Captain Dokka Tkarro muttered to his Chief Engineer,Narchi,"I DESPISE time-travel! Even when I was a kid, I hated time-travel stories. NOW we've had time-travelers on board! I feel dirty." Narchi broke up laughing. Everyone looked at them. Dokka rolled his eyes. Haen said from the door,"Alright! I'm...WE're ready! It a little modification, but IT DID work!" Haen seemed like a little girl pulling a prank as she practically skipped excitedly in. She stopped and exclaimed,"I now present COMMANDER ROSE! NOW in human form!" Rose walked in, barefoot and looking completely human. Conversation froze and died in shock. She walked to the center of the room and turned around. She said,"I don't see the point of this exhibition, Admiral Haen." Thistledown reached for his mate and asked,"Rose! Is that really YOU in there?" Comments exploded in the room, too fast to be kept up with. Dokka shouted for silence and eventually got it. He asked Haen,"SO...can your species transform us at whim to other species, like some kind of Four Sisters 'Probability Transformation'? What did you need all that water for,then?" Haen broke out laughing and slapping one leg. "The reactions made that PRICELESS! NO, we don't have THAT kind of technology! Actually we don't have THIS level of tech, either. It's a Naga device, called a 'Stealth Surrogate'! If you are going to the planet Earth, your non-human crew members are going to need them! They can be stored in a Hyperspace-Storage-Device indefinitely..." Narchi raised his hand scanner and complained,"WHOA! Wait a minute! The MASS still remains! Carrying your own mass around invisibly is going to break some backs around here!" Haen looked at him and said,"IF I may finish? ...until used. Then they can be rehydrated up to full biological mass with water. Until then they are GUARANTEED to scare the crap out of primitives as undead monsters (who weigh only ONE TENTH the mass of the hydrated forms!)!" Pop them out, fill them with water and you're ready to infiltrate human worlds!" Narchi started scanning Rose with his scanner and grinned,"I was hoping only rat-bastard humans were THIS sneaky! Damn! I cannot spot ANY weirdness. She reads completely human!" Dokka shook his head and asked,"Lime. LIME! Pay attention and retract your eyeballs back in your head!" Several people laughed at that. Can you get anything? Telepathically?" Lime shook her head and concentrated on her adopted mother. She finally said,"Yes, but it seems like a pastiche of other people's thoughts. If I was just scanning a crowd for anything...nonhuman...I could NOT pick her out! AT ALL!" Rose said,"It's VERY limiting! I cannot radio to other Cyclops OR use my phased Array radar dishes. I can effect binocular vision by switching between eyes sixty times a second. Restricting...but not crippling. I suppose." Haen said,"I'll give SSs for all your non-human crew going to Earth. I'll even volunteer to go along on the Cross-Trainer Corvette, if you'll have us?" Dokka stroked his beard and asked,"Why? Why do you want to go along?" Haen laughed and exclaimed,"THE FOUR BROTHERS ARE GOING TO BLOW UP FOUR GALAXIES WORTH OF WORLDS! What more reason do you NEED? Also it's personal. I was on the planet Earth a hundred years ago. I was selected because of growing up along-side humans on a primitive world, and I knew the perpetrator. He had stolen an artifact and escaped there. It took ten years to find him and recover it. I got to know Great Britian and the American Colonies of that world quite well. I can read,write and speak English quite well. I'm curious to see how there are doing. Also..." Dokka asked,"ALSO? What?" Haen said,"Until the time-travelers showed up, I was convinced you all didn't NEED any aid from US!I see I was WRONG!" She grinned broadly. Lime said to Rose,"You gotta show this to Sunny!" Rose laughed a little at the thought. --TO BE CONTINUED!--