“Well, that and the spinning neon propulsion system. Wonder if it turns off and, if it doesn’t, how it’s going to safely land in the ocean.” Looked at Raheem out of the corner of my eye.
He smiled at me. “Feel free to discuss whatever is necessary. This is both historic and something you’ll be having to discuss with many others shortly. If your people feel that they need to brief you on anything, they should feel free to do so.”
“We—well, really I, tend to talk a lot while we’re ingesting information.”
Raheem was really trying not to laugh. “So my intelligence has shared with me. Please go ahead, I’m sure I’ll find it most educational, especially if I get to add in as well.”
“Absolutely,” Vance said.
“Frankly, I’m curious,” Raheem said. “Where is the military? Other than the Coast Guard, I mean.”
Realized he was right—there was no evidence of any other ships or aircraft. Felt worry hit—it was one thing to not have Jeff with a lot of other people nearby. It was another to allow an alien ship to land without some sort of protection for the President in evidence.
Vance did a quiet cough. “There’s protection. It’s just cloaked.”
Relief washed over me. “The Vatusan ships?”
He nodded but we all stopped talking because the spaceship was almost down. Everyone was silent now, as the world watched Earth’s first out and proud alien arrival.
It took a few minutes, but the Roving Planet finally landed gently on the Atlantic Ocean. And it was clear that the landing was gentle, because the cutter wasn’t swamped and there were no large waves created. The ship bobbed a bit more, discernable due to the handheld cameras bobbing, but that was it.
The spinning neon bands stopped spinning and collected together as if they were the equator for the Roving Planet, settling in neatly. Eight bands, each of slightly larger diameter, radiated out like Blue Saturn’s Rings. Once they were aligned together, they stopped glowing, seemingly turned off.
And there the giant mini-world was, just, sort of floating in the water, about halfway submerged. How it wasn’t sinking was beyond me. Possibly the rings acted as a flotation device when they were together and around the ship in this way, because they were sitting on the water.
“Nicely done,” Raheem said, while Oliver did the speculation without information so near and dear to so many journalists’ hearts. Said speculation sounded a lot like what I’d been thinking, right down to the flotation device idea. Nice to see that Oliver and I were in tune. Raheem’s next question wrenched me right back to the right here and right now. “What will these, ah, people be like?”
Mossy moved from his seat and came to where we were. “I believe that I have the most information about the Themnir, and I think you would prefer that I not shout while I share it.” Vance moved like he was getting up but Mossy put his hand up. “No need. I’m fine with standing right now.”
“Thank you,” Raheem said. “We appreciate your consideration.”
Mossy turned to the screen. “Your concerns about a military escort are, as you will see, of no actual worry. The Themnir are extremely pacifistic.”
“And the Greeks gave the Trojans a lovely horse as a gift, a gift which contained many soldiers who were not pacifistic,” Raheem pointed out.
Realized he had an extremely legitimate concern. We were trusting that the Turleens, Wruck, and any number of other people were correct in their assessments and not all working together in some sort of gigantic Take Over The Earth conspiracy.
Sure, Algar and ACE had pretty much said that Muddy was right on with his intel, but they didn’t always tell me everything. In fact, they never told me everything. They gave me fiddly little clues that I had to work out and hope I’d guessed correctly.
And my husband was essentially alone, a sitting duck for whatever the Themnir might choose to throw at him. My analogy from earlier came back to me. Cows were pacifistic, but they could certainly kick a man to death if they were roused.
Focused on not panicking because there wasn’t a lot I could do right now. Christopher was with Jeff somewhere, and Chuckie too, I was sure, and no matter what, they weren’t going to be faster than the Flash or smarter than Batman. And Jeff was Superman—he’d handle it, whatever “it” was going to be.
A ramp opened from the side of the Roving Planet. Held my breath. Here it was, good or bad, the official First Contact that all the world was watching.
“Here they come,” Oliver shared from the deck, sounding excited beyond belief. “The world waits in breathless anticipation!”
The first Themnir started down the ramp. And everyone in the theater gasped. Gasps of shock and horror.
CHAPTER 58
WRUCK AND MUDDY had not exaggerated the Themnir’s appearance. The Themnir really looked like slugs, giant slugs, only they had faces of a sort, arms, and legs. Four stout legs, which they needed in order to drag the latter half of their body along.
They walked or slid or whatever they called it in a sort of bobbing serpentine gait. The kind of gait that said, if they were in a Disney movie, they’d be the characters that were happy with their lowly lot in life because they had the sunshine and flowers and such, and their particular song would win the Oscar.
The gasps from the room had been because, no matter how many times someone told you the people coming were giant slugs, the sight of a slug that was taller than Jeff really gave humans and A-Cs and, from the sounds, everyone from the Alpha Centauri system, pause. Was certain I heard a little gagging, but it was contained.
The people on the cutter were having no less fun. Either the cameraman had jumped or was really trying out for a job on the camera crew of the next Jason Bourne movie. Even Oliver looked thrown when the camera finally, shakily, focused on him. “And,” he said haltingly, “the first emissary of the Themnir has shown himself. Herself. Itself.” Oliver managed a weak chuckle. “We’ll be finding out shortly, I’m sure.”
“Ah,” Raheem asked slowly, “these are the people we’ve been expecting?”
“Um, yes. I left out the little details about them, but yes, these are the Themnir, as accurately described.”
“They’re leaving a trail,” Vance said quietly, clearly trying his hardest to channel his years of time spent hanging out in the Washington Wife class and not sound totally icked out. With limited success.
“They probably don’t do it on purpose.”
“They do,” Mossy corrected. “The trail, as you call it, nourishes the ground as they walk over it. The Themnir are one with their planet. The Roving Planet has an interior that is appropriate to the Themnir’s ways of life, so they nourish it as well.”
“Will that work on Earth like it does on their home planet?” Reader asked from the cheap seats. The no shouting rule was totally out the window, it was clear, because Raheem was obviously trying hard not to act totally repulsed and had thrown any kingly propriety out the window.