I knew you wouldn’t get a straight answer out of him, thought Duncan in disgust.
I’ll give it to you as straight as I can manage, said Hoo-Lan seriously. What complicates it is the way time gets wonky when you travel at great speed. Peter was on board the New Jersey for nearly five of your months, but he experienced it as a matter of mere weeks, because of the way time works at near light speed—not to mention what happens when you start making space-shifts. A lifetime of that sort of thing makes issues of age seriously strange.
So how old are you? asked Susan, repeating my question.
I was born in the year 1013, as you reckon time.
But that would make you nearly a thousand years old! thought Duncan. His astonishment tickled through my brain.
It would, replied Hoo-Lan, if not for the effects of space travel. In actuality, I have only experienced one hundred seventeen years—which makes me middle-aged by the standards of my people, by the way.
And you’ve been interested in Earth for a long time, haven’t you? I asked.
Hoo-Lan couldn’t have lied if he had wanted to. I could feel his answer in every fiber of my being.
He decided to explain. You know that I have long been on a quest for the direct mind-to-mind communication we are now experiencing.
Though I could feel his twinges of jealousy that we were experiencing the connection more clearly and fully than he was, I could also sense his generous joy on our behalf.
Long before your planet came to the attention of the galaxy at large, I had concluded that this was the place it was most likely to happen.
So you were visiting us before the others knew about us?
I would tell you who thought that question, but I really don’t know. We were so closely linked it could have been Susan, Duncan, me—or all of us at once.
I started way back, replied Hoo-Lan. The thought was ripe with amusement. I started bending the noninvolvement rules then as well—not that I was always successful. I tried to convince Isabella not to give Columbus the money for those ships, for example. Too bad she wouldn’t listen to me. I believe if the Native Americans had had a while longer on their own, they would have been far better prepared to deal with the European invasion. Well, I was only one being; I couldn’t handle everything.
I remembered some other things he had said to me, and I knew I was on the track of something—maybe even a lever we could use against the Interplanetary Council!
You finally broke the rules big time, didn’t you? I asked. You didn’t just meddle. You did something worse.
The combined sense of shame and rebellion that washed through us told me I had struck home.
Your science was hurtling forward far faster than your ability to deal with it. Without intervention, you would have made it into space long before you were ready. I was sure that the council would feel driven to just such measures as it is considering now. Only then the odds of them deciding to destroy you would have been even greater.
Susan and Duncan, linked to me, were following me into the nooks and crannies of Hoo-Lan’s brain, digging for his secret. When we found it, we thought together, in astonishment, So you showed us how to invent television!
Hoo-Lan’s shamed agreement echoed through our minds.
Finally I understood the vision I had experienced when CrocDoc had taken out my brain. Hoo-Lan had snuck into the lab during that time and tried to connect with my mind. He had been partially successful, and the images that I had experienced—the picture of him dressed as a teacher, destroying a television set in a fit of rage—were an expression of his own guilt over what he had done.
It was my great crime, confessed Hoo-Lan. Even though I knew your species was nowhere near ready to deal with the power of such a communication tool, I carefully and slowly planted the seeds for it. I knew it would be bad for you, but I also knew that once the best brains of your world started turning themselves into Swiss cheese by watching the mind-rotting mush your people would produce, it would slow your science enough to give us a few more years to decide how to deal with you. I hoped that by slowing you down for a bit I could give your basic being-ness a chance to catch up with your technology. I hoped you could be welcomed into the galaxy as a civilized people.
I remembered Broxholm telling me that Earth’s science had been mysteriously sidetracked a few decades ago. At last I knew what had done it!
What I didn’t anticipate, continued Hoo-Lan, was the degree to which you would abuse television. I began to feel as if I had given a loaded gun to an innocent child, thinking that it was only a water pistol. I do not know how to make up for it.
I do, I replied.
And then I told them my plan to save the world.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“One Is All, and All Are One”
Toward morning a wild cry rang through the farmhouse. I knew what had happened. Even so, I ran to the kitchen, as did everyone else.
Kreeblim, who had been keeping watch, was staring in astonishment at the table where Susan lay, twitching and moaning, but very much alive.
On the floor next to the table lay a dry, clear husk that looked like a lot of crumpled cellophane—all that was left of the giant poot that had absorbed and healed her, and led us into telepathic union.
Kreeblim’s own poot, which had been resting in a Tupperware container in the refrigerator at the moment of the great poot merger, was lying at the edge of the pootskin. “Poot,” it muttered in such a mournful tone that it nearly broke my heart. “Poot poot poot poot poot!”
But how could my heart break when one of the two people I knew best in all the world, a person as close to me as myself, was alive and well?
A moment later Susan opened her eyes and smiled.
“I’m here!” she said.
And here, I thought, putting my hand to my heart, to my head.
She nodded, because she could understand me, hear me, without a word being said.
So the early morning was a party, and we celebrated Susan as the sun rose and filled the room with light.
But the late morning was different, because it was time for us to return to the stars and file our final report.
Hoo-Lan came to me shortly before noon, smiling so broadly I was afraid he might hurt his face. “I contacted CrocDoc this morning and told him what happened last night. He put it together with everything that he had already figured out from his studies of your brain, and ran the whole mass of data through the computer again.”
“And?” I asked, eagerly.
Hoo-Lan’s smile got even wider. “Your brain may have saved the world.”
Two hours later we stood before the Interplanetary Council, ready to plead for the life of our planet. My father was with us, as was Ms. Schwartz.
My heart was pounding. I had never particularly liked speaking in public. Now I had to speak to the galaxy—and do it well enough to convince them not to use The Button.
Fortunately, the others went first, starting with Hoo-Lan. “As you know,” he said, “I have long had a special interest in the planet in question.”
“An unhealthy interest, oh former Prime Member,” said Shadow from the corner.
“That is a personal judgment,” Hoo-Lan replied sharply. “In point of fact, my interest has turned out to be well justified.”
“Why?” screeched Bat-thing.
Hoo-Lan smiled. “Because in the people of Earth I have discovered a species unique in the galaxy. By our own rules, this species must be protected until more study is done on it.”
“They are unique in their destructiveness,” bubbled Red Seaweed. “What else makes them unusual?”
“Just this,” said Hoo-Lan. “There is only one of them.”
The flurry of concern and puzzlement that rippled through the council was expressed in as many different ways as there were beings. Shadow almost disappeared. Red Seaweed’s stalks began to shoot up and down. The being with purple tentacles shivered so violently that the drops of mist being sprayed o
ver it spattered in all directions. (Of course, since it was only a holographic projection, the drops didn’t actually land on any of the other council members.)
“What exactly do you mean?” asked the seagreen alien who towered above the others.
“Nikka, nikka, flexxim puspa,” said Hoo-Lan, speaking for himself the words, the guess, that he had sent through my lips in this very chamber three weeks earlier. Only this time I understood the phrase more precisely. It was not “One for all and all for one.” It was, “One is all and all are one.”
“That describes the human condition precisely,” continued Hoo-Lan. “For though it is housed in many separate bodies, there is only one human being. It is a single, vast, interconnected organism.”
“Do you have any proof of this?” asked Red Seaweed.
CrocDoc stepped forward. “My studies of Peter Thompson’s brain indicated that this might be the case. However, I lacked confirmation for such a strange theory until this morning, when Hoo-Lan informed me of a new situation that had developed.”
“The situation had to do with me,” said Susan. “I was injured, and in danger of dying, when I was encased by a giant poot.”
“It may well be that the poots represent the same phenomenon of a many and a one,” said Kreeblim. “But their intellect is at such a low level that we never became aware of it.”
“But being inside this giant poot somehow opened my mind, so that I could be connected with Peter and Duncan,” continued Susan.
“Our minds had already been opened some because of things that Hoo-Lan had tried with us,” Duncan added.
That stirred up the council again. Hoo-Lan waited for them to calm down, then said, “They were able to allow me inside the connection as well. Based on that experience of their minds, I am convinced that the single-organism theory is correct. It explains a lot—as Duncan will tell you.”
Duncan blushed. “Well, I have a lot of science and history in my head, because of Kreeblim frying my brain last month,” he said. “Putting it all together, it looks to me as if early in our evolution we developed barriers to keep our individual mind units separate, because it was too hard to cope with having them all connected. I believe that as humans developed, the totally open link became too painful. Complete awareness of every unit of the being, the numbers of which were growing rapidly, was so overwhelming that those able to block it had an advantage in going on with their individual lives.
“Blocking the connection became a survival trait. With the passing of time, over millions of years, nearly everyone blocked the connection. We survived, but the cost was a never-ending sense of loss and separation. The one had become many.”
I remembered what Big Julie had said the first day we met him: “WHAT WAS ONE CAN BECOME MANY. WHAT WAS MANY CAN BECOME ONE. YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO DO IT.”
Broxholm pulled his nose. “This pain, this loss, is at the core of all their craziness,” he said sadly. “They are angry, but they don’t know why. They mourn, but they don’t know the cause. They ache for a loss they do not understand, and their solace is but momentary. And when they lash out, they cannot feel the pain they cause.”
“Of course, this is only a theory,” said Hoo-Lan gleefully. “We will have to spend years studying it to make sure that this is really the case.”
Years in which they can’t destroy us, I thought happily.
Amen! thought Susan, taking my hand.
Hoo-Lan spoke again. “The human mind, when open, was more open than any mind in the galaxy. Painfully open. In an attempt to change, it became stuck closed. If we can help them learn to work both ways, to open and close as necessary, we will have a great ally. Toward this end, I want to let my friend and student, Peter Thompson, make a suggestion.”
It was my turn at last. My father squeezed my arm. Then I stood and faced the galaxy.
I knew my words and my image were being broadcast to planets beyond my imagination. Beings across the galaxy were watching me, judging me—and through me, Earth.
Our survival seemed likely—for now, at least.
But I didn’t want mere survival. I wanted us to be given the chance to take our rightful place among the stars.
You can do it! thought Susan.
We’re with you, Duncan told me.
I began to speak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Master Plan
“Beings of the galaxy,” I said, “I come to you as a representative of a troubled people, to speak of a crime committed against us. My friend and teacher Hoo-Lan committed this crime, a crime forbidden by your own laws. He has agreed to let me speak to you of it and seek compensation.”
I paused while the eight members of the council made their various expressions of dismay.
“Here is what happened,” I continued when they were quiet again. “Years ago Hoo-Lan secretly slipped us information on how to create television, a technology for which we were not ready. This intrusion by the being who was once Prime Member of your council has caused great damage among my people. Therefore, I now wish to file a claim on behalf of the people of Earth, seeking total restitution for the mental capacity lost to television.”
The council members all began to talk at once. I waited until Red Seaweed had called them back to order.
“What is your request?” it asked, sounding as though it had a fish caught in its throat.
“Give us teachers,” I said to him, to the galaxy.
His stalks shot out in astonishment. “What?”
“I ask you to send us teachers. Though we have discovered the truth about our minds, merely knowing that we are all connected is not going to solve our problems. We need to learn to reopen that connection. We need to harness our power. We need help doing that. Send us teachers, the best you have, because teachers and children can change the world. Send thousands of them—hundreds of thousands, if you can find them. If you do, then perhaps in twenty or thirty or forty years, we of Earth may finally be ready to take our rightful place in the universe.”
The aliens sent us out of the chamber while they discussed my suggestion.
“Oh, Peter,” said my father, putting his arm around me. “That was well done. I am so proud of you.”
After two of the most frightening hours I have ever spent, the aliens called us back to the council chamber.
“Krepta,” said the purple-tentacled alien, “we have discussed your suggestion. We want to know this: will you be willing to stay on Earth to help with this mission?”
I stared at him. Stay on Earth? When all I had ever wanted was to go to the stars?
But I had seen the stars. I had been to another planet.
And I had found something else, the thing I had wanted most of all, from before the time I had met Broxholm.
I had my father back.
More than that, I had been made a witness to the best and worst of what we are. I knew things that had to be shared. I knew, from my visit to Hoo-Lan’s planet, that peace was possible. I knew, too, the terrible things on Earth that needed to be changed.
I looked at the aliens.
“Earth is my home,” I whispered. “I will stay and help.”
“Then we will send the teachers,” said Red Seaweed. “And eagerly await the day when Earth is ready to join us.”
The first group of teachers arrives this summer. They have to stay in disguise, of course, until Earth is better able to deal with the idea. But it’s the beginning. So if you get a teacher who’s a little unusual next year, a teacher who expects a lot from you—well, who knows?
Maybe you just got a tough cookie.
Or maybe you’ve got someone who is preparing you for a trip to the stars.
But you don’t need to worry.
This time around, it won’t be by kidnapping.
It will be by invitation.
The Last Words
I thought it might be embarrassing to be totally connected, to know everything, to have everything known. But that’s only when y
ou’re being silly. It’s only when you’re afraid of your body and what you are. It’s only when you try to hide from nature and won’t accept yourself.
The truth is, it’s not embarrassing, it’s beautiful. And I didn’t know how lonely I was until I wasn’t alone anymore.
I’m not alone now even though Susan and Duncan are traveling the stars with the aliens. We’re still connected.
I could have gone, too, of course. I have a place among them.
But I’ve already been there, and I’m needed here, to help the aliens. Besides, I have a home now, with my father and his new wife, my new mother, Ms. Schwartz.
My name is Peter Thompson.
But it is also Duncan Dougal.
And Susan Simmons.
My name, our name, is life on Earth, and the story you have just read didn’t happen only to us, it happened to you, because you are a part of us, and we are a part of you.
Life is better than you can imagine. At least, it’s going to be, after we—all of us—get this worked out.
Until then, take care of yourself.
After all, whatever happens to you happens to me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
BRUCE COVILLE was born in Syracuse, New York. He grew up in a rural area, around the corner from his grandfather’s dairy farm. Halloween was his favorite holiday, his school’s official colors were orange and black, and as a teenager he made extra money by digging graves—all of which probably help explain why he writes the kind of books he does. He has published over three dozen of these weird stories, including the bestselling My Teacher Is an Alien series, Goblins in the Castle, and Aliens Ate My Homework.
JOHN PIERARD is best known for his illustrations for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Distant Stars, and several books in the Time Machine series. He has also illustrated the My Babysitter Is a Vampire series by Ann Hodgman, for Minstrel Books. He lives in Manhattan.