Alcantaran 1: Alien Abduction by Terry Compton Read Free Book Online Page B

declared smugly.
    “I see.   Do you get a lot of salvage ships?   Where do they come from?” Tik asked.
    “That is none of your business.   Just concern yourself with quickly and properly classifying the parts as they come in.   It is critical you weigh, classify and enter proper numbers for the salvaged fuel.   There are five grades of fuel and we don’t want to mix them,” Wurden stated haughtily.
    “What happens when you mix them?   Do they blow up?” Tik asked innocently.
    “It most certainly does not.   The mother ship has too many safeguards for that to happen.   All it does is to degrade the fuel which makes the ships and equipment use it up faster!” Wurden declared pompously.
    Tik held her tongue and went to work.   She had trouble guessing what the parts were and how they should be classified.   Wurden was very impatient and she still wasn’t feeling all that well.   Tik was holding her temper but just barely.   She was fairly slow and toward the end of the day two messenger robots brought parts and set them on the counter for her to classify.   She was concentrating on the computer and didn’t notice the large creature encased in the safety gear approaching.   The creature moved rather clumsily in the protective gear and when it walked by the counter, it bumped into the robot delivering a part, causing the robot to dump the part right in Tik’s lap.   Her tight hold on her temper snapped and she leaped on the counter and was ready to attack the robot when she saw the cause of the problem.
    She started screaming at the large creature, “You big lummox.   Why don’t you watch where you are going?   You’ve damaged this robot and almost killed me.   Did you do that on purpose?”
    The creature just kept walking -- completely ignoring her.   It walked into the energy-shielded cubicle for recycling salvage fuel.   The robot on the deck couldn’t get up, so it lay there thrashing around, trying to find a foot-hold or something.   It started making a beeping alarm sound that added to the commotion.   Another messenger robot was trying to get to the counter and couldn’t get around the one on the deck.
    Just then Wurden glided up on his disk and asked, “What is going on here?   Why are you standing on the counter instead of entering parts?”
    “Just look at that big clumsy ox.   He knocked that messenger robot over and knocked this part on top of me.   I was almost killed and that thing just keeps shuffling along like it doesn’t understand plain old everyday Mis'stear," Tik complained.
    "It doesn't understand Mis'stear.   It’s a Sandghost from the planet Prokne.   It has some fuel to weigh, classify and log in.   Go tend to it and I will get this robot upright.   You are falling behind and need to get more proficient at your job," Wurden stated primly, like he was talking to a small child.
    Tik complied but was muttering under her breath the whole time about big clumsy Sandghosts and smart-alecky Bugs.   She classified the fuel, logged it in and then went back to her counter.   There were two messenger robots waiting and she still had to catalog the part that had been dumped in her lap.   She concentrated on her job but kept muttering periodically.   Finally the day was over and Wurden came to lead her away to the dining hall and her cell.   She was toward the middle of the line but she noticed they stopped to pick up a very large creature that looked like it had been sculpted out of sand.   Wurden seemed in a hurry to get them all bedded down so he didn't give Tik much chance to study the large creature.
    The large creature sat at the table behind Tik in the dining hall so she just ignored it.   She had programmed the mother ship computer to make the fluid with the extra vitamins and minerals as part of her meal.   She made sure that she drank every bit of it.   She tried her usual gambit of trying to establish communication with no better luck than she had at