Page 106 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Fasting the Plastiphage

solar system LZ-34-9724. There’s only one man out there, so he must
be in trouble ! You’re the closest. Get cracking! Over and out.”
The screen faded and Captain Kaga jumped up, almost flying off
the floor in the low artificial gravity. He quickly changed the course of
Tycho Brahe and got back into the acceleration couch. As full power
kicked in, he was pressed against the spongy web; a few minutes later
the velocity reached maximum and he was able to move. He reached
over to the ComSet and called forth the latest report on Burdleim, a
planet with which he was totally unfamiliar.
The screen first displayed images of green Earth-like terrain, dotted
randomly by small villages. Then the lens zoomed in on a small city,
the center of which was dominated by a large stone structure. Then a
voice began narrating geophysical statistics, none very interesting to
Kaga. Finally the ethnographic report began.

No animal life other than human was detected on the
surface of Burdleim. Those people claimed to be the
descendants of a mythological winged creature called
Burdleim. The economy is agrarian, producing sufficient
grain and other staples to support life. The language has
been analyzed as containing many twenty-second century
Kamarbandian idioms; this enabled the identification of
the population as the descendants of the passengers and
crew of the Lollygag II, a spaceyacht that disappeared in
that era. Its owner and pilot was August Burdleim, a
wealthy but eccentric manufacturer of plastic toys.
Historical records indicate his party consisted of
eighteen men and twenty six women, among them
several plastics engineers and their wives.”

The screen filled with contemporary news reports of the
disappearance, over which the narrative continued.

The transmitter on the Lollygag II went dead during a
deepspace jump. It was assumed on Kamarband that all
the electrical systems had failed simultaneously, leaving
the ship in an unknowable location. A few rescue
attempts were made, to no avail. Burdleim’s ship in fact
managed to crash-land on this Earth-type planet. Its
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