Waiting Shapeless

Chapter 26. Pareyline

Lliui: Stram

The PPF Stram Major pushed his way through the large tent flaps while the young Dohaydo officer that had led him there respectfully stayed behind outside. It hadn't taken them long to reach the Area Investigation district.

The large tent was filled with a handful of beings, all of them pensively surrounding a fence that encircled a large, dark object propped on a table. Officer Lliui recognized some of the beings there, most of them were professionals in their fields.

"Officer Lliui!"

Officer Lliui turned to look for the voice that had called him.

The calling being was hard to miss. From the midst of the crowd, a bloated looking Gonos raised his hand to him. The being's dark red flesh was rough and polygonal in texture, normal for the Gonos species. Officer Lliui always thought that Gonos skin looked unnatural and plagued, like it was covered in strangely sharp boils.

The plump Gonos vigorously waved the Stram over to him. Officer Lliui sighed and walked towards the enthusiastic being.

"Ah Officer," the red Gonos stated, striding the rest of the way towards him, "I'm glad that you are here. It is important that you see what the department has discovered!"

Officer Lliui looked past the gleeful Gonos and leaned in over the fence towards the object on the table. "What is it?" He asked, examining the thing.

It was a large, thick, cylinder shaped metallic shell of some sort. The side of the thing was open and Officer Lliui could barely see the barren insides if he squinted. There seemed to be nothing inside of it. On the outside, there were worn down mechanisms surrounded by dirt caked symbols. The entire hull looked severely dented and burned.

Two Ferionus were inside the fenced area working carefully to remove the dried mud without damaging the object, all the while examining the different segments as they were uncovered.

"What is it?" Grinned the Gonos, repeating the officer's words. "That's what we're all here to figure out!".

Officer Lliui glanced over at the Gonos with a grimace. This guy was way too happy, and standing WAY too close. He took a slow step back from the beaming character.

"Oh, forgive me officer," said the Gonos, his broad smile diminishing slightly but not significantly, "My name is Mohammed. It's Human in origin." The Gonos stuck his plumpy hand out at the repelled Stram and took a step closer.

Officer Lliui once again stepped back and sniffed at the rough, polygonal lump of a hand. He would rather clean the muddy object with his tongue than touch that hand. "The... pleasure is all yours."

The Gonos' smile dropped from his face in confusion as he tried to determine exactly what that meant. Realizing that the Stram wasn't going to touch his hand, he dropped it and turned back towards the object of interest.

"Ahem." The Gonos cleared his throat awkwardly. "Professor Sirtus?" He called at one of the working Ferionus within the fence.

The larger of the two Ferionus looked up from cleaning the object and made his way over to the two of them.

"Officer, Mohammed." The Ferionus nodded at each of them respectfully as he approached. His body was composed of cloudy-clear colorless crystal and he wore a dark jumpsuit with pockets laced all around it.

"Professor Sirtus, I want you to meet Officer Lliui. Don't ask me his full name," he glanced over at the Officer with a wink, "you Strams like to make tongue twisters out of your names!"

Officer Lliui sniffed loudly, blatantly irritated.

"It's nice to finally meet the brains behind this operation, Officer." Said the Professor reservedly, extending a crystal stubbed hand out to him.