History of Stargazing: Part 2

[olbustedhotness]

March 2, 1961

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here, everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now...
~ Switchfoot, "Dare You To Move"

Carefully, but briskly, Kevin stepped up to the men, lined up near the SilverThing, all of them dressed in black suits, white dress shirts, and black ties. The suits weren't all of the same style or cut, and some of the ties were of the bow variety, but they all looked as though they were trying to put their best foot forward.

Irrational as it was, the first thought Kevin had was that he hoped this wasn't what Elizabeth's house -really- looked like, and that all of these men weren't here to try and take her out to dinner at Geraldine's Diner, too - especially since some of them didn't look too much older than he was. The youngest, he gathered, looked to be in his early twenties, while the oldest was a greying, thin man holding a calculator, which he kept picking at continually.

"Fer Godsakes," the man beside him said gruffly, scratching at his goatee. "If they're coming out, Enn, they're coming out."

"But the probabilities of their hostility ..." He frowned worriedly. "I still haven't finished working them out ..."

"Even if y' do, some good it'd do us now, ten feet away from the damn thing. Just stand your ground an' hope we don't get incinerated. That'd -suck-, Besides, I still want to see what happens on Gunsmoke. That Kitty needs to get her wits about her one of these days, I swear."

"Zed, if that door opens five seconds from now, do we really want the first thing they know of us to be you yammering on about some program?"

"Get a hold of yourself, Dee," the one in the goatee snorted, grinning. "It's cultural information, you never know. After all, they -are- in Western country. Middle of nowhere."

"True... no one around for ..."

Here, they all seemed to catch sight of Kevin at the same time.

"... feet," Zed offered blankly. "Something I can do for you, kid?"

He frowned. "Well, you see, I'm looking for --"

The beleaguered beau didn't get much further, as his words were suddenly drowned out by the whirr of hydraulics and a hiss of air that sounded strangely like the brake release on a tractor-trailer truck. The men in suits all turned toward the SilverThing as though it had just become capable of coherent speech. Kevin attempted shouting his response over the din a few times, then gave up and headed back toward the Volkswagen, intent on making his way to Elizabeth's house come hell or high water. Then the light falling over him made him seriously consider otherwise.

He stopped and slowly turned back toward the SilverThing. A crack of light began to split across its surface, thin and brighter than the sun. He winced, glancing around to see the other men pulling various makes and sorts of sunglasses from their suits and putting them on. Kevin thought of his father's worn-out Aviators sitting in the glove compartment, and wished idly that he'd made it closer to the car before turning around. Because the scene unfolding before him was slowly beginning to have the same effect as a train wreck - he had a feeling that staying wasn't necessarily wise, but his feet remained rooted to the dying, wind-flattened grass, his eyes fixed on the SilverThing. Its crack of light now began to slide downwards at the edges, and some faraway part of Kevin's brain managed to deduce that it was turning into a door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Enn tap a few buttons furtively on his calculator, only to have Zed smack it out of his hands so that it landed uselessly at their feet.

The door opened, and nine men in black suits and a boy in a plaid shirt collectively held their breath.

The creature that stepped through it was unbelievably tall, and somehow, Kevin guessed, female. It might have been the way she carried herself, with a strange sort of gangly grace that reminded him of Janice Breen in seventh grade, when she'd been all legs and arms and braces, but still pretty in that odd way. It might have been the way she tilted her eggish head at them as she stepped out onto the ground. Or, Kevin realized with an inward sigh, maybe it was just his brain trying to make a date out of all this, still, somehow. Involuntarily, he chuckled.

The Suits all turned as though he'd held up a nuclear warhead and asked if they wanted to play catch.

He felt oddly like he was in The Wizard of Oz, only somehow, this was still Kansas. With a nervous cough, he did the first thing that came to mind. He stepped up to the tall stranger, held up Elizabeth's corsage, and smiled. "...Welcome to Earth," he said quietly.

She took the flowers and cradled them in her hand for a moment, then made a sound that put Kevin in mind of baseball cards in bicycle spokes - sharp, fast, but somehow friendly. He smiled a bit more at this, and, remembering his manners, bowed.

To the astonishment of all involved, she bowed back, and spoke again - in English. "Hello."

"...holy crap," Zed mumbled, as Enn collected his jaw off the ground and the other Suits all scrambled to greet her.

She held up a long-fingered hand, shook her head, and then looked at Kevin pointedly.

"...guess she only wants the kid," one of them, a slightly overweight man in his forties, mumbled.

Kevin froze - he'd been afraid of the exact same thing. He looked at them all nervously, then craned his neck back up at the alien. "Er, beggin' your pardon, miss," he murmured, gesturing over his shoulder, "but I'd rather appreciate it if one of them comes with me?"

She looked them over slowly, then beckoned to Dee, the youngest, who glanced at Zed for approval before stepping up to the ship.

"What's your name, kid?" He said out of the corner of his mouth, his posture straight as a drill sergeant.

"Kevin Brown, sir..."

"Hell with sir. Call me Dee."

Pleasantries taken care of, they turned to see the alien heading back up the gangplank into her ship.

"...do you think we should follow her?" Kevin gulped.

"Sounds like a better plan than staying," Dee shrugged, and the two of them seemed to suck in a breath in unison before following.

"Thank you for coming to meet me here." The alien's voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, echoing off the sleek walls of the ship. "Please, sit."
At the center of the craft, she sat in one of three chairs arranged around a console that stood level with the young men's shoulders. The chairs themselves were only a foot or so lower, but as Kevin and Dee approached, they lowered to allow them to sit, then raised themselves up level with the console once more.

Dee goggled at the array of buttons as Kay watched the alien pin his corsage onto the collar of her uniform. "You're quite welcome," he said, smiling a bit.

"And such lovely specimens ... chrysanthemum coronarium. A perfect start to my studies..."

"Studies... so you've come to learn about Earth?" Dee blinked.

"I am a scholar by nature ... my people themselves, however..." She paused. "We have been looking for a safe planet. We are ... I believe your word is 'refugees'."

"That's what we'd gathered," Dee nodded. "Pardon me, but ... how do you know English?"

"I have been in wide orbit of your planet for several years, picking up frequencies of what you call radio," she said calmly, her fingers barely brushing the console. Frank Sinatra's croon filled the cabin. "Your language is fairly simplistic in structure compared to our own."

"Our?" Kevin looked around the ship. "Did you bring someone else with you?"

"My people sent me ahead as a scout, to make sure that your people were ready to accept visitors from other systems."

"That's what we were thinking," Dee nodded. "And I'm afraid that those of us who met you are some of the only ones who feel we can fully and capably handle the --"
"I know of your Men in Black," she said, with a quirk to her expression that Kevin assumed could be some sort of smile. "I recieved the test transmissions you sent out an Earth month ago. And I was wondering if we could come to an agreement."

"You would have to speak with Zed - he's our leader," Dee frowned. "And I'm sorry for asking so many questions, ma'am, but ... why did you choose to speak with the two of us first?"

"From what I have heard on your airwaves," she replied,"younger human beings' minds are more receptive to new ideas. And you, Kevin Brown and Dee, were the youngest present."

"Oh." Kevin blinked. "Well, thank you. ... What can we call you?"

She shook her head. "I am afraid Centaurian speech is too complicated for you two to even utter my nickname."

"..which is?" Dee ventured.

She let out another long, lilting series of clicks and squawks.

Kevin raised his eyebrows. "Well, uh ... Thank God for nicknames?"

The alien reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I believe my full name would take ten of your minutes to say. Is there anything you'd care to call me?"

Before Kevin could even think, the Wizard of Oz flitted through his mind again, and he spoke on instinct. "How about Dorothy?"

Dee cast him an incredulous look. "Dorothy?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

"It seems a simple enough Earth name," she said at length. "Very well, then, you may call me Dorothy. Thank you, Kevin." Here, she stood, heading for the door once more, "I suppose you will be coming with me when I go with the Men in Black?"

He froze halfway to his feet. "...excuse me?"

"She likes you, I think," Dee said wryly, as the chairs snapped back into place behind them. "You got a job?"

"... not as such..."

The three of them headed down to the field once more, and, catching Zed's nod out of the corner of his eye, Dee smirked. "Want one?"

As the circle of men's eyes fell upon him, Kevin took a moment to drink in each expression. Half of them were expectant, and the others simply stern. Dorothy had said that she wanted humans to be ready for the knowledge that her people existed ... and if he went back home, he was going to have to have an explanation as to what exactly had happened to his date. Having been brought up an honest Brown, Kevin knew that any lie he'd try to concoct would be shot down quicker than a clay pigeon, and swallowed. It didn't seem as though he had much of a choice.

"...oh, why not," he said at length. "Won't be boring."