“All the aliens in all these amazing spaceships, they’re coming to Earth not because we’re good, or smart, or kind, or compassionate, or anything positive. They’re coming because we’re those nasty pieces of work. They’re running to us for protection, just like someone would run to a warlord for protection—you don’t have to like the warlord or think he’s any good as a human being, but if he keeps you alive and protects you from the other people trying to kill you, he gets your loyalty.
“Think about that. We have six ships full of alien lifeforms fleeing to us, to Earth. Asking us to protect them. This is our real introduction to the Greater Galactic Community. And all you people can do is argue about whose ancient, multi-translated book or set of rules is the right one. All you do is complain that someone is ‘other,’ whine about slights committed by others long dead but clung to as if who said what to whom a thousand years ago matters today. Well, guess what? Humans breed true. Truer than dogs or cats. There is almost nothing different about any of us at the DNA level. We are one race with minor external differences to make us interesting. Want to see different, gang? Let’s see how ‘other’ the people in this room you want to hit or blow up or whatever look to you in a few moments.”
“Pictures going up now,” Serene said. “Teleprompter will share the race names for you.”
“Let me share who’s coming to visit, the star systems they claim as theirs, and the names for their ships. You’ve already seen the Themnir, Sirius, Roving Planet.” Interestingly, the reaction to the Themnir was just mildly negative this time. So there was hope. A sliver of it, but a sliver was better than nothing.
“You’ve also seen the Turleens, Sirius, and you’ve also seen that they are their own spaceships.” Didn’t mention that we had one in the room. Several people knew because Mossy had shoved them into a sitting position by flying up and standing on their shoulders.
A giant, humanoid honeybee hit my teleprompter. The reaction was the general gasp and pulling back thing humans did when faced with a six-limbed giant insect. “Lyssara, Tau Ceti, and they call their ship a Comb, it’s not a Borg ship.”
What looked truly like walking, living trees came on next. Mostly willows, but there were some other pretty tress represented, too. And yet, they were still humanoid. The life in this galaxy was fascinating. “Faradawn, Tau Ceti, Treeship.”
A humanoid butterfly crossed with a fish was the next colorful entry. It was pretty, but not something you’d want to snuggle up to. “Khylida, Tau Ceti. Q’vox, Fomalhaut, both in the Faradawn Treeship.” The Q’vox really did look like giant minotaurs, emphasis on giant. A picture of a Q’vox standing next to a Turleen and a Themnir popped up, presumably for us to be clear on the size differentials.
No time to admire the new people, or listen to the murmurings of the crowd, because there were more new people coming on. Something that looked a lot like Sandy the Superconsciousness and His Fun Pals more than a human hit the screens. It was somewhat in the shape of a manta ray, or a man, depending on the moment, and definitely fit the cloudlike and ethereal yet solid enough description Wruck had given me. “Vrierst, Upsilon Andromedae, and their ship doesn’t have an official name, so we’ll call it as we’d see it and say it’s a Manta Ray.” This actually earned me some nervous chuckles. Hoped this meant the reality of our situation was coming home to roost.
Our next picture came up. Finally, some cute and cuddly in the form of some people who really looked like large golden lemurs, complete with prehensile tails, three long fingers and one equally long thumb on all four paws, triangular ears that moved around a lot, and bright, black eyes. “Draea, Yggethnia, Jewel of the Sky.” Pretty name for a ship that still looked like a giant hand trowel to me.
Another cute and cuddly one. Two in a row. Didn’t expect it to last. “Aschaffen, Yggethnia, Jewel of the Sky.” These looked like tall humanoid sloths with silver hair or fur, extremely large, lavender eyes, three fingers and one opposable thumb on their hands and four toes on their feet, all of which had long claws that were like a sloth’s. Or a bear’s.
“Yah!”
Had no idea who in the audience shouted, but couldn’t blame them. “Nemmen, Tau Ceti, Faradawn Treeship.” These looked like rat-sized cockroaches. That walked upright. Wouldn’t have thought that we’d hit a race that would have made the Themnir look attractive, but the Nemmen had that sewn up, six hands down.
“We have many more,” Serene shared. “But there are less of them than these others. The remainder are refugees and for the most part, per the Faradawn, the very last of their kind. Refugees with no homes anymore are mostly on the Faradawn Treeship, but some are on the Jewel of the Sky.”
“There are more, and we’ll show you their pictures, but I think you get the general gist. For every race that looks like the A-Cs, there’s a race that doesn’t resemble us at all.” Pictures flashed onto the screens. Mercifully I saw no snake people, for which I was truly thankful.
Looked out over the audience. “Now, look at the people in this room, the people around you. The other humans. And ask yourselves if we really need to spill more of our own blood in the name of God, or if we can stop that.”
“But you’re letting these aliens come here,” someone shouted from the audience. Not nastily, which was a shocker, but with fear in his tone.
“We are. Because the reason these people are running to Earth—running to the people so busy killing and doing terrible things to each other for the stupidest reasons that they haven’t bothered with things like world peace, solving the hunger crisis, curing deadly illnesses, or achieving long-range spaceflight—is because what’s chasing them is terrifying. More terrifying than us.”
A picture came onscreen now. The other pictures had been put up one small screen at a time, so that there were eight pictures filling the screen. But this one was a single, eight-frame view. It was a side-by-side picture, the before and after shot.
Before was a humanoid scarab beetle, a very pretty kind of electric blue with green highlights. Nothing most humans would want to snuggle with but otherwise along the lines of the Lyssara—it wasn’t threatening unless you were afraid of bees or bugs. And if you were, you could still see the face, make out that there was something more there than just an insect.
But the after picture told a different story. Overall it was now a sort of dark, iridescent blue and three times the size it had been, all bulky muscle underneath a chitin shell that looked a lot thicker than it had been originally. Where it had had pincer-like hands originally, it now had metal claws that would have made Edward Scissorhands jealous, particularly because the claws moved like fingers.
Its face was altered, too. A mouthful of serrated teeth, sharp, pointed horns coming out from the top of its forehead, and bright, crazy red eyes. And now, to put the icing on the cupcake, it had wings.