Chapter One
“What’s so important about the Earth, anyway?” was one of the questions most commonly asked by the inhabitants of planet Gragalla. One of the first, in ancient times, to have been colonized by the inhabitants of said Earth, despite the fact that Gragalla’s inhabitants did not want to be colonized, and said so very politely. Unfortunately, they had little say in the matter because nearly all of them were inadvertently wiped out by the introduction of a common cold virus. The astronaut who had brought it from Earth, a certain Leonard J. Smith, was tried and executed for crimes against extraterrestriality. Although there were no preachers in the crowd, nearly all of those present said “Bless you.”
The governments of Earth tried very hard to gloss over the whole situation, and nearly succeeded. The original inhabitants were remembered only by their most commonly used word, “strak.” No one else knew what it meant, but they adapted it into an obscene gerund and it quickly spread through cultures across the Milky Way. If you were a good reader and didn’t skip the prologue then you have already seen it in use.
“What’s so important about the Earth, anyway?” was never said by the original inhabitants of Gragalla, then, but rather the descendants of the Earthlings who colonized it. They were brought up to think of it as the “Mother Planet” of sorts and superior to them in every possible way, except for the trifling matter of dry-cleaning services which the true Earthlings conveniently chose to ignore. With the Earth must lay their loyalty and dedication, first and foremost. But since the Earth had never done anything for them, or even acknowledged their existence for the past two centuries, most of the Gragallans didn’t give a wet slap.
And so when they were contacted nearly fifty years ago by the Earth’s leadership and urged to join The War, not for the Universe but for the “Mother Planet”, the Gragallans’ general consensus on the matter was “up yours with a wire brush”. In fact they made such a big spiel out of it that anti-war riffraff from all over the Milky Way, and some beyond, came to join the fantastic parties which were flaring up all over the planet in deliberate defiance. These parties ranged from the squeaky clean to the risqué to the sorts of things that they wrote about in “Planetary Geographic”.
One of these slightly, but not very, at least by comparison to all of the others, risqué parties, was being held in the Town Hall of Riko City. This building, like many others funded by the original obscenely rich cookie companies sponsoring the original colonizing expedition, was designed in a ludicrous, impractical and aesthetically pleasing fashion.
It consisted of a slightly squished hollow silver orb nearly a kilometer in either direction, suspended nearly a kilometer off the ground by a disturbingly thin central pillar and several concealed hoverjets in its base. In times past, people entered by means of the elevator system running through the pillar, which only held ten people at the most, four if they were terribly obese, as Earthlings in those days had a tendency to be; and on top of that they were forced to listen to elevator Muzak for nearly five minutes. The system was therefore terribly ludicrous and impractical. However, it was aesthetically pleasing, as its supporters were quick to point out to its detractors, and therefore these minor inconveniences could be dealt with. At some point, with the advent of teleportation, several units thereof were installed and life for the city’s ruling council was much more pleasant. The elevator was still maintained for those who were slightly uncomfortable with the idea of their component molecules being taken apart, blasted through the air at faster-than-light speeds and hopefully reassembled in the right order.
Whoever was sponsoring this particular party was lucky indeed to have secured use of the Town Hall, because the city’s ruling council was often quite busy nowadays holding symposiums to find new ways of mocking the war effort. As it happened, in fact, today they were taking what they felt to be a well deserved break, and playing space shuffleboard just outside the planet’s atmosphere. They were having a terribly tricky time of this because they kept drifting away if they paused for more than a moment to contemplate their next move, and so did the pucks and in fact the board itself. The score was currently three hundred sixty-five to zero, because one team had the planet’s gravity in their favor and refused to switch sides. The other team, fuming, decided they would vent by raising the taxes after they got back. Eventually, one council member who was on the ship with their very good-looking secretary patiently waiting for his turn got fed up, returned to Riko City and went to the party instead.
This party was mostly clean and relatively wholesome, at least during the daylight hours. Conversation flitted among the member species of a thousand worlds, a cross-section of the Milky Way’s various populations. Many wore breathing masks to accommodate the alien atmosphere, or basked in moisturizing tanks, or carried around artificial mini-environments with pre-programmed heat and humidity levels. All of them were having a good time and, shockingly enough to those who weren’t used to the cleaner sorts of parties, mostly without drugs.
Not only that, but it was a great way to get an education about one another and their wide-ranging species.
“Would you like to dance?” an Ardavian Brak asked a shy-looking humanoid creature.
The humanoid blushed. “Thanks, but you don’t want to dance with me,” he said. “I’ve got two left feet.”
The Ardavian Brak wriggled uncontrollably, which was its equivalent for laughter. “Don’t sweat it,” she said. “I’ve got a hundred sixty-four.”
Meanwhile:
“What’s with the crazy gloves?” a Malgovian Schnoob asked a Chikkiter.
“Can’t dance without ‘em, or in fact anything else in public at all,” confided the Chikkiter. “If I get even a teensy bit nervous for any reason whatsoever, you see, I involuntarily secrete fatal neurotoxins from every pore on my body.”
“So you all wear gloves?”
“Eh, either that, or carry antidote at all times, or take drugs to stay calm no matter what, which is a bad idea ‘cause it makes you do stupid things. I suppose some might just not worry about it until they get in huge trouble for criminal negligence. It is bad, man.”
“Must be some wicked predators they have on your planet,” guessed the Schnoob.
The Chikkiter wriggled uncontrollably, which was its equivalent of a shrug. “They’re so-so,” he decided. “I think it has more to do actually with insurance salesmen.”
Meanwhile:
“Can I buy you a drink?” a Foojoo Floff asked a depressed Quatti who was reading a book.
“No thanks,” said the Quatti, “alcohol doesn’t agree with me.”
“A soda, then?” persisted the Foojoo.
“No thanks,” said the Quatti, “caffeine doesn’t agree with me.”
“Water?” pressed the exasperated Foojoo.
“Hydrogen and oxygen stuck together make me explode,” said the Quatti.
The Foojoo coughed slightly, which was its equivalent of wriggling uncontrollably. “I see,” it said, and, heartbroken because it loved hydrogen and oxygen stuck together, quickly excused itself to go join one of the beings in a moisturizing tank.
The Quatti returned to its copy of Lies to Tell about Your Species and Freak People out at Parties.
Meanwhile:
Alicia Parkinson stared out her bedroom window and sighed.
School was out for a while on account of some historic figure or other and it was a downright heavenly day of what they considered spring on Gragalla. The star Dante shone on lylock trees blooming in every color of the rainbow, attracting mauve-breasted dwiks and puce-beaked hipscotches to flutter about and among them, consuming the ambrosial yellow essence of life, collecting on their spindly legs tiny grains of hay-fever inducing grains and removing them from harm’s way. A vicious quordlepleen, similar to squirrels from Earth except in its diet and temperament, darted among the lylocks and leaped occasionally, eventually bringing down in its razor sharp buck teeth a squealing dwik; but this was merely natural selection and did not account for Alicia’s mood that was conducive to sighing.
Superimposed on this view, as was the case with windows even in this day and age, she could also see her reflection. Hers was an attractive face; a bit on the longish side, but perfect in every feminine way. It worked well with the long, slightly straggly brownish blonde hair that framed it. Everything else that trailed along across the bed behind it, from her dainty long neck to her scrumptious little toes, was perfectly proportioned with both it and each other. Her appearance, therefore, did not account for her mood either.
The problem was that she could see the Town Hall building just a few blocks away. It disturbed her very much, as it did every day, but especially today. She confided this to her teddy bear, Mr. Snoogums.
“It doesn’t bother me particularly that the ruling council’s corrupt,” she admitted to him, “because that’s to be expected without higher levels of government above it to handle the task of being corrupt themselves. It doesn’t bother me that they use at least half of our taxes to give themselves raises in pay every month, because the other half’s sufficient to cover the city’s needs and I don’t have to pay them yet anyway. If I sound cynical by the way, it’s just – my childhood’s gone. I’ve grown up too fast.
“No, what bothers me is their stance on The War, and their reason for adopting it. Having parties while the rest of the Universe unites to save itself from annihilation, simply because the Mother Planet requested aid on their own behalf and didn’t mention the big picture, which everyone knows anyway, it’s just – completely ludicrous and impractical and doesn’t even have the justification of being aesthetically pleasing. I don’t know why I said that. Some phrase from school I guess. That’s where I gather all I know about these things, and if you think I’m a bit too opinionated for someone merely being force-fed a bunch of facts, you’re probably right. But what else is there to think about?
“I went to one of those parties, remember? It was Bert’s birthday and he insisted. It did look like a lot of fun and I would have enjoyed it if it weren’t for the wrong reasons. I don’t like him sharing that stance on The War either, but that at least can be justified by him being brought up immersed in this stupid society. Their opinions don’t slide off him like they do me. He’s a rather likable fellow, beyond that, and so were most of his friends at the party. They were, in fact, a bunch of friendly, likable, good-humored spineless cretins. I’m sorry, that’s the nicest way I can put it. I’m in a bad mood. Let’s not forget one of them ran over Fred way back when, right?
“Some are spineless in a more literal sense than others, okay. I don’t mean to be insensitive. But what I mean, the one thing they all have in common, is that they deliberately avoid what I feel is every being’s natural duty, to help others in time of need. There are other ways to help, besides fighting, you know. The war effort needs planning, supply production, medical help, even reporting on the whole thing with an unseemly positive twist on every battle to increase morale in everyone else. The fact that all of these spineless cretins are going to be wiped out themselves, even before those who fight valiantly are at last vanquished, and that they know it and don’t care, only makes the whole thing that much more intolerable to me.
“And I mean, you don’t even have to do anything necessarily. Not everyone does, there’s more to the Universe than that, but it’s one thing to go on with your life and another to have wild parties while terrible things are going on.” Alicia sighed again and turned away from the window. She stared into Mr. Snoogums’ chocolate brown eyes. He was a smallish tan teddy bear. She’d had him since she was a baby, and he had clearly been worn half to death with love throughout all the intervening years.
But as Alicia stared into his eyes, she was reminded that the feeling wasn’t mutual. “What do you care,” she muttered angrily. “You’re just a stupid lump of cloth and stuffing.” She threw him across the room. Then, she immediately felt guilty and went over to pick him up.
“I’m sorry,” she crooned as she stroked his threadbare fur, “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated, that’s all. Life can be difficult for a teenager when she hasn’t the power to change its course.” She sighed again and looked back out the window at the Town Hall building. “Curse them all,” she hissed, and willed all of her anger energy in that direction.
***
“You’re lucky,” a passing Kreeb was muttering to the gloved Chikkiter, “When I get nervous I turn into a homicidal maniac.” Suddenly he felt a strange chill that felt like a wave of pure anger energy, and had to quickly pop a few pills in his mouth before he delivered on that promise.
The Chikkiter felt his gloves getting wet. “Did you feel that?” he asked. “If we were in a movie, I’d call it an ironic foreshadowing.”
“Yeeesh,” said the Kreeb. “Have another drink.”
***
Alicia decided to quit feeling sorry for the Universe. It was that time of the afternoon when she realized anew that there was nothing more she could do and that it was time to advance on a different front, the one that kept her from increasing the distance between her and those spineless cretins, in both senses of the word. She pulled the window curtains shut and tried to regain her composure.
“Can I confide something else in you?” she asked Mr. Snoogums. “Even though you’re fake, I mean. Dad and I had another argument last night. He won’t let me leave, even though I’m almost eighteen. He just doesn’t understand –”
“Understand what?” piped a small squeaky voice.
Alicia nearly jumped out of her skin. She stared at Mr. Snoogums in disbelief, and then the light dawned.
“Gina!” she yelled.
Her little sister bounded into the doorframe, laughing all the way. She looked like a pint-sized prepubescent version of Alicia, but with her hair in a ponytail, and eyes full of childlike innocence undimmed by the torture of years. Childlike innocence was a good kind of innocence for her to have seeing as she was, after all, a child. However it also made her an occasional pest.
She pranced back and forth in the doorframe, chanting, “Alicia’s talking to a teddy bear! Alicia’s talking to a teddy bear!”
“Bug off,” muttered Alicia. She didn’t feel like dealing with this today.
“She wasn’t just talking, either, she was monologuing,” Gina taunted.
“That’s not even a verb,” Alicia protested, though she knew it would do no good. Gina was a killer at Scrabble.
“It is so a verb, and it’s in a present participle tense. Alicia likes to pretend she’s so big and grown-up,” Gina said over her shoulder. “I wish she would just admit she talks to her teddy bear, so she could have a tea party with us sometime. Don’t you?”
“Get out of my room,” hissed Alicia.
“I’m not in your room,” insisted Gina. She stuck her foot in. “Now I am.” She pulled it out. “Now I’m not. Now I am. Now I’m not. Am. Not. Am. Not.”
“Beat it!” yelled Alicia.
“Come on, Harvey,” said Gina, “let’s go leave Miss Grouchypants alone now. She just wants to be by herself and mope all day.” She skipped gaily down the hall without giving her sister a second glance.
Alicia sighed. Some days… but Gina wasn’t really so bad. It was her father she couldn’t stand, and her mind returned immediately to him and their argument. It was merely the most recent of hundreds, all nearly identical. And again she was feeling, as she often did, that it would take more than a teddy bear to console her now.
“Kaycee!” she called.
In waltzed a robot named KC-1138, looking very pleased with himself, insofar as it is possible for a robot to look pleased with itself. He had just invented a game that was guaranteed to keep Gina and Harvey occupied for at least ten minutes.
“Kaycee”, as he had been affectionately nicknamed in spite of his half-hearted protests, was the only gift from her boyfriend that Alicia had found continuing to be incredibly useful over the years. Among his many other skills, he was an excellent psychologist.
“Yes, Mistress Parkinson?” he said, with a slight bow.
With regards to his persistent obsequiousness she saw an echo of her boyfriend and wondered, not for the first time, how much of a connection there was and how much was simply standard robot programming. She did appreciate being treated with such respect, and it made her feel better almost immediately, but she couldn’t stand to see someone, even a robot, degrade himself in such a manner for extended periods of time.
“We’ve been over this,” she scolded gently, “just call me Alicia.”
“But of course, Mis– Alicia,” he said with another slight bow. “Your every whim is my command.”
“Please, quit it,” she begged, giggling, “worry about your own needs once in a while.”
“It’s against my programming,” Kaycee insisted. “I know you will take care of my needs as you always have, minimal though they are, and my only function in life is to make you happy.”
No point in beating around the bush then. “You know what I want,” she said.
“Indeed I do. You want to be consoled that your own life doesn’t suck as much as it seems to right now.”
“Yes.”
Kaycee did a very convincing imitation of a human sigh. “I suppose I should start out by reminding you, those ‘spineless cretins’ over there will get what’s coming to them. Life does not end with –”
“No, thank you,” Alicia said curtly, “I’ve managed to cope with that myself this time. What I’m mainly depressed about now is my overprotective father.”
“Ooh, progress,” said Kaycee, looking very pleased with himself again. “Well. I suppose I should start out by reminding you that he loves you, and is only doing what he feels is best for you, and trying to keep you safe.”
“He’s holding me back from doing the right thing,” she insisted.
“Not on a matter of principle. Alicia, your father cares about you. Perhaps you do not see eye-to-eye on The War, but he respects your viewpoint. The bottom line is that he doesn’t want you to run off and be killed in a hideous nasty way.”
“For the good of the Universe,” she insisted.
“Alicia, there comes a point where parental love overcomes rational thought. You need to respect that. And often, you will find that it is somehow much more beneficial than rationalism and logic in the first place. Love is what makes the Universe worth saving.”
Alicia began to cry. She couldn’t help it; she just suddenly felt as if everything was so futile.
Kaycee patted her on the back, with surprising delicacy for such metal hands. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you will come of age soon, and he will not be able to stop you from fulfilling your dreams. For now, savor and cherish the moments you have with him, and remember. He loves you.”
“Thanks, Kaycee,” Alicia said a few minutes later after deep and serious contemplation on the matter, “I feel better.” Kaycee, feeling satisfied with a job well done, patted her once more for good measure and somehow looked even more pleased with himself than before.
There was a phone call at that moment, as if someone had been spying on them and felt that this was the perfect moment to make a phone call. This was, in fact, exactly what had happened. Alicia quickly answered it, knowing it could only possibly be one person.
“Hey, dollface,” he said, “What’s happenin’?”
“Nothing,” she said, smiling in spite of herself, “but it’s good to hear from you as always, Bert.”
“You can do more than that, baby,” he said, “look out your window.”
She opened the curtains and did so. There, beaming proudly, was her boyfriend, Bert Jackson, holding a bouquet of possibly the most beautiful flowers she had ever seen. She opened the window and gave him a moment to climb in. Kaycee, as always, went into the corner and pretended to be an inanimate object.
“Well,” she began, and then couldn’t think of a way to finish. “You don’t need to keep coming through the window,” she said at last, trying to pretend, rather lamely she thought, that she wasn’t anxiously expecting him to hand the flowers over. “Dad’s not around right now. He had some errands to run.”
“These are for you,” he said, unnecessarily, and handed over the flowers.
She held them to her bosom and joyfully inhaled the fragrances, which were even better than their sight, by a long shot. She felt transported to another universe, another dimension, where all was peace and joy and comfort, and her lingering worries of just a few moments ago melted away instantly.
“They’re from the peaks of the Singing Mountains in the Weeping Forests of Kryndamar,” he explained.
“Oh, Bert!” she swooned. “You went there for me?”
He laughed. “No,” he said, “I bought them just a while ago at a fantastic party. They cost quite a lot since they’re an endangered species and not actually legal to take as such, but no expense or risk is too great for you, my dear.”
“Oh.” Alicia was slightly deflated, and didn’t know what to say, or indeed even think. She appreciated the gesture, of course, but as much as she did not like Kaycee worshipping her, she liked it from Bert even less. It simply gave her the heebie-jeebies, and she knew she didn’t want him doing illegal and environmentally insensitive things, just for her. But still… they were incredibly nice flowers…
“Speaking of which, you’ve got to go to this party,” he continued. “This one’s huge. Think of the cultural enrichment from all those alien races! I mean, there’s an Ardavian Brak with a hundred sixty-four feet!”
“Three hundred twenty-eight feet,” she said exasperatedly. “A hundred sixty-four left feet. I’ve heard that joke before.”
“Yeah, right, I knew that. I was testing you. Come on baby, you’re changing the subject.”
“Bert, you know how I feel about those parties,” she began, and the old feelings started to return. She took another whiff of the flowers.
“But come on, Alicia honey, just this once, please. They’re so much fun… and you know what it would mean to me…” He started to puppy-pout. It didn’t really work with his sort of face and Alicia found herself suppressing giggles.
“Imagine…” he continued. “You and me, dancing like no one else in the galaxy. Knocking those extraterrestrial dudes off their feet, no matter however many they have. But we won’t even notice, because it’ll just be our own little world… with just you… and me…” He tried the pout again and this time got it to work a little, but the effort left him gasping for breath in a few seconds.
Alicia didn’t want to come within ten feet of any of those spineless cretins. But Bert was one of them, sort of, and he wasn’t so bad. And it didn’t matter much if she sacrificed this sort of principle a little, since she had done it once, and besides, she herself wasn’t going off to fight anytime soon and it had to be healthier than moping all day.
And they were incredibly nice flowers…
***
“We’re leaving for a while,” Alicia told Gina as they headed for the front door. “Mom’s upstairs with her toothpicks, I think.” Their mother, like a higher number of parents in children’s fiction than natural probability would seem to indicate, enjoyed making famous buildings and landmarks out of toothpicks. She wasn’t very good at it, but it kept her from worrying about more important things, such as the fact that her oldest daughter was half-emo, and thus served its purpose.
“I won’t need her,” Gina insisted proudly. “Harvey and me can take care of ourselves, right Harvey?”
“Eh, right,” said Alicia. “You and Harvey have fun.”
“We will. Kaycee invented a great new game for us. Hi, Bert. Bye, Bert.”
“Hey, squirt. See ya ‘round,” said Bert, mussing her hair.
“Don’t have sex,” she said. He gaped at her. Her expression was deathly serious.
“We… won’t,” he said. “Cross my heart.”
“Better not. ‘Cause Harvey says it’s morally repugnant to fool around before you’ve made a big commitment and plus there’s all sorts of –”
Alicia pleaded with her eyes at Kaycee who said, “Gina, I think they should go now so they’re not late.”
“Um, okay. See ya.”
Without another word, feeling more than a little creeped out, they left. Kaycee followed them.
“Better make sure they don’t get into trouble,” Gina whispered to him. “You know how Daddy feels about him.”
Kaycee synthesized a wink. “Will do,” he said, and left.
Gina stared at the closed door for a while. For some reason, she felt uneasy all of a sudden. She normally didn’t mind getting her moody sister out of the house, but this time it felt as if she wasn’t going to be coming back.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” she said aloud.
“You said it, kiddo,” agreed Harvey.
***
Alicia and Bert would have been hard-pressed, however, to feel similarly. The day was even more heavenly once you were out in it, and not staring through some stuffy window. The titillating aroma of the lylocks carried to them on the wind and, though not quite on the same level as the flowers from Kryndamar, lifted their spirits immeasurably. The songs of the mauve-breasted dwiks and puce-beaked hipscotches, wonderful on their own, here interwove and counterpointed each other, melding into one glorious, surround sound aural experience. Even a couple of quordlepleens had stopped killing birds for a while and simply watched the human couple falling deeper in love thanks to nature’s awesome display of miracles.
“It’s a nice day,” said Alicia.
As soon as she and Bert had passed, the larger quordlepleen ripped out the smaller one’s intestines.
“Bert,” said Alicia, “thank you.”
“For what?”
“The flowers… the date… everything. Just being there for me. I know I’m not very appreciative sometimes. It’s just…”
“Yeah?”
“So hard. I don’t know, I guess I just have issues.” This sounded lame even to her own ears because she knew that people who really had issues weren’t supposed to know they had issues. Obviously the fact that she did was a further and very rare issue.
“Ah, don’t worry about it.” They didn’t bother to look both ways before crossing the street, because traffic was slim. Practically everyone was already at the Town Hall building for the party which was being advertised with posters on every available surface. The street, however, brought back unpleasant memories. “I sure do miss your old traktop,” Bert said after a few moments. “It’s been what, two years?”
“Two and a half,” said Alicia sadly. “Fred. His name was Fred.”
“Fred, whatever. Yeah, I remember how he always used to pounce when I came over, and he wouldn’t stop licking till I gave him a treat. Those were the days. Sure do miss him. Oh well, that’s why it’s important to have a designated driver, right?”
“Or not get drunk in the first place,” Alicia insisted, starting to feel trepidation again towards going with him.
“Yeah, well –”
“Yoo-hoo! Hey guys, wait up!”
They turned around. Cynthia Durmount, a mutual friend, waved from a few blocks behind. Hastily she ran across the street on her long gangly legs, being nearly flattened by the first car to come past in five minutes, and reached them out of breath.
“Hey,” said Alicia.
“Going to the party, huh?” wondered Cynthia. She casually twirled one of the curly strands of brunette locks that framed her baby face. Her eyebrows were long and thin and seemed somehow out of place, but only served to accent her semi-unique sort of beauty. The eyes themselves carried a sort of self-conscious slyness that packaged and sold the proverbial deal.
“Yeah,” said Alicia.
“Great. I knew you would someday. You’ve been missing a lot, spoilsport!”
“So I see.”
“Mind if I tag along? Jill and Julie were supposed to pick me up, but that was half an hour ago.”
“You know them, probably cataloging their whole wardrobe first,” said Alicia.
“Um, Cynth, baby,” said Bert, “we kinda wanted to go – together…”
“Oh, no worries, I see how it is,” Cynthia assured them. “I’ll just walk with you, and sort of melt away when we get there, right?”
Bert knew that Cynthia was the undisputed master of puppy pouts – it was she who had attempted to teach him – and that if she went that far, he would most likely end up giving her a month’s salary and an illegal bouquet of her own as well. So he agreed right off. They walked the rest of the distance with Cynthia explaining to them exactly what so-and-so and what’s-her-name had been up to last weekend and what they would probably do to top it this time. When they reached the building, she suddenly remembered something slightly more relevant to her situation.
“My necklace! I left it at home!” she said. “I can’t hobnob with a bunch of alien studs without my necklace! I have to go back. You guys go on ahead and have fun without me!” She waved and hurried off.
So she pops up just long enough to avert a potentially romantic situation, thought Alicia, and instantly corrected herself. Actually it had been an argument.
“Here we are,” said Bert, quite unnecessarily. They stood in front of the elevator and contemplated whether they wanted to use it or not.
Alicia was slightly uncomfortable with the idea of her component molecules being taken apart, blasted through the air at faster-than-light speeds and hopefully reassembled in the right order, and said so.
“All right then,” said Bert, “but it can’t be worse than five minutes of Muzak.”
After three minutes of Muzak Alicia began to feel he may be right. She was developing a headache unlike any she had ever known, seemingly out of the blue. Pausing to consider she decided the Muzak wasn’t that awful and didn’t constitute a proper explanation. At this point the pain increased so that she was unable to think of what did, and dedicated her mental faculties instead to leaning against the wall and moaning pitifully.
“Something the matter, darling?” asked Bert.
Not wanting to worry him unduly, Alicia managed to shake her head. He shrugged and dedicated his own mental faculties to staring impatiently at the ceiling.
Finally they arrived. Bert turned to Kaycee. “Can we leave it behind?” he whined. “We don’t need a chaperone.”
“‘It’ was a heartfelt gift from you to me, as I recall,” said Alicia, straining with the effort of creating a coherent sentence.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Bert, “but it’s just a robot. Come on, um… Karlee…”
“Kaycee, sir.”
“Kaycee, right, whatever, why don’t you go do robot-y things until we’re finished here?”
“I promised Gina I would –”
“Do as he says,” said Alicia. “Go buy me an aspirin, please.”
Kaycee remained silent; he would go back down and do as he was told. Bert opened the door and they walked into another world.
It was a world Alicia hated, thoroughly, even more than last time, though that probably had something to do with the lingering headache which was doing nothing to improve her disposition. But she followed Bert into the sea of color and light.
Here on the outskirts of it the noise was just low enough that they didn’t have to shout themselves hoarse over it. Most of the chatter was in English but some, who had defiantly refused to learn it, retained their own languages and got offended when no one could understand them. Some of the accents, too, were so thick as to impede nearly all comprehension. She noted one creature in particular that slurred its words as if it were drunk. Then she noticed the way it was moving and concluded that it really was drunk.
The smells, too, were incredible. Obviously putting hundreds of alien species in an enclosed space would result in a cacophony of aromas and odors, and it was with this in mind that certain patented devices were in use which muted them all so as to prevent sensitive beings from passing out or worse, but did not obliterate them completely so as to allow others to appreciate the cultural diffusion. This particular mix was actually somewhat pleasant, especially compared to what she’d been expecting. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
A live band was playing, she noticed, a local one called “Hok Tubok and the Bleeming Squeegees.” She had heard people talking about them but never been into that sort of thing. They were pretty good, though, she grudgingly admitted, as they broke into “Don’t Go Breaking My Tertiary Heart.” The multiple-armed squid thing on drums caught her eye especially, particularly because it was signing autographs, waving at friends in the crowd, and performing an insanely complicated form of cat’s cradle even as it used about fifteen of its tentacles for the drums themselves.
“Hey look,” said Bert before she could get a look at the rest of them, “here’s the guy who sold me the flowers.”
Alicia looked. The guy looked like a flower himself, albeit a pale scaly tan one with arms, legs, and a large hook nose. He nodded in acknowledgement. He was clutching a vase as if it were his only child, and the flowers in it were almost, but not quite, as beautiful as her own.
“This is Zork,” continued Bert. “Zork, meet Alicia.”
“So you’re the lucky dame, eh?” he said. “Did they perform to satisfaction?”
“Er, yes,” she said, thinking it was an odd way to phrase the question, “yes, they certainly did.”
“Nothing but the best high-quality stuff from me,” he said with a wink. He continued to stare at her, as if there was something important she was expected to say.
“I wish I had more money,” she went on hesitantly, “my kid sister would love some.”
He burst out laughing. “Yeah,” he said, nodding and raising his eyebrows, “I’ll bet she would.”
Alicia was a bit disconcerted by his incredibly human body language. Furthermore she was confused about this, and felt that there was some vital piece of information eluding her. She was debating whether or not to probe for it, when suddenly he said “See you around” and disappeared into the crowd.
“Come on,” said Bert, “let’s get a soda and hit the dance floor.”
“Right,” said Alicia, hoping there would be a slow song coming up. In fact come to think of it “Please Don’t Break My Tertiary Heart” was a slow song as she remembered it, but these folks had turned it into a head-banging, ear-bleeding doozy of something-or-other. It actually seemed to be helping her headache though, so Alicia wasn’t about to complain in the least.
They maneuvered around a train going so fast they couldn’t tell if it really was several beings or merely one, watching with amusement the various other dance moves the Milky Way had to offer and envying their various physical forms.
They did not envy the form of the slimy corpulent creature selling the sodas. It gestured with one of its pseudopods at one particular variety. “I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re not carbon-based life-forms,” it said. “Makes vodka look like spring water.”
“Whatever has the most caffeine and no toxic waste, please,” said Bert.
The creature handed them each a can of something that apparently filled both prerequisites. Alicia wiped the slime from hers and carefully eased it open, paranoid as always that somebody had shaken it in advance.
“Let’s go find a seat,” said Bert. They turned around and nearly bumped into the nine-foot tall hairy mass behind them. It reacted slightly less than a tombstone, but the purple snake coiled around its neck reared up and hissed at them violently.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Alicia, who had spilled soda all over her clothes in response. “Er, nice pet,” she said to the hairy creature, hoping to make light of it.
“How dare you speak that way of my fiancé?” demanded the snake.
Bert hastily led her away. Once they found a place to sit down, he released the laughter he had been holding in all along. “Poor Alicia,” he said, wiping his eyes, “you’re really not cut out for the real world, are you?”
“The real world!? You think this is –”
“Easy, baby, please.” He put a finger to her lips and she resisted the urge to bite it off. “Let’s not argue some more. We came here to have a good time.”
Alicia held in all of the sarcastic remarks she came up with in response to this statement, and they sipped at their sodas in silence. I think I’ve forgotten how to have a good time, she thought.
The wild song was sliding into its final cataclysmic cords which rose to counterpoint the fading vocal harmonies. It was a masterpiece, Alicia had to admit, even after what they’d done to it. Her headache was completely gone now and she decided to start enjoying herself for once.
“All right,” Hok announced, leaping to the nearest hovering microphone on ridiculously long gangly legs. He was a short, skinny green man with a gargantuan head and pointy ears. “All right,” he repeated, “hang on to your kramblotches, because it’s pippiks’ choice!”
There was a slight groan from some of those assembled, elicited by the fact that there was only one pippik present, a suddenly rather confused-looking Troikot.
There is a simple pattern followed by many species throughout the universe, and that is this: male, female. The reason this is followed by many species is that it’s simple, it works, and if you believe in an all-powerful Hand guiding it somewhere along the line you can imagine Him wanting to keep it consistent. For those who like to keep it even simpler, the options of hermaphrodite and null were made available. However, the Universe being the humongous place it is, some species are bound to be dissatisfied with these perfectly reasonable choices, and choose to come up with their own fancy alternatives. Pippiks, then, are only one of thousands of relatively obscure genders to be found throughout said Universe. Kramblotches, on the other hand, are completely unrelated organs found in some species for the purpose of throwing at predators.
When it comes to interstellar travel, this also brings up the problem of gender pronouns. The language of a species with its own special genders will have developed its own special pronouns, of course, but usually any being from a normal male/female/hermaphrodite/null species will not want to bother memorizing all of the pronouns for the thousands of relatively obscure genders that exist. As a result, most choose to lump them all under the “it” category. Some find this offensive, but, others argue, they should have thought of that before their species decided to create its own genders anyway.
“Ask that cute farfel over there,” whispered a Queezik.
“I don’t swing that way,” the Troikot timidly whispered back.
Hok’s keen ears picked up their exchange and he grinned in spite of himself. He knew, of course, that there was only one pippik in the room, but he was trying as best he could to be fair and tolerant of everybody. Sexism, of course, was unseemly even by this society’s standards.
The Troikot didn’t seem about to make a choice anytime soon, so he motioned to his bandmates to start the next song anyway, but instead a blaring alarm began to sound. Many beings didn’t notice the difference until they realized the floor was tilting slightly, and then most of them assumed they had simply had too much to drink. When their drinks actually started sliding away from them, they began to realize something was up, and when they realized that in spite of the blaring noise’s continuance the Bleeming Squeegees were nowhere to be found, having teleported themselves down to the planet’s surface and made a break for it, general panic began to set in.
Alicia, of course, was still a little woozy from the headache but in a much clearer state of mind than many of them, and had rushed for the elevator as soon as she could. But Bert grabbed her arm. “It’ll take too long!” he shouted. “We’ll have to teleport!”
Unfortunately, the teleporters were ringed around the building’s perimeter, and as it had actually only been a manner of seconds before the general panic set in, they were now in danger of being crushed by the stampede which had erupted.
As an incredibly lucky coincidence would have it, the train came by them again, and though they still couldn’t be certain whether it was one being or many, that hardly mattered. Alicia grabbed the caboose, Bert grabbed her, and they both held on for dear life as it careened through the crowd, somehow avoiding everybody. Though it nearly jarred their teeth loose, they were at a teleporter in less than a minute, and as the train disappeared through it they followed suit.
As soon as they had done so it broke up, which implied but did not confirm that it was made of separate beings, and Alicia suddenly sprawled on the pavement beneath the towering Town Hall building which was leaning precariously towards them. Bert climbed off her back and she rolled over to look. This turned out to be a mistake because it caused her to wet her pants, throw up, and scream simultaneously.
The building was, as has already been mentioned, leaning precariously towards them. The reason for this was that the central pillar and all of the hoverjets on the other side had been blasted clean through by one of the humongous warships which filled the sky right now.
Alicia could hardly believe it was real. She’d known this day would come, of course, and it wasn’t a coincidence that it happened right after she’d been moping about it because she did that every day, but still. The one day, well one out of two, technically, that she happened to be at a party a kilometer off the ground. Uncanny. Or maybe that was why?
Of course when the full gravity of the situation seized upon her, she knew it would have made little difference where she was.
“The Skreel,” she whispered, half to herself.
“Really? I’m outta here then. Good luck,” said Bert, and ran.
Almost immediately he bumped into Cynthia, who was this time sporting her necklace and flanked by Jill and Julie. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Is it over already? What are those things in the sky? Where’s Alicia?”
He grabbed her hand and kept running. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew he had to get there fast. Alicia had told him lots of stories about the Skreel and he didn’t feel like being a character in one. Alicia… I’m sorry baby…
“Hey, what’s the rush? And where’s Alicia?”
Alicia struggled to her feet, which was a good idea anyway because the other beings fleeing the Town Hall were getting quite annoyed to keep tripping over her. She looked around, steadied herself against a sudden rush of dizziness, and wondered briefly what to do next, because the idea of simply running for her life hadn’t imposed itself on her yet.
It imposed itself fully a moment later when the remaining hoverjets failed under the stresses they were unfairly being asked to bear, and the building came hurtling down towards her. She ran but tripped over a small metal hat that somebody had carelessly dropped in their flight.
Under normal circumstances, she thought cynically as she hit the ground, I would have landed face-down. Instead, a combination of factors too tedious to merit explanation here led to her twisting as she fell so that she landed flat on her back and could see perfectly the Town Hall building coming down to meet her.
What kind of moron builds a huge ball on a stick that high anyway? she wondered. She had at one point been educated about the original obscenely rich cookie companies who sponsored the original colonizing expedition, but at the moment her panic-stricken brain could still only recall the phrase “aesthetically pleasing” and it failed to comfort her very much, or indeed at all.
She calculated that there wasn’t nearly enough time to escape, and debated whether to close her eyes or face death until it actually came. She settled for a compromise and squinted, which actually served to calm her down some. She relaxed completely when the building screeched to a halt meters above her head.
She got up carefully, not wanting to exhaust her good fortune, and looked down the pillar’s length to where Kaycee hovered, jets roaring from his feet, arms straining to hold the thing up.
“By the way, I’ve got your aspirin!” he shouted over the ruckus.
“Best present ever,” she said to herself, and silently thanked the robotics companies who had seen fit to incorporate hoverjets and monumental strength into a mere serving robot.
Even now, beings were teleporting out, mostly unharmed but badly shaken. In moments, though, everything was obscured by smoke. Alicia had almost forgotten about the Skreel attack in the first place and realized it was still going on. They must have been blasting everything in sight. They would probably be coming on foot soon.
As she thought this, a silhouette suddenly loomed through the smoke, directly in front of her. It appeared to be a huge round hairy bulk, with a pair each of long muscular arms and legs, and humanoid hands and feet that were big even for them. A big triangular head rose from it on a long twisty neck. It swiveled menacingly in her direction and seemed to study her closely for a moment.
Alicia Parkinson screamed as the creature lunged and grabbed her.
Next: Chapter Two
The governments of Earth tried very hard to gloss over the whole situation, and nearly succeeded. The original inhabitants were remembered only by their most commonly used word, “strak.” No one else knew what it meant, but they adapted it into an obscene gerund and it quickly spread through cultures across the Milky Way. If you were a good reader and didn’t skip the prologue then you have already seen it in use.
“What’s so important about the Earth, anyway?” was never said by the original inhabitants of Gragalla, then, but rather the descendants of the Earthlings who colonized it. They were brought up to think of it as the “Mother Planet” of sorts and superior to them in every possible way, except for the trifling matter of dry-cleaning services which the true Earthlings conveniently chose to ignore. With the Earth must lay their loyalty and dedication, first and foremost. But since the Earth had never done anything for them, or even acknowledged their existence for the past two centuries, most of the Gragallans didn’t give a wet slap.
And so when they were contacted nearly fifty years ago by the Earth’s leadership and urged to join The War, not for the Universe but for the “Mother Planet”, the Gragallans’ general consensus on the matter was “up yours with a wire brush”. In fact they made such a big spiel out of it that anti-war riffraff from all over the Milky Way, and some beyond, came to join the fantastic parties which were flaring up all over the planet in deliberate defiance. These parties ranged from the squeaky clean to the risqué to the sorts of things that they wrote about in “Planetary Geographic”.
One of these slightly, but not very, at least by comparison to all of the others, risqué parties, was being held in the Town Hall of Riko City. This building, like many others funded by the original obscenely rich cookie companies sponsoring the original colonizing expedition, was designed in a ludicrous, impractical and aesthetically pleasing fashion.
It consisted of a slightly squished hollow silver orb nearly a kilometer in either direction, suspended nearly a kilometer off the ground by a disturbingly thin central pillar and several concealed hoverjets in its base. In times past, people entered by means of the elevator system running through the pillar, which only held ten people at the most, four if they were terribly obese, as Earthlings in those days had a tendency to be; and on top of that they were forced to listen to elevator Muzak for nearly five minutes. The system was therefore terribly ludicrous and impractical. However, it was aesthetically pleasing, as its supporters were quick to point out to its detractors, and therefore these minor inconveniences could be dealt with. At some point, with the advent of teleportation, several units thereof were installed and life for the city’s ruling council was much more pleasant. The elevator was still maintained for those who were slightly uncomfortable with the idea of their component molecules being taken apart, blasted through the air at faster-than-light speeds and hopefully reassembled in the right order.
Whoever was sponsoring this particular party was lucky indeed to have secured use of the Town Hall, because the city’s ruling council was often quite busy nowadays holding symposiums to find new ways of mocking the war effort. As it happened, in fact, today they were taking what they felt to be a well deserved break, and playing space shuffleboard just outside the planet’s atmosphere. They were having a terribly tricky time of this because they kept drifting away if they paused for more than a moment to contemplate their next move, and so did the pucks and in fact the board itself. The score was currently three hundred sixty-five to zero, because one team had the planet’s gravity in their favor and refused to switch sides. The other team, fuming, decided they would vent by raising the taxes after they got back. Eventually, one council member who was on the ship with their very good-looking secretary patiently waiting for his turn got fed up, returned to Riko City and went to the party instead.
This party was mostly clean and relatively wholesome, at least during the daylight hours. Conversation flitted among the member species of a thousand worlds, a cross-section of the Milky Way’s various populations. Many wore breathing masks to accommodate the alien atmosphere, or basked in moisturizing tanks, or carried around artificial mini-environments with pre-programmed heat and humidity levels. All of them were having a good time and, shockingly enough to those who weren’t used to the cleaner sorts of parties, mostly without drugs.
Not only that, but it was a great way to get an education about one another and their wide-ranging species.
“Would you like to dance?” an Ardavian Brak asked a shy-looking humanoid creature.
The humanoid blushed. “Thanks, but you don’t want to dance with me,” he said. “I’ve got two left feet.”
The Ardavian Brak wriggled uncontrollably, which was its equivalent for laughter. “Don’t sweat it,” she said. “I’ve got a hundred sixty-four.”
Meanwhile:
“What’s with the crazy gloves?” a Malgovian Schnoob asked a Chikkiter.
“Can’t dance without ‘em, or in fact anything else in public at all,” confided the Chikkiter. “If I get even a teensy bit nervous for any reason whatsoever, you see, I involuntarily secrete fatal neurotoxins from every pore on my body.”
“So you all wear gloves?”
“Eh, either that, or carry antidote at all times, or take drugs to stay calm no matter what, which is a bad idea ‘cause it makes you do stupid things. I suppose some might just not worry about it until they get in huge trouble for criminal negligence. It is bad, man.”
“Must be some wicked predators they have on your planet,” guessed the Schnoob.
The Chikkiter wriggled uncontrollably, which was its equivalent of a shrug. “They’re so-so,” he decided. “I think it has more to do actually with insurance salesmen.”
Meanwhile:
“Can I buy you a drink?” a Foojoo Floff asked a depressed Quatti who was reading a book.
“No thanks,” said the Quatti, “alcohol doesn’t agree with me.”
“A soda, then?” persisted the Foojoo.
“No thanks,” said the Quatti, “caffeine doesn’t agree with me.”
“Water?” pressed the exasperated Foojoo.
“Hydrogen and oxygen stuck together make me explode,” said the Quatti.
The Foojoo coughed slightly, which was its equivalent of wriggling uncontrollably. “I see,” it said, and, heartbroken because it loved hydrogen and oxygen stuck together, quickly excused itself to go join one of the beings in a moisturizing tank.
The Quatti returned to its copy of Lies to Tell about Your Species and Freak People out at Parties.
Meanwhile:
Alicia Parkinson stared out her bedroom window and sighed.
School was out for a while on account of some historic figure or other and it was a downright heavenly day of what they considered spring on Gragalla. The star Dante shone on lylock trees blooming in every color of the rainbow, attracting mauve-breasted dwiks and puce-beaked hipscotches to flutter about and among them, consuming the ambrosial yellow essence of life, collecting on their spindly legs tiny grains of hay-fever inducing grains and removing them from harm’s way. A vicious quordlepleen, similar to squirrels from Earth except in its diet and temperament, darted among the lylocks and leaped occasionally, eventually bringing down in its razor sharp buck teeth a squealing dwik; but this was merely natural selection and did not account for Alicia’s mood that was conducive to sighing.
Superimposed on this view, as was the case with windows even in this day and age, she could also see her reflection. Hers was an attractive face; a bit on the longish side, but perfect in every feminine way. It worked well with the long, slightly straggly brownish blonde hair that framed it. Everything else that trailed along across the bed behind it, from her dainty long neck to her scrumptious little toes, was perfectly proportioned with both it and each other. Her appearance, therefore, did not account for her mood either.
The problem was that she could see the Town Hall building just a few blocks away. It disturbed her very much, as it did every day, but especially today. She confided this to her teddy bear, Mr. Snoogums.
“It doesn’t bother me particularly that the ruling council’s corrupt,” she admitted to him, “because that’s to be expected without higher levels of government above it to handle the task of being corrupt themselves. It doesn’t bother me that they use at least half of our taxes to give themselves raises in pay every month, because the other half’s sufficient to cover the city’s needs and I don’t have to pay them yet anyway. If I sound cynical by the way, it’s just – my childhood’s gone. I’ve grown up too fast.
“No, what bothers me is their stance on The War, and their reason for adopting it. Having parties while the rest of the Universe unites to save itself from annihilation, simply because the Mother Planet requested aid on their own behalf and didn’t mention the big picture, which everyone knows anyway, it’s just – completely ludicrous and impractical and doesn’t even have the justification of being aesthetically pleasing. I don’t know why I said that. Some phrase from school I guess. That’s where I gather all I know about these things, and if you think I’m a bit too opinionated for someone merely being force-fed a bunch of facts, you’re probably right. But what else is there to think about?
“I went to one of those parties, remember? It was Bert’s birthday and he insisted. It did look like a lot of fun and I would have enjoyed it if it weren’t for the wrong reasons. I don’t like him sharing that stance on The War either, but that at least can be justified by him being brought up immersed in this stupid society. Their opinions don’t slide off him like they do me. He’s a rather likable fellow, beyond that, and so were most of his friends at the party. They were, in fact, a bunch of friendly, likable, good-humored spineless cretins. I’m sorry, that’s the nicest way I can put it. I’m in a bad mood. Let’s not forget one of them ran over Fred way back when, right?
“Some are spineless in a more literal sense than others, okay. I don’t mean to be insensitive. But what I mean, the one thing they all have in common, is that they deliberately avoid what I feel is every being’s natural duty, to help others in time of need. There are other ways to help, besides fighting, you know. The war effort needs planning, supply production, medical help, even reporting on the whole thing with an unseemly positive twist on every battle to increase morale in everyone else. The fact that all of these spineless cretins are going to be wiped out themselves, even before those who fight valiantly are at last vanquished, and that they know it and don’t care, only makes the whole thing that much more intolerable to me.
“And I mean, you don’t even have to do anything necessarily. Not everyone does, there’s more to the Universe than that, but it’s one thing to go on with your life and another to have wild parties while terrible things are going on.” Alicia sighed again and turned away from the window. She stared into Mr. Snoogums’ chocolate brown eyes. He was a smallish tan teddy bear. She’d had him since she was a baby, and he had clearly been worn half to death with love throughout all the intervening years.
But as Alicia stared into his eyes, she was reminded that the feeling wasn’t mutual. “What do you care,” she muttered angrily. “You’re just a stupid lump of cloth and stuffing.” She threw him across the room. Then, she immediately felt guilty and went over to pick him up.
“I’m sorry,” she crooned as she stroked his threadbare fur, “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated, that’s all. Life can be difficult for a teenager when she hasn’t the power to change its course.” She sighed again and looked back out the window at the Town Hall building. “Curse them all,” she hissed, and willed all of her anger energy in that direction.
***
“You’re lucky,” a passing Kreeb was muttering to the gloved Chikkiter, “When I get nervous I turn into a homicidal maniac.” Suddenly he felt a strange chill that felt like a wave of pure anger energy, and had to quickly pop a few pills in his mouth before he delivered on that promise.
The Chikkiter felt his gloves getting wet. “Did you feel that?” he asked. “If we were in a movie, I’d call it an ironic foreshadowing.”
“Yeeesh,” said the Kreeb. “Have another drink.”
***
Alicia decided to quit feeling sorry for the Universe. It was that time of the afternoon when she realized anew that there was nothing more she could do and that it was time to advance on a different front, the one that kept her from increasing the distance between her and those spineless cretins, in both senses of the word. She pulled the window curtains shut and tried to regain her composure.
“Can I confide something else in you?” she asked Mr. Snoogums. “Even though you’re fake, I mean. Dad and I had another argument last night. He won’t let me leave, even though I’m almost eighteen. He just doesn’t understand –”
“Understand what?” piped a small squeaky voice.
Alicia nearly jumped out of her skin. She stared at Mr. Snoogums in disbelief, and then the light dawned.
“Gina!” she yelled.
Her little sister bounded into the doorframe, laughing all the way. She looked like a pint-sized prepubescent version of Alicia, but with her hair in a ponytail, and eyes full of childlike innocence undimmed by the torture of years. Childlike innocence was a good kind of innocence for her to have seeing as she was, after all, a child. However it also made her an occasional pest.
She pranced back and forth in the doorframe, chanting, “Alicia’s talking to a teddy bear! Alicia’s talking to a teddy bear!”
“Bug off,” muttered Alicia. She didn’t feel like dealing with this today.
“She wasn’t just talking, either, she was monologuing,” Gina taunted.
“That’s not even a verb,” Alicia protested, though she knew it would do no good. Gina was a killer at Scrabble.
“It is so a verb, and it’s in a present participle tense. Alicia likes to pretend she’s so big and grown-up,” Gina said over her shoulder. “I wish she would just admit she talks to her teddy bear, so she could have a tea party with us sometime. Don’t you?”
“Get out of my room,” hissed Alicia.
“I’m not in your room,” insisted Gina. She stuck her foot in. “Now I am.” She pulled it out. “Now I’m not. Now I am. Now I’m not. Am. Not. Am. Not.”
“Beat it!” yelled Alicia.
“Come on, Harvey,” said Gina, “let’s go leave Miss Grouchypants alone now. She just wants to be by herself and mope all day.” She skipped gaily down the hall without giving her sister a second glance.
Alicia sighed. Some days… but Gina wasn’t really so bad. It was her father she couldn’t stand, and her mind returned immediately to him and their argument. It was merely the most recent of hundreds, all nearly identical. And again she was feeling, as she often did, that it would take more than a teddy bear to console her now.
“Kaycee!” she called.
In waltzed a robot named KC-1138, looking very pleased with himself, insofar as it is possible for a robot to look pleased with itself. He had just invented a game that was guaranteed to keep Gina and Harvey occupied for at least ten minutes.
“Kaycee”, as he had been affectionately nicknamed in spite of his half-hearted protests, was the only gift from her boyfriend that Alicia had found continuing to be incredibly useful over the years. Among his many other skills, he was an excellent psychologist.
“Yes, Mistress Parkinson?” he said, with a slight bow.
With regards to his persistent obsequiousness she saw an echo of her boyfriend and wondered, not for the first time, how much of a connection there was and how much was simply standard robot programming. She did appreciate being treated with such respect, and it made her feel better almost immediately, but she couldn’t stand to see someone, even a robot, degrade himself in such a manner for extended periods of time.
“We’ve been over this,” she scolded gently, “just call me Alicia.”
“But of course, Mis– Alicia,” he said with another slight bow. “Your every whim is my command.”
“Please, quit it,” she begged, giggling, “worry about your own needs once in a while.”
“It’s against my programming,” Kaycee insisted. “I know you will take care of my needs as you always have, minimal though they are, and my only function in life is to make you happy.”
No point in beating around the bush then. “You know what I want,” she said.
“Indeed I do. You want to be consoled that your own life doesn’t suck as much as it seems to right now.”
“Yes.”
Kaycee did a very convincing imitation of a human sigh. “I suppose I should start out by reminding you, those ‘spineless cretins’ over there will get what’s coming to them. Life does not end with –”
“No, thank you,” Alicia said curtly, “I’ve managed to cope with that myself this time. What I’m mainly depressed about now is my overprotective father.”
“Ooh, progress,” said Kaycee, looking very pleased with himself again. “Well. I suppose I should start out by reminding you that he loves you, and is only doing what he feels is best for you, and trying to keep you safe.”
“He’s holding me back from doing the right thing,” she insisted.
“Not on a matter of principle. Alicia, your father cares about you. Perhaps you do not see eye-to-eye on The War, but he respects your viewpoint. The bottom line is that he doesn’t want you to run off and be killed in a hideous nasty way.”
“For the good of the Universe,” she insisted.
“Alicia, there comes a point where parental love overcomes rational thought. You need to respect that. And often, you will find that it is somehow much more beneficial than rationalism and logic in the first place. Love is what makes the Universe worth saving.”
Alicia began to cry. She couldn’t help it; she just suddenly felt as if everything was so futile.
Kaycee patted her on the back, with surprising delicacy for such metal hands. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you will come of age soon, and he will not be able to stop you from fulfilling your dreams. For now, savor and cherish the moments you have with him, and remember. He loves you.”
“Thanks, Kaycee,” Alicia said a few minutes later after deep and serious contemplation on the matter, “I feel better.” Kaycee, feeling satisfied with a job well done, patted her once more for good measure and somehow looked even more pleased with himself than before.
There was a phone call at that moment, as if someone had been spying on them and felt that this was the perfect moment to make a phone call. This was, in fact, exactly what had happened. Alicia quickly answered it, knowing it could only possibly be one person.
“Hey, dollface,” he said, “What’s happenin’?”
“Nothing,” she said, smiling in spite of herself, “but it’s good to hear from you as always, Bert.”
“You can do more than that, baby,” he said, “look out your window.”
She opened the curtains and did so. There, beaming proudly, was her boyfriend, Bert Jackson, holding a bouquet of possibly the most beautiful flowers she had ever seen. She opened the window and gave him a moment to climb in. Kaycee, as always, went into the corner and pretended to be an inanimate object.
“Well,” she began, and then couldn’t think of a way to finish. “You don’t need to keep coming through the window,” she said at last, trying to pretend, rather lamely she thought, that she wasn’t anxiously expecting him to hand the flowers over. “Dad’s not around right now. He had some errands to run.”
“These are for you,” he said, unnecessarily, and handed over the flowers.
She held them to her bosom and joyfully inhaled the fragrances, which were even better than their sight, by a long shot. She felt transported to another universe, another dimension, where all was peace and joy and comfort, and her lingering worries of just a few moments ago melted away instantly.
“They’re from the peaks of the Singing Mountains in the Weeping Forests of Kryndamar,” he explained.
“Oh, Bert!” she swooned. “You went there for me?”
He laughed. “No,” he said, “I bought them just a while ago at a fantastic party. They cost quite a lot since they’re an endangered species and not actually legal to take as such, but no expense or risk is too great for you, my dear.”
“Oh.” Alicia was slightly deflated, and didn’t know what to say, or indeed even think. She appreciated the gesture, of course, but as much as she did not like Kaycee worshipping her, she liked it from Bert even less. It simply gave her the heebie-jeebies, and she knew she didn’t want him doing illegal and environmentally insensitive things, just for her. But still… they were incredibly nice flowers…
“Speaking of which, you’ve got to go to this party,” he continued. “This one’s huge. Think of the cultural enrichment from all those alien races! I mean, there’s an Ardavian Brak with a hundred sixty-four feet!”
“Three hundred twenty-eight feet,” she said exasperatedly. “A hundred sixty-four left feet. I’ve heard that joke before.”
“Yeah, right, I knew that. I was testing you. Come on baby, you’re changing the subject.”
“Bert, you know how I feel about those parties,” she began, and the old feelings started to return. She took another whiff of the flowers.
“But come on, Alicia honey, just this once, please. They’re so much fun… and you know what it would mean to me…” He started to puppy-pout. It didn’t really work with his sort of face and Alicia found herself suppressing giggles.
“Imagine…” he continued. “You and me, dancing like no one else in the galaxy. Knocking those extraterrestrial dudes off their feet, no matter however many they have. But we won’t even notice, because it’ll just be our own little world… with just you… and me…” He tried the pout again and this time got it to work a little, but the effort left him gasping for breath in a few seconds.
Alicia didn’t want to come within ten feet of any of those spineless cretins. But Bert was one of them, sort of, and he wasn’t so bad. And it didn’t matter much if she sacrificed this sort of principle a little, since she had done it once, and besides, she herself wasn’t going off to fight anytime soon and it had to be healthier than moping all day.
And they were incredibly nice flowers…
***
“We’re leaving for a while,” Alicia told Gina as they headed for the front door. “Mom’s upstairs with her toothpicks, I think.” Their mother, like a higher number of parents in children’s fiction than natural probability would seem to indicate, enjoyed making famous buildings and landmarks out of toothpicks. She wasn’t very good at it, but it kept her from worrying about more important things, such as the fact that her oldest daughter was half-emo, and thus served its purpose.
“I won’t need her,” Gina insisted proudly. “Harvey and me can take care of ourselves, right Harvey?”
“Eh, right,” said Alicia. “You and Harvey have fun.”
“We will. Kaycee invented a great new game for us. Hi, Bert. Bye, Bert.”
“Hey, squirt. See ya ‘round,” said Bert, mussing her hair.
“Don’t have sex,” she said. He gaped at her. Her expression was deathly serious.
“We… won’t,” he said. “Cross my heart.”
“Better not. ‘Cause Harvey says it’s morally repugnant to fool around before you’ve made a big commitment and plus there’s all sorts of –”
Alicia pleaded with her eyes at Kaycee who said, “Gina, I think they should go now so they’re not late.”
“Um, okay. See ya.”
Without another word, feeling more than a little creeped out, they left. Kaycee followed them.
“Better make sure they don’t get into trouble,” Gina whispered to him. “You know how Daddy feels about him.”
Kaycee synthesized a wink. “Will do,” he said, and left.
Gina stared at the closed door for a while. For some reason, she felt uneasy all of a sudden. She normally didn’t mind getting her moody sister out of the house, but this time it felt as if she wasn’t going to be coming back.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” she said aloud.
“You said it, kiddo,” agreed Harvey.
***
Alicia and Bert would have been hard-pressed, however, to feel similarly. The day was even more heavenly once you were out in it, and not staring through some stuffy window. The titillating aroma of the lylocks carried to them on the wind and, though not quite on the same level as the flowers from Kryndamar, lifted their spirits immeasurably. The songs of the mauve-breasted dwiks and puce-beaked hipscotches, wonderful on their own, here interwove and counterpointed each other, melding into one glorious, surround sound aural experience. Even a couple of quordlepleens had stopped killing birds for a while and simply watched the human couple falling deeper in love thanks to nature’s awesome display of miracles.
“It’s a nice day,” said Alicia.
As soon as she and Bert had passed, the larger quordlepleen ripped out the smaller one’s intestines.
“Bert,” said Alicia, “thank you.”
“For what?”
“The flowers… the date… everything. Just being there for me. I know I’m not very appreciative sometimes. It’s just…”
“Yeah?”
“So hard. I don’t know, I guess I just have issues.” This sounded lame even to her own ears because she knew that people who really had issues weren’t supposed to know they had issues. Obviously the fact that she did was a further and very rare issue.
“Ah, don’t worry about it.” They didn’t bother to look both ways before crossing the street, because traffic was slim. Practically everyone was already at the Town Hall building for the party which was being advertised with posters on every available surface. The street, however, brought back unpleasant memories. “I sure do miss your old traktop,” Bert said after a few moments. “It’s been what, two years?”
“Two and a half,” said Alicia sadly. “Fred. His name was Fred.”
“Fred, whatever. Yeah, I remember how he always used to pounce when I came over, and he wouldn’t stop licking till I gave him a treat. Those were the days. Sure do miss him. Oh well, that’s why it’s important to have a designated driver, right?”
“Or not get drunk in the first place,” Alicia insisted, starting to feel trepidation again towards going with him.
“Yeah, well –”
“Yoo-hoo! Hey guys, wait up!”
They turned around. Cynthia Durmount, a mutual friend, waved from a few blocks behind. Hastily she ran across the street on her long gangly legs, being nearly flattened by the first car to come past in five minutes, and reached them out of breath.
“Hey,” said Alicia.
“Going to the party, huh?” wondered Cynthia. She casually twirled one of the curly strands of brunette locks that framed her baby face. Her eyebrows were long and thin and seemed somehow out of place, but only served to accent her semi-unique sort of beauty. The eyes themselves carried a sort of self-conscious slyness that packaged and sold the proverbial deal.
“Yeah,” said Alicia.
“Great. I knew you would someday. You’ve been missing a lot, spoilsport!”
“So I see.”
“Mind if I tag along? Jill and Julie were supposed to pick me up, but that was half an hour ago.”
“You know them, probably cataloging their whole wardrobe first,” said Alicia.
“Um, Cynth, baby,” said Bert, “we kinda wanted to go – together…”
“Oh, no worries, I see how it is,” Cynthia assured them. “I’ll just walk with you, and sort of melt away when we get there, right?”
Bert knew that Cynthia was the undisputed master of puppy pouts – it was she who had attempted to teach him – and that if she went that far, he would most likely end up giving her a month’s salary and an illegal bouquet of her own as well. So he agreed right off. They walked the rest of the distance with Cynthia explaining to them exactly what so-and-so and what’s-her-name had been up to last weekend and what they would probably do to top it this time. When they reached the building, she suddenly remembered something slightly more relevant to her situation.
“My necklace! I left it at home!” she said. “I can’t hobnob with a bunch of alien studs without my necklace! I have to go back. You guys go on ahead and have fun without me!” She waved and hurried off.
So she pops up just long enough to avert a potentially romantic situation, thought Alicia, and instantly corrected herself. Actually it had been an argument.
“Here we are,” said Bert, quite unnecessarily. They stood in front of the elevator and contemplated whether they wanted to use it or not.
Alicia was slightly uncomfortable with the idea of her component molecules being taken apart, blasted through the air at faster-than-light speeds and hopefully reassembled in the right order, and said so.
“All right then,” said Bert, “but it can’t be worse than five minutes of Muzak.”
After three minutes of Muzak Alicia began to feel he may be right. She was developing a headache unlike any she had ever known, seemingly out of the blue. Pausing to consider she decided the Muzak wasn’t that awful and didn’t constitute a proper explanation. At this point the pain increased so that she was unable to think of what did, and dedicated her mental faculties instead to leaning against the wall and moaning pitifully.
“Something the matter, darling?” asked Bert.
Not wanting to worry him unduly, Alicia managed to shake her head. He shrugged and dedicated his own mental faculties to staring impatiently at the ceiling.
Finally they arrived. Bert turned to Kaycee. “Can we leave it behind?” he whined. “We don’t need a chaperone.”
“‘It’ was a heartfelt gift from you to me, as I recall,” said Alicia, straining with the effort of creating a coherent sentence.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Bert, “but it’s just a robot. Come on, um… Karlee…”
“Kaycee, sir.”
“Kaycee, right, whatever, why don’t you go do robot-y things until we’re finished here?”
“I promised Gina I would –”
“Do as he says,” said Alicia. “Go buy me an aspirin, please.”
Kaycee remained silent; he would go back down and do as he was told. Bert opened the door and they walked into another world.
It was a world Alicia hated, thoroughly, even more than last time, though that probably had something to do with the lingering headache which was doing nothing to improve her disposition. But she followed Bert into the sea of color and light.
Here on the outskirts of it the noise was just low enough that they didn’t have to shout themselves hoarse over it. Most of the chatter was in English but some, who had defiantly refused to learn it, retained their own languages and got offended when no one could understand them. Some of the accents, too, were so thick as to impede nearly all comprehension. She noted one creature in particular that slurred its words as if it were drunk. Then she noticed the way it was moving and concluded that it really was drunk.
The smells, too, were incredible. Obviously putting hundreds of alien species in an enclosed space would result in a cacophony of aromas and odors, and it was with this in mind that certain patented devices were in use which muted them all so as to prevent sensitive beings from passing out or worse, but did not obliterate them completely so as to allow others to appreciate the cultural diffusion. This particular mix was actually somewhat pleasant, especially compared to what she’d been expecting. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
A live band was playing, she noticed, a local one called “Hok Tubok and the Bleeming Squeegees.” She had heard people talking about them but never been into that sort of thing. They were pretty good, though, she grudgingly admitted, as they broke into “Don’t Go Breaking My Tertiary Heart.” The multiple-armed squid thing on drums caught her eye especially, particularly because it was signing autographs, waving at friends in the crowd, and performing an insanely complicated form of cat’s cradle even as it used about fifteen of its tentacles for the drums themselves.
“Hey look,” said Bert before she could get a look at the rest of them, “here’s the guy who sold me the flowers.”
Alicia looked. The guy looked like a flower himself, albeit a pale scaly tan one with arms, legs, and a large hook nose. He nodded in acknowledgement. He was clutching a vase as if it were his only child, and the flowers in it were almost, but not quite, as beautiful as her own.
“This is Zork,” continued Bert. “Zork, meet Alicia.”
“So you’re the lucky dame, eh?” he said. “Did they perform to satisfaction?”
“Er, yes,” she said, thinking it was an odd way to phrase the question, “yes, they certainly did.”
“Nothing but the best high-quality stuff from me,” he said with a wink. He continued to stare at her, as if there was something important she was expected to say.
“I wish I had more money,” she went on hesitantly, “my kid sister would love some.”
He burst out laughing. “Yeah,” he said, nodding and raising his eyebrows, “I’ll bet she would.”
Alicia was a bit disconcerted by his incredibly human body language. Furthermore she was confused about this, and felt that there was some vital piece of information eluding her. She was debating whether or not to probe for it, when suddenly he said “See you around” and disappeared into the crowd.
“Come on,” said Bert, “let’s get a soda and hit the dance floor.”
“Right,” said Alicia, hoping there would be a slow song coming up. In fact come to think of it “Please Don’t Break My Tertiary Heart” was a slow song as she remembered it, but these folks had turned it into a head-banging, ear-bleeding doozy of something-or-other. It actually seemed to be helping her headache though, so Alicia wasn’t about to complain in the least.
They maneuvered around a train going so fast they couldn’t tell if it really was several beings or merely one, watching with amusement the various other dance moves the Milky Way had to offer and envying their various physical forms.
They did not envy the form of the slimy corpulent creature selling the sodas. It gestured with one of its pseudopods at one particular variety. “I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re not carbon-based life-forms,” it said. “Makes vodka look like spring water.”
“Whatever has the most caffeine and no toxic waste, please,” said Bert.
The creature handed them each a can of something that apparently filled both prerequisites. Alicia wiped the slime from hers and carefully eased it open, paranoid as always that somebody had shaken it in advance.
“Let’s go find a seat,” said Bert. They turned around and nearly bumped into the nine-foot tall hairy mass behind them. It reacted slightly less than a tombstone, but the purple snake coiled around its neck reared up and hissed at them violently.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Alicia, who had spilled soda all over her clothes in response. “Er, nice pet,” she said to the hairy creature, hoping to make light of it.
“How dare you speak that way of my fiancé?” demanded the snake.
Bert hastily led her away. Once they found a place to sit down, he released the laughter he had been holding in all along. “Poor Alicia,” he said, wiping his eyes, “you’re really not cut out for the real world, are you?”
“The real world!? You think this is –”
“Easy, baby, please.” He put a finger to her lips and she resisted the urge to bite it off. “Let’s not argue some more. We came here to have a good time.”
Alicia held in all of the sarcastic remarks she came up with in response to this statement, and they sipped at their sodas in silence. I think I’ve forgotten how to have a good time, she thought.
The wild song was sliding into its final cataclysmic cords which rose to counterpoint the fading vocal harmonies. It was a masterpiece, Alicia had to admit, even after what they’d done to it. Her headache was completely gone now and she decided to start enjoying herself for once.
“All right,” Hok announced, leaping to the nearest hovering microphone on ridiculously long gangly legs. He was a short, skinny green man with a gargantuan head and pointy ears. “All right,” he repeated, “hang on to your kramblotches, because it’s pippiks’ choice!”
There was a slight groan from some of those assembled, elicited by the fact that there was only one pippik present, a suddenly rather confused-looking Troikot.
There is a simple pattern followed by many species throughout the universe, and that is this: male, female. The reason this is followed by many species is that it’s simple, it works, and if you believe in an all-powerful Hand guiding it somewhere along the line you can imagine Him wanting to keep it consistent. For those who like to keep it even simpler, the options of hermaphrodite and null were made available. However, the Universe being the humongous place it is, some species are bound to be dissatisfied with these perfectly reasonable choices, and choose to come up with their own fancy alternatives. Pippiks, then, are only one of thousands of relatively obscure genders to be found throughout said Universe. Kramblotches, on the other hand, are completely unrelated organs found in some species for the purpose of throwing at predators.
When it comes to interstellar travel, this also brings up the problem of gender pronouns. The language of a species with its own special genders will have developed its own special pronouns, of course, but usually any being from a normal male/female/hermaphrodite/null species will not want to bother memorizing all of the pronouns for the thousands of relatively obscure genders that exist. As a result, most choose to lump them all under the “it” category. Some find this offensive, but, others argue, they should have thought of that before their species decided to create its own genders anyway.
“Ask that cute farfel over there,” whispered a Queezik.
“I don’t swing that way,” the Troikot timidly whispered back.
Hok’s keen ears picked up their exchange and he grinned in spite of himself. He knew, of course, that there was only one pippik in the room, but he was trying as best he could to be fair and tolerant of everybody. Sexism, of course, was unseemly even by this society’s standards.
The Troikot didn’t seem about to make a choice anytime soon, so he motioned to his bandmates to start the next song anyway, but instead a blaring alarm began to sound. Many beings didn’t notice the difference until they realized the floor was tilting slightly, and then most of them assumed they had simply had too much to drink. When their drinks actually started sliding away from them, they began to realize something was up, and when they realized that in spite of the blaring noise’s continuance the Bleeming Squeegees were nowhere to be found, having teleported themselves down to the planet’s surface and made a break for it, general panic began to set in.
Alicia, of course, was still a little woozy from the headache but in a much clearer state of mind than many of them, and had rushed for the elevator as soon as she could. But Bert grabbed her arm. “It’ll take too long!” he shouted. “We’ll have to teleport!”
Unfortunately, the teleporters were ringed around the building’s perimeter, and as it had actually only been a manner of seconds before the general panic set in, they were now in danger of being crushed by the stampede which had erupted.
As an incredibly lucky coincidence would have it, the train came by them again, and though they still couldn’t be certain whether it was one being or many, that hardly mattered. Alicia grabbed the caboose, Bert grabbed her, and they both held on for dear life as it careened through the crowd, somehow avoiding everybody. Though it nearly jarred their teeth loose, they were at a teleporter in less than a minute, and as the train disappeared through it they followed suit.
As soon as they had done so it broke up, which implied but did not confirm that it was made of separate beings, and Alicia suddenly sprawled on the pavement beneath the towering Town Hall building which was leaning precariously towards them. Bert climbed off her back and she rolled over to look. This turned out to be a mistake because it caused her to wet her pants, throw up, and scream simultaneously.
The building was, as has already been mentioned, leaning precariously towards them. The reason for this was that the central pillar and all of the hoverjets on the other side had been blasted clean through by one of the humongous warships which filled the sky right now.
Alicia could hardly believe it was real. She’d known this day would come, of course, and it wasn’t a coincidence that it happened right after she’d been moping about it because she did that every day, but still. The one day, well one out of two, technically, that she happened to be at a party a kilometer off the ground. Uncanny. Or maybe that was why?
Of course when the full gravity of the situation seized upon her, she knew it would have made little difference where she was.
“The Skreel,” she whispered, half to herself.
“Really? I’m outta here then. Good luck,” said Bert, and ran.
Almost immediately he bumped into Cynthia, who was this time sporting her necklace and flanked by Jill and Julie. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Is it over already? What are those things in the sky? Where’s Alicia?”
He grabbed her hand and kept running. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew he had to get there fast. Alicia had told him lots of stories about the Skreel and he didn’t feel like being a character in one. Alicia… I’m sorry baby…
“Hey, what’s the rush? And where’s Alicia?”
Alicia struggled to her feet, which was a good idea anyway because the other beings fleeing the Town Hall were getting quite annoyed to keep tripping over her. She looked around, steadied herself against a sudden rush of dizziness, and wondered briefly what to do next, because the idea of simply running for her life hadn’t imposed itself on her yet.
It imposed itself fully a moment later when the remaining hoverjets failed under the stresses they were unfairly being asked to bear, and the building came hurtling down towards her. She ran but tripped over a small metal hat that somebody had carelessly dropped in their flight.
Under normal circumstances, she thought cynically as she hit the ground, I would have landed face-down. Instead, a combination of factors too tedious to merit explanation here led to her twisting as she fell so that she landed flat on her back and could see perfectly the Town Hall building coming down to meet her.
What kind of moron builds a huge ball on a stick that high anyway? she wondered. She had at one point been educated about the original obscenely rich cookie companies who sponsored the original colonizing expedition, but at the moment her panic-stricken brain could still only recall the phrase “aesthetically pleasing” and it failed to comfort her very much, or indeed at all.
She calculated that there wasn’t nearly enough time to escape, and debated whether to close her eyes or face death until it actually came. She settled for a compromise and squinted, which actually served to calm her down some. She relaxed completely when the building screeched to a halt meters above her head.
She got up carefully, not wanting to exhaust her good fortune, and looked down the pillar’s length to where Kaycee hovered, jets roaring from his feet, arms straining to hold the thing up.
“By the way, I’ve got your aspirin!” he shouted over the ruckus.
“Best present ever,” she said to herself, and silently thanked the robotics companies who had seen fit to incorporate hoverjets and monumental strength into a mere serving robot.
Even now, beings were teleporting out, mostly unharmed but badly shaken. In moments, though, everything was obscured by smoke. Alicia had almost forgotten about the Skreel attack in the first place and realized it was still going on. They must have been blasting everything in sight. They would probably be coming on foot soon.
As she thought this, a silhouette suddenly loomed through the smoke, directly in front of her. It appeared to be a huge round hairy bulk, with a pair each of long muscular arms and legs, and humanoid hands and feet that were big even for them. A big triangular head rose from it on a long twisty neck. It swiveled menacingly in her direction and seemed to study her closely for a moment.
Alicia Parkinson screamed as the creature lunged and grabbed her.
Next: Chapter Two
