Captain Brodok sat in his command chair. He was definitely not human – but just as definitely relatable to by a human. Just as was the rest of his crew, he was a chimpanzee – in that he was of the same evolutionary genus as the chimpanzees of Earth. He even bore some degree of physical resemblance to them on account of this. However, he was as different, arguably even more so, from the chimpanzees of Earth as Earth’s humans were from the primitive humans known as “yahoos” that inhabited several other worlds, including Brodok’s own home-world of Kriellis.

For starters, he was larger in size than the chimpanzees of Earth – with the possible exception of the kind known as the “Bili ape”. He also had a significantly larger cranium than any Earth chimpanzee – Bilis included.

Another difference was that he and all the others on his crew were dressed in the same red uniform. Of course, Earth’s chimpanzees might at times be dressed in like manner at the behest of humans – but they never would wear anything as vain as clothes on their own behest – nor would anyone of their own kind even think to compel them to do so. Brodok, on the other hand, would not willingly be visible to others without clothes – nor would anyone of his crew. Furthermore, though his choice of clothes wasn’t his own, those who had determined what constituted proper uniform for him were of his own species.

Sitting at his command seat, he looked out the window at his home planet, Kriellis, up above him – at the blue oceans, green forests, and snow-capped mountains. It was very much like Earth – except that it bore an entirely different formation of the land masses. His ability to view the planet in this manner made him glad that his people tended to favor the shuttle-shaped space vessels over the saucer-shaped ones that so many other spacefaring societies used – as the saucer-shaped ones, when orbiting a planet, tended to have their bottom-sides facing the planet rather than the top-side.

Suddenly, directly ahead of him, he saw bolts of electricity flash. For a moment, there seemed to appear a large, metallic saucer ship – naturally upside-down from his point of view. But before he could get a good look at it, circles conveying the star-studded blackness of space appeared, obscuring the vessel, and grew so quickly that in a fraction of a second no trace could be seen of any ship having been there.

“Did you see that?” exclaimed Brodok, rising from his seat.

“Yes, sir,” said Rielak, the helmswoman. “A saucer-ship deposited itself just ahead. It is still present – and still detectable – only it is cloaked so that it cannot be seen visually.”

“Communications,” he said, “record and send this message. Attention, unidentified vessel. You are in Kriellian space. It is bad form for you to use a cloaking device here. Show yourselves at once and identify yourselves.”

“Message recorded,” said Rodonos, the orange-haired chimpanzee at the communications station. “Message sent,” he continued. All was quiet for a moment before he followed with an announcement: “There is a visual dialogue request coming through.”

“Let’s answer it,” said the captain.

An invisible screen that hung from the inside of the window suddenly became visible – displaying the magnified face, head, and upper torso of a squirrel dressed in a frilly, dark green uniform.

“I am Captain Tammi of the Sciurian vessel Noepa. Consider me hereby identified – but as far as this ship’s cloaking device is concerned, I do not take orders from you.”

“Do what you will in your own territory,” answered Brodok, “but as long as you are in ours, you need to respect our policies.”

“We will only be here for half an hour – an hour at most, Captain – who is it that I am addressing?” began Tammi.

“Captain Brodok,” answered Brodok, “of the Kriellian vessal Lamatrias.”

“Captain Brodok,” continued Tammi. “Within an hour, we will be out of your way.”

“Fine,” said Brodok. “Once you leave, for all I care, you can re-engage your cloaking device. That will be between you and whoever else’s space you go to. But while you remain here, it must be in an uncloaked state.”

“Once again,” explained Tammi, “I am carrying – I cannot take orders from you.”

“These are not my personal orders,” maintained Brodok. “I am simply informing you of a local policy of which you are in violation – of which you have clearly been duly informed – and which if you persist in violating, that will be seen as an act of aggression.”

“I am sorry you feel that way,” answered Captain Tammi, “and this inconvenience will not last more than an hour. That is all I can do for you. Communications out.”

With that, the screen not only went blank – but vanished altogether. Brodok, quite disconcerted, sat down again at his command chair.

“I don’t understand,” said Rielak. “Why do they need to stay cloaked?”