The bell sounded inside the ship at the same instant it toned inside the helmet of my space suit. The ship was about to make the jump through the worm hole taking its passengers from Jom in the Tellarian sector to Maginius in the Nom-2 Quadrant. It would also be taking me along, but I would make the jump clamped to the outside of the ship.

Making a jump is not easy on the body, even inside a ship with its quantum molecular inverse magnetic stabilizers to help keep things in the proper order during transit. Outside the ship, protected only by my single suit and the bulky life sustaining space suit, I didn't know what to expect. I was hoping some of the effect of the magnetic stabilizers would penetrate the hull of the ship and provide some small degree of protection beyond what my single suit could provide.

I didn't choose this mode of transport on purpose, but being an Intergalactic Man of Mystery is not as easy as I make it look, and sometimes, it involves creative travel arrangements.

I was attending a gathering of the wealthy and influential on the planet Jom in the hope of making some strategic contacts and found myself in the company of an exotic looking female. She had shimmery bronze skin and large slanted eyes and a very engaging smile. Her four tentacles seemed to always be in motion, one holding her cup of Loor, a potent drink on Jom, one holding a tray of wiggling refreshments while another popped a little wiggler in her mouth, the fourth kept wandering around my thigh and back or lightly gliding down my arm.

As she finished her Loor, she stood and I stood with her thinking she would be off to mingle and I would be off looking for more suitable refreshments. Instead, she turned her head slightly and looked at me with laughing eyes and a seductive smile, "Would you like to get a little on the side?" she asked.

I was surprised but rallied quickly and replied, "I didn't know they moved it to the side!"

One of her tentacles opened the slit in her gown exposing the side of her hip and she smiled....

We had been in her chamber for a while when the portal bell sounded and the door slipped into the wall. Her husband slid into the room. He was a large arthropod with small, grasping arms just below his mouth. When he saw us together, his eye stalks jutted forward and his bulky carapace flashed from powder blue to insane red almost instantly. He may move slow, but his wits are not. As I jumped up and stroked my single suit to begin closing over exposed areas of skin, he was on his wallet calling for his attendants.

"My wife is being attacked again!" he shouted. "Stop him, I want him dead!"

The last I heard as I dashed down the corridor was, "Are you OK my dear?"

I had to act quickly to get off world with my life. At the transit center I slipped into a space suit and clamped on to the next ship out, I didn't care where I was going, I just hoped I survived the Jump! Being an Intergalactic Man of Mystery, I knew I would land on my feet wherever I ended up. I was just hoping I wouldn't end up as a quivering, gelatinous mass on top of my feet wherever I ended up! That reminds me of another tale when I was stranded on Deajon-V......