Three days later the RayRunner, an amazing new ship with motive power supplied by cosmic rays, which were concentrated by means of a vast telescoping collector and carefully crafted crystal lens, lifted off into space from the Nevada desert, carrying with it the hope of all mankind.

Aboard the ship, Captain Sherilyn Spycer, emerald green eyes narrowed in exasperation, walked rapidly down the passageway from the control room, having seen the ship safely past lunar orbit and relinquished control into the hands of her First Officer.

Trotting along beside her, trying to keep pace with her long strides, was an eager-faced young man in dark trousers and a white lab coat. Of slightly less than average height, with curly brown hair and bright brown eyes, he radiated enthusiasm.

"I assure you, Captain," he said in a confident tenor voice, "that I will do my utmost to resolve this regrettable situation between the citizens of the solar system and whatever denizens of the outer galaxy may be responsible for the impending menace. Communication is the key to intergalactic understanding!"

"Yeah, yeah, fine."

The Captain, 176 centimeters of voluptuous, redheaded, womanhood, lengthened her stride until Lefarge was almost running to keep up.

"I don't know what General Dickerson was thinking of, to send you out here without an up to date biorec!"

"Well, I rather imagine that Uncle George ... General Dickerson, that is, felt that since we're not going into a declared war zone, or anything like that, a bio recording wasn't really necessary."

Captain Spycer muttered something under her breath about the General's maternity. "Do you just happen to have a translator chip?" she asked sarcastically, "or is that something else the General figured you wouldn't need?"

"I've got that, sure," Lefarge said cheerfully, tapping his right ear. "Had one for years. There's not much point in collecting alien speech recordings if you can't understand them!"

They turned a corner and passed a tall, scaly, red lizard walking on its short hind legs and dressed only in a uniform jacket and hat. The lizard executed a smart salute, and scurried on by, its meter and a half triangular tail held stiffly out behind it.

Dr. Lefarge stopped short and stared at the retreating back of the alien with widening eyes. "What is that?"

The Captain stopped in mid-stride and gave him an annoyed glance. "He is Colonel Krabchake, and he's Professor Groppe's personal aide. Haven't you ever seen a Deltonian sauroid before?"

"Ah, well no. Not in person, that is. He looks a lot bigger than on the tri-dee."

"I thought you were an expert on extees and extee culture."

"Oh, I am!" he said, watching nervously as the large, scaly, red Colonel vanished into another passage. "I've lectured all over the world on aspects of extee interactions."

The Captain tapped the toe of her left boot on the cushioning tiles of the passageway floor. "Tell me," she said, green eyes narrowing suspiciously, "have you ever actually been off-world?"

"Well, not really," Dr. Lefarge said, bright brown eyes blinking. "I did go on a week-long lunar tour with my parents when I was ten, though."

Captain Spycer threw up her hands. "How can you claim to be an expert when you've never even met an alien!" she demanded.

Dr. Lefarge's chest swelled proudly "I have my personal twelve-million-page library on vu-cubes in my luggage!"

The Captain snarled something unprintable and continued rapidly down the passageway, trailing the eager anthropologist like a miniature satellite.

"I'm really looking forward to meeting Professor Groppe," Lefarge said, panting slightly as he bounded along behind her. "Everyone agrees that his absence from the lecture circuit since the accident has been a true tragedy!"

"And his absence from the classroom since he lost his body has been a boon to all struggling female grad students!" the Captain said shortly.

Her beeper went off and she paused to answer it, pointing toward a waist-high counter that was locked across a side passage as she punched keys.

"Tell them you want a full rec, Lefarge!"

The anthropologist trotted over to the counter. Behind it, a grizzled sergeant was leaning back in his jump seat, staring vaguely at a tri-dee pinup of a pneumatic blonde on the bulkhead, and meditatively chewing a wad of spiceweed.

"Ah, hello there," Dr. Lefarge said, waving to catch his attention. "I need a full biological recording."

The sergeant swiveled his weathered face, parked his cud in one cheek, and looked the anthropologist up and down. "Well, now, Sonny. I might be able to work you in, in a couple of days."

"Now, Sergeant!" Captain Spycer snapped, walking up to the counter behind Lefarge, "and get that wad out of your face!"

"Yes ma'am! Captain! Sir!" The sergeant leaped to his feet with a thunderous salute, gulped, and swallowed hard. A look of anguish crossed his face.

The Captain checked the chronometer set into the cuff of her left gauntlet. "We jump in twenty-three minutes, Sergeant. I want this man recorded and strapped down in ten!" She turned on her heel and walked rapidly back down the passageway, leaving the two men staring after her.

"Right this way, Son ... sir," the sergeant said weakly, and belched.

"So, we're off to save the solar system again."

Lt. Peter Decade, listed on the manifest as PTR-10, regarded the Captain calmly through his iridescent black eyes. In so far as the two-meter tall duraluminum robot could express emotion, he sounded mildly interested.

"More than that," Captain Spycer said. She looked around the conference table. "If the menace of V4641 is allowed to continue, it isn't merely the solar system that will suffer. Any star system which comes in range of that ravening maw of a black hole may be destroyed as well."

The juliaset jump was two hours behind them, and the RayRunner was back under normal power, moving steadily toward its destination in the depths of galactic space. Every member of the officer and support team convened in that room understood the gravity of the mission they were about to undertake.

At the far end of the table Colonel Krabchake, who looked like an over sized crimson version of your average fence lizard, drummed his front talons nervously on a large crystal globe that was sitting on the table in front of him. Mounted on a golden base, with what looked like a pair of gold-colored earmuffs strapped across the top of it, it resembled a seer's gazing ball.

"Will you cut that out?" an irritable voice said from the globe. "Dammit, all of that tapping is giving me a headache!"

The lizard-like alien withdrew his talons hurriedly, hissed an apology, and straightened his silver and blue uniform jacket.

All eyes fastened on the globe.

There was a swirl of bubbling white motion within it as Professor Andre Groppe--or rather, the head of Professor Andre Groppe--attempted to blow the floating wisps of his white beard and mustache out of his eyes.

"I doubt that there will be any problems," the head said in a tone of self satisfaction. "Once it becomes evident to the aliens that we are of a higher order of intelligence, they will abandon their nefarious plot. I, of course, will begin the negotiations. My current aspect, inconvenient those it sometimes is, will doubtless impress them with our advanced technology."

Dr. Brian Lefarge, who was seated next to Peter Decade, leaned over toward the comfortably placid robot and whispered, "How does he talk without vocal cords?"

"Modulated sensors," Peter said in a casual undertone. "They detect the lip and tongue motions, translate them into phonic equivalents and amplify them through the disk pads on either side of the globe, which also provide audio pickup that is channeled directly to the brain. The metal band across the top connects the pads and provides stereophonic sound." The robot considered. "It's also very handy for picking him up."

"Oh," Brian said, trying to digest this. "But what keeps him, well ... alive? Sort of alive, I mean."

"Electricity," Peter said, in a kindly tone. "The nutrient solution in that globe is forced into the very tissues of his being by Brownian motion produced via electrical impulses." He paused and then added in clarification, "Four watch batteries in the base, actually."

The scaly red Colonel stirred restlessly in his chair across the table and rather absentmindedly reeled out a half-meter of glistening pink tongue to lick his forehead.

Captain Spycer looked at him speculatively, then sighed and cleared her throat. "Lieutenant Forte has been on the scopes and can tell us about the system we are about to enter. Lieutenant?"

"Yes, well, it's an interesting system," the Science Officer said, straightening a thick pile of print-outs and handing them left, to the Captain, who took one stapled set from the top of the pile and handed the remainder on to Lefarge, who followed suit. He then went to the door and opened it for a nervous-looking young yeoman, who carried in a small projector and set it down on the end of the table.

"Would someone get the lights, please?"

The room darkened, and a round white circle around a fuzzy black shape appeared on the far wall. The audience peered at it.

"Ah, Professor Groppe, would you move your head, please?"

There was a click of talons as Colonel Krabchake slid the professor's globe out of the projector beam, and a diagram appeared in its place. After a moment, a bright red laser pointer stabbed at the image, indicating the two circles which were connected by a dotted line.

"Basically, it's a binary system, where the star, V4641, and the associated microquasar revolve around each other while maintaining a forward motion. Forward, that is, in so far as it is considered in relationship to our own solar system. Next slide please."

A new diagram, which included two more circles and two more dotted lines, appeared on the wall, and the audience mumbled, trying to sound out the alien words inscribed on it.

"I think that one is in backwards," Lt. Forte said tightly.

An embarrassed, "Sorry, Sir!" was followed by a plain white rectangle on the wall, and then the corrected image.

"In addition to the binary pair," Lt. Forte continued, "there are what appear to be two planets in orbit around V4641. Next slide, please."

A rather fuzzy photograph of a light colored object appeared.

"The reflective albedo from this smaller one," Lt. Forte said, indicating the solitary object with his laser pointer, "which I have dubbed Forty-One-A, suggests that it may be an artificial planetoid, designed and set in place especially to maintain equilibrium between the star and artificial quasar."

"Artificial?" queried Prof. Groppe. his white mustache curling up into his eyes in his excitement. "Did you say artificial quasar?"

"Umm? Didn't I mention that?" Lt. Forte said. "Quite artificial, yes."

"How can you tell?" Groppe demanded.

"Well, it's shaped like a big funnel, you see. Big open mouth full of raging blackness at the large end; that sort of thing. Sort of a plated metallic look at the little end. I assume that's where the steering apparatus is located. If you will check though the handout, you'll find a chart on page 46 explaining my conclusions more thoroughly. Lights, please."

The lights came on, the nervous yeoman left toting the projector, and the Science Officer sat down to a smattering of applause.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Forte," the Captain said. "I'm sure we all appreciate your excellent presentation of this highly technical material."

"Are there any signs of life?" a querulous voice came from Prof. Groppe, who was squinting behind his rampant mustache.

"Not yet," Captain Spycer said. "By this time tomorrow we will be within better observation range and can examine the surface of the two outrigger planets to locate any signs of civilization."

"There is the chance that the movement and direction of this system which endangers our own galaxy is computer controlled; set in place by an alien race now long dead and now merely fulfilling it's long-ago programmed function," Peter Decade said, musing.

"If that's the case," the Captain said, idly twirling a lock of her burnished red hair around one forefinger, "we'll just blow it to smithereens and go back home again."

"Oh no!" Dr. Lefarge said, shocked. "Surely not! Why, think of the limitless opportunities there may be for studying the artifacts of an alien civilization."

"Not to mention sssurveying it, and dividing up the parcelsss for real essstate expansssion," Col. Krabchake hissed agreeably. "Ssset up a flag, lay claim to the sssystem, and sssell it off to some big conglomerate for development."

An acquisitive glint appeared in the Captain's emerald green eyes. "Someone could build a couple of five-star hotels, with docking facilities and viewing decks, on that artificial planetoid."

"We are members of the Solar Command Force," Peter chided them gently in his simulated baritone voice, "and as such do not fly under the flag of any nation."

"Not me," Prof. Groppe said cheerfully, his white beard floating in the nutrient solution as his lips moved. "I'm merely a civilian employee of the Service and I'll be more than happy to handle the commercial end. Those damned watch batteries cost a fortune."

Captain Spycer checked the chronometer set into the cuff of her left gauntlet. "It's getting late and about time for shift change. I suggest we all get what sleep we can, and then address the problem when we're in range to see what's really out there."

She reached across the table and, lifting Prof. Groppe's globe by the golden bail across the top, smiled into the head's watery blue eyes.

"I'll just take the Professor along with me. There are some things that we need to discuss in private. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Professor?"

"No! I'll close my eyes," the professor said defiantly. "I won't look!"

"Yes, you will," she cooed at him.

"NO! I won't look when you pull open your uniform and unhook your black lace bra and step out of your scanty black panties and ... and..."

"Sure, you will. You can't help yourself," she said, gloating.

Dr. Brian Lefarge stared at them, perplexed. "But I thought we were going to solve all of our problems through round-table discussions," he said, a worried look in his bright brown eyes.

Peter Decade, leafing through the handout, remarked, "There are a few things that are more easily solved when referred to committee."

Lt. Forte nodded as he gathered up his slides, and the scaly red Colonel merely licked his eyelids.

"Why do you do this to me?" A low groan came out of the golden earmuffs.

"Do you remember when I was a graduate student, assigned to you?" Captain Spycer asked.

"Do I!" Groppe's eyes rolled around at the other members of the group. "You should have seen her," he said, in a voice that managed to sound sour even filtered through the acoustical sensors. "Limp hair, glasses, thirty pounds over weight, and a bad case of zits! Look what I did for her, just look!"

"And do you remember just what you got in exchange?" the Captain asked sweetly, tossing her red-gold hair back over her shoulders. "Just think of tonight as a fair exchange for the, ah ... favors you got from every nervous female grad student who passed through your sweaty and lecherous little hands."

A low moan came out of the professor's globe. "Why, why, did I have to lose my body? Why?"

"Just retribution, probably," Peter commented, as the Captain tucked Groppe under her arm and headed out into the passageway.