Page 89 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Recounting the Binary Neeks

After staring at the hypnotic starblur patterns of warp space
through a portlens for a few minutes, Captain Kaga began to relax.
This was not the first time Lieutenant Lugo needed bailing out: but
why did it have to happen while he, Kaga, was vacationing in the
Pleiades? Ah well, it would be good to see the rascal again; it was
years since that affair with the Vegimals had brought them together,
albeit briefly. And perhaps he could help his friend without it going
on either of their records, since he was still off-duty for three weeks.
Lugo’s enigmatic message had found Kaga recumbent in a hot
mud bath, slowly baking his aching joints and connective tissue. It
was no more than “Urgent need assistance P3947-S5853-G9421
Lugo.” The planetary designation was now registered in Kaga’s
navigational unit. The brevity of the communication irked him, but
he realized it couldn’t be helped: a private deepspace call made a
heavy dent in a field officer’s salary, and Lugo obviously hadn’t
wanted to advertise the nature of his problem.
Kaga checked his ETA. Time enough for another viewing of the
ethnographic data. He skipped the scanner on the ComSet past the
introductory frames and got to the heart of the report. It had been
filed by a member of the exploratory mission.

Physically, the intelligent species is multi-limbed, land-
dwelling, visually binocular, endoskeletal with reptilian
epidermis; average weight of adult, 140 kilograms; average
body length, 2.5 meters; life span, fifty local years (193
Terran years); reproduction oviparous. Population of this
species is limited to continent C3 in the tropical zone; rough
aerial census gave about 1.5 million inhabitants.

The most significant physiological determinant of culture is
the single prehensile digit on each limb. Limbs are used for
locomotion and for grasping; their number, bilaterally
symmetrical, varies from twenty-four to thirty. It has been
observed that each individual develops an idiosyncratic mode
of locomotion, depending on the number of limbs employed

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