Larry Goes To Space (6 page)

In any event, this tractor’s foot pedals didn’t have comfortable little footpads. It had metal pedals with roughed edges so a muddy boot wouldn’t slip off, making it danged uncomfortable on bare feet.

He finally wandered back down to the spacecraft. He knew knocking wouldn’t do much good. Been there and tried that. He wondered if they had external video feeds and figured they must have some way to see outside as there wasn’t any visible window on this side. He walked around the spaceship and did spot a window, view screen, or whatever it was called on the other side, but it was as high as a second story bedroom window. He walked all the way around back to his starting spot.

“Hello?” he asked, addressing the greeting to the translator unit. He was comfortable talking to machines. It’s an easy habit to acquire when working alone. It was so easy it was exactly like working in an open pit coalmine. The hole is there, all you had to do is fall in.

Larry often talked to his tractor, his truck, and even the brush hog, although he would readily admit the brush hog had a nasty disposition as far as farm tools went. He considered all of them partners in labor. His equipment was as necessary as the bulls and cows that were an integral part of his steer production team.

The hatch to the spacecraft melted open.

Scooter, at least Larry thought it was Scooter, dropped down to the deck in the hatchway, and let his feet dangle over the edge. “Good afternoon, Larry.”

Larry checked his watch. “Evening by now, Scooter. How you feeling?”

Scooter brushed the fur on his chest and rubbed both ears. “I’m much better. The ship’s doctor rebalanced the med-pen. I was taking too much and became a little woozy.” He pointed at the translator. “That communicated well, yes?

Larry nodded, “Very good. At least, I understand what the machine said. I don’t know how well it took what you said and translated it into English. But we are communicating here, little buddy.”

“Little buddy?”

Larry said, “I guess the translator isn’t exactly sailing all that smooth. For all we know, I could use the word “bank”. And it would translate it as a place to store money, but I meant the sides of a river.”

Scooter swung his feet lazily in the air. “It is a good translator. This version manages context very well. I just do not have a context for “little buddy”. You called me this, yes?”

Larry said, “Yes. In this context is means a close friend who is of smaller stature. It is meant as a compliment.”

Scooter swung his feet faster. “So, it does not imply you see me as an appetizer?”

Larry said, “No. I do not see you as an appetizer, as a side dish, a mini desert, or even a late night snack. I am sure that anyone from Earth who thinks of you as an appetizer would be considered clinically insane.”

Scooter barked out his fox-like laugh. “That is me, Big Buddy Larry. I am already considered clinically insane to sit and talk with you.”

“Huh?” Larry asked. “Am I as bad as all of that?”

“What would other humans think of you if you volunteered to jump into the water in the middle of a school of hungry sharks?”

Larry nodded. “Yep, crazy as a loon. Most likely, they would tie me down and medicate me to the point where I wouldn’t hurt myself.”

Scooter imitated Larry’s nod. “Yes, hence the medi-pen. I did over do it and gave myself enough that it put me to sleep.”

“Hey! Would that stuff have an effect on humans? If I have too many beers, alcoholic beverages, then I act silly. I didn’t have too many when we were talking earlier, but I sure had the urge to act silly.”

Scooter leaned back in the hatch and spoke to someone out of sight. The translator did not translate.

When he turned back he said, “The medical consensus is that our bodies do not appear dissimilar. You may have been getting a secondary effect of the aerosol spray. You are in a normal state, yes?”

Larry answered, “Yes. As far as I know, but then I’m sure crazy people all think they aren’t crazy.”

Scooter barked a laugh. “Oh no. I am as crazy as a !>_)* on a #*&_ _ _.”

Larry chucked. “That didn’t translate across. I’ll bet there are no equivalent words. But, I get the point. So, are you ready to head back to the house and finish our discussion? I do have a few questions of my own, you know.”

Scooter replied, “I am ready. However, I am no longer allowed to leave the spacecraft. Even now, crewmembers are standing just out of sight—sorry. They did not want me to tell you that. They are here to drag me back and slam the hatch at the direction of the medical team.” He looked behind him. “Who are not, repeat not, standing just out of your sight.”

Larry laughed. “So, it’s like my friends would do if I went swimming with sharks. They’d tie a rope on me to drag me back if it became too dangerous.”

Scooter said, “Yes, very much so. Yes.”

“Are you bait or just an adrenaline junkie?” Larry asked.

Scooter waved his hands in front of his face, stopped and then shook his head. “Sorry, I forgot that humans nod and shake their heads to indicate agreement or dissent. I meant to indicate “no”. I mean no as that did not translate. Bait is understandable. It is a trick we use to lure dangerous creatures away from a family grouping. But the other did not come across.”

“I got the hand waving thing meaning no. Anyway, adrenaline junkie: well, we have a gland in our bodies that produces a chemical we call adrenaline. It gives us energy and a burst of — well-being. Not exactly a restful well-being, but a fire inside to do, to accomplish, to prevail. This gland activates when we face danger or fast-paced action. A junkie is a person addicted to something. Do you know addicted?”

Scooter nodded his head and waved the medi-pen. “Gotta have it.”

Larry nodded in agreement. “That’s it exactly. Gotta have it. Adrenaline junkies live for that rush of chemicals. So, are you here to lure me away?”

Scooter nodded. “Yes. Is it working? Yes?”

“You betcha, Scooter. One alien abduction coming up. Just go easy with the probe. It’ll be my first time.”

Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know counties, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
(Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

CHAPTER FOUR

LARRY expected Scooter to beam him up, use a tractor beam to drag him into a holding cell or just drop a net on him. Nothing happened.

“Well?” Larry said. “Are we going?”

“You are prepared for a long trip, yes?” Scooter asked.

“Yes. Um, wait. How long are we talking?”

Scooter listened for a moment to voices that Larry could hear, but the quiet yips and barks didn’t translate through the machine. “I am advised to say that we will only be gone a short while, a few hours of your time. But, this is not true. I may be insane, but I am not a liar.”

“Thank you, Scooter,” Larry smiled. “I’m ready to go, but if we’re going to be a while, then I need to pack a few things and make sure my place is taken care of.”

“Your creatures can take care of themselves, yes?”

“My creatures cannot take care of themselves, no. They are domesticated. It’s like your garden back home. Unless someone pulls the weeds and gives it water your plants don’t thrive.”

“This is so. Yet, I have no mate to water and weed. I gave my garden back to the soil. This is not good with living creatures.”

“It is not,” Larry agreed. “What about food? If we are going to be gone for a while, then how much food am I going to need to bring?”

Scooter waved his hands in front of his face. “You are a shark. We cannot allow you to bring your own chum. The stench of your own meat-filled body is unpleasant to most on board; dead flesh would be intolerable.”

Larry laughed. “Okay by me. I can give up meat for a ride into space.”

“Thank you. If we can get a DNA sample, we can determine what foodstuffs you will require. We believe from our studies that human’s can survive for a time without meat. You can get by on nuts, fruit, and various plants for a time, yes?”

“Yes. What do you need for a DNA sample? Blood, hair, skin?” Larry asked.

Scooter tossed Larry a small box. It had one red button on one side. “Hold this and push the button.”

Larry did as he was instructed. “Nothing happened.”

Scooter held his hand in front of his face as if he were cupping water to his mouth. “Yes. It worked fine. Please place it beside the communications device,”

Larry started to toss it back but Scooter shouted. “No. Please. We can pick it up mechanically. No one aboard, me included will touch that for fear of contamination from a meat eater. Do not be offended. It is not you, it is me.”

Larry laughed. “Danged if that ain’t exactly what Nancy said when she left.”

Scooter barked a short polite laugh. “Nancy was your mate that abandoned you, yes? You are leaving with us because you are no longer able to obtain a mate and face being a social pariah, yes?”

“Oh no! I would go with you if Nancy were standing here naked. Going to space! Little buddy, ever since I saw my first rerun of
Lost in Space
I would go even if there was no guarantee that I could come back. I even already volunteered for that silly Mars trip where they know they aren’t coming home. Um, I do get to come back, don’t I?”

Scooter shook his head using the human negative. “Maybe, maybe not. The Tetra has forbidden me to say that, but I must.”

Larry said, “You said the Tetra passed Earth by. You are the Tetra?”

“No. We are the people. The Tetra is the four ruling members of our space commission.”

Larry thought for a minute. The communications device translated the name of Scooter’s alien species as the people. Still, he supposed that the word human translated back the same way to Scooter. He tried to decipher their name from the sounds Scooter made, but the yips and barks were completely unintelligible to him. He wondered if Ol’ Bucky would make more sense of it. Plus, the syntax and grammar would mean that he might choose the wrong word just because he thought it was close in sentence structure.

Picking an alien word out of a jumble of language and calling a whole sentient people by that word could be confusing or downright offensive. He could imagine how humans would react if aliens decided to call us “Butters” or “Hairsprays” or even “Fuckers”. Although, being called the latter might be openly approved by a large segment of human population.

He remembered reading somewhere that almost all words humans use for themselves or their tribes translates as the people. The Native American Navajo word Diné translates into English as the people. Actually, the word American translates into the people of America.

He also remembered the article pointing out that this wasn’t a hard and fast rule. The Native American name Apache translated into enemy. It must be a strange society that chooses to call themselves that. Maybe that is why Scooter’s people were hesitant about meeting humans. Maybe they’d seen the same show he’d watched or read the same magazine article he’d perused.

Scooter’s word for the ruling members of his space commission that the comm-unit translated was “tetra”. If he remembered correctly, that was some kind of fish. He thought a tetra was a brightly colored fish — good for living in aquariums. Maybe the machine caught some semblance of their being in a fishbowl of open government. Maybe not, it was possible there were other meanings to tetra he didn’t remember.

He was going to have to call Scooter’s people something. He had taken a college course on international literature. He remembered reading a Greek mythology story about the Teumessian fox. All he could remember was there was a giant fox Zeus flung to the stars. He would have to check a lexicon on words, but Teumess was as good a name as he could think of on the spot.

He clearly remembered arguing with his academic advisor about taking the class on international literature. At the time, it seemed like a waste of time since his major was agribusiness. His advisor said it would make him a well-rounded individual and you never knew when odd information would become useful. He would have to remember to send his advisor a thank you note — if he ever got home.

He needed to make sure his e-reader was jammed as full as his credit card could make it. He already had a few reference books loaded, but he needed to download a bunch of stuff since he wouldn’t have access to libraries or the internet. He could delete most of the stuff he’d already read to make room for new stuff, if he had time, or more likely, if he had the credit card funds.

He should be as well versed in humanity as he could be if he was going to be anything other than a probe specimen. He should have resources on human history, science, technology, biology and every other –ology he could think of. It wouldn’t hurt to know about humans and all of Earth even if he was just a zoo animal on display. He also needed to download as much light reading as he could. Light reading would be necessary if he was a zoo animal. After all, there is only so much feces you can fling around your cage in a day.

Larry decided he could quit worrying about asking Scooter for a copy of their book,
How to Serve Man,
since he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be supper. That made room for the big question.

Why had Scooter and his people, the Teumess, come to Earth?

Why try to get him to volunteer if all they needed were a few biology specimens to cut on?
At least they were going to be polite about it if he was in for a little probing.

Larry asked, “Hey translator. Put this is your memory. For now, I will refer to the beings in this ship as the Teumess. You are still to translate it to Scooter as “the people”, but when he talks to me, you can refer to him and his species as the Teumess.” That should help him in his understanding.

The whole conversation was just like talking to his ex-wife. When he said, “let’s go to bed” she would often say that she wasn’t sleepy. Of course, he had a different activity in mind, but the words were not always clear in their meaning. Maybe considering the way things turned out with Nancy, she really had understood what he meant in the first place.

He asked Scooter for clarification, “The Tetra are your leaders then?”

“No. The Tetra can only commit the Teumess to a course of action related to space travel and activities between other worlds and other species. They declared we must gain your cooperation or we may all die, or die and then be eaten, or be eaten and then die.”

“Why just take me? Hey! Give humans a little help and time and we can put together a fighting armada that will protect you.”

Scooter laughed. “If you could see the faces of my comrades behind me, you would know how very repellant that course of action would be to the Teumess. One human is crazy enough without a bunch of you running around space. I think the Tetra have lost their senses to even send us to bring one of you to our home. If we must do this, then I must do it honestly and on my own terms. We are in danger and we may all die. Further, you will not be welcomed on our world any more than you would welcome a hungry shark into a pool full of your own children.”

“Well, boy-howdy!” Larry grinned. “You sure make it sound appealing. It sounds exactly like a Caribbean beach resort full of half-naked women, except it ain’t. I haven’t had such an exciting offer since God asked me to help spread out the first shovel full of dirt.”

“Please restate? The words translated, but the context did not make sense.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m going. Give me some time to pack some fresh undies and get Dad to check on the place while I’m gone.”

“But, I just told you that you might not come back. This is distressing, yes?”

“This is very distressing yes, a very big yes. But I’m still going if you can feed and water me occasionally. Dad will know what to do with the place if I don’t ever come back,”

“Our medical staff has said your DNA sample shows you to be remarkably Teumessian. We will have ample food stuffs for as long as you are with us.”

“Hey! You didn’t need to pick up the box to get the results?” Larry pointed at the DNA box. It still sat next to the translator.”

Scooter shook his head. “The technology is simple. Wireless data transmission was easy.”

Larry laughed. “For you, Scooter, but not so much for me. I know you said maybe about getting back, but if we do, maybe you can gift me with a few bits of technology that we don’t have.”

“Technology exchange is a decision for the Tetra. But as a Teumessian, if you return here, I promise that I will do everything in my power to gift you with anything you desire.”

“Dang it!” Larry shouted in glee. “I’m all for that, but listen up Scooter. Don’t be making promises you can’t keep. The trip itself is a reward beyond measure.”

“What would you desire, Larry?”

“Can you get me a short brunette with freckles? No? Not without abduction by force. And I assume that if you were into abducting humans we would already be halfway back to your place.”

Scooter laughed. “True. We want you to help us, but not by force. Do you need much time to gather—what did you say you needed? Undies, yes?”

“It’s underwear. I just need to grab a change of clothes or two and make a telephone call. It shouldn’t take long.”

Scooter waved his hands in his alien no motion. “We must close up the ship now. Your sun is setting and nightfall approaches. We are not night creatures. Tomorrow at sunrise is good, yes?”

Larry shrugged. “If I have to wait, then I have to wait. I’ve been waiting to go to space since I was about seven, so one more night won’t kill me.”

Scooter slid back on the deck and the hatch un-melted.

Larry stood there for a moment and decided he didn’t have another word for what the hatch did. The hatch melted open and un-melted when it closed.

He checked the sun. It wasn’t close to dropping completely out of sight, but it was closing in on the horizon. Still, even on Earth, dusk and early dawn are as dangerous a time in unknown territory as full-on dark. He understood Scooter’s concern for dusk and night on an unknown planet. If all he knew about Earth came from television broadcasts picked up from space, he’d be concerned about landing here in broad daylight.

Larry started to turn to the tractor, but stopped. That was probably all they knew about Earth. That’s probably why the Tetra had passed Earth over for contact. Larry was from Earth and most parts of it were so scary and inhospitable that he wouldn’t go visit them. And that was just New York, Chicago, and London. It would give him the shivers to think about going to Tehran, Mogadishu, or Lagos, especially after dark.

Finally, in the tractor seat, Larry steered the tractor, bouncing across the familiar pasture on the way back to the barn. Larry wasn’t overly aware of the bumpy ride. He realized Scooter hadn’t really told him why the Tetra passed by Earth. Larry added a whole lot more questions to his list of things to ask.

Why was Earth even considered for contact?

Did the Tetra follow the Star Trek Prime Directive or did they make up their own rules?

Who else was out there?

How far was “out there”?

How long would it take to get to the Teumessian home planet?