First contact is a common myth we grow up with. Every so often, a daring spacer claims he saw them, met them, traded with them, got abducted by them: aliens.
I know them by heart—the stories told in grubby bars on faraway stations and in crew quarters of derelict freighters. Legends rooted in fear and too many lonesome hours in space, every single one of them.
I stopped to believe in first contact, aliens, Santa Claus and the Easter-bunny the day my childhood neighbour Colin called me a gullible chick. Forgive me, I was only five, and a naïve station brat with a crush on that Colin dude.
Later, I learned humans roamed the space-ways for nigh on two centuries without stumbling over a single, existential proof for extraterrestrial life. Colin had been right—although that's the only good thing I remember about the dirty bastard.
Anyway, the lack of aliens makes things easier for independent spacers like me.
We're called scouts. It's a lonesome, demanding task to explore and open new tracks through ore-rich asteroid belts and nebulae of rare gases. Inherently dangerous, not counting non-existent alien spooks.
Most of us travel alone, prefer to make their own decisions, pay for their own mistakes, enjoy their own incentives.
But I digress. One remarkable trip, I'd been exploring the newly discovered pink shark cluster. Screw the name, the wacky twerp who found it dwelt too long alone out there. Saw flying sharks everywhere, of the man-eating variety.
I checked the corner anyway. Never hurts to be amongst the pioneers in an unknown sector. My sensor readings of the pinkish rocks floating in space, debris of a shattered planet, looked promising. All I had to do was pick a few samples, mark a claim, and collect my discoverer's fee with the miner's guild.
And that's what I did. A few ticks later, I was on my way back into civilised space, settled in my fully automated, ergonomic pilot's chair. While enjoying a back massage, I sipped my favourite protein shake. The sound system played an early Martian classic, and I kicked off my boots, at ease with myself and the universe.
A scratchy hiccup tore me out of my reverie.
The chunk of rock I'd placed on my comp earlier sneezed and blinked three bright yellow eyes at me. I'm not a rock collector, but this pretty, speckled one had caught my fancy, so I'd brought it in as a souvenir. Anyway, now it squinted, sniffed the air and opened a mouth-like orifice.
"What's this repulsive smell?"
"What? Who are you?"
"The stench. When did you last wash these ugly garments?"
The thing stared at my favourite, once-fluffy, neon-and-blue striped socks. Self-consciously, I wiggled my big toe sticking out of a conspicuous hole.
"None of your business. This is my ship, answer my questions. Who—or what are you? Who allowed you to board?"
My former state of easy contentment had long since evaporated, replaced by pure anger. Who did this annoying creature-thingy take me for? It sent me a deadly, threefold glare.
"You abducted me, so don't blame me! As a host, you might at least take my personal comfort into consideration. Your feet stink. Abominably."
"Gee, a freaky, squeamish, talking rock!"
"Not a rock. Some respect for my superior intellect would be appreciated."
Superior intellect, by the big green Gluck of Betelgeuse. Well, my fault for bringing a lump of minerals onto the bridge without proper decontamination measures. For this is what the thing was, a blasted, animate rock—okay, it spoke with a slight Caucasian accent, but with vocal cords made of stone...
"Wait, how come you speak my language?"
I knew this was a hoax. Had to be. But then my unwelcome visitor lifted a jagged edge and offered me a glimpse at a hideous hole leading directly into the memory banks of my main comp. Causally, it retracted a long, sinewy tentacle from my ship's central nervous system, slurping it up like a kid a strand of spaghetti.
I would have been disgusted if the worries over the potential damage hadn't kept my mind in overdrive.
"What did you do to my ship? You..."
"Nothing, except analysing this simplistic, auxiliary brain of yours. It seems sluggish though."
Sure, my equipment wasn't state-of-the-art. But slow? My anger flared again, but I found no adequate opportunity to vent it. The rock skipped from comp to nav, bouncing upon landing.
"Is this where we're heading? Looks interesting."
"Listen, I've no intention to bring an alien entity," I cringed at the word, "into human space. Forget it."
The tentacle snaked out again and drilled into the metal shielding of the console like a nimble finger into soft butter. Desperation crept on me.
"Stop destroying my ship. Let's talk this out."
To cut this short, talk we did. Believe it or not, it turned out Rocky—his real name is a row of rasping sounds a human larynx can't handle without suffering serious damage—is fun. Not the way a human is funny, but... you won't understand. Say, after a good long chat we agreed on an equal partnership.
His kind doesn't need oxygen. But they react to it like humans to bubbly. At least Rocky does, he can't get enough of the stuff. However, he insists it neither hurts his health nor damages his internal structure. It's obvious he's addicted though, but I won't complain. Our arrangement has pleasant benefits. Rocky and I lead quite the life on and off the tracks.
He knows the Deneb quadrant better than the back of his hand. Or tentacle. You get it. It's convenient to "discover" a new mining site anytime I'm low on cash. In compensation, I share my oxygen and living quarters, listen to my partner's ramblings and take him places.
I've made worse deals and travelled with far worse companions, I can tell you. You wonder why I call him he? Well... there are details an educated lady won't discuss in public.
Yeah, we're aware of the duty to inform our respective species'. But the gain for humanity and his fellow rock-beings could never outweigh our personal loss.
Let first contact remain a myth.
~
Author's note: I was accused of lacking flying sharks in my stories. So, to be on the safe side, I'll add one here (the space version):
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
