Starrider: The Birth of L5

Leaving the coffee house at almost midnight, she was attended by her two band mates for a few blocks before they all parted ways and headed home for the night. In the third block, I noticed a deep and shallow alleyway with a street light just outside of it on the street. I did not want to present myself to her inside of her apartment, for that might cause an undue scene as she felt trapped by what would no doubt appear to her as some sort of visitation from another world, and perhaps not a friendly one.

I watched from the roof tops as she made her way home, carrying her guitar case beside her, her long frock gently billowing with each step she took. There was a tent like structure set up upon one of the adjoining roofs, which seemed abandoned, and I re-configured its atomic structure to create some sort of outfit that would cover my loins and my chest in a way that would mimic her own Earth need for clothing. No need to add to the bizarre event about to take place, with my elongated male organ hanging in open view, to the human female.

I went ahead of her general direction and landed in the alleyway. I awaited patiently for her footsteps to approach. When they did, I introduced myself with a soft and gentle voice.

"Good evening." I softly spoke as she crossed in front of the alleyway I was hidden within. "I would like to speak with you a moment, Miss Connie Robin Wilcoxin."

She froze in place and turned quickly to look into the alley. For a long moment she waited for her eyes to focus from the street light to the darkened alley. Her mouth fell slightly open in amazement as her eyes widened. Her expression was not quite what I had anticipated as she seemed to have a tone of recognition in her voice.

"Who...who are you?" She said with a surprising creeping interest. She then slowly moved into the alley to get a better look, being careful not to over commit her vulnerable position.

I stood a good four feet taller than she did, and I am also quite sure I seemed ghostly in the dimly lit darkness with my bleach white skin and solid black eyes. I replied, "I assure you, I am not here to do you any harm Miss Wilcoxin."

Holding onto the nearby brick wall she looked up at me with amazement, slowly moving closer and closer to get a better look at me as I stood in the darkness.

"You..." She said while struggling to peer into the darkness. "You're Praetor-Sunil, aren't you??? I know that voice!!"

I was stunned by her surprising revelation. At a loss for words, I took a step backward, my small slit of a mouth hanging open in shock. I said, "How in the world could you know my name, miss?"

She gave me an almost evil grin and replied, "I've heard you. I've heard you all. Earlier today you were making wild, passionate love with your sweetheart in some watery sounding marsh. I heard it all. It woke me from a nap. A nap I usually take before I do a show in the evening. I... I thought I had been just having a nice dream... but no, I still heard you. Even when I was awake. I heard you all."

"Indeed?" I whispered in amazement. "How do YOU explain such a thing, dear girl?"

"I don't." She said shaking her head softly. "I just know I have some connection. I have some way of perceiving you and the other Starriders."

"Well..." I replied, clearing my throat. "This will save some time on explanation. I am certain."

She stared at me in wild eyed amazement. "I can't believe I am getting an alien visitation. Why me? I should let you know, I am not too keen on being probed and abducted."

I placed my hands across my chest in an attempt to assure her of my best intentions and my wish for trust between us and I told her, "I assure you, young Connie, I am no 'alien grey', fallen angel or demon who has come to make a feast of your young charms."

"Then, what are you?" She asked with heightening interest.

"Shall we perhaps make our way back to your living quarters? There is much we can discuss, and you may be more comfortable among the familiar surroundings than in this foreign, dark alley."

"You know where I live?"

"I have been there, just this evening. I was also at your guitar show. You could not see me at the time. No one could."

She seemed a bit reticent at my suggestion and began to look at me sideways. "I... I don't know about that..." She quietly intoned.

I nodded. "Indeed. A show of trust then? Will you allow me to earn your trust so that we may proceed?"

"What do you suggest?"

"Spirit Wings... to fly above. Allow me to carry you above the city to the abode six blocks away and deposit you there."

She blushed. "You WERE at my show!" And then she flashed me an appreciative smile.

"If you can fly, then you could just abduct me without my permission..."

I nodded. "Yes, and if it was my intention to harm you... I could have done so by now... in complete secrecy."

"True... true..." she said nodding.

I held out my hands to her in an attempt to have her join her hands to my own and we would lift off from the filthy alley way floor. She slowly stepped toward me, resigned caution was etched on her facial features and I gently wrapped my arms around her and held her to my side.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

"No." She said with a bit of fear in her voice. She did not, however, attempt to pull away. Instead she held me around the waist and looked up at me with unsure eyes. "You're cold."

"I live in space." I told her and I then quietly lifted off with a gentle gliding motion upward and out of the alley.

"AAAggghh!" She screamed as the sudden gap between her feet and the retreating ground below became larger with our trajectory. "What if someone sees us?" She said, panicked.

"No need to worry, I have caused us to be invisible with the selective bending of light. No human eye can perceive us.

I could feel her heart racing as she pressed her body next to my own and she closed her eyes and pushed her face into my side. "Oh God! Oh God!" She stammered repeatedly as we glided over the rooftops.

I could only surmise that this was a usual autonomic nervous system response to the sudden height we maintained above the ground without any real visible means of support or safety net, and I resolved to make the trip as quickly as possible in order to insure that my guest did not relieve herself of any body fluids on our short excursion.

Before she could realize it, we were into the opened sliding window on her 16th floor apartment and I settled her down in the center of her living room space. She breathed heavily and looked around her with gratitude at being in a familiar, safe place once again.

She held her head in both of her hands and breathed heavily. "Oh WOW!" She said in amazement.

I stood there with her, slightly bent over due to my height and the low ceiling and I entreated her to relax. "There, you see? Surely I have earned your trust at least somewhat now that you are safe and sound at home."

She gave forth with a strange cackling type laugh and stammered, "This is the most amazing thing! I can't believe it!!"

"Please, have a seat and try to calm down." I advised.

She nodded and did so as she took a single, comfortable looking chair near what I knew to be a standing television set. I, myself, merely crouched down on my haunches. This caused our line of sight to be almost even, and much more copacetic.

"As you know..." I began. I am a Starrider. Myself, and those like me, are another form of life in the universe, much like you and your human kind, are another form of life. You, however, are stranded here on this planet, while I, and my kind were designed to transverse the vast cosmos."

She shook here head lightly. "Fantastic! I always knew there had to be more. More life out there."

"Indeed." I replied. "It would be most unfitting for a creative being to discontinue creating. Would you not agree?"

She leaned forward with interest and her pupils dilated. "Created?"

"Oh, yes. Love is the creative force of the entire universe."

She smiled with wonder. "Oh, I really like that! That's wonderful to hear!"

"It is merely the truth. Now you had asked me to reveal my purpose here, and it is important that I do so."

She sat up and seemed to clear her mind in order to give me her full attention. "Please, do."

I pointed to the small animal sitting upon the nearby stool who had been watching us since we had entered the apartment. "This little animal has come to you without authorization. He does not belong to you, he belongs to a relative of yours."

She hopped up and grabbed the space cat from his position and then sat back down with him on her lap. "Oh, but I have come to love this little guy. Look at him! He's such a freak when it comes to cats. Someone has to love him!"

She said this while lovingly stroking the animal's back and scratching his head. Needless to point out, the space cat thoroughly enjoyed the attention.

"He must return to his owner. You must be scanned for any anomalies that you may have acquired while he has been in your presence."

"Who's his owner? And do you mean he may be making me sick somehow?"

"Your ancestor, known to you as Joan of Arc, lives with the Starriders and the animal is hers. It was especially created just for her until the time comes when all this will be reconfigured from the current cursed state in which it exists. And, yes... you may need to be cleansed of extra terrestrial pathogens."

She stared at me in unbelief. "You're pulling my chain! Joan of Arc? What are you talking about?"

"It was I who expressed her away from her certain death many Earth years ago, at the order of Love itself. The world believes she was unjustly killed, but that was what I wanted them to believe. You have done the genealogy charts. You know that her family runs through your bloodline.

This animal she calls a 'space cat'...is known to us as a Legit-Roos... it is the only one of its kind. It does not belong here, and you being a human have no protections from the laws which govern such things."

"But... I love him." She said holding him tightly. "You can't take him from me... I don't even know ... Joan... she's just a branch on a family tree."

I nodded. "Yes, well, this little animal sought you out... no doubt for some connection reason... and now I have been sent to retrieve him. I am sorry."

With a sorrowful facial expression she said, "His name's Peace."

"I am very sorry, I must take him."

"Can't you... can't you tell me more about Love... more about space ... and what's out there?" She asked while cuddling the animal closely.

"You are attempting to stall for time while asking about issues which are not for humans to know directly. This tactic will not result in a successful maneuver."

She pursed her lips. "You're not supposed to take him until after you scan me for problems..."

I sighed. "Yes... that is correct... so please place him upon the ground so I may get a reading on your biology."

"You don't have any reader with you. You have to go get your gadget ... don't you?"

I sat back on my haunches with comfort and said, "Actually, no. Nothing is done with mechanical or manufactured instruments in any other realm other than here on the Earth."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, yes. The universe is completely whole in naturalism. I will do the scan myself because I simply will it to be so. I will do it with a combination of my mind and my heart. There will be no 'machinery', as it were. I flew us here with the power of my will. I bent the light in order to create invisibility, with my will. This is how things are done... everywhere."

I then thought about that statement for a moment and corrected myself. "Actually... there are races of extraterrestrial life which choose to create machines here and there... but this is merely a secondary exercise for their own enjoyment and not a necessity for meeting the needs and wants of their people."

"That's fantastic!" She said while flashing her big, green eyes at me. "I understand microwaves are retro engineered alien technology."

"You are quite pleased with yourself, are you not, that you have bought time with this line of questioning, involving me in discussion while you no doubt formulate some type of plan for keeping the animal for yourself."

She gushed. "Well... a girl's gotta try..."

"Please, put the animal down and allow me to scan you while standing. I will not touch you during this process, there is no need."

She gently tossed the cat to the ground and stood silently before me. She gave me a medium glare with a slightly turned upward lower lip. Her pouting would do her no good, but I withdrew from notifying her of such as it would no doubt result in further off topic discussion.

Reaching out with my mind I scanned her female form with tools both mental and emotional. The process took about a minute of Earth time. It was not a negative read.

I sighed heavily. "You have been infected with tal-oons, I am afraid."

"What the hell is that?" She asked sarcastically. No doubt she was beyond her amazement with my presence there and had entered into an almost juvenile state of resistance and denial. Considering her young age, this was not all that surprising.

"Genetic triggers." I explained. "It is possible to 'flip switches' within your genomes which turn off bad traits carried over from past generations and also, in the same vein, it is possible to turn them on as well. This cannot be allowed to continue. The Legit-Roos was never designed to be a part of this world's physical reality."

"I'm no scientist, but it seems impossible to me to trigger genetic codes without some type of blood manipulation, and we have never done that."

"You know cats well, do you not?"

"I do. I've had many cats since I was a little girl."

"Can you tell me how they make purring sounds?"

She chuckled. "Purring sounds?"

"Yes. Can you tell me?"

She shrugged. "Well... it's something in their throats... they get happy and their throats relax...kinda like snoring... yeah just like that."

"Actually, no." I told her flatly. "There is no apparatus in their throats for creating a purring sound. It exists nowhere within their bodies. It is simply something they do. Something they make happen. There is no scientific explanation for the sound they make which you know to be 'purring'."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. The Legit-Roos simply has this effect on those not protected from the physical laws with which it produces. It keeps Jehanne, or Joan, as it were, young by inhibiting her aging properties. This is something it just DOES. Love wills it to be so."

"So what do I have to do to get cleansed?" She said with annoyance in her voice.

I thought a moment on the subject. "I will have to inquire directly of Love itself. I had not anticipated that you would be infected so quickly, and the need for such a conversation seemed, at the time, superfluous."

She suddenly blinked hard and shook slightly.

"Are you well?" I asked with concern.

"You... you have to make love to me." She said with a far off look in her eye.

I chortled. "Hah! I highly doubt that that is the remedy for this situation. Hehe. Such a thing is unheard of... a preposterous fabrication of your carnal, over stimulated mind. I can assure you of that."

"Nooooo..." She said shaking her head with a slow, almost spooky manner. "My intuition is pretty good about this kind of thing... when I get hit like that... like I just did... with like a word from out of the blue... I always listen to it... always."

"My dear... I assure you..."

She then stepped forward with a strange, almost daydreaming look in her eyes. "Ask it yourself... ask Love if I'm not right... I know I am... you're supposed to make love to me like you did in the marsh... you ask Love... Love knows."

I was taken aback by her dedicated position to her revelation. She was as sure of it as Joan of Arc had been of her own revelations. I knew the look in her eyes. I had to investigate further.

"Very well." I said softly. "Though I believe humans to be a mass of conflicting impulses, I will inquire of Love on this personally... though I have severe doubts that this will be the route that will be taken for your cleansing. It truly makes no logical sense at this point."

She raised her eyebrows at me and asked, "Are you omniscient as well, Mr. Starrider?"

I shook my head. "No... no I am not..."

She regarded me with a haughty and satisfied smile. She said, "You're not the only one who can hear from Love."

"We ... shall see... we shall see..."

*******

Far above an encroaching cloud bank I twirled and pivoted in an almost dreamlike fashion above a far reaching cloud bank of gently rolling white billows which glowed with slight iridescence from the half moon reflection of sunlight extending from the opposite side of the planet. There, in the quiet bliss of the high atmosphere, I awaited for the opening of the light. It was not long after I had outstretched my arms, and placed my ankles together that the small pinhole of blaring light broke through the fabric of what most would refer to as "reality". This was a familiar occurrence, though not a regular one to be exact, for Starriders, and I was always enthralled by how easily the fabric of reality could be unlocked.

With long tendrils of pure light the sky was surgically split and I was bathed in the familiar bands of truth. In the beginning, it had been necessary for myself to speak directly to Love as though conversing with another who had not been connected in the same way as all Starriders are associated to each other, i.e. knowing each other's thoughts, feelings and ambitions. However, quickly I did learn the way to commune with Love itself in an internal communique which is hard to describe to others who do not know the experience themselves. As I have said to other life forms who do not share this immediacy: I cannot prove this relationship to you, although I have proven it to myself. You, yourself must be intrepid enough to risk the discovery of self error within you which prevents this possibility. And a very real possibility it is.

Bathed in the warm light, high above the city and hidden by the clouds, I silently spoke with Love. All my questions, previously foreknown, where met and satisfied. I, myself, however was somewhat taken aback by the revelations that had come forth as intent and direction for my actions, and the future of the young Earth girl, were whispered to me from on high. When query rose up within my being, I was admonished to abide despite my seeming astonishment at related directives. With a slight nod and careful acceptance, I retreated from my sky high position as the brilliant rift sealed itself back into the recondite universal reality.

I did gently glide downward, feet first in order to meet with the window sill of my original entrance into the girl's abode. For a moment I hovered there, quietly awaiting her arrival to allow me renewed access to her apartment. Within a span of time which did correlate to an Earth clock of ninety seconds, she arrived on the other side of the window. She looked out at me from the inside with a bit of surprise and disbelief which gave me a bit of a start. She then slid the window open and pushed her head out to greet me.

"I can't believe it... you were real!" She stated with bated breath and and toothy smile. Her hair was soaked from a recent washing, no doubt in a shower, and she was now dressed in a terry cloth robe which had been pulled around her now soap scented body.

"Of course I am real... " I replied. "Surely it will not take more demonstrations to convince you of my veracity."

"No... no..." She replied while guiding me to return within her home, which I did with a smooth glide and soft landing upon her carpeted floor. "I thought that maybe I had come home and turned on the heater... maybe there was a hole in the metal wall..."