by James White
Planet: Sommaradva
Species: Sommaradvan
Individual: Trainee Cha Th rat
Four Ambulatory limbs; Four waist-level heavy manipulators; and a set of manipulators for food provisions and fine work encircling the neck. This being has two stomachs. Sommaradvan society is stratified into three levels — serviles, warriors, and rulers — which strictly govern how an individual acts within the society.
Classification: DCSL
Planet: Cromsag
Species: Cromsaggar
No Individual Names Known
This species has three sets of limbs: two ambulators, two medial heavy manipulators, and two more at neck level for eating and to perform more delicate work. It has a cranium covered by thick, blue fur that continues in a narrow strip along the spine to the vestigial tail.
Classification: DHCG
Planet: Wemar
Species: Wem
Individuals: First Hunter Creethar, Hunter Druuth, Youth Evemth,First Cook Remrath, First Teacher Tawsar
The Wem life-form is a warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing species with an adult body mass just under three times that of an Earth-human and, since Wermar’s surface gravity is one point three eight standard G’s, a healthy specimen is proportionately well-muscled. It resembles the rare Earth beast called a kangaroo. The differences are that the head is larger and fitted with a really ferocious set of teeth; each of the two short forelimbs terminate in six-fingered hands possessing two opposable thumbs, and the tail is more massive and tapered to a wide, flat triangular tip composed of immobile osseous material enclosed by a thick, muscular sheath. The flattening at the end of tail serves a threefold purpose: as its principal natural weapon, as an emergency method of fast locomotion while hunting or being hunted, and as a means of transporting infant Wem who are too small to walk. The Wem hunt by adopting an awkward, almost ridiculous stance with their forelimbs tightly folded, their chins touching the ground, and their long legs spread so as to allow the tail to curve sharply downwards and forwards between the limbs so that the flat tip is at their center of balance. When the tail is straightened suddenly to full extension, it acts as a powerful third leg ca-pable of hurling the Wem forward for a distance of five or six body lengths. If the hunter does not land on top of its prey, kicking the creature senseless with the feet before disabling it with a deep bite through the cervical vertebrae and underlying nerve trunks, it pivots rapidly on one leg so that the flattened edge of the tail strikes its victim like a blunt, organic axe. While the tail is highly flexible where downward and forward movement is concerned, it cannot be elevated above the horizontal line of the spinal column.The back and upper flanks are, therefore, the Wem’s only body areas that are vulnerable to attack by natural enemies, who must also possess the element of surprise if they are not to become the victim.
Classification: DRVJ
Species: Name Unknown
Individual: Doctor Yeppha
Planet: Unknown
A small, tripedal, fragile being. From the furry dome of its head there sprout singly and in small clusters, at least twenty eyes.
Classification: DTRC
Species: Rhum
Planet: Unknown
Individual: Crelyarrel
Flat, roughly circular beings, dark gray and wrinkled on one surface, and with a paler, mottled appearance on the other, smooth, surface. The beings attach to their FGHJ hosts with thick tendrils growing from the edge of the disk. The tendrils penetrate into their FGHJ hosts’ spinal columns and rear craniums. The DTRCs have their own special needs that in no way resemble those of their hosts, whose animal habits and undirected behavior are highly repugnant to them. It is vital to the DTRCs continued mental well-being that the masters escape periodically from their hosts to lead their own lives — usually during the hours of darkness when the tools are no longer in use and can be quartered where they can not harm themselves.
Classification: DTSB
Planet: Traltha
Species: Tralthan
No Individual Names Known
Apparent typographical error for Classification OTSB.
Classification: EGCL
Planet: Duwetz
Species: Dewatti
No Individual Names Known
A warm-blooded, oyxgen-breathing lifeform of approximately twice the body weight of an adult Earth-human. Visually it resembles an outsize snail with a high, conical shell which is pierced around the tip where its four extensible eyes are located. Equally spaced around the base of the shell are eight triangular slots from which project the manipulatory appendages. The carapace rests on a thick, circular pad of muscle which is the locomotor system. Around the circumference of the pad are a number of fleshy projections, hollows and slits associated with its systems of ingestion, respiration, elimination, reproduction, and nonvisual sensors. The EGCLs are organic empaths. They are organic transmitters, reflectors and focusers and magnifiers of their own feelings and those of the beings around them. The faculty has evolved to the stage where they have no conscious control over the process.
Classification: ELNT
Planet: Melf Four
Species: Melfan
Individuals: Maintenance Technician Dremon, Senior Physician Edanelt, Diagnostician Ergandhir, Patient Kennonalt, Patient KIetilt, Maintenance Technician Kiedath, Nurse Lontallet, Senior Physician Medalont, Senreth
Melfans are large, low slung crab-like crustaceans. The six thin, bony, tubular, multi-jointed legs project from slits where the bony carapace and underside join. The legs and all of the body are exoskeletal. The head has large, protruding, vertically-lidded eyes, enormous mandibles, and pincers projecting forward from the place where ears should be. Two long, thin and fragile feelers grow from the sides of the mouth. The species is amphibious.
Classification: EPLA
Planet: Unknown
Species: Name Unknown
Individual: Lonvellin
Apparent typographical error for Classification EPLH.
Classification: EPLH
Planet: Unknown
Species: Name Unknown
Individual: Lonvellin
The being is large, about one thousand pounds mass, and resembles a giant, upright pear. Five thick, tentacular appendages grow from the narrow head section and a heavy apron of muscle at its base gives evidence of a snaillike, although not necessarily slow, method of locomotion. The being is warm-blooded and has fairly normal gravity requirements. Five large mouths are situated below the root of each tentacle, four being plentifully supplied with teeth and the fifth housing the vocal apparatus. The tentacles themselves show a high degree of specialization at their extremities: three of them are plainly manipulatory, one bears the patient’s visual equipment, and the remaining member terminates in a horn-tipped, boney mace. The head is featureless, being simply an osseous dome housing the brain. The cranium is pierced at regular intervals for visual, aural and olfactory sensors. Their life-span, lengthy to begin with, is artificially extended. Because they have tremendous minds, they have plenty of time, but they constantly have to fight against boredom. Because part of the price of such longevity is an evergrowing fear of death, they need to have their own personal physicians no doubt the most efficient practitioners of medicine known to them-constantly in attendance.
Classification: FGHJ
Planet: Unknown
Species: Name Unknown
No Individual Names Known
The being has six limbs, four legs and two arms, all very heavily muscled, and is hairless except for a narrow band of stiff bristles running from the top of the head along the spine to the tail, which seems to have been surgically shortened at an early age. The body configuration is a thick cylinder of uniform girth between the fore and rear legs, but the forward torso narrows towards the shoulders and is carried erect. The neck is very thick and the head small. There are two eyes, recessed and looking forward, a mouth with very large teeth, and other openings that are probably aural or olfac
tory sense organs. The legs terminate in large, reddish-brown hooves. Each hoof has four digits and does not appear particularly dexterous. This creature serves as a host to beings of Classification DTRC.
Classification: FGLI
Planet: Traltha
Species: Tralthan
Individuals: Patient Cossunallen, Crajarron, Chief Dietitian Gurronsevas, Patient Horrantor, Senior Physician Hossantir, Surriltor, Senior Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology Thorn-nastor
A massive entity with an osseous dome housing its brain, six elephantine feet connected to its triple massive shoulders, and four extensible eyes on an immobile head. Its six stubby legs normally give the Tralthan species such a stable base they frequently go to sleep standing up. Even healthy Tralthans have great difficulty getting up again if they fall onto their sides. Tralthans must not be rolled onto their backs under normal gravity conditions since this causes organic displacement which would increase their respira-tory difficulties. Standard gravity at Sector General is just over half Tralthan normal. Tralthans are vegetarians.
Classification: FOKT
Planet: Goglesk
Species: Gogleskan
Individuals: Healer (hone and child)
The Gogleskan FOKT resembles a large, dumpy cactuslike plant whose spikes and hair are richly colored in a pattern which seems less random the more you look at it. A faint smell comes from the entity, a combination of musk and peppermint. The mass of un-ruly hair and spikes covering its erect, ovoid body are less irregular in their size and placing than is at first apparent. The body hair has mobility, though not the high degree of flexibility and rapid mobility of the Kelgian fur, and the spikes, some of which are extremely flexible and grouped together to form a digital cluster, give evidence of specialization. The other spikes are longer and stiffer, and some of them seem to be partially atrophied, as if they were evolved for natural defense, but the reason for their presence has long since gone. There are also a number of long, pale tendrils lying amid the multicolored hair covering the cranial area, used for contact telepathy. Its voice seems to come from a number of small, vertical breathing orifices which encircles its waist. The being sits on a flat, muscular pad, and it has legs as well. These members are stubby and concertina-like, and when the four of them are in use they increase the height of the being by several inches. The being al50 has two additional eyes at the back of its head — obviously this species has had to be very watchful in prehistoric times.
Classification: FROB
Planet: Hudlar
Species: Hudlar, Hudlarian
Individuals: Patient FROB-3, Patient FROB-lO, Patient FROB-18, Patient FROB-43, Patient FROB-1 132, Trainee FROB-61, Trainee FROB-73, Senior Physician Garoth, Infant Patient Metiglesh
Hudlars are blocky, pear-shaped beings whose home planet pulls four Earth gravities and has a high-density atmosphere so rich in suspended animal and vegetable nutrients that it resembles thick soup. Although the FROB lifeform is warm-blooded and techni-cally an oxygen-breather, it can go for long periods without air if its food supply, which it absorbs directly through its thick but highly porous tegument, is adequate. Hudlars are massive six legged beings. Each leg is an immensely strong tapering tentacle, which terminates in a cluster of flexible digits, curled inward so that the weight is born on heavy knuckles and the fingers remain clear of the floor. The two lidless, recessed eyes are protected by hard, transparent and featureless casings. Hudlars communicate using a speaking membrane, which grows like a cock’s comb from the top of the head. The speaking membrane also serves as a sound sensor. The skin resembles a seamless covering of flexible armor in appearance and texture. Food is ingested through organs of absorption that cover both flanks and the wastes are eliminated by a similar mechanism on the underside. Both systems are under voluntary control. Because of the physiological necessity for avoiding further sexual contact with its life-mate, a gravid Hudlar female changes gradually into male mode and, concurrently, its life-mate slowly becomes female. A Hudlar year after partuition the changes to both are complete.The Hudlar FROBs are acknowledged to be, physically, strongest life-forms of the Galactic Federation and to have the least-pervious body tegument. Contact with chlorine is instantly lethal to them. Hudlar blood is yellow and circulates under great pressure and pulse rate. Hudlars consider their names to be their most private and personal possession, and do not give or use their names in the presence of anyone who is not a member of the family or a close friend.
Classification: FSOJ
Planet: Unknown
Species: Protectors of the Unborn
No Individual Names Known
The Protector of the Unborn is a large, immensely strong lifeform that resembles aTralthan, but is less massive with stubbier legs projecting from a hemispherical carapace flared out slightly around the lower edges. The deployment of the legs and tentacles is similar to the Hudlar FROB life-form, but the carapace is a thicker ELNT Melfan shell without markings, and the FSOJ is plainly not herbivorous. From openings high on the carapace sprout four tentacles. Two different types of tentacles have been observed on different beings: long and particularly thin tentacles which terminate in flat, spear-like tips with serrated boney edges, and thick tentacles terminating in a cluster ofsharp, bony projections which make them resemble spiked clubs. The four stubby legs also have osseous pro-jections which enable them to be used as weapons as well. Midway between two of the tentacle openings there is a larger gap in the carapace from which protrudes a head, all mouth and teeth. The large upper and lower mandibles are capable of deforming all but the strongest metal alloys. A little space is reserved for two well-protected eyes at the bottom of deep, boney craters. A serrated tail also protrudes from the heavily slitted carapace. While the under-side is not armored, as is the carapace, this area is rarely open to attack, and it is covered by a thick tegument which apparently gives sufficient protection. In the center of this area is a thin, longitudinal fissure which opens into the birth canal. It will not open, however, until a few minutes before giving birth. The FSOJ brain is not in its skull, but deep inside the torso with the rest of the other vital organs. It is positioned just under the womb and surrounding the beginning of the birth canal. As a result, the brain is compressed as the embryo grows. If it is a difficult birth, the parent’s brain is destroyed and junior comes out fighting, with a convenient food supply available until it can kill something for itself Senior Physicians Conway’s first impression was that the entity was little more than an organic killing machine. Considering the fact that it is warm-blooded and oxygen-breathing, and its appendages show no evidence of the ability to manipulate tools or materials, Patholo-gist Murchison tentatively classified it as FSOJ and probably nonintelligent. The Unborn young of the bisexual FSOJ is retained in the womb until it is well-grown and fully equipped to survive. The Unborn is an intelligent and telepathic being, but loses these faculties at birth.
Classification: GKNM
Planet: Ia
Species: Ian (adult)
Individual: Patient Makolli
The metamorphosed form of the adolescent DBLF lifeform. The species created a colony in this galaxy, coming from an adjoining one. The race is oxygen-breathing and oviparous, having a long, rodlike but flexible body, and possessing four insectile legs, ma-nipulators, the usual sense organs, and three tremendous sets of wings. The lifeform looks something like a large dragonfly.
Classification: GLNO
Planet: Cinruss
Species: Cinrusskin
Individual: Senior Physician Prilicla
Cinrusskins are enormous, incredibly fragile flying insects, with a tubular exoskeletal body. Six sucker-tipped pencil-thin legs, four even more delicately fashioned, tiny, precise manipulators, and four sets ofwide, iridescent, and almost transparent wings project form the body. The head is a convoluted eggshell, so finely structured that the sensory and manipulatory organs that it supports seem ready to fall off at the first sudden movement. The eyes are large and triple
-lidded. The Cinrusskin are the Federation’s only empathic race. Cinruss has a dense atmosphere and one-eighth gravity. Cinrusskins are sexless.
Classification: LSVO
Planet: Nallaji
Species: Nallajim
Individuals: Kytili, Senior Physician Seldal
The species has a birdlike, fragile, low-gravity physiology, with three legs, two not-quite-atrophied wings, and no hands at all. When LSVOs eat, they are sickened by anything which doesn’t look like bird seed.
Classification: MSVK
Planet: Euril
Species: Eurils
No Individual Names Known
Fragile, bipedal, stork-like beings from a low gravity world. The MSVK environment has dim lighting and a opaque fog for an atmosphere. The race is driven by an intense curiosity and hampered by extreme caution. They are the galaxy’s prime observers, and are content to look and learn and record through their long-probes and sensors without making their presence known. MSVKs have a low tolerance to radiation.
Classification: OTSB
Planet: Traltha
Species: Tralthan
No Individual Names Known
Tralthan Surgeons are really two beings instead of one, a combination of FGLI and OTSB.The OTSB is a nearly mindless symbiont which lives with its FGLI host. At first glance the OTSB looks like a furry ball sprouting a long ponytail, but a closer look shows that the ponytail is composed of scores of fine manipulators, most of which incorporate sensitive visual organs. A cluster of wire-thin, eye and sucker tipped tentacles sends infinitely detailed visual information to its giant host and receives instructions from the host. The Tralthan combinations are the best surgeons the Galaxy has ever known. Not all Tralthans choose to link up with a symbiote, but FGLI medics wear them like a badge of office.
Classification: PVGJ
Planet: Unknown
Species: Name Unknown
Individual: Doctor Fremvessith
Apparent typographical error for Classification PVSJ.