The Invader Candidate: From the Adventures of Khraa-Veh, Alien Explorer

by Don Cook

  “Affirmative, Captain,” Blue 1’s computer spoke.

  “Well, Astra Ruth Downey,” Khraa said, with apologetic solemnity, “as much as I hate to do this, even if your people are self-destructive brute-goons...”

  Khraa telepathically focused her mind on Astra’s body and began the ultra-personal process of “Astrafication.”

  Khraa immediately felt a severely intense pain and physical trauma throughout her whole body because of: a) Astra’s tooth fillings, which contrasted with her own interstellar civilization’s tooth healing-and-regeneration-based filling-free dentistry; b) the instant loss of her well-maintained/oft-regenerated appendix as Astra’s had been removed; and c) the loss of much of her own bowels because of a partial bowel removal surgery Astra underwent in her twenties to treat Crohn’s Disease, a disease absolutely unknown in Khraa’s part of the Universe.

  Khraa also felt all of Astra’s other physical hurts, illnesses and injuries, along with all of the mental, emotional and all other varieties of pain and trauma Astra had ever experienced. She also felt, bizarrely enough, the enjoyment all the joys, pleasures and positive sensations Astra knew during her short life. Khraa shook violently and screamed — and, ironically, also laughed with extreme joy — during the brief yet grueling process of taking on every life experience embedded within the mental and non-mental memory of another intelligent soul.

  “ARRGH!” Khraa shouted in extreme agony during the process. “THIS CROHN’S DISEASE IS A REAL SHE-DOG OF AN ILLNESS! ARRGH!!!”

  Once the process was over, Khraa stopped shaking and she caught her breath. Despite retaining her natural brown hair color (which was identical to Astra’s), Khraa’s skin had become far less bronze and more olive-colored, and her eye color had changed from piercing blue to Astra’s hazel-brown. Khraa had become an exact double of Astra Ruth Downey, as if she always had been, is, and always would be, Astra Ruth Downey.

  “I’ll program your suit with an audio pulsation beacon that will guide you to her camp” Blue 1’s computer spoke 30 Earth-minutes after Khraa’s “Astrafication” was complete. “I will deactivate the stealth-field after you exit the ship. You can miniaturize me and place me in your side-pack afterwards, where I can still track Astra.”

  Khraa paused, then asked, “How far away is Astra’s campsite?”

  “A few Earth-miles to the north” Blue 1’s computer spoke.

  “Okay” Khraa said. “Let’s get started.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Khraa reached retrieved her camcorder to her left, then removed a makeup compact-sized matter-energy-matter converter (memcon)/multi-ray-gun to her right, and attached both to her spacesuit’s utility belt.

  After attaching the devices to her belt, Khraa turned a handle that opened the ship’s hatch upward and pulled herself out of the ship.

  BLUE 1’S LANDING SITE, HOYT LAKES, MINNESOTA, USA

  12:34 AM CENTRAL TIME

  The newly-Astrafied Khraa emerged from the hatchway and climbed down the port side’s extended ladder until she stepped down onto the surface of the “alien” planet Earth. As the ladder self-retracted back into the ship, the pulsating noise in Khraa’s helmet that indicated the dying Astra Downey’s position began. Devices in her spacesuit’s boots quickly eliminated her tracks, her boot prints disappearing one second after each track was made.

  Roughly two yards from Blue 1, Khraa stopped. Turning to face her spaceship, she drew her ray-gun from its shoulder-holster, aimed it at Blue 1, fired a shrink-ray at it, and miniaturized the spaceship to the size of a medium-sized paper coffee cup. She walked over to the shrunken ship, and placed it inside her spacesuit’s side-pack.

  Khraa then reset the ray-gun to “trace-concealment” and fired a wide yellow-green swath-beam that reverted the area to the way it was before Blue 1 landed. Khraa put the weapon back into its shoulder-holster and walked toward Astra, the noises pulsating faster as Khraa got closer to Astra’s campsite.

  Through the night until shortly before dawn, Khraa walked north in an exhausting forced march, where she saw the beauty of the woods in this section of the planet. As she walked past tree after tree, Khraa was reminded of her home planet Albaskoba’s lovely North American-type conifer-blessed wilderness areas.

  The pulsing beeps within Khraa’s helmet quickened until she reached Astra’s campsite, and found the unconscious, dying Earthwoman lying in the grass. Khraa deactivated the suit’s pulsating beacon. She then knelt down and looked down at Astra with her usual kindly compassion, pity, and reverence for the dead and the dying, finding Astra was oddly at peace with all things during the last seconds of her life.

  Khraa stood up, and, with her mental ability to see the departing of a deceased person’s soul either to Yeshvahnia (the name by which Khraa’s people called “Heaven”) or Perditia (which Khraa’s people called “hell”), Khraa also saw, to her pleasant astonishment, the semi-transparent soul of a smiling white-gowned Astra, who had now fully passed on. The dead woman’s soul slowly rose from her body, escorted by two of “the god’s” angels to Heaven… and then slowly disappeared like morning mist.

  Khraa, knowing that only a human being could have had such a life-after-death experience, realized these Earthlings are indeed of the same human lineage of the first-parents Adam and Aevaa (Eve.) She was indeed standing on Earth, the mother-world of humankind, the “footstool” of the Divine One.

  “There’s one thing I can still do for you, Astra,” Khraa said, with solemn heaviness, “and that is to give you a Christian funeral that blends your faith with my higher tech ability for dispensing of the dead.”

  Khraa walked back to Astra’s RV, and returned with the late truther’s New Living Translation Holy Bible.

  “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God” Khraa reverently read aloud from Astra’s NLT Bible one hour after Astra had died. As she stood before Astra’s corpse encased within a sealed shiny silver body bag, she continued to read, “First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord, forever.”

  Khraa closed Astra’s Bible, looked upon the silver body bag made from extremely strong yet tissue paper-light polymers commonly used by Khraa’s starfaring peoples (but unknown on Earth), and said, “And as you often said in your mortal life, Astra… Amen.”

  Khraa placed Astra’s Bible in her spacesuit’s specimen collection pouch, then drew her ray-gun from its holster and aimed it at Astra’s body-bagged corpse point blank.

  “Ashes to ashes,” Khraa spoke with ceremonial reverence, “dust to dust, and subatomic particles to subatomic particles.”

  Khraa fired the ray-gun, and a green dematerializing beam of light flashed, which fully disintegrated Astra’s body and the body-bag without a trace.

  Khraa continued, “Go with the god you love, friend Astra. And I promise with my life, I will gladly do what I can to stop the Mallory Stanton you spoke of in your podcasts, and about whom your own fears radiated much.”

  Next, Khraa reset the ray-gun to “bio-trace elimination/concealment”, and fired a wide yellow-green beam at the areas where Astra died and where Khraa had laid Astra’s body in the body bag. The beam reverted the areas back to their original undisturbed state devoid of even so much as the slightest trace of human DNA, erasing all evidence of Astra’s untimely death.

  Khraa reset the ray-gun to “memcon-revert” in order to cleanse the rusty bear-trap of all of Astra’s DNA and fingerprints, as well as her own

  Khraa aimed her ray-gun once more at the bear-trap and fired on it with the gun’s maglev-and-memcon-ray. The ray eliminated all possible material traces to prevent Earthly suspicions of foul play or misadventure by resetting and reverting the area around the bear-trap back to the original state in which it had existed for decades befo
re the late Astra Downey stepped into it.

  “Now,” Khraa said, while she walked over to Astra’s RV to change, “to molecularly return Astra’s clothing and on-person effects to their pre-accident state.”

  Khraa walked back to the RV.

  ASTRA DOWNEY’S RV

  HOYT LAKES, MINNESOTA, USA

  7:29 AM CENTRAL TIME

  “Until next time, this is Astra Downey saying be well, keep safe, stay free, and God Bless!” said Khraa, who sat in front of the white soundproofed white-backdrop in the RV’s lounge after she had assumed Astra’s identity and wore her clothing and other items Astra wore earlier (100% cleaned and restored to their pre-bear-trap accident condition, right down to the last atom and molecule) as Khraa concluded the report the late real Astra had failed to finish. She uploaded the report to the Internet, and shut down the computer.

  A half hour after she had taken down the setup and the RV’s satellite dish in preparation for the drive to Astra’s Minneapolis home, Khraa sat in the driver’s seat. She briefly yet meticulously rummaged through Astra’s wallet and found that she had ample American money, grocery cards, credit cards, driver’s license, Canadian and American passports, and other pieces of ID. In terms of Astra’s wallet, all was in good order and provision.

  Khraa said to herself, “Now, let’s see her agenda on this cellular-based telecommunications device these Earthers call a smartphone.”

  She examined the day planner on Astra’s smartphone and placed it in a handy pouch in Astra’s purse. She plugged Astra’s iPad into the RV’s charger, buckled up the driver’s seatbelt, and started the RV.

  “Okay,” Khraa said, “let’s boldly pick up where Astra left off before.”

  Khraa drove the RV onto a nearby road, heading southbound to Minneapolis.

  [NOTE: Aside from a) italicized passages quoted from literature the character has written, and b) in-character quotations by various characters, the character of Captain Khraa-Veh, alias “Khraa”, will be normally referred to from this point forward, for the sake of reader clarity, as “Khraa/Astra.” — DEC.]

  ASTRA DOWNEY’S RV

  EAST OF PALO, MINNESOTA, USA

  7:45 AM CENTRAL TIME

  The Five Man Electrical Band’s spacy 1972 rock song “I’m A Stranger Here” began to play from Astra’s iPad at mid-volume while Khraa/Astra drove.

  “Survival Log, Captain Khraa-Veh ven-Elheem recording” Khraa/Astra began her log-entry. “Have landed on a polluted-yet-habitable, apparently barbaric yet still-civilized planet in an uncharted star-system in an unknown galaxy… and likely in an unknown time. Coincidentally, one of this planet’s primary languages — English — parallels our Tarsonic tongue so closely that they seem to be ‘astral twin languages.’ Also, to lend witty but necessary cultural-linguistic context, I am playing some popular music from this planet’s various eras in the background of this first survival log-entry…”

  Joe South’s 1968 protest rock song “Games People Play” played on Astra’s iPod several minutes later, as Khraa/Astra continued with her detailed log-entry, the grief of losing her family and expedition still weighing heavily on her soul, “Upon arrival, my spacecraft and Mephistula’s ended up in orbit around the uncharted planet on which I am now, which its inhabitants have named Earth. I learned of this while I had mentally absorbed all the contents of Earth’s collective electronic data repository known as the Internet.

  “Along with learning more about this planet from said Internet than any individual Earthly mind can hold, as much as I hate to say this, I have developed a blended deep cautious distrust and sardonic sorrow towards the people here.

  “Also in my psychic examination of Earth’s Internet, I came across scores of thousands of cyber-com places called ‘websites’ that speak of the Yeshvahnite-like faith called Christianity. Many of them echo warnings about these days that the maintainers of these sites commonly call ‘the end times.’

  “The passage from Earth’s Holy Bible known as II Timothy 3:1 through 7 sums up today’s Earthling human condition as follows, and I quote directly from the English Standard Version of the book in question…”

  Khraa/Astra drew in a deep breath before she quoted the Scriptural passage, “’But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.’ Unfortunately, this describes the all-too common Earthling at present.”

  Khraa/Astra felt uneasy about the verses that followed, knowing that this was a particular indictment of many (though not all) of Earth’s women, but verbally soldiered on, “And given this planet’s telecommunications, many women who stay at home during the day, whether they work for pay or not, are a captive audience, and through the techno-black magic of television and cyberspace, are ripe for the picking by rope-dragon-like deceivers as the next two verses speak prophetically, ‘For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.’

  “All this and more impresses upon me the need all the more to keep my true identity a strict, total secret from these Earthlings secret. And even if I fall in love with the finest Earthman alive, it might be best to keep him in the dark about what Earth self-help icon Dr. Phil McGraw would call ‘my authentic self.’

  “To this end, I have taken on the identity of a newly deceased Earthly independent journalist named Astra Ruth Downey, converting my own physiology and DNA into an exact copy of hers.”

  Khraa/Astra paused for a deep breath, then continued her log-entry, “Downey herself had an impossible-to-categorize wide range of tastes in music and entertainment media, which is reflected in her computer-stored collection of audio and video recordings. Downey was no ordinary woman, and often produced podcasts — that’s media for cyber-net-casting — that had been highly critical of American female politico Mallory Stanton, whom the media has touted as the frontrunner in her party’s bid for the presidency of the United States of America. The nation’s media tout Stanton as the victor of the presidential convention of her party to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA next year in mid-July of next year, according to Earth’s current calendar. More on Stanton later.”

  Khraa/Astra’s grief transformed quickly into a pitying disgust towards Earthlings as she had all-too rapidly come to know the people of Earth via the Internet.

  “And now, back to Earth in general. Its dominant human inhabitants seem to be heinously war-like, in utter sociopolitical chaos. And many of their leaders and leading citizens are Perditia-bent on creating a worldwide totalitarian nightmare-realm as prophesied in this planet’s Holy Bible, as well as various dark future-fantasy nightmare-realm stories, which I have speed-read through psycho-absorption of their Internet.

  “From every sector, I have also learned to my sad disgust that many Earthlings are almost but not quite as vile as what many have towards the sub-civilized masses on the outlaw planet Bangkarq 5, with the aforementioned American presidential candidate Mallory Ignacia Stanton among the worst of these Earthlings. I also darkly suspect that, her massive media-propping aside, Stanton may be far more sinister than she seems, or that any Earthling could ever suspect or would even dare to.

  “In fact, the residual psych-waves emanating from various Internet-cast video footage of Stanton strongly parallel the psych-waves of Mephistula. To protect me from the invader who killed my family and most of my expedition, I must stop at the nearest retail outlet that North Americans call ‘pharmacies’ and purchase several large bottles of odorless garlic capsules. This will most likely keep Mephistula from detecting me.

  “I have learned
of the existence of pharmacies located as subsections of ‘superstores’, and have found through the Internet there is one such mega-market in the small, roughly 12,000-resident city of Cloquet, Minnesota on Interstate 35 or I-35, as it is often named in abbreviation.

  “Side-note: For future log-entries, I shall use commonly-accepted Terran abbreviations where applicable. For references to these Terran abbreviations, see glossary-index of Earth-terms in my beacon-transmissions, which, in turn, will be perpetually updated in my Earthly travels.”

  Khraa/Astra was briefly overcome with great fear and trepidation before she overcame her apprehension and continued, “Factoring everything in I have learned since I arrived on Earth, all this raises one particularly dark and disturbing question: Has Mephistula indeed simply taken human form or even taken over the body of a now-dead Earthling?”

  “To investigate this dark possibility, I have psych-probed into the FBI’s Internet files, and have learned the following:

  “(Alph) the contents of the files the Bureau and other US government agencies have on Astra Ruth Downey, which are uncomfortably extensive;

  “(Bett) the itinerary of Stanton and the FBI personnel assigned to said convention;

  “(Gamm) the details of the convention itself;

  “(Delt) the names and details of Stanton’s extensive ‘enemies’ list’, which includes the deceased woman whose bio-identity I have assumed; and

  “(Epsy) the full, vast extent of Stanton’s, what Terrans call ‘dirt’ on Astra Downey, much of it not even Downey herself was aware of.

  “I do not yet have sufficient proof or evidence that Stanton and Mephistula are one and the same,” Khraa/Astra said, with fear flooding her soul and permeating her voice, “Stanton’s actions do parallel strongly the work of none other than Mephistula. For Mephistula to use Manchurian Candidate-style methods to destroy the Earth cannot be ruled out. Indeed, the most ingenious, conniving step-by-step method for the Universe’s most notorious intergalactic terrorist to destroy Earth is to take the form of an American-born Earthling, and run for election to the Presidency of the United States of America, the planet’s Earth’s presently highest elected political office.