The Slug Inception

by Matthew Pelly

  Chapter 5 - Old friend

  The Slug

  It seemed that we spent a lot of our time flying through space. Wait, hold on a sec; the word "flying" implies that we're using some kind of airflow manipulation to move through air. Well, out here in space, there was no air to manipulate. Nor any air to move through in the first place. So we weren't actually flying; the ship moves by firing a propulsive force out the back of it, and the law of equal and opposite reactions propels us forward.

  So it seemed that we spent a lot of our time being propelled through space... that doesn't sound right. There must be a better way to say it.

  'How long have we been in here?' asked Ethan, rudely interrupting my thoughts. He should know better than to speak when I'm thinking about something of the utmost importance.

  'I lack any accurate timekeeping methods aboard the ship', Phill answered him, 'but I have observed you engage in sleep a total of forty-six times.'

  'So it's been like a month and a half then', the Human calculated after a pause of thinking.

  'I wouldn't be so sure', Rosetta cautioned him. 'You don't know if every one of your sleeps has corresponded to a day on Earth.'

  'I suppose not', he replied, 'but I'd imagine it'd be close enough. Besides, that's not the point. I'm complained because of how boring it is in here! You guys really need a pinball machine or something.'

  'What's that?' asked Boy. Hmm. I'd have to give him a full explanation of video-games one day. They were, after all, vital knowledge.

  Phill answered him, 'A form of Human entertainment whereby they attempt to keep a small, metallic ball from falling into a space by hitting it away using two flippers.'

  After a short silence, Frank said, 'It doesn't sound very entertaining.'

  'Well', Ethan told him, 'you wouldn't understand until you've played it yourself. Some people are really good at it.'

  'There is always something that somebody somewhere is really good at', Phill said, and he was kinda right. Except at tying one's own body into a knot; I assume that there's no one good at that. Although, I have been wrong before.

  'Anyway', Boy dastardly tried to change the subject, 'Ethan, you asked me earlier to give you more information about how we're travelling towards PDN?'

  'Yes, I did', he answered eagerly.

  Before he began speaking, Boy turned harshly to me and said, 'Before you say anything, he asked me, not you, so I'm telling it.'

  I feigned offence. 'What, you thought that I'd try to steal the talking away from you?' I bumped up the offence factor. 'What kind of person do you think I am?'

  Before Boy could respond, probably about to profusely apologise before bursting into tears, Phill said, 'I believe that Boy's statement was justified.'

  'I believe that you're justified', I shot back at him. He gave me a confused look, probably because what I said was more a compliment than an insult. But he didn't get it, which means that I won. Next time I'll just shout "abagabadootin", and I'll win again because he won't get it. Heh.

  'So', Boy began. 'What did you want to know, Ethan?' His lack of defending Phill meant that he knew that the Cyborg was so defeated by my comeback that there was no hope of recovery. Double heh.

  'Matthew said something before about sending over two ships', the Human started to ask. 'What's the deal with that? Is there anyone on the other one?'

  'Didn't I already explain this before?' I asked.

  'Obviously not well enough', Boy told me, and then turned back to Ethan. 'You can't tell from here, but there are actually two interstellar crafts headed towards PDN; the front one is empty, and we're in the second one. This is to be sure that they don't detect us or fire at us before we can land. If they found us and decided to attack us, then we wouldn't stand much chance of defending ourselves.'

  'That depends on the extent of the planet's recovery of its defences', Phill commented.

  'It's been a long time since we left there', Frank said, 'although we don't really know how long it's been since the Slugs we left there let the Cyborgs reclaim it.'

  'I wonder what Kerry's up to...' Ethan wondered. Which was obvious, because he just said that he wondered about it.

  'She's probably off fighting in the war in some other battle', Rosetta told him. 'Unless her half-cycle of war was over, then she'd be on a Slug-controlled world performing her duties.'

  'I thought that we agreed that Kerry was a guy', I protested, purposefully not mentioning the very real possibility that Kerry was now dead.

  'No!' Ethan quickly said. 'She is a girl, and that's all there is to it. I made up their names so I get to decide.'

  'That's besides the point', Boy tried to pull the rein in the conversation. And he yanked on those reins pretty hard; any harder and it might have hurt somebody. 'The point is', he continued, 'if they either don't detect or don't fire upon this first ship, then we knew it'll be safe to land.'

  'Why wouldn't they be able to detect it?' asked the Human.

  'I also told you this before', I complained.

  'He is enquiring for more information', Phill told me, as if he was right and I was wrong.

  'They shouldn't know that we are coming', Boy went on, 'because the two interstellar ships that we are in are stealth ships. That means that they ought to be undetectable by sensors. Not to mention, these ones have been upgraded with Human knowledge about stealth, so they should be even better at avoiding detection.'

  'If stealth is so good', Ethan asked, 'why isn't every ship a stealth one? That would surely be a great help.'

  'Before you receive the correct answer', Phill told him, 'I think it would behoove you to attempt to develop a plausible reason on your own.'

  'Seriously?' I asked. ' "Behoove"? It sounds like you're taking the hooves off of somebody.' For some unknown reason, nobody replied to my statement. Which means, of course, that they all acknowledged my correctness.

  'Well', Ethan said slowly, 'is it maybe because it would be difficult to train every pilot how to fly a stealth ship?'

  'Every ship flies the same, regardless of whether it's stealth or not', I told him. I then gave a chuckle, because I had a good idea that he would never guess one of the two real reasons that he was searching for.

  The Human guessed again, 'Then I suppose it must be because stealth ships are more expensive to make.'

  'Precisely', Phill congratulated him. 'That is one of the reasons; the amount of resources required to manufacture stealth ships and missiles is far greater than that required for a standard ship or missile. They also require more power in order to run. In addition, this extra cost necessitates that these assets should only be taken on missions where they are most needed, and only flown by older Slugs and more experienced Cyborgs, to reduce the chance of unnecessarily losing them.'

  'You have stealth missiles as well?' asked Ethan, astonished.

  'Indeed', I told him. 'In fact, it was a specialised stealth missile that took down my original ship, when Phill fired at me. Speaking of that, Phill, why did your ships have these missiles in the first place?'

  'It is standard procedure for every Cyborg ship out on a lonely mission to carry two such warheads', he answered. Makes sense, but seemed pretty expensive to me. Then again, though, it did work on me. Although, in hindsight, it did help to create a super-Cyborg-killing Slug. So I suppose that, in the end, it was a bad idea to give Phill those missiles after all.

  'Alright then', Ethan said, 'what's the other reason?'

  'The other reason', Boy answered him, 'is that the Slugs and Cyborgs have an... an implicit understanding not to create too many stealth vessels.'

  Ethan stared at him for a moment, before giving the perfectly justified response of, 'What?'

  'You heard him', I said. 'It's kind of like an agreement, but not really. We basically just avoid using these ships and missiles too much.'

  'Why on Earth would you do that?' the Human cried. Well, he didn't really cry; it was more an exclamation. Next time, I'll just think "exclaimed" instea
d of "cried".

  Carmen decided to join in with, 'To prevent the technology from being counteracted. If any of the two races overuses this stealth, then the other will come up with a way to get past it. Then the original race will emulate this new technology, and the two races will then be left with no useable stealth ships at all. By restricting how much we use it, we stop the other race from having a good reason to get around it.'

  'It is logical', Phill commented, 'for it is better to use a valuable technology sparingly than to lose the ability to use it altogether. By the Cyborgs not relying on stealth, there is little incentive for the Slugs to search for ways to invalidate this ability. The Slugs also know that their over-reliance on the technique would cause the Cyborgs to likewise do so. It is an equilibrium of technology, where neither side wants to lose the capacity for stealth, and so does not use it exorbitantly.'

  'So it's kind of like a mutual stalemate then', Ethan said.

  'I suppose', I told him, smiling, 'although I'm not sure what it has to do with chess.'

  He gave me an annoyed look, then grinned. 'If it were chess, you'd be a pawn.'

  Shocked, I said, 'Well, then, what are you? You're certainly not the king.'

  'Actually', Phill said, 'from what I understand of the board game known as "chess", Ethan most resembles the king piece. He is the most vulnerable piece, and yet is immensely important, and so all the other pieces must protect him.'

  'Hah!' the Human said. 'Even if that makes me sound pathetic, I'm still king.' Before I could comment back that, yes, he was pathetic, which I had every intention of doing, he became serious again and said, 'Seriously though. After all of this talk, I think it's about time you explain to me how it is that these stealth ships and missiles work, and what my race did you help you out.'

  'Ahh', I sighed, 'I knew it would come to this. You just can't not know, can you? You just have to know. You just have to!'

  'I think I'm perfectly justified in wanting to know, especially after we've just spent all this time talking about it. You can't just say "Oh, we're in a stealth ship, by the way. And, oh, I'm not going to tell you how this works".'

  'I bet I can just say that', I said. 'Go on, dare me.'

  'If you really wish to not tell him', Phill said to me, 'you don't have to. I already know, so it doesn't affect me either way.'

  I had to laugh at the lethal look that Ethan gave to Phill just then. Before they could get into a brawl - that would be funny, assuming that no one got injured, which was likely to happen, so perhaps it wouldn't be funny after all - I said, 'OK, OK, I was just toying with you.' I turned my attention to the rest of the Slugs. 'If anyone doesn't want to listen, now's the time to go. We won't be talking about anything else for a bit.'

  'I'll stay here, but I'm checking on the other ship', Boy told me. He was seated on a dish, so he could do it from where he was. He'd probably still listen in though. It wasn't that hard to do ship activities while talking; at least, not for me.

  'Alright then', Ethan said to me eagerly. 'Begin.' And so I did.

  The Human

  Even though I had yet to get answers to some of the big questions that I had, our ride in the interstellar ship was still turning out to be a most informative one. Matthew was just about to begin describing to me how the stealth technology they used on some of their ships - including the one we were inside of right now - actually worked.

  "If I may interject", Phill said, which was kind of an interjection in itself, "I think that you should begin by explaining how other ships are detected in the first place, and why this particular detection mechanism is used."

  "Sigh", Matt said. "You've just made this into a longer explanation than it would've otherwise been. But, too late for that now, there's no going back." He looked at me, and I noticed that every Slug was still attentive even though they probably already knew all of this.

  "So", the explainer began. "Our primary means of detection out in space, and for communication anywhere, is using radiowaves. You should already be familiar with this, since humans also use radiowaves for many purposes, much like we do. The main reason why we use this particular section of the electromagnetic spectrum - instead of, say, microwaves - is because they are pretty good at not getting absorbed by most atmospheres and other things which might get in the way. Of course, they also travel at the speed of light, which is pretty handy. Although we have reason to believe that there may be some special particles that travel slightly faster, it's not really worth all the effort and cost to figure out how to use these for such a minimal speed increase. Not to mention, the Cyborgs might end up copying our ideas, and then we're back where we started.

  "So, how it works is pretty obvious. Our communicators just send a message that has been converted from our brain signals into an electrical message, and then encoded in the radiowave. At the other end, it is converted back into an electron stream, and then back into a brain signal that the receiving Slug can interpret."

  "How do you encode a message in a radiowave?" I asked.

  "Humans have the same technology, don't they?" asked Boy.

  "Definitely", Matt said. "They have it in radios and TVs and such. It's got something to do with encoding the information in the frequency and size of the actual waves, I'm not too sure exactly how it works. The point is that it does work."

  Phill told him, "I believe that the 'size' of the waves is called the amplitude."

  "Whatever the case", Matthew continued, "that's how our communicators work. The important part, and this is where stealth tech comes into it, is how our ships use radiowaves. Now, you will find that this bit is quite similar to human technology; it seems that our two races have come up with the same ideas, at least in some areas. It's pretty basic really - our ships, or some other kind of detector, sends out a pulse of radiowaves and then waits and listens. The waves find a target, if something is there, and bounces off it and back to the detector. We can then examine this echoed radiowave and determine what the thing is that we detected, how far away it is, what direction it's moving in, and how fast it's moving."

  "That's quite a lot of information for just a pulse of radiowaves", I commented.

  Carmen told me, "Well, you do the same thing on Earth."

  "Yeah", Matthew said, "for like air traffic control and stuff. Well, as interesting as that was, it's time to get to the Slug and Cyborg stuff, where our technology begins to diverge from yours. I'll begin with the ships, and get to missiles later. OK." He took a breath. "There are two kinds of stealth - one is just basic stealth, while the other is feigned stealth. The basic one is pretty much just having our entire ship coated with a special kind of metal, which is then coated with a special substance. These two have the effect of pretty much absorbing almost all radiowaves that come into contact with them. So if an enemy ship sends out a pulse to scan us, the waves just absorb into the ship's exterior, and no reflection is brought back to the enemy. Which means that they can't see us.

  "Feigned stealth, which I just named now right, takes it a step further. The ship is packed with more technology on its outer surface, including radio transmitters all over its skin. So what happens is, instead of just blindly absorbing all incoming radiowaves, it also detects when these have been absorbed. So the ship knows when it's being scanned by something. As soon as it receives this, the ship automatically - it has to do this very fast, way too fast for a Slug to manually do it - sends out a radiowave pulse that looks like a reflection of something else. So when the enemy ship receives this reflection, they think that they've scanned something else. Assuming that this all works properly, that is."

  "So which kind of ship are we in?" I asked.

  "Ah, just a basic stealth for us, that hopefully shouldn't be able to be scanned by anything", he answered. "The feigned stealth ships are ridiculously expensive, what with all the transmitters and technology they require, plus we don't make too many of them because of the whole stalemate thing we were talking about before. Not the chess thing, the other
one."

  "And all this works for missiles too?"

  Phill answered me. "Yes, although they are not as common. Missiles can be coated in this special substance which makes them theoretically undetectable, or they can actively send out false radiowave impressions to fool the enemy sensors."

  "Bah!" Matt said. "When Phill attacked me that first time, he sent me a feigned stealth missile that sent out an impression which looked exactly like a friendly Slug ship. I wasn't on a dish at the time - even old Slugs need breaks - and the Slug who was was a young, inexperienced one. He didn't realise that a Slug ship that sent no communication signals and was flying straight at us warranted a bit of suspicion. By the time I realised something was up, it was too late."

  "It was also too late for me", Phill said, "since I was to lose that battle, in the end."

  "Yeah", Matthew shrugged. "But it all turned out all right."

  "Yes", Phill replied. "Yes it did."

  Hmmm. So, if I was listening right, when they said stealth ships, they didn't mean the sleek and really cool jet fighters, those black ones that were that weird shape. They meant a normal ship just painted with special stuff to absorb scan signals. That didn't sound too interesting.

  "Of course", Matthew went on, "as I said, these ships we're in have been upgraded with human technology, which was probably traded with us Slugs a long time ago. It costs a lot more than a standard stealth ship, but it's a lot more effective. Basically, instead of just this radio-absorbant coating, there is an extra layer of metal on the outside which juts out at really sharp angles, kind of like those stealth bombers that humans use. In fact, exactly like them, since we got the idea off humans in the first place. So not only do these two ships absorb radiowaves, but anything that they don't absorb gets reflected off them at an odd angle, and so doesn't return to the transmitter."

  Oh. So they did look like those sleek black ones. I would've been happy at this, but I just then remembered that I wasn't going to see them either way. I'd never seen an interstellar ship or a starcruiser from the outside before; just a scout ship and a small transport ship.

  I had a thought, and so put it into words. "Say, is all of this stealth stuff really necessary? What are the chances that the Cyborgs at PDN will be sending scans in our direction in the first place? Aren't we more than likely to just not be detected at all until they can actually see us?"

  "Even if you're right", Matt told me, "it'd be a gambling game. As it turns out, however, you are wrong. So it's not really a gambling game after all." He smiled to himself, and then continued. "The Cyborgs are pretty uptight about scanning all over the joint. And cause we're pretty much flying at them in a straight line for many years on their side, all they need to do is send one pulse at us at any point in time, and that'd tell them that we're coming before we get there, since we're not travelling at the full speed of light."

  "During our first assault of PDN - " Phill began, but Matthew interrupted him.

  "What do you mean, 'first assault'? We're not assaulting the planet now, so that was our only assault."

  Phill looked at him, and then amended his wording. "During our assault of PDN, the Cyborgs likely knew that we were coming, although it is impossible to know how much time they had to prepare. They positioned most of their ships on the opposite side of the planet, which was convenient to them due to the radiowave traffic coming towards the planet, and awaited us. They also likely sent out communications for assistance from any nearby occupied worlds."

  "So you're saying that the Cyborgs just randomly scan all over the place in case they find something?" I asked. It seemed pretty inefficient to me.

  "Yes", Phill answered, "on a frequency reserved and dedicated to such scans. The element of randomness helps us to catch any Slugs who believe that they can get past our sensors."

  "Slugs are different", Boy spoke for the first time in a while. "We don't usually pollute space with radio signals, but only perform periodic scans towards known Cyborg locations. We figure that the Cyborgs think that we scan everywhere like them, and so don't think there's any point in attacking us from any unsuspected directions. So we're protected from such attacks without having to actually scan for them."

  Phill looked at him for a bit, before saying, "As far as I know, we have always believed so, and thus have fallen for this ruse."

  "Speaking of that", Matt said, "I've got a good one coming up, but don't ask me now. You'll find out when you find out. As long as it's not now." He got up from his sitting position and stretched. I knew he had no spine or back muscles, so I had to wonder why he was doing that (probably a cultural thing he'd picked up). Then I wondered if Phill was thinking the same thing. "I don't know about you guys", Matthew went on, "but I've most definitely had enough of talking for a while. And I'm hungry. So no one ask anything of me for a while. Oh, and by 'nobody', I mean you, Ethan."

  He grinned at me, and then plopped himself into a nearby dish. So that settled it then - the Slugs got their food, as well as their water, from the dishes. Something about Slugs that I'd deduced on my own without having to ask anybody! I hope you're as proud of me as I am.

  Meanwhile, I could do with something to eat as well. As I trudged over to my supply section of the ship, I wrestled with the biggest dilemma that I had while space travelling - should I have a nutrition bar, nutrition paste, or nutrition formula (I'd recently finished off my supplies of vegetables and nuts given to me by the human ambassadors on Slugenis)?

  I tried listing the pros and cons of each, but found that none of them had any pros, and all of them had too many cons. Great.

  A while after I'd gotten the explanation of Slug and Cyborg stealth technology, guess what I was doing? Yep, that's right - I was still on the interstellar ship, doing nothing. Matthew had promised me that we were very close to our destination, but apart from the slight feeling of the change of gravity, I had no indication of anything while aboard ships. Matt, Carmen and Boy were sleeping right now, and Phill was in one of his morose, uncommunicative moods (he didn't do that as often as he used to, but it still happened).

  So I pretty much just sat in a corner by myself - and by corner, I mean where the curved interior of the ship met the flat end of the cylinder at a right angle - and tried to reconcile all that I knew about the two races.

  I knew a bit about Cyborgs, but it was still pretty obvious that I knew the most about Slugs. It wouldn't surprise me if it turned out that I knew more of Slugs than of my own human race. Not something to be ashamed of either, when you thought about it.

  Anyway, I could basically group all of my knowledge of the Slugs (and perhaps even the Cyborgs) into three main groups... or categories, as Phill would probably prefer. There was all the stuff about Slug technology, such as their ships and Metal Slug (which was, from my understanding, just a whole bunch of microscopic criss-crossings of wire that creates the outward impression of solid metal). Then there was everything about the Slugs' culture and way of life, like their Honour system and their lives measured by cycles. The final group was the Slugs' biology, from their brain and its various surface functions and reactions, to the makeup of their slime and the shedding and absorption processes.

  After thinking about all of this, I found that (and this is an entirely personal preference - feel free to have your own opinion on the matter) I preferred learning about the Slugs' anatomy the most; just the idea of an alien life form that worked in such a fundamentally different way to my own body, and yet still worked, never ceased to astound me. And there was probably more stuff I had yet to learn that would continue to astound me.

  It was when I was reconsidering my classifications, and thinking that maybe a fourth category - that of how Matthew had blended in to the human race - should be added to the original three that Frank and Rosetta approached me.

  "Hello Ethan", Frank greeted me. "How are you doing?"

  "Just dandy", I answered. He gave me a confused look, and I laughed and said, "It means fine. I'm doing fine."


  "I'm confused", Rosetta said. "If there is an accepted way to say that you are fine, then why would you use a different word? What's the point in having so many words that mean the same thing?"

  "It's about variety", I tried to explain, "and freedom of expression. You can say something is big. You can also say something is really, really big. But that will never compare to saying that something is enormous. You know what I mean?"

  Phill, who had crept closer to us without my knowledge, said, "Humankind is a peculiar species, and their language is no exception. While, at the outset, having so many different synonyms and similar or identical phrases seems a hindrance and an impediment to efficiency and the ease of learning the language, it is not until one uses their system of speech effectively or reads a volume containing complex sentence constructions that they appreciate its uses and the advantages of such an abundance of fluency."

  "Umm", I said slowly. "Yeah. That."

  "I think that by 'volume containing complex sentence constructions', you meant a book?" asked Frank uncertainly. I sure didn't blame him - he gets credit from me just for picking that up.

  "In part", Phill responded, "although that also includes manuscripts, transcripts, and other such sources of the written language."

  "OK", I said, "my turn to ask a question." I looked around quickly, hoping that it wouldn't be too hard (as it usually was) to come up with a random quick question, but my difficulty arose when I found two. "To begin with", I started, having picked one. "The ship is currently in the day phase of the strange day/night cycle thing it's got going on. As we all know, this means that there is slightly more light seeping through the walls than usual. But my question is this - where does this light come from?"

  "That is a question for a Slug to answer", Phill stated. "Cyborg ship are not illuminated from within, as visual sight is not required for Cyborg comfort."

  "It is for Slugs", Rosetta started to explain. "To begin with, the engines of every ship generate quite a bit of heat, as do most electrical devices of such a scale. Some of this heat is allowed to absorb into the ship's metal, which is naturally a good conductor of heat, and therefore heats up the living space to a comfortable degree.

  "Some more of the heat is fed into an energy conversion device, which is capable of changing the state of heat energy. This heat energy sent there is converted into light energy, which is the source of the light inside the ship. The light is then bounced around a thin layer of space just above the inner surface of metal, which allows - "

  "Wait, hold on a second", I interrupted. "I just need to get the layout straight in my head. So you're saying that, just behind this metal here" - and I banged my fist on the curved floor that I was sitting on (and subsequently hurt my hand) - "is a small space filled with light?"

  "Yes", Rosetta answered, "and this space curves all around the ship's cylindrical frame, all of it filled with the reflected light generated from the converter. The metal that we are seeing is actually a specialised alloy - along with other enhancements, it has transparent pieces of glass-like matter infused within it, meaning that it allows some amount of light to pass through. This very light is now seeping through the curved floor, walls and roof right now."

  "I assume that, during the night phase, the converter decreases the amount of energy it transfers from heat to light?" asked Phill.

  "Correct", Frank answered him.

  Phill then asked, "What happens to the excess heat generated by the engines? In Cyborg ships, the majority of it is bled out into space."

  "For us", Rosetta replied, "a lot of it is stored in large heat batteries." I had to laugh at that - heat batteries. I had a sudden imagination of plugging a battery into your hands on a cold day, and they warm up. The Slug continued, "Because a large amount of space travel is spent cruising or drifting - meaning that the engines are turned off - there is no extra heat being generated, so we rely on these stores of heat to sustain our lives and comfort aboard the ship."

  Matt then called from where he'd supposedly been sleeping, "You say that Cyborgs allow their heat to bleed out into space, Phill?"

  "Yes", the Cyborg answered.

  He paused for a bit, and then asked, "Would you mind if I used this knowledge against your race?"

  "We are attempting to create a peace between the Slugs and Cyborgs, where such knowledge will not be necessary", Phill answered. "However, in the event that such a plan does not succeed... I have already chosen my side."

  "Good", Matthew said. "I hope that that event doesn't occur, but I just sent a message back to Slugenis anyway. The humans have a cool technology where they can actually see thermal emissions, or heat signatures. This could give us an extra advantage in any battles that may or may not occur."

  "Why did the humans invent this technology in the first place?" asked Frank.

  "Probably because the Predator used it so effectively", Matt reasoned, as if everyone knew what he was talking about. Well, apart from me, that is. I may not be considered 'cultured' back on Earth, but I still knew about classic movies and such - the school sometimes played them as part of our studies. Or because they felt it was important for everybody to have seen Predator at least once in their life (was it just 'Predator', or 'The Predator'? I can't recall).

  Frank and Rosetta exchanged a glance which told me that they weren't cultured back on Earth. But they didn't ask what Matt had meant by that, which obviously meant that they wanted to appear cultured. Those sneaky devils. It was only after I'd finished this absurd line of thought that I realised that the two Slugs had exchanged a glance. I swear, the way that this group acted sometimes, you forgot more often than not that they weren't actually human beings.

  "Oh, and on a side note", Matthew added casually, "we're pretty much at PDN. And by that, I mean, like, 'get into the scout ship' pretty much. So... yeah. Get into the scout ship."

  Before I moved, I saw him touch one finger to Boy's neck and another to Carmen's shoulder. The both of them instantly awoke and got up. I think I actually ground my teeth in annoyance at how little sense it made that they could do that, but I had to shake Slugs awake. That was actually the second question I'd come up with before, but now it seemed there was no time to ask it. One day, I'll learn why. One day...

  And so the seven of us shuffled into the double hatchway which led into the scout ship, and strapped ourselves down, while simultaneously hoping that we wouldn't be shot out of the sky as soon as the Cyborgs judged that we were in range. In short, it would be an exciting next couple of minutes.

  We were all in the scout ship now (still inside the interstellar ship), Phill and I tied to our favourite place up against the back wall. All five of the Slugs were seated in dishes and strapped down with the Slug equivalents of seatbelts. It didn't look particularly sturdy, but I guess that those things weren't designed to accommodate Slugs in humanoid form.

  "Make sure you say out loud what's going on", I said nervously. "Phill and I don't want to be left in the dark."

  "The lights in the ship are unlikely to go off", Boy told us seriously, "but we'll do our best to tell you what's going on."

  "The first ship is in the range where they should be shooting at it by now", Matthew said.

  "Well?" I asked. "Are they shooting at it?"

  "Don't you remember what happened the last time we were at PDN?" Rosetta asked me. "We won't know what's happened until the radiowaves with that information have reached us. Give it a few minutes."

  "Oh", I said, and shut up.

  There then passed about ten thousand minutes of dead silence (well, it felt like it), before Boy gave us an update. "It looks as if nothing has happened to the empty ship. Perhaps our stealth has worked flawlessly and they have no idea that we're here."

  Phill said gloomily, "Or perhaps we simply cannot tell if they are attacking due to the radiowave pollution. Or perhaps they are simply waiting to see what we are doing here. We are only two ships, and so do not pose a great threat to the Cyborg Archives." Matthew chuckled a
t this, but said nothing. Phill finished, "In either case, they will know we are here when we begin to land, and we cannot know if they are attacking without waiting for more time to pass."

  "What'll we do with the interstellar ship when we do land?" I asked, trying not to think about the possibility of a bunch of Cyborg missiles zooming towards us without us knowing about it. "Surely we can't just leave it orbiting the enemy planet empty?"

  "Unfortunately not", Matt said. "Someone will have to volunteer to stay behind and keep our getaway plan safely away from PDN."

  "Shotgun not me!" I quickly said.

  "I would think it wise if Ethan were to remain here", Phill uttered the traitorous words.

  "I'd normally agree with you", Matthew shrugged, even though his back was to us, "but you heard him as well as I did; he shotgunned not staying behind. It would be to go against fate to break someone's shotgun call. You can't just do something like that."

  Boy complained/agreed, "I don't even know what shotgun means in this context, but I think that Ethan should come. It may help to convince Slob, or whoever the current leader of the Archives is, to agree with our plan if a human is with us."

  Phill paused, and then said, "Perhaps you are right. Who shall remain then?"

  "I also vote that Rosetta not be the one to stay", I said. "She missed out on PDN last time, so she should come see it this time."

  "Seconded", Matt said. "Your vote that is. That is, I second your vote. Meaning that I not only agree with it, but put my own vote towards the same thing. So it has two votes. Anyway, who's going to stay here then? You'll also have to take care of the other interstellar ship."

  There was a short silence as everyone waited for either Frank or Carmen to volunteer. It was pretty obvious that it wouldn't be Boy to stay - he always went everywhere with Matthew - and there was no way Matt himself was staying, so it was going to end up being one of those two.

  "I shall stay", Frank finally said, probably causing Carmen to sigh with relief that she was coming. Well, she sighed in her mind, at least. Maybe.

  "Very noble of you", Matt nodded solemnly. "Your sacrifice shall be remembered by many."

  "Well, perhaps not that well", Carmen told Frank as he got up to go back into the interstellar ship, "but remembered enough."

  "Goodbye Ethan and Phill", Frank told us as he left. You'd think that it was strange that he only said goodbye to us two, but I'm much smarter than that, you see. I know that he only said it to us because he could stay in contact with the other Slugs for a bit longer through the dish connection, since the scout ship was still inside the bigger craft (PDN's pollution of radiowaves made distance communication all but impossible anywhere around or on the planet).

  "Goodbye Frank. We shall see you again shortly", said Phill, and then tried to get us back on track. "Shall we go in to land?"

  Matthew answered him, "Pretty much. So hold onto your handrails, people, cause it's gonna get a bit bumpy!"

  "We've been through plenty of landings before", Boy told him, "so we know that it's going to be bumpy."

  "And there are no handrails", I added.

  He didn't respond to that, and no one said anything for some time afterwards, although I felt a lot of fluctuations in the ship's gravity. "Alright, launching away from the interstellar ship", Matt eventually announced. "Say goodbye to Frank, Slugs! We won't be in contact with him for some time." I wondered what they were saying to him now? Some heartfelt farewell? A generic goodbye? Well, for all that I knew I'd find out eventually about the Slugs, there were some things that I'd never know.

  And this is the part where the scout ship launched out of its docking bay of sorts from the interstellar ship. Now, I'm sure that the Slugs had tons of information relating to how the ship came out and what was going on and all of that. Through their dishes - or, more specifically, through the spikes inside their dishes which spat out electrical information that their brains could process - they would know all about this kind of ship operation.

  As for me, I had one thing, and one thing only; how my body felt as it moved about within my restraints. So, here is what it feels like from a human perspective as a Slug ship disembarks from inside another: first, there was some rumbling (no idea what that meant), then the rumbling quietened down for a time and the ride was smooth, then another rumbling (well, more like shaking) started, and the tug of gravity pulled pretty hard against the wall that Phill and I were leaning against. The multiple straps around the Slugs in their dishes kept them pretty well tied down.

  Soon, this rumbling stopped as well, and the pull of gravity towards the back of the ship stopped and resumed its usual place pulling us down. Well, what I mean by that is that it pulled everything towards the outside of the cylinder.

  Confused? I thought you would be. Now allow the long-dormant super-intelligent part of my brain to give you my best guess at what had happened. As I said, no idea what the initial rumbling had meant. Then the scout ship had detached itself from the interstellar ship, I'm guessing during the smooth part. I'd think that it wouldn't be so smooth an operation, but it fit in with the rest of my theory.

  Next, now that the scout ship was detached from its parent ship, it began to accelerate, which caused the second shaking and the force of gravity towards the back of it (because it was speeding up). Finally, it stopped accelerating, and the ride became smooth again, and the rotation took over as the main force of gravity, meaning that everything went back to normal as we glided towards PDN and prepared to land on it.

  Before you compliment me, yes, I know that I'm smart. And with its work now done, that super-intelligent part of my brain succumbed to its slumber once more.

  The Cyborg

  We were back at PDN. The scout ship we inhabited was currently descending through the planet's atmosphere as part of the landing process. Only Frank remained in the stealth interstellar ship to 'take care of it'. His duties would also involve taking care of the first, empty ship. As such a feat would normally be impossible due to PDN's overabundance of radio wave interference, I assumed that Matthew had programmed this first ship to stay within a sufficiently close vicinity of the one which we arrived in.

  After an amount of time, our ship passed through the greatest turbulence of the atmosphere and decelerated enough to quell the majority of the disruptive vibrations. We had yet to land on the surface, and our ship continued to shake from the force of passing rapidly through a large volume of air particles, but it was now quiet enough to make speech a viable means of communication.

  "Here we are, yet again!" Matthew felt it necessary to yell.

  "Yes we are", Ethan responded. "Now we only have to find that pesky Slob!"

  It appeared that he had forgotten that there was a reasonable possibility that Slob no longer lived, as it had been many years since we'd last visited the Cyborg Archives; however, I felt it would be imprudent to remind him of such at this moment, and so for the time being said nothing.

  The scout ship continued its landing manoeuvre, and the pronounced vibrations soon ceased. "We have landed", I stated, lest somebody attribute the lack of rumbling to a different cause.

  "Yes, thank you for that Phil", Ethan said. It appeared that he had mistaken it for something else; it was fortunate, therefore, that I had decided to inform him otherwise.

  "Alright, everyone", Matthew announced, "time to get out. We've got work to do."

  After I'd untied first myself and then Ethan from our protective restrains, the 2 of us waited for one of the Slugs to open the ship's interior doors. Once it had opened, all 6 of us filled the space between the interior and exterior doors. The interior door closed; a period of approximately 4 seconds elapsed; and then the exterior door opened, granting us access to PDN.

  "Well, we didn't get shot down..." Ethan began, but his sentence's conclusion was cancelled once he observed our surroundings. "It's nighttime", he said flatly.

  "So it is", Boy replied. "We landed on the side of PDN that was facing the rest of Cyborg
space, and so had the most radio wave pollution. That meant that it would be harder to scan us, and of course that there would be less Cyborg ships on that side, as we found out last time."

  "And it just so happens that it's night on this side of the planet", Matthew finished for him. "Well, it's harder to see, but it doesn't change our mission. Let's go stumble around everywhere until we run into some Cyborgs who'll take us to PDN's leader, hopefully Slob."

  With that, he set off walking; as there was little visual indications of where he was going, I determined that he had simply chosen a random direction and began travelling to an unknown location.

  "It would be best if we remained here", I said before he could get out of range of the air vibrations my voice produced. "The Cyborgs know where we have landed, so they will likely come here to investigate; they won't know, however, where we are if we have travelled elsewhere."

  "That sounds about right to me", Boy supported my argument.

  Matthew reluctantly turned back towards us and came back. "Fine, but we'd better not be waiting too long, or I'm blaming you, Phil." I failed to see how such an occurrence could be my fault, but I made no comment on the matter.

  I seated myself near the upright scout ship and awaited the inevitable arrival of the investigative Cyborgs.

  Thanks to my time in the cave, and in Slugenis's water tank to a lesser extent, I was used to spending large amounts of time entrapped, enclosed, alone, and without company or stimuli. As I was now outside, in an open environment and with all of my best friends in the world excepting Frank and Pauline, I was quite content to allow time to flow without begrudging its everlasting passage.

  Ethan, however, did not appear to be so satisfied.

  He was continually pacing around the ship with his hands clasped behind his back, which gave me the impression that he was consciously trying to convey his impatience. Several times he ripped out one of the abundant blades of PDN's grass and drank the fluid within - a practice which was confirmed relatively safe on our last visit to this planet - and at one point he consumed one of the numerous nutritional food bars which Matthew acquired on each of our visits to Earth.

  "What is taking so long?" the Human eventually asked, annoyed.

  "Perhaps we are not near any of their underground vehicle tracks", I suggested, referring to the subterranean network of tunnels which seemed to be trails for some kind of transportation system. "Or perhaps we misinterpreted the purpose of those tracks completely", I added, recognising the possibility that our assumptions regarding these tunnels may have been incorrect.

  "This is all your fault, Phil", Matthew directed at me. I did not reply to this statement, as I judged myself to bear no blame in the current circumstances.

  "Hey", Ethan began in a questioning tone of voice. "I just realised something. It's night here right now, but it's never been night on Slugenis before, at least while I've been there."

  "Haven't we already explained this?" Boy began his answer with another question. "We were at Slugapital, which is pretty much on the pole of the planet. In this case, the north pole. Because of this positioning, our sun never fully sets from Slugapital's positioning, nor does it fully rise, but rather moves slightly up and down over the horizon during the day."

  "Yeah, I remembered that", Ethan said, indicating that he was asking a more advanced question than previously thought. "But what I wanted to know was this; I've been to Slugenis twice, both to the same city. And both times it's been constant daytime. Now I know that on Earth it's always daytime at the poles during summer. So does this mean that both of the times we were at Slugenis, it was summer?"

  He received several blank looks at that, and the Human groaned, "I've done that thing again, haven't I? Assuming that things from Earth work the same way for the Slugs?"

  "Yes, my friend", Matt said in a condescending tone of voice. "Yes you have." He chuckled. "The reason that it's never a full night on Slugenis is because there is no winter on Slugenis. Nor is there summer. Nor is there any seasons at all." Now it was Ethan's turn to give the Slug a blank look. Matthew laughed again and went on, "Slugenis has no seasons at all, for the most part - everything remains constant there, also for the most part. The cause of Earth's seasons is because the planet is tilted on the vertical axis, which means that during the year, different hemispheres are closer and further away from the sun. Slugenis, however, has no such tilt. It sits bolt upright on its vertical axis, which means that both hemispheres are an equal distance from our sun. Well, probably not bolt upright, but close enough for any differences to be more or less negligible. The end result - no seasons."

  I considered;

  So Slugenis had no seasons. I was not previously aware of such a situation on the Slugs' homeworld before, but it could perhaps explain some things about the Slugs' nature. From what I understood, Humans were a curious race, always wanting to know more and constantly trying to improve their current circumstances, while the Slugs were a more stagnant culture, who were content for nothing in their culture to drastically change.

  Could this perhaps have been brought on, at least in part, by the worlds on which they evolved? Earth was an ever-changing world, due in large part to its cycle of seasons; the lives of its native animals can attest to the kind of large changes wrought by this phenomenon. As a possible result, the Humans were adaptable creatures, with a desire to do things quickly, lest the weather, season, or some other unfavourable circumstance make such an action more difficult or even impossible later.

  In contrast, Slugenis, while still having sufficient change to sustain an evolving population of life forms, was relatively stable and predictable. Its comparative deficiency of water reduces the effects of weather conditions, and its lack of seasons means that life can continue on as it always has, with no incentive to prepare for coming harder times. Today, Slugs are complacent organisms, happy to leave things as they always were, slow to innovate and improve. It is only due to their large head start on Humanity that they were currently technologically superior.

  This brought me to another realisation; it was only a matter of time before the Humans surpassed both the Slugs and the Cyborgs. Of course, most things were only a matter of time; it was the low amount of time in this case which made it so startling. Humans had innovated more in the past several 100 years than I believe the Slugs and Cyborgs had in the past several 1000. Of course, I could not know this for sure; Slugs did not record their history, and I was not privy to most of the information in the Cyborg Archives.

  However, I could speculate. Given that the war has been waged for approximately 12,476 Earth years - at least as at the time I was released from my imprisonment - it can be assumed that both of our races were capable of space flight for this entire duration. In an earlier time, I might have suggested that our two races had simply reached a technological apex, where nothing more could be invented. Once again, the Humans had changed things and shown me otherwise. We were far off this theoretical limit of innovation; even a race barely capable of spaceflight has beaten our two races in several regards.

  So, taking it as assumed that the Humans would quickly surpass the Slugs and Cyborgs in technological superiority, given their inherent nature, was a 3-way peace and possible alliance still preferable? Has not Human history shown that they are incapable of sustaining a non-aggressive situation for any significant period of time?

  My considerations were cut short before I could divine a satisfactory answer to this fundamental question, but I kept it logged that the events our group had set in motion had perhaps gained enough momentum to continue on their own without requiring any additional input from us; indeed, perhaps even were we to try to halt it.

  "Someone's coming!" Ethan had called out. As he had continued his pacing, he was now on the opposite side of the scout ship to us, and hence had been the only one to see the figures approaching. He ran around to our side, and said, "There's some people coming, Cyborgs I guess. It looks like Phil was right after all."

&nbs
p; Matthew smiled at me. "Then I take back my blaming of you Phil", he said. "But don't think I'm not ready to instantly blame you again for something that's totally not your fault!"

  "I shall not", I answered, but I chose to smile back at him to give a visual representation of my humorous manner in this regard.

  "It's time to get ready", Carmen suggested, pointing towards the direction that Ethan had spied the incoming Cyborgs.

  Without a verbal word to agree with her, our group formed into a line, with Ethan, Matthew, and I in the middle, and walked around the ship to face our former enemy and maybe - for better or for worse - our future ally.

  The Human

  Even though I'd been the one to first spy the incoming Cyborgs, I didn't really get a good look at how many there were. Now that they were closer, I did get a good look. And before you think that maybe we got lucky with how many of them there were, I'll just say now that it wasn't a very encouraging sight.

  There was whole bunch of them - and by whole bunch, I really mean a lot. Not that my counting-at-a-glance skills were anything to bet on, but I guessed that there had to be at least two dozen of them, all in the normal Cyborg humanoid form (for those whose maths skills aren't as developed as mine, two dozen is twenty-four. You're welcome). Both Phill and Matt had told me that the Slugs and Cyborgs had more forms than the humanoid (Cyborg) and three-armed (Slug) ones, but so far I'd only ever seen Slugs in a different form once. On PDN, actually.

  The group of Cyborgs were walking purposefully towards us from the direction of a distant building, which I guessed was the start/end point of one of those underground tunnels we'd walked in last time. Because it was night (something Slugapital didn't exactly have, apparently) I hadn't seen them coming until they were almost here. We still had a few moments to ourselves, however.

  We were all standing in a line facing the incoming enemies, waiting for them to reach us. It seemed a bit dangerous to have no one watching in any other direction, but I guessed that if there really was a danger to it, somebody else would have mentioned it.

  I had Matthew on my right and Phill on my left, but I noticed that each Slug was holding hands with another Slug next to them. Quite rude of them to have a private conversation, wasn't it?

  Not wanting to disturb them, I said to Phill, "So, what now? What do we do if they attack us?"

  "Were this anyone but us, and anytime but this, and anywhere but here, I'd say we were all dead", Phill told me seriously, which did absolutely nothing to help my confidence. "However, due to our unique situation, I think it likely that they will stop and discuss with us why we are here. It is infeasible to believe that Slob did not transfer his knowledge of english to as many Cyborgs as he could" - Matthew grunted at this for some reason - "and hence it it feasible to believe that these Cyborgs can speak the human language. Given that they so greatly outnumber us, they can afford to question us before deciding whether or not to attack us."

  "That's..." I struggled to think of a word. Having come up with nothing, I settled with, "Good."

  "In comparison to the alternative", Phill replied, "it is very good indeed."

  And with that, the other Cyborgs came close enough to be in talking range. Upon looking more closely, there was probably less than twenty-four there, maybe more like eighteen or nineteen, but it was still enough to put us at a big disadvantage. Utilising my supreme mathematics once again, that meant that the five fighting members of our group would have to take on like four at a time. I doubted if even Matt could do that, let alone everyone else.

  Like the usual non-Phill Cyborgs, these ones were bald (most of them; some had robot hair, which was actually some advanced form of solar panel) and lacked any facial features which even attempted to fool someone that they might have been human. Oh, and, as per usual, they wore no clothes. I know that that makes total sense, but when you see a humanoid wearing no clothes (and having no genitals, of course), you can't help but feel kind of uncomfortable.

  "Greetings", Matthew called cheerfully. "May I assume that you can speak our language?" Judging by the fact that they hadn't jumped us yet, I suppose that that meant that Phill was right, and that they could speak english.

  "Yes", one of them replied in the flat, monotone voice that was dreadfully familiar. I'd almost been killed by someone with that voice once. An awkward silence followed - well, I don't know if Cyborgs could feel awkward, but I sure was - before the same one said, "Your purpose." So they still asked questions by pronouncing it like a normal statement. They seemed to be going for a thing here.

  "Ah, I'm glad that you asked", Matt told it. "We're here to see Slob. You know, the leader of this place. Is he around? He's an old friend, you see."

  Our group seemed to collectively hold our breath as we waited for its response. Whether or not Slob was still alive could have a big impact on our plans, or so I'm told.

  Another Cyborg replied, "He is coming." I breathed out thankfully. Apart from Phill of course, I don't think I'd ever really trust a Cyborg. But Slob probably came the closest. And by that, I mean he's a millimetre above 'total distrust', but that's still a millimetre higher than everyone else.

  "Strange", Phill commented to our half-enemies. "Without a network connection, you appear to be acting more human than usual."

  "How so?" I asked curiously, since it was obvious that they wouldn't.

  He explained, "When each Cyborg is connected to each other, they all discuss things together and come to decisions as a group. The one who speaks is merely the spokesperson for the group's decision, and hence is the only one to speak. In this case, however, two Cyborgs have spoken. This indicates that they are not internally conversing, thanks to PDN's lack of network reception, and that each is speaking their own mind. This seems to occur in human discussion, but not the Slugs, as I've observed that the oldest Slug is usually the one making decisions and speaking based on their own counsel."

  "If you say so", I told him. "But you're also saying that the Cyborgs are more democratic than the Slugs, right?"

  "Yes", Boy said. "But it's not very surprising. With organic races like the Slugs and humans, a large group coming to an agreement can take a long time, as you well know. But machines can discuss at the speed of light, or thereabouts, which means that they can come to agreements much faster, and that a more democratic form of government is more feasible."

  "That could be a major factor", Phill agreed.

  If PDN's Cyborgs had anything to say on the matter, they kept quiet about it. It made me wonder how we'd ever gotten Phill to open up in the first place. Imagine if he was always like they are now! How boring.

  "How long till Slob gets here?" Matthew asked. They didn't respond. "OK then", Matt pressed. "How long till we know how long till Slob gets here? Or how long till we can find out how long till we know how long till Slob gets here? You got at least that for me?"

  "Unknown", a third Cyborg finally said, lending credence to Phill's theory that, due to their lack of network connection, each of the Cyborgs was thinking and speaking independently.

  It seemed that both the Slugs and Cyborgs, thanks to their slime and network connections, lived much more integrated and harmonised lives than us humans, who couldn't emotionally or mentally engage like that. I can't imagine any misunderstandings happening when you can literally connect your thoughts with another person that way. A super-smart, philosophical part of my brain surfaced just long enough to suggest that that's perhaps why we on Earth were divided into so many different countries and why we seemed to fall into wars so much, before fading away once again.

  "Well, I can't wait any longer", Matt announced, "so I'm just going to tell you guys now. It's for your own benefit, of course - I don't like every party not knowing all of the details." He grinned madly, and looked around at our group as if making sure that we could see his grin.

  "What are you talking about?" Rosetta asked apprehensively. I didn't blame her.

  "I've... done something", he replied, now half-laughing
(never a good sign with him). "I didn't tell you about it, because I didn't want to upset you. But I've done it anyway. You see, I've brought something with us down to PDN, something quite dangerous. I don't intend on using it, but I will if I have to - it's to guarantee our safety, you see."

  This was not going to end up well. "Dangerous", one of the Cyborgs said. Although you couldn't tell with their flat voices, I guessed that it meant it as a question. Man, it was hard to speak to these people sometimes. It's times like this when I count my lucky stars that Phill is the way he is.

  "Oh, very dangerous indeed", Matthew said, and then apparently decided that he'd had enough of dancing around the issue. "What I've brought is a piece of human technology that was being kept on Slugenis. That's our homeworld, if you didn't know. See how courteous I am?

  "Anyway, back to what I brought. It's actually on this scout ship right here, and I have a Slug communicator in my body ready to set it off. We're quite close to our ship, so PDN's interference won't muddle up the signal too much. I'd wager that it'd still work. I may end up even taking that wager." No, it seemed that he intended to keep dancing around the issue.

  "Are you going to tell us or what?" I demanded impatiently. It looked like it was something important, so we all had to know about it.

  He laughed at the night sky. "Yes, yes, of course, of course. Remember when I told you that I had a plan if any Cyborgs give us trouble on the ground? Well this is it. Because, you see, in this very scout ship, before your very eyes, lies a huge, massive, armed, hydrogen bomb! Haha! For those who don't know, a hydrogen bomb is a nuclear explosive, a handy little tool created by humans in their endless quest to kill one another. You Cyborgs ought to know what that is, right?" He gave another laugh. "Cause if you try to attack us, I'll set it off and kill everyone here, along with a large chunk of the Cyborg Archives!"

  There was a long stunned silence at this proclamation. I couldn't think of anything to say. Phill asked, "You plan to sacrifice everyone if they attack?"

  "Yep!" Matt answered cheerfully, as if he wasn't holding the trigger to our deaths.

  Phill thought about this for a bit. Then he turned to the enemy Cyborgs and said seriously, "If I were you, I wouldn't come any closer."

  The Cyborg

  It was a ruse; it was a deception. I had several points of evidence to justify this conclusion, but the Cyborgs which were currently with us did not have access to the same information as I, and would therefore not know that they had just been told a falsehood.

  I considered;

  Matthew had informed us some time ago, back on Slugenis, that he had two plans to deal with possible aggression by the Cyborgs on PDN. One was taking two stealth ships, the first one empty, to the Archives; the other, for after we'd landed on the planet, he did not disclose. However, I had logged his suggestion that he had planned to trick the Cyborgs in some fashion, and it was that knowledge which now provided me with useful information.

  For the 1st point, it is unlikely that he would have arranged for such a dangerous piece of Human technology to be aboard our ship without telling us. If he had brought such a device, it would have been on the empty interstellar ship, for safety reasons. However, we had landed on the scout ship from our interstellar cruiser, meaning that, were his story to be true, it had been on our ship the entire time, a possibility I find extremely unlikely.

  His threat to activate this supposed bomb at any sign of aggression was also unlikely; were he actually planning to do such a thing, he would first fight them in battle should they attack, and only resort to this if we were to lose the fight. We surely would lose this fight, but it would be foolish for him to not wait until there was no other option. This, however, assumes that the scout ship actually contains the hydrogen bomb at all, which I doubted.

  Finally, my knowledge of his nature and his last statement confirmed my suspicion that not only did he have no intention of activating a bomb, but that there was no such bomb at all. I had asked him if he planned to sacrifice us all, and he'd replied that he would, with no hint of regret or reluctance. This did not fit.

  Although I hadn't known Matt for as long as Ethan or Boy, I still knew enough of his character to know if a course of action ran contrary to it or not. Unlike most Slugs, Matthew valued his life; this was one point, but it was the smallest. What he valued more than his life was the lives of his close companions; and while he cared for each of us, it seemed that he valued Ethan's life the greatest, due, no doubt, to the special relationship they sustained whilst he was trapped on Earth. I knew that he would never sacrifice Ethan for any reason, let alone Boy, myself, Carmen, or Rosetta, and if he ever planned to, he'd never state it so calmly. I knew from experience that when what he so valued was threatened, his control over his voice and displayed emotions faltered.

  Therefore, it was all a lie. There was no bomb, and if there was, he had no intention of setting it off. Of course, the Cyborgs didn't know this, and this is where the purpose of the deception plays its part.

  None of the Cyborgs here, including Slob, know much of Matthew except that he is an old Slug with great skill. They do not know that he doesn't follow the Slug code of Honour, and that he no longer wishes for his own death. When they then hear that he has a bomb, and that he plans to activate it should they attack him, they have every reason to believe that he will do so, and at the slightest provocation. They would believe that he is looking for an excuse to kill himself, any reason to satisfy his own conscience that he died with Honour.

  In addition, their major function on this planet is to protect and preserve the Cyborgs Archives and its important flow of data. After our last attack of PDN, the significance of this task, and the vulnerability of the planet's most valuable duty, is accentuated. They must protect the world and its resource; and, were Matthew to activate the bomb they believe he has every intention of activating, the Archives will suffer a major loss. Regardless of whether or not any data is actually destroyed, the disruption and radiation caused by the device will be enough to make such an event disastrous for the Cyborgs.

  So it stands that the Cyborgs must do all they can to placate Matthew, and to ensure that he does not fire his bomb; and the way to do this is to not attack us, and to let us converse with Slob. Matt's ruse had put us in very favourable circumstances - he had made a false threat that the Cyborgs couldn't not believe - and would allow us to speak to Slob without resorting to fighting. That was good.

  "I don't suppose you considered consulting with us before doing this?" Ethan asked Matthew. I turned to him, hoping that Ethan's lack of knowledge wouldn't give us away.

  Matt was unperturbed. "Nah. I figured that you'd be all like 'Why would you do that?' So if I just came out and did it like this, you can't say that, and it's a good surprise to boot!"

  "Why would you do that?" asked Boy. Was I the only one to recognise the ploy for what it truly was?

  "Cause I felt like it", Matthew shrugged. "Now, as to you Cyborgs." He turned to them. "How long is Slob taking? And if you don't answer that, then tell us why he's taking so long in the first place, and why you got here so early."

  It seemed obvious to me; Slob was in a location physically far away from our landing sight. When he realised what had happened, he sent the closest group of large Cyborgs to us while he himself made his way here. The only anomaly was how he had contacted these Cyborgs, given that standard Cyborg communication using the network was not only impossible on PDN, but would be disallowed even if it were.

  One of the 17 Cyborgs responded in a way which confirmed my hypothesis. "Slob is at a distant location and sent us to investigate. He is coming."

  "How did he get into contact with you from such a distance?" I asked.

  None of them answered me, indicating that they were unwilling to give up such information. Were Matthew to press the question, they may respond truthfully, but he didn't.

  I also took note of the fact that 2 of them now had referred to Slob as a 'he'. This was strange; did
the Cyborgs, or Slob specifically, actually identify with Human genders based on what they'd learned? Or were they simply speaking so for our benefit, given that we had called Slob a 'he' during the aftermath of our previous invasion?

  With little information to currently go on, I turned my processes to considering how Slob would likely react to our proposal. Although he was not in a position to speak for the entire Cyborg race - no one Cyborg was - I believe that he would agree to the plan. In addition, I believe that he would agree to the plan for a negotiations talk on Slugma for the same reason that Matthew had convinced the Slug king to agree.

  This deduction stems from the knowledge that the Slugs and Cyborgs have been at war for a long period of time, and the tendency of both individuals and races to not forget the past, regardless of whether they formally recall it or not. Slugs hate Cyborgs and Cyborgs hate Slugs; our group of 7 was the exception, not the norm.

  It is extremely unlikely that any leader of the two races would agree to attempt a peace for any reason due to this, much less the Slugs who currently stand at so obvious an advantage thanks to Matthew and the Humans. So, the question became: why would the Slug king agree to this plan if he disliked the Cyborg race so much? What benefit was there for him, aside from the benefits which Matthew hoped to achieve?

  The answer was obvious; the king thought that the peace talks would degenerate into fighting. He thought that, should such a situation occur, the Slugs would obviously win, due to their advantage, and deal a major strike against the Cyborgs. Slugma was in between Slug and Cyborg space, so a victory there would expand the Slug Empire, albeit in a non-profitable direction.

  I considered the possibility that he would intentionally sabotage the negotiations, but decided against it for 2 reasons. 1st, he would believe that Slugs and Cyborgs could not possibly get together without a battle commencing, and that he therefore need not interfere. 2nd, he did not want the Cyborgs to think that the coming battle was caused by outside influence; he wanted them to believe that there could be no peace, and that they must simply accept their fate that they were currently outmatched.

  I could not be certain of course, but these were my suppositions of the Slug king's intentions. For my part, it seemed that he grossly underestimated the impact that a common means of communication would have in the event; the fact that Slob, who knew our group and understood the danger of engaging in battle with the Slugs, would most probably be there; the presence of Matthew and Boy, two old Slugs, as well as Ethan and myself, and our influence on the course of events; and the army of newborn Slugs which Matthew intended to create and be present, and how they would affect things.

  "Hey, Phil?" asked Ethan, causing my to stop these processes and turn my attention to him. "While we're waiting, why don't you tell us more about Cyborgs? We haven't got anything else to do, and it's not like these guys" - he jerked his thumb at the group of Cyborgs, a decidedly Human gesture - "are going to tell me anything."

  Ethan was correct; those Cyborgs would be reluctant to give any ally of the Slugs information about their own race. I, however, saw things differently.

  The Slug

  Just as I was internally celebrating at how awesome both myself and my plans were, Ethan, that funny guy, asked, 'Hey, Phill? While we're waiting, why don't you tell us more about Cyborgs? We haven't got anything else to do, and it's not like these guys are going to tell me anything.'

  'Hah', I laughed. 'Got that right.' I tried to imagine sitting down having tea with PDN's Cyborgs; it was pretty funny. They lifted up their little fingers when they drank.

  'What would you like to know?' Phill asked him, almost lazily.

  'For starters', the Human began, 'what's up with the hair thing? I know that you use them as solar panels, but why doesn't every Cyborg have them? Most of these guys don't.'

  'I have previously explained that different Cyborgs have different internal configurations, and different combinations of alternative power generators', Phill said. 'However, I shall take your question as a less specific query, and more as a general request for more information. You may have wondered why I, a Cyborg which initially spent most of my time in space, have hair, a solar generator.'

  'Ummm', Ethan stammered. 'Yeah, I totally wondered that. Why?'

  'Generally', Phill began, 'Cyborgs are equipped with the most effective technology for their allocated assignment.' "Allocated assignment" - man, life as a Cyborg sure sounds boring. Ethan would love it. 'In my case, I was built to spend most of my existence aboard a space ship, and so only required my internal nuclear reactor to sustain me and see to my minimal power requirements.

  'However, it is standard custom to include easily-installed backup power generators in ships which travel far from established Cyborg territory. As such, my ship contained a quantity of hair, which Matthew obviously found and, with my verbal assistance, installed on my head.'

  Ethan gave me a shocked look. 'I'm a hairdresser', I shrugged. 'It was my calling.'

  Phill went on, 'As to the Cyborgs on PDN, I assume that the ones without hair have duties which do not involve extensive physical movement, or if they do, it is all below ground. Equipping them with solar generators, therefore, makes little sense. The ones which have hair obviously spend most of their time on PDN's surface, giving them access to the planet's sun's rays, and move around enough to require this additional source of electricity.'

  It looked as if every one of the other Cyborgs were giving Phill dirty looks, as if he was giving out trade secrets or something. And maybe he was - trade secrets of Cyborgs! I don't blame them then. In fact, if I wasn't benefitting from this, I'd be giving that bastard a dirty look too.

  'Ohh', Ethan said. 'I suppose that makes sense.' He paused for a second to think. Well, I assume that he was thinking; for all I know, his entire brain just shut down for that second. And he wouldn't even know it if it did; I don't suppose that the brain would know if it ever randomly shut down like that. 'That would be a good way to kill Cyborgs, wouldn't it? Just take out their hair, and they'd eventually run out of power.'

  'Hah!' I laughed, and Boy laughed with me. Death by haircut - not the best way to die.

  Even Phill saw fit to smile. 'Not exactly. Not only would it be more effective to "take out" the entire Cyborg rather than just their alternative power supply, if you were to disable one's hair, they could simply not use excessive electricity until it's replaced.'

  'So it's practically impossible to kill a Cyborg in any way other than destroying their CPU?' the Human asked.

  'Impossible to kill', Rosetta said, 'but you can still disable them.'

  At the questioning glance Ethan gave, Phill decided to shoulder the burden of explaining it. Although I think that that guy derived some kind of sick satisfaction from it. Bastard. 'Destroying a Cyborg's CPU will kill them', he confirmed. 'However, there are ways to incapacitate a Cyborg without destroying their CPU. Of course, sufficiently damaging someone without harming their CPU is a feat unto itself, since dealing such an amount of damage will normally impact their CPU in the process.'

  The look on Ethan's face told Phill that that wasn't going to fly. He wanted more - more, he wanted more!

  Phill obliged. What a kind gentleman. Gentleman-bastard, that is. 'Inside a Cyborg's body, apart from our components and liquid systems, are vast amounts of cabling, much more than would normally be necessary. Each of these cables, obviously, connects various internal pieces of technology, such as from our memory to our CPU, or from our CPU to the motors controlling our movement.

  'Of course, these cables are vulnerable; as Matthew has proven' - I nodded at the shout-out - 'Slugs can cut through certain sections of Cyborg anatomy, if they have enough time to shift their slime to the appropriate shape and they put enough force behind the blow.' I nodded again, but I didn't really know why. It just felt right here. Phill went on, 'Should a Slug manage to pierce inside a Cyborg, they are likely to rupture not only liquid transportation tubes - the grey fluid you would have observed
- but also interfere with this important cabling.

  'With this important information carrier disrupted, Cyborgs could experience any number of difficulties. From loss of a sense such as sight, to lack of access to our own memories, to even losing control over our body - all of these are dependent upon intact cables which transfer the necessary information to and from our CPUs. This is the reason that we have much more cables than would be required for maximum efficiency.

  'Each connection point in a combat Cyborg - for example, from CPU to viewing implements - actually has multiple wires between them, rather than one optimal one. This is a safeguard for battle, as it is likely that several cables will be ruptured by opposing Slugs. Under this arrangement, a Cyborg can have many of their wires disrupted without adversely affecting their performance, as the vital internal signals will simply take an alternative route to the broken one.'

  We all paused for a bit to think about this. I'd already suspected before that the Cyborgs have multiple pathways for their signals to travel, since I'd fought enough of them in my time, but it still didn't beat the Slug system - wherever we have slime, our signals can travel along it. Hah.

  'That makes sense', Ethan commented. 'It's not like cables are expensive or anything either.'

  'Not individually', Phill told him, 'but when you must make a large amount for a vast quantity of Cyborgs, the resource requirement is significant.'

  'Oh', Ethan said. That seemed to be his reaction to a lot of things these days. And by "these days", I mean ever since I told him I was a Slug.

  Looking at the enemy Cyborgs, they were all still looking at Phill, and although their faces were passive as usual, I sensed a deep-seated anger in them. OK, well, I sensed nothing, but I would understand it if they felt it at any rate. It seemed as if Phill was giving out trade secrets now. That bastard. Bastard-gentleman, that is.

  'Our ships' communication lines work in a similar way', Boy said, obviously trying to placate those Cyborgs by giving out some Slug trade secrets. I don't know who's the biggest bastard anymore, but it certainly isn't me. 'Each dish is connected to independent signal lines to their ship's major parts, such as engines and weaponry. That way, if we get damaged but not destroyed, and even if most of the cables have been cut off, there's usually at least one dish that's still connected.'

  I noticed how he didn't add that it was unlikely for a ship to get damaged but not destroyed; space ships were insanely complicated gadgets, which required the synergy of a whole lot of other complex parts to work. As soon as anything takes damage, the flow-on effect impacts on the rest of the ship. In short, if you take damage, chances are that your ship's not gonna make it. Your only options are to try to keep shooting, run, try and ram an enemy - not that this ever works, of course, seeing as how space is big and all - or launch life pods to try and board an enemy. I'd used this latter strategy to great effect when Phill attacked me, but, most of the time, when your ship takes a hit, you're a goner.

  'Interesting', Ethan mused. 'I suppose that a lot of stuff from both sides have to go to making these cables then, since each Cyborg and Slug ship has to have a lot of it.'

  'Yes', Phill said, 'but it is far from the greatest requirement. Other materials such as metal, fuel, power generators and weaponry impose greater burdens on our resources.'

  Before we could continue, probably before Phill could keep talking, one of the other Cyborgs said, 'Slob is arriving.' Hah - so my name for him was now so firmly entrenched that even his own subordinates were using it! Perfect.

  'Here we go', Ethan said. 'Get ready for some hardcore negotiations.'

  'Hardcore negotiations about how and where to negotiate', I added.

  'Shall we speak collaboratively, or using a representative?' asked Phill.

  Boy said, 'I suppose that Matthew wants to do most of the talking.'

  'Got that right', I grinned. 'But you guys can join in whenever you want. I don't want to monopolise the conversation or anything.' I stopped to think. ' "Monopolise". Such a strange word.'

  We stopped talking then, and mentally prepared ourselves to face Slob, the great and mighty. I could just see his figure in the distance, striding towards us as these other Cyborgs had. It was time to activate "Operation: Poker Face" - the greatest lie ever told. Well, I've no idea if it was the greatest lie ever told, even by a Slug - everyone knows that Human history is chock-a-block full of great big lies - but it felt good to call it that all the same.

  I wondered if any of my friends had figured out that there was actually no bomb of any kind in our scout ship. Surely the other Slugs would know, but I doubted if Ethan or Phill had realised it yet. And if they did, hopefully they wouldn't give me away. That would suck.

  And, out in the distance, Slob came closer. I could almost make out his face now, and it almost seemed that he was smiling - but upon closer inspection, I saw that it was just a trick of the darkness, and that he wore the same passive expression as always.

  Sigh. No matter where someone might look, and how hard they might search, there really was just no one like Phill.