In a fearless Setting, garrulous Basics smiled. Not a little bit, but very happily. "Well, you have, on one of your teeth, been taped a part of a CD label for one of those putrid dreck known as Cool Vibrations Records. Right?" "This is it!" A blossom of excitement in his voice. "Not these nasty slip - the - card - in - and - snicker - snicker ones, this is the real deal. Cool Vibrations. The world is full of crap, but they put out the good stuff." Well, she didn't even bother to reply to that. She was too busy staring at the small squares of paper stuck to her tooth. "Do I really look like that kind of person, all green and forlorn?" And indeed, her features had lost their earlier cheer, and were worn, drawn and bored. "Just follow me," he said, standing up and heading for the door. "Be at the meeting place in five minutes." Somehow, he was already there when she got there. She was struck, as she ran into him, by the fact that she was wearing sneakers and he was not. A few minutes later, he reappeared with two other people, one of whom she recognized as someone she had come across before, in a sort of "scrapper" situation, and whose name was Ripley. In the other she was only vaguely aware of: Dr. Blits.
[the chemical Dr Blitz appraised the separate Ripley, who was endangering an Orangutan. "There's a tiger," Blitz muttered as he took one, and I met Trask, who appeared at the far end of the room, looking pained. He held a cage of huge, slavering beasts. "Ripley, don't-" "I have to help this poor girl." Dr. Blitz's mouth twisted wryly as he turned to Blitz and his new captives. "We must quarantine her." "What about you?" the old man asked. "You're safe in there." "I... I'd like to see what you have to do." I glanced at Trask. He nodded slightly. "What do you need?" he asked. "And don't try to get out before you do what you're going to do." "Don't you want to see it?" I asked the doctor. "I'm sure she'd be... willing." "No, please. If I do see it, I'll be here till the end of time. Don't spoil my rest, please. I'd rather go out of my mind in a sane way than go mad screaming." Dr. Blitz took off his coat and secured it around Ripley's throat.] As she started talking to them, they drifted off to one side, and she began to hear distant noises. Almost directly behind her, under the basket where her head was resting, she could feel a vibration begin to grow, and she realized that it was going to get worse, much worse. As the sound got louder, she knew that, somewhere, a mechanical alarm was going off. And soon... "There!" he shouted, pointing to the figures ahead of them, ahead of them at a fast walk. At a casual glance, it might have been a married couple, walking down the sidewalk. But she knew better. In the window above their heads were two number plates, each bearing a single letter. The [letters were S & C] "Congratulations," the elderly, white - haired man said, his blue eyes sparkling. "You have succeeded in the Great Quest. Now, you must make the final and most vital decision before you can enjoy the rest of your blessed life." I must be dreaming, she thought. I must be really tired, because it sure doesn't seem that way at all. She didn't care about anything. She didn't even seem to have to choose a name. With those words, the young woman vanished. But she did stay in that room long enough to laugh so hard that her head shook like a rag doll, which was saying a lot, she knew. She He nodded, and then he got back to work. He made one last name - less choice: he called his ship X8 - 225 and told it to "Go and look for her." Almost as an afterthought, he pressed the button to "Ready the probes." Al's [Done for Now!]