"The best distance between two points 
is a fullish circle." -J.D. Salinger
	There came a faint trace of red star dust at first as the small moon swept past them. It took it only moments to fade  to a black dot as it shot away.  Now they could see the banded stripes of blue and green helium swirling about each other in a mad dance on the planet the moon orbited. It took only a moment's time for the planet to shift out of view of the vid screen. The crew could now see the ruddy current of dust being blown in slow motion by ion winds from the huge expanding star to its white hot mate, several million kilometers away.
	"Gosh it's pretty. The dust almost looks like smoke. How does it move so slow?" The comment and query came from the largest member of the crew. He stood around seven feet tall and weighed close to a quarter ton. Presently he was wearing his favorite bib with a fictitious cartoon character who was hopelessly buried under countless droplets of strained beets. He also had on an enormous diaper which looked large enough to require the skin of an entire brontosaurus --provided, of course that the skin be synthesized into disposable plastic several thousand years later. His flesh rolled out in monstrous flabs over the top of the nappie. His legs jutted down to the metallic floor beneath like gigantic slabs of meat. In fact, it wouldn't surprise anyone if they found those legs hanging on some barbaric hooks in the freezer on deck three. Other than that, he was holding a large plastic toy in his left hand which had shimmering lights inside. He was drooling ever so slightly out of the corner of his mouth.
	The lithe, voluptuous woman and the man in the informal suit initially paid him no heed. The woman had learned not to leap at opportunities to answer the infant's questions. She knew that if she did, it would only encourage more question asking, and she might go hoarse giving replies before the infant would be satisfied. The man chose another strategy. Firstly, he would wait for a moment to see if the woman would act. He so dearly enjoyed it when she had laryngitis. He loved do pantomimes and charades in front of her when all she could do in response was hack and grope for a glass of water. At the moment, he was also admiring the swift passage of Rorsharc's moon. Incredible that the little rock could go full circle in under an hour. He was thinking that falling down a bottomless pit would be very much like being strapped onto that moon, doomed to gasp and travel in free fall forever. Tragically for him, several moments passed but the woman gave no response. He proceeded with phase two of his strategy: subtle and sarcastic jabbing. 
	"Have you ever seen one of those before in your life, Percy?" The man queried. An instant after he said that he thought of some old geezer named Socrates that he had read about in an interplanetary culture class in college. The old coot had once said that the most profound way to answer a question was with another question. It might have been the decrepit goon's annoying sidekick that actually said it, but he didn't care. All he knew is that he wasn't just responding with a question to lend support to the buffoon's philosophies. Rather, he wanted to totally confound and perturb Percy.
	Percy scratched his bald, oversized head. "Well, gee, now that you mention it, I don't ever recall seeing one of those at all---"
	The man spun about in his swivel chair. "Of course you don't, you annoying little pillock! Stars have lifespans in multiples of ten with exponents larger than your I.Q.!" The man continued to glare at Percy with his bloodshot eyes for a moment more. He then turned back around to face the vid screen and ran a hand through his unkempt auburn hair. He let the hand slide back onto the headrest of his chair and put one foot up on the control panel before him. He was wearing an old brown tweed with the cuffs rolled up, a white oxford shirt, and a red and gold striped tie. A pair of baggy, beige pants hung on his skeletal legs like a flag off a pole. There was a bulge in one pocket where he kept his trusty Swiss army blade. On his belt he wore a little black mechanism which looked like a beeper.  His feet were adorned with tube socks having green and yellow stripes on them, and a pair of hideously scuffed loafers. His left ear had countless wounds and scars. It was shriveled up and looked like a deformity. The man was entirely outfitted to stand in an unemployment line. "--And the width in centimeters of the nail clippers you use." he added, slightly bobbing his head as he did.
	Percy stuck a finger in his mouth. Percy was quiet.
	A sultry and womanly voice perked up. "You're brilliant, Nile. You know, you really are." She strolled like a model over to a cushioned command chair behind her. Her black high heels made faint tapping noises like glass on the metal floor beneath her. The short. silvery jacket she wore caught every inkling of light in the cabin and reflected it back like a hypnotist's ball. The gold streams of her hair were pulled back in a knot and interwoven in an intricate mass of braids. She reclined on the console chair and stretched her long, taught legs onto the flat control panel in front of her. She was wearing a pair of silky, deep green, elasticine tights that went up to her waist, just touching the bottom of her jacket. She tilted her head back. The cabin lights played shadows on her face and outlined her sharp, feminine features. She pursed her purple lips together and blew several renegade tendrils of hair off her forehead. She squinted at the UV lights on the ceiling, wishing that it could've been sunlight and began to drum her violet fingernails on the armrest.
	"Beg your pardon, Jane." Nile jerked his head up as though he had been awoken. "Is the Public Address system working again? That's funny, I could swear I don't remember hearing a call for a belligerent female comment.  No, my mistake. I keep using these ears to listen to the incredibly boorish remarks my crewmates never seem to tire of making. I could be doing much better things with them."
	"My name is not Jane."
	"Ah, yes, as I was saying, Janice, mind if I smoke?"
	"Would it matter if I did?"
	Nile sat still for a moment and gave a smallish chuckle. He then turned to Percy. "Take a lesson, child..." he said, pointing to the woman, "...That's deductive reasoning." Percy, finger still in his mouth, just blinked at Nile, not quite sure how to take that last bit of advice. "Great Scott, boy, are you trying to eat yourself again? Don't we feed you enough? I suggest you start with the feet, anyway. They're sure to be more tasty." Percy looked down at his feet. --He tried to, anyway. they were awfully hard to see from his position. Nile clapped his hands together with a large, sharp crack, startling Percy so much that he fell onto his bottom. Nile shouted. "Nurse! Wretched old hag, where are you!?"
	Two shiny panels in the back of the cabin split open with a hissing noise. A black, sleek spherical droid, approximately the size of a human head, hovered about five feet off the floor. It entered the cabin and floated over to Nile, making a humming noise as it did. It stopped several inches away from Nile's face and ceased to hum. The side of the orb nearest Nile began to flatten out to some degree. Sharp, feminine features began to rise out of the fluid, shiny ebony: first a nose, then a brow ridge, cheekbones followed, then a pair of lips and a chin. There were no lashes or eyebrows. Steel eyelids opened to reveal steel eyes underneath.
	"About bloody time. I'm absolutely dying for a smoke and the crew has gone utterly catatonic on me. Give me seven sprouts and 500cc's of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide for my compatriots here." The ebony lips pursed slightly. A black, serpentine tongue stuck out like a finger with a small, brown herb at the tip. Nile cupped his hands and  caught the sprout as it fell. The tongue drew back inside to fetch another. "Come on, blast you, I haven't got all day!" Nile remarked curtly. After the third sprout was produced, Nile was feverish. After the fifth he was sweating. As the seventh herb dropped into his hands he had gone white and was trembling. He clutched the buds with his fists. He jutted his head forward and screamed into the emotionless, ebony face. "It fragging took you long enough! Didn't it, wretch!?" He sat back and took several deep breaths. He held up a single bud and began to peel back the petals. "For all that's holy, I could've died." He exposed a silver thorn inside the fragrant buds and began to stick it through his upper ear. "Filthy witch." He went on talking in a like manner as he continued to stick the little organic needles into his ear, tracing down the outermost portion until he arrived at the lobe. His ear was a bloody mess, as were his fingers. A good deal of the blood spilled onto his coat and trousers as well. He then let out an exasperating sigh and reclined fully in his chair. He raised his arms and put his hands behind his head, shut his eyes and began to wait for the dream.
	The woman sat up in the console chair ever so slightly to observe this insane ritual that Nile would put himself through. She put one fingernail to her bottom lip in a pensive gesture. "Do you know how ghastly you look when you do that?"
	"Just try to imagine how I feel, Judy. I have to stare at you all day. I truly believe that you ought to walk around some day with a mirror hung two feet before you. I guarantee you would contract a psychosis on the severe level and from that point forward be absolutely, erotically infatuated with decomposing, decapitated men."
	"My name is not Judy, you louse."
	"Don't believe me? Go on and test it then. I'll even supply the bloody mirror."
	"You have a memory like a sieve. My name is---"
	"Not now, Love. The first euphoria is coming. Ahhh. Ohhh. Oh sweet life, I can feel it. Can you feel it Joyce? The way it pushes through your eyelids like razors? The way it turns your tears to mustard? Can you feel it?" At that he bolted up directly in his seat and split his eyelids open. Great puffs like fumes billowed out from his sockets. They wafted to the ceiling, followed by undulating streams of smoke.
	The woman raised her arms above her head and grasped the top of the chair. She then slided one quarter turn onto her side, arched her back and curled one leg up. She turned her head to look at Nile, and lounged in her catlike pose. She witnessed Nile showing off as he blew out ribbons of smoke like a sine wave.
	"Filthy habit." She said.1
1 Historical footnote:
	It may be noted, that despite the svelte lady's disapproval of Nile's leisure time activities, smoking was actually a socially accepted form of amusement. In fact, most people who congregated at parties or pubs would usually feel uneasy until they stuck their ears with a few pods and began bleeding out their eyes. Twenty years later, however, smoking would be advanced to a stage wherein people could surgically make holes in their arms and insert the sprouts into their muscles directly. They would commonly follow this practice for fifteen years or so until the appendage was effete, whereupon it would be amputated.
*     *     *
	While Nile had been puncturing his ears with the pods, Percy had been batting around his plastic toy from one massive hand to the other. His small, blackish eyes perceived that it was leaving little trails of red sand. Upon further investigation, he discovered that a remarkable little door was to be found on one of its sides. With the curiosity of a monkey, he picked it up off the floor and poked at the miniature portal. His fingers were like things that could be broken off and used to bludgeon men to death. After some trial and error, his clumsy digits opened the tiny trap door. "Wow... Look at that... I never realized... Its so pretty inside..."  
	Nile leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The lady let her neck relax and her cheek slide onto the pillowy headrest. It was improbable that either one of them even heard Percy. They had both practically developed a blind spot for whatever portion of the room the infant occupied. The woman closed her eyes and began to breathe deep and shallow. Nile started to experience a vision. In the vision he saw an enormous cloud of gas and dust filling a huge portion of space. He witnessed a gigantic finger make sweeping motions in the cloud and eventually begin to spin it into a disk. At the innermost portion of the disk there was an enormous black hole which acted as a hub and kept the entirety of the universe spinning in uniform patterns around it. The finger continued to trace out rings in the cloud like pictures in sand. The finger withdrew, but the universe continued to spin like a wheel. Particles were merged together which formed into suns and planets. "It's so surreal..." Nile said out loud. "It's like marmalade and carpet..."	Percy looked up at Nile and began to shift from side to side. "Nile, uh, Nile?" The infant's face drew a strained look.  "Nile... how long did you say a star lived?"
	Nile's blood boiled and his face went red.
	"Nile?"
	"I have died. I have died and I have gone to hell. Hell is an enormous toilet with fungus about its rim. You, Percy are a gnat which someone winged and threw into the bowl to annoy me with its little buzzing sounds. It is my curse. It is my curse to be smattered about the face and neck with inane questions regarding the nature of the universe. I'm in this toilet and I'm going to be smattered about the face and neck---"
	Nile was cut off by an enormous impact on the hull of the ship. He sat up instantaneously, the smoke pouring from his eyes.
The lady awoke with a start, crawling up on the chair to see what was going on.
	Another impact. The woman slid unceremoniously off her chair, landing in a disheveled heap on the floor. Nile was thrust from his chair and smacked against the vid screen. He exhaled a groan of agony and slugged down to the floor. "Dear heavens, Jessica, did you see what hit us?" No time for response. The ship was jolted again. Yellow and red flashing lights lit up along the walls. Schematics popped up on the vid screen showing an outline of the ship and the spots where it had been damaged. Next to the schematics was the image of a large yellow spacecraft which had moved directly between them and the binary star system. Nile yanked the buds out of his ear leaving little V-shaped scars  all down the length of it. He violently rubbed his eyes with his fists. He shook his head forcefully from side to side several times. He stared up at the screen with his bruised and bloodshot eyes.
	Staring back down at him was Lord Zelfreg: Absolute master of the galaxy in which Nile had illegally stationed the ship.
	Nile ran a hand through his tousled hair. "Bollocks." he uttered under his breath.
	Bolts of static traced across the screen. There was a clump of digital color on the spot where Nile had banged his head.  The crew watched the monitor as Lord Zelfreg stood up from his command chair to address them. Lord Z. was dressed in leather jack boots, puffy white trousers, a brown leather flight jacket buttoned up to the top, a maroon beret, a pair of dark sunglasses, and a two-foot, sticklike horsewhip in his right hand. "Nile Dayman! Percy Gibbons! Ja---"
	"Yes, yes, front and center for roll call and all that terribly pedestrian formality. What the devil are you up to?"
	The woman had got up and was walking toward the vid screen. She responded to Nile before Zelfreg could. "Oh, Nile, your self proclaimed master's degree for insolent retorts fell off the wall. Would you like me to put it back up?" 
	Lord Zelfreg's cheeks went red. "SILENCE! You intolerable fools! You have no idea the amount of trouble you're in!"
	Nile sat down in his seat with a pained look on his face. He began to rub his temples. "Please do go on your Lordship, I'd hate to be kept in suspense. Exactly how many parking violations have we broken? Be quick about it though, I'm getting the most horrendous migraine."
	Lord Zelfreg's face went white. His whole body began to shake. He smacked the horsewhip on the control panel before him. "You will not speak to the Lord of Babbitt Galaxy in such a fashion!" Lord Z. tugged on the bottom of his jacket and cleared his throat loudly several times. He paused momentarily to compose himself a bit more. "Nile Dayman. You and your cohorts are under arrest on the following charges: treason, theft of a federal spacecraft, theft of the ethyline crystals on board, and the alleged murder of the entire crew placed to guard the crystals. Surrender immediately or I will personally snap your puny neck like a twig."
	The comely woman touched the surface of a control panel next to the vid screen. "Trouble, Love, the weapons systems are down. So are the forward shields."
	Nile looked her in the eyes. "Jenereal, when I desire a systems analysis from you I shall indeed ask."
	"My name is not Jenereal, it's---"
	"IMBECILES!" came a crackling bellow from the vid screen. The man and woman both jerked up their heads to view Lord Zelfreg. He had smacked the control panel with his horsewhip again, sending off a shower of sparks.  "Your insurrection will not be tolerated." Zelfreg turned and pointed to a man at his left. "Commander! Lock on pulse cannons! Blow these idiots out of the cosmos!"
	Nile's eyes went wide. He shot out of his seat and stood upright before the enormous image of Lord Zelfreg. Little droplets of sweat were forming on his brow. "Now, Lord Zelfreg, let's not be hasty. Please do pardon my consort's strained witticism. I am perfectly prepared to reason with you, sir." Nile was panting.
	Lord Zelfreg turned slowly about to face Nile. An insane smile spread across his lips. "Well now, that's a bit more like it." Zelfreg took a few steps forward. "Are you prepared to barter for your life?"
	Nile began to talk quickly. "Lord Zelfreg, I fear you've been horridly misinformed. I've no knowledge of crystals of any sort. We're a special survey task group employed by system B-dash238strokeJ. We're licensed and we haven't broken any federation laws."
	Zelfreg's nostrils flared. "Mr. Dayman, you are aboard a stolen federal spacecraft. I---" The supreme commanding Lord cut himself off. His eyes widened as he looked over Nile's shoulder directly at Percy. The corpulent toddler was poking his finger around inside his toy. "Mother Mary... Have you stolen that infant as well, Dayman? ...So help me, if you've hurt the poor defenseless thing I'll--"
	"Oh, do be serious, your Lordship. The bugger weighs over forty stone."
	"Dayman, I will have your head for this. I'll--"
	"Babysitting, your grace, I swear." Nile was talking fast again. He was moving fast, too. He began to furiously press buttons on the control panel. The woman was undoing the braids in her hair. "Sir!" Nile gasped, "Sir, I am prepared to give you an entire tour of the ship to put your fears at ease. If you would like, you may teleport over here with a few of your crewmen and inspect the ship for yourself." Nile kept pressing buttons. The program he was searching for loaded. On a miniature screen above the keyboard there appeared the image of a blue maze with dozens of tiny little dots between the walls. At the center of the screen there was a yellow circle with a V-shaped mouth.
	Zelfreg pulled on his chin with his thumb and index finger. A silent moment passed. "I suppose you'd like that wouldn't you, Dayman? All you have to do is lock off your teleporter and I'll be atomized instantly in the space between your ship and mine. No deal, scruffy!"
	A joystick popped up next to the keyboard. Nile clutched it and began to move the hungry circular man about the maze, eating dots as it went. "A most justified trepidation, your grace. Do not think that I have not considered an alternative." Nile's speech was staggered as he split his attention between looking at Lord Zelfreg and looking at the video game. The woman was arching back and shaking out her golden locks.
	Zelfreg walked forward until his face filled the entire vid screen. From his chin to his beret, he was now seven times as tall as Nile. He removed his sunglasses and squinted at Nile. "What kind of alternative."
	Nile continued to move the digital man about the maze, dodging colorful ghosts. It ran faster and faster. "Lord Zelfreg, I presume you have your virtual reality headset at hand."
	"Why yes, of course. What of it?"
	"Your worship, we have the entire blueprints of the ship programmed into the main computer. If you would don your virtual reality headset, you could tour our ship from the comfort of your own command chair. Have we got a deal?"
	"Well... I suppose that sounds reasonable... I--"
	"Your Lordship is a very reasonable man, to be sure. Please do adorn your headset." Nile was sweating profusely. The yellow man was moving about the maze at dizzying speeds. The ghosts were catching up to him. The woman was tying a French braid which began at her left ear and circled around the back of her head.
	"All right then." Zelfreg stepped back and sat down in his chair. "Ensign!" A young man in a uniform stepped over and placed a thin leather helmet over the supreme commander's head. Zelfreg adjusted the miniature vid screens in front of his eyes with his fingers. He flipped a switch on the side of his head and positioned himself comfortably in his seat. "Right then, Dayman, ready when you are."
	"Of course, Lord, right with you." The little yellow man ate all the dots on the screen. Nile stood up with a triumphant smile and hit a large gray button marked "execute". The woman was tying the braid up past her right ear and over the top of her head. Nile looked up at the vid screen. Lord Zelfreg sat up abruptly in his seat. His helmet began to expand and contract like it was breathing. The strap around his neck went tight. He grabbed the helmet with both hands. There was the sound of muffled screams. Several of Zelfreg's crewmen ran over and began to pull at the helmet. Zelfreg's body went limp. One of them drew a knife and cut the strap. The other men jerked the helmet off.
	In the place of the Lord's head however, was a great yellow sphere with two frowning red eyes. It opened its V-shaped mouth impossibly wide to reveal rows of glimmering fangs. Zelfreg's decapitated body slid off the chair and thudded on the floor. Blood gushed out of his neck. The yellow sphere continued to hover in midair. The crewmen pulled out their pistols. The sphere shot forward and clomped down on one of the men enveloping his head and upper torso down to the middle of his chest. At once the body went limp and sunk to the floor next to the headless body of Lord Zelfreg. The crewmen were firing their pistols at random. The insane yellow sphere bobbed up again like a toy on a string. It clamped its silver teeth down on the commander's arm, swallowing it up to the shoulder. Within seconds, all the crewmen were slumped in limbless, headless heaps. The yellow globe floated up to the middle of the room. It stuck out a sinuous digital tongue and licked its lips. It then turned around one hundred-eighty degrees and shot down a corridor like it was a maze.  
	Nile stepped back and rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Right. There we go. Computer: Switch off."  The screen went black. Nile shuffled back to the middle of the room. "Oasis, please." A panel in the center of the floor moved aside and two palm trees with a hammock tied between them and sand underneath came up in its stead. Nile slumped into the hammock and wiped the sweat off his brow. "Refreshment too, please. I want to get properly sloshed now." In the air next to him materialized a red and white striped cup with a little parasol in it, a slice of lime, and one of those bendable straws. Nile reached up and grabbed it. He sat up only slightly and pulled a few swallows through the straw. "Bloody old gimp, Zelfreg. You don't have to snap my head off."
*     *     *
	The comely woman walked back over to the cushioned chair. The light from the UV lamps drew white ribbons down her tights which writhed like snakes as she walked. She sat down cross-legged on the chair and stretched her arms above her head. She grabbed the top loosely with her fingers. She ran her tongue over her teeth once. "Nile, you didn't even notice my hair."
	A straw hat materialized over Nile's face, shielding his eyes from the harsh light. "That's because it's the most boring thing in the entire universe. You really do have a way with conversation, Joan. Maybe we can get you a job reading stories to stillborn children."
	"I wish you'd call me by my real name."
	"Virtually any other topic would be more interesting. Tell me, did you have any kids?"
	"Joking of course. You know I'm one of the psycho-experimental suppression series. Genetically altered to have no sexual organs at all."
	"Oh really?" Nile lifted up the hat to look out at her. She wore an expressionless face. Nile set the hat aside and rested his hand on his gaunt torso. "Gosh, I never knew. Tremendous existence you must have. What are you good for anyway?"
	"I can read minds." she replied. "I was programmed that way."
	"No libido or anything?"
	The lady shook her head.
	"Just as well, I suppose. I couldn't stand the thought of having to ignore you and Percy as well."
	At that, Percy looked up. There was a tremendous lot of slobber running off his chin and he had stuffed his hand into his red plasticine toy up to the wrist. No one met his gaze, so he returned to poking about inside the toy at the bright lights that seemed to hover and spin and never fall out of sight.
	The woman moved her arms down to the armrests. "Where do you get off thinking my name begins with a 'J' anyway? I absolutely hate the letter 'J'."
	"So why is it that I always beat you at chess, my little precognitive lassie?"
	The woman paused for a moment and bit on a fingernail. "I can only read minds for certain things."
	"I always beat you at Trivial Pursuit too, now that I think of it. The experiment mustv'e been a flop. Rotten luck. Tell me, have you ever wished that you could have offspring? No, I suppose you wouldn't know, would you? Not unless you--"
	"--Knew what I was missing." She completed the sentence for him. "Otherwise, I can't really make a judgment call, can I?" She smiled an impish little smile, revealing ivory rows of teeth.
	Nile craned his neck and looked up at her straight. "Well now hang about, there might have been a trace of success after all." He kept looking at her for a moment more. He then reclined back in the hammock with a look of apathy, took a deep breath and attempted to go to sleep.
	"I think you really did kill those crewmen." the slender woman spoke up."
	"Joanna, we have been through this one before. They died from a space virus that likes men in uniforms. Now put it out of your head."
	"I looked up the files in the medical log. There's no virus that causes your eyes to bug out and your lungs to fill up with fluid."
	"Now dearest, if you keep reading those files you're bound to contract some psychosis where you believe you have all the symptoms you read about. That's how the chief medical engineer died."
	"Then how come Percy found her with a scalpel embedded in her chest?" 
	The infant looked up. There wasn't a gaze to meet his. He turned back to his toy and continued poking around. "I wonder where the red dust comes from?" Percy queried out loud.
	"Like I said," Nile continued, "the woman went crazy and committed suicide with one of her antique medical instruments. The matron had it coming, anyway. She shouldn't have collected those archaic things in the first place."
	"I checked the personal effects file. She never had any of those things. The computer says they haven't been used for centuries. It was just a knife from the kitchen."
	Nile didn't say a word.
	"You were always sore at her because she told you that you shouldn't smoke."
	Nile's face cringed.
	"What do you intend to do with all those crystals anyway? When the news first came out on them it said they were the most expensive things in the universe; Said they were the most powerful form of energy ever discovered."
	Nile shouted. "Jeneil, how the devil do you expect our relationship to survive if you keep using your resources like that? Put the bleeding affair out of your head!"
	"My name is not Jeneil, you bombacious git! It's---"
	At that instant there was a tremendous scuffling just outside the doors in the hall that led to the cabin. A gruff alien voice barked out commands and immediately there was the sound of laser fire. A sulfuric vapor of black smoke puffed out between the doors, and in an instant they were open. Nile sat up in the hammock and twisted his spine about to see who had intruded. The woman sat up, putting on a startled look. She pulled her knees up under her chin. A dozen six-foot purple behemoths with four arms each burst through the doors, blasters in hand(s). They had glowing yellow eyes which protruded from underneath their bushy, black eyebrows. Their snarling lips had curled aside to show crooked fangs and black reptilian tongues. They were wearing orange space suits. They had tubes running in and out of their bodies. One of them pointed at Nile and screamed, little globules of spittle flying off his lips as he did. "There's the bastich! Slimy little piece of filth! How long did you think you could evade us?"
	Nile was up on his feet in an instant, violently running his fingers through his hair. "Herr Omnus! Please don't think for a moment that I've become unaware of your predicament." Herr Omnus began trudging toward the wiry man. The rest of the squad stood back at the doors. "The last thing I would dream of doing is upsetting you and your empire. It was my sole intention to return your fusion reactor to your home planet once I was done with it. I just had this little detour, you see. By my word of honor I was on my way back to--eerk!--" Nile's vocal chords were forcibly restricted by Heir Omnus' massive hand clenching around his neck. He raised his meaty arm and lifted Nile a meter off the floor.
	"No more words, Dog!" The purple alien's eyebrows furrowed into a massive frown and he tightened his grip around Nile's feeble neck.
	"Jennifer...Jen, come here" Nile squeaked out to his crewmate with all the voice he had. The woman had already jumped out of her seat and was running over to Nile.
	"At your dying moment, the least you could do is call me my proper name."
	"Not now JoAnne..." He grabbed the little box he wore on his belt. "Here... I want you to have this..." With that, he pressed a button on the mechanism and a huge blade ejected out of one end. With every last ounce of strength he possessed he jabbed it into her abdomen.
	The lady let out a shriek and clutched at the thing sticking into her stomach. She stepped backwards a few paces and fell onto her firm buttocks. Percy looked up at the action with a small, pained look on his face.
	"ENOUGH!" cried out Heir Omnus. "The fiend dies!" A huge thumb flipped up under Nile's chin. His head snapped back like clay. Crimson life spilled down the purple arm like water. The loose cranium flopped off his body and hit the floor with a subtle thud. Omnus grabbed the disembodied head by its tousled hair and held it up for the squad behind him to see. He let out a triumphant roar. "ARGHHH! The antagonist has paid!" There was a host of hurrahs from the knot of aliens cluttered at the doors. "Let's feed the rotter to the women and children!" Another round of hurrahs as the squad turned and marched out the doors. Herr Omnus clutched one of Nile's ankles and dragged the corpse out of the cabin, leaving a scarlet trail behind. The aliens transported back onto their ship. The laughing couldn't be heard any more.
	Percy sat looking at the woman. She was writhing on the floor with a three inch incision in her abdomen. Her jacket and her tights were becoming more and more stained. She was breathing in short, hot gasps.
	"Heat... splinters... burning... like nails, it's... fire... I'm, pushing... I'm...it's..." Then she stopped speaking. Her body went rigid. Her skin turned loose like it was made of rubber. It went flimsy like it was defalting.Several moments passed. There was a slight groaning noise coming from inside the woman. There was a small bulge in her stomach. A knife blade shot up from underneath her navel. It pulled an incision up to her neck. Ten fingers crawled out from the cut. They pulled the gash open wider. Two arms with rolled up tweed sleeves protruded. A head with tousled hair came out. Nile pulled himself out to his waist. With a lot of effort and a lot of grunting he pulled his legs out.
	Nile closed his Swiss army blade and replaced it in his pocket. He stared down at the woman's empty skin. "Bloody tight pants you've got there, Jezebel. Didn't know we had flypaper on board." He ran a hand through his hair. "Least you proved to be useful for something, eh?" He let out a sigh and looked up at Percy, meeting his glance. "Oy, pillock. Have you decided if you're male or female yet?" Percy looked back down at his toy. "Bugger, I need a smoke. Nurse!" He clapped his hands together.
	The black orb appeared in the doorway and leisurely floated into the cabin. It stopped a few inches away from Nile's face. The surface lost its solidity and the face surfaced like it was coming out of water. The expressionless countenance stared at Nile. "About bloody time. Now listen, I've had a rotten felching day. Give me ten sprouts. Hurry up about it, too, I don't want to sit here gawking at you all day." 
	The orb didn't respond. 
	"What is this, wench? Are we having a bleedin' staring contest? Get cracking! I--"
	The ebony face smiled. Two silvery legs stretched down to the floor like twine. Nile followed them with his eyes. There were high heels on the feet. a sleek torso followed and two slender arms grew out of it like branches. The ebony creature reached down to the woman's corpse and pulled the jacket off. The old skin flowed out of it like liquid. The ebony female put the jacket on. The legs turned a dark green. The face went white and flaxen hair sprouted out  of her head, running down to the middle of her back.  She pulled a tube of purple lipstick out and delicately applied it on her pursed mouth.
	Nile's jaw came unhinged. She placed two fingers under his chin and gently pushed his mandible up, closing his mouth. "Close your mouth, Nile; We are not a codfish."
	"But, but I... but you!"
	"I was there years ago when the idea crossed your mind that you could use my body to perpetuate your life. 'Plenty of extra space in there,' you thought. 'Probably enough room for a tumorous zygote,' you thought."
	Nile was moving his mouth but there weren't any sounds coming out. He was making some hand gestures too, but they weren't helping much either.
	"I read those thoughts like words off a screen. That very day I programmed my DNA pattern into the replication circuits of the substance droid."
	Nile was still. Percy had made a discovery and chirped his little voice up. "Hey, there it is. I knew I'd find where the red dust was coming from."
	The woman stared Nile straight in the eyes. "You're a pathetic chess player, too." She wrapped her fingers around his throat and began to apply pressure on his trachea.
	"Now, Jo Jo, come on. Heh. can't we discuss rationally--"
	"My name is not Jo Jo." Her voice was even and smooth. "For the last time, my name is---"
	"Nile, how long did you say a star lived?" The man and the woman jerked their heads around. The voice had come from Percy. He was looking at them sheepishly.
	For a moment, everything froze. Then the sound of an enormous clap of thunder resounded through their ears. The whole cabin was filled with brilliant white light. The floor tilted fiercely and the two of them fell to their hands and knees. They both craned their necks to look at the vid screen. Nile spoke up. "Great Scott! The bugger's gone supernova! It's--"
	"No, no, that's not it," the woman cut in. "Look! The entire cosmos is being compacted into this section of the galaxy! Look! All the planets and stars are being smashed together." There was a loud series of creaks from the riggings of the ship. Both the man and the woman screamed. The vid screen shattered like glass. The ceiling came crushing down upon them. There was a smell of electricity and metal-- 
	Then there was silence.
	Percy was sitting in a beautiful meadow with green grass under his expansive buttocks and a lovely azure sky overhead. There was a brilliant sun behind faint traces of clouds and a notable scent of pollen in the air. He pulled his finger out of the red toy. He looked in at the black glop that had collected under his fingernail. He pulled out a set of nail clippers from his britches. "They might be just ten centimeters wide to me..." he thought out loud.
	When he had finished paring his nails, he looked down inside the red, plasticine toy again. "Sand," he thought, "that's all it is. Just sand." He inserted one of his enormous fingers and made sweeping motions in the dust. He got it spinning until it flattened out into a disk. He then retracted his finger and watched the dust swirl together to form denzies of brightly colored lights.