The plot development on which the remainder of the story hinges, why, that’s what you’re getting today.  Aren’t you lucky?

Content Warnings:  Threats, Weapons, Decapitation Mention, Ableism, Billionairism, Heartbreak, a Physically Abusive Relationship, Delusional Fandom Behavior.

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CENTENNIAL HILLS CONTINUES

by Bébé Mélange

“Welcome to Erbin 2, my friends.”

Tmai flicked their eyelids and signed to Snar, “My dear passenger, you will never face mortal danger like that again.  We have landed, and you can be rid of this hunk of junk.  I’ll stay on Erbin until I get it overhauled, but you can be rid of the whole lot of us as well, should you so desire.”

First Eliza, then Snar both crumpled in relief, coupled with a sorrow that they had been made to experience all of this in the first place.  Then they noticed each other’s similar reactions, and had a nonverbal interspecies bonding moment.

“You too?,” she signed.

“It is bad,” they signed back.  “But it is good.”  They stood up, Princess Leia robes flowing prettily over the imitation Falcon furnishings.

Eliza followed them, more stiffly and slowly, then Shammy.

Shammy asked, “Boss, you really did it.  But what’re we suppose’t ta do here?”

“Thank you, Shammy.  We are space explorers, looking out for the benefit of all humanity.  I know it’s not as exciting as dogfights with TIE fighters, but there is a certain thrill of discovering the unknown, is there not?  We will stay with Tmai until we determine the best way to support ourselves in our endeavors here – pay for a hotel, whatever we need – and thus established, see if we can arrange some sort of trade agreements between businesses here and our own.”

Eliza laughed sharply.  “Of course, it all becomes clear now.  Pretending to be Han Solo was just a perk, but this was about your business.”

“A business that has profited you immensely, Ms. Banerjee, and shall again – should you see us through this expedition.  Perhaps I should reduce your pay for each insult you hurl at me.”

“What pay?  Your monopoly money doesn’t mean a thing out here, Pep.”

Scuzz said, “Hey!  You stole our bed and threatened our lives, come on.  Give us a break!”

“That was a bit much, ma’am.”

“Shamar, please.  Scuzz, my threats were mere words.  I didn’t hurl you through the inhospitable vacuum of space in a butchered bucket of bolts, faster than the speed of light.”

“Enough, ladies.  Let us try to conduct ourselves with more dignity out there, OK?”

“that’s a bit much, sir,” Shammy muttered.

Tmai took Snar’s hand and started toward the back ramp.  The humans sorted themselves out to follow along.

Nobody attended them on the tarmac.  A violet light by an open door was the most welcoming thing in sight and they followed Tmai to it.  They had to walk down an obscenely long featureless gunmetal grey hall to get to the next room with anything useful.  The experience was like an exaggerated version of the accordion at an Earth airport, and their destination seemed even more like an airport at that.

They were in an even longer, even larger hall, with a variety of alien people and robots roving this way and that.  Many pushed carts, some ate or drank drowsily, all seemed annoyed to be there.  The hall was lined with businesses, utility areas, and staging areas from which people could load or unload from spacecraft.

The local staging area for small craft had seats for a dozen people, and Tmai and Snar quickly seated themselves.  Eliza and Shammy followed suit, but Pep and Scuzz paced and watched the aliens go by, their enthusiasm a reverse image of the listlessness of the other travelers.

A tall robot moved past them and found Tmai, its screen lighting up with the image of a naked cartoon Ainavian, from the waist up.  It signed to them and spoke, everything it said a blur to Shammy and Eliza’s baby vocabulary.

It signed, “Welcome to Tasite-Kolbar Spaceport.  Your new personal computers are in the serving tray, Tmai and Snar.  Captain Tmai, the maintenance service you requested must be negotiated in person.  Proceed to engineering office 25-234 at your earliest opportunity.  If you do not negotiate these terms within three cycles, your craft will be impounded, disassembled, and recycled.  You will find the directions to the engineering office in your SP interface.  Did you bring a land vehicle with you?”

“We did not.”

“Would you like a metered personal conveyance or directions to the transit terminal?”

“Not now.”

“Do you have any questions or requests?”

“Is there a record of the English language in master records?  It is spoken on planet WF47489-3.”

“There are no recorded languages from that world.”

“Thank you, that is all.”

“Please take your personal computers now.”

A little slot opened on its belly and a tray extended.  Tmai pulled out the computers, checked the screen to see which was Snar’s, then handed it to them.

“New iphones, heh,” Shammy said.

“At least we still have our own, although what use we’d get out of them here is beyond me,” Eliza said.

Pep watched the robot glide away then returned.  “Tmai, we go with you.  Where?”

“Chollow, dang you.”  They stood up and commenced another terribly long walk.  The ramblers followed along.

They experienced some alien bureaucracy as Tmai messaged his union for the insurance claim, then waited around another office as they negotiated and scheduled the ship’s repair.  At last they were ready to go, but starving and dehydrated.

A kiosk back on the terminal scanned the humans’ biology and gave them a list of food ingredients to avoid.  Shammy was to avoid about ten more ingredients than the list of seventy-five each of the others received.

Tmai took them to a restaurant where Snar carefully compared the menu against the lists – and their own mental list of Corsimine cuisine to avoid – and Tmai used their advice to place a big order.  It was reminiscent of dim sum, served by a giant lobster who stacked their table with little bowls of alien madness.  There were a lot of smells, but it averaged out to briny laundry.

Pep said, “This is what it’s all about.  Discovery.”

Scuzz said, “Yeah, I mean, these egg-looking things are kinda cute.”

Tmai and Snar picked out their own dishes and got to work.  Pep and Scuzz had only a moment’s trepidation before they started sampling, while Eliza and Shammy went last.

“We are certainly a very long way from Heaven,” Shammy said.

“Now you’re talking like Eliza, my friend.  Please don’t be ungracious.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Eliza held her nose while she drank down a small bowl of lumpy yellow cream.

Tmai taught them how to say the names of the dishes.  Eliza figured out her least despised dishes were barzim and fried kalab.  Shammy and Scuzz agreed about the kalab, but Shammy went so far as to actually like the stuff, and also found zibi beans tolerable, and said that anything could be improved by dunking it in codida sauce.  Pep pretended to find worth in everything he touched, using food snob lingo like a boss.

Something distracted him.  A wizened little green thing walked in, with four beady black eyes in a diamond formation and a jaw like an abyssal fish that had evolved lips.  A little metal suitcase floated in the air before it, then came to rest on a chair at the table where it sat.  A waiter came to attend the being.

“Did I, ah, see that right?  Did you see that, dear?”

“What?”

“Was that green fellow levitating his suitcase in front of him?”

“I don’t know.”

Eliza said, “He was.  Perhaps he has some sort of magnetic manipulation ability.  The case seemed metallic.”

“Mm,” Shammy said, “Like Magneto in tha X-men.  That’s something else.”

“I have to know more.  Tmai, what is that…  That man?”

“Zigilous komber.  No good.  It is danger.”

“Hm.”

“Honey, that was clear as day,” Scuzz said, then in aside, “Very good English, Tmai!,” then back to Pep she went on.  “If a zigilous komber is dangerous, you should leave it alone.”

“True,” he said.  “I agree,” he said, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the thing, hoping for another display of its remarkable ability.

Snar signed to Eliza, “Pep is very defective.”

She signed back, “Yes.  Pep is very defective, Snar.  You are doctor.  Fix Pep?”

“No Earth doctor.”

“Pep is very defective a long time,” she said with a laugh.

Scuzz said, “Honey, I think they’re talking about you.”

“Snitch,” said Eliza.

“I don’t think he can even hear us,” Shammy said.

“I can hear you all just fine,” he said, but still didn’t look at them.  “I just think this is remarkable.  Psychokinesis, if you will.  Are other powers of the mind possible?”

“Nonsense,” said Eliza.  “Let’s say it’s an organism with electrochemical manipulation, like that in a human brain, or the lateral sense, whatever that is that sharks have.  Or maybe something evolved originally to shock, like an electric eel.  Enough time goes by, they could evolve to use that control in tandem with technology, do something like biological magnetic levitation.  Psychic powers are supernatural hokum.”

“I don’t know, Eliza,” Shammy said.  “I have a lot of family with a lot of faith.  Feels like that’s got ta come from somewhere.”

Pep said, “There are more things on Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in your–”

“I never dream and don’t call me Horatio.”  She lied about never dreaming, but she couldn’t pass up an opportunity for the old “don’t call me Shirley” gag, even in this unrecognizable form.  Did anyone get it?  Pearls before swine.

Scuzz laughed, then stopped herself.

The zigilous komber’s food was served.  It smelled a small bowl of hot liquid, then tossed it at the waiter and gurgled a complaint.  The waiter raised a pincer of protest, but the komber whipped out a weapon and the creature quailed away.

Lights shone in Pep’s eyes, a single glowing line in each like a constricted cat pupil.  The zigilous komber’s weapon was a metal handle from which a laser-like beam protruded, terminating impossibly about two and a half feet from the base.  It was a lightsaber.

He stood up from the table and walked over to the komber.  He went down to one knee within a pace of it, like he was about to propose marriage – absolutely within reach of laser decapitation.

“Master, I beseech you.  Teach me the ways of the Force!”

The komber whipped the laser sword in his direction and stopped it a bare inch above his forehead.  His skin reddened and his eyes watered.

“Please, I beg of you!,” he said.

Everybody nearly fell out of their seat.  Tmai ran up beside Pep, putting a hand on his shoulder and making calming gestures with the other to the komber.  “Zibidi golu dezumbidro tubesga, bornu den sbeez?”

The komber made a zigilous expression of disdain, perhaps to say it didn’t speak whatever language the Ainavian had tried.  It deactivated the lightsaber, then telekinetically shoved its case into Pep’s chest, knocking him to the floor, before setting it back in place.

Tmai made more palliative gestures, then stood over Pep, then joined by Scuzz.  They laid a palm on Pep’s chest and said, “Zigilous komber is bad is danger!  You umberstand, Beb?”

Scuzz said, “You almost got your head chopped off, honey!  Stop this!  What are you thinking?”

“I’ve got to be a jedi knight.  It’s why I came here.”

“You came here to make money, honey!  That doesn’t even make sense.  Jedi knights aren’t real.”

Eliza, Shammy, and Snar looked on from their seats in quiet amazement, or maybe cruel amusement.

Pep scrambled back upright, pushing away his girlfriend and his captain.  “Master komber, teach me the ways of the Force, please.  I will serve you in all things.  I need nothing else.”

“What about the money?  What about me?  What about your responsibilities, Pep?”

“Money, attachments, a jedi craves not these things.”

“‘Attachments’?  Is that all I am to you?  Something to be thrown away the first time a jedi master comes waddling past?”

The zigilous komber was getting mad again, and levitated its case menacingly at them, spinning it in place.  Tmai tried one more time to pull Pep away, then settled for pulling Scuzz back.

“Fine!,” she yelled.  “See if I care!  Stupid piece of shit.  You’ll never be Luke Skywalker!  You’ll be Watto with hair plugs!”

She stormed back to the table and sat down in a huff.  Tmai lingered a few feet in Pep’s direction, contemplating their options.

Pep was not their passenger, in the strictest sense of the term.  They had never made an arrangement, and their duty as an escort was not mandated by the circumstance.  But it felt wrong to leave Pep like that, especially when the komber smashed him in the face again with the metal case.

The billionaire stayed there, on hands and knees, doing everything he could to make his obeisance clear.

Shammy turned back to Scuzz.  “Young lady, I think your fella might not be long for the world.  You got any backup plans?  You wouldn’t happen ta be in his will, would you?”

“Tsht.  Pfft.  Tssh.  Whatever.  I don’t care.  Space is bullshit.  I hate it here.”

“Now you’re getting the spirit,” said Eliza.

“Guuuuh,” she said, throwing up her hands.  “Tmai, if I go back to the ship, do I need keys to get in?  Tmai!”

They had to make a decision.  The weirder of the humans both seemed intent on endangering themselves.  Tmai couldn’t save them all, and to some extent, shouldn’t they just honor an alien being’s culture and agency, regardless of the outcomes?  They batted at the flapping hem of their fuchsia shirt in annoyance, then turned away from Pep’s folly.

“Scuzz,” they said, “Here.  Lesh danger.”  They pointed to their table.

The human’s face trembled and began to leak ocular fluid.  “I just can’t!  I can’t be around him right now!”  She shook her head and ran out into the concourse.

Tmai made a quick sign to Snar and chased after her.

Snar, Eliza, and Shammy looked to each other in awkward silence, the sound of Pep’s abasement quiet but disturbing in the background.  Finally Shammy said, “Are we really gon’ to jus’ let him go off with that freaky monster?”

Eliza realized this was going to come down to her judgment.  Snar was a shambles; Scuzz was useless.  Shammy and Tmai were rational enough to make a sensible call, but Shammy was too deferent and Tmai had little sense of responsibility to the human beings.  It was a moral test – perhaps the greatest of her entire life.

She failed.  “Fuck him.  Tmai paid up front, let’s get a doggy bag and go.”

“Eliza, no,” Shammy said.  “Somebody’s got to be there for him when he comes ta his senses.  Can you imagine what that will feel like if he’s alone, in a alien LAX?”

“Oh yes I can.  In fact.  Imagine that.  Because ever since we were shanghaied I’ve been imagining every single bad end I could come to out here.  That we could come to, because of what he chose to do.”

“Ma’am, I just-”

“No, Shamar.  He’s gotten his way at every turn, and why should that change now, just because the danger has become greater to him alone?  Let us leave him to this.”  She tried to gesture angrily at the embarrassing scene, found the gesture inadequate, and stabbed at the air with her hand a few more times to underscore the point.

Snar wondered if humans were subject to biological stimuli that override higher thought – if Pep had smelled, seen, or heard something that overpowered him with sexual attraction to the zigilous komber.  It didn’t seem likely.  At least one of the others would have shown some sign of some amount of that ardor.  Whatever the case, they found it profoundly disgusting.  They’d had sexual experiences with a few humans, always sickening, but this was too much.

They saw that Eliza was gathering food to leave, intent on abandoning Pep, and they expressed agreement by helping her.  Shammy just sat, arms crossed tightly over his chest and his face flickering through thoughts and feelings, starting to say things and then stopping himself repeatedly.

At last he surrendered to the will of the crowd and signed to Snar, “Will Tmai move us to Earth?”

Snar signed, “Yes no,” realizing they’d never learned “maybe” and hoping that would make sense to them.  They added a spoken “ogay” and gently dismissive palm to try to convey it was nothing to worry about.  Snar knew the less ridiculous humans would be fine in the care of a scrupulous escort, whatever their failings in keeping them safe on that terrible world.

Shammy gave a last look to his boss before joining the others in walking away.  Pep was kneeling and bowing, speaking too quietly to hear.  Was he going to be alright?  Were jedi knights real?  The cruel green creature ate with sloppy mandibles.  Strangely terrifying.

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How does it all end?  Is the story called Centennial Hills because Pep comes back as a jedi pope and makes the Vegas suburb the new Vatican?

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