Gray Alien's Burden

I could not help but quiver with anticipation as the shuttle touched down onto the surface. The hatch opened to flood the cabin with the alien star’s intense daylight. This was it. I was on my own now. From the edge of the platform I waded into a sea of grass when it occurred to me that this was the first time I was touching actual Terran soil; not concrete, not tile, but the actual Earth itself. Overhead I heard a mechanical roar as a shape cast onto the silver shuttle’s fuselage; it was one of those jet powered airplanes gliding on approach to land at Calgary International Airport out in the distance. The platform retracted, the hatch closed and the shuttle silently shot back up into the atmosphere. Beyond the circular depression where the shuttle had been, a human leaned up against a vehicle called a “pickup truck.”

“Well, it looks like I lost the bet. Spielberg was right,” the human remarked as he sauntered towards me––I surmised he was male judging by the timbre of his voice. He had a shock of orange hair on his cranium and donned a blue jean jacket and matching denim pants. Like others of his race, he had beady little orbs and comically saucer-shaped ears, which complemented his bulbous nose and preposterously wide mouth. I believe other humans would consider him attractive. I was about to inquire about his colleague Spielberg when he leaned down so our orbs could meet.

“You must be the Gray I’ve been looking for. Welcome to the Great Blighted North.”

“Greetings,” I expressed through my nannetwork. “I am Robin House 1412, Junior Service Representative of the United Gray Consortium.” I extended my hand to grasp his, a custom common among his people and felt the hair on his knuckles.

“And greetings to you. My name’s Jake Starke,” he said.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mister Jake Starke.”

“Hey, look, since we’re going to be working together, just call me Jake.”

“And you may refer to me as Robin.”

“So, is that your actual name?”

I trilled slightly, amused by the question and shook my head––the local way of expressing a negative. “Gray naming conventions are different as we do not utilize vocal communication.”

Jake rubbed his chin that jutted out preposterously, making a scratching sound. “You’re not actually talking, so how is it I’m hearing your voice?”

“My thoughts are spoken aloud through my nannetwork, which vibrates the air to produce the sound.”

Jake meditated on that for a moment. “Well, so long as you’re not reading my mind or anything we’re square.”

I had no clue how a geometric shape was relevant to our discussion. Jake loaded my supply of protein paste and luggage consisting of spare coveralls and two datapads into the cargo area of the pickup truck and then opened the passenger door, assisting me into the seat which had a booster to accommodate my smaller Gray stature.

“I’ll take you to the hotel,” he said as he got in on the other side. “It’s nice. I heard they just got cable.”

“If you do not mind, I would rather we head straight to work instead.”

“A lady on a mission. I like it.”

With a turn of a key the vehicle coughed to life, emitting acrid fumes into the atmosphere, and we pulled out from the field onto the highway. The pickup truck was not piloted by AI but rather by Jake himself and we shared the road with other vehicles that were likewise piloted by these people. The radio was tuned to a program where a host was speaking —shouting to be more precise —about the upcoming plebiscite. I clutched onto the passenger grab handle in an effort to minimize being jostled about like cargo.

“So, tell me about yourself,” Jake asked. “Did you just arrive on Earth?”

“I have been here for a few months now.”

“A few months? That means you were there at First Contact, right?”

I nodded as was the custom. “I was with the Regional Manager’s landing party.”

Jake whistled, which I had surmised was a nonverbal expression for being impressed. Indeed it was quite an accomplishment. I was a mere junior service representative, and yet I had been chosen to accompany Regional Manager Bob House 0001 to serve as his cultural advisor on a first contact mission.

Normally, a junior representative straight out of university would not be included in such a delicate operation; however, the situation on Earth was dire. The super tribes of the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of a full-scale nuclear war. The Regional Manager made the unprecedented decision to intervene in the hopes of preventing it, and he needed an expert on these people to guide him through the nuances of these Terran tribes and the conflicts that consumed them.

I recently completed my dissertation on humans and he was impressed by my insights into the multi-faceted ways they distinguished themselves along a myriad of contours: language, ethnicity, skin coloring, religion, nationality, even sports teams.

Although considered an expert on humanity, my knowledge on these people was acquired solely through studying their radio and television broadcast signals. It was akin to an archeologist trying to contextualize an extinct civilization by sifting through its refuse. There were so many nuances that no agriologist could learn about from afar. As I boarded the shuttle with the Regional Manager and his staff, I began to feel nauseous. I could be wrong about everything!

As the shuttle’s hatch sealed, I confessed, “I do not believe I have sufficient knowledge of these beings to optimize our introduction.”

The Regional Manager looked at me with his wisened black orbs. “I understand your concerns, colleague. I, too, wish we had more time for study; however, there is no time to spare. We must go with the information we have.”

“But what if our arrival causes one side to launch an attack towards us, which could spur the other side to respond in kind?” My thoughts, saturated in fear, broadcast to other Grays within the cabin. “Apologies for my outburst, colleague, but they have never encountered another race before. Being on high alert as they are, our arrival could cause them to launch their missiles at us or each other.”

The Regional Manager leaned in, our craniums touched so that only I could hear his thoughts as he expressed, “Your concerns are valid. We do not know what our arrival will do. But you know better than I that there are so few other primate civilizations left. Do you believe if we were not to intervene that they would resolve their conflict peacefully?”

I tilted my head left in the negative. “Sadly, I do not believe so.”

“We could not alter the path of those ancient civilizations you studied that chose armageddon over enlightenment. But we are here now, and we have an opportunity to prevent another fellow primate race from falling prey to their own nature and instead guide them towards prosperity. They need us, colleague. We are their last chance.”

“Wow. So, you were on top of the UN Secretariat building at First Contact,” Jake marveled, pulling me back into the present. “Nice to know they’ve sent one of their big wigs to Maple Leaf.”

“I am merely a junior service representative,” I replied, going on the assumption that “big wig” meant an executive. My nannetwork had trouble translating Jake’s colloquialisms into Gray telepathic standard. Primitive languages were convoluted, relying more on cultural context and subtle cues rather than literal meaning. Regardless, if I were such a “big wig” why did the Regional Manager feel I could better serve the Consortium’s mission by sending me way out here after he established a working relationship with local tribal leaders like Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev?

Jake shrugged. “Still, what’s a Gray like you doing in a place like this?”

“I thought you knew. I am assigned to assess the logistical needs for the relief efforts in Maple Leaf.”

Jake let out haughty breaths, bearing his canine teeth. It was the human version of laughter, analogous to our trill; however, I found it unsettling both because it was so loud and because I did not understand what I expressed that was so amusing. Perhaps Jake found my being sent out to an empty field to be entertaining.

Along the way we passed a fuel station and I noticed their tribe’s flag.

“The community of Maple Leaf, it is named after the emblem on your country’s flag, is it not?”

“The maple leaf is our emblem, but the town’s actually named after the hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs.”

“Ah, Toronto. I understand.”

Three years ago, when the Americans accidentally launched a nuclear missile that struck the Soviet city of Krasnodar, the Soviets responded with a “proportional” strike on the American city of Cleveland, incinerating the city of equal size with a nuclear warhead of the same yield. The winds moved northeasterly from Cleveland, blowing the majority of the nuclear fallout towards Canada’s largest city of Toronto.

Jake gripped the steering wheel. “After KrasCleve, we managed to evacuate the majority of the city’s survivors out west in the hopes to remain downwind of the fallout. Calgary was the only city that could handle the influx, and Maple Leaf just sort of sprouted up from there.”

I expressed, “‘KrasCleve,’ I am told, is named after the two cities that were struck, but considering the carnage from the fallout, I believe they should have added Toronto in the abbreviation, should it not?”

Jake nodded absently and after a moment he said, “From the mouths of Grays,” and returned his attention back to the highway.