Sam Boone’s Rational Choices
by Bud Sparhawk
Illustration by Kelly Freas
“Dhammn vladish humms, nodgid nythggg ride!” Mardnnn bubbled. The words formed a greenish foam around the edges of the alien’s air hole and dribbled over the bright orange pimple on his otherwise featureless “face.”
Sam could tell that Mardnnn was obviously displeased, upset, and a bit indisposed, because the alien’s normally deep bluish complexion had shifted toward a more cerulean hue. Besides that, the Crumptonian was rocking back and forth on his platform, and wiggling his tentacles in a most agitated fashion. All in all he could tell that his boss was quite distressed.
Like everything else connected with the galactics, this made Sam very worried.
A year before, humanity’s first interstellar explorers had returned to Earth with astonishing news. Of course, the news was not nearly so astonishing as the lopsided, asymmetrical lump of a green ship that they rode into near-Earth orbit. The ship was a gift (aka “bribe”) from the captain of a galactic liner that mistakenly rammed Earth’s most sophisticated piece of technology and destroyed it. “Never to speak of this,” the captain had pleaded as it stuffed the humans into their new ship, gave them instructions on how to get back to where they started. “Never to make a claim,” it begged them, and raced away. Earth’s first interstellar visitors had arrived a few months later.
Sam had been walking across the tarmac with his work crew and a cart. His shipment was arriving that afternoon and he wanted to be sure to get it before the local union goons took it for ransom. He couldn’t afford to pay any more “conveyance charges” to get it shipped from the Trenton airport. That was part of the reason for his crew; burly types selected more for their intimidation factor than their skills.
Sam was nearly blown over by the sudden rush of air that accompanied the arrival of an alien shuttle craft. No sooner than had it stopped rolling than the ramp slammed down and an unbelievable assortment of aliens tumbled out, scrambling over one another in a mad rush and scattering in every direction as soon as they hit the concrete.
Sam briefly glimpsed something that looked like a skein of brightly colored wires rolling along as it spit out sparks. Something that looked like a hairy toothpaste tube slithered close by his leg. As he watched that thing wiggle away, a monstrous elephantine creature with a purple ear (or was that its trunk?) nearly stepped on him. He dodged and stumbled into a bilious green thing, shaped like nothing so much as a tree trunk that was slowly rolling down the ramp.
“Scrmbfgght!” the tree trunk exclaimed with recognizable anger. A wicked-looking tentacle waved from the top of the trunk while a reddish eye waved around on a flexible stalk. Sam jumped back in horror, hoping that he hadn’t broken some alien protocol.
Behind the tree trunk were two smaller versions who were obviously straining to push it across the tarmac. “Fashtaaar!” the big one shouted and waved its tentacle furiously at the departing crowd. The smaller versions were obviously pushing as hard as they could, but were unable to propel the platform on which the tree trunk sat any faster.
A shout went up on the other side of the field. When Sam looked in that direction he saw a large group of distinguished citizens and even more members of the press racing madly after the rapidly dispersing alien horde. Apparently the first delegates from the galactic hegemony were intent on avoiding formal ceremonies.
Sam saw an opportunity to establish a relationship with these visitors from the stars. “Would you like some help?” he asked graciously keeping a wary eye on the agitated tree trunk.
“Of course,” the larger snapped back quickly. “Mardnnn, our father, is very anxious to begin our business on this new world.” The green tree trunk garbled something else and furiously waved its tentacle in the direction of its fellow travelers.
“Pops doesn’t want the others to grab all the advantage!” the smaller one added.
Sam quickly considered his options. On the one hand, these aliens were a possible threat to everything humanity held dear. On the other hand, there were probably a few bucks to be made by those who built a relationship with the aliens. “I happen to have an office you could rent,” he suggested, “and I can offer my services at a very reasonable price.”
“Excellent!” the alien exclaimed as it waved its tentacle over its head and its eye stalk panned Sam from head to toe. It turned to the tree trunk—Mardnnn, Sam reminded himself—and rustled some phrases.
“I am Town,” the alien version introduced itself, “and this is my sister, Brill.”The smallest alien waved an appendage in Sam’s direction and winked its eye. “Mardnnn agrees that having a native guide working with us will be an advantage. Now, please have your children,”Town waved a tentacle at Sam’s work crew, “take us to your orifice.”
“Office,” Sam corrected.
“Whatever.”
Since that fateful day Sam had worked hard for Mardnnn and his daughters, performing tasks that ranged from the deranged to the obscure—escorting aliens of every shape and size to places selected for reasons unknown. For the most part the alien visitors were fairly civilized, comporting themselves with some degree of restraint and considerable curiosity about every quaint Earth thing in sight. There were a few exceptions, he recalled with a shudder, remembering the most recent trip to Atlantic City. That was one of the things about the galactics that made him edgy—no one knew what might set them off.
Sam brought his thoughts back to the present and blotted a few gobs of green spittle from his freshly pressed shirt as he tried to decipher what Mardnnn had said. He hated to ask him to repeat his words, for the Crumptonian was exceedingly proud of his command of human speech and attributed any misunderstanding to Sam’s obviously deficient mental abilities.
“Damned human,” were obviously the first words of his boss’s complaint, but what could “nodgid nythgg rid” mean?
“Pardon,” he said as ingratiatingly as he could muster, “Could you repeat that?” He hoped that Mardnnn wouldn’t go off on another of his tirades about the burdens of bringing “ciwlizzzashunnn” to Earth.
“Vladish humans screwed up me trip!” the blue Crumptonian said grumpily.
Aha, now he understood! Mardnnn was complaining about the screw-up of his travel plans. Sam had called the travel agency a week before to book a place on a train to the alien base in Trenton, New Jersey. From there Mardnnn could be transported to one of the galactic ships in orbit. He had already reserved a place on a Poshinova liner to Erandi Prime, where the Crumptonian had important business to conduct; something about descending principles, at least that is what Sam thought he said, which didn’t necessarily mean either that he interpreted it correctly or that he would understand what it meant had he done so. Such were the perils of working for one of the galactics.
One of Earth’s big mysteries was why the galactics chose to establish their base in Trenton when the capitals of the world—London, Washington, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Capetown, et al—had offered their very souls for the opportunity Brill, Mardnnn’s daughter, had confided the reason to him in an embarrassed hush that told Sam he wasn’t to reveal it if he treasured his job. “We put it in Trenton,” she said, “because it is so convenient to Hoboken!”
Apparently the clerks at the travel agency had failed to understand Mardnnn’s simple request for transportation to Trenton; an appalling deficiency in their intelligence, according to Mardnnn, hence his statement that they had “screwed up his trip!”
Sam sighed and picked up the phone to remedy the problem. In a matter of moments he had arranged for a local trucking company to pick up Mardnnn and deposit him in Trenton with ample time to make his connections to the waiting liner. The timing of the connection was critical, since Mardnnn absolutely refused to travel in the human shuttles, which still used primitive and dangerous rockets, of all things, to reach orbit!