The Pirc High Admiral stood at the observation window above the Landing Deck on the massive space station "Objectrus 12" and watched intently as the small Torwheelian ship slowly made its approach. The Admiral took her eyes from the approaching ship and gazed at her own blue reflection in the transparent aluminum, which covered the observation deck. She was an ML5 series of ultra intelligent command androids, produced by the engineers at PIRC command to oversee this vast quadrant of cyberspace.

She sighed because she had a thousand, million things she needed to do but here she stood, waiting for the Torwheelian ship to dock. The message from the Ambassador had been "Extremely High Priority" and she knew from experience that it would take less time just to meet his ship and find out what the "urgent" problem was than it would be to put him off. She figured she would get this over with and then get back to solving the problems for which she had been designed.

As she watched the ship on its final approach, she ran through the most urgent of the problems facing her. The cyborg congress had passed a resolution which claimed that all cyborgs were granted tax free status on the station. That had to be overturned. Word had come to the Admiralty that the Vikings of Valhalla 6 were threatening to sue the PIRC council over alleged copyright violations...Something that had to do with cockroaches! Another mess which had to be dealt with! And if these were not trouble enough, a new faction, wearing funny hats, had appeared. They called themselves Jesterettes and even the Viking Leader, Happy Little Viking XXXVII, was worried. Something would have to be done about them!

The ML 5 series android felt the plating under her feet shake and knew that the Torwheelian ship had docked. There was a momentary pause and then a rush of air as the ship equalized its cabin pressure with the station. The Admiral ran her slim fingers through her blue hair and stepped back from the observation window. It took only a moment for the pressure locks to cycle and the doors hissed open. The Admiral activated her diplomacy chip and stepped forward to greet the Ambassador.

The space dock workers rolled the Torwheelian Ambassador out on a mobile chair and the Admiral dismissed them with a gesture. The ambassador was a Pspoid, a portly, slimy and seemingly unwieldy creature built much like a cross between a green snail and a black octopus. The Admiral bowed and made the Torwheelian gesture of greeting.

"Welcome to Objectrus 12, Mr. Ambassador," the ML series android said, keeping her voice level. Her diplomacy chip prevented her true feelings from surfacing. "To what do we owe this unscheduled visit?

"Admiral, there iss a problem and it musst be dealt with immediately. Pleasse look at this!" The Torwheelian Ambassador pressed his tentacle against the side of his chair and the lid popped up. Reaching inside, the pspoid pulled out what looked to be an old newspaper clipping. He handed it to the Admiral.

It was a news bulletin dealing with a Ping Pong match played decades ago, probably back on the home planet. The caption read "Wizards beat Vikings in Ping Pong finals"! There was a picture of the Wizard Champion holding a large, shiny trophy and in the background was a dejected looking Viking. The High Admiral couldn't for the circuits of her understand why the Torwheelian Ambassador would even have this news article or why he would need to show it to her under "Extremely High Priority" conditions.

"This is dated centuries ago, Mr Ambassador. What possible relevance could it have today?"

"Ping Pong, Admiral. My peoples wissh to know about thiss Ping Pong!"

Afraid she was going to lose her temper, the Admiral activated her calming chip adding it to the diplomacy chip. Accessing her archives, she searched her data base for Ping Pong. She handed the paper back to the Torwheelian and said, "Ping Pong was a game, Mr Ambassador. Two opponents hit a ball back and forth until one of them achieved victory. How could this possibly interest the Torwheelians?"

The Ambassador looked at her through his eye stalks and stated. "We musst have thiss Ping Pong! I will need you to give uss thiss Ping Pong!"

"I don't believe we have Ping Pong on board this space station, Mr Ambassador. Since the advent of cyber-games, these older games are no longer played. There is no Ping Pong anymore!"

"Admiral," the Torwheelian Ambassador said, "We MUSST have thiss Ping Pong! Without it, we may have to negate all our treatiess!"

The ML series android calmly reopened her ultra logic circuit and allowed the information to flow into her. "Mr Ambassador, as stated, we do not have Ping Pong on this station but, in the interests of keeping peaceful relations with your species, I will have the Objectrus engineers design Ping Pong for you and we will post it here. You must give us an earth week!

"That will be ssufficient, Admiral and further negotiation sshould not be necesssary!"

Boop	Candace

Gary	Gary

Marian	Mary Lou

Paula	Rachel