Leroy caught his breath as he emerged from the wormhole.
"Quite a ride, isn't it?" said the young man who greeted him.
"Indeed. Leroy Brown."
"Rakkanian Dethoni."
"Nice to meet you."
Leroy was, for the first time in his life, on Saturn. Their settlement on the rings around Saturn had been established a few years after the crash at Roswell, and it had been no mean feat at that! It may have all collapsed if it hadn't been for the existance of Rakkanian, a young Dathrian with the rare, but valuable power of Wormhole.
"It's good to have you here," Rak replied, taking a seat.
Leroy moved to join them, and then caught himself, staring at awe at his body.
"Wow," he said, "you only ever see bodies like this in human sci-fi movies."
Rak chuckled.
"At least we're stil biped, right? Makes the transition from Earth to Saturn a little less messy."
"Have you been on the space station since the Adige have been there?"
"Yes. And isn't that delightful? I don't know how I would cope with partial adaptions."
"It does make things difficult. Not to mention having to alter controls so that every species can use them."
"Sounds like a mess."
"All I can say is thank goodness for technos."
Rak chuckled again.
"So, what can I do for you? I understand you wanted to meet with me about something?"
"Yes," Leroy replied. "It has to do with your power."
"I see."
"You see, there was a young man - a human boy who was involved with one of our more prominant members. He apparently died in a car accident two years ago."
"Apparently?"
"Yes. You see, a few weeks back, he reappered. He claimed that he had been through a wormhole, and that it had felt like it had only been a couple of days. According to he and his friends, his appearence has also been enhanced. He does, however, pass all our identify checks, and the telepaths and empaths have no reason to believe that he's making up the story, not that it has been implanted in him."
"Ahh... and you want to know if my power could hold someone for two years?" Rak asked. "And enhance someone's appearence on the way out?"
"Yes. Frankly, I smell foul play, but I thought it would be best to cover all bases. And we don't exactly know the powers of every alien on earth, despite YIRAAS's best attempts."
"Hmm, well, I'd stick to your foul play theory," Rak replied. "I've had a lot of practice at this, and there is no way I could sustain a wormhole for two years. And even in the unlikely event that I could, I certainly wouldn't be able to open any other wormholes at the same time. Seems a bit of a waste of resources. And as for the enhanced appearence, I don't think anyone's appearence has improved after coming through a wormhole yet."
Then he grinned.
"Of course, no one's ever been in one for two years, so maybe that's a vital factor."
Leroy chuckled.
"I thought that might be the case," he admitted. "More likely we're dealing with an enhancer and an illusionist, but I needed to make sure there was no reason to believe there might be a renegade wormholist out there."
Rak snorted.
"For all the good it'll do. Short distances are a real pest. You have no idea how happy I was when we finally got a decent teleportation system out here. I was so sick and tired of doing wormholes between rocks. I still have to do them, but not as often."
"Had any luck with the ship building?"
"I really don't know why they had to go design a ship where the primary element is something we actually have to mine for ourselves and not be able to create with our powers. Took them ten years to find a decent deposit of the stuff, and the we exhausted it before we had gotten enough. Worse yet, can't take less than the pure stuff for the engine to work," Rak sighed. "It had been wondered and debated on numerous occasions whether it's worth all the effort. Especially as most of us here has never seen the home world, myself included, which is why we can't just wormhole it there. There's been talk lately of mining the asteroid belt, but then, we haven't exhausted all the rocks in Saturn's ring, so who knows? One thing I can say for sure is that I'm glad I'm out here. Just Earth is too small for me to exercise my power properly. You could definitely say, though, that I'm hoping we'll make a ship one day. I'd like a few more places to be able to wormhole too."
Leroy nodded in understanding. After a few days stay, of relaxation, touring and sight-seeing, he returned back to the space station.