Chapter 1: The Earthling is Brought to Space

The adventure of Carl Sampson begins much earlier, on Earth. Carl was indeed an Earthling. He fulfilled the role of an Earthling so well he would stand out anywhere that wasn't Earth. This particular morning, because every adventure such as this begins in the morning, Carl was having breakfast and a cup of coffee. 'Coffee', he thought, 'must surely be something even aliens drink'. He was wrong of course, but he would come to figure that out later. It was a slow morning, as it was a Saturday, and Carl didn't have to go anywhere today, or so he thought. He had at least put on clothes, as he didn't like Eating breakfast half naked. In either case, it was such a slow morning that when someone knocked on the door ('beat up the door is more like it' Carl thought) Carl almost fell off his chair from being startled. But, Carl knew too well who it was. It could only one person this early in the morning. And as he opened the door, there he was, Hermes, although somewhat tense. He usually had a smile on his lips, eager to talk about something. This time however, he seemed more eager to get away from there.

“Oh, hello there Carl. Just the one I was looking for.”

Carl peered at Hermes uncertainly.

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“What? No. Not at all. It's just...”

“Is something bothering you?”

Hermes seemed like he would jump if a balloon popped.

“What do you mean?” he said, his eyes darting back and forth, as if he was expecting someone to listen in.

“You seem tense.”

“Do I?” Hermes' voice seemed to get higher in pitch.

“Do you mind telling me why you're here?”

“I... I need you to come with me.” Hermes said, blushing as if he had said something embarrassing.

“I'm not sure I understand... but ok.”

Hermes quickly grabbed Carl by the wrist and pulled him along. As Carl lived quite high up, they took the elevator.

“Do you mind telling me what is going on?” Carl said, frowning.

“Well, to start things off... You might want to know... I'm... I'm.” Hermes sighed. “I'm not from this place.”

“How do you mean... Where are you from? Africa? Australia... It's not North Korea is it. Please tell me it isn't...”

Hermes gave a short laugh.

“No, not quite. It's more along the lines of not from this planet.”

Carl gave a scornful look.

“Don't make jokes. You just pulled me away from my breakfast.”

Hermes sighed.

“It's no joke... I'm not from this planet... Or even this galaxy.”

The elevator arrived to the entrance floor and the door swung up showing the wide hallway outside, which lay empty in front of them. Carl looked out and then back at Hermes.

“We should hurry.” he said and took a step out of the elevator.

“Wait just a minute!” Carl said, in a raised voice, almost shouting. “I'm not taking another step before you tell me exactly what is going on!”

“We don't have much time.” Hermes explained, and looked at his pocket watch. “But, I'll give you the short version. Some kind of intergalactic, Universal Government has declared some sort of war on Earth, and even at this very minute, there might be spies around to prevent that any humans escape.”

Carl blinked with uncertainty, and a slight feeling of confusion. It seemed strange that anyone would declare war on the entirety of Earth. Then again, he didn't know anything about interplanetary and intergalactic politics. To tell the truth, he didn't know anything about politics in his own country either.

“Are you coming?” For a moment, Carl had forgotten they were running off somewhere.

“How do I know you aren't making all this up?” Carl asked, still not convinced about the whole thing.

“I guess you don't... But if you rather stay here and risk dying, fine. But I'm leaving.”

Hermes then hurried away across the hallway, with both a sense of determination and disappointment. Without another word, Carl ran after him, and for that moment felt happy he had put on shoes before breakfast, as strange as it might have been.

The two of them ran down a great many streets, looking up and down intersecting ones, backtracking once or twice, once walking around an entire block, only to end up on the same street they had been on before. Carl started to doubt Hermes knew where they were going, until he stopped and pulled out a device from his pocket, no larger than a dice. Unlike a dice, it was covered in a great many buttons, all with their own functions. Hermes turned it peering at each button knowingly, and then his eyes lit up.

“Aha! Here it is.”

With the press of a button the ground seemed to rumble, and Carl could see how gravel seemed to skip along the ground. Then, above the rooftops, an egg shaped thing shot up and came towards them. Carl wondered if he should move as the egg shape plummeted to the ground, almost gracefully. Then it seemed to turn just as it came close to the ground and stopped, lying flat on the ground... Or hovering rather. Before anyone could move, a door popped open from the top and exposed the interior of what turned out to be a small shuttle, just big enough for two. Reluctance to go anywhere filled Carl. It couldn't be safe to travel in that. Hermes showed no hesitation though and climbed right in, as if it was a perfectly natural thing to do. Carl approached it as if it was a disease ridden cat. For all he knew it might as well be.

“You don't mean we should fly in that... do you?” Carl said, his eyes wide open in worry.

“Oh, it's quite all right. It's just a retrieving pod. It will bring us to the actual ship.” Hermes sat down and started hitting a couple of buttons, seemingly at random.

“I'm not so sure about this.” Carl reached out a hand to touch it, still acting as if he expected it to devour him. In a way it would, but not quite as Carl imagined.

“Oh come on, just get in. We don't have time for this!” With one quick movement, Hermes pulled Carl into the pod and, while lying flat on his back in it, Carl flailed his arms as if he was struggling not to drown. When he realized he wasn't dying. He sat up and looked around. He felt his face flush from embarrassment.

“That wasn't so bad was it?” Before Carl could say anything, he slammed his hand on a big blue button and the door above shut itself quickly. Carl noticed at this moment that the shuttle was completely transparent. He could see everything around him. Before he could protest, the egg shaped pod tilted upwards and with a large amount of force, it was as if it was flung upwards into the sky by an oversized slingshot. When he had woken up this morning, this was not what he had imagined himself doing today. He hoped his stomach wouldn't try to turn itself inside out before they got to the space ship. 'The space ship', Carl thought. It all seemed so ridiculous. How had he gotten himself into this? He remembered... He hadn't, Hermes had.

“Isn't this great?” Hermes shouted, looking almost as a dog with its head out of a car window as he looked back at Carl, who was glued to the seat. Carl worried though that, if the speed of the shuttle hadn't pressed him there, he would have fallen out. And then it all stopped and Carl could feel the force coming from behind, pushing him forward. To his surprise, he had somehow been strapped to the seat. He wondered when that had happened, but was more concerned about his spinning head. He had never been as dizzy as he was now. He struggled not to fall unconscious.

“Oh hey. You weren't knocked out! That's unusual. Maybe we weren't going as fast as I thought.” Carl wished Hermes would stop being so cheerful. When he had gotten his head in order again, he couldn't help but notice they seemed to be suspended in the middle of nothingness. He quickly grabbed a hold of the seat, as if he expected to fall out any minute.

“You should remind me some time that humans are easily excitable...”

Carl's eyes widened. 'Easily excitable...' Carl wanted to scream at Hermes. He had a whole line of things he wanted to scream. This is only the bare minimum of his thoughts;

'Are you insane! You just flung us into space in a giant egg! I can't believe I agreed to this! You should be locked up! In a dark place preferably!'...

None of this left his mouth though. He figured he didn't want to risk being thrown into space. In his anger he had completely failed to notice the huge floating mechanical Christmas tree ahead of them. A sight so spectacular it would leave anyone breathless. Carl was no exception. Once again, if the seat hadn't been there, he would have fallen over backwards, trying to grasp what he was seeing. It couldn't be there! It just couldn't. But there it was, completely disregarding all the laws of physics.

“Ah, yes, the Spearhead... Wonderful ship if I may say so myself.” Hermes looked at it longingly, like it was the best place he knew of.

“Is... is that thing... yours?!”

Hermes looked like he was about to fall over laughing.

“Oh dear lord no. I could never afford that! I'm just a crew member.” Hermes continued to giggle for another ten minutes. Meanwhile, they slowly floated through space, towards the gigantic ship. Carl suddenly felt a sting of loneliness. How would he ever manage as the only human?