Nevertheless, three hands went straight up into the air.   I gave Weslee a significant glare.   He looked around as if he had been day dreaming, saw how everyone was glaring at him, gave us a startled look in return and said, Uh, sure, I'm in."   Carrying the role a bit farther, I harrumphed.   Weslee said, "What?"   Then seeing that everyone was still steadfastly holding their hands in the air and was even wagling them a bit for emphasis, Weslee finally caught on. "Oh." was all he said, but his hairy paw joined the others in the air.

   I slapped my hand on my face, dragged it down to my chin, said, "Sheesh, Weslee!   A while ago you were all hot to trot!" He made no reply, just kept his paw in the air, but I did notice that he was already drifting back off to where he'd been before the vote.   Nevertheless, I said, "Motion carried!" If the day dreaming Weslee had been engaged in before I'd interrupted him was going to be significant I'd find out later.   If not -- so be it.   One mostly never knew with Weslee.   But I did know I could count on him in the pinch.

   After that we retrieved from Edgar what we'd need to make my plan work.   After we'd feverishly installed it in and on the ship and I'd stowed in my pockets the other gear I would need, we were mostly ready to go.   We stood in a circle and solemnly pledged our allegiance to each other -- Kalana and Roliti seemed to want that -- and THEN we were ready to go.   As we all headed to the bridge, Perki and I taking our stations (Kalana, Roliti and Weslee were just along for the ride for the time being) I noticed that once again Weslee had changed his T shirt.   And this time it was something different even for Weslee.   It had two messages on it.   The front said, "The Breakfast of Champions: Annunaki Butt!   And on the back it said, "The Definition of Superfluous: Annunaki!   Who Knew?"   Obviously he had switched T shirts during a time when I had been busy elsewhere.   Was this his way of saying he was sorry for daydreaming?   I wasn't sure and wasn't going to ask.   One never knew what Weslee might say.   Nevertheless I had to say that I seconded the emotions expressed on the shirt.

   I gave Perki a nod.   She initiated the start sequence. When the engines were on line and "crackling" right along, I nodded again.   She tapped a few more commands in and we were off -- straight up into space looking like a meteor flying backwards on a movie running in reverse!   I alternated between checking the sensors and weapons array --- busy work for now! -- and checking that all the paraphenalia we had installed was still working just fine.   I was doing all that because I had nothing else to do at the moment and because we didn't know how long it would take to find the Annunaki -- even following the homing beacon.

   In some ways the trip to the Annunaki ship seemed to last forever.   But in others it seemed not to last long enough.     I had my usual pre-engagement jitters. Was this really going to work?   Would we succeed?   Or would we fail THIS time? What might go wrong after all, despite my being sure I had covered every contingency?   Would Roloiti and Kalana bail out on us at the last moment?   Or would the Annunaki see right through my plans?   Despite all my brave talk -- was I really ready to face those hideous creatures again?   And more -- defeat them?   Well, not exactly defeat them since the galaxy was full of them, but could we chase them away from here at least?   Then there was no more time for doubts or second guessing.   The Annunaki ship came in sight.

   The minute I was sure that it WAS an Annunaki ship and not some faulty sensor blip, I flipped a couple of switches.   One switch was to engage the holographic program.   The other was to send out the distress signal.   The first thing the distress signal did was send out a virus that would effect the the Annunaki's sensors.   (Nothing like using our own little, sorta illusion field against them, eh?)   As far as the Annunaki would be concerned we had just popped into existence in the system mere seconds ago.   This sophisticated little program that Edgar had cooked up for us was so that the Annunaki would not realize that we had lifted off from the planet -- had they been watching.   (It also had another function.   More below!)   This would make the holographic program we were now running seem all the more believable.   Had I not known different I would have been scared myself.

   The holo program had created an alternate Weslee, Perki, Kalana, Roliti, and me.   And what alternates they were!   We all looked like we had been turned into various kinds of twisted, almost demonic mutants!   The holo Weslee's ears had been elongated to the point that they were almost batwing like.   It's teeth were as long as a saber toothed tiger's.   And it had awesome claws, easily each six inches long and razor sharp.   And it's fur was spiky, writhing like it was alive and it was mauve!   Perki's holo had wings.   Those wings were membraneous and had clearly visible, ugly veins crawling with little, blue, wriggling symbiotic creatures. It's red hair looked like ropes of clotted blood.   And it's eyes were like twin, sick kaleidoscopes constantly changing shape and color, wobbling with a sick black light in between color changes.   Kalana's holo was naked, it's bluish white skin running with horrible pussy, bloody sores and it was terribly emaciated.   Upon it's head had sprouted an ingrown crown of thorns.   Those thorns were digging in horribly and making the holo's eyes bulge out in evident terrible pain   Roliti's holo was so grotesquely fat that it looked like it would burst apart under the pressure at any moment.  It's fat skin had lichen and moss growing all over it. And it was leaking blood from the soles of it's feet so that eveywhere it walked it left bloody footprints.   And my holo? I thought it was the worst of all.   It was constantly shape shifting.   One minute it would look like an Annunaki, the next moment it would look like a perfectly normal human being.   But in between times it was all kinds of horrible, morphing variations of the two!   CORRECTION! At least that was what the holos WOULD look like when the time was right!   When the Annunaki first saw them though they would all look like badly battered Annunaki.   We didn't want to scare them away before we had the chance to send them into the throes of blind, unreasoning panic!   (And besides their appearances they had a few little other tricks up their sleeves to help the blind, unreasoning panic along -- which is something I will cover when the time is right.   Promise!   Just be patient!   I mean it wowed me and I think it's worth waiting for!)   And thus conquer them.   ("Wait a Durn Minute!" You're saying.   "What's all this conquer stuff as in violence?   What about Perki being a pacifist?"   Well, it was perfectly OK with Perki since her holo was going to be doing most of the damage!   And since somebody had to do it, it might as well be a holo of her that didn't really commit her!)

   Our cover story was going to be that we had been sucked into a space anomaly. That anomaly was a cross between a pulsar and a black hole that had sucked us in and spit us out here!   We were going to keep hidden the "true" appearance of the holo's until they had brought our ship into their docking bay.   This was going to be neccessary since our life support systems were rapidly failing.   Once our holos were on board though, THEN their true looks would come to the fore and began to wreak havoc.   I was not counting on the Annunaki to aid us through any charitable impulse, even though they would probably pretend that was the case.   Instead they would do it because they would want to study the effects the anomaly had had on us and our ship.   Then the real ones of us would, taking advantage of the distraction, try to find the illusion field and shut it off and look for Litja Peachtree.   To aid us in looking for the illusion field Edgar had cooked up a handy little sensor.   All we needed was the time to employ it.   Hopefully our twisted little holos would buy us that time!   (Weslee had dubbed the holos the Faery Daemon Gang!   It seemed to fit and was just whimsical enough, in a macbre way, that we had all taken to copying him!)

   When the Annunaki hailed us, we all made sure that the we were well out of sight of the either one of the porthole/viewing screens.   (Granted the Annunaki couldn't see anything inside -- from the outside! -- that we didn't want to them to see.   But they were coming on board.   THEN that advantage would be negated.) The holo me had been programmed to answer any hail and keep itself in the Annunaki mode, for the time being.   (Of course the other holos were also programmed at this point to look like Annunaki.   It wouldn't do for them to look like anything -- just yet!)   It went through it's routine.   The Annunaki on the screen seemed to buy it.   At least a tractor beam came out of their ship and began dragging our holo disguised ship (it looked like it had been through hell and back and Edgar had assured me that the sensor virus would also make their sensors incapble of seeing through the holo disguise of the exterior of our ship) towards the opening door of their docking bay.   Soon!   Soon we would see how well our charade was going to play!   I was betting that there would be widespread panic on their ship before too much more time had gone by.   Was it a fool's bet or not? (Oops!   There I go again with the pre-engagement jitters!)

   We heard a little scraping noise and felt a little bump (from where we were hiding we couldn't see the sensors) and I was pretty sure we were in the Annunaki's ship.   We waited until we heard the sound of my holo replying to an unfamiliar Annunaki voice.   We waited some more.   There was a further, longer conversational exchange and Perki whispered, "The Annunaki told the holo you that they would help fix the ship, but that they wanted to study things for a bit.   As programmed the holo you replied that he didn't care, that he was just glad to be safe for the moment and wanted to know if he and his party could just rest somewhere for awhile.   The Annunaki told the holo you that he didn't see why not -- after they had provided whatever medical attention the holos might need.   They have a large ship and there is plenty of room.   The Annunaki also wanted to know if this was the whole crew.   Your holo told it that there had been a couple more crew members, but that one had been killed and one had committed suicide.   The Annunaki seemed unconcerned about that." (Speaking of unconcerned, I was unconcerned about any "medical attention" the holos might receive since they were as life like as they could possibly be.)   So instead of worrying about that I told Perki thanks for translating and told her that it sounded like everything was OK -- for the moment.   She nodded her understanding.

   We waited a bit more until we heard the sound of the entry ramp on this ship close.   We waited some more, hoping it wasn't some kind of trap.   It wasn't likely that it was since the holos had also been programmed to emit such a strong signal that it should hide our life signs.   But one never knew.   If the Annunaki had not fell for my holo's story and had left someone behind to check visually then the jig was up.   We waited some more, but there was no sound of anyone searching the ship -- that we could hear, at least!   Finally, I felt like we didn't need to wait any longer and couldn't really afford to anyway.

   We emerged from hiding, cautiously looking around.   To our great relief we were alone.   Now all we had to do was keep track of the holo's activities on the little wrists screen Edgar had provided us with.   Of course those wrists screen might be somewhat superfluous!   We'd probably be able to hear the chaos.   Still I didn't want to take any chances.   It would be best to know where and when at all times.

   The plan called for the holos to wait -- as long as possible, at least!   This was going to give us two advantages -- we hoped!   It would lull the Annunaki into thinking everything was as it appeared.   And it would give the holos time to scout out the ship a bit, at least.   But at the same time we were walking a fine line.   We didn't know how long it would be before Father Logis would report in.  

   We'd argued about it.   Weslee and Perki had maintained that he would probably only perform a perfunctory search before admitting defeat and reporting in.   Kalana and Roliti had not been so sure.   There was the pride and fear factor they'd maintained.   Father Logis was a proud man and probably wouldn't want to admit defeat that easily, they'd insisted.   Plus, they'd said, it was likely that he was afraid of what the Annunaki would do to him when he reported that he'd let us get away.   I opted for believing them.   Because I wanted to and because I figured they knew him that well.   The fact that the Annunaki had not immediately arrested us (or TRIED to arrest the holos) anyway was no proof either way.   They could very well have their own game going.   But I was hoping, nonetheless, that Kalana and Roliti were right and that our "disguise" was working.   Still I didn't want to push it.   Either Father Logis WOULD cave in and report anyway -- or else the Annunaki would get tired of whatever game they (might be!) playing and turn the tables on us after we'd been lulled into a sense of false security.   So the upshot was that I was going to let the holos have time until my instincts said move.   In this case we didn't dare rely on Perki Travating.   (Like I've said before -- Travating is a bit like telepathy and a bit like empathy, but not quite either.   Therefore Perki couldn't read the complete details of the thoughts of the Annunaki and if they could mask their emotions well enough then she wouldn't be any help there either.   Travating was only good for sensing things that the other senses couldn't pick up -- if you needed it because you didn't have access to other sensors.   And it was also good for getting a general sense of where a person's head was at.)

   I knew I didn't have to worry.   The holos passed the medical checkup (at least if the Annunaki were suspicious they made no sign and that was going to be good enough for me -- for now!) with flying colors and were escorted to quarters where they could rest.   After several hours during which I passed the time worrying instead that Father Logis was going to report in any minute and hours during which I fully expected the Annunaki to storm the ship where we were hiding, nothing like that happened.   Or if Father Logis HAD reported in there was no attendant raid -- for whatever reason the Annunaki might have had -- on our hiding place.   Instead the holos reappeared, told their Annunaki escort that they were hungry and would like a meal, if at all possible.   Watching on the small screen attached to my wrist, I saw the Annunaki nod and lead our group away.   As it turned out that trip to the mess hall was good enough for me.   Our holos and the Annunaki covered or passed by or went through a good portion of the ship to get to the mess hall. I didn't know why the personal quarters were so far from the mess hall, but who knew with Annunaki logic?   I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.   During that trip our holos had passed several promising sites -- places where Litja might be kept and places where the illusion field might be operating from.   It was time for the holos to go into their act and then it would be time for us to move.   I sent my holo the signal and sat back and waited, prepared to watch as much of the show as I needed to.   It looked like the Annunaki WERE completely fooled!   We'd soon know!