Chapter Three: Two Hundred Forty-Two Guns

It’s beautiful! Twenty-two had seen images of other planets like this back on Tau Ceti, but in person it seemed so much more alive—even if she was watching Earth through a large viewscreen from orbit. The blue oceans, the mostly brown and gray land areas—dotted by lights on the dark side—were all so vivid. There wasn’t a lot of green, and most of it was in concentrated areas that appeared to be farmland. Had they urbanized the whole planet?

She’d soon find out. Already the ship’s sensors were taking readings of the planet’s surface and atmosphere. From the latter, she made adjustments to her internal breathing apparatus. Despite the seeming lack of vegetation, there was plenty of oxygen, though not quite what she was used to back on her home planet of Grodan. Probably from plant life in the seas.

She stood in the middle of the ship’s only room, belted to a white railing that came out of the white floor. Except for the viewscreen, the wall that circled the room showed lively images of shiggles, the small aromatic scavenger creatures from her planet. The ship’s vents filled the air with their sweet scent while the soothing sound of their wing beats played in the background.

“English lesson plans are ready, Your Greatness,” said Zero, the ship’s computer, in its sing-songy voice. It basically was the ship. It had been scanning the infowaves and uploading what it found on the planet and its inhabitants, including samples of the primary alien language so it could decode it and set up lesson plans for Twenty-two. “Would you like a massage?”

“Not now,” Twenty-two said. She had work to do.

It took her a few hours with the lesson plans Zero had set up to master the intricacies and inflections of English. What a fascinating language, she thought—such a mixture of poetry and inconsistency! In some ways it was similar to her own language, the old version, before One ordained that the irrational aspects be taken out. The grammars were similar. She remembered reading a theory that connected language with spaceflight. It claimed a race wasn’t really mature until it looked both inwardly—cleaning up its language, thought processes, and so on—and outwardly, where it looked to the stars. If the theory held, humans had a long way to go.

Of course, that was the whole point of her visit. She’d been studying non-stop all semester, right through her male phase and back to female, and felt that if she read one more dialogue from the sayings of One, her eyestalks would go nuclear. This was one school break that she was going to enjoy. She’d chosen her destination with care. Earth was outside the Galactic Union and well out in the spiral arms of the galaxy, a developing planet few would notice.

Where was the best place to land? She could land somewhere inconspicuous, but why do that? She wanted to get to know these bipeds. She might as well land in the most obvious spot, next to their central government. Other than her status as a student, she had nothing to hide from these people—although there were plenty of things she would hide. As long as she stayed hidden from her own people. If they were to catch her here…

Of course, even if she were caught, she could always claim she was doing research on a non-member of the Galactic Union. She was, after all, a major in political theory.

She wondered what political system the humans used. World governments could be some version of communist, dictatorial, democratic, or randomist. Which would it be?

For the good of the humans, she hoped their politics were a bit more civilized than galactic politics. Not that it mattered in the long run; she knew the history of first admittance. Assuming they didn’t destroy themselves—as about half of advanced races did before qualifying for galactic membership—there’d be plenty of time for her fellow grods to corrupt their politics. She shook her eyestalks in disgust.

Or perhaps they’d be that long foreseen race that would inject idealism back into the cold, hard reality of galactic civilization. Hah! Perhaps they’d also raise their eyestalks and black holes would flower, novas implode, and One be reborn.

Forget politics, Twenty-two decided; let’s just enjoy the next—she did a quick conversion to local time units—few months before she went back to school to study power plays and diplomatic deception with her partner Ninety-seven.

“Zero, put all the viewscreens on.” The shiggles disappeared from the wall, and she could see outside the ship in all directions. She watched in awe the majestic stars trailing off to infinity, and the huge blue and brown planet below.

“Zero, do you know where the human capital is?”

“Yes, Wise One,” Zero sang back. “It is on the island of Manhattan in New York City, on the east coast of the North American continental mass we are currently passing over. Would you like to go there?”

“Put on the antigravs and take us there full speed. Exceed the specs.”

“Yes, Oh Wonderful Being. Would you care for a refreshment first?”

“No, just land us next to their capital building.” Twenty-two wondered if she should turn down Zero’s flattery mode. No, she decided, it was fun.

“I will do that, Perfect Being.” The ship began its dive.

Sirens flashed as the ship shot down faster than its specs. She liked the thrill of plummeting through an atmosphere, the wind buffeting the ship as it spiraled down. She flinched as they approached a wall of white; after shooting through the cloud, she could see the human world below. Buildings, streets, it was like dropping onto the Grodan world from long ago. She adjusted helm control so the ship no longer spun as it descended.

Zero landed the ship next to a large, white building. “We have arrived, Lordly Creature,” it said. “This is the United Nations Building, home to the planet’s central government and their executive leader. Would you like to beat me in a game of cross-squares?”

“You can go to sleep until I call you,” Twenty-two said.

“Thank you, Master of All.”

Okay, Twenty-two decided, this was getting a bit much. “Zero, lower flattery mode fifty percent.”

“Yes, Your Goodness.”

The walls of the ship were still transparent. On one side loomed the huge white structure that must be their capital building. On the other side stood a statue of some sort of offensive weapon, but with its barrel twisted into a knot. How could it function? Or was it symbolic? Next to the white building a green flag with a white picture of the twisted gun, surrounded by stars, waved from a high pole. A symbol of peace? She hoped so. The last thing she wanted was the inconvenience of a shower of primitive bullets or lasers as her first greeting.

This would be Twenty-two’s first contact with a race that was not a Galactic Union member. Should she go outside and ask them to take her to their leader? Or wait for them to knock?

Humans quickly surrounded her ship, but they couldn’t see in since her walls were transparent only one way. She’d looked at pictures of humans that Zero had uploaded while in orbit, but seeing them live, in person, moving about and watching her ship, was riveting. Her hearts beat rapidly as she looked about. They had two legs and two arms, half a grod’s allotment. Some of them looked almost twice her height, but somewhat thinner. They wore clothing, but like many primitive races, left their mouths exposed. She nervously rocked side to side, then forced herself to stop. She’d just have to get used to that.

A smaller one stepped forward. It was about the same height as Twenty-two, who moved closer to study the creature. It must be a human child, she thought. Other than its size, it seemed similar to the adults, though its head was a bit larger in proportion to its body, and its clothing a bit more colorful. Like the adults, its mouth was uncovered.

It reached back and threw something at the ship. Twenty-two flinched. If not for the ship’s walls, it would have splattered on her face. Instead, the brown, oblong object, covered by light brown material—some sort of sandwich, similar to ones Twenty-two ate back home—bounced off the ship, leaving a splattering trail of yellow on the ship’s surface.

“Damn human!” she said, using the English version she’d learned earlier of a common grod curse word. She watched as other human children ran under the floating ship, then were pulled back by others, probably parents.

One of the larger humans walked to the side of the ship and rapped on it with a stick. “Anyone there?”

Based on the uniform, and in particular on the obvious weapon the creature wore on its side, Twenty-two figured the human was a security person. She waved her eyestalks in disgust, ignoring the knocking.

She decided to give them some time before she emerged. She’d studied first contacts in school, and there had been some real horror stories. She decided it was best to let the locals think they were in control, so the real leaders could show up as a welcoming committee. The last thing she wanted to do was make first contact with some shooting-happy thug like the one banging on her ship.

Over the next hour she watched as more uniformed humans surrounded her ship, all with naked mouths. Most held guns pointed at the ship. They wheeled several larger guns into position, also aiming at her. So much for the twisted gun symbol! Zero’s sensors counted two hundred forty-two guns aiming at her ship. Have they no common sense? she wondered. Bringing guns to a first contact? Do they think a single ship landing is an alien invasion, and that I’m going to come out firing weapons? Me against their planet?

Just beyond the security humans were others, jostling for position. Probably news people. Well, shortly she’d give them some news!

The welcoming committee finally arrived. A rather short human, with white hair shooting in all directions from his head, led a procession as the security people stepped aside. The short one walked up to her ship and circled around it, as if looking for a door. A human leader? It was time to make her entrance.

She wanted to wear her nice red vest, which matched the red velvo over her mouth. She shook side to side for a moment as she thought it over, then tossed the red vest aside and chose the yellow one, just in case. Clashing yellow and red at first contact! Why hadn’t she thought to bring a matching yellow velvo? Hopefully humans didn’t have a fashion sense.

She stuck a hand sensor into a vest pocket, which would also allow her to communicate with Zero if they were separated. Should she bring the pocket laser? No, she decided, it was pointless. She wasn’t about to start shooting humans.

She lowered the ship’s door into a walkway and shuffled out into the crosshairs of two hundred forty-two guns.