Finding himself on the same galaxy class ship as before, the Investigator did not hesitate to reacquaint himself with the Captain. They had a beverages session after the Captain's last bridge watch before the ship went to light speed. The Captain was happy to see the Investigator. He said in a conversational tone of voice.
"So you did get that painful Professor onto the government weapons project team?"
Realizing that he could say little about that particular project, the Investigator kept his answers brief. In a non-committal tone of voice he said,
"Yes he was made an expert adviser!"
Laughing the Captain defused any awkwardness by saying in a joking manner,
"I pity anyone who had to get advice from that opinionated genius. Well I can see you are not allowed to talk about it, so let's talk about your family instead. Did you get a chance to get back home?"
Grateful for this act of discretion, the Investigator said in a happy tone of voice,
"Yes! I had two weeks with them. It was great to be able to use names not titles. I was able to disconnect my universal translator. I really do get sick of those monotone translations, don't you?"
The Captain nodded his head before saying in a sarcastic tone of voice,
"Mine sounds like my wife's voice. It never stops nagging away at me to get my pronunciations right."
Now the Investigator was laughing along with this new friend. They spent an enjoyable session just relaxing.
Arriving at the time-space coordinates given for the last Space Imps attack, the galaxy ships began tracking with their long range scanners. Faint nuclear trails led in three very different directions so the galaxy ships separated to follow these trails. The Investigator's ship had the furthest to go, so it was soon travelling at light speed. Arriving at the zone where their chosen trail ended, the Captain brought his ship back to combat speed.
Scanners located a nearby settlement which was checked out first for life signs. As the galaxy ship arrived in orbit around the settled planet, a message was received from the surface authorities. The Captain decided to leave any negotiations between planetary authorities and officialdom with the Investigator.
The Investigator went to the surface welcome center. Entering the formal welcome chamber, the Investigator, sensing trouble, started negotiations cautiously. In a clearly official tone of voice, he gave the traditional invocation from Galaxy Central,
"The galaxy government sends its warmest regards to your planet. It needs your help to track down enemies of galactic good order. How say you to this request?"
There was an inevitable time lapse whilst the translators struggled with these archaic words. Finally one of the local planetary officials spoke. Now it was the Investigator's turn to wait for his translator to search for word matches. Finally he heard this in the toneless voice of computer speak,
"We welcome the representatives of Galaxy Central. But as a free species we recognize no government but our own. We will help you if it does not involve harming are own species. State the details of your request."
Every fiber of the Investigator's being was screaming that something was very wrong here with this planetary delegation. For a start his research on this planet showed it to be friendly to Galaxy Central. Then there was the strange way only one representative spoke for all. His research suggested this planet had a very loose commonwealth of subspecies. There was no indication of any one dominant ruler. So the investigator kept his request modest and his purpose hidden. He said,
"We seek only water replenishment and some guidance. Nothing more."
There seemed to be a moment when the planetary representatives all seemed to relax. But even then the Investigator noticed the tense stance of a few males at the back. If anything these few seemed to become distressed. The Investigator was now even more ready to end this charade by returning to the galaxy class ship. Most of the planetary representatives were now smiling. Their chosen speaker said,
"Water we have in great abundance. Guidance is mandatory to strangers lost in our zone."
A clever answer like that only further aroused the Investigator's suspicions. But he was an expert in hiding his thoughts, so he said,
"Thank you for the water. When I return to the ship I will have our navigator send down his directional queries."
Having concluded the formal part of the negotiations, the Investigator was keen to get back safely to the galaxy class ship. He left the formal welcome area as soon as he could without risking alerting any hostile watchers. Before he left he secretly scanned the binary code numbers of everyone in the room.
Arriving back on the ship the Investigator sought an immediate private meeting with the Captain. Not wasting any time he came straight to the matter of his suspicions about the planetary welcoming party. In a steady voice he said, "Captain there is something wrong on that planet. I will give a section's pay if the group I met turns out to be the real officials of that species. The ones I saw at the front of the delegation were too fit, too nasty to be mere officials. There were a few at the back of the delegation that did look like your classic planetary official. But they only stood there silently."
Worried by this report the Captain asked,
"What are your worst fears?"
Shrugging his shoulders, the Investigator said cautiously,
"I will know more when the ship's communication system access galaxy central databases. I took everyone's binary code readings. That should tell us something."
Going over to his official digital assistant the Captain said,
"I want those binary code search details sent to me as soon as they arrive. See to it as a priority one command."
The digital assistant replied,
"Yes Captain. I will get access with the communications assistant at once."
After his digital assistant had hovered out of their cubicle, the Captain said,
"Unofficially what do you think went on down there at that welcoming?"
The Investigator replied,
"I can't be certain of this but I think we were being tricked. Having been part of many such welcoming ceremonies, I know that it is normal for every species to exhibit some fear. No administration is completely honest. This far away from Galaxy Central scrutiny, some low level corruption is to be expected. That is why their portrayal of having nothing to hide rang so false."
Nodding his head, the Captain began pacing the length of the cubicle. Just then his digital assistant hovered back into the cubicle. It awaited a command to download the acquired data. The Captain said,
"Give the Investigator's