ILLEGAL ALIENS

He had not planned on telling the Deckers about the devices as a bit of insurance against their wrath. "It is what my ex-shipmates used to cowardly defend themselves from your brave sneak attack."

Drill lifted an eyebrow. "Laying it on a little thick, ain't he?" the locksmith asked sarcastically.

"So what?" Hammer sneered. "I happen to like having my boots licked."

As Trell explained the operation and limitations of the devices, the Bloody Deckers strapped on the field generators and playfully tried clubbing each other over the head with the lasers. The exchange of blows got spirited and Trell scurried over to the ruin of the security door, not willing to chance getting crushed to death by these, to him, lumbering giants.

"Ah, gentlebeings. There are many delicate instruments in here, so perhaps it would be wise to desist?" he suggested, taking another step into the outside corridor. "Or move your exercising to the arena?"

"Enough then," Hammer agreed, chuckling. "Cool it, guys."

Panting from the exertion, the gang broke apart and Trell hesitantly entered the room again, staying close to the wall.

"Goddamn!" Drill gasped, mopping his brow with a red and white bandanna. "These are great!"

In careless abandonment, Chisel turned the sparkling defense field on and off several times. "Yeah," the boy agreed happily. "Neat!"

Shifting his gunbelt, Hammer cinched the flexible metal belt tighter about his waist. "Only good against energy weapons, though. Right?" he asked.

The alien Technician confirmed his earlier statement.

Useless then, decided the ganglord. Cops don't carry lasers. Wearing this thing wouldn't protect you from a gun, or a club. But Hammer decided to keep his anyway. You never know, you know?

Now armed and armored, Drill strolled over to Trell and rested a friendly arm about the alien's scrawny, green shoulder. "Answer me a question, dude, will ya?"

Dubiously, the Technician glanced upward at the towering human. "If I can, sir."

"Why the hell is everything so freaking white in here?" the gang member asked in exasperation. "Walls, floors, ceilings, doors...shit, boy, white paint cheap where you come from, or what?"

This was a tough question to answer, but Trell did his best. Keeping to the most basic of terms, he told the gang about HyperSpace, covering the basic relationship between colors and velocity in that weird non-dimension. He kept mathematics out of the discussion entirely and described things as childishly simple as he could, but it still took him quite a while to cover everything. Throughout the speech, the translator on his belt remained totally silent. When Trell finished, it spoke to the waiting street gang using the most advanced scientific terms they could possibly understand.

"Big juju," the box declared. "Much magic. Ship no fly fast, if not white."

Blandly accepting the report, the Bloody Deckers returned to their examination of the control room.

Shocked to the very core of his being, Trell was stunned beyond words. Impossible! The entire theory of chromatic space travel boiled down to two sentences? Gak! The Technician quickly reversed his opinion of the Dirtlings. Obviously they were nowhere near as primitive as he had originally believed.

A blinking light on the Communicator board caught Chisel and he nervously summoned Trell. To the alien's surprise, it was an incoming transmission.

"Hammer, sir," he called respectfully, indicating the flashing blue button. "Do you wish to answer this message?"

"A call?" the ganglord sounded surprised. Confused, he lightly fingered the array of controls spread across the console. Now how do you...ah, aw to hell with it, answering the phone was not his job. "You do it, Mr. Master Technician."

With a straight face, the alien touched the blinking button activating the main viewscreens.