Chapter 1.

The recruitment flyers made it sound so appealing.  Promises of exotic scenery, beautiful women, great food and drink, and the list went on and on.  The visit with the sergeant in charge of recruiting was even worse.  “C’mon in, sit down!  You look like a man who knows what he wants and how to get it.  I bet all the women love you, don’t they?”  O’Ryan wanted so much to believe him, to keep hearing the wonderful things that were being said about himself, that he was willing to do anything, sign anything, whatever, just as long as the recruiter kept talking.  It only took 15 minutes for all of the paperwork to be signed.

“You have to be back at the spaceport in exactly one week from today, at 28:30 hours, or else the deal is off,” said the Sergeant, smiling, as he took the signed permission form, hold harmless agreement, waiver of rights, next of kin listing, medical history, known likes and dislikes, sexual preferences and partner history, measurements, planetary ID card and retina scans.  O’Ryan barely remembered any of it, for he was too excited.  He was going to Earth!!!!!

He had signed on for a five-year tour of duty with the Interplanetary Background and Legal Licensing agency, or IBALL for short.  IBALL was responsible for conducting background checks and legal investigations into planets that were considered possibilities for future colonization.

IBALL had been conducting a concerted recruiting campaign over the last several weeks, and finally O'Ryan succumbed to the constant bombardment and came in for the interview.  It wasn’t hard for him to make the decision to go.  If the truth be known, he was sick and tired of his life as it was anyway, and wanted to do something different; something wild and crazy; something out of the ordinary; something that would make his life interesting again.

He worked, at the Nanowrimian Center for Bureaucratic Ineptitude, or the NCBI.  NCBI was the government’s way of providing a job for every person who lived in Nanowrimia.  The people who were really talented, or who possessed high intelligence or unique and useful mutations had real jobs.  For everyone else, which included most of the Nanowrimians, there wasn’t much for them to do.  Similar to the society described so wonderfully by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in Player Piano, Nanowrimia was by almost all accounts considered a utopia.

The societies advanced technology has eliminated the need for most people to work.  The planet was overflowing with natural resources, and the recent advances in robotic technologies had allowed almost all manual labor to be taken over by robots.  Unfortunately, with most jobs eliminated, the populace became bored.  People no longer had to go to work, but they still received a paycheck deposited into their bank accounts each month.  The amount of the checks didn’t really matter, since everything at the grocery stores was free, as was clothing, electronics, home goods, houses, vehicles, fuel, sunglasses, and education.  So it didn’t really matter if you had money or not.

But it only took a couple of riots for the Nanowrimian government to realize that the people were bored and were loosing their self-esteem.   So NCBI was created.  It was really a brilliant idea.  Everyone was given a position at NCBI.  Each position had a special title, and a salary commensurate with the title.  Once a year, people were given a periodic review, a fifteen percent raise, and a promotion.  The beauty of the job was that all of the employees also were given forty eight weeks of vacation.  The Nanowrimian year was only fifty weeks long, which meant that the people only had to work for two weeks a year, and then could take vacation.  The two weeks of work were mainly set up so that the managers could meet with the employees, and conduct the periodic reviews with them. 

The promotion system was also interesting.  Instead of moving up the corporate ladder and getting more and more responsibility, employees moved around the corporate circle.  The jobs alternated between manager and staff.  So once someone got promoted to manager, the next year they got promoted back to a staff position.

NCBI also maintained branch offices throughout Nanowrimia.  The purpose of the branch offices, along with being locations where the periodic reviews could be completed, was to have a company cafeteria where employees could come in and get their morning coffee each day, even if they were on vacation, since most Nanowrimians didn’t like to start the day off without their cup of joe.

So most, if not all, of the Nanowrimians were now gainfully employed.  Their jobs were stress free, and they were constantly on vacation.  It seemed like the perfect world.  But O'Ryan didn’t quite fit in.  Sure, he liked the vacations, and he had been promoted regularly for the last 6 years.  He was now a Tenured Bureaucratic Specialist 3B, with a pay grade of Level 23c-14, with a salary range of 5000 to 150000 rallods.  All of the pay grades happened to have the same salary range, by the way, but no one really cared, since the money didn’t matter and everything was free.

O'Ryan had been on the way home from his last day of work before going back on vacation when he went past the recruitment office.  He kept walking, then stopped, turned around, and went back.  He actually walked backwards without turning around, and looked inside the recruiter’s office.  The Sergeant was in there, and his smile lit up the room like a solar flare.  He only needed one more recruit to make his quota for the month.  Sergeant Major Ursa didn’t work with NCBI, but was a member of Space Command.  He had a real job, at least compared to O'Ryan.  His job was to pick out the from the general populace people that wanted a change; people that wanted to do something different with their life.

O'Ryan was one of those people.  While most Nanowrimians were happy to spend their forty eight weeks of vacation at the beach writing novels, or joining silly contests, some weren’t content to do that and wanted something more.  O'Ryan wanted something exciting to happen to his life.  Some people would have called it a mid-life crisis, but O'Ryan was only in his early thirties, and since the Nanowrimian life expectancy was 87.658, he wasn’t technically in his mid-life, he was just prior to mid-life.  So you could really say the O'Ryan was having a prior to mid-life mid-life crisis.

People selected for membership to IBALL were required to be single.  That was it.  Nothing more, nothing less, just single.  Each five year mission they were assigned was to another planet somewhere in the galaxy.  Due to the issues of relativity, (Einstein was right, after all) and the difficulties inherent in multi-dimensional space/time travel, long distance romances seldom worked out for the IBALLers.  Because of this, a small concession was made to them.  They were allowed to fraternize at will with all of the members of the planets population that they were investigating.

Part of the inprocessing for the the IBALLers when they arrived at the spaceport was the physical reconditioning that they had to undergo.  The IBALLers weren’t told about this prior to joining up because most of them would have backed out rather than endure the painful procedure.  Since none of the IBALLers ever returned to Nanowrimia after their first assignment anyway, no one really knew that this is what happened. 

During Physical Reconditioning, which was really a nice technical term for massive plastic surgery, both internal and external, the Nanowrimians were transformed physically into nearly exact replicas of the bodies of the host creatures of the planet where they were going to be stationed.  This process wasn’t done initially, but the first of the several Nanowrimians that went to Earth were discovered and been taken to a desert hideaway in Roswell, New Mexico.  It took some wild, out of the box thinking on behalf of IBALL to free the Nanowrimians from Earth without creating massive hysteria.  But because of this nearly every Earthling now new what a Nanowrimian looked like.

O'Ryan happened to get lucky when he reported to the spaceport.  The surgeon on staff had just intercepted a copy of the latest People Magazine Online Addition, and it had featured pictures of all of the stars out for a gala dinner and some awards ceremony.  The surgeon had taken a fancy to some of the male actors and singers, and decided to model O'Ryan after Ricky Martin and Julio Iglesias.  The result for O'Ryan was that he looked like a teen heartthrob.  The surgeon told him that while he might not appreciate his looks now, once he got to Earth and saw how the women loved him, he would understand.

O'Ryan certainly didn’t appreciate his looks now.  He was especially angry that Sergeant Major Ursa had neglected to tell him about this procedure, as well.

Chapter 2.

O'Ryan was sitting in the lounge where all of the other IBALLers on assignment were waiting.  There were many interesting looks out of the thirty or so people that were there.  One of them had been transformed into a creature with on large eyeball and four small eyeballs.  On top of his head were some scraggly hairs.  This person was going to the planet of the flies.  O'Ryan was thankful that he wasn’t going there.

Another person had a large shark-like fin sticking out of the middle of his back.  He also had some new gills on the sides of his throat.  “How do you like them?” he said when O'Ryan looked at him.

Then he saw the woman.  She looked as if she was going to Earth as well, for her surgery had made her look like an Earthen woman, that is a woman from the planet Earth, not a woman made of Earth.  O'Ryan went over to say hello, since it appeared that they were going to be on assignment together.

“My name is O'Ryan,” he said, holding out his hand to her.

“Cassio Paya,” she replied, taking his hand.  “My friends just call me Cassie.  Would you like to sit down?”  She pulled out the chair next to her and offered it to O'Ryan.

“Thank you, I’d be glad to.  I could use some company.  It is a bit freaky here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.  I was just thinking the same thing.  Could you imaging if you had volunteered to go to the fly planet?  Yuck!! I thought the human forms were bad enough, but at least they are bipods.”

“The surgeon told me that I was modeled after a “Latin teen idol heartthrob, Ricky Iglesias or someone like that, I think.  What about you?”

“A teen idol as well, Brittany Timberwoods or something.  At least he gave me a great body.  Check out these boobs!”  She lifted her shirt to show them to O'Ryan.  On Nanowrimia, people weren’t all that conscious about their bodies, since most of them were what people on Earth would describe as “skinny Martians.”

“Wow!  Those are pretty big.  Can I feel them?”

“Sure.  They are kind of fun, actually.  I can make them shake and jiggle and bounce.  Watch.”  Cassie started to shake and jump, and O'Ryan was mesmerized by how her boobs moved.  “The surgeon told me that men on Earth liked women with large boobs, so he gave me a special set.”

They realized that the entire lounge of people were now staring at them, so they quickly sat down, and the bar returned to normal.  With the exception that the waiter brought Cassie several free drinks and a couple of dollar bills as well.

“These were from that gentleman-I mean that Fly- over there.  He said to tell you that he did a tour on Earth and he could appreciate the job that the surgeon did on you.”

Cassie wasn’t sure what to think, because she was totally unaware of the tradition of tipping a dancing girl a dollar when she showed you her boobs. Instead, she just tucked the money in her purse and drank the drinks.

“Do you know where your assignment is on Earth yet?” asked O'Ryan.

“Yes, I do.  I just found out that I’m going to be stationed in a place called Washington D.C.  How about you?”

“Well, what a small universe.  I’ve been assigned to a Washington D.C. as well.  Does that meant that we are partners?” he asked.  “I didn’t think that they sent people out as a team anymore.”

“That’s what I thought as well.  But either way, we can pretend to be partners, even if we aren’t officially teamed up.  I think it might be nice to have someone in the area that I know, just in case something comes up.”

O'Ryan agreed.  “Did you get your PC palm captain communicator device yet?  I got mine just before coming down to the lounge. It’s really neat.  It has lots of cool features.  Want to see them?”

Cassie was intrigued, for prior to her getting a job in NCBI, she had been an engineer.  “Sure, I’d love to see it.  I haven’t gotten mine yet, I’ve just heard about them.”

O'Ryan pulled his out of his shirt.  It wasn’t very large and was meant to be worn on a chain around the neck.  “Here it is.  Not much to look at, but check this out…”  He reached up and pulled the PC from his neck.  Suddenly a red laser shot out of the end and and nearly hit the fly man in the face.

“Hey watch it, asshole!” he yelled.

“Sorry, my mistake,” answered an embarrassed O'Ryan.  Then to Cassie, “ Let me try that again.  It was supposed to take a holographic picture and then display it in front of you.  Here we go, let me get on of you.”  This time he twisted the PC the correctly, and an image of Cassie floated in the air in front of them.  The image was only about six inches high, but O'Ryan showed her how he could make it larger or smaller, and even rotate it in a full circle.

“That is pretty cool,” remarked Cassie.  “Can it do anything else?”

“I’m glad you asked,” answered O'Ryan.  This time, he twisted the PC differently and a model of the galaxy appeared.  Nanowrimia was a small pink dot on one end of the model.  O'Ryan said, “Show Earth” and a blue white dot appeared on the other side of the model.  Then he said “Zoom Earth” and the galaxy was replaced by a rotating hologram of just Earth, spinning slowly about it’s axis.  “Washington, DC” he said, and a red spot appeared on the picture.

Cassie was totally amazed.  “That is so cool.  But here is the real question.  Does it come with any cool games?”

“It sure does,” was O'Ryan’s response.  “Watch this.”  Suddenly, a deck of cards appeared, and Cassie quickly recognized Solitaire.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“How about Asteroids?” answered O'Ryan, calling up the favorite Nanowrimian game.  “I got really good at this game the last time I had to go to work.  I only had a couple of reviews to complete, so I played Asteroids quite a lot.”

“All right people.  Listen up.  If you are It’s time to begin boarding the light cruiser.  Please form a single line over by Gate Two, unless you are going to Earth.  In that case, you need to form a line over at Gate 85 in Terminal C,” the voice over the loudspeaker said.

O'Ryan groaned.  Of course the lounge was right next door to Gate 2.  Gate 85 was at the extreme other end of the spaceport.  It would probably take Cassie and him thirty minutes to get all the way across the spaceport.  They would be lucky not to miss their flight.  “C’mon, partner.  We’d better hurry or we’ll miss our flight,” he said, picking up his travel bag.

“But wait.  I haven’t even gotten my PC yet.  I don’t think I’m through inprocessing.  I thought I’d have some more time to get my stuff together.”

Just then over the loudspeaker, they heard a different voice.  “Attention all travelers.  If your name is Cassio Paya, please stop at IBALL Operations on the way down to Gate 85 to pickup your PC. 

“Great, “ groaned Cassie.  IBALL Operations is in Terminal B next to Gate 56.  It is in the totally opposite direction.

“I’ll go with you, if you’d like.  I’d rather do that than go wait in line anyway,” said O'Ryan, and Cassie was glad to get the company.

They got up out of their chairs and headed over to the IBALL Operations.  It took them almost twenty minutes to walk over there, even with the help of the antigravity people movers.  Of course, there was some idiot hovering on the wrong side of the floatway and backing travelers for several minutes.  O'Ryan got a bit of revenge, however.  He took his PC and zapped the idiot in the butt with the laser beam intensity set to “Hot” (warning, this is really hot!)

Once they got to IBALL Operations, they picked up Cassie’s PC and turned around to head back to Gate 85 C Terminal for their flight to Earth.  This time there was no idiot hovering on the wrong side of the floatway, and they made the entire trip in under forty five minutes.  Even so, they got there just in time.

The hyperactive gate attendant met them up front near the boardway.  “Where have the two of you been?  We’ve been holding up the entire flight for you.  Didn’t you hear the gate announcement an hour ago?  What the heck were you doing, anyway?  Taking a tour of the spaceport?.  Now hurry up and get aboard.  Your seats are in the back of the spaceship.  Don’t forget to strap yourselves in and to stow your baggage in the space provided.  Wait a minute, did you get your carry on bags measured?  I don’t think they’re going to fit.  Well, go ahead.  There isn’t time now anyway.  We are already late, thanks to you two.”

Chapter 3.

They quickly headed down the walkway onto the space plane.  The flight wasn’t crowded, as a matter of fact they were the only two passengers aboard.  There was also a flight attendant.  It was the same man that was waiting for them at the door.

“Let’s get buckled in, now, people,” he said, flitting about near them as they took their seats.  “We have to watch the safety video as well.”  He sent back to his seat and pressed a button near him.  A holographic image of the flight attendant appeared in the middle of the cabin and began the centuries old spiel.

“Thank you for flying the IBALL express, non stop one-way service to Planet Earth.  We are traveling today on a the newest, high tech space craft available, the Cirrus 186k.  This spaceplane is equipped with all of the newest safety features.  In the event of a forced landing on another planet, the planet may be inhabited or uninhabited.  If it is inhabited, the locals may be friendly or unfriendly.  Your seat bottom is equipped with a survival kit for both of these scenarious.  Friendlies are usually not a problem, however sometimes we have to fight our way out with unfriendlies.  This has only happened twice in the many years of this airline, and both times most of the passengers survived, albeit with many, and in one case in particular, life threatening, injuries.

“If the planet is un-inhabited, there are also two things that may happen.  If the planet has an atmosphere, we will probably be alright as long as another space plane is in the galactic sector and can rescue us.  Unfortunately, if the planet does not have an atmosphere, we will probably die a horrible death from asphyxiation, especially if we land on one of the planets that has an atmosphere full of ammonia.  Let’s all hope that that doesn’t happen, by the way, since death from ammonia asphyxiation is quite a horrible way to go.

“I have digressed.  Let me continu-“

The attendant hit the stop button and cut off the hologram in mid-sentence.  “Those stupid holograms start taking on a mind of their own after a while, and then start adding in their own editorial comments.  It is supposed to be Intellisense Technology, but frankly it is more like “Kindasucky technology” if you know what I mean. 

“Let me summarize the remainder of the safety briefing.  If we have a problem while we are traveling in space, we are all going to die, because there isn’t a soul on this planet that gives a rat’s ass whether or not we live or die.  Any questions?”

O'Ryan looked at Cassie, and they both looked back at the flight attendant and shook their heads no.  At that point they felt the space plane pull away from the dock and head out to the space port takeoff and landing area.  They heard two chimes, and then the felt the old Cirrus cruiser start to move.  The antigravity engines came to life, and the ship hovered off of the runway for a moment, while the ion generator kicked into the gear.  The plane then shot ahead and upwards into the sky.

O'Ryan and Cassie were pressed back into their seats by the powerful thrusts of the space planes engines, and they quickly were out of the Nanowrimian atmosphere.  O'Ryan couldn’t help himself.  He was never one to travel well, and this was the worst he had ever experienced.  He would have vomited into a travel bag if he could have lifted his arms from the arm wrests, but unfortunately the craft pulled about 12G’s as it left the atmosphere and he couldn’t move his arms.  The G-Forces also made throwing up a bit difficult.  The vomit came out of his mouth as a projectile, but immediately flew back into his face as if someone had tossed a bowl of oatmeal over him.

And then they were out into space.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” said Cassie.  Then she turned around and saw the vomit dripping off of O'Ryan’s face.  “I mean, it wasn’t so bad for me.  It looks like it sucked pretty bad for you, however!”

O'Ryan just sneered at her, and tried to wipe the sticky, gooey vomit from his face.  Just then the flight attendant appeared with a warm towel, and said, “Here you go, we keep these around for accidents just like you had.  They come in handy don’t they?”

O'Ryan wiped is face and neck clean, and put the nasty towel into the trash bag the attendant had given him.  Outside the window it was now black, with dots of lights everywhere. 

“Just a warning for you two, in just about twenty minutes we will be making our first hyperspace jump.  Mr, O'Ryan, you may want to keep one of those towels handy, you know, just in case…”

O'Ryan wanted to smack the flight attendant.  “No, that’s alright.  I don’t think that I have any vomit left in me.”

“Okay, boyfriend, but don’t blame me if you get another pile of puke in your face.”  He went back to his seat.

Finally O'Ryan had a chance to focus back on Cassie.  She was sitting there, looking at him with a serious expression on her face.  “Did you get a packet of paperwork or anything like that?” she asked.

O'Ryan looked back at her, and his jaw dropped.  “You’re kidding, right?  I mean, you do have the packet with your identification, fake currency, credit cards, and profession description, don’t you?”

Cassie began to cry.  “They told me that they would have all that stuff for me before the flight, but with all of our hurrying around to get my PC, I forgot about it until just how.  What am I going to do?”

O'Ryan didn’t know what to tell her.  He had his packet tucked away safely in his carryon, and had just assumed that Cassie had hers as well. “Do you think that there is anyway we can contact IBALL headquarters and have them forward your packet to you?”  But O'Ryan knew the answer already.  There would not be any communication with IBALL until they had been on Earth for three months.  After that, they would communicate once every six months, until it was time for them to come home after completing their Earth tour of duty.

“Hyperspace jump coming up.  Hang onto your lunch, Mr. I can Keep my lunch down O'Ryan.  Here…..it……comes!!!”

O'Ryan was pressed into his seat, and he felt as if his cheeks were going to be pulled off of his face.  The stars outside the window became long trails of light, and he couldn’t hear anything.  Surprisingly enough, however, his nose picked up the peculiar scent of chocolate that space travelers often associated with hyperspace jumping.  And then it was over.  Just like that.  Only a matter of seconds to jump light years across the galaxy.

“And I didn’t even puke this ti-“  Suddenly, he vomited again, this time all over his clothes and into his shoes.

The flight attendant, (you’d of thought that by now he would have a name, wouldn’t you?) was already standing next to him.  “You’re body can’t vomit while in hyperspace.  Something about the laws of physics and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, at least that’s what they told us in Flight attendant school.  And by the way, Mr. Smartypants, if you want a towel to clean up with, get it yourself.  I’m going on break.”

“I’ll get it,” said Cassie, and she got up and walked to the front of the cabin.  It was amazing that any of them could actually walk in the cabin, since there wasn’t any gravity to hold them to the floor now that they were in space.  Cassie pondered that thought, and then attributed it to the fact the writer of this novel was just trying to up his word count and hadn’t thought about mere details like gravity in the middle of space.  Suddenly, she floated in the air and seemed more at ease.  “Thank you!” she said to the author, and then floated over to get the towels.

While Cassie was floating to get him a towel, O'Ryan was trying to figure out how to solve the crisis that Cassie was in.  He knew that he could share his cards and money with her, but what to do about her identity?

Cassie returned to the seats and handed the towel to O'Ryan so he could clean himself up, again.  It was bad enough to vomit on yourself one time, but twice in twenty minutes was pretty pathetic.  But he did get cleaned up enough to be presentable.

“So what are we going to do?” asked Cassie.

“I’m not really sure,” answered O'Ryan.  “For starters, though, you can stay with me and work at the bar where I am going to be working.  That is my undercover job, by the way.  I am going to be a bartender.  My earth name will be Juan, and people will call me “Juan, the bartender”.  Since you don’t have any ID with you, we will have to make something up.  How about if we call you Maria Alonsa Pepita Jose del los Santos?  Or we could just call you Cassie, and not worry about it.  You can wait tables at the bar, and we can share an apartment together until we figure something out and get in contact with IBALL headquarters.”

“Would you really do that for me?” asked Cassie.  She was going to cry again, O'Ryan could tell.

“C’mon now, Cassie, we are undercover agents, but even more importantly, we are also partners.  Since we will be living together, I guess that would make you my domestic partner as well as my professional partner.”

“But I can’t be your domestic partner.  I’m a real woman. Don’t domestic partners have to be the same sex?”

“Yes they do, but that’s not important right now.  What is important, however, is that together you and I will get through this.  Besides, you’re going to need some practice on using those gigantic boobs of yours, and I would be more than glad to help out.”

Cassie looked at him, and without warning slapped him across the face.  “We have just met, and you already have us living together and fornicating like a couple of wild dogs.  I want you to know that I have my principles, and I won’t sleep with anyone that I have just been sent off into outer space with, no matter how handsome or how much like that Latin heartthrob he looks like.  At least, not until he puts on some clothes that don’t smell like vomit!”

Chapter 4.