The Slug Invasion

by Matthew Pelly

  Chapter 5 - I'm back, just-recently-born-person!

  The Human

  "What?" I asked loudly, flabbergasted. What on Earth were Cyborg ships doing around Earth?

  "Recall what I said earlier", said Matthew testily. "And that answers your question."

  I looked at Phill. "I know nothing of this", he claimed defensively.

  Everyone around the entire cylinder was speechless - although, this wasn't a major achievement for most of us. But no one made any kind of movement; we were all waiting anxiously for what would happen next. Or, at least, Phill and I were. Perhaps the other Slugs could see what Matt was seeing through their dishes?

  "Ahh, wait a sec", breathed out Matthew.

  Boy butt in, "Hold on, those aren't whole Cyborg ships. They've been destroyed!"

  "How did such an event occur?" asked Phill, after a moment.

  "Who cares?" asked Matt, turning around with a huge smile on his face. "They're not a threat! Let's get into our scout ships to land."

  "Alrighty then", I said to myself. And that was that.

  A little while later, Frank, Matthew, Phill, Carmen, Boy, Rosetta and I were all in one ship.

  "Is this the same one we took to land on Slugenis?" I asked, noticing that the straps I was normally tied into were in the same place I'd left them.

  "Yep", answered Matthew. "And the same one we used to get from Earth to the interstellar ship that was at Jupiter. I like this ship; it's served us well."

  "Very well then", Phill said, as if his opinion determined whether or not Matt could have his way. I saw Carmen smirk at him, perhaps thinking the same thing that I was.

  After we left the starcruiser, there was a time of zero gravity. I asked why we didn't spin the ship around for the circular gravity, since the scout ship was designed like a cylinder (along with every other Slug ship I'd been in), but Boy told me it wasn't worth it, since we had parked the starcruiser too close to Earth to justify it. Same reason we'd had no gravity just before landing on Slugenis then.

  This didn't greatly disappoint me, as I used the short amount of time I had flipping around like a maniac and jumping from wall to wall. I tried to convince Rosetta to join in with me (since I knew Phill was a no-go, and the others were all in their dishes, held in by straps), but she only gave a half-hearted effort.

  It wasn't too long after that that I felt the pull of Earth towards a flat end of the cylinder take hold of the ship, until I could no longer do any of the fun stuff. I spent the next few minutes trying to survive the violent rocking and shaking of the craft (after Matthew had tied me down, of course) as it descended through the atmosphere. I would've liked to see the map with the orange dot again, but we had parked the starcruiser so close that we were already on top of it.

  As the ship tried desperately to kill by vibration the little creatures residing inside it, I asked as loud as I could, "What will we do once we land?"

  "Rendezvous with Pauline, firstly", called back Boy.

  Matthew corrected him, "Or, should you say" - and he pronounced the word as it's spelt - "ren-dez-vous?"

  "No, he should say rendezvous", shouted Phill, pronouncing it the right way.

  "Then what?" I asked, before Matt could get in with anything else.

  But he got in anyway, as he yelled, "Find out what the hell dead Cyborg ships are doing around their planet. And then ren-dez-vous!"

  That killed the conversation (even Phill knew better than to reply), so we remained quiet until the scout ship had stopped trying to splatter us in its insides and landed somewhere with a loud thump.

  "Well then", Matthew said, after a few moments of silence. "I suppose that it's time to get out. You know. And talk to the humans?"

  "Yes", agreed Carmen.

  "Indeed", agreed Phill as well, and he untied himself. Once freed, he automatically came to untie me, which made me swear that one day I was gonna figure out those stupid straps.

  Since the ship was standing upright, we were all standing on the bottom end of the cylinder, away from the view screen. There was a door, almost completely flush with the beginning of the wall, that needed a signal from a Slug to open. When no one moved to do anything, however, I stepped forward and tried to yank it open. To my surprise, it actually worked; the door slid sideways to reveal the small chamber just before the exterior door.

  "That opened pretty easy", I commented.

  "That's because the ship knows we're on the ground", Boy explained. "You won't be able to do that while in space."

  "I should hope not", Phill said, "or I might have to use my body to plug the hole."

  "You wouldn't fit into that hole", said Frank.

  "And your body's the wrong shape", added Carmen.

  Phill somehow huffed a sigh of defeat. "Very well then", he said sadly. "I will just have to grab hold of something and save myself while all of you organics with your relatively weak strength get sucked out into the vacuum."

  That would've painted a grisly, yet somewhat humorous picture, but Boy interrupted with, "The door's not going to open while we're flying. And even if it does, there's another behind it, remember?" But that didn't stop each of us from chuckling at Phill.

  With that, we all crowded into the cramped space between the interior and exterior doors. Matt placed his palm firmly onto a spike, which closed the door behind us.

  "Doesn't that bloody hurt?" I gave an outburst.

  "No", Matt explained. "But I'll explain it some other time. Preferably when we're not about to epically exit our spaceship onto a world that doesn't have spaceships."

  "We do so have spaceships!" I complained.

  Rosetta told me calmly, "Compared to Slug ships, they don't really count."

  I gave her a bad look, just as Phill said, "I agree with Ethan." I let out a shout of triumph in my head, but I didn't say anything out loud because I wasn't sure what exactly I was supposed to be triumphant about. And I didn't want him to clarify any further; he probably only agreed about some minor part.

  The outer door opened, purposely letting bright sunlight directly into my eyes. The sun was directly overhead, something I wasn't used to on Slugenis, whose star kept low in the sky the whole time. Shielding them, I looked up as we exited the craft, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Dammit - I was starting to get cloud withdrawal symptoms.

  The gravity felt slightly less than what I was used to on Slugenis and the trip over here in the starcruiser, and it wasn't boiling hot or anything, so that was a good start. I might even be able to vary my diet a bit.

  Then I took note of my surroundings, and saw the federal Parliament House standing a short distance in front of us, looking exactly as it had when I'd seen pictures of it from school. "You've got to be kidding me", I said.

  "Aha!" shouted Matt. "Surprise!"

  I said nothing as he started walking towards the building, and didn't even bother to ask how he knew exactly where it was and where to land. I soon followed step, partly hoping that that would be the last time he just randomly did something like that without telling anyone, but mostly wondering what else he had in store for us. Knowing him, it was something he considered to be awesome.

  Understandably, a great crowd of people had come to see what that thing was that just landed in their national front yard. They all looked at us, rather curiously, as we walked towards Parliament House. I had no idea what they must be thinking; we were the only ship that had landed so far, and we all looked human unless someone looked very closely.

  To my surprise, it was Phill who spoke the first words. "Greetings, people!" he shouted to the masses. "There is nothing to fear; we may not be human, but we are on your side. We shall first approach your building of representation to give our regards to your leaders."

  "Nice one, Phill", Boy stated. Did he mean it, or was he referring to the fact that the people looking at us now looked more confused than before?

  Regardless, we never got to enter the House. More people came streaming out of it first, until we were
fully surrounded by a huge crowd of people. Where did they all come from?

  "Don't you go vandalising our ship now, you hear me?" I called out, getting nervous that we were getting separated from the craft.

  Then came a familiar voice. "Ethan! Matthew! Phill! Carmen! Boy! Frank! Rosetta!"

  All six of us turned towards the Parliament, to see the source of the voice looking much older than we remembered seeing her just a month or two ago. It was Pauline, and she did not look as energetic and young as she used to.

  "Haha!" shouted Matthew, obviously revelling in the majority of people thinking that we were somewhat strange. "I'm back, just-recently-born-person!"

  "Yes you are!" cried Pauline as she briskly walked towards us, the crowd (having not yet uttered a sound) parting to let her through.

  She looked pretty similar to how I remembered, except she wasn't as fit, had plenty of wrinkles, greyer hair, and wore glasses now. And, I could swear that she was wearing the exact same black coat that she always used to. I smiled at that.

  She approached me first, and actually hugged me, bringing back my memories of the awkwardness when we'd hugged not so long ago - at least, not so long ago for me. Although I'd never experienced it before, and it wasn't unpleasant, she had this distinct smell about her that my brain immediately and without evidence associated with old woman.

  "Hello again", I told her. "I'm glad to see that Phill's prediction was incorrect, and that you are still alive."

  "It wasn't a prediction", the Cyborg said indignantly. "It was a simple acknowledgment of probability!"

  "That's fine", Pauline said, letting go of me. She felt much frailer and sounded much older than I remembered. "But, Phill, your prediction was still incorrect."

  Phill wasn't happy with this, but Pauline just gave a little laugh. "It's still nice to see you, though", she said hopefully, utilising the ancient art of the guilt-trip.

  "And it's nice to see you", Phill conceded, having no choice in the reply. Nobody, no matter who they are or what form of life they were, can escape such a devious trap.

  Not wanted to be left out, Matt said in a whining voice, "I think it's nice to see you too."

  "Don't think I've forgotten about any of you!", Pauline said, and proceeded to hug each of us individually, even Phill which surprised me a lot. And believe me, the look on his face was priceless; I think the only time he'd ever been touched affectionately was that time I tried (and utterly failed) to haul his broken body out of the sunlight.

  After she'd done her rounds, Pauline ushered us towards Parliament House. "Come, come", she urged us. "There is likely an audience already awaiting you. The Prime Minister is here."

  "It's fortunate that she is not away", Boy commented.

  "He", Pauline corrected him.

  Boy gave a startled pause (as possible as it is to give a startled pause), and said, "The Prime Minister underwent a gender change?"

  I was more shocked than anything at this statement, but Matthew just burst out laughing. Phill even gave a smile. Although I couldn't see the faces of the other three Slugs, I guessed that they were probably likewise confused.

  "No", the biologist tried to explain. "Someone else is the Prime Minister now. It changes quite frequently."

  After he gave Boy some time to register this, Phill stated, "It is difficult to imagine what kinds of benefits such a system brings; all it seems to do is create confusion and ambiguity as to who the leader of the country is."

  "Perhaps", Pauline said.

  "What happened to the old one?" I asked.

  "She has retired", Pauline stated, and left it at that.

  Meanwhile, the huge crowd surrounding us - although they left a clear path for us to walk down to the House - had still not said anything. Or, at least, anything that we could make out.

  "The people are acting a big strange", I observed. "They're not trying to talk to us, nor are they trying to kill us."

  "Or anal probe us", Matt added.

  "So what's up?" I finished.

  "Well, the old Prime Minister and I spread the word about the Slugs. And the Cyborgs", she amended when Phill gave her a look. "So everyone knew that you were out there, and coming back, but they'd never seen you before. I neglected to take pictures, unfortunately."

  "No, but you did take voice recordings", Carmen said.

  "Yes, but they didn't describe you", Pauline replied.

  "It's OK!" shouted Phill to the crowds. "We are friendly with you. There's no need to worry or fear us!" No one said anything about that, and the crowd didn't seem to react at all (other than the expected and constant flashing of mobile phone cameras).

  After another few moments of silent walking, we were almost at the building. All of the windows I could see had people staring out of them. This was worse than Slugenis; they watched us wherever we went, sure, but it wasn't such blatant drop-everything-else-just-to-stare kind of staring.

  "Say, what's the deal with some Cyborg ship debris we scanned in your orbit?" asked Matt casually.

  "Oh, that?" said Pauline. "We'll explain it inside. But we were attacked by some Cyborgs."

  "And you won?" asked Phill, confounded. As for me, I hadn't processed that fact that Earth was attacked by Cyborgs yet.

  "Yeah. It wasn't entirely difficult, either."

  Matthew looked at me with a massive smile. "Now you see why I always say that humanity is superior to the Slugs?"

  Once inside Parliament House, I looked around a bit, as I'd never been in there before. "See, Matt?" I said with a smug expression, pointing at the huge marble columns and epic wide staircases. "This is what a place of power is meant to look like."

  Pauline asked me, "What do you mean?"

  "You won't believe it", I began, "but the Slug King of the entire Slug empire lives in a crappy, one-storey box-house that is not different to any other Slug house!"

  "It actually has a specialised dish", Phill corrected me, but as usual, he was ignored whenever he made such nitpicky comments.

  "Really?" asked Pauline, looking as astounded as she so rightly should be. "There's no castle or anything?"

  "Nope", answered Matthew. "What made you think that there would be?"

  "Well", replied the biologist, "when you called it the 'Slug King', that implies that it lives like a king."

  "It does", said Matt. "Like a Slug King."

  "Alright, enough about that", I quickly said. "Let's just agree that they're weird."

  "Agreed", agreed Phill.

  "Anyway", Matthew started after a pause, "let's carry on then. Are we going to see the Prime Minister?"

  "Yes", answered Pauline as she led the way.

  Looking around, I commented, "You know, it's kind of weird having so many people looking at us as if we're celebrities or something."

  Phill told me, "After this, we likely will become celebrities."

  "Yeah", added Matthew. "I expect to be on the front cover of every goddamned newspaper and magazine tomorrow." I started to say that perhaps a different Slug or our ship would be on the front cover instead of him, but he cut me off by leaning towards me and saying in a low voice, "Every goddamned one."

  We spent the next few minutes following Pauline around the place as she led us to wherever we were going. Every person we were in sight of stayed really still, as if we could only detect movement or something. It also amazed me how everybody seemed to have a mobile phone with a camera on it.

  Eventually, I was starting to agree with the Slugs' idea; Parliament House was huge, and it was taking us forever to get around. There were so many hallways and staircases and other stuff that I had to wonder at the efficiency of the place in an emergency. Lord knows what Phill would be thinking about all of this.

  Finally, after around one-and-a-half forevers of walking around, Pauline announced, "Here we are! We were trying to get you away from the public, so we can discuss things in peace."

  "Makes sense", commented Frank.

  So we walked into an office spac
e of sorts, with a desk on one side and a middle-aged guy sitting behind it.

  "Greetings", announced Phill loudly. "How do you do?"

  "How do you do what?" asked Rosetta.

  "It's a greeting", Frank told her.

  "But it doesn't make sense", she complained.

  "Of course it doesn't", added Carmen. "Nothing that humans say seems to make sense. They contradict their own language rules all the time."

  "It's a human thing", I contributed.

  Phill said, "I was only trying to say something that would be familiar to him so he would view us in a positive light."

  "Don't try and be familiar", I complained. "You're supposed to be an alien! Act like one!"

  Matt burst out laughing at this, but Phill pressed on. "As I was communicating", the Cyborg continued to the man, "greetings. Are you this country's Prime Minister?"

  "No", he stuttered out, "I'm his secretary."

  There was a short pause before all of us started laughing (except the poor secretary, who looked quite flustered).

  "Please tell the Prime Minister that we are ready to see him", Pauline told the man after the laughter had mostly died down.

  After a few seconds of mumbling into a phone, the secretary motioned us towards a door, saying "You may enter now."

  We all filed into a larger office than that one, with an even larger desk. It seemed that desk sizes indicated rank or something. Whatever the reason, I decided that when I got a desk, it would be the biggest one ever built. That would show them.

  There was another middle-aged man behind this desk, and he quickly stood up, walked around it, and approached us to shake our hands. "Welcome", he said simply.

  He shook my hand first, and he had one of those handshakes that simultaneously crushed my hand and made me feel like an inadequate wimp because I couldn't give any semblance of a squeeze whilst underneath his super-grip.

  "Hello", I told him, putting my hands behind my back to mask my rubbing the sore one.

  He offered his hand to Phill next, who took it and said, "I heard that the handshake originated from the concept of proving that I have no hidden blades up my sleeve. But what if I have one in my left hand?"

  "I'm not sure", the Prime Minister replied confidently, so he earned some points there for not losing his cool.

  After going through a bit more of us, however, he did lose his cool when Matt went to shake his hand. Their fingers clasped together, but then another hand, which had grown out of the top of Matthew's wrist, bent down and grabbed the Minister's wrist, along with the Slug shouting, "Blarg!"

  The poor guy reflexively jerked his hand back, while Matt grinned at him and said, "Got you."

  Once he was done (and with a newfound appreciation with what he was dealing with), he sat down behind his desk again. "So", he began. "Once again, we'd like to welcome you to Earth, and assure you that..."

  "We've already been here", Frank informed him. "And the previous Prime Minister was aware of that. Let us begin with why there is Cyborg debris orbiting your planet."

  "Ahh, that", he said. "Well, not too long ago, we were attacked by three enemy ships, presumably from this race you call, 'Cyborgs'." He looked around at us, as if he expected us to shudder or something.

  Echoing my thoughts, Matthew prompted him, "Carry one, they're not like he-who-must-not-be-named or something."

  I saw Pauline smile at this, and even the Minister might have slightly grinned. "Well, they attacked us, without provocation or obvious reason, and we repelled them. They were, after all, only three ships."

  "Earth is classified as a level-four planet", Phill said. "That means that you should not be capable of resisting a Cyborg attacking force."

  "Maybe Earth is actually level-five?" I suggested. Could a planet be level-four-and-a-half?

  "What is this levelling that you speak of?" asked the Prime Minister.

  "Just a Cyborg way of classifying the advancement of life", Matt quickly explained. "So, how were you able to stop them?"

  He continued. "Well, we had considerable intelligence on how your world and war works, thanks to Pauline." He nodded to her.

  "Are you like some kind of alien advisor now?" I asked her.

  "I guess so", she replied.

  "We also knew that there were other life forms out there, some of them probably hostile towards us", the Minister went on. "So, naturally, after you left we invested considerable time and effort into preparing anti-space defensive systems."

  "Ahh", I said. "The Cyborgs got owned by preparation."

  "They weren't owned", Phill tried to defend his former race.

  "They just weren't prepared", the Prime Minister continued. "They didn't seem to react very well when we fired missiles at them. They have this mechanism where a ship can quickly jump to the side, but we fired multiple projectiles, and they couldn't dodge them all." I was reminded of how the Cyborg ship had reacted when we'd fired the LOC at it; it had blasted out a series of explosions down its side, and quickly veered in the opposite direction. It looks like they'd tried to pull the same trick again.

  "You defeated all three with a single salvo?" asked Matt with a look of astonishment on his face.

  "Yes", Pauline answered.

  "Wouldn't America have made all of these weapons?" I asked. "Since when does Australia have massive missiles waiting to defend itself?"

  "Since Australia was attacked by Cyborgs last time you were here", Pauline answered me.

  "Oh", I said.

  "Enough of this", Matthew said eagerly. "Get us some chairs. We have a lot of negotiations to get through."

  The Slug

  We had been deep in negotiations with the Humans for four days now. The leaders of many other powerful countries had flown over as soon as they could to be a part of the action. All conversations were also being recorded and sent to all countries of the United Nations; this was a matter that concerned the entire race, not just some of its countries. It also created great incentive to join the UN, for those one or two countries that hadn't yet. No one wanted to miss out on the new alien information; Pauline could only supply so much.

  The trading had gone considerably well. We'd acquired pretty much everything that Boy and I had discussed; enough nuclear missiles to make anybody happy, more EMP devices than I could count on a one-fingered hand, and lots of little extra stuff. Things like their research on ion engines - to see if we could improve our design - to their synthetic fabrics. Of course, they were careful not to let us know everything about how they built some of these things. Crafty Humans.

  We had given to them just as much as expected. Although they had the Cyborg ship remains, I still had to give them detailed plans of our ship technology, including our own ion engine designs, oxygen recycling systems and radio scanners. I did give them a stern warning, though, that if they plan to set up on other worlds, the smallest problem on Earth could devastate a colony so far away from the homeworld. Things like differing religions and ideals, and an inequality of personal gain within the group, would prohibit an endeavour that couldn't afford to get anything wrong. But only time would tell if they'd listen; unfortunately, time didn't want to tell us right now. That bastard.

  The rest of the scout ships in all of our star cruisers had also landed on the planet, and the Slugs had come streaming out. Most of them were completely deaf, and the ones that weren't couldn't speak fluently yet, but it was still pretty cool. I was currently escorting the entire Slug group that we were trying to teach to speak around Parliament House, explaining the Human parliamentary system - I wasn't using the traditional Slug communication because I was trying to get them used to speech. I didn't mention, however, that this Parliamentary system only applied in Australia; no need to complicate things.

  Just as I finished outlining the differences between the major parties, Ethan strolled up to us.

  'Hey', he said to all of us.

  One of the Slugs gave a very acceptable, 'Hello.'

  'Say, "Hello Ethan"
', I told it.

  'Hello Ethan', it corrected itself.

  The Human said back, 'Hello... what's your name?'

  'He doesn't have one yet', I told him. 'They've only just decided what gender they're going to be.'

  He laughed to himself. 'Decided what gender they're going to be.' I smiled with him, waiting for him to say why he'd approached us. 'So...' he began.

  'Yes?' asked a different Slug.

  'Good tone for a question', I complimented it.

  'Thank you', it said without looking at me. Well, I'd have to teach them to look at the person you're talking to as well.

  'So', Ethan continued. 'When are you leaving Earth again?'

  'These Slugs aren't leaving', I said. 'Even if they don't like it. It's important for some of us to remain here, and continue good relations with the humans.'

  'Ah', he replied. He seemed sad for some reason, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Probably because he hadn't mentioned anything about it. 'What's the plan after Earth, then?' he asked.

  Well, now was as good a time to tell him as any. 'We're going to go on the offensive against the Cyborgs', I started to explain. I was getting excited just thinking about it, and I really tried to talk up my plan as if it was the best idea ever. Even though it most certainly wasn't. 'You remember when Phill was telling us about that Cyborg planet, the one with the huge database of the Cyborg Archives?'

  'Yeah.'

  'I plan to destroy it.'

  He goggled at me, despite not having any goggles on him. 'No way.'

  'Yes way.'

  He continued to goggle. 'Why would you want to destroy that?'

  'It contains a massive store of all Cyborg knowledge', I said casually. 'If we take it out, they won't have access to any of that information anymore. They'd be blind. Or, as blind as us, since we don't have access to it either.'

  'It would probably damage their morale a bit, if you destroyed such a well-defended and significant place.'

  I shrugged. 'Do Cyborgs have morale? Phill's never mentioned it, but I'm hoping that they do, and that you're right.'

  'Can I tell Phill this?' he asked apprehensively.

  'Sure', I replied. 'I was getting around to it anyway. I just wanted to build the suspense all the way up, you know what I mean?'

  'Yeah, I guess.' He looked at me for a few seconds. 'Well, I'll be off then. Good luck with your plan.'

  As he turned around, I called, 'Cya!'

  Another Slug said, 'Goodbye Ethan.'

  'Good job', I told it - I couldn't remember if that one was meant to be a male or female.

  As I turned to continue my lecture to my class of Slugs, I suddenly realised the kind of language that Ethan had been using. Phrases like "when are you leaving Earth" and "good luck with your plan" - he was implying that he wasn't going to be coming with us. He wanted to stay on Earth. He didn't want to come with me.

  I closed my eyes, and tried to tell myself that it was for the best; it would be dangerous if he came, for sure, and he was a Human after all and belonged here. If it wasn't for the war effort, I'd want to stay here with him.

  But although I knew that I couldn't ever force Ethan to do something he didn't want to, and I knew that he'd probably get into some kind of trouble if he did come, I also knew that things would never be the same without the symbol of Humanity around.

  The Human

  We had been on Earth now for longer than we'd stayed on Slugenis, which was pretty lame. I wasn't complaining too much though; we got to stay as official guests in Parliament House, which meant that I got a private bedroom, a private toilet (thank God!), and we got to eat quite good food - although, after a couple of months of eating nothing but nutrition bars, any kind of food would be quite good food. We'd also all gotten a change of clothes, which was quite handy seeing how our old outfits were all old and dirty.

  The rest of the Slugs had landed in style (and by style, I mean spaceships), and Matthew, Boy, Frank, Carmen and Pauline were always making trading deals with a bunch of high-up leaders in some conference room. I couldn't stand being there; it seemed that even when it involved aliens, politics still bored me. Rosetta mostly kept out of it, to keep me company I assumed, and Phill was dropping in and out, as if he couldn't make up his mind if it was important or not.

  I was trying to befriend some of the Slugs that would stay behind on Earth, since Matthew and the others would soon be leaving and I didn't want to be left with Pauline as my only friend. It was easy to tell them apart from the Slugs that wouldn't be staying - although they were in the basic Slug form I was so used to, they still acted more human-like. That, and they weren't constantly busy ferrying whatever supplies Matt had traded with to and from the Slug starcruisers in orbit.

  I was looking for some of these Slugs when I found them, along with Matt, in a group inside Parliament House. I approached them, and said, "Hey."

  "Hello", one of the Slugs told me. Even though it was still mostly monotone, it sounded more like an emotionally dead person now, rather than an alien who had never spoken before. That was a sign of improvement.

  Matthew said to the Slug that spoke to me, "Say, 'Hello Ethan'."

  "Hello Ethan", it echoed.

  "Hello", I told it. "What's your name?"

  "He doesn't have one yet", Matthew said. "They've only just decided what gender they're going to be."

  I had to chuckle at that. "Decided what gender they're going to be", I said to myself. It just sounded so wrong. "So..." I started to say, but was interrupted by another Slug.

  "Yes?"

  "Good tone for a question", Matthew told it.

  "Thank you", the Slug replied.

  "So", I tried again. "When are you leaving Earth again?"

  "These Slugs aren't leaving", he told me. "Even if they don't like it. It's important for some of us to remain here, and continue good relations with the Humans."

  "Ah", I replied. I supposed that that would be my job also. To be an ambassador for the Slugs. Great. "What's the plan after Earth, then?"

  Matthew started to get animated, and it seemed I was about to find out what I was about to miss out on. "We're going to go on the offensive against the Cyborgs. You remember when Phill was telling us about that Cyborg planet, the one with the huge database of the Cyborg Archives?"

  "Yeah."

  "I plan to destroy it."

  I just stared at him. "No way."

  "Yes way."

  "Why would you want to destroy that?" I spluttered. It seemed a pretty random target to go after. Didn't Phill say it was heavily defended?

  "It contains a massive store of all Cyborg knowledge", he explained, as if I didn't already know that. "If we take it out, they won't have access to any of that information anymore. They'd be blind. Or, as blind as us, since we don't have access to it either."

  "It would probably damage their morale a bit, if you destroyed such a well-defended and significant place."

  He shrugged. "Do Cyborgs have morale? Phill's never mentioned it, but I'm hoping that they do, and that you're right."

  I thought about how Phill would react to this plan. "Can I tell Phill this?" I asked first of all, before I decided on how I would tell him.

  "Sure", he replied. "I was getting around to it anyway. I just wanted to build the suspense all the way up, you know what I mean?"

  "Yeah, I guess." After an awkward pause, I deduced that he was in the middle of something before I interrupted him, so I decided to go off and find Phill. "Well, I'll be off then. Good luck with your plan."

  As I walked off, I heard him call, "Cya!" and I imagined that he would say the same thing when he left Earth and I didn't.

  After ages of searching for Phill (and everyone telling me they didn't know where he was), I'd given up on it. I'd just have to find him later. In the meantime, I wanted to go back to my old school, and see how it was going after all this time; I didn't know if it was still open, or even a school anymore.

  So I'd asked around, and some g
overnment guy was now driving me to a small aeroplane that would take me to where the school was. It turned out that being the closest human to a species of intergalactic aliens gave me some privileges. Of course, I'd told everyone else that I was going to be away for the rest of the day, so it wasn't like I just left without mentioning it to anyone, unlike some people (namely, Phill).

  My driver also accompanied me on the plane as well as driving me to it, and he spent every second he had drilling me with questions about the Slugs. I foresaw that, once the Slugs had left, I would be getting a lot more of this.

  "I heard Pauline mention Slug Honour once", he was saying, "and she said it in this strange way, but didn't describe it anymore, at least to me. Do you know what she was talking about?"

  "Yeah", I replied. The guy was had given me a lift and was coming with me, so I felt it a good trade-off to answer his questions. "It's a really strange social system that they have in place to make them better at fighting a war."

  "So do Slugs that win battles have high Honour then?"

  "No, it's very different to our concept of honour." I smiled suddenly as I realised that I was normally in his position, about to hear some astounding thing that would take me a while to wrap my head around. In fact, I still don't think I'd wrapped my head around it.

  I went on, "Matthew told me that it stems from being involved in a war so massive that the life of an individual is considered meaningless. So, basically, every Slug knows that their life is short relative to the life of the Slug empire, and that the only way for them to contribute to this empire is to die for it."

  "Ah. So it's a bit like glory in battle, or something similar?"

  "Yeah, something similar. The only problem is, it didn't really work properly. Instead of seeking a meaningful death, which was the point of the system in the first place, every Slug just craves any death now, no matter how they get it; they just have to make sure that they follow the rules of Honour, such as never taking your own life and so on."

  The guy sat back in his chair (luxurious, reclining chairs I might add) and considered this. "So you're saying that the Slug culture is broken? Can't the authorities fix it? Change the rules?"

  I thought about this. "I guess if they could, they would've done it by now. I don't think any Slug is immune to desiring Honour above all else though. So there's no one to change the system, because everyone benefits from the system... except the empire as a whole. Even the Slug King himself, who rules the whole empire, hates his job because he doesn't get a chance to die."

  He breathed out through his nose (although I'm not sure why I took note of this fact), and then quickly asked, "Wait, 'he'? I thought that Slugs were genderless?"

  "They are, technically", I shrugged. "But it makes it so much easier to call Slugs who haven't taken a human personality a 'he', even if it is sexist."

  "I suppose so", the man agreed.

  And this is how the rest of the flight progressed. By the end of it, I felt satisfaction in knowing that my driver now felt exactly as I did most of the time; caught in a state of massive-information-disbelief, somehow trying to come to terms with the truth of it.

  When the plane landed - much more gracefully than Slug ships usually do - he told me that he'd wait at the plane for me. I thought that perhaps landing a plane in the middle of a populated area might cause a stir, but I didn't see anything.

  The pilot had taken me to a gentle hill, just before the school, so it was a short walk to get there. As I walked, I looked up and got a glorious look at the clouds. Ahh. I've missed those guys. Slugenis' ones were pretty cool and alien, which was fine and all, but you just couldn't beat Earth's.

  Thankfully, after I'd ascended the hill, I saw that the school grounds were still there. They hadn't demolished it then; that would have been greatly disappointing.

  After a bit of walking, I approached the gates, acquired the hidden key (I still knew where it was - hah!), and entered. There was no one around, so it must've been a weekday - I'd lost track of the day a long time ago. I passed the threshold and looked in at our old base of operations.

  It must sound pretty boring, but I spent like the next half an hour just strolling around the place. Even though there were some wonderful clouds above me, I had no trouble keeping my eyes on the school, reminiscing about the place. There'd be plenty of time for clouds later.

  I saw the window of the library that Matthew had originally cracked his head on, when he jumped away from that first Cyborg attack. Obviously, the glass had been replaced, but I could almost still imagine it happening.

  I saw the place where the Cyborg ship had crashed into the school, mucking up our very good plans. The place had been fixed right up, and all the damage repaired. Even the crater it had left was filled and smoothed out again. I wondered how they had explained the massive destruction; if movies taught me anything, they'd blame a gas leak explosion.

  I saw the place where Phill had heroically but perhaps stupidly nearly sacrificed himself to give Pauline, Rosetta and I time to get away - although we didn't even attempt to escape, so it was for nothing in the end.

  I even climbed the building where Rabadootime had chased me up and I'd managed to duck under his grasp because he was momentarily distracted. I still thought that that was pretty dumb; if he was smart, he'd have used me as a hostage or something. Perhaps Cyborgs didn't know what hostages were?

  This was also the place where Matthew got decapitated and thrown out of a window. The window was long-since replaced now, but I could still imagine his head just sitting there on the ground. It was a lot worse at the time, of course, because I'd believed that he was dead.

  Coming back out onto the school grounds, I also found the spot where Rosetta had been gravely injured and tried to let go of her life. She'd told me that she'd think about not dying, but the topic had never been brought up again. Luckily too, because certain things like that tend to get Matt into a crazed mood. And it's kind of creepy when his demeanour just violently changes like that.

  I spent a while like this, but eventually I knew that I'd spent enough time here, wondering around on my own. As I trudged back to the aeroplane, echoing the route to my home I had taken for many years (looking up at the clouds this time, of course), I thought about visiting my hard-waste tip as well, just to see how my abode was holding up. But it was getting dark, and I knew I'd have plenty of time to do whatever I wanted after the Slugs left, so I left it alone for now.

  The Cyborg

  "Greetings", I told the Human that had approached me. I was standing in one of the smaller empty rooms of the Australian central house of governance, contemplating how the Humans viewed me. Now was my opportunity to find out.

  "Hello", the female replied in an uncertain voice. Was she shy of my alien nature, or was she afraid to be communicating with me alone?

  "You don't look like the others", she began. "The Slugs." She said the word as if that particular arrangement of letters was not suitable for the name of a space-faring species. "And the others never go anywhere on their own. You do." Didn't Pauline explain my situation to her? I decided that now was not the time to consider this, and its implications.

  "I am not a Slug", I informed her, utilising as gentle and reassuring a tone as I could manage. I had long ago accepted the fact that Humans seemed to be heavily influenced by how their communications sounded; even still, I was no closer to understanding it. "You are aware of the race that attacked this world recently?", I asked her. "The Slugs' enemy?"

  She nodded, so I clarified, "I'm one of them. A Cyborg."

  Despite my best efforts to gain the trust of the Human, and indeed her entire race, she gave a little gasp and slightly turned away. The best way to get her to heed my words would be to restrain her, and prevent her from escaping, but I deduced that this would only hinder my cause. Instead, I quickly said, "Don't go! I'm not like the rest of my race. I may be a Cyborg, but I am on the Slugs' side now, and therefore, your side."

  Curiosity overrode h
er fear, and she chose to stay; although this was an organic weakness, it worked in my favour now. "I've heard that your two races are great enemies", she said slowly, slightly biting her lip. Why did she do that? Did it communicate some vital concept she could not express with words? Before I could ask this, she asked me, "How did you come to side with the Slugs? Is this common?"

  "No", I told her. "I am the first Cyborg who has ever gone against my species. In fact, it is because of your planet that this was not only possible, but happened."

  "How so?" she asked. My strategy of provoking her intrigue seemed to be working; she was slowly moving closer to me, perhaps subconsciously. That was good.

  I explained, "Normally, Slugs and Cyborgs have no way to communicate or interact with each other; it was your system of verbal sound-wave speech that allowed us to bridge this communication divide." She made no comment on this, so I assumed that she knew of the Slugs' method of inter-Slug contact and continued. "However, this is not enough to cause a Cyborg to defect. Many of this planet's years ago, I was defeated by the Slug Matthew - you should know him - in orbit around the Earth. Once he defeated me, he bound me securely and imprisoned me here in a natural cave formation, where I was left alone and unable to move."

  "How long were you here for?"

  "A time period of approximately 20 years."

  The Human issued the strange phenomenon of a low-decibel whistle. I understood this to be a symbol of awe, but I could think of no legitimate reason why she could not instead tell me, 'I am in awe'.

  Still intrigued, she asked, "And how did this cause you to team up with him?"

  'Team up with him' - a decidedly Human phrase. However, I made no comment on her peculiar language, but simply answered the question that she used it to pose. "It didn't, at first. What it did was cause me to lose most of my allegiance to the Cyborg race, and care more about my own well-being and survival. When Matthew presented me with an option to escape my confinement, I took it."

  "Ah", she answered. "So you are on our side then, because we are your best option."

  "Yes", I answered. "However, I am a fully intelligent and self-aware being; my connection to the Slugs is now... deeper than that." I did not inform her that it was foolish to instantly trust me and my story; if I wasn't on her side, then I would still give the same anecdote. I risked a strategy that I calculated should improve my sincereness, leaning towards her and whispering fiercely, "Never forget that."

  "I never will", she breathed. After a few seconds of staring into my eyes - did she hope to find something there? They were just cameras that looked like eyes - she seemed to become suddenly aware of how closely she had moved to me during our conversation. I had endeavoured to not make any lateral movements, so as to preserve her current opinion of my non-hostile intentions.

  The Human started to back away. "I should be leaving now." As she turned and exited the room, she called behind her shoulder, "What's your name?"

  "My real one or my Slug-provided one?" I asked her. Unlike the others, I hadn't forgotten my official designation of CY-4384:G.

  "I'll take that as an answer", she laughed and left me to myself.

  What could that possibly mean? Why did she laugh it to me? What was she laughing at? Despite my best efforts, despite everything I tried, I still couldn't understand these Humans and their irrational and illogical conventions!

  However, despite my lack of understanding, it seemed clear to me that this female, whomever she was, just became the 3rd Human I had befriended and began to earn the trust of. As at the time that I had left the planet, that left only approximately 6 to 7 billion to go.

  The Human

  "Assemble, assemble!" called out Matthew. Since we were all already assembled, and there was only eight of us, it wasn't really necessary to call that. It was later on that night. I'd just gotten off the plane when Pauline met me and took me here, saying that we had a 'meeting' to go to. Now, were all in some conference room inside Parliament House, even Phill, who dared to show his face again.

  "What's this meeting for?" I asked, although I kinda already knew; Matthew was about to tell everybody else his plan to destroy the Cyborg Archives. I wanted to be the one to tell Phill though. Damn.

  "It is time for me to reveal my ultimate plan", my best friend announced.

  "I hope it's not something crazy", said Boy apprehensively.

  "Come now, Boy", Matt told him, with mock hurt in his voice. "You, who know me so well, should know that whenever I announce an 'ultimate plan', it's most definitely going to be crazy."

  "Fantastic", muttered Phill.

  "It's not going to get us killed, is it?" asked Rosetta. Matthew gave her a quick sharp look, but no one else seemed to get it; it seemed that Rosetta had gained some kind of willingness to actually remain alive. I felt like congratulating and welcoming her to the world of a normal organism.

  "It might", Matt shrugged. "But, then again, what isn't likely to get us killed these days?"

  "Breathing", commented Phill.

  "Unless you have some terrible breathing disorder that would kill you if you took a breath", I cut in.

  The Cyborg looked at me. "Then you're likely to die either way." I stopped talking.

  "Anyway", Matt said. "I'm the one making the announcement here. Now, I haven't told anyone but Ethan what I plan to do. Yes, that's right, I told Ethan before you." He wasn't referring to anyone in particular here, so no one seemed to be offended by it. It was strange that I could almost tell whether or not a Slug was offended, but our inner group's behaviour so mimicked that of a human now that both verbal and nonverbal communication with them was practically seamless.

  "What is your announcement?" asked Pauline.

  "Phill", Matt began. "What was the name of that planet you told us about ages ago? The Cyborg Archives?"

  "PD-0034:N", he replied.

  "That's the one", Matthew said. "My plan is that we're going to attack and destroy that planet." When everyone was silent, he added, "With guns. Big guns." Still, no one said anything, so he added to that, "Really big guns."

  "You want to destroy the Cyborg Archives?" asked Boy, rightfully astonished.

  "I informed you that that planet is heavily defended", Phill added.

  "Why should we destroy it?" asked Frank, deciding to add some input to the discussion.

  "I've already explained all of this to Ethan", Matt almost sighed. "Something to do with making them blind. But the point is, they have access to a huge amount of information that I don't want them to have access to. You know, knowledge is power, that kind of thing? Hence, our mission."

  "Your mission", Rosetta amended for him. "This sounds incredibly dangerous, given how defended Phill had indicated the planet is."

  Matthew opened his mouth in shock. "Why, Rosetta, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you didn't want to go on this mission because you might die."

  There was a stunned silence, and I determined that when it came to their Honour, Slugs didn't like to joke around. So I tried to save the situation with, "No, she just doesn't want to waste her life on a cause which may prove to be fruitless."

  "Exactly", she gratefully said, "although I don't think the cause will grow any fruit either way." Well, good enough.

  "Well", Matthew said, "I'm going, and I've got an entire fleet of starcruisers that will be going too. If you like, you can stay here with Ethan; I'm sure we could use some Slugs left on Earth who are as fluent - "

  "Wait, Ethan is staying here?" asked Boy, totally interrupting him.

  "I thought we had discussed this", Phill told me, "and agreed that you wanted to remain with us."

  "What?" asked Matt, looking at me in a confused way. "You do?"

  Great. "Well, kind of... yes", I said. "But if you think I shouldn't come along, and you'd rather I stayed here, that'll be fine..."

  "No it won't", said Boy, rounding on the bewildered Matthew now. "Of course he has to come with us, he's been here from the beginning! You can't ma
ke him stay here."

  "Agreed", stated Rosetta.

  "Agreed", stated Phill.

  Before anyone could agree to Phill's agreement with Rosetta's agreement, Matt held up his hands, saying, "Wait, wait, wait." He pointed at me in a way that made his very finger look like it was accusing me of a terrible crime. "If you do want to come, then why were you full-on making it out like you wanted to stay?"

  "Well", I answered, "I thought that you'd want that, and I didn't want to impose..."

  "Aha!" shouted Matthew. "I see what's going on, this is all a huge misunderstanding. I was devastated when I thought that you didn't want to come, I never thought that you wouldn't want to, but I decided that if you didn't want to, I wouldn't force you.

  "And as for you", he continued, jabbing his finger at me again and getting louder, "don't... don't... you don't just assume that I wanted to leave you behind! Where did you get that from?"

  I explained, "Well, I assumed that it would be pretty dangerous, and that I wouldn't be a very productive member of the team, so it would be safest for me to remain here. You know, in case I die there or something."

  "I agree that that would be the safest course of action", Pauline put in. "What if something happens to Ethan there? You don't want him to be in danger; he can't defend himself." Hey, I'm not that hopeless! Alright, alright, maybe I am.

  Matthew breathed out slowly. "OK. OK. The thing is, Ethan, the Cyborg Archives are so far away from here, you'd be dead of old-age before I could ever get back. So if you don't come, that will be the same thing to me as you dying; we'd never see each other again."

  "Oh", I said. Well. That cleared that up; Matthew would rather take me to a maybe-death then condemn me to a certain-death (from his viewpoint, at least). What happened to the whole 'doing this thing that no one wants to happen for your own good'? Oh well. It meant that I wasn't doomed to be stuck on Earth after all. Well, I appreciate the planet and everything, but come on; alien battles! I'm sure that Earth would be cool with it.

  "It's settled then!", announced Boy. "Ethan is coming. How about you, Rosetta?"

  She sighed. "Of course I'm coming." Excellent. I didn't want anybody to stay behind now that I knew I was going to be there too.

  "Oh man", complained Matt. "I had prepared an epic goodbye speech to you, Ethan, it was fantastic. Something about symbols and anchors; Phill would've broken down crying when he heard it."

  "I highly doubt that", commented the Cyborg.

  "Speaking of you, Phill", Matthew turned to him. "Time for your job. I kinda don't know where PDN, or whatever it is, is located. Reckon you can take us there?"

  "PD-0034:N", Phill corrected him. "I know it's coordinates using the Cyborg system; with some work, it should be possible to convert it into a format your ships will understand."

  "What are it's Cyborg coordinates?" I asked.

  "PD-0034:N", he answered. Like that really answered my question.

  "Righty then", announced Matthew. "We have some work to do. Boy and I will work with Phill to convert the coordinates of PDN."

  I suddenly sneezed loudly, causing everyone looked at me. I quickly wiped my nose with the back of my hand and pretended that nothing had happened. But when everyone kept staring at me, I demanded, "What, you never seen a sneeze before?"

  "PD-0034:N", Phill corrected Matt, after a brief awkward pause. "In addition, I will assist you once I have attended to something else."

  But Matthew paid him no mind. "Rosetta, you can keep organising the incorporation of human weapons to our ships." He paused for a second. "Incorporation. Awesome word. Frank and Carmen, you can continue working on the negotiations with the humans." He paused again, then chuckled to himself. "Ha, I just dished out assignments to everyone, that felt pretty cool."

  As our group walked away to our assigned tasks, it occurred to me that Pauline and I hadn't been given anything to do. This was good, as it meant that we could do what we did best - consult each other on just how weird all of these damn Slugs were.

  "Pauline", Phill said to her softly, "come with me."

  As the two of them began to walk away, I realised that, without Pauline, I'd have nothing to do (since everyone else had some kind of job).

  "I'm gonna go with them", I said as I walked away.

  "Go for it", Matthew told me. "Let's go find us a new base of operations, eh Boy?"

  "Sure", the Slug replied. "There must be an empty room somewhere in here."

  "Yeah", I heard Matt reply. "We just have to find it." I was glad I wasn't the one looking for anything in this place.

  As I hurried after Phill and Pauline, I called, "Hey, wait up! I'm coming too."

  "Alright", Pauline said, and she led the Cyborg and me to an open area somewhere, even though she was meant to be the one following Phill.

  "So", the biologist began. "Anything you have to tell me?"

  Phill was the first one to speak. "Slugenis is divided into two main cities, each on the poles of the planet, where it is the coolest. From the little I was able to observe of where we were, it seemed to be a sprawling city, made up of an extensive rail network and uniform, single-storey buildings."

  "Hmmm", I mused, having a thought that I hadn't before. "I guess that Slugs in their basic forms would have difficulty climbing stairs, so the whole single-storey thing makes a bit more sense."

  "What do their basic forms look like?" asked Pauline, hungry for knowledge. Well, she was about to get full.

  "They have no legs", I started.

  "With three arms", Phill continued.

  "And a head without a mouth", I finished. "Oh, and they have two holes in their head, instead of eyes."

  Pauline took a bit to think about this. "Is there any specific purpose for this?"

  "Not that we are currently aware of", Phill told her. "Matthew tends to only go into required details such as this when he decides it is most appropriate for it."

  "That, and we'd never remember anything if he just spouted it all at once", I tried to defend him.

  "I would remember it", Phill said while looking at me. Well, we can't all be machines.

  Pauline didn't seem to yet be satisfied. "And you say that the King lives in a house identical to every other Slug's house."

  "In most regards", Phill answered her. "There are some differences, but the basic idea is the same."

  "And we're not too sure about the whole housing arrangement setup yet", I added. "We weren't there for long."

  "Interesting", she mused. "What do they have that would be worth trading for?"

  "Apart from spaceships?" asked Phill.

  She rolled her eyes at him. "Obviously."

  "Rather than assuming that your audience shared your obvious knowledge, you should have stated it in order to minimise the possibility of misinterpretation and ambiguity."

  "Yeah, there is", I interrupted before she could reply. "They have this cool taxi-train thing going on, and their houses looked pretty cool, although pretty weird at the same time, and apparently the whole city is run by some kind of super-computer that would put Phill to shame."

  Phill looked at me. "Is the computer sentient?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Then I surpass it so much as to negate a direct comparison." Wow. Talk about machine arrogance.

  "Anything else?" asked Pauline. She seemed to be pretty interested in an alien world. For some reason.

  I thought for a bit. "Well, their King seems to live a very boring life. He's like, cooped up in this big chair-like thing all day" - how else would you describe that dish? - "and doesn't get to enjoy any luxuries of life." Like dying.

  The human laughed. "A far cry from our leaders."

  Looking around the huge, extravagant building we were standing in, I had to agree with her.

  "Well", Phill began. "I believe we have discussed enough. I have to find Matthew and Boy now, to assist them in their task."

  I sneezed again, and sniffled. "Me too", I put in.

  "What is
the purpose of a sneeze?" asked the Cyborg.

  "It's meant to remove foreign particles in mucus from the nasal cavity", Pauline explained. Trust a biologist to know it. All I knew was that it was very annoying and fired out rocket-propelled snot.

  "There are much more effective ways of removing foreign particles from the body", Phill complained.

  "Such as?" I asked him.

  "Incorporating them into usual biological waste excretion is one alternative."

  I decided not to comment on that, because I was getting a very disturbing image of having to go to the toilet to poop out snot. Eww.

  "Right", I simply said, "let's go find the others. I'll see you around, Pauline."

  "Until next time", she responded in farewell, and Phill and I walked back the way we'd gotten to that area.

  Once Phill and I were what I judged to be out of hearing range, I asked him, "Why didn't you tell her about the whole incident with your capture?"

  "Why didn't you?" he countered.

  "It was your story", I said. "I thought I should let you tell it."

  He thought for a second, which was strange, because computers were meant to be super-fast. Or was he just doing it for my benefit? Who knew?

  "I decided that I wouldn't distress her with an event that has since been resolved", he finally told me.

  Well. That didn't sound like a machine's way of thinking at all. But then again, apart from the obvious things, a lot of stuff Phill did didn't seem to be something I'd expect a machine to do. Not that I'd known a lot of sentient robots before I met him, but I had a pretty good idea of how they ought to act.

  Oh well, no sense wondering about it now. We had some stuff to do while we were back here, and then we were all off again on another life-threatening adventure that someone like me had no business being a part of.

  But first, we had to find out where the blasted place was. Then the life-threatening part could begin.