“Relax-ax, old chap, I’m a friend-end, r-r-uff!” said the green-eyed earthling and then cautiously watched our reaction.

I was still shivering. First, I had to keep a grip on my emotions and, second, get the better of my disobedient body.

“Friend?” I asked, struggling to get over my host’s stupor.

“I’m lieutenant-ant Smartoop. Wough!..” said the creature stepping towards me.

“AA-A-A-A-A-RGH!!” Fyodor screamed and slammed me into the wall. “Fft! Bad doggy! Bad! I’m not talking to you! Am I?” he gave me a couple of slaps in my face. “Better, better… Fft! Fft! The guys’re right, I certainly got a hangover. No-o-o, I’m still drunk! Or sleepy… or drugged!!”

“Arf! Stop-op this!!” Smartoop barked. “We don’t have time-ime for his foolishness-ness!”

“Yes, sir!” I jerked my body and smashed the back of my head against the wall to restrain my host.

The world spun out of control and everything went dark right in front of my two eyelets for a moment. I slumped to the ground. Fyodor buried my face between my knees and started to whimper. No willpower in the galaxy could free me from the bladdy control he had over my body or get him to look at the hairy creature again.

“This is balderdash… you’re only going to give yourself a bladdy bump the size of Saturn, old chap. Ruff! Listen. Go to the pharmacy-macy at the end of the street-reet and buy a sedative-tive. Then eat-eat it. Fast! Wough!”

I checked out my host’s thoughts. “I’ve never been drugged this bad…” Fyodor brooded. He tried to ignore the “dog”, pretending that the entire dialog was just happening in his imagination.

“Sedative? Pharmacy?” I barely managed to ask, as my face was still hidden from the creature.

“What? Don’t you know-ow, agent? Arf!” barked Smartoop. “How long have you been here-ere, old chap?”

“I have no idea, sir,” I said.

Itch-itch-itch! I heard strange sounds coming from the lieutenant.

Fyodor cringed. “I have to relax… it’s just a bad dream… I shouldn’t believe in this Spanish nonsense. I’m still in Big Protopopovo,” he thought, while I was monitoring his consciousness.

“My dear fellow,” said Smartoop. “Do you seriously not know-ow about anything that’s happened in recent years-ears?”

“No…”

“So you don’t know what has happened to the glorious Kintoopian nation on the Third planet?”

“Let a healing tongue eat me, if I know!”

“Don’t you know, old chum, that most-ost of our agents are already dead and the remainder are back on Kintoop-toop?”

“What..?” I exclaimed, but, suppressed by Fyodor’s sullen mood, it came out as a thin ailing sob.

“Our mission has failed-ailed, private. You and I are almost the last ones left here-ere,” said the lieutenant.

“What??” I repeated, in disbelief. “Do you mean we are..? And what about captain Aptoop..?”

“No reasons to stay on Earth, private! You heard me well-ell.”

Suddenly I felt very weak and very sick. I imagined myself as a dirty viscous liquid inside an alien vessel. The waste product of a distant planet. Or maybe even worse. Just a whisper of nothing. I would not mind if the particles that made up my soul were all blown away and the personality of my feeble being dissolved with it.]

Fyodor, though also dismayed, kept a grip on my debility and clamped my proboscis. “I should stop this,” he thought. “Don’t think… don’t speak… make the voices disappear!”

“Wough! Agent?”

“Umm… umm…” I desperately tried to open the proboscis, struggling with the last vestiges of my will.

“I’m Wantoop. I’m Wantoop-old chap. I’m a brave and invincible agent,” I uttered the spell in my mind. I was completely failing to control my host. I had become too weak and disconnected.

“We can still survive. Our chaps are waiting for us on Bolivia-via. Go with me! There’s a lunch camp with Soul-Spitters there…”

“I don’t want to!” Fyodor forced the words out. He was still not looking at the ‘dog’. “I don’t want to listen to you. Leave me alone!” he repeated, firmer and louder.

“Arf! You must go!! It’s an order. Go!” Smartoop barked and I felt him grabbing a part of the spacesuit on my leg and pulling it roughly.

My host twitched me all over like a vtonch before the launch. Then he clenched my teeth.

“One..!” he said stubbornly.

“Two..!!”

The lieutenant jerked my spacesuit with incredible force and torn away the lower part of it.

“Three!!!”

Fyodor jumped up and opened my eyelets. I was on tenterhooks. My legs were unusually naked and I discovered a white spacesuit undergarment that covered a bulge between them.

I saw Smartoop sitting still with a part of my spacesuit in his proboscis and watching the actions of my stupid host.

Fyodor studied him cautiously.

“I know… it’s just a dog… I was talking to myself,” sighed my host, finally. Then he looked around and noticed that we were still in the same place. This made him sad. The corners of my proboscis drooped to prove it.

“And now give me back my trousers, doggy!”

Smartoop got up and trotted along the ravine, constantly turning his elongated head toward me. He was clearly inviting me to go with him. Fyodor waffled a bit but he desperately wanted to get his trousers back, so he let me follow the lieutenant. Smartoop was my unique clue and I did not want to loose it. After his terrible news, it was dead clear that being alone on this bladdy Third planet was extremely dangerous. I could not wait to find out about how the bad stuff had happened to my teammates.

I sauntered along for a while. I kept my eye on Smartoop who was ahead of me. Then I forced my body into a light trot.

I desperately needed answers. I did not really care about my host’s sentiments and fears. I did not mind that he might go crazy. I had to to talk to Smartoop. I wanted to be dead sure our mission had failed and nothing could be done. Or rather I wanted to learn the opposite. I did not want to return to Kintoop and start all over again with a new planet. I was even ready to accept my host with all his flaws. I could love these bladdy ravines and teeth. I was okay about Platon and Marissa, whoever might be next, even a three-ear mindromouge, just let me try! Give me a small chance! A hope!

I was already quite close to the lieutenant. The narrow ravine ended and I was about to enter a bigger canyon. Smartoop was already there. While he was still moving forward at a brisk pace, he turned his hairy elongated head toward me and barked.

WHOO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!.. Xxxxxxt!!

Something big and fast and loud whizzed along the canyon. I lost sight of Smartoop. I ran closer to the place where he had been.

There were lots of enormous rectangular earthlings there. They rumbled and moved too fast. Later I found out that they were “cars” used for transport. The place was obviously a kind of isochronous mucus canal. On the edge of its gray surface was a roundish emerald green mess with a lieutenant’s head cracked open and one eye splattered on the top of it.

Did you know?..
        
— The inability to change bodies or efficiently heal does not stop earthlings avoid physical injuries that, combined, are the sixth leading cause of deaths, or 10% of the overall mortality rate.

— It looks like earthlings have a deep love of polytraumas (40%), head injuries (30%), chest and abdominal traumas (20% + 10%), and only then do they go for the much less extreme ones (2%).

— They construct the vehicles that cause the majority of traumatic deaths and they ignore jump training so they later die of falls.