Chapter 5
“All right, talk…and don’t try to take a phone call!”
Mike, arms crossed, confronted the Elder. The crystalline tetrahedron floated in front of him.
“Whatever do you mean?” the Elder asked innocently. Though it was hard to convey emotions
as a 30 foot puddle of mercury.
Mike pressed a button on the tetrahedron, which commenced spouting challenges and insults.
After a few minutes of this, Mike turned the thing off.
“Does the voice sound familiar?” Mike asked sweetly.
The Elder writhed for a bit and then spoke. “That was the original plan of the insane faction:
plant the beacons, let the Leet into the world and then charge in to the rescue.”
“So what happened?”
The Elder expanded and contracted.
“A more radical faction took control after the beacons were planted and came up with the idea of
trying to conquer the planet rather than act as its saviors. They were afraid that no one would
believe that an intelligent, inter-dimensional race of lizards was poised to invade.”
Mike rubbed his face.
“So now what am I supposed to do?”
“Do?”
“You expect me to keep quiet about this?”
“Well, I was hoping for a bit of discretion on your part.”
“What about the rest of my squad?”
“Perhaps you could talk with them.”
“They don’t listen to me at the best of times.”
“We did warn you.”
“Yeah, that worked out real well.”
Mike tried a different tack. “The people will never accept the Puppeteers once they know about
this.”
“The people will probably want us to stick around in case the Leet decide that foosball isn’t
enough of a rematch.”
“Good point.”
Mike thought for a bit.
“So you can travel to different dimensions?”
The Elder writhed about.
“Yes.”
“I guess that explains a couple of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like how an alien life form can interface with the human nervous system. I’ll bet you searched
through dimensions for ages until you found one that was compatible.”
“Oh look! Phone call!”
“Don’t you dare!”
The Elder withdrew a tentacle that had been heading for the communications panel.
“It wasn’t just that you have a compatible nervous system.” The Elder said sulkily. “Your
people need us.”
“Why couldn’t you have found a race that was more welcoming to you?”
“Because it’s hard to get emotions right with dimensional travel. One person is easy, a whole
planet is difficult. You can’t imagine how hard it was to find the Leet, and look what a mess
they are.”
“So why didn’t you leave after the initial invasion fell through?”
“That would have meant abandoning you.”
“So?”
Mike got the distinct impression that the Elder was giving him the sort of look reserved for
morons.
“We had already pledged ourselves to helping you. We will not leave you.”
“And you had to ruin it all with your little invasion! Is that your idea of peace?”
The Elder writhed about for a while.
“Always have to bring that up, don’t you?”
“And what would be the good of any of that if we can’t do it on our own?”
“The truth is that you’ve never been on your own.”
“Excuse me?”
“All life depends on other life to survive. Bees depend on flowers, flowers depend on bees.
Termites use bacteria to digest cellulous…”
“What?”
“Termites – they can’t digest things like wood on their own. They have bacteria in their guts that
does it for them.”
“I did not know that.” Mike seemed impressed.
“Look, my point is that human beings depend on a whole network of other species to survive.
How does being symbiotic with our people change that?”
“This is hopeless.”
“Not while we live.”
Mike turned away in disgust, but paused at the doorway.
“Just how accurate is this dimensional travel?”
* * *
Some where/when in the multiverse, there exists a copy, a duplicate of our world. Exact in
detail, differing perhaps in perhaps one atom’s width…
Somewhere in that multitude of maybes and mayhaps there is a ship pursued by several other
ships…
Alice had taken a turn that left her wide open. Eight enemy craft pursued her.
"And there are eight ships coming after me. We gotta jump on this!" Alice barked at the station:
"Base command, get ready to blow mine 427 on my mark!"
"Alice, don't do it, let me..."
"Mark!"
Just as a flash of light was about to engulf the craft, another flash of light lit the cockpit of
Alice’s ship. Mike jumped in, grabbed Alice, and jumped out again.
Back in our universe there is a room on an asteroid with a large amount of esoteric equipment. In
the center of that room there is a portal…
Mike jumped out of the portal, with Alice slung over his shoulder.
“What are you…how did you do that?!” Alice demanded.
“Before we do anything else, I just need to make sure this worked.”
“What?!”
“I just saved your life.” Alice considered this. “Will you sleep with me?”
In answer, Alice slapped Mike. His face lit up in a smile and he hugged her.
“It’s good to have you back.”
Chapter 4
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