How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (43 page)

And so as he lay on his bed and contemplated the Femling’s imminent fate he realised that he couldn’t just let it happen.  He had to do something to try and stop it.

But what?  That was the question.

And no matter how much he racked his brains, he couldn’t come up with an answer.

. . . . . . .

“Right, I’ve got one,” Eric announced.  “Would you rather be blind for a week or deaf for a month?”

“Deaf for a month,” Kesta replied.  The pair of them had by now moved on to the pool party and were slouched against the side of the pool.

“Deaf for a month?” Eric questioned, seemingly surprised at Kesta’s choice.  “But you couldn’t listen to music.”

“A
ye, I know,” Kesta acknowledged
[84]
, “but if you were blind you couldn’t see sights like that.”  Kesta nodded towards the centre of the pool where three extremely fit lasses were currently engaged in a three-way topless snog.

“Flip!” Eric exclaimed, clearly impressed with their snogging technique.  “Aye, music’s over-rated, like,” he quickly concluded.

The two friends were transfixed by the sight for a few moments before Kesta eventually commented, “They’re total attention seekers, like.”

“Aye,” Eric agreed, nodding thoughtfully, “although in my case I have say their search for attention has been very successful.”  Judging by the high number of attentive male eyes around the pool, it was safe to say that the three fit topless lasses’ search for attention had been successful in a lot of other cases as well.

Before long though, Kesta arrived at the end of his drink and so decided to head off to the bar.  “Do you want another drink?” he asked Eric.

“Aye, but it’s my round,” Eric replied.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kesta shrugged.  “I’ll get them in tonight and you can get them in tomorrow.”

Tomorrow they w
ould be back at Hang Out where the drinks were cheaper than at the pool party, so this was an arrangement that Eric readily accepted.

“Ar, cheers,” he beamed.  “I’ll have another one of those energy drinks.”

“No worries,” Kesta remarked, and he headed off to the bar.

Eric wasn’t usually that keen on energy drinks, as they usually left him feeling a bit shaky the next day, but it had been so long since he had last had alcohol that he decided he deserved a narcotic treat of some sort.

Besides, the energy drinks on Fem, Eric had discovered, were a lot more to Eric’s liking than the energy drinks back on Earth.  They had made him feel sort of light-headed and perhaps more confident.  In fact Eric couldn’t help noticing that it was a similar feeling to the feeling on Earth of being drunk.

The reason for this, of course, was because he
was
drunk.  Kesta had been spiking his drinks.  But, as Eric had been tricked by Jixyl and Azleev into believing they didn’t have alcohol on Fem, he was therefore not the slightest bit suspicious that his current state of mind might be caused by alcohol and simply assumed that the energy drinks on Fem must have different properties to the ones on Earth.

Eric watched the three-way topless snog for a few moments longer until the three lasses appa
rently decided that they had enjoyed enough attention for the time being and headed towards the side of the pool.  Eric’s gaze followed them across the pool until, suddenly, he lost all interest in the three topless lasses and became completely focused on something else.

Sveltish Indie Chick!

Like … excellent!

Sveltish Indie Chick was at the side of the pool!

Staring at Eric!

And she was smiling at him!

In fact she was beaming at him!

‘Flip!’ Eric thought to himself.  But it wasn’t a nervous ‘flip,’ the way it normally would be.  It was an excited ‘flip.’  For some reason he felt more relaxed than he usually would.  ‘Maybe it’s the energy drinks,’ he told himself.

And then things got even better.  Sveltish Indie Chick started dancing towards Eric, her face still beaming happily.

‘Flip!’ Eric once again thought, again with excitement rather than nervousness.  ‘Sveltish Indie Chick is coming towards uz!  And she’s got a pure
‘come on’ face!’

Sveltish Indie Chick danced a few steps closer.

“Flip!  This is my chance!’ Eric thought.  ‘Don’t mess it up.  Don’t mess it up.  Don’t mess it up,’ he told himself.

And within a matter of seconds Sveltish Indie Chick had danced right up to Eric until she was standing right next to him, her face still beaming.

‘Flip!’ Eric thought to himself once again as she put her hand on his shoulder.  ‘Sveltish Indie Chick!’

He frantically racked his brains for something cool and impressive to say, but Sveltish Indie Chick spared him the bother as she spoke first…

“Hey, your mate is really sexy.”

. . . . . . .

“Do you reckon it would put you off scoring with a fit lass if you knew she was an alien?” Garth asked Monty.

“That’s a bit of a random question,” Monty answered.  “What prompted that?”

“Just with Eric being on another planet and having to snog loads of alien lasses and all that,” Garth elaborated.

“Yeah, I was actually joking,” Monty
clarified.  “I obviously know why you asked it.”

“Ar, right,” Garth muttered.  “Well, would it?”

“I dunno,” Monty shrugged.  “Maybe a little bit.”

“I think it would put me off,” Garth
opined.

“I doubt it’ll put
Eric off, though,” Monty proclaimed.

“Why not?” Garth asked.

“Cos he’s a horny little fucker,” Monty remarked.  “And it’s been a few weeks since he last scored, so he’s gonna be even less fussy than usual by now.”

“Aye, true,” Garth acknowledged.

“Plus, he always goes on about foreign lasses having more appeal cos of the exoticness and all that,” Monty added.  “So I’d imagine he’d see alien lasses as even more exotic and therefore more appealing.”

As it turned out Monty’s theory about alien lasses being more appealing to Eric was wide of the mark.  Eric, in actual fact, found them no more appealing than the lasses on Earth.  Unfortunately for the Femlings though, Eric found lasses on Earth very appealing indeed, and therefore Femling lasses likewise.  In fact you could say that Monty’s theory about Eric’s lack of fussiness was a very accurate theory.

“So I think we’re going to have to pin our hopes on Eric being a bottler without alcohol,” Monty purported, “rather than him being fussy about scoring with aliens.”

Unfortunately for the Femlings though, Eric was no longer without alcohol.

Which meant that he was therefore no longer a bottler.

Which in turn meant that the future of the Femlings looked rather bleak.

Eric awoke from his sleep and looked across at Sveltish Indie Chick, or Elskar as he had now discovered her name was, asleep beside him.  A big smile appeared on his face.

A myriad of thoughts ran through his head.  On the one hand he was totally chuffed that he had finally become acquainted with the girl of his dreams.  But on the other hand he couldn’t help wishing he’d met Elskar under slightly different circumstances.

For starters, in an ideal scenario they’d have both been native to the same planet.  And for seconds, he wouldn’t have been carrying a disease that could potentially wipe out Elskar’s entire species.  Whichever way he looked at things, that wasn’t ideal to the future of any potential relationship.

Elskar opened her eyes and an equally big smile appeared on her face.

“Alright,” Eric greeted.

“Yeah, I’m better than alright,” Elskar re
sponded.  “I’m great.”

Usually when someone responded to an ‘alright’ by talking about how they were, Eric would explain that ‘alright’ wasn’t actually an enquiry as to the general well-being of the asked person, and that it was just a Geordie way of saying hello, but in this particular situation he decided that it was probably best to ignore his usual response and instead return the compliment.

“Yeah, I’m great as well,” he replied.  Besides, the G.O.T. would have translated the sentiment behind his ‘alright,’ rather than the literal meaning of ‘alright,’ so maybe in this case he wasn’t just saying hello.  Maybe he was also enquiring as to Elskar’s general well being.  “It was excellent meeting you and all that.”  Then they cuddled up to each other with big smiles on their faces.

They had only been cuddled up for a few seconds when Eric noticed an ant crawling over the bed sheet, so instinctively he splatted it into the sheet with the tip of his finger.

Elskar rested her head on his shoulder.  “That’s the worst thing you can do,” she remarked.

Eric looked confused for a moment.  “Surely killing every living species on an entire planet is
worse than killing an ant,” he pointed out.  He knew Elskar wasn’t being literal so his reply was meant in a jokey manner, but he couldn’t help feeling a pang of anger as he reminded himself of what he still believed were the Femlings’ twisted intentions.  But then Elskar playfully hit him and squeezed her breasts into his chest and the pang of anger was quickly replaced by a pang of something else.

Nevertheless though, it was a subject that had been niggling away inside Eric for quite some time now.  And what made it worse was that Jixyl and Azleev had cautioned him not to mention the ‘Quality Of Life’ proposal to any Femlings, as it might potentially blow his cover if any Femlings sensed that he didn’t support it quite as passionately as they did.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Elskar clarified.  “I just mean if you want to get rid of ants then to kill an ant is the worst thing you can do because it only attracts more ants.”

“I’ve heard that before, like, actually,” Eric admitted, “but is it actually true?”

“I think so,” Elskar replied.

“Just cos, like, that seems a bit weird to me, like.  Cos, like, nature’s usually canny intelligent, like,” Eric reasoned, “but to me that seems like a pretty gormless thing to do.  Like, I can’t understand how if you kill an ant he’d send out a signal to all his ant mates saying, ‘Here, everyone.  Come over here.  It’s class, like.  This big dude splats you with his finger and you die.’

And then, like, all his ant mates go, ‘Ar, aye.  That sounds class, that, like.  Here everyone, let’s all go over there and get splatted.’  And then they all go, ‘Ar, right, aye.  That sounds like a good idea, like.’

Like, why would nature do that?  It’d be a bit of a snidey trick by nature if you ask me, like.  Like, I mean it’s basically saying that nature goes, ‘Ha! Ha!  I’ve thought of a lush snaky trick to play on some ants.  I’m gonna make them all follow their ant mate that just got splatted, so that they all get killed as well.  Ha! Ha!’  Like, surely nature wouldn’t be that snidey?  Like, surely it would make more sense for nature to send out a signal saying, ‘Here, ant dudes.  Stay away from here, like.  It’s a bit rubbish over here cos you get killed.  I reckon you should go somewhere else where you won’t die and you get to stay alive and all that, cos staying alive is much better than dying, like.’”

Elskar just looked at Eric somewhat bemused at his choice of conversation.

“Just cos, like I say, usually nature’s really intelligent,” Eric continued.  “Like for example, you’re really attractive so all dudes would want to have sex with you … and that’s nature being clever cos you’re probably at the prime of your fertility so it makes sense for nature to make the most fertile lasses also the most attractive.  Like, to ensure the survival of the species and all that.

But then, like, once a lass is pregnant nature doesn’t have to make her attractive anymore.  Once she’s pregnant it’s more important that she’s safe and protected, so then nature makes dudes feel all protective towards pregnant lasses, rather than all horny, like.

So, like, usually nature is canny intelligent, like.  Like, it’s got its head screwed on properly, like.  It’s got its priorities straight.

So that’s why I just can’t understand why it would send loads of ants scampering to their deaths.  Like, surely if anything it would warn them.”

“It’s just what I’ve heard,” Elskar shrugged.  She clearly hadn’t given the subject as much thought as Eric had.

“Yeah, I’ve heard it before as well,” Eric acknowledged.  “I’m just saying though, just cos people say it, doesn’t mean it’s true.”

Elskar, however, wasn’t particularly bothered about ants.  There was another subject that had been playing on her mind all night which she was far more interested in discussing.  “Anyway, if you’re saying I’m attractive and men want to have sex with me then how come you didn’t try anything on with me last night?” she inquired, raising the aforementioned issue.

Eric wasn’t expecting Elskar to ask him that question.  He was far more comfortable talking about ants.  But the question had now been asked so he couldn’t just ignore it.  The tricky thing was though, he wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to such a question.  Mainly because it wasn’t a question he was often asked, as generally when a lass came back to his room with him he always tried it on.  So this was new territory for him.