by Geoff Rodkey
I managed to use it without dying. After Mom and Dad took their turns, Leeni said goodbye to us.
“I will return in the morning, and we can discuss when you will be leaving,” she said hopefully.
After Leeni left, we picked bedrooms. They were all huge, each one several times the size of our whole living compartment on Mars. Mine had a gigantic (but very low) bed and several sets of drawers along the wall, although I didn’t have anything to put in them except my spare set of clothes and my screen.
I lay down on the bed to test it. The mattress was made of either very thick liquid or very soft plastic—it rippled out, then reshaped itself around me in a way that was so weird and unsettling, I wondered for a moment if I should just sleep on the floor instead.
But once the mattress finished adapting to my body, I felt like it was giving me a warm hug. It was so comfortable that I fell asleep without even lifting my head.
* * *
—
WHEN I WOKE up, sunlight was streaming through the window. Still groggy, I shut my eyes against the light, but then a thought jolted them open again:
I’m on another planet. And my bed is hugging me.
A second thought forced me up and out of the ridiculously cozy mattress:
I can go outside!
Other than the horrifying few seconds on the tarmac of the spaceport, and the short walk in the darkness from the shuttle to our front door, I hadn’t been outside since we left Earth.
I went to the living room. Nobody else was up yet. I looked out the front window. The red lawn was empty.
I tiptoed to the door and opened it. It was quiet and peaceful in our subdivision, with a forest-like smell that was really pleasant. The sun was just above the houses on the far side of the ring, and it felt warm on my face.
I took a step outside, and a pair of pronged weapons came out of nowhere to block my path. Two soldiers had been standing guard against the wall on either side of the front door.
I gasped in fear as one of them whined at me.
“Reeeeyeeeeeeh?”
I jumped back inside and slammed the door. Then I fetched my screen and tried again. This time, I stood in the doorway and tried to be polite.
“Good morning, sirs,” I said through my translator, hoping they were sirs and not madams, or maybe another option I didn’t even know about.
“Reeeeyeeeeeeh?”
“Where are you going?” the soldier was asking me. I got a whiff of sour-milk fear from one, or maybe both, of them.
“I just want to breathe the air and walk on the grass. Is that okay?”
They looked at each other. “Yes. But do not touch the fence.”
I stepped outside and looked around. “Where is the fence, sir?”
Instead of answering, the soldier flew straight up into the air, holding his weapon extended above him. Thirty yards up, the tip of the prong hit the fence, and a blue dome of electricity crackled to life around the perimeter of the subdivision.
“Thank you, sir!” I said with a big, friendly smile when he flitted back to the ground.
He didn’t answer me. I looked around some more. There was no sign of life in the dozen other houses around the big lawn, and no other structures except for a pill-shaped beige pod about the size of a small car, parked by the side of our house. I figured the pod belonged to the guards.
“Excuse me, but can I ask—does anyone live in these other houses?”
“No,” one of the soldiers replied.
“Did anyone ever live there?”
He didn’t answer. I walked away from the house toward the middle of the lawn. My bare feet on the red grass felt so good that it almost made me cry. The air smelled delicious, and I sucked in big lungfuls of it.
I knelt down and said a prayer of thanks for the sweet-smelling air, the warm sun, and the quiet peaceful lawn. For a long time, I’d wondered if I’d ever get to enjoy things like that again.
Then I thought about the swarm of Zhuri back at the spaceport, and my heart started to race.
I lay down on the grass and stretched out on my back with my knees bent, taking deep breaths to calm down as I stared up at the green sky.
How great would this place be if the people here didn’t spit venom at us?
And those houses were full of humans? And Naya lived next door?
I swore to myself that I was going to help make all of that happen. I was going to be the best, friendliest, most awesome human I could be. I was going to change all their minds about us.
Ruff, ruff.
Then there was a crackling thunderclap, and the electric fence lit up.
I sat up, my heart racing again. A pill-shaped beige pod had crossed the fence above the houses on the far side of the subdivision. It was flying straight at me.
By the time it landed on the lawn in front of the house, I was back inside with the door shut. Mom and Dad were just coming out of their bedroom, looking half-asleep. The noise from the fence must have woken them up.
Dad went to the window. “I think it’s Leeni,” he said.
It was. She was carrying two large containers. “I thought you would be interested to try the foods of our different species,” she told us.
Ila’s bedroom door flew open. “Did I hear the word ‘food’?”
Leeni put four glasses on the low table and poured thick, gray liquid into each one for us to drink.
“This is Zhuri food.”
It smelled like dirty gym socks, and it tasted even worse.
“Are there other flavors?” Mom asked, trying to be polite.
“No,” said Leeni. “We have never understood why food should come in more than one flavor. Everyone agrees it is not efficient.”
Next up was the Krik food. It was also disgusting, but in a completely different way: it wouldn’t stop wriggling.
“When the Zhuri first came to Planet Choom,” Leeni explained, “the Krik who lived here ate small animals, which they consumed while they were still alive.”
She set down a rectangular container of Krik food, and it rattled around on the table like a jumping bean.
Mom gasped. “There’s a live animal in there?”
“No. We found the Krik’s eating habits barbaric, so we helped them genetically engineer the yeero plant to move in ways that remind them of their former prey.”
Leeni opened the container, took out the yeero, and put it on a plate. It looked like a medium-sized cucumber, but with a couple dozen wriggling tentacles sprouting from it on all sides.
“That’s a vegetable?” Ila’s face was pale.
“Does it die when you cut into it?” Dad asked.
“Technically speaking,” said Leeni, “it is already dead.” She cut it into four pieces with a knife, and they all kept flopping around just as frantically as before.
“I think we would prefer not to eat that,” Mom said politely.
“A wise choice,” said Leeni. “When eaten, it does not stop moving in the stomach for some time.”
“Is that everything?” Ila asked.
“No,” said Leeni, reaching into her shopping bag for more containers. “There is also Ororo food. It comes in a frankly ridiculous number of flavors, but I have brought only the five most common. I doubt you will enjoy them.”
After striking out with the Zhuri and Krik samples, we didn’t have much hope left. But the Ororo stuff was incredible. Each type was a brightly colored, perfectly square block that had its own specific flavor and texture. The flavors were all over the place—savory, sweet, bitter, and a couple I didn’t even have words for—and so were their textures. Some were crisp, some were chewy, and there was a purple one that melted almost instantly in my mouth.
All five of them tasted amazing. Between the four of us, we ate every last bite in just a couple of m
inutes.
“That. Was. Phenomenal,” said Ila when it was gone.
“It is curious that you prefer Ororo food,” said Leeni. “It is so much less efficient than the others.”
“Leeni, we are very grateful you brought this to us!” said Mom with a big smile. “It is so kind of you!” The rest of us took the hint, thanking Leeni with gushing words and big, goofy grins. I worried we were laying it on a little too thick, but Leeni seemed to appreciate it.
“I am glad you enjoyed the food,” she told us. “Have you decided yet when you will leave our planet?”
Mom didn’t let her smile slip. “Why do you wish for us to leave?”
“Everyone agrees it is best for both your safety and ours if you do not stay on Choom. The human history of violence has caused great emotion among our people.”
“You have spent some time with us now. Do we seem violent to you?”
“You do not,” Leeni admitted. “Even so, you are the cause of much disagreement. Everyone agrees it is better if you do not stay.”
“We are very peaceful,” Mom promised. “There is nothing to fear from us. And we very much wish to stay here. My husband and I are eager to take jobs and contribute to Choom’s society. Our children want to attend school. Before we arrived, the Unified Government promised us the chance to do these things.”
A hint of sour milk drifted over from Leeni’s side of the table. “This is true,” she admitted. “But after yesterday’s disturbance, everyone agrees it is no longer wise. The Executive Division has ruled that you may not leave this subdivision except to return to the spaceport and fly back to the human ship.”
“May I ask who made that ruling?” Mom said in a polite voice.
“Everyone agrees it is best.”
“I understand that. But someone must have issued the order. Who decided we cannot leave this house?”
Leeni rubbed her wings together awkwardly. “The chief servant of the Executive Division.”
“May we meet with this chief servant?”
“I can request a videoconference with him.”
“We would prefer to meet in person.”
Leeni rubbed her wings together again, like it was some kind of nervous tic. “I do not see how this is possible. The Executive Division is on the other side of the city. You are not allowed to travel there.”
“Would the chief servant travel to us?”
Leeni stared at Mom like she didn’t understand the question. Mom smiled even bigger than before.
“On the human planet,” she told Leeni, “we have a custom. It is much honored, and of great importance. It is called a dinner party. We humbly ask that the chief servant come here and join us in observing it. We also welcome any other Zhuri who wish to attend, along with representatives of Choom’s other species. We would very much like to meet them all.”
“What would be the purpose of this ‘dinner party’ custom?” Leeni asked.
“To introduce ourselves. And to show the chief servant that the people of Choom have nothing to fear from humans.”
More wing rubbing. “I will inform the Executive Division of your request,” said Leeni.
* * *
—
A FEW MINUTES later, the four of us stood on the lawn, watching Leeni’s pod fly away.
“Let’s all pray this chief servant says yes,” Mom said.
“If we have a dinner party,” I piped up, “can we ask the Ororo to bring the food?”
“No way,” Dad said. “We’re serving Chow.”
“Dad!”
“Kidding! Geez.”
“If they say yes,” Mom told me, “I will personally get on my knees and beg them to bring more of that Ororo food.”
Dad scowled. “Chow kept a lot of people alive, you know.”
Mom put her arm around him. “I know, honey. We’re very grateful. But we’re not serving it to guests.”
IT TOOK MORE than a day, but the chief servant of the Executive Division (whatever that was) finally accepted Mom’s invitation. The next evening, we hosted the Most Important Dinner Party in Human History.
Or at least it was the Most Important Dinner Party Not Held on Earth.
Our guests were five giant mosquitoes, one little green werewolf, and a six-foot-tall marshmallow with arms.
Four Zhuri soldiers came too, but they weren’t there to eat. They were just there to electrocute us if we did anything violent.
Another three Zhuri showed up early to set up the food, which we were thrilled to see included enough Ororo rations for the humans too. One of the Zhuri also brought video cameras—three baseball-sized drones that floated in the air, recording everything we did.
“May I ask what those are for?” Mom said to the Zhuri worker who was launching them.
“They will record footage for Choom’s television news.”
“Choom has television?”
It was our first inkling that there was TV on the planet. But the workers ignored all our questions about it, no matter how politely we asked or how much we smiled when we did.
The five Zhuri guests were Leeni, the gruff-sounding official who’d been with her in the spaceport hangar, the chief servant—who looked much older than the others, with dead spots in his compound eyes and his greenish-brown skin faded almost to gray—and two Zhuri who were shorter than the rest.
The short ones turned out to be kids.
“My name is Hooree,” the smallest one announced, standing opposite me. “I was hatched at a similar time as you.” The translator app gave her a pinched, crabby-sounding older lady’s voice.
“Hello, Hooree!” I said with my biggest smile, hoping the Zhuri knew that human smiles were meant to be friendly. “My name is Lan! I am very happy to meet you!”
The smile didn’t seem to help. Hooree reeked of sour-milk fear.
“I am Iruu,” the second-shortest one told Ila. His voice sounded so much like a cartoon frog that I almost giggled at the sound of it. “I am also very close to your biological age.”
“I’m Ila,” my sister told him, trying to smile but not really pulling it off. In the two days we’d been on the planet, she’d been acting even more withdrawn and depressed than she was on Mars. The only time her gloom had lifted for even a few minutes was when Leeni had fed us the Ororo food. “It is nice to meet you.”
“We have asked Hooree and Iruu to attend this meal as company for the younger humans,” Leeni explained, “and to help us determine how well they might fit in at a Choom school.”
“Thank you so much for coming!” I beamed at the Zhuri kids. “We are very honored to have you!”
All I got in reply was more fear stink from Hooree.
After that, Leeni introduced the Ororo and the Krik to us. They were both government officials of some kind.
“We apologize that our translators cannot yet convert your speech into a form we understand,” Mom told the giant marshmallow and the little green werewolf.
“MRRRRRMMMMMM,” rumbled the big Ororo in reply.
We all looked to Leeni for a translation, but she didn’t offer one. Eventually Mom stopped waiting and changed the subject.
“Was no one from the Nug species able to attend?” Mom asked. “We had looked forward to meeting them as well.”
At the mention of the Nug, the Zhuri adults all rubbed their wings together in the nervous-looking way we’d seen Leeni do before. The little Krik snapped her razor-toothed mouth open and shut, and the Ororo’s thick eyelids lowered in a way that looked sad.
“There are no longer Nug on Planet Choom,” Leeni explained.
“I am so sorry,” Mom said. “I did not know that.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Perhaps the children would like to go outside and make sport,” Leeni suggested.
; Iruu, the older one, held up a curved disc that looked like a Frisbee. “I have brought a suswut disc! Do you wish to learn how to play?”
“We would love to do this!” I said cheerfully. As I started toward the door, I heard Ila groan. Back on Earth, she’d never been much for sports.
When we walked out the door with the two Zhuri kids, a pair of the armed guards went with us. I guess they weren’t taking any chances.
In the time it took us to walk out to the middle of the big red lawn, I cooked up a whole fantasy in my head that I’d somehow become the greatest suswut player Choom had ever seen. My amazing athletic skills would win over the entire planet, and they’d let the rest of the humans come to Choom in the hope of finding more suswut stars like me.
The fantasy lasted until Hooree and Iruu took to the air, flying straight up to hover ten feet over our heads. Iruu tossed the suswut disc at Hooree, who caught it and then looked down at us.
“Can you fly?” she asked.
“I’m so sorry!” I told her. “Humans can’t fly.”
“Oh.” The two of them slowly sank back to the ground.
“If you cannot fly, you will not be good at suswut,” said Iruu, hanging his head in a way that made me think he was really disappointed.
“Can we try anyway?” I asked.
Hooree shook her head. “It will not be fun. Krik and Ororo cannot fly either. They are both terrible at suswut.” She sounded mean and snotty, and I wondered if it was because of her personality, or just her angry-grandmother voice signature.
One of the baseball-sized camera drones was hovering at eye level a couple of feet away from us, its glittering lens pointed straight at me. I tried to keep the goofy grin on my face, but it was starting to make my face hurt.
We stood there, nobody saying anything and Hooree silently reeking of fear, until I finally blurted out, “Thank you again for coming to this dinner! We are very grateful for your kindness!”
“It was not our choice,” said Hooree. “We were ordered to come here.”
“Leeni told us to come,” Iruu added, sounding a lot friendlier than his partner. “We live in his hive.”
