Tredecko

We rolled around in bed until the sun came in through the skylight of the brothership. Herkle derkle. That is what we called it. Rose said the official human terminology was “cuddling” or “snuggling.”

I said that was not quite right. Herkle derkle is not an hour or two in the morning. Where I come from, herkle derkle can go on for days. Where I come from, we can sustain ourselves on fresh love alone. I was learning that while my vibrations tickled her so, she still needed to eat and drink human foods and liquids.

“You told me you lived in a spaceship,” she said as she got out of bed for some water. Though my liquid needs are limited, I had installed a fountain to feed my plant-children.

“The brothership is no longer operational—”

“Woz, this is a yurt. I used to live in one. They’re quite common in our county.”

“What is yurt?”

“A yurt or ger is a Mongolian roundhouse. The nomads used them to travel great distances across the endless plains of the Eurasian Steppe.”

“I do not know this Mongolian, but I also do not see the difference.”

“The script on the rafters.” She pointed to the power beams. “This looks like some kind of Mongolian motif. I’ve seen this before.”

“That is our language. I could sing it for you, but it might hurt your ears.”

“And do spaceships typically have fireplaces?” She pointed at the Kragalin Drive, the device we use to bend spacetime with the right harmony.

“I do not know this place for fire. But can a yurt do this?”

I sprung to the Kragalin and opened her black-iron hatch. I whistled into her, in the usuaal waay. My vibrations—part gospel choir, part blues, part full moon, part herkle derkle—kicked the drive into gear. A tiny violet star formed inside her. The script of the Hailai, our sacred chords, began glimmering on the power beams that held up the ceiling. I could hear the harmonics. If I kept whistling, we might fly away.

“Aren’t you full of surprises. I definitely haven’t seen a yurt do that,” said Rose as she guzzled my leafy-friends’ liquid of choice. “I’m quite hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”

“None for your kind. You are the first human to spend a night in the brothership. Why do we not summon a cheesy disk? Your people consume those with great joy.”

“A what?”

“It is the pie that flies—into your mouth.”

“A pizza.”

“That is the one.”

“Excellent idea, Woz.” She used her sacred rectangle to call out for the pizza.

“Herkle derkle?” I said.

She nodded and we hopped back into bed.

Some time passed in this glorious state of being before there was a knock on the portal to the brothership. Arrival of pizza.

“Who is it?” Is what I have learned from the humans to say.

Another knock.

I opened the hatch to see who it was.

“Oh, hello friends. Are you here from the pizza?”

They were not.

Crowding the porch ramp to the brothership were enough humans to fill a blues bar. But their song was a different color. Their vibrations were that of cars crashing, over and over.

I recognized one of the humans. He was the angry-man who had dented my High Horse and refused my sandwiches.

“Have you come to fix my truck?” I asked him.

“What are you?” said a woman with a head shaven on the sides, kerfuffle on the top, and blue jeans up and down.

“I am a Pleiadean Being from the Moon of Ormus.”

“I told you,” said the impatient man from the road. “He’s an alien.”

“What are you doing in our county?” said the woman. Unlike the others, her car was not quite crashing. Her vibrations held still. Maybe she would understand my situation.

“I was fleeing the Dredge invasion,” I said, “following a layline to a lone mountain with sacred harmonics, when the brothership ran out of power and crash landed here on the ridge.”

“He’s dangerous,” said one of the men.

“He’s got a bomb,” said another.

“He’s got nukes!”

“Do you really have a nuclear bomb in there?” said the woman.

“I do have balm. But I am not sure if my topical cream is nuclear.”

“No, you moron,” said the man who hurt my truck. “We’re talking about the bomb that goes boom.”

“What is bomb?” I said. “I have read about those, but do not understand the concept.”

“Obliteration,” said the woman. “An atomic bomb splits atoms into a fireball that turns civilization into ash. Radiation maims and kills the survivors. Is that what you got cooking up in there?”

“Radiation,” I said. “I know this. Life on my moon evolved to feed on radiation.”

“He’s going to kill us all.” One of the men stormed up my porch ramp with an extra-large death hammer slung over his shoulder. This was the second time I had been threatened in the last two days. My people skills definitely needed work.

I sensed in the charging human a vibration different from the rest. Hidden behind the car-crash energy was something even more damaged. His emotions crashed over a cliff, and then tumbled down into a canyon, only to be flung back up onto the road to tumble again. There was deep pain in this one.

“Who hurt you?” I said to the man.

“You shut up, before I blow your alien brains out.”

“Calm down, Jarvis,” said the woman who appeared to be their leader. “We need evidence. This isn’t like the war.”

“You experienced the thing that my people have no word for,” I said to him. “We have not done the war, but we have had it done to us. That is why I stand before you now.”

“To blow us all to smithereens,” said the damaged man. “This cowboy’s taking us to town. I will not stand down.”

A familiar hand, touched my back. “Sorry, I was resting. What’s going on? Is there a problem with the pizza?” Rose popped out from behind me. “Oh dear my! You didn’t tell me you made enemies with the local militia.”

“You must be his alien bride,” yelled the man. “Hand over the atomics or I’ll wipe you clean off God’s green earth.”

“There’s no need for that, sir,” said Rose. “He’s weird, but he’s harmless. He barely knows what a bomb is. There’s nothing but good radiation in here.”

“No such thing.” He was about to raise his hammer of death. “Step aside. This is a raid.”

I knew what I had to do.

“Step closer,” I said to the man on edge. “I have something that may help your harmonics.”

That made him take a step back.

“Just look into my mouth,” I said.

I sipped on Rose’s young-love vibration with one breath in. It repelled their car crash energy. On the breath out, I hummed a wordless tune that my mothers had once hummed to me when I was a restless soul.

My harmonics cradled his nervous system. The tumbling wreck inside him, stuck on repeat, became suspended in the air. The voice from my organs coaxed it back onto the road. Each ring-a-ling rearranged his battered vehicle, realigning axles and popping dings. I painted, buffed, and waxed his wagon back into shape.

He sent a starburst of relief into his companions.

All their cars stopped crashing. One by one, they rolled out the factory floor, refreshed and reborn on a Sunday drive through the pines. I closed my mouth.

After some silence, he spoke again. “I still don’t trust you, alien. But I do feel a whole lot better.”

“Was that the thing you call bomb?” I asked their leader. “Have I obliterated your pains?”

The blue-jean lady extended her hand to me in a very human way. “Jolene,” she said. We did the squeezing thing with our palms that signaled good intentions. I sweetened the deal with a little something extraa that made her smile. 

“That was like no bomb I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“Earlier, you mentioned this atomic bomb. Could you teach me how to make one of those?”

She laughed. “I am not familiar with an atomic love bomb. But I suppose with whatever it is you’re capable of, you’d need a very high concentration of good energy. Maybe an exceptional festival, rally, or party, might do it.” 

“A party! I must find one of those.”

“We’ve misjudged you, alien.” Her gaze softened on me. “We are the Freedom Treaders, a separatist group of patriots committed to stopping the cabal of big government and big business from replacing our guts with artificial idiocracy. First they came for our jobs, next they’ll come for our organs. We are the last hope for America. Where do you stand?”

“I do not understand this word separatist,” I said to her. “I have never seen a group of humans standing so closely together. Are you not togetherists?”

Right then, another car pulled up. A human emerged from it, holding a flat box.

“Extra-large pizza, for Rose.”

The pizza-man waded through the crowd. Rose accepted the pie into her arms.

I turned to the togetherists. “Do you like cheesy disks?”

Jolene, their leader, smiled at me. “As long as we’re still human.”

I opted out of my slices because I am allergic. When they had finished theirs, I did feed a little on their warm, sluggish vibes.

“May I invite you in?” I said to the post-pizza, togetherist militia. “Would you like to herkle derkle?”

Rose jabbed me in my middles. “No, Woz. That’s just for us.”

“Nevermind,” I said to them.

I saw them off with a flapping of my hand, as I chewed on the idea of a party. Maybe, with enough vibrating humans in one place, I could craft an atomic love bomb—powerful enough to obliterate the Retlag, scatter the Dredge, and free my people.

But before all that, Rose dragged me back into the brothership. There was much to be done. Herkle derkle.

To be continued…