around, and then we wouldn't be inside here now and sort of insisting that you turn over Krakar to us.'
'Even that contingency has been considered. If any attempt is made to take Krakar in this fashion, any one of our race can press an instant destruct button that blows everything up. Krakar and the works will be gone forever. We would rather do that than have it fall into the wrong hands.'
'Sort of stalemate,' John mused. 'Look, why don't we sit down around a conference table like intelligent life forms and see what we can work out? And besides, Sally is going to have a sore throat after all this.'
'We are amenable,' Three said after a moment's thought. 'Would you be kind enough to leave your weapons behind when you emerge? You will find that our atmosphere is breathable by primitive creatures like yourselves. Over and out.' Sally staggered and clutched at her neck. 'Christ, my throat hurts!' she grated. While Sally gargled with salt water, the rest of the Earthlings dumped their weapons and exited. Three was waiting at the foot of the gangway to greet them.
'Welcome,' he said in the familiar deep voice.
'Well I'll be hornswoggled.' Chuck gaped for all of them. 'These Chachkas look just like foot-long, black cockroaches with little pink hands on their front feet!'
'Yes, and you humans look like great, soft gop-worms that used to live in our swamps and ate by standing on their heads and sucking in mud. Now if we can drop the racial slander, we can get on with the business at hand. While you were making your clumsy way out of your archaic vehicle, I had a conference with the other leaders. Since we can think about a hundred times faster than you primitive forms, you might say we had a day-long rap session and we have reached a conclusion. We have nothing against you, other than you look like gop-worms, that is, but we only hand over Krakar for like a real galaxy-wide emergency. So far you haven't convinced us. What might convince us is a complete knowledge of your antecedents, history, moral turpitude, intelligence, sexual deviations, culture, etc. If we had this we could decide if the present emergency justifies the use of Krakar.'
'You're not asking very much,' John told him. 'We could be here ten years and not supply all the info you need.'
'That is where you are wrong, primitive softling. If you permit us, we can make an instant print of all your memories, including your racial memories, and with that we can make a true evaluation in a couple of minutes more. Do you agree?'
'What do we have to do?' Chuck asked suspiciously for all of them.
'Just agree, that's all, since we Chachkas are not only incredibly honest but cannot take anytlling by force, including a memory. If you agree, why then brain-copying rays will instantly lash down, penetrating easily those primitive mind shields, and make a copy of everything you have lurking in the old gray matter. You will feel nothing.'
'Well, what do you say, guys?' Jerry asked. The others thought for a moment, then nodded agreement. 'Okay, you can do it, Three.'
'It's already done. I told you it wouldn't hurt. Now, while the memories are being processed, may I offer you a little refreshment? We have a fine hundred-year-old Napoleon brandy, manufactured instantly from your memories by our reconstitutor machines and indistinguishable from the original Try it.'
They managed to work the ancient cork out and poured a golden measure into each snifter, then smacked and gasped and moaned with delight.
'Keep the bottle, I don't drink,' Three said with an offhand wave of its tentacle. 'Ahh, the results are coming through. My, oh, my, you do have some loathsome material well sublimated in your subconscious minds, but that is neither here nor there. What is interesting is that the Lortonoi might very well be the galaxy-wide menace that Krakar will be needed to destroy, so you boys are in luck.'
'Then we get the weapon?' John asked, leaning forward expectantly.
'You do not. Didn't you hear the operative might in that sentence? What we will do is give you an instant communicator that will enable you to contact us instantly from any part of the galaxy. If the situation is so desperate that it looks as if the Lortonoi are going to take over, you have simply to drop us the word, then press your head against the device. We'll make a memory copy to get up to date and decide then.'
'Is that your best offer?' Jerry asked.
'Best offer we have made in a little over eight billion years, so consider yourself lucky. The communicator is now resting within your machine. So take it and leave and good riddance. Oh, yes, one thing before you go. Our incredible machinery is powered by a matter destruction generator that generates energy by the total destruction of matter. We will be running out of mass to burn in it in about a couple of hundred years. Just to be sure, we would like to have some extra on hand. If you are interested, we'll trade you a case of the Napoleon brandy for two hundred gallons of your jet fuel That should see us through the next thousand years.'
'A deal!' they shouted all together.
'Fine. The brandy is already aboard, and we have removed the fuel Now good-bye, we have had about all of your primitive presences that we can stand.'
They waved cheery good-byes and tramped back into the Pleasantville Eagle, passing the bottle happily from hand to hand. A hoarse Sally emerged from the head, and they gave her a double slug to help her throat. Three had not lied, since he was incapable of it, and there on a seat in the front row was a case of the brandy, while in the seat next to it was a golden sphere about the size of a golfball with a single red button on it labeled 'press me.'
'These roaches sure know a thing or two about microminiaturization,' John said, slipping the sphere into his pocket. 'Now how do we get out of here?'
'Maximum power, I would say,' Chuck said. 'We can make it almost back to Haggis in a single jump. In that way the warring thousands around this sphere will have no idea that we were ever inside.'
'I'll buy that,' John said. 'Maximum power, lady and gents, so hold onto your hats.' Jerry twisted the dials to their stops, made careful alignment, then pressed the actuator button. This was the biggest jump they had ever made, and they really felt it. As if their guts were made of spaghetti and were being wound up on a big fork.
'Yukh,' Sally eructated when they had emerged lightyears away, speaking for them all, then staggered and sat down heavily in a seat.
It took them awhile to recover from the shock of the jump – the Napoleon brandy helped a good deal – and when they finally landed at the Galaxy Ranger base on Planet X, they were feeling better, as well as being half crocked, so Sally brewed some black coffee and they all drank a good deal of this before they emerged and marched grimly to the control room.
'Report!' John said, seating himself at the massive control console and flipping switches quickly. Most of the switches didn't work, since they were still building the place, but he finally got through to the OD.
'Glad you are back, sir,' the alien said. 'That spy team you sent to track the Lortonoi is back and, boy, do they have a story to tell!'
'All right, don't ruin the punch line, just send the commander in here on the double.'
The commander turned out to be Pipa, his green skin now taut and smooth since he was eating better, his familiar grin splitting his wide head from earslit to earslit.
'Hi, Jerry,' he croaked. 'Long time no see, not since the dustup in the DnDrf mine. Those were the good old days-'
'Look!' John ordered. 'Report first, reminisce later if you don't mind. You tracked the fleeing Lortonoi?'
'That we did, sir, like the hound of hell, tracking them as they fled down through the light-years. Their track ended in a star cluster out on the galactic rim, or rather at one star in particular that is called Diesun. This star has a rather unusual planet or satellite or whatever the hell you want to call it. Sorry, chief, but my powers of description fail me. Let me flash a slide on the screen, and then I'll fill in the details. You're not going to believe this, I know we didn't. Could I have the first slide, please?'
A solidograph picture instantly appeared in midair before them, and they gasped in unison.
'I don't believe it,' John said. 'What kind of funny games you up to, you miserable toad?'
'Please, have patience, I beg! I can get the rest of the crew in, and we'll swear loyalty and truth on bended knee and take a polygraph test, the works. This is what we found out there.'
This was a thing like a hula hoop in space. It could have been a discarded hunk of machinery or something like that until you looked at the scale. For that sphere of light floating in its center was a sun. Or rather a 'sun'. This whatchmacallit in space was floating, rotating, around the sun like an immense wheel without spokes.
'I know what they've done,' Jerry said, snapping his fingers loudly. 'It was in the astronomical literature a
