Child's Play: A Spaceman's Story

by Guerin Zand

  “Ricky. Don’t you go running off. Me and you need to talk alone when you have a minute.”

  “Sure thing Guerin.”

  I started to eat my spice bun, which was actually pretty good. The crew was talking about ship things. Calibrating the what-cha-ma-callit and synchronizing the do-hicky. I just continued to eat my breakfast and nod my head every now and then acting like I understood.

  “Guerin, what do you think of our little ship here?” Sammy asked.

  “Well Sammy, I don’t know that ‘little’ is a word I’d use to describe this ship. Actually, even ship doesn’t seem right. Based on Earth space terminology I would call this more of a space station. I mean it’s rather large to be a ship and since it is actually home to several hundred thousand beings, I think station is the best description I can come up with.”

  “But a station would be stationary right Guerin?”

  “Not really Sammy. I mean our space station orbits the Earth so it’s not really stationary and the planets and stars are moving so they don’t really count as ships, do they?”

  “Right, but we can actually move this ‘station’ to another point in space altogether so all the occupants would travel with it. Doesn’t that make it a ship in your mind?”

  “Only if you moved it a lot. I assume you park it, leave it at one location for a long time and use the shuttles for most of travel from that point. I guess it’s a matter of semantics but to me it just screams space station.”

  “You haven’t seen what we would call a space station yet Guerin.” Cindy interjected. “Do you know what humans call a Dyson sphere is?”

  “Sure, I know what that is. I mean it’s just a theoretical construct we came up with. Not like we could even imagine building such a thing.”

  “Not for us. We have several stations that you would describe as Dyson spheres. You could fit thousands of these ships, you call a space stations, inside one of those. It’s just a matter of scale I guess.”

  “You space folk just like showing off don’t you Cindy?”

  “Yes.”

  This of course caused the entire table to break out in laughter. I laughed along with them. Cindy was strangely honest for a space babe. Probably another one of those abduction skills she was lacking, but I liked that.

  Then I met my first real life aliens.

  “Hi Julie.”

  “Sid. Nancy. Good morning.”

  Ok, first off, I started to wonder about everybody’s names. Sid and Nancy? Really? I had a feeling the translators just yanked names from my memories and they had nothing in common with a being’s actual name. That worked for me. It made them all easy to remember since I guess I remembered them, right?

  “Sid and Nancy let me introduce you to our Earth monkey Guerin Zand. Guerin this is Sid and Nancy. They’re Sly’s children. They’re here to take you out for a little play time.” That was Julie talking in case the little monkey comment didn’t give it away.

  Ok Sid and Nancy were not human. They were reptilian like, I guessed. The easiest way to describe them would be like a cross between a human and the gecko from the GEICO commercials. They stood a little over four foot tall and had a complexion ranging from tanned looking skin around their face and the bottom of their hands to a darker khaki tinted skin in other areas. They had two arms and legs with four fingers and a thumb on each hand. The tips of their fingers and thumbs were a bit larger which made me wonder if they had the same type of gripping mechanism as a gecko. Their heads weren’t as elongated as the GEICO gecko and their arms and legs were proportioned more like a human. No tails and they didn’t wear the Bree onesie. Their clothes had style which put mine to shame. Would it be too weird to talk fashion with alien children I wondered?

  I ignored Julie’s little comment and asked “So what’s the plan. Are we going to play dodge ball with a super nova?”

  “That would be stupid Guerin. A super nova would kill you. Julie told us you weren’t too smart.”

  “You believe everything Julie tells you Sid?”

  “Yes. She’s our friend.”

  “Oh Sid. You’re too young to know any better I guess.”

  “Are you going to tell me what we’re going to do?”

  “Milly said we shouldn’t tell you. She wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “Ok Nancy. Be that way. I guess if y’all excuse us it’s play time. Ricky, I guess we’ll talk later.”

  We all said our good byes and I headed out with Sid and Nancy. We took a magic pad over to the city center and then proceeded to the space dock via an elevator. We then jumped on another pad that took us to the outer edge of the space dock area where we entered a large area off one of the hallways. I guess I could have found out exactly where we were if I used the viewer maps but I didn’t think it was too important. If I got lost I am sure they would issue an amber alert to find their lost monkey.

  “This is Hannah, Guerin. She will help get you suited up.”

  “Suited up for what Sid?”

  “Milly said you wanted to play outside. Don’t you?”

  “Sure. I’m game. I guess I’m all yours Hannah.”

  “First you need to get undressed Guerin.”

  “Really Hannah? You enjoy looking at naked monkeys too?”

  “No Guerin. We have to fit the suit to your body. It’s like a second skin and we can’t do that over your clothes.”

  I stripped down. I could see behind me that Sid and Nancy took a good long look. The whole concept of rude seemed to not apply to me I guess. At least I wasn’t a perv and didn’t try to look at the little naked alien children.

  Then Hannah had me enter this box which when closed contained all but my head. Then the machine did something and I came out. Ok. All my body hair was gone and I was coated in a powdery substance almost like baby powder.

  Ok, I know the women reading this are saying where can I get one of those. I just want to say this tech was not a priority for me.

  Next, I stepped into another box and I didn’t feel anything but when I walked out I was enclosed in a full maroon colored body suit. It stretched and retracted as I moved. There was no bunching at the joints. It really felt like I was wearing nothing. At least it wasn’t totally form fitting, if you know what I mean, so it wasn’t embarrassing to walk around in this second skin. These aliens really had a thing for onesies though.

  “Do I get a helmet to go with this Hannah?”

  “You don’t need a helmet Guerin.”

  “Well my body might be protected Hannah but I don’t think sticking my unprotected head out in the vacuum of space is going to turn out well for me.”

  “The suit generates a field around you, including your head, and you won’t be exposed to the vacuum.”

  “How do I breathe?”

  “Normally.” Hannah replied with a giggle. “The field around your head will maintain a breathable atmosphere. It’s like what you would call a rebreather but it works a lot better than any rebreather you have on Earth. It will take your own expelled breath and break the CO2 back down to carbon and oxygen which is then used to refresh the atmosphere you breathe.”

  “What about when the batteries run out?”

  “The suit will not run out of power. Just trust me on that. I haven’t lost a monkey yet.”

  “So, you have done this with other humans?”

  “No.”

  Obviously Hannah didn’t see the flaw in her own logic. I did. I could have kept asking questions but I figured I would trust her. I thought if I died it probably wouldn’t look good on her permanent record so she did have a stake in not killing me. I wondered if I should have used the bathroom first?

  “Guerin what do you think of the suits?”

  “Not quite my style Nancy but I guess it’s cool.”

  “The suit can generate small gravity waves that will allow you to propel yourself in any direction and orient your body to any angle you want. The interface is just like the pads your used to using except its connected thro
ugh the suit. You just think it and it will happen. There are safe guards that will prevent you from running into anyone or anything too fast and it will protect you from slow speed collisions. Actually, bumping into each other is half the fun.”

  “Ok Nancy. Let’s go then.”

  “This pad will take us out to the playground. It leads to a spherical volume of space contained in a field to keep us from going out to far. This sphere has a radius of about a half a click …”

  “Really Sid. A click? Where did you get that term from?”

  “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon for PS4.”

  “You have a Playstation 4?”

  “Milly brought me one back from Earth on her last trip. It’s kind of lame from a tech standpoint but the game is cool. I am working on interfacing the PS4 to one of our 3D sims and then it should be more fun. Here, you’ll need one of these visors to protect your eyes from the star light and it will project some basic info about your position and velocity. I set it for a beginner so it won’t overload you with too much info.”

  “Thanks Sid. You wouldn’t want the monkey to get confused, huh?”

  “Once you get used to the gear you can enable more features. Don’t worry, it’s really easy to figure out. Once we get out into the playground you can use the field encompassing the sphere to jump off, bounce off or even walk on. Just try and follow me and Nancy and once you get the hang of it we can play a game or two of tag.”

  We got on the pad and it accelerated to a pretty good clip and then we separated from the pad and were floating free in space. Ok now that was totally awesome. The 3D HUD showed you where you were in relation to each other and the spherical playground area. There was also info on your speed and orientation as well as the speed and direction of the others in the sphere. I of course was flailing around wildly. It took a few minutes to just relax and once that happened the suit started doing its thing.

  It was the same issue with all this mind reading tech. You had to not panic so your mind could control the tech. The tech basically couldn’t deal with a panicked mind’s thoughts so it would typically do nothing in that case.

  It wasn’t like I actually thought about controlling the suit but instead just thought about an objective. I looked for Sid and Nancy and the suit oriented me in the right direction. When I saw them, I could see I had fallen behind so I did my best flying Superman pose and the suit accelerated me toward them. No calculating flight vectors or hard math involved. I was relieved about that. I didn’t want these kids to see how truly stupid this monkey was when it came to all this outer space stuff.

  As we approached the edge of the sphere I could see the distance warning info on the HUD and I noticed Sid and Nancy reoriented themselves to point their feet at the upcoming field. I did the same. When I hit the field, it kicked me back off, like a kicker in a pinball machine. The angle you hit the field at would be reflected in your new trajectory. Your best kick would occur if you nailed it dead on and it would simply reverse your direction. It was like being inside a cross between a big bouncy house and a pinball machine.

  After a while I got pretty good at keeping up with the two of them and then Sid cried out “Nancy’s it” and with that her icon then turned red on my HUD and the game was on. This game went on for quite a while. I didn’t try too hard since I thought it would be bad form for the big monkey to beat the little lizards on the playground. REALLY!

  Sid was obviously paying attention to time, I know I wasn’t, and he finally led me back to the magic pad and we exited the playground. Overall it was a total blast. Now I had to go back to Julie. What a buzz kill.

  Julie of course was waiting for us back at the room where we had suited up. She threw me one of her looks which I tried to ignore. Hannah called me over to help remove the suit. It was pretty simple actually. I just entered the same box that had formed the suit on me and I walked out naked. I took a quick shower to get the sweaty powder off and got dressed. Of course, Julie was peering at me the whole time. She just couldn’t help herself. Embarrassing me seemed to bring her immense joy.

  “Did you kids all have fun at play today?” Julie asked as she stared at me. That phrase sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember why.

  “I sure did Ms. Julie. Can we have cookies and milk now?”

  “No Guerin you can’t! We’re late, as usual, thanks to you. We should go now. I’ll see you later Sid and Nancy.”

  The kids said goodbye and I thanked them for showing me a fun time.

  I followed Julie out of the dressing area and we headed back up to the dome city. I assumed it was the same dome city since it was still daytime there. I wondered what the other dome city was like. Was I not allowed there?

  We nabbed a magic pad and we made our way back up to one of the restaurants at the top of the city. There we met Sly waiting for us at a table.

  Sly was a big lizard. I don’t know what I was expecting but he definitely wasn’t a cute little lizard like the kids. He must have been at least six foot tall and he was much heavier built. I would guess maybe around 250 pounds or so. You wouldn’t want to mess with this lizard any more than one would want to mess with an alligator. Ok, yes there are some in Florida who do like messing with alligators but I’m not one of them.

  “Sly I would like to introduce you to Guerin Zand of Earth.” Julie said this without any monkey comment thrown in. I guess Sly was a serious type and Julie was behaving.

  Sly stood and bowed slightly in my direction.

  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Guerin. Milly has told me much about you.”

  I returned the bow. “It’s my pleasure Ambassador Sly. Unfortunately, I don’t know very much about you. I just heard about you this morning for the first time. You do have two fine children. Please thank them again for me. I had a fun time with them this morning.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself and please just call me Sly. No need for titles here. This is just an informal lunch so I can get a chance to know you better.”

  “Julie, you can leave us now. If we need you I’ll call.”

  Julie just nodded and got up and left us. I was already starting to like Sly. Seeing him yank Julie’s leash like that brought a smile to my face. One I made sure Julie saw as she exited.

  “Well I’m impressed Sly. Anyone who can put Julie in her place like that is alright by me.”

  Sly laughed lightly.

  “Yes. The Bree can be so, um, Bree. I’m not surprised they haven’t given you much information. They like to keep others in the dark. You have to press them constantly to get anything out of them. It’s a bit of a superiority complex I guess. They’re the oldest race we know of so they see themselves as knowing more than the rest of us. If they told us everything they’d lose the advantage they seem to think they have. I assume they have you thoroughly confused by now about why you’re here?”

  “Yes, they seem to enjoy my confusion and humiliating me as well. I figured I was just here for their amusement.”

  “Well I’m sure they’ve been having their fun with you, especially Julie. That woman has a sadistic streak in her and she needs to be kept in check sometimes. Milly on the other hand is quite different, which is why she is the one in charge of this little adventure of yours.”

  “This is the first contact my race has ever had directly with an Earth human. Do you know what that means?”

  “Other than the obvious I have no idea.”

  “We don’t make direct contact like this unless circumstances require it. In some cases, a young race may be about to discover us on their own. In that case, it’s best for us to make contact first in order to control the circumstances. We don’t want to cause panic in their societies, which could easily happen. They don’t know if we should be feared or welcomed and if we just leave it to chance things could get messy.”

  “I assume that is not the reason for this contact?”

  “No. Earth may be a century or more from gaining the technology you would need to detect us, but that
’s actually not a long time in the scheme of things. You could also surprise us and it could be much sooner. Earth is on the verge of some technological break throughs though that could change all that. For us it’s a question of what we should do, if anything, at this time.”

  “Yes. I did come across a few of your predictions from simulations that were in Milly’s files. I don’t think I was supposed to see them but I was able to figure out the viewer in my room was probably limited. I managed to gain access through Milly’s interface when I was alone.”

  “Milly said you were clever. Julie insists you’re not.”

  “Yes, well Julie is what is commonly referred to as a bitch back home.”

  Sly obviously understood that reference as evidenced by his smile.

  “So, then you can understand that this contact is necessary for me and others to judge for ourselves and not rely solely on what the Bree have told us.”

  “Yes, from my limited experience with the Bree, I would have to say I would do the same in your place.”

  A waitress approached the table and brought with her a drink of some sort and a cheese burger and fries for me. She brought something for Sly to eat as well, which I of course had no idea what it could be.

  “At least you know enough not to try and feed me a salad.” I said with a smile. “What sort of tasty beverage is this, may I ask?”

  “Well that is a drink from my home we call Gluark. It’s a distilled spirit from a native fruit blended with some herbs which have a euphoric affect. You should take it slow and I would recommend never drink more than two in an eight hour period. Three might not kill you but you will definitely regret drinking the third.”

  “Sly that almost sounds like a challenge. Maybe one day I’ll test that out.”

  I thought to myself could this be the elusive Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster? I took a decent size sip of this potion and nearly went blind. The taste was horrific but isn’t that the case with most hard alcohol? It instantly went to my head and exploded leaving a smile on my face once the storm passed.

  “WOW! That is a potent little beverage! Whatever those herbs are I am sure they must be illegal in most normal societies. This being my first alien brew, I can’t say for sure it’s the best ever, but it’s number one on my current list.”