human population that I was seeing the aliens suggest was necessary for earth's advancement.
They talked a lot about earth's advancement, human advancement, but there were indications all over the place that the advancement wasn't going to take place for most of humanity. To their credit, this was a major stumbling block for our leaders. I didn't see any that were ready to commit genocide in order to gain the miraculous things that the C.O.I.L. was offering.
And, oh, how miraculous those things were. Where the demos played for the public at the alien reception were implicit godhood, the pictures painted for the politicians in private were explicit. Even in the driest reports that were being filed, you could see the temptations being dangled before these men and women, and how hard they were working to suppress their desire to just say yes to whatever the aliens wanted us to do. Satan was sitting on the shoulder of each of them and offering them the world.
The Fhh-bop-uh were nice Satans, though, and that made it even worse. Everybody liked them. Even on the attack talk shows that scored interviews, the Fhh-bop-uh were unfailingly polite, respectful of human culture, and filled with admiration for humans themselves. What were these guys planning behind the scenes?
Well, I actually got my chance to ask one of them. It was about three weeks into their stay, and several of them were touring pretty freely around larger cities like New York, Los Angeles and Washington. I was in the Dragon Lord game shop on 54th because hey, I'm a nerd, when one of them just saunters on in and starts browsing. You could have heard a pin drop. I didn't think I was ever going to get another chance, so I walked over to it and looked at its choices.
"So, you like Old School Renaissance, huh?" It had a copy of OSRIC 3rd Edition, so I figured that was a safe opener.
"I do enjoy the reinterpretation of the original Dungeons and Dragons rule set." It had one of those translators and its robotic voice carried over the whole store, because everyone was being quiet enough to hear. "The actual original set is limiting, in my opinion, whereas the OSR takes advantage of the decades of gameplay since then to build a truly magical experience."
"Have you guys had a chance to play very much?"
"Regrettably, I had to leave behind my fellow gamers when I accepted the assignment to join the embassy. It has been nearly a full lunar cycle since I last played."
That was the opening of a lifetime. Some people talk about when they got to bed a movie star; I will always be famous as the first gamer to bag an alien for his gaming table.
"My group meets tomorrow night. Would you be able to make it?"
The Fhh-bop-uh considered for a moment, then answered me, "I believe I have recreational time I can schedule then. Can you give the location?"
I shook more than the first time I asked a girl for sex as I wrote down my address for it. "Uhm, is there any special kind of food or drink you'll need?"
"I shall provide my own refreshments, but thank you for the offer." It scanned the piece of paper I'd given it with the translator and then handed me back the scrap of paper. "Excellent. Should I bring a character, or create one once I arrive?"
"You can bring one. Fifth level. The party already has a fighter, a ranger, a cleric, and a paladin."
"No thief, then?"
"No, and it's been a problem for them."
"Excellent. I shall arrive with a fifth-level thief. That should enhance the party's abilities." It made an expression which was frankly hideous, but I think was an effort to smile. "This is truly exceptional. I appreciate your extension of hospitality."
"Hey, I know what it's like to lose your group and have to go without. No sweat." I thought about it for a second, then said, "That is, if you guys sweat."
"We do not perspire. Our bodies have been modified to create less execrable waste than humans in order to reduce the amount of pollution we would be leaving here."
I nodded. "Very eco-friendly of you."
"We wish to be good neighbors."
"And we all appreciate that down here." I had about a jillion more questions, but decided to save them for the gaming table. "Well, I'm gonna go see if there's anything new to buy. See you tomorrow."
"Yes. See you."
As soon as I was a safe distance away from the Fhh-bop-uh, I was swarmed by other gamers eager to find out what the alien was like, what game the alien played, how the hell I found the nerve to invite it to my group, and sycophants telling me how awesome I was for doing so. I basked in it for a while; I'm not ashamed to admit it. Nobody else even talked to it until the clerk rang up its purchases and bid it a good day. We all watched it leave and I pulled out my cell to call all the guys in my group and tell them they were in for one hell of a surprise on game night.
Every one of the four other people in my group showed up in their Sunday best, more excited than I've ever seen them. This beat the time we all got to meet Brent Spiner; it beat the time Rory played Ticket to Ride with Wil Wheaton. I say it even beat the time Cindy went on that date with David Tennant, but she didn't agree. Judging from the sparkle in her eye whenever she talked about it, she may have been right.
The Fhh-bop-uh showed up right on time. I showed it to the bench I'd gotten for the occasion – it was too big for one of my chairs – and it settled down and brought out a character sheet with meticulously neat hand-writing. "Would you like to examine my thief? I have named her Bilbette; she is a Halfling." That hideous smile crossed its face again, and for just a second, my guests had second thoughts about their participation in the evening's entertainment, but I just looked down at the character sheet.
"Halfling thief, ring of invisibility, plus one dagger named Stinger…" I shook my head and wore my own hideous smile.
"Ha, ha, ha."
The robotic sound of its laughter cracked everybody up, and we all felt at ease. Derivative character concept and horrible punning? We had before us a true fellow gamer.
Cindy, as she usually does when we're presented with new people, took the lead in starting the conversation. "We usually just do low fantasy, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser kind of stuff, Bilbette. How do you guys roll up in space?"
"We had been playing a Modern campaign for seven cycles, until I had to leave for my assignment. We used human civilization, circa nineteen-fifty, as our inspiration." I could almost detect the nerdly shame when it added, "We all enjoy B movies very much."
Rod chimed in, "Man, I'd love to play in a bad sci-fi campaign next, Cal. Killing giant bugs from outer space? Sweet!" He glanced ashamedly over at our guest and dropped his head. "No offense."
"None taken. That actually was part of our campaign."
"Was it fun?"
"I found it thoroughly entertaining." Its sensory stalk scanned my living room, taking in my lack of decorating skills, humming a small tune to itself. At this point most of all, I wished that I'd set up my cam, but hindsight is twenty/twenty. "Tell me, do you perform the ritual sacrifice before, after or during gaming here?" As five wide-eyed, shocked faces stared back at it, it said, "Ha, ha, ha."
Rod laughed harder than any of us, but shouted, "Man, don't do that! It took four years of my childhood to convince my parents I wasn't meeting with Satanists every weekend."
"Yes, I have watched Monster & Mazes, CBN and other anti-gaming propaganda." The robotic voice had no emotion, but the words were coming so rapidly out of it that my Fhh-bop-uh friend had to be excited. "I had hoped to meet someone actually affected by it. Can you tell me of your parental unit's actions?" It produced a tablet from the same place that it had taken the character sheet, which I didn't want to spend too much time thinking about, and fired it up.
"Um," Rod said, his eyes darting around wildly. He hadn't expected to be the one on the end of the interrogations tonight. "Well, I had to be at church with them every Sunday… oh, and I had to do Bible study, and vacation Bible school, and I had to talk with the youth minister once a month. Thank God I don't have to do any of that sh-crap anymore." He looked embarrassed at having
almost sworn in front of the alien, and the alien picked up on that.
"What is sh-crap? I have many expletives in my translation dictionary, but this one does not translate."
I picked up the ball for Rod while everybody else laughed. "Rod was about to say shit, but was obviously uncomfortable swearing in front of you until we know whether you're OK with it."
A shudder moved through the Fhh-bop-uh's body, which I figured is how they shrug. "I have no objection to the use of expletives in my presence. In fact, I have often enjoyed the George Carlin routine of the seven words. Would you like to hear it?" It tapped a command or two on its tablet and we were suddenly sitting in the audience of a comedy concert that had taken place in the Seventies.
"Whoa."
"Next game, dude," Rory said, marveling at the detail around us, "you're the DM."
"I have not run a game before," the Fhh-bop-uh said. "I would need some time to prepare."
"Hey," I said, my feelings a little hurt, "I'm right here."
"Do you have a portable holodeck? I think not."
The show started and we were lost for a few minutes in Carlin's hilarious routine and its not-ready-for-prime-time language. The alien stopped it after a few minutes, and we all gave it an "Awwwwwww."
"I came to game," it said.
"All right, then," I said, trying to reassert my bruised authority, "you guys are sitting in the tavern when Bartoculus finds a halfling's hand in