Fabienne Gschwind - Star Map

Two aliens walking behind the crew were whispering to each other, but the microphones the crew was carrying were strong enough to pick up the dialogue and provide a translation.

"Well, I've seen many subspecies of Maxmales, but I've never seen such beautiful specimens."

"I agree, that light translucent skin is amazing and that cute head fur, too!

"And how do they smell? Wonderful! It's just the legs that bend funny."

"Well, I find their eyes fascinating, and I've only seen such elegant clothing on sculptures, but you're right, their legs really bend funny..."

At the front, the commander grunted a little, and the soldiers quickly fell silent.

Jay looked at his crewmates. They all knew each other so long that a glance was enough to communicate. And it was clear to all of them that the aliens were unaware that they were aliens. They were thought to be some kind of subspecies!

Jay decided to make this clear at the first opportunity. But there was no opportunity to do so because now they had to cross residential and office buildings. There was a simple pulley to hold on to and let them be pulled into weightless zones. In the apartment block, people discovered that more ropes were stretched through the weightless zones and that bags hung from them like bunches of grapes. Only a closer look revealed that they were sleeping bags in which the aliens were slumbering in zero gravity.

Kiki explained that according to the scanner, there were about 20’000 aliens on board. 1/5 of them were working, 1/5 had free time, and the rest were sleeping. "They seem to have a tremendous need for sleep," was her analysis.

But now they had arrived at the government block, as the soldier had called it. It was in the rear third of the ship, and the only difference was that carpets were on the floor and the artificial gravity was stable. All along the way, the crew had noticed; the gravity was fluctuating quite a bit and the air pressure was far from constant as well.

Finally, they stepped onto the bridge.

Well, it wasn't a bridge in the true sense of the word. In part, it looked like a mission control center, reminiscent of a medieval throne room and an open-plan office at the same time.

The bright light that was already everywhere in the ship was especially bright here, and almost too bright for the people who had to squint their eyes until they got used to it.

At the end of the room was an alcove surrounded by screens, probably the leader of the ship was sitting here. So far, there was no evidence that there were two genders among the aliens. But the captain of the ship with his tall stature and broad shoulders was automatically classified as male by the humans.

"Morchen, here are the Maxmales prisoners."

The alien captain turned around first and then waved a couple of staff members over.

He had them show him a projection of the Abhysal and consulted with his colleagues. It was clear that no one had seen a similar ship, and everyone wondered what it could be.

Finally, he stood up and went to the crew. "Maxmales, tell me right now, what kind of ship is this? Some new kind of spy ship?"

Jay stepped forward and hurried to explain. "This is a misunderstanding. We are not Maxmales. We're from the other side of the galaxy."

The software did its work and Jay's words were transmitted aloud.

The translation was correct, for it was as if a bomb had exploded. There was a moment of silence in the room, and the alien's skin began to pulse violently.

"You idiots, these are aliens! Why didn't anyone recognize this?" roared Morchen.

"Give them contamination clothing and send a disinfection team here, who knows what germs they're carrying."

After some confusion, the crew was given bulky plastic coveralls, and they were taken to medical services. They were now in a part of the ship where gravity was set to normal by human standards. You had the feeling of walking through a modern light metal building. However, the gravity plates definitely did not work as well as on the Abhysal and there were always fluctuations. Every now and then they passed pressure doors, sealing off individual sections from each other. This seemed to be urgently necessary, because again and again there were strong pressure fluctuations or strong draft winds. The lighting was somewhat less bright and quite pleasant for humans. Especially Joe and Nemo looked around with interest, trying to fathom and understand everything. Lex made sure that Milo was doing well. But he seemed to be fascinated by the aliens and looked at everything very closely. When they arrived at the sick bay it was time for Jay to stretch his head and take a look at everything. The doctors were also wearing these plastic tunics like everyone else, but they were dark brown. There were some structures that looked like big scanners and in one corner Jay saw some kind of projection zones where several medical people stood around pointing at projected medical holograms. Maybe they were discussing an operation they wanted to perform. Lex also looked around and sighed with relief. For a moment she had feared she was being taken to a modern torture chamber, but here too everything looked professional and peaceful. An alien with a brown apron and several rank signs on his shoulders rushed up. The crew understood through the translation devices that it was the chief physician.

The chief there waved them off in a panic, and his skin turned purple: "Aliens? What? No, we are not responsible for that. That's something for exobiologists."

So, they began another trip through the ship. Again and again they passed residential quarters using these transport ropes. The heat was becoming unbearable for the crew members and the plastic overalls they were wearing were damp with sweat.

The excitement at the office of the Biologist was even greater, "I'm an exo-botanist! What do I want with aliens, do they look like plants?"

Nemo almost had to laugh, the whole situation reminded him of a slapstick comedy. But he pulled himself together not to frighten the aliens. For lack of an alternative, the soldier leader took them to the astronavigation room. Here a large map of the Milky Way was displayed and Nemo pointed to the edge of the Milky Way on Earth. "That's our home planet."

The astronomer then pulled out a camera of some sort and asked for a group photo with the aliens.

Finally, they were returned to medical services and taken to a quarantine room. They were able to remove their suits; all were drenched in sweat. "I thought I was going to pass out," Lex said, fanning herself to get some additional cooling.

A couple of doctors began exams, taking skin swabs, collecting breath samples, and packing everyone into some sort of MRI.

In the meantime, more than six hours had passed, and the thirst was becoming unbearable. In the dry 30 degrees, everyone had chapped lips and dry throats. So, they asked for water. But the doctor wanted to make sure there was no translation error, so he called a chemist with a periodic table. In the end, they didn't want to poison the foreigners.

Joe and Nemo puzzled for 10 minutes until they understood the spiral structure of the periodic table. "Just pay attention to the number of protons..." said Joe and so, she pointed to the atom with one proton for hydrogen and the one with 8 protons for oxygen.

And then to sodium and chlorine, after all, they had to replace the sweaty minerals.

The chemist immediately understood that she meant water and table salt and promised to come back immediately.

But unfortunately, he misjudged the amount of water. And they asked him to bring more.

In the meantime, all sorts of scientists had gathered outside the quarantine room and were peering through the glass door. Despite the closed door, the microphone could translate their words. They were arguing about the possible metabolism of aliens.