by Mark Tufo
“Guards! Guards!” The women stopped everything they were doing and froze. They just stared at me.
“What is it, hu-man?” The guard looked vaguely amused, almost like I had interrupted a card game or whatever they did in their free time around here.
“I need to get out of here!” I shouted, not realizing the door only stopped me, not my voice. I was once again thinking possibly I had gone insane.
Did I truly just lose it that night I called my brother from a bad acid trip? Maybe I never came down. God, please, maybe I was really right now just locked up in an insane asylum and someday some brilliant doctor would invent some drug that would get me out of my drug-induced insanity. How awesome would that have been? But in the meantime, I guessed I’d better keep up with what was going on in this alternate universe.
“I just need to get out of here.”
“Stop talking, hu-man!” he shouted. Maybe he also didn’t realize the door didn’t stop sound waves. And that was that, he turned and walked back through the invisible shield on his side of the deck. I had contemplated shouting again, but I didn’t think he’d be nearly as congenial this time around. I was about to head back to my room when I saw a sliver of light down the corridor. I craned my neck to see, but the angle just wasn’t right. I hoped I hadn’t ticked off his card buddies and now it was time for payback. And then the smiling face of what could possibly have been my initial guide from the previous tour was at my door. I hadn’t meant to be specieist but they all looked the same. He let the gate down without so much as a guard by his side.
“What can I do for you, Mike?” I jumped back, I had never expected him to use my name. “Are you so surprised I should know you by your Earth name?”
“Ah, yeah, I’m a little shocked,” I said, trying to regain my mental balance.
“Learning your name was the least I could do after all the money you have earned me.”
“I’m glad I could be of help,” I said with my best Bostonian sarcasm attached to it. Unfortunately, the wit was lost on him. Oh well, apparently there is no sarcasm in space.
“Why, thank you. So what can I do for you?” he replied politely. He still looked like he could eat my head with one bite. It goes back to that whole trusting the smiling dog thing. It was a hard concept to get over.
“Well, first thing first—you know my name, what is your name?” Now it was his turn to be taken aback. I had no sense of why this was.
“We do not share our names with anyone who is not of our race. Even the Genogerians do not know their commanders’ given names.”
Whoa, so they didn’t even consider the Genos to be on the same plane as them? My guess was they used the Genos in these games when they couldn’t find an unsuspecting alien civilization. How long had they been doing this?
“But you can call me ‘Frertek’, it means roughly ‘one who guides’ in your primitive language.”
I had a snappy retort all set for that one, but then I might just have angered him and if he didn’t eat me outright he might not allow me to do what I so desperately wanted to do.
“Well, Frertek, I would love to get out of here.”
“I am sorry, Mike, but no one is permitted to leave this ship, especially someone of your stature.” And I knew he didn’t mean that in a good way. I wished I had a baseball bat, ‘cause I would have been slugging him upside his large noggin.
“No, I mean out of this house. I just want to get away from all of them.” I tried as casually as possible to motion to where all the women were. But he did not have a clue. How could they be so far advanced from us? They had to have had outside help. “The women, Frertek, I have to get away for a while from all these women. I just want to go for a walk.”
“Why would you wish to get away from your gifts, Mike? Is this not the way kings in your early years lived?”
“Yes, Frertek, but when the king said jump, his harem would say ‘how high?’. If I said it, they would tell me to go take a flying leap.” No recognition in his eyes, he didn’t get it again. “Do you procreate, Frertek?”
“We do but it is infrequent and there is only the coupling to fertilize the female. We do not have unions or marriages like your species seems to require."
“I guess that’s sort of a blessing.” Again with the blank stare. Okay, back to the direct approach. “Frertek, will you take me for a walk just so I can relax?”
“That is the least I can do, but be advised Mike, I am unarmed and at all times a guard will be no more than fifteen feet away, if you were by some means able to overpower me.” It sure sounded like he used sarcasm there. “You would be shot immediately and you have never experienced a pain more intense than that of a plasma discharge. It will burn you from the inside out. It is a most excruciating death or so I am told.”
“I have no illusions of escape, Frertek, I simply wish to—” I was about to say stretch my legs but I was afraid he might take that too literally. “To go for a walk, to just leave this house for a while.”
“Lead on, Mike, you may go where you wish except for any door which has a red triangle on it. Those would be strictly forbidden to your kind.” He really had no idea how mad he was making me. But I had been granted my wish so I wanted to make the most of it. I headed in the general direction of the arena, I had never been there except on game day. This would be my chance to check out the place without any life or death pressure placed on me. And I wanted to see where Beth sat—maybe, hopefully, she had a seat with a very obstructed view, but I highly doubted it. The arena was deathly quiet; nobody was in there except me, my guide and the guard. The place was enormous, on the scale of Mile High Stadium, maybe even bigger. How big was this ship? I walked onto the floor from my normal entranceway, the floor had not been altered in any way, no sense in wasting power with no event on. It was a very unremarkable looking surface for all the wondrous things it could do. I pointed up into the stands.
“Frertek, could I go up into the stands?” I asked innocuously.
“Why certainly, Mike, I see no red triangles around here.” I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or straightforward. Thinking I was a lesser being, though, I had to opt for the latter.
“Frertek, where exactly does the Queen of the games sit?” My heart was pounding.
“It is not far from where you enter the arena. She sits about midway in the arena and five rows up. She sits in the seat marked with the flowers.”
I all but ran to the seat, maybe some of her scent still lingered behind. If I concentrated hard enough maybe I would still be able to feel her presence. I inhaled deeply, smelling something but whether it was just my overactive imagination I’ll never know. But I would have sworn I smelled the sweet vanilla scent I associated with Beth. I turned to the stadium floor and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. She could see every disgusting thing I had done perfectly. People on good old planet Earth paid huge bucks for these kinds of seats just for the fact you could see everything.
“Our Supreme Commander sits directly in front,” Frertek broke through my horror. “He also has been watching your gamesmanship. He is very impressed with your skills on the arena floor. But he does not believe you can beat either of the two opponents left,” he said evenly. What did he care? It wasn’t his life he was talking about. I could have been an insect for all the emotion he showed regarding my expected demise. I noted with great interest where the guard stations were. There was one right next to each of the gladiators’ entrances but curiously enough there were no guard stations that were noticeable anywhere around the Supreme Commander’s chair. He obviously had no concern whatsoever in regard to assassination. Maybe that was only a human folly.
“Is this Supreme Commander a pretty popular guy?” I asked casually.
“What exactly do you mean by popular, Mike?” Frertek asked almost if he were trying to grasp a question. And I guess for all I knew about their culture I was just that.
“Do you vote in your leaders?”
“Oh no, hu-ma
n.” I must have really been looking ignorant, this was the first time Frertek had slid down into the Genogerian method of addressing me. “He is the Supreme Commander by birthright. He can be challenged only by those of high blood and only during the Marquetith.”
“The mar what?” I asked, puzzled.
“It is something much like these games. It is much more ritualistic, though. Very seldom do injuries occur during their bouts. But the winner is crowned the Supreme Commander.”
“How often do these ritualistic fights take place?”
“Roughly every two-and-half of your Earth years.”
“And once the bout has been decided it cannot be challenged?”
“No, hu-man, we do not have impeachments like on your planet. He is our Supreme Commander and all on this ship would die a thousand deaths before we would see any harm befall him. Come, Mike. We will go to the eating hall, all this question and answering has made me hungry. And do not worry, it is not the Genogerians’ eating time. You will not be subjected to see any of your peers eaten.”
“How comforting,” I answered.
“Yes, I agree.” They really didn’t have a sense of humor. How did they go this far into their evolution without laughing? Maybe that’s why the Germans were always kicking ass on our planet.
It actually ended up being a relatively enjoyable lunch. Frertek was quite chatty and gave me a lot of insight into his civilization. I think he was what we on Earth would call bragging. He was always comparing it to the foibles of my planet.
“You know, Mike, if we had been around here when your Earth smashing meteorite had hit, we would have stopped it. Our planets are very similar except for the obvious fact of who won out in the evolutionary tract. My kind by right should be ruling your planet; it took an interstellar mistake of vast proportions to change that outcome. So basically, we are only taking what was rightfully ours from the beginning.” I dropped my juice. It spilled all over my shirt, but I didn’t even notice.
“So-so, you’re here to stay?” I stuttered.
“Well, not me personally, but once the invasion is complete, we by all means plan to make this one of our colonies.”
“You’re just going to take our planet?” I cried.
“It is only yours by mistake, hu-man, and at the pace you are going we are only speeding the process up by a few years at most.”
“What gives you the right to come from God knows where and take what is ours?”
“We take whatever we wish. We are not hampered with the overabundance of emotions you hu-mans have. This planet will be an excellent colony for us and with a minimum amount of work to restore it.”
“So you are just going to come in and wipe us out as if the meteorite never hit?”
“Oh no, Mike, we plan on using your kind for our physical labor and like the Genogerians, we will most likely use you in our conflicts throughout the galaxies. Your kind has proved over and over again your skills at killing, treachery, and trickery. You will fit in most well with our scheme of things. And the way you procreate so quickly, your kind will make a wonderful food source.”
“You’re going to eat us?”
“Well, not all of you.” It seemed by his tone he couldn’t believe I was outraged with the notion we were now a step lower on the food chain. “Do not be alarmed, Mike, while we do plan to greatly reduce your numbers, we have no desire to extinguish your species like you do to so many of the other species on your planet. To kill you off would not be beneficial to us. You work hard and kill gloriously and when prepared properly you taste wonderful.”
“How comforting,” I said for the second time today.
“Quite,” he answered. I really think he thought I was appeased.
That little bit of conversation put a huge damper on the rest of my meal. I tried my best to show Frertek I was thoroughly pleased they weren’t going to wipe us out, only enslave and eat us. I think I would have much preferred option one. Mankind would be more inclined to fight to the finish if they knew it was a matter of extinction or not. Just take this small group of concert-goers, for instance. We had butchered each other for survival, would we have been so inclined had we been told we would merely be enslaved and a certain portion of us rooted out? I didn’t think so. We would have settled for the more peaceable solution because the survival rate would be significantly higher. What of the quality of life? Was a mere increase in quantity worth the degradation in quality? I’d rather go down guns a-blazing to these things than to die an old decrepit slave having done their bidding my entire life. That one flash of existence would have infinitely far outweighed the dragged out dredge my life and my future generations’ lives would become. And so I kept with my plans to get off this ship. Although, I must admit it was much more smoke and mirrors than anything of true substance. But I rationalized, smoke and mirrors pretty much summed up my entire time here thus far. I would first need to get through my next competitor and that in itself was going to be no easy matter. I don’t think he would care if I told him that I needed to get off this ship to tell our home planet of the imminent danger they were in.
My guess is he just wanted to finish me and Durgan off and he would be quite content to spend the rest of his days aboard this ship doing their bidding. Who knows, I could be wrong but that was my impression and at the time I had no one else’s to go with. I prodded Frertek for as much information as I could about the ship, pretending as best I could to be completely awe struck about everything he said, which actually wasn’t far from the truth. When someone tells you the ship you are in is roughly the size of Maine, you have to be a little dumbfounded. I guess Frertek was in a good mood or maybe he thought I had no chance of surviving the next round, or maybe it just didn’t matter to him what I knew. What could I do with any information he told me anyway? It’s not like there was a Radio Shack on this place. Although maybe there was. He told me the entire outer hull wrapping around the ship was the hangar which contained somewhere on the order of ten thousand ships. The next inner layer housed humans, I learned my ‘window’ was merely a projected image on a plasma screen I felt cheated; other non-friendly aliens or their version of livestock. The next inner layer contained close to ten million Genogerians, their warrior class. The third inner layer contained the more advanced race of Progerians—so he said—they roughly numbered in the two to three million range and then the inner sanctum where only those of the high blood were quartered, and there was where the Supreme Commander reigned supreme.
“So you don’t intend on destroying Earth,” I stated.
“Oh, by no means. If we had wished to do that we would have done so long ago and been done with it. But your planet so closely matches our own in terms of gravity and atmosphere and it comes neatly stocked with an endless food supply. It would be detrimental for us to destroy your planet.”
“How do you plan on taking our planet? You have watched us fight, you know we are not merely going to lie down and let you waltz on in.”
“Waltz on in?”
“I mean just land an us hand it over.”
“No, the plan is a simple one we have used throughout the galaxy. We will demoralize your planet. We will start with an overwhelming display of force and then offer what your people call an olive branch. Once they have realized they cannot resist our awesome might we will have won. Your kind will roll over like all those before you have.”
“And how exactly do you go about displaying this awesome show of force?” I knew it was a long shot, but I had to push—what could it hurt? He seemed to like to brag and I was a captive audience.
“It’s quite brilliant in its simplicity. First we level two or three of your largest population centers around the planet. The sheer magnitude of the destruction is usually enough to quash any resistance, but occasionally a small faction or two will rise up and that is when we let loose the Genogerians on them. To have terror reigned on from above is one thing, but to fight these creatures up close and personal has made stronger species than
your own quake and shiver. The longest we have ever had to battle for possession of a planet was I believe eighteen of your Earth months. The Drenodiuns were an incredibly resilient fighting force.”
“Were.” I interjected.
“Yes, they proved entirely too difficult to bend to our will so we did away with them.”
“What do you mean you ‘did away’ with them? You wiped out a whole species because they wouldn’t just surrender and give up their home planet, to you?!” I was fuming. My planet’s very existence was hanging on a thread. A thread which the Progerians held.
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal. They tasted horrible no matter how much seasoning you put on them.”
“What happened that you destroyed them all?”
“They were a lot lower in their development than your species is right now. They were somewhere more along the lines of the late 1700s in their technology. Their weapons were very crude. We obliterated a few of their larger settlements but they did not have the mass media like so many planets do. They actually had no reliable means for the news to carry. It was weeks, sometimes even months before news of these atrocities spread, so the seed of doubt had not been planted in them like it will be on your planet when images of Brazil razed and burning are flashed across the globe in live time. When the Genogerians landed, the Drenodiuns fought for everything they were worth. They fought, they died, they inflicted a lot more casualties than we had anticipated, and they just wouldn’t give up. Even when we could come to a tentative agreement with one country, none of the others would follow suit. And after we fought from country to country and finally had them succumb to our rule, still they fought. The governments called them rogues or rebels, but we knew better, we knew the governments were funding their operations. The Supreme Commander decided, especially since they tasted so bad, that ridding the land of them would do us no undue harm or misfortune. We removed all of our troops and dropped huge pods of poison onto their planet. Within three weeks all the Drenodiuns living on that planet were either dead or dying.”
