I.   The twenty-third freighter of the month gave his last sign of existence when, on the sector map, the point figuring it turned from green to red. The operator, hardly breathing, knocked the screen,  hoping for a video refresh trouble or a communication disruption between the Operation Center and the Cyclopean freighter. Finally, slowly turning his head toward the central desk, he resigned to push on his console the red button of the Alert, that started filling the whole space with its mourning sounds and red bright flashes.
    All the crews instantly frozed, their eyes absorbed by the red point blinking on the giant screen. The Cyclopean has now disappeared with a confidence rate of four hundred pourcent, meaning it was not to be seen or heard by the Space Guild anymore.
    "Once more!", yelled Colonel Mac Caffrey.
    "Sector 35.0.0, Sir.", warned the operator.
    "Once more!", Repeated the Colonel. "Statistics for the previous months. Vessel types. And Incident Rate!", he asked in a peremptory tone.
    " Yes, sir." The operator was extracting the information from his Christmas tree console, diodes and screens spitting their colored rays.  " Twenty three. Freighters. Rate Gamma."
    "The Bastard!" hurled the Colonel, his fist turned to a hard hammer sending back to ashes the communicator laid on the board. " Psyonics Bugs assaults. Here, they go, once more. Docteur Falaxi, according to you, would there be another explanation to these sudden disappearance of our freighters?"
    Doctor Falaxi was a tall man with ,under his long white hair, a large front head tattoed with calamari ink. Within his green suit of the Medics Order, the man was always subject to sweating and furthermore since the fleet had been  under the fire of an unexplained but tremendously worrying aggressor. "Probabilities and archives brings us to bet that we're currently facing a phenomenon related to the primary psyonics art."
    "Dear Doctor, this, I could see myself. What, I'm asking you is something new, that will help up fix up that" and his left hand waved the air. "That! Whatever it can be!"
    The Doctor was on the left side of the operator and now murmuring some questions near the hear under its helmet.
    The Colonel  kept  on  raging , moving toward the operator. " Would you please give me an answer when I talk to you , Doctor?"
    His large fronthead was now showing some moving blue fonts, of thoughts on their ways, as he was clearing the path, and keeping his mouth shut.
    The giant screen reproduced the list of the freighters missing and the eyes of the doctor focused on it.
    "Doctor, I'm ready to go there, in person, but what I would need, is a way."
    "Colonel, I think, I may have found some foot steps. I guess there might be some different path."
    "Might that be a horse, a venusian clam or a flying manta, I will provide it to you! "
    The Doctor grinned "Might be a mix of all that."

    Behind the binocular of her electro magnetic microscope, Mulu Hoa, all her attention focused on the cell, moved  the microspic pin before the modified DNA was added to the chromosome. Heir of an antique imperial family, Mulu Hoa, was a pale radiant full moon skinned woman, with green riverish eyes.  Due to their archipelago traditions, both artistic and forgery expert, the KiloTau system cadets were mainly affected to the Metamorphosis Academy, in charge of producing all the missing, needed, or  experimental species.  Mulu Hoa was  the first in her Prom and therefore could become a microbiologist at the Birdmangum Inc. Birdmangum Inc was the first firm in the  history of the  Space guild to  provide with Bird Man  units, whose flesh, bubble gum like, had the ability to change of form whenever they needed. Since then, the mutant and clone armies had been developed and the wars between the system always required more talents. Since then, it went on, till the first Psyonic war, when trying and withdraw old indigens civilizations, the firm was confronted to the non-DNA power of the Psyonics. Entire regiments were cleared before uncovering,  elite commandos vanished in the darkness of black matter. Then, Birdmangum had diversified its activities but it still kept its carved-in-marble-name from the glorious days.
    The Doctor Falaxi, softly breathed on the neck of Mulu Hoa  who  smoothly  moved her head to the right  letting her immediately  facing the  deep  orange  irises of  the Doctor.
    "Who are you?" she murmured, her hands still at work with the microscope.
    "People call me Doctor. I am Doctor Falaxi, Member of the Central Space Guild Academy."
    Mulu Hoa was not many words, but  faster than a falling star, her neuronal calculator turned on, wondering why  such an eminent Doctor was sent to meet her. But before her lips opened to let out her question, the Doctor said:
    " I'm going to tell you the thing. Please leave your tools in the instant. You're to accomplish some more important task."
   
    Mulu Hoa was transferred to the Space Guild planet under the instructions of Doctor Falaxi. The minute  they  landed on the space port , a shuttle was sent to get and   transport  them to the  Space Guild  Operating Center with its giant screen and many blinking  consoles.
    "Mrs Mulu Hoa " told the Doctor to the assembly, within which the General Flush, frowning behind his cigars' smoke screen, "Mrs Mulu Hoa, after a drastic selection, was chosen to be the one that will help fix the freighters incidents."
    Mulu Hoa had never heard about the Navy Freighters training and was wondering how her microbiologist skills might help all these old men in their uniforms, smoking cigars and pouring white alcohol glasses, while they looked at her like she was a small thing.
    The General stood up and stepped, still smoking, and for he could not clearly understand why she had been chosen, with his large hard palm, waved the smoke , looking for an evidence he was missing.
    "Mrs Mulu Hoa" added the Doctor, inviting her to stand up, " is the  ideal of woman our Psyonic is looking for."
    The General laughed : "How do you know what this 'Psyonic', likes or loves?"
    The giant screen showed once again the list of the freighters missing, now including twenty seven names. " As you will see, the perimeter of action of the Psyonic is extending though he could strike on the roads  still open in the immediate neighborhood of the first clearance. The only common point between all these freighters is ... The archipelago of Kilo Tau. Mrs Mulu Hoa was born there and is one of the best recruit in her generation."
    The General relaxed, and had a seat. "I think I understand what you mean, Doctor. A bait... " He looked at Mulu Hoa, and grinned " Recruit Hoa, though you're quite young, you'll be accredited Ultramarine Blue for the duration of your mission, that means you'll have an access to everything you might desire. I could not tolerate anybody stop you on your way.  Squeeze all the Oranges you like but I want this Bug skull on my desk by the day you'll meet him. Am I clear?"
    "Totally Clear , General." she heard herself claim loudly, both honored and exalted. Some secret excitement showing off within the deepest abysses of her forgotten bloody DNA.
   
    Mulu Hoa  was  now  wearing the  uniform of the Navy, two electrics storms crossed on a purple field, as symbol of the Psyonics officers. Mulu Hoa had never heard about psyonics abilities excepted the  echoes of the battlefields  during the  past wars.  In her mind, she kept them in relation with the antique religion of her native archipelago. It was said that long ago, before the reign of human beings and their creatures, there was a time when will and creation were altogether the expression of life. Now, flying to the Navy Spaceport with its gigantic blue tankers, freighters and carriers, she thought back to her grandmother burning incense and praying for their ancestors.  During  old times, women were in charge of their home and children, while me were at war, but now she was taken away by fate to another life, she felt the awakening of a wind spirit inside her veins, making her cheeks warm and red.  The Doctor following the operations talked to her in the videophone.
    "Relax and keep cool, everything will go perfectly."
    Mulu Hoa had some fresh green chai through the little pipe on the left side of her helmet.  And the taste of the powder made her think of the traditional ceremony in the family house were she played music and read poems she wrote and dedicated to nature. One said "I  inspire in you, I feel in me, the same wild blood" and was the fruit of a meditation in the chai room.
   
    The Chakula freighter was one of the most modern vessels in the fleet and was used to transfer magma freight to the isolated bases posted in the desolated corners of the  Space Guild  dominion. The great strength of the Space Guild had been to bring all over the universe what used to be concentrated in some local areas. Space Guild had an oecumenic vision, meaning the more the totality of its links was enforced, the more it would be powerful. A century after another, It had finally become the main cruising force of the universe, as far as it could be known by folks of the inhabited systems. What  Mulu Hoa was eager to discover were some answers to questions sleeping in her brain, and her Ultramarine accreditation will enable her to feed more than she imagined. Psyonic  was certainly the first word she would look for in the encyclopedia of the Space Guild, commonly called the S.G.E.
    "Psyonic: an entity having the ability to perceive or act beyond the four dimensions.  Psyonic  understood  as  a  classification divides in two sub categories: - Psyonic Gamma: an entity having an extrasensorial perception of the reality  - Psyonic Kappa: an entity having an ability to interact with material world in a manner excluded by the laws of Physics. Space Guild considers Psyonic as an anomaly and  even  after  the First  Psyonic War will place an area in Orange alert till a Psyonic suspicion would have been cleared or fixed. Psyonics disorders are including mind reading, telepathy, telekinesis, folding space and disappearance. First Psyonic War ended by a treaty giving specifics right to the Psyonics citizens. The words of the Declaration of Psyonics are available in the closed temple of the Space Guild and can only be accessed by Psyonics through their abilities. Psyonic Department was created by  a common agreement and members of the S.G. trained in the Gamma way, perception, before being added to the Navy Fleet as exceptional communicators. No Psyonics Kappa had ever been trained. Psyonics kappas effect had been often observed  all over the universe, mostly during times of  cosmic metamorphosis, but nothing tend to prove they're not the source of such changes."
    Mulu Hoa touched the golden storm insignia and wondered why she was given this role on board of the Chakula freighter. The only thing she could remember of similar things were some strange dreams she had during childhood and her teenage hours, but during the last years,  the tons of  thesis  her brain had to  assimilate  didn't let her a single  second to  let her fantasy drive her  life. But as the shuttle was boarding , things were changing incredibly fast .
  II.   The Chakula  freighter was a brand new one, in the last class of freighter-cruisers especially designed for exploration and transportation of goods in the hostile parts of the Space Guild dominion.  Build in the secret base of the Navy, the only thing revealed to the people of the Guild was their colossal dark blue silhouette projecting immense shadows like man-crewed clouds. Their shape was somehow like of some heavy strato-cumulus vessel, with its empty tanks to fulfill with magma energy.  Never in her  short life, mostly spent in libraries and  academy,  had Mulu Hoa really seen one of these mastodonts. The KiloTau system was partly depending on some of those cosmic whales but Mulu Hoa was far to much interested in the  minuscule things of life and the mechanics of cells to get involved in space engineering.  From her seat, she could realize how vital such a ship must have been for her system and many other Space Guild locations all around the milky-way.
   
    Besides their efforts to propagate the rumors of cosmic disorders and some incidents on the freighters fleet, it had been impossible to mask the fact that the crew were missing and their family claiming for bodies or information about the missing ones. The Chakula freighter crew was including forty-seven humanoides and several robots, and since some systems were now impacted by the different shortages, it was impossible to deny the fact that an area of the universe was to be considered as a unsecured area. Colonel Mac Caffrey most disliked it, due to the fact he was not till that day, able to give an appropriate answer to the crucial question: "What's going up there?" , excepted some laconic words like " Hellish Psyonics!" or " Once more, the Psyonics rascals!". General Flush, in his enigmatic cigar smoke cloud, was in favor of an active fix whatever it could have been: "Let say, this girl of yours, the little one, should fix it. If not, I will personally ask the Space Guild Assembly for extraordinary powers and fly with a carrier fleet  to that border of nowhere." Understood Flush would handle it.

     Mulu Hoa boarded and was taken to her cabin by a golden humanoid robot wishing her everything a programmer had implemented in its silicium brain. Mulu Hoa didn't appreciate the habit of the Navy to use these metal robots instead of the so performant species her natal system was offering to the whole universe.  Anyway, she immediately remarked the KiloTau flower and some hologram of her world projected on the wall so as to open an imaginative window and help her relax during the flight. Soon after she get in, the screen of her computer desk was illuminated by the jovial face of the Doctor Falaxi explaining her how they would keep in communication through the computer of her cabin, without mention to the crew of the Chakula for she was given the Psyonic officer's cabin, with its specific equipment. Psyonics officers had a barometer mission, and were not to interfere with the crew unless necessary. Using their abilities, they were sensing the ship in search of any mental disfunction, with the charge of bringing an answer to solve them with the help of the commanding officers.  Mulu Hoa wouldn't need to spend the days of the flight out and would enjoy acquiring more knowledge from the unlimited S.G.E.

    A cup of green KiloTau chai emerged from the desk as she desired it making her understand the precious advantages of the Psyonic Officer's cabin.  She asked for an explanation about the freighters' disappearance and heard about Gamma rate incident that firstly sounded strange to her who had deduced that material disorders should have been Kappa rated, but S.G. always filed the reports according to the communications records, and all the freighters had vanished after their Psyonics had reported they had perceived some Psyonic emission. And then vanished. Nothing was added, nothing was deleted, excepted the freighters. No perturbation of the space radiation or light could be discerned from the nearest observatories and passing by vessels. No wreck nor pieces of the twenty-seven ships had been found, they had simply vanished. It reminded Mulu Hoa of her ancestors tales in a time when some spirits were sighted in a place, before they were observed in another distant from thousand miles, where no man could have moved before long weeks. It didn't seem so weird, but somehow disturbing her scientific mind.
      
    A horn shouted its warning with a vibrating voice in every hall of the Chakula as the wall hologram changed to an external view of the ship leaving the atmosphere of the green planet to the dark blue empty space. Movement was smooth, and at the same time showing the increasing speed of the vessel abandoning the protective circle of the green planet, less than a minute later,  a small pinhead lost in the night sheet.

    Mulu Hoa sat on a comfortable chair, and from there, let her eyes explore the cabin. It was quite a nice cabin with wood on walls and objects from her planet so as to give her the feeling she was at home in her small private room. Kilo Tau was an oceanic planet, and the main archipelago has a southern position, near the pole. Living forms produced by the blue mass of waters made its inhabitants soon fishermen and sailors, but in the same time firmly attached to the soil due to the fact there were some enormous whales and fish species, which, if they were not aggressive, because of their size represented a real danger for the ships and their crews. The Kilo Tau people imagined methods to breed themselves the fishes they'd need for food or cloth and limited their curiosity to the mistery of life, selection and reproduction;  Mulu Hoa  knew  from her long familial tradition that humanoides were not to  deal with the biggest  forces of the universe, but in a way to be some kind of sherperds. Kilo Tau had also a steel technology that many systems also envied her. The soils of the archipelago were spitted from the internal guts of the planets and  were rich in  all sorts of rare metals  and cristals. Mulu Hoa took a beloving look to the cristal bells carillon and her slow hand made it give his most beautiful melody. Small shells and tiny technological items were sharing the desk plan, mix of taste for science and love for any forms of life. She belonged to a civilization misunderstood and furthermore,  for her folk specificity was the fruit of a symbiosis with its environment and at the same time and incredibily creative folk creating new species.  Since she get in the cabin she felt like returning to a primary matrix, the belly of her motherland, here in this  six by six meters Psyonic Officer's cabin.

    General Flush  followed by  his  murmuring officer's cohort was following the departure process images transmitted by the Navy Spaceport to the Operation Center, both upset and amused.
    " Doctor, if you don't mind, would you tell how you come to choose your fragile 'protégée'?
    The Doctor Falaxi, when subject to a deep reflexion or when feeling some annoyance had his front head tattoos become larger and darker under his white hair cloud, and after so many years spent working side by side with efficent but somehow rude commanders, he still could not prevent this natural habit of his flesh.
    "My 'protégée', as you call her, General Flush, possibily appears to you, like a feminine representative of a system  you ignore mostly everything about, but I am to affirm that according to our criteria, she was the person we were to hire for this delicate mission at the other side of the galaxy."
    General Flush using a sulferic match, lighted his cigar after the fire was open by the pression of his hand on the red head against his soal. This was one of the martial priviledge of the Navy officers inherited of the glorious colonization time of the DjuKang system, the tropical system with its green forests and  continental plantations.  The General felt  as part of his duty to always remind his interlocutors that  he was authorized to smoke and play with fire when others had to keep their mouth shut. Even when he was on the deck of one of his Navy cruisers, with their cool air system, he enjoyed it, his grinning face, half masked by the smoke.
      "Doctor, I'm absolutly confident in your saying. But the thing is , that with those Psyonics, it is always a question of far beyond our consciousness. Am I not right?" And his lips went to the self satisfied smile.
    " General, it appears that you're wise and clever, as usual, but as you remarked, we had chosen Mrs Mulu Hoa, because of her Psyonics abilities."
    " What ability? She confessed herself knowing nothing about Psyonic."
    "The more to come General, the more to come..."

 III   Mulu Hoa found in her cabin the first place where she could fully satisfy her intellect appetite since she entered the Academy with its ready-to-learn lessons, destined to be the processes of the microbiology  industry and somehow far from an intimate thurst. She had an entry after another in what was a monstruous banquet of knowledge and naturally, lost all notion of time till the cabine colour and light as well as the rectangle of the door turning to a warm orange signaled her the presence of a visitor waiting for her to get in. By the only strength of her will, the door disappeared to let the way free to a women wearing the uniform of a Commander.
    Under her blue cap with its golden Siren insignia ,  the Commander  Sali was a beautiful officer it might have been agreable to follow.
     "Well, I guess it is not necessary to welcome you, Officer Mulu Hoa. I constate that you have already installed your  personal items. " And she was depicting the cabin as a Sergent intructor, changing her nice face to a cold side, mix of seductive lips  and of a martial attitude. "As a Psyonic, you are highly priviledged with this cabin, designed as a mother's belly. But this, is not to  be mentioned either. By the way, my name is Sali , Commander Sali, and I'm the Officer in charge of this freighter and everything or everyone it contains. Now, we have reached our cruising speed, I just wanted to ensure everything is in order."
     "Thank you, Commander Sali. Most lovable place. Wonderful cabin, I'm really honored." Mulu Hoa answered,  quite impressed by the  monolithic  woman, straight  and mighty as a great cedar of her native world.
     "First time, on a freighter?! Last generation of cabin, you'll get used to it. For sure."
    "For sure, Commander."
    "Now" and Commander Sali,  after a quick look at her blinking bracelet,  added. " I am to leave. You know the word  for Freighters: "Curved the space, straight the race." And she left the cabin.
    Mulu Hoa could not get more information about the spaceship or the facilities, but as she was now thinking of having a meal, on the desk was standing the food she would have ordered if she had been in a restaurant on Kilo Tau. Commander Sali perfectly knew her vessel and some of the hidden secrets of its guts. The Psyonic area, more than a metallic structure was a living organism, similar to a woman belly, both a protective and feeding environment. Mulu Hoa  wouldn't need to move and will receive everything she wished as long as she would inhabit the small but cosy cabin.
    With a fork she took the flesh of the fish into her mouth, all her senses in alert as she was instantly returning to her first impression at the seaside, when just a child. The walls turned to a three-dimensions  movie,  pictured by her brain, full of  sensations  she had  knotted  inside the synapses of her grey cells, and through them she felt she started communication with the Creator of the Universe.

(IV) Wombs of the vessels, it was precisly the word she was getting to the more she was thinking about her condition and the rooms she's been affected for her trip through billions kilometers of cold empty space. Silence, the voice and the powerful pressure of the emptyness around her opening some kind of absolute sense,  a  unlimited ammount of  knlowedge and furthermore a weird art, she felt herself being just a small child in.
    The KiloTau archipelago natives were, and they accepted it as an honnor, naturally destined to the Metamorphosis Academy, and for she had some exceptional abilities, she was hired by Birdmangum Inc.  Now all the things from the past came back clearly to her,  and she could feel the sensations, even a qualm on her skin, the day she received the result of her high school exams. Kilo Tau system natives, for most of them,  only opened the traditional  silk paper mail with their red  seal, only to discover the name of the rank and the name of the building they'll share with their friend for the next years in Academy. Mulu Hoa was not different of any of her classmates and never wondered what else could be figured on the silk paper. Until then. It was now slowly depicted in her remembrance projected on the wide inner  screen of her realxed brain.  There was, between the rows of excellent results, a mention added, not in bold , nor in intalic, just the same as the rest of the diploma: 'Gamma: positive'. And what bell might it have ring in her youth, this  'gamma' ? But now, it was here, frozen picture, revealing its black ordinary font on the pure silk paper.  Mulu Hoa started to think about those days that followed when she had not time anymore excepted for the courses and a few hours sleep. Academy was taking her more far away than a few parsecs away, she was becoming an Engineer, a member of the oecumenic communauty and her precious mind would be useful to the totality of the systems within the Space Guild.
    But gamma, there were just some bribs in her mind, some folk tales told in the family during walks at the seaside, some short poetry learned with her grandmother in the chai room of the antique house on the Rocai Tau Bay. "Gen Nan Lai Jin Mei" in the ancient language was to be understood that like in their forgery art, the more steel was going to fire the more hard and sharp it was. Blue swords were valued more than any others and Mulu Hoa's family possessed some of these treasures, each of them having a proper name, a secret name, never to be pronounced and only to be read by their bearer. Once, in a man life, during a ceremony, the sword was  offered to the young master of the house  after years of  patience, studying under the direction of  a master.  Mulu Hoa was a girl and she had no possibilty to get involved in the  carrier of steel but  was  long before she was a woman prepared to the  way of dance and rhymes. Following her Grand Mother, she was taught the antique art of controlling and acting with her own body before she even opened her first book of Microbiology. But things were related and this was a fantactic training even if she wouldn't practice it for years.
    Might it have been the reason why, she had developped, or , her entire DNA pagod of ancestors had developped through millenaries a science of their own, currently observed as 'gamma'? Mulu Hoa, her little kaolin chin between two fine finger was dreaming, and the sound of Grandma's cello started to play the classical piece she always loved dancing on. And the second that followed, in a twister of green silk cloth she was doing the reverence and all the suite of gestures, her face turned to a white mask with red lips. And beyond the darkness of space, she and her grandmother were a complete duet.