Renegade T.M. (6 page)

Fendel watched his freedom ticket leave with a resigned manner. Okay he had been in the prison cell for a little longer than he had expected, yet this did not bother him, he was rather beginning to enjoy
himself. He
looked at the Co-leen officer and gave him a sly smile.

“
What's so funny worm
?”
g
rowled the officer.

“
Oh, it's not funny, it's deadly serious
.”

“
What is
?”
a
sked the officer
, genuinely
intrigued.

“
Well
,”
he replied, with a growing smile, “
I was just wondering how it felt to be locked out there like that
?”

Pete figured that his suicide attempt had gone wrong, it had in fact gone so wrong that, rather than having left the earth and his life onboard it, he was now its representative and i
ts only hope. This bothered him
, much in the same way as it might bother a tortoise who found himself disqualified from the Olympic one hundred
meters
for a false start. Still, he decided that even though
he may not be the obvious choice for
savior
of the world, he was going to give it his best shot, and try to make something out of the life he had been given a second chance at.

Pete followed the lights around a maze of corridors, and finally emerged in a gigantic hall full of aliens. This took a
few seconds to register in his brain
, and having checked his pulse, and his watch to see what time it was, he suddenly blurted out:

“
Hi there, does anybody want to know the time
?”

“
No
,”
said an alien.

H
e stood dumbfounded and likened the experience to what seemed like a million buckets of alien eyes being thrown at him
by a custom-designed machine of sorts
, whilst trying nonchalantly to appear as if he really knew exactly what it was that he was supposed to be doing, which it must be said, he did not. It would then be equa
lly fair to say that even if h
e had been handed an entirely explanatory manual made entirely of pictures
,
and was then given the rest of his life to study it and then ponder any ramifications, would he have
then
been any closer to the faintest form of a coherent understanding of events as they transpired around him. Pete, for all his efforts, fainted.

“
Mr Martin
.”

“
Wah
, who
?”
he slurred, as
he came to.

Pete opened his eyes and was greeted with a sight that gave him an immediate urge to shut his eyes again, so he did.

“
Mr Martin please
.”

Now, he
was very
skeptical
as to whether after such a short amount of time having passed by, opening his eyes again was really the best option available. After a tiny consideration however, he concluded that when greeted with a hall of alien life, one could probably benefit from
utilizing
all the human senses, sight included, and therefore, opened his eyes.

“
Ah Mr Martin, have you decided to join us finally
?”
asked
an alien.

“
E
r
, yes, I have
,”
he
replied nervously.

“
And will you accept the role as representative of your puny planet and attempt to defend yourself and your species against the accusation of being utterly inferior
?”

“
E
r
, yes again, I will
.”

“
Very well, we shall begin
,”
announced the alien.

H
e watched as all the aliens seemed to float towards the sides of the enormous room, and was then startled to discover himself gliding gently backwards until he found himself sitting in a chair facing the aliens with a sense of foreboding.

“
Before we begin, do you have any questions Mr Martin
?”
a
sked an alien stepping
forward
.

H
e stared at the alien, who it has to be said had neglected to appear quite as alien as the stereotypical ones he had become accustomed to growing up, and who instead had chosen to look altogether human were it not for the abnormally long chin which seemed to possess mo
re dimensions then the three he had traditionally expected
. The fact that the aliens all seemed to be wearing a pair of jeans and t-shirt was perhaps t
he oddest thing that struck him
, but it was rather the lack of sense of occasion that this afforded
that rattled him most, for h
e was perhaps the best dressed being in the room for the first time in his particularly scruffy and fashionably makeshift life, that distressed him more then any length of chin possibly could.

H
e managed to tear his eyes away from the alien's quite incredible chin for a moment in order to ask:

“
Yes, where in the hell am I, who the hell are you, and, well, hell I don't know?
!”

“
Please remain calm Mr Martin, it appears that your minuscule intellect is finding this all a little difficult to get to grips with, I will however, enlighten you presently. You, Mr Martin, are on board a Co-leen fathership, we are the Co-leen, rulers of everything and anything else that we may have missed in the course of ruling everything, and what the hell you don't know is none of my concern, nor do I imagine that, deep down, it's
actually
yours
either
.”

Pete nodded.

“
Now, it is our intention to remove your planet from the cosmos, do you agree that this would be in everybody's best interests
?”

“
It certainly wouldn't be in my best interests
,”
he answered,
sounding
more than just
a little hurt.

“
Now
,
now Mr Martin
,
this is no time to be selfish, your insignificant little planet is taking up a quite undue quantity of space with respect to what i
t has given back
, and we must remember that we are all but mere tenants of the universe, and if we can't pay the rent then we really must be moving on
.”

“
Oh so you'll be moving us somewhere else then
?”
he asked
excitedly.

“
No, we'll just be removing you altogether, it works out much cheaper that way
,”
answered the Co-leen in a voice that communicated finality.

“
Look
,”
he began
, his eyes beginning to twinkle as if he possessed ideas in his head
,
“
what do you mean my planet is taking up too much space, the universe is massive and can easily accommodate my planet and my people
,”
he finished
with an air of
challenge
.

“
Ah but we fear that you are confused Mr Martin, would
you
kindly tell us y
our opinion as to how big your E
arth continent of Africa is
?”
ask
ed the Co-leen deviously.

“
Oh Africa's huge
,”
he replied,
emphasizing the
“
huge
”
and making a grandiose
,
sweeping arm movement.

“
Huge you say
?”

“
Yes
,”
he affirmed.

“
And how much bigger would you say
“
massive
”
is to
“
huge
”
?”
a
sked the Co-leen with a sly look.

“
What?
!”
he
stumbled, his eyes dulling as he said it.

“
I said, how much bigger is
“
massive
”
to
“
huge
”
?”

“
Well, it's all a matter of context isn't it
?”
he replied,
feeling a little out of his depth.

“
Go on
,”
coaxed the Co-leen.

“
Okay
,”
he continued
, his confidence growing
,
“
a mountain is massive in regard to a mouse, but in regard to the land mass it is a part of, it can be tiny
.”

“
But if Africa is huge and the universe massive, then your entire planet, of which Africa is but a part, must be taking up far too much room in the universe
!”
s
tated
the Co-leen
matter-of-factly, creating
a roar of approval
that echoed
around the hall.

Pete, realizing that he was in a hall full of alien idiots, sighed and sank back into his
chair; n
ot only was he the best dressed life form in the roo
m for the first time
, he wa
s now probably the smartest too.
As a result, his
first impressions of outer space were not
favorable
, it was much like being held back a
yea
r in high school, an experience that he was not keen to repeat.

“
Look, I'll say this slowly
,”
said Pete slowly
,
“i
t's not that the universe is massive and the continent of Africa is huge in relation to each other, in fact Africa is tiny with regard to the universe
,
and my planet takes up less space in the univers
e than a mouse does in a billion
African continents
!
”

“
Yes
,”
responded
the Co-leen with an air of superiority
,
“
but if a million massive mice are huge in respect of the continent of Africa, then the universe must be too big to hold your planet responsible for anything smaller than a very tiny mouse indeed..
.”

It should be said that Pete actually dozed off here, though it must be remembered that it had been an awfully strange day for him and he can therefore be forgiven for dreaming of numerous massive mice
,
all wielding multi-dimensional chins and the most absurd logical misgivings.

“
...And given that mice only rarely appear bigger than the
most stubborn African continent
, all in
favor
of destroying the human planet say
“
of course
”
,”
concluded the Co-leen.

“
Of course
!”
e
choed around the hall.

Pet
e awoke to discover that he and his planet had been found guilty of being thoroughly inferior, and both were to be thoroughly destroyed as a result. He did
then decide
however, to give it one more shot.

“
Now look here
,”
h
e began
rallying, “
how can you say that we're inferior, can't you see all that we have accomplished
?”

“
Mr Martin, millions of your earth
yea
rs ago, the first glimmerings of what was to become man crawled out of your planet's oceans as small,
slimy
creatures
,
hell-bent on evolution. Having evolved at a quite astonishing rate into the spec
ies that you are today
, and having established only the very basic foundations of civilization, you then began to pour all of your
collective
energy into the manufacture of what you call
“
quality entertainment
”
. Having decided somewhat enigmatically along the way that
“
God was dead
”
, after many thousands of
yea
rs fighting each other over indeed which God it was that was supposed to be livi
ng, it now
appeared that your race could no longer function beyond what was needed to maintain the
absorption
of this
“
quality entertainment
”
, which was done through small black boxes central to every one of your family units. Your species' devotion to the
se boxes and the absorption
of
“
quality entertainment
”
through them is quite remarkable, it is so however, only in so far as it is
fanatical
;
because of this
,
you and your species are a disgrace to those small,
slimy
creatures who worked so hard at evoluti
on which was at
the
very
end, all for you
,”
finished t
he Co-leen dramatically
, making the word
“
you
”
sound like a particularly nasty disease.