The Inner Limits

The three crew members strode into the Control Room, three younger females of their species, adorned in space suits, helmets in their hands.   As one, they stripped themselves of their outer coverings to reveal underneath the short, trim uniforms of third officers, second class, first echelon, scientific exploration corps.   The leader, who wore the brass knuckle as mark of her rank, saluted the Admiral and presented him with a piece of paper.   She stood back and awaited further instructions.

What is this? asked the Admiral, waving the picture in her general direction.

It is a likeness.   They call it a Fototrash – we think – the transcoper was not working properly.  It is said that a true likeness is rendered on the paper so that others can make comment on what one has seen.

No matter.   It is a likeness…    He screwed up the four smallest of his eyes to try to bring the subject into better focus.   It is a  likeness of what?

It is the likeness of a bote.

A bote.   Yes.   So, what does a bote do?

It floats in liquid.   Then to get to the other side of the liquid, the primitives float across the surface without using a transponder, a beam ray or an axcltorion.   (Ed - There is no English equivalent of axcltrorion, and the nearest guess we have is that it is nothing whatsoever like a steam iron).

They float across on the surface?

That is what we saw, Sir.

Brilliant!   Absolutely Brilliant!   He closed all five ears and beamed joyously at his future prospects.   I shall be the richest planetary explorer ever to return to Plaxadonora.  Such a device will be worth untold riches.   He opened all of his five ears again.

Yes Sir.

Did you get some working plans?

Not really.   But we did get that picture.

Hmm.   What are those creatures in the background?

Local fauna sir.  We think the primitives call them “byrdz” but our transcoper was on the blink.

What do they do?

Not much, Sir, but they are rather tasty.

You have not been eating alien life forms, have you?  the Admiral asked, on one of those rising tones that warned of impending disaster if the wrong answer was forthcoming.

Of course not, Sir.   I am simply repeating alien gossip.

Gossip?

Chit-chat.    On the Grape vine.   You know, rather like zxlophy.

Right.   Now tell me, Is the color of the craft significant?

It must be, sir – no one would color anything with such a hideous shade of what they call “lyme” by choice – but we have not yet worked out what will happen if you change the color  to something more acceptable.

Did you bring one of these botes  with you?

We could not do that, sir.   They are a bit too big for one to fit inside our small survey craft, Sir.   So we could not bring one with us.

How about a model of one of them?  Were you able to get – or make -  model of one of these botes?

No – we sort of got interrupted, Sir,

How do you mean, interrupted?

A gang of younger primitives started chasing us around chanting UFOs, UFOs, UFOs.

What is an UFO?

We are sir.   So we scarpered.

Right.   This fluid they float on.   I do not recognize it at all.   So what is it?

Our best guess is it is some form of a hydrogen oxygen mixture that our Quantum Mechanic researchers think might actually exist.  We could not get the exact formula.  Sorry.

Did you see their manufacturing plant?

On that planet, it occurs naturally, sir.

Come here.

She stepped forward.

Turn around

She faced her fellow crew-members.

Bow.

She leaned forward, away from the Admiral.

He chose his fourth tentacle, the longest and hardest.

Thwack!

Yow!

Do not make up stupid stories like that!   Occurs naturally,   Pshaw!   (Ed – we are not sure what a Pshaw is, but think it might be some sort of large drinking horn).

Sorry sir, I don’t know what came over me.

Right, take your picture to the mechanic robotic department, and build me a working model of a bote.

---oo0oo---

What is this?

It is the working model of a bote, Sir.

It doesn’t look anything like the picture.

It does if you hold it at this angle,  sir.   See?

Hmmm …  I was expecting something more robust.  And a lot more elliptical.   I do not see how anyone could get onto or into something like this when it was afloat.    Go and put it in a vat of fluid and report on how well it does float.

---oo0oo---

Did it float?

Not really, sir.

What did it do?

It exploded, sir.

There was a lengthy silence.

So all I have is this picture of a device that is said to float on fluid.   A very novel and exciting concept.  One, if it worked, would have made me a very rich man.   But you obtained no plan, no actual device, no model, and all we have is a failed experiment?

That about sums it up, sir.

Which means that I am not going to be a very rich man.    That makes very disappointed in you.    We have a very practical protocol  for dealing with such disappointments.    You are to present yourself to me at the crossing of the outer boundary.   Once there, we shall carry out  the punishment ceremony.

Sir.

And be quick about it.   We will be there in less than twenty snufglers.   (Ed - We do not know what a snufgler is:  our best guess is that it is some sort of unit of time or of distance).

---oo0oo---

She stood with her back to the mirror and looked at herself over her shoulder.  

The thong she was wearing had exposed her bottom to the exact required degree.   Good.

She pondered for a moment.   They said that the more punishment ceremonies you went through the better it got.   Even enjoyable eventually, they said.   She was not sure, but last time was by far the easiest one she had endured.

And if the Admiral had not been though the mind-plasmic ritual, she would have sworn he was getting some sort of pleasure out of watching the female members of his crew going through the punishment ceremony.  But one of the effects of that ritual was that  pleasure became a meaningless term.

She looked at her left buttock.   It was a pale green – in fact, all three of them were pale green – but there was just a tinge of darker green where the tentacle had caught her earlier on.   That smack had really stung.

And by the time she returned to her bunk to bed down, she bet her bottom would be so well punished that it would be three orbs of bright glowing teal.

She wished she had never seen that picture.   Or at least to have had the mind to throw it away before returning to the mother ship,

Ah well – time for the ceremony.  She set off with a  quiet determination to take her licks with some degree of dignity.  And then, from somewhere deep in her subconscious, the phrase “As if” emerged.  She wondered what on Plaxadonora that meant.  

Later than night, when back in her bed, she thought back about that odd phrase.   She guessed that it meant that dignity and punishment ceremonies do not co-exist.  If that was what it meant, it was exactly right.