Chapter Two: To Kroozi's House We GoA Chapter by Henry Having realized the presence of an alien among them, Teddy, Eddie, Patty, and Alan go to consult the renowned Professor Kroozi on the matter. What happens along the way is somewhat ironic.
Meanwhile, on Earth, Mr. Long was cleaning up the classroom. It was 3:10. His last class ended at 2:40, but then a bunch of kids had trouble getting their binders together, or were chatting, so they weren’t out of the room until 2:50. And one kid, whose bus didn’t come until 3:00, had to stay late because he didn’t finish his work. So it was at least three before everyone was out of the classroom. After a few minutes of cleanup and organization, that brings us to where he is now.
“Stupid kids,” he muttered. He hated his job as a teacher, but he had thought he wanted to be a teacher in college, so he became one. And as he felt very embarrassed to quit, he was pretty much stuck.
“Oh well, I guess I can look forward to Saturday. H-hey! Hey, what’s that THING?!?” A huge glowing rock the size of a large grizzly bear fell through the window. Mr. Long went unconscious with shock. It was two hours before he regained his consciousness, though everyone in the school had heard the noise and come running soon after he fainted. Anyway, when he finally woke up, he found there was a note attached to the rock, which he read.
‘Dear Earth,
We (being Living Strength, Deceiver, and I) will destroy your planet in exactly ninety-six hours of your time. I would put much more in this letter, but, it won’t really matter since you’ll be quite dead by Sunday.
From,
The Changer and Company.’
The principal, who had already read the note, was trying to work the situation out. “Well, let’s evacuate the area,” she was saying. “Are there enough spacesuits and spaceships for everyone? We could live on Venus and the moon!”
“That sounds like a good idea,” said the vice-principal, Mr. Dorral, sarcastically. “Why don’t we all get into our nice big spaceships and blow up the big bad aliens and then live on a planet that we haven’t even been able to go to before where there’s no sound at all forever and ever and the gases are poisonous to humans? It’s way too hot to live, and there’s no water! Sounds like a good idea to me!”
“That’s enough, young man! You just earned yourself after-school detention!”
“Uh, Janice, in case you haven’t noticed I’m TWENTY-NINE and I’m the VICE-PRINCIPAL! Do you think you’ve got a few bats in the belfry?”
“You will address me by Ms. Cole. You’re supposed to respect your elders, and indeed you are not!”
“Oh yeah, you’re eighteen years older than me. Whoopty-doo! Who gives a stinking care? Not me! No way! I’m way too old for this stuff! Go talk to your boyfriend or something!”
“Uh, guys?” asked Mr. Long. “I think they brought more than just a note. Take a peek.” There was a little clock-type device attached somewhat unobtrusively to the rock. It was in fact more like a timer than a clock, for the characters on the screen changed with each second. o:04. No, now it was 0:03. No, 0:02. 0:01...
“Good job, Living Strength,” said the Changer, giving his ally a hearty pat on the shoulder. “The stupid employees of Creektown Middle School should be in for quite a surprise when they find that not only has a strange rock fallen into their school, but also an explosive one. When they finish reconstruction, there should be at least one opening from where an employee has either been maimed or killed. That will give Deceiver a chance to get in and give the children the influence we need to give them for our plan to succeed. It will also give them the evidence that we have been to planets they haven’t, if they decide to examine the shards of the Uranian rock, which will show them that we must also be of a different planet. In effect, we’re killing two birds with one stone.”
The Living Strength was confused. “But wait...if the Earthlings have never been to Uranus, how would they know a Uranian rock when they saw one?”
The Changer was slightly annoyed, but not conspicuously. “As I said, it will show them that we have been to planets which they haven’t. They shouldn’t be able to recognize the Uranian rock, which will show them that it’s from a land unexplored by their people. Thus, they should determine that we, if any of them bothered to read the note I attached, are indeed from another planet. Now, enough of thorough explanations. We have no time for anymore discourse at the moment. Now, we need to think of a way to further give the humans a taste of our wrath while simultaneously taking over the White House. I will do the contemplation while you, Strength, need to do the action. Enslave as many men as you can in as little time as you can. By the time you’ve done that, I will most likely have joined you and then I’ll tell you how we’re to go about that business. But, until then, get to work. In addition to deep contemplation, I need to contact the Deceiver and give her a job of her own. Off with you now!”
And off the Living Strength went, as the Changer tuned his walkie-talkie to the Deceiver’s frequency. “Deceiver. Come in.”
He heard soft sighs of pleasure in the background and then the Deceiver’s voice. “That’s it, keep around there.”
Subsequently, a male replied, “Of course, darling, of course.”
After sixty further seconds of waiting, the Changer was irate. “ELLITH!!!” he yelled intensely. A loud crash resulted, and after about fifteen seconds of shuffling, the Deceiver’s voice came again, this time into the walkie-talkie.
“What do you want, Changer? I was trying to relax.”
“First of all, Ellith, I want you to know thatit’s not wise for you to relax in a spa where you’re being rubbed by a male when you’re garbed in naught but a towel. Second of all, I want you to stop spending all your time in superfluous activities and start deceiving people in random parts of town. Despite what you may think, random selection usually works out very well in the corruption of peoples. Use instinct in choice, but no more. Chances are someone of an important position will be in the first twenty males you go for using that method, while if you aim directly for those of an important position, you’re likely to be caught, which, though not directly hindering our scheme, would make a big mess for us and would be something that we want to avoid. Any questions?”
“No, sir,” she said sarcastically.
“Good, Deceiver,” the Changer replied. “Now, get dressed, pay your fees if you’ve yet to do so, and go! You may stop at the apartment any time you need to during your deceitful duties. I should be here up through tomorrow night, and I believe you have a key at any rate. Good luck, friend. Good luck.”
It was interesting that he had called her friend, but then again, the Changer was an interesting fellow. It was quite characteristic of him to be like that. Anyhow, the Deceiver did follow the Changer’s instructions and went out into the community as a shadowy figure garbed in a green cloak. By now, she had eliminated all nervousness in demonstrating her deceptive powers on males, making the process easy as pie.
In the streets, she stopped several males who were walking alone and managed to deceive most of them pretty easily. One she ran through with her claws because he was drooling. She didn’t like it when people drooled.
Deceiver almost had the audacity a couple of times to knock on the doors of houses, but she was afraid a female would answer the door. That could seriously mess things up. So, she took her better judgment and stuck to sidewalks and occasional cars or buildings, depending on her circumstances. All the instances would be considered interesting by those to whom it happened, though most of them weren’t interesting at all to you, as you already know the Deceiver and what she can do. There was, however, one very interesting incident...
“So, Teddy, what were those directions again?” asked Alan. After they looked Kroozi’s name up in the phone book, Alan had asked for directions at several places, and, after a set with at least some clarity, they had set off in that direction. Teddy, who was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, was reading off the streets and landmarks as needed.
“Left on Barker, then down Barker for four miles until you see Promontory on the right.”
Alan sighed. “Well, we’re on Barker, and we’ve been on it for almost five miles with no sign of Promontory. If we don’t see it soon, I suppose we’d better see if I made a wrong turn somewhere.”
Teddy shrugged. “Well, maybe we can see the school while we‘re down here. Hey Eddie, isn’t CMS on Barker?”
Eddie nodded. “Yeah, it should be right around-- WHAT THE HECK?!?”
Eddie’s interjection was so vehement that Alan caused the car to swerve and then slammed his foot down on the brake. “What was that for?” he asked querulously.
Eddie, still yelling, managed to reply, “THE SCHOOL!!! THE SCHOOL!!! IT’S GONE, BURNT DOWN!!!” Then, suddenly, he realized what he was saying and his tone turned from panic to ecstasy. “Yes! No more school! NO MORE SCHOOL!!! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!”
Teddy and Patty agreed, equally incredulous. “It did apparently burn down,” Patty observed.
Teddy nodded in agreement. “That’s definitely where the school used to be. No question there.”
Alan nodded. “Well, there’s hardly any brush or any such substance about, and it’s barely gotten past 75 today. That being the case, logic would suggest there was someone behind it; an arsonist.”
“Wait,” said Patty, the most observant of the four, “I’m going to correct myself, and the rest of you. It wouldn’t seem that the school burned down. It’s made of brick, and brick doesn’t really burn well. Besides that, it’s more intact the further out from the center you get. That would suggest a fire that can demolish stone started somewhere near the center of the school-- or a bomb placed there. An explosion seems much more likely.”
Alan looked mildly impressed. “Hmm. A regular crime scene investigator, eh? Well, I do admit, that would make more sense. We could interrogate witnesses, but we’re not police and there isn’t anyone here. Either the explosion went off when no one was there, it was so great that it completely vaporized everyone in the vicinity, or the dead and wounded have already been taken away. The third one makes most sense to me,” and Alan opened his car door, “but there’s nothing better than investigation.”
Patty, Teddy, and Eddie followed Alan out of the car, but Patty was the only one who followed him around the entire area, focused on close inspection and observation and so of some help. Eddie and Teddy, still just as incredulous as they had been at first, stood and let their eyes wander about the rubble and small amount of intact rock. Eddie, who had been happy shortly after his first impression, had returned to that state of panic and even a bit of fright which Teddy had never left. The two continued in that state for several minutes, until a third person joined them.
The Deceiver, who had walked up Promontory (which was actually about a mile down the road from the school) straight from main street, had begun to give up looking for males in this area and about decided to head somewhere else when she spotted Eddie, Teddy, Patty, and Alan in the distance just getting out of their car. When Eddie and Teddy separated themselves from Patty and Alan by almost five hundred feet, she saw her chance. It was buy one, get one free, and if she was lucky, on sale. The Changer was likely to be even happier if the incident directly related to the one he had caused.
Silently, she approached the two boys, cautious but determined to be audacious if necessary. “Hello, boys,” she said, the hood of her cloak covering most of her face. “I heard about what happened to the school. Were you students here?”
Teddy and Eddie nodded, hearing what she was saying but still somewhat departed from reality. To erase this, the Deceiver walked a few steps so that they were facing her, pulled down her hood, and extended her arm. “Hi! I’m Miss MacDonald, but you can call me Ellith.”
Teddy, dazed (or rather, deceived), shook the Deceiver’s hand, not even noticing the six-inch claws extending from her fingers. “Teddy. Teddy McTralf.”
Eddie, however, was not overcome. “Teddy, what are you doing? Ellith MacDonald? That was that girl on Kroozi’s tape who he said was an alien! She is completely gorgeous, like Kroozi said, but it’s kind of dangerous to be shaking hands with her...”
The Deceiver cursed to herself. Bartholomew Kroozi had been the only Earthling ever to get a good picture of her. She had been rather disconcerted that day from being chased by a mob of high school seniors for twelve miles and then having to cook food for her family because Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald came straight home with Mr. Kroozi and had to entertain him. Therefore, when she talked to him and then was asked if a picture could be taken of her and her parents, she was more lenient than usual and kind of just shrugged or made a curt, glib comment to everything. Why did it have to be that day? She had let the matter slide after realizing what had happened, but she hadn’t realized the man had released anything about it to the public. Well, she would just have to make sure that Teddy McTralf’s friend was deceived, too.
“Boys, boys, boys,” she said with mock exasperation, subsequently putting one arm around each, “I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”
“Off, woman!” Eddie yelled, trying to push the Deceiver’s arm off him, while simultaneously Teddy stood deceived in ignorant bliss.
Deceiver, unobstructed by this outburst, responded by jumping into Eddie’s arms, wrapping her arms around his neck, and kissing him on the lips. Eddie, though grunting with the effort of holding a tall, muscular woman by himself, was still entranced by her.
“All right, dear, would you be a gentleman and carry me to my apartment?” she asked Eddie, gazing into his eyes and smiling sweetly.
Eddie smiled dumbly. “Of course, Ellith!”
The Deceiver snarled. “Call me Deceiver.”
Eddie smiled again. “Of course, Deceiver.”
As the boy carted the lady around, Teddy could not stop complaining. “But Deceiver, why can’t I carry you? Am I not your favorite?”
Deceiver turned her eyes to Teddy. “You’re both my favorites, dear Teddy. But to gain the honor of carrying me, you must be completely obedient to all my commands.”
This time Teddy was the one to smile stupidly. “Of course, Deceiver.”
“All right, good,” Deceiver replied. “My first command is that you say nothing of this to anyone else.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Where is your apartment, Deceiver?” Eddie asked, trying to reason which way he should go.
“Down Promontory, dear, and take a right.”
“Okay, Deceiv--”
“Hey, Eddie! Teddy! Where are you guys going?” called Alan, running towards them with Patty close behind. “And who’s that lady Eddie’s carrying?”
“Darn it!” the Deceiver muttered to herself. Then, more audibly, she said to Eddie, “Please put me down, Eddie.” Once he had done so, she continued. “Boys, my next command to you is to help me fight that man and girl that are running over here.”
Eddie stared at her. “Patty? But I can’t fight Patty,” he said plaintively.
“Neither can I...” Teddy agreed in the same sad tone.
“Boys, I said I COMMAND you to fight MAN and GIRL.”
“But I can’t fight Patty!” they both protested once again.
Exasperated, the Deceiver gave in. “Fine, then. You two just focus on fighting the man.”
Though the two seemed a bit tentative at the idea, they didn’t make any verbal protest against fighting Alan, who arrived a few seconds later.
“Eddie, Teddy, who is this woman?” he asked them.
Without responding, Eddie jumped on the man’s back while Teddy landed a few hard punches to the stomach. Simultaneously, the Deceiver attacked Patty by pouncing on her and landing several solid punches on various weak spots on the girl’s body. In retaliation, Patty slammed her heel up into the spot right under the Deceiver’s chest, subsequently moving in to heave the Deceiver’s body over her head and onto the ground. Obviously this was no catfight.
Meanwhile, Alan was being too heavily bombarded to make any attempts at a counterattack. After being punched in the back of the neck and kneed in the groin several times, the man fell to the ground in agony. He was defeated. Patty, however, was still faring pretty well. Though the Deceiver had switched from fair combat to poison-emitting claws, Patty was doing a good job of dodging; she was a black belt in karate. Then, done with any evading, the girl knocked her opponent’s legs out from under her, slammed her knee into the Deceiver’s stomach repeatedly, and finally grabbed the woman’s head and smashed it into a tree trunk. The Deceiver, like Alan, was down for the count.
Exhausted but determined to get some information, Patty turned to Teddy and Eddie. Not expecting an attack but using caution in the case that they would give her one, she walked over to them. “Why did you attack Alan, guys? That wasn’t very nice!”
Eddie and Teddy were suddenly dazed. After a few seconds, Eddie, who seemed to be recovering more quickly, answered her question. “The Deceiver told us to. The Deceiver, AKA Ellith MacDonald.”
Patty’s eyes grew very wide. “You’re kidding.”
Eddie shrugged. “Well, that was what she called herself. I believed her, too, after seeing her. Did you get a good look at her? Wow. She could put every supermodel in the world out of business!”
Patty nodded. “That is true. Now that you mention it, that would make sense. But so close to Professor Kroozi’s house! I wonder if that was a coincidence.”
Eddie shrugged again. “Well, she did seem kind of angry when she heard me mention Kroozi, so she at least remembers him.”
“Well, obviously,” Patty replied.
“I think we should find a safe place to incarcerate the Deceiver, guys,” Teddy piped up. “And we also need to pray that Alan recovers soon. I don’t want to walk home.”
“Home?” said Patty. “We should still be heading to Kroozi’s! I’ll bet he’d be interested in seeing Ellith MacDonald again-- this time able to examine her. However, prayer for Alan would still be a good thing. He needs it, and it would also be best to get to Kroozi’s place as soon as we can. We don’t want Miss Ellith waking up before we get there. Hopefully, Kroozi will have some anesthesia or a drug of equivalent effects so we won’t have that problem anytime soon.”
Teddy nodded. “It would be hoped for. Anyway, anyone want to lead us off in prayer for Alan?”
“Yeah!” Eddie said. Without waiting for permission, he delved into petition to the Lord. “God Almighty, we pray that you would please heal Alan of his bruises and pains. Please forgive Teddy and I for causing them, and thank you, Lord, for delivering the Deceiver to us. I pray that it stays that way. Amen.”
Upon finishing, Eddie felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Alan standing over him.
“Thanks, man,” he said. “I feel a lot better now. God is pretty awesome. Anyway, I heard basically everything you guys said. No need for an apology. We just need to get rid of Ellith. Come on, I’ll take you guys the rest of the way to Kroozi’s. Might as well, since we got this far.”
The four of them returned to Alan’s car, Teddy and Eddie hefting the Deceiver between them.
“Why don’t you guys put her in the trunk?” suggested Alan. “Then you two can sit up towards the front with me and Patty can sit in the back and keep an eye on her.”
The boys shrugged. “Sure,” said Teddy. “Whatever. I’ll take the front passenger this time, if nobody minds.”
“Knock yourself out,” Eddie replied, taking the back middle seat but leaning towards the front, as Alan had implicitly advised. Patty sat to his right, facing the trunk and kneeling over it.
Alan started driving. “Hopefully Promontory’s not too far...” he said, mostly to himself. He was delighted when it came up on the right not half a mile into the drive. After turning onto it, he announced, “two more miles on Promontory, then it turns into Gary and we look for number 242. Wow. That convenience store clerk must have been Kroozi’s friend or something. He gave us perfect directions!”
Teddy nodded. “Yeah, that is pretty remarkable.”
“Hey-- she’s...oh, never mind,” said Patty.
“What?” asked Alan. “Something going on back there?”
Patty shook her head. “No. Ellith stirred for a moment, but then she went still again. I’m sure it was just--”
“PATTY!!!” Alan interrupted stridently. “If she’s really KO’d, she wouldn’t be stirring. Be on your guard-- she’s probably--”
Patty interrupted him with a shriek as the Deceiver pounced on her abruptly. The girl wrestled with the much larger woman, but to no avail. The Deceiver definitely had the upper hand when Patty had no room to dodge her attacks.
Appalled, Teddy pulled out his pocketknife to attack his foe. The Deceiver laughed as she threw Patty to the floor of the trunk, knocking her unconscious. “Do you seriously think to defeat me with such a puny weapon?” she asked.
Before Teddy could answer, Eddie rammed his head into the woman’s side, knocking the wind out of her but only briefly. The Deceiver revived with uncanny speed and lunged at Eddie. Teddy, however, advanced upon her before she could perform the complete attack and hacked at her fingers. Though he succeeded in causing her great anguish and damage, the tiny steel blade wasn’t strong enough to cut through her bones and didn’t dispatch her claws, which was what the lad had been aiming for.
All this time, the car was still being driven at the same speed like nothing was happening. “FOR PETE’S SAKE, ALAN, STOP!!!” screamed Teddy. Obediently, Alan stopped.
“Yes, Alan,” said the Deceiver, jumping to the driver’s seat, “Why don’t you stop? Let me take over for awhile.” Her face barely an inch away from Alan’s, she smiled sweetly. In response to this, Alan closed his eyes.
“Never!” he cried defiantly, proceeding to throw a blind punch towards the Deceiver.
His fist slammed into her neck. She became out of breath momentarily, but quickly recovered and kicked Alan quite brutally in the place where it hurt the most. While he was recovering, the Deceiver pulled him away from the driver’s seat and thrust her foot on the gas pedal after turning the keys in the ignition. Before Alan could stop her, she was settled into the driver’s position and driving the car.
Then, out of the blue, Eddie grabbed the Deceiver’s head and pushed it maniacally into the steering wheel. Subsequently, her forehead started bleeding like heck. Alan, thinking her down for the count, tried to pull her out of the driver’s seat. However, he was mistaken, and the Deceiver, now no longer simply annoyed but passionately irate, punched his jaw (hard enough to knock out a few teeth), grabbed him by the legs, and smashed his whole body into the window. He fell out of the car, scratched up, bleeding profusely, and, obviously, unconscious.
The Deceiver smirked, but there was no vigor or passion this time. The Girrimonian was wounded and weary. Ready to take advantage of this, Teddy bounded to the Deceiver’s side, knife in position to stab her in the neck fatally. Suddenly, Teddy noticed a cop was matching their car’s speed in an adjacent position. The Deceiver screeched to a halt; the cop did the same.
Teddy had been fazed initially by the abruptness of it all, but soon came back to reality and readied himself afresh to kill the Deceiver once and for all, paying the cop walking to the car no heed. The Deceiver rolled down the window and smiled sweetly at the policeman as he queried Teddy, who was about to stab the lady. After receiving no answer, the cop acted quickly, pulling out his gun and firing at Teddy’s head. Not an instant after he pulled out his gun, Eddie jumped on his friend and both fell to the ground, Teddy’s knife having been a mere three inches from killing the Deceiver, the policeman’s bullet having been a mere two from killing Teddy. That had definitely been a close call.
Eddie lay down on the floor of the car, exhausted, but Teddy, furious that he hadn’t been able to kill his enemy, thrust his knife up into the flesh on the Deceiver’s behind, pulled it out, sliced it into her upper leg, stabbing as viciously, as quickly, and as many times as he could.
The Deceiver reacted by screaming in agony and then fainting from lack of blood. Eddie continued to lie on the floor of the car, enjoying a nice rest. Until Teddy slapped him.
“Eddie, what the heck are you doing? Get Alan back into the car! We need to get going before this cop intervenes too much! I’m starting the car back up now.”
Reluctantly the lad crawled to the passenger side of the car, shoved the door open, and endeavored to pull Alan into the car by himself. Meanwhile, the policeman had pulled open the door on the driver’s side.
“All right, what’s going on in here?” he demanded, pointing his gun every which way as his eyes searched the car. Then his eyes fell on Teddy, about to turn the ignition. The man grinned as he put his index finger on the trigger. “I found you, you little delinquent. Now, step out of the car with your hands up, and nobody--” His sentence was never finished. He uttered only an inarticulate cry after Teddy grabbed the Deceiver’s fingers and scratched him with her claws on the arm. Only a few seconds later, the officer fell to the ground, dead.
Solemn and resigned, Teddy pulled the Deceiver out of the driver’s seat, closed the door, turned the ignition and pushed his foot onto the gas pedal. His driving stank, but going slowly they were fairly safe. “Thank the Lord it’s not a stick shift,” he muttered.
“Thank You, Lord,” Eddie said, having finally pulled Alan successfully into the car.
Teddy neglected to respond; he just turned left on Gary when it came up on the left (which showed them mortality almost as much as the cop’s shot had), and finally stopped in front of number 242, as the directions said. Both boys were thoroughly jolted, as Teddy had slammed on the brakes as soon as they came to Kroozi’s house. However, they managed to survive, if only barely, and trudged to the door, lugging the Deceiver between them.
Eddie grunted and gritted his teeth as Teddy left her whole weight to him as he rang the doorbell. Then, Eddie was relieved once more of the entirety of the weight as Teddy came to his former position and both boys waited for an answer.
After about twenty seconds, a short, grumpy-looking man opened the door. “What do you--Wait a minute! That can’t be--but it is--Ellith MacDonald! Come in, boys, and explain to me how you happened upon such a discovery.”
“Thank you, sir,” Eddie said with an instantaneous grunt as he moved with a good bit of the Deceiver’s weight in his arms.
“Please,” the man said, smiling, “call me Kroozi.”
2: To Kroozi’s House We Go
“<They must be stopped!>“ exclaimed Fxqulgankorjj**, a captain of the Middle Saturanian troops. “<Much has been told of their essential domination of the Calistiv’un galaxy, and much has been witnessed and felt of their counterattack to our own outraged attack. We have lost over thirty million good troops, which was almost an eighth of our army, and one out of every hundred Saturanians. I’m sure everyone here has lost someone they knew or at least were acquainted with.>“
The final statement was somewhat out of place in a Middle Saturanian political and war leaders’ meeting, as they were trying to find the best way to take action, not how to persuade everyone to do so. Wweliopaszukk, the general over all the Supreme legions as well as commander-in-chief over all troops on Saturn (the only Supreme leader there), acknowledged this verbally. “<We know this, Fxqulgankorjj,>” he replied none too nicely. “<That point has been established, and in fact was in part the means of establishing this meeting. We are aware that our army has been depleted on the pair going by the names Changer and Living Strength. What this meeting has been set up for is to see what we can do in stopping their attempt at enthralling all peoples, or worse, obliterating them. This meeting is to see if the middle class folk of Saturn truly can make a difference. Though I am of the Supreme breed, it is clear to me that the Supremes were haughty in deciding that Saturn’s troops have been depleted too much and subsequently in giving up. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be present at this meeting. I believe as strongly as any of you that we are the best chance this planet’s got. If we don’t intervene, as Korrank and his arrogant counselors have so stupidly overlooked, Saturn will be conquered very soon. We must stop this vile effort at universal tyranny from continuing any longer.>”
Fxqulgankorjj flushed, very embarrassed, as Ubu, the Middle Saturanians’ ambassador to the other planets of the Milky Way, responded to Wweliopaszukk’s comment. “<As Saturn’s main short-distance ambassador for the Middle people, I would like to suggest a trip to Earth, where the Changer and the Living Strength currently reside. It would be my first time there, though my ambassadorial duties have taken me everywhere else in the Milky Way, including Mercury, which makes Earth look like Pluto, technologically speaking.>” That brought a laugh from most members of the assemblage. “<However, as we all know, Earth is the only planet in our galaxy that is completely ignorant to all goings-on outside of itself, and therefore there has been no reason whatsoever to go there in the past. But now, with imminent doom for their peoples, and then for us, a need has arisen. We need a team of six of the most elite, adept Saturanians willing to come, heading up as large an army as we can muster. Foremost on our list of requirements for the team is someone who can speak and translate Svortish. Unfortunately, that is only taught on a general level to the Supreme Saturanians. Wweliopaszukk, perhaps you could be a translator for us? If such were the case, your presence would serve multiple purposes.>”
Wweliopaszukk shook his head. “<I’m sorry, Ubu, but I haven’t been fluent in Svortish since high school. As a general, the need hasn’t arisen to be multilingual too often, so gradually I forgot most of my Svortish. I can speak a phrase or two, but to say I was fluent would be a vast overstatement, to be sure.>”
Ubu frowned in slight dejection but wasn’t nearly ready to give up. “<Can anyone else here speak and translate Svortish decently?>”
Another Saturanian stood. “<I can!>” he declared. “<I’m a scholar, and I can speak Svortish, as well as Mercurian, Venusian, Jupiterian, Clowersian, Genovarnarian, and Splakkish.>“
Ubu stared in awe. “<Well, now we’ve got a good replacement ambassador if anything happens to me. I mean, I know Mercurian, Venusian, Martian, Jupiterian, Uranian, Neptunian, and Plutonian, but for some reason I never took up Svortish, and you’ve got some skill with other galaxies. Clowersian, did you say? As in, planet Clowers in the Alpatrar galaxy? That would be quite useful. At any rate, though, you would be a definite for the team to Earth, if you’re willing to go. What’s your name, by the way?>“
“<Yipfnikh is my name. And yes, I am quite willing.>“
Ubu smiled. “<Good, now things are coming along! Yipfnikh, Wweliopaszukk-- oh, you will come, won’t you, General?>”
The commander-in-chief nodded his head emphatically. “<By all means, ambassador. By all means! It would insult me not to be on it.>”
“<All right, good. Now, Wweliopaszukk, we need all the troops you can get, preferably by tomorrow morning. Do you think you could give us an estimate of the number you could rally?”
Wweliopaszukk rubbed his chin in thought before responding. “Ah...probably between 55 and 60 thousand, I would imagine, though I can’t be sure.”
Ubu nodded. “<Okay then, we should have about three commanders, each over a score of legions or so. Any nominations, Wweliopaszukk?>“
The general answered without hesitation. “<Fxqulgankorjj would definitely be one, and I would have to put Qualayariavasch as another, and perhaps...perhaps Jorkaliterun as the third. Yes, now that I think of it, Jorkaliterun would be a good choice, though he’s not present right now. Those would be my three.>”
“<Then I won’t hesitate to agree with you,>“ replied Ubu, “<though you or someone should find and ask Jorkaliterun if he’ll help. Oh, and by the way, Fxqulgankorjj and Qualayariavasch, you would like to help us, wouldn’t you? It is of your own free will to decide, of course.>“
Both Saturanians, honored that their commander thought so highly of their leadership skills, immediately answered yes. Two other Saturanians, one named Grashal elected to be the head pilot (along with several other pilots), and one named Skavornistavir elected to be head doctor, also joined the team, making it seven elite instead of six, as well as Ubu, though that mattered not. Thus, the next morning, 58,122 troops, in addition to eight highly adept leaders and fourteen other pilots, quietly left Saturn on a course bound to Earth.
© 2009 HenryAuthor's Note
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Added on March 4, 2009 |
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