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could destroy with a thought. They were … perfect. And powerful. They held the means that the Kail did not to defeat their enemies.
    The metal door to the bridge responded to Phutes’s impression upon it, and slid aside. He stepped into the chamber. 1100 round black eyes turned resentfully in his direction.
    “Hey, kitty litter!” A throaty growl was revised by her harness-mounted translation device into a comprehensible Kail rasp like stone on stone.
    Phutes dropped abruptly out of the worshipful thoughts that had enveloped him. The object of his momentary quest was before him: Captain Bedelev. The Wichu was a hand’s thickness less than his height. Her entire body, like those of her bridge crew, was covered with white filaments except where facial features, digits and genitalia, most of them a shocking pink in color, protruded. A small device with intelligence circuitry buzzed around the floor, gathering up the filaments that the Wichu constantly shed. Phutes shook his foot to dislodge one that had floated onto it. It felt disgusting.
    “Wichu leader!” he growled. The translator piped out a phrase that sounded far too conciliatory, but he had not been the one who programmed it.
    The Wichu captain stalked over and glared at him, black, bulbous eyes to efficient, flat optical receptors.
    “I thought I told you to stay off my bridge!”
    “My siblings and are unsatisfied with the cleanliness of the water piped into our quarters,” Phutes said.
    “What do they want?” Captain Bedelev demanded. Her raucous shout emerged in Kail from the circuitry sounding like a polite and diffident query. “I know what you Kail like. I have one of you working for me, you know. The filtration system takes out everything to particles less than an angstrom across. That water is purer than primeval snow.”
    “It stinks!” Phutes said. “It may be free of particulate matter, but gases pass through the conduits and pollute our quarters. They are noxious! No softskin would endure it. Why should we? Are we not valued as customers?”
    “Of course you are!” she said. Bedelev brushed at her furry nose with an impatient paw. She reached out for his arm, but he recoiled. “All right, all right. I’ll see about venting the pipes before they hit your part of the ship. It might get colder in there, though. The ambient air helps keep the water warm.”
    “We will endure,” Phutes said. “As long as the water arrives devoid of the smell of …” He paused. He was getting what he wanted. No sense in escalating until the captain’s promise was proved worthless. “… Of internal processes.”
    “And your shit don’t stink?” she asked. She waved a paw. “No, I guess it doesn’t. It’s practically pure sand. Fine. Now, get off my bridge. No more visits without notice, from now on. Got that?”
    Phutes lifted his face slightly. It was as close as his kind would come to imitating a soft-body’s smile. He wouldn’t have to offer empty pleasantries for very long.
    “I follow instructions.”
    He turned and departed. Behind him, Bedelev made a noise that the circuit did not translate.
    The door closed behind him, making a conciliatory sound. Phutes returned to the open lift shaft. To one side, the stream reached its apex. Phutes ignored the Wichu jumping off to fulfill duties on this, the uppermost deck of the ship. He shoved aside a Croctoid in a Maintenance collar. It snapped at him. Phutes let it close its jaws on his lower forearm. It recoiled at once, spitting out jagged oral calcifications.
    “Dammit, buddy, watch where you’re going!” it said.
    Phutes paid no attention. He was too offended by the creature’s saliva on his arm. He would have to scrub it vigorously to rid himself of the unhealthy touch. He pushed into the descending stream. Time to pay a visit to a long-lost relative and sibling in the cause.

    Phutes felt the charge of electrical power surging through the walls and into the banks and emplacements of