About an hour later, the picture and text dropped into the mail queue of Dale Turley, who was putting the finishing touches on this week's regiment newsletter. Dale opened the mail and, pleased that the overall Chuck Gracie ratio in the picture was indeed low, slapped it into the newsletter at the bottom, typed in the names and location for the picture caption, and then dropped the newsletter into the distribution queue. There it would be printed out for current members of the regiment at their various bases across the U.S., and distributed in electronic form to former and/or veteran members of the 75th Ranger regiment, a host of several thousand ex-rangers, including one Rod Acuna.

"Fuck me running," Acuna said to himself, as the newsletter and the picture popped up on his communicator. He cleared the newsletter from his communicator screen and punched in Jean Schroeder's access code. Their lost lamb had been found.

Takk sat on a chair that was too small for him, glanced over at Archie McClellan, and contemplated the fact that he was probably going to have to eat him.

Morally, Takk had no problem with this. Takk, like all Nagch his age, was on his Ftruu, the culturally mandated moral journey in which young Nagch endeavor to experience as many aspects of existence as possible, including the unseemly; this last category could reasonably be expected to include consuming members of other sentient species. During the Ftruu, a Nagch like any member of the CC would be legally liable for his or her actions. So Takk would be on the hook for murder if he were caught.

But as a matter of sin, Takk was in the clear. Nagch experiencing the Ftruu were considered blameless, on the rationale that one of the objects of the journey was to experience sin and thus better understand it. Unless Takk decided to end it early and return to the fold, he had roughly 14 months left on his Ftruu. After that point, eating humans would be a definite mark against his soul. At the moment, however, he could eat his way through an entire schoolyard with nary a theological burp.

So morals weren't the issues. Instead, Takk was focused on the practical matters of eating humans: namely, that they tended to come with a number of indigestible components, like watches and communicators and plastic zippers and metal shoe bits and occasionally some things that you simply couldn't know about until after you've eaten someone. That sheep rancher, for example, had had some metal pins and screws in him; Acuna told him that some humans had broken bones screwed back into place rather than fixed up by a QuickHeal session. It was a cost thing. All Takk knew was that they poked uncomfortably, like every other indigestible item of human accoutrement Takk eventually had to spit them out, otherwise they'd just pile up in his digestive sac and Takk would jangle when he walked and feel them clanging together inside of him. Takk hated that.

Optimally, Takk thought, he'd be able to strip a human out of his stuff before ingesting them. But Takk realized that a situation like that probably wasn't going to happen. The whole advantage Takk had in dealing with humans was the element of surprise. No human being actually ever expected to be eaten. Ridding them of their clothes and personal objects would pretty much telegraph Takks intentions. He had to accept the occasional watch and leg screw as an occupational hazard.

With that in mind, Takk was eyeing McClellan to see how much indigestible crap the human might have with him. Takk was pleased to see that the human appeared to be Wearing no jewelry, save for a watch, and especially no earrings, which were small and pointy and difficult for Takk to remove afterward. The huclothes likewise appeared fine; digesting humans had made Takk something of a connoisseur of human clothing fabrics, and he could tell by the hang and crumple of Archie's clothes that they were primarily natural fibers rather than artificial. That meant less of a lump of plastic fibers a day down the line. Then there was that thing Archie had in his hand, which he'd been looking at off and on since Acuna brought him back and told Takk to watch him.

"Hey," Takk said, his first words to Archie since he was dragged back into the room. "What is that in your hand?"

Archie looked up. "It's a book," he said.

"What is it made out of?" Takk asked.

Archie held it up so Takk could see it. "Plastic. You hold it in your hand, and the heat from your body powers the optical imager to project the pages."

"So, plastic," said Takk. He could handle a little bit of plastic.

"Yeah," Archie said, and went back to his reading.

After several minutes, Takk's now-awakened curiosity got the better of him. "What's the book about?" he asked.

"It's a book of poems," Archie said, not looking up.

"What kind of poems?" Takk asked.

Now Archie looked up. "You actually care?" he said.

"I'm just as bored as you are," Takk said.

"They're prophetic poems," Archie said.

"They tell the future?" Takk asked.

"Sort of," Archie said. "It's more like they suggest things that could happen, and it's up to us to decide what to do about it."

"Why are you reading them?" Takk asked.

"Because I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do next," Archie said, turning back to his book.

Takk was taken aback. "You're on a religious quest?" he asked Archie.

Archie shrugged. "I suppose I am," he said.

Almost instantly Takk was overcome with a rush of affection for this little human. The Ftruu was a difficult passage for any young Nagch. The Nagch were a people who thrived on family and tradition; tossing young Nagchs out to experience the universe was a paradoxically isolating experience for most of them and made them yearn to return to their homes and rituals (a fact not in the least lost on older Nagch).

Takk had been on Earth for a better part of two years; he'd come there because it was the planet that had been randomly selected for him to visit two Nagch years prior—just enough time to learn to read and speak English. He'd been given a transport ticket and a small stipend and told not to return until his Ftruu was completed.

In that time, Takk had largely consorted with scumbags; his stipend was small and his visa was tourist, and being unencumbered by the worries of sin he had no qualms about working under the table for questionable people and their even-more-questionable aims. However, it did leave him with a general perception that humans were spiritually bereft beings. Takk understood that Earth was positively littered with houses of worship and that people were always claiming that their god of choice wanted them to do one thing or another. But in his personal experience the only time he heard people invoke their deity was when Takk was about to beat the hell out of them or turn them into a snack. And even then, more than half the time they invoked defecation instead. Takk found that inexplicable.

And thus, Archie McClellan became the first human Takk had met who actually appeared to have a religious component to his personality—or at the very least a religious component not motivated entirely by fear of imminent injury or death. Meeting someone with a religious impulse activated a dormant section of Takk's personality very much like a turned-on faucet expands a desiccated sponge. Takk advanced on Archie enthusiastically. Archie quite understandably flinched.

"Tell me about your quest," Takk said.

"What?" Archie said.

"Your quest!" Takk said. "I am on a religious quest also."

Archie looked at Takk skeptically. "But you're doing this," he said, sweeping his arm about.

"So are you," Takk said.

Archie blinked. Takk had a point, there. Archie glanced down at his book, which had turned its optically generated page thanks to his flinch, and his eye caught the poem there: