“Why, the little pipsqueak is right,” Rocksquatter said, his tone mocking. “How presumptuous of me! Please ...” he bowed slightly in his seat to Lissa, “go ahead.”
Lissa got to her feet. Slowly, she surveyed the room. She was not prepared for this. Having to debate and possibly determine a financial contract sealing Earth into business with a corrupt galactic commercial industry was not something St. Lucia’s Academy taught its students. But I suppose that's the point, Her mind spun wildly, it benefits GTC to have Earth represented by someone who can't keep up. Anubis thinks he can pull the wool over my eyes! Determined to somehow get on top of this situation, she grabbed onto the first datum she could think of on the subject of economics.
“What commodities, besides human slaves, do we have that interest GTC?” she asked Anubis politely.
“Well, there are several, really. Exotic art is always an option, there are some worlds who might buy mineral rights—although the mining technique might wipe out your atmosphere.”
Lissa winced, “No thanks.”
“Here's another one,” Anubis was scanning down a projected list from his scepter now, “Earth was named a protected planet by the Corian LAIBCB—that’s the Law Against Interaction Between Corians and Barbarians, in case you don’t know. Without access to your planet, they were completely cut off from the blueberry trade. That’s a niche market, but it could be a profitable one. The Corians have excellent credit with the Galactic Bank. I don’t know that you could replace all your slave trade with blueberries, but it would get you off the ground to start looking at other options.” He sounded doubtful, but at least willing to discuss this.
“Okay,” Lissa breathed. Blueberries, huh?
Stephanie asked, “What about other art forms? Music? Hair and nails?”
Lissa turned to her, a wry grin on her face. “Hair and nails?” she whispered to her glam friend.
“Did you see his toes?” Steph whispered back. To Anubis, she added, “I mean, Earth has a lot of services which space consumers might be interested in.”
“And how do you propose we present this to the peoples of Earth?” Timothy Rocksquatter asked smoothly. “It will require funding. All new endeavors require capital—where will you get monies to do this?”
Lissa gave him a contemptuous glare. “How about pulling all the tax money you spend dribbling food down your front?” she snapped.
Mr. Piff hissed. Lissa turned to look at him. Was he laughing?
“I would suggest that, if you give people the option to leave Earth and travel the stars, you will find volunteers and the capital you require,” Mr. Piff said. If he had been snorting derisively at the High Priest a second ago, he hid it well now. “Allow your people a chance to uproot and start elsewhere. There are always dissidents,” he added with a respectful nod to the problem the Earth president had been trying to solve with his slavery scam. “Why not let them go? They will be productive on other planets when they can find nothing to do but riot and complain here. The proceeds of their labor will come back to you through taxation and everyone is happy.”
“Let’s put it to the vote?” Lissa suggested.
Timothy Rocksquatter glared at them all. He must have seen his cash-scam going down the drain with this new idea. “I highly doubt the people will agree to this.”
“Let’s ask them,” Stephanie piped up. He turned an eye on her.
“Yes! Let’s ask for a vote on the street,” Lissa seconded. “If ‘the people’ agree, then you will sign?” she asked the president.
“Yes, of course!” He agreed, and then glanced at Mr. Rocksquatter. The other glowered at him. “Er, I mean...that is to say, no—I don't think its a good idea Ambassador.”
“Oh, let them have their little vote,” Rocksquatter interjected, surprising the president into silence. Lurching suddenly to his feet, Timothy tripped very obviously onto Anubis, and Lissa watched him whisper a quick word into the alien diplomat’s ear. There was an exchange of gold in their hands, and then Timothy Rocksquatter shuffled heavily out of the room without another word.
Lissa didn’t care. Let him bribe Anubis into working against her—she would still win. Earth would be free of human trafficking. She would make sure of it.
“Yes, we will ah...we will proceed with some manner of vote for this issue,” Mr. Bilderbus said.
The Vote
“So what's the plan?” Stephanie whispered.
“Um, wing it?” Lissa suggested. The two of them were seated on the far couch as Anubis and Mr. Bilderbus arranged for transportation to the city center. After much arguing and a tiresome amount of debate, Anubis had agreed that a sample vote of at least one thousand humans would be sufficien to determine whether to ratify the contract or not. Since neither GTC nor the President had the means to ask every human on Earth even a simple question, Lissa had suggested this pseudo-democratic solution.
“That's your plan?”
“Do you have a better one?” Lissa pointed out.
Stephanie groaned quietly, “Great. The fate of the planet in the hands of a math geek and her faithful sidekick.”
“Woah!” Lissa held up her hands, “You're way more than my sidekick.”
“Yeah, well anyway,” Stephanie brushed her long black hair off her shoulders, “Just get out there and tell them like it is. Act like you're me and you should be totally fine.”
“Thanks.”
Mr. Bilderbus shuffled over, “I am entrusting this vote to you, Ambassador Lissa,” he tried to smile but it came out more like a grimace, “I...er, I'll stay here and watch over things while you're gone.”
She frowned, puzzled. Why stay here? He's the President, for Google's sake! Before she could suggest he come along, she and Anubis were ushered out the door, leaving Stephanie, Mr. Piff and the others behind.
From the moment they left the Tower, Anubis set things into motion so quickly Lissa had little choice but to follow him, hoping when the time came she would be able to convince enough people to vote her way. They stepped out of the Tower and onto Alamada Street, taking a left on 1st. When they reached Main Street they stopped and Lissa watched Anubis to see what he would do.
“People of Earth!” he cried.
He stepped up onto a planter before City Hall, flowers bobbing gaily below him as he looked on at passersby in the early Monday-morning traffic. Gesturing grandly with his black scepter, Lissa thought he looked like a character from some dark medieval Egyptian history flick.
“The godth of your ancestors descend upon you!” the alien roared. It was not so much his arrogant manner as the lisp that captured the attention of Los Angelinos on their way to work. People began to turn and look.
Anubis went on, demanding that Earth bow before the might of the Galactic Trade Company.
Lissa watched the reaction of the crowd. Some onlookers thought it was a new Hollywood stunt—something for publicity of an upcoming blockbuster was one woman’s suggestion. Her friend shrugged, sipping a caramel macchiato on the go as her stilettos beat out a staccato on the pavement. They hurried on toward Hill Street and the County Municipal Court.
Still Anubis persevered. “Heed my words, Earthlings!”
“Did that dude just call us ‘Earthlings?’” A teenage boy nearby wondered aloud, “What is this, the 80s?”
“Your leader is at this very moment deciding your fate,” Anubis cried. “Will you be slaves and refugees among the ruins of your once-great civilization? Or will you join us as proud Company clients and travel the starth, um, stars! What is your vote?”
He paused majestically as though expecting a standing ovation. Lissa saw a triumphant glint in his eye. He was going to rebuff people so they voted against her proposal! So that was his plan. She waited to see what the Los Angelinos would do.
“Are you for real?” A gangster stepped up to the pedestal where Anubis posed. His dark face was twisted into a show of extreme skepticism, and he tore his sunglasses off with a gesture that was decidedly East L.A
. His jeans were crisp, clean, and at least three sizes too large for him. A long gold chain swung ponderously over his broad chest as he put the jackal- headed werewolf in his place.
“You think you can come here and tell us what to do? This ain’t no presidential debate, Esse!” He shook his sunglasses at the stunned Anubis. “Get down before you get yourself hurt.”
“Impudence!” Anubis raged. “Damn straight, nigga!” Another man came to stand beside the gangster. His waist was as wide as five of the other man, and it jiggled slightly as he gave the alien his own version of Angelino attitude. “You don’t come here and talk to a brother like that! What you think this is?”
“I demand ...” Anubis began, drawing himself up.
“Oh no, you didn’t!”
This time it was a woman. Her hair was piled above her head in careful ringlets that must have taken hours to do, and long eyelashes blinked at him as her full lips curved into a carefully engineered pout. She wagged a disapproving finger in his direction, the tip of which ended in a long purple nail. “Don’t you be speakin’ to my brother like that!”
“But I ...”
“There is way too much ‘me’ in your attitude, mister!” She tisked and began to scold him, one hand on a large hip as she waved the other in the air to emphasize her many reproachful points.
“Enough!” Anubis roared at long last. Silence fell.
“Let me get this straight,” the Cuban man crossed his arms, “This is not a Hollywood stunt but a real alien invasion by an extraterrestrial werewolf?”
There was laughter in the crowd.
As Anubis’ temper got the better of him, his lisp became more pronounced than ever. “Thith ith your latht invitation! Heed my advithe and join us, or the conthequenthezth shall be on your own heads! “Space pirates will descend upon you and thlavery and poverty shall enthue!”
“Man, you ain’t know shit about our planet.” The gangster was at it again. Anubis turned to glare at him, but the man was not finished. “Slavery? Pov-er-ty?” he enunciated, making the alien rep glare even more fiercely at the sarcastic slur.
“You think we don’t know nothin’ about poverty?” the female snapped at him.
“You think we don’t know nothin’ about slavery? Take a look around,” the second man said. “This is East L.A., man! We ain’t afraid of no space pirates!”
Anubis growled. These words were an insult to his intelligence.
The others nodded, and to Anubis’ obvious chagrin, many others on the street who had gathered around now nodded as well, although the few children present were gaming furiously on their cell phones and appeared not to notice.
“We’ll bring the heat. Ain’t nobody who messes with Earth,” the man finished.
There were nods and murmurs of agreement all around. The teenagers texted furiously, the staccato of stilettos picked back up, and downtown L.A. began to rush by again on its normal routine, ignoring the odd alien army and gray werewolf in their midst.
Lissa stepped forward.
As Anubis had argued, her eyes had alighted on a large flag someone had draped across the hood of their low-ride hover car—a relic of the old United States of America. The blue field dotted with stars beside thirteen red and white stripes brought her a sense of nostalgia and an old refrain.
She hummed softly to herself, but Anubis jerked around to glare at her. Ignoring him, with eyes only for the busy downtown street, she climbed up on the pedestal he had recently vacated and, almost absentmindedly, took the mike from his paw.
“Oh—say can you see,” she began softly, in almost an undertone, but as faces turned to look she closed her eyes and projected the words loud and clear, “By the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hailed...”
It had been twenty-seven years since proud America had shelved her independence and merged with the OneWorld Government in Geneva. Although her citizens had dutifully shredded their red-white-and-blues, their tinsel July décor, elephants and donkeys, the Anthem was still a well-known ditty. When the fourteen-year-old girl, dressed still in her school uniform, stood up on that pillar beside City Hall in the early autumn morning, her voice gave the crowd pause in a way that Anubis had failed to do.
“... the land of the free, And the home of the brave!” The song faded away and Lissa fell into a deep silence made all the more poignant by the unusual hush that spread across the corner of Temple and Main.
“We’re still America,” she said suddenly. The mike, programmed to project nearly a city block around, carried her small voice like a ripple through a school of fish.
“We’re still loyal to our country, even though no country exists. Why is that?” Lissa wondered aloud. Her eyes scanned the throng of people turning to face her with mild interest. They came to rest on the second man who had spoken before.
“It’s because we are who we are,” Lissa said, nodding to him. “No matter who is in charge.”
“Amen!” His long-nailed sister was back now, nodding, one hand still on her curved hip.
“We don’t have to change,” Lissa added. “We don’t have to obey. We have never been that kind of people,” she smiled wryly, thinking of history class with Ms. Spenzle in third period. Hadn’t the Swiss professor said Americans were stubborn?
“Yeah! We don’t take no crap from nobody!” the gangster shouted, waving a cigar in his right hand between two massive rings. His watch sent sparkles of sunlight dancing across Lissa’s face, catching several eyes as more passersby began to crowd around.
“That’s right,” Lissa agreed and thought about Economics in fourth period. For an instant, she reflected how glad she was she had paid attention in school. “Over in Geneva, they think if they own the world they own us. But the truth is,” sudden inspiration hit her, “the truth is, we own ourselves and always have. That's what human rights really means.”
“Yeah!” the bobbing heads were many now, faces turned up to hers.
“Now though, times are changing. We have to be responsible for more than just one continent,” Lissa went on. “Now, it’s the fate of all of Earth—your vote will make the difference.”
“Why us?” someone called.
Because we're trying to fake out an alien werewolf. “We're simply conducting public- opinion surveys on a grand scale.” Liar, she told herself. But she was getting desperate.
“We're hoping to raise public awareness,” she continued, “If we could have your support, that would be great. Once again Hollywood has to lead the way,” she joked.
Several people lost interest. The crowd began to disperse, remembering the important appointments and coffee cravings that had brought them out on the street. Lissa tried again.
“Wait!” Once again the mike projected her voice so loudly that the plea made her wavering audience pause, “All I need to know is whether you're for this, or against it. Believe me, I worked really hard to convince this guy to let YOU make the decision.” That got their attention, “This decision isn't going to be made by the President alone. He's asking us to conduct surveys of the people.”
“Power to the people!” a stranger shouted, pumping a fist in the air.
“Amen,” Lissa said simply.
A lady in the back raised her hand, “What are we voting on again?”
“Earth’s fate ain’t gonna be decided by no gov-ern-ment!” Now it was the second man spelling it out for them. “We, the people, is who is gonna decide whether we’re for it, or not!”
“That’s right,” Lissa agreed, “and that’s why he’s here.” She pointed to Anubis. “This alien guy represents a company that owns most of our galaxy. We can either try to fight them off, or we can vote in and negotiate for rights in the galactic community.”
“Look what happened to my people,” a homeless man, late thirties, with braided black hair and a deep complexion made his voice heard over the crowd. “The Comanche tried to fight. In the end, we lost everything.”
“So what do we do?” one fearful woman wa
iled.
“Learn from history; learn from our mistakes,” Lissa said, nodding at the homeless man. “This time we have something they want—commerce. Being united and working together is our greatest weapon.”
There were more murmurs of assent.
“Space Patrol is forcing the Galactic Trade Company to offer us a contract. The alternative is slavery and destruction. We’re not afraid of fighting, but we’re also more civilized than that.”
“I say we vote,” a pompous-looking man in a light-gray suit said. “Let Earth speak for herself!”
“Yeah!” the shout went up, gaining agreement as it spread.
“All in favor of doing business throughout our galaxy raise your hand,” Lissa called out. A wave of hands flew into the air. A clerical-looking alien stepped forward from behind Anubis, already scribbling furiously with a stylus on a digital tablet. A beam shot out and scanned the crowd.
“Nine hundred forty-six votes in the positive,” he reported.
“Alright,” Lissa said into the mike. “All those in favor of trying to fight them off, raise your hand.”
There was a shuffling of feet and a few scattered hands went up.
“Ninety-three,” the clerk reported. He scribbled again on his tablet.
“There's your vote!” Lissa told Anubis, handing him the mike as the crowd erupted in cheers. “I’ll see that contract now.”
Anubis scowled, but turned and quickly scribbled something on the data pad his clerk held out. Lissa bent and signed too, and then let Anubis lead the way back to the Tower amid a flurry of texting and chatting citizens, many of whom patted Lissa on the back or shook her hand as they went by, until at last, they were facing the double doors to the presidental suite once more.
What Mr. Piff Did
Stephanie and Mr. Piff were not present when the double doors swung open. The alien werewolf stepped backward, saying, “I’ll have to inform my superiors,” before the stomping OWSF guards escorted her into the sumptuous office where she had left the others.
Space Patrol! Page 6