Part 4 - Part 12

“Because she wants us all out of the facility long before ten so that if some workers get involved with the soldiers or preparing our food, they might not be able to come out for the performance. Should our enemies want to eliminate us it won’t be easy if people are indoors. In any case, let’s expect the worst and see what happens… Now let’s get out there before they start suspecting us of doing something…”

When we arrived at the “VIP” table Madam Grooni had me sit beside Ireva who was sitting beside her. She pointed to the seat and gave me a slight nod.

We sat there quietly for a long time until we heard whispers from the crowd saying, “The ship is here… There it is…” The time was just before ten. Captain Orihci appeared from behind us, walked through the ring to the far end and stopped in the open field. He then made some arm signals and directed the small ship to land beside Tolo’s ship. Suddenly hordes of people started coming from inside the facility and jockeyed their way for a spot around the wrestling ring. Ukasnek’s men surrounded the ship and waited for the guests to open the hatch. The Captain stepped in front of the hatch, followed by Ukasnek, and waited.

The hatch didn’t open until precisely ten o’clock. The two wrestlers, big men dressed in shorts, one in green and the other in red, stepped

out momentarily, waved at the crowd and went back inside. There was no reaction from the crowd. Even Madam Grooni didn’t move or say anything. A man came out and greeted the Captain. The Captain pointed him towards the guest table. Ukasnek’s people searched him. He had a communicator with him but no weapons. The Captain escorted him to the guest table and sat him down. The Captain sat beside him. Ukasnek and his people went inside the ship and came out with two people. They were the ship’s crew. They too were searched and sent to the guest table. After that the two wrestlers came out. They were followed by Ukasnek and his people. The wrestlers stood at the bottom of the ship’s staircase until the man sitting beside Captain Orihci took out his communicator and said something into it. A booming sound came out of the ship and startled everyone. It was the magnified sound of the man’s voice welcoming the crowd to the event and introducing his wrestlers.

“At the far end wearing green… step forward magnificent South!”

The wrestler wearing the green shorts raised his right arm and ran to the far end of the ring.

“At the near end wearing red… step forward mighty North!”

After North stepped forward the announcer said, “The aim of this game is to push your opponent outside of the ring, marked by the white line; by any means possible… There are no rules…. The one who crosses the line is out. The one who stays inside the ring wins the fight. Now everyone make your bets…”

After the two wrestlers walked towards each other and met in the centre of the ring, the announcer yelled, “Let the big fight begin!”

There was a lot of cheering from the crowd yelling ‘yay’ and ‘boo’ as the wrestlers pushed, pulled, bumped and flipped in an attempt to throw each other out of the ring. Then finally, at precisely a quarter past ten, South flipped North out of the ring. The crowed went wild cheering.

“We have a winner! South wins! Too bad North, better luck next time… Now, as has been our tradition, we would like to invite

someone from the audience to challenge the winner and try their luck… If they win we will give them a basket of goodies and the glory of being a winner… But rarely does anyone win… We’ll give them the basket of goodies anyway for being a good sport,” said the announcer.

At this point Madam Grooni stood up and yelled, “We have a volunteer here…” and pointed to me. While she was looking at the announcer I gave my stuff to Nagol for safe keeping and popped a vial of fire water into my mouth.

“Do you accept the challenge or will you prove to be a coward…” asked Madam Grooni loud enough for the entire VIP table to hear. Almost everyone, including Ireva, found Madam Grooni’s comment disgusting. I could see it in Ireva’s face.

I stood up and Madam Grooni yelled, “He accepts…”

In his booming voice the announcer then said, “What an unusual looking creature… Why are you wearing such a thick leather suit, son? Is that symbolic of something?”

But because I didn’t have my universal translator, I didn’t know what he was asking so I didn’t answer; leading him to believe I was mentally challenged… At least that’s the impression he tried to give. In the meantime Enai was telling me everything that was being said and what was going on behind me.

Suddenly Madam Grooni jumped up, “He doesn’t speak our language… He’s an alien from earth. Get on with the program…”

“Ah, I understand… Come inside the ring son…” the announcer said and waved me in.

The moment I entered the ring South attacked me from behind. He grabbed me by my back and tried to lift me up. I twisted hard and fast and he dropped me. I think I hurt his hand. I then grabbed him by his chest with one hand, lifted him off his feet and threw him away; way beyond the limits of the ring. The crowd was shocked and stopped yelling. Then North took a run at me from behind and

hit me square in the small of my back. I turned around, grabbed his leg, swung him around a couple of times and tossed him against South, slamming both of them against their ship. At this point the crowd went wild cheering me on.

“It’s time for you to fall…” said Enai. “The signal has been activated.”

At that moment I looked at the announcer. He was saying something into his communications device yet nothing was coming out of the booming speakers. I told Enai that.

“I believe it’s the announcer, not Madam Grooni or Tolo, who is feeding information back to those controlling the disruptor. The announcer must have told them when to fire up the disruptor and now he’s telling them that I’m down.”

The moment I fell on the ground and started trembling, Ukasnek’s people went into action arresting Madam Grooni, Tolo, the announcer, the visiting ship’s crew and the wrestlers. The people in the crowd didn’t know what was happening until Enai and his people came with a stretcher and carried me off.

Someone yelled, “Captain Otsiron is dead…!”

He must have seen me trembling and when I stopped he figured I was dead. Ireva, with tears in her eyes, made a strong attempt to penetrate Ukasnek’s security circle but was stopped. Ukasnek only allowed Nagol to get through after he told him that he had my stuff, including my medallion which I needed to unlock my ship and my transmitter which I needed to communicate with the soldiers. By then Delche and Ori were there and told me that the two destroyers were on their way as well as a ship, traveling at great speed, heading this way from the closest planet.

“We need to get up there fast if we’re going to stop that ship…” said Delche, at which point I entered the ship’s codes and opened the hatch.

“Good luck my sons… and happy hunting,” said Nagol with a sad look on his face.

The moment the hatch closed I pushed the joystick to its limit, which fired the engines with a huge boom and off we were into outer space in no time. When we leveled off we took a trajectory to meet the oncoming ship.

“We’re being scanned by the approaching ship Captain and its coming at us at an incredible speed,” yelled Ori.

“Get out of the way! Jump!” ordered Delche. I followed my instincts and did a short jump only to see a huge plasma blast in the last position in which we’d been standing.”

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“We have no ship signature so they probably thought we were pirates and they blasted us to leave no witnesses…” replied Delche.

“Do you think they think they destroyed us?”

“Most likely…” replied Delche.

“So, how are we going to catch them now?” asked Ori.

“We’ll do another short jump and blast them when they slow down to enter the atmosphere…” I said and powered up all my cannons and loaded the torpedo.

“They’re already there… If we’re going to do this, do it now! Punch it!” yelled Delche after he entered the codes for another short jump, which took us close to the atmosphere.

The moment we stopped I locked the two inner cannons on the descending ship and fired.

“Direct hit… Both engines are off line but the ship is still descending and heading in a trajectory towards the facility. It appears to be aiming at the facility… All its cannons and torpedoes

are operational and will fire the moment the facility is in range before it crashes…” yelled Ori in a panicked tone of voice.

“No it won’t…” I said as I launched the torpedo and loaded another one into the tube. I then fired the other two plasma cannons to make sure there was nothing left of the ship to hit the planet’s surface.

There was a horrendous explosion and a fireball burned in the atmosphere, which could probably be seen from the closest planet with the naked eye.

“Any last minute transmissions from the exploding ship Ori?”

“None Captain… I don’t think they knew what hit them…”

“I think I should contact Enai and get an idea of what’s happening with the destroyers.”

“Enai, slow down… I can’t understand what you’re saying… Yes we’re still alive… You can’t get rid of us that easily… What’s happening with the destroyers? You say they’ve increased their velocity and expect to be here within an hour? We’ll intercept them… Don’t worry… Tell everyone to calm down. What’s that you said? Madam Grooni informed her boss that I’m dead? You heard that on the transmission she sent to him? You say you forced her to call him and tell him that? Well what did she tell him about the ship they sent to rescue her… the one that blew up in the atmosphere? You forced her to say that it blew up because it entered the atmosphere too fast? That’s brilliant Enai.”

At his point I heard Delche and Ori laughing out loud.

“Enai, don’t tell anyone outside of our secret group that we’re alive. Get Ukasnek to keep a lid on things and keep Madam Grooni and the others under arrest… and keep them off their communication devices. Also, keep an eye on the destroyers… Before I go, please turn off the local transmitter to the soldiers and let me concentrate in preparation for the greatest battle your world has seen! Of course I’m kidding…”

“The conversation is always abrupt with Enai… isn’t it?” said Delche.

“Now gentlemen try to find the destroyers on our long range sensors and tell me how I’m supposed to tell the soldiers where to aim their guns…”

“I already have the destroyers on screen and have plotted their position, trajectory and time of arrival… The rest… I don’t know…,” replied Ori.

“Delche…?”

“I could use some rakia right about now… I think better when I’m drunk…”

“Okay be that way… Your rakia will be vapour if we don’t find a way to stop the destroyers…”

We sat there in silence while Ori counted the minutes before contact.

“See that silver planet over there? The destroyers will pass between us and that planet in several minutes… we’ll be able to see them…,” explained Ori.

“And why are you telling us that…?” asked Delche.

“For something to do… Okay… I’m nervous here… I’ve never seen the Captain without a solution before… so that makes me nervous,” replied Ori.

“I have an idea… Delche, plot a straight line between the forest where the soldiers are and that silver planet…”

“Okay… Punch it…”

“That was fast…”

“We did a tiny jump… What now…?”

“Ori turn on my transmitter magnifier so I can talk to the soldiers from here.”

“Done…!”

“Now leave me be for a moment so I can contact them…”

A moment later I started talking to myself. “Ah, there you are… I found you sweetheart. You saved my ass before and now you’re about to save it again…”

“Talking to yourself, Captain…? Are you going loco?” asked Delche.

“Yes I am… But I’m doing it for your benefit…”

“Please don’t…”

“Ori, is there a way to make our ship glow brightly?”

“Glow? What for?” asked Delche.

“So that it can be seen from a distance…”

“We can leak some plasma and ignite it?” suggested Ori.

“Wouldn’t that blow us up?” asked Delche.

“Not in small portions…”

“Do it then…”

“I’ll need to activate the maintenance robot and program it to do that.”

“Do it fast…! We have no time to waste…”

“How often do you want the explosions?”

“Activate them manually on my command…”

“You have the manual triggers to the cannons. You’ll have to do it yourself, Captain.”

“Are we ready?”

“We are ready.”

“Look up here sweetheart… Look for the flash… Fire. Don’t be discouraged, look around until you find the flash. Fire… fire… fire… There it is… keep your eyes on that spot… I’m moving the ship a bit out of the way… Now sweetheart focus your eyes on the silver planet… Do you see it…? Yes you do… Now let me tell all your friends… Do they all see it…? Yes they do… if one sees it they all see it. Now get your guns ready and aim at the planet… You know what to do. You’ve done this before… Now let’s move our ship out of the way so we don’t shoot ourselves. Ori, estimate the destroyers’ arrival to the line between the soldiers and the silver planet and start counting down... I’m turning off the engines to avoid being spotted by the destroyers…”

“Done, Captain! The ships will be on target in 123 seconds. They’re moving very fast…”

“Now, shut down everything…”

“Stay with me Nine, stay with me… steady…”

“Ninety seconds…”

“Sixty seconds…”

“Thirty seconds…”

“Twenty seconds…”

“Ten seconds…”

“Fire… Fire… fire… fire… fire……..”

“Bull’s eye Captain… We got one… but we lost the other one… The explosion gave it cover and it changed course…”

“I don’t think so… The explosion made it visible for Nine… Follow it… follow it, follow it… fire… fire… fire… fire…”

“It’s trying to outmaneuver us Captain.”

“Fire…

“Got him too Captain…” said Ori very quietly, like we were playing some sort of video game and we’d won.

The three of us couldn’t believe what had just happened.

“I have to call Enai and tell them to expect a flood of soldiers at the facility gates… I should dismiss them right now. The soldiers are tired, hungry and dehydrated… You know how difficult it must have been for them sitting in the forest covered in dry grass for hours without food or drink and not even a washroom break?”

“Hi Enai… I hope everyone is breathing easier down there? Did you see what happened out there? You say not only did you see it but you have it recorded… both the sensor and telescope data? We’re tired up here and need to come back down soon but before we do that I want to dismiss the soldiers and send them to the barracks for a well-deserved rest. Please make sure there is plenty of food for them… Order a couple of rations… They haven’t had breakfast or lunch… Make sure they are treated with utmost respect… Today they changed the balance of the world… They did what was impossible… Sorry I’m rambling… I haven’t had any sleep for several nights… Tell Captain Orihci to make an announcement and let everyone know we are alive and well… See you in a short while…”

“Don’t forget to dismiss the soldiers, Captain…” Ori reminded me.

“Like I could forget…”

“You already forgot didn’t you…?” said Delche.

“I still can’t believe what we did today… I think it will take years for it to sink in… We beat them… We simply outsmarted them. Nagol believes they knew everything… I mean they knew that we knew and they played us… but ended up being played. They had the upper hand… you know… But what I can’t understand is why Madam Grooni played us down to her boss? Calling us incompetent and stupid… It makes no sense…”

“Dismiss the soldiers…!” yelled Delche.

“Soldiers dismissed… and have a nice rest… What’s with you, Delche?”

“I can feel their pain… Ask your girlfriend if you don’t believe me…”

“Get out of here…”

“I just can’t stand you rambling… It’s all over… Let it go…”

“Okay, I’m zipping it up now… I’m not talking to you anymore…”

“Good!”

“I think I’ll land this thing over there on that hill and get some sleep…”

“What about… What do I tell the facility?” asked Ori.

“Tell them we’re tired and need some sleep… We’ll see them soon.”

Time for reflection

It was way past noon when we landed on the hill but we were too tired to notice the beauty of nature all around us. I activated my guards and we slept outside in the shade of my ship. It was hot but a cool breeze was blowing gently.

I don’t know when we fell asleep but it was dusk when I was awakened by a growl. I jumped to my feet which made my guards stir. I discovered it was my own stomach. I looked around… Ori wasn’t there. I asked my guards what had happened to him but they stood there like dummies… My voice woke Delche who swore at me and told me to go back to sleep. I told him Ori was missing. He looked at me strangely but then we heard a noise coming from inside the ship which distracted us.

“I hope that’s Ori…” I said.

“Of course it’s Ori… Who else could it be? He’s probably hungry and scavenging for food. He used to do that in the night back home in my restaurant…”

“Let’s go and have a look.”

“You mean to tell me you left the hatch open while we were sleeping?”

“Yeah, what about it…? I wanted to air out the ship and take some of this fresh air back with us.”

“What if a dangerous wild creature had gotten in?”

“My guards would have taken care of it and we would have had food to eat right now…”

“I’m hungry too… Let’s get back before nightfall.”

“Are you kidding? Leave this beautiful place without exploring it?”

“What? Are you getting cold feet or something? Who don’t you want to face, Ireva? She looked pretty worried about you lying on that stretcher looking dead. She’ll kill you when she sees that you’re still alive. Or is it Captain Orihci’s wife who will smother you with kisses…?”

I ignored what Delche said and yelled, “Hey, what are you doing in there…? You scared us to death. Here we thought a wild creature had gotten you, brought you in here and was eating you…”

“Yeah, right… Ha, ha!”

Take the bucket you dropped and let’s go exploring… We might find something edible in the bushes…”

“Why can’t we go just back home and have something to eat at the facility…?”

“Because it’s past dinner time and there’ll be nothing left to eat…”

“That’s not it… That’s not why he doesn’t want to go back,” Delche snickered.

“So, what is it?”

“He’s afraid of facing Ireva after what he did.”

“What did he do to her?”

“Oh nothing… Never mind… Give me that bucket and let’s go…”

After I closed the hatch we took my guards with us and headed for the nearest slope, which looked forested from where we were standing.

“I smell fruit…” said Delche.

“Then we should be able to find something to eat…” I replied.

It kept getting darker as we got closer to the forest. The entire valley below was forested except for one spot not too far away. There was an open fire burning in the middle of it. When we got close to the trees, we could all smell the fruit. It was intoxicating.

“What is it?” asked Ori.

“I don’t know…” I replied. “It could be olives, cherries, plums… or some other fruit unfamiliar to us…”

“I don’t know what olives are but I do know what cherries and plums are…” said Delche.

“Of course you would… you’ve been to Macedonia…,” I said.

“It’s some kind of fruit we don’t know about…” said Delche.

“How do we know it’s not poisonous?” asked Ori.

“Yeah right… Why would these people plant an entire forest of poisonous fruit?” said Delche.

“Pick some up from the ground and try it,” I said.

They were both hesitant… I picked one up and popped it into my mouth. I then growled and fell to the ground, prompting my guards to pull out their weapons and look around. My prank backfired on me. I had to get up to calm my guards before they began shooting and killing my friends.

“You’re a maniac you know? First you scared us to death and then you almost had us killed…” yelled Delche angrily.

“Here have some fruit… it’s delicious… and I’m sorry…”

“Mmmm, it is delicious… Not only that, it’s juicy… like a grape… and loaded with sugar… Do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Yes! You found the fruit to make your rakia…”

“You’ve got it! Now help me collect some in this bucket and we’ll take them back with us.”

“We can’t just take them… If these trees were planted it means they belong to someone. We would be stealing…” protested Ori.

“Fill the bucket half full and let’s go down there where the fire is and see if we can find someone. We’ll buy the fruit…” I suggested.

“With what?” asked Delche.

“Good point… We’ll ask if we can have it.”

“Why half a bucket?” asked Ori.

“Now look who’s getting greedy…”

“No I’m not getting greedy… I just want to know…”

“Delche, do you know?”

“Yes I do! Full means you’re trying to take advantage… half means you take what you need. The farmer will easily give you half a bucket because he thinks you’re in need but won’t give you a full bucket because he feels that you’re clearly trying to take advantage of him…”

As we got closer to the clearing where the fire was burning we could smell meat cooking and heard men’s voices.

“We don’t want to startle them…” said Delche and yelled, “hello there…” in the Ostikon language.

“First, we won’t startle them… They already know we’re here and probably have guns… Otherwise they would have run off and hidden… Second, you might as well speak to them in Macedonian. They won’t understand you…”

“And how do you suppose we talk to them then?” asked Delche.

“Hand signals…

Both Ori and Delche laughed.

When we came out of the woods and into the clearing we saw them sitting on logs around the fire. Something was cooking. My guards stepped ahead of us and pulled out their weapons. I pulled them back and pushed them behind us. I raised my arms up in the air as we approached. There were four of them and they did have guns… Primitive ones… When they saw me push my guards behind us, I think they understood that we weren’t there to harm them. Seeing that we’d landed on the hill they figured we were aliens and in some sort of trouble. They waved us to sit and we did. My guards stood behind me looking at them. They looked menacing. The men kept staring at them.

“Macedonian mode,” I ordered and their menacing uniforms turned white with the Macedonian colours.

One of the men smiled and said a whole bunch of words. The only word I recognized was “Ostikon”. They must have figured we were from Ostikon when they saw the uniforms. We had no way of communicating with them since we didn’t have our universal translators and we didn’t want to climb back up the hill to get them. I decided to contact Enai. He wasn’t able hear what the men were saying so we still couldn’t communicate. After a while of contemplating what to do I asked Enai to tell me the words for, “We want to buy the berries but we have no money…” When I told them what Enai had said they looked into our bucket and the four men laughed and said something. I asked Enai to translate for me. He told me they said “you may have them for free”. The same man who’d spoken earlier pointed into the sky and made an explosion with his hands. I nodded yes, that it was us. I assume they’d seen the explosions earlier. They spoke among themselves for a while. The only word I understood was “Otsiron”; my name. I nodded yes and pointed at myself. The man then pointed at me and made an explosion with his hands. I nodded yes. At that point the man offered us some of their food. He grabbed a chunk of the cooked meat with his bare hands, broke it into pieces and offered us each a piece. I took my piece and graciously ate it making hand gestures

that it was delicious. He offered me more but I declined. I pointed to the other men in his company and he gave it to someone else. Delche and Ori held onto theirs. The man raised his hand up and down, I guess to encourage them to eat.

“You’d better eat it if you want to do business with these people… and be gracious about it,” I said. They both did and then we took our berries, waved goodbye and went back to my ship.

Delche examined the fruit and was pretty sure he could get it to ferment… But he needed some time to test it out to be sure.

“Wouldn’t it be a blast if we can start making rakia here? With my rakia making skill and Captain Orihci and Captain Rolo’s business skills we could sell it to the entire galaxy,” said Delche with much enthusiasm.

“Why? You need money? We have an entire warehouse full of gold…”

“Where is it? I haven’t seen a single coin… Have you?”

“Hasn’t Captain Orihci being paying you?”

“No! Has he being paying you?”

“No… well, we’ll have to change that…” I said, closed the hatch and dismissed my guards.

“I don’t feel good after eating that meat. Do you think it was loaded with bacteria?” asked Ori.

“No, we all ate it… There was nothing wrong with the meat… except that it had no salt. They probably prefer eating it that way… It was cooked well,” said Delche.

“You were both disgusted with how the farmer handled it… weren’t you?” I asked.

“And I suppose you weren’t?” replied Delche.

“I got over it. They offered us something they probably valued a great deal… I assume it would have been an insult not to eat it…” I replied.

“What about the dirty hands…?” asked Ori.

“If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for us… Stop belly aching… If it wasn’t for that meat we wouldn’t have eaten anything.”

“I guess you’re right Captain… Why do you suppose they laughed at you when you told them you wanted to buy the fruit in the bucket?”

“I told them I wanted to buy the fruit but had no money… Imagine how ridiculous that must have sounded to them. But I don’t think they laughed at that. I think they laughed at the idea that I wanted to buy a measly half bucket from the entire forest of fruit. Even asking to buy a truckload would have been funny considering how much fruit they have available.”

After a moment of silence I said, “Gentlemen, we’re about to land… Pick up your bucket of fruit and scram… I’ll sleep here tonight. Don’t tell anyone we’re back. Let’s sleep tonight for a change…”

After they’d left I shut the hatch and lay in my bed. No one disturbed me all night. I’m pretty sure the entire facility knew we were back but felt we deserved a good night’s sleep.

I must have overslept because the next day everyone from our close circle of friends was outside my ship waiting for me to wake up.

“Oh, come on… How long is he going to sleep? I don’t want that delicious roast to get cold…” I heard Ukasnek say as I opened my eyes and saw light.

After I opened the hatch the first thing I felt was a punch on my shoulder. It was Ireva.

“Don’t hurt yourself…,” I said to her then grabbed her by her waist, lifted myself on my tiptoes and kissed her hard on the lips. When I let her go she looked puzzled.

“What did you expect was going to happen, dear…?” asked her mother and gave me a hug and kiss. “I’m happy… we’re all happy to see you back in one piece…”

After all the women kissed and hugged me, the men greeted me with much admiration. Nagol grabbed me by the arm and, along with everyone else, escorted me to the common room. Delche and Ori were already there sitting down at the head table with a roasted animal, which looked like a pig, on a big platter.

The moment I looked at Delche he said, “We’ve already gotten our heroes welcome, hugs, kisses and all…”

Everyone sat down after I sat down and waited for me to say something.

“I’m sober, and when I’m sober I don’t give speeches… All I’m going to say is that we are grateful to God and to Mother Nature for being alive and still breathing today… And thank you all for the roast… it looks delicious.” I didn’t know what else to say or do so I sat there staring at everyone.

At that point Delche stood up and said, “Oh for heaven’s sake, give me that knife. Everyone, get a plate and line up. You first Sir …” and pointed at Nagol. Everyone insisted I go next… and I did followed by Ori.

Just as Delche cut the last piece of meat for himself, there was a knock at the door. Amih stood up and answered it. It was a young lady from the reception area.

She told us that there were a bunch of men and women with a fruit basket looking for Otsiron and she wanted to know what she should do.

I was about to say, “Take the basket and thank them…,” but my instincts told me otherwise. “Bring them here…”

Amih looked at me surprised and said, “Okay, I’ll go get them…”

I asked the girl if she was hungry.

“I’m starving…” she replied.

“How many of you are in the reception area?” asked Delche.

“Two of us Sir…”

Delche grabbed a couple of plates, cut some meat and gave them to her. She left with a big smile.

“That smile alone was worth it…” said Delche, making an excuse for giving away our meat.

We all looked at him but only Nagol spoke. “I’m proud of you son…”

About the same time Amih returned with eight people, four men and four women and introduced them as farmers from the grove.

“I’ll be damned, those are the men we met last night…” exclaimed Delche.

“You’re right…” I said, stood up and asked Amih to invite them in.

One of the women said, “Sorry for disturbing your breakfast, we just dropped by to deliver a basket of fruit. We understand Otsiron is fond of our fruit and we’d like him to have a basket of it. A gift from all of us from the grove... We’ll go now.”

“Wait!” I said. “Amih, invite them in and translate for me please.”

“Thank you for the fruit. Please come in and have breakfast with us…”

“No, no… best we go…”

“How can we accept your gift if we don’t offer you something in return…?” I asked and looked at everyone. There was a smirk on Ireva’s face. I could only imagine what she was thinking… They had grubby clothes and dirty hands and faces and I wanted them to stay and eat with us?

“We best not… we’re not dressed for dining…”

“Amih, take these people to the washroom and let them wash then bring them back. Ireva, estimate their measurements and bring them some decent clothes.”

“We don’t have any…”

“We have work clothes… all kinds of them. Get them a couple of pairs each…”

It took only minutes for them to wash before Ireva had them dressed in work uniforms. In the meantime Delche explained to everyone how we’d met the men the night before. He then prepared a plate of food for each.

“Good thing we didn’t go for seconds… or we’d have eaten all the food…” said Delche.

“What do you have to say to that Otsiron…?” asked Nagol.

“I’ve never made enemies by offering people kindness… Nor did I get poor or starve by giving hungry people a portion of my food. In fact I got back tenfold from what I gave… and I have many examples to prove it…” I replied.

“Yes, that is a good thing… This entire planet is full of good people who will look after you well if you show them a bit of kindness…”

When our visitors came back they looked like different people. They all thanked us for what we’d done for them, with big smiles on their clean faces.

While we had them sitting down eating their food, wolfing it down which was typical of farmers and pirates, I sent Enai to get a couple of bottles of rakia and Amih to bring back some soap and toiletries; the kind she gives away to our visitors.

After the farmers had eaten I asked Ireva to translate for me so that I could ask them some questions. In the meantime, Amih gave them each a toiletry kit and Enai gave them one bottle of rakia to take with them and poured us each a drink from the other.

When he had finished I picked up my drink and said, “A toast to our new friends… and thank you for the berries. Please sip the drink very slowly because it’s very strong.”

After the farmers had a sip, the older man said, “I’ve had this before. It comes from Ostikon… made by the rakia king…”

I looked at Delche who looked at me sternly…

I decided not to say anything about him and instead said, “The reason we came to the grove last night was because we discovered that we can make rakia from your berries. This is why we wanted to buy some so that we could test it… But we didn’t have any money with us when we accidentally found your grove…”

“I don’t think you can make rakia from this fruit. It’s a wild berry that we use to make sweet water. That’s all, besides, who’s going to collect all those berries? We used to have people… now it’s only the eight of us… Eight old people… husbands and wives… How much can we possibly collect?”

“What happened to your young people? Don’t you have children and grandchildren?”

“Our children and our workers were taken away from us by the robots… Everyone was taken away… and since then they’ve disappeared. We don’t know where they are or where to look for them…”

“I’m sorry to hear that. We’ll try and help you find your people.”

“We can’t collect much fruit by ourselves… We need people. We just collect enough and sell it to buy food for ourselves… We can’t find workers anywhere. Almost everyone on this planet has either disappeared or works here in this building…”

“We can give you money… if you need some?” offered Captain Orihci.

“No, thank you… We don’t need it. We need people… young people to work the farms. We want to earn our own keep… We don’t want handouts. What are we going to do with money if we can’t find people to hire to work our farms? We’ve been on these farms for generations… and we don’t want to leave them.”

“How many people would you need to harvest your crops?”

“Besides the small gardens where we grow our vegetables, we have no other crops but the berries. We can’t work the soil by ourselves…” said the older man.

“We used to have twenty five people. We have cabins to house that many. The other women and I used to cook and clean for them… I would be happy now if we had half as many people…” said the older woman.

At this point I told Amih to take the farmers back to the reception area and bring them back when we asked for them.

“What do you have in mind?” asked Captain Orihci.

“We have the largest army in the world, but outside of picking the berries we can’t do much else with it…” I said and got a strange look from Nagol. “To help these people with their civilian chores…” and Nagol smiled. He was happy with my answer so I continued. “But we do have a number of prisoners in our jails who sit there and rot while we feed and look after them… How many prisoners do we have Ukasnek?”

“Last count we had twenty… Let’s see Madam Grooni and her bunch, that makes thirteen, her brother… that makes fourteen, the rat from the communications tower who betrayed us and the five from the circus… that makes twenty.”

“I have an idea… and I want everyone’s opinion on the matter…”

“You want to send them to the grove to help these farmers, right?”

“Well I couldn’t have put it any better. Does anyone have any questions or concerns…? No one? Really?”

“We trusted you with our lives… why should we stop now…?” said good old Amih.

“Mom I knew you would say that!”

“Daughter, what would you have suggested I say?”

“I agree with you…”

After everyone stopped laughing Captain Orihci put it to a vote. Everyone agreed. It was a unanimous vote.

“Bring the prisoners here Ukasnek…”

After we lined them up against the wall Captain Orihci told them what we were planning to do with them and asked them if they agreed with it. But at that moment someone from the communications tower burst in and told us there was news from the Galaxy Trader headquarters and it wasn’t good.

“Do you have the news recorded?” I asked.

“Yes Sir!”

“Then bring the recording and play it for us…” I said and he ran off.

“What about them?” asked Captain Orihci.

“Any news that affects us, affects them too… We’ll let them listen to the recording…”

The man came back quickly and the Captain asked him to play the news. It was an audio recording.

“Something terrible has happened and something even more terrible is happening right now. The unthinkable has happened. The day before, when not one but both of our mighty destroyers were obliterated in outer space… In our own space… with a weapon that was fired from another galaxy. This is unprecedented. It has never before happened in the history of our consortium. An invisible enemy hit us from afar and we have no idea how far they will take this. Everyone who is anyone is leaving this galaxy. Where are they going? At this time we don’t know. Even the newcomers from Ostikon, on whom we placed a lot of faith to protect us, are fleeing in droves. More terrible than that is that some of the Galaxy Trader citizens have risen to aid this new enemy and a civil war is about to erupt…”

“That’s enough… Turn it off…” I said firmly. I then looked at each prisoner sternly and said, “These people the reporter is reporting on are the very people you supported… Everything they say is a lie… But the truth will come out… I will make sure of that! And when it does, you will pay with your lives for your part. So now you have a choice, work on the farms and live… or face your executioner… And if you even think about escaping… or leaving this planet…, think again! Where will you go? Wherever you go I will find you. And just for the record, we all know what you’ve been up to and it’s all recorded… Madam Grooni, or should I say Livè, and you Tolo, Livè’s brother. We know that both of you are from Ostikon and that you both work for the central intelligence security services… and you Mr. Announcer, we have evidence on you to bury you multiple times,” I said. I looked at each of them individually and then turned to Amih and said, “Bring the farmers back.”

When the farmers returned Captain Orihci told them that these people were our prisoners, that they were criminals and couldn’t be trusted.

The older woman said, “Thank you, we’ll take good care of them…”

I told Captain Orihci to tell the farmers the crimes these people had committed and then I asked Ukasnek and Ireva to find vehicles to transport them to the grove.

After they made the arrangements and returned we ate lunch and assembled in the common room for more discussions.

“Before we each reveal everything we know about what happened here, I’d like to say that we have failed the people not only on this planet but in both Otstikon and the Galaxy Trader planets. From listening to the news report and talking to the farmers, I get the impression that we’re the only ones who know the truth about what happened here in this place and in the other facility. We failed them because we failed to inform them. We all assumed everyone knew what had happened. But we assumed wrong. The farmers certainly don’t know what happened to their children and obviously the reporter in the Galaxy Trader headquarters doesn’t know what happened here… and who really shot their destroyers on which they depended for protection…”

“An unknown enemy…that’s a joke…” said Nagol and began to tell his story.

Looking back

“First I want to sincerely apologize to you ladies for not sharing with you what I found out about Madam Grooni, Tolo and the circus announcer from the day they arrived on our planet to the day they were arrested. My reason for not telling you was to keep things secret and avoid accidentally letting them know what I knew… For example… about what they were doing here… What were they really doing here? They were preparing the way to erase all evidence of the existence of their failed super soldier experiment. They were here preparing to erase everything about the experiment and say that such an experiment never took place. But I couldn’t tell you what I knew about that… I couldn’t even tell you that they were imposters. I couldn’t tell you that Madam Grooni, whose real name is Livè, originated from the Whites of Ostikon. We had her DNA tested when Otsiron kissed her that day in the dining area… That was a distraction for Enai to take a strand of hair from her. I couldn’t tell you why she was sent here… That she was sent here by the central intelligence security services to see if the super soldiers could be salvaged before the facility and this entire planet was destroyed. I couldn’t tell you that two Galaxy Trader destroyers would be dispatched to destroy both facilities and bury everything deep underground so that no evidence or witnesses would be left. We discovered all this when we tapped Livè’s highly encrypted midnight communications with her boss. Then Tolo, Livè’s brother, was sent here with the assassins to deliver the disruptor. The assassins were just a distraction… I couldn’t tell you that Grooni and Tolo were brother and sister. And who would have believed me anyway. They hated each other. I couldn’t have told you that Tolo, who delivered the assassins and pretended to be Rodot’s pilot, spoke many languages… including ours… Now, about the disruptor… The disruptor is a device capable of rendering Otsiron and Enai, who have computer chips in the back of their necks, paralyzed temporarily. The disruptor was the intelligence service’s ultimate weapon with which they were going to stop Otsiron… The device was going to be used to put him permanently out of existence so that they could destroy this planet unopposed. As you all know, Otsiron is the sole person who not only communicates with the super soldiers but has discovered how to use them as a mighty weapon of unheard of power. The disruptor was tested just after Otsiron kissed