“Ladies and gentlement,” the commander announced. “I present to you the Cat’s Eye Nebula.”

“Incredible!” the mission specialist remarked. “I’d seen images from the Sagan deep space roving telescope, and the old Hubble orbital space telescope. But they just don’t do it justice seeing it from this close.”

Close, of course, was a relative term. They still had one major jump to complete before actually entering the nebula. The commander had decided to take a little longer making his calculations in order to give the three scientists and the artist time to see the nebula in all it’s glory. Another 500 lightyear jump, a 12 hour trip with the new jump drives, and they would be pretty near the heart of the nebula. Then the real work would begin.

“Um, captain,” the mission artist interrupted his train of thought.

“Yes, Wilson. What is it?” She was a little flighty, but cute, and damned good at her job.

“We’re sure it’s just a nebula, right?” She sounded nervous.

“Of course it is.”

“Then why did it just wink?”