RSS 2.0 FeedIssue Four-June/July 2009, Cover Stories, Speculative Satire Fiction
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diplomat
The pains of being a diplomat never seem to cease, even across time and space.
[Filth!]
Looking back from the first door, Vron cursed. Stupid Zek must have activated the cloaking device without Vron’s knowledge and there beyond the dead end of the road sat their ship in bright orange camouflage among the greens and browns of Earth vegetation. Nothing to be done about it now; it lay nearly ten lengths away.
The three Legeks had walked to the first place they saw. No sense in wearing themselves out. The day was invigorating, as mild as many Earth days get, but the damned humans built their nests so far apart! And one per family! Extravagant. Vron stretched up and rang the doorbell, dripping with envy and goo. As soon as the treaties were signed he'd snap up the secrets of Earther knowledge and see the old Legek homeworld covered with doorbells. These fools had no idea of the possibilities of this technology. Why not put them on windows, for instance? Gravy! The ideas just kept coming!
A male Earther, stringy and stubbly, opened the door. He took a blink to focus on them.
"Hey," the Earther said.
"Take me to your leader," Vron said in practiced English.
"Please," Zek added, from over Vron's shoulder.
"Well, that would be me," the Earther said.
"You are the leader of the peoples of Earth?" Vron asked, taking a second glance at the gray house. By human standards it was a pretty modest place out in the sticks, which is why they chose it (the cities were overwhelming), and it didn't seem like the sort of place the Earthers would put up their leader. [Besides that,] Krogar added telepathically, [What are the odds that we'd get the leader first shot out of the box?]
"No," the Earther said. "I'm the leader of me, Doug Schmidt. See, I'm a sovereign state unto myself, having declared my independence just . . ." he checked his watch. "Well, just about seventeen hours ago. Quit my job too. I'm tired of all the bullshit, you know what I mean?"
"I'm afraid I don't," Vron admitted.
"Whatever, don't worry about it, little pal. I'm not big on foreign policy, but since you're here, I got a shed out back if you guys wanna set up an embassy or something. Not the whole thing, cause I got like my rake and my paint cans and stuff, but you guys are small anyway. Just clear off part of the bench and set yourselves up. I can't sit down for talks right now, I'm making tacos. Maybe tomorrow we can, like, make a peace agreement or something, okey dokey?"
"We will consider your offer, Doug Schmidt, but our business takes us elsewhere at the moment. Farewell."
The three little men walked down the stained, cracked driveway. [Don't look at each other till he goes back inside,] Vron mentally told his officers. They all looked back and waved. Doug pointed at them from the screen door.
"My point exactly!" Doug yelled. "Bureaucratic bullshit! Can't even make a decision! Your nation is at least three times the size of mine! Simplify!"
[What do you make of that?] Zek thought to his two companions.
[Deranged lunatic,] thought Vron.
[Isn't that redundant?] Krogar asked.
[If it is, I'm sticking with it. He's nutty enough to warrant the repetition. C'mon guys, next house.]
Their boots kicked through the thick lawn across the street. The land wasn't as neatly manicured out here as it was where the houses were larger. Vron stepped on a soft spot and looked down at hundreds of spastic little creatures zipping back and forth over his bootprint. Oh, man, he thought privately, I hope they're not important.
This house was much like the last one, only blue. Before they reached the doorbell, an Earther stepped out of a doorway at the end of the house. The doorway was large enough that Vron could pilot a ship through it.
"Take me to your leader," Vron said.
"Please," Zek added.
"That's cute," the man at the door said. He was wider than the sovereign nation of Doug Schmidt and had longer hair, but just as much stubble. He wore a black shirt with the words "Lord of the DanceRings" written upon it in a shade of yellow that was offensively bright. "You got the line, and the look, the little green men thing going on, very cute."
"Thank you," Vron said. "But I do actually want you to take me to your leader." The Earther seemed half occupied with the communication device at his mouth.
"You know it was played and played and played so much in the mid to late twentieth century that not only did it become a cliche, it went beyond cliche to the point where we fought like hell to scrub it from our cultural memory." The communicator glowed and gray smoke billowed from the man's mouth. Vron had heard these people still sent smoke signals and he glanced into the distance to see if he could spot the other end of the conversation.
"If you'll please just take me " Vron started.
The Earther said, "But you reached back into the dark place we've all tried to forget and you've revived this."
"Sir "
"But the thing is, it's been so long that this take on it seems fresh and clever. It's just "
"Sir "
"It's just cute, is what it is!"
"Sir, you need to understand, we are actual extraterrestrials!"
"Oh, yeah, I've no doubt about that. That ridge above your eyebrows, that sort of spongy, feathery, hornlike, tentacley thing you've got going on there, there's just no precedent for anything like that in our genetic library. I mean our geneies couldn't even think up something that good. It doesn't resemble anything within the realm of human conception."
"Then why "
"I mean, I know you guys are new here, but you've got to understand, aliens are a dime a dozen. We've been through the invasions, some initiated by them and some by us, the interbreeding, the people zoo, the whole interdimensional thing, we enslave them, they enslave us, mutants and whatnot, I mean, next place down, you got a Glorfanx from Planet Hemem. Now those guys "
"You know what?" Vron said, "We're just gonna go."
"Okay sure, you know I really appreciated the homage to midtwenty paranoia, but guys, please, I'm serious, don't do it again. It would just ruin this whole moment."
#
Krogar wanted to bring back at least one of them to the homeworld. Half the planet didn't even believe the Earthers were real. What were the chances that aliens which evolved light years away had a body type so similar to the Legeks? The whole thing, they believed, had to be a hoax. Not just the creatures, but the planet itself. Poor stupid Krogar didn't understand that showing the unbelievers a human wouldn't change a thing. They'd just say that the human was manufactured. Vron never thought there was any point in trying to change their minds. Reality went on just fine whether the civilians bought into it or not.
"Take me to your leader, please," Vron said. They'd skipped a house, having no desire to tempt a Glorfanx with their succulent flesh, and had found this man at the next place. He poked only his head out of the door and his loosened tie hung below like the string from a withering balloon.
"Okay," he said. "C'mon in." The door opened and the man turned away into the house.
The three Legeks followed him across a port colored carpet with a sudden spring. [He must be taking us to his transport gate,] Vron thought. [Now we're getting somewhere.]
A woman, presumably the man's mate, reclined in the second room to the left on what looked to be a piece of Earther exercise equipment. She lay half engaged in an infotainment symbiont which sucked on her head. The woman seemed quite put out by their presence.
"Honey," the man said to his mate, "These guys wanted to see you."
#
[I didn't join the Navy to be an infantryman,] Zek griped. Vron's left boot was starting to blister his foot. This road alone required more walking than their fudgey little bodies normally packed on in a year and they stayed on the grass when they could to soften the impact. All around them, members of one of the humans' slave species shouted madly from their shackles in a shrieking, percussive language. Their voices never seemed to tire. Zek wasn't helping Vron's mood.
[This is what we get, Vron,] Zek thought. [For two hundred years we poke around the fringes of this society so as not to attract attention, and now that we want to do some serious business, we're trapped in the middle of a freak show! What other results should we expect from the most moronic foreign policy ever conceived by sentients?]
[And that's why we're doing this, isn't it?] Vron said. [To fix it! Just shut up and deal, Zek, we're pioneers! We're diplomats, ambassadors of the brightest of futures. They're going to put our faces on a stamp someday, by Junction!]
[Who uses stamps anymore?] Krogar thought.
[Don't you start, too!] Vron thought.
[Sorry, that wasn't supposed to come out. It's the damned telepathy. A guy needs some alone time every now and again.]
They decided to split up and cover ground faster. Had they anticipated the scope of this ordeal, they would have taken the ship, but it was four blocks back now, and they were about to hit three different places. The leader they sought had to be accessible through one of these three houses.
"May I please meet your leader," Vron said, lacking the enthusiasm he'd started out with just twentyeight minutes ago. A pleasant, notinsane looking woman in a fine smelling linen suit stood in the doorway.
"I'm sorry. I participate in a nonhierarchical cooperative corporation which frowns on such concepts as leaders and followers."
"Of course."
Although Vron wasn't sure of her mailbox' function, he felt great when he knocked it over.
He met Zek and Krogar down the street, they were already standing in the middle of the road.
"Mine was part of a hive mind," Krogar said, before Vron stopped.
"A big hive mind?" Vron asked, his tastestalks aquiver.
"Five guys and a hyperevolved chicken."
"Filth. What about yours, Zek?"
"Hive mind."
"The same hive mind?"
"No. This was one human, five hyperevolved wombats and a customized zombie teletype machine."
#
"Could we see your leader, please?"
"We have no leader," the large lady at the door said. This one wasn't wearing anything at all and bore the scars of a warrior on her abdomen. Vron swallowed hard but kept his composure.
"Hive mind?" Vron asked.
"Yes."
"What have you got, five, six members?"
"Ten trillion," she said.
"Really?" Vron turned and gave his companions a smug nod. [Jackpot,] he thought to them.
"We would like to speak to you about trade and mutual defense. Over what worlds do you hold dominion?"
The woman cocked her head to the side for a moment before saying, "Our lands are vast and wide ranging." She swept her hand before her. "Fortyeight feet from east to west and one hundred and twentyfive feet from north to south, all of the lands within those boundaries and unknowable distances below."
[Did she say 'feet'?] Vron asked.
[Their feet are small, aren't they?] Zek thought.
[Not as small as ours, of course,] Krogar thought, hiking one foot into the air. [But small, yes they are. See for yourself.] He pointed at the woman's feet.
[Stop moving so much!] Vron commanded. [She might interpret your gestures as hostile!] When he decided the woman wouldn't attack, he spoke again.
"You said 'feet', right?"
"Yes. Enough to shelter all of us and hundreds of trillions more!"
The three little men looked at each other dumbfounded.
"Uh . . ." Krogar began. He squinted his eyes and turned his face somewhat away, afraid of her reply. "How large are the constituent members of your empire?"
The woman pinched her thumb and index finger together tightly and showed her visitors. "Many of us are as large as this, while some of our champions are even larger!"
"So this is it then, right? We're looking at your entire empire right here?" Vron asked, pointing from her hair to her feet.
"Our empire is greater than the three of yours put together."
"All right, this whole trip was a waste," Zek said.
[Be quiet!] Vron commanded.
"What's the point? We're not getting anywhere with this planet. We thought Mongo was bad and there were what, four different factions there vying for control? We've got more than four groups on this road! Mongo was a holiday compared to this! These are not beings with whom we want involvement. You cannot have a coherent culture without a single, unifying leader. Whatever the previous expeditions may have indicated, this is not a civilization. This is anarchy!"
This would have been welcomed with a hearty, "Hear, hear!" from Krogar if he hadn't suddenly been devoured whole by the Glorfanx.
Vron and Zek bolted for the ship without a thought.
"Your empire has grown beyond ours in an instant!" exclaimed the awestruck hive mind in the doorway.
[Where the heck did that Glorfanx come from?] Vron asked.
[That reddish stucco house down there, or so says the rumor mill. We have a chance, Vron. It is slowed after eating. I can see Krogar kicking from inside.]
Even burdened by its first course, however, the gelatinous Glorfanx ran gracefully compared to its prey. It was still catching up.
"Kick harder, Krogar!" Zek shouted over his shoulder. "We've almost got you out!" This gained them a few more paces but they were running a losing race.
"We're done for!" Vron said. "We're still a hundred lengths from the ship. Damn these stubby legs!"
Vron, weighed down with the responsibility for the mission, was slightly behind Zek and therefore, next on the menu. He could hear the slobbering footsploshes of the creature almost on top of him and feel its hot breath on his neck as it opened its dripping maw.
Up ahead stood a single shining chance. The sovereign nation of Doug Schmidt leaned on his mailbox, eating tacos from a platter and watching the show they were putting on. He was the only Earther in sight.
"Our people beseech the sovereign nation of Doug Schmidt for aid!" Vron shouted. "Anything you want! We'll sign wonderful treaties together!"
Doug didn't seem to notice. He waved his taco at them in greeting. Vron wished a black hole would swallow up him and this whole jerkwater planet. It was no use. Not only did they have no chance of reaching the ship, they had no chance of reaching the sovereign nation of Doug.
"I can't run anymore, Zek!"
"Neither can I!"
"Goodbye, Zek!" Vron felt his little legs give way and even though it wasn't a long way down, he knew he'd never reach the ground before being gobbled up like a little green hors d'oeuvre.
But he hit the duraplaz road with a smack anyway.
"Ow! Dammit!" Vron felt the enormous bulk of the Glorfanx trample him as momentum carried it past. Thank fate for great wonders. By the time the beast had swallowed Zek, it would be too full to be much of a threat. Vron looked up to find Zek safe in front of him. The Glorfanx sat at Doug's feet, gobbling tacos that Doug dropped into its mouth from the platter. They were safe.
Two little green men rolled onto their backs and soaked in the yellow starlight filtered through an oddly tinted sky.
"Gravy!" Vron puffed. "I love this planet!"
Vron may have been nothing but a third rate shloob, but he could see what lay ahead. They'd discovered a supplier of a viable and better tasting alternative to themselves and Glorfanx pacification was the key to Legek expansion. Of course, Doug being catapulted into galactic powerhood within eighteen hours of his declaration of independence would seriously disrupt the balance of power on this street. But leave that problem to some future diplomat. Vron had paid his life debt (the cost of his creation and rearing) with this coup. His future was brilliant, his nesting and breeding rights would be first rate. He had everything a Legek could ever want.
Well . . . that and the doorbell.