Sam Boone’s Rational Choices

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“Dhammn vladish humms, nodgid nythggg ride!” Mardnnn bubbled. The words formed a greenish foam around the edges of the alien’s air hole and dribbled over the bright orange pimple on his otherwise featureless “face.”

Sam could tell that Mardnnn was obviously displeased, upset, and a bit indisposed, because the alien’s normally deep bluish complexion had shifted toward a more cerulean hue. Besides that, the Crumptonian was rocking back and forth on his platform, and wiggling his tentacles in a most agitated fashion. All in all he could tell that his boss was quite distressed.

Like everything else connected with the galactics, this made Sam very worried.

A year before, humanity’s first interstellar explorers had returned to Earth with astonishing news. Of course, the news was not nearly so astonishing as the lopsided, asymmetrical lump of a green ship that they rode into near-Earth orbit. The ship was a gift (aka “bribe”) from the captain of a galactic liner that mistakenly rammed Earth’s most sophisticated piece of technology and destroyed it. “Never to speak of this,” the captain had pleaded as it stuffed the humans into their new ship, gave them instructions on how to get back to where they started. “Never to make a claim,” it begged them, and raced away. Earth’s first interstellar visitors had arrived a few months later.

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