Nevertheless, there is a demmie research center that refuses to give up on the idea… and demmies never cease to surprise us.

(Impossibility be damned. I recommend secretly blowing up the place, just to be sure.)

Stumbling out of the Nozzle, we retrieved our tools from container-tubes and proceeded to look around the place. We appeared to have de-licquesced behind some boulders and shrubbery in an uncrowded portion of the park. Tall buildings could be seen jutting skyward beyond a surrounding copse of trees. Vehicle sounds of a bustling city drifted toward us.

So far, so good. The greenies fanned out, very businesslike, covering all directions with their tidy blasters. I took out my scanner and surveyed various sensor bands.

“Life forms?” Ohm said, peering around my shoulder, speaking loud enough to be heard over the traffic noise.

“Yes, Captain,” I replied, patiently. “Many life forms.”

“Many,” Nuts repeated, morosely.

“Many,” Guts added, eyes filling with eagerness while he stroked his vivisection kit.

“Let’s go see,” Ohm commanded, as I counted the seconds till something happened.

Something always happens.

Sure enough, at a count of eight, we heard a scream and hurried toward the source, which turned out to be Lieutenant Morell. She panted, with one hand near her throat, pointing her blaster toward a set of bushes.

“I shot first!”

“What?” Ohm demanded, shoving others aside to charge forward. “What was it?”

She came to attention. “I don’t know, sir. Something was spying on us. I saw the weirdest pair of eyes. Whatever it was, I think I got it.”

“Um,” I stepped forward, reluctant to point out the obvious. “The rule of Simplest Hypothesis might suggest, in a calm city park, that your something just might have been… well… perhaps a local citizen?”

Lieutenant Morell gulped, looking at that moment just like a young human who had made a nervous mistake.

“Of all the damn foolishness,” Guts grumbled, hastening through the undergrowth, drawing his medical kit while I hurried after. Behind me, I heard the Lieutenant sob an apology.

“There now,” Captain Ohm answered. “I’m sure he… she… or it is just stunned. You did use stun-setting, yes?”

“Sir!”

When I glanced back, he was leading her with one arm, his other one sliding around her shoulder. I should have known.

Guts shouted when he found our prowler. A humanoid, of course, like ninety percent of Class M sapients. The poor fellow had managed to crawl a few meters before the stun nanos got organized enough to bring him down. Now he lay sprawled on his back, spread-eagled, with his arms and legs pinned by half a million microscopic fibers to the leaf-strewn loam. He strained futilely till we emerged to surround him. Then he stared with large, dark eyes, gurgling slightly behind the nano-woven gag in his mouth.