[ WP ] The first contact with extraterrestrial beings is made by a person with a CV Radio , accidentally , to an Intergalactic Cargo Freighter , and the alien is just as surprised at the human as he is at xim .

With a whistling snort through his upper nasal flap, Torix unsuckered himself from the control panel. The short UpperJump was complete, and he was approaching a blue-white marble of a planet. The old analyzer started warbling away, and it only took one look for Torix ’ s crest to coruscate in disquiet. 
 
 *Oxy-Nitrogen? Toxic and Corrosive? No thank you! * 
 
 The next report let him whistle out a prayer to the Deepest One. The planet had active radiation belts – the local star had been restless lately, it seemed. He activated the scoops, and invisible energy wings folded out from the ship, carefully calibrated to gently sweep the rare anti-particles into the magnetic intakes. 
 
 It still rankled him that he ’ d missed the previous stop. But the Syndicate was charging for access there now, and he couldn ’ t really afford the ‘ refuelling toll ’ they were asking for. Not on this low-share run. The analyzer warbled again, and Torix let out a disgusted snort. There was a Surface-damned gas giant only two orbits away. And it was positively boiling with anti-particles, compared with the current paucity. 
 
 Still, it was going to be cheaper and faster to sweep this toxic world ’ s belt three? Four times? Than it would be to reverse course to the giant. Worth noting for next time – this little system would make a fine fuel-dodge on the Red-Red-Three route. He could even sell the co-ordinates to the Conglomerate. But for now, he was in for a long refueling drag. As the psychologists said, keeping busy during the monotony of space travel was important, so therefore it was time to indulge his favorite hobby. One pseudopod extracted a nutrient bar while the other fiddled with a control. Torix leaned back to listen to the siren call of the star, the radio song of nuclear fusion itself. It was calming. Relaxing. 
 
 “ Breaker One-Nine, Wildfire, you there buddy? ” 
 Tom “ Zippo ” Morgan lowered the CB handset. It was mid-afternoon on a cloudless Christmas Day, and the roads were utterly deserted. It was almost creepy. Like those Zombie movies that seemed to be sweeping the movies. The only other contact he ’ d had all day was “ Wildfire ” – a tough ex-firefighter in a car-carrier - or as it ’ d been described: a “ Portable Parking Lot ”. 
 The silence stretched on, and Zippo hung up the set. Wildfire was obviously on a 10-200. ‘ Fertilizing the berm ’, to use the euphemism he ’ d overheard at the Deere dealership. 
 *Still, might as well, try again. * 
 
 “ Breaker One-Nine, Wildfire, you there? ” 
 
 Torix twisted as the star sang to him. It was comforting – the closest thing in space to the Rumbles Of The Deep. There was still a bit of static on the lower end though. He reached for the control and then hooted in anger as the control snapped off, sending the dial search ever lower into the radio bands. He frantically tried to jam it back in, and succeeded, stopping the dial just in time for a booming squeal of signal to thunder into the compartment. His crest flattened in shock as the analyzer warbled in response. The squeal was structured and very, very close. The thunder returned. 
 
 “ Wildfire. Heya bud. Passing Yardstick 173. What ’ s up? ” 
 
 Tom reached for the handset, but what came through first was confusing as hell. An ear-splitting series of hoots, whistles, clangs, clicks and grumbles. Then there was silence. 
 
 “ This is Wildfire. We got an A & A on this channel? ” 
 
 Tom frowned. A & A ’ s – or Aggravating Agitators was radio-slang for some bored kids trying to troll drivers. But usually they warmed up –this blast was clear out of the blue. 
 
 “ Zippo. Any handles sandbagging? ” *- anyone listening in? * 
 
 “ Zippo. Hacker? ” *– someone out there not obeying the rules? * 
 
 “ Zippo, Wildfire. Been grave-quiet- ” 
 
 The transmission was cut off by another blast of the strange noises. Tom winced and turned the volume down. Some sort of strange atmospheric phenomena? He had a stop in about twenty minutes, and Dan was one of those amateur astronomer enthusiasts. He usually had good intel on sun-spots or whatever it was. 
 
 Torix ’ s crest remained flattened. Both his Request For Identifying Vessel ( Transmitter ) requests had gone without a response, apart from the odd thunder. The analyzer was insisting there was structure in there, but if so, why wasn ’ t the auto-translator kicking in? It had to be some sort of weird feedback mechanism – an atmospheric effect. With an Oxy-Nitro mix, anything was possible. 
 
 Torix retuned to the solar song, but noted that his orbit was carrying him around the dark side of the planet. Already the surface was turning a muddy red. Of all the time to have equipment failure – really! 
 Then the ship swept into the darkness. 
 
 *There is water down there, * Torix mused. *I wonder if I can spot volcanic activity. Like the firerise on the seventh moon of Greenwater. * 
 
 He irised the observation window open and stared out at the world below. The first thing that caught his eye was that the entire nightside was on fire. Yellowish lights burned everywhere. Their glow lit vaporclouds where they had formed, and everywhere else, longs strings of fire burned over the land. Specks lit vast darkness that Torix presumed were the oceans. 
 
 Then a cold-jet wormed through him. The fires were too constant. Their lines were mathematical-straight. They formed intricate networks and centers, like the nerve connections of a transparent predator beast. And one that size? As improbable as it seemed, a gargantuan example of the ancient enemy of his people was residing directly below him. The capsule seemed to darken as he realized that a Luminosity that size could easily swat a small cargo ship from the skies. 
 
 Fear rushed through him, the chemical cocktail lending speed to his frantic commands. The portal irised shut, some deep part of his heritage instinctively warning him to look away. He shrunk the collection field and warmed the UpperJump generator. Activating it this close in to the gravity well was a risk, but one that he had to take. 
 
 This system was a trap. It had to be. A “ Smoker-system ” that spacers burbled quietly to themselves about. Rumors of terrible things that lurked in the dark. No one had ever found what had happened to the *Swiftcurrent* or the *Deeprunner*. They ’ d both been in this sector of space. For all Torix knew, their wrecks were below him, and he wasn ’ t inclined to find out. 
 
 He was still low on fuel, but a simple jump to the edge of the system would hopefully bring him far out of the range of the beast before it became aware of hi-. 
 
 *The Radio! That's its hunting call! And I replied! * 
 
 Torix stabbed the jump button and the cargo ship folded in on itself, vanishing into a purely mathematical realm, compressing space and time, cheating the laws of the universe. 
 
 “ So Dan, anything going on up top today? Was getting some weird static on the CB. ” 
 “ Tom! Get a load of this! Something just blew up over France way. They think it was a nuke, up in space – it ’ s blown every satellite, radio dish and detector from London to Moscow! ” 

