“I will, Advisor,” he assured, both in words and with a moment of eye contact, conveying determination not to let me down. And, like any worried parent, I resigned myself to letting go.

You won’t hear much about Ensign Taken and Frieder for a while, but they figure later in my story.

Ohm and I entered the transporter room to join other members of the landing party. And at this point I suppose I should introduce Guts and Nuts.

Those are not their formal names, of course. But, as a demmie would say, who cares? On an Alliance ship, you quickly learn to go by whatever moniker the captain chooses.

Commander-Healer Paolim – or “Guts” – was the ship’s surgeon, an older demmie and, I might add, an exceptionally reasonable fellow. It is always important to remember that both humans and dems produce individuals along a wide spectrum of personality types, and the races do overlap! While some Earthling men and women can be as flighty and impulsive as a demmie adolescent, the occasional demmie can, in turn, seem mature, patient, reflective.

On the other hand, let me warn you right now – never get so used to such a one that you take it for granted! I recall one time, on Sepsis 69, when this same reasonable old healer actually tried to persuade a mega-thunder ameboid to stop in mid-charge for a group photo…

But save that story for another time. If there’s another time.

Commander-Artificer Nomlin – or “Nuts” – was the ship’s chief engineering officer. A female demmie, she disliked the slang term, “fem-dem,” and I recommend against ever using it. Nuts was brilliant, innovative, stunningly skilled with her hands, mercurial, and utterly fixated on making life miserable for me, for reasons I’d rather not go into. She nodded to the Captain and the doctor, then curtly at me.

“Advisor.”

“Engineer,” I replied.

Our commander looked left and right, frowning. “How many green guys do you think we oughta take along, this time? Just one?”

“Against regulations for first contact on a planet above tech level eight,” Guts reminded him. “Sorry, sir.”

Ohm sighed. “Two then?” he suggested, hopefully. “Three?”

Nuts shook her head. “I gotta bad feelin’ this time, Captain,” she said.

Melodramatic, yes, but we had learned to pay attention to her premonitions.

“Okay, then,” Captain Ohm nodded. “Many. Dial ’em up, will you, doc?”

Guts went over to a cabinet lining the far wall of the chamber, turning a knob all the way over to the last notch on a dial that said 0, 1, 2, 3, M.