Marshall decelerated. His jog became a brisk walk, a striding, an amble, a trudge. And as it did, his despair caught up with him, saddling him with all its previous weight plus a bit extra. For now, on top of everything else, he was burdened with the likelihood that he had found a true friend and lost him, practically in the same minute.
And after all, wasn’t friendship one of the reasons he had wanted so badly to go into space? Had he not suspected there’d be other Marshall Shmishkisses there?
Well, maybe there were. But now, because of his groundless prejudice against huge bugs, he’d never experience the fellow feeling, the end of loneliness, that friendship at its highest level could bring.
And before long he had sunk back into the mesmerizing morass that had swallowed him after the Roo Rootum program. No longer did he consider arguments that might win over the Centi, or directions in which that individual might have headed. He just walked, and when the road brought him to an intersection, randomly chose a direction and walked on.
Nor did he notice much. Neither the rectangles of light that kept appearing above him, nor the levitating vehicles that kept gliding past. And not the planet’s gravity, either. Yes, it was markedly weaker than Earth’s, but he was not aware of it, so forcefully did his own internal heaviness weigh him down.
For a while, he came across no living creatures of any kind. Then he changed direction again, and did.
Boy did he. He'd fantasized about aliens—mused during most of his life about an encounter with just one advanced interstellar being. And now, in an instant, on the broad thoroughfare he had entered, he was in the presence of hundreds, maybe thousands, from a score of species at least. He had also imagined that, when he met this individual, a conversation would follow. It would want to know about him, he about it. They would discuss a subject of common interest—black holes, perhaps—until finally reaching a point of mutual understanding and respect. Wouldn’t they? Well, maybe they wouldn’t. He, certainly, was in no mood for such topics. And the life forms around him seemed even less so.
They seemed, in fact, interested in nothing except barreling into and out of the stores and eateries that lined the road, and to accomplish this seemed willing to cast civility aside. They pushed Marshall and blocked his path. They slapped him uncaringly with packages and bags. Some wore masks connected by tubes to levitating air tanks that rushed beside them, and Marshall, failing to move quickly enough, soon came between an organism and what it breathed. This was not greeted understandingly. The organism, a powerful horse-faced creature, grabbed the human and tossed him into the path of a tall entity with skin like tree bark and a head like an anteater’s, who, in turn, repositioned him against a wall. The anteater then continued its dash to an open storefront, where liquids bubbled in high troughs. Without ceremony it plunged in its proboscis, sounding not unlike a vacuum cleaner inhaling a milkshake.
Under the circumstances, Marshall suspected, a wall might not be the worst thing to stand beside, and he stayed there, bewildered, as extraterrestrials beyond counting surged by in groups, in families, in herdlike throngs. Was this really how advanced interstellar beings amused themselves? It hardly seemed possible.
Unless . . .
A fragment hopped out of his memory. Unless you’re seeing a chicken, the fragment cackled. And weary as he was, he could not dismiss the possibility. Because maybe he was now like those Amazonian tribespeople he had once written about—the ones shown a movie of the outside world. The movie gave them their first glimpse of skyscrapers and airplanes, televisions and traffic, but all they actually saw—or so they claimed—was the chicken that pecked about in one of the scenes.
As he went on to write, people shown something sufficiently outside their experience tend not to notice it. They see only the familiar, the chicken. “This is a misperception we humans will have to guard against when first we set eyes on an alien world,” he cautioned his readers. Yet was he now ignoring his own advice? Did he really think the essence of this planet was stampeding shoppers? Was it not possible that he too was seeing a chicken?
As if in answer, a frame of light appeared above his head. About the size and shape of a suburban home window, it resembled the many others that were appearing and disappearing along the street, except for what it showed: a being with very round, very black-rimmed eyes, who was holding something live and struggling.
Was it? Could it be? No way. But it was. A chicken! Well, almost a chicken. True, it had four wings. But apart from that, it was definitely very chickenlike. And was definitely being offered to Marshall. For as the round-eyed alien began to move its mouth, its voice came alive in his ears.
“As you requested, excellency,” it said. “At a price you will savor and a location you can ambulate to in no time at all.”
The merchant then used its free hand to point at some colorful symbols hovering beside it. The symbols began to flash. After a few seconds they flashed brighter. The chicken was held out, so it blocked Marshall's field of view.
“As you requested, excellency,” said the merchant again. “Now, I beseech you: make your offer and see how reasonable I am.”
Marshall found it hard to understand how he had requested anything, or why he should be singled out in this manner. But when he tried to walk away, the light frame followed.
And when he shielded his eyes, the voice grew quite insistent.
“Excellency? Excellency?”
He’d had enough. “Thank you very much, but I do not want a chicken,” he said and thought as assertively as possible.
The merchant stopped beseeching. He pulled back the fowl and set it aside. His mouth, like his eyes, grew very, very round.
About then, Marshall noticed some pedestrians stopping to observe his situation. They were gathering about him, including a being who was hoisting a smaller being of similar appearance onto its shoulders. In the frame, meanwhile, the seller was lifting up a very large and imposing weapon. At least it looked like a weapon, with a long barrel and flaring mouth.
“You see?” said the larger being to the smaller, carried being. “The merchant has become angry. Now there is to be a retribution.”
“Did the short red one fail to restrain its thoughts?” asked the smaller being.
“It may be that it belongs to one of the non-telepathic species that cannot restrain them,” said the larger being. “But if so, could it not have apologized? What a shame it forgot its manners at home.”
The merchant pointed the weapon and fired. With a deafening blast, the section of wall to Marshall’s right exploded into a cloud of debris. Marshall lurched left, and would have started running, but the merchant fired again, and now the section of wall in that direction was blown to pieces as well. Marshall cringed. He pleaded.
“No, please!” he may have screamed.
The chicken seller fired a third and final time.
Everything in Marshall’s visual field went orange and yellow, serenaded by a ground-trembling roar. Then . . . nothing. Was he dead? He looked up. The light frame was gone. As was the debris. While around him thirty or forty onlookers were emitting raucous non-verbal vocalizations. He looked to his left. The wall there was fine. He looked to his right. The wall there was fine too. He looked down. There he was. Same old him. Trying to escape more attention, he began to sidle away. But it didn’t work. They followed along.
“Now do you see what happens when a person has leaking thoughts and fails to treat others considerately?” said the larger being to the smaller.
“I see,” said the smaller being dutifully. “But Papa, tell me. Did the red one really think it was being exploded?”
“That was the best part,” said another voice, not Papa’s.
“Probably never left its planet before,” said another voice again.
“Maybe it’s one of those semi planets!”
As everyone issued more non-verbal vocalizations, Marshall reached a gap between buildings, turned and ran down it.
And soon found himself alone. In a lot.
Of all the places he had been since the imitation hotel room, this was the most familiar, and immediately he decided to remain there for as long as he could. Why, the cracked material he was standing on could have been asphalt. And there was even a recognizable dumpster, brimming with what looked and smelled like ordinary trash.
True, a rust-colored tentacle was occasionally flipping above the trash, but that could be ignored, as could the commotion from the other end of the alley.
Above all, there were no light frames and no advanced interstellar beings.
He sat down on a discarded box, leaned against a wall, and at last his heart began to calm, his breathing likewise. According to his heart, he’d just made a narrow escape, hadn’t he? Though of course he hadn’t. No one had attacked him. The chicken seller had only made a spectacle of him, so as to warn others not to do what he had done.
But what, really, had he done?
Declined to buy something?
Indulged in a private thought?
This much was certain: Tradaxa was not for him. Not for him and not for anyone like him, whether that anyone was upright on two legs or horizontal on a hundred.
He thought again of the Centi, trying to imagine his life here. How did they treat him—those avaricious rushers? When they got on his back, what did they say if he didn’t move fast enough or take their preferred route?
Whatever it was, he thought, just imagine going through months, maybe years of it and then ending up in the employ of this apparently rich and pampered humanoid who, for no reason, imagines you smeared into an absorbent paper product. Because that’s certainly how it must have looked when he encountered me.
And once again, Marshall felt a yearning to explain, apologize, even though it was impossible.
Or . . . was it?
For if that merchant could read his thoughts from who knew how far away, then perhaps . . .
Shutting his eyes, he began to think as vividly as possible. At first he pictured giant letters spelling out I’M REALLY SORRY and I DIDN’T MEAN TO CAUSE YOU DISTRESS, but soon realized that such sentences, even if received, would achieve no more than they had in spoken form. And anyhow, they weren’t what he most wanted to say. Though that wasn’t credible either, when expressed in words.
However, if he said it in pictures . . .
He began again, this time with scenes from his childhood—building model rockets with his father, ensconced in his bedroom with his educational books and games. He also visualized summer camp and did not gloss over the truth about that place. Plainly he displayed his tormentors, being pushed, punched, running, escaping, the hill, the stars. From deep within himself he summoned the sensations of longing and belonging that had been inspired by that vastness, his yearning to join it, followed by his awareness that he couldn't, followed in turn by his realization that, although he couldn’t, he could at least prepare the way for others who would come after him. He was at Uprush now, writing his articles, so proud yet then so desolate: the magazine had been sold! Bisecting his visual field, he displayed by means of comparison what faced him next. On the left side, he showed the Centi ferrying Tradaxan shoppers, on the right himself, as he imagined himself, at Circuit World. Cut to his apartment, his computer, the website, the Handycam. He was appealing to the universe—setting out his abilities, achievements, positive attitude—but it wasn’t working. And now the image of Circuit World was encroaching from the right, along with the mocking prescreeners, the yellow cab, Melody . . .
He projected feelings of desperation, sadness, anger and then . . .
Without any vagueness, he showed himself taking hold of the planet Earth, now shrunk to the diameter of a Swedish exercise ball, and handing it over to the Zetans, who took it and welcomed him into their spaceship. He exuded great sorrow over this, profound regret, enormous shame. He tried to convey that he would do anything to repair the damage he had caused, but could not find the right pictures and had to settle for a panorama of words, projected in his mind’s eye like the introductory crawls in the Star Wars films.
Finally, revisualizing his apartment, he displayed an ordinary house centipede emerging from a drain and scurrying around the bathroom. In this way he tried to show such creatures as they actually were on Earth: lowly, mindless, completely uninterested in scientific pursuits. Nevertheless, he emitted sincere remorse over his treatment of them in the past, as well as the promise to do better should he ever see one again. In fact, to underscore this point, he showed himself trapping the centipede in a glass jar, carrying it outside and letting it go.
But, oddly, it did not go. Rather, it stayed where he had decanted it, on a patio stone, and spoke to him.
“Never mind me,” it said. “Why aren’t you finding your own way out of the jam jar?”
Marshall didn’t know what to think. How was he in a jam jar? But when the centipede demanded that he “look around,” he found out.
All around him, beings were pressing up against a huge glass container, which held the centipede and him.
And then just him. The centipede had vanished and he was alone inside the glass, unable to get out. But at least these others could not get in, which was a relief, as they did not seem happy with him at all.
“You!” barked the chicken seller. “You are the one who destroyed us!”
“And our children,” said the father, his youngster still on his shoulders.
And our children,” said the youngster, who, come to notice it, had an even smaller being on its shoulders.
“And ours!” said that being.
“And ours!” “And ours!” “And ours!” echoed a succession of shouldered entities, each smaller and higher than the last.
Whereupon the entire crowd began to push the jar, which tilted precariously. Marshall stared about. Above him he saw sky and began scrambling up the side of the vessel, but slid and flailed on its smooth, steep and soon untilting surface.
He landed on pebbles, opened his eyes and sat up.
It was night, and he was alone. But where? He looked around and began to identify forms in the dimness: the alley, for example, and the dumpster and the thing in the dumpster, flinging its tentacle far more frequently and enthusiastically than before. Obviously he had fallen asleep, then fallen off the box, and the question was, how much time had elapsed between the two fallings? Minutes? Hours? During that time, the planet had gone from sunlit warmth to moonlit chilliness, so probably hours. But, if so, then word might even now be reaching the Zetans that he had disappeared, in which case . . .
He sprinted through the alley and back into the street.
It was as mobbed as ever, with crowds of stores beckoning and crowds of shoppers surging, only now the light frames were starkly brilliant as they flashed on and off over everyone’s heads. Pushing and shoving as rudely as the next entity, he dashed back the way he had come, certain of his route at first, then less certain, then wholly uncertain. He thought of the Centi-cab. He thought of cabs in general. He surveyed the vehicles inching their way among the pedestrians, found his token and held it out to them.
Almost at once, a boxy thing with lots of dents began to edge towards him. It pulled up beside him and a window descended, revealing a furry smile. At least, it looked like a smile. Then it looked like a grimace, as someone slammed into his left side.
A competitor for the taxi? Perhaps. This was a rough-looking character with two spikes of braided black hair poking out of an otherwise bald head, who looked fully capable of such behavior. But then someone slammed into Marshall’s other side, the first one grabbed the token, and both tore off into the crowd.
Briefly, he watched the taxi pulling away. Then shock turned to anger and he was after them.
He needed that token. It was his last chance. More accurately, it was Ethan’s last chance. But there was more to it than that. For Marshall had endured so much, he had reached his limit. Whatever the consequences, he had to fight back.
But there was more to it even than that. For if he chased these thugs, he might die, no question. But would that be so bad? If he died now, then he wouldn’t have to die later, would he? And would probably save Ethan. And besides, why shouldn’t he die? A person like him, who had done what he did, why shouldn’t he be dead?
Fueled, then, by desperation mixed with a sprinkling of suicidality, he raced through the shopping hordes, knocking packages out of appendages, overturning air tanks, provoking outrage, but didn’t stop and didn’t care.
The thieves turned into another alley; he followed. Now it was just them and him, sandwiched between grimy walls. They were both spire-heads, both lean and tall and vicious looking. And as they were about to emerge into another lot—a really big one this time—they wheeled, while extracting compact, pistol-like objects from their long black coats.
But Marshall didn’t flinch. On the contrary, he leaped. Because of the low gravity, he leaped spectacularly—right into the nearest hoodlum, who, as a result, didn’t fire his weapon. For how could he with his head clamped between a pair of thighs, while the rest of the strange biped hung down his back, pummeling his . . .
Were they merely buttocks? It was hard to tell through the leathery coat, but there seemed to be something additional down there—something soft and swollen between two otherwise ordinary glutes. Well, fine. Whatever it was, Marshall beat on it. And the spire-head screamed—screamed so desperately that his associate, gun trained on the struggling duo, dared wait no longer. He fired, just as the duo torqued violently about.
The brilliant fuchsia beam that shot from the weapon therefore missed its target, Marshall, and struck the screamer instead. Marshall rolled clear and found himself on his back, looking up at his remaining adversary, who was staring down in horror at what he had done. Again the human took advantage of the meager gravity. Using his heels and forearms, he propelled himself along the ground, then kicked. He was aiming at the thug’s thing, but succeeded only in knocking the pistol from his hand.
Ricocheting off a wall, it landed conveniently on Marshall’s midsection. He stood up and pointed it. “My token!” he demanded. The other did not argue. Into his coat went a hand, out came a token. Then a second. Eventually five tokens, two rings and a sparkly oval with a long, pointed hook attached.
One by one these items were tossed at Marshall’s feet, until the thief, eyes wide, began backing up vigorously, and a lot happened at almost the same time.
Marshall felt an arm wrap around his chest; a hand close over the pistol; a hard, tubular object press against his right temple; while a gravelly voice spoke into his left ear.
“Let go.”
He looked about. There were spire-hairs on all sides of him—far too many to oppose, even with Aleksei’s excellent training. Also, they were better armed than the first two, each with a device that looked like a cross between an AK-47 rifle and a tuba. It was one of these that pressed against his head.
He therefore let go of the pistol, and was immediately let go himself. Pocketing the weapon, the one who had held him now approached the wide-eyed thief, who could retreat no farther, having backed into a wall.
At first Marshall thought the scoundrel would be pretty relieved. To have been rescued at the last moment? Before having to part with his loot? How fortunate. But it soon became obvious that wasn't how things worked here. In fact, the scoundrel looked terrified. And kept trying to back up, as if he could blend into a building.
But he couldn’t, any more than he could hide his two hairy spikes, which set him apart from those who surrounded him. Because they all had four hairy spikes. As for the one who’d approached him, and was now examining him, his spikes were so tall and terrible, they suggested he might even be the leader of the four-spike band.
“Your name is Anefren, isn’t it?” said this individual at last. “The only reason I didn't recognize you at once is that you're never alone, are you? Never seen without your brother. So where might he be?” With exaggerated motions, the four-spike gazed around, then down. “Oh my homeworld!” he exclaimed. “What's he doing there? You don’t mean that”—he looked at Marshall—“this shopper”—he gestured at both the body and the valuables littering the pavement—“did this.”
“He possesses . . . special attributes,” blurted Anefren in a horrified choke.
“Really? Check him!” commanded the four-spike, turning to the others in his group.
Immediately one of these was in front of Marshall, waving a wandlike instrument about his head, body, arms, legs, buttocks, then again over his buttocks, then again over his buttocks, then . . .
“Well?” said the leading four-spike.
“Nothing. He has nothing,” said the examiner, leaning over to stare in amazement at Marshall’s rear.
“Details!” demanded his boss.
“Of course, Chieftain,” he said, straightening quickly and consulting his device. “No implants. No weapons. No equipment of any kind, actually. Not even money or identification. Also, he doesn’t seem to have—”
“What about musculature?”
“Negligible.”
“Negligible?” said the leader, and now there was more than curiosity in his voice. Leaving the two-spike, he returned to Marshall and grabbed him by the chin. “Then it was all courage, wasn’t it, shopper?” he said, his eyes boring into the human’s. “Courage. Spirit. Determination. These must be the special attributes that Anefren speaks of. Everyone else fills their pockets with tribute when they come to Tradaxa, lest they run into one of us. But you . . . choose a different course.”
He gave Marshall back his chin and began pacing in front of him.
“I admire this. I cannot tell you how I admire it. In fact—”
Marshall lost possession of his chin again.
“In fact, shopper, I have a present for you. Not that anyone will believe it, but you will know, deep in that brave little liver of yours, that not only did you defeat two armed stalkers on their own territory, but you met a whole Tradaxan gang, with nothing to offer . . . and lived.”
Marshall tried to respond appropriately. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate this honor and will always think of it, and you, with the utmost affection. I would only ask a small favor. If you could tolerate it, might I have one of those tokens down there on the ground? It was mine originally, you see, and an above-average member of my species will perish if I don’t—”
He would have continued, except that the hand on his chin had become a thrusting piston, and he was flying into a pile of empty boxes, several of which ended up on top of him. For a few moments he lay on his back, staring dazedly at a couple of moons and a handful of unfamiliar constellations, as well as the balconies and catwalks of various buildings. Then the chieftain entered his field of view.
Towering as high as the balconies and catwalks, or so it appeared, he looked down thoughtfully at the sprawled human.
“My apologies for that,” he said. “But you must understand, I have my position to think of. If my stalkers see me getting all reasonable and charitable…” He shrugged. “You see how it is.”
Marshall nodded because he did see. Without question, a gang leader had to preserve his image. By the same token, however, such a figure ought to post sentries. For these might inform him of the two-spikes now streaming onto the balconies and catwalks, tubas at the ready.
Marshall pondered. Should he say something? He quite liked the chieftain. Why, the things this vile criminal had said about him were the nicest anyone had said in . . . well maybe ever. On the other hand, weren’t these seeming compliments just sarcasm? For the truth, as he knew, was very different. He was a self-pitying traitor, whose basement blathering had sealed the fate of worlds.
And in any case it was too late to speak up, now that a fusillade of fuchsia was raining from the surrounding structures, smashing holes in the pavement, in refuse containers and in not a few of the four-spikes, including, sadly, the courteous chieftain himself. Smoking and bubbling, he toppled onto Marshall, who tried to lurch away but found his complimenter, and the stuff his complimenter had propelled him into, holding him securely down.
Briefly he continued to struggle, until it occurred to him that, given how things were developing, down was not the worst place to be.
For the violence had not ended. Bravely holding their position, the remaining four-spikes were returning fire, so that the next casualties were two-spikes blasted from their vantage points above. Blasted but not vanquished because others replaced them, while more four-spikes came rushing in as well. So that soon the din of shots, shouts and crashing debris was nearly constant, and the night strobed with a deadly glow.
Had the chieftain not pushed him and then fallen on him, Marshall realized, he wouldn’t have survived five seconds of this. But as he realized it, once again the dreadful calculus emerged. Should he survive? What would follow? On the other hand, if he died now, caught in a battle, what would be the point of harming Ethan? And what use could the Zetans make of a body reorganized by a tuba rifle into a semi-liquefied mass?
True, the 277 planets would still perish, but at least their destroyer would as well, in a fittingly gruesome manner.
Struggling, therefore, against all that shielded him, he broke free and got up. A beam flashed by, pulverizing a window. He went and stood where the beam had been, looking hopefully at the two-spikes above.
They, however, were occupied. Dangerously exposed on their once helpful perches, they were frantically targeting the four-spikes shooting up at them, and thus had zero time for the unarmed shopper now strolling into the very center of the lot, calling out and waving his arms.
“Hello,” he called. “Hello there.”
No luck. Deadly beams streaked up and down, leaving him scrupulously alone.
He began running. A beam crossed to his right; he lunged for it. Now another flashed on his left; jumping and rolling he put himself in its exact spot.
But while missing the beams, he did collide with a sobering truth: namely, that he had prepared for outer space in exactly the wrong way. Countless times, while watching Star Trek, he had studied the heroic leaps and dives of Starfleet personnel as they evaded fire, never imagining that this was the opposite of what he would want to do. And likewise in Aleksei’s classes, he had concentrated on defeating attackers rather than assisting them in their endeavors.
With the result that he now found himself a thoroughly incompetent target. No matter where he went, they shot elsewhere, until finally they weren’t shooting at all, but were disappearing into alleys and windows, as into the lot poured squadrons of uniforms, some on foot, some on levitating scooters, accompanied by the flashing lights and wailing sirens that police everywhere like to bring with them.
Assessing the carnage, they too had no time for Marshall, who was soon wandering dejectedly among the investigating officers and the numerous deceased gangsters they were investigating.
He noticed one of them scooping up the pay tokens and jewelry tossed on the ground by the two-spike called Anefren.
And then, just beyond this diligent public servant, he spotted . . . Anefren himself.
Collapsed against a wall, grievously wounded, the thug was nevertheless reaching for something—a dropped tuba rifle lying not six inches beyond his outstretched hand.
Which at first made no sense, since someone in Anefren’s condition could hardly expect to fight off forty or fifty police, even armed.
But then Marshall realized who Anefren was glaring at, so angrily and vengefully, as he reached so desperately, and the effort made sense after all.
For Anefren was glaring at him.
Helpfully, he went to the criminal and with his foot nudged the tuba closer. This accomplished nothing, however. For although the miscreant succeeded in fingering the weapon, and although he made a real effort to draw it towards him, he was simply too weak.
So again Marshall tried to help. Leaning over, he took the lout’s hand in his own and gave him the assist he needed to bring the rifle into his lap. Then he stood in front of him and waited. But still it was no good. True, the wretch tried. No one could have faulted him for that. With heartrending grunts he strained to position the rifle. But again Marshall had to intervene.
This time he bent the rogue’s legs towards his body and rested the gun barrel on an upturned knee. Solicitously he then maneuvered half-dead hands into what he assumed to be their desired locations, and stepped back.
The hoodlum glared at him. He nodded encouragement. A trembling digit nudged the trigger and . . .
The tuba fired. From a distance of, at most, seven feet, it spat out its fuchsia—spat it directly at Marshall—who made no attempt to get away.