I struggle to put into words what i felt at that moment. it was a mixture of fear and wonder and curiosity. Before me stood an alien, something our history classes begrudgingly admitted were real. I knew that. For a moment though, I'm embarrassed to say, he reminded me of the Man in the moon.
My mother used to tell me bedtime stories, and one of my favorites was about a man who lived in the moon. "Long ago" she would begin "The god |Creator of this Planet| (this is the most direct translation i could think of) created the moon to give us something to illuminate the night sky when the sun went to sleep in the east. And in that moon he put a man that would maintain it. As time marched on, the man in the moon began to weave dreams to stave off boredom. Eventually, he made so many dreams he didn't know what to do with them, so he started sending them to the good little children of Scrag. He secures each dream with a balloon so it gently falls to our planet, for dreams are so easily shattered, and can never be made whole again once they are."
Now, ten Scragian years later, the man in the moon was standing before me, like he had leaped from my imagination into the real world. By Scragian standards, he looked old enough to be considered an elder. His hair is short and white. His face has the quality of aged leather, with a five o'clock shadow to complete a disheveled but not appalling look. He wasn't exactly what I imagined though.The first oddity I noticed was his fingers. He had five on each hand as opposed to a Scragians three. His ears were short and round, and did not seem capable of our flexibility. Finally, he had no tail, or at least no noticeable equivalent.
He was also wearing the same clothes as the enemy scout Second Lieutenant 35B was looking for. While I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, at that moment I could not afford to underestimate the stranger. At the time I thought "He may not look like a Scragian, but that didn't exclude him from being a spy of some kind." I was so close to escaping this totalitarian hell. I was ready to... do something i would have regretted for the rest of my life.
He spoke to me and Augustine in our tongue, with a heavy accent I could not place. "Hullo" was the first thing he said. His brow was slightly raised and he talked softly. "aye knoew you have many questions, and aye assure you aye have answers, but first, please al-law me to properly introe-duce myself. aye awm a 'Time Treader'-" (he said that in his native language) "-but you may call me Titi."
"Hello Titi." Augustine said cautiously, stepping in front of me. He was larger and stronger than me, and was probably assessing the man as I was.
"Hello sir." I said. "I'm uh- sorry we boarded your boat without permission."
"no, no, it's al-raye-ht-" he assured us as he took a step away from the door. Augustine took a step back down the stairs. "Please doe-n't be alarmed. Aye'ma just moving to mya captain's chair. as aye was saying, it's al-raye-ht, it's nawt every day a cabin cruiser appears out of thien air in the brahnches of a giant tree." He fell into his seat the way an elder with arthritis would. "Oof! aye forgot mya medicine." He clapped. a door on the port side slid open, revealing the phantasm women from the photo. she was a hologram. she would be a photorealistic portrait of a terran woman if it weren't for the purple glow of vector projections outlining her silhouette. she walked to the captains chair, her footsteps making no noise.
"Yes Titi?" She spoke in a language i couldn't understand at the time. her voice modulation betrayed it came from a voice bank, and not speech synthesis.
"Mya medicine, VAIA. Couldya get it foe me?"
"of course Titi, be right back." she started toward the port side sliding door which i realized was an elevator.
"She'll be back." he said. "you might want to move out of the way there boys. that staircase is only so wide. "
seeming to pose no threat, we inched closer to him. Titi continued talking as he swiveled his seat away from us and began to type in the terminal keyboard. whether it was to show he trusted us or an act of foolishness i cannot say.
"so, ya got any names?"
"I'm Dominus, and my... friend here is Augustine."
Titi paused to glance over his shoulder. "Justuh Friend?" he asked with a sly grin. "coulda fooled meh wita waya yoos were holdin' hands."
defensively, Augustine retorted "Your staircase is a hazard to limbs of all kind. I trust Dominus more than you."
Titi laughed, unphased by Augustine's aggression. "an' you are compleetlay righ-ta do so."
"pardon me sir" i said. "but... where are you from exactly? I can't place your accent."
"ah yes. forgive me, Dominus, for my mastery of your common tongue is lacking indeed. Though it can't be helped. you Scragians have been a notoriously reclusive bunch ever since that civil war broke out- eh... when was it again?"
"Approximately four hundred and ninety-two terran years ago Titi." Vaia said in our language. her footsteps made no sound on the staircase, yet somehow she carried a cup of water in her purple right hand, and a pillbox in her left, its cargo rattling inside like an egg shaped maraca.
"Terran years?" Augestine asked.
"yes, approximately 1.23 of your Scragian years." she said as she gave the medicine to Titi. She turned to Augustine, pausing for a beat as her eyes flickered for a tic. "By my estimation Augustine, you are 18 terran years old-" she repeated the motion with me "-and Dominus is 17, a week shy of 18."
"How did you do that?" Augestine said while pointing.
"Do what?"
"Scan me. I don't see any projectors on the walls, nor any tracking cameras. how are you here? how can you carry things but not make a sound?"
"I scanned you with my eyes. I require no external projectors because i am an autonomous unit that projects outward. I suppose I'm closer to an android with a floating torso, retractable limbs and a head with a holographic shell then a hologram your species is used to. forgive me, i haven't introduced myself. i am Titi's (she said the following in Terran before translating it to Scragian) 'Virtual Artificial Intelligence Assistant, or VAIA' for short."
"Wow." Augustine was stunned by the technological feat in front of him.
"Yes, she is kwite aye beauty." Titi said as he put his half empty glass into a cupholder and the now silent pillbox into VAIA's hands. He stood up easier now, like the pain in his joints disappeared with the pill in his stomach acid. "Now we have some important business to attend to before we take off."
Augustine and I expressed our confusion. Titi calmly replied "well aye cant have two apprentices that don't undahstahnd me!"
it was then that we both realized that this man had every intention of welcoming us on board.