All I could do is shrug and share a brief glance with Nuts. I already agreed with her dour feeling about this mission.

  The dissolution techs finished gathering any metal or mechanical objects from us, to be put in pneumatic tubes. Guts made sure – as always – that his medical kit went into the tube last, so it would be readily available upon arrival…

  …a bit of mature, human-style prudence that he then proceeded to spoil by saying “Always try to slurry with a syringe on top.”

  “Yup.” The captain nodded, perfunctorily. “In case of post-nozzle drip.” But at that moment he was more interested in guns than puns, checking to make sure that there were fresh nanos loaded in a formidable backup blaster before sliding it into a tube.

  Time for a brief formality. Into the chamber trooped a trio of figures wearing dark cloaks with heavy cowls almost completely covering their faces. Priests of yah-tze… practitioners of what passes for religion among demmies… which amounts to a mélange of ancient, pre-contact mythologies and whatever alien belief system happens to suit their fancy, at any moment. Mostly recruited from the kitchen staff, these part-time clerics knew better than to delay the captain very long, when he was eager to lead an away-team, so they kept it short.

  Ohm and the others bowed their heads, pressing the heels of both hands against their temples while I – politely – folded mine in front of me as the three hooded Ecclesiasts performed their minimal blessing: shaking at each of us a can containing six dice and invoking the name of the Great Lady of Luck in unison, spilling the dice onto a tray.

  Three ones and three sixes. My crewmates shivered and even I felt a brief, superstitious chill. But our captain grinned as the priests exited, stripping off their robes and hurrying to back to the galley. Ohm summarized his interpretation of the augury.

  “A rough beginning followed by a triumphant ending. Sounds like a perfect adventure, eh Advisor?”

  Unless it’s the other way around. I could not help but roll my eyes, as the door to the chamber sealed with a loud hiss.

  “Ready, sir?” Ensign Taken asked from the control room, her voice transmitting through the transparent window. Another humanophile, but less intellectually inclined than Lieutenant Morell, she tried to catch my gaze, even as she addressed the captain. Her nickname, “Eyes,” came from big, doe-like irises that she flashed whenever I looked her way. She was very pretty, as demmies go… and they will go all the way at the drop of a boot-lace.

  “Do it, do it, do it!” Ohm urged, rocking from foot to foot, his patience at an end.

  She turned a switch and I felt a powerful tingling sensation.

  For those of you who’ve never slurried, there can be no describing what it’s like to have a beam zap through you, reading the position of every cell in your body. Then comes the rush of solvent fluid, flooding in through a hundred vents, filling the transport chamber, rising from your boots to your thighs to your neck faster than you can cry, I’m melting!

  It doesn’t hurt. Really. But it is disconcerting to watch your hands dissolve right in front of you. Closing your eyelids won’t help much, since they go next, leaving a dreadful second or two until your entire skull – brain and all – crumbles like a sugar confection in hot water.

  Ever since it was proved – maybe a century ago – that the mind exists independent from the body, philosophers have hoped to tap marvelous insights or great wisdom from the plane of pure abstraction. Some try to do this by peering into dreams. Others hope to sample the filtered essence of thought from people who are in a liquid state.

  Oh, it’s true that something seems to happen – thoughts flow – during that strange time when your nervous system isn’t solid anymore, but a churning swirl of loose neurons and separated synapses, gurgling supersonically down a narrow pipe two hundred miles long. Giving new meaning to “brain drain.”

  But in my experience, these stray thoughts are seldom anything profound. On that particular day – as I recall – my focus was on the job. The most fundamental underpinning of my task as Earthling Advisor.

  Maybe they will grow up.

  After all, we did, eventually.

  It’s the hope we all cling to.

  Or so one part of me told the rest of my myriad selves, during that timeless interval when I had no solid form. When “me” was many and a sense of detachment seemed to come naturally.

  Which just goes to show you that it never pays to do any deep thinking when you’re in a slurry.

  I regained full consciousness on a strange world, watching my hands reappear in front of me as the reconstructor at the nozzle end of the Hose re-stacked my cells, one by one, in the same (more or less) relative positions they had been in, aboard ship.

  Did I have that mole on my hand, before? Isn’t it a lot like one I saw on the back of Ohm’s neck…

  But no. Don’t go there.

  Still, while dismissing that spurious thought, I resisted the urge to shake my head or shrug. Best to let ligaments and things congeal a few extra seconds, lest something jar loose and roll away.

  I did shift my eyes a bit to look through a window of the Nozzle Chamber. Overhead, the Hose stretched upward into a cloud-flecked sky, cleverly rendered invisible to radar, sonar, infrared, and most visible light. (I could see it, of course. But then, demmies are always amazed by our human ability to perceive the mystical color, “blue.”)

  A final word about slurrying. In its way, it is an efficient mode of transport, and I’m not complaining. Things might have been worse. I’m told that true matter teleportation – where an object is read and replicated or “beamed,” atom-by-atom, instead of cell-by-cell, is a ridiculous impossibility. Quantum uncertainty and all that. Won’t ever happen.

  Nevertheless, there is a demmie research center that refuses to give up on the idea… and demmies never cease to surprise us.

  (Impossibility be damned. I recommend secretly blowing up the place, just to be sure.)

  Stumbling out of the Nozzle, we retrieved our tools from container-tubes and proceeded to look around the place. We appeared to have de-licquesced behind some boulders and shrubbery in an uncrowded portion of the park. Tall buildings could be seen jutting skyward beyond a surrounding copse of trees. Vehicle sounds of a bustling city drifted toward us.

  So far, so good. The greenies fanned out, very businesslike, covering all directions with their tidy blasters. I took out my scanner and surveyed various sensor bands.

  “Life forms?” Ohm said, peering around my shoulder, speaking loud enough to be heard over the traffic noise.

  “Yes, Captain,” I replied, patiently. “Many life forms.”

  “Many,” Nuts repeated, morosely.

  “Many,” Guts added, eyes filling with eagerness while he stroked his vivisection kit.

  “Let’s go see,” Ohm commanded, as I counted the seconds till something happened.

  Something always happens.

  Sure enough, at a count of eight, we heard a scream and hurried toward the source, which turned out to be Lieutenant Morell. She panted, with one hand near her throat, pointing her blaster toward a set of bushes.

  “I shot first!”

  “What?” Ohm demanded, shoving others aside to charge forward. “What was it?”

  She came to attention. “I don’t know, sir. Something was spying on us. I saw the weirdest pair of eyes. Whatever it was, I think I got it.”

  “Um,” I stepped forward, reluctant to point out the obvious. “The rule of Simplest Hypothesis might suggest, in a calm city park, that your something just might have been… well… perhaps a local citizen?”

  Lieutenant Morell gulped, looking at that moment just like a young human who had made a nervous mistake.

  “Of all the damn foolishness,” Guts grumbled, hastening through the undergrowth, drawing his medical kit while I hurried after. Behind me, I heard the Lieutenant sob an apology.

  “There now,” Captain Ohm answered. “I’m sure he… she… or it is just stunned. You did use stun-setting, yes?”

  “Sir!”

  When I glanced back, he was leading her with one arm, his other one sliding around her shoulder. I should have known.

  Guts shouted when he found our prowler. A humanoid, of course, like ninety percent of Class M sapients. The poor fellow had managed to crawl a few meters before the stun nanos got organized enough to bring him down. Now he lay sprawled on his back, spread-eagled, with his arms and legs pinned by half a million microscopic fibers to the leaf-strewn loam. He strained futilely till we emerged to surround him. Then he stared with large, dark eyes, gurgling slightly behind the nano-woven gag in his mouth.

  Nanomachines are often too small to see, but those that are fired at high speed by a stun blaster can be larger than an Earthling ant. At medium range, only a dozen might hit a fleeing target, and they need several seconds to devour raw matter, duplicating into thousands, before getting to work immobilizing their quarry.

  There are quicker ways of subduing someone, but none quite as safe or sure. Anyway, a gulliver-gun is usually swift enough.

  By now, a veritable army of little nanos swarmed over the captive, inspecting their handiwork, keeping the tiny ropes taut and jumping up and down in jubilation. Some, for lack of anything else to do, appeared to be hard at work sewing rips in the native’s dark, satin-lined cloak and black, pegged pants. Others re-coifed his mussed hair.

  (Just because someone is a prisoner, that doesn’t mean he can’t look sharp.)

  Guts pushed his bio-scanner toward the humanoid, having to fight through a tangle of tiny ropes while muttering something about how “…nanos are the winchers of our discontent,” in a Shakespearean accent.

  Enough, I thought, drawing my blaster, flicking the setting, then sighting on the victim’s face. He cringed as I fired—

  —a stream of tuned microwaves set to turn all nano fibers into harmless gas. The gag in his mouth vanished and he gasped, then began jabbering frightfully in a tongue filled with moist sibilants.

  I heard a hiss as Guts injected our captive with a hypo spray, using an orange vial marked ALIEN RELAXANT #1. The native tensed for a moment, then sagged with a sigh.

  Remember, students, always inspect your ship’s supply of Alien Relaxant Number One! Make sure of its purity.

  Very few sentient life forms have fatal allergic reactions to 100 percent distilled water.

  Nevertheless, most will respond quickly to being injected, as if a potent, local narcotic were suddenly flowing through their veins. Bless the placebo effect. Its near universality is among the few reassuring constants in an uncertain cosmos.

  Guts gave me a sly wink. He knows what’s going on, so I no longer have to mix batches of “ol’ Number One” all by myself. But don’t assume your ship’s doctor will understand. Call it an “ancient human recipe” until you’re sure your medico can be trusted with the truth.

  The native was now much calmer, prattling at a slower pace while I set up the universal translator on its tripod. Our captain dropped to one knee, preparing for that special moment when true First Contact could begin. Colored buttons flickered as the machine scanned, seeking meaning in the slur of local speech. Abruptly, all lights turned green. The translator swiveled and fired three more nanos at the native, one for each ear and another that streaked like a smart missile down his throat.

  It isn’t painful, but startlement made him stop and swallow in surprise.

  “On behalf of the Federated Alliance of—” Captain Ohm began, expansively spreading his arms. Then he frowned as the impudent creature interrupted, this time speaking aristocratically-accented Demmish.

  “…I don’t know who you people are, or where you come from, but you must get out of the park, quickly! Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

  While I vaporized the rest of the stun-ropes, Guts helped the poor fellow back to his feet.

  I was about to resume questioning him when Nuts squeezed between us, giving me a sharp swipe of her elbow. I rubbed my ribs as she brushed leaves and sticks off the native gentleman’s clothing, getting his measure with a few demure, barely noticeable gropes.

  That was when the security Lieutenant came with bad news.

  “Captain, I’m sorry to report that Crewman Wems has disappeared.”

  Ohm gave an exasperated sigh. “Wems, eh? Missing, you say? Well, hm.”

  He glanced at the other security men. “I guess we could send Jums and Smet to look for him.”

  The two greenies paled, cringing backward two paces. I cleared my throat. The captain looked my way.

  “No?”

  “Not if you ever want to see them again, sir.”

  The captain may be impulsive, but he’s not stupid.

  “Hmm, yeah. Better save ’em for later.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, we all go. Form up everybody!”

  Each of us was equipped with a locator, to find the spigot in case we got separated. I tried scanning for Wems, but could pick up no sign of his signal. Either something was jamming it or he was out of range. Or the transmitter had been vaporized – and Wems along with it.

  We scoured the area for the better part of an hour, while our former captive grew increasingly nervous, sucking on his lower lip and peering toward the bushes. Finally, we decided to let him choose our direction of march, flanked on one side by the captain and the other by our chief artificer, Commander-Engineer Nomlin, who gripped his arm like a tourniquet, batting her eyes so fast the wind might have mussed his hair again, if it weren’t already coifed and greased back from a peaked forehead.

  Aside from several teeth even more pointy than a demmie’s, our guide had pasty skin that he tried to keep shaded with his cloak. Taking readings, I found that the sun did emit high ultraviolet levels. Moreover, the air was laced with industrial pollutants and signs of a degraded ozone layer – fairly typical for a world passing through its Level Eighteen crisis point. If proper relations were established, we might help the natives with such problems. Perhaps enough to make up for contacting them in the first place.

  The native informed Nuts that his name was “Earl Dragonlord” – at least that is how the nano in his throat forced his vocal apparatus to pronounce it, in accented demmish. He seemed unaware of any change in speech patterns, since other nanos in his ears re-translated the sounds back into his native tongue. From his perspective, we were all miraculously speaking the local lingo.

  The master translator unit followed our party, watching out for more aliens to convert in this way. A typically demmie solution to the inconvenience of a polyglot cosmos.

  Our chief artificer swooned all over Earl, asking him what the name of that tree was, and how did he ever get such dark eyes, and how long would it take to have a local tailor make another cape just like his. Fortunately, Nuts had to pause occasionally to breathe. During one of these intermissions, Captain Ohm broke in to ask about the “danger” Earl spoke of earlier.

  “It’s become a nightmare in our city!” he related in hushed tones, glistening eyes darting nervously. “The Lik’ems are breaking their age-old vows. They no longer cull only the least-deserving Standards, but prey on anyone they wish! Why, they’ve even taken to pouncing on Nomorts like you and me! Then there’s the ongoing strike by the corpambulists…”

  It sounded awfully complicated already, and we’d only gone fifty meters from the spigot. I interrupted.

  “I’m sorry. Did you say – ‘like you and me?’ What do you mean by that?”

  He glanced at me, noticing my human features. “I was referring to your companions and me. No offense meant. Although you are clearly a Standard, I can tell that your lineage is strong, and your bile is un-ripe. Or else, why would you mingle with these Nomorts in apparent friendship? True, your kind is used to being hunted. Nevertheless, you must realize the rules are drastically changed here. Traditional restraints no longer hold in our poor city!”

  I shared a glance with the Captain. Clearly, the native thought we were visitors from another town, and that the demmies were fellow “Nomorts”… his own kind of people. Perhaps because of the similarity in dentition. In his hurry, he seemed willing to overlook our uniforms and strange tools.

  The afternoon waned as our path climbed a tree-crested hill. Suddenly, spread before us, there lay the city proper… one of the more intriguing urban landscapes I ever saw.

  Some skyscrapers towered eighty or more stories, with cantilevered decks protruding into a gathering mist. Many spires were linked together by graceful sky-bridges, arching across open space at giddy heights. Yet none of these towers compared with a distant edifice that shone through the sunset haze. A gleaming pyramidal structure whose apex glittered with jeweled light.

  “Cal’mari!” Earl announced, gesturing with obvious pride toward his city.

  “What?” blurted Nuts, briefly taking her hand from his arm. “You mean squid?”

  “Yes… Squid.” Earl said with sublime dignity, as the translator took its cue from Nuts, automatically replacing one word with another. Earl seemed blithely unaware that two entirely different sounds had emerged from his voicebox.

  “Squid it is,” Ohm nodded, regarding the skyscrapers. And that was that. From now on, any demmie, and any speech-converted local, would use that word to signify this town.

  I sighed. After all, it was only a city. But you students should take note that several civilizations have made the mistake of declaring war on demmies, over the insult of changing their planet’s name without asking. Not that it ever did any good.

  “Squid” was impressive for a pre-starflight city. At one time, it must have been even more grand. The metropolis clearly used to surround the park on all sides, though now many quarters seemed empty, devoid of life. Once-proud spires were abandoned to the ravages of time, with blank windows like blind eyes staring into space. But straight ahead, the burg still thrived – a noisy, vibrant forest of tall buildings draped in countless sheets of colored glass, resembling 20th century New York, dressed-up with ostentatious, spiral minarets.