“Great Gazma! Look at that!”
“There must be thousands of them!”
Actually there were barely hundreds of the glowing blips on the screen, but substantially more than the scant half dozen Zenobians crewing their own vessel.
“That’s interesting,” Masem said thoughtfully. “Look at these two-no, there’s a third! Flight Leftenant, these readings indicate there’s more than one intelligent life-form out there. It would seem that we’re being faced by a combined force of alien races, though one race is clearly in the majority.”
“I don’t care if they’re talking mushrooms!” Qual snapped. “There are more of them than there are of us-lots more-and probably armed, to boot. Stand by to lift off! We’re getting out of here while we can!”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Leftenant.”
“Now what, Masem?”
“Well, we used parts from the lift-off relays to repair the scanners … as you ordered, sir.”
Qual wondered briefly if the craft’s self-destruct mechanism was functioning, then remembered there wasn’t one.
“You mean we’re stranded here while an unknown hostile force is surrounding-“
“Leftenant! You’d better look at this!”
One of the blips had detached itself from the bulk of the force arrayed before them and was approaching their position.
“Quick! Put it on visual!”
The screen display changed to show the actual scene outside the ship. Whatever or whoever the blips had shown before were now visible behind brush and fallen trees, except for the one black-garbed figure standing out in the open.
“What a revolting creature.”