The Zygote Crystal

by Ashley Thomas

  Cat, who had clearly noticed the Mud Lizard reaction said,

  “Looks to me likes it's you they want to communicate with.

  He then hovered up to be level with my shoulders and hung a thin, clear disc, about the size of my hand, around my neck.

  “What's that?” I asked.

  “A LinguiTab programmed for Mud Lizards,” said Cat. “You just need an earpiece and they should understand when you speak and you should be able to interpret them.”

  I looked at the Mud Lizard group and said “Right,” in my most authoritative tone, held out my hand for an earpiece, which Cat produced for me, and strode the short distance over to the Mud Lizards to pow-wow.

  The Inspector pow-wows

  I wasn't too sure which of the Mud Lizards to address so I just threw out a rather casual “Hi there guys,” without thinking.

  This caused some agitation amongst the Mud Lizards and resulted in a lot of screeching type grunts, or at least that’s how I would describe them. To date I hadn’t really heard them make noises before, other than slobbery slurping ones associated with the serious licking of my body. Anyways, my initial greeting brought nothing intelligible back from the LinguiTab to me.

  Cat, from his distance a few feet back said, “You idiot. You’re not talking to a bunch of your airhockey pals. The translator can’t work miracles. Try using more common Earth words and speak slowly.”

  With this advice I shifted over to the mode I had used on other planets when speaking to aliens and spoke very slowly, opening my mouth wide and enunciating very clearly. I am not sure exactly why I did this because as I was actually speaking into a translator that sort of visual signally really made no difference at all. Anyway I tried again with,

  “Greetings, my Mud Lizard brothers and sisters.”

  That resulted in more Mud Lizard screeching grunts, but still no words came out of the translator. This time though the grunts were accompanied by a lot of shaking and quivering of their amorphous bodies. I looked back at Cat in near desperation. He was doing his sitting back on his hind paws with his front paws over his eyes thing again. Then suddenly, words came through on the LinguiTab from one of the Mud Lizard group,

  “Eairrrhhh, what’s up doc?”

  I could feel my eyebrows rise and the skin on my forehead crease. I turned to Cat again and asked “Who programmed this translator? I take it not you?”

  “No not me,” responded Cat, “Someone back at the Directorate’s comms lab.”

  “Aha,” I said, “If we ever get back it might be a good idea to tell Leon in the lab, I’m guessing it was him, that not every life form watches re-runs of Bugs Bunny versus Godzilla. I mean I know Looney Tunes has been going a long time on Earth but it hasn’t really taken off much outside of our own Solar System as far as I know.”

  More parlay

  I decided to try to be more ‘looney tunes’ so turned back to the Mud Lizards and said through the translator “Whasssuppp dudes, good to talk.”

  This got total silence and a complete lack of movement on the Mud Lizards part, before one of them said through the translator, “We would speak with you, the leader, alone.”

  Now they were talking a language that made sense I decided. They had obviously been clever enough to identify who was calling the shots in the Earth team. Clearly the Mud Lizards were brighter than some of their taste suggested. I turned back to my companions and said,

  “Guys, I’m afraid the Mud Lizards want to talk to me alone. You know leaders pow-wowing with leaders. The troops sometimes just can’t be around. Can tend to make the conversations a little less open, if you know what I mean. So, not being rude or anything, but could you make yourselves scarce for a while?”

  Cat looked towards me and said “Okeydoke leader. Good luck with that one then.”

  “Thanks,” I said before Cat responded drily, “Actually, it was the Mud Lizards I was wishing good luck to.”

  Cat, Krokus and Joosthava then turned and walked out of the room. I turned back to the Mud Lizards and started to explain why we had come. I asked them how much they knew and whether or not they had already encountered Mud Lizards from the 23rd Century. The group of Mud Lizards huddled around me and started to explain.

  What felt like several hours later I emerged from the cavern and went down a long passage to emerge into sunshine, where I found my 3 companions sitting on rocks just outside the entrance to the Mud Lizards underground habitat. I was partially drenched once again in gooey stuff, this time from the Mud Lizards friendly farewell to me. I hadn’t really wanted to touch them at all but it seemed, from their firm insistence, that I had little choice given what sounded like established custom to them.

  “Why are you covered in goo again,” said Cat immediately as I appeared.

  “Never mind that,” I responded, “I have found out what’s been going on.” I sat down and began the story.

  “Well, these Mud Lizards are indeed very friendly but they are a minority group amongst the Jurassic Mud Lizards,” I said.

  “Minority in what way?” asked Cat.

  “I’m going to get to that. Will you please stop interrupting my flow,” I said indignantly.

  “Last thing I’d wish to do is to interrupt your flow. You’re normally so full of hot air any interruption could lead to an explosion that might hurt innocent bystanders,” responded Cat.

  Before the somewhat spiteful response that had formed in my head could make a verbal appearance, Joosthava interjected with “Oh do please continue with the news Inspector.”

  “Why of course Joosthava. If I could just have some quiet, I will.”

  Cat sat back on his rock and said “You won’t hear another peep out of me. Not a word. Not a miaow. Not a purr. Not even a sigh.”

  “Excellent,” I said and then continued, “The Mud Lizards we have met are a small group who decided, on grounds of belief, not to leave the Earth. They have decided to see out the strike of ChickenClub, or whatever the meteor that wipes out the dinosaurs and everything else got to be called. It seems that the ship bound ultimately for Plasmolidium, and carrying several hundred Mud Lizards who did decide to escape in good time, left Earth a while ago. I’m not sure how long ago because they measure time in a different way to us. But, as far as I can make out it was at most only a season ago, in that it was rainy when they left and it’s the sunny season now. In essence we’ve arrived at slightly the wrong time to intercept the Mud Lizards from our time”

  Cat interjected at this point to explain, “So, they would have left then no more than 3 months ago.” I glared at him and he then held one paw tightly over his lips to indicate his intention to return to silence. I duly continued.

  “Several seasons ago, the Jurassic Mud Lizards were first visited by time traveling Mud Lizards of the future. Just two came and initially they were very charming and the indigenous Mud Lizards actually at first thought they were a closely related species from another part of the planet.

  However, it was not long before the two visitors revealed their true colours and bullied and then killed one of the elders of the tribe as they tried to ascertain the hiding place on the planet of the Zygote Crystal. Eventually, through continuing threats and the use of some sort of nasty weapon that they carry, one of the remaining elders took the visitors to the hiding place of the crystal. The intention of the visiting Mud Lizards was to study the crystal and try to replicate it and its properties in some way. They knew that they couldn’t take it off the planet at that point in time. If they did this the capability of the Jurassic Mud Lizards to acquire the knowledge needed to quickly build the spaceship to transport them away from the Earth, might be impacted. If the Jurassic Mud Lizards never left Earth then the 23rd Century Mud Lizard might never exist. However, as much as they studied the crystal they could not work out how it did what it did. They could not risk too extensive experiments with it either as, of course, if they damaged it then they might again risk the Jurassic Mud Lizard escape expedition and their
own future.

  Having tried and failed to work out how the crystal worked its magic the two visiting Mud Lizards, one was called Yakh and the other was Ulth by the way, decided they would stay here until the ship was built and leave Earth with the escaping Mud Lizards. Then they could travel to Plamolidium and once they were as sure as they could be that future Mud Lizards would start to develop, they would then transport the Zygote Crystal to the 23rd Century.

  Whilst on Jurassic Earth, waiting for the ship to be completed, one or other of them would periodically pop back to extort more time batteries from Krokus and bring the spare batteries back to Jurassic Earth. This was so that once they were ready to safely take the Zygote Crystal away from its new home on Plasmolidium, they could be sure to have the necessary time battery power to vault back to the 23rd Century.”

  The Inspector sums up the situation and Cat plans

  “So that’s where we are,” I continued, the Jurassic Mud Lizard ship has now set sail in its search for a new planet to colonise. We know where it will wind up, Plasmolidium. On board is the Zygote Crystal and two Mud Lizard interlopers from our own time, waiting for a safe moment to grab the crystal and bring it to the 23rd Century.”

  Joosthava was the first to react to my summing up, saying “My goodness. I did not find out so much when I reconnoitred. We have to do something to stop Yakh and Ulth from moving the Zygote Crystal into the 23rd Century. With the Zygote Crystal in the hands of the Mud Lizard leadership in our time, we can be certain that Earth will not be safe.

  Joosthava, Krokus and I all turned to Cat and said in unison, “What are our options Mr. Cat?”

  I couldn’t quite believe I had said that at the same time as the other two, but then I was pretty stumped for what we should do. Despite the furry beast’s annoying general demeanour I had to admit he did have quite an expansive, and therefore one would imagine, quality brain. Cat looked pensive for a moment and then spoke.

  Cat pronounces

  “I think we have three options. First off we could try to eMDaDD onto the ship that has left Jurassic Earth. However, I fear that trying that with a moving craft, for all four of us would be too big a risk. Second, I suppose we could try to go back in time from here, to before the ship leaves. However, as again we don’t know exactly when the ship did leave, if we got it wrong we could use up all of our time battery reserves, not find them and then realise we have no time power left to get us home. With the best will in the World, Joosthava cannot time vault us all just under her own inherent time moving capability. So, I think the best thing to do is to time vault back to Messier 31. When we are there, Krokus and Joosthava can mine some additional time reserves for us. In the meantime I will undertake some research to see if I can find out as precisely as possible, from modern day Mud Lizard records, when their ship from Jurassic Earth landed on Plasmolidium. That information has to be somewhere in the Inter-Planetary Galaxy Annals.”

  As Cat finished I responded saying, “Good plan. Not too dissimilar to what I was about to suggest myself. Just one thing. What will I be doing whilst you and Krokus and Joosthava are busy?”

  Cat looked at me and said, “You’ll be doing what you always do the very best.”

  “Really,” I smiled, “And what’s that?”

  Cat hovered up to be opposite my face and said “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “Oh that’s charming,” I retorted, “Really charming, after all I did to get that information from our Jurassic Mud Lizard friends.”

  Back in the eMDaDD

  Joosthava came over to me and linked her arm in mine as we walked up to and then clambered back into the eMDaDD.

  She gazed at me and said “I don’t think Mr. Cat really meant what he said. He was just teasing. He likes to tease you.”

  I looked back at her and said, “He sometimes just goes too far you know.”

  Joosthava continued to try to soothe, saying, “Really I am sure he is as grateful as I am for what you did. I mean I know these Mud Lizards are friendly but they seemed to really trust you very quickly. How did you manage to relate to them so easily?”

  I smiled slightly as I said “Well my Dear Joosthava it’s like this.”

  At that I heard Cat say “Here he goes again,” but I ignored him and carried on adding,

  “I know with my experience that you have to go with the flow with alien life forms. Blend with the habits and culture no matter how different it might seem. You see I discovered very quickly that Mud Lizards greet each other by rubbing their noses, a bit like some ancient civilisations on Earth do. So you see once I knew that, I rubbed noses with them at every opportunity.”

  “Oh my…. I guess that’s why you are covered in slime again?”

  “Yes, yes, they all wanted to rub noses with me before I left, all 9 of them I think it was.”

  She stared a little wide eyed at me before saying “I am so impressed that you are prepared to go so far to get things done. I am not sure I could have brought myself to do the same.”

  I grinned saying “Come, come Joosthava, I know it’s a bit strange but it is only rubbing noses. Might pick up a germ or two but what’s the worst that I could catch from a Mud Lizard’s nose.”

  “Well I guess not much,” said Joosthava before she added “but the fact that a Mud Lizard’s nose is also its anus could mean all sorts of nasty accidents.”

  I stared at her briefly, my eyes frozen. I saw Cat rolling around on the floor of the eMDaDD clutching his sides with his front paws as he literally roared with laughter. I dashed to the SaniDroid to throw up. Meanwhile, Joosthava adopted her trancelike state and Krokus connected up some time batteries to head us back to Messier 31.

  Chapter 8 – The Plasmolidium Engagement

  Back at Messier 31

  We got back without issue to Messier 31, materialising at almost exactly the date and time that we had left. I had suggested going back a bit further timewise, so that we could get there before Yakh and Ulth picked up their last batch of time batteries, and use them ourselves. Joosthava cautioned against this however, as we might inadvertently distort, in unpredictable ways, key events that could have occurred after Yakh and Ulth left Messier 31 for the last time.

  Almost the instant we had stepped out of the eMDaDD at Messier 31, Krokus and Joosthava started mining more time to create fresh time batteries as quickly as possible. Whilst Joosthava and Krokus worked away, Cat went into deep analytical mode. He set about checking gazillions of air records for information about Mud Lizard history that would help reveal the exact date that the Jurassic Mud Lizards had arrived on Plamolidium. That left me to make detailed plans.

  This involved me in drinking a lot of coffee and lying down quite a bit so that I could focus my mind properly on what was obviously going to be a difficult, complex and dangerous mission ahead of us. As Cat himself had said to me just before he turned all his processors to the analysis, “GO away.”

  I took this as a sure sign that he needed me to clear my mind and work out our next steps.

  Thinking is such hard work

  After about four coffees and 7 episodes of Love Nebulus, I was bored. Cat was still analysing and nothing I said got a response from him. I decided therefore to practice with the Extermatron. We would almost certainly need that in what was coming up, and if anyone was going to wield this weapon it was going to be me. After all, I was on the Mud Lizard wanted posters not Cat, Joosthava or Krokus.

  I shut myself into one of the large cargo bays on the mining platform where I erected an internal barrifield to protect the inner walls of the bay. I also set up a few small metal crates as targets, imagining them to be big fat, slavering, slobbering Mud Lizards. I had quite a vivid imagination so this was not an issue for me. Joosthava had briefed me earlier on the Extermatron and I thought I knew enough to use it, and what I didn’t know I was sure I could work out. She had explained how it was a particle gun. Something about sub-atomic particles being charged highly enough to be shot with incredibly
high energy. When these particles hit animate or inanimate objects, the energy of the particles dissipates into the object and well, not to put too fine a point on it, Kaboom!! Not exactly her words but it’s pretty much what she meant.

  The Extermatron

  The Extermatron had been invented some years back, but hardly ever used as Earth had been at peace since the Mud Lizard war in 2170. The handheld version packed quite a punch by all accounts, which suited me. Though not much of a weapons guru I really fancied having something in my hand with which to fend off maniacal Mud Lizards intend on pulling me apart like a prawn. I suddenly thought though, how was I going to be able to tell the difference between Jurassic and modern day monster Mud Lizard? Hmmmm, that could be a problem. After all I wouldn’t want to blast a friendly one. I decided that was an issue for another day and instead set about working out how to fire the Extermatron in my hand.

  From what Joosthava had said to me it was a thought controlled weapon that had two main parts. There was the weapon bit of course, in my hand, and then there was the ‘thought’ bit that I had to hook over my ear, ensuring that the pads at each end of the ‘hooky’ bit made good contact with the side of my head.

  Getting ready to fire

  I set myself up, placing the thought receiver over my ear and then ensuring that the two critical pads were as flat as possible against the side of my head. This actually almost happened automatically. As I clipped the hook over and around my ear I could feel the pads move as if by magic and press gently against the side of my head. An instant later I could clearly see an image of the weapon in my hand, in my head.