“Visitor 51347” came the subtle telepathic message. “Please remove your means of teleportation and place it in the transparent force locker.” “If you are a natural teleport” continued the automatic message “then please enter screened cubicle 23A for processing.”
Interesting thought the visitor loosening an attachment to his belt. They don’t appear to have allowed for the contingency that I might possess both means of teleportation.
There were two main gateways to Lhorran 4. The teleport gateway for the more advanced races and the space terminal for those arriving by more primitive means. In other words, the plebs. At the space terminal only faster than light ships arrived. Lesser technologies were not permitted here.
Not that Lhorran received huge numbers of visitors. The Galaxies most advanced known corporeal civilization could be very intimidating. Still there were always a few curious enough to make the trip. Despite the vague and still unsubstantiated warnings from planetary governments. Enough curiosity, for a steady trickle of arrivals.
Occasionally those with motives extending beyond curiosity came. They never got past the automatic screening processes, at each gateway, before being sent politely on their way.
To the automatic systems that greeted him, visitor 51347 did not quite fit any of the usual categories of visitor. Yet the marginal deviation from prescribed parameters was not enough for the systems to alert their Lhorranian masters. Except for one thing that somehow went unreported.
“They attempted to mind print me” said 51347 in a highly encoded message on a secure telepathic frequency.
“Obviously unsuccessfully” came a rhetorical response at the speed of thought.
Once planet side, visitor 51347 or Tragathh Blormfontein, as he was known in some parts of the Universe, found things busier than expected.
A large, faster than light, starship had arrived from a virtually unknown little world. The first such trip from a rather backward area of this Galaxy.
Tragathh took a good stroll around the main conurbation of what otherwise seemed a very de-centralised society. Some of the infrastructure was not fixed, with the location of air corridors, electromagnetic walkways and tele-shunt booths changing frequently to reflect the varying demand.
“No gridlock in a place like this!” he heard one of the visitors from the FTL starship communicate to another. Not by telepathy but by crude physical speech. They were from the backwater world. Earth, he heard them say.
“A few core facilities are relatively fixed – essentially permanent.” Tragathh conveyed telepathically “as to everything else, it seems to be legitimately subject to matter/energy, manipulation/conversion with varying degrees of control” “A non-essential structure can be in one location one day and the opposite side of the conurbation, or even planet, the next!”
Not all of this information was necessarily profound. Any of the tourist/visitor literature for Lhorran alluded to this situation. It was most noticeable at the visitor level, where, in controlled environments, visitors were enabled to manipulate matter/energy for entertainment purposes. One of the key attractions of Lhorran.
Still Tragathh was just being systematic. In fact the Lhorranians would have been surprised just how systematic. Though, as yet, this seemingly innocuous little man had not even come to the attention of a corporeal Lhorranian.
The next planetary day, out walking in the conurbation, Tragathh encountered his first actual Lhorranian. The entity seemed insubstantial almost wraithlike.
Soon afterwards he discovered another type of Lhorranian, almost the exact opposite of the wraithlike entities. An unmistakably solid, physical form, hard to the touch (if they could have been touched), and giving all the appearance of considerable physical power. An enforcer, as it turned out. If there were any other types of Lhorranian, Tragathh didn’t come across them.
As he walked without particular direction, Tragathh found he was coming closer to a building not mentioned in any of the tourist literature. Though an unimpressive edifice, he knew it was of significance to the Lhorranians. The closer he got to it, the more of the solid physical Lhorranians seemed to be about.
No one actually stopped Tragathh but he felt uncomfortable enough to eventually move away from the building. By then he had divined its purpose.
Tragathh was a little intrigued by the Earthers whenever he came across them. They seemed like children with the matter/energy manipulation. Unable to properly control themselves. Normally any race capable of FTL star travel had some decorum where matter/energy manipulation was involved. Tragathh speculated the Earthers development may have been unbalanced. It was of no particular consequence, yet they served as an excellent distraction for the Lhorranian authorities.
Tragathh learned all he needed to know from his examination of this the main Lhorranian conurbation. However, to be thorough, he paid short, ostensibly tourist visits, to a variety of other planetary locations. More for verification purposes.
Back at the teleport gateway and preparing for departure Tragathh Blormfontein, conveyed one last telepathic message.
“My covert audit, of planetary mass 719678milkwy, generally known in this Galaxy as Lhorran 4, is complete.” “My full report is conveyed to you in a super dense encoded telepathic packet, to be supported by subsequent electronic data.”
Galaxies away, his supervisor and Audit Manager absorbed the report and reviewed its key findings:
1. “While the Lhorranian mind printing of all visitors does not appear deleterious to its subjects, the practice is illegal in terms of Universe Alien and Human Rights directive 2128893b and must cease. As this appears to be the sole purpose for the Lhorranians receiving visitors, the tourism to that world can be expected to disappear.
2. “The building identified as the repository of mind prints located at ____ should be removed from it’s planetary confines and placed in the central Alien and Human Rights Commission Archives.” “Designated never to be opened.”
3. “The Lhorranians are a race of pure energy beings that have devolved to a physical form originally as an experiment” “The experiment t seems not to have worked but an enforced return to a permanent pure energy state is beyond the scope of this audit.”
Elsewhere in the report Tragathh confirmed that the mind print repository served two purposes for the Lhorranians: (i) a lazy and cheap way of acquiring a lot of information about their Galactic neighbours, and (ii) a method of tapping in vicariously to the emotional thrills and pleasures of many different races.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not so long after Tragathh Blormfontein teleported from Lhorran 4, the Audit Implementation team arrived. Such was the way of the Alien and Human Rights Commission. They were not known for mucking around.
The heavily armed audit enforcers did not trouble with the niceties of the official teleport gateway.
End
Log in to comment