“Ralph, focus. These aliens, what do they want?”
“They will seduce many of your people. They have done it hundreds of times before, and have only improved their . . . charm. They too have evolved. You are lucky. They are not as violent as they once were.”
As Ralph’s crackling noises persisted, a tear leaked from my eye.
But Francis was unimpressed. “Sorry, but you’re rambling. What exactly do they want?”
“They want to be seen as gods.”
“. . . And that’s it?”
Ralph’s sad purple glow turned angry red, and he slapped his mittens on the sides of his helmet. Without warning, a blaring scream emanated from Ralph’s entire body and filled the room. I cupped my ears and yelled out the pain. His scream lasted only a second, but it felt as if a concussion grenade had gone off in the Oval Office.
There was a hard, repetitive knock on the door and a voice spoke. I could not hear what was said, but I guessed.
“It’s okay,” I responded loudly, my own voice sounding foreign and dull through temporarily deaf ears. “Everything is all right.”
We were not paying attention.
Ralph’s scream was that of a mother who had lost control of her children. When my hearing returned, I spoke up. “Ralph, sorry, we understand why that is dangerous. But we want to know what else they want. Do they want our natural resources?”
“Once they are perceived as gods, whatever else they want won’t matter. They will get it, and your people will give it to them. Expect chaos amongst yourselves. They will convert as many of your people as possible to their insane religion. That is what they want, and that is all they want. Beings that can travel light-years do not want for resources. I’m sorry, but it is rather primitive of you to think otherwise.”
“Do they actually think they are gods?” I asked. “Or are they just con artists?”
Ralph paused, brightened, and said, “That’s hard to say . . . You tell me, do the people of North Korea really think their leader is a god? Does the leader really think he is a god?”
Ralph implied he didn’t know. But, in fact, he did know. These aliens did not believe they were gods, though they excelled at playing the role. Exactly how I know this cannot be explained at this point. I did not find out until two days later. In any case, Ralph’s remark about North Korea was thoughtful enough, so no one pressed him on it.
“Who are they?”
“They are from a planet called ‘Kardash.’”
“Wait a second,” Samantha said. “They are from the planet Kardash?”
“Yes.”
“So that makes them . . . Kardashians?”
“Yes. That is correct.”
“Oh, come on.”
Francis and I grinned.
“Ralph, is this another joke?”
“The Kardashians are pure evil. This is not something I could joke about. I don’t understand . . . I’m embarrassed to not be laughing right now.”
For future generations who may be unfamiliar, I’ll explain. In 2007, a reality TV show debuted titled, Keeping up with the Kardashians. It followed the embarrassing adventures of actual humans with the last name ‘Kardashian.’ There was a whole family of them, and they made millions just for being human on TV.
Of course, I’m using the conventional spelling of the alien name, established by most media outlets after they announced themselves to the world. Only the New York Times bucked the trend by spelling the name ‘Cardassian,’ but stopped after learning this was the name of a fictional race of aliens from the Star Trek television series.
Despite everything, I’m convinced it was just a terrible co(s)mic accident that these aliens actually came from a planet they called ‘Kardash.’ The most comparable coincidence I can think of, a similar clash of names, comes from a terrorist group in the Philippines known as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, whose acronym had a very different meaning during this era.
“I’m sorry if you think this is funny, but it is one of the few things I cannot laugh about. They are carbon-based life-forms, like you, but far more dangerous. They don’t even come from a solar system. Kardash is a dark planet with a wide orbit around a small black hole.”
Samantha broke out in disbelief and looked at me. “How is that even possible? Can something orbit a black hole? How come the black hole doesn’t just . . . swallow it?”
I said, “It’s definitely possible. As long as you are not too close, you can orbit it safely. In fact, most, if not all, galaxies are believed to have massive black holes at their center. So our solar system is, in effect, orbiting a black hole as we speak. The real surprise is how any form of life could exist . . . or be born there . . .”
“Yes,” Ralph said. “It is surprising—we know of no other species like them. The ancient Kardashians had no eyes and were very much like your bats. They would fly and screech, using echolocation to determine the world around them and—”
“What? How can they learn interstellar travel? How could they understand something as basic as the electromagnetic spectrum without eyes?” Francis blurted. The short answer, of course, is that the Kardashians evolved just like any other species. But there is much more to their development than sheer evolution.
“Eons ago, when my people first visited other planets, we stumbled upon them. Much like the animals on your Galapagos Islands, we were ecologically naïve.”
“Ecologically naïve?” Samantha said.
I answered, “He means they weren’t used to predators. Many animals in the Galapagos Islands will just walk right up to you, unafraid. In practical terms, it means they stop being afraid and become more curious. Dolphins and humans are good examples.”
“Yes. That’s how my people were when they visited Kardash. I must stress just how naïve we were. On our home planet, no other beings attacked us, and we attacked no other beings. Our planet is essentially a planet of pacifists, not for philosophical reasons, but because of evolution and our environment. The beings on my planet never outpaced the resources required to live, so fighting over food or land never occurred to us. Every animal on our planet is a vegetarian, so to speak, though our plants are much different than yours. The very concept of a predator was a mere theoretical possibility, something philosophers talked about. For most, the idea of a conscious being purposefully attacking another conscious being with the intent to kill was a joke. My people believed, as an article of religious faith, that there could be no predators in the universe, that God would never let such an entity exist. They believed that everybody should like everybody. As a species, we were pathetically naïve. The small group of our people who visited Kardash . . . we never heard from again.”
“But, how do you know about Kardash?”
Ralph’s purple hue grew darker. The crackling noises within him increased.
“Millennia later, that same ship returned to our home planet. It did not respond to radio contact, so we assumed their communication system was inoperative. The ship had been gone for so long, this was easy to believe. We organized parades all over the planet and a homecoming party. Millions of my people were there to greet the returning ship. But when the Kardashians came out of our old ship, it was an immediate slaughter. There was no attempt to communicate. There was only an attack. This was the first time we had ever been attacked, by anything—ever—and it was my planet’s first contact with an alien species. They slaughtered a quarter of our population, 1.5 billion of us, before they realized they could not gain nourishment from our corpses. All we could do was scream. The only thing they left us with was our concept of evil.”
None of us could respond. This was Ralph’s holocaust, his people’s introduction to extreme malevolence. Though we should have, none of us wanted to inquire further. All of it had occurred millennia before Ralph was born.
“The shame of my people, our greatest error, was letting our ship fall into the hands of such a primitive group,” Ralph said, facing Francis.
“Where is
your ship?” Francis said.
I looked on the list of questions we couldn’t ask, and spaceflight was one of them. It was obvious to everyone in the room that Francis was interested in obtaining whatever advanced technology Ralph might have.
“Imagine a caveman with a crossbow,” Ralph said. “Imagine what would have happened if the ancient Romans had a single Gatling gun. Imagine if the Nazis had nuclear weapons before the United States.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’ve disintegrated my ship and almost every trace of it on the moon. I can’t risk the Kardashians, or anyone else, getting ahold of it.”
Francis slammed his fist on the president’s desk.
“Francis, believe me, you are not ready for our technology. It would only corrupt you. You wouldn’t give a gun or an iPhone to a three-year-old, and there are good reasons for this. Of course, the shell of the blimp outside was part of my spacecraft. You may cannibalize it as you please. It shouldn’t spoil you too badly.”
“What is it made out of?” I asked.
“Hmmm,” Ralph started, thinking aloud, “I’m not sure how to translate it. It is like your graphene, except stronger and smarter, I mean, programmable. But I won’t tell you how to program it. You’re not ready for that.”
“Program it?”
“It can be programmed to take on almost any shape you can think of. The technology is ancient, but still elegant and useful.”
“Will you at least tell us how you flew your blimp into the upper atmosphere without being detected by radar? Does it have some type of cloaking device?” Francis asked.
“No blimp that small has a cloaking device,” Ralph said.
I smiled. Ralph’s usual pink glow turned golden for a split second, then back to pink, as if to wink at me in his own way. Ralph’s reference to the movie Star Wars was lost on Samantha, and she glared at me when I snorted a tiny laugh.
“How will you return home?”
“I can’t. This is why I asked for a visa. You won’t deny me this, will you?”
Francis was exasperated. “Ralph, we don’t know what to do with you. Don’t you get it? Did you really think you’d start living a normal life here? What did they teach you at this visitor school of yours? Have you ever actually visited an alien species before?”
“Well, this is my first time, but I did go to one of the better schools.”
“Ralph,” Francis said, “we can’t have you walking around in broad daylight. You must know this.”
Of course, Ralph knew this. Ralph had no intention to roam in public. He wanted a visa as a sign of trust. He wanted something, some official piece of paper, which told him he was welcome on Earth.
“What am I supposed to do?” Ralph asked.
“I’ve got an idea,” Francis said as he stood up and went to the door. “I’ll be right back.”
When Francis left, Ralph turned to me. It wasn’t clear where his face was, but when he turned to you, it was as if his whole body was his face.
“Ralph, don’t worry, nothing bad will happen to you,” I said, but I didn’t sound sincere because I wasn’t. I had no power in the situation. Ralph turned to Samantha.
“Will you protect me?”
“The United States of America has no interest in harming a friendly . . . person from another planet. I take it you will help us deal with these . . . Kardashians.”
“Absolutely. That’s why I’m here.”
Samantha gulped down a glass of water as Francis rushed back into the room and shut the door. “This is what is going to happen. Ralph, you are going to spend the night in the bowling alley, and we are going to keep you there until we figure out what to do with you.” President Nixon had a small underground bowling alley installed in 1969. “The bowling alley is out of the way, rarely used, and the president can come down and talk to you if she needs to.”
Francis turned to me.
“Markus, I suggested it to the president, and she wants you to be Ralph’s guardian.” Ralph jumped on me and hugged me like a hairless, floating St. Bernard. I smiled and returned the warm hug. Something made it impossible to resist.
“There are only a few people who know about Ralph, and we are going to keep it that way. Are we clear on this?” There was no need to ask . . . Who would believe us? We nodded easily. “Ralph, were you joking about these other aliens? These Kardashians?”
“No.”
“All right, when will they be here? How long do we have?”
“Three days.”
Time seemed to stop for a few seconds.
Francis gripped his own head. “You are giving us three days to prepare for an alien invasion when you could have showed up sooner without all this comedic bullshit? What the fuck are we supposed to do, Ralph? Did you really come to warn us or just mock us and watch us die?”
Ralph’s underlying pink glow returned, pinker than ever. Needing to be understood, he spoke slower. He tried all day to speak to us as equals, but now he treated us like the cosmic children we were.
“Whether I had come now or years ago, my advice would be the same. You can survive, but you must believe me, and you must follow my advice. The difference is between millions . . . and billions . . . dying. There is no other way.”
“Do we have a fighting chance against them?” Samantha asked.
“A chance? Yes. But if you fight them, you will lose.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Nothing.”
XII
NOTHING
Nothing,” Samantha repeated after moments passed.
“Yes. They have weapons . . . If they wanted, they could destroy your entire planet. Please believe: you cannot win a fight against them. Anyone who engages them . . . You will see the consequences.”
“They are coming here to attack, and you are telling us to surrender.”
“I never said they would attack you, not a preemptive attack anyway.”
The room was silent with confusion. Whatever trust Ralph had forged was melting.
“I’ve got a story for you too, Ralph, so now you listen,” Francis began. “A dangerous horde of aliens is coming to enslave all the poor, pathetic Earthlings, and to make the job easier, they send in a scout, a cute and funny alien, to convince the stupid earthlings not to fight them. What do you think of that?”
“I don’t like that story, Francis.”
“Of course, you don’t. Should we believe it’s just a coincidence that you and these Kardashians just happened to show up around the same time?”
“It is not a coincidence. I knew the Kardashians would be in the vicinity, and I use ‘vicinity’ very loosely, of your solar system long before I came here to study you. My mission was twofold: to study your people, and take action in case, and only in case, they approached. It isn’t my fault you let your radio transmissions blare all over the galaxy, like some dying animal crying out for a predator to extinguish your misery. I could have left a decade ago, saved myself, and let you fend for yourselves. I came here to help you, but I cannot force you to do anything. This is dangerous for me too, you know. It is one more reason why I needed this ridiculous charade with the soup can. They too have been monitoring your Internet, television programs, and whatever else you’ve let bleed out into space. The Kardashians will at least give you a choice, but if they find me here . . .”
I presented a tiny olive branch. “Francis, any beings capable of interstellar travel must be powerful enough to destroy us in any battle we can imagine. Even if you don’t believe Ralph, you must believe we can’t possibly defeat such aliens.”
“Thank you, Markus,” Ralph said.
“So what do you propose we do?”
“We have two options,” I said. “If we attack first, we might fight the good fight, but we will lose. Hell, we couldn’t attack the Russians without them retaliating and nuking half the planet. In my mind, it’s obvious suicide. Therefore, we wait. We prepare, but we wait.”
Francis started t
o take the idea seriously. Samantha stared at Ralph with her hand on her chin, silent. Her lack of objections held their own weight.
“Ralph, you told us these Kardashians murdered a quarter of the population of your planet, and you expect us to do nothing? This doesn’t feel right at all,” Francis said.
“That was so long ago, it isn’t worth calculating in your years how long. They were savages, but they’ve evolved and matured, just as you have. They are less violent, thank God, but they are still tribal.”
Samantha spoke up. “Ralph, why didn’t you leave? Why did you come down here to warn us? Even if you convince America not to attack, other nations will.”
“America is the most influential nation on Earth, and I want you to persuade other countries not to attack . . . but me . . . Why did I come and not leave? I did tell you, my species feels responsible for the Kardashians’ technological development. Almost all their technology is based on our lost ship. Since then, all they have done is travel around the galaxy trying to convert people to their crazy religion.”
“So that is really all they want, to convert us? What happens if we refuse?”
“If that is all you do, they won’t harm you.”
“They won’t force us to convert?”
“No.”
“If that’s the case . . . What’s the problem?” Francis asked. “They are just a bunch of interstellar Jehovah’s Witnesses, and if we don’t answer the door, they won’t bother us?”
“They won’t bother you, Francis, because you’re too happy and clever to be seduced by them. But for all I know, two-thirds of the American population will convert. The Kardashians can be extremely seductive. We are not talking about slick-talking televangelists here. We are talking about arrogant aliens who claim to be prophets, and they have the power to convince humans they can do miracles.”
The Book of Ralph Page 8
