The Arrival

The ‘Emissary’ – that was the only name these humans would know him by – entered their outer solar system in his saucer-shaped craft, on route to their planet they called ‘Earth’ on this vital but also very interesting solo mission. Coming out of hyperspeed after a two-month voyage and passing the blue gas giant they called Neptune, he’d be there in less than one of their earth days now, 18 hours to be more precise. It was time to recap: his green hand, which would resemble a big ‘frog paw’ to them – except that he had five fingers not a frog’s four – brought up that favourited profile on his console screen...

The Emissary then submitted these into the assessor database, whereupon they were replaced with the single flashing word, as the ship’s computer thought about it...

SUITABILITY

It was important for him to get used to using their predominant language, ‘English’, from this point. The girl – that was their best word for her, apparently, rather than woman, although biologically ‘woman’ was what she was, since she could breed, a somewhat confusing attitude on the part of their species mused Emissary, but he digressed – the girl, ‘she’ would certainly not be able to communicate with him in his own language, no matter how much time or practise she was given, and time was of the essence. After a few seconds, the word was replaced with the resultant and solid word...

IDEAL

He was giving another test to the HMU (Humanizing Mind Upload) as he brought up her live imagery. It made one’s perception like that of a human male ‘equivalent’, in so far as looking on the female of the species, but you retained your other native cognitions.

Oh, well now ... she was bathing, at her home. Could not see below the water-line and soap, but her rather small yet nicely-shaped mammary glands were in evidence. And what, was she ... a little bit ... masturbating? Haha, so was that universal to human girls/women to do it in the bath? She looked ever so relaxed at first, but... ‘frowny’ would be the word, a bit pained even, when her forearm movements under the water finished up being stabbier.

He had to keep watching this; she got out and then parped about in her bedroom. He got to see that her vaginal area was downy and really rather small-looking. All this, the shapes and tone of her, so appealing now but when the HMU wears off she – it – will go back to seeming like a repulsive and stupid beige-coloured thing, all the long stringy hair from her head looking like an especially bizarre and disturbing element.

As to what she smells like, that will only be known when ... anyway, although he was duty-bound to select from the range of ‘ideal’ specimens (based on factors such as health, genetic history, temperament and intelligence), he found himself hissing in his own language:

“Good, yes, this one is still in there.”

Virginity, youthfulness and prettiness were the prime draws, it seemed, just as they were the universe over in any species.

Annabel Tomkins, at her pleasant small-town home of 27 Saxon Crescent, Whitchurch, England, had just emerged from the bathroom having taken a bath. It was 6:10 p.m. on Wednesday the 25^th of September, and had been a long day. It had been an intense day for subjects in this important GCSE year – including double-periods in Biology and English Literature – plus she had stayed on after school for an hour as Deputy Executive for the Gardening Club. Voluntary, of course, but she did things like that. They were selecting the spring bulbs for the displays around the school carpark. All in all, made her feel a little bit grimy as well as tired. She liked to be clean, and a hot bath was a lovely way to relax.

As she ambled into her bedroom with large fluffy white towel tucked in on her breasts – they could hold it these days – she felt that tang of guilt for what she’d just done in the bath. Not the washing, but the ... well, everybody does it, not just boys. The warm water made it easier and, after spending some time on her clitoris, she’d actually once again got two fingers in all the way to the main knuckle. This time she dared a bit of fast motion. She wanted to imagine what it would feel like, how easy it would be. Her Catholicism told her ‘not before marriage’, but she did contemplate maybe after turning 16; perhaps with Mark, the school tennis captain, if he’d be interested in someone two years his junior.

Annabel felt herself bland at times, although she was told plenty enough that she wasn’t. She stroked her damp brown hair behind her ears and behind her shoulders, it already settling into its established centre-parting. Listening for danger of parental interruption, she unhooked the towel and let it drop. She turned sideways on to the full length mirror, partly to try and judge whether ‘slightly tall, slender, some curves’ was a good thing, but also to toss forth some hair to settle in front of her shoulders too. It hung to just about below her breasts, which was good, wasn’t it? She held out her arms and did two slow revolutions, gazing and wondering if her breasts and bottom looked okay.

Enough of that, she thought, just be rest-assured I am desirable – ‘sexy’ if we must use that word – and put aside such guilty vanity. She picked up the towel and got on with the business of drying down. That weird momentary feeling came again, where she imagined if somehow somewhere someone could see this and was watching. Perhaps God himself? The ghost of somebody, or a perv with astral-projection powers? Just guilt, and it wasn’t enough to stop her sitting down naked on her big mauve velvet stool. Time for the hair-drier, which was tedious and took a while, including intermittent combing to get the fineness back, and a brief blast in between her legs at her puss-fluff, which made her smile.

After this, she felt a nice idea would be to look over her press-cutting scrapbook, about the town campaign she’d launched to have a cycle track built which had earned her the personal congratulations of her local Member of Parliament. She’ll be England’s very own Greta Thunberg, he quipped; precisely her dream, but she wasn’t sure about the fame.

In the city they called Geneva, in the afternoon of the next day, their think-tank of experts and power-people had been hastily assembled. They had a protocol for this, which had been largely put into action short of rolling out their military, and it was amusing to watch it unfold unbenownst to them. Surely they’d assume Emissary might have such technology, but if they didn’t then they’d learn soon enough. For sure, after the demonstration, they would see no point activating their laughable and crude military, he mused.

“Can we ascertain anything of its purpose, yet?” asked one of the lead man-humans.

He was answered that that was a negative, not really, except that the craft was merely sitting there just outside the atmosphere and directly above Great Britain.

Why did they call themselves ‘great’, some of these human tribes/nations whatever, did not their very own history tell them how fallible and passing everything they did was? At times it was hard to feel much sympathy, but the directive of his Governing Council was that it would be wrong to annhiliate an entire species. At the same time, by their very mammalian nature, they were instinctively looked upon as inferior by Emissary’s own kind. Indeed, they’d be outright regarded as ‘food’, if not for their sentience.

“The best option, in our opinion, is for now to do nothing except observe.”

Emissary missed who ‘our’ referred to, and couldn’t be bothered to catch up, but the human was obviously representing some supposed expert little clique of theirs. He was correct, anyway, in what he said.

“They will, we can assume, reveal their intentions or give some indication whether deliberately or accidentally soon enough.”

“Accidentally? Hardly, I think. If they have the technology to have, we assume, travelled from outside our solar system then nothing they will do will be unplanned or ‘accidental’.”

Now that man was correct; although accidents to some extent can happen, probably not on the big scale, though. Emissary thought again of ‘Annabel’, and how easy it could be to have an accident with her, if he did not proceed carefully.

“We must not ‘assume’ anything; not origins-wise nor benevolence or malevolence of intent.”

That was sensible enough. By their standards, though, Emissary was probably neither benevolent nor malevolent; hell, certainly not ‘malevolent’. The same went for his intentions on this occasion.

“We do take the relevant precautions, though.” This one seemed an academic type. “The storage of vital resources, the preparation of those selected for...”

He went on about the various protocols which meant, basically, scurrying to hide themselves and their supplies under a rock. That seed bank they had in their frozen north had always been a good idea. Anyway, getting boring now. Emissary fired the communication down to their computer technology, which quickly they’d bring forth to this conference of theirs.

In the meantime, he took another look at Annabel’s imagery to see just whether the fuck he could see anything in her with his native libido (devoid of HMU). Indeed, that was a bit-part of the mission directives; an experiment to see if his species could learn to find anything attractive in theirs, in the cross-mating sense, without artifical help. A few would; it takes all sorts. Probably vice-versa too. These Earthlings were capable of massive perversity.

Aha, an official walked in very urgently and ashen-faced with a print-out in his hand. It was projected onto a big viewer on their wall. “Oh, mother of God, surely not,” was said, amongst other things in the commotion.