How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (31 page)

As his
fellow passengers boarded the shuttle and took their seats however, Eric’s excitement became tinged with a slight hint of disappointment.

‘Gutter!  There’s no wookies or jawas or nothing,’ he thought to himself.  In his naivety regarding the rest of the galaxy, Eric had been half-hoping that his flight would be filled with Star Wars type aliens, but it turned out that all the other passengers looked pretty much like himself.  There were a few minor differences, for example, one family a few rows in front of him had pointier ears than you would ever see on Earth, and there were also a few skin tones that you wouldn’t see on Earth, but overall everyone was pretty much human-esque in appearance.

‘Pity.  It would have been cool to have met a wookie,’ Eric thought to himself.  ‘Even a jawa would have been good.’  He then had second thoughts, though.  ‘Ar, nar.  Actually, I remember reading once that jawas totally stink, so it’s probably for the best that there’s no jawas.’

The woman that sat next to Eric during the flight had undoubtedly the worst acne he had ever seen in his life.  In fact it was so bad that he
concluded that it must be something specific to her species, because he couldn’t imagine that it was physically possible for a human from Earth to get acne that bad.

He found himself subtly glancing at
the woman for the first few minutes of the flight, but then she turned to look questioningly in his direction so he quickly turned away and pretended to be massively fascinated by the cup holder on the back of the head rest in front of him.  After that he decided not to concern himself with the acne of the woman sat beside him and spent the rest of the journey enjoying the in-flight entertainment system.

He was pleased to discover that the video games were amazing.  Far in advance of anything Eric had ever experienced on Earth, but it has to be said he was extremely disappointed with the poor standard of music on offer.

‘Hey, if this is what music’s like in the rest of the galaxy then I’m glad I was born on Earth, like,’ he thought to himself.

Usually Eric preferred an aisle seat, but on this occasion he had specifically requested a window seat, as he figured the chance to gaze out on the stars was too good an opportunity to waste.  However, throughout the journey he was somewhat disappointed with the view from the window as the stars looked pretty much like they did on Earth.  Brighter perhaps, but not particularly impressive, and Eric was half-regretting not going for the aisle seat.

As they approached Fem though, and began the descent into its atmosphere, he realised he had made the right choice.  The descents onto Fyra and Pokar Dix had been impressive, but Fem reminded Eric of Earth with its blue oceans and green land masses, and for some reason that made this descent even more impressive.

‘Flip!  This is class, like!’ he thought to himself, as a big smile beamed from his face.  ‘I’m almost even a little bit glad the Femlings decided to be crazy radjee planetocidal maniacs, cos if they hadn’t then I wouldn’t have got to experience all this.’  This was a blatant case of self-deceit because Eric clearly wasn’t a little bit glad.  He was a
lot
glad.  He was absolutely loving his adventure so far.  In fact as he stepped off the shuttle and headed towards customs and immigration he noticed that his cheeks were sore from smiling too much.

‘I’d better tone my smile down a little bit,’ he thought to himself, ‘just in case immigration think I’m a daft simpleton.’  He adjusted the degree of his smile to a more chilled out level.  ‘Actually … no.  There’s no law against simpletons going through immigration,’ he thought to himself, and he let his smile expand once again to its natural cheek pain inducing level.  ‘Although, actually … I don’t know the law on Fem so mebbees they might have anti-simpleton laws here.’  He suppressed his smile once again.

As it turned out Fem had no laws against simpletons passing through immigration, as long as they possessed the appropriate documents, and so Eric passed through immigration without any hassles.  Not that it would have made any difference if they
did
have anti-simpleton laws, because Eric wasn’t a simpleton … just to clarify.

‘I’m here!’ he thought to himself, as h
e headed to the spaceport magnapod station.  In some ways the magnapods on Fem were more impressive than the magnapods on Pokar Dix.  They were fitted with anti-gravity stabilisation fields which meant there was no need to be strapped in, but in a strange way this made the journey
less
impressive.  The journey was so smooth that you could almost have been sitting in a library.  There was no sensation of speed like there was on the magnapods on Pokar Dix and Eric couldn’t help but be reminded of the shinkansen
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in Japan.  That travelled at almost two hundred miles per hour but because the Japanese were so brilliant at designing high-tech trains and ultra-smooth tracks, you hardly even noticed you were moving.

‘It’s a pity the shinkansen wasn’t built in England,’ Eric thought to himself.  ‘Then you would have noticed how fast you were going.’

Anyway, a few seconds later Eric had arrived at Sumai City Central Magnapod Station and within a minute or so he emerged from the station into the busy city.  All the travelling had left him mentally tired and ready for a good sleep, so he checked into the first cheap hotel he could find and hit the sack.

And as he lay there and drifted off to sleep, he once again found himself reflecting upon his significance and importance with respect to the future of life on Earth.  ‘Flip
!  It’s actually going to plan!’ he thought to himself.  ‘Flip!  I actually could be the dude that saves mankind from extinction!’

But there were
still many more twists and turns lying ahead waiting for Eric in his quest to become the dude that saved mankind from extinction.

The next couple of days went pretty smoothly, with Eric firstly assessing Femling fashion trends, then adding his own sense of style to his assessment, and then finally purchasing himself several outfits.

There was one instance when he became rather hassled at an overly pushy saleswoman who was trying to persuade him to buy an over-priced designer t-shirt but other than that it was all relatively hassle-free shopping.  What annoyed Eric even more about the pushy saleswoman was that, by the way she was dressed, she clearly didn’t have a clue about fashion.  ‘Here, if I was gonna ask someone for fashion tips, you’d be the last person I’d be asking,’ he thought to himself.  ‘Not that I’d ever be wanting to ask anyone for fashion tips in any case cos I’ve got such an inflated sense of my own sharp appreciation of style that I generally disregard the opinions of others,’ he added to himself, and a smirk appeared on his face.

He thought that it might possibly sound a bit cheeky if he actually voiced his thoughts to the saleswoman, however, so instead he gave her his speech about how expensive designer labels were a fashion crutch used by people who didn’t actually know how to dress well and therefore needed the reassurance of a high price tag.  When this failed to diminish the saleswoman’s enthusiasm for the overpriced t-shirt Eric simply remarked, “Nar, it’s rubbish,” and that seemed to have the desired effect.

When he had finished assembling his wardrobe Eric was overall pretty pleased with his purchases, although not one hundred percent satisfied, but he told himself this was a good thing because if you ever become one hundred percent satisfied with your wardrobe you run the risk of getting comfortable and not upgrading when the latest trends inevitably move on six months down the line.

There was one t-shirt in particular that he was particularly pleased with which had the slogan, ‘Everything will be okay in the end.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end,’ printed on it.  Eric reckoned it was entirely likely that there would be times when his mission wouldn’t be going exactly to plan and during those times the t-shirt would ensure he stayed determined and motivated, and therefore the t-shirt was an essential purchase.  And besides, perhaps more importantly, it had a really cool pattern on the front which extended onto the right shoulder and looked really sharp.

Once his clothing purchases were completed Eric didn’t waste another se
cond and caught the first magnapod down to Ko Pagna.  He was a bit disappointed when he took his seat and found himself sat opposite a mad old bloke who was keen to engage in a conversation as to whether celery or carrots were the best addition to a cheese sandwich, but the journey only lasted less than two minutes so Eric didn’t have to put up with the annoying old bloke’s patter for very long before he was quickly at his destination.

As he emerged from the magna
pod station at the other end of his journey, the sun was beating down gloriously on a typically scorchingly hot day on Ko Pagna and another one of those smiles that hurt his cheeks appeared on Eric’s face.

‘Ah … class!’ he thought to himself.  ‘What a total fluke I am!’

He quickly booked himself into the Sunny Heaven Beach Resort which seemed to be very strongly recommended when he was doing his research on the Galactic Information Network, and then headed straight down to the beach.

‘Ah … yes!  What a double fluke I am!’ he thought to himself as he took in the lushness of his surroundings.  Back on Earth, Eric had been to many of the best beaches in the world and this was easily a match for any of them.  Not least because there seemed to be a considerably high quantity of totally fit lasses sunbathing on it.  ‘Hey, Jixyl and Azleev were right about there being a total load of cream on Fem, like,” Eric thought to himself.

So he quickly found himself a nice spot on the beach and spent the afternoon listening to his ts4 player
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whilst enjoying the sunshine.  Then after a few hours of sunbathing he went to get himself something to eat and was pleased to discover that the food on Ko Pagna was superb.  Then as the evening arrived he finished off the day by heading down to the clubs on the beach.  Whilst the music wasn’t up to the standard Eric had been used to on Earth, it was still considerably better than the music on the in-flight entertainment system which was a big relief to Eric.  And as an added bonus, one of the clubs, known as The Hang Out Club, had a podium outside it on the beach for diquintenoled party lovers to dance on.

Eric was especially chuffed about this discovery as in his opinion dancing on a dance floor versus dancing on a podium was like watching video versus watching DVD.  Once you had danced once on a podium, dancing on a dance floor again was never quite the same.  So he rounded off the night with an hour or so of podium dancing before returning to his hotel room.

Then as he lay down to reflect on his first day in Ko Pagna he realised that since arriving in Ko Pagna he hadn’t even thought for a single moment about his mission.  The trouble was he was just too excited about being here to worry about trivial stuff like the possible extinction of the human race or anything insignificant like that.

‘And besides, I’m entitled to one day to just chill out and relax,’ he told himself as he fell asleep.

But the trouble is, a day of chilling and relaxing is a very enjoyable pastime.  So enjoyable in fact, that it can easily become
two
days of chilling and relaxing.  And that in turn can easily become three…

Eric’s second day on Ko Pagna followed a pretty much identical pattern to his first day, with the exception that as he fell asleep this time he told himself, ‘I don’t want to dive straight into things.  I need time to suss everything out first.’

Eric’s third day was once again very similar to the first two days with the exception that as he went to sleep this time he told himself, ‘I need to formulate a plan and strategy before I start putting the mission into practise.’

The fourth, fifth and sixth days were pretty different, though.  Whilst walking along the beach on the morning of day four Eric noticed that a Beach Soccer Tournament was being held in Ko Pagna.  So, being a big football fan, Eric signed up straight away and was fairly pleased that his team made it to the quarter-finals, although he was certain the goal that knocked them out should have been disallowed for a handball earlier in the move.  He realised that playing beach soccer wasn’t
strictly
the reason why he had been sent to Fem, but he justified it to himself once again by telling himself that he was only doing the things that made him happy, and happy people are more attractive and therefore have more chance of scoring, and therefore it was essential that he indulged himself in all the things he loved doing.  Besides, he had now met some new people and it was always easier to score when you went out with a group of friends.

The seventh and eighth days involved more sunbathing, more listening to tunes on his ts4 player, more lush food and more heading down to the clubs on the beach on the night-time with his new beach soccer team-mates to get diquintenoled up (or not, in Eric’s case).  Sadly though, they didn’t involve snogging any
Femling lasses.

When Eric checked his A.T.S. account on the ninth day he noticed he had received quite a few messages.

The one from Monty read:

‘Alright, how’s it going?  Scored with any fit alien lasses yet?’