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Chapter 1:- Pars Causes an Incident
The squat alien scratched at an armpit with a bony three-fingered hand. It grasped something in the hairy pit and tugged, stretching the skin before ripping it free. The alien held the fuzzy chunk up to its eye-stalks, inspecting it for a moment, before stuffing it into one of the sphincters on its fleshy thorax. The sphincter erupted in farts as it swallowed. The alien resumed probing about its skin, eagerly searching for the next morsel. The arm stretched around the creature’s pudgy backside, aggressively scratching at lumpy and mottled skin. It quivered as it tried to reach all the way around; eye stalks jerked chaotically and rolls of fat jiggled over the bony arm stretched tight across the belly.
The alien was called an Uungelnad. In the three days that Pars had been here it had scratched almost continuously, as if suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder. It took no part in the proceedings of the senate, and seemed, in fact, to be completely oblivious to them.
Pars and the Uungelnad shared a senate-pod with another alien, a round insect-like creature. For three days it hadn’t moved once. He was told it represented a race of proud warriors, but to Pars it resembled a dead beetle propped up against the wall. For all he knew it was dead.
The three of them shared one vote in the senate. That was their fate as ‘minor’ alien species in the Golden Union. The most populous species, the Grekakki, had 437 votes, giving them a commanding majority in the senate.
At the moment the Grekakki were debating a proposal to raise a provincial tax rate by .5%. Apparently the Kneptingi, a rather vindictive alien species, had declared war on the neighboring Helionacs following a trade dispute. The Kneptingi war machine had crushed the Helionac defenses, and was now proceeding to wipe out the remaining population with genocidal efficiency. The tax increase was meant to penalize the Kneptingi for this intolerable violation of Union law.
Or something like that. The debate proceeded in such intricate detail that Pars struggled to understand any of it. And his fellow vote-mates weren’t any help. When he asked the Uungelnad, it emitted a strange bubbling noise that translated as ‘expression of cynical humor at presumed futility’. The insect remained inert as always.
It was only two months ago that representatives of the Golden Union had arrived in Earth orbit. They invited humanity to join their supposedly vast and glorious civilization, where hundreds of alien species lived in peace and prosperity. The invitation was eagerly accepted, and Pars received the tremendous honor of being Earth’s first interstellar senator. It was his proudest moment. But the glory had since faded.
In front of Pars was a simple console. He could use it to submit a request to address the senate, though his requests would immediately drop to the bottom of a long queue. The queue was sorted by priority, by some invisible committee, and though the order shifted as requests were added and completed, his all remained perpetually mired at the bottom. The top slots were all occupied by the Grekakki, with a few Ngalant, Nothribi, or Plasocid occasionally breaking the top five.
Yesterday someone clued him in that the real decisions of the Golden Union were done behind the scenes, in back-room dealing involving veiled—and often not so veiled—threats. Apparently the senate was merely a sham, an artifice designed to put a happy face on the Union. To Pars it was telling of how low a position humanity now occupied; even in a sham senate he couldn’t get a chance to speak.
Pars pulled out a container of instant noodles. Usually he ate in the tiny quarters assigned to him, but frustration and apathy had worn him down, and he no longer cared about the official rules of etiquette. As he peeled back the lid the container reacted to the air, bringing the food up to a proper serving temperature. Thick smells of teriyaki sauce rapidly filled the cramped and poorly-ventilated space of the senate-pod. He eagerly dug in; eating was one of the few joys he had left here.
Suddenly the insect-creature twitched violently. Pars froze in mid-chew, staring at it intently. Very gingerly the creature stood up on shaky back legs, and walked clumsily towards Pars. Paranoia rose in him as it neared. The creature abruptly stopped, and stood towering over him. Limp noodles hung out of Pars’ mouth, as he waited nervously for it to say something. The creature swayed momentarily, and then fell face-first with a loud thunk!
Pars tapped it lightly with a foot. It didn’t move.
The Uungelnad chortled in amusement, and let loose a string of bubbling speech, saying, via the translator, “I hope your planet is well armed.”
Pars looked up. “Why do you say that?”
“I think the chemicals released by your food just poisoned the Kneptingi’s top ambassador.”
