Alien Contact

A corny short story about Earth's first alien meeting.

The flying saucer hovered and spun, sensors seeking and finding intelligent life. Its invisibility shield blinked wildly, barely managing to merge the craft with a towering cumulus nimbus nearby cloud.

Iben Fulled’s shaggy eyebrows knitted a worried look on the alien’s face. “Now or never. The ship can’t take much more wear and tare. Energy level is almost depleted. Maybe I can trade some advanced technical trinkets with the natives for a fuel boost.”

He punched a few buttons, activating the auto-landing sequence and awaited events. This was always the most hazardous part of first contact on a new planet. Were the natives paranoid war mongering fools or would they accept him as a god figure?

“Interesting tribal customs.” There was no unified world order. The analysis of his ship's computer system tracking media waves hadn’t had enough power to give final results.

While his ship descended, Iben’s fingers sorted through the usual set of goodies he had to offer. “Hmm, red telepathic pills, yellow instant health pills, green hyper intellect pills, or blue perfect con pills.” He popped one of each into his mouth and munched away, feeling the worry lines on his face disappear.

This rural section of the galaxy had rarely been visited, which is exactly why Iben had come here. “No interstellar regulations or busybodies to back them up.”

“Look Mommy, somebody lost their frisbee." Tommy tucked at Sarah Horneby’s slacks. He’d been playing frisbee with his dog Spot. He’d thrown his into the bushes before this new one had almost landed in his hands.

“Corn-sharned it. Don’t make me spill the hot butter, son. Go play with Spot.” Sarah deftly juggled a pot of steaming hot water cooking corn from the family garden and waved a free hand towards Tommy. “Give me that plate and go play.”

She tugged the flying saucer free that had just landed in Tommy’s hands and started dropping corn on the cob onto it. Iben was glad he’d kept his safety harness on as he rode the waves of trembling motion into a stand still. “A gift to the gods. Namely me. I’ve landed a good one.”

He could feel the ship's computer come alive, sucking up energy from the plant form’s heat and natural DNA. “Won’t even have to trade a single trinket.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. Just as he did, the energy transfer stopped.

“More. I need more.”

Spot began barking at the flying saucer. Tommy began whining. “That’s mine, Mommy. I found it first.”

“You can have it in a minute, honey. Now be quiet and shut that dog up.” Sarah poured dribbles of hot butter over the corn on the cob.

‘Analyze the fuel source, computer,” Iben shouted. “Do I have to do everything myself?” The hot butter had covered all the ship’s sensors. Iben’s hands flew on the control keyboard. He was rewarded with one butter coated kernel of corn delivered by a gravity beam to his waiting mouth.

“Tasty bio-fuel. Good for the body as well as the ship,” he concluded, staring at his wrist band’s conclusive display. “Store excess fuel in native form,” I ordered his rejuvenated ship.

Iben Fulled rubbed his full tummy with satisfaction. He’d made a killing with a new food fuel source and the DNA sequences necessary to share it galaxy wide. “Didn’t even have to trade a single trinket.”

“What the?” Sarah swiped frantically at the dish she was holding as it spun and took off, leaving her juggling multiple cobs of corn.

“Cool, Mommy. You could be in the circus.” Tommy, his new frisbee forgotten, clapped and whistled in admiration.

Meanwhile, Spot stopped barking long enough to dash into the bushes and retrieve his favorite toy. He nudged Tommy, wanting to play some more.

“Hold up your frisbee, Tommy. It’ll do in a pinch.” Sarah’s guests were arriving. She’d have to hurry. “And, don’t you dare tell your father what we’re doing.”

“I won’t.” Tommy smiled as he watched buttered corn on the cobb float down piece by piece onto his frisbee. “You are so cool, Mom. Can you teach me how to juggle like that?” He went on buttering up his mom, as she transferred the corn to a regular serving plate. The picnic was going to be a complete success after all.

Earth had made its first alien contact without knowing it. The corny situation would go down in galactic history when Iben Fulled became rich, retired and re-told the story to bored sycophants munching on micro-sized buttered up corn on the cob at one of his fabled power play picnics.

771 word total