“It is a great honor,” they said. “You will be representing your people to the Apex,” they said. All Neld knew at this moment was that he had been waiting in a little room for over five hours to present his agricultural innovations for review by the humans. His back hurt, his legs hurt, and he couldn’t recall a time in his life he had been so bored.

The most interesting thing that had happened all day was his preparatory visit where a nice Grend named Gibbit talked with him for a while about how difficult it can sometimes be to share technology with the Humans. He told him that many species find the capacity of humans to weaponize their technologies extremely unsettling, and that he would be available if he needed to talk afterward. Neld knew that wouldn’t possibly be the case with his innovation. It was just an agricultural product after all. What harm could it do to anyone? Make them obese? He listened politely all the same and entered Gibbit into his contact list more out of courtesy than any possible perceived future need.

Eventually a human opened the door to the waiting room. Neld was no expert on Human emotional or physical states but he could tell this human was either very tired or very bored. The three other presenters in the waiting room perked up at the possibility that their wait might be over.

“Neld?” the Human asked politely.

The other three slumped down in their chairs and went back to their previous attempts at staving off boredom induced insanity.

He fumbled with his belongings while standing up and said, “Um, yes, um, that would be me. Oh dear, let me just get my data pad.”

The human let an amused puff of air out of his nose and a small smile came across his face as he encouraged, “Take your time. We are not in a rush here.”

At that, one of the other inhabitants of the room looked up from what it was doing and groaned a little.

Having collected himself, Neld followed the human into what looked like a large auditorium style classroom. He was seated in the front with a table and faced a fairly empty room. Fairly is a subjective term, and in this case it was because the room was made to house easily two hundred and there were only about ten or so humans present.

All of them looked painfully bored. Some were clearly doodling on their data pads. Others were communicating back and forth. In the back, Neld could swear he saw the reflection of a game in the vision correcting glass lenses that one wore on its face.

The human who led him asked politely, “Is it Mr. Neld, or do you prefer just Neld?”

“Oh, just Neld please,” he responded.

The human then proceeded, “Okay Neld, we understand you have some agricultural technology to discuss with us today?”

“Yes, that’s right. I am an agricultural researcher,” he affirmed.

Turning to the seated humans the one who led him in said, “Preliminary assessment put this in as a class four review.”

The human seated closest to the front in the middle said, “Okay, thanks Rich. Neld, the floor is all yours. Please proceed.”

Neld was organizing his thoughts on where to begin but something was distracting him.

He asked, “Um, excuse me please, um, what does it mean that it is a class four review?”

The man looked up from the data pad that was on the table in front of him and explained, “Oh, It is just a preliminary rating we give regarding the perceived potential of the technology in question being augmented for military use. The scale goes from one to four. One means it has a lot of perceived potential by the initial reviewer, and on the other end of the scale four indicates that it is unlikely to be adaptable for military use. It helps us sort out what technologies are of more immediate importance for militarization compared to those that are less likely to be useful as weapons.”

Neld wobbled his horns in agreement and said, “Yes, that does make the most sense to me. I certainly don’t see how it could be used for that. No, none at all really, I am sure.”

The man smiled genuinely at him and beckoned, “All the same we need to review everything that comes in. Please continue Neld.”

“Well,” he began, “When my species developed FTL and took to the stars we met many fascinating species, as I am sure you have now done. One thing we discovered fairly quickly was how much brighter the home stars were for other species in the galaxy. On my planet we have a comparatively dim star we came to find out. This has, we discovered, hampered us greatly by a lack of food availability. With the Broda traders making inbound food shipments we have seen a great increase in our population. This led many of us to seek to enhance our own planetary food yields.”

One of the humans in a middle row began dozing off and dropped his data pad on the ground with a loud clapping noise. He started at the noise then retrieved his pad.

Glancing around he waived a hand to Neld and apologized, “Sorry, please excuse the distraction. Go ahead.”

“Yes, um, no problem,” Neld began again, “Well, as I was saying the problem we have regarding food production is that our star simply isn’t bright enough.”

One of the humans raised her hand. Neld looked at her confused.

“Oh,” she explained, “Humans do this to politely request a pause to ask a question.”

“Ooh!” Neld exclaimed, “What a novel idea! Yes, please, what is your question?”

“Well,” she asked, “Why didn’t your people just genetically splice the crops to make better use of the light you do get?”

“Ah! Very good, very good,” he answered, “We have done exactly that, yes. Unfortunately, there is a theoretical limit to how effective such methods can be given they all rely on the output of the star in the first place. We have made remarkably efficient crops for our low light conditions, but we have reached the limits of that approach we think.”

“Besides,” he added, “I wouldn’t be very good at that since my training is in nuclear chemistry.”

At that a couple of the humans gave each other confused glances.

The one in the front of the room spoke up, “Come again? I thought this was an agricultural innovation you were presenting.”

“Oh yes, yes it is!” Neld continued excitedly, “Indeed, it has proven quite revolutionary to the food production on my planet.”

The human sat up a little in the chair and queried, “How on earth did you use nuclear chemistry to increase agricultural output.”

“I…” Neld looked around confused, “I didn’t do this on Earth. I did it on my home planet.”

The human closed his eyes and nodded apologetically, “Sorry, sorry, it’s a human expression. Forget I said it. Please proceed.”

“Well,” Neld pushed on, “As I am sure you know a star is a continuous fusion explosion where the expelled matter is recaptured by the gravitational force of the star and pulled back again.”

He poked at his data pad and a hologram appeared behind him. He looked around confused, then to his pad, then around the room again. He did a slow turn and discovered it was being projected behind him.

“Oh, there it is!” he said with a slightly embarrassed tone.

He tapped the pad again and an animation of what he had just described started. It showed a transparent star with blue explosive products being forced out then slowing and folding back in toward the star as red currents of matter.

He turned his back to his audience and proceeded to explain, “Now, the problem we had as I said is that our star was just not bright enough. So, I developed a molecular catalyst using artificially created super heavy elements in a polymer that when introduced to the core of most kinds of stars facilitates the reaction process. It doesn’t last long given the temperatures and pressure involved, but it does start a significant enough reaction to increase the rate of fusion and therefore increase the energy output of the system. By doing so on our planet, it enhanced the light output of our star by five percent! Our crops have never been…”

He had turned around with excitement and was startled into silence. All the humans were leaning forward on their respective tables staring and listening intently to every word.

“Um,” he stammered, “What…um…what did I say?”

The man at the front table turned to another that was closest to a far door in the room and they locked eyes. The first man moved his chin down and up quickly. Wordlessly the other man got up and left the room. Everyone looked so serious all of a sudden.

The man at the front table looked back at Neld and explained, “I need to ask you to pause in your presentation for a few moments. We want to get some additional people in the room to observe your presentation. Would you mind starting over once the others join us?”

“Oh, uh, certainly,” Neld acquiesced.

Within ten minutes the room was nearly full of humans and he was again asked to proceed.

He said the same things the second time and was able to conclude with his previously practiced, “Our crops have never been better!”

He turned around and was met with 200 sets of human eyes staring intently at him.

“Oh my. Um, questions?” he offered.

A veritable forest of arms was silently raised.

“Oh…oh dear,” he stammered.

Picking one of the humans at random he pointed at her and said, “Yes?”

The woman asked in a clear and loud voice so everyone in the auditorium could hear, “You say this can be used on, ‘most kinds,’ of stars. What kinds will it not work on?”

“Oh, that!” he fumbled, “Well, um, I haven’t tested it on every star type you see. Really I have only tested it on stars like ours, three in fact. Beyond that would require testing, but in theory at least it is most likely to not work on stars of an overly dense nature like Neutron stars and the like. That is not a real issue though because nobody tries to grow crops in that kind of a system.”

With her question being answered, a small number of other people lowered their hands.

Finding another man in the auditorium Neld pointed at a man a few rows back and prompted, “Yes”

The man sat up in his char and glanced at the pad in front of him and inquired, “Has there been any data regarding using this polymer in other applications? Say, something like a ship reactor core or portable fusion reactors?”

Neld wobbled his horns in the affirmative again and explained, “Well, we did try that, yes. As we feared, the reaction requires the intense pressures in the core of a star to really get going. Maybe a reactor could be designed to take advantage of it at some point, but presently the technology does not exist that we know of.”

With that another score of hands dropped.

Turning to the next random person he pointed and said, “Yes, Apex?”

The man he called on was leaning slightly to the side as he asked, “So, Neld, is it? How much of this polymer is needed to make a difference in a star’s energy output?”

“Well” Neld considered, “With ours it took about ten kilograms for it to increase stellar output by five percent. Really though, you would want to be very careful and use very small increases in the quantities you use. I haven’t figured out how to mute the reaction yet so if you increase it too much it could be quite catastrophic.”

At this most of the hands in the room dropped. Neld was getting very confused.

The man continued, “So, what would happen if you launched say, 100 Kilograms, or maybe 500 Kilograms into a star? What would the result be then?”

Neld snorted in amusement and said, “Oh, that would be very bad. If you did that it would catalyze far too much energy to be released and the gravity of the star would not be able to counteract the explosive force of the reaction. The star would go nova. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I am sure…”

The man interrupted him mid-sentence and asked, “Could you?”

Slightly startled at the abruptness of the question Neld responded in confusion, “Um, could I what, exactly?”

The man stared at him with an inscrutable face and asked flatly, “Get the exact numbers to cause a nova.”

Neld looked at the man in stunned silence.

Realization dawned on him as he looked around the room and understood why everyone was there. They were not interested in agricultural increases at all.

“You…you all want to use this technology to detonate stars. But, why would you do something like that?”

Perplexed, he raised his voice and almost shouted, “What reason could you have for doing something like that?”

The human’s broad smile communicated friendliness but a subtle spark in his eyes revealed a glimpse of something savage as he said, “Oh, I can think of a few reasons actually.”

Neld was in a numb haze as he finished answering the questions posed to him over the next hour. Eventually everyone was satisfied and he was thanked for his time. Before being dismissed a well dressed man got up and went down to the front of the auditorium.

Placing a hand on Neld’s shoulder he spoke in a loud, clear voice, “I think that wraps up this interview. Rich, could you please see to it Neld here gets squared away with security and we tie off any loose ends with anyone that may have had access to his research?”

The other man nodded his head and did a small salute with two fingers and acknowledged, “You got it James.”

The first man continued as he took his hand off Neld’s shoulder, “As I am sure everyone already guessed, this information is now considered top secret with strict compartmentalization. You know the drill. Aarav, did you have anything?”

A dark skinned man just stood up from his chair in the auditorium and in a perturbed and commanding voice growled, “Yeah. We need to figure out who classified this as a level four review and I would like to get them into my office by tomorrow morning. I don’t care where they are I want them in my office. Activate fleet assets for the transport if you have to. Get them back here with a list of all the other technologies they have classified. Based on the initial review date we could have been working on this information months ago! We should have started months ago!”

A gruff and dangerous sounding voice responded from somewhere in the back of the auditorium, “You got it Director. They will be in your office two minutes after planetfall.”

With that, the dark skinned man sat down again. The people next to him were unconsciously leaning away from the barely contained anger the man was radiating.

James raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side stifling a look of amusement and sympathy.

“Ok Neld,” he said extending an open hand toward the human that first led him in, “It looks like we are done for now. Please follow Rich here and he will get you sorted out.”

Barely taking all this in through the stupor of actual physical shock setting in, Neld followed the smiling human out of the auditorium through the door he originally entered through. A few steps into the waiting room, he stopped and tried to gather his wits. The three other presenters still waiting to be called looked up. Their expressions went from boredom to concern as their eyes came to rest on him.

A moment later, Rich turned his head to face the other waiting presenters and asked, “Doctor Mrikki? Am I saying that right?”

One of the occupants of the room stood up slowly while looking from Neld to the Rich, and then back at Neld again.

Rich noticed this and with his ever-present smile walked over to Neld. He gently took his data pad, poked a few buttons, and a map with directions came up on the screen.

“Follow this Neld,” he instructed, “We appreciated your presentation very much. I will be the one working with you to get you quarters on base and collect your belongings and research. If you think of anything I can do, anything at all, you let me know okay?”

Neld looked up and stared dumbly at the next presenter as Rich walked over and took Doctor Mrikki’s hand and guided him into the auditorium. Mrikki in response stared at Neld the entire time he was pulled toward the door. His expression never broke from nervous concern as the human gently but firmly led him away. Eventually, only the Doctor’s head was leaning back through the door with a confused and worried look still locked on Neld before he was pulled out of sight. The door closed behind him and the other two occupants waiting in the room became obviously agitated.

Neld looked down at the pad in his hand and began mindlessly following it. Eventually he found himself standing in front of a door. He pressed the chime. The door slid open and from inside he heard the familiar voice of Counselor Gibbit say, “Please come in Neld. I have been expecting you.”

He stepped into the room and found Counselor Gibbit seated at his desk.

Looking up, Gibbet gestured at a large overstuffed chair and said, “Please, have a seat over there. I will be right with you.”

As instructed, Neld walked over and sat down. It was immensely comfortable.

As Gibbit finished the work he was doing on his pad he pressed a button on his desk and said, “Vreela, please clear my schedule for the rest of the day. I am looking forward to a good conversation with Neld here.”

“Yes sir,” a chipper voice confirmed out of the intercom.

Gibbit walked over to sit in a chair across from Neld.

“How did it go?” he asked.

Th…they are…” Neld stammered.

Gibbit encouraged him, “Yes, go on. I’m listening.”

His eyes seemed to resolve out of his blank stare and fix on Gibbit’s as he blurted, “They are monsters!”

Gibbit closed his eyes and nodded his head a moment.

Taking Neld’s hand in his and patting it gently, he leaned forward and said, “Yes, yes they are.”

He dipped his head down to look the traumatized scientist directly in the eyes and with a soft voice said, “But they are our monsters.”