Limehousesailortown

Limehousesailortown does not do politics - sailortown exists for the sailor.   Whilst the ships are in dock unloading their cargo their mariners and ships cats scurry ashore.   After weeks at sea battling with the elements, cooped together in small, over-familiar groups they come onto land, where ever they may be in the world, with a little money in their pockets and a desire to be entertained.   Just beyond the dock gates they find dance halls and music halls, ale houses and catnip dens, brothels and night clubs.   They are enticed by ice-cream vans, burger bars, winkle stalls and pie-'n-mash tents.   Juke-boxes blare, fish and chips sizzle and dour missionaries fret after their souls.
Westwards along Ratcliff Highway the stews and doss houses peter out to be replaced by wholesale warehouses stuffed with pepper and cinnamon, teas and coffees,  wines, spirits, carpets and beds, monkeys, macaws and the contraband wares of smuggler and river pirate - produce not fanfared on the signs above the doors.   At the Highway's western end, dingy curiosity shops, junk shops proclaiming themselves to be antique emporia, ships' chandlers and the tagareen stores of the bum-boat men huddle together between the river and the soup kitchens and meeting halls of Whitechapel.   Whitechapel does do politics.


Boz and Phoebles stopped for a light lunch in the catnip den that occupies the four floors downstairs from their bedsit.   Snowdrop was singing a selection of songs from  Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and should probably have stuck to juggling, but she was accompanied by Sam on upright and Mouse Jackson on tenor sax, they were really quite good, as was the eel pie and mustard ice-cream.   Once fortified, the ginger pair set off towards Wapping and beyond to Whitechapel - for a little under-cover detective work.
Toynbee Hall, that vicarage-gothic edifice which might well have seen William Morris and Peter Kropotkin pass through its doors in times gone by was, this day, hosting a debate on Unity, Co-operation and World Solutions to World Problems.   A degree of disagreement was beginning to emerge.   Old Labour was present with a Yorkshire ex-colliery brass band; Marxists and Leninists and Trotskyists and Maoists were in dispute over the subjects for discussion, procedural details and fillings for the sandwiches; La Columna, in red neckerchiefs were acting as unofficial bouncers.   Huddled in small yet noisy groups and eyeing each other suspiciously were collectivist-anarchists, mutualist-anarchists, communist-anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-surrealists, Situationists and The Brick Lane Zapatistas.   Consuella Starcluster was there with her tambourine, and the Kittens of Chaos had brought along a breakaway anarcha-feminist chapter of the WI who were starting to heckle.    Boz and Phoebles, thinly disguised in matching 'Red Ed' t-shirts, cloth caps and mufflers, slipped unobtrusively into the hall and, with backs to the wall, quietly observed.   The discord was beginning to spread to a gathering crowd outside in Commercial Street and scuffles were breaking out.


Round the corner in Angel Alley a soap box had been set up outside the offices of the Freedom Press.   White cats in very dark glasses guarded its corners like Trafalgar Square lions and Slasher McGoogs had mounted it to address an unenthusiastic crowd.
"Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf,
Each does but HATE HIS NEIGHBOUR AS HIMSELF:
Damned to the mines, an equal fate betides
The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides."
There was silence until one of the sinister white cats began to clap pointedly.   There was a ripple from the audience followed by a Whoop and a couple of Yeahs.   The front two rows of uncomprehending felinity were made up of feckless alley cats of assorted shapes, sizes and colours, but behind them was a press of black and white ships' cats and their docker cousins.   These toms were politically aware and wanted to be roused.   Slasher stepped up the rhetoric.


Early next morning began the first ever mass strike of ships' cats.   Vessels without cats could not sail, the docks clogged up with stranded shipping and new arrivals rusted at anchor in the roads; cargos rotted and rats ran wild.   Dockland fell eerily silent.

Interesting Times

Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk, probably a little too loud in the earphones of his i-pod - Googleberry was lying on his back on the lawn, legs akimbo, soaking up the rays.   An over excited Strawberry was urgently trying to get through above the pounding strains of Pink Floyd, "We've had a semaphore from Limehousesailortown.   Boz says there's a mood for revolution on the air."
"Googleberries don't do revolution.   Someone feed me a grape."   Someone did.   It tasted unexpectedly fruity and he spat it out.   "Perhaps a fishy-snack-treat would be better... and a glass of sherbet."


Something came between Googleberry and the sun, its shadow growing as it descended.   Gently a shiny new, royal blue Cierva C.19 with a white saltire painted on its tail landed on the grass a safe distance from the sunbathing cats.   It's engine coughed into silence and down clambered a slightly tubby, snub winged bird in leather flying jacket and helmet, goggles, short legged jodphurs and tight fitting lace-up boots.   The autogyro was a gift from the grateful Scottish people and Ferdy wanted to show it off.
"You two coming to the big festival in Hyde Park?   I can squeeze you both into the front seat."
"Norralf!" cried Strawberry, sensing another adventure, "How about you, Googleberry?"
"Too much effort, old man." replied the recumbent feline, "Just leave the cool-bag of ginger beer within my reach, and bring me back an ice-cream."
Strawberry was already scrabbling into the passenger seat as Ferdy kicked the engine into life.   Pulling his goggles down, he engaged the clutch to start the rotor turning.   Opening the throttle and accompanied by a satisfactory roar from the single Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major radial engine they bounced briefly across the lawn and were airborne. Ferdy piloted the little craft high above the M3 into West London and then headed for the patch of green that was Hyde Park.   They dropped down into the gyro park close by the Serpentine.   The festival was vast, a riot of colour and incredibly noisy.   It had been organised by the government to arouse a patriotic fervour in the population at a time of uncertainty and no little hardship.   The newspapers were full of praise for the enterprise; on the television and radio, programme after programme covered the events; and the weather had, so far, been perfect.   There was a steam fairground with flashing lights, competing music from wheezing mechanical organs and squealing teenagers.   A central arena hosted displays by motorcycle teams, police dogs and, currently, stiff, black uniformed soldiers mounting horse drawn field-gun carriages that wove and scissored with thundering hooves and clanking harness to yet more music.   At a safe distance there were ornithopter rides and balloon rides, once round the park for five guineas.   A military marching band in white pith helmets played... marches, in front of a stage from which, periodically, politicians, dignitaries and popular celebrities gave rousing speeches.   Almost everyone in the crowd had a small union flag on a stick which they waved whenever it seemed appropriate.   In fact the national flag was to be seen everywhere, across the stage, flying over marquees and stalls, painted, it seemed, on every flat surface.   Even the hot dog sellers, attracted to this event from all over the European Union, flew union flags above their stands.


Strawberry made a bee-line for the fair, closely followed by Ferdinand.   The Whees, Aahs and Oohs grew in intensity until they swamped the senses and somewhere a steam calliope squeaked out a confused rendition of Jerusalem.   The duo rushed past the big wheel, which was not all that big - a small wheel in fact - and past two garish, guilded carousels with freshly painted and fierce eyed gallopers, past the Wall of Death to the new and experimental steam dodgems - only to find they had been shut down indefinitely since a boiler explosion on one of the cars had led to injury and the threat of litigation.   Ferdy was crestfallen, but Strawberry spotted a Helter-Skelter towering in red and white candy stripes beyond a gently idling showman engine.   Clutching a mat he dashed up the inside and whizzed down the outside, and then he did it again, then went again, and went again, and again, and again, and again...   As he landed at the bottom of the slide, slithering and tumbling for the umpteenth time Ferdy snatched the mat from him.
"Enough!"
"There's the Shamrock, lets go on the Shamrock."   Strawberry pointed towards the Steam Yachts, the ultimate adrenaline ride.   It was rumoured that a steam yacht had killed, more than once, towards the end of the nineteenth century. 
"Lets find Ginsbergbear, he is giving a poetry reading at one of the fringe events."   But on their way they saw that the prime minister was making a speech and stayed to hear it.  It was bland.
"Look," Ferdy nudged Strawberry. "now that's interesting."
Behind the speaker, unobtrusive, yet seated where he would miss nothing, was The Media Oligarch, infamous subject of one of Slasher McGoogs' more colourful broadsides.   He had, in his youth, been the white persian cat playing alongside Donald Pleasence in You Only Live Twice and his real name was rumoured to be Mr Fluffy.   He did not notice the pair (Why would he?), but his chilling, cold eyed smile set the fur and feathers bristling along their spines.


To the east, out beyond the city, a very different form of gathering was taking place.   And this had been the subject of Bozzy's now forgotten warning. 

Slasher McGoogs

The back room was windowless, dimly lit and untidy.   A large, ageing, cast-iron printing press dominated the space, bottles of ink and turpentine, sheaves of fresh paper and tied bundles of newly printed pamphlets littered shelves and benches around the slightly grubby walls; wallpaper lifted at its edges, moss green paint cracked and pealed.   Ink-blots stained the bare boards and wads of cotton waste lay undisturbed where they had been dropped.      The short and balding owner of the establishment, the frayed cuffs of his faded flannelette shirt turned back, had been discussing a layout for the latest Broadside when Slasher McGoogs' ears pricked to a sharp scraping sound that may have come from the street.   He gave no other indication that his concentration had been disturbed.
"Your toilet through here?" he asked as he picked up his homburg and moved to a door at the rear.   Without switching on the light, and standing on the lavatory seat he opened a small window, screwed his hat firmly on his head, turned up the collar of his pinstriped drape jacket and slipped effortlessly out onto a drainpipe that was positioned close by.   He was ascending towards the roof as the shop door burst in.
The printer had barely had time to kill the lights and wonder why he had never preplanned an escape strategy when he was transfixed in the beams of several flash lights.   The room filled with black uniformed officers in body armour.
Peering over the roof ridge, close to a chimney stack so as not to present a silhouette against the night sky McGoogs could see the unlucky proprietor being bundled into the back of a dark van; policemen followed carrying clear bin-bags containing large quantities of impounded printed material, a desk top pc and back-up hard drive.   He moved cautiously over half a dozen of the roofs that made up the terrace and slipped through a half open sky-light.   Moments later he emerged from a shop door down the street.   Weaving through the shadows between the pools of jaundiced street lighting he crossed the road and  turned sharply towards the police van, striding out briskly.   Passing close to one of the burly characters who were playfully abusing their hapless, handcuffed prisoner he tipped his hat, innocently obscuring his face with an arm as he spoke.
"Good evening constable, nice night for it." and he was gone.

Barely a mile away at the far end of Ratcliff Highway in their Limehousesailortown penthouse bed-sit, Boz and Phoebles were deep in contemplation.   They were perusing two inflammatory pamphlets that they had picked up in the Charing Cross Road earlier that day.
"I'm convinced these are both the work of Slasher McGoogs." declared Boz, waving one of the handbills aggressively towards Phoebles.

WAKE FROM YOUR SLUMBER

Scrutinise the world about you.

Think on the

Widow in her hovel,

The infant in its pram,

The prisoner in his shackles,

The lonely little lamb.

The MOGUL in his mansion

Cares nothing for these wretches.

In thrall to the Merovingian Dark Lords,

Manipulating the guardians of State and Law,

Hypnotising you with media pap,

With Capitalist trinkets and baubles

He revels in his wealth and power.

Open wide your sleep clouded eyes

And be ready 

The days of retribution come!

A Metropolitan Police dirigible passed slowly by the window.   It was following the London River, moving down stream, a search light panning across the water, sparkling off ripples and eddies.   A steam whistle piped shrilly.

"But if this is his too, what is he playing at?"   Phoebles jabbed at the second sheet of paper.

RALLY TO THE FLAG BOYS

Rally to the cause

This land of hope and glory

This septic isle

At this point in the text Phoebles had smudged a bit of a paw print across the type and in attempting to clean it up had made a hole in the paper.   However he was fairly sure that he remembered what it had originally said and had pencilled 'septic' in above the blemish.

The enemy is without your gates

The vandal at your door

Your country needs you

Be ready to defend those treasured institutions

That are forever

ENGLAND!

"Hm..."   Boz frowned.   "He's up to something again - and it's probably going to end in tears."

Epilogue

1Fnyrdh was sitting by a small open fire near a rude lean to of scavenged timber, rendered waterproof - to a point - by a thatch of dry grass leaves.   It had taken four days to locate the crashed life-craft and now, several months later, its energy cells were all but exhausted, though the emergency food packs were holding out.   She was supervising an improvised cooking pot of rehydrated bll8 strynng soup as it simmered.  Clean accessible water was at a premium; there was none to spare for washing so she had a dishevelled air, her hair was long and matted. her mole-skin coveralls were thread bare, stained and mud spattered, and she sported an increasingly inconvenient unkempt beard.    Boz was curled asleep in the long grass near the edge of what she now thought of as 'the lawn'.   Both were aware of the other's presence, but Boz was too well fed and arthritic to bother with hunting and 1Fnyrdh was more concerned with the whereabouts of Phoebus.

The sound, when they first heard it, was obviously some form of helicopter.  They were both used to the noise of the twin rotored Chinooks which regularly transported the planet's military above this area, so gave it little attention.   However, this time the source of the engine noise did not pass by and it got much louder.   They both looked up when it became apparent something was descending.

The craft, an Atmospheric-Operations General Purpose Tender, had a roughly cone shaped body, elongated fore and aft, which hung beneath a single multi-bladed rotor, and was decorated in angular camouflage patterns of black, white and grey.   It landed close by 1Fnyrdh's camp; the rotor ceased revolving as the engine was cut, and retracted, the blades folding upwards and inwards like the cirri of a barnacle.   A hatch opened, hinging at the bottom to form a ramp, cries of "...hut, hut, hut..." echoed from within and a group of space-marines, dressed in pristine white uniforms and peakless caps, emerged at the trot.   The shore party, armed with hangers and laser carbines formed a perimeter whilst the officer, distinguished by a conspicuous display of gold braid, approached with her small but viciously practical automatic projectile hand weapon unholstered.

"Well, you took some finding."

1Fnyrdh tried to look guilty and grateful by turns.   The officer looked her up and down critically.   How degraded we may become in difficult circumstances - this survivor was almost feral.
"You do know this is a closed world - no contact?   You should not be here and neither should we.   Get your kit together; I want to be off this planet before there's an incident.   The high Command is going to have some tough questions when we get you home." and, "What the hell is that ginger thing?"
1Fnyrdh glanced across at Boz who was watching the proceedings with detached curiosity.   "It's one of the locals.   It will get bored if we ignore it."   The cat stood up and one of the twitched marines fired his carbine.
"Kill that shooting!" screamed the officer.   On the word 'kill' the entire squad opened up.   Hair thin shafts of coherent light ionised the air and pin-pricks of jaundiced green illuminated the feline's fur - harmlessly.   "Frkt0z!   For Jddhrw's sake stop firing!"
Boz sauntered nonchalantly over to the tender, sniffed at the hatchway and gave the fuselage a contemptuous pat with a fore-paw.   He strolled some distance away and sat with his back to them all.   The ship had rocked, but not toppled.
"Get on board, now." the officer snapped to 1Fnyrdh.   "Detail... pick up the life-craft and get that on board too.   We're not leaving any evidence behind."   Then she shouted into a small device tucked under her left epaulette.   "Stoke her up!   I want out of here, this instant."
There followed a short period of frantic activity.   The hull of the life-craft was not too heavy for the squad of burly marines but it was awkward and unbalanced and for too long got stuck in the doorway.   Eventually the inevitable shouting subsided and the hatch clanged shut.   It hissed as it locked.   There had been a growing turbine wine, accompanied by a thin whistle throughout the retreat into the tender.   The whining hum increased in volume and pitch until it was a squeal that pained both feline and Kwmbryn ears.   The whistle, whatever its origin, remained constant.   The rotor blades did not redeploy - instead, quite suddenly, the craft shot into the air on a column of intense white light.   Phoebus emerged from nearby bushes.
He and Boz watched the ship recede into the vivid blue, cloudless sky until only a pinhead twinkle of its exhaust was still visible.   The whistle could still be heard faintly dying away.
"Looks like they really did come from the stars."

Ships in Space

The British Interplanetary Society is considering launching a boat from Earth, hurling it 746 million miles through space, and plopping it onto one of the minus-290 degrees Fahrenheit methane oceans of Titan. This mission to Saturn’s largest moon would be the first of its kind to probe an alien ocean and—depending on the weather conditions—could be the first spacecraft to witness extraterrestrial rain. It would be flown in bits from the James Watt Foundry in Birmingham, along with a small, cryogenically frozen contingent of Kronstadt Sailors (well used to cooler climes) and transportation mules. The 2,766 pieces including a deconstructed Bolinder-Munktell marine diesel and two crankshafts will, on arrival, be reassembled on the shores of Kraken Mare.

This is not a cat related story as such, since there will be no moggies on the trip.   The payload of some 250 tons precludes the carrying of an adequate additional supply of Boz-snacks.   However we shall follow its progress eagerly, with a view (If it is successful) to getting an Arctic Coleyfishtrawler up there whilst the seas on Titan are still relatively virginal.

I Come From The Stars

Phoebus had had a plan – he’d wait.   The thing would get hungry, or bored, or homesick, or just forget why it was hiding, and then it would come out.   His plan had not included being shouted at.

He sat up, stunned.   Then quickly went into the lounge and woke Boz, who was sleeping on the sofa.

“I think you’d better come and see this.”   They padded, together into the dining room.   “I found it outside.   It’s just called to me, in Cat.”

Boz tilted his head to one side and studied the creature.   "Did it say anything useful?"

“It said,  ‘Take me to your leader.’   Do I have a leader?”

“Shouldn’t think so.   What’s a leader?"
"Should I poke it?"
"No."   Boz pushed his nose towards the alien.   "Let's humour it.   What are you and where are you from, little creature?"
Well, so far so good.   There were two of the terrifying predators now.   The second one was even bigger and a darker orange, but with more white.   It did not look any less dangerous.   1Fnyrdh's throat was dry and she was trembling slightly - imperceptibly she hoped.
"I am 1Fnyrdh of the Kwmbry and I come from up there..."
The two cats looked up.
"Did it just say it fell off the ceiling?" asked Boz.
"It's making it up." replied Phoebus, "I brought it in from next door's garden."
"No..." 1Fnyrdh indicated towards a large transparent rectangle in one of the walls, "...out there.   I come from the stars."
"Now it says it fell through one of the shiny holes in the big black roof.   Has it got concussion?"
Phoebus had dropped onto his elbows and was beginning to wiggle his bottom.   Before he could pounce Boz stopped him.   "Give it a bit longer, this is fun."
"I am a space wrecked traveller, sole survivor from a doomed Galaxy Class ore carrier.   I am unable to return to my home world without your assistance."   She assumed the posture of a supplicant.   Then, indicating her surroundings 1Fnyrdh continued, "Your species has obviously achieved wondrous technological advances, are you capable of interstellar flight?"
"What is technological?" asked Boz.
"What is advances?" asked Phoebus.
"You are too modest, this vast hall with its amazing artefacts, the many buildings beyond, only a great civilisation could construct such marvels or take all this for granted."
"This..." explained Boz, "...is Home.   You don't construct Home, it just is; it's more to do with philosophy than physics."
"And we are ginger moggies from the planet Hereandnow," added Phoebus, "and we eat small creatures - even annoyingly deluded, gobby ones that think they are aliens."
Not going quite so well now, then.   Oh, Sqwrll!   If this was Star Quest she'd just shoot her way out of this mess and steal herself one of their space ships.   Only they didn't seem to have any space ships and Leading Spacepeople were hardly going to be let loose near guns.   The crews of VLBCs were notoriously quirky.   It was a long time between ports and you had to be a bit mad to be out there in the first place.
"We may have got off on the wrong foot here.   Please, let me try to explain.   I have inadvertently become trapped on your planet, which, pleasant as it may seem to you, is far from my home.   I am considering the possibility that you are not the dominant species here and I wonder if you could put me in touch with..."   The voice of the translator distorted.   There was a pause, then it said, "Battery low!" in all known languages and went silent.   1Fnyrdh carried on for a while in Kwmbrysh, but it was pointless.

When Richard came in to see what all the meowing was about he found the three of them standing motionless, each apparently waiting for one of the others to do something.
"What the hell have you brought in this time, Phoebus?"   He peered down at the tiny creature with its long pointed face, black boot-button eyes, grey velvety coat and short, whip-like tail. "That's not a mouse, what on earth is it?"   It looked up as he dropped a beer glass over it and slipped a piece of card underneath.   As he inverted the assemblage the little animal fell into the bottom of the glass, squeaking angrily.   Richard carried it carefully outside whilst Phoebus and Boz searched all the nooks and corners of their dining room for their now missing lunch.   Richard walked some way down the lane and stopped at an overgrown patch of waste ground.   He tipped out the none too grateful animal that he felt he had rescued at no slight inconvenience to himself.
"Off you go, little feller.   This should give you a head start.   And be a bit more careful in future."

Are Clangers Edible?

Phoebus had brought it in through the cat-flap and then lost it.   More often than not the ones that got away were field mice, but this one was sort of silvery and a bit slippery.   It may have gone under the dresser.   Phoebus clawed about for a bit, rediscovered a long lost toy and then went into the kitchen for a snack.

They had run into real trouble as they approached Jupiter.   1Fnyrdh of the Kwmbry, as the first spawned offspring in her pod, had been expected to take up an apprenticeship under her biological parent, but instead had run away to space.   Just short of three standard years later, stressed yet highly motivated by the multiple alarms sounding around her, she occupied the post of Leading Spaceperson on the Sunburst Supernova a Galaxy Class VLBC cargo transporter, the size of a small city and with a carrying capacity of just over a billion Short (Qrwm) Tonnes.   Not that size had proved an advantage just at that moment.   A massive solar storm had taken out anything with a processor in it and fried Kilometres of micro-wiring.   Quantum Uncertainty Computers can be finicky at the best of times, their awesome power deriving from the myriad multiple states possible compared to the on-or-off, 1s or 0s of binary computer systems.   But they would not work if they were being watched, and the pulse of solar radiation had definitely given the impression of something that  was watching, and probing, and fiddling about.   Whilst the small crew had been absorbed with restoring control the mega-vessel had ventured too far into the gravitational field of the gas giant.   Swift action had avoided capture, but a sling shot effect had accelerated them towards the centre of the planetary system.   Then they had collided with the asteroid.  

Sunburst Supernova’s spine snapped instantly and she began slowly to fold.   There was a moment of silence and calm and then, with a succession of shudders and groans the great craft broke up spewing grit clouds of ore out into space.   The entire officer class had been wiped out when the navigation deck was destroyed, much of the accommodation had experienced explosive depressurisation.   1Fnyrdh had assisted her surviving companions into a life-craft and watched it depart.   Then she attended to her own survival.   Mind numbingly loud klaxon alarms and strobing red companion-way lights kept her mindful of the impending danger, but were in no way helping.   She located what was probably the last undamaged life-craft, battled into one of its personal environment suits, rushed through the standard checks, blew the bolts and blasted away from the doomed carrier.   Onboard automated systems with some restored functionality turned both life-craft towards a distant blue planet.

As the two craft approached the blue planet 1Fnyrdh could make out an atmosphere and clouds.   The navigation computers on both craft calculated the correct safe entry angle and velocity and the first life–craft made precise adjustments to its attitude.   Her companions’ small vessel was some ten minutes ahead.   It entered the outer layers of the planet’s atmosphere, glowed briefly and exploded.   1Fnyrdh urgently flicked the life-craft systems to manual, the computer resisted, 1Fnyrdh insisted.   Everyone in the crew had undergone extensive simulated disaster training, she had narrowly failed hers and been scheduled for reassessment.   Never the less she made tiny adjustments to her craft’s trajectory, too much and she would bounce off the atmosphere into the chill darkness, offered a fervent prayer to her Pod Deity despite having ignored it since childhood, recalculated and made a few more adjustments, and then gave up; she was only guessing anyway.

After a fiery and nerve racking descent she did not so much land as crash.   The life-craft bounced once and skidded, scoring a linear, dirty brown scar across a plain of tall, broad-leaved grassland.   It pitched over a low, bare hillock and came to rest amidst the roots and trunks of a cramped cluster of flowering trees.   1Fnyrdh pulled the release catch on the outer hatch.   There was a hiss, but it did not move.   Two stout kicks and the hatch cover flew away, 1Fnyrdh leapt down and was standing on the surface of an alien world.   She had walked some distance along the track gouged out by her careering life-craft when something unseen cuffed her off her feet and into the long grass.   As she lay, dazed, immense ivory sabre teeth pierced the collar of her environment suit and crushed the survival pack on her back.   She was lifted, dangling into the air and the gigantic monster that had her in its grip set off at a dash.   1Fnyrdh passed out.

She came round as she was dropped onto the cushioned floor of a vast chamber.   From the compromised state of her shredded environment suit she deduced that the alien atmosphere must be breathable.   It smelled acrid and she felt slightly light headed but her breathing was steady and nothing ached any more than she would expect after her recent rough treatment.   She rolled onto her back and looked up.   The creature standing over her was terrifying.   Superficially the beast resembled the Clrntz*n back home, only built on a totally different scale.   It was six times her height, maybe more, a hundred times her bulk, with golden eyes and a covering of fur striped in shades of sandy orange.   Its belly fur was white and it was displaying a lethal armoury of claws and teeth.   1Fnyrdh leapt up and ran.   She was fast in this strange atmosphere, but so was the beast.   As she zigzagged to avoid the slashing claws she neared a long, low cave.   She threw herself at it and rolled beneath the overhang, scrabbling quickly to the back.   An extended paw searched the cavern, but she managed to evade it and eventually her antagonist lost interest and withdrew.  

There was no way of telling if the automated distress signaller back on the Sunburst had got off a message before the ship broke up or if the one on the life-craft had been working at all - and, either way, little likelihood that a signal would be intercepted in the near future.    As spots went, this was a tight one.   Cautiously 1Fnyrdh surveyed the environment beyond her refuge.   The chamber covered an area greater than a snychb!ll pitch and was twice the height of a gy6 tower; these creatures may be aggressive, but they must have advanced technology and presumably a developed culture.   What had they been told in the lecture on first contact?   She unlocked the helmet from the collar of her environment suit and laid it to one side, then took a universal translator from the hip pouch of her suit, clipped it round her throat and switched it on.   Pulling out the receiver she plugged it into one ear, it crackled and emitted a high-pitched whistle.   She unstrapped it, banged it hard against the back wall of the shelter and tried again.   When she spoke into it, it seemed to be translating into something.   The creature had returned and was lying some distance from the cave mouth with one eye closed.   1Fnyrdh reflected on the state of her suit and removed it; she had better look as smart as possible for the occasion.   Then she moved warily into the open, ready to take cover again at the slightest movement on the part of the orange alien.   She drew a deep breath and shouted.