Chapter 1



The Quatyl commander, Atac, scanned a report from the Gnord sensor specialist with dread. He had identified a previously unknown planetary system only eighty light years from their path. What was significant about this particular system was that radio emissions were originating from it. Radio emissions meant that some planet supported a space faring race or at least one that was very close to becoming one.

Atac prayed that this system didn't hold the species that would threaten the Quatyl race. Like most Quatyl commanders, it had been his hope that he would fulfill his service in the Quatyl Space Exploration Agency without ever encountering an unknown species. The radio signals originating from an unexplored region of space had dashed that hope.

He really didn't want to meet species responsible for all of those radio signals, but that did not prevent him from performing his duty. His job was to find new space faring species and assess their threat. Being a good loyal member of the Quatyl Space Exploration Agency, he gave the order to locate the source of the radio signals and set course for their origin.

The Omagron navigator entered the course feeling sorry for the residents of that planet. She knew that the residents would soon become slaves to the Quatyl. Her feelings didn't matter since she couldn't have disobeyed the mental commands imposed on her by the Quatyl commander. One of the worst things about the Quatyl form of control was that the controlled entity was fully aware of the control while being unable to resist it. The lack of hope ate away at her spirit.

The Omagrons species were nearly extinct because of a low birth rate. Females weren't laying eggs in quantity and the sperm of the males was weak. It was as if the race was committing suicide. It was an all too common chain of events among species controlled by the Quatyl. Even the Quatyl observed this and didn't know what to do about it.

Ignoring the depressing chain of thoughts in the navigator's mind, Atac picked up the information that they would reach the planetary system within a hundred chronons. He input the information into the navigator's mind that they were to approach the system above the planetary orbital plane. There was less debris on that route and, hence, less risk of collision.

Once they would arrive above the orbital plane, Atac planned to spend some time studying the system from a safe distance. The problem was in determining how far away was a safe enough distance that would still allow them to collect data. Nothing filled a Quatyl with greater dread than first contact with a new species.

Atac communicated with his mate, Atar, via his Slathern and explained the situation to her. Her job was to control the work crew while they maintained the ship. It would be up to her to coordinate any necessary repairs if the ship was damaged. The danger of this situation required that she be prepared to start repairs quickly should they come under attack.

Atac then communicated the situation to Stac and Star. The young couple constituted the scientists of the command staff. Stac was knowledgeable in the physical sciences and was usually the busier of the two. Star was the linguist (every Quatyl explorer ship had a linguist on board in case they ran into a space faring race). While they didn't perform the actual science themselves, they oversaw the support crew that did the work. They would control the crew to display important information on their computer screens and decide what was important enough to pursue further.

The other four Quatyl aboard the explorer craft would each control a quarter of the scouts who would explore the planet. Once he was assured that the repair crews were standing by and the scientists were busy acquiring knowledge about the unknown species, Atac informed the others of the situation. There wasn't much for them to do until they landed other than to maintain their normal responsibilities. Leac and Lear, the oldest couple on the ship did their best to shrug off the situation as normal. Ceac and Cear, the youngest couple on the ship, were terrified by the prospect of meeting a new space faring species.

Eighty chronons passed before the spaceship reached a position above the orbital plane. It didn't take long for their attention to turn to the third planet from the sun. It was from this planet that the radio emissions originated. In fact, more radio emissions originated from this planet than any member of the Quatyl race had ever encountered on approaching a planet. In galactic parlance, this was a loud and very rude planet. Fortunately, space is very large. The signals would become so weak after a sufficient distance that the shouting wouldn't interfere with the communications of much quieter and polite planets.

Stac, one of the Quatyl, reported to Star via one of the Slathern, 'This is a strange planet. It has a very large moon orbiting it, but there are lots of little manufactured satellites as well.'

'The radio emissions are not decipherable. As soon as I think I've figured it out, I find that doesn't make sense any longer, ' Star reported using the same Slathern to relay the message back to Stac. Star was Stac's mate and they often shared their Slathern as a special form of intimacy.

The reason for Star's confusion was that she wasn't expecting to encounter a planet that spoke more than one language. She was listening to messages transmitted in more than a hundred different languages and language variants. After spending over a hundred chronons on it, Star was convinced that whatever species was generating the messages had to be insane. Despite working on it for ages, she was just beginning to make sense out of one series of messages that appeared to have common linguistic elements.

After observing the planet for a hundred chronons, the scientists reported the results of their observations to Atac via a Slathern and a presentation that laid out the essential information. It was not a very satisfying report from Atac's perspective. Stac had reported the presence of artificial satellites, but had not observed any space craft actually leaving the planet. According to his conservative report, he couldn't tell if the reason was that the species didn't frequent space all that often or if he was unable to detect their spacecraft.

When it was Star's turn to present her results, Atac found himself getting more depressed. After studying the radio signals from the planet for more than a hundred chronons, she had not been able to decipher more than a miniscule fraction of it. She complained that there appeared to be hundreds of different formats in the signals and that the information within a channel was incomprehensible.

After considering their presentation for almost a tenth of a chronon, Atac asked the question that Stac and Star had been dreading, 'Are they dangerous?'

Driving the Slathern to the full extent of its ability to convey frustration, Stac answered, 'I don't know."

Star answered, 'I don't know.'

For another tenth of a chronon, Atac considered the situation. As commander of a Quatyl explorer ship, it was his duty to identify and quantify the danger posed by other space faring races. As a Quatyl, his instinct was to hide. Dreading the answer, he used the Slathern to ask, 'What do you recommend?"

There was a long pause before Stac answered, 'We have to get closer.'

'How close?'

'Close enough to observe them, ' Star answered with a feeling of dread in her stomach.

Using the Slathern, Stac said, 'Considering the number of artificial satellites, we are going to have to land on the planet.'

'I was hoping that you would have suggested something else, ' Atac said before dismissing them and ending the meeting.

Atac took a full ten chronons planning how to get closer to the planet. They sent off all of their observations in a carrier drone back to the nearest base of the Quatyl Space Exploration Agency. Considering the time spent gathering information, the report was pretty incomplete. With great reluctance, he gave the order to approach the planet.

The ship had fully entered the gravity well of the planet when Atac made his first bad decision of the mission. He mentally selected a spot on the planet and conveyed to the navigator to make a low orbit pass around the planet and then land at the specified location. The navigator laid in the course and the pilot followed it without question.

The first evidence that things weren't going right occurred when the first shield was destroyed as a result of hitting a stealth communications satellite. In addition to being small and non- reflective, it hadn't been emitting any radio signals. There was no way they could have known that it was there.

The situation only got worse. While everyone was recovering from the impact, the spaceship, deflected from its original course, hit a huge patch of debris left in space during the early days of the American and Russian space programs. The second shield was destroyed and the third was severely weakened.

By this time, the spaceship was out of control and spinning wildly. It was at this point that Atac made his second mistake. Using too much mental force, he tried to control the actions of the pilot. The mental force applied was too much for the pilot causing him to suffer a major stroke. Suddenly control was up to the second pilot.

The second pilot pushed the spaceship down towards the planet hoping to get below the debris that was destroying the ship. Entering the atmosphere at too steep of an angle stripped away the battered remains of the third shield. Panicked, Atac commanded the second pilot to get the craft on the ground as quickly as possible. Unable to argue, the pilot headed towards the ground.

A new problem quickly arose. The ship was headed directly at a heavily populated area. By this time, the spaceship was screaming through the atmosphere leaving a flaming trail behind it and every radar installation around the world was tracking it. Unfortunately for the Quatyl, the trajectory took the spaceship over a country that was involved in a war with a neighboring country. This war involved each country lobbing low altitude missiles at the other country.

The border of the more technologically advanced country was protected from incoming missiles by several batteries of anti- missile missiles. One of the operators, an idiot by his own admission, decided it would be 'fun' to see a missile take out a shooting star. The missile didn't take out the spaceship, but it did render one more shield useless and changed its trajectory. Although it wouldn't make Atac feel any better if he were to learn of it, the operator was court marshaled for his little stunt.

With half of the failsafe systems destroyed, the crew of Quatyl was terrified and curled into their life support pods anticipating death in a fiery crash. It should be noted that the life support pods were basically three chambered affairs. One chamber was shared by a mated pair of Quatyl and represented their living quarters. The other two chambers were individual work spaces that provided sufficient separation to allow them to work.

Atac, making his third bad decision, gave up all control over the pilot. The pilot, left alone to make decisions for himself for the first time in his life, decided to see what would happen if he did nothing. The spaceship started tumbling out of control. Anyone who wasn't fastened inside of a crash chair was killed by the jarring motions of the ship. A few other crew members were killed when struck by flying objects, including other members of the crew who had not been fortunate enough to be secured in their crash chair. The pilot was one of those who didn't survive long enough to regret his decision to do nothing.

The first contact with the surface of the planet was in the middle of a large body of water. The space ship skipped along the body of water like a flat stone thrown across a lake. Each bounce damaged more of the ship and threw the crew around the interior. The Quatyl were fairly safe within their safety pods, but Leac was slightly injured with a cut to his side.

Skipping across the ocean did have one benefit although it would be years before that benefit was realized by the Quatyl. After the third bounce, not a single radar installation had any clue where the spaceship was headed. It was flying too low to be easily observed by radar. It was assumed by Earth authorities that it sank into the ocean. Since the search area was too large to cover, the Quatyl were spared the indignity of becoming lab specimens in some secret government laboratory while unconscious and unable to react.

The spaceship plowed into the ground on the northern side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico. It bounced once and then settled into a swampy area surrounded by a cloud of steam. The crash destroyed the outer-most remaining hull, killing almost a third of the non-Quatyl crew, and breached the next hull leaving another third of the non-Quatyl crew injured.

The panic of the crew required the full ability of the eight Quatyl to restore control over them. By the time everything finally settled down, almost three quarters of the crew were dead or dying. Atac and Atar quickly worked to organize repair crews while Stac and Star sent out an initial scouting party. Ceac and Cear were both unconscious, as was Leac. Lear was panicked over the state of Leac and was more worried about him than the mission.

As is the nature of such incidents, the crash had damaged the ship far beyond the ability of even the most risk-adverse engineers to prevent. Almost every system on board was inoperable. Even life support had been significantly impaired. Communications were wiped out. All of the external antennas had been lost when the outer-most hull had been destroyed. Secondary internal antennas had been lost when the inner hulls were damaged. Even the primary and secondary power supplies had been cracked by the impact of the crash. The only power onboard the ship was from the backup batteries.

The situation was dire and the Quatyl were near panic. For a shy and risk adverse species, the conditions were almost beyond their ability to comprehend. Every action they took seemed to involve more risk than they felt was acceptable. It didn't matter, need dictated that they firm up their resolution and tackle the situation the best they could.

For a full two chronons, Stac had the environmental specialist, a Dromat, examine the atmosphere of the planet. After a full analysis, it was determined that the atmosphere would support all of the species on board with the exception of the Margot. The atmosphere contained too many hydrocarbons and would slowly poison the Margot. That didn't represent too much of a problem. The only Margot on board of the ship had died from injuries sustained during the crash. In fact, it had died while the environmental scan was being performed.

Ceac commanded a party of Omargons into the swap around the ship for the purpose of getting a view of the external damage to the space craft. He had chosen the Omargons because he thought the lizard-like race would have no difficulties navigating the wet terrain. That was not to be the case, but it was not because they couldn't deal with the terrain. Almost as soon as the first Omargon stepped out of the craft, a huge bird swept down out of the sky and carried it off.

Ceac attempted to control the bird, but nothing happened. The bird-brain was just too primitive for him to inject a command. Surprised, Ceac used a Slathern to communicate with the rest of the Quatyl. His announcement was sufficient to get Lear's mind off Leac's injury. The eight Quatyl drove two of the crew to nervous breakdowns while arguing the significance of not being able to control the animal that had attacked the Omargon.

The next fatality occurred when a snake slithered into a tear in the hull and took one of the Dactites who had been repairing an interior wall. As the snake constricted around the Dactite, Cear let loose with a scream that took over every Slathern on board the ship. The shock of discovering something that could attack without being sensed struck the innermost fear of the young female Quatyl.

Of course, the scream caused the other Quatyl to stop what they were doing. They had to regain control over a Slathern to learn what had caused the problem. Exhausted, confused, and emotionally drained, the telepathic control the Quatyl had over the rest of the crew failed.

Consistent with the basic character of the Dactites to flee when confronted with danger, all of the Dactites fled the ship when the mental control over them was interrupted. It would have been significant if their flight had been planned, but their actions were motivated by blind unreasoning fear. Unfortunately for the Dactites, none of them survived more than two chronon outside the ship.

The horrible thing about this attack was that none of the Quatyl had realized the snake was present. When the Dactites fled, the Quatyl couldn't locate the snake with their highly developed telepathic senses. The dull unreasoning mind of the snake was just too simple to register on their senses. The thought that there existed a life form to which they were telepathically blind sent shivers of fear down their spines.

It was not surprising that Leac and Atar lost consciousness about that time. The presence of a danger that they couldn't recognize in time to hide from it had triggered their give up response. It was several chronons before the Quatyl were able to recover enough to get sufficient control over the rest of the servant crew to resume repairs on the ship.

For the next hundred chronons (about fifty earth days) the Quatyl attempted to get their ship repaired to a self-sustaining level before they lost their entire servant crew. It was a race against time. It seemed as if every chronon or two, something would come in and kill another crew member.

By the hundredth chronon, they were down to three crew members and there was no chance of fixing the ship. The Quatyl had lost their race to save the ship. In fact, they hadn't been able to restore enough of the ship's integrity to prevent further attacks against their crew.

As the commander of the mission, Atac was in a horrible spot. He knew that if they lost the last three servant crew members, then all of the Quatyl were doomed to die in their rescue pods. He was also very aware that they weren't able to protect the servant crew from the dangers that were able to enter the ship at will. He decided that it was time to leave the ship in the hope of finding some species that the Quatyl could control.

Along with two Omagron, one of the last remaining members of the servant crew was a Gnord. After giving full consideration to his circumstances, there was only one choice Atac could make; the Gnord would have to carry them on its back. With its size and speed, Atac hoped that it would be able to outrun any predator they encountered. It was the first good effective decision that he made since entering the planetary system. The two Omagron would have to serve as guards to protect them.

Having made the decision to leave, it was then a question of where to go. The sensors onboard had showed that there was better terrain a good distance to the north. It was his hope that the more open terrain would allow them to detect threats earlier and hence give them a greater chance of survival. At this point, he was only trying to survive long enough to find a species that they could control.

Atac decided that they would head to an area where there were a few buildings. They would avoid built up areas since their small numbers could be overwhelmed very easily. He felt that by finding a single individual of the space faring race, they could determine what their next action would be. As far as plans made in dire circumstances go, it was about as good of a plan as possible.

It took some time for the two Omagron to rig up a carryall that would ride on the Gnord's back and hold all eight Quatyl. Once it was completed, the eight Quatyl left their safety pods for the first time since boarding the ship. It took several attempts to coax Leac and Lear out of their rescue pod. They climbed into the carryall and then the group left the ship.

From the very beginning, the trip out of the swamp did not go well. The Gnord kept finding that it was sinking to its withers in the mud. It encountered snakes on several occasions. One of them was a monster that wrapped itself around the Gnord. One of the Omagron managed to use a knife to kill the snake, but the event had left the Quatyl shaken.

The Omagron, although capable of handling the terrain, did not fare well. On their third chronon of the journey, one of them died when it wandered into an area of quicksand. The other Omagron attempted to rescue it, but it was too late. The more the trapped Omagron struggled, the faster it sank. The entire party was devastated by the event.

The last remaining Omagron was clearing plants out of the way when it was bitten by a snake. The snake didn't bother to stay around to see if it had killed the Omagron, but slithered off into the bush. At first, none of them thought much of the event. Then the leg started to swell and the Omagron collapsed. Less than a twentieth of a chronon (approximately thirty minutes) later the Omagron was dead.

Considering the sped at which a Gnord could travel, Atac had estimated that it would take seven chronons to get out of the swamp. Instead, it took twenty chronons and the only servant crew member that survived was the Gnord. The Quatyl ran out of food on the eighteenth chronon. It had been a difficult trip, but once free of the swamp the Quatyl had real hopes that things would improve.

The Quatyl had controlled the Gnord to move without rest or food, thinking that it was more important to get free of the swamp. The Gnord, if its opinion had been asked, would have agreed with the Quatyl after giving the matter sufficient thought. That didn't make life any easier for the Gnord. As a member of a once proud space faring race, serving as a beast of burden wasn't doing great things for his spirit. It was seriously depressed and that was saying a lot considering the extreme emotional stability of a typical Gnord.

Despite resting for a full chronon after leaving the swamp, the Gnord only lasted ten chronons before dying from over use and hunger. When the Gnord collapsed, the Quatyl were dumped out of the carryall and onto the ground. Losing their transportation was a major blow to the Quatyl. They couldn't believe that all of their crew had died.

It would be unfair to the Quatyl to believe that they had no feelings for the individuals they controlled. They actually liked their unwilling slaves and always felt sad on the passing of one of them. Part of the problem was that they didn't really view the others as slaves, but as extensions of themselves. Losing an individual they controlled was a lot like losing a finger. It did hurt, but one didn't necessarily think about how the finger felt about it or even how the other fingers felt about it. Despite that, they were devastated by the death of the Gnord.

With the death of the Gnord, their situation had truly become dire. The Quatyl were a space faring race that had achieved that status using proxies for arms and legs. Now, the eight Quatyl were on their own, alone in a hostile environment. They couldn't carry their own supplies. They couldn't make shelter for themselves. They couldn't even defend themselves. In short, they were helpless.

The situation, which was bad enough, was getting even worse with every minute that passed. The Slatherns had started drying out once they left the swamp. By the time the Gnord died, there were only two Slatherns left alive. When the last Slathern died, they wouldn't even be able to communicate with each other.

The one bright spot in the situation was that the Quatyl were able to affect a few of the animals that they encountered. A few rodents did their bidding, but there wasn't too much they could do with them. The psychic abilities of the Quatyl were only able to deter some of the larger predators from taking undue notice of them.

Summoning their energy, the eight Quatyl continued onwards in the direction they had been heading despite having no real destination in mind. The plan was that they would keep moving until they found a place where they would be safe long enough to rest and feed.

The short stumpy legs of the Quatyl made their progress slow. The soft pads of their feet were not well suited for the terrain. The hot sun beating down on their dark little bodies was uncomfortable. With each step, the two remaining Slathern continued to dry out. Still, the eight Quatyl marched on with a tenacity that would have made their entire race proud.

Lazlo Zalezac

Chapter 2