As much as I appreciated having Gus help me make sure I wouldn’t get or spread disease to the pjulsen, all I wanted was a damn haircut. Was it that hard to get one? It was overdue anyway, and even if I had to go to their equivalent of a dog groomer, it would have been worth it to get the blond out of my eyes. My reality was that I was going to a dog groomer to get my hair cut. That didn’t mean my pride and dignity were so shot that I was going to use their pet grooming tools to start taking care of my hair as long as I was on Clamor, so I decided the long hair needed to go until I got back to Earth.
But the universe had other plans for me.
“I understand canceling the haircut since I’m an alien and all. Could someone please explain why I have to do a press meeting?” Being the first human to get a trim on another planet took a backseat when Sven told us that there was going to be a meeting—live on TV, by the way—with the pjulsen press. Peeking around the curtain on the stage they set up at their city hall, I could see that there were a lot more than just a few reporters there to get big headlines. That, or the entire city was a journalism haven. Magnus said he was a journalism major, so maybe it was.
“You don’t have to do it,” Sven said, something in his voice telling me that he expected me to do it regardless of any objections I may have had. “If you want to stay on Clamor, the people are going to have to learn about you. It’s better to strike while the iron is hot and you did something heroic. You don’t want to hide away. If I'm going to be clear with you, I don’t have the time to have you hide away and let rumors foster. Having you say a few words to the people here might help ease the minds of the masses. After all, our only other experience with aliens hasn’t been a good one to this point. Your public image matters. It might even keep you safe from xenophobic behavior.”
“What do I even say? I hate talking in front of people.” I drew a blank when trying to recall all the tips and advice I’d gotten from teachers on how to do a presentation in front of the class.
“Just speak from the heart. Tell them about who you are.” Magnus put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You saved dozens of lives. You’re a good guy, they’ll eat it up. We’re a proud people. Proud to the point that we take our debts seriously, and doing what you did? That puts us all in a huge debt to you.”
I wasn’t buying it at all. If an alien showed up on Earth and helped humans, there’d still be a massive storm of controversy, conspiracy, religious and scientific upheaval, and probably a billion other things. I had some time to sit on what I was going to say. Sven went out first to address the crowd and hopefully soften them up for me as a little warmup act. That gave me a little extra time to think about what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. With our minds linked, I could feel a sense of foreboding radiating off of Magnus, telling me he wasn’t buying what he had been saying either.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking down at my folded hands that sat between my legs.
“I think it’ll be fine, but there’s a lot that’s gone into how we have our powers set up. I’m not supposed to have them, you know that. By our laws and culture here, you’re not supposed to have them. No moggodrackin have them. It took a long time and a lot of work to get people to think I wasn’t some freak who deserved to be executed like my father.”
“Wow, that’s harsh.” I couldn’t get his thoughts, but I got enough of his feelings. There were some points in his life where he was more than a little scared that someone would have killed him. What more could I do but hope they wouldn’t want to hurt me for my powers? I couldn’t fight off an entire city.
“There’s a reason for that. We’ve been making the Spheres for a very long time now. Back when they were just tools we used to terraform planets, four women all touched a single Sphere. In a way, it was a turning point in our history. You can almost divide the history in half at that exact moment.”
“And they gained powers,” I guessed. Sven’s booming voice over the speakers set up made it hard to focus on the conversation. I did my best to ignore his speech and not think about the crowd outside.
“Exactly.” Magnus looked straight ahead and frowned. “To this day, we have no idea how they did it, but they gained immortality. We tried very hard to kill them. We simply couldn’t do it. No amount of weaponry we had, no matter how advanced our technology, could do anything to put them down for good. When they discovered their powers, they used them to terrorize people. Cities were ruled and then destroyed on a whim. It was too bright out one day? Bam, the city is wiped off the planet. It was too windy or rainy? Okay, the city is now in ruins.”
I shuddered, thinking back to McLeod and Pittsburgh. He destroyed it with a sword. He effortlessly stopped all military resistance. Bullets didn’t work on him. Explosions didn’t either. Maybe a nuclear strike would have done the trick, but who was going to say he couldn’t contain something of that magnitude either? If the guy could heat his weapon to the point it could destroy a city, I wouldn’t bet against him.
Magnus pursed his lips for a few seconds. “We never really found a true pattern to their actions. Two favored destruction more, but the cities they destroyed were seemingly random. The two that didn’t destroy their cities just turned them into violent dictatorships built off slave labor. Sometimes those slaves would just be killed, again, seemingly randomly and without any care.”
“They’re still alive?” I looked around, suddenly cold. How could I have been sure one of them wasn’t around the corner or just waiting to materialize in front of me? I couldn’t kill someone who was immortal.
“Well, I guess we can’t prove if they are or aren’t anymore. The first Great Defenders were able to capture them and we were able to restrain their powers with a special dampener we made in secret. They had to get their powers from a Sphere we quietly made since those four ladies weren’t about to let anyone else touch another Sphere under their watch. We didn’t risk keeping them on the planet, so they were shoved into a cramped spacecraft and sent to space with a one-way ticket. We call them the Nebula Quartet since they would always hum and sing to announce their arrival. Legend has it that the last thing they said was, ‘Our quartet will sing with the stars among the vast nebulas that curtain our home’. I think that part is dramatized a bit, or the four of them were off their rockers and just wanted to sprout cryptic gibberish. That’s the history of their name, anyway. We tell our kids that if they’re bad, the Nebula Quartet will return and take them away, so we at least treat them as still being alive in our culture.”
“I can’t escape these stupid names even on other planets,” I grumbled. Weird individual superhero names were one thing. What was with everyone feeling the need to get together to come up with the most pretentious names they could brainstorm? I didn’t get it at all.
Magnus laughed and gave me some friendly pats on my back. “Anyway, the point is that they’re the reason why being selected to gain powers from a Sphere is a near-sacred process. Our people are proud and have long memories. They still hear the stories that were first passed down from their ancestors about living under their rule in a more chaotic time. Those people didn’t know if they’d live or die on any given day. Life was truly at a premium. The Great Defenders being the ones to ultimately defeat them has made the position one of the most important in our history, and having powers from a Sphere goes hand in hand with that.
“That’s why I’m worried about you. Here, it takes a very specific and honorable kind of person to be given the gift of powers. I don’t know how our people will react to knowing that there’s another person like me and my brother. Not just that, but that you’re a completely new alien while we’re already in the midst of a war with a different set of aliens.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Well, all I can do is my best, right?” I punched Magnus on the arm and got up, sensing Sven was wrapping up his speech.
No pressure. It was just revealing a new sentient alien to a species at least a thousand years more advanced than my own. Sure, I had powers that their culture and laws held sacred, but it was just a little speech, and I could do that. After all, I got a B- in the public speaking class I had to take in high school. Granted, it was graded on a curve, and the teacher was always disinterested in listening to a bunch of teenagers talk about things they didn't care about. Oh well, no one asked how. They only asked how many. Or something along those lines.
I stood by the curtain, anxiously waiting for Sven to finish up. I couldn’t hear him all that well, so I was having trouble understanding him. There was a murmuring from the crowd that was loud enough for me to hear over Sven’s voice blasting through the speakers. That made my stomach clench with anxiety. I could only pray that his status as a Great Defender was enough to get them to at least listen to me.
“You seriously think you can go out there and they’ll understand you speaking English?” Magnus was standing next to me and I’d never been so glad to have a pink alien there. I was more nervous than I thought. “You’re going to need a translator. Luckily, I’m the face of sacrilegious redemption stories around these parts, so you’re in good hands.”
“What, you can’t do the mind-melding thing you do for us?”
“Boy, are you insane? Have you lost your damn mind on me here? The absolute limit is ten people, and that’s already more than pushing it.” When Magnus saw my expression when I knew I couldn’t just convey everything to them through my mind and heart, he softened. “Look, just be honest and just be humble, okay? I don’t think you’ve bragged about a single thing in your life. Don’t start here.”
“I’m not boastful and I’m a terrible liar, so let’s rock and roll.” I coughed awkwardly and rubbed my neck. “That means let’s go.”
When Sven came back, he gave me a reassuring pat on the back and gave me a brief rundown of things to talk about. I was supposed to say things about how happy I was to help, how much I loved their planet, and how fascinating I thought everything was. If I could fit in some appreciation for the hospitality I’d been receiving, I was to throw those in there. You know, just suck up to them at first to make a really good impression. Probably how meeting your girlfriend’s parents was supposed to go, but given the unusual situation of my relationship, meeting the parents wasn’t a concern for either of us. Talking to an entire planet of people who may or may not want to kill me would have to suffice.
I froze in front of the curtain that separated me from the public. I could feel the anticipation from the crowd that gathered and I was having second thoughts. What if I wasn’t accepted? Worse than that, what if they wanted to shun or attack me because I had powers that their culture didn’t approve of?
Either tired of waiting or knowing I wasn’t about to head out myself, Magnus shoved me through the curtain.
Immediately, I heard the stunned gasps and murmurs that followed from the crowd of the brightly-colored pjulsen. The podium with the microphone was only about ten feet away, but it might as well have been back on Earth for how far it looked to me. Instead of pushing me, Magnus gave me a friendly nudge. When I was sure the people there weren’t about to try and burn me at the stake, I slowly and carefully went up to the podium. I tapped the mic to make sure it worked, and when the thud echoed around me, I knew I didn’t have any possible outs left. No technical failures were going to save my ass.
“Um, hi everyone.” Even with the microphone and speaker system that was set up, my voice barely came out as more than a squeak. Magnus leaned in next to me and spoke into the mic, translating my greeting. When he did, I shyly waved at everyone. A few of them returned the gesture, slowly, clearly fascinated by the new gesture I’d presented them.
I thought someone would start by asking me a question like reporters did with athletes after a game. Instead, their eyes were all glued to me, filled with curiosity and hesitancy. They were waiting for me to make the first move. “Hi, my name’s Ethan. As you can tell, I’m not really from around here.”
I let Magnus translate to everyone and there were a few chuckle-like sounds from the crowd, which took some of the tension out of my shoulders. He was waiting for me to carry on, and I was trying to formulate a speech on the fly following Sven’s instructions. I’d forgotten nearly all the bullet points he wanted me to hit. There was nothing written down on a piece of paper in front of me either. Looking out at the dozens of people who were on the edge of their seats for me, some random high school kid billions of miles from home, I decided to do the one thing that I felt the most comfortable with, and what Magnus had told me to do a bunch of times. Speak from the heart.
“I’m not really sure what I should say to you all,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck with a sweaty hand. “I’m eighteen years old, which makes me barely an adult on my planet. I’m not sure how many years that would be here. I’m in high school, I have a nice, wonderful girlfriend that I miss a lot. When we were separated, we were sort of taking care of a little girl who was orphaned by a terrorist attack a few months ago, and I touched a Sphere that somehow ended up on my planet a long time ago. That’s why I’m here in front of you today.”
Magnus started to lean in to translate again. I gently put my hand between him and the mic to block him. I didn’t have confidence per se, but I was on a small roll, and I’d be damned if I was going to let that slide. For someone like me, that was a secret weapon and a miracle arrival in a public speech. He could connect to my brain. He’d know exactly what I said and how to translate it to everyone in the crowd.
“We don’t know how it got to Earth, which is the name of my planet. I know that things are different here for how powers are given. On Earth, some humans are born with them and they develop randomly throughout someone’s life. Usually, it’s during puberty. I was a bit of a late bloomer with my powers.” I stopped to create a small ball in my hand. The light from their star caught in it, creating a dazzling effect that got the crowd murmuring a little more. I collapsed it before anyone could interrupt. “The specifics of how I ended up here are a long story, and I don’t fully understand them myself. Last night, there were guys with guns about to shoot up a nightclub. I was wandering around, trying to figure out where I was when I spotted them. Using my powers, I stopped them, and I was taken in by my nice friend here.”
Giving him some space, I let Magnus translate all that for them, and from what I could get from his mind, he did an outstanding job filling in any blanks I might have left. I gave them a few seconds to digest everything. The faces in the crowd were hard for me to read. Some looked worried and others excited, all of them still hanging on every single word that left my mouth. I grinned. They couldn’t even understand what I was saying until Magnus let them.
“I didn’t want to kill them, but I’m proud that I helped save innocents here. I’ve been treated wonderfully since I arrived. Your planet is beautiful and your advancements are amazing. They’re great...but I really miss Earth.” I sniffled and rubbed away some tears that dampened my eyes. I didn’t think it was cool to cry in front of them like that. They could suck it up. I wasn’t sure if there was anyone alive who was more homesick than I was. When I realized it wasn’t going to stop, I just did my best to push through. “My planet is my home. Humans only have that one to call home. It has my girlfriend, my buddies, and everything else I love. It has my sister, and we’re the only family we have left. I just want to get home.”
Magnus gently rubbed my back and the crowd softened as a whole. Even if our physiological responses to sadness weren’t the same, they could tell that I wasn’t right. I wasn’t in the right condition to give a full speech as an uninvited guest on their planet, so I was grateful for the respect and courtesy they were showing me. They all patiently waited for me to finish rubbing my eyes before turning their heads to Magnus to translate for me, which again, he did perfectly.
Reading the eyes of the crowd, I could tell there was a lot of thinking. I saw the situation as a blessing and a curse. Most of the people there were journalists, so they really should have been remaining impartial, which they were doing a good job of. That took some of the stress off me, but I also knew that they could spin a story any way they wanted. By the following morning, the media could have me painted as a dangerous alien with the powers to kill innocents, and I couldn’t even speak their language to defend myself.
When most of the commotion died down, we arranged smaller interviews so Magnus could use his powers more easily. That let the reporters see that I was genuine. It was the right move, I couldn’t deny that. I hated having to share my mind, thoughts, and feelings to clear my name for a crime I didn’t commit. I knew how much easier it made things, but at the end of the day, my mind was my own and I shouldn’t have needed it to be probed so everyone there could feel comfortable. Alas, I bit my tongue and gritted my teeth while these strangers got to run through my memories.
Everything was just one step closer to getting back home.