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“It seems to have no openings at all,” Tropo was saying, after again carefully examining every wall in the compartment containing them, their ruined Life Craft, and the dead alien robot.
Tallie was sitting next to the body of the robot, using what crude scanning devices she could find on the Life Craft. “Well then we can’t get out, but none of this guy’s buddies can get in, either.”
“Maybe he is alone.”
She nodded absent-mindedly, as her hand felt inside the gaping hole Tropo had blasted into its chest. “I’m starting to think you are right.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting shocked?”
“There is no energy in it at all, not even from what I could call a dead battery pack. So, no.”
Tropo sat down on his haunches, looked at her, looked around, looked at her again. “I have a feeling about this ship.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, not looking up as she pulled a small greenish gadget from the robot’s neck and started rolling it over in her hand. She could see no openings in it either, not even how it had been attached in the first place. She banged it on the floor, and to both their surprise it made no noise at all.
“This ship is alive,” Tropo announced.
She looked at him. “Alive? You mean like your Pilots are alive?” Every Restan, and now human, ship had a Pilot, a seemingly sentient being that was neither artificial intelligence nor organic.
“More than that. This very ship is a sentient being I think. In fact I wonder if this is it’s natural shape at all or just how it presents itself to us.”
He had her attention now. “And how did you come to this conclusion?”
He shrugged. “I just feel it. And I also feel this isn’t the first time someone from Restas has been inside one of these ship-beings.”
“What? Are you going all psychic on me now? What about humans?”
The ship lurched just then. They looked wide-eyed at each other.
Now what?
It lurched under them again, more violently this time.
“Tropo! Activate your Life Envelope!”
No sooner had they both done so then they could hear beam weapons being discharged on the other side of the nearer wall. They moved to put their life craft between them and that wall, partiguns drawn and aimed.
An opening appeared in the wall, and five Restans in full battle gear came through.
“Captain Talbot! First Officer Tropo!”
“We’re here,” Tallie called back. She turned and rested her back against the craft, then her head. Was she dreaming, or had they just been rescued?
She let out a long sigh, then started to laugh. All the Restans, including Tropo, just stared at yet another example of the strange emotions humans seemed to possess.
They walked around the life craft and could now see three Restans intensely studying the dead robot thing.
“Did it attack you?” the Restan who was obviously in charge of the boarding party asked them.
Before Tropo could speak Tallie held her hand up to stop him. This time as least he obeyed her.
“Yes, it ripped open our life craft and threatened to do the same to us.”
“Which one of you shot it?” the Restan asked, looking at them one at a time and then back at the robot. She stepped closer to the body, then looked back at them for an answer.
“I shot it,” Tropo said.
Before Tallie could ask what difference it made who shot it, she spoke again.
“I praise your accuracy,” she said. “Now please come with us to our ship immediately.”
“Gladly,” Tallie said. “But I want to take this robot and even this ship with us if we can. Did you find other beings on board?”
“No. And our orders are to do just as you said. But we must go now.”
“I agree.”
As they stepped out into black space, Tallie could see at least three Restan warships waiting for them. From her studies of Restan procedures, she knew there were at least two others nearby, probably above and below their plane. The Restans had developed a better appreciation of the third dimension in space than she felt her fellow humans had. Perhaps this came from their ancient past and natural instinct to pounce on things?
Looking back at the alien ship, she could now see it wasn’t that much bigger than her Life Craft. And it had the classic saucer shape humans had come to recognize, if not solve the riddle of, over the last centuries at least.