"They're mostly made out of this." repeated Tzixs.
"Ugh! Water?" asked his companion incredulously.
"A combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen. It's a colourless, odourless, tasteless, transparent liquid covering most of this planet. At its maximum density of 23 zlotz it weighs 8 kyxties per cubic ygg."
"I know what water is, you dipstick!"
"Well then, water. I tell you they're made out of water, Zargh!"
"Water?" repeated the alien, fixing his companion with his six glaring red eyes, every one of which expressed mounting incredulity and diminishing patience.
"And some other stuff. Carbon, Nitrogen, some metals, a few minerals. As near as we can tell they're containers filled with water covered by a thin semi-porous membrane and supported by a primitive mesomorphic skeleton."

"You did say water and—let me get this straight—'covered by a 'semi-porous membrane'?"
"Yep. Water and skin. Mostly water. There's no doubt about it. We picked up several specimens from different parts of the planet and probed them thoroughly. They're made of water—apart from the bits that aren't which I mentioned earlier.."
"Sounds awfully like a description of sausages to me.." began Zargh wearily. "Please don't tell me we've traveled 8 million Vlixils to meet SAUSAGES!"
"I'm afraid so."
"But that's impossible. What about the signals we've been getting? The radio messages beamed at GCC 42z?"
"They use radio waves to send messages, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines," said Tzixs smugly.
"So who made the machines? That's who we need to talk to, not these dim-witted frigging, watery sausages!"
"They're OK for sex."

"SEX?!?" snorted Zargh angrily. "What's that got to do with the price of Zlostrian Blexies?"
"Well.. not much—but a guy gets a bit bored after examining ugly bags of mostly water for three years.. and, well—the last three human females we beamed up were hot to trot. So we did the lot!"
Zargh shuddered. "You actually had congress with sausages?"
"Not exactly 'congress'—the females didn't have nearly enough orifices for congress but we used what they had. They seemed to like it.
"I don't want to know! You disgust me! I shall report this to the Leader—"
"—I wouldn't bother. The Leader had them before we did."
"Can we get back to—"
"—So did half my crew—"
"Can we get back—"
"—And the Leader's envoys—"
"Really?" Zargh glared at his companion. "And what did you all learn from the experience?"
"That watery sausages make a lousy lay."
"Astounding! Can we get back to the machines now?"
"If we must."
"So who made the machines that sent out the signals we picked up?"
"The sausages made the machines. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along. The sausages made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can sausages make machines? You're asking me to believe in sentient sausages."
"Well they're sentient enough to know when they've had a damn good seeing-to. Except this one female...It did nothing but complain. I mean, it wasn't as if we didn't try. Mxnix turned the gain down to 2 and even brought the deminimaliser core online, but—"
"—Can we cut out the sex, please?" snapped Zargh.
"No, we tried that, but the sausage liked that even less than when I tried to eat it. Not surprising really, because they're pretty inedible unless you go to trouble of—"
"—Look, Tzixs, let me make this really simple for you. Either you keep to the point or I'll boot your shiny purple asses into the great void. Which is it to be?"

Tzixs' two foreheads creased into a frown and the second head opened and shut its mouth several times. To tell the truth, he was never the quickest Zilog out of the egg and plugging the earth sausages had been the most fun he'd had since he got to this awful rock. But the void was definitely scary. The Void was, well, a void. If there was one thing a Zilog feared even more than an angry Vlibanik with a really bad haircut it was the Void. Even the nine-dimensional Kharghs feared the void and they commanded three more dimensions than the Zilogs. No, the void was not a place any sensible Zilog would want to go, ever. Tzix trembled from his two heads to his 24 tentacles and sat down with a bump.

"I'll keep to the point."
"Good. Let's start over." said Zargh briskly. His bottoms were killing him and he wanted to get off this dreadful rock as quickly as possible. "Who made the machines that sent the signals?"
"Sausages".
"Are you serious?"
"Perfectly."
"sausages?".
"Like I said: bags of 89% Water within a semi-porous flexible membrane. There are some common minerals and a few elements we haven't identified yet. Well... there's a bit of gristle too. 'Bone' I think they call it, but even that's mostly water... What it all adds up to is sausage. There's no getting away from it. This planet is inhabited by very ugly, inedible sausages."
"So, let me get my heads around this one final time. These intelligent machines—"
"—The machines aren't intelligent."
"OK. These non-intelligent machines were made by sausages, right?"
"Right." nodded Tzixs.
"Do you really think I'm going to swallow intelligent sausages?"
"I told you, we tried that. The moisture nearly killed Prxix. Once we de-hydrated one it wasn't too bad. In fact it reminded me a bit of the spiced sausages you used to be able to get at that really groovy diner on Gamma-epsilon 9. You know the one where you caught a nasty—"
"—Now look!" snarled Zhargh, "I WON'T TELL YOU AGAIN!
"Sorry..."

"Are you seriously asking me to believe that these sausages are capable of transmitting complex signals over millions of vlatees?"
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in this sector and they're all friggin' sausages!"
"Tzakki give me strength!" ejaculated Zhargh and shifted his weight to ease the throbbing pain in his bottoms. Presently he asked:
"Maybe they're like the Zeezixl. You know, a gallium-silicone-based intelligence that goes through an animal stage?"
"Nope. They're born sausage, they taste like sausage and they die like sausage. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea how short and boring the life span of a sausage is?"
"Spare me the details. I'm sure it would involve even more sexual reminiscences and I really couldn't stomach that just now if it's all the same to you. Okay, maybe the sausage part is not the sentient bit. Maybe it's something in the water. You know, like the Tzuddx. An electron plasma brain inside a liquid ammonia core surrounded by animal protein?"
"Nope. Prxix thought of that, since the females do bear a superficial resemblance to the Zeezixl. But I told you, we probed them. They're sausage all the way through."
"And the males?"
"They're the same except for an extra appendage".
"Appendage?
"They use it for congress with their females"
"I'M WARNING YOU, TZIX!"
"OK, OK, keep your heads on!"
So where's the brain?"
"Well...funny you should mention that. That female I was telling you about. You know, the one who complained that—"
"Stop it! I will NOT HAVE ANY MORE SEX!"
"Even if it's really, really short and very relevant?"
"OK. It had better be or your asses are history."
"Well..." began Tzix, rubbing his tentacles together enthusisatically. "After we'd finally managed to satisfy it I asked it the very question you've just asked me and do you know what it said?"
"Go on—surprise me."

NEXT PAGE