Centennial Hills, the first draft, is done! Who knows if it will get additional work and see some more mainstream form of self-publication? This might be the final version of it. Neighborhood of 75K words – light for a sci-fi, low end for a thriller. You can click the Centennial Hills tag to see ’em all, tho I don’t have a convenient way to arrange reverse chronological / oldest first. Maybe someday I’ll add previous and next buttons to them. Or just sell an e-book! Can you imagine?
Content Warnings: Drug Use, Mental Illness, Big Feels, Inequitable Class Systems.
CENTENNIAL HILLS: THE END
by Bébé Mélange
Snar propped theirself up with enough drugs to survive the night without killing Tmai, and after some sleep, was able to do much more competent work at finishing the repairs. The humans stayed with the Vinudians and the bgrudjh let them, at last releasing all of them, on the condition nothing of their fight got back to the authorities.
Snar had to confess their trauma to the big man, to excuse their own behavior, and get on a course of treatment for it. But they were staying. One could not go against the way of the worlds, try as one may. It was for a doctor of Vinudian medicine to serve Vinudians. It was for Vinudians to be unjust to each other, unequal in distribution of that healing hand.
And it was for the uncontacted to remain on their worlds, and for space escorts to ferry bodies where they were meant to be. Once again, there was little time for a proper goodbye; High Jdibitong wanted Tmai and the Earthlings gone.
The Earthlings waited in the clinic while the Ainavians said their farewells in Snar’s quarters. The room still had the feel of an alien hand in design, and nothing of the personal from Snar’s life or interests. Someday that would change.
For the moment, the doctor was focused on getting well enough to function, using a more sensible drug and dosage to curb the worst spikes from their trauma disorder. It didn’t have a noticeable effect on their personality, from Tmai’s point of view. They saw them hunched, tired, distracted – lounging nervously on a long chair.
The captain had been ready to jet, under pressure from the bgrudjh, but suddenly let their pack hang low, and sat down on a stool near the doctor’s more luxurious seat. “I don’t think we’ve settled this. I don’t want to leave you, feeling like we don’t understand each other, like…”
“That I haven’t forgiven you,” Snar signed. “Tmai, I have. Though I don’t want to talk about it. Please spare me.”
Tmai considered it for a moment, looking at their hands. Then they signed, “That is your right, and it’s reasonable. But can I just say how I feel?”
Snar shrugged. “We all have to do that sometimes. Keep it as plain as you can, and please don’t contact me again. Maybe … if you must, in a few years.”
“Thank you very much. I need this much; you are right. I recognize that I messed up in my duties, unforgivably so. Terribly so. And you may feel you have to forgive me just to help yourself forget. I don’t mind that; I don’t need to be punished forever.”
“This sounds like the beginning of a therapy session.”
“I can keep it brief, I swear. I just… hm… Let’s say, we just go through this Universe, through our lives, without really understanding each other fully. And true, full understanding is genuinely impossible. Abstractly, we get that everybody is a thinking and feeling individual with their own experience of life, but it isn’t always real for us, and that can feel isolating. We’re all alone, as they say.”
“Preface for something maudlin?”
Tmai pulled an expression of wan amusement and continued. “Maybe. I just want to say, I feel you. Of course not in a way that’s of any use to you, but it is of use to me. You saved my life. I care about your life. We’ve been close to the limits of our lives together – of course, always apart – but also together. It isn’t meaningless. I’ll never forget you, Snar.”
Snar sunk more fully into their seat, close to feeling overwhelmed, but steadied just enough by the drugs to avoid a completely embarrassing display. They couldn’t quite raise a hand to sign back.
Tmai said, “This was for me. You don’t have to say anything. I love you.” They stood, walked to the door, and looked back one time. “Goodbye.”
Then they were gone.
Snar covered their head and allowed theirself a long moment of physiological sadness response. They knew, all the while, that their connection with Tmai was over, and that this was a good thing. But it was a heavier thing than they had expected, and the weight would pull them down for a while.
Out in the clinic, Tmai said their names, “Scudz, Shammy, Elidza. We go.” The terse basic language was hard to speak without feeling rude, so they were learning to punctuate these things with the practiced expression of a human smile.
They were all eager to leave the Vinudian enclave, not at all hesitant. Though at the door, Eliza cast one look back toward the door of Snar’s quarters. She had a sense that of everyone who had been on the misadventure together, Snar might be the closest to a kindred spirit with her, but that they could never come close to sharing that with each other.
It was only a moment, and then she was gone.
Back in the big city, the humans figured out how to keep their heads low, and Tmai arranged for all of them to stay together in a miserable vermin-infested hostel. It took an unbelievably long week for Tmai’s spaceship to be properly repaired, during which they all busied themselves with learning or with computer games.
As a charitable offering, the humans had received mobile computers of their own, and learned to call each other on them. Unfortunately, no human language – or even numbering system – was accounted for anywhere in the user interfaces of the devices. Eliza, and to a lesser extent Shammy, could muddle through in Ainavian mode.
They took turns cleaning their clothes in a sonic washing machine, washing their bodies in a luke-warm saltwater shower, and hoped nothing too vile would come of the grotty circumstances. Scuzz stared out the tiny window, wondering similar things to Eliza, but in different ways… How was Pep gone forever? How did it come to that?
At last Tmai announced it was time to take them home. No one protested.
The ship was a flying saucer again. Or had it been replaced? The humans would never know the difference, just that Pep’s Millennium Falcon was no more. The interior was barely furnished with a handful of large ottomans and ugly hospital curtains. No windows. At least it was a lot more spacious, without the cramped cosplay interior design.
“Scudz, Shammy, Elidza, go Eardh widh Chnai now.” They smiled at their passengers, looked at them for any kind of response.
Shammy said, “Thank you kindly,” and nodded in polite dismissal. You have permission to do your thing, Captain.
The humans were alone, insofar as they could be, with nothing but curtains between them and wherever Tmai had gone to push buttons. The ladies caught Shammy looking some kind of way, and asked him about it.
“Shamar, what is this look about?”
Scuzz looked expectant as well, but said nothing.
“I know we hafta go back. We don’t belong out here. But … this is it? This is all that comes of it? I just don’t know how ta feel, I guess.”
Scuzz said, “I think I get it. I’d probably feel like that too, if it wasn’t so crazy for me there. Not that it wasn’t crazy for you! But…”
Eliza scowled. “You have a reservation about going home? To the place where we are not treated like dogs? Where we have rights and jobs and condominiums?”
“Do we have jobs?,” Shammy asked.
She nodded and rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Still. You cannot honestly want to play spaceman like Pep did, can you?”
He stared into the middle distance, wondering.
Scuzz said, “That’s interesting. What would you do, if you could stay out here? In outer space?”
“Don’t rightly know. Tmai don’t need a copilot. Flyin’ this UFO is a one-alien job. Maybe they could use a mechanic?”
Eliza asked, “Do you want to spend your senescence in an alien housing project, or in a luxury nursing home, with nice clean sheets? And nurses who know what orifice you shit from?”
Scuzz crinkled her nose. “You’re nasty. Heh.”
“You’re right, but I can’t help think I’m missing out on something. On seein’ things nobody ever seen before.”
Eliza mock-strangled him. “No. You. Don’t!”
Scuzz laughed, and blushed when they kissed. She left them for another curtained-off wedge of the saucer, and let herself sink into an identical ottoman there. She did feel it too, on reflection. The call of the unknown, of the amazing. But Earth was pretty cool too, in its way, and she never wanted to come within a thousand miles of being a slave, ever again. She imagined a bed of human design, reflecting that when she was a child, she always wanted something more exotic. A room full of translucent pillows ten feet deep, a waterbed covered in koosh ball rubber. Now four posts and a mattress seemed like perfection.
The flying saucer moved faster than the speed of light, an expression of the impertinence of thinking beings, when confronted with the physical limitations of their material existence. From the time a simple cell first develops an organelle or chemical process that decides what to do in response to change, a soul is born – a thing that is of the body but separate, larger. Never free but always striving for freedom.
This time, the refurbished machine flew straight and true, finding the planet Earth small – easy to reckon with, a tidepool on a beach that could be ignored or examined as one pleased. It set down, detected by defense systems that would be far too slow to do anything about it. A seagull with no fear of a slow dog.
Tmai let the ship go to the coordinates it had left from, but at the last moment diverted some distance into the desert hills. Best to not be landing in somebody’s back yard. The portal opened onto cold dusty night air, rich with the miasma of life. There was no symphony of insects and night birds crawling out of their nests, everything within a kilometer spooked silent by the change in air pressure as the unnatural object descended.
Everybody came out, more awkwardly than when the UFO had a proper ramp. Eliza nearly injured her shoulder. But once on solid ground, they all began to feel that weight again. The Earth’s gravity had them. It was more powerful than the artificial gravity of the ship, or that of the slightly smaller Erbin 2.
Standing in that Nevada desert, looking up at the spacecraft, so much had changed. It was no Millennium Falcon. Its Han Solo was rotting scraps of flesh on a city street, unspeakably far away. And the doctor was not in. Snar would never have to face that terrible world again.
Tmai shook their hands, each in turn, saying their names, and “Goodbye.”
Shammy held his head in his hands, hearing that wind, smelling that life. No small amount of cow shit in that aroma. Space had been full of unwelcoming sensations as well, but still…
He signed to Tmai, “Shammy with Tmai. I engineer.”
Tmai shook their head, and Eliza protested. “We talked about this, Shamar. It’s horrible out there.”
He signed to Tmai, “Please please please,” and said to Eliza, “I got to try. It’s the only chance I’ll ever have to see what’s out there. I know Erbin 2 was a hot mess, but what else could there be? It’s got to be amazin’.”
Scuzz felt the call of her inner child dragging her forward, and forced herself to take a step back, just to keep that thing in check. “Shammy, it’s too dangerous for us. We don’t have any rights in space. I don’t know why they’re so prejudiced against us, but they are. It’s bad.”
“We got space welfare for a minute. That ain’t nothin’,” and to Tmai, “Please please please.”
Eliza could see it was true, even though she could barely see his expression in the deepening shadows of dusk. Shamar was in the thrall of wonder – that childish hedonism for curiosity itself. Reveling in the unknown, in poking it with a stick, with putting household cleaning products in your mouth. “It’s horrible. I can’t stand this.” Her smoky voice broke apart.
Tmai considered it. Uncontacted aliens were generally in bad shape under galactic law, but they could apply as individuals for protections and eventual citizenship. Could Shammy’s skills be of any use to Tmai? Possibly. The man had much more practical experience with the tools involved in repairing and modifying machines such as the ship. They wouldn’t see the same tools he had used before, wherever they went, but the principles would be the same.
“Ogay, Shammy. But maybe maybe, ogay?” They meant to say, “think about it for a minute,” but the words eluded them.
Scuzz folded her arms and looked at the old guy in admiration. “That’s so brave. Ya know, even aside from all the heavy stuff, the big reasons not to go, I couldn’t do it just because of how uncomfortable everything is. The water was gross, the food was gross, the temperature was always too hot or too cold, none of the furniture was any good. It’ll be like camping out forever, but no marshmallows and wieners. You’re a crazy guy. I respect that.”
Eliza felt a sinking sensation she couldn’t understand. She had experienced so many firsts recently – emotionally profound things, life-changing things – that she didn’t know which one this was related to. All of them? “Shamar… Please.”
He turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Eliza hon, I got to do it. I never knew I needed this, but I need it. I just couldn’t stay here and always have ta think, what am I missing?”
She nodded weakly and turned away, but he caught her mid-turn for a big hug.
Scuzz looked at Tmai. “Sorry. Humans always have to do this kind of stuff.” She thought about that for a moment. *I’m a human*. She leaned in to hug Tmai. “Thanks for trying to save Pep for me. Thanks for trying to save me.” She was certain they couldn’t understand her, but tried to reciprocate the human gesture.
Scuzz pulled back enough to talk directly to Tmai. Would they understand? “You are a hero. I’ll never forget you, Captain Tmai.” She kinda wanted to smooch them again, but thought better of it. They had already imposed so much of their human goosh on the awkward alien. Time to step away.
She said, “C’mon, Eliza. Time to hitch a ride on a tumbleweed, or rustle some cattle, or whatever.”
The specificity of that plan clarified something in Eliza’s mind. What was she coming back to? Interrogation by the DoD, probably a lifetime of surveillance. Work. Bills. She didn’t have a family, just some half-assed internet friends. But if she went back to space, what would she be doing there? God knows. What would she be missing out on, as Shamar put it, if she stayed on Earth?
“Alright,” Eliza said, “Scuzz, you can hitch that ride alone.”
“Eliza?,” Shammy asked.
“Really? Aww,” Scuzz said.
“Apologize to the Air Force for us. It was all Pep’s idea.”
“It sure was,” Scuzz said, folding her arms against the gathering chill of the evening. “You two are the cutest. I hope you have all the space babies and colonize Mars.”
Shammy mumbled, “Gosh, shoot, dang.”
Eliza said, “You know I don’t have a womb… whatever. I can’t say it was always a pleasure knowing you, but in the end, I respect you. Have a good life, Scuzz.”
“I like that you never asked my birth name, Eliza. You too, Shammy.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to it, ma’am.” He was still holding Eliza close, feeling her warm hair bunching around his cheek, grateful.
“It was real. Goodbye everybody!” Scuzz pivoted on her heels and staggered away over uneven desert terrain, cheerfully flapping her arms as she went. Maybe she could ride a cow home. Wouldn’t that be a trip?
Tmai could see that Shammy and Eliza were not intending to stay on Earth. There would be more bureaucracy to contend with, but why break up a mated couple of beings? They nodded their agreement, and clambered up the portal, leaving it open for the Earthlings to follow.
Years passed. The Earth moved around the sun again and again. Olivia graduated from college, accepting her diploma at a lofty, glass, heavily air-conditioned convention center in Los Angeles. After the ceremony, she exchanged hugs and phone numbers and business cards with dozens of people. Randomly, in the middle of it all, she encountered a dark-skinned middle-aged couple she’d never seen before, who seemed intent on speaking with her.
They were wearing grey robes over white jumpsuits and were very well-groomed, like members of a cult. Not speaking ASL or wanting to rely on any uncertainty in lip reading, the woman held up a cellphone for her to read. Olivia hesitated. She didn’t like the look of their smiles, their weird presence. But alongside the phone, the woman made a hand-sign she recognized.
“Tmai.”
The text on the phone read, “Tmai wanted to know if you would be amenable to an internship in outer space.”
Whatever menace she felt from the strangers blew away in an instant. She understood that smile – the look of a person who knows we are not alone in the Universe, and knows that you know. But she couldn’t see them because tears filmed her eyes in a second, turning all lights into spiderwebs, all colors into quivering impressionist splotches.
She nodded and signed, “Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
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I thought I was going to include more in the last chapter, discussion between the humans about what happened with Snar, etc., but this seemed like a good place to end it.
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