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The Little Finger
of the Left Hand
Mel Gilden
The old guy stood in the lounge looking out through the big picture window at the kids bounding across the surface of the Moon. Even in their bulky suits the old guy could tell them apart: red suit for Arthur, blue suit for Beatrice, and yellow suit for Little Dan. Ms. Fosdick, in her conservative brown suit, was leading them.
Ms. Fosdick hurried them in through the public airlock, and as the kids removed their helmets their argumentative voices filled the lounge. Strangers looked at them, smiled, and went back to their own affairs.
"I'm not kidding! I saw an alien fossil out there," Little Dan insisted. He was a sturdy boy of seven.
At fourteen, Arthur was tall for his age. He ran a hand through his hair, but it refused to lie down. "There is no life on the Moon," Arthur said. "Never has been."
"Arthur's right," Beatrice said. "There are no aliens. Everybody knows that. What you saw was a rock formation, and that's all." Beatrice was only thirteen, but she was very pretty--everybody knew that, too. Her beauty gave her confidence.
"You have such imaginative grandchildren, Mr. Slatterman," Ms. Fosdick said as she smiled indulgently. She had a long thin face--like a horse, Little Dan always said when Ms. Fosdick wasn't around.
"What do you say, Gramps?" Little Dan asked. "Are there aliens?"
Mr. Slatterman was older than all three kids put together. "When I was not much older than you are," he said as he sat down on a long yellow couch, "I actually met some actual aliens."
Little Dan looked at him with wide-eyed wonder. Arthur and Beatrice frowned.
"I see where the children get their imagination," Ms. Fosdick said. She shook her head with disapproval.
"No, really," Mr. Slatterman said. "Aliens."
__________
Young Howard Slatterman was lost in the big woods that surrounded his uncle Fred's cabin. He'd developed a headache from reading comic books all day, and Uncle Fred suggested that a walk in the fresh air might help. The headache was gone, but Howard would have
taken it back if it came with a good map.He walked among the big leafy trees, becoming more fearful all the time. Because he was a city boy, his sense of direction failed him in any region that wasn't paved.
"Hello!" he cried, but the wilderness seemed to swallow the sound whole.
He entertained himself by trying to decide whether he'd rather be eaten by a bear or die of starvation. Were there bears around here? Were any of these plants edible? He had no idea. Not wanting to get more lost, he sat down on a big rock. Cold came up through his jeans.
He was picking at the skin around one fingernail
when he heard the shriek of something big diving through the air, then an explosion that rattled the trees around him and the teeth in his head. Forgetting his fears for the moment, Howard leaped to his feet and glanced around. Off to his right a single spout of fire rose into the air and disappeared. Something must have crashed!Howard ran toward it, but as he approached the crash site he became more cautious. Attempting to be
both silent and invisible, he crept up on it.He looked around the side of a big bush and saw something in a clearing--a spaceship about the size of a school bus, bent in half and smoking. It looked like a broken toy. It could have been a secret government project, Howard supposed, but he didn't think so. From the odd look of the ship, humans had not had anything to do with building it.
Howard stepped forward slowly, his fear overwhelmed by his curiosity. Were there beings on the ship? Were they alive or dead? If they were alive would they hurt him? Even if they were dead would they give him a strange alien disease?
Something clambered out of the wreckage and staggered toward him.
__________
"Gosh!" Little Dan exclaimed.
"It was a coincidence that you were out there when that ship crashed," Arthur pointed out.
"It could have happened to anybody," Beatrice added.
"Absolutely," Mr. Slatterman agreed. "I was totally
unprepared for what the guy wanted me to do.""What was it?" Little Dan demanded.
__________
The guy fell facedown on the ground. Howard hurried
over and studied him. From this angle the guy looked human enough--two arms, two legs, a single head. He seemed to be wearing a long, brown raincoat.Howard almost knelt to help, but he stopped, wondering how he could help or if he even should help. Howard had seen enough TV shows and movies to know that not all aliens were friendly.
Struggling, the guy turned himself over and leaned on one elbow so he could look up at Howard with large, heavy-lidded eyes. His mouth was a long slit. To Howard, the guy looked kind of like a turtle. It was not a face that was easy to read. The front of his raincoat was covered with pockets of all sizes.
"Yo," the guy said. His voice was surprisingly high and clear, like the tinkle of a little bell.
"Yo," Howard replied, hoping that was a greeting and not a war cry.
"I need your help," the guy said.
"You speak English," Howard said, astonished. After considering for a few seconds, he continued more calmly. "You've probably been monitoring our radio and TV broadcasts," he said.
"Why would we do that?" the guy tinkled. "Everybody out in the galaxy speaks English."
"They do?"
"Of course. English is a characteristic of life itself."
"You're kidding."
"No. But I don't have time to argue about it." He was wracked with a coughing fit, and when he was done he spit out a gelatinous, yellowish blob that grew frog's legs and hopped out of sight into the underbrush.
"What was that?"
"I'm badly injured," the guy said, his voice now more of a croak. He opened one of the larger pockets on the front of his raincoat and took from it a small footballshaped object. A single fin rose from one end, and lights chased each other around the long side. Every second or so it made a quiet blooping sound. To Howard's surprise, the guy handed the thing to him.
"What is this?" Howard asked.
"We haven't much time," the guy said. "I am special operative Sandar Mons of the Galactic Police. I am being followed by agents of the evil Kralndor, Zeemoo. If this McGuffin falls into Zeemoo's hands--he doesn't actually have hands, but you know what I mean--the entire galaxy will be at risk."
"And I come into this sad story where?" Howard asked, entirely mystified.
"Zeemoo's agents will be here soon. Their ship was right on my tail when I lost control in your atmosphere. Your job is to prevent them from getting the McGuffin until more Galactic Police arrive. The police will take over from there." He coughed and once again hawked up one of those tiny, gelatinous frogs.
Howard liked this situation less the more Sandar
talked. "When are the Galactic Police coming?" he asked, hoping it would be soon."I don't know. Soon. Maybe. You must help."
Howard was not encouraged by that. "I'm just a kid," he said. "How am I supposed to fight the agents of an alien super-bad guy?"
"With this," Sandar said. He reached out with a hand that seemed to have too many fingers and tightly gripped the front of Howard's head.
"Hey!" Howard cried and fought to get free. Suddenly, ideas began to fill his mind. They dazzled him so that he stopped fighting.
"I have given you the ability to change your form at will," Sandar said, sounding very tired, "and some simple codes that will allow you to change into several predetermined shapes--the shape of a Galactic Policeman, for instance."
"Yeah! Sure!" Howard exclaimed. "I see! This is easy!" He looked at Sandar, frowning. "But why should I trust you? For all I know, you might be the bad guy. You and the agents of Zeemoo might both be bad guys."
"Sometimes, kid, you have to go with your guts. Here." He took something else from another pocket and thrust it into Howard's hands. "It's a Lightning Five Thousand Proto Blaster. Don't kill anybody by accident." He collapsed back into the ground and shut his eyes.
"But what if--?"
Sandar waved one hand in the air briefly before it dropped to the ground.
Howard shook him frantically. "I'm just a kid!" he
shouted.Sandar began to change. The features of his face, his body shape, even his clothing began to run slowly, as if they were made of warm wax. Despite his distress, Howard could not help being fascinated.
Sandar's face morphed until it was less like a turtle's
and more like an insect's. He now had a complicated mouth and big compound eyes. Altogether, he looked like a man-sized cockroach with a thick lizard tail that stuck out to one side. He wore a long jerkin that seemed to be made of woven plastic straps. Near his left shoulder was a round, midnight-blue patch with a silver needle of a spaceship that zoomed across it again and again."Gosh," Howard said out loud. Sandar's new shape was not one that inspired confidence. Still, he might be a Galactic Policeman after all. Maybe.
Howard was sure Sandar was dead. He stood up, the McGuffin in one hand and the proto blaster in the other, and tried to let his guts tell him what to do. His guts told him to put down the McGuffin and the weapon and walk away quickly, to forget any of this ever happened. He was sure that Sandar's intergalactic enemies were more than he could handle. Even so, he continued to stand there hefting the object in each hand.
His guts spoke again. Wait a minute, he advised himself. You have a super power and a super weapon. You can do this. Yes, but should he? Identifying the bad guys was of more than theoretical interest. If he made the wrong decision, he might endanger the entire galaxy.
He waited for his guts to give him another clue.
The sound of thunder began far away and rolled toward him like a giant bowling ball until it was so loud
he had to put down the McGuffin and the blaster and insert his fingers into his ears. A moment later, a second ship dropped out of nowhere and touched down softly on the ground near the wreckage of Sandar's ship.Howard stood up straight and thought one of the codes Sandar had taught him. A sensation came over him that he had never felt before. It was unusual, but not entirely unpleasant. He could describe it only as squirmy, but that didn't quite cover the sliding, squishing feeling of movement that went through his body as it changed shape.
His body flowed until it was somewhat taller than it had been, yet thinner and lighter. He was hard on the outside and soft on the inside. A long jerkin that seemed to be made of woven plastic straps covered his body He flexed his new hands, an odd experience because they seemed like lobster claws, but with an extra claw on each hand.
"Cool!" he said as he caught his breath.
He hurriedly shoved the McGuffin into a pocket which seemed to be bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. The McGuffin didn't even bulge under his jerkin. He shoved the proto blaster into a holster which had bloomed at his waist.
A hole opened in the second ship and a creature stepped out onto the air in front of it. The creature looked like an intelligent bulldog. Its body was large
and muscular and wore a bright yellow outfit that was tight as a superhero's uniform. Altogether, the bulldog creature looked very heroic. It looked a lot more noble than Sandar, who looked like a bug, for gosh sakes!Did looks mean anything? Appearance was not a reliable guide when dealing with humans--when dealing with aliens it was even less certain. Howard had watched enough TV to know you could not sort the good guys from the bad guys by the bumps on their foreheads, their hairstyles, or the shapes of their ears.
When the lead bulldog neared the bottom of the invisible ramp, two more bulldogs stepped through the hole and began to descend.
Howard might look like a Galactic Policeman, but he
didn't feel like one. However, as frightened as he was, he stood his ground."Yo," the lead bulldog said, greeting him.
"Yo," Howard replied. His voice tinkled as Sandar's had at first. He felt an odd sensation on his forehead. It took him a moment to realize that his antennae were whipping around.
"Please give us the McGuffin," the lead bulldog went on politely. When it spoke, its voice sounded like many voices which seemed to be talking through a mechanical voice box.
"I have a better idea," Howard said. "Just come along quietly and nobody'll get hurt." It was just a bluff, of course. Howard had no idea where the bulldogs should come along to. Or in what. Howard pulled his proto blaster and the bulldog froze.
"If you are truly a Galactic Policeman you will not shoot us," the bulldog said. The three bulldogs stepped forward.
"If?" Howard cried, feeling queasy all over. "Aren't you guys sure?"
The bulldogs huddled. A moment later they broke up and the lead bulldog stepped forward. "We are sure," he said. "We are the police. Please give us the McGuffin. It is the right thing to do." The bulldog was firm but still pleasant.
If Howard did not want the game to be over right now, before he figured out what was going on, he had no choice. He fired at the ground in front of the first bulldog. Howard and all three of the bulldogs jumped when the blaster spit a lightning bolt--not a real lightning bolt like one would see in the sky, but a brilliant, jagged projectile like the lightning bolt one might see in a comic strip. It struck the ground with a loud boom and kicked up clods of dirt as it burst into sparkles that disappeared at they settled.
Howard was inclined to fire again just for the entertainment value of it, but he controlled himself. A Galactic Policeman probably wouldn't do a thing like that, if that's what he was.
The lead bulldog held up one hand, and for the first time Howard saw that it had a thumb at either end. "We don't want to hurt you," he said, "but we must have the McGuffin."
Howard didn't want them to hurt him, either. "I'm sorry," was all he said.
"Very well," the lead bulldog said. He made his thumbs touch. Howard leaped aside as a blast of green fire shot out from where the thumbs touched and struck the ground where he had been standing. "Please give us the McGuffin."
"In the name of the Galactic Police..." Howard began, hoping for the best. He watched in horror as his blaster arm sagged like taffy at the elbow. He could feel himself melting. "Oops," he said to himself.
"Now we are certain that you are not a Galactic Policeman," the lead bulldog said, and fired another green blast.
As best he could, Howard ran into the woods, his limbs feeling like rubber. As his body softened, running became more difficult. Soon he was slithering over the rough ground, pseudopod over pseudopod, like a giant ameba. The bulldog things were not far behind.
Howard thought another code that Sandar had given him, and he found himself unable to move. His arms stretched upward, divided and divided again. As he had intended he was now a tree. He could still see and hear from a place somewhere among the leaves and branches.
The three bulldogs strode right by him without even slowing down, their thumbs at the ready. They returned a short time later, grumbling, and stopped under him, still glancing around. "Nobody makes a fool out of us," the lead bulldog said. "If we don't find him soon we must destroy the planet."
"If we destroy the planet the McGuffin goes with it,"
another bulldog said. "We dare not go home empty handed.""Nobody makes a fool of Feklar," the lead bulldog reminded his assistant. They walked back to the clearing in which their ship had landed.
Howard didn't like the sound of that. "Destroy the planet" might just be a figure of speech, but he didn't want to take any chances. Would the good guys think it was a fair trade--destroy the Earth to save the universe? Maybe. Maybe they were even right to think that way. But Howard had a lot of friends on Earth. And his comic book collection. And there were a few movies he hadn't seen yet. If the Earth was gone he personally wouldn't have much use for the rest of the universe.
He didn't know if he could stop them permanently, but he knew he could stop them temporarily if he went back to the clearing. He couldn't go as a tree, however; and he didn't think Feklar would buy his Galactic Police form now, even if he'd bought it before. Howard chuckled at what he decided to do.
He made himself a little shorter and a lot more muscular. His tail thrashed from side to side and he bellowed as he entered the clearing in the shape of a Tyrannosaurus rex--one sporting a very un-T-rex pair of antennae.
The three bulldogs seemed surprised.
"This is my real form," Howard roared. "Go back and report that you failed or die here and now!" He aimed his blaster at them, hoping he would not have to fire. He had never killed anything bigger than a fly.
"I'm afraid that's unacceptable," Feklar said. "Give us the McGuffin." They readied their thumbs. Apparently, given a choice, Feklar would rather take home the McGuffin than destroy the Earth.
This was a frustrating situation. Howard considered giving up the McGuffin to save the Earth. After all, this wasn't his fight. And if these bulldogs were the good guys, they deserved the McGuffin. On the other hand, the bulldogs might be the bad guys, and if they destroyed the universe the Earth would probably go with it. Giving up the McGuffin wouldn't buy Howard anything. All this upping and backing was driving him crazy.
Howard could barely believe it when, at that moment, a loud thump filled the clearing as a third ship suddenly appeared on the ground. It was bright red and covered with tiny shards of white crystal. The ship looked like a gumdrop, a cherry gumdrop. Were the Galactic Police aboard? If they were, was that a good thing?
"Feklar!" The entire ship vibrated, making the word boom through the clearing. "Put down your thumbs and back away from the policeman."
"Careful, men," cried Feklar. "It's another trick!"
"No tricks," the ship vibrated. A cockroach dressed as Howard was walked out from behind the ship holding an object in one hand. It might have been a weapon, but it didn't look like the proto blaster. "I am Khar Nolo," the cockroach said. "Put down your thumbs and back away from the policeman."
The two bulldogs who had been following Feklar around trained their thumbs on the new arrival. Feklar kept his attention on Howard.
"Give me the McGuffin," Khar Nolo demanded and held one claw out to Howard.
"Give it to me," Feklar suggested.
"Sandar would have wanted you to give it to me," Khar Nolo said.
That was no doubt true, but knowing what Sandar wanted did not make Howard's choice any easier. He still didn't know which group was the bad guys. His guts were silent. "That's a good argument," was all he said.
"Give me the McGuffin or I'll be forced to destroy your world," Feklar said.
"That's a good argument, too," Howard agreed. It was difficult to nod because his head was connected directly to his body. An idea came to him, and his antennae whipped around.
"I'll tell you what," Howard said as he took a few steps forward. "I can't decide who to give the McGuffin to, so I'll just have to destroy it." He set the McGuffin on the ground and stepped back.
Feklar stepped toward it, but Howard waved his blaster at him. "Uh uh uh," he said, cautioning Feklar. When Feklar retreated Howard aimed at the McGuffin.
"No!" Feklar cried. Khar Nolo said nothing.
"Yes," Howard said and fired at the McGuffin. At the same moment, a lightning bolt kicked up dirt just to one side of it, and all three bulldogs screamed.
"That answers my question," Howard said as he picked up the McGuffin and tossed it to Khar Nolo. Khar Nolo caught it in one claw with leisurely skill. "I knew," Howard explained, "that the good guys wouldn't mind losing the McGuffin as long as the bad guys didn't get it."
Feklar and his friends were backing toward their ship.
"Absolutely," Khar Nolo said. He quickly adjusted the McGuffin, aimed it at the bulldogs, and fired. They were surrounded by a rainbow bubble which immediately shrank to a transparent sphere no larger than a baseball. Khar Nolo picked up the sphere and showed it to Howard. Inside, the three bulldogs were pounding on the wall.
"Cool," Howard said.
"Very cool," Khar Nolo agreed. "Now I have one more thing to do."
"What's that?"
Khar Nolo surprised Howard by gripping his antennae with one three-clawed hand. "Huh?" Howard cried, fearing that he'd chosen the wrong group after all.
Suddenly Howard forgot how to shapeshift. Knowing how to do it was like having a word at the tip of his tongue, like almost knowing a date he needed for a history test, like not quite remembering a dream, even as it faded. All by itself his body flowed into its normal shape. He looked down at his familiar arms and body. His head felt right, too.
"Thank you for your help," Khar Nolo said. "The galaxy will sleep a little bit safer tonight."
"That's okay. But I wish you'd left me the shapeshifting ability. Some kind of souvenir would have been nice."
"Fear not," Khar Nolo said. He lifted the body of
Sandar Mons of the Galactic Police and carried it into his cherry gumdrop ship. The ship rose into the air, making no more noise than the soft summer wind in the trees, and the other two ships rose behind it. When they reached the level of the treetops, all three ships suddenly disappeared.Howard realized that he should have asked Khar Nolo to take him home. Not only would that have gotten him home, but he would have had a ride in a real spaceship.
But no. What a doofus.
Now all he could do was go with his guts.
__________
"Did you find your way home, Mr. Slatterman?" Ms. Fosdick asked with some concern.
"Nope," the old guy said. "Uncle Fred had to find me with dogs." He chuckled.
The three children laughed, delighted that the story had no moral, but Ms. Fosdick seemed unsure what she ought to think.
"What souvenir did Khar Nolo leave you?" Little Dan asked.
"He didn't leave any souvenir, silly," Beatrice said "It's just a story."
"Is it just a story?" Little Dan asked.
"Of course it is," Arthur said.
"Of course it isn't," Mr. Slatterman said. "As it turned out, Khar Nolo didn't entirely take away my ability to shapeshift." He held up the little finger of his left hand.
Ms. Fosdick and the three children looked at the finger doubtfully.
It began to change as if things under the skin were moving.
"Eew!" all three children cried.
Soon the little finger of Mr. Slatterman's left hand formed into a cockroach wearing a jerkin made of straps. It waved its antennae at them. Ms. Fosdick and the children got very quiet.
Mr. Slatterman put both hands into his pockets. "I think we should go home now. Your parents are probably back from shopping."
"Maybe we should take another look at that rock where Dan says he saw the fossil," Beatrice said.
"Tomorrow," Ms. Fosdick said firmly.