Page 24 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Persuading the Zookeeper of Apadat

“Look!” he exclaimed. “Look what’s coming up that road from the
town!”
All eyes turned to view the battered old conveyance slowly making
its way toward the gleaming spacecraft and the knot of PKU officers
standing nervously beside it. The cart was drawn by a pair of woolly
hexapods, their shaggy heads swinging rhythmically as they advanced.
The passengers were three creatures of a type Kaga had never
before seen, in person or in VidLit. They had torsos and limbs and
sensory organs, as might be expected, but everything about them was
of a shape, proportion, and placement far removed from the human
form. Each alien had two symmetrical sets of limbs: a long thick pair
starting at the top of its body and terminating in prehensile bird-like
claws that gripped a pole mounted across the inside of the wagon,
and a smaller, shorter pair that began near the bottom of the torso
and appeared very loose-jointed all the way down to delicate hand-like
extremities. The eyes, mouth, ears, and other external organs and
apertures all appeared on the lower portion of the bulbous bodies; the
upper part was mostly taken up by huge socket joints for the
powerful outer limbs. The skin of the creatures was pale blue and
reflected light like oilcloth.
They halted their wagon about ten meters away from the PKU
contingent and hopped down, landing lightly on their longer limbs.
They ambled a bit closer and stopped. The trainees edged back a few
paces.
“Steady, men,” said Admiral Borjug. “This is going very well,
indeed.” He walked a few steps toward the strange trio. He stopped,
adjusted his Languex, and pointed to his mouth. “Hello, hello,” he
said, then pointed to the creatures.
At once they started talking among themselves in a melodious
growl. The PKU officers watched the indicator lights on their
Languex controls, waiting for the devices to register mastery of the
new language. The Admiral’s light went on first, his proximity to the
speakers enabling his Languex to function faster.
“Greetings,” he said. “We come in peace for the betterment of all
intelligent life and the establishment of universal prosperity.”
The creatures stopped still, amazed, Kaga supposed, to hear words
in their own language coming out of a small box slung around
Borjug’s shoulder. Then they began speaking together again. By now,
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