"What did you say to him?" asked Davy.
"Actually, I'm not really sure." said Keith. "I was just pissed. So I decided I wasn't going to let a hologram push me around. Whatever I said, I got it from that kid in that Star Wars movie, Anakin Skywalker, when he was speaking to some alien before the podrace."
"It sounded a lot like Aldebarian." offered Jahv. "Which would explain why that Prokkop took off so fast. Aldebarans are the fiercest warrior race in the galaxy. You don't look anything like them, of course, but they have been known to train survivors from their raids on other planets, since they regard such survivors as warriors themselves."
"Well, now I'm really hungry." said Keith. "So where's some food?"
The three boys continued their journey, being more watchful of where they were going. There were many dozens of aliens wandering around, a great many of which were the blandly-dressed Botarans. There were a few other Botaran children running about, all of them naked. One boy, perhaps about five years old, had such neon-red skin that he was almost painful to look at. Finally, Davy worked up the nerve to ask a question. "Uh, Jahv, I guess fashion isn't much of a priority for you people?"
Jahv snorted. "Hardly. Neither is art, and most of our music is imported, although we've developed some native forms."
"Is that part of why you left?" asked Keith.
"Maybe a little." said Jahv. "On my world, outward expressions of feelings are sort of discouraged. But I've seen a lot of worlds where it isn't. Maybe I got — I dunno — 'contaminated' and wanted something more than what my world offered."
"So what do you people do?" asked Davy. "I mean, clearly you possess a vast technology…"
"That's pretty much it, too." answered Jahv. "We are builders and developers of technology. And we trade and sell it to other worlds. We're probably the most technologically advanced planet there is. And the most emotionally-deprived."
"Is that why you act so stiff and use such big words sometimes?" asked Keith, getting a nasty glare from Davy. "No offense, Jahv, but sometimes you almost act like a grown-up. It's a little creepy."
Jahv smiled. "Maybe I do, to you. Life for a child on my world is one primarily of education. Learning is everything. That's part of why I left. I want to learn more than what my world has to offer. Maybe one of those things is how to be a child."
"Well, you picked the right people to hang around with!" declared Davy. "Now — food?"
Jahv led the group to a place that looked something like a cross between a buffet and a grocery store. There were aisles of food, and at least a dozen customers walking along the aisles, picking up food and even sampling it.
"How can this place afford to stay in business?" asked Davy. "The people are eating the food and not paying for it!"
"Food is free on this world." said Jahv, a little surprised at the question. "Any food product can be replicated easily, and the machines don't cost too much."
Keith watched an alien that looked something like an overgrown slug hovering over one row of food. "Yeah, but how clean is the food?" he asked, slightly nauseated.
"The lights above the rows of food also emit a sterilization beam. Harmless to sentient beings, but it instantly kills any bacteria or foreign objects in the food."
Keith shrugged. "Well, that answers my question. Let's eat! What do we do?"
Jahv smiled. "Just pick up a tray, and help yourself. Stay out of aisle three, though. Most of that would probably be poisonous to you."
The boys began to wander through the aisles, Jahv popping samples along the way. But Davy and Keith were more hesitant. Nothing at all looked the least bit familiar, and a lot of the food looked pretty horrible. Finally Davy thought he saw something edible. There was a tray with what looked, at least, like large bunches of red grapes. He grabbed about half a dozen and popped them in his mouth.
And instantly regretted it. The second he bit down, he felt like somebody had opened his mouth and cut loose with a flamethrower after dousing the entire interior with cinnamon and pepper sauce. His eyes watered to the point where he could hardly see. Searing, stinging pain went through the inside of his mouth and tongue. He didn't dare swallow. Finally, he knelt under the countertop and spit, and then tried to catch his breath. "What the heck were those!?" he sputtered.
"Flamespice Berries." explained Jahv. "Of course, that's only a rough translation."
"Based on the way Davy's eyes are watering, I'd say a pretty good one, though!" proclaimed Keith, trying not to giggle.
"So much for lunch." said Jahv. "What else would you like to see here?"
"Besides a large glass of water?" wheezed Davy.
"This from the kid that puts Tobasco sauce on his pizza." snorted Keith. "What've you got in the way of music stores? Or arcades? Or just plain entertainment?"
Jahv grinned. "Okay, let's take those in order. Come on."
Jahv led the two boys through the wide, winding corridors of the Mall. A few minutes later, they came across an apparent music store. The layout wasn't too dissimilar from a music store on Earth. Racks with alien lettering and packaged rectangles of what looked like transparent circuit boards were throughout the stores. Jahv was prodding through the racks already, and pulled out one of the long rectangles. "This is one of my favorite musicians."
"What's his, her, or its name?" asked Keith.
Jahv made a sound with his mouth that sounded like a cross between a fart and a sneeze.
"With that, I'm not sure I want to hear the music." remarked Keith.
"Aw, come on, where's your spirit of adventure?" countered Davy. "Any way we can get a demonstration?"
There was a small black button on the back of the package. Jahv pushed it. And what sounded like a three-ton pig screaming bellowed across the music store. No one even looked up. Three screams later, the «demo» halted.
"That's — it?" asked Davy, trying to be polite.
Keith wasn't as diplomatic. "What the hell was that? And you gripe about our heavy metal?"
"This is very soothing to the antennae!" replied Jahv.
Davy managed a slight grin, Keith rolled his eyes, and the three boys left the store. Keith expressed interest in whatever sort of arcade the Mall might have, and Jahv said he knew of one. On the way there, however, they passed a toy store. Davy decided he wanted to have a look. Jahv grinned, and Keith just shrugged.
The first thing Davy noticed was a huge, chrome-plated, futuristic rifle that looked like it was right out of Star Wars or Star Trek — but a whole lot better made than any toy he had ever seen on Earth. He picked it up and pulled the trigger, initially planning to make a "Zap!" noise with his mouth, but he was spared the trouble when a loud zapping noise not only burst forth from the rifle, but so did a short burst of light that whipped out of the store, into the mall, and blew a few chunks out of the wall across the way.
"Jeez!" said Keith, flinching. "Put that thing down! Cripes, you call that a toy?"
Jahv inspected the device. "Must be a fresh power pack or something. Of course, the warning label DOES say it's not for indoor use."
Davy was still exploring. He saw a large action figure that looked like a futuristic soldier on display. It stood about a foot tall, and was outfitted in armor and a fancy helmet. Davy picked it up.
The figure moved to turn its entire upper body to face Davy, and raised its arm to raise the visor on its helmet. The face beneath it, relatively human in appearance except for being blue, scowled and said, "Listen, sport, unless you're planning to buy me, and I'm not scanning a cred-card on you, don't handle the merchandise, all right? Now put me down!"
"I'm sorry, I — " stammered Davy. Keith came over and extracted the figure from Davy's hand and set it back on its display pedestal. "Just as well, Davy." he said. "Ever since I saw the movie 'Small Soldiers', I've been a little worried about army-like action figures with too much attitude."
The threesome headed out of the toy store, and shortly came to the arcade. Instead of machines, however, there were seve
ral dozen booths set up throughout the place. "This is a good one," said Jahv, pointing to one. "It's called Swamp Hunt. Come on."
"How the heck did you ever recognize our arcade machines?" asked Davy, as the three entered the darkened booth. "This is nothing like them."
Jahv grinned. "History readers. Our arcade machines, or simulators, were once on flat display screens, the way yours are now."
"So, is this some sort of virtual reality game, or something?" asked Keith.
"More like the holocron." said Jahv. "Which I suppose is something like virtual reality." Jahv pressed a small glowing button on the wall of the booth. Instantly he, Davy, and Keith were dressed in camouflage vests, trousers, and boots, and carrying blaster rifles not too dissimilar from the toy Davy had been playing with. There were dense trees all around them, and their feet were sunk in what looked like about six inches of swamp muck.
"Ya wanna tell us what the objective of the game is?" asked Keith.
"We're hunting an ancient prehistoric serpent." said Jahv. "We're on the clock, too. If we don't find it in five cycles, about seven of your minutes, I think, the game shuts down and we get a zero score."
"Prehistoric serpent." muttered Keith. "Great — just what I need — another dinosaur after messing with that thing in the lake."
The three boys made their way through the dense jungle. A few minutes later, they heard a nearby snapping of twigs. They readied their weapons, and a fierce — blue, five-foot-tall chipmunk sauntered through the bushes towards them. The cartoonish creature had a surprised look on his face when he saw the three boys. "Oh! I'm dweadfully sowwy. I seem to have gotten wost. Which way is the Flarney's Adventure Game Booth?"
Davy started laughing, Keith just shook his head, and Jahv looked mildly annoyed. "Five booths down to your right."
The chipmunk bowed politely and said "Thank you.", and left.
"That's the problem with running a holographic program inside a holocron." remarked Jahv, mostly under his breath to himself. "Sometimes you get crossed programs."
Davy finally stopped giggling. "I think that sort of built up our adventure levels for a while. There anything in this Mall that'll let us unclench a bit?"
Jahv, shutting down the simulator game, thought for a second. "There's a health club with a sort of natural environment sauna."
"They'd let kids into that?" asked Keith.
Jahv grinned. "You forgot where you are. This is a holocron program, remember? We can go where we please."
Keith shrugged. "Works for me." Davy nodded his agreement and the three boys headed off.
The health club was at once familiar and bizarre. There were aerobic workouts in progress, although some of the participants weren't entirely humanoid. One of the individuals (it was impossible to determine gender) looked like a twelve-foot-long, very thick snake, who kept coiling, uncoiling, and then coiling her body in the opposite direction in rhythm to some upbeat music that certainly sounded better than what Jahv had played for them in the music store.
There was a weight room, and one muscular individual with four arms was using two sets of huge weights, first pressing one set, then the other. Running on a nearby treadmill, if it could be called running, was what looked vaguely like a large octopus.
Jahv led Keith and Davy towards the back, to a door with more alien script on it, and a digital display sign with more alien script in illuminated green. "Good, it's unoccupied." remarked Jahv.
The door slid open to reveal a room about the size of a walk-in closet. "This is the sauna?" asked Davy.
"No," said Jahv, "this is where you two leave your clothes. They're not permitted in the sauna."
Keith shrugged and pulled off his shorts and removed his sandals, and Davy dispensed with his overalls. Then they went through a second sliding door.
Steam emerged from a large region across the floor. That region, however, was not steaming water. It was bubbling, dark olive green mud. "You're kidding, right?" said Davy hesitantly. "Green mud?"
"It's very therapeutic." remarked Jahv. "Gets all the stress out of your system."
"How deep is it?" asked Keith, looking intrigued.
"About two feet." explained Jahv. "There are seating areas within the mud, and of course the walkway around the perimeter, for those…" he glanced at Davy, "reluctant souls who might only wish to dip their feet in or something."
"Heck with that!" retorted Keith, who had backed up several feet into the short corridor which led to the small room where they had left their clothes. He then took a running start and yelled "Cannonball!" He brought his feet up and flew into the green mud, which made a loud SPLORK! noise as Keith hit.
Seconds later, a green-mud-covered Keith popped to the surface. "Yow!" he exclaimed. "This stuff is pretty hot! But that was a blast!"
Jahv had walked down a couple of nearby steps, but was now swimming out towards Keith. Davy was still at the side of the sauna pool. Jahv scowled, somewhat amusedly. "This was more or less your idea, Davy. Are you not going to participate?"
"Heck, he's still getting that 'haunted mud' story out of his mind from where Keyro landed." laughed Keith.
Jahv made his way back to the edge of the sauna pool, and tried splashing some of the mud on Davy. Davy backed up a few steps. "Don't make me come out there and throw you in." said Jahv. "I'm a lot stronger than you are."
Davy frowned, but came closer to the pool. "Well, okay. But I don't want to stumble on the way in. Lend me a hand?"
Jahv stood, came to the top step, and extended a hand to Davy. Davy, catching the young alien completely unawares, hauled Jahv out of the mud, lowered him to the floor, slightly twisted his arm behind him, and then sat down on his back. This, of course, got a fair bit of mud on Davy, but he didn't seem to mind. "Now, Mr. Lot-Stronger-Than-Us-Poor-Humans, here's a little lesson in leverage, and we won't be throwing any more mud in my direction, will we?"
Jahv was giggling. He knew Davy wasn't serious. "Okay, okay! I give! Cousin! Cousin!"
"The word is 'Uncle'." called Keith, who had come over to the edge of the sauna pool to watch the amusement.
Davy let Jahv up, and then jumped into the mud pool in a fair approximation of Keith's cannonball. Jahv himself re-entered, and for the next several minutes, the three boys wrestled around, until the heat and the strain of moving around in the thick mud exhausted them. They headed for the edge of the pool to catch their collective breath and talk.
"Jahv," asked Keith, "that replicator thing you brought with you. Is there anything it can't make?"
"It's actually rather limited." said Jahv. "I'm trying to get it to make machine parts for a project I have in mind. But it's good for some stuff. Mostly small stuff."
"Why, when you have that bottomless backpack, would you even need it?" asked Davy.
"Some of what the fabricator — and for that matter the food replicator — can do is make things we can't carry with us. Perishable items especially. Certain medications, stuff like that. But they have their limits. The food replicator couldn't be used to feed the world, or anything."
"Why not?" asked Keith.
"Power pack would burn out long before then." said Jahv. "Theoretically, the fabricator can make replacement power packs — if I can get it to do that. But they're really not designed for such massive use. It's like — I don't know how to make a comparison that you'd understand."
"Like using one candle to light an entire house?" asked Davy.
Jahv nodded. "Close enough, I guess."
"You mentioned perishable medications." said Keith. "You a doctor or something?"
Jahv giggled. "No. But even kids younger than Keyro have to have some first-aid training to travel in space. And you get more training each year. I can't do surgery or diagnose complicated illnesses or anything. But I can take care of minor injuries and stuff. Space travel may be fairly common where I'm from, but it's never one-hundred-percent safe. We don't take it for granted. Space can be a very dangerous place."
Keit
h suddenly thought of something. "Hey, how long we been in here?"
"In the mud?" asked Davy.
"No, in this whole holocron thing. Since the lake." replied Keith.
"I think it's been about three hours." remarked Jahv. "I'm still getting used to your time measurements."
Keith cringed. "That makes it late afternoon. I dunno about Davy and Martin, but I need to be getting home."
"Yeah, me too, really." added Davy. "But this has been a blast!"
"Holocron access." said Jahv. The device appeared to be floating on the mud seconds later. "End program."
That put the three boys back in the dome-tent. The mud was completely gone. Their clothes were piled about five feet away from them. Keith and Davy wandered over and redressed. "All that mud just disappeared!" said Keith.
"It was holographic." said Jahv, grinning.
"It sure FELT real enough." remarked Keith.
There was a rustle at the dome-tent. Davy looked over, and grinned. "THEIRS isn't holographic."
Keyro and Martin appeared in the entryway, both plastered in mud. If it weren't for Keyro's large eyes and antennae, it would have been hard to distinguish one from another. But something wasn't quite right. Keyro was supporting most of Martin's weight — rather effortlessly, it looked like — and Martin had a pained expression on his face.
Keith was the first to notice. "What happened?"
Then Martin limped in and it was obvious. There was an ugly gash on his upper leg. The boy was close to tears, but trying to be brave.
"We think there was a sharp tree branch or something under the mud." said Keyro.
"We should clean him up and take him home, quickly." said Keith.
"May I try something?" asked Jahv. "I might be able to heal this much more quickly."
My Friend is an Alien (niklas and friends) Page 6