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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Creatures & Monsters
- Published: 07/20/2021
Extraterrestrial Envoy Academy Oddysee
Born 1946, M, from PA, United StatesBill Billacus, the young, human envoy-academy-cadet, stationed at the Planetary Envoy Academy located on Aldebaran's giant planet's moon, had never seen the species of bipedal creature being displayed as a holographic image on his cubicle's desk before. So he sat in shocked amazement gazing at its elongated saber-like claws, its extreme musculature, its large, red, glaring eyes and its hunched posture, as if ready to pounce, and knew immediately that such features should have disqualified it as far too physically intimidating to be assigned to novice envoy as himself. Yet, the computer message was clear, faculty had officially scheduled him to interact with it as his first extraterrestrial envoy assignment the next day.
Surely, a serious mistake had taken place. But such basic mistakes were practically non-existent among the members of the faculty. There had to be some logical explanation for this administrative anomally, and his supervisor, Joseph, the white-haired, advanced-aged, Alpha Centaurian supervisor seated a few yards away at his hovering anti-grav cubicle, should know what was going on.
Billacus found Joseph dozing off at his cubicle as usual. He often wondered why administration tolerated it. Perhaps Joseph had some kind of special contacts or relationships with high-ranking staff members? He really didn't know nor care. But as long as it didn't directly interfere with his career ambitions, he could tolerate it.
“Hey Joseph!!” Hey Joseph! Heyyyyyy Joooooooooe! Siiiiiir!”
“What the hell?” the green-skinned, humanoid supervisor swivelled his extremely narrow torso upright with bulging dark eyes gaping in a murderous stare. He’d been having his daily siesta and didn’t appreciate interruptions.
“There seems to be a serious mistake here sir.” the Earthian Billacus said in a cautious voice.
“What kind of mistake?” the supervisor responded while vigorously rubbing circulation back into his angry face with the palms of both hands.
“This kind of mistake sir.” Billacus pointed at the holographic image with a quavering index finger.
"Holy Mary Mother of God! What the hell is that thing?” the supervisor shouted and backed away from the image as if goaded by an Alterian lazer shepherding prod.
“Well, aren’t you the supervisor here, sir? Shouldn’t you know?”
“That’s true son, but I don’t. But I’ll tell you what, let me do a quick archive scan to see what the hades is going on here.”
Billacus fidgeted nervously in his cubicle as the supervisor investigated. Actually, it wasn’t the investigation per se, but the way that Joseph was grunting unintelligible words under his breath and glancing occasionally at him in a curious manner, as if he were muttering unmentionable imprecations in his Centaurian tongue about him. After what seemed to be an unusually long while, during which Joseph would stare at the screen and then back at Billacus, in what appeared him as a recriminating manner, the investigation was finally through.
“Nope, no mistake Billacus. The faculty orders are clear. “That" he pointed a green finger at the grotesque creature represented by the hologram, “is indeed your first assignment.”
“The beast is clearly hostile to all living things. Are they trying to get me killed?”
Billacus said nervously while wiping away the cold droplets of perspiration from his forehad with his blue Academy uniform's sleeve.
“ I don’t think so Billacus. Killing our recruits isn’t exactly on our organization’s priority list. Do you want to file a formal complaint son?”
“You know I can’t do that without jeopardizing my status, sir. I mean, how would that look on my record? It would probably doom me to cubicle duty for the remainder of my life.”
“Good point. On the other hand, that beast doesn’t look as if it enjoys having calm conversations with alien strangers, or with anyone else, including its own kind, for that matter, does it? Say, isn’t that red tinge on its jowls human blood?”
“Please, stop kidding around sir. This is serious.”
“I wasn’t kidding! Anyway, it’s your call. So what’s it gonna be? Wait just a second.” The supervisor squinted and then began staring wide-eyed at the tiny flickering print barely visible as a caption below the creature's holo-image.
“Didn’t you read this?”
“Read it? I didn’t even see it, sir. What’s it say?”
“Well, good news. It turns out that this beast is female and herbivorous.”
“Is that supposed to put me at ease, sir? Sometimes the female of the species are more aggressive than the males. Especially if they have offspring to defend. Ever hear of those ancient extinct Earth creatures called bears? The female would tear a human to pieces if she thought that her cubs were in danger.”
“No I’m not too keen on studying ancient Earth fauna history, son. But you do have a point there. Although I seriously doubt that the faculty hasn’t taken all that into consideration before assigning you to that planet. After all, our record is impeccable and we haven’t lost a rookie envoy to alien fauna violence yet because of such a gross mistake.
So your suspicions seem a bit far-fetched. On the other hand, there always is a first time for everything isn’t there now? So I wouldn’t put it too far beyond the possible. Anyway, so what’s it going to be, are you filing a formal complaint or not?”
There was an extended silence during which the supervisor eye-balled Billacus as if he had been examining some extremely-rare petri-dish specimen. Then he calmly added:
“Unless, of course, there is something that you might want to confess?”
“Confess, sir? Like what?
”Well, you know, something that you might have done that might have annoyed some high-ranking academy faculty member who now might just have a motive to want you dead, or else permanently gone.”
“No I haven’t.” Billacus responded, and distanced his cubicle away from the supervisor, relocating it back at his assigned place. But the supervisor swiftly followed in his own.
“You can trust me son. What is it that you have done?”
“I didn’t do a single thing sir! Let’s just forget I even brought this up.”
“Could it have something to do with, Helena?” the supervisor said while squinting a large, bulbous, purple suspicious eye on him.
“Hel who?”
“ Ahhh! Come on now! You know, Helena, the devoted wife of our illustrious and venerable prime faculty member Roostmav? Everyone knows Helena. I find it very strange that you don’t”.
“ Well, what about her sir?”
“ No son, you tell me.”
“There is nothing to tell sir except that she intitially took a sisterly interest in me. You know, in my progress as an envoy cadet.”
“Initially eh?”
“I didn’t intend it to sound that way, sir.”
“Of course you didn’t. Of course you didn’t son.”
“She was like a sister to me, sir.”
“Never said she wasn’t, did I son?”
“So get to the point! What exactly is it that you are insinuating, sir?”
“Well Billacus, you see son, my investigation revealed that at the request of Roostavio, Hellena’s husband, our faculty assigned a micro-surveylance drone to monitor both of your whereabouts and behaviors, and, after gathering visual data, the drone reported back to faculty with this.” The supervisor flicked a switch on his cubicle consol, and the comouter screen flickered to life with two naked figures, one of a young pink skinned humanoid male together with a middle-aged, humanoid green-skinned female, engaged, in what appeared to have been, an act of extremely fervid copulation.
“Do these persons look familiar to you, by any chance, Billacus, my boy?”
“No sir, they do not.” Billacus replied nervously.
“Are you absolutely certain that you cannot identify those two persons on that screen? Hmmmm? Doesn’t that female resemble Roostmav's wife, Helena, and that young Earthian, who is so zelously gyrating hips against groin, rather strongly resemble, umm, you? Eh?”
“Sir, as I just said, I never saw neither of those two humanoids in my life.” Billacus blurted out in a tremulous voice, no longer conveying the confidence trhat it had conveyed before.
“Then, unfortunately," Joseph said solemnly, "...you failed the required visual test by proving yourself to be legally blind, my boy. Which means that you no longer qualify for traing here as an Extraterrestrial envoy. In other words, you are dismissed."
Noticing Billacus's downcast look, Joseph added:
"But look at the bright side son. It could have been much worse. You could have become fodder for the beast that Roostav, Helena's husband, had maliciously assigned you."
As he was leaving, Billacus could have sworn that he saw the holographic beast hunched over and laughing hysterically.
=========================================================
Aldebaran's Giant Planet
https://beyondearthlyskies.blogspot.com/2015/07/giant-planet-around-aldebaran.html
Extraterrestrial Envoy Academy Oddysee(Radrook)
Bill Billacus, the young, human envoy-academy-cadet, stationed at the Planetary Envoy Academy located on Aldebaran's giant planet's moon, had never seen the species of bipedal creature being displayed as a holographic image on his cubicle's desk before. So he sat in shocked amazement gazing at its elongated saber-like claws, its extreme musculature, its large, red, glaring eyes and its hunched posture, as if ready to pounce, and knew immediately that such features should have disqualified it as far too physically intimidating to be assigned to novice envoy as himself. Yet, the computer message was clear, faculty had officially scheduled him to interact with it as his first extraterrestrial envoy assignment the next day.
Surely, a serious mistake had taken place. But such basic mistakes were practically non-existent among the members of the faculty. There had to be some logical explanation for this administrative anomally, and his supervisor, Joseph, the white-haired, advanced-aged, Alpha Centaurian supervisor seated a few yards away at his hovering anti-grav cubicle, should know what was going on.
Billacus found Joseph dozing off at his cubicle as usual. He often wondered why administration tolerated it. Perhaps Joseph had some kind of special contacts or relationships with high-ranking staff members? He really didn't know nor care. But as long as it didn't directly interfere with his career ambitions, he could tolerate it.
“Hey Joseph!!” Hey Joseph! Heyyyyyy Joooooooooe! Siiiiiir!”
“What the hell?” the green-skinned, humanoid supervisor swivelled his extremely narrow torso upright with bulging dark eyes gaping in a murderous stare. He’d been having his daily siesta and didn’t appreciate interruptions.
“There seems to be a serious mistake here sir.” the Earthian Billacus said in a cautious voice.
“What kind of mistake?” the supervisor responded while vigorously rubbing circulation back into his angry face with the palms of both hands.
“This kind of mistake sir.” Billacus pointed at the holographic image with a quavering index finger.
"Holy Mary Mother of God! What the hell is that thing?” the supervisor shouted and backed away from the image as if goaded by an Alterian lazer shepherding prod.
“Well, aren’t you the supervisor here, sir? Shouldn’t you know?”
“That’s true son, but I don’t. But I’ll tell you what, let me do a quick archive scan to see what the hades is going on here.”
Billacus fidgeted nervously in his cubicle as the supervisor investigated. Actually, it wasn’t the investigation per se, but the way that Joseph was grunting unintelligible words under his breath and glancing occasionally at him in a curious manner, as if he were muttering unmentionable imprecations in his Centaurian tongue about him. After what seemed to be an unusually long while, during which Joseph would stare at the screen and then back at Billacus, in what appeared him as a recriminating manner, the investigation was finally through.
“Nope, no mistake Billacus. The faculty orders are clear. “That" he pointed a green finger at the grotesque creature represented by the hologram, “is indeed your first assignment.”
“The beast is clearly hostile to all living things. Are they trying to get me killed?”
Billacus said nervously while wiping away the cold droplets of perspiration from his forehad with his blue Academy uniform's sleeve.
“ I don’t think so Billacus. Killing our recruits isn’t exactly on our organization’s priority list. Do you want to file a formal complaint son?”
“You know I can’t do that without jeopardizing my status, sir. I mean, how would that look on my record? It would probably doom me to cubicle duty for the remainder of my life.”
“Good point. On the other hand, that beast doesn’t look as if it enjoys having calm conversations with alien strangers, or with anyone else, including its own kind, for that matter, does it? Say, isn’t that red tinge on its jowls human blood?”
“Please, stop kidding around sir. This is serious.”
“I wasn’t kidding! Anyway, it’s your call. So what’s it gonna be? Wait just a second.” The supervisor squinted and then began staring wide-eyed at the tiny flickering print barely visible as a caption below the creature's holo-image.
“Didn’t you read this?”
“Read it? I didn’t even see it, sir. What’s it say?”
“Well, good news. It turns out that this beast is female and herbivorous.”
“Is that supposed to put me at ease, sir? Sometimes the female of the species are more aggressive than the males. Especially if they have offspring to defend. Ever hear of those ancient extinct Earth creatures called bears? The female would tear a human to pieces if she thought that her cubs were in danger.”
“No I’m not too keen on studying ancient Earth fauna history, son. But you do have a point there. Although I seriously doubt that the faculty hasn’t taken all that into consideration before assigning you to that planet. After all, our record is impeccable and we haven’t lost a rookie envoy to alien fauna violence yet because of such a gross mistake.
So your suspicions seem a bit far-fetched. On the other hand, there always is a first time for everything isn’t there now? So I wouldn’t put it too far beyond the possible. Anyway, so what’s it going to be, are you filing a formal complaint or not?”
There was an extended silence during which the supervisor eye-balled Billacus as if he had been examining some extremely-rare petri-dish specimen. Then he calmly added:
“Unless, of course, there is something that you might want to confess?”
“Confess, sir? Like what?
”Well, you know, something that you might have done that might have annoyed some high-ranking academy faculty member who now might just have a motive to want you dead, or else permanently gone.”
“No I haven’t.” Billacus responded, and distanced his cubicle away from the supervisor, relocating it back at his assigned place. But the supervisor swiftly followed in his own.
“You can trust me son. What is it that you have done?”
“I didn’t do a single thing sir! Let’s just forget I even brought this up.”
“Could it have something to do with, Helena?” the supervisor said while squinting a large, bulbous, purple suspicious eye on him.
“Hel who?”
“ Ahhh! Come on now! You know, Helena, the devoted wife of our illustrious and venerable prime faculty member Roostmav? Everyone knows Helena. I find it very strange that you don’t”.
“ Well, what about her sir?”
“ No son, you tell me.”
“There is nothing to tell sir except that she intitially took a sisterly interest in me. You know, in my progress as an envoy cadet.”
“Initially eh?”
“I didn’t intend it to sound that way, sir.”
“Of course you didn’t. Of course you didn’t son.”
“She was like a sister to me, sir.”
“Never said she wasn’t, did I son?”
“So get to the point! What exactly is it that you are insinuating, sir?”
“Well Billacus, you see son, my investigation revealed that at the request of Roostavio, Hellena’s husband, our faculty assigned a micro-surveylance drone to monitor both of your whereabouts and behaviors, and, after gathering visual data, the drone reported back to faculty with this.” The supervisor flicked a switch on his cubicle consol, and the comouter screen flickered to life with two naked figures, one of a young pink skinned humanoid male together with a middle-aged, humanoid green-skinned female, engaged, in what appeared to have been, an act of extremely fervid copulation.
“Do these persons look familiar to you, by any chance, Billacus, my boy?”
“No sir, they do not.” Billacus replied nervously.
“Are you absolutely certain that you cannot identify those two persons on that screen? Hmmmm? Doesn’t that female resemble Roostmav's wife, Helena, and that young Earthian, who is so zelously gyrating hips against groin, rather strongly resemble, umm, you? Eh?”
“Sir, as I just said, I never saw neither of those two humanoids in my life.” Billacus blurted out in a tremulous voice, no longer conveying the confidence trhat it had conveyed before.
“Then, unfortunately," Joseph said solemnly, "...you failed the required visual test by proving yourself to be legally blind, my boy. Which means that you no longer qualify for traing here as an Extraterrestrial envoy. In other words, you are dismissed."
Noticing Billacus's downcast look, Joseph added:
"But look at the bright side son. It could have been much worse. You could have become fodder for the beast that Roostav, Helena's husband, had maliciously assigned you."
As he was leaving, Billacus could have sworn that he saw the holographic beast hunched over and laughing hysterically.
=========================================================
Aldebaran's Giant Planet
https://beyondearthlyskies.blogspot.com/2015/07/giant-planet-around-aldebaran.html
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