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  I wanted to get noticed, so I landed the ship a few centimeters in front of his nose. He was quite shocked and actually started a three-legged lope to the nearest saucer. Luckily, Bizzy had brought along a hover-thingy and we raced, too, out of our ship and whipped around front of him. I was mad.

  I waved, I yelled, I screamed. But we had to wear our space suits in this hostile atmosphere, so he didn’t hear any of that. He was pretty much going to ignore us and keep on going. But I had a plan.

  I took out my handheld and sent some 3D images up to his eye-globe: vid of the lightworms and starfish things wrecking earth.

  That stopped him. He looked down at us, picked us up one by one to look in our helmets. Then he recognized us and nodded. In my mind, I got an image that somehow said to wait there and he’d be right back. He went into his saucer. For a long time.

  I wondered if the Goldar were getting ready to take off, since we’d found them out. Faced with their nefarious plan – even though I wasn’t exactly sure what the nefarious plan was – they were scooting out of that solar system.

  I was milliseconds away from arming the ship’s weapons and pointing them at the Goldar saucer. Then the hatch opened, the ramp came down, and the Goldar marched out, pushing a hover-thingy full of canisters. He was followed by a dozen more Goldar and a dozen more hover-thingies, all filled with canisters.

  Then he did the universal gesture: hands in the air, shoulders shrugging. As if to say ‘sorry about that’.

  It didn’t take long to load our ship. And it didn’t take that long to figure out a more direct route home. It was going to be about a week. I hoped there was still a civilization there when we got back.

  On the voyage home, I tried to explain to the webcams what the Goldar put in my mind. But I knew I wasn’t clear about it. Finally, I had to go to the archived earth history tapes to get something that the people of earth might relate to: old vid of head lice. And body lice.

  The wonderful, beatific Goldar had brought their body pests along with them. They hadn’t even thought about it because they’re so used to them. But each of those big, towering aliens had been infested with their version of lice, which hopped off them and checked out the local scenery and brand-new hosts. They thrived in our atmosphere and multiplied over and over and over.

  I was basically carrying bug spray back to earth.

  Well, all of you know, the bug spray worked. Clem did the honors of spraying the first lightworm. He loved his new job of creature-killer. The webcams and the audiences loved us. All the wars stopped as the world watched our journey. We came home as conquering heroes. Then the scientists analyzed the canisters, made more of the spray. And within a month, the lightworms and starfish-things were extinct.

  So was my fame at that point. But you know what? I didn’t mind. I’d saved the world. I’d proven I was good for something. And I was tired of having my every move recorded. So I turned off the webcams in the house, got back on my super-recliner, and watched 3D of our trip across the universe. Bizzy didn’t let me drink the USA-beer any more. But that was OK. Because Bizzy had copyrighted, patented and trademarked a few hundred more designs on our voyage. She was some kind of kid billionaire now – so I never had to worry about money again. Clem stayed in the spotlight – started some show about kid superheroes. Now he was training to fly spaceships himself. They were going to have to lower the age requirement if he and his new friends were going to do that. The corporate sponsors were working it all out. At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted him doing something that dangerous. But then Bizzy, as always, was the voice of reason. “We’re going to the stars, Daddy. We’re going to the stars all by ourselves.” And we were. Earth was finally growing up and learning to do things for itself. I sighed and reached for the 3D controls to watch my trip just one more time.

 

 

  Chad Corman, After The Golden Age: A Science Fiction Short Story

 

 

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