The traveler

The mystery faint

Zarchi looked around the corner. There it was! And absolutely unguarded! Well, at least if he didn't count the 35 guards he had to kill along the way to get into sector Sigma, but still...
Slowly he walked up to it. This was going too smoothly, surely. There must be some kind of a trap. Zarchi looked on every single ferra on the wall for laser triggers, every floor crack for pressure switches, nothing. No booby-traps. The InstaCaust was just in front of him. Just up for grabs! He reached out his hand to touch it and-
"OW!" he shouted.
Well, there was the trap. Oh, how he hated potential motion barriers, and there was one just about 10 centimeters in front of him. All this new technology was just too much for him sometimes. How on Milky Way was he supposed to get his weight in grams accurate to two dozenals after the comma, and that while he didn't even know how much he had to weigh? He got slightly desperate. Two more guards showed up around the corner, and nearly surprised him. Nearly, because of the extra eyes he got implanted on his back he didn't really have trouble spotting them. Maybe he summoned them with his pain cry. Oh well, they wouldn't really be a problem to him anymore.
Desperately Zarchi sought for a clue to the riddle, and actually found it on one of the ferra.

"PRIVATE 742 HUMAN 3692
3 NAMES
7 LETTERS
7 DIGITS
2 DOZENALS"

Well, at least that's what it said after Zarchi had his super-decoder aimed on the crazy number combinations. Probably just the Universal Code made so you can't really decode it on the spot, but not too hard so anyone can decode it. Zarchi did love his super-decoder though, no hassle having to decode it somewhere else. Who ever thought of making that? Doesn't matter, he has to think about the riddle. Private 742 Human 3692, that's probably the name of the private with number 742 serving the Humans in the year 3692. That's just two years ago, he should still serve now. Who is that now? Keymard? Zarchi wasn't sure, but still decided he would go for it. Or maybe 3692 were Human numbers. Sure, they still refuse to count in the dozenal system, but maybe the clue is supposed to be cracked by everyone. He'd keep his mind open for the opportunity. 3 names. Oh joy, obviously like every Human he has 3 names. Can't they just be normal and have one? It's not like there are a lot of them left, they can use one and every Human will have a unique name. Guess it's a tradition that goes back all the way to ancient times...
Zarchi liked to think about how beautiful names can be. He didn't like his own. It looked like some barbarian from the "Own Age" as they call it themselves sat behind his laptop and just randomly smashed his head on his ancient non-laser keyboard, making the string "Zarchi" spell out in his stupid Ward program. Or was it Word? Doesn't matter. Those days are long gone. For those names he'd have to ask Keymard. They were serving in the same legion though, shouldn't be a problem. 7 letters. That would probably be a sentence or a word you can spell out with his names that leads to a number, of which you would have to take 7 digits with two decimal places. That would be his weight in grams then, to be able to pass this potential motion barrier. Wow, they really did guard this thing well. He was just about to go find Keymard, when he heard a loud bang. That didn't come from too far. He immediately ran around in the sector searching for the cause, and found it: Keymard fainted again. In the middle of the corridor this time.

"Keymard!" Zarchi shouted. "Are you all right?"
He didn't have much time, because the stupid Drant guards heard it as well. It didn't take long before a rain of laser shots hit him. He managed to avoid some of them but the inevitable happened. Zarchi fell down, paralyzed. Another stupid tradition: Drants never killed their enemies. They always paralyzed them and then either left them for dead, or they captured them. So thoughtful of them.
Zarchi wasn't the only one to have heard the bang though. Soon the entire legion gathered in that very corridor, and managed to eliminate the Drant troops. They immediately turned to Keymard, who was still unconscious.
"Are you guys alright?" they asked.
"I am, it's Keymard who isn't," Zarchi replied.
"Was he already unconscious when you came here?"
"I'm afraid so. Probably he fainted again."
"What the heck is wrong with him?" one of the guys said. It was a Llotri, a race that didn't give names to their people.
"Well, we'd better go ahead and get him out of here. He can't be lost," someone said.
"Wait until you hear what I've got to say," Zarchi said.
Everyone looked at him.
And Zarchi told them what he saw: how the InstaCaust was protected by the barrier and how Keymard was part of the riddle.
"He must really be important," he said.

Six days later, back at the main base, Keymard woke up again. He was really quite confused; apparently he lost his entire memory again. Nobody knew what happened, nobody knew how it happened, nobody knew anything about him.
In fact, even he didn't.
He didn't know his three names.
So Zarchi went to the intergalactic library, as Humans would call it, and went to search for some information about Keymard and his names.
Perhaps he'd find something.