Fast Cars and Intergalactic Speed Dating

44: Home Sweet Home

Richard had seen his share of science fiction films and he had read a wealth of books in the genre, too, but those journeys to the stars could never have prepared him for standing in a city on a planet in a faraway galaxy among alien lives and alien creations.

Fifteenth had driven the bus away from the Entry Facility, taking the crew members of the Beyma to the AIP tenements in the Las-Kendarrian city of Rukubak. The tenements were towering apartment buildings standing near a large park, which itself was near a central city district: shopping, official buildings, lots of people.

"This is it," she said, opening the doors. Her passengers traded glances and then piled out of the bus, their few belongings in rucksacks over their shoulders. They walked a few paces along the walkway that surrounded the park, then drew to a stop in an unspoken accord, staring around them.

There was no earthly experience quite so humbling to Richard as standing in line at an airport coffee shop or preparing to board his plane and watching the endless stream of people passing him by, waiting for their own journeys to start, or to end, or to continue. He could watch people at an airport for hours. It wasn't that he was a creative seeking characters for art or fiction. Nor was he particularly interested in the details of others' lives.

It was more about the experience of being alive and being one man in a sea of thousands. It was about witnessing proof of his simultaneous importance and utter insignificance. Watching people, hundreds of people, made him feel that way. There were people of every color whose homelands and destinations were a complete mystery, people in high street fashion, in saris, in jogging clothes, in religious dress, in stiletto heels and in flip flops, people who covered their hair or dyed it hot pink or had none at all, people of every walk of life, people who carried designer handbags and people who carried their belongings in net laundry bags under one arm and a skateboard under the other. They were all people completely unlike him and yet so very much the same: people with a past and a future and a present full of problems to solve and small joys to relish.

That's what it was like standing on the pink brick walkway surrounding the vibrant park in Rukubak, watching strangers pass them by. There were people of every color, people with skin and scales and bionic body parts, people who walked, slithered, hovered, or crawled.

Being there was like being in an airport times a thousand.

"Are you alright?" asked Fifteenth. She had gotten off of the bus, leaving it parked in a slot at the side of the street. She approached, blinking eyelids that closed vertically. "You ssseem unsssettled. It is a lot to take in, isn't it?"

Garth murmured, "Yeah."

The others were silent.

From where he stood, looking up, Richard could see nothing of the endless, yawning vastness of space. The sky was mild, lavender, strewn with hazy pinkish clouds that drifted past the burning Las-Kendarrian sun. But he knew that space was out there, above him and around him, wrapping him in the awareness that he was just a grain of sand in the infinite universe. And the glorious diversity of life from other planets milled around him, each individual with their own complete story he would never know, proving to him that he was a universe unto himself.

Fifteenth was patient. Soon, the newest Las-Kendarrians began to drift back toward her, and then, in silent agreement, they all began to move toward the tenements. When they arrived at the front doors, Fifteenth handed out a key badge to each new resident, walking them through the simple process of badging their way past the secured entrance.

Inside, the group gathered again and fell into step behind Fifteenth, who guided them to their rooms. She situated the Karra first, and then the Chorodonians—