Through The Wormhole, Literally
Page 2
polkingbeal67: Yes, yes. I know all about the goopmutts. I don’t need a history lesson from you.
smolin9: Yes, but the point is .. they just laughed! One of the great tragedies of intergalactic chronology! And they couldn’t take it seriously. They just kept asking me if I was the doctor.
polkingbeal67: The doctor?
smolin9: Apparently, in their culture they worship a Time Lord called Doctor Who. I couldn’t believe my telepathic receptors! Earthlings engaged in time travel? But then I looked it up on the microwocky and discovered this so-called Time Lord is supposed to wander around the universe in a Type 40 Mark 3 TARDIS with a faulty chameleon circuit. There’s no such thing! I checked the intergalactic database and there is no record of such a time capsule, authorised or unauthorised. This doctor has completely fooled them.
polkingbeal67: Interesting. What else have you learned?
smolin9: Well, it’s easy to make bad mistakes here. The earthling humans in Egypt didn’t think much of my Bermuda shorts.
polkingbeal67: Curious. By the way, why exactly are you squirming around like a hyperactive flamingo on a Venus lava flow? Have you aggravated your old microwocky injury?
smolin9: No, that’s the result of something else I learned: pyramids are not for skateboarding. Gotta go now. Keep the wormhole open.
Investigator Diary 12.19.18.16.14:
polkingbeal67: Smolin9! Smolin9, where are you? I bet he’s forgotten how to configure his microwocky for the new hyper spatial wrinkle coordinates. Typical. I knew he’d be trouble. Why on Morys did they have to go and choose him? Just because our intelligence community thought there was a high probability President Carter was a dolphin and the cognitive processing centres of smolin9′s brain are genetically similar to those of Blue Dot dolphins. So we entrust the very survival of our species to a bumbling bubble-head who thought the Egyptian pyramids were for skateboarding! Now we know Jimmy Carter is not a dolphin, and our revered leader still sticks with that sad apology for a transgalactic scout. It really worries me. We’ve only got one Blue Dot year to see if this planet is suitable for colonisation. Smolin9! Smolin9!
smolin9: Is that you, polkingbeal67? It’s a bad line. I think we’ve got a missing neutrino. Well, you look amazing today. Are those butterflies or can I smell cherry blossoms woven into the long tresses of your hair?
polkingbeal67: What? Yes, I’m sure you smell nice too. Please submit your report. Hold on. I haven’t got any hair. And you can’t smell anything. This is a hologrammatic image!
smolin9: When I look into your eyes I see spiral galaxies pirouetting slowly…
polkingbeal67: Have you been at the vitalmados again?
smolin9: Valmados talmados shalmados. Can I share saliva with you? It’s what earthling humans do. It’s so lovely.
polkingbeal67: Oh god! You have been at the vitalmados! That’s it! I’m going to terminate this connection and recommend, once again, that you’re replaced immediately!
smolin9: No, no, wait! Really, I’m coming round. It’s just been so lonely here. Have some pity. Our revered leader told me he’d send me to Oov as a census collector if I fouled up on this mission. I promise you I can do a great job here.
polkingbeal67: Smolin9, you’ll never attain true greatness if we keep lowering the bar for you.
smolin9: You don’t know what it’s like down here. One false move and they’ll be harvesting my organs.
polkingbeal67: No one’s going to harvest your organs.
smolin9: Don’t you be so sure. Let me tell you what happened to me when I left the pyramids.
polkingbeal67: Yes, do tell.
smolin9: Do I detect a little disinterest there? Well, anyway, once I discovered I didn’t really fit in with my skateboard and my Bermuda shorts, I redefined my image using the biomimetic mutator. I tell you, I could not have looked more like an earthling human. Not without using recombinant DNA technology anyway. So there I was, mingling happily with earthlings near the pyramid of Khafra, when all of a sudden I saw the Great Sphinx move!
polkingbeal67: It’s an ancient monument. It can’t move.
smolin9: I know, I know. But it did move. I found out afterwards it had been covered with a billion Oovian chilloks who mistook it for one of their gods. Anyway, the shock got the better of me and I fainted.
polkingbeal67: Go on. What happened next?
smolin9: Well, they took me to what humans must think of as a hospital. You’ve never seen anything like it. They conduct operations without microwave visors and actually cut people up to repair them. It’s barbaric! I didn’t have my microwocky with me and had to use telepathy, so I couldn’t understand everything that was going on. They thought my skin looked funny. Y’know, it doesn’t matter how careful you are with the mutator imagemaker, earthlings still think you’re made of Teflon.
polkingbeal67: Interesting. Did they cut you?
smolin9: No. But I couldn’t sneak away because I’d left my cloaking device at the pyramids with my microwocky. And there was this doctor who said something to me a couple of times before doing something truly horrible. I know my telepathy translations aren’t the best, but I thought he was saying: ‘Get ready. We’re going to get you to the nebula’. For a brief moment, I thought he was one of us and he was offering to give me a tour of a cosmic gas cloud somewhere. I found out what he was really saying when I got hold of my microwocky later.
polkingbeal67: So, what was he saying and what horrible thing happened to you?
smolin9: Turns out he was saying: ‘Get ready. We’re going to give you an enema’. I admit I screamed like a Goopmutt. He told me he was sorry but he needed a stool. So I fetched one and hit him over the head with it. Believe me, I needed some vitalmados after that! Keep the wormhole open.
Investigator Diary 12.19.18.17.5:
polkingbeal67: What is it? Why have you summoned me for an extraordinary transmission?
smolin9: I’m livid!
polkingbeal67: Thanks for the update. Goodbye.
smolin9: No, wait! Something’s happened. And it’s made me angry. It would make you angry too, if you were capable of emotion.
polkingbeal67: Didn’t I tell you I’ve been seconded to review new supra-planetary trade operations? And didn’t I tell you this is also my day-off?
smolin9: You did.
polkingbeal67: Didn’t I make it clear you’d have to make other arrangements for your reports?
smolin9: You did.
polkingbeal67: So?
smolin9: I didn’t.
polkingbeal67: Well, I’m here now. So what’s happened?
smolin9: I’ll tell you, but first of all, you should know that there’s a red light on my microwocky indicating a problem with the telepresence feed.
polkingbeal67: I know. I’ve got one at my end too.
smolin9: So shouldn’t you, you know, check for problems with the telepresence feed?
polkingbeal67: It’s been there for ages. It’s just a warning light.
smolin9: Isn’t that all the more reason to, you know, check for problems with the telepresence feed? Whoever put it there obviously thought it necessary to warn you.
polkingbeal67: It’s just a light.
smolin9: The feed’s definitely not working now. It’s really unnerving. Your eyes are where your mouth should be and vice versa. You’re blinking every time you speak.
polkingbeal67: But I don’t have eyelids.
smolin9: Exactly.
polkingbeal67: Okay, let me try this. Is that better?
smolin9: Yes.
polkingbeal67: Please proceed with your report.
smolin9: Okay, well, basically, I intercepted some primitive earthling datagrams using my microwocky and guess what? They’ve discovered our planet!
polkingbeal67: Do tell.
smolin9: They’re calling it Kepler-22b.
polkingbeal67: I quite like the name. Why are you livid?
smolin9: Really? You like it? I think it’s ridiculous! Appar
ently, they named it after the telescope that spotted it. So, y’know, if an earthling discovers a pimple on the chin using a shaving mirror, what would he call it? Something like ikea-2c?
polkingbeal67: Earthlings give names to their pimples?
smolin9: No, they don’t give names to… Never mind. They’re also on the verge of discovering what they think is the final elementary particle, the one that gives mass to matter. They call it the Higgs bosun. Probably because it was spotted by a senior deckhand of a merchant ship captained by someone called Higgs.
polkingbeal67: Now you’re being silly. So what is it? You’re mad about the name they’ve given our planet?
smolin9: No. The thing is – they’re being incredibly rude. A number of their so-called scientists have been saying our planet can only support single-celled organisms. Bacteria, nothing else! They’re saying the only life on Morys is alien pond slime.
polkingbeal67: Alien pond slime? Alien pond slime! Okay, that is rude.
smolin9: The feed’s going funny again. Oh!
polkingbeal67: What is it?
smolin9: You’ve transformed into a muddy puddle on the ground.
polkingbeal67: [splutter!] [gurgle!]
smolin9: You’re nothing more than an unsightly thick green sludge, with a few bubbles forming. Better leave it there for now. Keep the wormhole open.
Investigator Diary 12.19.19.0.7:
smolin9: I see you’ve sorted out the problem with the telepresence feed. It wasn’t easy talking to you when you looked like a pile of regurgitated pizza.
polkingbeal67: What is pizza?
smolin9: It’s a government-enforced source of nutrition here on Earth.
polkingbeal67: Government-enforced?
smolin9: Yeh. If the people don’t go out to eat it, it gets sent round to their dwellings. There’s no way they can avoid it.
polkingbeal67: Interesting. Have you examined it?
smolin9: I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I tried to ingest some when I first landed on the planet. I was hungry and didn’t have time to prepare a food tablet.
polkingbeal67: You tried to ingest it? How? Are you mad? Their digestive systems are nothing like ours!
smolin9: Yeh, I soon found that out. Pizza doesn’t work very well as a suppository.
polkingbeal67: Humans have stomach acids to dissolve their food. We don’t. I can’t believe you did that.
smolin9: Believe me, I wish I hadn’t. It took me so long to pick out all the sticky cheese!
polkingbeal67: According to our test results, the human stomach contains hydrochloric acid strong enough to dissolve metal.
smolin9: Frankly I’m more surprised it can dissolve that cheese!
polkingbeal67: You crazy prokaryote! Anyway, I told our revered leader about earthlings discovering our planet. He was not pleased to hear them describe it as ‘capable of sustaining nothing more than alien pond slime’. Not pleased at all. After what happened at Roswell, he said it was the last straw. So he took the invisibility cloak off the two planets vandalised by goopmutts after the Cassiopeia supernova party.
smolin9: Oh! That explains something.
polkingbeal67: Explains what?
smolin9: I picked up some stuff on my microwocky – earthlings reporting the discovery of two roasted Earth-sized planets orbiting a sub dwarf B star …
polkingbeal67: Oh, so they noticed then? Interesting. Do they know the planets were inhabited by humans?
smolin9: I don’t think so.
polkingbeal67: I don’t know why we have to be so sensitive about it anyway. It was collateral damage. A few green-snouted goopmutts had a few drinks and decided to go out shooting stars. These things happen.
smolin9: Please try to remember we’re thinking of establishing a colony on Earth. It wouldn’t be very good diplomacy to ask them if they could put us up for a few eons and, by the way, we’re sorry their brother and sister planets were microwaved during an inter-galactic party we were hosting.
polkingbeal67: Point taken, but actually I think the earthlings have got colonisation plans of their own. As you know, they set foot on their moon a short time ago. According to my microwocky, the words that marked the momentous event were: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind (Neil Armstrong)." Well it seems that it was thinly disguised code. It's an anagram for: "Thin man left planet, ran, makes a large stride, pins flag on moon. On to Mars!”
smolin9: But Mars is totally inhospitable to human life. It doesn’t have a molten core any more. But it feels like I have. Ew! Gotta go. Found some more cheese. Keep the wormhole open.
Investigator Diary 12.19.19.1.8:
Melinda: Hello?
polkingbeal67: smolin9?
Melinda: No, I’m Melinda.
polkingbeal67: Melinda? I don’t understand. Where’s smolin9?
Melinda: He’ll be along shortly. He asked me to tell you to stick around till he gets here.
polkingbeal67: Oh? But who are you?
Melinda: I’m Melinda.
polkingbeal67: Yes I know. You said. But… wait, are you an Earthling?
Melinda: Yeh. Hi. Um, welcome to our planet, Sir. This is so erratic, isn’t it? Insane. Literally. Your alien buddy and I sort of made friends a few days ago and, well, you know.
polkingbeal67: What? No, I don’t know. Okay, better wait for smolin9 then. Well, what shall we do in the meantime? What’s the protocol for this? I don’t have a flowchart for such an encounter. Er, do you want to exchange pleasantries?
Melinda: Yeh. Isn’t this erratic? Literally.
polkingbeal67: Okay. I’ll start. Um… Yo, s’up.
Melinda: Ha ha! Insane! That’s really good. But relax. Literally. You don’t have to talk like us. Just be yourself. Y’know, I should really let smolin9 tell you this himself, but, well, we’re thinking of getting married.
polkingbeal67: What! You can’t!
Melinda: I know. I know. Literally. We hardly know each other. But…
polkingbeal67: Never mind that. Your liaison is a flagrant breach of intergalactic law and conventions. A marriage is totally out of the question. You cannot do this!
Melinda: But wouldn’t it be good for, y’know, interplanetary relations?
polkingbeal67: Preposterous! He’s not like an earthling human. Did you know that? He’s using a biomimetic mutator, er, a device that transforms his appearance. You know what? You should both see somebody, urgently.
Melinda: See who?
polkingbeal67: A psychiatrist? I don’t know. An intergalactic, interspecies, inter…, inter…
Melinda: Interferer?
polkingbeal67: Intermediary. Oh help! I refuse to discuss this any further with you.
Melinda: You want to go back to chitchat?
polkingbeal67: Yes.
Melinda: Okay.
polkingbeal67: Okay. How are you? Specifically, please disclose the genetic weaknesses that run in your family.
Melinda: Excuse me? Listen, can I get you a cup of tea or something?
polkingbeal67: I’m sure you can. You appear to have moderate humanoid dexterity. However, I wouldn’t be able to drink it. This is a telepresence simulation. I’m a hologram.
Melinda: Oh dear, I’m so sorry. That’s insane. It must be awful.
polkingbeal67: No, no. There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s just, er, this isn’t really me. I’m not what I seem.
Melinda: Yes, you seem a bit erratic. I hope you feel better soon. So, what’s the weather like there, on your, er, planet?
polkingbeal67: Um, not bad. A few methane showers.
Melinda: Right. Is that like…rain?
polkingbeal67: Methane is an odourless gas produced by decomposition of organic materials in subsoils.