*****
I told Ikanya that we’d been invited by the newlyweds to eat at their new apartment. “Perhaps we can bring them a little gift,” she gently suggested, and produced a crystalline ball of pure glass that refracted all the kaleidoscopic colors of an overarching rainbow.
Yet, I thought I could see something looming dark and menacing, huddling secretly within the curious ball’s most hidden shadowy depths.
The very young couple cooked an awesomely appropriate meal for us, a series of little ancient Italian pasta dishes, antipasto, and three flavors of ice cream for dessert. Ikanya helped Bellayette in the kitchen, and we four sat down to a most delightful repast.
During dinner, the kid asked me, “So how do you like it here? I mean, compared to ancient Earth, where you grew up.” I answered, “This place is ever so much better. It’s like an unearthly paradise. The Kels are the best; everyone is so friendly and helpful, ready to give his life to serve our valiant cause. Earth was terrible, with rivers like sewers, and oceans that were gigantic cesspools.” Virkon said he’d like to see it anyway. “You mean use the time machine? Trust me; you would never want to go there. It’s hopeless. Here, we have a majestic land, people we can be proud to be part of, and a real cause, worthy of our entire lives’ devotion. This is the place to be!”
Ikanya and I spent the night at their lovely apartment. We both felt happy to have made new friends. Soon, squeals of delight came from both their bedroom and the guest one where Ikanya and I frolicked, locked in a chorus of joie de vie.
There was no smoking or drug use anywhere on our planet, no casinos, bars, or dance clubs. There was no need for anything like that there. It was a great place to raise your family, though it could be a bit boring at times if it was not for the war raging constantly, and reminding us how precious our lives were. Alcohol consumption was extremely rare among the Kels, sort of a bow to the distant past. I was given a ration of one bottle of medicinal wine per month. I saved my rations for four months, and invited the kid and his wife over for dinner, having enough wine saved to fuel an army.
Yahway, did we ever party that night! We each downed one bottle, and sang and danced the night away. My wife pounced on the table, singing her lungs out, and the kid’s wife drunkenly joined in. Then from nowhere, the kid punched me out, and it was over. Everything spun around, then went black, just like before.
I woke up in the brig at military headquarters, with two angry Kels pounding on my chest and screaming at me. “Why did you get them drunk? What were you thinking, Commander? ANSWER ME!” Supreme Commander Traxis the Great was highly insulted by my behavior; his face was contorted into a mask of crimson rage. He told me my wife had been found naked in a ditch, totally covered with mud, and crying. The kid was found in a treetop, howling like a Wactovian monkey, and his wife had been captured by feral humans and dragged into a cave, where she was brutally and repeatedly raped.
They blamed only Virkon for the crimes, as the Kel’s policies on getting drunk had never been properly explained to me. A firing squad was immediately convened, as the poor kid had also struck an officer.
Me.
The Kels, who had always welcomed me as one of them, felt I had brought deep dishonor upon their people. They shunned me. My poor dear wife was sobbing uncontrollably, in a lot of physical and mental anguish over what the ferals had done to her friend. What were these ferals, I asked? The Supreme Commander told me they were human/ape hybrids created by the Dracs to demoralize and weaken us. Ferals could not talk, or even walk upright, but they could mate with Kels. Ferals lived in the hidden mysterious depths of dank caverns, only crawling out in the black of night to seek out any errant victims, arcane stalking the dark penumbral shadows of our bluely domed city.
On the spur of our drunken night and the attack on Bellayette, Supreme Commander Traxis the Great decided to destroy all the ferals. “We’re going to smoke those devils out of the caves!” he screamed. And so we poured gas down every cavernous hole we found, and then exploded them with torches, setting the caves on fire like raw infernos. Angry, red, screaming ferals raced out, dazed, into the broad daylight. God, they were ugly! We simply shot them one by one as they came out. I ached to make them die slowly, for what they’d done to Bellayette.
I thought we’d got them all. But somehow, I knew otherwise.