Alcantaran 1: Alien Abduction (31 page)

Gus eyed him as he came up to the silver.
 
Ron explained, "There's lots of equipment to make life easier but everything is empty.
 
Anything you want to use has to be taken to the fueling center to be charged up.
 
I did find some things here that will make this job a lot easier."

Gus picked up one of the molds for the figures and examined it before he asked, "What are these for?
 
What can we do with such tiny figures?"

"Were you there when
Kota
was talking about 'eye candy'?
 
That’s what these are for.
 
Some planets need a little gift to help the bureaucrats find the proper paper work or the right phone number.
 
There won't be much silver in there but it's enough to impress some of the mid-level bureaucrats.
 
We need to make 3 or 4 of each one to have on hand.
 
I think we should do about a third of the silver that's left in these bigger bars.
 
If the silver is like the lead I use to melt for bullets, there will be impurities on the top.
 
Skim it off with this dipper and pour it into one of the larger molds.
 
We can trade it as full of impurities and let it go for less than the others," Ron related.
 
"Well, let's get started.
 
Set up the shield over there and then have the robots start carrying silver there.
 
I'll grab that bench over there so we have something to work on."

Gus started the robots and Ron picked up the work bench.
 
They moved everything to the middle of the cargo bay and Gus activated the shield.
 
Ron fired up the smelter and put some pieces of silver in it.
 
It started smoking and stinking from the dust build-up of being unused.
 
Shortly the smell lessened and the silver started to melt.
 
Ron added some more and then grabbed a mold.
 
Gus had never done anything like this, so he watched closely.
 
Ron moved the lever and let silver pour into the mold.
 
He held it for a few seconds and then dumped it back into the smelter.
 
He moved the mold back under the spigot and moved the lever.
 
He filled the mold and moved over to the bench.
 
He waited a couple of minutes and then popped the mold open.
 
The figure plopped down on the bench and Ron returned to the smelter.
 
He filled the mold again and repeated the process at the work bench.
 
He did that three more times before he set the mold aside.
 
He indicated Gus should try his hand at it.
 
Gus followed his steps and soon had a different figure lying on the work bench.
 
Ron went to the bench and used a tool to move the figures around to check them out.
 
He was looking for flaws.
 
One of his figures had a void so he carried it back to the smelter.
 
Gus did his five figures and Ron showed him how to check for flaws.
 
Three of his figures had flaws so he dumped them back into the smelter and started over.
 
Ron redid his and grabbed another mold.
 
He and Gus alternated filling molds and dumping them as they kept adding raw silver to keep the optimum level.
 
They would do five and then inspect them.
 
Soon they had all the figures they needed.

"Gus, I think we can program the robots to fill these ingot molds.
 
I don't know if I trust them to keep the pot filled to the right level though.
 
Maybe after we watch them for awhile, I'll trust them a little more.
 
If we have one robot making ingots, we should have the other one taking the finished ingot to the storeroom.
 
Why don't you start that robot making ingots and I'll take the other one to program it for storing the silver," Ron said.

Ron went to another storeroom because he didn't want to move all of the raw silver before he could start stacking the ingots.
 
He found a room with shelving and plenty of floor space underneath.
 
He programmed the robot to bring the ingots and stack them on the floor.
 
He designated how high and how large the stack should be.
 
He told the robot to start and it began to move silver ingots.

Ron walked over and asked, "Do you need any more help, Gus?
 
I want to go check out a couple more molds and then I want to check out the armory for weapons for us."

"Go ahead.
 
There's nothing to this.
 
I might even leave the robots and come to the armory a little later."

Ron went to the storeroom where he had found the molds.
 
He looked through several more but didn't see any that he wanted to use right now.
 
He went to the armory and started investigating weapons a lot more closely than they had the first time.

Tik remembered she hadn't started the remote sensor.
 
She went to the computer and started programming what she wanted the sensor to do.
 
The computer asked where she wanted to store the images.
 
Tik was a little surprised because she had never thought about where to store images.
 
She asked the computer if it had an image storage section and the computer said it did.
 
Tik told the computer to store the images there and to start the remote sensor on its programmed job.
 
Out of curiosity, she asked the computer to show her some of the images.
 
The computer put a list on the monitor and Tik began to pick titles at random.
 
There were pictures of galaxies and planets.
 
Tik checked out these pictures for quite awhile before she moved on to another category.
 
The next category had pictures of inhabitants, flora and fauna of different planets.
 
Tik was fascinated and spent over an hour looking at these images.
 
She found out that some of them were movies and she watched them.
 
The inhabitants spoke in some of these and Tik discovered that she understood their speech.

Tik had been looking at the images for several hours when she came to a category entitled 'Training Films'.
 
She selected that category and then the film on Sipida sword fighting.
 
The movie started by showing the swords and proper care for them.
 
The instructor was an alien-looking creature.
 
It announced that the next segment would demonstrate proper techniques for these swords.
 
When the segment started, Tik's jaw dropped.
 
There was a Mis'stear fighting the Sipidan.
 
Tik was so surprised she inadvertently sent a thought message to Ron and Gus.
 
She was caught so off-guard that the message she sent was that she was sword fighting a Sipidan.
 
She was spellbound as she watched the demonstration of the larger Sipidan fighting the Mis'stear.
 
She was so engrossed in the training film she didn't realize anything was wrong until she heard the footsteps thundering down the passageway.
 
Suddenly the door burst open and Ron ran in, sword in hand, followed shortly by Gus who had his ax/hammer drawn.

Tik jumped from her chair, ready to do battle.
 
Ron and Gus stopped and looked around the room.
 
Tik couldn't understand what their problem was and she had to look around the room to see if something had sneaked in while she was watching the video.

Ron, who was still a little out of breath, finally said, "Where is the Sipidan you were fighting?
 
Are you all right?"

"What are you talking about?
 
I've been in here watching this training video!" Tik declared huffily.

"Then what was that message you broadcast about sword fighting?
 
I could see you fighting some creature just as plain as day," Ron remarked acidly.

"I saw it too," Gus attested.

"I don't know what's up with you two; but now that you're here, look at this.
 
I found a bunch of training videos and there's a Mis'stear in it.
 
I don't remember hearing any tales of Mis'stears being involved with the Alcantarans.
 
It surprised me so much I must have broadcast thoughts without even knowing it.
 
These voorwarp units must be a lot more sensitive than the translators," Tik said.

Ron turned to set the sword down on the comm console so Gus was the first to see the video.
 
Ron turned quickly when he heard his sharp intake of breath.
 
Gus was pointing at the video.

"That's not a Mis'stear!
 
That's a Sandghost!
 
Look -- it even looks a lot like me."

Ron rushed over to see what they were talking about.
 
He expected to see Mis'stears and Sandghosts sword fighting.
 
Instead he saw himself fighting a strange-looking creature that was a good six inches shorter than himself.
 
Now that he was watching, he could even smell a strange scent.
 
It wasn't terrible but it was definitely different.

"I don't know what you two see but I see myself fighting an alien creature.
 
Can either of you smell something funny?" Ron asked.

The noise started as both of the other two tried to talk at the same time.
 
Ron had to grin as he held up his hand.
 
It seemed that each of them saw themselves in the video.
 
The only constant was the Sipidan and the same swords.
 
Ron asked Tik to try another one.
 
She picked another one at random and started it.
 
A large lizard-looking creature with a huge frill around its head was standing on two legs.
 
It held a very long rapier in one hand and a dagger in the other.
 
Each of the trio saw themselves fighting the creature.
 
Gus and Ron were taller than the creature and as they called off moves, seemed to use almost the same moves.
 
Tik was shorter and her moves were completely different.
 
Ron asked her to switch to 3-D and play it in slow motion.
 
At each move, they described what they were doing.
 
Ron and Gus were slightly different with each move.
 
Tik was radically different than both of them.
 
Ron and Gus were watching and Ron almost got nicked in the video.
 
Gus did get nicked and hollered as he grabbed his arm.
 
There was no mark on his arm but he said it felt like he had been cut by the rapier.

Ron walked over and grabbed the sword.
 
He went to the 3-D image and took the place of his image.
 
He told Tik to leave it on slow motion and he tried to counter the sword swings and thrusts of the alien.
 
When his sword met the others, he felt the clash of steel in his arm.
 
When he missed one of the thrusts, the alien roared at him to keep his guard up.
 
After a few minutes, Ron told Tik to halt the video.

"What did you two see?" Ron asked.

"When you were out there, we saw you fighting the alien.
 
We heard him chew you out for missing that thrust too." Tik and Gus answered almost in unison.

"This is incredible.
 
I could smell that creature's breath when we got close.
 
It had a fishy smell.
 
I could feel the sword when it clanged against the rapier."

Gus and Tik had to try it for themselves.
 
They both reported the same sensation and being able to smell the alien.
 
Tik got whacked by the rapier and she reported it stung like crazy.
 
They stopped the video and looked at the list of others available.
 
Tik found another section of movies.
 
They looked at some of the titles and tried some of them.
 
They had the same reaction as with the training videos.
 
They all thought the hero or heroine looked like themselves and they could smell flowers or other scents in the scenes.
 
Alien creatures stayed alien but some of the supporting actors were the same race as the watcher.
 
They finally had to stop because they had other things to do.
 
They all knew that this section of the computer would be worth a ton of money to researchers looking into the Alcantarans.
 
They also knew that if they were to be Traders, they needed to learn some of the sword and knife-fighting techniques.
 
Tik went back to checking out the weapons system.
 
Gus went back to check on the robots working with the silver and Ron went back to the armory.

Ron walked into the armory and hung the sword back on the wall where he had grabbed it earlier.
 
He was concentrating on some of the pistol-shaped weapons and was thinking 'I wish Auntie would tell me a little about these weapons'.

Suddenly a thought popped in his head, "Which ones would you like to know about?"

Ron whirled around to see if Tik or Gus were standing in the doorway.
 
Then he realized that the thought was not from either of them.
 
There was a different feel and he wasn't sure who this was in his head.
 
He decided to see if it really was Auntie.