Boarding Party by Robert F. Young

(Translator’s note: The original of the following report was recently acquired by the Terran Industrial Library through the Interstellar Historical Exchange Society, into whose illustrious fold the member nations of the Terran Economic Bloc have at last been admitted. The narrative is of primary interest to the library officials because it provides unequivocable proof that, long before the Interstellar Economic Community took official cognizance of our existence, several articles of Community Commerce found their way into our culture. To the layman, however, the narrative is of primary interest because it provides an intriguing parallel to a narrative of an altogether different nature.)

TO: Interstellar Nurseries, Frimm 4

FROM: Captain of the Greenship Uxurient, Urtz 2

SUBJECT(S): (1) Why the Uxurient put in to an out-of-bounds system during the Frimm 4-Urtz 2 run; (2) how a boarding party of one gained the greendeck and made off with a Uterium 5 snirk bird, a toy friddlefork, and two containers of yellow trading disks; (3) why the Uxurient’s flexible ship-to-ground capillary tube is ten exids shorter than it used to be.