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Rain pours on Contention City. Sure could’ve used more of this back on his ranch, Buck thinks.
Graax tells Buck about the Zaibatsu – the scientific leadership corps back on Squaattoos. They wanted anecdotal evidence as well as measurable facts about the inhabitants of Earth. There are now two different expeditions working on Earth apparently.
Wars are the ruin of civilizations, Graax says. But, at the same time, they’re necessary for competition. Races don’t develop when there’s no competition.
Buck suspects Graax is telling him only select bits of information.
For more information and Science Fiction Western adventure see www.sfwestern.com .
Episode #34
The rain pounded on. Suddenly and earnestly Graax said, "I hope I can tell you this in a way letting you see how serious I am."
"What?" I asked nonchalantly.
"I fear your planet is dead, like a man shot left bleeding without aid," Graax said, his big eyes probing into the deepest parts of my brain.
I laughed heartily, without restraint. Everything struck me funny, I suppose, because of the oddness of it all: the rain, wind, Graax's limited command of English.
Then I realized he wasn't meaning to joke. Come to think of it, though he'd smiled from time to time, Graax had never meant to joke intentionally.
"What?" I asked again.
"What I say to you is true," the alien said in his warbly voice. "As I have said, my people sleep in my big ship revolving around Earth. They will not wake up for three years.
"They wouldn't fight for your world anyway. They are scientists and students—not soldiers," he said. "Your world is alone and defenseless."
"I don't understand," I said. He had my attention, but he wasn't making sense. "What are you talking about?"
"There are two groups of people on Squaattoos," Graax began. "The Original and the Changed."
"Changed?" I said.
"Changed," he affirmed, nodding his oversized head.
The original people are called the Pxelepiti, he said. The changed people are the Lebe'piti. Graax, himself, was a Lebe'piti. "The inner lights of each of these people are different," he said.
"What is an 'inner light'," I asked. I had some idea of what he meant, but I wanted to make sure I understood him as well as I could.
"I don't know how to say it in English. The inner light serves a people while they are developing. It is the desire to get
money, another, to improve. There are more. Those desires aren't the strongest for allowing a people to reach the next level, or grade."
My head spun like a pinwheel. One question at a time. I'm not going to know everything there is to know about this at once. "How are your people changed?"
"I will soon tell you," Graax said. "Say you have a choice in life."
I nodded. "Sure."
"To get to where we are as a civilization, our founder, a Pxelepiti, as all people were then, saw how a people needed to be focused on knowledge rather than things in order to advance." he said.
"Why knowledge?" I said.
"If you concentrate on things, you will get things. If you concentrate on knowledge, you will get knowledge," Graax said. "See?"
"Makes sense," I said. "But if you don't get things how will you accomplish anything with that knowledge?"
"The things aren't important. You accomplish if you're focused on knowledge," he said. "Further, Oobaxi realized the good of all groups must be more important than that of one group.
"So, when making my people, Oobaxi combined those traits by lessening the physical weaknesses hampering a people. He gave the new people a life span about one to two in ten parts longer than that of the Pxelepiti. That is why we call Oobaxi the founder of our race. He created us," Graax said.
A people created by a creature much like themselves was a prospect as alien as metal fabric and the whistles, clicks and other noises that Graax used for speaking his language.
"How'd he do that?"
"By clues."
"What kind? Plans?"
"Not the kind you make on paper," Graax said. "You can figure how we grow by looking at these plans in you and at other living creatures. They are like the plans you'd use to make a building, already inside of you."
"I've never heard of those kinds of plans," I said in disbelief.
"They are there. Your scientists will discover them someday."
Who was I to dispute that? There was a lot we still had to learn about the human body, though medicine had progressed a long way from the time of Hippocrates.
"The Pxelepiti had to reach a certain level before Lebe'piti could be formed. The native, savage world couldn't house us. A group such as the Lebe'piti wouldn't be focused enough on their own survival. But, when Squaattoos became tamer, like a dog evolves from a wolf, the race had to change in order to grow and advance.
"How'd Oobaxi go about designing a new people?" I said, again, wanting to hear more about the plans inside everyone.
The alien looked away. "We need to talk about that another time. What I'm telling you is how Pxelepiti are different from my people."
"Yes. Sorry."
"After Oobaxi designed us, he grew the first couple of my people. Couples raised these two Lebe'pitis to adulthood. Oobaxi created several others. Other couples raised the others. The Le'beepotik government gave the first Lebe'piti a sum of money to start their own town. The Lebe'piti grew in number and that town, Lebe'pitik, grew into a city."
"Dang," I whispered in awe.
"We'll say that took one thousand years, though our time is different here. My people made many discoveries. Other Lebe'piti towns grew. The Lebe'piti universities in Lebe'piti towns became the best on Squaattoos.
"Eventually we Lebe'piti felt the Pxelepiti were slowing us, stopping us from building the kind of society we were destined to become. We needed to go to the next level as a people. We needed our own country. The Pxelepiti were still involved with fighting between their different types, making money without seeing how it affected them in the future."
"What do you mean?"
"You know Edith and her medical books?"
"What's that got to do with anything?"
He ignored my question. "Why did she learn medicine?"
"Cause she wanted to."
"Why?"
"Do you know why?" I said.
"I do," Graax said. "So she'd know it. Right?"
"Yup," I said, chuckling. I didn't think the answer would be so simple.
"That's why you let her."
"Yup."
"She was learning when she could have done the thing that paid for her working right away: cleaning, sewing and sleeping. Do you see? Not everybody does. When a whole society understands that, things get better. It's a matter of priorities." They held the individual as more important than the group and didn't lessen their effort for their own benefit.
I said, "So you're saying they work together for the common good like they would for themselves?"
"Right," Graax said.
"Keep going," I said.
"The Lebe'piti cities banded together. They created their own country with some Pxelepiti immigrants. The planet was big enough for both groups. We were always able to attract allies among the Pxelepiti nations because of our inventions. For the individual Pxelepiti, there is almost always an advantage to gain by being our ally.
"Most groups of Lebe'piti allowed the mixing of the two main races, reasoning it was the only way to become stronger. We found the tendencies Oobaxi instilled wouldn't lessen by the mixing of bloods."
"That runs against what one would think at first," I said.
"It is part of the way Oobaxi designed us. I don't have the language and you don't have the science for me to explain as far as I know," he said.
"I'm learning," I said.
"I know," the alien agreed.
Because they are focused on getting more things and not more knowledge, the Pxelepiti institutions don't make many discoveries, Graax said. Some scientific discoveries can only be made by work passing from grandfather to father to son.
Pxelepiti governments fund little research—and a lot of stealing. Gees'haamonik aligns itself with some of the Pxelepiti to save this research, keeping it from enemies.
"That's how my people have gotten into space. Your people might have to create a society like the Lebe'piti in order to get to space themselves," Graax said as the rain strummed on.
I wished Edith or one of the deputies were around to hear this. I wanted to have another human to talk it over with when Graax was done. The story was fantastic, but unsettling.
Graax continued talking about how there were fifty-eight other nations on Squaattoos. I only listened part way. I was sweating hard. A hairball of terror grew in my stomach. There is some reason he is telling this to me. He was closemouthed about these types of facts. This was his belief. He was here to learn from me. I was anxious to hear why he changed his mind.
"At the church service last Sunday I saw a Pxelepiti in the formed disguise of a human cowboy. They are here on Earth," Graax said. "That doesn't favor your people."
There it was. I scratched my head nervously. "So?"
Graax shook his head dismissively. "This is very important to the future of your civilization. You must listen to me! Your other people must listen to me! Your civilization isn't as old as the peoples on Squaattoos. The Pxelepiti will exploit you! They don't care about learning about you! All they want to know is how they can use you to increase their wealth."
"How did you know those cowboys were Pxelepiti?" I asked.
"There is more than you can see by your eyes, other lights you cannot see. My eyes have been changed to let me see these lights," Graax said. "That is how I can tell they were Pxelepiti.
"You have to trust what I say because there is no way for me to arrange for you to see as I do. I believe they are building a fort—probably near here."
"Fort? Other lights? This is a little much . . . ," I said, twittering.
"It's not important for you to understand what I say about other lights. When you look up into the sky after a rain and see what you call 'rainbow'? That's what I mean by 'other lights'. It is a special light you can't see without water in the air. The water in the air pulls lights apart. There are lights that come out of Pxelepiti, Lebe'piti and humans as well. It is these lights that I see. That's how I know the cowboys were Pxelepiti.
"Whatever we do, we need to stop these Pxelepiti forts. We must start now. They will have a harder job at taking over your planet if they can't start in secret," Graax said.
"What about your people? Can they help?" I said dumbly. He had already said that they couldn't and wouldn't.
Part of me told another part how I should be skeptical. I didn't heed it. Graxx's demeanor was too serious. At the time, I believed him completely. It was only later that I started to question what he said.
"Your people shouldn't rely on the help of other peoples. Gees'haamonik regards you as a test, but for no other practical gain. 'Yes', if minds change, but 'no' at this time. This fight is better fought on your own. It will raise the respect of the nation these Pxelepiti come from, whichever nation that is. They will pause at the costs of taking over the Earth if you fight a good fight."
Only because of my trust in Graax did truth sink in so quickly. We here, a bunch of ranchers, prospectors and farmers were going to have to do the fighting. I knew the Army well enough to know that nobody but the president could snap their fingers and get them fighting. Too bad there wasn't a soldier among us.
My infantry skills were decayed to a point to where I'd probably be no more use to a battle than a green private. Hopefully they'd come back and be of some use against an advanced alien people.
As much as I liked Graax, right then I wished he and ilk left us alone all along, like the Indian wishes of us.
The situation looked so desperate I thought I might be tempted to believe in a medicine man like Wovoka. Out here, when we heard about the massacre at Wounded Knee, we laughed, "What a bunch of dumb Indians thinking a dance would make them invulnerable to bullets."
I wanted to start a Ghost Dance right there. When know that you're so outclassed in weapons and technology what else are you going to do?
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