Tredecko

After choir practice, I drove out to the bar they call The Mule to feed on the music they call the blues. Live human music. I have found it to be quite nutritious. Bands play a balance of everything my body needs.

That night, I sought to feast on high-calorie vibrations. The full moon rising over the ridge would supersize the sonic waves into one big meal. That was the missing piece—the secret sauce to get the brothership back in motion.

It had been a year around the human star, since I crashed on a nearby ridge. Tonight, I may amass enough energy to return home and free my people from the unfeeling ones who conquered our world.

Under the starlight, I walked up to the nice man who guarded the portal to the blues bar.

“Twenty dollars for the cover,” he said.

“Hello, friend. I do not have those. Would you accept my goodwill as payment?”

His face wiggled with delightful indignity. Delightful for me because many strong emotions can be tasty. But for humans, they are not always nice to feel. So I tipped my hat to him, in the usuaal waay.

I gave him a taste of my harmonics, these ones flavored with life-long friendship. My invisible vibrations worked into his organs, filling his every crater of loneliness with thermal springs. The nice man clutched his chest. A single tear ran down his cheek.

“That’ll do,” he said. He gave me a pat on my back that landed like gentle meringue. “You are welcome here any time, old friend.”

Humans can be so sweet.

I passed through the portal and into the blues. The first thing I absorbed were chocolate basslines, velvet smooth. Though I am allergic to all human food groups, I have sniffed many of them thoroughly, on the day they call Monday, when the vibes are at their lowest.

Tart blackberry guitar strings strummed into my organs. Ice-cream drum sticks with a pretzel surprise crumbled in the edible percussion. I was served the meal they call dessert.

I went up to the music stage, removed my 10-gallon hat, and feasted on the overlapping vibrations. They transmitted into the metallic flecks of gold in my organs, which converted them into good energy.

I was 1/137ths away from a full meal. The brothership may fly tonight, rising with gospel and blues under the moon. At last, I could return to free my people. The portal began pulling me out of the bar.

But then, an unexpected vibration bounced through the room.

It was unexpected because it was familiar. It felt like something transmitted from one of my own species. Could there really be another Hailai in this bar? Had others escaped the invasion?

I searched the hall, sorting through the mix of hippies and cowboys. Their vibrations were satisfactory, but all within the human range.

There it was again, the familiar vibration, the sweetest of strings playing over the chatter. Then it was gone. Mackelsbrog! I kept my radars tuned.

The same signal flashed. And this time, I caught it. I put a face to the vibration.

Her lashes were radiant star beams—extensions of her eyes: green and brown of tumbling earth. Her humanly cheeks were dotted with light patterns from my native sun. They came alive each time she cast her vibration into the crowd. What was this creature?

Then, I saw another creature standing beside her. Oh dear my. This one’s vibration was that of breaking glass. Every time he shattered into her ear, her star beams went limp.

I knew of only one creature capable of such sinister effect. The Dredge. The unfeeling. For thousands of years, we had been able to control them, bending the vibeless ones to our harmonics. But their technology, Retlag, changed everything. It sapped our energy field in a cold, wet, lead-fiber blanket.

I had to leave. This creature could sense me. I could not risk being captured. Not now. Not after all the energy I had gathered into the brothership. I was so close to lift off. I started back towards the portal.

Her signal flashed again. Ragdabbins. My everything cried out. Until now, I had been 444 light years away from vibes of this wavelength. This was my first chance to feel at home.

Okay, Woz. I revved my organs. Maybe the band would back me up. The blues were on my side.

The creature was sputtering at her, when I entered their range.

“Hello, friend.” I got their attention.

The one who tasted of broken windows looked at me with cold eyes. “You know this guy?” As he spoke, drops of my life-force were pulled from me. They froze solid in mid air. Retlag.

The high-vibrational one strummed me out of stasis. “Who are you?” As she spoke, scarlet flowers streamed from her mouth, and a lick of the blues cleared my voice.

“I am a Pleiadean Being,” I said.

“I don’t know what that is.” The jagged one intercepted my transmission.

“We are an empathivoric species from the Moon of—”

“Do you know who I am?” He did not give me time to answer. “I’m the ‘son’ in Ransom & Sons Concrete.” His lineage clarified that he was human, and that he was not made of broken glass, but of the mass that does the breaking. “You might have seen us around. We’re the largest ready-mix company in the—”

“Did you say Pleiadean?” The most wonderful creature in the bar turned the man’s rock-slide vibration into mud.

“Yes to that,” I said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Rose.”

The man-human took one cinder-block step between us. He perked the bristles on our arms. “I was talking to her, pal,” he said.

My vibration dipped. I was calcified in his concrete aura. I reached for the blues, but the band had taken a break.

The wondrous creature put starlight fingers on my shoulder. She scolded the man-human. “Johnny. We do not speak to Pleiadean Beings like that.”

“Well,” he said, “in this town, we do not cut into other people’s conversations.”

This confused me. “I thought you said you were ready to mix.”

“That’s it, buddy. Beat it!”

This also confused me. Was he now propositioning me to mix chicken embryos? I clarified my dietary restrictions. “I am allergic to scrambled eggs.”

“I’m not talking about beating eggs, pal.”

“What are you talking about beating?”

“Man, I’m about to open up a can of whoop-ass so big, you’ll be—”

I removed my hat and wiggled my brow at him. But this gesture had no effect. I felt my allergies flaring. His toxicity blocked my vibrations. I guess I would have to see what was on the inside of this man’s can.

The one who went by Rose pushed him aside. “Leave the poor Pleiadean alone.” Her starburst repelled him back to the bar counter. For a brief moment, it was just us.

“What are you?” I asked once more.

“That’s a complicated question,” she said. “I was an astronomer, in a past life. I used to look up at the stars to find meaning in light. I’m an astrologer, now. I use the sky to find meaning in life. And in this season, even though the Pleiades are hiding from us, they are very auspicious.”

“Auspicious,” I said. “That is exactly the word I am tasting.”

The light pattern on her cheeks smiled.

“I sense that the glass breaker will soon return,” I said. “May I transmit my code into your sacred rectangle?”

“It’s a little early for that. Don’t you think?”

“I mean, may I put my number in your phone?”

She shook her head in an amused way. “Yeah, sure.”

I wiggled my brow. It had an effect. Her rectangle glowed, and so did her eyes, magnifying the light off the mirrored dancehall ball.

It was then that the man came back to show me what was in his can. The blow came fast, hard, and on the absolute center of my wiggling brow. Johnny sure knew how to take a whack.

I saw stars. They hurt, but not as much as looking into the memory of my fallen home.