It wasn't our fault! He crashed before we got there!
The Roboticist sat on an unconscious black-furred cat, the size of a fully-grown bengal tiger, with tentacles sprouting from his shoulders, and ears that trailed off into long, thin antennae. They and the cat were on the edge of a crater that held the wreckage of what appeared the right size to be an escape pod, and the pieces of a tractor that had been brutally chopped up by something that had torn through the metal the way an ax tears through cardboard. The crater was in the middle of a field of potatoes, near a river in northern Maine.
No! Tabitha, this is insane!
But look at him! I thought that species was fictional, yet here he is!
And look at the damage he caused before we could bring him down. There is no way ...
... that anyone on this planet has the technology to hold him. They'll just end up killing him, you know that. And it's not his fault!
We're not even sure of that. For all we know, he could have been a raving psychopath who was ejected by his people.
And the only way we'll know for sure is to keep him tranquilized long enough to get a brain scanner on him. Unless you happen to know a telepath on this world that I don't.
The alien stirred, and The Roboticist fired her sonic stunner point-blank into the back of his skull. He returned to his previous limp state.
I'm pretty sure Professor Xavier is real. I think I saw his name on one of the forms that crossed our desk.
And you know what he'll do if we call him. No! I know we can build a collar that'll keep him tranquil as long as he wears it!
How many cats do you know that like to wear their collars?
That's not the point! It's a sign from the gods! You're the one who believes in that stuff! My parents were more scientific about the magic! Remember? My parents were Midnighters. Your mom is the one who's part of a Circle. Can't you see this is exactly the kind of thing that would be a sign from the gods?
Tabitha, look at our ID card. It says Stark Industries, not Worlds Welfare Work Association. You do understand the difference, right?
The feline's antennae twitched, and a piece of wreckage lifted into the air. The Roboticist stunned him again, and the wreckage fell.
Look, we have to make up our minds fast. He's adapting to the stunner.
You're not going to give up on this, are you?
It's Mugi! We can't just let them kill him, which is exactly what will happen when they discover that the only thing that'll stop his claws is adamantium!
Instead, you want to build a collar that'll keep him stoned enough to not use his claws.
It's not like there are any tranquilizers on Earth that are strong enough to do the job.
I can't believe I'm agreeing to this. All right, let's drag him back to the lab. I hope I don't regret this.
You know those upgrades we were working on for the tank? We may just want to lay a new keel and apply them to the new ship.
I think I have a migraine. <sigh> Come on. Let's see if we can stuff him into the jump seat. Gods, the ride back to the lab is going to be cramped.
The Roboticist typed on her bracer and rezzed in a hovertank, with a single seat in a cockpit to one side of a heavy plasma cannon. She dragged the feline to the cockpit, after stunning him again, and stuffed him into the space between the seat and the rear wall, then got herself strapped in, buttoned up, and flew back to the portal to Fred's laboratory's ship door, while Tabitha excitedly worked on ideas for a functional tranquilizer collar for the alien.