In the Name of Earth

Chapter 23: Mother Galaxy

“Mayday! Mayday! This is Junior Administrator Alexa Hilburn with Earth Diplomatic Services. Requesting immediate assistance at the attached coordinates!” the message had been looping for hours now, adding another layer of discomfort to the jammed extremely warm escape pod.

Ludwig did not want to unnecessarily panic his companion, but he was not sure how long their oxygen would last. Whatever predictions he had were not extremely optimistic.

“I’m starting to think we should’ve stayed at the pirate ship…” Ludwig whined, drawing smiley faces on the foggy viewports. “Can I ask you something? You said they took the Chief-Ambassador away. What exactly happened?”

Alexa shifted on the opposite side of the pod and sighed.

“After they took us, we were all put in the same cell. Ambassador Grant, Qui’Mal and I. They took our translators right away, so we couldn’t talk to Qui’Mal at all, but the Chief kept telling me not to worry, that everything would be alright…” Alexa’s gaze was distant, her pale lips shivering.

“You don’t need to tell if you feel uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s… I’m fine. Whenever the guards came in to brings us food or… wash us… the Chief-Ambassador would ask about Marvin. Where he was, if he was alright, what the pirates had done to him. If they ever answered we never understood, of course, but the poor man was terrified.”

“Yeah,” Lud mused. “Marvin was very worried about his papa too. Go on.”

“That’s pretty much it,” Alexa shrugged. “It’s hard to tell how much time went by, but at some point the guards came and took him. He tried to resist, and he kept telling them to take me too, to not leave me there. Not sure what that was about.”

Rubbing the condensed vapor off the window, Ludwig stared outside, trying to concatenate thoughts that would explain all that. But thinking was useless. If anything, things were far worse now than they had ever been. They were floating aimlessly in space, the Chief-Ambassador was alone and very possibly dead, and Marvin and Jade could be anywhere in the galaxy at that point in time, with no leads whatsoever.

To make matters even worse, now Qui’Mal was groaning and sitting up.

Lud closed a fist around the magna-crowbar, ready to club the alien back to sleep.

Alexa’s firm, yet soft, grip stopped him.

“He doesn’t even understand us, Lud!” she hissed to him.

“He killed everyone! Our teachers, colleagues!”

“Then pretend you don’t know! We’ll need him to expose the Globians, let’s play cool!”

Lud rolled his eyes and grumbled a curse in German. “Fine, but when we start starving he’s the first to go!”

“Ludwig,” Qui’Mal blinked his disgusting cyclops eye a dozen times. “It is so relieving to see you. I owe you my life!”

“Yeah, I’ll come calling, you Mutterficker,” Lud rolled his eyes. Why not take advantage of him being effectively deaf?

“My last recollection was brutal assault by pirate thug. You saved my life!”

“What’s he saying?” Alexa—to whom Qui’Mal’s speech was unintelligible burbles—asked.

“He said he owes me his life and that he forgives my brutal assault,” Ludwig distorted the truth.

“He has no idea you assaulted him, does he?”

“Nein.”

The three occupants of the escape pod leaned on their respective seats, unsure of what to do. Ludwig could only think about avenging the humans who perished in Gaia Station. Alexa had run out of ideas and topics of conversation. Qui’Mal was still inspecting his wounds.

At least a dozen times Ludwig felt compelled to interrogate the alien. Be it through coercion, lowkey manipulation or feigned friendship. Several times he even did start talking, only to be remembered that even though he understood Qui’Mal, the opposite wasn’t true. All he could do was look into the disturbingly big eye of his sworn enemy, uncapable of fighting or even talking to him.

At least that replaced boredom with a passive contained rage.

Not that one felt better than the other.

If anything, having the giant awaken had lowered the temperature of pod to a bearable degree.

At some point, a bored and hopeless Alexa started whistling. A beautiful melodic whistle of a melancholic tune.

“That is very pleasant melody,” Qui’Mal said.

“What was that?” Alexa asked Ludwig.

“He told you to stop.”

Alexa stopped.

Ludwig soon regrated his mischief. At least the whistles provided a distraction.

But distraction would soon be unnecessary.

A light appeared at the end of the tunnel. A literal light! An intense beam refracted by the viewports of the escape pod. The three castaways hurried to the tiny windows to see the approach of an old ship covered in drawings of flames, flowers, stars and what looked like alien animals. The viewports of the ship reminded Ludwig of The Tipsy, constantly changing colors, though on a much slower, calmer rhythm.

“We’re saved!” Alexa’s voice almost broke. “Thank heavens we’re saved!”

“Or they’ll eat us,” Ludwig remarked. “What? I’m being realistic!”

The ship, only slightly larger than the Exile rounded the pod then took it into its cargo hold. Whatever the rescuers intention, they would soon find out. Now subject to the ship’s gravity generator, the escape pod crashed onto the metallic floor with a loud clang, the heads of the tripulants clanging against the hull and each other.

“There. You go first,” Ludwig pushed a confused Qui’Mal to stand between the humans and the door. Just in case they were received by face-eaters. Behind the pink alien, the engineer put Jade’s helmet back on and pulled her pistols, ready to act if necessary.

Alexa was not sure what to do. Part of her took cover behind the armored man, another part stared curiously over his shoulder.

Then the escape pod’s door opened with a whoosh, the pressurized cargo hold welcoming them with a mix of sweet, sour and salty odors. Over the pod, a huge blue head slowly slid into sight upside down. From the door across the room, another blue being appeared in a colorful jumpsuit, followed by two smaller members of the same species. All of them approached the pod with slow, gentle movements, inquisitive aspects permeating their faces and gestures.

The creatures were similar to Earth’s gorillas in size and form. The main difference was the presence of four overdeveloped arms that aided their two underdeveloped legs. The aliens, contrary to Qui’Mal, had no trace of hair on their bodies, only a smooth blue skin covered in stripes of lighter and darker shades. One of them wore a jumpsuit, while the other three wore something closer to several ponchos piled on top of each other, but one thing was shared by all the attires: colors.

So many colors!

Way too many colors, in fact.

The same applied to their cargo hold, which was bathed in blacklight and littered with colorful trinkets, carpets and abstract artworks.

“Oooh, look, bros! We found friends!” one of the poncho-clad strangers spoke in the speed expected from a sentient tortoise.

“Friends come in big tin can!” the other poncho wearer laughed, speech as draggy as the first. “Like fishies! Canned friends not food, though. Or are they?”

“One of the friends come in his own can!” the first poncho guy looked at the armored Lud. “He looks special. Shiny!”

“Uhm, hey there?” Ludwig poked his head out of the pod, hesitantly pointing his pistols up.

“Ow, man, we don’t appreciate violence here, man!” the blue monkey sitting on the escape pod raised it’s four huge eight-fingered hands. “We believe in the power of energies, sent and taken by the great Mother Galaxy! That’s all the defense we need!”

“Lud, what the hell is going on?” Alexa asked from inside the pod. “What are they saying?”

“Trust me, I’m just as lost as you.”

“We were all lost once, cosmic brother!” the alien in the colorful jumpsuit approached with a set of arms open. “The key to not being lost is having nowhere to be! Only then you’ll always be on the right place, like we were, and you are.”

“We are not in the right place at all!” Ludwig put his guns away and shook his head. “Our people are in serious trouble. They need us!”

“We all need each other, cosmic bro, and we’re all one people. All sons of Mother Galaxy! Her voice led us to you, yes?”

“Pretty sure that was her voice in the recording!” Ludwig pointed a thumb over his shoulder at Alexa, who cautiously left the pod.

“When the Mother Galaxy speaks, it’s all our voices. She hears us, connects us to friends!” the monkey in the jumpsuit turned a full circle with all arms spread open. “Mother Galaxy brought us together. Brothers now travel together. As one!”

Lud took a deep breath. Either his translator was fried or arguing would be absolutely hopeless. He would need to try a more direct approach. What would Marvin do if he was there?

“Okay I’m Lud. What’s your name?” Ludwig asked.

“I am Moik-La, bro.”

“And where are you going, Moik-La?”

The four blue monkeys exchanged confused glances.

“Here,” Moik-La replied.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

“That’s where all journeys end, brother. Nowhere. We are all passengers on the great cosmic voyage leading to the end. We have no say on our path or our destination. Mother Galaxy guides us through her signs.”

There! That was something!

“And where is the great Galaxy Mother telling you to go next?”

“Here,” Moik-La repeated. “Only Father Time knows where Mother Galaxy sends us next. Our role is to wait for her signs. They come.”

“Right, so the Mother Galaxy sent you to us…” Lud risked.

“As she always does…”

“And now you need a sign to show you where to go next.”

“Father Time will bring…”

“Here’s the thing. We need to go to asteroid ODA-1138,” Lud said as slowly and clearly as possible. From there he would reach The Admiral, who would know how to contact the Exile and therefore Marvin. That was a perfect plan! “Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“No.”

“You need a sign. We need to go to ODA-1138. That is a sign telling you to go to ODA-1138! A sign from Mother Galaxy!”

“Ooooh!” Moik-La raised his eyebrow muscles, understanding downing on him! All the other blue aliens joined in the fascinated chorus until Moik-La spoke again: “Nah, bro, that’s not it.”

“HOW DO YOU KNOW?!”

“We’ll know, bro, we’ll know. When you stop looking and start listening, you’ll know too. Until then… just don’t worry about a thing…”

“If finish sentence that with ‘because every little thing is gonna be alright’, I swear on my long-dead grandmother…”

“But every little thing will be, bro!” Moik-La ran a big gentle hand over Lud’s head. A hand that made him believe, if even for just a second, that everything would be alright. “Now come on, tin man, we’ll teach you to hear the great Mother Galaxy!”