TOC MetaStories: Ineen Aldrop's 'He Stood taller Than Most'

Part 12 -Friendly Interrogation-

The alien was strange, there was no doubt about that in Paulie’s mind. But they were strange in the way he might have expected an alien to be. Not to mention their apparent ability to become nearly invisible at will, that in and of itself was an ability he would have very much wished to have as he felt a stab of some strange emotion flutter through his mind.

They wore a tight fitting body glove that did little to conceal her athletic form, a fluffy ruff of fur surrounded the base of her long neck and seemed to disappear down under her suit. He noticed her eyes next. Each of her six bright orange eyes was placed on what looked like a fleshy petal that extended from her goat-like head almost like an ear. Three on either side, these seemed to be capable of an incredible deal of independent movement and he watched as she looked all around the room without moving a millimeter. Each of those orbs seemingly having a mind of their own, their chameleon-like ability to look everywhere at once both unsettling and intriguing in equal measure.

Her wide shoulders supported a pair of long arms that hung down her sides, and directly under these were two shorter, more delicate looking arms that she had crossed in front of her flat chest. Her third and smallest pair of arms seemed even more delicate than the others and they all had four fingers each. She was taller than most of the aliens he had seen and looked somehow sturdier. As if she were made of more substantial material.

As she decloaked her skin seemed to shift and morph till it settled on a mottled white and tan pattern that shifted and pulsed with what he assumed was the beating of her heart or hearts.

He closed his mouth as he realised he was staring and turned to look at Mack. The pale skinned alien was smiling, the tips of tiny canines just visible in the corners of his small mouth as they released a sort of chuffing sound that he intrinsically understood as a chuckle.

Paulie accused, “You knew she was there the whole time?”

Again with the chuffing. “Yea, and I was not sure she had been telling the truth when she said you had picked her out in the alley. The termaxxi are well known for their ability to remain unseen. And you saw through her camouflage not once, but twice. You must have incredibly acute vision.”

Now it was Paulie who was a little on the back foot. “Well, not really. I didn’t actually see her, not like that.” He made a gesture towards the new alien, one of her orange eyes seeming to swivel or flick like an ear, her dainty little mouth pursing a little as if in thought.

Mack looked at him and then back towards the termaxxi standing confidently across the room. “Well, it isn’t important how or even why. Get inside, come on, have a seat.” He pointed Paulie towards the stool across from the table as they walked inside themselves.

As Paulie sat across from the centauroid alien, the detective leaned forwards with his hands on the table. In one of them was a folder which he had not been holding before. Paulie wondered where it had come from before just assuming it must have come from his large overcoat.

Mack nodded to the other alien, “Alright Jakiikii, you were the one that begged me to be here. If you are going to participate in the conversation then come stand over here where we can see you. I can feel you lurking over there.”

The six armed alien gave a small start before walking over. He noticed that her slender digitigrade legs ended in delicate cloven hooves with what appeared to be dull dew claws on either side. She moved forwards with somewhat loping steps and stopped at the detective's side.

Mack nodded again, the sensory quills on their neck chattering. “Okay, now that we are sufficiently settled…”

Paulie butted in, “I’m not. I’m starving. Please can I get a sandwich or a steak, fuck man.. I would kill for some cheese and crackers.”

Jakiikii seemed to smile slightly as Mack looked a little taken aback. “You would kill who for what?”

Paulie shook his head, passing a hand over his head as he tried to restrain the emotions bubbling around inside of him. Once more he cursed his luck.

“It is a figure of speech.” He began.

Blank stares greeted him, though. He was about to try and explain but was beaten to the punch by the tall alien female.

Jakiikii spoke up, “Ah, like the old saying.. you can’t drink from two sparrack at the same time.”

Both of them looked towards the alien woman, she raised all six arms in a gesture all too familiar as if to say ‘Don’t ask me’. Mack just looked back to the folder in his hand and slapped it down on the table in front of Paulie. He opened it to a random page and Paulie’s eyes widened as he recognised pictures of Jupiter and Saturn.

Pointing to the folder in his hands he said excitedly, “Hey, that’s Jupiter. Those are from my solar system!”

At this point Jakiikii leaned forwards, her two longest arms planted on the table as she laced the fingers of her second and third pairs. “Oh, these pictures are wonderful. It is so like Trellan IX, but also different. The colors, and the moons? Do your people come from a place of such beauty as this, Mack?”

Mack’s face fell. A darkness seemingly falling across their eyes as he nodded. “It was. Yes, but that’s long gone now.” He took a deep breath, the quills that ran down the back of his neck seemed to lie flatter as he continued after a minute. “It isn’t the beauty of the system I am interested in. Urrenian, this is your homeworld? Yes?” He asked Paulie as he turned a few pages and gestured to the round blue dot that was Earth.

Paulie looked at iit and nodded before stopping. “Yes, but something isn’t right. This picture, are you sure this is the most current picture you have for my world?”

Jakiikii looked at it as he handed it to Mack. Mack nodded, “Yes. That’s what we have in the records, they are meticulously updated whenever a new exploration or survey vessel swings through. They get paid a few thousand osmir and drop us the current star charts.”

Paulie sat back on the strange alien stool. He wished he had a backrest to lean into, but given the huge variety of species that seemed to exist across even this single world, it made sense for as many things as possible to be multi-species. The picture looked wrong, he couldn't say why in so few words. But as he looked at the grainy image something tickled the back of his brain, the night side of the planet was dark in contrast to the sunny side. Everything seemed in the right places though, so what was triggering his suspicions?

Mack was busy making some manner of notation on a small wrist worn device that looked a lot to him like some type of tiny PDA or something. He wasn’t able to ask about it as the tall termaxxi woman leaned forwards even more, the small downy fur of her neck ruff waving slightly as she moved.

She spoke, her dainty mouth didn’t move as she spoke he realised, instead her voice seemed to be emanating from her chest itself. The vibrations of her speech possessed a deep, almost raspy quality that contrasted with the pitch and timbre.

“Your world is covered in water?” She seemed to be a little excited.

Paulie looked at the strange alien woman and nodded. “Yeah, big oceans cover like seventy percent of Earth or something like that.”

She rubbed one of her second hands around the edge of her neck ruff. “That is amazing. I have heard that my kind came from a mostly barren world. No surface water at all to speak of, we used to live mainly underground.” She trailed off, seemingly a little upset.

He cocked his head and asked her, “What? You have never been to your own homeworld?”

She pushed herself back up stiffly and then stepped towards the shadowed corner as if trying to disappear. But she stopped as Mack’s neck quills chattered loudly and he called out to her, “The Urrenians would have no knowledge of the destruction of Terminaxx.” The comment seemed to do little to soothe the six armed woman. All six of her flexible eye-petals turned to look anywhere but towards them.

Paulie was shocked. The destruction of Termaxxi? Had that been her homeworld? He reached out a single arm towards her and tried his best to offer an apology. “Oh, I am so sorry. I meant no disrespect at all. Please..”

She seemed to let out a sniffing sound, his new intrinsic understanding of others letting him know that she was upset. That squirming in his brain made him wince but he pushed it down. He was becoming a little more acquainted with how the others acted and was finding himself starting to pick up on their strange social cues.

After another few moments Jakiikii turned and gave him a single nod with her angular head. “I.. know. But, I still have a hard time.” She raised a hand as he opened his mouth to speak. “No, no questions please. I don’t wish to discuss it.”

Paulie conceded. Nodding at the alien’s request. It only seemed fair he supposed, it was clearly a traumatic event and must have happened to her quite recently.

He turned his attention back towards Mack as the man placed something on the table between them. It was a small black device with several flashing lights and a single small blue crystal not unlike the one he had in his back pocket.

“Oh, that has one of those data crystals.” He gestured towards it, the comment making the detective pause.

“You know what this is?” Paulie shook his head at the question.

Paulie placed a hand on the table as his stomach gurgled again, making him frown. “No. I have no idea what that is, but I can make a pretty good guess. It's some sort of recording device I would have to assume. It has a little speaker or microphone on the top and the memory crystal gives it away.” Paulie said it smugly and crossed his arms. He had watched StarTrek as a kid. Alien technology it may be, but it looked like any other tape or digital recorder he had ever seen.

Jakiikii looked from Paulie to the device and then asked, “What did the file say the native technology on his planet is like?” Her eyes narrowed, the ones still looking their way squinted as she asked it.

Mack frowned. The corners of his mouth tightening as the alien’s large grey eyes looked through the folder on the table. “They didn’t say anything. Except to say that there was nothing to say.”

Paulie frowned too. Something didn’t add up. The officers who had brought him in hadn’t thought he was even a thinking creature. The zen’kkalkians had been astonished by his seeming sapience. And now even the information they had on his entire home planet was either incomplete or just straight up manipulated? Something was definitely odd.

Mack looked at him directly. “What level of technology does your people possess, Urrenian?”

Paulie rolled his eyes, “For the last time, my name is Paulie. And I’m a human. Huu-maan, from Earth. Not Urren, not Urrenian. Human, from Earth. Can I please get some food now?” He was losing patience rapidly for the conversation.

Luckily for him it seemed as though the universe had been listening as the door opened and a skittish looking alien stepped into the room pushing a small cart.

The alien was short and their two arms were both occupied with the cart as they pushed it into the room with a grunt, their small toad-like body had a small head with three beady brown eyes that roved all over the room before settling on Paulie’s annoyed features.

The small alien immediately froze, their body going as stiff as a board as they nearly keeled over. Only their death-like grip of the cart’s handle kept them from slamming into the floor. There was a suspicious sound and suddenly the room was graced with a foul odorous smell.

Jakiikii seemed more amused than upset but Mack straightened and hollered, “Zalc be damned Flurn! You were briefed on the Urrenian and you still nearly make a mess of yourself!” He turned towards the door and pressed a few buttons on a small control panel that Paulie hadn’t seen at first. After another moment the room filled with a low hum as some manner of ventilation kicked in, the foul sulphur-like smell slowly fading.

It took another moment of berating, coaxing and then finally what sounded like promises of some manner of food or drink for the small toad-like alien to finally pull themselves together. When they did and looked at Paulie again he was sure to give a head nod and friendly wave. To his relief the small stumpy creature returned a similar gesture with supreme hesitancy.

They pushed the cart towards the center of the room and gestured to a white container on the top of it. “There is nourishment here Urrenian. Er.. the database was a little loose on what your kind ate so I just grabbed some universal nutrient cubes, low sulphur and low metalloids as you are a carbon-based species.”

Paulie stood and rushed over before grabbing the container like it was made of solid gold. He tore the lid from it and smiled, the small dense looking cubes were an off-white in coloration and seemed to have the consistency of a boiled egg when he picked one up. Popping one in his mouth he smiled wider, they didn’t taste bad at all. In fact they had a general sweetish-savoury taste that was hard to place, almost like unto that of honeyed ham or steak and bbq sauce.

He gave a small sigh as he swallowed the first of the cubes. “Oh, thank you so much! Mack said your name was Flom?” he asked as he popped another cube into his mouth.

The creature blanched at his gaze but seemed to hold itself together better than before. “I-I.. uh, n-no. M-my name is Flurn. B-but you can call me F-flom if you prefer.” They seemed about ready to cry and Paulie took a few steps away and then sat back at his stool with the box still in hand.

He waved a cube in the air with his free hand, “No, it’s fine Flurn. I’m just a little scatterbrained at the moment. Thanks for the food btw, these things are great!” He popped a fourth into his mouth and Flurn’s eyes bulged.

Flurn pointed at the cubes and warned carefully, “You need to slow down on those. One of those contains enough energy to feed an oniuh like me for a whole day!”

Paulie looked at the small cubes. They didn’t seem all that impressive. He asked the small alien, “How many calories is that exactly?”

The creature shook its wide head, all three eyes still wide as it watched him pop a fifth one into his mouth and chew vigorously. “Well, I believe that the measure is somewhere around two-hundred calories or so. Surely you can’t possibly need so much all at once?”

Paulie smiled at the small oniuh’s response. Paulie was a large man, just over two-hundred-and-one centimeters tall and nearly one-hundred-and-eighteen kilograms on a good day. He generally ate over three-thousand calories worth of food per day, so he smiled at the small creature, “Well, I am not sure I will need to eat my normal daily intake under the low gravity here. But back home I was eating somewhere around three-thousand calories a day. I mean, that's really not that much. Like a few burgers and some fries on the side.”

He shook his head as the little creature clutched at its white lab coat and croaked loudly.

Mack just threw up an arm and grumbled loudly, “Oh for the love of.. Urrenian, Paulie. Stop antagonising the poor man.” Jakiikii covered her mouth with one of her secondary arms and seemed to stifle a laugh though, two of her bright orange eyes making contact with his own as he suppressed a chuckle of his own.