The Xilvorean Tour

The crisp but sunny afternoon gave dangerously sharp clarity to the dozens of lotus seed pod-shaped ships hovering over the city. Dr. Harris had been standing on the steps of the museum for thirty minutes, but the Planning Committee had told her that the Xilvoreans did not particularly value promptness, so she should be prepared for a wait. The haunting silence of the usually bustling area gave her the chills. The entire street, blocked off for their arrival, lacked the usual noise of cars and schoolchildren on field trips and video calls with overseas families. Dr. Harris imagined the silence, and lack of population, might hold some similarity to the future if the potential treaty with the Xilvoreans went terribly awry.

The government had not yet released the list of demands the Xilvoreans sent ahead of the Peace Talks, but rumors spread like wildfire on the internet. Conspiracy theorists speculated that the Xilvoreans might require all of humanity to live on a single continent or even to give over a sizable section of the population as slaves. The internet always jumped to extremes. But, Dr. Harris found it far more likely that some level of continuous tribute would be required to keep the Xilvoreans from taking Earth’s resources by force.

The high-pitched purr of an approaching Xilvorean shuttle, followed by the appearance of the smooth spherical conveyance, made Dr. Harris suck in a steadying breath. She let it out slowly as the ship came to a stop about two feet above the pavement, looking out of place among cars parked on the side of the road and a currently unattended taco stand. A hatchway that reminded Dr. Harris rather of an opened umbrella slid away in pie-shaped sections to reveal a seven-foot tall glass egg structure full of blue smoke. The egg floated forward, hovering as the creature inside piloted it toward Dr. Harris. Behind it, six other creatures emerged. Although their heads were hidden by helmets swirling with the same blue smoke as the egg, their limbs could be seen – four arms with three long fingers on each hand, and no legs. The Xilvorean torso instead terminated in a long tail, not unlike a snake’s. The six attendants were, Dr. Harris knew, the Xilvorean ambassador’s guard detail. On each of their arms, a bulbous, orb-like growth pulsed, glowing from within. The Planning Committee told her the growths were a type of weapon, and that she’d likely not survive if any of them decided to discharge one in her presence. She’d not been afraid at the time, but now Dr. Harris wondered if she’d experienced a temporary bout of insanity when she volunteered for this assignment.

The egg floated towards Dr. Harris, ignoring the stairs completely while the guards had to slither behind it. Only when the egg was only a few feet away did Dr. Harris finally spy the silhouette of the Xilvorean within, looking much like the darkly colored guards behind him, except cerulean blue in color. The texture of their skin reminded Dr. Harris of the bark of a beech tree, though it contained just the faintest shimmer when the light hit it correctly through the voluminous smoke. The ambassador’s head looked to be slightly larger than a human’s and sported a segmented trio of protruding lobes in the front, which Dr. Harris had been told were the Xilvorean’s front-facing eyes. She’d also heard that they had a similar structure in the back, allowing them a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the world. Below the odd eye structure, a single vertical slit represented something akin to a mouth. It wobbled grotesquely as a creaking noise leaked from it, one which a device attached to the lower front of the egg translated as, “You are the Keeper of Antiquities?”

Dr. Harris bowed, mostly because she assumed shaking hands would be completely impossible with the Ambassador ensconced in the egg. Not only that, reaching towards the egg might be taken as some form of attack. “I’m the Museum Director, yes. Dr. Felicia Harris. Thank you for coming today. We were told you wished to see a display of historical and cultural artifacts of humanity?”

“Yes,” the Ambassador replied via the translator. The answer struck Dr. Harris as curt. With nothing else forthcoming, she wondered if her perception might be off due to the slightly nasal British accent of the translation device.

“Right. This way then,” Dr. Harris said, motioning up the stars as she began to climb towards the museum. “I think you’ll be delighted by what we have to show you today. Museums from around the world have sent over some of the most important artifacts and artwork of humanity. Do you…have something like museums on Xilvor as well?”

The answer did not come quickly, and Dr. Harris wondered if she might be speaking too rapidly for the translator. But, after a delay, there was another terse, “Yes.”

Dr. Harris tried not to shudder. The Planning Committee had given her a directive straight from the President, word-for-word, “Be friendly, and be truthful.” But, she wasn’t sure how long she could keep up the cheerful demeanor in the face of her fear and anxiety.

A few guards had been posted throughout the museum, not because anyone thought they could do much if the Xilvoreans attacked, but more for show. Two of them opened the double doors to allow the group into the grand front lobby. Usually, the area stood packed with throngs of people, waiting in line for tickets, chatting together about exhibits they had just seen, or heading to the gift shop; all the things people did in a museum. Today, silence reigned until a strangled-sounding squeak came from the Xilvorean Ambassador as he came to an abrupt stop.

“What is that?” the translation came, a hand lifting inside of the egg to point at the life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil display standing in the middle of the atrium, its jaws wide in a permanent silent roar.

“Hm? Oh!” Dr. Harris hadn’t even noticed it. The thing had been in the museum so long she often forgot about it. “That’s a dinosaur. Well, the dinosaur’s bones, anyway. We’ve nicknamed this particular one ‘T-Rex’. A meat eater from the late Cretaceous period. But it died out some time ago.”

“So, animals of this size no longer exist on your planet?”

“That’s right,” Dr. Harris said, but then immediately corrected herself, “Well, actually no. We have whales. Some of them grow to be almost three times as long as the T-Rex. But, they only exist in the oceans.”

A creaking murmur came from the group of guards behind the Ambassador, who twisted slightly in his egg to listen to the conversation before turning back towards Dr. Harris. “So, the largest beasts on this planet have learned to live in one of its most inhospitable environments?”

Dr. Harris nodded, glad that the Xilvoreans seemed more engaged now. “Yes, though only a few whales remain. About a century ago we hunted them almost to extinction. But, we stopped before they were all killed, thankfully.”

The Ambassador tilted his head within the egg, and Dr. Harris wondered if a head tilt meant the same thing on Xilvor as it did on Earth. “Why did you not finish destroying your enemies, these whales?”

“Oh no, no. They aren’t our enemies,” Dr. Harris protested.

An incredulous response came quickly. “You hunted your allies?”

Dr. Harris opened her mouth to reply but then closed it. What a question! How was she supposed to answer it? “They…” She paused. “It’s hard to explain, but at the time, people thought hunting them necessary to obtain various resources. It was a rather unenlightened age.”

More creaking from the group ended with the translator device saying, “Thank you for your explanation. Please proceed.”

Dr. Harris cringed internally. She definitely hadn’t meant for the first conversation with the Ambassador to take quite that direction. Turning, she led the group towards the Natural History wing. No questions were asked as she guided them through the various exhibits, displaying either the bones or taxidermied representations of everything from lemurs to lions, giraffes to gorillas, macaws to mammoths. Only once did they stop her, when she accidentally neglected to speak about a sloth skeleton they’d passed. They seemed relieved to find out the animal’s claws weren’t generally used as weapons, but less relieved when Dr. Harris explained that the clumsy sloths regularly fell out of trees to a distance of over one hundred feet without injury to themselves.

“The creatures of your planet are myriad. How many challenge you for supremacy?” the Ambassador asked as they moved towards the next exhibit.

Dr. Harris, now more careful following the dinosaur debacle, replied, “Well, I like to think we all live in harmony. But, truthfully, humanity has not been the best stewards of our environment, and many animals are in danger of becoming extinct. We’ve been trying to change that in recent years, however.”

One of the guards at the entrance to the Hall of the Americas nodded at Dr. Harris as she led the delegation inside. “This exhibit shows many wonderful artifacts from the original inhabitants of this land. The Native Americans, or First Nations, resided here before the arrival of Europeans.” Dr. Harris suddenly doubted that explanation would make much sense to the Xilvoreans. Did they have different nations on their planets? She had no idea. Seeing the Ambassador’s egg floating toward a colorful display, she moved in that direction, joining him. Inside, the beaded and embroidery-covered leather clothing of a Shoshone woman looked almost as vibrant as the day she had last worn them, more than a hundred and thirty years prior. “Her people were incredible artisans. Few such pristine examples of their craftsmanship remain.”

“Why?” the Ambassador inquired.

Dr. Harris tried not to fidget as she thought of a way to answer. “The colonists wished to possess the lands occupied by the Native Americans. Their people underwent an extensive series of forced relocations and were subject to repeated massacres, as well as being susceptible to diseases brought by the colonists. Despite the Native Americans’ advanced mastery of the land, the colonists had superior weapons, and greater numbers, and now very few of them remain. Thankfully, despite all that was done to them, they refuse to be completely defeated.”

The egg turned until the Ambassador’s lobed eye could be seen peering at Dr. Harris through the blue smoke. “Is it common for you to kill each other despite resources being incredibly abundant on this planet? We have calculated that your species should be able to provide adequately for all members without the need for a culling.”

“Sadly, yes. Though, not as common as it used to be, thankfully.” She began to walk them through the exhibit, showing off artifacts on loan from various tribes. “Is violence common among your people, Ambassador?”

“No. Through our…” The translator buzzed for a moment, unable to translate a word, before it continued, “...links with one another, we can feel each other’s emotions and pain. To hurt another is to hurt oneself.”

“I see. It must be nice to be so united against your enemies, that you can trust those around you without doubt or suspicion.” Dr. Harris hoped that something similar could develop in humans at some point. It would change their society in such incredibly powerful ways. “And to be able to be focused on exterior threats instead of internal ones must be useful.”

“Yes.”

Dr. Harris wondered how much of a threat humanity constituted to the Xilvoreans. The alien species had thousands of ships stationed all around Earth, but Earth had only a few dozen space-faring vessels. Only a handful of humans had walked on Mars, but the Xilvoreans reigned over more than two dozen planets. They had the ability to travel faster than light and had demonstrated abilities with dozens of other highly advanced technologies not seen on Earth. The Xilvoreans had not attacked Earth, but they didn’t need to. Everyone knew the score tilted heavily in the Xilvorean’s favor. If the Xilvoreans attacked, Earth would be annihilated.

The group took a brief detour through the Mysteries of Egypt exhibit. As Dr. Harris explained the various artifacts, she noticed the two of the guards moving to get a better look at King Tutankhamun’s dagger, an item made from iron mined from a meteor. However, their interest ceased when the Ambassador turned their direction, causing them to immediately return to formation. Dr. Harris smiled. She had hoped that curiosity was a universal trait, as she believed it could help disparate races find common ground and things to admire about one another, both useful in trying to work towards peace.

“Is this one of your dead?” the Ambassador asked incredulously, pulling Dr. Harris’ attention towards the mummy displayed in the center of the room. The translator didn’t convey emotion well, but in this instance, some of the Ambassador’s horror came across.

“Yes,” Dr. Harris replied, “The process is called ‘mummification’. Ancient Egyptians used it to preserve the body against decay. This particular gentleman lived well over 3000 years ago.”

A confused response came from the Ambassador. “You have displayed his body publicly for shaming? A criminal perhaps?”

“No, not at all.” Dr. Harris indicated a nearby display, lit up under myriad lights so that the sarcophagus’s gold shone brilliantly, “He was a king, and quite a famous one. Proper mummification was expensive.” The entire delegation went completely silent. Thinking that there might be some cultural conflict surrounding burial practices, Dr. Harris cautiously asked, “May I ask, what becomes of your dead, Ambassador?”

Inside the egg, the Ambassador made a hand sign, the hand of his top right arm moving to touch his lower left, and vice versa. Dr. Harris interpreted the motion as perhaps being related to religion or respect for the dead in general. “When a Xilvorean dies, their body is returned to the Great Biomass for reabsorption, so that their genetic material may be used to spawn the next generation. Only a criminal would be denied such reabsorption, as their genetic material is seen as aberrant and undesirable.”

“That’s rather poetic,” Dr. Harris commented quietly, understanding why they might be horrified. “Well, I can tell you mummification is no longer performed widely. These days, most people are buried, or burned in a process called ‘cremation’.”

“Burned? You destroy their genetic material?” Once again, the horror was palpable. “Why?”

“I… I suppose because we just have no other use for it.” She could definitely see how that would be disturbing to a society that recycled bodies as part of their reproduction process. Not wanting to dwell on something which obviously upset the delegation, Dr. Harris decided they should move to the next exhibit. “Let us head on to the art exhibits,” Dr. Harris said cheerfully, trying to change the tone of the conversation. “Your people are familiar with art, Ambassador?”

The egg floated along beside her as they headed to another wing of the museum, the two of them followed by the half-dozen Xilvorean guards. A period of silence had Dr. Harris wondering if her questions about the Xilvoreans were unwelcome, or if the Egyptian exhibit had just spooked them. Finally, the creaking began, and the translator provided an answer. “On Xilvor, our skydancers regularly paint the skies so that all may share in the artwork. But we also occasionally hew likenesses of our greatest Xilvoreans from stone.”

“Sculpture!” Dr. Harris exclaimed excitedly, and then immediately quieted her voice, not wanting to cause alarm. The fact that she’d found another similarity between the two races gladdened her. “We do the same. In fact, we have a few sculptures in the exhibit today.”

The hallway leading to the art wing had been colorfully decorated with artwork from local schoolchildren who had won competitions to have their art displayed in the museum. Unlike the rest of the museum, which often had generally low light except for special lighting near the exhibit displays to make them stand out better, they’d made sure that the art areas received more light in general. The brightening brought with it an atmospheric change in tone that Dr. Harris hoped would end the tour on a high note. Plus, she felt particularly proud of the works they had on display. The government pulled large strings to get many of the items loaned from famous museums around the world, though the Mona Lisa was notably missing. No amount of persuasion could ever get the French to do something they didn’t want, not even if aliens were involved.

As the Ambassador’s retinue took in the first room of paintings, he commented, “Your species has a bizarre obsession with right-angle quadrilaterals.” His hands motioned to several of the paintings, then the tiled ceiling, then the doorway.

“I suppose we do.” Square or rectangular paintings made up the bulk of the artwork in the room. What little she had seen from the Xilvoreans, it appeared that they preferred circular shapes, such as spheres and ovals.

Eventually, they moved into the second gallery, which hosted a number of Impressionist, Surrealist, Cubist, and Abstract works. Immediately, the Xilvoreans clustered around one painting in particular, chatting excitedly in their creaky voices as they gestured at Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night.

“We were not told that your species had been visited by other offworlders before,” the Ambassador accused, the translator device relaying a faintly stern tone.

Worried that they might think they’d been lied to, Dr. Harris shook her head, taking out her phone to look up some of Van Gogh’s self-portraits. Holding up her phone for them to see, she said, “His self-portraits look human at least. If he wasn’t human, I am afraid we were ignorant of the truth.”

The Xilvoreans calmed down after that, but they continued to look at, and discuss, Starry Night for far longer than they’d looked at anything else, including the T-Rex. What the spirited debate was about, Dr. Harris didn’t know, but it ended suddenly, with all of them ceasing talking at once, and turning to look at Dr. Harris expectantly. She found herself caught off-guard by the seven sets of lobed eyes suddenly peering at her, and stumbled over her words until she could sputter out, “I…I think… The next room is the last in the tour. Uh, this way, please.”

Many of the most famous masters were displayed in the final room. Grand paintings that had not moved in centuries from their homes in famous museums worldwide now stood together to represent an exceptional body of art. They’d received far more artwork than could be easily displayed, enough for four times the size of their galleries, so deciding what might impress the Xilvoreans had constituted an enormous task. But, Dr. Harris knew one piece of artwork she wanted for certain. Getting it here had taken a Herculean effort. But now, as the Xilvoreans stopped to stare at the massive statue of Michelangelo’s David in the center of the room, she knew she’d chosen correctly. Here was one of the greatest depictions of human form ever sculpted, towering over them, more than seventeen feet tall when you included the base of the statue. The stark white marble allowed every shadow, every curve of muscle and skin and vein to stand out. Even just the pose of the sculpture felt kinetic and alive, as if it might suddenly drop the raised arm, or simply shift its weight. She’d hoped that it would impress upon them the beauty of the human form, and convince them that humanity had both artistic skill, and a capacity for exceptional self-examination and reflection.

Much like they did with Starry Night, the Xilvoreans gathered around the statue, though this time silence settled on the group. Dr. Harris could see their strange, horizontal slit mouths wobbling as they breathed the blue gas atmosphere from their helmets, or in the Ambassador’s case, his egg.

“This sculpture is known as ‘David’, and was created more than five hundred years ago by Michelangelo,” Dr. Harris began, deciding to launch into her explanation to quell their expectant looks. “It is based on a famous story. Long ago, two armies, the Israelites and the Philistines, faced off in the Valley of Elah. The Philistines’ champion, a huge man named Goliath, known to have giants’ blood in his veins, came out regularly to taunt the Israelites, challenging them to send their best out to fight him. The leader of the Israelites, afraid of Goliath, hid and refused to fight.” Dr. Harris paused, and moved closer to the statue, looking up at it. “One of the smallest among the Israelites, a youth named David, proclaimed that he would fight Goliath. But, Goliath had the best armor money could buy, and a sharp spear. He stood at almost twice the size of David, and was known for his martial prowess. Unfortunately, David had no armor or training. He did not even really have much of a weapon. Nonetheless, he chose a few rocks from the riverbed and took a simple leather sling. When the fight began, David used the sling to hurl a single rock at Goliath with such speed and force that when it hit him in the forehead, he died instantly.”

The Xilvoreans looked at each other. No words were exchanged between them, until finally, the Ambassador asked, “This story is true?”

“Well, it’s a Biblical story so, some people say it is completely historically accurate. Others believe it is simply inspirational, to show that sometimes, despite all odds, the underdog can be the victor. Most humans adore stories about someone taking on seemingly undefeatable forces, and through ingenuity and spirit, winning the day. A great many human stories feature a theme of this kind, possibly even more than half. One of humanity’s greatest traits is to persevere in the face of hopelessness, and to continue to fight even when all odds are stacked against them.”

The Ambassador’s hands twitched just enough for Dr. Harris to see through the blue smoke. She couldn’t read his expression, due to his face being too unlike a human one, but she thought she saw his slit mouth tighten, and the lobed eyes turn slightly darker.

The delegation politely took a few more minutes to observe the other artwork in the room, but then abruptly announced their departure. Although the Ambassador didn’t thank Dr. Harris for her time, she let him know that she’d be sending several picture books of the exhibits and art they’d toured for the Xilvorean leaders to peruse at their leisure. The Ambassador did thank her for this, after a fashion, saying that the books would be, “Most useful.”

It was only once the Xilvoreans were gone, Dr. Harris realized that in her explanation of the statue of David, she’d completely neglected to mention that the enormous size of the statue did not indicate the presence of gigantic humans on the planet.

Within two days, the Xilvoreans had signed a hasty peace treaty with the governments of Earth. To everyone’s surprise, they did not require massive tributes of resources or the enslavement of any number of humans. They asked only for two things. First, they required the original copy of Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. And second, they prohibited humanity, should it ever develop faster than light travel, from visiting any Xilvorean system from now until the heat death of the universe.

After they left, the Xilvoreans were never heard from again.