A-Ten looked awful when Ralph and his men approached it. Showing the effects of partial incineration and a millennium of disuse, it looked even more forlorn and abandoned than when it was in use. The mystery of what happened here, exactly, one thousand years ago, gnawed like crazy at the enigma-weary Krimson, because for a good while, A10 was his last link with the Terran solar system. He still gets icy shudders thinking about the overwhelming feeling of foreboding he had here back then.

The Cowboy was parked topside, and the image of it there, large, though not quite the immense size of the Cassiopeia, imposed on Ralph's memory like a mountainside. Inside were Pilar and Dant. And perhaps they had the key to this mystery.

The two aliens eyed Ralph fleetingly as he stepped into the cargo hold, then Pilar adopted his "aren't we cute, little human" smile again.

"Hello, Ralph Krimson."

"Hello, guys. Say, look, perhaps you can help us out here. This, as Avril told you, is a thousand year old space station, and circumstances surrounding its abandonment are wrapped in mystery. Our instruments aren't telling us anything we don't already know, and we all thought that perhaps your advanced science could help us get to the root of it. By the way, do you have names where you come from.....?"

"We would be more than happy to participate in analysis of your artifacts, Ralph Krimson. And my name is Pilar, and this is Dant. Like you, we have surnames, usually based on the first names of our parents. Therefore, I am Pilar Dospilar, and my friend is Dant Dosjin."

"That's easy enough to remember. We need you inside, gents. If you'll follow me." Pilar and Dant squeezed out of the cargo hold door, having to actually crawl part of the way, and followed Ralph to the ladder-well. Their gradual-field, protective, magnetic envelopments somehow managed to keep them protected against the harsh elements of naked space. They both looked perfectly natural against the great expanse of the space station's surface, with their futuristic-man appearance and the cold, brushed aluminum look of A10's dorsal landing surface.

The aliens found the ladder shaft a tight fit as they gingerly descended its length. As they entered the business area of the east lobby, they also had to walk around slightly hunched over, occasionally banging into ceiling-mounted projections like security cameras and fire sprinklers. Dant let Pilar know how he felt.'

"Pilar, my dear classmate, I'm really beginning to doubt the wisdom of this sortie. We're bound to become laughingstocks to these little people before long."

"After they get a full spectrum of what we can do that they can't, I assure you, Dant, that we will not be objects of ridicule."

"That won't help my neck any when it gets sore...." Pilar surveyed the remnants of the station, and immediately recalled records from space phenomena of a thousand years ago. He could also analyze conditions that Nimitz’s molecular analyzer wouldn't tell them. He joined Avril over at the computer terminus that had acted haunted in 2657.8.

"Qu'est-ce qui semble être le problème, mon ami?” He asked, trying to accommodate Avril's lingua francais.  Avril looked at him, certain that he had the answer man himself present. He was not disappointed:

"We are dealing here with a mystére....where all the clues have either been altered by time or disparition. According to Raoul, something etrange happened with this computer terminal. He isn't quite sure what it was, since he was in mortal fear on that lift over there, which, as you can see, is completely devaster. Beyond that, he remembers the destruction of the Disruption beginning, and that's when he made tracks to Betelgeuse...."

"Betelgeuse?"

"Oui, a huge star in the eastern sky. He escaped to it, thinking that this solar system would be destroyed. When he and Commandant Nineveh arrived here, there was no one, not a soul, as far as they could see. It was like le station entiére, which is as large as an average country in Europe on Earth, had been cleaned out...." Ralph walked on over to where Avril and Pilar were, ready with his own conjecture.

"I bet I know what happened. Dag. The staff and civilians on this station probably did the same thing the people on Titan and lapetus did and high tailed it either to another system or....."

"Or, Raoul.....?"

"Or they went to Mars. Dag! That's it! One of the cities on Mars is made up from refugees from here. That's where they all went to! "

"Big whoops, mon general. Any port in a storm. Why is that a big revelation?"

"Don’t you see, Avril? They were probably responsible for the entire Martian Community. They'd be able to tell us everything that happened here! What does your friend say about the terminal, here? "

"I don't know, Raoul. You haven't given him a chance to answer."

"Sorry. Well, Avril, let me introduce you to Pilar Dospilar and his friend, the lovely and talented Dant Dosjin." Pilar looked at Avril, who smiled knowingly.

"Was that an attempt at humor?" Pilar asked.

"Oui. One of many feeble attempts."

"I would advise he not continue. If Dant had heard that, he would have scrambled his thoughts!"

"Do you have any thoughts on what happened with this computer terminal?" Avril was beginning to get impatient with them both, but Pilar came through with an analysis.

"There was an electrical presence here that was unlike the ordinary current it was designed to carry."

"Oh….? Can you describe this strange electricity?"

"A type very similar to the electrical nature of our own envelope, but not of it. In your lexicon: something' possessed' this computer. There is a `program’ in it that essentially gave it a `personality’ of great conceit......" Ralph broke in.:

"More of 560's hijinks!"

"Excuse me, Ralph Krimson....560....?"

"Our name for a huge deep interstellar space anomaly of a thousand years ago. It was known to produce many bizarre results of an electromagnetic nature."

"Might this have something to do with the great Cataclysm of your year 2657?"

"Yes. We call it the Great Disruption. Do your people have records of it as well?"

"Why, yes. As a matter of fact, we were the cause of it." Avril and Ralph looked wide-eyed at the alien:

"What!!?”

"Yes. When we entered this side of the child's mind, we produced a reaction that was represented by a great electromagnetic discharge on the opposite end of this hemisphere of his brain. It was a safety mechanism to counter the nature of our own electrical charge."

Ralph kept quiet for a few seconds, obviously deep in thought and then said, to his own amazement:

"What are you, a thought?!"

"Yes, that's it exactly. Ki Rampid is what you would call, in your biological sciences, a neuron. Plain and simple."

"Then what would we be?" 

"You mean your solar system?"

"Right.” Pilar smiled at the amusing ignorance of these two.

"What you've always suspected it was: an atom."

"Well, Dag. Live and learn."

"C'est incroyable."

"This must have been what Os meant. We actually are in a baby's mind! It never really hit me before."

 "Yes. And there's something else I must tell you: Your government, no doubt, is very concerned about the polarity of our system, our envelope. I can sense it, even from here. I must assure you, there will be no danger. Your five-sixty will have left enough electromagnetic residue and particles to help counteract the danger. You will all be quite safe."

"Thrill a minute, universe."

"Pardon?"

"Never mind. Do you guys have any idea what the nature of the 'thought' is?"

"We are a thought and an attitude, Krimson. When the child grows, we will become his higher brain functions. Ki Rampid is a seed that will grow along with the child. We are also his racial memory."

"Avril, we are truly in the presence of greatness." Ralph was very serious." What say we show our friends the rest of this monument to a great civilization passed."

"Dioz toujours!!” Avril yelled, uncharacteristically jovial.

"Yes. It should only be that way!"

Amazon Print: www.amazon.com/Avedon-Question-Chlöes-Woes/dp/1440434905/ref=sr_1

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/The-Avedon-Question/dp/B000QCS8QA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1229523145&sr=1-1 

Mobipocket eBook: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/BookDetails.asp?BookID=48306