Peter Cawdron - Xenophobia

She laughed as he screwed up his face.

“But they’re harmless. They’re simply along for the ride. And they’re not alone. There’s roughly a hundred trillion individual organisms that call you home.”

“Hah!” Elvis cried.

“I’m not kidding. Microbes out-number the cells of our body ten-to-one. They’re found mostly in the gut, only they’re so small compared to our body cells that they live among them like squirrels in the forest.

“On your skin alone, there are hundreds of different species of bacteria, and far from making you dirty, they keep you healthy. In your gut and bowel there’s at least five hundred different, living species of bacteria, numbering in their billions to trillions. I say, living, even though the term is redundant, because these billions of bacteria are alive in their own right. They’re just as alive as you and me. Without them, there’s the very real possibility we could die.

“Chow down on a burger because you’re hungry and you think you’re feeding yourself, but you’re not, you’re feeding the zoo in your gut. Only the creatures in this zoo break down carbohydrates and make nutrients for you, like Vitamin K and Vitamin B12.”

“No shit,” Elvis replied.

“Oh, don’t get me started on the micro-biome of feces,” Bower added, playing with him. “People get so darn paranoid about cleanliness. Everything’s got to be sterile. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Nothing is sterile, at least not for long. And that’s not such a bad thing. Microbes are everywhere. Microbes rule Earth, but they’re humble folk, letting us take the glory.”

“You’re making my skin crawl, Doc,” Elvis replied.

“It was already crawling,” Bower said, grinning.

Elvis shuddered.

“Think about Africa,” Bower added, noting that the cores of the three alien entities had separated again. “There’s no one species that defines the continent, but between lions and zebra, crocodiles and snakes, wildebeest and leopards, acacia trees and the long grasses of the Kalahari, we form a view of Africa that is more than a single landmass. In the same way, humanity is more than one species comprised of 23 chromosome pairs, we’ve evolved as the host for hundreds of other species, and we depend on them as much as they depend on us. I suspect the same is true of these alien creatures as well.”

“So,” Elvis replied. “You’re trying to say, I’m not me?”

“I’m saying, you are y’all.”

Elvis laughed, clearly appreciating her translation into southern US terminology.

“And there’s so many misconceptions in this regard,” Bower continued. “No one likes catching a cold, but viruses aren’t always the bad guys. There are phages that look like miniature Moon Landers, like something from a game of Space Invaders, and they’ll land on hostile bacteria and destroy them with the ruthless efficiency of an invading army, and all without any acknowledgment or gratitude from us, their overlord hosts. Oh, and don’t get me going on the jungle that is the human mouth.”

“He he he,” Elvis chuckled. The big guy was growing on her.

“So what is Stella?” Elvis asked, gesturing toward the three prickly carriages looming patiently before them. “Is she one creature or many?”

“What are you?” Bower asked in response. “Are you one creature or many?”

“Ha,” Elvis replied. “Very good, doc.”

The creatures began rolling away from them, calling out as they climbed the sand dune.

“Come.”

“…With.”

“……Us.”

Was this an invitation or a command?

Either way, what choice did they have?

Elvis stepped forward, following as the creatures thrashed their way across the sand, their fronds slapping at the ground as they sprang out in low gravity.

Bower felt as though she were moving through treacle or wading through waist-deep water, although she knew that was the wrong analogy as nothing held her back. Her footsteps unfolded in slow motion, and she felt like she was walking on the Moon. With each step, she hung in the air like a ballerina.

As they reached the crest of the nearest dune, each of the Stellas peeled away into the air, being caught in the flowing red stream of light.

“What is that?” Elvis asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Bower replied.

“Looks like a freeway in the sky,” he added as he watched the three aliens they’d once called Stella take flight. The creatures cartwheeled like tumbleweeds as they flew through the air, twisting and turning, racing into the distance.

“Come on,” said Elvis.

“Hold on a minute, cowboy. We have no idea what that stream will do to the human body. Look at it, it’s accelerating them from a standing start to, what? Fifty, sixty miles an hour in just a few seconds.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Our bodies weren’t designed to withstand those kind of stresses,” Bower said. “For us, that will be like a car crash in reverse, although the damage will be the same.”

“You think too much, Doc,” Elvis replied, reaching out with his hand and touching at the stream of red light running through the air. His fingers dipped into the light like he was touching a fast flowing stream. The three alien creatures whipped by overhead, following some other semi-visible track through the dark sky before disappearing from sight.

“Elvis, I’m serious. The speeds being reached up there are more than our fragile bodies can stand. They’re moving at hundreds of miles an hour. Even if we’re OK stepping into that stream, what about stopping at the other end? We’re overripe peaches. Our bodies can’t withstand sudden acceleration or deceleration, our internal organs are vulnerable to bruising and bleeding.”

Elvis wasn’t listening.

“You know what the difference is between us, Doc?”

Bower was silent.

“Roller-coasters. You need to know it’s safe before you’ll go for a ride. Me, I’ll jump in the front carriage to find out.”

“ELVIS,” she yelled, but she was too late. He jumped and was whisked away, horizontally at first, but he quickly shot high into the air, twisting and turning as his body followed the contorted beam.

“ELVVVVVIS.”

The three alien creatures came sailing back, passing the other way along the beam, crossing in front of Elvis as he spread his arms, soaring like a bird.

“YEEEEE HAW,” he cried. “Come on, Doc.”

He was right. If this were a theme park, Bower would have gone to get some cotton candy. She’d have been the one holding the bags, or the jackets while the others went on the ride. Every ounce of her body screamed, no, but she knew she had to go with him. It was either that or sit there on the sand dunes waiting for a ride home. Against her better judgment, she jumped.

Bower felt as though she’d run into a wall of water, as though she’d slipped and fallen face first into a swimming pool. She found herself tumbling through the air, flaying around like a rag doll in a dryer.

“Spread your wings, babe.”

Elvis was beside her.

How did he do that? He was flying beside her. He reached out and steadied her, helping her orient her body in the direction of travel. Bower breathed deeply, calming herself. Her muscles relaxed, and that seemed to be the key to flight within the slipstream.

She smiled. She could do this. She could fly. Was this a daydream? A childhood fantasy come true? She laughed, feeling like a kid.

“Pretty darn cool, huh,” Elvis said.

“Pretty darn cool indeed,” she replied, as they raced above the dark, rolling sand dunes.

The distant strands converged on nodes in the sky, like roads leading to Rome. In her mind, Bower found herself making comparisons to the way the cardiovascular system worked, certainly the red pathways reminded her of veins converging on arteries, all leading back to the heart. They were sinuous, meandering, not taking the most direct route.