Señor Martinez stopped and looked at me. I nodded towards the photo on the wall. There were more frames with similar photos farther down the corridor.

“Oh, that?” the chief said. “Well, basically nothing… Just some curious pictures. UFO landings… aliens… you know. Sci-fi stuff…” he added hastily and then fell silent. “I’m a big fan of it. It gives me ideas about the robots.” »»»

“Stranger in the office! BEEP! BEEP!” the creature screamed fidgeting about on the floor.

I moved aside to let him get by. The creature dropped the sack and slipped past me to the exit.

I was watching his prompt departure when Fyodor pulled me down toward the sacks. He dug into the sack that was full of papers and pulled out the “shredded press cutting”, as it had been identified by the yellow creature. It was a bunch of small pieces of soft white leaves with something drawn on them. »»»

“AAARGH!” Fyodor screamed, in his mind. He tossed my head about frantically as if he wanted to shake out the disturbing image of the spaceship approaching from the dark sky. “Platon’s right… I just had a grim accident… those strange phantoms in my mind… just a by-product of my head injury… it could be worse… I could still be seeing that THING all around me…” »»»

“Something’s inside me,” Fyodor repeated.

I could not believe my ears. “What? Are you kidding, old chap? Have you found out about me?”

I was sitting in a shitty dim cave sub-compartment on a white stump located at an erroneous Earth pole. The other agents were dead or had transferred back, according to Lieutenant Smartoop, who had been smashed right in front of my eyes. »»»

“WORK!! TRA-BA-JAR-!! TRA-BA-JAR!!” a small grayish creature on the floor screamed bumping into Martinez’ leg. “AR-BEI-TEN!! AR-BEI-TEN!!”

The chief looked down, “Not to me, fuckin’ stupid! I’m your boss! Do not shout at me!!” he grumbled and kicked out at the earthling.

The creature somersaulted three times, ended up on its six legs and rapidly crawled away. Red words in bold lit up on its surface: “REPETIR EN 20 MINS”. »»»

A short, bald-headed earthling rushed toward me as soon as I entered the cave. “Gosh! You’re already here! Welcome to Gaudissimus, our robot construction company, boy!”

He grabbed my hand as if he wanted to squeeze the blood juice out of me, and started to pump my arm frantically. I made a series of smacking sounds preparing myself for a fight, in case he went too far, but Platon interrupted the earthling’s feverish reception. »»»

I wanted to dash toward the dead lieutenant. Never mind that Smartoop’s host was squashed to a pulp, his soul was still trapped in the emerald green mess that remained of his body! I could save him! I might be able to find a way of transferring him to another earthling!

However, my host kept me rooted to the spot. He made the inside of my body begin to tremble and sort of bubble. My two eyelets, erroneously called “eyes”, were open as wide as possible. »»»

“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. »»»

After navigating some type of maze, we left the cave and I found myself standing in an open space. The area was nothing like a nice lawn, though. It was a sort of ravine that appeared to be made from gargantuan teeth. However Kintoopian planetary teeth are dispersed and often inclined while the local teeth looked extraordinarily straight and were plopped down all over the place. One of these teeth had so far made me feel like a prisoner. The teeth were pitted with geometrical and seemingly artificial holes, probably made by earthlings. Later I learned they were called “windows”. »»»

I put on some kind of day-wear spacesuit and moved to another part of the cave accompanied by the two humans. My host, Fyodor, dropped me onto a metallic stool, and the humans (also in spacesuits) mooched around.

“I’m not going anywhere!” Fyodor claimed and I felt a wave of heat wash over me. “Be so kind as to clearly explain to me who are you and what the hell I am doing here, first.” »»»

KNOCK! KNOCK!

I heard a number of strange sounds again. This time they were much louder. Then a dreadful bellow followed:

“FYO-O-O-DR-R-R-R!” »»»

Rustling. A number of loud beats. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The unpleasant sense of an internal explosion inflated me. I was expanding, growing. As if particles of my soul were scattered in a million directions. They stretched and tortured me. Then they flew back and made my soul whole again. »»»

In 2006, (according to Earth calendar), an incredibly important event occurred. It was so big that it kicked up a real storm on a quiet February evening when Fyodor Oshev was relaxing on the outskirts of the godforsaken village of Big Protopopovo, and it changed his life once and for all. »»»

The assistants released the eyelashes they were holding and sped away from the appendix. The Soul Spitter twitched and started to spin with an incredible force generated by its gigantic compressed stem. We were honking like crazy as our proboscises were pressed in passing, but a moment later the cup of the appendix caved in at the center and its cannibal mouth snapped shut. The petals covering us squeezed and crushed us into a tightly closed bud, like wretched bugs. »»»

Boop-bah! Doo-dee! Bop! Deah-dah!

In the 3d octavo of the 271st year of the Slick era, thousands of volunteers, myself included, were scurrying up the famous Kalopyango canyons. Our army was flashing forward like a crazy multicolored stream of liquid toward a complex of space catapults above us. Surrounded by a crowd of fellows from across our nation who had come to say goodbye to us, we were performing sophisticated aerobatics on the slope. Telescopic arms from within the crowd were darting among us. Everyone wanted to pat a hero, to twitch his proboscis, to poke their finger into the pudgy eye of a space traveler. There was no doubt — we were making history. »»»