The sergeant’s eyes flickered. "Does the admiral vouch for these guests being trustworthy?"
Festina looked at us a moment. Uclod, Lajoolie, Nimbus, and me, then laughed out loud. "Of course not. All four are ticking bombs, for Christ’s sake. But compared to some members of the crew, these folks are absolute saints. Why not leave a few of your guards here, and send the rest to… oh, wherever you think a not-too-smart spy might stir up mischief."
The sergeant said nothing for a count of three, then nodded. "The admiral’s suggestion is well taken." He tapped a button on his wrist, then began speaking rapidly — which is to say his lips moved at high speed, though I could not hear a sound coming out of his helmet. I assume his words were transmitted privately to the troops around him… because in a few seconds, all but two of the mooks saluted and clattered out of the room. As for the sergeant himself, he and the two remaining Security persons took up a position in front of the door: all three of them in exactly the same stance, hands folded below their waists, feet slightly spread apart.
"Lovely," Festina said, turning back to the rest of us. "Now let’s get caught up, shall we? What’s been going on?"
When I told her my story, she screamed.
The Gawker
Festina did not scream loudly, nor in one continuous howl… but at key points in my tale, she yelped or winced or muttered most engaging profanities. She was not at all happy about the Shaddill hovering over Melaquin; she became all growls when I told how they shot us with a sinister unconsciousness beam; she was eyes-wide astonished when I described flying into the sun with no ill effects; but her most violent reaction came at the end, when Uclod rudely took it upon himself to fill in the "gaps" of my narrative.
I had chosen not to provide over-many details about my so-called death and the four years thereafter — if Festina learned I had lain in one place for month after month, she might mistakenly think my brain was becoming Tired. Furthermore, I omitted all mention of the Pollisand, including the description I got from the woman in the tower. Unfortunately, I had already told Uclod what the woman said; therefore, he cheekily thrust himself forward to reveal that information to my friend. This caused Festina to splutter with oaths most vile.
"A big white thing like a headless animal?" she asked.
"That’s what we were told," Uclod answered. "Right, Oar?"
"Yes," said I, most reluctantly. "Is this creature known to you, Festina?"
One of the mooks by the door laughed under his breath. The sergeant glared at him. So did Festina. Without taking her eyes off the mook, my friend said, "He’s known, all right."
"Who is he?" Uclod asked.
Festina did not answer right away; instead, she pressed a button on the conference table’s surface. A section of table in front of her rolled open to reveal a vidscreen and keypad. She tapped on the keys a moment, then turned to face the false window that had been showing all those pleasant stars.
The window had changed. Now it displayed a picture of a beast I recognized all too well — a headless white rhinoceros with eyes down his throat. "That," Festina said, "is an alien who calls himself the Pollisand. Possibly the most frightening creature in the entire galaxy."
Cleverly feigning ignorance, I said, "This Pollisand is a wicked villain?"
"No. Not in the usual sense. But if the Pollisand is in the area, consider me officially terrified."
"Why?"
"Because he’s a gawker. A disaster junkie. Someone who loves showing up at a certain kind of catastrophe."
Festina pressed more keys. The picture screen shifted to a different view of the Pollisand: this time standing inside a poorly lit mom filled with machinery. In front of him sat a human woman wearing a baggy green outfit of the type called overalls. She was not looking at the Pollisand, but he was definitely looking at her.
"This," said Festina, "shows the Pollisand’s first appearance in human space. The year 2108 on the planet Meecks, in the control room of the Debba colony’s fusion reactor. Surveillance cameras recorded this headless white alien materializing behind the command console at the very moment a technician finished entering a manual override on a safety mechanism that was supposedly malfunctioning."
Festina rose from the table, strode to the display screen, and glared at the baggy green woman. "The techie was an utter numskull. She’d misdiagnosed the problem, botched the solution, disabled a warning alarm so no one would know she’d screwed up… then kept hot-dogging with moronic attempts to stop cascading system failures throughout the installation. Result? Total reactor meltdown. Not a big boom, but the entire power generation system got slagged. Considering the outside temperature was ninety degrees below zero, it looked like the colony would freeze to death in a matter of days.
"And that’s when the Pollisand showed up." Festina pointed to Mr. Headless Asshole on the display screen. "Right in the control room, at the precise moment meltdown became inevitable. He pranced up to the woman and began to ask questions. Why did you do that? Why didn’t you call for help? Why did you ignore the expert systems? Is there some disturbance in your personal life that’s rendered you mentally incompetent? It’s hard to feel sorry for a techie so stupid, but it must be rough getting badgered with questions right after you’ve doomed a hundred thousand people to become icicles."
"Did the colony die?" Lajoolie asked softly.
"The colony did; the colonists didn’t. They sent out an SOS and got evacuated before they came downwith terminal frostbite. Unlucky for them, they were picked up by a Cashling outreach crusade… which means nothing to you, Oar, but suffice it to say, the colonists became indentured servants for ten years to pay off the cost of their rescue. After a decade of grunt work and listening to Cashling sermons on Godly Greed, those people must have wished they’d frozen."
Uclod wore a large frown. "You’re sure the reactors melted because of that technician?"
Festina nodded. "There was a thorough investigation. Why do you ask?"
"Because it’s awful damned convenient this Pollisand just happened to be in the right place at the right time."
"Isn’t it though," Festina agreed. "And since his first visit, he’s showed up in human space over and over again: always right after someone has made a disastrous mistake."
She moved back to the table and reached toward the keypad… then withdrew her hand. "I’ve got pictures of other Pollisand sightings, but they aren’t pretty. He’s particularly drawn to the Explorer Corps. Whenever someone has body parts bitten off, gets impaled on a poisonous plant thorn, or steps in something that explodes, there’s a chance the Pollisand will appear out of nowhere and ask, Why did you think that was safe? Why didn’t you walk around? What was going through your head… besides that big wooden spike?"
Uclod snorted. "You’re sure he isn’t to blame for these so-called accidents?"
"No one’s sure of anything. But we’ve never found a shred of evidence that he sets up these scenarios himself. It’s always people going about their normal business, making their own catastrophic decisions."
"Could he not have a Sinister Ray," I said, "that compels one to commit foolish deeds?"
"Theories like that have been suggested," Festina replied, "especially by the people caught acting like imbeciles. But investigations don’t bear it out; almost always, these folks have a history of similar stunts before the one that really cooks their goose. Coworkers are likely to say, It’s exactly the kind of stupidity we expect from that idiot… which begs the question why the idiot didn’t get fired long before, but incompetence is the norm in our beloved Technocracy." She turned back toward the screen and scowled at the baggy-suited woman.