Vatican Ambassador

by Mike Luoma

  “The Flaze we met right after we met the Domo,” Dell says.

  “The Flaze were hauntingly familiar, too,” Krish says. “They look like old sci-fi UFO aliens! All spidery limbed, bony, with gray skin pulled kind of tight over the bones. But they’re always in pressure suits, so it’s hard to see for sure. Big heads, big eyes.”

  “More science fiction?” BC asks.

  “Maybe not so much fiction,” Dell says. “It turns out the Flaze paid visits to Earth in the past, too. It was some of their ruins that were found on the Moon.”

  “I knew that was true! They really did find alien artifacts on the Moon, here, didn’t they!?” BC says, excited.

  “They did,” Dell nods, “Flaze artifacts. They and the Domo had their fun with us, before the Eldred interceded, as far as we can tell. The Flaze followed the Domo here, visiting several times back in the nineteen hundreds and messing with us humans.”

  “Really? But you said these other aliens made them stop?” BC asks.

  “I don’t know that they made them stop. Somehow, just the Eldred knowing that the Flaze and the Domo were meddling with our planet was enough to make them stop, from what I’ve heard.”

  “Okay, something’s bugging me,” BC says. “You spent two years on the Domo’s planet, right Dell?” BC

  asks. “How is it you’re okay, then, with all their energy draining and vampiring and all?” BC challenges him.

  “I’m okay now,” Dell says with emphasis. “I suffered some serious depression and exhaustion and poor health after my stint on their base world. No one could ever stay there longer than two years, although Kwan tried to. After his suicide, we kept the staff at the base in a constant state of turnover.”

  “He committed suicide?” BC asks.

  “He did,” Dell says. His head drops for a moment. “He was a colleague and a good friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” BC says. “But with all that… you still have a base there?”

  “Actually, we don’t, not like we used to. Not as large a one, anyway,” Dell tells him. “After we began to explore beyond the original twenty worlds the Domo introduced us to, we found that the Domo’s base planet wasn’t central to the worlds we were discovering for ourselves.”

  “We have four of our own interstellar outposts,” Krish says proudly, “Rigel Four, Cat’s Eye, Dimwit and Crankshaft.”

  “Nice names,” BC cracks.

  Dimwit and Crankshaft?

  “Two of the names are ours,” Krish says. “’Dimwit’ and ‘Crankshaft’ are approximations of the old Domo names for the planets.”

  “I get it,” BC says. “Nice names. So you guys and this ‘Project’ actually have five bases besides this one? How many people work for your ‘Project’, anyway?” BC asks.

  “About two thousand,” Anita says. “Only about four hundred work in this solar system. There’s a handful here. Most work out on the asteroid.

  “The other bases have staffs of between four and five hundred,” she says. BC shakes his head, “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta tell you, that shit is really hard to believe.”

  She’s gotta be exaggerating those numbers...

  “It’s been fourteen years, BC,” Anita protests. “We’ve had time to recruit.”

  BC is still shaking his head. “Fine. So. What about this other race of aliens you mentioned, The Eldred. Are they called that because they’re old?”

  “I guess they are the ‘oldest’ race we’ve met,” Anita says. “But their name is again an approximation of a Domo word, the name they call them. It sounds to us like they’re saying Eldred. Funny, though, when we say, ‘Eldred’ back to them, they insist it isn’t the same word at all.”

  “That’s the thing about alien languages, they’re so alien...” Krish muses out loud. Dell and Anita just look at him. “What?” he says. “Jeesh.”

  “We’re just beginning to get to know the Eldred,” Anita tells BC. “They seemed almost like they were afraid of us when we first met them.”

  “They did react... strangely,” Dell admits.

  "We’re beginning to think that we don’t know them at all,” Anita admits. “We think it was The Eldred who infected the delegations at the peace conference.”

  BC sits in stunned silence. Anita has a, “there, I said it out loud,” look on her face. Krish and Dell watch BC absorb Anita’s news.

  Is this for real? Eldred Flaze, Domo, Do Re Mi...

  “Anita said she’d already told you the plague was non terrestrial,” Dell confirms with BC, who nods.

  “We thought it might be the UIN,” BC tells them.

  “Yeah, and they thought it was you, big surprise there!” Krish snorts. They know about the UIN? How? More spies? More ‘triple’ agents?

  “Nice,” Dell says. “Anyway, it’s not the UIN, not this time.”

  “It’s the Eldred?” BC asks, to confirm.

  The three scientists nod.

  “Are these Eldred all-powerful aliens?” he asks them.

  “We don’t know,” Anita answers. “They didn’t seem to be, not at first.”

  “But they could be,” Dell says.

  “Or not,” Krish chimes in.

  “Quality information,” BC mumbles out loud. “How many times have you met them?” he asks.

  “We’ve had a few visits with them,” Krish says. “We thought we were getting to know them better. But they used us!” He seems heated. He shoots a sideways glance at Anita. She glares back at him.

  “We were,” Dell says, cutting the tension between the two, “perhaps a bit too hopeful.”

  “What do you mean?” BC asks, puzzled by the suddenly darker mood of the room. No one answers him. The room is silent.

  “Huh,” BC grunts.

  There’s more going on here...

  “Okay,” BC says, leaning back in his chair, arms open wide, “What aren’t you telling me?” BC can see from the looks passed among Anita, Krish and Dell that he’s on to something. Krish and Dell stare at Anita. She looks at BC, then back and forth between Krish and Dell, then back at BC. He can see the anguish in her eyes. Finally, she speaks.

  “We brought one of the Eldred to the Moon,” she tells him, “Where he probably infected the members of the conference.”

  Woah. This is big. This is major! I did see her there!

  “So, then, this plague is your fault!” BC throws down the accusation. “I can’t believe it! You’re telling me you helped an alien race kill us all! That’s fucking brilliant! You guys are really smart!”

  God save us from the scientists...

  “Jeesh,” Krish reacts first, “How do you really feel?”

  “We didn’t all agree that the Eldred should be allowed to travel here,” Dell says. Anita shoots a look at him, but Dell stands his ground.

  “It’s Anita’s fault, if it’s anybody’s” Krish offers.

  “What?” BC and Anita ask in unison.

  “You’re in charge here. That makes it your fault. Plus, we did it your way,” Krish says to Anita “She knows it’s her fault,” Krish says, turning to BC. “That’s why she dragged your sorry ass into this.” Krish smiles at his Sherlock Holmes turn. “Shows just how desperate she is.”

  Anita tries to explain and defend herself.

  “The Eldred are new to us! We’ve been trying to get to know them better, but it hasn’t been easy. They’re a very secretive race, very closed to outsiders. They’re... aloof,” she says. “They keep us at arms length.”

  “Yeah, even though they have such short, little blue arms,” Krish jokes. Everybody gives him a look.

  “What? It was getting way too serious in here!” Krish protests in his own defense.

  “Thanks to you!” Anita says.

  “I wouldn’t get mad at him,” BC admonishes her; “You’re the one who’s got some explaining to do!”

  I knew she was trouble! Even as a scientist, she’s trouble!

  “Look. I thought bringing one of them here would maybe lead the
m to open up to us a bit more. They seemed very interested in seeing the peace conference,” Anita says.

  “They have expressed an interest in what they call our ‘concept of religion’,” Dell says.

  “We thought their interest, the way they warmed up to the idea of coming here to observe the peace conference… it made us think we were getting through to them,” Anita says.

  “Who’s this ‘we’?” Krish asks her. “You got a mouse in your pocket?” He turns to BC, “They played

  ‘us’ for fools,” he says, pointing a thumb at Anita.

  “The Eldred representative traveled to Lunar Prime with a delegation from the Project,” Dell explains. “It escaped our supervision for a brief period, about three hours. The Eldred was found unharmed, and nothing more was thought of it. Until people started getting sick and dying.”

  These guys fucked up big time...

  “Are you familiar with the Old Greek concepts of Hubris and Nemesis?” Krish asks BC. Dell intercedes.

  “Krish thinks our pride, our ‘Hubris’, has lead to this plague, that The Eldred are our ‘Nemesis’,” Dell tells BC.

  “It’s easy to second guess,” Anita protests. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty!”

  “How did you let this happen?” BC asks her.

  “We were too trusting.”

  “Why do they want to kill us?” BC asks.

  “We don’t know,” Anita admits.

  “This doesn’t make sense!” BC argues.

  “We know that,” Anita sighs.

  “Did they give any indication...” BC tries.

  Anita cuts in. “There was no sign of malice, no sign they meant us any harm. If you only met one of them...”

  “What?” BC can’t believe it.

  Meet one of them? One of these “maybe” murderers? I don’t think so!

  Anita begins to protest.

  “They’re so mellow! They’re the last beings you’d even think would do...”

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” BC blasts back.

  And you, Ms. Anita, if that’s really your name, would be exhibit “A” for that axiom…

  “It doesn’t do any good for any of us to raise our voices,” Dell states calmly. His quiet settles the room.

  “We’ve been going at this briefing for a while. Perhaps we should take a break, rest, and come at this fresh later on,” Dell suggests.

  “Are you kidding?” BC protests. “We’ve finally gotten down to the heart of things, the reason why I came here! Don’t stop now!”

  Dell shakes his head, but agrees to go on. “Right.”

  “Yes, Dell, there’s no reason to stop,” Anita says. “We’ll be good.”

  “So the Eldred are the bad guys?” BC asks for clarification.

  “Bad guys?” Dell almost sneers.

  “I always do better when I can clearly define things,” BC says. “Black and white, good versus evil, friend versus enemy, us versus them. And the ‘them’ are the Eldred, right?”

  “Ouch,” Anita cringes. “And you’re the enemy of the English language, right Campion?”

  “You know what I mean,” he says.

  “Yes. It looks like the Eldred did it,” Anita confirms. “And that is why I brought you here.”

  “You know, the Flaze or the Domo could have engineered it to look like the Eldred did it,” Krish ventures.

  “Your pet theory, again?” Dell chides him.

  “Why would they do that?” BC asks Krish.

  “Why indeed,” Dell echoes BC’s query.

  “I don’t know...” Krish muses. “Maybe so we’ll take the Eldred out for them?! Get us to do the job of getting the Eldred out of their way? Lead us into doing their dirty work? They could have several reasons,” Krish observes.

  “Are the aliens at war with each other?” BC asks.

  “No,” Dell says. “They tolerate each other. They marked out their borders and staked their territories and claimed their planets over a million years ago. It’s very static out there. We’re the newcomers to this part of space. And they tolerate us.”

  “No. I don’t think they do,” BC rebukes Dell. “You know… this plague thing?”

  “I stand corrected,” Dell admits. “They had seemed to tolerate us, I should say. We’ve never seen any outright hostility on the part of any of the alien races. Certainly not between them. There are always some tensions, but they seem to work things out. Their cooperation could teach humans a thing or two,” Dell thinks out loud.

  “Well, again, except for our attempted genocide!” BC again brings the scientist back to the matter at hand.

  “They do not fight wars,” Dell tells BC sternly. “Not internally within their own races. And not with most other races. We strike them as unusually violent in this regard. We kill each other very easily,” he admonishes BC.

  “The Eldred were particularly appalled at our violence toward each other,” Anita chimes in. “They never said anything to us, but we could see them draw back away from any sign of human aggression.”

  “They’re fascinated by our religions, but they visibly paled and even shook when they heard reports of violence between humans, and read the histories of our current and former wars,” Dell says.

  “They may have decided we were too violent a race to continue to live,” Anita ponders aloud.

  “What?” BC answers sarcastically. “Since you kill each other easily, you’ll kill us eventually, so we’ll pre-emptively kill you all now? Nice people.” He shakes his head.

  Almost makes me want to laugh. If only there wasn’t so much at stake.

  “It’s only a guess,” Anita says.

  Time to turn this around...

  “As I see it, we have two goals,” BC tells them. “We first need to cure this thing that’s killing us. Then we need to strike back at the Eldred so they can’t do it to us again!”

  “Confirming their suspicions,” Krish says, “That they were right to fear us!”

  “Wrong!” BC snaps at him. “They changed the rules when they fucked with us first!”

  “Careful, BC. We don’t yet know the extent of the Eldred’s holdings,” Anita cautions. “We’ve been to several of their outposts in the area, and what they consider outposts looked to us like full fledged colonies. I always felt we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t,” BC admits.

  “I mean, they’re big, BC. Really big,” she says, shaking her head. “We have no idea how many they are in number, but we know they outnumber us humans on a nearly infinite scale.” She closes her eyes and whispers, “It’s not a war we can win.”

  “Why do we know so little?” BC demands of them.

  “Because, we’ve only just begun to get to know them,” Anita protests.

  “Yeah, too bad, then, that we’ll have to kill ‘em,” BC cracks. Nobody laughs. “You know, this could be a good thing,” BC says.

  “How?”

  “No way!”

  “I don’t think so!”

  “Okay, hear me out,” BC tells them. “If the public finds out we’re facing an alien enemy, maybe the human race can unite in the face of a common foe! Fighting aliens might make other humans seem, I don’t know, a lot less alien, I guess,” BC observes. “Maybe this is something that can unite the human race.”

  “That’s an interesting yet twisted way to look at it,” Krish answers first.

  “We could use the help,” BC says. “We haven’t been able to do it by ourselves.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Dell says.

  “Isn’t there always?” BC sighs.

  “After the Eldred agent returned from his ‘disappearance’ he was strangely relaxed,” Dell tells him. “He had seemed tense up to that point, though it can be hard to read alien body language.”

  “Actually, the Eldred act a lot like us,” Krish says. “Body language-wise, I mean.”

  “We’d always observed this tension in them, as a race, ever si
nce we first met them,” Anita says. “We thought it was just the way they were. But after he came back from disappearing, the Eldred who had come with us to Lunar Prime was almost... jeesh, almost carefree. It was weird,” she says. She looks from Krish to Dell, then back at BC. “So. That pretty much does it,” she tells him. “Now you know everything we know.” She smiles.

  “So…” she says, turning to BC. “Do you want to head out to the asteroid base tonight, or wait until tomorrow morning?”

  What?

  “To the asteroid base?” BC manages to say, though stunned. “You mean we’re going out to...”

  “Well, yeah, it’s the next logical step,” Anita says, cutting him off. “You really should meet the old man. I told him I thought you were the right person to help us. He’s big on having the right person with the right set of skills on the right project at the right time for whatever project we’re working on, it’s one of his

  ‘things’. I told him you have the skills we need right now. He wants to meet you.”

  “Thanks,” BC tells her. “I think. But I am tired. And if I’m meeting the ‘old man’ I’d like to be at my best. How about we go tomorrow morning?”

  “That’s fine. Krish, can you show Campion to his room? I want to go over something with Dell here.”

  “Sure,” Krish agrees. “Campion?”

  BC gets up to follow Krish, who’s already on his way out the door of the conference room.

  “I’ll give you a wake up call with enough time to eat and get ready before we fly out,” Anita tells him as he leaves the room.

  “Thanks,” BC says.

  BC follows Krish to his room, a nondescript stateroom with a bed, desk and chair and refresher. When he’s left alone, BC lies down on the bed and lets the incredible tale he has just been told sink in. Wow... what a mindful!

  We are not alone... matter of fact, we’ve got lots of company.

  Who are the Eldred? The Flaze? The Domo?

  How lucid is the ‘old man’?

  BC’s head is spinning as he tries to fall asleep.

  The Domo are vampires?

  The Flaze flew the UFOs?

  The Eldred are trying to kill us?

  BC wakes to a ringing com.

  Didn’t even feel like I fell asleep... but I must have.

  “I’m awake!” he answers the com.