User:JohnB/Fanfiction/Cyreril in Wonderland

Master Cyreril sat at his desk wondering how much longer he had to wait.

Before him were three objects, one a Recall amulet set for an unknown location on Earth, another a small box like an old-timey aspirin tin containing two "Alice" pills, and the third a Recall amulet set for Ald-ruhn. The pills were devised by the Balmora Guild of Mages, one to make you become smaller, and the other to make you grow larger.

"One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small

And the ones that mother gives you, don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall." (Jefferson Airplane)

Cyreril had been waiting months for when he could pay a visit to the Redguard Earthling he'd met in "The Invaders" and finally decided his patience could hold out no longer. He got up onto the desk and put the pill tin and the Ald-ruhn amulet in the pocket of his gown, and when he popped the "get small" pill into his mouth, the desk became as large as a soccer field. Then he activated the "to Earth" amulet and arrived outside the Steward Observatory on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

He realized immediately that he hadn't come dressed for the occasion. It was ungodly hot, and people walking by leered at his elf ears. "Happy Halloween!" some of them shouted at him, but he had no idea what they were saying. It would have helped to learn their language before making this excursion, but now that he was here, he had to try and make sense of everything that was going on around him.

As he continued walking, his thick gown became soaked with sweat, and he was starting to feel a bit dizzy. He blacked out, and when he came to, he was in hospital wear and the Redguard had come to move him out of there post-haste. The authorities had been alerted that an alien being was checked into the university hospital, and the last thing the Redguard wanted was for Cyreril to be abducted and taken to Area 51 for analysis by the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit.

"We've got to get out of here!" the Redguard shouted as doctors and nurses tried to ward him off and klaxons were going off--ah-OO-ga, ah-OO-ga, ah-OO-ga!

He half dragged, half carried Cyreril to his 2014 Mazda MX-5 Miata and shoved him into the low-slung passenger seat. Then with wheels screeching he took off to get Cyreril as far away from there as he could.

When Cyreril was lucid again, he gave a start and made as if he'd lost something.

"Ah, don't worry," the Redguard told him, "it's behind you." He motioned with his thumb, and Cyreril found his gown with the things in the pockets. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"But I wouldn't wear that anymore if I were you," the Redguard continued. "Here, these are for you."

Cyreril took the plastic bag from him and pulled out a blue "MEGA" cap--"Make Earth Great Again". He tucked his ears inside as he pulled the cap down over his head. There was also a University of Arizona T-shirt. The U of A prides itself for being in the forefront of climate-change research. There was also a pair of cut-off jeans and sandals. He gleefully pulled off the hospital wear and shimmied into the new clothing. But for the yellow skin that made him look jaundiced, he now looked like a U of A graduate student.

He pointed straight ahead and shrugged.

"Oh, we're headed for the Kitt Peak observatory to the west of here," the Redguard informed him, as if that meant anything to him.

He pulled into a small shopping arcade and made a gesture that Cyreril had to sit tight for a while. He came back sometime later with a stack of pizza boxes and a case of beer and stowed them in the trunk of the Miata.

He saw Cyreril standing and gazing into a bookstore window. There were Arizona-themed magazines and coffee-table photo albums on display.

"Oh, you want something to take back to prove you were here," the Redguard surmised.

He took out his wallet and gave him a few bills. Cyreril thought slips of paper were mere trash, so he pulled out a handful of high-grade gold coins and showed them to the Redguard. He was no stranger to Tamrielic coins, so he pushed Cyreril's hand back into his pocket.

"You could get yourself arrested trying to use those. They'll think you burgled a coin collection. Gold? No!" he said shaking his head. "Paper? Yes!" he added nodding then pushed Cyreril in the direction of the bookstore entrance.

The shopkeeper took him for a deaf-mute person, so it took very little time to complete the transaction. The shopkeeper stopped him from leaving immediately and gave him his change. Cyreril exited the bookstore and gave the Redguard the excess money.

"Oh, before I forget," the Blackguard said getting back into the Miata, "I 'borrowed' these from the university hospital. I hope that shopkeeper doesn't get sick with some intergalactic virus."

It was a plastic shopping bag full of surgical masks and a bottle of hand disinfectant. The Redguard demonstrated how to use the mask by putting one on himself. Then he pumped disinfectant into Cyreril's cupped hands and had him spread it on all the way up to the elbow. The two of them were wearing masks as they roared on into the sunset over the Great Sonoran Desert.

The Redguard pulled out his smartphone and dialed a number. He told the person at the other end that they were on their way, and it would be a few hours to get there. He then nattered on and on to Cyreril about his girlfriend, who worked as a researcher at the observatory, totting up all the things he liked about her. Cyreril gazed out the window marveling at the multitude of stately sahuaro cacti that stood on the boulder-strewn hillsides. "This really is an alien planet!" he mused. It was wonderful that he was actually here.

The Redguard could see Cyreril was paying no attention to the description of her. He had to admit there is nothing duller than having to listen to a love-sick swain natter on about his lady-love. The Redguard happened to be a classical music nut, so he pushed a CD of a Vivaldi concerto for mandolin, violins, and orchestra into the player. Cyreril was immediately swept away by the music and thought if the gods listen to music, it must be something like this. Totally relaxed, he began nodding off.

It was dark when they arrived at the summit of Kitt Peak. The sky was like diamond dust sprinkled all over black velvet. It was a wonder to behold because the night sky on Nirn contained too much galactic dust. A young and comely Redguard lass was waiting for them outside.

"I'd like you to meet my buddy, Master Cyreril, from the planet Nirn in the Magnus solar system in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud," the Redguard announced to her.

(Imagine sending this guy a postcard: Master Cyreril, Ald-ruhn, Vvardenfel, Tamriel, Nirn, Magnus solar system, Lesser Magellanic Cloud, Universe.)

"How do you do?" she asked holding out her hand.

Cyreril bowed and removed his MEGA cap, causing his long elf ears to stand up suddenly from his head. She let out a screech.

"Calm down! He's only an Altmer, or high elf. Totally harmless, unlike the necromancer Altmeri."

They shook hands, and the Redguard had her spread disinfectant over her hands and put on a surgical mask. Then they took the pizzas and case of beer from the trunk and moved them to the cafeteria.

"This way," she said and led them along some corridors to the door of the inner sanctum.

"Be very quiet when we go in there. We take photographs of certain sectors of sky night after night and then analyze them for any movement or change in luminosity. This is serious business because if we discover something, we want to be the first to report it, so we don't like distractions."

"Yes, ma'am," the Redguard responded perfunctorily.

"What about him?" she asked tilting her head in Cyreril's direction.

"Actually, he hasn't understood a single word you said, but I'm sure he'll be a good boy, won't you, Cyreril?" he answered boxing him playful on the arm.

Cyreril smiled and nodded uncomprehendingly.

She pulled the door open and they climbed some stairs to where a monster of a reflecting telescope was pointing between two open sliding-doors at the night sky. It was almost completely dark but for a small desk lamp that shone on a list of sky coordinates. The whir of a motor and churning of gears told when the telescope was changing direction. The researchers spoke in low murmurs.

Cyreril was beside himself. He remembered how the Redguard and the Japanese had used two convex window panes to demonstrate how a telescope works. He tugged on the Redguard's sleeve. He then pointed at his own eye and then pointed at the telescope. The Redguard tapped his girlfriend on the shoulder and led her back out the sanctum.

"Cyreril would like to look into the telescope, if that's at all possible."

"We've been working for several hours now and are due for a break. I'll see what I can do," she responded.

They returned into the sanctum, and after a while, the lights went on.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the girlfriend announced to her fellow researchers, "I have invited a guest from 200,000 light years away, Master Cyreril, from the planet Nirn in the Magnus solar system in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud."

The group was dumb-founded.

"It's true," the Redguard continued, "he is repaying a visit that I made there for NASA last year."

They gathered together to get a closer look at the intergalactic visitor.

"Whoa! Stand back! No telling what awful bug you might catch from him."

The Redguard proceeded to hand out surgical masks to everybody.

"What my friend would like to know is if he can take a look through this telescope."

"Why of course!" the team manager responded expansively.

That sat him down in the seat and adjusted the eyepiece to his seated height.

"Jupiter!" the manager called out.

A team member called out the coordinates.

"One Jupiter coming up!"

The dome and the telescope moved in unison then stopped.

"Look in here," the team manager said tapping on the eyepiece.

Cyreril peered into it, but it was all fuzzy. The manager rotated the eyepiece.

"WAAAH!" Cyreril shouted as the large disk of swirling clouds with tiny moons casting shadows on it.

"Saturn!" the manager called out again.

The team member called out the coordinates.

"One Saturn coming up!"

"YE GODS!" Cyreril shouted in Tamrielic. There was the disk of Saturn surrounded by a halo that cast shadows on the thick cloud cover. "What is that thing?!" He turned to everybody, "Thank you, everybody! Thank you ever so much for letting me see this!"

They chuckled and gave him a round of applause because it was so easy to tell what he was saying and why he said it.

"Well, team, I understand our guests have brought us refreshments. What do you say we call it a night and head over to the cafeteria?"

"Here, here!" some shouted as everybody applauded once more.

The research team and their guests were making burly cheer in the cafeteria when the research team manager approached the Redguard and said he wanted to play with the alien's mind a bit. The Redguard's breathing got heavier, which happened whenever he was pissed off and had to exercise self-control.

"Listen, to us he's like a child," he responded pointedly, "but among his own, he is the leading scientific mind, so you'd better tread carefully."

"Oh, bosh! I mean no harm! Trust me!"

The manager led them to a whiteboard with markers and drew a circle with swirls on it.

"Jupiter," he said.

"Jupiter," Cyreril repeated.

The manager took an empty beer can and pointed at it.

"Spaceship. You, in here."

He then made the beer can move into the atmosphere of Jupiter. Somewhere along the way, he crushed the beer can in his fist.

"You. Crushed. But, if you survive," here he drew another circle within Jupiter, "ocean of liquefied metallic hydrogen. Splash! At the bottom, rocky core."

Cyreril couldn't understand the explanation, but he got enough from the illustration to surmise what the manager was talking about. He pointed at the manager's head and shrugged.

"What is he saying?" the manager asked the Redguard.

"I think he's asking how you know all of this."

(This is no idle question. In June 2004, the Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn and for over a decade radioed back measurements and the most exquisite photographs of that planet, but it couldn't actually get inside to see its inner workings. By April 2017, its energy was almost thoroughly spent, so NASA planned a "sayonara free-fall" into Saturn so as not to have it accidentally crash into and disturb the pristine condition of any of the moons.

The computer-graphic replay of this event, shown on YouTube video xrGAQCq9BMU, shows the spacecraft burning to cinders even before reaching the cloud tops of Saturn. Even if you could make a burn-proof spacecraft, it would be squashed--pechanko!--by the equivalent of something like a thousand Earth atmospheres, which is 14.7 pounds per square inch x 1,000. [Watch YouTube video bjMqJ--aUJ8 to see how a plunge into Jupiter has been imagined to be.]

Because we can't go in and rummage around, we may never know what is going on in there. Sure, we may know it in rough outline, but the devil is in the details. There have to be limits to what can know and can do. After all, why do we trash up our own planet knowing we can colonize Mars, a far more hostile environment than what we've already got?

It's Fool's Paradise there merely because we haven't trashed it up yet. And just as Columbus brought smallpox and plundered the New World, we'll do our utmost to trash up Mars. And then where do we go from there? The next livable planet is in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri some 4.2 light years from earth. The word "livable" is very elastic here. Proxima b, the planet, got blow-torched by a Proxima flare for 10 seconds last year, and it's possible that it doesn't rotate at all, kind of like our moon, but it does have an atmosphere that distributes heat to other parts of the planet.

Wanna go anyway and trash that up too? Well, our Voyager II has just entered interstellar space. It was launched in 1977 and is travelling at 15.4 km or 24.6 miles per second, supposedly the fastest heliocentric recession speed of any craft. If we launched ourselves this year (2018) and traveled at the same speed and followed the same course, we'd be entering interstellar space in 2059. If I'm still alive, I'll be 106 years old.

The New Horizons probe, travelling at 52,000 mph, took 9.5 years to reach Pluto. At that speed, it would take New Horizons 54,400 years to reach Proxima Centauri. Let's see, what happened 54,400 years ago? Well, that was roughly the time that Oetzi, a Neolithic hunter, was attacked and killed in the Austrian alps. Some 50,000 years ago, a Denisovan person was using a sewing needle made from bird bone and left it for us to find in the Altai Mountains in Siberia. Humans were also still mating with Neanderthals and taking some of their DNA. Interestingly, it rained a lot in northern Africa, and the Sahara Desert was a grassy wetland.

If our ancestors at that time had found a way to blast off from Earth and procreate in space, we should be arriving or have already arrived at Proxima by now. I don't know how large the spaceship would have to be to carry enough food, water, and oxygen and contain enough living space for each passing generation. Let's put it this way: if our stone-age ancestors couldn't do it 50,000 years ago, neither can we. And don't even think that travelling at warp speed is possible. That can happen only with the Starship Enterprise.)

"Well, I really don't know," the manager responded disconcertingly, "what's the gesture for 'theoretically speaking'?" he asked turning to the Blackguard.

"Uhm..., a shrug?"

The manager shrugged weakly, at which Cyreril grinned broadly and boxed him playfully on the arm.

"You see, I told you so. And the 'Roger Bacon Scientific-Method Award' goes to (making an air drum-roll with his fingers) bish! Cyreril! After all, let's not embrace Willy Wonka's pure imagination at the expense of the scientific method."

The manager stiffened and abruptly walked away.

Just then the door swung open and three agents of the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit rushed in with sling-poles, the kind used for snaring unruly wild animals. The Redguard told everybody to stay calm as they gathered around Cyreril to form a human shield. The Redguard staggered toward the agents.

"Stand aside!" one ordered.

"Oh, no! I'm starting to feel VERY SICK!" the Redguard shouted clutching his throat and coughing in their direction.

"I said stand aside!" the agent repeated covering his face.

The Redguard made a fake sneeze that sprayed them all with spittle.

"Jeepers! What intergalactic bug did you guys just catch from me?! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE! SAVE YOURSELVES!"

The agents suddenly looked terror-stricken and ran back out of the cafeteria as everyone laughed them to scorn.

The Redguard approached Cyreril and told him in a calm voice that these agents will continue looking for him everywhere. He pointed to Cyreril's pocket, and Cyreril took out the Ald-ruhn amulet. They grasped hands, and overcome with having to see his buddy leave so soon, he threw his arm around him and clapped him on the shoulder. His girlfriend also bade him farewell. Tears welling up in his eyes, Cyreril stood ready to activate the amulet.

"Oh, don't forget your books!" the girlfriend called out handing him the plastic shopping bag.

"Beam him up, Scottie!" the Redguard called playfully toward the ceiling.

Cyreril vanished.