The Termino Tangle

“Admiral Gator, orbit insertion in 20-mins,” said a voice behind his back.

Admiral Gator didn’t bother turning around. He had done these missions hundreds of times and the crew churn was very high. There were new spacemen all the time. Some remained on every captured planet, others eventually got drafted to other missions or desk jobs, but mostly just got killed from their own incompetence. Space was unforgiving and remembering the name of every idiot who didn’t understand that was just too much trouble. His muscles stiffened. “Scan the surface. I don’t want any surprises when we get down.”

“Yes sir.”

Admiral continued to stare at the large grey planet that was growing bigger by the minute. This was supposed to be his 100^th capture since the Last War, the most any other Admiral had achieved under the Final Emperor. Hundredth and the last one. Then he would hang his boots and settle on a decent Jupiter view Villa at Ganymede. He could have chosen any of the thirty thousand colonized planets across the Galaxy but there was some sense of nostalgia associated with the home solar system. A sentimentality that most of the newer generation could never understand. But there was another reason for his choice… at Ganymede he would be far away from the Emperor who controlled his vast Empire from Magellen – a rocky super-planet near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. If there was one thing more unforgiving than the space, it was the megalomaniac dictator who had just won the whole galaxy.

When the underling had left, he poured himself a glass of fine Europa whiskey. Fermented by rare microbes under a thick layer of ice gave it quite a unique taste. Frankly, he didn’t like it much, but the privilege was just too prestigious to let go. One of the so many little things that put underlings in their place.

The errand-boy was soon back with a portable-visor in his hand.

Can’t these guys not be efficient for once?

He was a young lad… probably fresh out of the academy. Too young for his own benefit… movements too flail and words too unsure. Admiral wondered if he’d survive through to the end of the mission. Despite himself, he felt like talking to this one.

Admiral motioned him to come closer to his private bar. “What’s your name, boy?”

“My name is Kritu, Sir. Charon born.”

Admiral’s glass halted mid-way. “Charon born?”

The young guy blushed. His eyes turned to the floor. “Yes Sir. My Dad was a prisoner and my Mom was one of the Law Enforcement.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Admiral felt sorry for the boy. Charon’s prison colonies were one icy-hell, one of the worst places for a kid to grow up. “Do you want a drink?”

“Thank you, Sir,” said the boy, a little surprised at the unexpected kindness from the Admiral. “Alligator will be in orbit shortly so maybe I shouldn’t.”

“First mission, eh?”

The boy nodded.

“Good for you. You must be enjoying the view then.” Admiral downed his wine and closed the bottle. “Once you have been to as many as I have, things start to get a little boring. Same old, same old.”

“I wouldn’t know that, Sir. I studied your mission logs during my training. They are the stuff of legends.”

“Those logs aren’t half of what we went through on those planets, son. Anyway… do you have that scan that I asked for?”

“Yes, Sir.” Kritu extended a visor towards the Admiral and iterated a what was no-doubt, a practiced speech. “The planet is Type-C. Uninhabited. Rocky surface with size 1.2 R-naught. Gravity 1.4 gees. 20-hour days. There has an environment but no breathable oxygen, our neutrinometry suggests some mineral deposits under the surface --”

Same old, same old.

“Understood.”

The boy shuffled his weight from one foot to another in uncomfortable silence.

“There is one more thing, Sir.”

“Yea…?”

“That grey thing is some kind of organic mass. Planet wide.”

Admiral sensed a tinge of worry on Kritu’s voice. “Don’t worry. I have seen stuff like that before. It’s like moss and easy to exterminate. But in space… I don’t want make any assumptions… Alligator will land with all stations ready and EVA only after complete environmental report.”

 “Yes sir. I will pass the message to rest of the crew. What do you want to name it, Sir? I mean the planet.”

“Ah… I almost forgot about that. Well, this is my last mission, so it should be something appropriate. Ah. I have it. Let’s call it Termino.”

“I will update the catalogues, Sir.”

“Do that. And wake up the ground team. We may have to rendezvous with the natives and they might be hostile.”

###

Admiral hated looking at groggy faces of ground teams, they were always confused for a considerable time after the thaw, and invariably asked that stupid question:

“Which year is it?” Captain Shemira asked.

“Don’t sweat it, Captain. You shall soon find out.”

Admiral inspected the rank of soldiers. He saw one of them stealing a glance of the grey-planet -Termino - that now filled almost the entire field of vision. Alligator was firing its thrusters in preparing for a soft landing. Admiral bellowed, “Get to your stations. Let’s cleanse this planet swiftly. No firing without my command. Let’s get over with this. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” all the soldiers said in unison.

“For the Emperor,” he shouted.

“For the Emperor,” a dozen voices replied.

Admiral settled on the Rendezvous Panel designed specifically for capturing missions. Various screens played to him each and every piece of information that could help him to make crucial decisions. As the Colonization Ship Alligator closed the distance to the grey blob of the planet, he focused on one particular screen that gathered the EM feed. IF the natives were spacefaring, they’d trying sending radio signals to contact the ship. And he’d reply with a barrage of EM bombs (to make them deaf), followed by Fusion bombs (to make them dead). Sure, it made Terraforming a little trickier later, but the Emperor didn’t distinguish between a planet and a dead planet. And so, neither did he. Survival of the fittest was nature’s law and primitive species must give way for the more advanced ones. But he was spared this effort when no contact attempt was made. He shut the lid containing the trigger.

“Prepare to land,” he said.

“Copy that, Admiral. Preparing for landing. Target landing coordinates twenty-three degree north, forty-six degrees east. ETA twenty-one minutes.”

Same old, same old.

As Alligator decelerated, he was gently pushed back into his chair, the screen showing the visual feed of the planet flickered as the grey matter showing on it covered every pixel. At about 100-kms from the surface, the surface features started to resolve but it was like zooming in on a Mandelbrot set.

Twenty minutes later, Alligator landed softly on Termino.

“Touch-down,” declared the pilot. “Soft ground underneath.”

“Good job everyone. Ground team remain at your stations till you have a ‘Go’ from me. We will take a call on EVA once we have the primaries completed. Science team begin the scan and feed it to the – whatsthat?”

Scan was unnecessary. Even as Admiral Gator was finishing his last sentence, the visual feed was changing dramatically. In distance, humanoid figures were appearing behind the elevation of the surface. They seemed to be waving and charging towards the spaceship. Drat! Too late to launch the fusion bombs.

“Captain Shemira. Do you have a visual on natives at 2 ‘o clock? Clean it up.”

Captain Shemira yelled a series of quick commands to the gunners. A rain of fire descended on the planet. As Kritu brought another round of Europa whiskey for the captain, several weapons shot, launched, swept and burned the targets around them.

“Area is clear, boss. Eleven targets were eliminated.”

###

Soon, dozen figures in their spacesuits were descending from Alligator led by the Admiral Gator. Termino’s orange Sun had just risen in the east to begin its 20-hour day. As per custom long set in the history of space exploration, the General was the first one to set foot on the soft surface of Termino.

“Time 6 AM local, 21^st July of Year 1 of United Era, General Gator claims this planet in the service of the Emperor. For the Emperor.”

“For the Emperor,” came the reply.

Admiral looked around. As far as he could see there was grey nothingness for miles on end. There were no surface features to speak of and there was an uneasy quiet on the planet. It reminded him of a mass cemetery on his home planet.

“Set your clocks to the local time. Do the cleanup and set up camp alpha… I don’t want to spend a minute more than absolutely necessary in this grey hell -- what that annoying static?”

An electromagnetic disturbance flickered in his visors and simultaneously a cracking noise rang in his ears.

“Seems that Termino has a strong magnetic field captain and it is unstable.” Came reply from the science team that was still onboard Alligator along with the rest of the crew.

‘Unstable’ seemed to define Termino in other ways as well. The moss was mushy and the ground under them seemed to shake periodically like a heartbeat. The Ground team had to consciously pull-out their legs from the sticky grey substance that often climbed up to their knees. And after a brief effort it soon became clear that setting up a camp was impossible.

Admiral Gator gritted his teeth. Without camp, Termino wouldn’t be considered as captured. “Those natives… who were running to our ship… they must be living somewhere underground. Captain… can you check on their bodies for clues?”

“Sure, boss.” Captain Shemira waded her way through the thick moss to where the natives were shot dead. She looked around in confusion.

“There is not a single body here, boss… looks like that this moss gobbled them up.”

Captain looked around. All eleven soldiers from the ground team were, in turn, looking at him.

“Let’s explore the area where those natives were coming from. Kritu, I need a deep scan of Termino on all frequencies… keep an eye out for the source of this moss-quake and this static.”

They started walking east searching for any anomaly in the grey world that seemed planet-wide now. The walk was punishing due to viscous moss and 140% gravity. Periodically, they would stop to pull themselves above the moss that seemed to be rising. After about an hour, they seemed to have hardly away from their ship.

He then heard Captain Shimera on comms. She had patched the science team on a common channel where she was asking a weird question.

“Kritu, how many Suns does Termino have?”

“One.” Came a quick reply from Kritu.

Admiral bellowed. “Has the thaw made you stupid, Captain?”

“Boss, look.” Captain replied. Admiral Gator didn’t get it till she repeated loudly. “Just look at the Sun.”

Admiral’s turned to the sky and for a second couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. Only a part of the Sun’s orange disk was visible in the eastern horizon.

And then it clicked to him.

The Sun was rising. “Again?”

He instinctively looked at his watch. 5:30 AM.

“How is this possible? What the f**k does this mean?”

Admiral Gator turned towards Captain Shemira for an answer and his eyes widened. The sight was horrid. The moss that was only sticking upto her knees, suddenly crawled up her body. Before she could say something, the moss poured through her open mouth. It then went above her head and covered her entire body. And then as suddenly the whole thing merged back into the ground leaving no trace of her body.

For a second, Admiral stood stupefied. Then he stuttered, “M… Mission abort. P… prepare Alligator for departure. Ground team... back to the ship... immediately.”

“Admiral, the sensors are going crazy in here,” Kritu shaken voice came in. “I did scans and there are massive EM pulses going under the grey layer.”

“Where exactly?” said Admiral, sweating profusely, and trying to run as fast as he could.

“Everywhere,” Kritu replied. “L… looks like a neural network that spans the entire planet… it is… it is… communicating. It’s… alive.”

They had hardly taken ten steps towards the Alligator when a massive moss-quake shook them. A grey Tsunami rose up like a monster mouth and gobbled up the entire spaceship. Mortal screams flooded the comms. As the wave washed over the ship, shrill screams were replaced by a deathly silence.

Gator found himself shaking with fear for the first time in his life… and perhaps for the last time. Few others were sobbing. He emptied his entire ammo on the ground as if trying to kill a ghost underground.

And then… he saw it. In some distance, a large aircraft was breaking through the clouds and was getting closer to the ground.

“Looks like an imperial rescue ship.” Someone said.

Before Admiral could give a command, all the remaining soldiers were running towards the rescue ship. All eleven of them.

Eerily, the ship bore the exact markings of the Alligator, Admiral noticed, way too late. A hail of firepower blasted through them and there were eleven bodies on Termino to feed the grey monster again.

Same old, same old.

###

A CURIOUS PARTY

A CURIOUS PARTY

“I see some unusual activity Chief,” said 143XIIFX, his complete set of thousand compound eyes glued to the mega screen. To humans, the information displayed on the screen was at best gibberish if not entirely invisible for Proximans saw in the wider spectrum of frequencies than human eyes.

Commander 932VIIGZ woke up from her suspension. Her freshly laid eight hundred eggs swung in warm pouch of her skin just below her eye and antenna set that could be approximated as ‘head’ in human terms. 143XIIFX waited for her patiently as she made her way to the console. 932VIIGZ was three levels above him and lot more experienced in extraterrestrial zoology as made aptly clear with miscellany insignia on all eight of her shoulders. Had she not been his superior, he’d wait for her all the same as colony’s consciousness decided that he must do so.

“What kind of unusual activity, FX,” she said, addressing him with his informal name.

143XIIFX’s tense muscles became visibly relaxed but the concern in his voice remained. “There seems to be a global celebration in the System SOL Y47 Planet C. I suspect a planetary breakthrough event, Chief. But this one is without any other symptoms.”

Y47 Plant C. She remembered that one. Third planet of an average-sized middle-aged yellow star. A primitive planet locals called… what was that name… and colony’s shared memory came to her rescue… Ah -- Earth. A curious planet with curiouser dominant species. Technologically not yet qualified to be a member of the broader galaxy but still very close. The entire galactic council watched them closely for they were categorized as quite a dangerous species… for themselves and others.

Commander 932VIIGZ jumped to the console and huge amount of information on planet Y47C got relayed to her… and through her to the hive mind of the colony on their native planet. FX’s assessment was right. Y47C’s dominant species (who called themselves, unpronouncingly, ‘humans’), though incapable of sharing consciousness, seemed to be possessed by mass hysteria and orgy of celebrations. Entire globe was in a heightened state of euphoria and in recreational intoxication. There could only be explained logically by a Planetary Breakthrough as suggested by FX. Good lad that. He could provide good genetic material for her next mating season. She filed a mental note. Back to the current problem now.

“Did they finally achieve interstellar travel, Chief? Shall I activate ‘First Contact’ protocols?” asked FX earnestly.

932VIIGZ had considered that. “Quite possible FX. But no. At least not till we are sure beyond doubt.”

Next few micro-seconds were quite hectic for both FX and GZ. They went through reams of recent data on the planet. Their space-missions, technology broadcasts, medical announcements. But…

“Nothing. I found absolutely nothing,” said FX with exasperation. “I don’t see any sign of recent breakthrough from this species. They didn’t discover interstellar travel.”

GZ agreed. She had seen nothing like this in her observation of hundreds of species that have achieved Breakthroughs. “Did you check if they conquered any major diseases recently? Like… what they call… ‘Cancer’s cure’?”

“Negative Chief.”

“Immortality?”

“Nope.”

“What about better social order? Like complete equality… or… or… elimination of starvation.”

“I double checked, Chief. They still have all those problems.”

GZ’s antennas swung nervously. “But this doesn’t make any sense. What are those ‘humans’ celebrating? What is the cause for this maddening gathering?”

Not even the oldest living Proximans in the colony of 6-trillion possessed the answer. Now, the question was serious enough to wake-up the Queen from her hibernation. She was the only one who survived from cycle to cycle. Entire colony of Proximans waited with bated breath as the Queen stirred from her Preservation and regained her energy, sacrificing some nearby males in the process. Another excruciatingly slow two seconds passed before the Queen could communicate with FX and GZ. FX and GZ hardly caught any sleep during those two seconds and it showed in their swollen eye-set.

Queen’s voiced boomed in GZ’s ears. “What is it that you woke me up for, my child?”

GZ was immediately filled with reverence. But the immediate question was more important. She explained the situation to the Queen.

“Y47C? Hmmmm I am not fond of that planet, but its notoriety makes way into my memories. So, you are telling me that you suspect a planet-wide event from the species’ collective festivities but there seems to be none?”

“Yes, my queen.”

“Let me recall… ah… I am getting something from my memory. I remember this question popping up earlier too… it was perhaps a thousand cycles ago… hmmm… let’s see. Is the planet’s location twenty-three deci-semi-arcs away from its parent star?”

GZ was startled. It was.

Queen could have laughed had it been capable of doing so. For a Proximan, her leg joints relaxed, and her antennas became taut.

“They are celebrating one revolution of their planet around their star,” she announced.

“What? Why? Do they propel the planet using artificial propulsion systems?”

“No no no, my child. It revolves on its own accord. Naturally.”

GZ was thoroughly puzzled. “Then I don’t get it. Why would they celebrate something that is not their doing at all? If the planet is in a stable orbit it is bound to go around. Is that point in planet’s orbit any special?”

“No, my child. The point of reference is completely arbitrary. And not only that… they don’t even wait for their planet to complete the orbit, they consider it complete before the planet reaches their point of reference. And then they make adjustments every fourth revolution.”

“This is strange.”

“It is. This is one thing you must remember about humans. They are logical and intelligent species and yet they make irrational decisions. Their entire planet is irreversibly heating up and yet they put little personal gain over species’ large benefit. In fact, quite a few of them would willingly harm the species to benefit oneself.”

A shiver went through GZ’s spine. “What a horrid thought.”

Queen turned back to her slumber. FX who was quietly listening and working all this while saw something strange on the screen.

“There seems to be a message these individuals are uttering to each other. Again, it doesn’t make any sense at all to me. There is nothing ‘new’ or ‘happy’ in their lives just because their planet has added another revolution to four billion it has already done.”

“What is the message FX?”

“’Happy New Year.’”

(“What a weird species.” GZ thought.)

Gotcha!

WARNING: Contains strong language and adult themes

“He must have been at least 11-feet tall,” Bill said taking a meaty bite off his Jupiter burger. A mouthful of juicy meat burst onto his palate. Those expensive climate-controlled manufacturing plants at Ganymede weren’t useless after all.

“Bull shit,” his guest screamed in anger. An exotic dancer in her birthday suit, gyrating her perfectly rounded bottom at his lap wasn’t enough distraction from ridiculous claim Bill was making. Peeking above the bare shoulders of the dancer and speaking in his Martian accent, Dave bellowed, “No one knows what They look like, so stop fucking treating me like a kid.”

“Yes. Absolutely no one knows what they look like”—and after a dramatic silence added—“Except me,” Bill pushed Dave further without offering any explanation whatsoever. That only incensed him even more and his face was now getting redder.

The dancer tried again to bring Dave’s focus to herself. She turned around and wrapped her long legs around Dave’s waist. Then, with her long glossy nails tugged on his chin towards her perfect double D breasts as she glided her other hand over his well-built biceps in a practiced motion. But even that effort failed to arouse any other emotion than anger in Dave. Ignoring her, he screamed, “Fuck you, Bill.”

Bill laughed and took another sip of his drink. He was thoroughly enjoying  toying with this young lad had just met an hour ago at the moon bar. He wondered why? Dave was an ordinary twenty-something seeking a break from his dull mining job. Maybe there was something in Dave’s peculiar Martian ways or maybe it was his youthful arrogance that Bill felt an urge to put him in his place. Or maybe it was just the company of a sexy stripper and alcohol that was taking an effect on him. What surprised him was his own willingness to reveal more than what he ever did to anyone. He even brushed aside a rather quirky jingle from an age-old government campaign that popped into his head. It said: ‘Drink, fuck and be merry, but never mix the secrets you carry’. Ridiculous.

Well what’s that worst could happen? At the least he’ll be laughed at and at most they might trust him and tell others. But who’s gonna trust a moon miner or a stripper had they claimed to know what they looked like. And it all seemed worth it, going by Dave’s pissed-off face as if a space-shuttle has hit his bio-engineered pet T-Rex. Good.

“Look at this fucker. He is shittin’ me all evening and he thinks I’m gonna take it?” Dave tightened his fists. “I will mangle that pretty beach face in a second.”

He turned to the stripper. “You get out from here. I need to deal with this guy.”

“You both are full of shit,” she bellowed with a hurt professional pride and got off Dave’s lap. She reached out and snapped her glow-in-the-dark undies and sheer bra that she had shed few minutes ago, still cursing under her breath.

As she pulled the beaded curtains apart of their second-floor private lounge, Bill caught her by her hand. “Wait. Don’t leave like this babe… whatsyourname, honey?”

She put her hands on her hips. “The name is Pastry,” she said.

“Of course, it is,” Bill said admiring the girl. She must have been moon-born, most probably second or third generation, for she was more than seven-feet tall and had larger than life assets, that were perfect for her profession. Moon girls weren’t this popular with Earthly men for no reason.  Moon was the first world to have permanent colonies way back in year 2142. Then the primary incentive was minerals; but as happens in case of every half-good settlement driven by wealth, within 60 years it became a significant enough to have its own government. Now, it had three major industries - minerals, tourism and flesh trade – and tonight all three oddly came together in a private lounge above a strip club.

“This young man has no appreciation for real beauty,” Bill said. “Sit —” he placed a note on her palm,”—and we can get cozy later. I’d love to eat some pastry off Pastry. What do ya’ say?”

Pastry’s eyes widened realizing that it was a thousand-credit note. Without much hesitation, she turned and sat next to Bill flipping a middle finger in Dave’s general direction. Bill gave a benevolent laugh and smoothly slid his hand around Pastry’s waist and pulled her closer.

“Pastry on Pastry, huh? Real smooth,” she said mockingly and poured herself a glass from the table.  Thousand credit note seemed to be a sufficient cure for her hurt professional pride.

Having taken care of Pastry (for his own sake) he turned to Dave who was still fuming. “Calm down bud. I will tell you everything.”

Dave shifted in seat and grabbed his drink, and gulped it all down in one go. Bill took a deep breath.

“When They landed, twenty years ago, (and probably you weren’t even born then) I worked at the docks as an optic technician in cargo handling. It was a big day for all of us. There were tens of thousands of people who had gathered outside our docks, not to mention hundreds of camera crews trying to pass through the gates. Each one of us were provided with top-level security and even then, it took us 40 minutes to reach at our stations. Inside, the ports were as crowded as ever. In one day, I must have rubbed shoulders with who’s who of our solar system council. Pluto’s president here, Saturn’s ringleader there. Pop-stars, scientists. It was hard to go around the faces in the control room and find someone who wasn’t famous or powerful or mostly both.

"And yet, all the eyes were on the screens that showed their ellipsoidal spaceships. They were huge. It was like a floating mountain and yet with precision of a brain surgeon, as we watched in awe, five spaceships docked at our station with supreme grace.”

Bill looked at his audience that has swelled to two as Pastry listened intently.

“I am sure you two will agree that they are thousands of years ahead of us – in all kinds of intelligence – technological, biological, evolutionary, societal. We wondered if they were here to annihilate us. It was simply their god-like presence on earth that we felt somehow will suck the oxygen out of air. Those were the most tense two hours of everyone’s life. Probably they were assessing us. But nothing extraordinary happened. After a short radio exchange, They invited us to their ship.

“Council President, the General and the select few went in and…and nothing. It was almost mundane the way it happened. Almost as if it was nothing more than a casual stop-over of a sea-faring ship on its usual route.

However, this meeting was different in one significant way -  apart from the obvious one -- it was a conversation through a blackened one-way glass. Our representatives didn’t meet them. Not even saw them. They had a plain and formal greeting and then they came back.

“Some conspiracy theorists say that our representatives are lying or may have been brainwashed but all that is patently stupid. We never saw them. Neither then nor in twenty years since then. We don’t know if they have two eyes or four or how many limbs they have. Or if they are even humanoids or they look like overgrown insects. Why would such an advanced civilization has to gain from hiding from us, you might ask?” Bill paused for any reaction from Dave.

“For the last two decades, this has been the most researched topic on academic circles actually.”

The source of that interruption astonished Bill. It was Pastry who had made that comment. He gawked at her in surprise.

“What?” she flipped. “You think I don’t get breaks between my pole-dancing sessions. I read my stuff.”

Bill said awkwardly, “Obviously, you do dear. And that makes you even sexier.”  

Pastry continued. “The leading theory says that they carry their alien germs and pathogens and they don’t want to risk exposing earthlings. They have treated us like toddlers who wouldn’t survive a day in the real world and must be protected and supervised by the adults.”

Bill let out a hearty laugh. “Well, that’s what they want everyone to believe. And their super-advanced weapon systems and space-ships has left no doubt in our minds that we indeed are toddlers for them. But still that doesn’t explain why can’t they show themselves to us in a sterile environment. Or why can’t they just send us some of their pictures to us – you know – like a guy commuting to his alien office or grandma going to the store – mundane stuff. Why do have to hide that from us?”

“Go on. I am sure you have your own theory about it,” Dave said.

Bill smiled. The tease had worked and both of them were now leaning-in to catch every word he said.

“Damn right I do. But it is more than just a theory. Well, what if I were to tell you that they are not protecting us from them, but them from us.”

“C’mon old man,” Dave said. “What do they have to fear from us? They can pulverize us in an instant if we were any threat to them.”

“Aha! You are thinking like humans. And yes, we won’t think much before annihilating an entire species if it presented any significant danger to us, but they will not. They don’t think like us.

“But they know that too. They know that we think differently. So, while they will not go extinguishing every life they could find in the galaxy, they wouldn’t trust us blindly to reveal their physiology and their weaknesses. I mean, can you blame them? Given our history—and they know our history—violence comes as one of the first ‘solutions’ whenever we are dealt with uncertainty.”

A silence invaded the room except for a muffled sound of music coming from downstairs. Pastry looked at Bill while Dave tried to gulp from his already empty glass.

“So, you are saying that they fear us because of our appetite for violence. Well, it sounds logical but this is just a theory still. And it still doesn’t settle the claim that you have seen them,” she said.

She is sharp. Bill thought. A real beauty with brains. She would have made a good scholar. If only.

“Pastry o’ Pastry,” he said pulling her closer. “You are giving me more reasons to love you.”

She brushed his hand. “First, you show me what you have and then…I will show you everything,” she added pressing her body closer to him.

“Well…so be it,” he sighed. “Here goes. On that day when all the reps were going to meet them, it was my job to put audio-visual recording devices to record everything that they would see or hear in the spaceship. Nothing too different from my usual job. Of course, we all know that those cameras came back with not much – just a giant black screen through which they talked to our President. But…there is something that no one knows till date…my dear Dave and Pastry.” He sighed. “There was one more camera that no one knew about. And that camera was left in the spaceship and it kept on recording and transmitting even after our representatives came back.”

Pastry’s jaw was hung open. Dave’s stared in disbelief as all signs of alcohol evaporated from his face.

“I had a brilliant flesh of foresight when I attached a remotely controlled fly-size camera on one of the reps. It kept on broadcasting on my private channel.”

“What did that camera record?” Pastry asked.

“It recorded them. After our reps had left, They stepped out slowly from behind those blackened glasses. They looked grotesque…a tall slimy body and large black eyes. Their two sets of eyelids closed in tandem and their webbed feet were as big as diver’s fins. There was something even weirder. At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing…they had two transparent large lobes on the either side of the body… I watched those recordings again and again…probably a million times. Who wouldn’t, right? I think I figured out what those lobes were and why they were not exposing themselves to us. Because those exposed lobes were their biggest weakness that they never wanted us to see – those lobes were their two hearts.”

Silence lingered in air for a long time after Bill had finished his story. He felt little giddy at first, having told it to two strangers. But then he felt little warmer as Pastry looked admiringly at him. It seemed worth the breach of the secret he had held for twenty years.

“Can you show it to us? I mean the recording,” Pastry said. “I swear I will never tell it to anyone.”

“I’d love to honey,” Bill replied. “But I don’t carry Universe’s biggest secret in my pocket. It’s kept in a secret vault at my Earth home. If you really want, you can come with me. It’s just 8 light seconds away anyway”

Pastry giggled. “How many other girls have you brought to your Earth home to see this secret video?”

“Just one, my dear. My ex who now lives at Titan,” Bill said standing up. “Dave, buddy, get lost. Me and Pastry have a private business to do now.”

Dave stood hesitatingly. “Bill…wait…”

“There is nothing to wait…” Bill moved closer to Dave.

“I mean…look behind you,” Dave said with a trembling voice.

Bill turned around and his eyes widened. A thin but clean line of blood appeared on Pastry’s forehead. As Bill and Dave watched in terror the cut extended downwards passing through the neck and the breasts extending all the way to the naval of Pastry’s body. The two halves marked by line of blood separated slowly and a slimy black vertebrate became visible. It expanded from within like a caterpillar coming out of its cramped skin. A tall creature slowly took shape as it slid off from Pastry’s skin and looked down at Bill and Dave. His dark eyes double-blinked with two sets of eyelids and two heart shaped lobes on the side of his waist contracted and expanded alternatingly.

“I…It can’t be…” Bill stammered looking at the crumpled skin of pastry that was lying at the webbed feet of the alien creature.

“We have been looking for you for twenty years Bill,” a shrill voice emanated from creature’s tentacle mouth. The tease had worked.

In the next moment, before Bill and Dave could blink again, their heart halted beating and their brains ceased all activity. Bill and Dave never knew how they died.

After confirming their fate, the creature connected to his command.

“I found him. Two died. Mission successful.”

“Very well. Your extraction will be arranged,” a voice spoke to him in his earpiece.

“Not yet. His ex-girlfriend needs to be neutralized too. Start searching out from Titan as center.”

“Noted. Do you need another skin for your next mission?”

“Negative. I have the perfect one,” the creature said getting closer to Bill’s dead body.

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