Ambassador Shaylin steepled his fingers and pursed his lips in a half smile.

“Now Envoy Tsak-tuk, you must appreciate the cost of transporting your exports to other planets, we’re happy to facilitate trade, but we’re simply unable to be any more charitable than we are at present.”

Across the table, The Tsak-Tulian Envoy huffed in and out several times, expelling great gusts of pungent air as he did so. Those directly across from him shifted uncomfortably in their seats until he spoke.

“Ambassador, you speak of high costs, and yet you pay nothing for our goods and they command high prices amongst your buyers. You would appear to be taking…”, the envoy paused, waiting for the correct word to bubble up through his consciousness, “advantage of what you assume to be our ignorance.”

Shaylin raised his hands and eyebrows at the affront.

“Envoy, you insult us. We’ve opened your doors to interstellar trade, brought you cultural knowledge and business from outside your planetary boundaries and you repay us with accusations and insults?”

It was the Envoy’s turn to smile.

“Knowledge? You bring us stories, select fragments of your history, tales of your heroism in the stars, of your benevolence and grace. You feed us your stories of Matthew, John and Luke and yet your knowledge is so clearly…”, again he paused, waiting for the correct word to present itself.

“Fascinating?” Shaylin offered.

“Sanitary.” Tsak-tuk finished the thought. “Your history as you present it hides the contributions of your Napoleons, Sun Tzus and Ghengis Khans.”

Ambassador Shaylin sat straight up in his chair, listening intently to his earpiece for some explanation of this information breach and receiving only static.

Tsak-Tuk laughed, a low rolling belly laugh that Shaylin felt rumble through his ribcage.

“You wonder how we know things you don’t show us? We have those among us for whom barriers and safeguards are of no consequence, you have your… John Drapers, we have ours.” He raised one worn appendage, noting how pitted and cracked the dermal plates were. Too long at work. “We have learned a great many things from you, about your ruthless subjugation of the weak, your wars, your failed societal systems, we’ve learned of your politics and insatiable lust for power.” He looked pointedly from delegate to delegate, weighing their discomfort. “Why don’t you provide us with your ships, and we’ll take our goods to the stars ourselves and broker our own deals?”

A melodic tone began sounding from outside, Shaylin recognizing it as the midday chiming of the towers in the city square.

Tsak-Tuk narrowed his eyes. “You come to us promising opportunity, your assistance and equal prosperity and yet you take advantage of us and seem intent on keeping us powerless. The time has come to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement.”

The Ambassador moved forward in his seat, reddening in the face.

“How dare you…”, he started as Tsak-Tuk cut him off.

Shaylin, focused too on the envoys cracked and pitted appendage still held aloft suddenly realized the other held a short but impressive looking handgun.

“Today’s chiming unites all of our people against all of yours.” Around them, weapons appeared, amply covering the off-world delegation.”I believe it was your Mao Tse-Tung who said ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’?”

Shaylin shrunk back into his seat in a pool of his own sweat.

“He wasn’t ours, exactly.” Was all he could think to say.

Eliot hunched his shoulders against the wind, the relentless sand picking at the seals of his gloves and headgear trying to find a way inside. He watched the glow of the sun disappear beyond the horizon, his waking period now fully begun.

It had been weeks since he’d seen another soul, perhaps years. Who kept count of such things anymore anyways?

The last city he’d abandoned to the ravages of this dust bowl planet had been a graveyard, he’d taken what he could carry, what little food and fresh water remained before the decay and vermin forced him back into the desert, back to his search for living humans.

There had to be more, they were so prolific on this rock before the coming, had spread so far, achieved so much. He’d visited countless monuments to the species’ achievement here, each sprawling steel and glass expanse a testament to human drive and ambition, each barren, vacant ghost-town a reminder that the planet doesn’t welcome strangers, doesn’t tolerate intrusion.

Midway through this day’s dark period, upon cresting a dune, Eliot found himself bathed in the glow of a distant settlement, one surrounded on three sides by mountainous ranges and shielded from the wind on the fourth side by the ragged standing wave of sand from which he now surveyed.

A few kilometers to either side and he would have walked right by, never knowing it was here. “How fortuitous,” his muffled voice strange inside the protective shell of his headgear.

It would take hours still to reach the city walls, and Eliot was tired and hungry. He slipped his backpack off his shoulders, careful not to catch a seam on the rigging and tear the fabric. The tiniest of holes in one’s armour out here could spell almost certain death. He dropped the pack to the ground, then sat cross legged with it before him and, unlatching the top, rummaged through the contents. He extracted a can of protein slurry, and another of complex carbs. These he attached to the receptors under the jawline of his helmet, one on either side. There was a rushing sound as the suit flushed the sand from within the joints, then made the connection and opened the seal. He closed his eyes and tolerated the thick fluid as the pressurized canisters forced it down his throat. It was best if one held their breath while eating.

Emptied, he ejected the spent cans and tossed them aside. By morning they would be just so much dust blowing in the wind.

He similarly attached and emptied a canister of fresh water into his suit, mixing it with the distilled sweat and urine of the past few weeks. He’d be resupplied soon, he could afford the luxury of fresh water.

Through a battered range finder he surveyed the walls of the city in the distance. Flood lights cast long shadows of the battlements and gun turrets that dotted the perimeter walls. They hurt his eyes if he looked directly at them. The city must be well stocked with battery stores if they could waste such energy through the night. Solar equipment perhaps, a rarity on a world where the very air worked tirelessly to reduce every exposed surface to grains of sand. Maybe nuclear. That would be a find indeed.

Fed and watered, Eliot shouldered his pack and began the long walk to this remains of civilization.

Inside, he could feel his contagion begin to boil. It knew as well as he that fresh meat awaited.

By the time the sun rose again, he’d have razed this city to the ground as he’d done so many times before.

His planet didn’t welcome strangers, didn’t tolerate intrusion.

They met at Darlington’s; exchanged glances, bought each other drinks and before the lights came up and the bar spilled out they were in the back of a taxi heading back to his flat.

He’d never done anything like this; ultraconservative, careful, cautious, but there was something about her he could simply not deny.

They kissed in the back of the cab, his hands rough against the silken skin of her back, her nails no doubt leaving marks on his neck, tearing through his hairline as she pulled his face closer to hers.

In the elevator she was relentless; animal fury and gymnastic fluidity, her body curved and curled around him, rubbing and clutching, grinding and immobilizing him as she explored his mouth with her tongue, his body with her own.

In his bedroom she was insatiable, tearing at his clothes, shedding her own like a second skin to grind against him, bury his body in hers, work him like a stud horse until he could barely breathe, then curl against him like a cat, sometimes for minutes, sometimes hours before exploding in a physical force again taking him to a limit of physicality he’d never experienced in his wildest dreams.

When he finally broke, practically begging her to stop, she relented, only to lie languid and brooding beside him, watching his chest heave as he struggled to regain some composure, unsure if he would be allowed to sleep.

When she mounted him next, he found himself unable to move.

She watched him, motionless at first, simply sitting astride him and studying his features as a cat might watch a bird. When she finally stirred, it was to cup his face in her hands and slowly lower her own until their noses touched, her eyes bright and wide, his glassy and unmoving. There was something unsettling about the way she stared into him, but as alert as his mind was, his body was simply too over-exerted to move.

He felt his lips part as her tongue pushed inside, then a sudden feeling of fear as he felt her touch the back of his throat and push on, flooding his sinus and lungs with an unimaginable pressure of flesh.

His eyes widened, and he could tell from the wrinkles around her own that she was smiling, and whatever it was she was doing he was powerless to comprehend or stop it.

The strange sensation continued, and he knew that she was filling his body far more completely than he had only recently filled hers.

There was a sudden flood of thoughts in his head, feelings that were foreign, a presence that was not his own, and as it overtook him he caught his last glimpse of her as she seemed to disappear inside him, following the path her tongue had started. He was no more.

She flexed, pushing outwards inside the new form she had appropriated. It had been a fascinating experience, him sharing the pleasure rituals she was becoming more enamoured with each passing companion. Alternating genders was indeed appearing to be a much more effective means of securing a partner, her first few encounters resisting her before she eventually found those receptive to her charms.

Padding to the bathroom, she regarded herself in the mirror.

“Himself,” his voice different now heard from within.

In the kitchen he found food and drink in the refrigerator and consumed slowly, savouring each bite, each sip, enjoying the new sensations offered by the familiar sampled through this new vessel.

Sated, he returned to the empty bed to sleep away the day and replenish the body’s energy reserves.

He’d need them for the coming night.

Major retrieved the chewed tennis ball Max had laid at his feet and loaded it back in the meter long, ice-cream scoop of a throwing arm he was using to launch it. Max bowed and jumped, eyeing the ball with keen interest as Major cocked the stick behind one shoulder, and stepping into the throw launched the ball a hundred meters or more down the field.

Max took off, tracking the ball as he raced, legs a blur of motion until he leapt, coordinating perfectly the point at which gravity brought the ball close enough to the earth for him to intercept it, landing gracefully and decelerating in an easy fluid motion. Giving the ball a few idle chews, he loped back to where Major waited.

“Good boy Max,” the dog having dropped the ball again at Major’s feet, he now sat dutifully while Major scratched behind his ears. His tongue lolled, he panted and watched for signals as to what to do next. All of this he’d been designed to do, the scratching didn’t give him actual feelings of joy or pleasure, but he’d been programmed with the appropriate feedback responses so that, if Major hadn’t been the one to build him, the man petting him wouldn’t have known any different.

“Good boy Max,” Major kneeled down and looked the faux Shepherd in the eyes, cradling the big dog’s head in his liver spotted hands as he scratched behind both ears. “Maggie would have loved you to bits. Such a pity she passed before you were ready.” Major stared past Max watching a plane paint fluffy white lines across the sky far off in the distance. “I wish she was still here Max, I miss her, you know?” He brought his attention back to the dog, still panting, still waiting.

Major smiled. Max would never leave him, he’d never run away, never grow old and die. He’d play ball, go for walks and lay at Major’s feet with him forever. He’d built him just so.

The wind began to pick up, and Major pulled his jacket collar up against the cold.

“Come on boy,” he patted his hip as he turned to walk back across the property to the house. If they hurried they could get back before the weather turned and the sun dipped below the horizon. Max dropped obediently in step beside Major, loping easily through the grass as they made their way back to the forest trail.

As they reached the edge of the woods, Major slowed, and Max waited patiently for him, walking ahead and then doubling back to the slower moving older man.

“Not feeling too well I’m afraid Max,” he slurred, his left foot dragging slightly in the dirt of the trail. He reached out for a tree to steady himself, missing by a wide margin and fell in a heap on the ground, a thick layer of pine needles cushioning his fall only slightly.

Max turned and padded back, then lay down to where he could make eye contact with his master.

“Max,” Major wheezed out the words, “Good boy Max. Don’t leave me…”

Max lay still, his tongue lolled, he panted and watched for signals as to what to do next.

Stuart lost his footing scrambling over the shattered garden wall and fell, hard. As he struggled to his feet, his head still ringing from the tumble his pursuer caught him up and knocked him back down harder still.

“You frickin bastard,” Stuart spat blood and dust, rolling away from a second blow as the infantryman swung the butt-end of his rifle down, narrowly missing him. Managing to get some traction in the rubble, he sat up as best he could and shuffled backwards, the seat of his pants dragging in the dirt, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase until his shoulders met the outer wall of the car shed, and there he stopped.

The soldier stayed still, its seven plus feet of arms and legs bent at obtuse angles as it crouched low to the ground, watching, waiting.

There was a throaty gargling noise, with a tinny mechanical voice following in broken English a few moments out of sync.

“Show other soldier units.” The tall figure leaned forward, shuffling its feet and free hand to keep balance, still leaning the butt end of its rifle in the dirt. “Show other soldier units to surrender.”

Stuart grinned, teeth red through a split and already swelling lower lip.

“You know, you’re really overestimating your chances here mate.” He watched as the creature cocked its head to one side, waiting no doubt for the translator to approximate Stuart’s language into something it could understand. “You seem wholly unaware of how much we like living on this rock, and we’re not going to just let you waltz in here and take it.”

The soldier advanced, raising its weapon first into a firing position, then above its head to bring it butt-end first down hard between Stuart’s legs: He narrowly avoiding the impact by yanking his knees up just in time. The soldier pulled its arms and weapon out of reach, perilously counterbalanced on its backwards bending knee joints to bring its face so close to Stuart as to make him nearly vomit.

“Prisoner shows soldier units or prisoner terminates.”

Stuart kept talking, noting the slight retreat as the soldier struggled to understand the translated dialogue.

“My great-grandfather fought the Nazis, nasty bunch of blokes as you’d ever want to meet. He fought them so his son, my grandfather could raise a family in a free country.” The creature clicked and gurgled as Stuart spoke, though the noises didn’t translate. “My grandfather fought the Viet Cong, a bunch that made the Nazis look like pussies. He didn’t have a family then, but after, when he raised my dad, and told us grandkids stories, he’d never speak of the war, just remind us never to take what we had for granted. Always respect our freedom. His friends died for it, he’d tell us, and we owed it to them to never forget that.”

The creature shook its large flat head violently from side to side, spit flying as it clacked its heavily toothed jaw open and shut repeatedly, shuffling with apparent agitation.

Stuart pressed his luck.

“My dad used to tell me that freedom and family were the two most important things a man could have, and you think we’re going to give that up without a fight?” Stuart drew up a mouthful of blood and saliva and spat at the looming creature, causing it to jerk back away from him.

“You know what I’m going to tell my son when this is all over?” Stuart pulled his lips back into a bloody smile.

“Prisoner shows soldier son…” The grating translated dialogue was cut short as Stuart Junior, having silently flanked his opponent, unloaded both barrels of his plasma cannon through the side of the enemy’s skull, scattering blood and bone across the back yard.

“I’m going to tell him to be a little quicker with the artillery in future,” he groaned, pulling himself to his feet, “and don’t ever let your enemy monologue, that shit can get you killed.”

The Dean of Admissions flipped once again through the file in front of him. He’d memorized the contents, but hadn’t quite found a starting point. Pulling his pocket watch from his waistcoat he regarded it solemnly over the rim of his glasses. If he didn’t get on with it he’d miss afternoon tea.

“Mr. Sans,” he began.

“Horatio sir, if you please,” The man on the opposite side of the desk spoke calmly, enunciated perfectly, “call me Horatio.”

“Horatio Sans?” The Dean raised an eyebrow and studied the man’s plain grey suit, simple tie and generally unremarkable appearance. “Hmm, yes, completely without flourish. Of course.”

“Sir?” Horatio put his hands in his pockets, then removed them, straightened his jacket against his side then finally folded his hands together in front of him. He drew his shoulders back until he felt them pop slightly, then relaxed as much as he could, although he still fidgeted from foot to foot.

“Horatio,” the Dean started again with purpose, “there has been an issue brought to my attention with regards to one of your admission tests. The issue, specifically, is that you failed it quite completely.”

Horatio stood stunned, jaw hanging loose for a moment before he took notice and snapped it shut. “Failed? Good heavens, that’s not possible. Was it the English test? To be fair sir, the answers on any test like that one are purely subjective. If I didn’t capture the essence of…”

“No, no, no, not the English test.”

“Certainly not the maths, those are absolutely my strongest subjects. If there’s any question about the maths I’d have to ask that you…”

“No, your math test results were actually quite exemplary.” The Dean flipped through the sheaf of papers on his desk and whistled when he read the math scores again. “Quite exemplary.”

“For the life of me I can’t imagine any of the tests that I could have possibly failed on. I studied thoroughly for all of them; chemistry, physics, biology, I even ran laps and did calisthenics in preparation for the physical.” Horatio was becoming visibly upset, wringing his hands, his eyes imploring. “Please, tell me, what test was it?”

“The Turing test, Mr. Sans, I’m afraid you failed the Turing test.”

This month, for your reading enjoyment, we feature the work of Clint Wilson, another solid writer and regular in the forums here at 365 as Father Goose. Clint’s been with us for some time now, and we’ve had the pleasure of publishing a number of his stories already. You can read more about Clint on his bio page here, and look for a number of great stories from him over the coming month starting with today’s ‘Drilling Through Infinity’.

Enjoy the reading, and don’t forget to drop by the forums to leave some feedback!

Roscoe dimmed the lights in the living room and then powered up his suit. In the floor to ceiling mirror beside the stone fireplace he could admire how truly daunting a warrior he looked. From the heavy platform boots on his feet to the armored headgear, from the pipe lighting that traced each limb to the bandoliers criss-crossing his chest packed full of dangerous looking glowing ammo in a variety of colours and special purpose tips. He stood sideways to the mirror and, turning at the hip to face his reflection raised both eight barrel chain guns to the firing position.

“Kick ass mother,” he grinned around the cigar butt clenched between his eye teeth.

Through the bay window a streak of light cut the sky, followed by a ground shaking impact somewhere between the farmhouse and the corn fields.

“Fecking kids,” he swore out loud before storming off through the back door and out under the evening moonlight.

He’d crossed nearly half the distance to the fields when two short figures in dark jumpsuits appeared out of the shadows, their heads encased in tall conical reflective helmets.

Instinctively, he raised both weapons. It was likely similarly instinctive that the figures abruptly halted their advance.

“You’ve no business on my land, ” his voice was raised as he assumed the helmets would impair their hearing somewhat. “Get back in your vehicle and mosey the hell on out of here.” He peeled his lip back in a lopsided snarl. “Now,” he added for effect.

The two figures turned to face one another, the reflective surfaces of their visors rippling and changing colours rapidly for several minutes before they turned back to face Roscoe.

“We are come to be your land master.” The sound was tinny and artificial, and he wasn’t quite sure which of them it originated from, but Roscoe was having none of it.

“You can go and stuff peppers, now get the hell off my property.” Roscoe drew himself up to his full height, appreciative of the extra few inches his boots added. “Git. Skedaddle.”

The figures turned again to one another, but Roscoe was starting to lose his cool. He stepped forward and jammed the barrel of a weapon against the side of each of the small figure’s heads.

“You gotta ask yourselves, do you feel lucky?” He put on his best Eastwood, but something about this situation was starting to make him uncomfortable.

The figures froze, their features shimmering uncertainly. Roscoe pushed once, sharply.

The two figures slipped silently sideways, their shapes darting and blending with the landscape under the moonlight such that Roscoe had to look away in order to actually see them in his peripheral vision. As they reached the edge of the corn field, a fox burst out from between the rows of six foot tall stalks. There was a burst of light from one of the figures, and the fox was instantly spattered across the crops. The figures didn’t break stride, and no sooner had they disappeared from sight than a blast of light erupted from the ground towards the star filled sky with a rumble every bit as powerful as that which had brought Roscoe from the safety of his living room in the first place.

Roscoe felt an uncomfortable warmth spreading down one trouser leg as he stood frozen to the spot. Breaking the silence, a chorus of ‘Trick or Treat’ erupted from the side-door of the farmhouse, and a startled Roscoe squeezed both triggers, sending a volley of luminescent Nerf darts off into the darkness. He laughed, a nervous uncertain laugh before turning to head back inside.

The police bulletins all called him ‘Pretty Boy’, but those that preferred their atoms in the form they were currently coalesced called him ‘Mr. Floyd’, or simply ‘Sir’.

His reputation had followed him from planet to planet, system to system, but out here, out on the rim, the frontier, only the greedy interested themselves with his capture. Perhaps he couldn’t report a crime, but he could order breakfast, have a suit tailored and share a drink without fear.

On this evening he was hidden in the shadows across the street from the gated mansion of Marco Fitzsimmons, the owner of the only bank on this backwater rock. Floyd was looking to make a withdrawal.

At ten thirty, right on schedule, a police cruiser glided past on a skirted cushion of air. Floyd waited until the whine receded into the distance before crossing the street and striding up to the gatehouse.

Two men stood on the far side of the gate, weapons holstered, and one more perched on a high chair in the guardhouse itself, scattergun laid across his lap. None of them spoke, and none spared Floyd a second glance as the gate opened and he walked past them towards the main house.

This scenario repeated several times as guards at the house entrance, in the foyer and again in the hall outside the bank manager’s study stared ahead with disinterest as the criminal passed by them all on his way into the heart of the banker’s inner sanctum.

Fitzsimmons on the other hand had quite a different reaction.

“Pretty Boy, how did you…?” He started, spilling a drink as he stood up quickly behind the deep polished expanse of his desk. “Guards!” He bellowed, regaining some composure.

Floyd pulled an ugly looking blaster from inside his jacket, the barrel short and fat. “Stow it fella, nobody’s coming.” He pushed the study door closed behind him with a heavy clunk.

“What the hell do you want you thug? When the police get here you’ll…”

Floyd cut him off. “The police aren’t coming. They don’t know because nobody called, and if they do happen by your security team will tell them everything’s just fine.”

Fitzsimmons’ mouth opened and closed several times.

“You call me a thug, you who’ve corrupted the lawmakers, the peacekeepers. You who hold the purse strings and use them to bully people from their homes. Do you know how I got in here?” He lowered the gun only slightly, keeping a bead on the banker from his hip.

The banker swallowed hard. “You must have promised them more money than you could possibly have. When you don’t deliver they’ll cut you up and feed you to the livestock.”

Floyd laughed. “No, actually I walked in here without offering anyone a single credit. Last week you foreclosed a number of mortgages to make way for new construction. Those homes belonged to the aunts and uncles of the men you underpay to keep you safe.”

The banker paled. “I’ll move them, give them new homes.”

“It’s a little late for that. They’ve got no use for you. I on the other hand,” he paused, “I think you may be partially useful.”

Fitzsimmons straightened, sensing an opportunity to save himself. “What can I do?”

Floyd sang a quiet verse, “Through all the worlds you travel, through all the worlds you roam, you’ll never see an outlaw drive a family from their home.”

With that he raised his weapon. The banker managed to get one hand in front of his face before the beam tore through his midsection, atomizing him from the neck to the waist and sending his head and raised arm flying to the wall behind him, before they came to rest in a smoking pile of cauterized flesh on the floor.

Floyd recovered them both, laying the hand on the palm scanner and holding the head, eyes wide and staring up to the retinal scanner.

“These are the parts I’ll find useful,” he chuckled as the system unlocked the accounts management console and he began to make amends.

The Argon cruised through dense fog heading out to sea in weather most trawlers wouldn’t brave. She lined up between the marker buoys and throttled up, downwash from her propulsors kicking up spray from the water thirty meters below her hull.

“Full ahead, light the finder, kill the beacons.” Captain Creavy barked orders to the ready crew, “See that the nav gear is decoupled before we change course.”

The Argon took to sea weekly, bringing in a belly full of fresh fish none of the other locals could match. She was the largest of the fishing vessels by an order of magnitude and never came home empty.

“Captain,” the first mate finished wiping the ship off the Coastal Guardian network, “we’re clear for a new course.”

The Captain studied the maps he had before him, charts he’d bartered for along with this vessel. These maps were from a satellite’s vantage, the likes of which not even the Coastal Guardians could have seen. Creavy loved the advantage barter and off-worlders brought to his livelihood.

“Take us thirty minutes two seventy degrees then prepare to dive.” Creavy leaned on the console, staring with apparent lust at the thick concentrations of fish on the maps before him. They’d been systematically fishing these patches for most of the season while the smaller vessels pulled up empty on all their usual routes.

The vessel grumbled through the sky, lost in the low cloud until they reached their mark and the finders started sounding off the stragglers of the target school.

“Dive Mr. Finch, dive.” At the Captain’s orders the lumbering craft slowed and gave up altitude gradually until the waves beneath began to batter her hull, then she dropped heavily into the water and nosed down to plow beneath the waves. Once completely submerged the pilot adjusted depth until the massive craft was on level with the school advancing before them, then the nose of the Argon was peeled open and she drank deeply, accelerating through the water pulling everything in her path into her belly and filtering mercilessly to jettison nothing but water out the aft hatches. Within minutes the entire school was contained, the nose closed, ballast jettisoned and the Argon was airborne again.

“Mr. Finch, find us a masked trajectory to the upper atmosphere, we’ve a rendezvous to make.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Another thirty minutes passed before the freighter reached the point where the sky kissed space and where waited their buyer, the ship a dark stain against the otherwise star filled sky. Guardian law prohibited off-worlders from fishing the local oceans, but Creavy had had the good fortune of buying the Argon on advance credit with these traders along with his fishing charts in exchange for half his catch delivered to unregulated space. This was a deal far too good not to exploit.

While they docked and their cargo was transferred, Creavy waited, and as the last of the fish was offloaded the communicator crackled to life.

“Captain Creavy, we thank you for once again fulfilling your obligations, and hereby release you from our contract. The Argon is now yours, as are any future proceeds you may recover from your efforts.”

Creavy was first confused, then relieved. He’d gotten the long end of the stick on this for sure and wasn’t about to argue.

“I’d be happy to trade cargo in future for updated nautical charts…” He put the offer out tentatively.

The reply was terse. “That won’t be possible.”

With that the comm-link was broken and the dark craft began accelerating away from the planet.

“Mr. Finch, take us back down, follow a clean path out of sight back to the Loreanaz Trench and let’s load up and go home.

The Argon stayed at sea for three more weeks, trudging from one patch to the next following the old charts, but there were simply no fish to be found. Dangerously low on fuel the Argon lit it’s navigation beacons and reestablished itself on the Guardian’s grid.

Captain Creavy was starting to think perhaps he’d gotten the short end after all.