut short. The smaller female seemed friendly and kind of cute. Drassel was not fooled. He knew good cop/ bad cop routines. They were both out for blood. He pretended not to notice either of them. The woman sat down quietly and smiled in a friendly fashion. She was dressed in an expensive looking and conservative business suit that showed off her figure well She was a slim blonde with a thin face and intelligent eyes. She showed him a badge #62416 Detective Dori Doreou.

She wasted little time getting started, “Your name is Greg Drassel and it says you work for BuCol as a scientist/contractor. We ran an FBI check on you and your fingerprints are not on file for any crimes so you can’t be any big criminal. We are checking with other local police agencies to see if anyone else wants you. Before we start you have certain rights, the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney or if you don’t have one an attorney will be appointed for you. Would you like to give up the right to remain silent?”

“Certainly not,” stated Drassel with care, “and I do want an attorney appointed before questioning. I am innocent. Have any of my shipmates or friends come around looking for me?”

The man looked angry and removed his glasses showing blue eyes. “I knew it. Why are we bothering with this weasel Doreou? I think we should take him to the circus or maybe I should just rock and roll on his skull for a while.” He glared a Gregg angrily.

Drassel smiled not at all alarmed, “You can’t do a thing to me and you know it. So why don’t you can the act. Now be a good little boy and go get my attorney. I have rights and those rights say I don’t have to tell you anything.” He made pig noises at the man and smirked.

The man smiled, “Oh you know what? Your right, how about some coffee?” He took a heated pot and walked over and poured the coffee straight into Drassel’s lap. Gregg yelled and jumped as the hot coffee burnt him even through the heavy ships suit. “OOPS,” said the man with a surprised look on his face, “How stupid of me, I forgot to give you a cup!”

Doreou spoke up sharply, “Hammer, you can’t do that.” She went to help Greg get out of the suit. In moments he was standing in his underwear. The room needless to say was cold. A large red mark showed clearly on his lap where he was burned. “You have to remember that he has rights.” Dori stated sternly to Hammer, although Gregg could see that was like water off a ducks back. He knew the man had done it deliberately because he was smiling a wide smile. The smile suddenly vanished and the man moved with sudden speed.

Hammer grabbed Drassel by his undershirt and pulled him close glaring into his eyes in anger. “I don’t give a damn about the rights of criminal scum like this. I just care about the rights of tax paying citizens.” He stated threateningly.

“I’m a tax paying citizen.” Drassel stated quickly almost caught off guard by the man’s strength. Hammer looked confused for a moment. “Don’t confuse me.” He stated ominously after a few seconds thought. He then slammed Drassel back into the chair and turned away, to resume his position near the wall.

The woman had taken the time and cleaned up the coffee while all this was going on. Once Hammer went back to his position she had taken her seat across from Gregg again. She looked at him calmly as if all this was normal and Drassel began to have a very bad feeling. How far would they violate his rights? This was after all not Earth but a stage set by aliens! It appeared likely that he was on very thin ground here.

Gregg looked at them both as he sat on the cold metal seat. “You can’t get away with this you know. My lawyer will be here soon and I’ll sue the daylights out of all of you for police brutality.”

The man looked angry again. “I think we ought to take this guy to the circus,” he stated ominously. Greg felt uneasy because something about this guy just did no seem to be sane. He was a little less certain on how far this insane person would go and if this was a good idea but he stuck to his plan. “I’ll sue you for police brutality and I want my lawyer now. Also it’s cold in here and I want my clothes back!”

Hammer smiled brightly at Drassel. “Now how can you accuse me of police brutality when we gave you a nice cup of coffee that you spilled on yourself? Then we sent your clothes out to be cleaned at no expense and we sent for a nice warm prison uniform for you to wear. Seems to me that you’re the one with the problems, is your clumsiness a natural thing or do you practice it so you can make frivolous law suits?”

“As for your lawyer? Why we got a nice court appointed lawyer for you too. His name is J. Angus Whitestone and I sent him a personal message that you were being taken in for questioning and he could see you at the 43^rd precinct.”

Dori looked surprised, “Hammer this isn’t the 43^rd precinct. It’s the 23^rd precinct. The lawyer is going to the wrong place.” Drassel looked stunned.

Hammer shrugged, “One little mistype, four or two, what’s the difference? I’m a cop not a typing expert. The guys a lawyer I am sure he will figure it all out eventually. In the meantime this toadstool is making me miss my usual lunch at the morgue.”

He suddenly pulled out a gleaming silver and pearl-handled 44 magnum and cocked it. He looked at it talking to his gun, “Ready to open up the Light of Truth in this pile of garbage, baby?” He asked it as if he expected an answer. In seconds the barrel was aimed right between Drassel’s eyes. “Either you start talking or I get some target practice. I haven’t had a chance all day to shoot a scumbag like you and I’m trigger-happy!” His cold blue eyes were steady and Drassel somehow knew he wasn’t kidding. This guy would shoot him dead and probably claim he was trying to escape.

Hammer looked at Dori as he kept the gun on Drassel and spoke conversationally, “When dealing with scum my motto has always been to shoot first, then a second time. If you still have ammo, shoot again. Reload if need be, and then ask questions.” He pulled the trigger. A large boom went off and everyone flinched. Hammer smiled, “That must have been a blank that I was using to impress the Kid’s at the school with. One of them wanted to know what a 44 magnum sounded like. I had to go and teach them as a part of my last disciplinary review. That assignment didn’t last long though, the school complained about the noise. Dori also spoke up, “The biggest reason though was the real rounds you fired because you had forgotten to put the blanks in. Luckily you only shot up a poster of the Great Krass in the Science Wing.”

Hammer looked disgusted, “Stop nagging Doreou. I must have missed removing that one. No harm though I still have five more we can try out. Let’s try again.” Hammer cocked the gun and again pointed it carefully right between Drassel’s eyes. “I know I have some real ones in their someplace.” Hammer smiled.

Drassel thought fast. He was obviously dealing with another Krass mentality. He was not on earth and to apply earth laws to such insanity was almost a sure ticket to getting killed. He had no clue how far these aliens would be willing to go and might even kill him as they followed some lunatic script from the ships computers. It was obvious. He would have to fit into the scene and the script correctly or he would be very dead. Drassel did not want to be dead. “I CONFESS! “ He screamed, “I did it, I did it all.” Dori looked shocked but Hammer just nodded as if he expected it.

Hammer smiled as he put the gun away. “See Doreou, you just have to talk to these punks in a language they understand.” He glared at Drassel, “OK ringworm, start writing out your confession and don’t skip a thing. I’ll be back to check on it later. I have a lunch date. As they departed arguing, Drassel’s attorney arrived, out of breath and looking angry. It took him little time to hear the story from Gregg and to get copies of the taped session. His words to the prosecution’s counsel, police chief, and precinct captain were both noisy and long. The video camera of the interrogation was proof positive in the case. The state immediately agreed to drop all charges and to pay a substantial penalty.

Five minutes later, the case was quietly closed, when a large out of court settlement was reached and Drassel now carrying a cashier’s check for one million dollars was entering the Xanadu luxury hotel looking for a sneaky rat named Devlin Krass. He had even gotten the shotgun back with all his belongings. It seemed that Hammer lost more cases than he ever prosecuted due to Police Brutality.

When he had left the precinct the captain was busily screaming at the Neanderthal. Gregg was looking for a place where he could buy fresh rounds for the empty shotgun. He wanted cubic or explosive rounds and they were harder to get. He had gotten them too at a fairly good price.

It was hunting season and he had every intention of violating the structural integrity of one Devlin Krass. The shotgun he was carrying would allow for a target rich environment! He walked up to the desk and smiled and with his best Elmer Fudd impression spoke, “Shhhh! Be vewy vewy quiet. I’m hunting rabbits. Can you direct me to Devlin Krass?”

The clerk smiled brightly. “Of course Mr. Drassel, you have been expected. It is seldom we see a millionaire of your stature here. Don’t you usually vacation at your Mansion or Yacht? If you go through that door I believe Mr. Krass is in the bar enjoying a drink of carrot juice. Good Hunting, sir.” Drassel stepped through the door into the expensively appointed bar and spotting Devlin immediately and with no warning, raised the shotgun and fired! It was point blank range for the shotgun as it boomed on semi automatic with a three round burst of cubic and explosive rounds.

Chapter 24: Stupidity is an inexhaustible natural resource.

Ronilion had watched Krass try to pull his slick actions with some amusement. “Please Brer Fox don’t throw me in that briar patch.” He stated in some amusement. Krass had done him a large favor. He had left him alone outside the dome. Ronilion had been thinking about the melters. Melters were NOT infinite, as the others seemed to assume. The amount of heat they produced was considerable. After all this was an atomic flame. They were also not made for CONSTANT use. They required frequent servicing with parts and maintenance when used like they were being used now. He had idly wondered what would happen to the artificial situation in the dome if the melters were to burn out. Would everything again shutdown? The cold would rapidly be restored and if the others were far away from their spacesuits they could end up very dead. Ronilion laboriously climbed back up the steps. He wanted a real close look at the melters.

He and the others had been watching them on the remotes and they looked OK but Krass’s comments about monitoring went both ways. If the aliens could monitor the crews and the computers, then why couldn’t they not be showing a false view of what the remotes were broadcasting?

About an hour later Ronilion was looking at the stand holding the melters and the remote equipment around them. One of the melters had burned through its heavy casing from the heat and it had washed downward and outward over the other melter and remote equipment. Nothing was working. The equipment here looked to be a total write-off. The interesting part was the remote signal was still coming in on exactly the right frequency and according to his location device right from this spot! According to the picture everything was running well and working correctly. The ice or tunnel had obviously not been affected by the wash of heat as the two melters destroyed themselves. It appeared the dome had absorbed what was in essence the raw atomic power that had been released by the blasts.

The really interesting thing here was that the melters were stone cold now! It had not taken long for the hellish cold to remove every trace of remaining heat. The dome itself should be freezing fast but it wasn’t! That meant that somehow the aliens had tapped into a new source of energy and were keeping this dome in operation. Ronilion had thought to place remote charges on the melters in case of hostilities. Now that idea would appear to be useless. Turning he went down the steps thinking furiously.

He wondered idly if Eon might have been able to be of some use on this information. It seemed to require an explorer’s expertise. What bothered him was how fast the others appeared to have gone native. He still had the BuCol links to each of the crew and if the dome people were not tampering with them then the information was disquieting. The doctor was working on an unconscious EON, or so it appeared. He was being treated like some great medical practitioner and his ego was running away with him. The priest seemed to be mingling with guests and swimming in a pool. And much the same thing appeared to be happening to him. He was being treated like the freaking POPE and he had obviously entered the role with gusto!

Krass had become some playboy or political/scientific muckity-muck and the Hotel seemed to be playing along with that by calling him the Great Krass while assigning bodyguards and such to him. Drassel was, so far, the only one that was different. He was just now checking in, after having undergone some pain and stress at a police station and appeared, by the state of his bio readings, to be very angry. He suspected that Drassel had figured out that Krass had set him up but Ronilion wondered if somehow the pattern would be repeated and that he would indulge in some form of convoluted ego trip? It would be hard to tell with Drassel.

Would the aliens be just as eager to bend to Drassel’s wishes if he stated something outrageous? So far every person that had entered the dome had done so to blend into the background the aliens had created. Then they had continued to play or even in some cases to define the roles that had been set-aside for them.

Were the aliens somehow encouraging them to role-play? It would appear so. In the late 19^th Century the role-playing fads had swept the world but mostly in the resource rich North America. Then it had mutated into unrecognized forms or died out as most generational things did. The vein of imagination, like most fads, had become exhausted when it had become all too commonplace and disturbingly boring.

Psychologists had used role-playing techniques as a correction technique to modify behavior. Could it be that the aliens were using it the same way or we’re they just trying observing the animals in their natural habitat? A case could be made that this thing could be some type of zoo or research center. It still left several unanswered questions.

The biggest of course was WHY? Why go to all this trouble to observe and study six explorers after being frozen for hundreds of years? That was of course if you could survive such a freezing in the first place! It would seem that if you just got the first energy you could get in a couple of thousand years plus, that it would immediately be channeled into survival rather than to play games to satisfy the ego’s of six alien explorers.

He wished again that Eon were available. His partner might be able to answer the questions he had. Was it likely that the facility was only carrying on a function it did normally when the aliens were alive? It seemed that it would be more likely than the idea that it was all established just for the crews after they had arrived! That would mean that it was automated and there had to be a large computer somewhere performing its endless job for an essentially endless and hidden purpose. The big problem there as Ronilion saw it, was the function of this facility potentially harmful to humans where it might not have been to aliens? What was the alien goal in such a facility? A facility this size had to have a purpose and as complex as this one was, that purpose must have some importance. No one used this many resources for no reason.

That this was a large computer would explain the fast responses and it’s ability to tap into lines. Was it just following standard programming or was it intelligent enough to know the situation outside the dome enough to modify its behavior from the normal running programs? Did it really care? Obviously this one did at least in some ways. It had obviously tapped into all three ships computers.

A light suddenly went off! Drassel’s code! The wiping of the computer was probably not done by the links as such. It had to have been the strange computer going through the files. It must have been testing the protocols and it obviously had found ways to crash the security routines built into the system. Devlin and Gregg had seemed like the obvious culprits but it may NOT have been them at all. The problem was that the computer would have been sending out some type of scrambled responses previous to the crash and none had been reported. This though could be explained by the digging phase when only the Doctor was really doing anything with the computer system outside of normal routine. Ronilion wondered if anything strange had happened to the doctor that had not been reported.

The ships computers were not the best on Earth but they were good ones that performed well in their class. They employed limited AI abilities and did have the ability to Grid compute and share resources but they were not really in anyway intelligent. They could not think, only react to certain set situations or everyday tasks. How intelligent we’re the machines the aliens had to be using to be able to respond to alien patterns, coding and thoughts? If it was used to handling city wide services and this dome the facility should be huge and require more power than a couple of melters could supply it. Where was it getting that power now?

Ronilion only had one answer to that question and it made him turn as white as the priest had been. It was too obvious. If they didn’t have such a power source BEFORE the humans had arrived and they were using one now it could only come from one place. The atomic piles of the three ships! Somehow, Ronilion was certain the aliens were somehow tapping the power of the human ships and when the fuel was gone, they were all dead ducks!

Chapter 25: Actor’s Rule number 1: A performance, like concrete, should be molded, and set.

Jack and his crew had sat calmly observing the large building from the shelter of the trees for a few days. While to humans this would look highly indecisive and somewhat callous it was a normal attitude for this race. Humans would call this procrastination while Jack’s people tended to think of this as logical safeguard and procedure. Wait for a situation to change and if it did not then take the next step after suitable consideration.

It had become time to take the next step. It was obvious by now that they would have to go into the building. Although this was still a lot sooner than Jack would like. Most commanders might have waited up to a year to see if anything of interest would happen, but they were under some pressure by the situation of their home world to move on. So it was with great caution that they slowly entered the structure with the warrior, Thirst-Quencher, leading the way.

Inside they noted a large central hallway/corridor running down the center of the building in what looked like an endless distance. The ceiling was very high and shrouded in darkness. The floor was made of the same strange marble like rock that was used on the walls of the temple. To either side of the main corridors were smaller branching corridors leading to either side. There appeared to be no markings on each of the side corridors. In point of fact there appeared to be no markings, maps or directional signs anywhere in this building.

Jack noted the sameness of the corridors. “It would be very easy to become lost in here. Perhaps that is what happened to the explorer. I wonder haw far that main corridor goes. Funny the building while large did not look as large as the inside appears to be.”

“An efficient explorer would have taken suitable steps not to get lost.” Thirst-Quencher spoke gruffly. “The useless one could have left a beacon at the door or at the least painted markings on the floor so that he could find his way out. Both items were part of his supplies as they are ours. Now I suggest we sit down here and wait to see if anything will happen to show what corridor or branch we should go down.”

“It is strange that we see no signs of any markings to show where the explorer went. Thirst-Quencher is right though, Willfulness would have known better and would have marked the exit point in several ways but none of them are marked. That means that something might have gotten to him before he made the marks or something has removed the marks. Do you notice for a place that is deserted and with a large amount of life outside the area is surprising clean. I detect no insects in this building. The door is open to all and appears to not be guarded or protected in any way. Why have not at least rodents and insects moved in by now?” Nutritious eyed the building warily.

“Then I suggest we place a beacon now but high up on the wall where we came in. If we place it high enough it may not be seen or moved easily. Another shall be placed on the outside of the building and our final one will be placed at the woods line on a tree. I also suggest we make markings the same way. However, I also intend to use the compass to keep us on track. As long as we don’t make to many turns we should be able to walk back just by reversing our path.’ Jack stated quietly, “We certainly cannot hesitate now and until we go look we have no hope of finding anything.” The group quickly placed the objects and then set off into the interior of the building with Nutritious keeping a map as they went.”

They traveled for some time in this manner passing many branching corridors until the came to a large open area. In the center of the area was a large diorama. It showed what looked like a wilderness with a wolf pack in amongst the trees. A dear stood close by unaware of the danger. The scene looked incredibly lifelike.

Jack looked closely and warily at the setup. “It seems pretty obvious that since we have been walking in here for an hour and have seen nothing else that this should be examined. Nutritious is this anything like the life or plant forms we have seen on this planet?”

Nutritious compared the figures with her records quickly. “We have only seen a small number of this planets life from one area. This has no matches with anything we have seen. The structure of these displays is plant and animal like but it is not made in the same way as those things we have seen. They also have no real life. They are like a trophy or a museum piece.”

Jack looked carefully at the display. “Let’s step back a minute and examine this whole setting. We come into a large building that seems larger on the inside than outside. It is scrupulously clean despite being accessible to a large animal population. We have seen nothing else. We walk for an hour and this is the only thing we see despite a bunch of branching corridors. Why do I think this item was placed here deliberately and is either a trap or a trigger for an event? So since it is the only NEW thing we can examine, I suggest we examine it very carefully and from a distance using extreme precautions. The first thing we do is look for a trap or a hidden trigger. We touch nothing ourselves but use tools at a distance.” He pointed at the Deer. “Start with that as the most threatening object I can see.”

Nutritious went to work taking out her portable lab and setting it up. She had several options and small remote devices for examining the area at a distance and ways to gather information without risking herself. The vibration detectors were very sensitive and picked up no sound of breathing or intestinal noises. There were no fluid sounds or hearts beating. The smell detectors picked up no smells that showed any type of living being and the items appeared to be dead things only artfully arranged. Finally she was able to take some samples. The samples showed that the items were built and not from any natural source. After checking the cameras to see if anything had moved she was able to determine after a few hours that nothing had moved. She looked at Jack and spoke.

“The items are not and never have been alive. There is no power source on them and the plants are made of a manufactured compound similar to some saps. A close examination with the motion detectors shows no obvious motions so I suspect if this is a trap we would actually have to investigate the display closely which means to actually stand inside it. There appears nothing of great interest here.”

Jack nodded, “Then pack up and let us move on. I see no reason to enter such a trap and see no reason to waste time any further here.” A short time later they continued down the same corridor and after another hour came to another open area. It was very similar to the last one but the display was different. In the center was a large statue. The statue appeared to be robot like and carried a large weapon. It stood about 20 feet tall and dwarfed them. Again the display was lifelike and again it appeared intimidating to the group because of its size and the fact that it was posed on a large heap of debris from which smoke arose to dissipate quickly. Nutritious stopped once again and set up her equipment as Jack and Thirst-Quencher watched the display warily. “I don’t think we are getting anywhere,” stated Thirst-Quencher but I have no suggestions to change the situation.

Chapter 26: Krass is useless on top of the ground he aught to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

Krass pulled himself up from the wreckage in the bar covered in the remains of two of his bodyguards and shook his fist at Drassel and yelled, “I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are! I mean rock-hard stupid! Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid! World-class, A-1, top of the heap, triple whopper with cheese, super-sized stupid! So stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid! One-of-a-kind, global, universal, intergalactic stupid! You are trans-stupid, stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed.”

“Stupid so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularly, extraordinarily, incredibly, bewilderingly stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your life is a monument to stupidity. I am breathless that anyone or anything in our universe can really be this stupid. You are a primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of stupidity that we know. You are a veritable behemoth, a leviathan, and a colossus of stupidity.

Drassel smiled back and pulled the trigger again and spoke quietly. "Flattery will get you nowhere. You’re not going to talk yourself out of this either.” Krass was struck by the explosive round that blew him backward across the room and against the wall. Even as he started to slide down leaving a bloody trail the cubic rounds smashed into him and literally tore the body apart. The final explosive round mainly just blew a large hole in the wall and left very little intact. Drassel smiled to the other stunned patrons in the bar and turned whistling a merry tune and went back out the door. He walked up to the desk and laid the shotgun on it and stated to the clerk. “I would like a room now and sorry about the mess, just put it on Krass’s bill.”

Chapter 27: “You are a most unique being. I find you most fascinating. I mean that in a complimentary way." Elaine to Rahvin

Ronilion unaware of recent events suddenly entered through the airlock dome and like the others didn’t seem to notice the sudden shift behind him. Spotting Drassel he also went up to the desk and waited for the clerk to get to him. He noticed the shotgun on the bar but shrugged. While the bellhop led Drassel off to his room, Ronilion looked at the desk clerk and spoke. “I am a deep space explorer to your planet. I don’t believe I have ever seen anything like this before and I am uncertain about you and your people. Perhaps you would like to make some suggestions?”

The concierge came forward and nodded gravely. “Yes Sir, I am sure we can accommodate you. We will establish a room for you and will notify the authorities of your arrival on our planet. If you are a diplomat you will be required to show your credentials and you will have to conform to local laws.”

Ronilion looked disgusted and spoke somewhat bluntly. “You misunderstand. Let me make this perfectly clear. I am not asking for you to play some elaborate game by pretending this is Earth like and is part of some amusement park or Hollywood movie. I am serious! Your facility here is on a dead frozen planet and is operating when it should be just as frozen as the rest of your world. I want to know the truth about the history of this planet and not ‘play’ in a mirror image of my own planet. I don’t ‘need’ a room I need answers.”

The concierge looked confused for a moment and then looked at Ronilion closely and spoke firmly. “Let me see if I understand you. You are not here to use this facility in the NORMAL fashion. You are similar to a researcher or journalist who wants to see ‘the REAL’ thing? We seldom give tours of the day to day workings of our facility but your request is within allowable limits if you have the proper authorization and documentation.” He looked expectantly at the Captain.

“I am not a member of your planet and the rest of it is dead. Are you robotic in nature? I cannot get documentation unless you can somehow give it to me. Tell me is the history of ‘THIS’ planet restricted. Mind you I mean the planet we are standing on and NOT Earth. It should include this solar system as well.” Ronilion had a feeling that a machine had to be running this planet and that it was still trying to fit him into the pattern of this facility. He suspected that each person that had entered had immediately tried to blend in and he suspected the machine had happily accommodated them. He was going to try a radically different tactic and he was going in honestly even if it might get him killed!

The concierge was thoughtful and then nodded. “Your request is unusual for us Sir, but I am sure we can help you. Will you be staying at your ship or do you wish us to arrange a place for you to stay here and will you have any immediate needs? We can and do have facilities to accommodate any alien visitors.”

“I think I will stay here for now but I am curious to see if you truly have comprehended my request and I want to be sure that you are not doing another elaborate fantasy so I want a no frills answer to the following question.” Ronilion looked at the concierge closely, “We restarted the power to this facility but that power has stopped. How are you maintaining that power now and what was the power source you originally used on this planet?”

The concierge looked confused but a voice suddenly spoke behind Ronilion. “The answer to your question is that advanced, very advanced for you, Hydrogen Fuel Cells were the original power source used by the city inhabitants and this facility.” The voice was deep, and strangely accented. While the words were in perfect Standard English they were accented in no Earthly way. Ronilion quickly spun around and looked at the speaker. He looked human but seemed more brutish, almost like a Neanderthal. He was heavily boned and looked strong. He was dressed in what looked like an expensively tailored suit and he smiled slightly. He continued to speak as Ronilion watched him warily.

“Your surmise is correct that much of our current problem seems to have stemmed from our use of this power source. How much do you know about Hydrogen Fuel Cells Captain? Ronilion shrugged, “Krass and Drassel probably know a lot more than I do. I’m a pilot not a scientist or engineer.”

The alien smiled, “Ah yes, Mr. Krass and Mr. Drassel. We thought they were regular customers and the facility was ready to accommodate them. I would probably have not been restored for that but the monitoring equipment sensed you were getting alarmed and that you might step outside the normal functions. It brought me in just in time. That hopefully will be more helpful for your people and mine. Especially mine.”

He walked around the desk and opened the door and looked back at the Captain. “You have much to learn if you want to understand this. Please come this way and we will start your education.” Ronilion was not sure he liked the sound of that or the rather toothy smile on the alien.

Ronilion walked around the desk largely ignored by everyone else and stepped into the back room. He was surprised to see a tea laid out in a living room setting. He sat down at a motion from his host who did the same and once the tea was repaired his host began to speak.

“It would take me a long time to give you even the abridged version of our history and how we have ended up in this situation. So excuse me if I only give you a few highlights. By the way of all the people in here currently the Doctor is probably the closest to the truth. He has been learning on his own some of the capabilities of our medical science which is another key to all this. The first as you surmised is the power source.”

He took a sip of tea. “To understand much of this you have to understand our people. We are a very peaceful people. There has never been a war on this planet or a murder. To us these things are unthinkable. As your Mr. Krass and Mr. Drassel surmised we came from what you term as the ‘core stars’ near the galaxy center. There the stars are closer together and the civilizations older. Our sun was a young yellow star then.”

“The stars were closer together and this meant that as people climbed the ladder of civilization that we could share knowledge with them much easier than your isolated civilization can. The ancient radios were able to make contact much sooner there. Our acceleration to civilization was much faster than you can possibly comprehend. This caused immense gains but immense problems in our civilization.”

Ronilion looked thoughtful. “I think I understand. Your civilization is much like a city climate while ours is like a farming community. The acceleration of cultural ideas would have changed you rapidly but you would have run into problems of crowding, pollution and diverse thought patterns. Your civilization was a pressure cooker.”

“Exactly! You are a quick study for a provincial rube.” He smiled humorously, “No offense of course. Yes as pollution became a problem we toyed with new energy methods. Remember how peaceful our people are, so they looked for an extremely safe and non-polluting source. We had toyed with the idea of nuclear power but we saw several civilizations destroyed that used that kind of power. We determined not to go the same way. A hydrogen fuel cell 'burns' fuel in two separate steps. One consumes the fuel itself, by plucking electrons from it. The other consumes oxygen gas by pumping electrons into it. The end result is the same as if the fuel had been ignited in air, but the combustion happens in a steady, controlled way that drives electrons around an electrical circuit, generating power. If hydrogen gas is used as a fuel, there is no polluting exhaust. The only products are water and electricity, which are very useful in the city. So, if hydrogen could be supplied cheaply enough, hydrogen-powered fuel cells would be the perfect means for reducing urban air pollution.”

“I think I see where you’re going with this. Don’t hydrogen fuel cells operate at about 160 degrees Celsius? So those WERE solar reflectors on the roof of the dome and it is a power supply. You must have focused the suns energy into the dome and that properly focused would supply you with the heat you needed to run the fuel cells. I assume you had orbital satellites to focus the energy?” Ronilion looked excited and his host smiled.

“Yes but cities also generate heat from electrical items. We had a very good super-conducting network to bring heat back and of course huge lithium batteries to store power as well for emergencies.”

Ronilion thought for a moment, “I have a problem with that. Only one possible source of power seems foolish considering what you attempted. You obviously moved your planet away from the Nova and something happened suddenly to your sun so that you lost power. I find it hard to believe that you didn’t have a backup source.”

“We did as you surmised have a backup source but once again it did us little good. Another problem our civilization would have had was garbage pollution. Have you ever heard of the bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens? It is a bacterium that has over 100 genes in it that are capable of even “eating” uranium.G. sulfurreducens can convert uranium that is dissolved in water to a solid compound called uraninite, which can then be removed.”

“Is that the radioactive site that we detected?” Ronilion asked suddenly. The alien smiled and nodded.

“Yes but you would have missed the most important part in all the ice. By placing this bacterium in a large area of seawater it not only had the ability to produce uraninite but it could also produce large quantities of electricity. The genome of this tiny microorganism helped us to address some of our most difficult cleanup problems and allowed us to generate power through biologically based energy sourceswhile giving us processed radioactive’s to sell to other civilizations hungry for power. They were quite a money maker.”

“That froze too quickly too didn’t?” Stated Ronilion. The alien smiled ruefully, “Unfortunately you are correct. Since we had so many heat problems as civilization grew it had never occurred to us that a heat loss would cause us so much of a problem. You see we didn’t have a metals problem becauseG. sulfurreducens also has genes that help it find metallic compounds. It is perfectly capable of living in an oxygen atmosphere and was very useful. I have no doubt that it has survived the cold and only waits for the required heat to revive it and start it’s work again.”

“Is that what is keeping the dome running now if so then you must be running on storage batteries again.” Ronilion looked closely at the alien. “Or are you using our ships as a source?”

“Neither,” was the reply. “You see you still lack many of the keys to this puzzle. I must compliment Mr. Krass and Mr. Drassel though on their insights when they came into the system and especially to Mr. Drassel for opening the links in your computers. You see the schematics for your nuclear engines were in there. When you revived this facility it underwent a crash plan and created a nuclear plant from your designs. It was crude by our standards but with the radioactive's we had stockpiled it was very simple to create with our android staff here.”

“These beings are NOT robots. They are cloned and age accelerated androids virtually identical with whatever species we want to create. Your medical files aided us immensely in creating the human beings to interact with you. Our advanced training techniques can fit them for any role. We borrowed shamelessly from your vast archives in the Medical and Science vessel and we went into operation again.”

“You see this facility was a sort of recreation park and health care facility. Even we had our insane and we used this facility to cure them. Just to let you know the facility monitors consider you people not only INSANE but highly dangerous. It is not used to dealing with fantasies like killing each other. It seeks to alleviate the repressed emotions of your crew and they most certainly have a lot of strange emotions.” At that moment the door was thrown wildly back and a small dark haired girl with hazel eyes entered the room. She glared at Ronilion. “I’ll kill that sorry bastiage!” She stated holding what looked to be Eon’s shotgun. She looked deadly serious but Ronilion felt like he should know her. Something about her mannerisms seemed to make her familiar. He dodged behind the chair as the alien watched in amusement. “An old girl friend?” The alien asked with some amusement. He looked thoughtful. “I think I got the comment correct for this situation.”

Chapter 28: The doctor says, "Relax, Relax, you're just going through your change!

Eon awoke in a hospital bed. The last thing he remembered was that Krass had shot him with a needler and he had fallen to the ground. It had not been a pleasant experience but it appeared that neither had it been fatal. A nurse walked into the room and smiled brightly at him. “Good Morning Dear,” she spoke brightly, “How are we feeling today?” Eon was disgusted and had a terrific headache, most likely a reaction from the drug. He spoke grumpily.

“I am feeling like drek, and I suspect you are not feeling the same way or you wouldn’t be acting so cheerful. Where is my stuff and where is the Doctor? I need to get back to work.” He stopped abruptly. His voice was higher pitched and sounded like a woman’s voice. If the doctor had been playing games with his voice he was going to regret it. Eon started to get out of bed but something felt decidedly wrong. He almost loss his balance and he clutched at the bed but his arms were much shorter and less muscled. He crashed to the floor. The nurse alarmed helped him back into bed. She chided the explorer.

“You really must be careful young lady. You have to relearn a lot of your reactions and become accustomed to your new body. It really won’t do for you to go rushing off until you have had time to become adjusted. Now you stay right here while I go get the Doctor.” She quickly rushed out the door as Eon his mouth wide opened looked. Yep he was a woman. How the heck had he become a woman? He got up and tossed off his robe in disbelief. No doubt about it he was now only about 5’4” with very long and lush black hair. He was also quite well endowed but at least he still had the same hazel eyes. He growled in disgust, for he was now a man trapped in a woman’s body. He looked like some sailors dream for Frag’s sake!

He quickly turned away and soon found woman’s clothes in his size. It was just like his ships suit and all his gear and weapons were there as well. Everything had been resized including his spacesuit but he could see no marks that it had been cut and repatched. Everything looked like new. He quickly got dressed and checked his shotgun. It was fully loaded. He quickly tore it down and checked even the shells. They were all ready and had not been tampered with. Even as he again stood up and started out the door the nurse returned with a doctor in tow. It was not Patterson.

“What did you assholes do to me?” He glared at them both and the nurse looked alarmed while the doctor just smiled.

“Really Eon, there is no need for profanity now. We completed the procedure you requested and it was of course a tremendous success. You did formally request a sex change and of course the proper paperwork has been filled out with your signature and two witnesses, one was Captain Boquit and the other was a Mr. Devlin Krass. The ships Doctor, Patterson, approved the surgery and as you can see we not only made the changes you requested but we were able to reduce your age to approximately sixteen years old. It was the most challenging thing we have done to date but you came through it well despite the drugs Mr. Krass had put in your system. You do seem to be having some memory loss but that is to be expected for an operation of this type. It will most likely pass with time.”

Eon was not a cold-blooded explorer for nothing. He listened carefully but inward he was seething, Krass, was behind this and it appeared that Michael Jackson loving ice hole and the fragging, drunk, troublemaking doctor were behind it as well. He asked some questions quickly. “You say I wanted this operation? You are right I don’t recall it. Can you refresh my memory on how this came about?”

“Certainly Miss Gunray, if you will sit down so that I can check you out you will be free to go once I am certain you are all right. Your physical adjustments have been very rapid to your new size and shape and if that is any indication I suspect you will adjust mentally as well.” Eon allowed the doctor to help him sit back down and placed his shotgun aside and listened carefully while the doctor performed several normal medical tests. The nurse watched and assisted.

“After Mr. Krass brought you into the Hotel Xanadu, where you have a room reserved, he stated that you had collapsed outside the hotel and had a serious medical condition that could be life threatening. Luckily your Doctor, Patterson, was also here on vacation and was familiar with your medical condition. He informed us that you were a space traveler and had a little known and incurable disease that would eventually cause your death.”

“Well to make a long story short, medicine here on Earth has advanced a long way since you went into space and we were able to make you a new body. Is it true that you traveled in ships that did not have FTL capacity? You must be one of the oldest people alive due to the time dilation effects. Anyway, the doctor stated you had come here to get a new body at the Harvard Medical Facility, Las Vegas. We do after all have the finest medical care in the world and our plastic surgeons are really top notch. The Hotel had you flown by helicopter especially for the operation. You will find your new body matches the specifications exactly as you requested. Enhanced reflexes, self-regenerating up to a point and even enhanced strength. You will also find that your immune system is now more robust as well. All in all I think we did a splendid job on you.”

“You say you have the permission papers I signed? Can I get a copy of them? I seemed to have misplaced them.” Eon was wary and cautious. If he acted to badly they might not let him out of the hospital. Considering that they seemed to have tinkered with his body he certainly did not want to give them cause to tinker with his mind!

The doctor nodded, “Of course you can have all the copies when you leave the hospital. You appear to have made a complete recovery and outside of some recent and minor memory loss, no doubt caused by the drugs Krass used on you, I see no reason you can’t leave when you wish. The nurse will assist you. Do you have anyone to pick you up or shall we contact your Hotel to send over a driver for you?”

Eon smiled, “I’ll appreciate it if the hotel could send someone to meet me. Also my luggage I assume is in my hotel room?” Eon did not really expect to have luggage but he wished to test what was going on. The doctor smiled, “I would assume so but you would really have to ask the hotel that. We only handled the things you had when you got here.” Eon nodded and the doctor left while the nurse fussed over him. Eon was going to get to the bottom of this.

A short while later with shotgun in hand and a grim look on her face, Eon Gunray walked up to the front desk of the Hotel Xanadu and asked the clerk for the whereabouts of Ronilion. He was informed that he was in one of the private work suites with a guest. Gunray quickly found out which one and went to the door and kicked it. The heavy oak and lock could not stand against his enhanced strength and the door flew open as if it was cardboard. Eon stalked into the room and spying Ronilion who was moving very slowly and spoke angrily at him, “I’ll kill that sorry bastiage!” To Eon it looked like Ronilion was trying to get behind his chair in slow motion. It would have been easy to shoot him down like the dog he was. “An old girl friend?” The alien asked with some amusement. He looked thoughtful. “I think I got the comment correct for this situation.”

Ronilion was still trying to hide. “Dammit Ronilion will you act like a fragging Captain, I’m Eon and it looks like I have Krass and Paterson and you to thank for this. Now I would like to know what you intend to do about the situation and be warned if you don’t handle this I will in my own way.”

Chapter 29: “Hey Krass! What's the speed limit of sex?” asked Drassel snidely. Krass didn’t even look up from his work “ That’s easy lamebrain it’s 68 because at 69 you have to turn around.”

Ronilion took out his communicator and paged everyone. He quickly told them to join him and where. Shortly after that Luddington arrived and then Drassel. There was no sign of Krass or Patterson though. Ronilion in disgust shouted into the communicator, “Krass get your butt here now!” A voice responded quickly, “Mr Krass is currently not available at this number as he has been murdered by Keith Drassel.”

Ronilion glared at the comm. unit, “The day I believe that Drassel could just murder you in cold blood is the day I start believing in the tooth-fairy. I have you monitored Krass. I KNOW you’re alive and well, now get that lard hoop of yours down here immediately and explain to me why Eon is a teenage girl.”

“If this was Krass why would I want to be in the same room with either Eon or Drassel considering the threats they have been and are continuing to make? I have eyes everywhere. Eon wants to kill me for something I didn’t do, namely turning him into the pussy he is, and Drassel wants to get me because he got greedy and took a shotgun into a resort hotel. I didn’t report him. The Doc did both things. Go talk to Patterson. In the meantime if you want to talk to me you can do it right from there while they put my body back together. That darn Drassel wrecked my last one.”

“I DID NOT!” yelled Drassel, “At least I don’t think I did.” He looked at the alien questioningly. The alien smiled, “Indeed Mr Drassel did not kill Mr. Krass as both the target and, uhm, the perpetrator were actors in this facility playing out several fantasies. I certainly wish you people would not mix up your fantasies so much as it has become very confusing to the machines trying to sort all this out.” Drassel breathed a sigh of relief, “Good, then can I take my million and buy a spaceship from you?” The others looked at him in disgust. “Well, you don’t know unless you ask?”

The alien smiled, “Mr Drassel, we are not likely to sell you a ship but if you wish we will deposit the money in your account on Earth and you can go and buy an Earth ship when you get back. Is this an acceptable alternative for the trouble you have been put through? I must say you seem to be the sanest person in the group although some of your comments and questions have raised questions amongst us as to your intelligence level. Are there many more on Earth like you? Given the mix we see here I would say no.” Krass’s laughter could be heard through the communicator and the others smiled slightly. Drassel not sure what to say, wisely said nothing.

Eon spoke harshly. “This is getting us nowhere. How could you fools have allowed this situation to develop like this? For a race that prides itself on it’s advancements you people seem to be total idiots.” Krass wasted no time answering back and soon an argument ensued amongst the Earth crew as the alien said nothing.

As the argument continued to deteriorate Ronilion spoke in an effort to divert the crew, “Here is the simple situation. The aliens think we are completely and totally nuts. They won't share their technology with us but won't stop us from learning everything we can on our own. From what I understand Patterson has discovered all sorts of useful things in the medical field. Krass has been researching something but it beats me what. Eon was turned into a woman and is understandably upset. So just what exactly do we want to learn and how are we going to learn it?” The arguing crew largely ignored him, so as the others continued to hurl insults at each other so Ronilion turned to the alien and spoke.

“You told us a lot about your distant past, in the fact that you moved your whole solar system, but we figure the freezing was not deliberate. What happened to your sun and why did it Nova in the pattern that it did?"

"You need to understand a couple of things,” replied the alien ignoring the others. “When we moved our worlds after a period of time we started to run short on certain elements. When you have a technology as powerful as ours that had depended on trade with other planets eventually your supply can run short even in a whole planet or solar system. We decided to move our planet outward and turn off our sun until we got closer to where we wanted to be. The big ball you detected is the controls for all of it. It is well that you did not go there first for it is well protected against tampering"

“It was easy to set up storage areas of DNA for cloning and to tie it all into automatic processes for when the area became capable of supporting life. The memory pattern of each individual was stored in a super cooled conducting network and later could be restored to new bodies. Death means little to us.”

Drassel who was also listening spoke calmly. “That is all well and good but I see some dangerous gaps. Why move your planet outward at all? Why not just leave it where it originally was? Second your whole solar system is remarkably cleared of debris. That is understandable given your situation but what keeps it clear. The big question I have though is how can you make sure I have a million credits in my account without you guys disrupting the economics of the system?”

“All are excellent questions Mr. Drassel,” responded the alien, “When we dampened down the sun we had to insert a device into it. The resulting impact created a dangerous Nova condition. We had to move the planet outward to avoid it. We saw no reason to move it back at this time. Your second question is subtler. What you really meant to ask was why a race like ours would make such a journey in what you consider to be a blind fashion when anything could have happened while we were under hibernation. Which of course is why you asked your third question.”

“You are correct in what you suspect. We do indeed have an advanced scout force moving ahead of us clearing debris, handling resupply and they have already encountered your world. While your star charts were useful in some cases, we really didn’t need them. Our scout force has already encountered and gone past your planet leaving certain people behind to guard our interests. We had hoped not to have to divulge this information due to the extreme paranoia of your people but it seems you already expected this answer so it does us little good to withhold your request for this information.”

Drassel looked thoughtful, “I can see why you want to keep that part secret. Our world would probably go absolutely berserk if they knew your people are on our planet already. I would assume that your people have infiltrated into positions of power as well. That certainly explains how you were able to make contact with Earth so quickly for the doctor and priest and also where you got the samples to clone our people. No wonder the doctor did not find any differences from normal humans. You used real humans. This would make every mover and shaker on our world an instant target. The harm it could cause would be irreparable. Perhaps you can make us a ship of your type with what you think are safe inventions. We can say we discovered it away from here and take that back without telling anyone what we really found.”

The alien looked at Drassel steadily, “We will not lie for you Mr. Drassel and there are several reasons why your people will not buy that story now. Even if they did they will still come here looking for other ships. To protect ourselves you should leave with nothing, but we are not so brutal as to “rape” your memories away from you. We will not tamper with you to save ourselves. It is not in our nature.”

Krass suddenly chimed in from his argument with Luddington and Eon, “Listen Buddy, we risked our necks for this. If we go back with the whole truth, we won’t have a whole lot to show for it. Your continued existence has proven to be a big bust for us. With this inconvenience you certainly can’t blame us for trying to recoup some of our losses. I remind you that our race is not as civilized as yours and we still go by the rule of survival of the fittest. We have to make some type of gain here so we don’t disturb you any longer than necessary. If you want us gone give us some goodies to take with us and consider it a payoff.”

Eon watched Krass as he entered the room in hatred and disgust but did not take any other action with everyone watching. Instead she addressed the alien. “You said you find us to be insane by your lights. Now you say you cannot lie. Why is it you will not lie? It would certainly be simpler in this case if we could lie on your behalf as well. You seem to be a remarkably stupid and arrogant race, especially considering you allowed me to be changed. Can’t you even control your own technology?”

The alien spoke back immediately. “You and your people chose to misuse our equipment. That is the reason we will give you none of our technology willingly so that you can continue to misuse it. Neither can we stop you if you wish to take it. If you chose to steal it then the fault for that is yours. We find lying to be self defeating. You also ask how we can consider your people to be insane. We have observed brutality, murder, selfishness, arrogance, anger, fear, lying, cheating, greed and sadism, all words from your culture not ours. By our lights you are not only dangerously insane you represent a painful and possibly an extremely hostile presence we find hard to endure.”

Eon looked stubborn and angry, “You lack clarity of thought and cunning. You believed us enough in the beginning to change me into this form. You aided in a criminal action. You are like ostrich, hiding your heads in the sand every time you face another race. Why not work with us and help us to be better. You might gain some useful knowledge yourself. At the rate you are going you will never expand.”

“What makes you think our goal is to expand when all we wish to do is survive? Expansion as you call it is not what we want to do. Even your word expansion is usually a gain for you at someone else’s loss.” The alien rejoined humorously. “You entered an entertainment facility we used for our people, reactivated it and misused it without any kind of real study and you blame us for a lack of forethought and cunning.”

“Yet we observed you using your weapon as a threat against another of your kind for no reason we could discover. We at least make an attempt to understand you; you make no attempt at all to understand us. Who has made the most grievous offense here? You cry over a minor physical change that you brought upon yourself and blame others for your own lack of forethought. Your continuing attitude gives us further reason not to let you misuse more of our equipment.” Ronilion looked at the anger on Eon’s face and tried to head it off at the pass.

“I think the alien has proven his case. We all leave NOW. We thank you for what we have learned but I see no reason we should stay to aggravate the situation further.” He looked at Eon. “Round up the Doctor and get everyone back to the ship.” He then went out the door. Luddington reflected to himself that after ducking Eon’s shotgun once Ronilion did not want to be in the area if it should happen to go off when Krass or the Doctor arrived. Who knew the ex-leader might have even been right.

Chapter 30: Few Women admit there age and few men act it!

Eon looked at Drassel, Krass and Luddington and hefted her shotgun. “All right you heard him. I’m in charge and you three get back to the ship now.” Eon then looked at the alien ready to continue her argument.

“Entertainment Facility? Misuse? How can one misuse an entertainment facility? So be it then if your culture finds the rest of the universe to be so imperfect it will be better for you to hide. I think though that eventually you will have to deal with other races and you will not be able to hide forever.”

The alien shook his head sadly. “Anything, no matter how benign, can be misused Eon. It appears it does us little good to explain things to you. You still refuse to accept the responsibility for your own actions. If it is your goal to continue to argue until the other side gets tired and says nothing more so that you may feel you have won it seems best to us to have nothing more to say to you now and thus end your cycle of complaint.” Eon glared at the alien and was about to respond when Krass spoke in a cutting voice.

“Damn Eon, you SUCK at diplomacy or even basic courtesy. As an explorer you have to be bottom of the barrel. They do not ‘hide’ because of a perceived imperfection nor do they consider themselves to be perfect. Our cultures are just extremely different making it difficult for them and us to understand each other. That does NOT mean that there is no hope that we cannot find a common ground for understanding. It will take some time and effort for ME to find it especially with your stupid comments. Time that your witch, little self, is refusing to give me because you can’t even be civil to the real owners of this planet. Why don’t you climb on your broomstick and just fly away? You’re nothing but a spoiled teenage girl with a big mouth.”

“OK so we all started by screwing the pooch and I simply hope we can hide the extent of that fact from Bu-Col and the universe otherwise we are going to look like prime asses for the rest of our lives.”

Luddington nodded in agreement. “Despite the words Devlin used I have to agree with his basic assessment. I think you need to take a refresher course on diplomatic and subtlety training. I also have several other issues with obeying any of your commands.”

Eon glared at them. “You two greedy troublemakers are still here? As usual you disobey your orders. Get back to the ship now or I shall be FORCED to take action. You two need to worry about yourselves. I know what I am doing. I also have that weasely so called doctor to deal with.”

“By forced, “ said Luddington, “I take it you mean you will shoot us or attack us in some way, correct? Consider this from our side Ms. Eon, you have obviously been tampered with by an alien civilization. I don’t think you should be giving orders at this stage of the game. If Bu-Col was looking at this situation what must they be thinking?” Krass nodded in agreement.

“ If we do not take cautious steps to protect our world from the threat you represent then we would be found criminally negligent. However, considering your recent actions and threats you ARE a danger to everyone. Even the relatively peaceful aliens have noted that you are NOT reasonable. You are a threat to everyone you encounter until we know your capabilities and what was done to you. You are indeed a menace, so will you prove me correct and attack me if I refuse to follow your commands?”

Drassel smiled at Krass and Ludington, “She could just grab you and ‘frog-march’ you out.” Luddington smiled back and answered quickly, “Yes Mr. Drassel, she could and thereby prove my point. You are a scientist, just how rational is Ms. Eon acting in your personal opinion?” He opened his communicator.”

“Captain, I believe you left to soon and should come back. There are several ‘issues’ we have to deal with right now. For instance in your personal opinion has Ms. Eon’s judgment and attitude deteriorated since she arrived on this planet? I would also like Dr. Patterson to give me his medical opinion of Ms. Eon’s current mental condition and unusual aggression lately.”

Drassel looked stubborn and then at the shotgun warily. “I see no difference in her behavior than when she was a he.” Krass laughed. “Now there is a weasel answer if I ever heard one.” Luddington nodded as well but he was not smiling. “Then you Sir have been sitting in a pink, fluffy cloud and have looked at nothing. Does a normal rational person in our society normally go around threatening and waving a shotgun without at least the police taking action and getting some mental evaluation for the person that does so? Do you actually think this is NORMAL behavior for a trained explorer on a space expedition? If you see nothing wrong with this situation then I suggest you too disobey this order and watch what she does.”

Eon looked at the priest angrily. “Some priest you are. Drassel disagrees with your assessment and you insult him. I think you should go back to your prayers, priest and let me handle the job you are so unqualified for. My Thanks to Drassel anyway for his vote of confidence, although you will ignore that too just to get your way.”

The priest shook his head negatively. “I see no insult in anything that I said, because the truth is what it is. If you chose to turn it into an insult there is nothing I can do about that. I notice how you avoided the real questions though and I also note that the Captain and Doctor have not spoken up yet. We shall give them more time.”

“However, this might be an opportune moment for me to make a statement. The Church, your employers and partners, sent me here to represent their interests in this expedition. On safety and normal issues I saw no reason to exercise my position. Now I see a clear and present danger to our civilization. I must formally and respectfully request to the Captain, Doctor and remaining crew, that Eon be disarmed before we leave this dome and placed under close arrest and medical observation. As for me I refuse to obey any orders that she issues.”

On that note Luddington turned about and left the room. Eon made no move to stop him but turned towards Devlin and Drassel. “Well that is one mutinous dog heard from. Like most mutineers he hides behind regulations but this is the field and the Captain has placed me in charge. What is your answer Krass?”

Chapter 31: "The only laugh that Eon will ever get in his/her life is by stripping ... and showing his/her shortcomings." Krass said to Luddington

“My answer is more of a viewpoint than an answer little girl. You are proof positive that being changed into a woman does not make you smarter. So much for all those woman jokes about being smarter than men. You’re just as stupid either way.” Krass stated snidely as Drassel warily moved away not wanting to get caught in a shotgun blast. “Have you learned nothing yet bimbo?”

Krass continued blithely, “Despite what Ronilion says you have no authority over any of us. You have no real backup. That is twice Ronilion put you in charge of something and then ducked out the door. You have only the authority we give you and no more. I remind you we never, ever, ever elected you as leader. On the way out we let Ronilion lead because he was the best suited for the job. All that ended when we landed.”

“Now we have two other ships here and there are Captains on each of those ships. You don’t own them or us. We are partners! If you and your partner chose to leave then go ahead and leave but don’t presume you can tell us what to do. Now the Doc and the Priest are together on one ship and they intend to stay a while and do the job we all got paid to do. They don’t need you for that. Drassel hasn’t made a decision yet one-way or the other. He is like a ‘moderate liberal’. You know the kind that waits to see what the consensus will be so he can go with the strongest side instead of making a decision for himself.”

Krass glared at Eon and spoke angrily. “I do not intend to leave here empty handed either. There is a lot I have to say to these aliens and I WANT some of that nice technology they got. Not only will it make me rich and powerful, it will do a lot to improve our world. So BUTT OUT LOSER!”

Ronilion took that moment to return to the room. “OK Eon stand down. I’ll take over now. I have to agree with the group that your diplomacy skills are as bad as Krass’s. It seems I will have to make several decisions here but I suspect they will mean nothing in the long run as Mr. Krass has made it clear that they are all going to do what they want anyway.”

Eon surprised everyone except the alien by laughing scornfully at the three men. “So again you issue orders Ronilion and then when I try to enforce them you undercut me. I suspected that once again you were setting me up to fail when you gave your order and then walked away. While I don’t understand fully why you thought it was necessary to keep putting me in that position I decided I would play along for now to see where it led.”

“ You know, I was caught by surprise when you let Krass shoot me the first time. When mutineers seize a ship you don’t count on the Captain being a mutineer as well! This time I was ready for it. Now let me tell all three of you gentleman, and I use the term loosely, to define one of the largest groups of dishonorable and corrupt assemblages it has ever been my misfortune to deal with.” Eon set the shotgun aside and picked Krass up in one hand by his belt.”

“Listen carefully and be wise little man and don’t go for a gun.” Eon stated with a bright smile as she looked up at the scientist. “I want to know who changed me into a girl. Why they did it and what in the Seven Hells of Curyic you thought to gain from it.”

She smiled like a cat with a mouse at Krass, “ By the way for a lamebrain like Krass, I want you folks to understand that this is NOT an attack. It is a method to insure that I have your undivided attention and that you won’t suddenly decide to get yourself hurt by running off before I get some answers. You see Krass your big mouth comments a few minutes ago made it very clear that if there is no leadership, then I can take up any personal arguments with you, Ronilion and the cowardly Doctor Patterson right where I left off before all the wind started.”

“ Now all of you start talking or I’m going to have some cheerleader practice and start spinning Mr. Krass like an airplane propeller! You see I warned you, Ronilion, when I came in that I would like to know what you intend to do about this and I warned you specifically that if you didn’t handle this that I would in my own way. So if you don’t want me to test Krass’s air potential as a propeller I suggest I get some answers soon.” Eon giggled slightly at the look of shock on all their faces. “You either have a leader or you don’t and either way I will get what I want this time boys.”

Krass looked irritated and disgusted. “Again with the threats. How STUPID can you get? Let me spell it out for you yet again, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY SURGERY!! Put me down NOW!” He looked at Ronilion and Drassel, “I want a lawyer! Don’t just stand there you idiots, do something! Remind the airhead Bimbo that the DOCTOR did it. I wasn’t even in the building when it all started.”

He glared at Eon as she slowly started to rotate him. “Why don’t you just fragging ask the aliens?” He screamed at her red faced. “After all they must know what really happened if they knew that Drassel hadn’t killed me even when even Drassel didn’t know it himself. I’m INNOCENT and you are going to be SO sued!” Eon looked unconvinced and started to spin Krass a little faster.

“You know in one way you’re right, a threat is no good unless you intend to back it up. If I really put my mind to it,” she remarked brightly, “I’ll bet I could make you a blur without your head even once touching the ground. The really big scientific question you need to answer though is which way will you spin when I do finally let go? You do seem to be picking up speed at an alarming rate. I must be stronger and faster than I suspect.” Krass was now a blur of colors as the small girl spun him nonchalantly with one hand. She didn’t appear to be stressed at all. “I’ll bet I could handle high gravity planets real well now.” Eon remarked thoughtfully.

“Isn’t that nice? The Doctors DID tell me I had to practice my hand and eye coordination to insure that I don’t hurt things.” She continued to look thoughtful, “Well no time like the present to get in my FIRST practice, huh Ronilion? Don’t worry when I’m done with Krass you’re next. You see your name appears on the documents authorizing this as well.”

Krass glared blearily and angrily at Eon. “So now you do side shows? Why don’t you just stick to being a female impersonator? If I throw a stick will you leave?”

Drassel laughed amused at Krass’s dilemma and being careful not to end up in the same situation himself spoke to the spinning scientist, “Krass all your going to do is make her more likely to do you in. Why don’t you just tell her what she wants to know?”

Krass now nothing but a blur yelled back, “I DID tell her bumpkin! Do you have any other crybaby, whiny assed opinions that might help? If she isn’t going to believe me then the aliens must not have removed her anal probe that looks and sounds suspiciously like you! I’m going to barf!”

In seconds a trail of vomit flew in a giant circle splashing Ronilion, Drassel, and Eon as well as the alien. The furnishings looked pretty bad and the room stank. Eon in a disgusted reaction let go and Krass spun into a long couch knocking it over. He lay retching and dizzy on the overturned furniture adding to its ruin. Eon in revulsion tried to brush off the mess. “I hope this is washable, if not I’m going to need to take a trip to the mall. When you play with a skunk I guess you shouldn’t worry about the stink.” She reached out with surprising speed and snagged the stunned Ronilion’s arm. “Now how about we see what kind of answers you have for me.”

Krass continued to mumble dire threats and insults on the floor while still on the other side of the couch and Eon, irritated, glared in his direction. “How can anyone still keep talking while their puking and dizzy?” She groused at the rest of the crew.

“That’s nothing new,” stated Drassel seriously, “I think Krass would be still talking even if he lost his head. They say the same thing happened to Rasputin when they chopped off his head, he mumbled for sometime afterward. Although it wasn’t reported what he was actually saying at the time.”

From the other side of the couch Krass looked up and stared pointedly at Eon’s chest, “It’s a dead heat in the Zeppelin Race today.” He then ducked back down as Eon looked confused and then shocked as she realized what Krass was referring to. Her face slowly turned red.

Drassel moved his head in negation, “No Krass, I don’t think Rasputin said that, they didn’t have Zeppelin’s in his day.” Eon glared at the still sick and dizzy Krass, “You know I would give him such a slap if he wasn’t so covered in his own DREK!”

Chapter 32: " I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault." Eon stated to the aliens as she spun Krass. “You say psycho like it’s a BAD thing.”

Ronilion wasted no time as his arm was grabbed by the diminutive looking teenager. She might look small and soft but the grip on his arm was like a vice and as Krass continued to antagonize her it was getting painful. He looked at the alien and spoke rapidly. “I have some questions and I need honest answers. Why did Doc ‘change’ Eon? Why did you aliens allow it? I know I didn’t sign anything, unlike Drassel so why was my signature on the documents?”

The alien nodded looking in some concern at the mess, “We do not know why the Doctor changed Eon; you will have to ask him. We can tell you what we suspect is the reasons from observing your species but we are uncomfortable with this. It would be like having you describe the reasons and goals of our species. I suspect you know better than we why the Doctor did what he did.”

“Neither did we allow it. You people entered an alien facility that was programmed to respond to wishes and fantasies. The Doctor wanted to change Eon! It was his fantasy. The machines saw no harm in this from our point of view. We were not awakened at that point and could not correct the problem. The Doctor in his fantasy used many of our theoretical techniques not realizing that he was at the cutting edge of our science. By the time we realized the mistake it was too late to correct it. We ourselves never envisioned an intelligent race would or could act in this fashion with our science or equipment.”

“Krass's, Eon's and your signature were on the documents because the Doctor fantasized it to be so. The machines pulled your signatures out of your computers as well as the medical forms and produced them at need. I also queried the machines on this when I became aware of it because they are not supposed to allow anyone to be harmed by another’s fantasies. Eon in his and your minds view was harmed. In our opinion he was improved but not harmed. However, even such improvements were dangerously close to tripping the machines alarms against harm. So it deep scanned Eon to try to discover his actual preference.”

Luddington spoke on his comm. unit glad that he had decided early to maintain a safer distance from the others. "Wait a minute now, your telling me Eon really wanted to be a girl?"

The alien replied quietly, "Of course not, Mr. Luddington. However, you people have more than one mind and preferences in you. Eon's conscious mind showed he wanted to be male but it was more an acceptance of a fact that he couldn't change than any sign of a true preference. In his unconscious mind like all of you people, you seem to fantasize what it would be like to be of a different sexual makeup as long as you are pretty enough and unique enough. We pulled Eon’s design from his own subconscious. Basically we turned Eon into the type of woman, at least physically, that he would prefer.”

“The Doctor had planned to induce a pregnancy so we let him believe he had done so using genetic seed from the Priest as he requested. While he though he was successful in this, we could not allow it to actually take place. A clone was substituted at the correct point in the procedure. In a fantasy it is what the user believes that is important in the fantasy and not the actual outcome. There are rules against harming another sentient built into the system. Eon has the right to pick her own mate, not to be raped. In Eon’s mind was found no desire to be a parent.” The priest’s gasp was audible over the communicator, he had obviously not been aware of that and Eon looked grim. Ronilion winced as she tightened her grasp on his arm for a few moments.

“Due to the drugs that Mr. Krass had administered Eon's unconscious mind was stronger than his conscious one at the time. The machine misread his, to it; alien thought patterns and decided he truly did want to be a girl. However, like most of your species, you desire power, so the Doctor was permitted to watch and observe the modifications that were made up to a point.”

“The theoretical science involved so taxed the machines capacities that I was recalled from my hibernation to assist it. That was why I was available when your Captain finally asked to see a manager. We are sorry at Eon's distress of course and we accept some responsibility for his state so we have e given him some leeway in his demands and have not interfered in his purposes."

Krass was slowly climbing to his feet unsteadily and looking pale. He used a curtain to wipe himself off with some distaste. “So I get the impressions that the people you cloned are not considered people? That must be some technology, instant slaves.”

Eon looked in rage at Krass. “Think again. If you think I'm going to let you rip their technology off so you can turn people into slaves to satisfy your greed. I'll make sure that will never happen. One of my duties as an explorer is to preserve the culture and technology that I find.”

Krass shouted back “Preserve it? You stupid, ignorant, unbelievingly dim-witted moron!!! WE GAVE THEM THE SCHEMATICS FOR THE NUCLEAR REACTOR. It is only fair that they return something for what they have gained from us. We have rescued their whole civilization. I don’t think it is to far out of line to want some type of compensation.”

Eon thought for a moment, “Funny isn't it when they believe in all that morality stuff huh? Why not let the aliens try and answer that. But doing what they did doesn't make it right fool. So suck up your greed.” She finished with a predatory grin.”

Luddington still on the comm. and safely out of reach interjected, "Uh, Technically we didn't give it to them either. That would seemingly make them obligated in some way to pay us the true worth of it. You might have hit upon an actual negotiation point here."

Krass nodded rubbing his hands in glee. “The approximate value of a tried, tested, and true alternate power source. I'd say it has substantial value to their civilization. We'll have to determine what we feel it to be worth and what we might simply wish to take in trade for it.”

Luddington spoke sharply, as wary as Eon had been, "Before you go getting all 'Happy" about this Mr. Greed, we didn't invent the power plant and the patents are owned and licensed by another company. Bear in mind if we 'sell' it to the aliens the lawsuits on this will be horrific when the company that does own it finds out! Now you can argue Earth law does not apply here but we have to return to Earth sooner or later.”

The others could almost hear the hesitation in his voice, but it once again got stronger as he proceeded with his thought. “Besides I have considered this whole issue while we have been talking and I suspect the aliens own a piece of the company that probably invented this power plant and much of the technology we currently use.”

The others looked shocked as the Priest continued more forcefully. “ They didn't steal it since they are most likely part owners in it by our rules although it may not be by theirs. THINK KRASS! You know all the angles so put the facts together. There scout force encountered Earth much earlier and I SUSPECT they have been introducing technology that way through their scout force. Who knows how pervasive in our culture they have become." He looked sharply at Ronilion.

"Now do you begin to understand how serious this is? Especially given what has happened to Eon. The planet here could and probably would have contacted the scout force when it was revived. The scouts on Earth are undoubtedly aware of what is happening here. I am curious about what steps the aliens will take in response because we already KNOW normal Earthmen will see this as a threat and will respond accordingly! So will all of you stop whining and tell me how we can avoid the obvious consequences of this?"

Drassel as usual hesitated not at all. “OK. So ‘Alien’ how will they react? You have people on the ground and in position. What is happening there that will harm us and/or our planet?”

Luddington replied with some exasperation. "MR DRASSEL! You have all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop! Stop and consider, please! The aliens will not 'react' at all in the way you think. You and Eon have to stop subscribing to the idea that they have human motives. NOW IF you had the ability to make human clones and you could teach and program them and then put them on the planet as leaders and guides, how and what would you do with it?” Luddington continued, as he was puzzling out the idea as well.

“They would have to be capable of having an EARTH viewpoint. Correct? They also have enough ability to react to the aliens but they will be more Earthlike than alien like. I suspect guys who we considered odd back in the 90’s like Bill Gates or Janet and Michael Jackson or George Busch or the Clintons were actually part of the aliens scout force. Now the aliens have no vested interest in us and they will eventually just go away but what will the scout's do? They could be the real danger. You know it might explain a lot of the peace movement and the rise of liberalism in our culture. The aliens could have been trying to make us more like them."

Drassel broke in again. “You misheard my question. I wasn't asking what the alien plants would do. I was asking what Earth Authorities (as in our bosses) are doing. They have people in place and I am sure they have updated intelligence. Also since it would be in their interest what (if anything) are there plants doing?”

Luddington sighed in exasperation as he tried to continue his thought but lost it. "Your as bad as Eon. Look if you were the Earth authorities what would you do?” He went back to trying to remember where his train of thought had been going.

“Kill everything that was remotely a threat and then ask questions Krass spoke and then suddenly seemed to grasp reality and stood up straighter. He glared at the alien in sudden fury. “So what you are saying is that you KNEW I had no part in ITS "changes" and yet just stood there and watched as IT attacked me for my supposed part in them!

The Alien looked at Krass with some confusion. "Of course we knew Mr. Krass. However we find you people very strange. Everything we have observed in your culture seems to say that this is normal behavior for your people. We are reluctant to interfere in your social interactions since it is distasteful to us." He looked even more confused and alarmed, "Why are you in danger? We do not think that Eon intends to maim or kill you but we could be wrong. Have no fear though we will not allow you to be maimed or hurt."

Luddington had been talking quietly to Eon over the comm. and obviously overheard Krass and the alien as well. He suddenly interrupted the conversation as if to prove a point. "By maimed or hurt what do you mean?"

The Alien looked even more confused if that was possible. "Why that there will not be any permanent harm to Mr. Krass. We can either repair the damage or give him a new body like Eon of course. We have Mr. Krass's brain patterns on file and it seems to be a fairly simple process now that Eon has proven the science does work."

Ludington laughed to Eon. "See what I mean Eon. There view does not take into account pain or suffering. To them it is enough that they can just put things back together. You keep thinking that a word stands for a hard and fast concept. That is NOT the case. These are aliens. I suspect they do not feel pain the way we feel it."

“If they feel it at all.” Stated Drassel to them both.

Eon laughed. “I don’t subscribe to your view Priest. The aliens have had a long time to make clones, have a scout force and are talking to us. I believe they understand perfectly well what we mean and what we say. I think they stubbornly and stupidly fail to acknowledge any viewpoint but their own so that they don’t have to do anything with us. However, if that is the view they take then that is all to the good for me because it means I can take my revenge on all of you scumbags for messing with me ever since we landed.”

Krass returned his glare to Eon. “Revenge for what imbecile? For defending myself? I thought Drassel was the incarnation of stupid, but I see I was wrong. You are the Deity of Stupid that all idiots bow before. The very definition of stupid was written to perfectly match you, and yet does not even begin to truly describe just how outrageously stupid you really are. You are so overwhelmingly stupid that you actually exude a tangible aura of pure, untainted, stupidity! Well let me put it simply. Eon Gunray IS NOT ACTING normally. We have codes of conduct that dictate behavior towards each other. Eon has broken them several times, making him a criminal by our laws.”

“Unfortunately we have not the means to restrain IT safely without the possibility of either being harmed by IT, or harming IT. Eon threatens to damage the bodies of those around IT, and by picking me up was proving that IT was ready and willing to do me bodily harm. The fact that any damage can be fixed does not negate the fact that IT did the damage or was prepared to do the damage. IT is a renegade acting in a very hostile and aggressive manner. Likely the changes IT has gone through and recent events being as unusual as they are have caused some mental breakdown. IT is unstable and potentially very dangerous. I need to go get cleaned up if the THING that looks like a Bimbo and acts like Godzilla will let me.” He started staggering towards the door. He stopped though as Eon stepped in his path with a murderess look on her face. It was obvious that no one would be leaving.

Eon glared back and released Ronilion’s arm that had been going numb. “Stop calling me IT you baboon! I am a human being not a thing. I remind you that it was a code of conduct which you broke first fool. You can try to sleaze bag any way you want, but you aren’t going to get anything out of IT though unless you start treating me like a person and show a little respect and dignity!”

Ronilion now free stepped slowly backward and spoke rubbing his arm. "Something they taught in command school, Eon, is that you should never give an order you know will be ignored. I must admit though you have yet to ask me the questions that you said you were going to ask. Do you still have them or have they all been answered to your satisfaction?”

Chapter 33: “Hello...Welcome to Doctor Patterson’s Office: If you are like Eon, paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call. If you are anal-retentive like Krass, please hold.”

The doctor had spent the last several hours watching and listening to the arguments going on. The alien facility had been very nice in setting up things to allow him to monitor his crewmates. The trick in dealing with this facility was not to do things that would trip the alarms that violated it’s programming. The Priest had figured that part out and it was the most useful thing the God Speaker had done all the while he had been here. When Eon had called for him he had gone and good riddance. He was always arguing about the morality of his work.

It had been nice to know that the work done on Eon had been successful beyond his wildest dreams but too bad the pregnancy had not gone through. He had been spending his time seeing the clone not realizing till now that it had been substituted for the real one. Still he had learned a lot about the cloning tech and he had Ronilion to thank for that and so did Gunray although neither knew it yet. The fact that Eon had been re-cloned into a female version of himself had been on the orders of the Captain!

The doctor activated his pocket computer where he had recorded it. He listened and watched the playback he had filmed so carefully. It showed the area where the Doctor was setting up a refueling station. {Ronilion started to turn to walk away from the red faced Doctor and them stopped. “While you’re at it read up on cloning in your spare time, it would be nice to have fresh cloned beef and chicken as well from the meat cultures we brought.” Ronilion smiled, turned and walked away singing a Michael Jackson tune, horribly.}

The Doctor laughed. So the jumped up suit had wanted him to learn cloning? Well he had learned more than the idiot had bargained for and how could he resist when such a subject as Eon had presented itself especially after the fool had threatened him with a shotgun? The doctor though had been smart as well. Did Eon really think the Doctor would not have set up protections so that Eon could not attack him?

Eon could have as much fun with Krass and Ronilion as she wanted. It would be a totally different story if she tried those things on him. He had built several fail-safes into her the same way the aliens had done to their scout clones. Today was payback day for Krass, Ronilion and Eon all at once. He had hoped to bag the Priest too just for being such a righteous, jumped up, holy-rolling twit but somehow the butt -lunch had escaped his joke. It would have been SO FUNNY to see the pair married.

The doctor turned off the communications unit. While it had been fun to listen in and see Krass spinning, he still had several things going in the lab. It was really great to be the head of a large medical research facility and not have to worry about the day-to-day operations. That meant he could look in on the alien clones all doing scientific and medical research. Already they had pushed the envelope on the alien technology and they were doing things here that the aliens had never envisioned. He had even made his own clones as a staff. With the education machines he had made them super smart. Given a year of uninterrupted work he could have the science so far in advance of what the aliens had done that he would be GOD and the Priest could kiss HIS ass! Make note to self, clone the Priest so he could have him kiss my ass. The doctor smiled.

He had laughed silently when Eon and Ronilion had ordered him back to the ship. He wasn’t going and he wasn’t even going to reply to those twits. They could have that worthless piece of technology if they wanted it. He was going to stay here and continue his work. He suspected the aliens would let him as well. He and the Priest had learned a lot about how the aliens thought. As long as he was happy, and didn’t use his experiments to be harmful they would have no objection to letting him add to their science and knowledge. This week he was even designing alien symbiotes to work with his human staff. The knowledge could be invaluable when the aliens encountered other civilizations.

It didn’t hurt that he had unlimited company here in any variety he wished and was treated like a king. He could live forever by making himself new bodies or even transplanted organs. What could anyone else offer that he couldn’t get here? The best part was he had used some of the DNA from the others and could make an ARMY of Krass’s or Eon’s or Ronilion’s without the personality flaws and have all of them willing to follow his every word! He could even clone new and younger versions of himself!

To Hell with the Priest and his heaven, he was going to make his own. The best part was that he could mix and match the genes and create new patterns and whole new personalities of people. What could God do that he couldn’t? Build a world? Hah, given enough clones and research he could do that too. He laughed at an old movie he had seen about a surgeon, “Do I think I’m God? Hell! I AM GOD!” The priest had found God and didn’t even recognize him. Patterson laughed at the irony.

Chapter 34: Krass spoke to Ronilion, “If ass holes could fly this place would be an airport!”

“You ask if I am satisfied and have asked the questions I need to ask. The answer is a resounding NO!” Eon stated in some disgust. “You seem to feel that just because I have what seems to be the answers that everything is all cozy and comfy again. Well that is a steaming pile of DREK that stands taller than KRASS. The questions I asked are just the preliminaries and I repeat NO ONE is leaving here until I am satisfied with the outcome.”

Eon moved barring the door. Even though the room stank it was obvious that she was not going to relent. “Let me spell it out for you Dumb and Dumber! She looked at Ronilion and then Krass. “Either we work together under Ronilion or MY Command or no one's leaving. I have had more than enough of the stupidity and unorganized egotistical pranks to last a lifetime. Considering that I may have to go through the rest of my life looking like a sailor’s dream come true, I don’t think that my attitude is either insane or inappropriate. Let us say that I don’t want anyone else going through the same fate. Now how unreasonable is that?”

Eon looked at each of them steadily as she crossed her arms, “My goal has been the same as before when I set out to do what needed to be done, but no one seems willing to cooperate. My mandate has been to explore this civilization and understand it to the best of my abilities while preserving it from contamination as best I can. As it is, considering what the Doctor and you people have done, that may be impossible now so I strive to limit the damage by getting you all out of here!”

Ronilion was still rubbing his sore arm, “A noble goal. Although based upon current evidence I don't think we have to worry much about contaminating them since they have already discovered, investigated, and infiltrated our planet. Your goal sounds almost directly related to Ludington's goal. Why don't you and he work together to accomplish this goal faster and leave the theology discussions for later? Whether or not God has anything to do with it can be decided personally after the facts are gathered instead of before you have even looked for the data.”

Eon glared at Ronilion, “Do you really think I am that stupid that I will let you distract me again? That will not change my situation one iota! You guys walk out this door and it goes back to people getting messed over as normal with NO ONE RESPONSIBLE for anything! Get it through your thick heads that I am not going to let that happen! You think I didn't want to get on with the job? Given the fact that Lud and Krass here have been trying to pin the "insane" book on me, there isn't anyone here that is willing to cooperate for this "noble" goal you speak of except for me. Now unless something changes in the viewpoints of you people, I may well have to do this alone.” She finished ominously.

Luddington immediately raised an objection as well. "Ronilion, if you are going to force me to work with her, what protection do you offer me? I don't think that is an outrageous question to ask at this stage of the game. Eon, your methods of gaining 'cooperation' seem to resemble the tactics used by the Egyptian Pharaohs. Since you don't see me as any kind of crewmate but as a slave you will have to excuse the fact that I am wary of working with you despite your stated intentions. While I deeply sympathize with what has happened and I will also have some pointed questions for the Doctor about his ‘Planned Parenthood’ campaign I still have serious doubts that you should be in the leadership role."

Eon laughed scornfully, “I don't see you as a slave. I see you as a burden. Now unless you are willing to cooperate, we can't team up to work together. I'll stop
pounding your ideology as long you stop pounding upon my actions as irrational.”

“Eon, you will not like this statement but do try to keep yourself calm,” said Ronilion. “EVERYONE has thought your actions irrational, not just Ludington. The Alien, Krass, Drassel, the Doctor and even I have stated I believed you were acting out of the normal. You have calmed down slightly for now in that fact that you are not physically bullying anyone but we have seen you calm before. Ludington is well within his rights to ask for assurances that he will not wind up in a similar predicament since it has been proven with Krass that you can be violent and it has been proven with the Doctor that not everything will turn out, as we would expect. I am not saying that you do not have reasons for your behavior; however, you should bear in mind that your actions have made others wary.”

Eon looked at Ronilion. “My actions have made others wary. The same could be said from my side of the fence. All of you people with your actions have made ME wary. Let me spell out a few things for you that might just place this in perspective. The Doctor has an oath to his patients. He violated that oath with me. That means that with my DNA samples he can pretty much create as many of me as he wishes. Does no one else see the danger there? He obviously has Luddington’s sample as well as his own. Well priest? Does that start to alarm you? If not it should!”

“I’m still waiting for an apology. I mean I was assaulted for no reason. I was and still am innocent of any involvement or wrong doing in your situation and yet I was accosted and attacked for it. Is a simple, ‘I’m Sorry.’ To much to ask?” Krass stated

“If it is because of that that you are not willing to resolve this current issue that can be easily fixed. I'm sorry that I had to initiate such actions so that you will finally come to your senses and cooperate. Next time perhaps I should just tranquilize you with your own needles to get your undivided attention?” She grinned at Krass who grumbled and then Eon looked at them all. “The Doctor entered this facility against my direct orders. He has proven that his oaths mean nothing! He has proven access to the alien science. Who is more a danger at this point, he or I?”

“Now many of you seem to feel the aliens will not let the Doctor get into trouble but we have all seen that they do make mistakes, they are relatively fragging innocent of lies or guile and they don’t understand us worth DREK! Do you really think they are competent in controlling any of us? I don’t and if you think about it none of you should either! Right now any of us can walk out this door and grab huge amounts of the aliens science and no one could stop any of us from using it. Even the aliens will NOT stop us. By disobeying my orders, the orders of the person most competent to deal with this you have brought us to this situation and I will NOT let you walk out on this fragging mess now!”

“So I suggest you idiots put your collective genius to work on fixing this problem instead of constantly ignoring or trying to weasel out because you are not going to get out of here without a BIG ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT!” Eon slammed a diminutive fist into a heavy oak end table and it shattered completely. She didn’t even wince. She smiled prettily and curtsied, “My apologies for showing my ‘annoyed’ side for those who need apologies!”

Chapter 35: The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Krass angrily shook his fist, from a safe distance across the room. “Look I’ll accept Ronilion as Captain and will obey his orders just so I can get out of this room from Schwartzenbimbo! On the other stuff it has nothing to do with me. I'm not a doctor, nor do I know a whole lot about cloning or sex changes. I can't help him. He can try anything he wants, I have no part in his little story with which to share. I have nothing to do with his present situation, nor can I help to reverse it. What will I guarantee? Not to stare at her breasts? To put the toilet seat down after I piss? Holding me does absolutely NO good, and I really would like to get to work, and I do have the captain's blessing to do just that.”

“I'm going to find some star charts, this is what the Captain suggested,
and it was one of my goals. Do you see a problem with looking at star charts?
I mean, really, we could map them ourselves; it would just take us 100 times
longer. This way we can find other likely sites for future expeditions so
we can leave the alien planet and not have to worry about our careers
being over.”

“Nice stuff. That is something we can carryout later after the current issue is resolved.” Stated Eon bluntly. “However your escaping does not change my problem Krass. My problem must be solved or no matter how much you protest or complain or cry, you will sit right here in your pile of stench until it is. You have heard the saying, ‘My way or the Hi-way?’ Well in this case it’s my way or else.”

Krass was getting more furious by the moment.“ WHAT CURRENT ISSUES YOU IMBECILE? We've already established that I am not involved in the "current issue"; I have nothing to contribute to this whole stupid mess. And, understandably, I have no desire to be around YOU long enough for you to get into another violent mood. I have work to do, work that I can actually do something about, all you are doing is wasting my time.”

Eon looked calmly at the widely gesturing, red-faced Krass and spoke calmly, “Calm down. The current issue involved is to have everyone working towards the same goal. Have we all agreed to work together yet? Have we all found some way that no one will back out on his word at the first convenience? The answers to these two questions are still no. So the faster you guys can answer them the faster we can get to work.

Luddington chuckled over the communicator. “"Despite the fact that she is insane and a danger to everyone I do have to agree with her in that much. Unless she accepts someone else to be in charge you guys are not going anywhere! Boy am I glad I got out before she slammed the door on me! Well, while I have said she is insane, only Krass has said she is STUPID! Which makes me wonder about Krass's intellect because he was caught by what he terms to be an idiot. What does that say about your intellect Devlin?” Krass spat on the floor.

“As for do I agree that Ronilion should be in charge? Not really. He did seem to set Eon up twice before and I don't see him as being able to keep her side of any bargain without charging it to our freedom of action. Let's face it folks, the only thing that will satisfy Eon is if we all stay together, ALL the time, where she can reach out and apply 'proactive' punishment at any time we seem to cross her boundaries.”

“Do I want to take that chance with someone I consider insane since I am now out of her immediate reach? Not Likely! The Doctor may be in a more precarious position than I in this instance. I also suspect Mr. Krass will NEVER agree to such terms even if he says he will. I see a major impasse here. By the way if anyone is counting on the aliens to police us, forget it because it will never happen."

Krass looking stubborn spoke quickly, “You're right, I'd never agree to having someone breathing down my neck, especially Mega-Boobs over there, and watching my every move. But I do agree that Ronnilion is in charge, although he needs to tread carefully, and I will agree to work on agreed upon projects.”

The priest laughed in amusement, "C’mon Krass you know that won't be enough because no one will be monitoring you. What you say and what you might do could be two different things and you should at least be able to credit Eon with that much intellect. Now a different way to see that is since she distrusts Krass the most why don't you partner up with her? Ronilion can partner with the Doc and I'll take Drassel with me. This way if she trusts Ronilion enough the Doctor is watched. She can watch you and she is obviously not interested in Drassel or I as a problem. While she will be watching over your shoulder constantly isn’t that a small price to pay to get out of here?"

Luddington suddenly spoke seriously. "Eon, lets get to the heart of the problem shall we? What you want is for us to elect a leader and follow that leader until we get back to Earth. That is not a problem. The big problem is you want assurances that we will keep our word after we do this. We COULD give you our word but you will have every reason to believe we are lying and we would have every right to lie having been coerced by you into doing this. Given this set of facts there is no way we can meet your second demand even if we were so inclined to do so because you will never believe us anyway.”

“Now I have suggested two methods so far, both which have serious drawbacks. One we all travel as a group and do everything together and by mutual agreement. That would not put us right back in deadlock almost constantly. Or we arrange the partnerships in the best way to eliminate the possibility of stupidity but given the situation with the Doctor not responding and some of us not wanting to get near you at all I doubt this will work. The last and least likely way is for you to hold something that each person prizes highly and if they default on the recorded contract then the item is yours. For instance Mr. Krass could set it up so that you will own his ship if he violates his word! That might act as a deterrent if the item is valued enough. That means they would not risk its loss to you lightly.”

“Baring those three ideas in mind, if you find all of them unacceptable, can you change your demand to something we have some hope of meeting? I will tell you now if you keep insisting on this trust issue you will all most likely never come out of that room. Now I am sure we will make any reasonable attempt to placate you Eon but it is obvious that so far no one finds you the least bit reasonable."

Eon looked thoughtful. “Now that sounds fair. That way Krass won't have me watching his back. But what's to keep me in check so that you guys are willing to give me these possessions?”

Ronilion spoke up quickly, “Good job Luddington.” He turned to Eon, “That’s easy to answer. If you go nuts with our items, we don't help you with your little return to Earth problem. In essence we hang you out to dry and you get sliced into wafer thin sections.” Ronilion smiled.

Eon smiled back and nodded. "Sounds reasonable to me. OK Captain I agree. Where do we go from here?"

Chapter 36: The Ten Commandments display was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court building. There was a good reason for the move. You can't post: Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery or Thou Shall Not Lie in a building full of Lawyers and Politicians.

Just when it looked like things had been settled Krass spoke up again. “Whoa! Hold on one little minute their Mr. Dumbass Priest. NO ONE messes with my ship; it's my home, lab, and ride. I've agreed to everything so far, but this is a little much. I've agreed to work under Ronnilion and with Drassel. I've agreed to let Ronnilion monitor me and to make regular reports to him. I think this should be sufficient. Now if you're talking about drawing up a contract where if I default my ship is his, then so be it, but NO ONE is touching my ship and I will oversee the wording of the contract word for word!”

Luddington let out a huge sigh of impatience. "Then do like the rest of us. Go work it out with Eon and stop being an ass! You are the one that said he wanted out so bad. I made a sacrifice to get you out. I didn't have to, and I even found a way through the impasse. If you chose not to accept it then you can stay locked in that room with your stench and let Eon bounce you off some more walls until you see reason or figure another way out. In the meantime I have put up my bond, privately, with Eon and I will now proceed on my business. Ronilion is in the process of putting up his BOND. Drassel has made an offer on his bond but the two most dishonest ones, Doc and you still need to put up one that Eon finds acceptable. You two are the ones Eon is most concerned with on trust issues. So put up or you have proven that Eon is correct in her view of you."

Krass though spoke again with a sly look on his face. “How about he/she doesn't touch our stuff unless we default on our word? If IT defaults on ITS word or touches our stuff prematurely then we make sure she never leaves this planet period?”

Luddington spoke almost out of patience. "Considering the ALTERNATIVES Mr. Greedy Krass, I think I will be willing to trust Eon with my item in return for not being turned into an aerodynamic application of some type. Now maybe you want to continue to tempt fate and risk the chance of becoming a trash compacted item but I DO NOT! Trust has to begin somewhere, and considering the state Eon finds her self in, I’m willing to extend an olive branch in good faith to prove my words true. If you continue to hedge and weasel you only prove you are planning to run at the first opportunity. Now put up your ship or continue to argue where no one will believe you. Then we shall see how you end up. In the meantime I am going to continue my job."

Krass looked cunningly at Drassel. “Well I'll gladly put up my shipmate as collateral. He's bland, lackluster, and a little on the faulty side, but I'm told he's worth something. Haven't figured out what yet, but SOMETHING.” Krass glared at Eon, “How about I put up my lab equipment? It's the best one can get without being rich, and all together it's worth more than most people make in years. It's impossible to replace on short notice, and without it I'd be unable to do much of anything.” The others continued to wait staring at Krass. He finally bowed to the pressure.

“FINE! I'll put up my damn ship. But if that half-witted, inbred, troglodyte bimbo sets ONE FOOT on my ship without having a DAMN GOOD REASON I will personally rip out her intestines and cram them down YOUR throat!” Eon smiled, “Oh I’m so scared. Keep talking like that cheese head and I’ll be giving you more Air Miles! Why so touchy? You have something in there that you don’t want to be seen? What is it that you're hiding deceptive one?” She looked at Krass pointedly.

Krass glared at Eon. “I never get the benefit of the doubt despite the fact that I have not done anything to ANYONE! Am I hiding something? Yeah, your big fat mother is in my cabin just waiting for daddy to come home and give her the bacon. Maybe I don't want you imbecile's to mess with things you don't understand, or imagine this, screw things up just to spite me.”

Ronilion looked at them both and glared. “Do you two find it necessary to continually yell at one another? BOTH of you stop it and TRY to remember that you both agreed to obey my orders. Now, are we agreed on current issues? Then I suggest the first thing we do is go and get cleaned up.” The others said nothing more and left the room leaving only the bemused alien behind. Unnoticed to them it slumped like a puppet in the chair and all intelligence left its eyes.

Chapter 37: Alien voice from a speaker, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” Jack looked confused, “Well, I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it.”

Jack and his remaining crew had again taken several days to examine the strange item from a distance. Again they had learned nothing that they did not know previously. Soon food and water supplies would become a problem. “I think we are missing a clue.” Jack stated with some thought. “Perhaps we need to approach the problem from a different view.”

Thirst-Quencher looked dubious, “What other viewpoint can there be? There is certainly not much to work with. We have three moons, all identical. We intercepted a lot of messages between them but none were meant for us. We landed an incompetent and rash explorer that has vanished without a trace. We tracked him to this building, which appears to be the only object that would interest the fool. We have found no sign that he was ever in here. It seems we can add little more to this. Perhaps he was eaten by wild animals that left no trace.”

Nutritious shook her head in negation. “I have found no animals that would be interested in our alien flesh. We have chosen to try to guess at the behavior of the explorer and recreate what he would have done. His last entry says he intended to enter and explore this building. He never returned. We saw no signs of his equipment. What could be likely is he might have been captured intact. However, why has no one tried to get us as well?”

Jack looked thoughtfully at the two crewmen, “None of the scenarios we can imagine seems to encompass the situation. Let us go back as Thirst-Quencher says and review. The first thing we noticed were the signals going between the three identical moons. We chose this site for the explorer because the signals were strong in this area. Have we tried to find the signals here?”

Nutritious nodded in agreement. “Yes the signals seemed to radiate from this building. The signals appear to be much like the Machine that Thinks. It is my guess they are automated and they seem at times to be highly repetitive. We have still been unable to decipher them. Once we entered the building the signals seem to cease. Either the building is blocking the signals or they have turned off at our entrance. I have been unable to tell which, as we have not the means in the interior to test the theory. I have also lost the signals of the beacons. This happened just this morning. None of the beacons signals can be picked up.”

Jack looked uncomfortable. “Time has become even more of an enemy. The beacons have gone silent. We are low on essential supplies and we still have discovered nothing we can use or understand. It seems we have little choice, we must leave and return to the camp.”

Thirst-Quencher smiled, “Excellent. I shall begin to pack up. I was getting impatient with this place. It will be good to see the sun and to feel a breeze on my skin once again.” Nutritious though looked uncomfortable, “What of the explorer? We have not really examined anything in depth either. While we have scanned things at a distance this only yields limited information. Do we intend to return later or are you declaring this a wasted mission?”

Jack looked at the other crew. “This mission is finished and I suspect has been a complete waste of time. I had a bad feeling about it right from the start. Not every mission is a success and we will go back and prepare for a new mission. The leaders may decide to send a follow up team here but I doubt it. We have little time to waste on things that do not pay off quickly with something useful. Be grateful we have survived.” The crew packed up without argument and left. For them the mission was over.

Chapter 38: “Krass? He never opens his mouth without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." Stated Drassel while looking at the other scientist.”

Krass turned off the viewer and was glad he had sent a clone down to the meeting. The clone could agree to anything it wanted but he certainly was not bound by its actions. The fact that Eon had turned the clone into an airplane propeller was very instructive and Krass was a cautious man. He knew Eon would want to retaliate after he had shot the explorer. Never mind that Eon had acted like a jerk and gotten exactly what he/she or it deserved. Eon would still seek to fix the blame at whatever person was closest. So he had sent in the ‘Clones’. He snickered for a moment.

The big problem here was not so much Eon though, but the doctor. Krass had always been distrustful of that guy and the doctor had gone into a spell where he was too quiet. That meant the sleazebag was up to something and it could well get them all killed. Well Krass had come prepared and had been busy in his own way. He had set the ships autopilot up with a pre programmed course. All he had to do was activate it. He had done so. The ship would crash into the dome and would most likely blow up the alien nuclear plant as well. Krass was a careful guy.

To many people it would look like everyone had died here but Krass had located an alien ship while he had kept the others busy with his clone toys. They had been watching his carefully staged shows while he had been busy putting together a plan of action. It seemed likely that the doctor would try to use this as a base. So destroying it was paramount. He knew the aliens had used a scout force and they must have been in contact with Earth to have so easily bypassed the computer security. Given the nature of the aliens they would have made their ships pretty foolproof. Why not get samples of all their technology incorporated in their ships and destroy the dome? By the time the Earth ship hit the dome he would be on the way home in the alien vessel.

So he had set up his headquarters not in Fantasy Land but in the ship itself. It had been easy to use the Fantasy he had built to get all kinds of robots, sensors, weapons and then use them to discover, prepare and load the ship with all manner of information. To bad the others had to die but he knew next to nothing about the cloning technology and saw no reason to bring such back with him. He calmly pressed a button on the control panel that would do two things. It started the autopilot in his ship and started the launch sequence for his own craft. It was time to leave before Eon could hunt him down or the doctor got smart enough to figure it all out. The ship lifted smoothly out of the ice tunnel that had been made and quietly rose into space with no noise.

He had decided to watch from space to see if the alien dome went quiet. He would have probably warned the others like Drassel and Ronilion if he could have safely but with Eon and what he suspected was a clone of Luddington their was no way he could without alerting the doctor. It was probably better for the human race if all of them died anyway. Eon had wondered how ‘It’ could safely renter Earth society? Well the only way was for the aliens to all be destroyed and end their threat. Once destroyed the Earth forces would not need to worry further about the dangers of this race for some time. It would give the Earth time to prepare as well with the alien technology. All in all it was a win/win situation as far as Krass was concerned.

Krass watched as his old Earth ship took off and reached orbit and then started to accelerate back down towards the dome. The aliens had no machines active to prevent the crash. Sure their had been a meteor defense at one time but only the dome was functioning and it had no real defenses active to stop his ship. He watched as it crashed into the dome and as the two nuclear reactors exploded as one he watched the ice give way to heat for a short time. There would be a lake and then the bitter cold would leave no mark that the aliens had ever been there. Just two forgotten earth ships remained until the power plants ran out of fuel. He turned the alien ship and started towards Earth.