»Yuh … that’s true,« Paafnas sighed. »A communal midday-bath in a sulfur swamp. You’ll like it when you visit me some time on my home-world, trust me!«
Pi shuddered, imagining the swamp and the associated smells. He looked at the portal and frowned.
»Forget it,« Arkroid guessed what Pi was thinking. »The portal still works, but it is also transformed into anti-matter … like us!«
»Let’s hope that nobody uses the portal as long as we’re in its vicinity,« he replied. »Already one person would cause total annihilation for this area …«
»… taking us with him through the seventh gate of Hell!« Maya completed his sentence. »Let’s hope that Morgotradon doesn’t get the simplest idea in the universe to get rid of us in one strike.«
»Not to worry, Maya,« Vasina interjected. »If he sends something through the portal, he would not only kill us but also destroy the three Jamal-Combs in my possession. He won’t take that risk. He wants the keys!«
»Then we can relax and settle here,« Herimos said.
»No,« Arkroid huffed. »We need to leave this world today. It’s important that we face Morgotradon and defend our keys by any means.«
Voit twitched as he saw Arkroid’s reaction.
»What did the Kokradian tell you, Toiber? Were you really able to peek into the future for a moment?«
Arkroid looked around nervously.
»He showed me some possible alternatives, but none of these time lines had anything to do with Kug.«
»Your time is running out!« Ivanova’s replication shouted while looking at Arkroid distastefully. »I also heard the Kokradian’s words: a traitor is amongst you!«
Klori’Tar croaked nervously.
»Don’t listen to her!« Herimos advised. »The Kokradian only said that a situation could arise where one of us could become a traitor. It’s a vague statement but I can imagine such scenarios.«
»My master will find you and free me!« the replication hissed. She still seemed to believe in him strongly.
»We can’t leave this world,« Tranos picked up the thread again. »Death is waiting for us outside this world.«
»There must be a way to shake this off!« Voit shouted angrily and looked at Vasina.
Vasina grimaced.
»Ahem, this is not a disease that can be cured with medication, Voit,« she replied, clearing her throat.
»… and if we go through the portal to another world then we become living bombs,« Tranos added.
»We should go back to the Library and talk to Boiltos,« Herimos suggested. »He can probably help us, considering his technological possibilities …«
»… Boiltos and his Library are as much affected as we are,« Arkroid interrupted. »We have to rely on ourselves.«
»How?« Vasina inquired, throwing her long, black hair back.
»First, we need to leave this world,« Arkroid stated, looking at Kuster~Laap and his ZyClonians. »They can help.«
Kuster~Laap hadn’t spoken much after his encounter with Boiltos.
The Genorantan Prophet is closed up and lethargic, probably because of Boiltos’ rejection. He thinks that he’s entitled to the knowledge embedded in my mind. I wish, I could change that and let him carry the burden, but Boiltos selected me for a reason, Arkroid thought.
»I don’t know how we could help,« Kuster~Laap’s deep voice sounded, which hurt the others, as he always seemed to lose control over it when he was very emotional. »We’re all affected by the polarization phenomenon. I don’t see a way out.«
Arkroid closed his eyes for a moment before he said, »C’mon, Kuster~Laap, you’re disappointed … accept that, but you’re still a member of this team and should not lose sight of what we want to achieve. We are Protectors, remember?«
»You heard it yourself from Boiltos, the Protectors are a legend and not the reality,« Kuster~Laap replied with a more subtle voice. »We believed and followed a myth!«
»We are what we decided to be!« Arkroid answered sternly. »If you lost your faith, then, at least, don’t work against us!«
Kuster~Laap’s ears moved around wildly. He opened his mouth several times as if he wanted to gasp for air, however, he didn’t say a word.
»The ZyClonians readjust the portal, so we can leave the planet,« Arkroid demanded, nodding at the two extra-terrestrials who just stared into the distance.
»As the shield-bearer already said, we cannot go through another portal, although technically possible. The only portal would be the one on Morgotradon’s star base. I can hardly imagine that you want to return to that place,« Kuster~Laap growled.
»Tjuh, right, the mutated crystal intelligence would love to have us for breakfast,« Pi threw in, blinking at Paafnas. »It has probably devoured the entire station by now.«
»We don’t want to go there. I want us to transfer to Klori’Tar’s ship. It should still be in tight, lower orbit, if I’m not mistaken.« Arkroid symbolically pointed to the sky.
»Huh? What?« Klori’Tar gasped, then blowing up his air sacks and raising his hair. »My ship?«
»You want to transfer to the Messy-Unit?« Maya wanted to hear it again from Arkroid.
»We have no other choice,« Arkroid cut short the discussion. »Nautilus will not let us on board. The Cobalt-Hunter is the only alternative. Don’t you think so, Klori’Tar?«
The Klorian seemed very nervous and sounded like a pool of frogs.
»My … my ship? I’ve never had visitors!«
»Perfect, another neurotic hermit, like our friend Scorge,« Maya mocked.
»I don’t know what neurotic means, but hope it has nothing to do with your sex-drive,« he complained. »My Cobalt-Hunter wasn’t built for you, you know? The ship only serves me! It is too dangerous for you.«
»What do you mean?« Herimos asked and stepped closer to Klori’Tar who used his antigravity suit to gain space between them.
»My ship is unique!« he shouted at Herimos from a slightly elevated position. »It’s quite possible that the ship doesn’t accept you!«
»You don’t have control over the central processing unit or defense mechanisms?« Pi chuckled and shook his head.
»I’m in full control of course. I’m just not sure in your case.«
»Klori’Tar, you’re talking in riddles. One thing is clear, though. The ship possesses a micro portal. Otherwise, how were you able to transfer into Morgotradon’s star base? We need your help. There’s no other place for us to go. Please, let us transfer to your ship. Give us refuge!«
Arkroid had spoken urgently. He thought he knew Klori’Tar well enough by now. He had to butter him up. Klori’Tar’s mentality didn’t allow him to do favors; ordering him around wouldn’t work either.
Klori’Tar blew up his sacks again to a yet unseen volume. With loud shattering sounds he let out the air and screeched, »You don’t touch anything on board, you hear me? Everybody follows my direction! I’m the commander, you’re my guests!«
Arkroid exchanged some victorious glances with Vasina. She understood.
»You’re the boss,« she agreed calmly.
»I don’t need these two no-talk-at-alls and guardians of the low voiced stretch-neck with flipping ears. So far I’ve always adjusted the Genorantan portals myself!« Klori’Tar’s cheeks were deep red, as sign of strong emotions. He pulled a small sensor panel out of his pocket and pointed it at the tachyon portal. While his fingers raced across the pad, he hissed, »Everybody keeps his decon-chip activated! I’m warning you, don’t infest my ship with frogamian pelt lice!«
Klori’Tar looked at Herimos’ body hair and received a loud growl.
Strange
Toiber Arkroid didn’t know what to expect when he transferred to the Messy-Unit. He and the others held their breaths when they saw the new environment.
»What the Devil …?« Pi alarmed the others and ducked instinctively. The rest of the team, except for the ZyClonians, did the same.
»I don’t want strange deities being wors
hipped on my ship,« Klori’Tar announced. »We Klorians are very religious people!«
»Superstitious, you mean,« Maya said sarcastically.
Irritated, Pi, looked around. A strange looking structure covered all the walls in the room.
»What’s that?« he asked.
All the walls and the ceiling seemed to have come alive. Dense, colorful, finger-like polyps moved like waves from one side to the other.
»That looks …,« Masgur whispered fascinated.
»… like a large colony of sea anemones, moving with an ocean current,« Arkroid interrupted. »What is that?«
Paafnas licked his eyes and speculated, »Are these Klorian plants?«
Klori’Tar croaked briefly and walked to the moving wall.
Not believing their eyes, Klori’Tar walked right into the living wall which began touching him, examining him. He seemed to like it very much.
Why does this scenario remind of clownfish? Arkroid thought.
»Yes, I’m home again,« Klori’Tar spoke to the wall and tried to free himself from the twitching polyps.
»This is a bio-technical entity which I rescued from a marooned spaceship, which had fallen from the sky, as everything else on my home-world. I was very lucky. I only took one polyp with me and anchored it to the ship’s wall. You can see what became of it.«
»Yuck!« the replication hissed, earning a threatening look from Herimos.
»Ignorant sister!« Klori’Tar shouted angrily. »The polyp colony is the ship’s life-sustaining system. This complex biological entity filters the air, produces oxygen and recycles poisonous gasses and gives off light.«
Paafnas cautiously stretched out a hand to touch the wall, only to pull his hand back quickly as Klori’Tar warned, »I wouldn’t do that if I were you!«
The warning came a second too late, Paafnas had touched a cluster of polyps, although barely. The result was that his hand began twitching and turned blue.iThe result was that his hand had turn blue
»The polyps only accept me and with their secretions may poison you, causing a lot of pain, maybe death! Stay away from them!« Klori’Tar warned again.
With a disgusted voice, Maya asked, »Why are you taking such a thing into your ship?«
Klori’Tar ignored her question and said instead, »I warned you, but you wanted to come on board my ship!«
»He’s right,« Arkroid intervened. »We have nothing to complain about.«
The team was standing on an octagon-shaped platform. The micro-portal was, contrary to Genorantan design, sunk into the floor and didn’t feature the normal pedestal layout.
Two round projectors, to the left and right, covered with hundreds of antenna-like spikes, where mounted on the polyp covered ceiling. A small steel stair was leading from the platform indentation to the normal floor level of the room.
»People, something’s wrong here!« Voit warned terrified as a brown, greasy-looking substance was moving up his legs. »Can somebody take this stuff off me, please?«
Arkroid froze as he also saw the same substance crawling up his legs … this stuff was alive!
»Please, remain calm. The micro-columns are just doing their work,« Klori’Tar advised. »That’s part of the decon-procedure. The Myzels are flowing over your defense shields and devour organic trace elements which might cling to your shields due to their static properties. I already mentioned that I don’t want any infestations on my ship. These Myzel slime-fungi are very thorough and effective.«
»If one of them crawls underneath my suit then …,« Pi warned, but his innermost fears didn’t come true. After about five minutes, the columns retreated into slots in the floor.
»This was … uhem … strange, to say the least,« Vasina commented, choosing her words wisely. Looking at the team members faces, it became clear to all what they were thinking and that they might have used stronger vocabulary.
Klori’Tar reached for the railing of the steel stair and said, »Just stay behind me and don’t leave the group or stroll around.«
Arkroid nodded at his team and followed Klori’Tar, keeping a respectful distance to the polyps.
Nobody wanted to explore the ship on their own account anyway.
I’m all with you
»What a strange ship,« Maya commented mutedly as she walked up the stair, observing a bluish and gooey substance, which was flowing against the laws of nature inside a channel on the floor toward an elevated segment. »What the …?«
»This is Queff,« Klori’Tar explained. »It’s flowing everywhere in the ship, inside the plumbing and between the walls.«
»Queff?« Pi chuckled. »A strange name.« Pi crouched and looked into the channel underneath a grid cover. »We would call that Blue Goo on Earth. What’s it good for?«
Klori’Tar stopped his walk and turned around.
»Do I really have to explain all technical features on my ship? I didn’t know that I invited a group of pre-tachyon plant-root collectors!«
He blew up his air sacks in protest and croaked, which almost sounded like a big sigh.
»The Queff is a momentum counter-reactive substance. I transferred the plasma from an almost intact ship wreck. It always flows against the mass inertia, countering its effects, storing the energy difference to release it somewhere else, preferably inside the ship’s energy accumulators. Sometimes uncontrolled discharges occur, so, keep your boney fingers away from it. It hurts!«
»It functions like an inertia damper?« Herimos inquired.
»You could put it that way, but it also provides the ship with additional energy,« Kuster~Laap explained to the surprise of the team members. »I’ve seen this already.«
Klori’Tar croaked surprised.
»At least somebody knows something about advanced space travel.«
Kuster~Laap bowed thankfully.
»Well, we’re using small little silver cubes, a friendly space trader sold us,« Arkroid added to the discussion in reference to Scorge. He signaled the team to go on and refrain from further questioning.
The Ship’s interior was a labyrinth of stairs, catwalks and shielded tubes and walkable tunnels. A level on which the most important aggregates and machines were installed didn’t seem to exist. While Klori’Tar utilized his antigravity pack, the rest of the team had to walk up stairs and ramps. The different sections reminded Arkroid of a refinery with pipes, pumps and valves and not like a spaceship.
Minutes later the finally arrived in a larger room, which was open on all sides.
»Welcome to my command central!« Klori’Tar announced proudly.
Vasina and Tranos looked at each other while Herimos growled. He kept an eye on the replication who was standing beside him. Pi looked at the ceiling where a fine-webbed cocoon was hanging. The cocoon itself was suspended from the ceiling, aggregates and pipes with arm-thick gooey strings. Some of the cocoon extensions reached all the way to the consoles and deeper laying ship sections. A shadow was moving back and forth inside the cocoon.
Arkroid’s neck hair rose as he saw this.
»I don’t want to be rude, but what the heck is that?« he asked breathlessly.
Herimos, who sensed danger, pulled his plasma rifle from his shoulder while Tranos positioned himself before Vasina.
Klori’Tar seemed irritated for a moment as he saw the concerned faces of the team members.
»I see an instinctive fear in your eyes, which is probably based on an evolutionary trauma by your species,« he concluded.
The cocoon possessed a small opening at the bottom from which a signaling rope was hanging down to the floor level.
Klori’Tar vigorously pulled on the rope several times, which caused an immediate reaction inside the cocoon. Something was about to leave the cocoon. Since the cocoon walls where faintly transparent, it was not immediately obvious who or what resided up there.
Pi swallowed as two extremities became visible.
»Klori’Tar, I hope you have full control over your pet!« he warned him.
> Klori’Tar’s face became deep red.
Maya shrieked, an oval object appeared at the opening.
A metal-like oval body, obviously a machine, was groping with its telescopic tentacles for strings which were running sideways and down from the cocoon. Although the movements were swift they also seemed awkwardly clumsy. This resulted in a crash landing on the floor. It was clear to everyone that the robot had miscalculated its rate of descent and fallen faster than expected. After its crash, which was accompanied by a bell-like sound, coming from inside the torso, the robot tilted to the side while still shooting support strings in all directions to stabilize itself.
The robot came to a standstill, displaying a large dent in his underside. It took a moment until the robot got up and approached Klori’Tar with a staggering walk.
Klori’Tar hugged the machine and said, »I’m also happy to see you, but you should be more careful next time. Now, I need to hammer out the dent again.«
The robot replied with un-melodic tone sequences, causing Maya to display a sympathetic smile.
»Uhh … look at that,« she remarked.
The replication was, however, starring at the robot as if she wanted to dismantle it.
»How about an introduction, Klori’Tar,« Masgur suggested, looking up to the cocoon. He was probably waiting for another robot to descend in the same manner.
»Verzimut, is a first class and irreplaceable service- and maintenance robot. He sees to it that all the different ship components are functioning flawlessly as one unit.«
Arkroid smiled and asked, »Did he also fall from the sky?«
»Certainly … I salvaged him when he was still a young bio-tech unit. He grew up to become an invaluable helper. He is also an extra-ordinary guardian of the ship during my times of absence.«
Cautiously, Pi stepped a bit closer toward the robot.
»It … ahem … he grew? Can a robot grow?« Pi wondered
»Sure! Are you not growing too?« Klori’Tar defended his Robot, as if this would be the most natural thing in the universe.
»Ahem … yes … uh … you’re right,« Pi cleared his throat, feigning embarrassment.
NEBULAR Collection 6 - The Great Tremor: Episodes 27 - 30 Page 11
