Mistaken Identity (A Short Story)

Many moons ago I decided I wanted to try my hand at fiction, so I started by writing short-short stories and eventually short stories, and now the proverbial All-American Novel has sat unfinished for decades. Sometimes, the itch that cannot be scratched pops up and I get an idea I have to write, usually in the middle of the night (when my brain is running around the house buck naked). Here is one that popped into my head two nights ago. Enjoy! (Or not!)

Mistaken Identity
by Steve Ruis (4-15-23)

Mission Commander Ahern was not looking forward to this latest meeting with the leader of the aliens, at all. All kinds of things have been going well, he thought, and they seemed so much like us, maybe that included a good share of stubbornness. He let himself into the room designated for the meeting to find the Leader already present, as usual.

“Welcome, Mission Commander,” he said.

“And most welcome to you, Leader. I have been looking forward to this meeting in the hope we can create more mutual understanding. And I do apologize to you that I have not yet learned how to pronounce your name.”

“Please, Commander Ahern, do not fret over it,” was the reply with Ahern’s name perfectly pronounced.

“I guess, we should get right to it, as neither of us is all that well endowed with small talk. As I have commented frequently, things have been going well. We have trained our translator to help us understand your words, even though you do not seem to have as much trouble as do we. We have scanned your planet and your people from space and we find many remarkable things in which we are interested.”

“Yes, . . .”

“Your people are almost perfectly healthy. We see no disease, but also no hunger, no crime, no war, no unhappiness. As we have shared with you, we find those conditions desirable as we have all of those negative things. My own son has asthma, my wife, diabetes, and so on.”

The Leader waited patiently.

“So, we have asked to translate your sacred books into our language, so that we might share in the knowledge of how you created this ability to live in perfect harmony with this planet. We have noted that food is abundant but your population is stable at the current level whereas our understanding of biology leads us to think that all species expand to the limits of their food supply . . . and you have not.

“That is so . . .”

“You seem very generous in providing us with fresh food and clean water, but you deny us access to the knowledge you say comes from your gods?”

“That is correct.”

“So, I must ask why?”

“We do not consider you ready to possess such knowledge.”

“Ah, and how might we demonstrate that readiness?”

“Ah, that is the question, is it not. We are not at all sure . . . you can.”

“Leader, you apparently do not understand our need. Our planet’s ecosystem is on the verge of collapse. Our population has overburdened the entire planet. We are fighting over access to water and arable land. We need your knowledge, desperately.”

“Yes, we understand your plight.”

“And you still will not relent and provide access to your holy books and the wisdom of your gods.”

“Unfortunately that is so.”

“Well, Leader, I was afraid we had come to that point. I want to explain to you that we do not send starships out into the dark with no battle capacity. We cannot anticipate what dangers might pop up, so we prepare for all things. The two ships in orbit above this very place have enough energy and weaponry to deliver it to turn this planet to a cinder, including your hunter-gatherer culture and all its people. We need your holy books and we are prepared to take them by force.”

“Ah, I believe this is the determining evidence that you are not ready for the knowledge we possess.”

“So, you force our hand and make us use force?”

“Rather it is you, Mission Commander who is forcing our hand. If you would contact one of those ships in orbit.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

Ahern activated his communicator and established contact. “Ask them to observe their sister ship, please.” Ahern, puzzled, mumbled into his communicator. The Leader raised his hand and touched an amulet on this chest.

“Sir, the Acorn just lost all power. I can’t even raise her communications.”

The Leader raised his hand, an open hand, and closed it abruptly.

“Oh god! Sir, the Acorn just . . . crumpled sir, like it was aluminum foil being wadded up!”

The Leader then threw the contents of his closed hand off to the side.

“Sir, the Acorn. It disappeared, sir!”

“Did you get it on scans, Lieutenant? Where did it go?”

“Checking, sir . . . it went into the star, sir. They are gone, they are all gone.”

Ahern stared at the Leader bewildered. “Did you do that?”

The leader nodded, “Check in with your Lieutenant again.” Ahern mumbled into his communicator, the Leader touched his amulet again and the Lieutenant’s voice was cut off. The Leader held up an open hand . . . “No,” cried Ahern. The hand closed and its contents flung aside. “No,” croaked Ahern.

“I believe you are suffering from a case of mistaken identity. Those ‘fucking gods,’ as you call them in your private conversations? Ces’t nous.”

The leader wiggled his fingers and the atoms making up Ahern’s body and the bodies of all of this aides suddenly lost their ability to adhere to other atoms and so became part of a fog which slowly dissipated so there was nothing left to tell they had been there.

A voice near the Leader was heard to say “You thought this would end this way, didn’t you?” The Leader answered the voice, saying “Well humans have a long history of using force when they cannot get what they want otherwise, which is how they got into their current state in the first place. They thought, probably still do, that they can control things. I wonder if they will live long enough to learn otherwise?”

“It is a shame they all had to die, though.”

“As they told us this was an all-volunteer mission and I suspect that an opportunity to kick the shit out of some abos was part of the allure, so I don’t regret what we did.”

“I wish you wouldn’t curse like that!”

“Or what? You are going to tell Dad?”

Both the Leader and the disembodied voice laughed at that, which seemed like a good place to end their conversation.