Chapter 10

There are people who argue about coincidence. Some for and some against. This so called phenomenon of happenstance could in fact be the doings of a governing mechanism, operating on some sort of a sophisticated feedback system, a truly successful negative feedback process control indeed with a cent percent efficiency. Many things that happen in our lives; seemingly disjointed events can be tied up one day, as stray streamlets join a meandering river and go on to meet the ocean. Would you call it a coincidence that Warty happened to just wander into Frampy’s abode? Of all the places where he could have sought refuge, he had to walk into one where people were awaiting him to fall into their scheme of things? Would it be a coincidence that Baro and Sageroloi have set out to meet the very person who stands at the crux of the recent shake-up and not just an information source? Doesn’t all this have a pawnish feeling to it? That someone at the controls is adept at playing it in such a way that you seem to be in control of your life?

Warty was getting a run down of the procedure of lift off and all the ephemeral set-ups that have to be done, semi-dazed by the fact that Clementine was next to him.

Warty and Clementine were to take the Infireflecto©. This was an ingenious invention of Frampy. Warty was stumped at the prospect of such an apparatus. A hybrid variety of a concave and convex mirror combination was used. This was placed under controlled conditions with the facility where the transport is being done free of any substance that can absorb the EM waves. There were two mirrors, one a 2D rendering of the traveler, the other in the form of a suit molded to the traveler’s physique (this in order to restrict external reflection) with the radius of curvature so large that it was almost entirely flat. The source of external illumination was placed along the principal focus of the mirror, and needless to say, at the focal point of the mirror. On an experimental run, the controlled reflection reached such an increased magnitude of focused energy, that the photons were compressed (thereby negating the theory that says photons cannot be compressed, but can only annihilate and recreate themselves!) With the appropriate amount of energy on this ball of matter Frampy postulated that he could curl up the strings of the basic particles, by the belief that all particles in fact can be traced to the squiggles of a string with length of 10 raised to the power of -33. This was a theory left unfinished by the ex-humans. This curling up would lead to a space-time warp facilitating a time or space travel. The only problem for Frampy was the energy source. He needed as much as quadrillion times the energy of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva that was built by some of the scientists of the NC before the calamity struck. The energy build up of the LHC was 3 times 14 TeV where 1 Tera electron volt, TeV = 1 million million electron volts.

His informant provided Frampy with a solution to this problem, thereby cementing his claim that he was indeed the holder of a higher office in the establishment. He had also sealed his fate by this disclosure. If this thing ever got out, which it eventually would, two things could happen to him. If it failed, he would be subjected to the worst possible treatment that anybody could ever fathom at the hands of both the NC and the Teglicans. If it succeeded, he could become a life savior and a noted revolutionary who almost single handedly blew to smithereens a dictatorial government of unquantifiable reprehensibility. A devilry whose brimstony odor is just beginning to seep out of their seemingly air-tight society.

The so called energy source was infact a very novel idea that could only be dreamt of. It made use of the tectonic energy dissipated due to the heightened crust movements on earth. These movements were because of the immense amount of alteration in the earth’s displacement along its orbit. The sun was reaching its end of a main sequence star status and edging towards its red giant stage. It was expanding in size, thereby increasing the gravitational pull exerted on its planets. The temperature changes inflicted were also immense and the NC countered this by moving most of its offices to subterranean levels, this move was also hampered by the crust movement and the topmost priority of the NC right now was to relocate. The gravitational pull was not uniform anymore and it caused the earth to wobble and warble. It altered its rotation as well as revolution speeds. The tectonic plates sloshed about like lumps in a broth. The energy let out was immense and the informer had given Frampy just a clue to the source. He hadn’t spoon fed the information but let Frampy work out the details of the contraption.

Frampy had known that the houses on earth were built on a modernized suspension system that buffered them from the earthquakes that raked the earth everyday. He had expected an ordinary oil and spring suspension system. But the NC, considering the amount of strain these suspension systems underwent and the amount of energy that had to be dissipated for these suspension systems to work sans rocking, had harnessed this to-be-dissipated energy to power most of their machinery in their laboratories and used the conventional electricity for the civilian population. This tectonic energy usage was another one of those classified leaves out of the NC’s book that was kept away from the general know how. All Frampy had to do was lay an illegal tap on the main grid of the underground network of energy transmitters to power his enginery.

All this was too much for Warty to take, he concentrated only on how to operate the machine and to save both his and Clementine’s hides. He had to don the specially crafted suit and was to board his capsule; Clementine was to travel in another one. Initial set up to reach Teglico was already done. He had to practice for his return journey, which too was programmed; Warty just had to execute a sequence of steps that would invoke the return to earth sub routine. In Warty-ese, he just had to punch a series of colored buttons. He remembered them as

“Red Blue Green Yellow,

Come back and whack the shit out of this fellow!”

Chapter 11

In the seemingly far off Teglico, Baro was struggling to conceal his surprise which Sageroloi was so blatantly showing on his face. The tools arrayed in front of him and the concepts that went behind building this, coupled with the task at tentacle gave him a sense of unreality. He wanted to believe he had somehow wandered into the mind of one of those yarn-spinners when they are dreaming one of those dreams that eventually lead to their yarns. He was not much of a book reader and the depth of his imagination was pretty shallow. He tended to look down on people who could read tomes as their pass time and for some as livelihood. He respected those who wrote them even less. He didn’t care much for the contents of the book that were either extrapolation or interpolation of whatever was available on tentacle. No good comes out of these chimerical thoughts that only transported one to a make-believe place temporarily, giving them a sense of false gratification and satisfaction with their lives. The more fantastical the theory the harder the crash land of the person on return to reality. They lose touch with fact and view everything with a jaundiced eye, colored by fiction, always anticipating a mythical creature to jump out of a bush or expecting to unearth some crazy conspiracy that would somehow explain why they turned out to be such losers. But today, the day belonged to the geeks alright; mayhap these freaks who called themselves scientists drew inspiration for their gadgets from one of those no-gooders they call sci-fi.

The sequence was simple. First up was transportation, then came survival and finally once they’ve succeeded in accomplishing the first two, they would need the apparatus for whatever task they’ve been sent to accomplish. Then it was steps two and one, reversed, for their return journey.

The Ray Illume© which Baro and Sageroloi were supposed to take, was a sophisticated concept that had taken the Bernoulli’s principle to a higher level. It had to be taken to a higher level by the Teglicans, given the fact that Bernoulli was a human. It had to be built upon; no Teglican could just pick something up with even a hint of human contribution in its history and use it up, could he?

In lay-teglican’s terms, the technology was an improved method of “riding the rod”. For the more cognitive, Bernoulli had postulated that when an object is moving at a very high speed, due to the high velocity with which it is moving, the pressure about the object would fall, sucking up any thing in its kinetic envelope at its wake because the pressure on the other sides of the said thing would be greater than the side facing the moving object. But as space travel elicited transport through vacuum, this differing air pressure posed a problem. This was solved by using microbots that were capable of building a conduit for the light as well as the traveler to pass through all the way to the destination. This was done before the actual procedure of transport started which consisted of concentrating the EM waves of the sun or any nearby star into a single beam of very high intensity through the conduit. The intensity would be so much so that the waves would start having a kind of presence, giving the illusion of a train moving with the velocity of light. This beam was trained on the destination of travel via conduit and on reaching the maximum buildup of energy; the traveler was literally shot into the periphery of the beam. The aperture from which the traveler is shot should be opened only for a fraction of a second so that the pressure build up is not affected. The projectile velocity should also be carefully adjusted so that the person did not directly enter the path of the beam. On being introduced, the traveler is carried forth to the destination with the speed of light; he or she hurtles through space in a pod. On reaching the atmosphere of the planet under consideration, the on-board motors of the pod kick-in executing a series of propeller bursts that detach the traveler from the beam. The traveler would then breach the atmosphere and land on terra-firma (not always so, in some cases, they’ve lost test subjects to boiling pools of miasma that fizzle them out like candy). But as is to be expected, their pod would be beyond use on landing owing to atmospheric friction. The geeks had remedied this by inventing inflatable pods, a spare or two of which were always on board.

This Ray Illume© technology was handicapped in two respects. One, as the travel is established at the speed of light and as microbots were used to build a tunnel, it limited the scope of cross-galaxy travels in the lifetime of a single traveler. Two, the return beam had to be generated by the ground support in Teglico regardless of where the traveler is, this necessitated the requirement of a boosted up communication device with a very broad range of coverage to transmit the exact co-ordinates for beam orientation. There was nothing that could be done about problem number one; they were planning to float this scheme as an alternate method of public transport to nearby destinations. Problem number two was tackled by revamping the boosters used by humans to strengthen their RF signals.

The geeks justified this lengthy not quite required monologue to Baro and Sageroloi by telling them that this was still under testing and they would be the first teglicans to use the Ray Illume©. Next up was survival.

Chapter 12

In his career as a 5^th level watchercrop; Baro has had a passing acquaintance with the kind of rudimentary self-defense as well as assault weapons of the earthlings. Most of them seemed to be based on the now obsolete ballistic propulsion, the basic primer, propellant and projectile idea and a few had gone ahead and harnessed the not so distantly obsoleted guiding systems using IR, imaging, RADAR or Satellites. The teglicans considered themselves quite well bred in their weapons arsenal front. Theirs was largely a peace loving community with little squirmishes and squabbles at times, which were nipped within a matter of seconds of their conception, going on to prove the might of their law and order. They were rather into the “forestalling of the expected” adage rather than finding a “nostrum for the ail” one. Baro was to carry his LAZECLIPR©, which was a regular government issue. It was a basic power diode bar with the ability to sear away a body part neatly as well as cauterize the wound as the watchercrops wouldn’t want the criminal to die from blood loss. For a teglican cretin, following the confrontation a trip to the local body shop to get the best fit followed by a visit to the nearby sew doctor would be enough to reverse the negation. If the injury had been something uncalled for, the establishment would take up the damages suffered and in certain severe cases of personal rivalry spilling onto the judicial practice; the shooter was made to lose a part of his body to replace the one lost by the sufferer. In case of humans, the teglicans so blinded by their prejudice towards the species, almost invariably put them to death and hence the question of a body part replacement never occurred.

Sageroloi, a first leveler was also given an unmarked LAZECLIPR© and was asked to turn in his Electrostaf©. Apart from this, between them, they were to carry a MemModfr© each in order to scramble the memories of those unfortunate enough to stray into their paths, a bushel full of regular tranquilizers that were spring loaded along the inside of their good tentacle, for Baro his right foremost and Sageroloi his left hindmost. These were accompanied by Dazzlrs© that could be tuned to emit light of certain wavelength that would momentarily blind the opponent, a phenomenon that would last for almost 10080 seconds, one human week. They were also carrying one Hootr© apiece that were tuned to emit high pitch sound waves that were known to scramble to brains of the humans thereby making them lose their cognition awhile.

Apart from his other responsibilities, Baro also had the added responsibility of reigning in the enthusiasm of Sageroloi lest he start using his Hootr© or Dazzlrs© just for the heck of it. The travelers were also told that the weapons that they were being given operated on a limitless power source, namely light. Even the bleakest of light would be enough to recharge the circuits but under night conditions the weapons would run from reserve, but this was true only for the dead night conditions, even a light from a torch would be enough for a recharge. The expected lifetime of a battery without recharge was 5040 seconds.

In all, there was nothing much to worry about except the task at tentacle itself. All these were but means to reach the destination and survival on reaching. The final task of searching for the trinket and acquiring it at all costs from the enemy would require a lot more than their weapon power. It required a lot of wit and ability to take momentary decisions, a task which Baro thought Sageroloi was totally incapable of.

Chapter 13

Just before Sageroloi came into the armory, Baro was told about the person with whom a reconnaissance has been arranged by the commander. This Hässlich was known to the commander by the name Toddy. Baro and Sageroloi were to land within a few hundred yards of the designated meeting place and walk the rest of the way. As the selected place was secluded enough they needn’t bother with camouflaging their entry. They were to undergo a simple surgery that would make them look like humans for a limited period of time. They might as well have donned the concealment robes that they usually use but the commander didn’t want any wardrobe malfunctions on such an important mission where stealth and surreptitiousness had to go hand in hand.

Sageroloi balked at the prospect of having to go under the knife but he was cajoled and threatened – both in liberal measures – to get on the table. To their collective amazement, after the operation Baro and Sageroloi felt they looked even better than the humans themselves. Sageroloi went on to add, “I believe the beauty index of the humans just went up a notch dude!” Baro who didn’t care much for being called a dude resented this move totally but now that he had gotten himself into the mercy of the commander and his trusted few, he had no other choice but to oblige.

They didn’t get much time to bid their adieus to their family and friends. Each was given a paper to put down their thoughts and seal it. It was promised that their dear ones would get these papers shortly. Krakolin added, “I believe in the better nature of the race my friends. I am exhibiting a very high sense of confidence by letting you write such a letter and seal it. I expect that after the rendezvous with the commander – who I believe has stressed to the nth power the nature of this business – you gentleteglicans, pretty much aware of the secrecy that has to go along with this mission, have not hinted anything that has any passing resemblance with any information about the mission.”

That done, they were attired in their special suit that was made of a special non-inflammable material that wouldn’t give the travelers even a hint of discomfort when they are hurtling through space and even less so when they clear the Teglican atmosphere and when they enter the earth’s atmosphere. Their weapons went into pouches on the inside of their suit and after a bit of a meditation invoking the Gumba to spare a glance for these pilgrims who could do very well with his light of love and blessings, proceeded to board their pods.

Once that done, the geeks - in Sageroloi-ese - started off the sequence to build up the beam. It took about 125 seconds for the generators to come up to maximum power and once the scientists were certain that the beam had reached maximum energy, unleashed the microbots which were preprogrammed miniature space pods that started the task of building the conduit for the beam according to pre-set co-ordinates. This took about 1020 seconds following which, on the final nod from Krakolin the pods with Baro and Sageroloi were introduced along the periphery of the beam. With this the geeks and Krakolin pass out of this tale.

The geeks never knew whether their contraption worked, whether their brain-child delivered or suffered a mis-carriage. Krakolin never got to deliver the letters that were left behind by Baro and Sageroloi. The latter two never knew of the fate that their love ones suffered. A sword was hanging above the head of every Teglican on the planet. They had no idea about the impending doom or that their existence itself was being questioned. They didn’t realize that suppressors wouldn’t always allow to be suppressed and neither would oppressors continue with their vice-like tactics for long. They hadn’t realized that it was all an elaborate joke. A joke so cruel and at the same time whimsical that no body could grasp it.

Nobody noticed commander Grapo who had come to witness the blast off from an alcove near the top of the armory. He was a wise and clever man who was never found lacking in courage. Ever since the chief citizen contacted him about the trinket, he had done a bit of digging about to get to the root of the matter. His initial scorn at the idea slowly gave way to doubt bordering on the believing and culminated in horrific realization. Time was running out on him and this trinket, as per its name, was nothing but a mirage that the Teglicans were led to believe was the axle of their existence. He knew that the trinket did contain certain explanations to a few pragmatic “why’s? And how’s?” but if the current tidings were to be believed, those answers would cease to matter as would his entire race. With such ominous thoughts thundering about his brow Grapo set off towards his hive to put to test a theory of his, which if proved right would lead to both his survival as well as buy him time to ward off the current disaster. If he were not able to do the latter, he would at least be alive to avenge for the lives his fellow teglicans.

Chapter 14

Despite his repeated requests to maintain their relative position within their pod in order to ensure a travel with minimum possible disturbances, Frampy was sure that Warty at least would wiggle about in his pod causing distortions in the string pattern. He could not have used harnesses because there was no knowing what the added material in their form would have done to the string manipulation and hence the portal co-ordinates. The Infireflecto© would home in on a special beaming signal that was to be set up by his informer in Teglico. The mole had promised as much.

Nothing acts as a better stimulant for a being to not do something more than curbing him or her from doing that. Saying “while you can, you may not!” during an arbitration more often than not incites the individual to do the particular thing. It is not enough to say fire burns; the person wouldn’t realize what burning means unless he or she actually attempts to touch that lovely but tempestuous dancer in yellow and orange and realizes that burning means that incessant irritation like a raw nerve which tingles painfully with the lightest breeze or the softest swathe, telegraphing the brain at 124 MPH, leaving behind a tender spot with the ghost of the pain and irritation days after the wound has actually healed. Interception and the succeeding temptation have long set the course for a world ruled by cause and effect. If there is a certain way in which a thing can go wrong, it certainly will.

Thus at the appointed time, when all was ready and Frampy was initiating the beam sequence, he could see Warty bopping his head to some tune in his head, as we are wont to do at times of extreme excitedness, be it due to fear or happiness. Frampy was almost of a mind to proceed as is, he has had enough of Warty’s arrogance and some extra G’s would do well to curb the hog’s contumacy a bit. There was a brief tussle between what Frampy wanted to do and what he ought to do. The latter but definitely better argument won and Frampy, making no efforts to disguise his impatience and vexation said, “Mr. Warthog sir, you have got to stop convulsing unless you want to reach Teglico as Wart‘ham’ and not Warthog.” Warty immediately seized his head bonking out of surprise. He would rather have wanted to slow down the tempo and stop it eventually giving an idea that it wasn’t Frampy’s warning that made him stop but he did it out of his own volition. He kicked himself mentally for this act which the dratted doctor would read as subordination.

On seeing that his subjects were well set, Frampy initiated the set-off sequence and waited with a guarded sense of pride to watch his best invention to date being made use of. Warty felt a queer weightlessness with a feeling that somehow his stomach had detached itself from his body and was floating somewhere about his neck. He was blindfolded in order to prevent any lasting damage to his vision. This combined with the small pod and the constricting body armor made him feel claustrophobic. He didn’t even want to think about Clementine’s situation. He had received a dose of this when he tried to flee Frampy’s house but Clementine did not even have a clue! All of a sudden Warty felt his consciousness split; he thought he had become a million Warties each constituting an individual Warty with his own ability to think but at the same time aware of the other presences. He was certain that were he to remove his blindfold, he would be able to behold himself and his pod in numerous dimensions equaling the number of splits that his being had taken. He wasn’t even sure if there would be a single tangible “he”! He began to doubt that he will be able to behold numerous small Warties perambulating the space inside the pod. His only concern was towards any cracks or fissures in the pod itself. What if a small warty or two escapes? What part of his would he lose on reassembling? He was certain that there would be a reassembly, of course!

After what felt like a tumultuous wave of sea sickness and immense pressure on his respiratory system, Warty felt the uneasiness slip bit by bit. He felt his stomach getting back to its abdominal cavity after its brief sojourn without. He became aware of a certain rushing coupled by a forward as well as a downward motion that was losing momentum step by step. After what seemed fifteen minutes he felt a small bump and felt the pressure let up. He was sure that he had reached terra firma and removed his blindfold. He released the safety catch of his pod and stumbled out onto a desert. He did a cursory check of his self and found that he didn’t miss any of his physical equipment. He wasn’t sure about his interiors, for all he knew, the Warties that came forth from a kidney or pancreas could have revolted and stayed out! Warty let this cheerful thought slip by and ambled over to Clementine’s pod which was lying on its side. Just as he reached the door the hatch opened and she hopped out. After seeing that she was safe and sound, Warty began making an assessment of the situation. He was sure the mission has failed. The landscape looked like the fabled Gobi desert which was supposed to be an endless span of sand with no water or greenery. It was supposed to be populated with such monsters called Snakes and Spiders that have teeth and stingers respectively which are purported to be filled with venom. A person inflicted with this would suffer a very painful and prolonged death, Warty had heard. He almost decided to amble back to his pod and start the return sequence, the much remembered mantra:

“Red Blue Green Yellow,

Come back and whack the shit out of this fellow!”

When he thought he heard a distant metallic rattle. It couldn’t be a car; anything that sounded that big was either a very sick giant human being with a persistent cough or a giant child’s giant rattle! But the noise was growing steadily closer. Given the fact that nobody knew how the residents of Teglico looked, the possibility that they were infact in the said planet with their lives at the feet of a giant child, the size of a barn perhaps, running towards them was beginning to look probable.

Chapter 15

Grapo breasted a dune and came down hard on his seat, cursing the dratted government that was intent only on keeping its own premises and roundabouts maintained but neglect with absolute indifference the existence of these here hinterlands. He wanted to get as far away from the hives as possible to test his theory. It would be quite painful alright. It was such an awful idea, but a horribly possible one. Grapo wouldn’t be able to rest easy till he verified it, sort of like that bloody place on the inside of one’s mouth, bloody yet suffering frequent visits from your gnashers that keep returning to get a dose of that exquisite pain. He had brought along some painkillers just in case.

He clambered up another dune in his jalopy and almost didn’t notice the two near human like creatures, one lying on its side and another gazing rather dazedly at the approaching excuse of a car. He wouldn’t have if not for the sprain in his neck after marathon sessions of meetings that he had! His head was now cocked to his left, he just couldn’t turn his head without straining that neck of his; this could also explain the bungling way he was handling his motor. If not for his finely honed reflexes he would have flattened Warty and Clementine without them having ever realized that they’ve accomplished their mission.

“Hello there handsome, how did you put together that thingy? Spit and twine? Or a stitch and a prayer??” piped one.

Grapo was not accustomed to being spoke to by humans, let alone in such mocking terms. Their other-teglicanly clothes and apparent lack of fear at his appearance were all that stopped him from neutralizing them on the spot. It was the one who could pass of as a male in the human society who addressed him. The other one who probably was a “female” lay prone on her side.

“Greetings from planet earth senor! Are you the one whom Frampy spoke of?” he caterwauled again.

To Grapo all this sounded gobbledygook, Frampy sounded like some exotic variety of fries that tastes like heaven while eating and makes you feel like hell later! But, he knew that he had stumbled upon something that would go a long way in clearing out his suspicions without indulging in any of the painful experiments that he had steeled himself to go through.

His face, ever the block of granite, gave away none of these thoughts. He replied impassively, “I could be, depending on who is talking?”

“The name is Warthog sir, Warty to the initiated. This here girl is my Clementine. Dr. Togadierre Fralampine - Frampy in short if you didn’t know – sent us here with instructions that we were to meet a Teglican here who had some information for us. Given the fact that this is inarguably a God-forsaken place that I’ve ever set sight on and considering your elaborate garb and your not so elaborate junk there which you probably call your car, I think you are it! What say?”

Grapo scrambled a bit to get all this straight. While he definitely was not the “IT” that this Warty was talking about, he knew he had to make best use of this opportunity. Heck given the fact that he was the Commander in charge of defence and security of Teglico he did know almost everything that there was to know about the workings of the government, its alliances, some not-yet-concrete hypotheses about the part that Gumba played in the same, the chief citizen’s role in the great scheme of things and last of all his latest seemingly half-baked suspicions about the trinket and the “secret” that it apparently contained. So, if he had to act as an informer or something he can play that smoothly.

He grabbed on to the opportunity that had presented itself immediately and stumbled forward – there was no other way to move about in the desert with his many tentacles – extended one of his tentacle and exclaimed, “I believe you’ve found your ‘IT’ Mr. Warty, so what’s the plan?”

Chapter 16

Well, there was no plan; they were to return to earth in their pods and let Frampy decide what was to be done. Warty was almost sure that his contribution to the journey was at an end. Frampy had mentioned only the meeting and return, nothing further. Although theoretically Clementine was traveling with him he had hardly spoken two words to her. There were no radio communications and both of them were pretty keyed up to even “think” romantic thoughts. He was looking forward to returning and bullying Gruakach into loaning her for a week more!

Now that it was decided that they ought to return to earth immediately, transportation posed a problem. Both Warty and Grapo were slightly on the bulkier side, well, not slightly, heck - call a spade a spade - both of them were regular butterballs with more tires than an eighteen wheeler truck – spares and all! And as circumstances usually guide, Warty was rather well buttered than Grapo. As they had only two pods, the event reached the much expected climax, Clementine had to travel with Grapo while Warty had to travel back grumbling and over working his extra-imaginative mind and grumbling again! Clementine could have traveled with Warty but someone had to educate Grapo about the landing sequence. Yup, the great “Red, Blue, Green Yellow!” thingy.

Grapo ran back- well, as much as he could anyway! - to his jalopy, got out the kit that he had carried to experiment and came back.

“Ready when you are chum!” he managed to say between loud gasps for air!

“Yeah, am a raring to go myself, leaving my Clementine at the mercy of your probably over eager antennae or whatever you call ‘em” Warty muttered and led the way.

With a last endearing glance they boarded their pods and set forth on their return journey.

Chapter 17

In the mean time, Baro and Sageroloi, looking like any other John Doe, albeit a bit dazed, ambled out of their capsule and tottered about. On stabilizing, they walked the said couple of hundred yards along the direction that they thought should be east. The climate was insufferably hot and they were baking inside their space suits. On walking some more, they sighted a distortion in the mirage that kept hovering just beyond their shank’s reach. As they walked nearer the distortion solidified and began to take up a more humanoid form.

‘That must be Toddy’ they thought to themselves and quickened their pace.

Well, it was indeed Toddy and to the not so astute reader it was our very own Togadierre Fralampine a.k.a Frampy.

“Welcome to earth my friends” he chimed, “How do you do, how do you do and how do you do again?”

This was greeted by a rather hesitant, “Toddy?”

“Yes indeedy! I welcome you not only to planet earth monsieurs’; I welcome you to the truth, the salvation, the disembowelment of fallacy and rebirth of rights! In short I welcome you to project ‘Jardine Trinket!’ ”

Baro who was already taken aback by such an addressing almost teetered on hearing the trinket being mentioned so openly, that too in front of Sageroloi who was not supposed to know anything regarding that.

“Well errr thanks” he managed to stammer.

Frampy led them to a cluster of what appeared to be neglected shacks. He led them inside to what appeared to be a conference room sort of setting with the ceremonial ovalish table and chairs all about. Well, the similarity ended their. The Ovalish table itself looked customized with a lot of drains, a rim of about 4 inches ran about the edge, was slanted and had quite a few faucets about. There was a faint medicinal smell about the room and the travelers had a premonition that they were soon to take part in the conference and they wouldn’t be seated around the table either!

- posted by Swetha @ 1/17/2005 11:03:00 AM 2 comments