CHAPTER TWO
It was early evening by the time they reached the end of the air duct. There was a metal grating at the end that overlooked a heavily guarded spaceship hangar deck. They were near enough to the floor for Jeff to jump down, and at the moment no one was looking. The spaceships were not far from him, perhaps three hundred feet at the most. There were at least twenty aliens near them, and another thirty were moving freely about the deck. To steal a ship, he needed a plan, and quick.
He drew a deep breath, and sat there thinking for what seemed an eternity. The sweat was pouring from his forehead from the heat of the vent behind him. There were too many of them for him to charge them, so that approach was out of the question. He eyed the room carefully, but saw no way out. The only possible alternative he saw was a small, black tank on the far side of the deck, which contained some kind of concentrated gas. He turned to his friends with an idea which would be crude, but effective.
“Guys,” he whispered to them. “After I remove this metal grating, I want you to stay here until I shoot at that black oval object over there. After I do, I want you to run as fast as you can to the first ship on the right. I’ll be right behind you.”
They backed up, while Jeff got ready to kick the grating. After he kicked the grating off, he jumped down and fired his laser at the tank. The tank exploded before the aliens could fire back at him, sending a plume of flames and smoke through the deck, and killing at least half of them. The explosion knocked Jeff to the floor and Milgic and Dormiton out of the vent. They rose to their feet, dazed.
“Run to the ships!” Jeff yelled, as an alien grabbed his arm.
He punched him with his right hand in his stomach. He fell, and Jeff reached for his laser. Another guard ran towards him, only to be obliterated by the blast of the laser gun. Milgic was shot in the leg by one of the aggressors and screamed in agony, as his amphibian friend dragged him in haste into the spaceship. .Jeff followed closely behind, and there was a barrage of laser fire. The hangar deck was in flames, and half of guards tried to extinguish it.
The other half tried to stop Jeff as he ran towards the craft and jumped in, pressing the hatch door button. The inside of the craft was considerably different than his. It was hemi- spherical shape, and had many more controls. The one thing that surprised him was that everything in it was written in English as well as hieroglyphics. Jeff didn’t see any problems learning how to pilot it. The majority of the ship was set up like his own, with a helm and weapons system. There was seating for three, and a main screen area. It covered with computers, except for the rear, where the sleeping quarters and storage was. The interior was rather large, at least one hundred and ten feet in diameter. There was also a surgical area, with a table in the middle of it, where Dormiton placed his friend. As he sat at the helm, he heard their pursuers cutting through the door with their lasers. Jeff himself started to get nervous as he tried to figure out how to switch on the engines.
“Get him strapped in!” Jeff yelled to Dormiton, who began to panic.
“They’re getting in!” He yelled.
“Get him strapped in!” Jeff yelled again.
It reminded him of the incident on Pluto two years earlier. He was pretty sure now that the Tolarions were responsible for the invasion, if there was one, of the Mars base. The evidence was overwhelming.
He fired the lifter rockets, and Dormiton responded to his command, and strapped his friend to the surgical table located about thirteen feet from the helm on the left side of the ship. He strapped himself in and fired the thruster rockets as Dormiton joined him at the helm. The blast was quite powerful and the landing deck wasn’t designed to withstand the full force of them. Jeff was unsure of what type of propulsion they used, but he guessed it was at least fusion powered. The building collapsed around them and they entered a long metal tunnel that seemed endless. Jeff determined that it was constructed to pilot spacecraft down it to pick up speed the further they went through. It seemed to be straight, until they came to a slight inclination at the end. When the craft emerged from the tunnel, they were overlooking the cove and the island of Lingwort. The metal object that Dormiton had seen a few days before was nothing more than an underwater launch pad for ships.
Jeff felt sad he couldn’t save all of his friends. He knew the remaining lingworts were at the mercy of the Tolarions and there was no hope for them. There was no way he could fight their whole military, but he reasoned he could attack them at the source. It meant, however, that he would also have to kill any other prisoners as well. It was not an easy decision to make, but he knew it was for the good of this planet. He checked the scanners for enemy craft, and then circled the mountain range twice. He prepared to attack what was left of the base, as he struggled with feelings of fear, guilt, and anger. When he fired the photonic lasers, the ridge was engulfed by the explosion. There was no counter-attack, and after the smoke cleared, there wasn’t any base either. The ridge crumbled into a massive pile of rocks, with no visible life.
They traveled farther into the atmosphere, and Dormiton was marveled by the beauty of this insignificant ball that he lived upon and called “masrigia,” or home. He began to realize how small his little island was and the enormous size of the universe. They both took a moment to reflect on their loss, and the memories they permanently left behind. Their home was destroyed, and their place where they shared happiness, tranquility, joy, and fulfillment was lost.
Jeff ascended the craft towards space, and thought about how both races could have been spared. The whole battle could have been avoided if the Tolarions had just given the time to move back to their own island. That seemed unlikely, however, because they were up against a dictator who wanted to use their tiny little island for the wrong purposes.
What of Lingwort, a race that didn’t have the intelligence or technology to even defend themselves against their invaders? They were accused of crimes they didn’t commit, and if there were any survivors, they wouldn’t trust beings from the skies ever again. Their idealistic society was no longer peaceful. Jeff was saddened by this because he had grown accustomed to the quiet and solitude, and also knew they were about to face dangerous and unknown challenges.
Jeff noticed the ship moved much faster than his wreck, and within a short time, the small five planet system in which Lingwort was a part of was far behind them. As they passed through the orb cloud barrier that surrounded this system, the ship shook a little and passed through with a minimal amount of effort, and the darkness of space closed in on them. He told Dormiton to hang on while he advanced the ship to interstellar speed. In ten minutes, they were billions of miles from where they had been. He guessed that it involved either electromagnetic forces of some kind, fusion, or even antimatter propulsion to travel such a great distance in a short period of time. He couldn’t understand how the ship was shielded from meteors, comets, and radiation, but he guessed it was some kind of special process that Martians couldn’t comprehend. After he considered himself to be at a safe distance, he switched controls to auto-pilot, and the two of them went back to help their friend Milgic. Jeff looked at Milgic’s wound carefully.
“How is he?” asked Dormiton. Jeff examined him to see if his eyes were dilated or had a pulse.
“He’s got a bad burn on his left leg,” Jeff stated. “He’ll be in shock for a little while, but I think he’ll make it. Put some bandages tightly around his wound. We have to find something to cover him with.”
Dormiton reached inside a nearby compartment, pulling out a spacesuit. He handed it to the human, and he placed it over his friend. “You better put a suit on also. Find a short one, if you can.”
“He always was strong-willed,” Dormiton said, as Jeff searched for some pain medicine. He found bandages to wrap the wound, and handed them to his friend. Dormiton struggled to put the spacesuit on. They had no tails to get in the way, but it was still rather large for him.
“Now do you believe all gods are not peaceful?” Jeff lectured, as he zipped up h
is friend’s suit.
“You were right, Jeff. I should have listened to you. My people were all killed by them, and we did nothing to stop them. Why did they want to kill us? We would have shared the island with them?” He felt now that he had been too trusting of the Tolarions.
“This race is not interested in sharing. They have no respect for other races, only ideas of conquest and enslavement.”
“Why would anybody want that?”
“Power, my friend, power. My grandparents’ home planet had the same problem. That’s why it destroyed itself. We’re dealing with a very hostile race that is bent on destruction.”
“What do you mean we’re dealing with them? Didn’t you destroy their base?”
“That was only the beginning. There are probably many more of them somewhere else, and they’re going to be very angry when they find out what’s happened.”
“Didn’t you say that you’re people eventually became peaceful? Can’t we somehow find peace with these beings?”
“Yes, it’s possible, but only if this race wants peace and that is doubtful. They are a very violent race.”
Dormiton wrapped the bandages tightly around Milgic’s wound and then taped it with surgical tape. While his companion watched over his friend, Jeff walked over to the helm and checked a panel which contained the life support system controls. Much to his surprise there were only two controls; one for oxygen distribution and the other for nitrogen distribution. There were also levels for each, which meant in his mind that these Tolarions not only breathed nitrogen, but also oxygen, unless it was used for another purpose. It was currently switched to oxygen, and the level was at 18%, which surprised him because it was the same concentration as Earth’s.
“We’ve got enough oxygen to keep us going until we know where we are,” Jeff said. “I don’t know what our friends, the Tolarions, eat, but whatever it is, it’ll have to do. There must be a star charting system in the computer system to tell us where we’re going.”
Jeff stared at the assortment of computers, and knew it would be difficult to decipher some of their codes. Even if he was able to bring up the charting system, it would be impossible to understand it fully. The stars and planets probably had different names and locations that he was unfamiliar with. He turned on a small visual scanner that revealed a star chart; a lucky guess on his part. Sure enough, the stars were unfamiliar to him.
“Oh Boy,” he said. “I think we’re lost.”
“What are we going to do now,” Dormiton asked.
Jeff really had no plan of what to do next.
“I don’t know,” he stated. “I guess we’re going to have to find a planet where there’s an oxygen based atmosphere. We’ll have to stay there as long as we can. They’ll be looking for us, and when they find us, they’ll kill us. If they want us, they’ll have to catch us first. If I can somehow figure out how to alter the engines, which is a big if, I might be able to get a little more speed out them. It’ll be risky, though.”
“How risky?”
“Risky enough to blow us up into a million pieces!”
“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”
Jeff surmised the computers on the ship were highly advanced, much more than his race ever was. He knew they were controlling a propulsion system of some kind, but what kind? Ion and fusion based systems seemed to slow to be able to travel such great distances. It had to be electromagnetism or anti-matter, or perhaps even Planck technology, he just wasn’t sure. As he read across the various panels, he came across two buttons marked “dimensional transporter” and “dimensional tracker.” He consulted the main computer for a definition of the controls.
“Computer operative,” a male voice said. Jeff was surprised because his race didn’t’ yet discover how to create a voice-activated system that could run an entire starship. “Dimensional transporter is used by the Tolarion government to enable a spacecraft to be undetected by alien craft by transporting the vessel into another universe or the same universe at a different location by using antimatter and dark energy and the density of a nearby star or black hole as a catalyst to generate a wormhole."
He heard of the theory of parallel universes and wormhole travel but they were just theories and no one ever produced solid proof of their existence. It amazed him a race could even come up with such technology. He turned to Dormiton to tell him what he discovered.
“That explains it,” he said. “Why you saw lights in the sky, and why they vanished. It seems that this ship possesses a device that enables it to travel to another place, and return from that place. That’s why they appeared invisible.”
“You mean it’s there, but you can’t see it?” surmised Dormiton.
“Something like that,” Jeff said to simplify. “The enemy will probably be looking for us after they’ve found out I’ve destroyed their base. I’m pretty sure that your planet is not their home planet. We can also track them, too. If one decides to tail us, we could destroy him first.”
“How?”
“They’re not going to fire first for one reason. Unless they’ve found out about the base, as far as they know, we are one of them. All we have to do is send a distress signal to them, and when they prepare to dock with us, we blow them away.”
“Just like that, huh?” His amphibian friend was a bit more skeptical. “Besides, then we’ll be in real trouble by their government. Haven’t enough died already? Why do you have to make matters worse?”
Jeff was getting a little disgusted with his pacifist attitude.
“They kill your people for no reason, they accuse them of being spies, and you want me to do nothing? I’m just giving them a little justice in return. Now, you may disagree with my ethics, but sooner or later you’ll realize that there is no peace worth keeping if your freedom is taken away!”
Dormiton remained silent for hours after that, as he watched close over his friend. What Jeff didn’t understand is why he felt no anger towards their attackers. He was becoming more defensive, but it would still be a while before he was willing to fight. Their alien counterparts were much the opposite with their militant characteristics. Either side asked the impossible. It wouldn’t only be a mistake on their part to befriend the Tolarions, but it would have been an open invitation for them to destroy what was left of the Lingwort race. Jeff couldn’t let them do that.
They ventured nine hundred billion miles since their week departure; an idea which neither of them could easily grasp. The Martian space academy had nothing that could compare with the velocity of this craft, and he was extremely impressed with its agility.
They came upon a planet, and Jeff switched the engines to sub-orbital speed. While he gazed at the helm panel, he came across a button marked investigative probe.” When he pressed it, the ship released a small probe that fired like a missile toward the planet. Digesting the computer’s data, he learned the probe analyzed gases and atmospheric conditions. It was similar to Martian or old Earth probes, but much more advanced. He watched it until it vanished from sight onto the surface of the bluish-green world.
Not more than thirty seconds had passed, and he was already receiving a multitude of information. The probe indicated that the world was 2,000,000 miles from the ship, 350,000,000 miles from its sun, and 20,000 miles in diameter. The atmosphere consisted of nitrogen, methane, carbon, and helium. The surface was mostly ice and barren rock, consisting of both active and inactive geyser activity with temperatures ranging from –250 degrees to –500 degrees. In short, it was a very cold and barren place incapable of sustaining any life as they knew it.
Before he had given up total hope, he reminded himself of the dimensional transporter. He wondered if it would be possible to scan for a planet in another dimension without traveling there. He consulted the computer for an answer.
“Computer,” he said.
“Operative,” it replied.
“Is it possible to scan for life forms in another dimension?”
“N
egative.”
Discouraged, he tapped his finger on the control panel, raised his dark brown eyebrow and contemplated whether to press the transporter controls. He didn’t know what result it would produce or what it would do to them physically. However, their air was going to run out and they needed refuge somewhere. He pressed the button and felt a tremendous pull on the craft from the engine, as the nearest star began to get brighter, and sent a flare millions of miles into space from it, and a beam of light emerged from the front of the ship and intersected the flare, producing a wormhole. Jeff stared ahead in disbelief, as he watched particles of a black substance emerge from the ship into the beam and towards the wormhole.
“What now,” he asked.
“Do you think we should go through it?” Dormiton asked.
“I really don’t think we have a choice.”
He pressed the velocity button, took a deep breath and the ship propelled forward, entering the wormhole. When it did, they became extremely dizzy for ten seconds and almost blacked out, as the ship spiraled through the tunnel of space and time. When they regained their senses, they were staring in amazement at the huge green planet in front of them. Dormiton stumbled to the helm, and the wormhole closed up instantaneously and disappeared into empty space.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
Jeff nodded, bewildered. He gathered now there were at least three universes, not just one. He launched another probe, as Dormiton sat down beside his human companion.
“How is he?”
“He’s much better,” Dormiton answered. “He’s out of shock, and the burn wasn’t too bad."
They watched as the probe hit the world below them, which was two thirds water. The landmasses were not very large, and there were a few mountain ranges.
“He took a pretty hard hit,” Jeff said.
“Yes, but our skin heals much faster than yours. We used to believe it was gift from the gods, until you showed us what medicine was.”
Jeff began to realize that there was still much he didn’t know about their race. Sure, he lived with them for two years, but he never saw anyone seriously hurt in that time. Dormiton seldom spoke about their culture, and some rituals, customs, and beliefs were forbidden to outsiders.
His thoughts were distracted by the transmissions the probe was sending him. The new planet, which the computer named Sirkis, was 25,000 miles from the ship, and located about 103,000,000 miles from its sun. The diameter of the ‘super Earth’ was 38,000 miles, and the surface temperatures ranged from 30 degrees to 65 degrees at the equator. The atmosphere contained a large presence of oxygen and nitrogen, as well as other elements. He decided to conduct further investigation, so he transmitted data to the probe. Within seconds, he received results. It stated that there were life forms on the surface, but it was mostly vegetation. There was some animal life, but extremely primitive.
Their oxygen was low, and if they had to land somewhere, this was as good a place as any. He cut the rockets to orbital speed, as they closed in on the planet. He turned on the heat shielding device, which he guessed was some more advanced form of polyethylene or derivative thereof, and prepared to enter the atmosphere. He directed Dormiton to look into a device used to indicate the angle of re-entry.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“Thirty five.”
“Let’s try to get it to about thirty eight degrees.” Dormiton pressed the button that allowed the computer to make the necessary adjustments.
The one thing that amazed Jeff the most about Dormiton was his ability to learn. The only reason his culture hadn’t advanced further was because of their stubbornness to hang on to their old systems and beliefs. Their customs needed to be preserved, but in their present situation, he also needed to learn the current technology they were using as well.
They descended towards the blue and white surface of the world. The ship floated in the atmosphere while Jeff checked his scanners. All of the sudden four objects appeared on the viewing screen. It was apparent he underestimated his pursuers.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “We got company!”
“The aliens?” Dormiton asked.
“You guessed it. The ships are identical to this one. They obviously have a base nearby. It didn’t take them too long to find us. Well, so much for plan A. They know who we are.”
“What’s plan B?”
“We’ll have to either outrun them or fight them head-on.” Dormiton looked at him like he was insane, shook his head and said nothing.
He maneuvered the ship towards his attackers, and prepared to fire the main lasers. They were about three hundred thousand miles and closing. He was just about to fire, when another wormhole opened, and they disappeared into it.
“Enemy craft no longer in range,” the computer stated. “Convert to dimensional tracker.” Jeff was surprised that they transported through a wormhole. He thought for sure that they would just attack him.
Dormiton grabbed his arm and pointed to the screen, as a photonic laser beam moved towards the ship rapidly. They were still out there, all right, but out of range of his scanners. They were obviously much better at this game than he was.
“Defense shields on!” he yelled to the computer, just before they were struck. He pulled the vessel out, and was only hit mildly on the tail of the craft. “That was close!” Dormiton sighed in relief that they were not blown to bits.
“What now,” the amphibian asked his companion, as Jeff brought the engines to full power and the ship away from Sirkis.
“First thing is to get the hell out of here. We won’t be landing on Sirkis. There’s no guarantee they don’t have a base down there. We can’t even see what we’re fighting against. You better look after Milgic. I’m gonna try to figure out what to do about our Tolarion friends.”
He nodded, as he walked back to the surgical table. Milgic just awoke and tried to sit up, despite the straps holding him down.
“You have to rest, my friend,” he told him.
“Did we get away safely?” the weak Milgic asked.
“Yes.”
They made it safe off their world, but their world as they knew it changed in a way that would transform their future. Everyone they knew was either dead or on the other island. It saddened them to know they could never return there.
Jeff knew the computer wouldn’t tell him where the ships went, so he relied on his own judgment. As he peered at the scanner, he could see they were tailed again.
“How do you like that,” he sneered, as Dormiton ran to the helm. “They’re back! Well this time we’ll just have to slow down and let them chase us. We might be able to get a couple of them with our rear lasers.”
The aliens closed in on him, he switched his rockets to sub-interstellar speed. He fired the photonic lasers and destroyed three of the four enemy craft in a beam of light and explosions. The fourth, however, moved much quicker and required more accuracy. Jeff switched on the interstellar drive to follow him.
“You’ll never catch him,” his amphibian friend challenged. The alien ship darted in front of him, and moved out of range. “Why don’t you just let him go?”
“And have him report back to his superiors? Not a chance!” He followed the vessel as he closed in, it moved at a sharp angle, and then off the viewing screen. He had no idea where it had gone. “Damn! I almost had him! I’ve got to get better at this if I want to keep us alive!”
“What’s that?” Dormiton asked, as he pointed to a flashing red light on the helm.
“The life support system failure light! We’re losing oxygen!”
He sent out another probe, in hopes there was a planet nearby. It indicated there was a world called Belor with an atmosphere similar to Mars. It was mostly carbon dioxide, but there were traces of oxygen and nitrogen at the surface, in an enclosed structure of some kind. Gaseous clouds covered most of the planet, and acid rains ripped away at the already barren terrain.
Sensors also indicated there was arthrop
od life in a centralized colony within the structure that contained the nitrogen and oxygen. He was curious to see why insect life would be living there and nothing else. They must have breathed air, and were obviously not natives of this world, and must have some intelligence in order to build structures. It wasn’t long before he received radio contact from the tiny reddish-green world. Much to his surprise, the transmission again was in English.
“This is Belor base,” the voice said. “Alien craft, identify yourself.”
He was intrigued with the intelligence of this ‘insect life.’
“This is Major Jeff Walker, of Mars, from the Milky way galaxy,” Jeff answered. He eyed the ship to see if it had a name. He located it above the viewing screen. I’m a human flying an alien ship named the Rigil Four. I request to land on your base. We are out of oxygen and being chased by a Tolarion craft.”
“What are you doing in a Tolarion craft?”
“We had to steal it to escape from them.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Very well. You will be permitted to land. We will be waiting.”
Jeff didn’t know if that was good or bad. What kind of creatures were they, and were they friendly or not? He turned on the heat shields and the sub-orbital rockets, and began to enter the atmosphere. It was almost impossible to see the surface through the reddish-colored clouds. It slowly became visible the closer they came. They felt a little breathless as the air started to give out. Jeff was prepared to get them to the jettison escape pod if necessary.
When they finally saw the surface, it was mostly rock. It was similar to the moon, with craters and dust over all of it. He guided the Rigil Four down to what appeared to him to be a runway. There were five domes that were all connected in the middle, and each dome had a red flashing light on top which were landing beacons. When they landed, they came upon two heavy metal doors that opened and revealed a hangar deck for spaceships. He docked rather rough, still a little not used to its functions, shut the engines down, and waited for their hosts. After a few minutes of quiet, Dormiton went back to help his friend. Before he could help him from off the table, the main door slid open and the aliens revealed themselves.
They didn’t try to defy their orders because they knew they were trapped. The Tolarions would attack them if they left the atmosphere and if these Belorions were just as dangerous, then they didn’t stand a chance here either. Besides, at the moment, they were the only allies they had.
He’d swear that they were a cross between an ant and a lobster. They were at least six to seven foot tall, had massive claws on all of their four arms, two large mandibles and were reddish in color. The human never saw an insect more advanced. They carried no weapons and wore headbands that glowed bright red, indicating that they might be used for that purpose. A large member of the group stepped forward.
“I am Zarcon,” he announced, using thought messages that both the amphibians and Jeff could hear in their minds in their own languages. “The reason you heard our radio transmissions is because our minds can be used to transmit these frequencies.” This should have alarmed Jeff, but he expected this much from a race as advanced as theirs. “And who might you be, Human?”
Jeff moved forward, but two of the aliens pulled him back. Apparently, they assumed he came in hostility. He relaxed his muscles, as he stared into the insect’s dark, blue, compound eyes.
“My name is Jeff Walker,” he answered. “These are my friends Milgic and Dormiton. I came from a planet much like this one called Mars, which wouldn’t be of any of your charts because it’s in another universe, a parallel universe. We came here using what is called a dimensional transporter. The Tolarions attacked my friends’ planet and we escaped in one of their ships. As far as I can tell, there are at least three universes that I know about.”
Two of the Belorions, who were the other leaders, glanced at one another; then back at Jeff.
“There are an infinite number of universes, Mr. Walker. This is the danger that the Tolarions have brought us,” Zarcon said. "Such a powerful tool is too advanced for such a hostile race. They could destroy everything that ever was created.”
“How?” Jeff asked.
“They could change the multi-verse as we know it by altering a chain of events. Or they could disrupt the space-time continuum causing a rip in the universe similar to a warp of space and time. Where was the planet you were on when you were attacked?”
“I don’t know. Before I arrived on my friends’ planet, I lost control of my ship. My controls went haywire and I was left stranded in space. The last thing I remember is that I was by the dwarf planet Pluto. That was in the other universe-my universe.”
“We will accept that as a satisfactory explanation of why you are here,” he said, as he gestured for the guards to release him. “You will remain here until a further investigation can be conducted, if you don’t mind. We’ll try to make you as comfortable as possible. We’d also like to examine the Tolarion vessel as well.”
“Certainly. What’s on board that’s so valuable? And how the hell do the Tolarions know about wormhole technology anyway? ”
“We’re just being cautious. We’ve made security mistakes in the past, and spies have come here. We’d like your cooperation. We don’t suspect you are spies, but nonetheless, you’ll have to answer some questions. We want to make sure also that you didn’t bring any diseases with you. Is there any thing you need before I show you our little community?”
“No. Do you mind if I observe your inspection of our ship? There are a lot of devices I’m not familiar with, and I’ve got some catching up to do.”
“As you wish. We know everything there is to know about the Tolarion Empire. Bolar, Kira, show these beings to the medical unit. One of them has a laser burn that needs attention.” The insects nodded, and gently carried Milgic down the main corridor on a stretcher made from some form of white material similar to silk, only stronger.
“What type of propulsion system do these Tolarion ships use?” Jeff asked the large arthropod. “And how do they know how to travel through wormholes?”
“Antimatter,” Zarcon answered. “The same technology that the Republic uses. You wouldn’t understand the process, however. Not to be insulting, but it’s way beyond your comprehension of Quantum physics. It involves the warping of space. Even your father of physics, Albert Einstein, wouldn’t understand it. Even though they possess the ability, they didn’t invent it. The Republic used it far longer, but more sparingly. It is likely that the Tolarions stole the process from us. They are foolishly playing with something that they only think they understand.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard about this Republic. What is it, and who is this Balta character?”
“He is the leader of the Tolarions,” Zarcon explained. “Why- have you met him?”
“You might say that,” Jeff answered. “I killed him.”
The large insect laughed in disbelief. “You killed him?”
“Yes, in the explosion of their base.”
“Well,” the insect stated. “If you did not see him actually die, he is probably not dead. He can be very resourceful when he wants to be.”
“I see,” the human answered, disappointed he didn’t succeed. “What about this Republic?”
“They are the Galactic Republic of Peaceful Civilizations. I am the ambassador and ruler of this world, Belor. We work throughout our galaxy to maintain and endorse peace. Even humans like yourself are part of our alliance. In fact, the council is located on a planet very similar to your ancestors’.”
“And they obviously are against these Tolarions?”
“That is correct.”
“How can I trust what you’re telling me is the truth?”
Zarcon then turned towards Jeff, his blue eyes fixed upon him.
“You may not trust me because I am frightening and strange to you,” he jested. “I will show you that I mean you no harm. Mr. Walker, would you care to have
a tour before retiring to your quarters?”
“I’d like that,” Jeff said, as he smiled.
Jeff followed the Belorion, relaxed, but not fully convinced. Did he somehow get his friends and himself into a space war of some kind? What exactly were the motives of these giant insects, and how were they able to read minds? They claimed to be peaceful, but how could he know for sure? They were much more accommodating than the Tolarions, and didn’t seem to have any hidden agendas. First impressions, however, sometimes could be deceiving.