The Slug Inception

by Matthew Pelly

  Chapter 7 - Wider spectrum

  The Slug

  We were on our "space trip", headed back to Slugenis for a little meet-and-greet. With the actual planet. So I'd be like, "Yo, Slugenis, how's it hanging?" and Slugenis'd be like, "Suuup, just chillin', crusin' round my sun as usual." It would be an awesome conversation. We'd have so many interesting things to discuss.

  Our reunion with Frank had been brief, and we hadn't learned anything astonishingly new. He'd just been kicking back in the interstellar ship, keeping the two of them close enough together so that he could control them without the interference from PDN being too much of a hassle. The Cyborgs hadn't disturbed him, luckily, cause they could've easily stranded us on the Archives if they'd attacked our getaway ships. But they were cool. Well, either that or they really had no idea where our ships were, cause of the radiation and the ships being stealth.

  After we'd boarded our interstellar ship via the scout ship, we'd told Frank everything that had happened - I could go through this conversation in my mind, but I already knew everything that was said, so there was no need to relive it step-by-step and word-by-word in my memories for no apparent reason - while firing up the ship back towards the Slug homeworld.

  And that's what we were still doing. Ethan, Carmen and Rosetta were sleeping at the moment, while Frank, Boy, Phill and myself were sitting together. Although Phill could shut down some of his functions, to save power or something, he never did it unless everyone else was sleeping. So it was pretty hard to have a private conversation without him. Not that I'd ever wanted to, but the need could one day arise. For some reason.

  'How long do we intend to stay at Slugenis?' Boy asked. We were speaking out loud, not only for Phill's benefit, but because we'd all gotten really used to Human speech. Although it wasn't as quick as Slug brain signal communication, and couldn't convey images, senses, and other advanced information, when we had two-plus months of nothing to do aboard a ship, those factors didn't really count for much.

  'Not long at all', I said. 'The plan is to just stop off there and initiate the new breeding, and then head away to Slugma. Now that we've given the Cyborgs a time of when to be there, we have a time limit too.'

  I waited for Ethan to ask how long we'd have to then wait at Slugma before the Slug army caught up with us, but then remembered that he was sleeping right now. Heh. He'd have to find out that he doesn't understand it later.

  'Most things have a time limit', Phill said, 'it's just that one is not always aware of it.'

  Carmen said, 'Like your life. If you want to do something, there is a time limit to do it before your natural life expires.'

  'Precisely', Phill told her.

  'Not that this isn't very optimistic and makes me think of bunnies', I said, precisely at that moment thinking of bunnies, thereby making my statement a veritable lie, 'hows about we talk of something more relevant? Like what to do when we get to Slugma.'

  'Ethan, Carmen and I have discussed this', Phill input. 'We have come to the conclusion that the best solution may be to simply land a single ship at a time, in an alternating pattern from either side, in order to diffuse any doubts about the other side's potential opportunistic behaviour.'

  'We didn't conclude that', Carmen told him, 'we just mentioned the possibility of having to do it.'

  He responded with, 'I have... given it further consideration.'

  'Even if we do do that', Boy questioned, 'how do we tell the Cyborgs that that is what we intend to do?'

  'You just used a double word twice, in a single sentence', I told him. He gave me a look that was clearly meant to thank me for my perceptive observation. And really, I ought to get thanked for my perceptive observations more often. So thank you, Boy, for getting the ball rolling.

  'Did you tell Slob of this idea while you were on PDN?' asked Frank.

  I gave a big smile. 'Sure didn't. It seems that Phill here decided to keep all this to himself at the time.' He opened his mouth to defend himself, but I hushed him with, 'Don't worry, that was only a joke. You're alright when it comes to sharing information, but I imagine you have so much that it's a challenge to decide what the most relevant things to say are.'

  He nodded, then said, 'It can be.' I basked in the glory of everyone knowing that I understood machines. Before I could finish my basking, however - and I fully intended to bask for at least another three seconds, maybe even four - Phill said, 'Now that we're discussing this, there is another possibility which we should be aware of.' He paused for a bit, and then went on. 'Slob said that any Cyborg which wanted to come could, up to a theoretical maximum of two hundred members. He will obviously impart all of his knowledge to the Cyborgs, including the fact that we are going to be there.'

  He stopped again, and eyed us each in turn. I took offence that he looked at me second, which was neither first nor last. I'd remember this insolence the next time I needed to eye people in turn. The Cyborg finished, 'From all the Cyborgs that we know, which do you think has the most interest in us?'

  As soon as I got it - which was pretty quickly, naturally - I looked up and laughed. Boy said, 'Rabadootime. You think he will be there?'

  'He is not the leader of the area closest to Slugma', Phill replied, 'and that leader will almost certainly attend. However, Rabadootime has extensive knowledge on both us and the Humans, and so he is a natural choice. In addition, I imagine that he would like to... see us again.'

  'Not for revenge, I hope', I said.

  'As do I', Phill agreed.

  At that we heard a loud yawn coming from Ethan's direction. 'I'm awake', he slurred, as if we hadn't all heard him or something.

  'How did you sleep?' Carmen asked courteously. I wondered if she was just being nice, or if she actually wanted a full explanation.

  Ethan looked up thoughtfully. 'I actually had a strange dream', he began, 'which is normal for me, keep in mind. The only thing I can remember about it is that there were no clouds.' He sighed dejectedly. 'Even inside my own mind, I don't get clouds.'

  'Both PDN and Slugenis contain clouds', Phill pointed out.

  'Bah', Ethan said. 'Don't try and compare them, they're just not the same. You need Earth clouds to fully appreciate their majesty; the shapes, the colours and shades, the patterns that they make. If you could've seen them in your cave, Phill, you'd probably love them too.'

  Phill looked at him. 'Going by that logic, I should also love darkness, since I had an abundance of it during those times.'

  'Do you love darkness?' Ethan asked sheepishly.

  'Not particularly', the Cyborg told him. 'A lack of stimuli is rarely pleasurable.'

  'Unless you're one of those people who like those stimulus-deprivation tanks', I said, 'where you can't see, hear, or smell anything. Then it is pleasurable.'

  Ethan yawned again. 'Must be boring though. But tell me; do Slugs have dreams?'

  Boy laughed. 'Unfortunately not. But I hear from Matthew that they are quite exotic events.'

  'Not that I would know myself', I chuckled. 'I just know that Humans have a lot of them, and that they can either have deep meaning or be completely pointless.'

  'More often the latter', Ethan said. 'So what, your brains aren't creative enough to have dreams or something?'

  Phill said, 'Cyborgs don't have dreams.'

  'Well then you're not creative either!' I yelled at him. He said nothing, which was totally not the reaction I was hoping to get, so I turned back to Ethan. 'Anyways, you remember when I told you ages ago that Slug brains have a higher energy output than Human brains, at least as far as I know?' He shook his head. 'Well I did. A consequence of this is that we need to eat more. Another is that, all else being equal, we'd need to sleep more too, to recuperate our mental stamina or something.

  'The problem is that all else is not equal. You see, when we Slugs sleep, rather than our brains going through a bunch of important activities like yours, it almost completely shuts down. Yeah, it tells slime to keep absorbing oxygen and coordinates wh
ere all this oxygen goes, and according to Phill it keeps whatever slime shape we're most used to, but most of our senses turn off; that is, the surface part of our brain deactivates. That's why we can't be woken by being shouted at, but if we're shaken, the violent rocking of our brain wakes us.'

  'Ohh', Ethan said, now fully awake. He still looked like he just woke up though. Probably because he just did. So it wasn't at all surprising that he looked that way, much less interesting enough to comment on. 'How is it that you can wake up other Slugs just by touching them then?'

  In answer, Frank got up and strode over to Rosetta and touched the side of her face, sending the burst signal which instantly awoke her.

  'See!?' Ethan spluttered. 'How does that work? Why do I have to shake them all over the place, but oh no, a single touch from your finger is enough!?'

  'Hahaha', I laughed heartily. 'It gives me great pleasure to see you so upset at not knowing this.' He glared at me, which I kinda deserved.

  'Ah, is Ethan asking about that now?' Rosetta asked. 'You don't wanna tell him yet, do you?' Ethan glared at her, which she kinda deserved.

  'I'll tell him', Frank said. Ethan gave him a bright smile, which he kinda deserved. 'Slugs can be woken by two things; by either shaking their brain enough, or by sending a small specific stream of signals to their brain which wakes them faster. This is what Slugs usually do to wake each other, and can be done wirelessly through a communicator as well as through a physical connection.'

  'The problem', I butt in majestically, 'is that, without a conscious line of electrically conductive slime to the brain, any signal you pump into us will not reach us.'

  'So this is where mental blocks come in', Frank took up the reins once more. He must have tired hands by now, after holding the reins for so long. My hands, however, were much accustomed to holding reins, and were very resistant to that kind of strain. 'While sleeping', he continued, 'a mental block keeps a line of slime in the right configuration leading from our brain to a specific point on our body. So if you touch that point, the signal will automatically follow the path of least resistance through this predetermined line, even if the receiving Slug is sleeping, and be directed straight to their brain.'

  As a demonstration, he strode over and touched Carmen on the shoulder, which woke her up. He then finished with, 'This point can be wherever you instruct your mental block to put it, but common places are around the face, head, and neck, at least while we're in Humanoid shape.'

  'So it's just like a preset line of least resistance that forms a channel leading straight to your brain?' the Human asked.

  'That is how it was described', Phill told him.

  'Interesting', Ethan mused. He was quite good at musing; I ought to congratulate him on it one day. 'I'm almost tempted to ask how a line of least resistance is actually made, and how you' - this directed at my awesome self - 'can do that without mental blocks. But, since we're all up and about right now...' He grinned mischievously. 'It's about time you explain purple to me.'

  'Nooo!' I howled. Well, not literally, since technically only wolves can howl. I think. But I sure gave it my best effort. 'It's not time, not time at all.'

  'Don't make me', Rosetta warned me.

  I sighed in utter defeat. It was all over; I had lost. Totally lost. 'Very well then', I said unhappily, even though I was secretly starting to get excited. 'Huddle round, everyone. I'm sure that every Slugs knows what I'm about to say - well, I hope, at least - but I think that Ethan's reaction will be worth experiencing nonetheless.'

  Ethan scrambled up to take a seat nearby, and everyone arranged themselves into the familiar circle that we sat in during whole group discussions.

  'OK, then', I began. 'Here goes.' I directed this last statement particularly at Rosetta. 'And don't you even think of saying one part of this - it's all mine! Mine, I tell you, mine!'

  The Human

  This was it; the time had come. Matthew was about to explain to me, once and for all, why most things about the Slugs were coloured a darkish shade of violet.

  I'd been putting some thought into it, and this is what I'd come up with so far - I doubted that it was simply an affinity for a particular colour. I mean, I didn't think that the Slugs simply 'liked' the colour purple, and that's the reason that they used it so often. The majority of purple stuff I saw is the exact same shade, even Slug slime itself! That goes beyond just a mere liking and into the realm of some deep and meaningful reason.

  But this explanation held a further value to me - I do believe that the question of purple is the longest one I'd held ever since Matthew revealed his true self to me. I'd first wondered at it way back on that fateful Sunday, when Matthew had been stabbed with a sword (yes, that's right, a sword) and had bled purple blood. Of course, it was really slime, but I'd assumed it was purple blood back then.

  Even though I'd learned a lot since then, purple was, to me, the definitive question of the Slugs. I almost felt as it finding out about it would be some kind of end-state, where I'd understand enough to be able to think of myself as an expert. Purple was a symbol for the Slugs, and the question it represents stood for everything that I didn't yet know or understand about them.

  Well. I highly doubted that once I understood purple, I would know everything. I also doubted that it was an end-state of my knowledge; but if it is, then I'm about to reach it.

  "Alright then", Matthew said. "How to begin." He looked thoughtful for a few moments, then looked at me resolutely. "I suppose that I should start by saying that your question is wrong."

  "Huh?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

  "What's your question?"

  "What's the deal with all the purple?" I said for like the millionth time. Bit of an over exaggeration, obviously, but you know what I mean.

  He smiled. "That question. It's wrong."

  "Oh", I said. "It's one of those 'asking the wrong kind of question' things. Am I meant to be asking like, 'Why don't the Slugs use any other colours often?' "

  Matthew laughed. "Actually, no. You weren't asking the wrong kind of question at all. But the question you were asking was wrong."

  "I'm confused", I confessed.

  "Perhaps you should get to the point", Boy advised Matt.

  "I'm getting to it, don't you worry", he replied, shaking his finger at him. Then, turning back to me, "I'm saying that your question is wrong because we're talking about Slugs, not humans, and for Slugs it is wrong. For Slugs, the colour purple - that specific dark shade of violet you keep complaining about - holds no meaning whatsoever. It's just another colour, and we don't prefer it over any other. For Slugs."

  "Yep", I said. "Still confused."

  "Hah", he laughed. "OK then, let's start from the beginning. The visible spectrum, as I'm sure you well know, is divided into a bunch of different colours. I think that the measurements for wavelength are from three hundred to seven hundred nanometres, something like that. Now, based on my studies back when I was still on Earth, the human eye perceives the around four hundred nanometre range to be purple, or, more specifically, a dark shade of violet. You with me?"

  I nodded, and he continued. "Good. Now, this is where the key is. Remember what I just said. 'Humans perceive this to be a dark shade of violet.' "

  "That wasn't an exact quotation", Phill pointed out, but it's not like anyone was listening to him. My eyes, ears and brain were set firmly onto learning-mode, and they weren't changing until I got to the end of this road.

  "So", Matt continued, "that specific range of light wavelengths only looks like that to you because that's how your brains perceive it to look." He gave a broad smile. "And now for the Slugs to come in. Believe it or not, Slugs are different to humans. We actually have different brains. Yeah, I know, it's a lot to take in, but trust me - my brain is different to yours. So when I see a wavelength that is around four hundred nanometres, my brains perceives it differently to how your brain perceives it."

  "So you're saying that the purple you see looks different
to the purple I see", I summarised.

  "No idea", he responded, "since I've got no idea what 'your' purple looks like. And besides, that's not what this is about. What this is about is this: humans and their eyes can perceive between four hundred and seven hundred. I don't know about Slugs for sure, but I'm just going to throw out a total guess and say that Slugs and our brains can perceive between three-eighty and some-other-number-around-seven-hundred nanometres."

  I sensed that this was an important point, so I devoted my full attention to him. Which isn't really surprising, since I'd been devoting my full attention to him this entire time already. I mean, I even ignored Phill when he gave some meaningless but technically correct remark!

  Matthew went on, "What this means is that when a snippet of what you call ultraviolet radiation enters our eye holes and is diverted to our brain, we can actually see this ultraviolet light, and to us, it looks like a different colour. Don't ask me to describe it, because you can't describe a colour to someone who can't see it, but it's there. We can see another colour that you can't."

  "I understand", Phill said, and I listened to him now (mostly because I only half-understood). "Slugs can see a slightly wider spectrum of electromagnetic radiation than humans. When a Slug sees this additional colour, to them, it is an entirely new colour. When a human sees it, however, it is remarkably close to what they see as purple, and so that is how they see it. Whenever Ethan looks at something that is this additional colour, his brain interprets it as a dark violet, the shortest wavelength that it can perceive."

  "Precisely, my dear Phill", Matt congratulated him. "So, Ethan, explain that to me in your own words."

  Great. "Umm", I said, getting ready to stutter a lot. "You're saying that you can see one more colour than I can... and this colour is close to my purple... so when I see this extra colour it looks like purple to me." I thought a bit more. "So that means that if the Slugs paint anything normal purple, or they paint it this extra colour, to me it all looks like the same colour. Which is why it looks to me as if everything is purple!"

  "Double precisely", Matt congratulated me. "So every time you've complained about the abundance of purple, to the rest of us Slugs, we haven't seen most of that purple. We only see the colours that our brains interpret the wavelengths of light to see, which is more than just the colour purple."

  "Even still", I said, "there's a lot of purple to me, so that means that you favour both normal purple and this new colour above the others."

  "Wrong again!" he announced cheerfully. "OK, it's time to name these buggers. This other, beyond-purple colour that we're talking about? It's now called P-one." I didn't like the fact that he had to label it with a number - it signalled more complications down the road.

  Reaching the end of the road, Matthew said, "Onto what you just said now. I simplified it for you by saying that we see an additional colour with a shorter wavelength than purple. The truth is, and keep in mind that this is based purely on my own observations, we can see no less than four separate colours beyond purple! They are hence named P-one, P-two, P-three and P-four."

  "You claim that you see all of these colours in the twenty nanometre span of wavelength that the humans can't interpret?" Phill asked, obviously paying no mind to that fact that I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that they had an additional four colours in their world.

  "That's more advanced, and I'll get to that in a second", Matt told him. "For the time being, Ethan, you should know that whenever you see the colour purple in the Slug world, it is actually any one of five colours to us, and that is why, to you, it seems such an abundant colour."

  "Does that mean that slime isn't actually purple?" I asked, flustered at all of this.

  "Actually, no", he answered. "Slime is really purple. Well, the colour that we both call purple. But now, time to approach a yet more advanced level, before we get to the advanced level which Phill brought up prematurely." Great, we were now off the road and going through the wild grass at the end of it.

  "When you see a Slug", he said, "you see purple, a uniform shade of purple, or so it seems to you. But when a Slug sees another Slug, they see more than that. We mainly see our version of dark violet, that is, what our brain interprets that wavelength to look like, but it's not a flat colour. Rather, within the slime, there is a range of patterns, shades, and ripples of slightly different hues that we can easily see and distinguish from one another."

  He took a deep breath. "You get that? We see slime as a mixture of many different shades of purple, whereas you see it as a flat colour, because our brains are more sensitive to light at that particular wavelength than yours. That is, where your brain interprets it all as a single colour, ours splits it into many different nuances of the same colour."

  I nodded, and he laughed. "Good", he said, still laughing, "cause it's about to get more complicated. In fact, the complications branch off in two different directions, but I know which one to start with." OK, so we were now off the wild grass and were falling off the cliff way beyond the road. I frantically tried to keep track of everything, but really, I was just taking it all as it came. I hope that you're faring better.

  Matthew continued, "Now, you know that when I see another Slug's slime, I can see distinctive patterns and rippling in the shades of purple. Well, to be honest, 'a different shade' of violet isn't the right word, since it's technically a mixture of dark purple and small amounts of the other four P-colours, but I obviously can't describe to you what that looks like, so 'a different shade' will have to do.

  "I'm assuming that it's got other P-colours in it because you can't see it, meaning that all of the patterns are at a level of light that your eyes or brain can't perceive. But remember, our brains can see them, and it just so happens that our evolution decided to make them this particular colour that your evolution quite selfishly decided that you didn't need to see.

  "Now you may be asking yourself - and if you haven't yet then I'm asking you now - 'What causes these different patterns?' Well I'm about to tell you. Like, right now. If you cut a Slug in half, apart from being quite annoying, and potentially lethal of course, you'd still see these ripplings of slight colour variation inside them. So it's not just on the exterior slime of our bodies, it's in all of our slime. And what is it, you ask? Well, you've already just asked that before, so hold on a sec, I'm getting to it.

  "The colour of slime, including these patterns, is determined by several factors, but the biggest is the concentration of nutrients in the particular slime cell. Of course, every slime cell has a different level of minerals and such, so every cell has a slightly different colour, which is why slime is so patterned, at least as we can see it. Recall, of course, that your eyes cannot distinguish any other colour than the dark purple you're used to, so that is all that you see.

  "One important thing you should note is that this is how I made my slime, at least my outside slime, the colour of human skin. By very carefully altering the absorption of nutrients in the cells until it reached very unnatural levels and so changed which colours of light it absorbs and which it doesn't."

  I had wondered before how our Slugs managed to have their slime look like skin, but never got the opportunity to ask. Well, I guess I knew now.

  Boy said, "We had to do it with mental blocks, and it was difficult to achieve even with them. I can't imagine how you did it manually, Matthew."

  "I had it done for me by a special kind of paint", Phill added, and we all laughed.

  "It was very hard, of course", Matt said, "but you must remember that I spent three whole years in perfecting only my appearance before I began to integrate into human society. So I had a lot of time.

  "Anyway", he went on with the explanation, "The problem with this is that every day, each normal Slug will have quite different designs on their slime, as the amount of nutrients in their outside cells changes daily without careful maintenance or mental block usage. I imagine that primitive Slugs had neither. So this is why we have other
foolproof methods of identifying each other, outside of the sense of sight. As previously described, we have a highly accurate sense of smell when it comes to smelling other Slugs, and we can instantly tell who we're communicating with when we touch each other."

  "How's that?" I asked.

  He smiled. "Not today. And I'd have thought that all this was already enough for you?" I shrugged, trying to hide how overloaded with information I really was. "Well too bad", he yelled happily, "cause I'm not quite done!

  "Time to finish up with that other complication Phill mentioned. Now, we Slugs can only see a small way into what you humans call the ultraviolet spectrum - which for us is actually still our visible spectrum, mind you. However, in this small patch of wavelengths, we can see a whole four different additional colours. Why's this, you ask even though you didn't?

  "Simple, I answer. It's all in the interpretation. When our brain encounters a particular wavelength of light, directed to it by our eye holes, it interprets it in a specific way. So when we get one of these ultraviolet wavelengths, which human eyes rudely ignore, we see it as a colour, say, P-one. When we receive a slightly different wavelength, we see P-two. It's possible because the light receptors on our brain's surface are quite sensitive to colour at that wavelength, and so split such a small spectrum into several different colours."

  Phill commented, "It is due then to the Slugs having a highly sensitive brain, and hence a higher range of perception at those particular wavelengths."

  "Exactly", Matt answered. He took a deeper breath. "And that's that."

  "OK", I said numbly. "Lying down now." I slowly got up and walked over to the back of the ship, and lay down where the end of the cylinder met the curved midsection. I then began a desperate and most likely futile attempt to fix all of that in my memory, while the carcass of our metaphorical selves continued to smoulder at the bottom of the cliff, far, far away from the road that we'd originally started out on.

  The Cyborg

  After Matthew had given his explanation for the Slug's apparent preference for the Human colour of 'purple', Ethan had gone to lie down and had promptly fallen asleep. This made little sense, as he had only recently awoken from a slumber; what was the purpose of needing another rest so soon?

  Whatever the answer, he had woken later claiming to have an affliction called a 'headache', saying it was from 'information overload'.

  After some consideration of the improbability of this, I had decided that Ethan believing he would have a headache before sleeping is what caused his headache; I knew from my radio that the Human brain could be heavily influenced by its own thoughts. I would think that this feedback system of a brain being influenced by itself was impossible had I not observed it, but the truth of its existence did nothing to justify its existence.

  We were now at a much later point in time than when those events had occurred. We had just recently landed on Slugenis in our scout ship, and were preparing to disembark upon the planet for the 3rd time.

  "I wonder how different Slugapital is?" Ethan wondered aloud. "We've been all the way to PDN and back, which is like several decades worth of time here if I'm not mistaken, so it's probably gonna be quite different."

  "That's not likely", Rosetta told him. "The Slugs, in general, don't change very fast. Breakthroughs in technology and other areas don't occur very often, and when they do, it takes a long time to diffuse throughout the entire Empire, due to the time limitation of space travel."

  "All things are subject to time limitations", I added, acknowledging this fundamental fact.

  "Well, I still imagine some things'll be different", Ethan concluded. He then walked over to the interior door of the ship, effectively closing off the discussion.

  Before we joined him, I said to Rosetta, "Humans are used to great changes in small periods of time. The time that we've been away from Slugenis would mark a major shift in the appearance and ways of a Human city."

  "I see", she answered, and then followed Ethan.

  I did likewise, and Matthew walked behind me, the last of our group. "Open sesame!" he called. If this phrase had any special meaning, I did not understand it. When no one said anything, he complained, "Come on guys, that means someone open the door. You should've done it to coincide with my proclamation. Sheesh."

  Boy, being the Slug closest to the door, obliged him. After integrating his slime with the spike, the door opened, and we all entered the small space between the interior and exterior door. Once inside, the interior door closed, a time span of approximately 2.5 seconds passed, and the exterior door opened, admitting us to Slugenis.

  We emerged, once again, into the spaceport of Slugapital. "Here again", Ethan complained. "We always land in the exact same spot."

  "Technically", Matthew told him, "we landed on a different spot, inside the same spaceport. And there are others, true, but this is the biggest one in Slugapital, and the most convenient to get to all the places we need to get to. So deal with it."

  As I observed our surroundings, I noted that we were indeed in a spaceport exactly like the one we had previously landed in. This meant that we were most likely in the same spaceport, and that, therefore, we were in the Slugapital on the north pole of Slugenis.

  "We are still on the north pole", I put my observations into words.

  "It appears so", Frank said.

  "That means one of two things", I deduced. "Either the Slug king is still alive, and so remains here, or he has died and another taken his place at the north pole once again. The latter would mean that there have been 3 kings stationed at the north pole in a row."

  "Assuming that no other kings have taken over and died while we were away", Matt told me, "yes. I find it improbable, though, that every king has ended up here, so I guess that the old Slug king we talked to last time is still alive."

  "If so, he would be remarkably old", Boy said.

  "Indeed", Matthew agreed. "At least 13 cycles. But enough talking about him; let's go talk to him."

  We soon found ourselves inside a large carriage, travelling towards the king's customary residence.

  "These things are still terrifying", Ethan said in the darkness in a detectable wavering voice.

  "Just close your eyes", I suggested, "and pretend that it is dark because of your actions rather than because of the lack of light." I had some understanding that Humans responded well to the notion that they are in control of their surroundings and their life, however erroneous this supposition may be. It seemed negligent to actively disbelieve the significant impact that chance and other individuals have on any one person's life; but Humans were, as always, not the most rational of creatures.

  After a short time span passed, Rosetta asked, "Is it working?"

  "No", Ethan replied sullenly, and said nothing else. It appeared that my theory was incorrect; at least, incorrect in this instance and with this Human.

  When the carriage eventually stopped and the doorway opened, Ethan was the first to get out. As I exited, I noticed that his eyes were tightly closed and he was shielding them from excessive light with this hand. After all the times it had happened to him, it appeared that he still didn't understand that his biological eyes needed time to adjust to the shock of a rapid change of the intensity of light.

  As for my viewing implements, the particles of a small sheet behind the clear material at the forefront of my camera, when excited by a stream of electricity, clouded and fogged to a degree that corresponded with the strength of the inputted electricity. Cyborgs used this to regulate the amount of light entering the delicate photon-detectors beyond them to prevent any damage from occurring.

  "Here we are", Matt said as we looked up at the familiar form of the Slug king's abode. "Let us enter."

  He strode up to the door of the building, and inserted his hand into the spike protruding nearby. After a moment of time, the door opened, and he walked inside. The rest of us followed.

  Ethan was in front of me, followed by Carmen, Boy, and Frank, with Ros
etta behind me. When I entered, Matthew was already on the other side of the room, behind the rain-catchment pyramid from my perspective, and was in contact with the king. As I could glean nothing from the exchange without Matthew first relaying it to me, not even the identity of the king from his visual appearance, I simply waited.

  As usual, the impatient Human didn't wait for very long before seeking for something to engage his interest.

  "So what are we doing after this?" he asked. As he did not direct this question at me, I did not answer.

  Carmen, however, chose to do so. "I think we'll be going back to the breeding facility again, to arrange the formation of the new Slugs. Then we'll head off to Slugma."

  At the look of disappointment on Ethan's face, I told him, "Matthew did say that we would not stay long on Slugenis. If anything, you should consider it - "

  "Aha!" Matt shouted, breaking off my sentence. I halted my processes which were forming the conclusion of my speech, and turned my attention to him as he approached us. "Things are so far going swimmingly indeed", he said happily. "Not walkingly, not even flyingly, but swimmingly. Which is good, if you didn't get it." Although I could have attempted to consider why the Humans would invent such a word as 'swimmingly', I neglected to do so.

  "Well", Matthew continued his talk. "It appears that the Slugs and Humans have been busy in our absence. We haven't seen it, but if we were to go and search we'd find a large building dedicated to the Humans. A Human embassy, here, on Slugenis. Imagine that!"

  "You just described it", I informed him, "therefore we are imagining it without the need for you to instruct us to."

  "Evidently", he replied cheerfully. "Anyway, here's what's going down. This is indeed the same Slug king as last time; he's now 14 cycles old, which, while not rare, is uncommon enough to be like, 'Wow, he's 14!' For a king, that is; a normal, non-king Slug would never get anywhere near that age.

  "So, our plan is still approved by the higher-ups - or, higher-up - and we can proceed. We'll split into 3 groups - some of us will go to the breeding facility, some will go and organise the fleet of ships that need to head for Slugma on short notice, and the rest will stay here to coordinate with the king and the rest of us. Pick now which one you want. Quick!"

  "I call dibs on the ship one!" Ethan called out.

  "Hah, Frank!" Matthew yelled triumphantly. "Now you don't get it, Ethan just dibsed it." At the confused look that Frank gave him, he yelled again, "Don't think I didn't know your dastardly plot to get the ship assignment - I knew all about it!"

  I turned to Frank. "It's best not to argue the point", I advised him.

  "I know", he replied with a smile. "Luckily it's not anything important." Even though I knew that giving in to Matt's irrational compulsions and eccentric decisions would serve only to legitimise them, I found myself doing nothing to contradict them. What, then, did that indicate of me?

  Whatever the case, Matthew then said, "Well, since no one else volunteered for anything, I'm just going to dish it all out. Ethan, Rosetta, and Boy get the ships. Frank and Phil can stay here. Me, Carmen, and myself will go to the reproduction plant. Sound cool?"

  "Cool", Ethan told him. I performed a quick analysis on why I had neglected to point out his error in including himself in his assignment twice, and found an answer to that, and to my previous question; I found Matt's actions... endearing.

  This was strange; despite my current circumstances, I was still a Cyborg, a machine with a thought process to merely imitate a complex organic mind, and so it made little sense for me to feel such things. Yet, I could describe it no other way. Perhaps the Human's English language was insufficient for such a task. Or perhaps the word captured things perfectly. Endearing.

  Regardless of my musings, my mission now was to stay with Frank in this residence, and await a message from the others that our time on Slugenis had come to an end once again. It seemed that whatever I did, I still spent large amounts of time simply waiting for the passage of that time. It was fortunate, then, that I am in a better situation to wait than I was when I was tied up in a cave for 20 years, with nothing to do but watch the reflection of a rising and setting sun. Things had definitely improved for me since then. That was good.

  The Human

  So then, it was my job (as well as Rosetta's and Boy's, who would probably be doing all of the work) to attend to organising the ships for our mission to Slugma. It seemed a pretty simple task to me, but then again, it wasn't like I'd ever organised a fleet of starcruisers to go on a critical mission before. I imagine it would be much harder than it sounds.

  The three of us were in a smallish building that was an offshoot of the main spaceport, a place I hadn't seen or been to before. Inside it, around the inverted pyramid used to catch and collect rainwater (unlike the spaceport itself, this place actually had a roof), the walls were lined with dishes. There looked to be about twelve of them, and about seven of them were filled with Slugs. Some kind of spaceport administration, I guess, like the main lobby of the breeding facility.

  Boy was touching one of the Slug's hands, while Rosetta and I stood to the side, waiting for him to finish his business.

  "So what exactly is going on here?" I asked her. "Do we just request the use of a bunch of ships and they give it to us?"

  She looked at me. "It's a lot more complicated than that. Not only do we need 'a bunch of ships', but we need an exact number of them, the necessary fuel and armaments, the right number of Slugs to fill them, our destination, and the time that we wish to arrive there."

  "Yeah", I said after a pause. "That does sound a bit complicated. But tell me this: what happens if there aren't enough ready Slugs on Slugenis to go on this mission? Even for our original invasion of PDN, we just waltzed up here and were like, 'Let's go!', and there were plenty of willing Slugs who had nothing else to do."

  "Hah", Rosetta said. "It's not that easy. There are rarely very many Slugs on Slugenis who don't have other off-war or war duties. In fact, there are normally very few."

  "How do we arrange so many to go on on missions then?" I asked.

  She explained, "We do it by coordinating with Slug worlds between the point of origin, in this case Slugenis, and the destination, in this case Slugma. What happens is this: when a mission is arranged, detailed calculations are performed to determine the amount of Slugs required for the mission. Assuming a point of origin of Slugenis and a destination of Slugma, Slugenis performs an analysis on exactly how many Slugs are needed, and how many of those are available at Slugenis.

  "Next, Slugenis sends a message of how many Slugs are still required in excess of what is available to the next Slug-populated planet in the direction of Slugma. This next planet then performs an analysis of its own reserves of Slugs and ships, and prepares as much as it can spare to the mission. Once it's done this, it updates the records for the amount of Slugs and ships required, and sends the report to the next closest Slug planet to Slugma.

  "This planet then repeats the process, updating the report with their own capabilities and then sending the reports onto the next world down the line. In theory, long before the report reaches Slugma, the full amount of Slugs and ships have been acquired, and they can all meet at Slugma."

  "What, so they wait for the army to meet them at that planet, and then they take off with them?" I asked. "Wouldn't they have to speed up really fast to stay with the rest of the fleet?"

  "That's not exactly how it works - " Rosetta began, but Boy interrupted her.

  "Done", he said. "It's all being arranged now. But we have some time, so go on, Rosetta, you were saying?"

  "I was explaining how large-scale fleets are put together at short notice", she said, and then went on. "In actual space, the fleet does not travel together. Rather, the ships travel in groups, with each group being made up of the ships that left the same world together. So every ship in a particular group departed from the same world."

  "This means that when we leave Slugenis", Boy added, "we will o
nly be travelling with Slugs and ships that also left Slugenis."

  "We only join up with the rest of the fleet at the moment that we arrive at our destination", Rosetta finished.

  I asked, "How is that?"

  She explained, "Through detailed calculations and very specific instructions in the reports I mentioned. You remember that ships can travel at different speeds, and that the closer one approaches the speed of light, the slower time within the craft passes?" I nodded - after a long time of space travel, I think I'd finally wrapped my head around that doozy of a concept. "Well", the Slug continued, "we use this to our advantage.

  "The report contains precise instructions as to how fast the original group - and all subsequent groups after the original but before the current world - is travelling, and the expected time that they will arrive at the destination. Based on this, the new group sets off at a calculated speed so as to ensure that they arrive at the destination at more or less exactly the same time that each other group does."

  Once I realised that she was finished, I asked, "I think I get it, but can you run through that last part again?"

  Boy humoured me. "The exact speed that each group of ships, departing from each world, needs to travel at so as to arrive at the same time as everyone else is worked out as each one gets the report. So the original group travels the fastest. By the time the report reaches the last world that Slugs and ships are needed from, the original group has already travelled quite a distance - but not as far as the report, which as a signal moves at the speed of light.

  "This last world then dispatches the final group of ships, but they travel at the slowest speed of them all, as they begin their travels closer to the destination than everyone else. All worlds in between the first and last travel at an intermediate speed, getting slower and slower as they approach the final world. The speeds are precisely calculated so that, once at the destination, each of the groups will arrive at around about the same time."

  I paused for a while to take all this in. "OK", I finally said, "I think I get it. Is this the same thing we did when we originally invaded PDN?"

  "Yes", Rosetta told me. "We had around fifty starcruisers travel first to Earth and then to PDN. Those ships and available Slugs weren't just doing nothing, waiting for us, but they were Slugs who were in their half cycle of war. While we were travelling to Slugenis for the first time after our defence of Earth, Matthew was sending signals from the interstellar ship to arrange as much Slugs as he could gather at Slugenis to prepare for a major strike. Which we succeeded in."

  "That we did", I agreed. "Well, I get that now, so I guess we're done here. But say, do you think we could take a look at that human embassy that Matt was talking about?"

  "I think not", Boy shook his head. "If we have time, perhaps, but we were never going to stay here for any length of time. We'd best make our way back to the Slug King's room and check in with Matthew."

  "Can't you just talk with him using a communicator?" I asked.

  "Yes", he answered, "but... it's better to do it physically." OK then.

  The three of us exited the building, and made our way back through the spaceport to the carriage station, where we'd take a carriage back to the Slug King. Oh, and I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but it was hot. I mean, you'd think that after being here so many times, I'd be totally used to it by now, but it turns out that the memory of being uncomfortable is never as bad as actually being uncomfortable. I looked up, but could see no clouds through the open roof of the spaceport. Great.

  As we got into a carriage (it was a huge carriage station, with plenty of tracks and empty carriages, so there was never much of anything resembling a queue), I said, "Maybe we won't get to see the embassy this time, but one day when we come back to Slugenis, I fully intend to visit it properly."

  "If we survive Slugma, that is", Rosetta said.

  "Well", Boy told her, "the plan is for a fight to not break out and for there to be no question of our survival."

  "When was the last time Slugs and Cyborgs got together without a fight occurring?" Rosetta asked. "How about two armies of Slugs and Cyborgs getting together without a fight? What are the chances of a fight not occurring?"

  "I thought you didn't believe in chance?" I pointed out.

  She smiled. "Suffice it to say that I've changed since then."

  "I'm just as unsure as you about all of this", Boy told her in the darkness, as the carriage was now closed and in motion. "Think about it though - you say that this has never happened before. But when has a Cyborg ever been in our midst? When has a Cyborg leader ever surrendered to Slugs on Cyborg territory, and then agreed to a hopefully peaceful meeting? When has a group of Slugs ever landed on a Cyborg world, simply talked with them, and then left peacefully? When have the Slugs and Cyborgs ever had the means to communicate with each other?"

  "Based on my understanding of it", I said, "it seems that circumstances have never been so in favour of a peace. As Matthew says, the two races are 'primed for peace'. So it sounds as if now's the best shot we have of going for it."

  "I never said I didn't agree with all of that", Rosetta told us. "But I still doubt that things will go as we plan."

  "Probably not", Boy agreed, "but that's no excuse not to give it our best effort."

  "Amen to that", I said to those wise words, as if I knew what it was like to want to end a war I'd been fighting my whole life. No one called me out on it though, so that made it cool.

  We were quiet after that, which meant that there was nothing to distract me from the terrifying darkness of the carriage ride as it rumbled along its way back to Matt and the Slug King. Which sucked, by the way.

  The Slug

  'Carmen, wanna sing a song with me?' I asked enthusiastically as the Slug in question and myself walked up to the opening of the breeding facility, just after having been dropped off by a carriage.

  'Perhaps now isn't the most appropriate time', she tried to let me down gently. That was awfully nice of her.

  'Perhaps so', I agreed, doing my best to make her not feel guilty. That was awfully nice of me.

  We entered the building, and I walked over to the nearest Slug sitting in a dish. Before I could touch it, it looked up at me and said, 'Hello.'

  'Well that was freaky', I said back, then laughed. Damn Humans spreading their language around like a virus. I remembered thinking back during our first visit to PDN that killing Slob would prevent, or at least slow down, the spread of verbal communication. How silly that seemed now. It was like thinking that taking a scoop out of a waterfall would stop the water from filling the lake beneath. Silly indeed.

  I placed my hand around one of the Slug's arms, and informed it of my identity, age, mission, and requirements. It acknowledged that I wanted a dish to sit in, but asked me why I couldn't simply take one of the several empty ones around the building. I replied back that I didn't because I felt like not doing it, so it got up and moved elsewhere.

  'Goodbye', it said as it left, which made me smile. Talking would never replace Slug physical communication - there was just nothing like that sense of closeness when you integrate your slime with someone else's - but it was still pretty useful.

  'Grab a seat, Carmen', I invited my friend. 'This shouldn't take too long.'

  It didn't. Frank and Rosetta had already set up all the particulars the last time we were at Slugenis; I only needed to set them off now. Of course, it couldn't hurt to review the procedures. So I reviewed the procedures. Because it didn't hurt.

  There was an order for exactly one hundred Slugs to be formed, and for none of them to go through the usual process of indoctrination into the ways of Honour. That is, when the information is pumped into their unformed brains, all the stuff about Honour will be left out. When they are trained on the training ground, Honour will be taught but not impressed - for it's best that they know what the rest of their race believes in - and the mission to Slugma will be explained. When war stories are told to them by older Slug veteran
s, a very important part of the culture assimilation, those tales that advocate the importance of Honour will be left out. Which would be quite a few of them. As in, a majority.

  Everything seemed to be up to scratch. There was a group of forty-five newly-formed Slugs currently in the training grounds, but by the time the newborn Slugs are at that stage they'd be gone. The design of the reproduction plan is a pretty efficient one; lots of Slugs can be formed in quick succession after each other, following the previous group through the several stages of Slug birth and indoctrination.

  'I think', said Carmen, who was in another dish and reviewing the same thing - it looks like it didn't hurt her, either - 'that we should emphasise more the importance of what we are attempting at Slugma, and how it will be the first mission of its kind.'

  'Agreed', I said. 'Let me just update this a bit...' I amended the instructions to further emphasise this, as well as recording my age along with the amendment. Leaving your age with everything you do is an important part of Slug life; if a later Slug wanted to override my command, it'd check the age I was when I made it, which determined whether or not it was authorised to do so. If it was younger than I am now, it had to leave it. If it was older, it could change it.

  And when the Slugs who actually performed the training reviewed the orders, any order made by a Slug older than them must be obeyed, while any made by a Slug younger than them is only recommended, but not mandatory. The commands given by the oldest Slugs are given the highest priority, and the next oldest the next highest priority, and so on. Of course, any order left by the Slug King is given the highest precedence, is absolutely mandatory, and overrides all other contradicting commands with the only exception being that order left by a dead King, and the newer one is older.

  If the new King is younger than a deceased previous King with outstanding orders, that new King cannot override those orders until they outlive the age that the previous King was when they made that particular order. If the old orders are over two cycles old, however, the younger, new King has authority to alter them.

  It's all quite complicated, but it's a system that works. It's also yet another example of how important one's age is in the Slug Empire.

  'Done', I announced. 'The forming shall commence as soon as they can, and then they'll stack all the new Slugs onto star cruisers and head on over to Slugma.'

  'Have you left the time that we expect to arrive at Slugma?' Carmen asked.

  'Yep', I said. 'Boy and Rosetta would've left the same information at the spaceport, but you can never be too careful, right?'

  'I suppose not', she replied, and then stood up from her dish. 'Time to head back then.'

  'I suppose not not', I said, and stood up with her. As we exited the reproduction plant, I asked her, 'Tell me, what do you reckon about our whole mission? Any thoughts on it?'

  She thought for a bit, and then said, 'I'm not very sure that we'll be successful. But I wasn't sure we'd successfully defend Earth, and we did. And I wasn't sure that we'd successfully invade PDN and survive it, but we did. So perhaps we'll be successful here again, even though I'm not sure we will.' That sure was helpful.

  'That's the plan', I told her. 'But I've got a good feeling about this. I think that letting the enemy see that we already have a Cyborg on our side, namely Phill, having two Cyborgs on their side that are half-cool, namely Rabadootime and Slob, and having a lot of our Slugs who don't follow our rules of Honour will make everything turn out alright.'

  'That's the plan', she echoed, and I nodded at that as we kept on walking towards the nearby carriage station so we could meet up with the others back at the King's house and then get well on our way to Slugma and that thing that we were just talking about; the thing about the plan.

  The Human

  Back on a spaceship, once again. I swear, we spent like seventy percent of our time flying through space, which was really annoying. And that wasn't even an exaggeration either, but a realistic guess. I think. According to what Rosetta had told me while we were still on Slugenis, however, we were travelling the fastest out of every other ship going to Slugma that hadn't departed from Slugenis. So that means that time was flowing the slowest aboard our ship, which should mean that it feels like the shortest amount of time for us. 'Should mean' being the key phrase here.

  We were back on a starcruiser, which was good, and were sharing the ship with about forty other Slugs, which was bad. It was pretty hard with so many people (are Slugs 'people'?) to find a secluded spot where I could take a drink from one of the dish spikes or use my portable toilet. But I managed.

  Matthew had also arranged it, while we were on Slugenis, for the Slugs to have brought aboard a good supply of food for me. I had a decent selection of foods like potatoes and carrots - which I had to eat before going back to my long-life nutrition foods lest they go off - lots of nuts and such, and a large amount of those dark, leafy lettuce-like salads that I didn't like. When I complained about them, Matt told me to 'suck it up, after chewing them, of course', since they were the food that grew the best on Slugenis, so they were grown the most. My strategy was to eat them first, so I wouldn't have to eat them later, and I even got Matt to help me out, since he could eat human food without being burdened by the sense of taste. Lucky him.

  As far as I could guess, we'd been on the ship for about two weeks so far, and I was beginning to become friends with some of the new Slugs. It was remarkable, in its own way, that every one of them could speak at least a rudimentary form of english. I had a brief thought that, if Matthew had happened to land in some other country like Russia, every Slug here would be speaking Russian right now. Kind of funny, when you think about it.

  Right now, I was in a group of three new Slugs, all of which had come from Slugenis and were in the Slug basic form (as you surely recall, the Slug basic form is simply a thick base of slime with no legs, three arms coming out in a triangle, and a head poking out the top). They were telling me some war stories of theirs, which were kind of interesting, in their own way. Well, as best as they could, at least - they could speak well enough to communicate, but they wouldn't be winning any literature prizes any time soon.

  "Four Cyborgs attack three Slugs", one of them was saying. "Two Slugs attack and kill one Cyborg before others begin. Two Cyborgs attack remaining Slug, nearly kill, last Cyborg attacks single Slug. Now three Cyborgs against three Slugs, one injured. Injured Slug throws themself at two Cyborgs, is killed quickly, distracts them for remaining Slugs to kill one Cyborg.

  "Now two Cyborgs against two Slugs. One Slug ignores one Cyborg, takes hit, hits other Cyborg. Other Slug finishes second Cyborg, turns to first Cyborg. First Cyborg just killed first Slug, not ready to fight second Slug yet, second Slug fights and kills second Cyborg."

  "That's pretty good", I commented. "I'd heard that an average Cyborg can beat an average Slug in a fight, but three of you beat four Cyborgs."

  We were in the first layer of living space outside the main cylinder (as I'm sure you also recall, starcruisers consisted of a central cylinder surrounded by three outer cylinders, each surrounding the previous ones, with the living space being the space between these outer cylinders and the gravity being only in one direction, away from the centre of the ship's rotation), sitting down behind one of the ramps which led back into the inner ship. This was the usual spot that Phill and I liked to hang out in while aboard starcruisers, even though the Cyborg wasn't with us right now.

  "It's because of their Honour", I heard Frank say, and turned to see him standing nearby. He approached and joined us. "The point of the story is to show how three Slugs were able to defeat four Cyborgs, which isn't a common occurrence; because of their Honour."

  "You mean because of the two Slugs that had sacrificed themselves so that the group of them could win?"

  "Yes", he answered, "and without hesitation. Were it not for Honour, those Slugs would not have thrown away their lives so quickly and without the same amount of conviction, and all of them would hav
e died rather than just two."

  Great. So it looks like now Frank was saying that Honour saves lives, it doesn't just kill them. Well, now was as good a time as any to voice the thoughts I'd been having for a while now.

  "Frank?" I asked.

  "Yes?" he replied.

  Before I could begin, we were interrupted by Boy. "Hey everyone", he said. "How's it going?" For a second, I almost thought it was Matthew saying that - it was only Boy's voice that gave him away. Actually, come to think of it, why did Slugs have different voices? In fact, how did they even actually talk? Well, I'm not gonna find that one out any time soon.

  "Hey Boy", I said. "Frank and I were just discussing Honour."

  "What about it?" Boy asked as he sat down to join us.

  "Ethan was asking Frank question", one of the Slugs ratted me out. At least it got my name right - one of the others had called me 'Etan'.

  I gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah, I was just about to say something I'd been thinking of ever since we left PDN - the first time we left it. What I'm saying is that I know that everyone around here seems to think that Slug Honour is some evil thing that needs to go, but from my perspective, it's not really all that bad. I mean, sure it goes against the basic principles of life and all, and you have to pretty much brainwash infant Slugs to get them to believe in it, but I think that, under some circumstances, Honour can actually be a good thing."

  There was a long pause, before Frank asked, "How so?"

  I took a breath and went on. "When it concerns people dying. When a human dies - well, a human with family - a funeral is held, where the body is laid to rest. Funerals are - from my understanding this is, since I've never been to one - depressing events, where everyone wears black and cries over the dead person. It's all meant to be really sad. But when a Slug dies with Honour, no one thinks anything sad at all. Instead, everyone is just proud of them, thankful for having known them, and glad that they died in a meaningful way."

  After another pause, Boy said, "I think that Phill would have good answers to such philosophical questions. But what I think you're trying to say is that you'd rather be happy that someone died instead of sad that they died."

  "Kind of", I struggled to put my thoughts into words. The english language was pretty darn useful, but it was times like these when it felt like it needed an overhaul. Or perhaps a few extra million words or something. "But it's more about how a collective group of people feel about dying", I continued. "Like it's a natural thing, and not something to be sad of but something to be proud of."

  "Everyone dies", one of the Slugs said. "Proud of those that die good."

  "Yes, that", I told Frank and Boy.

  Frank said, "I'm unsure how we can abolish some parts of Honour but keep other parts of it. Can we remove the incentive to die without removing the glory of dying?"

  "I think so", Boy said, "but worrying about it now won't affect whether or not we can do anything about it later."

  "I suppose so", I said distractedly, then quickly covered myself with, "I'm probably wrong, of course."

  "Maybe", Frank told me. "But it's better you suggest something and be wrong than not suggest something and be right."

  "That sounds like something Phill would say", I teased him. "Heh."

  He smiled back at me. One of the Slugs in our group got up (well, technically it wasn't even sitting, since Slugs in their basic forms have no legs, but you get the gist of it) and said, "Hungry. Getting food."

  "Are you hungry too, Ethan?" Frank asked me.

  "No", Boy told him, "when humans are hungry, their stomachs make a strange rumbling noise." When I looked at him, he said, "Matthew told me so."

  "That's right", I said, "but not entirely. Our stomachs only rumble sometimes, so we can easily be hungry without any rumbling going on. Right now I'm not particularly hungry. But now that you've mentioned it, there's something I'd like to know - where do you locate your stomach? I know that Slug's don't have stomachs, but there still needs to be a space somewhere inside you where your slime digests your food. So where do you have it?"

  Frank and Boy smiled at me, and the latter (that's Boy, for those of you who don't know what 'latter' means - I'm just here to help) said, "That's a good question, but one which we'll have to discuss in Matt's presence."

  "Why's that?" I asked.

  "You'll see", he replied, and started to get up.

  I likewise stood up (and tried to stamp out the pain in my legs from standing after sitting for so long) and started to get a bit excited. If Matt needed to be in on it, that meant that we were about to talk about something good. And here I'd thought that it'd just be a simple answer!

  "Right", Matthew said when we found him, "what do you guys want? I was deep in a conversation with Carmen about the seven different continents on Earth."

  The seven of our main group (even Phill decided to put in an appearance) were seating in our usual circle in the main cylinder, but there was about a dozen other Slugs also listening in. Well, we'll see how long that lasts.

  "What's there to tell?" I shrugged. "One's freezing, one's boiling, and the rest are somewhere in between."

  "Not only is that incorrect, but it could be seen as an unsatisfactory explanation", Phill pointed out. Shows what he knows.

  "We're here", Boy quickly said, "because Ethan asked where in our bodies our Slug equivalent of a stomach is." He turned to me and said, "You were right when you guessed that we need a space inside us to store the food while it is digesting. Frank, Carmen, Rosetta and myself all locate this space in our stomach area, the same as you humans. When we designed our bodies, we just mimicked the human arrangement for the most part." He paused, then finished, "The reason I said Matthew needed to join this conversation is because he locates his stomach in a... different area."

  OK now, this was starting to get good. I couldn't imagine what whacky way Matt'd come up with to digest his food. But it would probably freak me out.

  "Haha", Matthew laughed. "This has turned out pretty bad for me, cause you see, in order to give this explanation, I first need to describe to you how Slugs can stand upright and have posture without any bones. Which you totally forgot to ask me about, by the way."

  "Oh yeah, I did", I said disappointingly. "I forgot most things after the colour explanation."

  Matt gave a little laugh, and then began. "Righty-O then. Now, you surely remember when I explained how each one of our slime cells has two cell walls, and how the bonds between the outer walls of two cells are not at a fixed location. You no doubt also remember that each outer wall is connected to the inner wall - and thus the rest of the cell - by coils of fibre or protein or something. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but we can pull these fibres towards or away from the bulk of the cell; that is, we can alter the distance that the outer wall is from the inner wall by coiling or uncoiling these strands.

  "The effect of this is that we can pull the cell's outer wall towards the cell or away from it, meaning that we can alter the total size of each cell. Now, surely, surely, you remember how we can make our slime concentrated or thinned out?"

  I nodded, as I sure remembered that one - Matt had once been shot (yes, shot with a gun) and he'd simply thinned his slime so that the bullet passed right through him. It sounds pretty cool right now, but it wasn't back then, trust me.

  "Well", he continued, "what concentrated or thinned - what's the opposite of concentrated? Thinned will do for now - actually means is this: slime cells that have their outer walls pressed up close to the inner wall are 'concentrated' and slime cells that have their outer walls far away from their inner walls are 'thinned'. Get that?"

  "Yeah", I said.

  "So", he went on, "If we squeeze all our outer walls close to the inner wall, we can fit a larger amount of slime in an area than if the outer walls were spaced away from the inner walls, in the same area. In this hypothetical area of slime, how squeezed in the cells' walls are changes how many actual slime cells are packed into it, and thus,
how concentrated the slime is there. Now, you get that?"

  I nodded again, and Phill took it upon himself to say, "I understand."

  "Good", Matt told us. "Very good indeed. Because now we're getting to the good part. Add another 'good' in there, just for good measure. Oh, another one! Anyway, the more concentrated slime is, the more stiff it is, because the cells have less space between their walls to move around in. In a large slime cell, that is, a cell with stretched out outer walls, the cell itself can shift around within these bounds and the coils stretch and tighten with them. This is why slime is so pliable and shiftable, and by stretching out the outer walls of the my body's exterior cells to a certain degree, I can mimic the elasticity of human skin."

  He poked the skin of his hand, as if I didn't believe him or something, and then continued, "But when the outer walls are pulled in very close, the cell cannot move around that much, and so concentrated slime is much stiffer and less moveable than non-concentrated slime."

  Matthew looked at me and gave a big smile, which showed how proud he was of this next part. "Which is how we Slugs are able to stand upright. Inside my slime, inside my slime I say, I have shafts of concentrated slime, held in place by the surrounding slime, running up the length of my body and down my limbs. I actually have a rudimentary skeleton inside me, made of stiffened slime, that I developed as a low-tech copy of a human skeleton!" He gave a little crazed laugh, and then smiled again.

  "We have the same thing", Boy told me, "although our slime skeletons are more detailed than his, since they are keeping their shape through our mental blocks."

  "And this false skeletal structure made of concentrated slime allows you to support the rest of your body?" asked Phill. Wow, he was already at the question stage - I was still trying to get over the idea that the Slugs had a copy of my skeleton inside them, made out of the same stuff that their skin is made of... Nope, not over it yet.

  "Indeed", Matt said. "So then, now that part is over, and that's one question that you wanted to ask but never did answered. We have skeletons inside us, made of concentrated and therefore stiffened slime, that allows us to stand without all of our slime just collapsing to the ground. It's not strong, nowhere near as strong as real bones, but it provides support, which is what we need. Of course, normal Slugs have this as well - otherwise it'd be too hard to keep the shape of their three arms and such, even with mental blocks - but the point is that because we needed to have a human, upright form, I pretty much just copied my design off the human skeleton. It's a simple one, and it doesn't look anything like yours, but it does the job well enough. Obviously."

  "As for your digestion?" Phill prodded him.

  "Oh yes, that", he said, "I kinda forgot about that. So, back to our hypothetical area of slime. Now, as we know, the coils of protein or fibre connecting a cell's outer wall to its inner wall are slightly acidic, and are used to digest the digestible parts of our food. So if we eat something we can't digest, it just sits inside us, doing nothing.

  "But back to the point. In this area of slime, the slime can be concentrated or thinned out or somewhere in between. The thing is, the more concentrated the slime is, the more slime cells are packed into that same area, and the more core coils of fibre between the two walls of each cell there will be in that area, and hence the more coils there will be touching the food. And the more coils of fibre touching the food, the faster digestion occurs."

  "Due to the increased access to surface area", Phill commented, trying to prove how smart he was.

  "Exactly", Matthew replied. "So, we all want fast digestion. Most of the time, at least. Our stomachs must therefore be made of concentrated slime, which increases how much of these acidic cellular coils can be actively working on the same piece of food. The other Slugs simply copied the human design in having a separate area dedicated to digestion. I, on the other hand, have been more... economical with my slime."

  He gave me another big smile, which indicated that something weird was coming up. And just after I'd gotten over the bones thing too. "Try to think how I thought at the time", he said. "I needed a highly concentrated area of slime in my body so that I could digest my food. What other part of my body was already highly concentrated, so that I didn't need to make a separate stomach?"

  "I think I know", Phill said. Unfortunately, I think I knew as well.

  "No", I simply said.

  "Yes", Matt replied, his smile getting bigger.

  "No", I said again, not willing to accept it.

  "Oh yes", Matt replied, now almost laughing. "I already have concentrated slime that I use as bones for bodily support! Why waste the mental concentration on forming and holding together a stomach when I can just use them? That's right; when I eat something, I bring the food into my bones to digest them. My stomach is inside my slime skeleton."

  "Goodness me", I said softly, and didn't know what to say after that. I was aware of Matthew laughing at the look that must've been on my face, but the fine motor control of my facial muscles didn't seem terribly important right now. So not only did Slugs have slime-copies of my bones, but Matt digested his food inside them? That was crazy! "You know what?" I told everyone. "I think I've had about enough for this discussion. We can talk about other stuff later."

  "Hah!" Matthew said.

  Carmen asked me, also smiling, "What's the problem, Ethan?"

  "I'm just weirded out, that's all", I replied. But I don't think 'weirded out' was strong enough. No, I was freaked out. It was in a good way, not a disgusted kind of freaked out, but it was still freaky. I looked at Matthew and just imagined his pelvis eating some cabbage, and almost threw up.

  'Don't worry', my brain tried to console me. 'There's bound to be plenty of other stuff out there which'll freak you out even more'. 'I'm sure you're right, brain', I told it back. 'I'm sure you're right'.

  The Slug

  'Man, are we there yet?' Ethan complained while munching on a nutrition bar. He'd finished his supply of fresh Human vegetables long ago, and had only recently finished his stock of nuts such as almonds and cashews. The picky guy hadn't liked the dark lettuce though, and had requested my services in helping him eat them. Phill had complained that it was a waste of resources, since Ethan could only eat Human food but I could eat both Human and Slug food and therefore should only be eating Slug food, but Ethan had said that Phill couldn't taste the lettuce, so he didn't understand. Which means that I didn't understand either. That makes me sad, that I don't understand.

  The ship had begun its deceleration some time ago, one of our on board scout ships was filled up with Slugs in preparation for our landing, and we were just about at Slugma now. So I told Ethan, 'We're just about at Slugma now.' Because we were.

  'Are we aware of any other ships?' asked Phill.

  As I wasn't sitting in a dish but Boy was, Boy said, 'Yes. We can detect all of the Slug ships behind us moving towards Slugma, since the radio-waves coming from their ships is arriving at us before they do, and we're picking up on some Cyborg signals coming from around Slugma.'

  'By "Cyborg signals", he means either reflected detection signals or Cyborg signals actively transmitted from their ships that we've detected', Phill helpfully told Ethan. Unless Ethan already knew that; in that case, Phill was obnoxious and arrogant.

  'Ah, thanks, Phill', Ethan said, meaning that he hadn't known. So Phill wasn't obnoxious and arrogant after all. Good for him. 'What, so are the signals going through the planet or something?'

  'Mostly not', I told him. 'Some of them just get reflected around to us, but most of them have actually been picked up by the Slug ships behind us, who've relayed the signals to us. They're pretty cool like that.'

  'Huh', Ethan replied, and said nothing else. Didn't even thank me or anything.

  'What are we going to do now?' Frank asked. 'Shall we follow Ethan's idea of us and the Cyborgs landing one ship at a time?'

  'Can't we just land on either side of the planet?' the Human asked.

  I laughed a
t that. 'Yeah, and have to walk around the whole thing to meet each other? It's a small planet, true, but it's not that small. And by "that", I mean as small as you're implying.'

  'We shall have to meet their ships in space, and then be the first to land a single ship', Phill suggested.

  'And hope that they don't shoot us down as soon as they come within range', Boy added.

  'Sounds like a plan', I said optimistically. 'Let's do it!'

  After a few seconds of nothing happening, Ethan, quite rightfully, pointed out, 'Nothing's happening.'

  'Maybe to us', I told him, as I still wasn't in a dish, 'but the ships are doing stuff.' I moved over and sat myself down into a dish, integrating my slime with the spike there. 'Now stuff is happening', I pointed out.

  'Whether or not you are capable of perceiving it does not influence whether or not events occur', Phill commented.

  'Don't lie, Phill', I said to him. He tried to respond, but I quickly said, 'Don't lie!' which made him shut up. Heh.

  'We're almost within range of the Cyborg ships', Rosetta said.

  Ethan asked, 'You mean like within viewing range?'

  Boy told him, 'No, there is no "viewing range" in space, because the distances are so great that you can't actually see anything. By range, she means enough around the curvature of the planet to get a good radio view of them.'

  'I still think space ships should have windows in them', the Human mumbled.

  'Why add an obvious structural weakness for no purpose?' asked Phill, but he didn't deserve an answer for that, and thus got none.

  'What should we do if they do fire at us?' asked Frank.

  I thought for a bit, but before I could answer, Boy decided that today he'd like to speak before I did. 'I suppose we'd better fire back. We can't just sit here and take their hits.'

  'Agreed', Phill agreed. Obviously. 'However, I find it unlikely that they would undertake such an action. The peace will serve to primarily benefit them, as the Cyborgs are currently at an increasing disadvantage in the war. They cannot know that the Slugs also have reasons for such a goal. If they should attack us, without provocation, then that can only mean that several leaders have overridden Slob's wishes, as I cannot imagine that he would endorse this supposed course of action given his knowledge.'

  'Sounds good enough for me', I shrugged, but I was paying more attention to the Cyborg ships anyway. One can never be too careful; although, when I think about it, one actually can be too careful, but that's no excuse to not try to increase one's level of carefulness as high as they deem to be reasonable, since being too careful is probably a rare occurrence.

  But back to monitoring the ship's sensors. Boy was doing the flying, which suited me just fine, because I had my inner mind - well, whatever my Slug version of an inner mind ought to be called - intensely focused on watching for incoming signals and monitoring the incoming friendly signals from behind us. Most of them were just confirmations of signal links and regular updates, standard automatic stuff, which was easy enough to filter through.

  'This is taking forever', Ethan lamented.

  'If it were taking forever', Phill told him, 'there would be no sense complaining about it as nothing you said or did would cause it to happen.'

  'Well then', Ethan told him back, 'you don't understand the art of complaining. You don't complain to try and fix a situation, you just complain about how much it sucks.'

  'That seems', Phill began, and then, after a slight pause, continued, 'ineffective.'

  'True enough', I said, 'but it's still fun to do. Unless you do it too much. So, Ethan, quit it, would you? Things'll happen soon enough, believe you me.'

  He mumbled to himself under his breath - probably some highly offensive insult at me - and then quietened.

  And it was just at that moment that I received a signal from a Slug ship that they'd detected a Cyborg ship coming around the planet. Given that the speed of that signal had to travel from the planet to the Slug ship, then get relayed to us, the ship was probably already within our range, but the radio-waves from our scanners hadn't had time to return to us yet.

  'I see them!' I announced. 'This is where the good stuff happens.' I grinned to myself, thinking about all the difficulties and confusion we were about to go through. 'This is where the fun begins.'

  The Human

  We were at Slugma, finally. And it bloody well took the universe long enough to get us here. If I was the universe, I'd sure be more efficient than the one we got stuck with. I'd probably be a bit friendlier too.

  But as to what was actually happening. That is to say, I had no idea what was actually happening, since I was stuck in an alien starcruiser with nothing to go by.

  "Make sure someone tells me what's going on", I told everyone, in case they were thinking otherwise. "Phill and I don't want to be left in the dark here."

  Carmen told us, "We're waiting for the Cyborg ships to come within our own range." There was a pause as she waited for more information from the spike in the dish she was sitting on. "Yes, they are in range. We can see about four ships so far, more coming around. They are moving towards us, but they seem to be non-aggressive. If they intended to fire at us, they would've done so by now." Well, that was a good thing... I think. If they had planned on shooting at us, and they could've done so by now apparently, I imagine that there'd be a lot of shouting going on, and that was no fun.

  Remembering what everyone had just discussed, I asked Phill, who wasn't currently busy flying a spaceship, "How do we intend to tell them our plan for landing?"

  "We shall lead by doing", he simply told me, and then proceeded to obviously ignore me. Well, I knew when I wasn't wanted.

  Carmen went on telling us, "They're getting closer. They're well within range now, and are not attacking. We're reinforcing the message to all of our ships, a lot of which have already arrived, not to fire unless they begin the fight. Our two fleets are meeting up on one side of the planet, not the Slug side or the Cyborg side but somewhere in the middle. We're at the front of our fleet, and we've ceased moving towards them. Their front ships have stopped coming closer to us. The backs of our fleets are filling up with more ships, but the fronts aren't doing anything yet."

  To check what she was saying (not because I didn't believe her, but because it felt good to know things for yourself rather than just accept someone else's word as truth) I looked at the small map in the corner of the main forward view screen. The orange dot depicted there, which represented Slugma, the nearest planet, had indeed stopped for the most part. It was drifting slightly on the side of us, since we weren't on top of it, but I supposed that drifting was normal in space. In the greater essence of the phrase, we'd stopped moving in relation to Slugma, and I guessed that all the Slug ships behind us had done the same.

  "Are we all ready to get this party started?" asked Matthew.

  "Yes, yes, get it started already!" I encouraged him, anxious to get on the ground and get to some negotiating. Not that I'd be doing much, but still.

  "Yes, Captain", Matthew replied. "The scout ship we've got prepped and ready to go is launching now." I soon felt the ship give a short vibration which I guessed was the scout ship detaching from the starcruiser. I could even kind of tell which direction the vibrations had come from, although I probably wouldn't have known that if I didn't already know where scout ships are stored in starcruisers.

  "The ship will begin landing on the planet soon", Carmen updated us non-Slugs. "Now we just have to wait to see what the Cyborgs will do."

  That was when the waiting began. And boy (not Boy) did we have to wait ages! It felt like half an hour, at least, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was more. We just sat there, doing nothing, waiting for the Cyborgs to respond to our sending a scout ship full of Slugs down to Slugma. Knowing where we were, and what we were trying to do, it was excruciatingly boring. And I didn't use a big colourful word like 'excruciatingly' for no reason - I meant it.

  "They're launching!" Boy eventually cal
led out, putting me out of my misery. "Sending one of their own smaller ships to Slugma to land! Quick, send another scout ship so they know what we're trying to do!"

  "Sending the plan to the rest of our fleet", Frank said.

  "Another scout ship launching from the nearest starcruiser", Matt added to the information pile. "It's heading down."

  And... the waiting started again. It felt shorter this time, so that was something, but I was still past the point of impatience by the time Boy spoke up.

  "Another Cyborg ship beginning to land", he said.

  "Send another scout ship then", I suggested, hoping to hurry this process up. It know it was delicate and all, but if you were waiting outside an alien planet for such an important event, trust me, you'd be urging everyone on as well. Especially when the only indication I had of what was going on was being relayed to me by others.

  "In a moment", Matt said. "We gotta wait until we notice their ship beginning to land on Slugma." After a short pause, he said, "There it is; OK, sending another scout ship."

  Things seemed to be running pretty smoothly, and Phill hadn't said anything in a while, so I leaned to him and said in an aside, "Things are going well so far."

  He replied, "So far, but we should be careful to not categorise this is a complete success just yet. It's never too late for things to go wrong."

  "Got that right", I said back for some reason, and refocused my attention on what was happening. That is, on waiting for something to happen. I'd almost yawn if this wasn't such a critical moment.

  After a couple more turns of landing ships one at a time, the waiting between after we'd sent our ship to when we notice them sending theirs had decreased a lot. I wasn't sure if that was because they were launching them much faster now, or because we were slowly drifting towards them, based on the way the orange dot representing Slugma was slowly moving past the middle of the screen's map, which was us. How fast did ships in space drift? Fast enough to make a noticeable time difference? I sure had no idea.

  Eventually, we had taken enough turns of landing ships that it got kind of boring. I would've complained about it, but I had an idea that everyone else was really tense right now or something, seeing as how important this part of our mission was. So I kept quiet.

  Thankfully, Matthew turned around to me and said, "Guess what?"

  "What?" I asked, hoping he wasn't going to say 'We've got to wait a bit more!'

  He didn't say that, thank God. Instead, he told me (and Phill, for that matter), "It's time to get into the trusty old scout ship. It's our turn."

  I grinned as Phill and I stood up and started to move with the others towards the hatchway that led to one of the other scout ships in the starcruiser. No one actually said anything, as far as I could tell, but all of the other Slugs with us just assumed that we'd be occupying this ship to ourselves. And all seven of us came into it, which was a nice change; we were used to having one Slug have to stay behind on the ship. It was Frank's turn this time as well, so he got lucky there.

  And so we all got into the scout ship and tied down. This was it - we were about to land on Slugma. Assuming that nothing bad happened (which would obviously be the case, right?), it would be a nice, fun trip. I was sure looking forward to it.

  The Cyborg

  "This is where the fun begins", Matthew finished. I was initially unsure as to what it was about our current endeavour that he viewed as 'fun', but put it down to a speech eccentricity that was not intended to mean the literal definition of the phrase used.

  "Make sure someone tells me what's going on", Ethan warned the Slugs. "Phil and I don't want to be left in the dark here." I concurred.

  Carmen, who was sitting in a Slug dish, reported to us, "We're waiting for the Cyborg ships to come within our own range... Yes, they are in range. We can see about 4 ships so far, more coming around. They are moving towards us, but they seem to be non-aggressive. If they intended to fire at us, they would've done so by now." Such was the nature of this kind of war; the first party to fire has a greater chance of success than the party which hesitated.

  "How do we intend to tell them our plan for landing?" Ethan said quietly to me.

  "We shall lead by doing", I informed him, and then refocused my processes on Carmen.

  "They're getting closer", she continued her report. "They're well within range now, and are not attacking. We're reinforcing the message to all of our ships, a lot of which have already arrived, not to fire unless they begin the fight. Our two fleets are meeting up on one side of the planet, not the Slug side or the Cyborg side but somewhere in the middle. We're at the front of our fleet, and we've ceased moving towards them. Their front ships have stopped coming closer to us. The backs of our fleets are filling up with more ships, but the fronts aren't doing anything yet."

  In agreement with her statements, I felt a very slight, yet perceptible, force pushing me away from the back wall Ethan and I were currently leaning on as our ship ceased the majority of its forward momentum; some level of drift was inevitable in space, and it wasn't worth the resources to try and counteract it. The star cruiser continued its rotation, however, so the feeling of artificial gravity remained.

  "Are we all ready to get this party started?" asked Matthew.

  "Yes, yes", Ethan said, "get it started already!" As Ethan was not well-versed in the arts of either war or diplomacy, through no fault of his own, I was reluctant to follow his impatiently-given advice on the grounds that it may not have been properly thought out or conceptually sound.

  Matthew, however, did not seem to share my concern. "Yes, captain", he said, referring to Ethan using a rank which no one on this ship possessed or claimed ownership over. "The scout ship we've got prepped and ready to go is launching now." After a pause of approximately 5.5 seconds, I felt a shudder in the ship as the scout ship detached. Ethan's quick look towards the apparent source of the vibration signified that he had also felt it.

  "The ship will begin landing on the planet soon", Carmen updated the Human and myself. "Now we just have to wait to see what the Cyborgs will do."

  There followed a crucial wait of almost 12.4 minutes - which I calculated as 12 minutes and 24 seconds in Human terminology - as the Cyborgs ascertained exactly what our scout ship was doing, decided on what they would do about it, and then did something that we could detect.

  "They're launching!" Boy called out. "Sending one of their own smaller ships to Slugma to land! Quick, send another scout ship so they know what we're trying to do!"

  "Sending the plan to the rest of our fleet", Frank stated.

  "Another scout ship launching from the nearest star cruiser", Matt informed us. "It's heading down."

  We then waited a time period of approximately 6 minutes and 6 seconds, which was noticeably shorter than the previous wait, before the Cyborgs responded. "Another Cyborg ship beginning to land", Boy said, less visibly excited now and more focused on the task at hand. That was good. Optimistic behaviour exhibited too soon could sometimes prove to be a fatal mistake.

  "Send another scout ship then", Ethan suggested.

  "In a moment", Matt told him. "We gotta wait until we notice their ship beginning to land on Slugma. There it is; okay, sending another scout ship."

  Ethan leaned to me and said quietly, obviously in an attempt not to distract the others, "Things are going well so far."

  "So far", I partially agreed, "but we should be careful to not categorise this is a complete success just yet. It's never too late for things to go wrong."

  "Got that right", he assented and then fell silent.

  The cycle of taking turns landing the two races' planetary ships continued on for another 3 phases, with the wait time between each launch decreasing each time, although by a lesser amount each time. By the 4th launch of the Slug ships, we detected the Cyborgs' response within 3 minutes and 18 seconds.

  After the Cyborgs had sent their 6th ship to land on Slugma, Matthew turned around to Ethan and I and said, "Guess what?"r />
  "What?" Ethan obliged him.

  "It's time to get into the trusty old scout ship. It's our turn."

  As we got and and began to move towards the double hatchway which leads to one of the star cruiser's on board scout ships, I thought about what we were most likely to find on Slugma, based on my current experiences.

  I considered;

  It was evident that the Cyborgs, or at least their leaders, were more willing to attempt a minimum of a ceasefire than previously suspected. They'd fulfilled no less than 4 peaceful acts ever since we'd landed on PD-0034:N, a clear indication of their intentions; they had neglected to attack us after our landing on their planet without first learning why we had come there, Slob had chosen not to attack us when he learned that the bomb Matthew claimed to have was in fact a ruse, they had let us leave PDN peacefully and without incident after divulging some information, and when they arrived at Slugma they had not actively attacked our ships even as we got into range.

  The fact that so many Cyborgs came to Slugma, when Slob said only those who wanted to would participate, is yet another sign of my former race's desire to end the war. It was provoked by selfish reasons, perhaps, since the Cyborgs stood to lose the most should the negotiations fail, but that mattered little to me or my friends; if a peace were achieved, regardless of how long it lasted, its very existence would show all that it was possible, and that will lead to further peaces and negotiations. In time, of course.

  However, I could not let my currently optimistic thoughts dissuade me from the possibility that the Cyborg planned to fight us or felt that a fight was inevitable, no matter how erroneous that supposition appeared to me. I would keep my processes focused on minimising the potential for a battle to begin, and to watching the Cyborgs for any unprovoked act of hostility.

  Such was my role to perform on Slugma.