The Great Galactic Service Station – Part 2

 

You know how you feel when you’re fast a asleep and a child wakes you up by turning the light on? That feeling of disorientation and initial sickness is something that can be hard to describe. Ralph had never felt this… until now. Only right now something made it even worse, he felt like he was falling as well. The light in his eyes was so bright his eyes were watering and the back of his retina’s were desperately trying to find somewhere to go!

“W-what? turn the lights out!” Ralph stammered desperately trying to shield his eyes from the light with hands

“He’s waking up!” a voice announced.

“You call that awake?” another voice asked.

“Yes, he’s awake. This is the most intelligent thing I’ve heard him say yet!” came the third, gargoyley voice.

Ralph continued to wriggle, then he realised, his arms were bound somehow. That’s why he couldn’t shield his eyes!

“G-get my arms free and turn off the damn light – it’s blinding me!” Ralph protested.

“Go-on!” the seventies style icon said to the woman “turn off the light and let him go!”

“Why have I got to do it?” the woman protested. “Since when were you put in charge?”

“I’m a man and I’m the biggest!” he proudly announced. The woman rolled her eyes and flicked off a few switches. The light went out and Ralph’s arms were free.

“It’s just a disguise you stupid Gorean!” the woman scolded. “I’m the one in command remember – you’re only the technician!”

“Yeah but you can’t defeat me while I’m wearing this! It says so in this cool looking thing I found on Earth. They watch this stuff called VT and I used it to research them!”

The woman rolled her eyes! “You twit! That thing you watched is about 40 years old – even the humans have moved on from this junk. I wondered why you were wearing that ridiculous outfit!”

The seventies style icon looked hurt and was about to respond when Ralph interrupted “Excuse me!” he blurted out! “Where am I?” Ralph rolled over still feeling sick. Rolling over that bit too much landed on the floor with a thud.

I could write in what was said at this point, but that would make this unreadable for little people, so we’ll skip that bit and the ensuing argument over where he was, who looked the most ridiculous and all that kind of thing, it wasn’t that pleasant. Neither was Ralph being sick at the end of it all.

All that’s really worth knowing about this is that Ralph was sick because he was on a spacecraft moving a little faster than he was used to. About a million miles an hour faster give or take the odd bit.

“What’s this?” Ralph groaned at the woman as she placed what looked suspiciously like a glass of water in front of him. Ralph knew it couldn’t be – he was on a spaceship. They didn’t have glasses of water.

“It’s a glass of water!” the woman told him. “What did you think it was? Some kind of highly technical space drink that looked like a glass of water?” the woman retored somewhat sarcastically.

“No!” Ralph replied sternly. “I’m not stupid you know!” I was all Ralph could say to retain some kind of intellectual dignity.

“If you’re not stupid then can you tell me where the service station is then?”

“Right!” Ralph was annoyed now, he stood up. Paused for a second and then downed his water. The three strangelings looked on waiting for some kind of epiphany. It didn’t come.

“Who are you and what is this about a service station? I’ve never been asked to build one and I couldn’t I know nothing about spaceship fuel!”

The woman sighed “This is Gharaakkkyttr” she told him pointing at the dwarf .  She the seventies style icon “You can get out of that now!” This is hararararmm” he reached back and pulled what must have been like an invisible seal down his face and front. The ‘skin’ (Ralph called it skin but he bet it was rubber) fell to the floor and out crawled what any human would say is a stereotypical alien. Long head, big eyes, scrawny arms and legs.

“So, you’re some other kind of alien too?” Ralph asked the woman.

“No!” the woman replied with some indignation. “I’m a human! What did you think humans only lived on Earth?” Ralph’s face went blank. The three of them found this very amusing, the woman smirked and then burst out laughing, the alien and the dwarf also finding this hilarious.

“Well how am I supposed to know?” Ralph interrupted angrily.

The woman tapped his shoulder, tears in her eyes  as she stemmed her laughter “I’m sorry, I know it’s just very funny. You Earthlings are so stupid it’s so funny!”

“I resent that!”

“You would!” the woman was still trying to contain her laughter, chuckling to herself. “Anyway, my name is Miranda!” she held her hand out to Ralph. Hesitantly Ralph went to take it “Like the moon or Uranus?” he asked.

“No, like the TV comedian of course!” Just before Ralph took he hand she pulled it up to her face – thumb on her nose and waggled her fingers as she crossed her eyes and blew a raspberry. She started laughing again, Ralph wasn’t so impressed.

“You call be the stupid one?”

“Oh you are so stuffy aren’t you?” Miranda scoffed, looking slightly offended. “Anyway, you wanted to know about the service station?”

“Yes, why me and why my house?”

“Well, your house is on the site where we installed some fuel tanks and left two humans to build the station and to run it. But we’ve heard nothing from them and after visiting Earth it seems that things have got out of hand.” Miranda explained.

“What do you mean out of hand?”

“Well Earth was never meant to be populated to the point it now is. There was only ever meant to be a small team running the service station. But it looks like more time has passed that we thought!”

“How much time?” Ralph asked, now quite curious about this whole thing.

“About twelve thousand years or so.”

“Well a lot can happen in that time, who were the who you left behind to run the station?”

Miranda looked at her clipboard, the two pens still behind here ears as she looked through the notes. “It says here their names were Adam and… Eve.”

“What?”

“You know them?” Miranda was surprised at Ralph’s response.

“No, don’t be silly! But they’re in the Bible as the first humans!”

“The… what? Bible?”Miranda was now confused.

“Yes, the Bible. You know – book of God?”

“God?”

“Forget it – it will take too long to explain!” Ralph was thinking he didn’t want to spend what would be hours explaining this to them. “So why are you here now after all this time?”

“Well for others in the galaxy less time has passed, we’ve been missing a few spaceships in this area that passed for re-fueling!”

“How many?” Ralph asked.

Miranda again looked through her notes “Two hundred and thirty seven.” she looked up at Ralph. “You might have seen some of them about!”

“Not personally but for a long time we’ve been wondering what the heck was going on and why aliens were visiting us. Some people even say they have been operated on!”

“Don’t worry about that – that’s just Hararararmm’s guys trying to find out where the service station is!”

“So – what you’re saying is that the reason why UFO’s have been sighted around Earth is becasue they’re out of fuel and they’re stranded?”

“Uh – yeah!” Miranda replied.

“He learns quicker than I thought he would!” Gharaakkkyttr grated.

Ralph turned to look at Gharaakkkyttr and Hararararmm “I have no idea what you’re names are so let’s make this simple!” Ralph ranted “You’re Gaz and you’re Harry!” Ralph waggled his finger at them as he carried on “If you’re so intelligent Gaz – tell me how all your spacecraft are ending up stranded here? Sounds like they’re the stupid ones!”

“I’ll slap you!” Gaz leapt at Ralph, Harry slapped him and he fell to the floor “behave yourself!” Harry told him calmly. Ralph now had a clue where Gaz got all his bruises from.

Ralph turned back to Miranda “So what are all these stranded aliens doing and where do their spaceships go?”

“I’m not sure where they put them, but I know they become weirdo’s like DJ’s and politicians.”

“Politicians?” asked Ralph “Name one that I would know!” he challenged her.

“You really need to ask? You can’t work it out?”

“No!” replied Ralph.

“Let’s put it like this – does Boris Johnson look human to you?”

This had Ralph thinking. He always knew Boris was weird, but an alien? Really?

 

To be continued…

©Simon Farnell 2017

 

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