Interlude 5
Captured Scolux Lab Far Side of Luna The communication speaker in Platoon Leader Coron’s sleeping quarters was buzzing. “Who’s disturbing my sleep?” “Platoon Leader I need permission to go outside the Laboratory.” “Tron is that you? Why do you need to go outside?” This had better be good. “I think I’ve figured out how to find the beaming device but I need to go outside in order to find it.” Why didn’t I see how to find the device earlier? “Yes you have permission to go outside of the Laboratory but did you have to ask in the middle of my sleep period?” A PILA of his age should be sleeping at this hour. “Do you want me to tell you if I find the device or wait until the morning?” I’ll bet he says in the morning. For such a young PILA he’s very much a stick in the mud. “In the morning will be soon enough.” I have to be dreaming this conversation. The next morning. Tron waited in the command room of the Laboratory until Coron finally arrived, impeccably groomed as always. “Your posture indicates that you’ve found something and that I didn’t just dream being awakened in the middle of the night.” I should be excited that he’s found something but I still resent being awakened in the middle of the night. I’m getting too old for off world assignments. “Yes I found the beaming device. I also figured out how it works and that we can bring the experimental specimens up here at any time.” Well at any time when they’re both out in the open. “Well show me the device and then explain everything you know about it.” If what he has found is truly the beaming device and it works as he says then both of us will be promoted to positions back home, and I can finally use my stored sperm to start a family. I think I’ll have two litters instead of the normal one. I’m sure I’ve earned that privilege. Tron led Coron to the other side of the lab and pointed out a very large piece of equipment that almost reached the ceiling of the room. “There it is, it certainly doesn’t appear like much does it? With it we can bring natives up from the planet and safely return them or we can remove chromosomes from a cell and pretty much anything in between those two extremes. While I haven’t had time to look yet I wouldn’t be surprised if there’re instructions on how to build more of the devices somewhere in the computer storage banks.” The Scoluxers don’t know how to run a war yet somehow they allied themselves with the Trelongory and so haven’t been wiped out by the other races. “OK I have to ask how did you figure out that the beamer is this particular machine?” He’s earned the right to brag even if he hasn’t said a word of self praise yet. “Something the Scoluxer wrote when he was discussing the experiment. He said that as powerful as the beamer was it had the fatal flaw of attenuation. That he could bring creatures thousands of miles or remove cellular structures but only if the beam wasn’t attenuated too much. I thought about what that meant, and I came up with the idea that the beamer can’t transport through too much interference. To bring anything from the planet would require that the beamer focuser itself be open to the vacuum of space since it wouldn’t be able to beam through a wall or a window; of course there’re no windows in the Lab. Being open to vacuum would have it’s own problems so I decided that the most likely option would be to have an opening that can be opened or closed depending on whether the machine is being used. So I went outside and looked for anything that could be that opening. I found a structure directly above this room and found instructions on how to use the machine in a compartment at the bottom of the device. The Scoluxers were very sure of themselves or very incompetent I’m not sure which.” There’s no denying their technological abilities though, the system of mirrors used to beam back and forth from the planet is incredibly complex yet done with a minimum of parts and very small parts at that. The likelihood of the natives on the planet seeing them, even while in use, approaches zero. “So we can beam the natives the Scoluxer used up here?” To be the first JILA to transport another living creature from a planet to a moon, my name will go down in FRA’’JILL history. “We can beam them here as long as they’re out in the open. The machine can’t beam anything large through any solid or liquid so the natives need to be out in the open, even a thick layer of vegetation over them will prevent the beamer from working. Luckily the computer, and the associated sensors, can tell if the natives are in a position where they can be safely transported. I put the location device numbers into the system and neither of them have been in a position where the device would activate.” “Tron can you set the machine so that it will automatically beam the two here if they do come out into the open?” I really think we should inform them of what the Scoluxer did to them. I’m sure I can do that but there’s no way of predicting if both of them will ever be in the open at the same time. As far as I can tell they’re in the same location on the planet so that would increase the odds of them going outside at the same time. Of course we know nothing of these aliens, they might live underground and seldom come to the surface.” They’re owed an explanation since they didn’t ask to be part of the Scolux War Effort. “Set the machine so that it only beams the specimens to this moon if both can be brought at the same time. If that doesn’t happen in a few days then we’ll reset it to beam up only one. I just thought, will we be able to communicate with the natives if we do bring them here?” A lot of good it will do us to bring them to this moon if we can’t talk to them. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem since our translator will manage to express our Fra words into Zonni and the computer can translate from Zonni to the native’s language. While it won’t be a perfect solution, as long as we don’t try to say anything too complicated it should work.” I’ve never understood why other species call their language something different than they call themselves. FRA’’JILL speak Fra yet the Scoluxers speak Zonni, I‘m never going to understand non JILA creatures..