Child's Play: A Spaceman's Story

by Guerin Zand

  I, of course, was not really thrilled with the thought of some gourmet salad. I mean a gourmet salad is still just a salad, unless of course you bury it in meat and bacon. I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. I tried to look excited though. I didn’t want to ruin this for Milly and, besides, the view was great.

  Just for the record salad is not food. Salad is what food eats!

  A waitress approached us and asked, “Could I start the two of you off with something to drink?”

  “Yes, I’ll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster please. Straight up.” I always wanted to say that.

  The waitress replied, “Excuse me the translator did not find that reference.”

  The ignorance of these supposedly intelligent alien space beings was dumfounding at times. I could only give the waitress my best “You gotta to be shittin me?” look.

  “Ignore him.” Milly interjected. “We’ll have two Kentucky bourbons, neat please.”

  “Very well. I’ll be right back with your drinks. Please take some time to review the menu and when I get back I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.” And she walked off. I think she threw me a bit of a dirty look. I refrained from sticking my tongue out at her.

  “Really Milly? For a bunch of supposedly smart aliens, with your fancy portals and nifty flying pads, I’m beginning to wonder. I mean, what sort of intelligent being doesn’t know how to make a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. I know this isn’t the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but come on. As the first representative of Earth to travel to these parts I would have expected you people to be ready for my visit. It’s the little things in life that really count.”

  “You need to quit using that stupid book as some sort of reference. It’s a book of fiction. That means it’s not true. There is no such thing as a Pan Blaster Gargle or whatever you said and there is no restaurant at the end of the universe.”

  “Once again, you are so wrong Milly. You can walk into any decent bar on Earth and get a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and have you ever actually been to the end of the universe?” And I gave her my best “so there” smile.

  “No.”

  “Then how can you say there’s no restaurant there? Seems to me your just making shit up as you go along.”

  “I’m not even going to bother to respond to that.”

  “What’s wrong Milly? Why are you so uptight?”

  “You don’t seem to take anything seriously Guerin. I’m depending on you to help with this project and the more time I spend with you the less sure of my decision I become.”

  “Has your pet monkey not done everything you’ve asked so far?”

  “Well, yes I guess.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Here I am at the edge of the galaxy, at a restaurant with a hot space babe and I’m just trying to have some fun. It’s pretty much a fantasy come true and if it is, who are you to say what is real or not in my fantasy. Relax and try and not being such a buzz kill.”

  Milly just shook her head in defeat, or possibly disgust. I hadn’t really spent enough time with her to accurately tell the difference. I guess monkey logic was just too complex for these aliens to handle. I felt kind of bad using my super power against her like that.

  Changing the subject, as Milly often liked to do, she asked, “Do you know what you’d like to eat?”

  “Yes, but I am sure our waitress would have no idea what I was talking about. I mean look what happened with my simple drink order. I’m probably going to need your help.” I threw in my saddest dumb monkey look for good measure.

  The waitress returned with our drinks. Milly and she discussed the specials and Milly finally settled on something. She placed the order and the waitress scurried off.

  Here is where I spotted another major flaw with all this hi-tech alien crap. The translator wasn’t a tremendous help. They were discussing items that had no English translation because we didn’t know about those things. The translator only translated parts of the conversation and I only caught some of the words, which was just as bad as not getting any of it. Sort of like Spanglish.

  Now, as I mentioned, I’m a SW engineer by day, and I could have fixed this in one night with a pack of smokes, a few hot pockets and a bottle of whiskey. The solution was simple.

  You hook these translators into the memory grabbing gizmos and then set up a wireless link between your translators and the person, or persons, you’re talking with. It then hooks to their memory grabber gizmos and finds the closest match in your memory to their memory and the word associated with it and, VIOLA! I mean it seems the really simple shit just escaped these aliens at times. I wondered what else they screwed up.

  I decided I wouldn’t mention this to Milly since I didn’t want to act like some show off. I left that to the aliens. I just made a mental note to add this to a list of alien deficiencies that I could throw in their faces the next time they pissed me off. This little fix could have probably also solved my problem with having to name all this new alien shit as well.

  The waitress returned with several different dishes. Let me see if I can describe them. There was one dish with some sort of cooked vegetables topped with other uncooked vegetables seasoned with the grounds of another vegetable. The next dish was. Well, they all were pretty much what I just described. No surprise there.

  “You really need to try this one first Guerin. It’s my favorite.” Being the polite gentleman, I gave it a try. It wasn’t bad. The spices helped but I had a feeling I was still going to have to cuddle up with the food replicator when I got back to my suite.

  “That’s pretty good Milly. I can see why you like it so much.” Yes. I lied my ass off. But it’s not really lying when you do it to not hurt your hosts feelings or your trying to score some hot alien space babe’s ass!

  Luckily Milly does not eat much, and that night neither did I, so the vegan torture didn’t last too long. The waitress saw we had finished and she brought the desert out that Milly had ordered earlier. It was some sort of flambéed fruit. It was sweet, a little tart and I liked it. I typically don’t eat meat for desert so I was fine with that.

  “Guerin, what did you and Julie talk about during your little alone time together?”

  “Julie said and I quote, ‘You mention this conversation to her and I will remove that precious little dick of yours.’, so I guess I shouldn’t tell you. She’s obsessed with my dick you know. I think she wants to keep it as a memento of our time together. I’d rather avoid that if you don’t mind”

  “Does Julie scare you?” Milly snickered.

  “No, but I don’t trust her. Remember she has that temporal stasis thingy and if she were ever to sucker me into another one of those God only knows what she might do! Maybe you can find me another doctor while were here?”

  “Julie would never do anything like that. You can trust her.”

  “You mean like the last time when she got me in her machine and screwed with my hormones, genetics and who knows what else without asking me first!”

  “I’ll protect you. I won’t let her mess with my favorite pet monkey.” She gave me a sexy little smile and batted those killer green peepers my way. I had no fight in me after that. One of us was learning and I don’t think it was me.

  “Tell me what you talked about. It will be ok.”

  “Why don’t you ask her. You two seem to tell each other everything, right? How else would she know what happened between us in my quarters?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything.”

  “Right. You don’t have to lie to me Milly. I am not mad that you did. I am starting to get used to having absolutely no secrets anymore.”

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “No. Not because of Julie’s pathetic little threat but because I like knowing something you don’t. It makes me feel better. You don’t tell me everything, do you?”

  “I answer your questions the best I can Guerin. I am not trying to hide anything from you.”

  “Really?
Why won’t you tell me what this project of yours is that you need me for? How about why you chose me? Whenever I ask these questions you just change the subject or simply ignore me.”

  “So, you don’t trust me?”

  “See you just ignored my questions and tried to turn this on me. And yes. I trust you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I am only putting up with all the bullshit, and Julie, for you. You said it was important, and I believe you, so I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Hell, you may even ask me to do some things I want to do if I’m lucky.”

  She looked hurt but she may just have been handling her little pet the best way she could. It worked. I know I was losing points from my man card at a startling rate but if I could make that big score in the end I would get my points back.

  “Milly, I don’t want to argue with you. I really enjoyed the dinner and its great spending time with you. Let’s not ruin it ok? It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have started accusing you of things and I’m sorry. Men just say stupid shit sometimes. You forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive Guerin. Would you like a little tour of this ship?”

  “That would be great. You’re not going to show me a bunch of ugly green boxes, are you?”

  “No boxes. I think you’ll enjoy this tour.”

  We both got up and headed out of the restaurant. I couldn’t shake the feeling I just stiffed them leaving without paying or tipping our waitress.

  She took me out on the walkway and we grabbed a magic pad. Not sure if it was the pad we came on. They all looked the same. Awfully convenient how these pads just happened to be where we needed them.

  The pad took us to a deck that ran along the side of the dome wall. I guess this was for a better view but we were just maybe fifty miles closer to what was out in space. Space, being really big, the view didn’t change much from the view we had at the restaurant. This space stuff was real confusing and I tried not to think about it too much. I guess it was romantic. I’d have to check with some other women to confirm that. I didn’t think this would be a good question to ask Milly though.

  There was a real beautiful view of the city and you could see people, well they looked like aunts from this height, but I assumed they were people of some sort, enjoying the evening in the green areas.

  “So, what do you think of my universe Guerin?”

  “Oh? This is your universe? Does Julie have her own? Her’s wouldn’t be named Hell, or Hades, would it? Can I have my own too?”

  We laughed and she moved in and held me tight.

  “Very funny. But what do you think?”

  “It’s beautiful. If I stop thinking about all the stuff I don’t understand, and just try to enjoy the view, it’s great. It does just boggle my mind though. Even if you could answer all the questions I have right now I’d still feel like a total idiot.”

  “Well do you have any simple questions I can help with?”

  “Ok here’s a simple one, I think, but it’s probably not so simple. See just thinking about a lot of this confuses me. You ready?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Daytime and nighttime. How do you tell the difference? I mean it’s night time according to this nifty digital watch you gave me, but is it? What about daytime? How do you live without the Sun or a star like the Sun? This view of the nebula makes a great nighttime but I need sunshine too.”

  “Ok that’s not a dumb question. I never really think about it I guess like you never think about how it works on Earth. It just does, right? I mean, you can explain why it does, but do you think about how it works very often?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “The station is located between the gas nebula, you see now, and a red dwarf star on the other side. The other side, the second dome, is now in daytime. The ship slowly rotates about an axis centered between the two domed cities. This creates what is essentially our day. You have a sunrise, day, sunset and night. The day is a little longer than an Earth day as I explained to you when I gave you that watch. There’s also a small axial precession that produces minor changes in the length of the days just like you experience on Earth over the year. This precession’s cycle is a little less than 3 Earth months.”

  “Ok. That makes me feel better. I don’t think I could have dealt with a never-ending night.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. But you have to promise you won’t laugh.”

  “I promise.”

  “I want to go out and play in the Nebula.”

  She laughed. She really started laughing. She wasn’t even trying not to laugh.

  “You promised!”

  I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, she got some reasonable amount of control and asked, “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You promised you wouldn’t laugh.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. I can tell you’re enjoying this.”

  “You can’t be serious. You know you’ll die out there, right?”

  “Well I don’t plan on doing it naked. You must have some nifty alien space suits or something. I used to love skydiving and looking out there I just want to jump into it. Skydiving can kill you too if you’re dumb enough to not use a parachute. Do I look that dumb to you?”

  “No, you don’t look that dumb to me.”

  “There is something the children like to do that you might enjoy. I think it’s close to what you are talking about. I’ll see what I can arrange.”

  “Great. You can drop me off at day care tomorrow morning with all the other kids. Do we get cookies and milk too?”

  “You know grouping me with the children just made me feel even dumber than if I had wanted to jump out there naked, don’t you?”

  “Sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel dumb.”

  “Really? I wonder how much better you’d be at if you did try.”

  “Don’t be mad. I keep forgetting, but you are like a child.”

  The look I threw at her said it all.

  “I don’t mean dumb. I mean like a child when they’re young and all their questions are yet to be answered. This big universe is out there and all you can do is ask question after question.”

  “You have to realize that it’s almost impossible for me to even imagine what that feels like. It’s got to be overwhelming. You left a world you understood and now it’s all gone and everything you see is new. It has to be like seeing the world through a child’s eyes again.”

  My look changed to one of acceptance. Yes, she was stroking me, but I liked being stroked by hot space babes.

  “We aren’t helping much, are we? I mean we don’t understand what it’s like for you and we expect you to know things you couldn’t possibly know. I’m sorry I should have prepared you better for this.”

  “It’s ok. I can’t really blame you. Wait a minute, yes, I can. You’re the one who abducted me. I didn’t steal your space ship you know?”

  This of course caused Milly to throw me one of those Milly looks I had come to enjoy. At least she had learned not to interrupt and correct me. Maybe I was learning too?

  “I guess I’ll just head off to day care and the rest of the kids can show me how to play dodge ball with a super nova. Can’t be too hard, right?”

  “Are you done making me feel like shit Guerin?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if you got down on your knees and did a little groveling. Beg me for forgiveness. What do you say?”

  “Maybe you’d like Julie to join me?”

  “Sounds good.”

  We laughed and we held each other as we walked along the deck. We found our magic pad and hopped on board. We ended up at the door to Milly’s suite.

  Milly pressed her body against mine forcing my back to the wall and kissed me passionately. I, of course, returned the kiss. Julie’s words somehow found their way into my already occupied mind and I pushed back slightly and ended the kiss. Sure, I know, why would I let anything that Julie said ruin this moment but there was a chance she
was right. Perhaps I should ease up a little and let Milly concentrate on her job. It was important, right? I mean it was important to Milly and I didn’t want to ruin it for her.

  “What’s wrong Guerin?”

  “Nothing Milly. It’s just been a long day.”

  I was still smiling from the kiss. I wanted her to know I enjoyed it but I had to slow things up. I know the crap about it being a long day was a feeble excuse but it’s better than if I had said I had a headache. It had been a long day so I really wasn’t lying.

  “I have some Pappy’s in my room. Would you like to come in for a drink?”

  “I probably shouldn’t. I’m tired and you have work to do, don’t you? I mean your job and everything? Don’t you have better things to do other than baby sit your pet monkey.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No Milly, I’m serious.”

  “I know something’s wrong now. You’ve been making not so subtle passes at me since we first met and now I ask you into my room for drinks and you say no?”

  “That’s not true you know.”

  “You and Julie think I spend every second trying to figure out how to get your panties off and that’s just not true. I mean, I’ll admit, I do spend a lot of time thinking about it but not every waking second. Why is it so hard to believe that I might not want to rush into anything right now?”

  “I’m not buying it Guerin. Julie must have said something to you and you’re going to tell me.”

  “Oh, I am? Exactly how do you plan on extracting that information from me?”

  I hadn’t really thought that last statement through I guess because I suddenly found myself floating above the city and rotating about slowly. Yes, she had shoved me off the walkway.

  I was fighting to get stable and stop the rotations. I wasn’t NASA trained so pretty much everything I did made it worse. A little panic set in but at the same time I had wanted to do this myself.

  “You want to tell me now Guerin? You could be stuck out there a long time if you don’t.”

  “Very funny Milly. I wanted to do this anyways you know?”