The Aliens of the Flaming Red Sun/1 He cried because….

Back to Proxima Centauri and the Aliens of Porrila

He cried because….
Blue Grey Tentacles crouched on the hard stone floor of a prison cell sobbing. He didn’t shed tears from his eyes as a human would. None the less anyone who understood Centaurian feelings would know that the young alien was utterly and abjectly miserable. Everyone, even his family on prison visits said it was good his tentacles no longer flashed scarlet. Little Blue Grey Tentacles felt he’d lost part of himself with that and with the name change. He cried because prison psychologists, a Terran innovation, had explained to him how badly he’d behaved and he couldn’t stop feeling ashamed. He knew he’d let down his family and all his friends and he was sure all his friends hated him and no one would ever like him. He cried because he was sure no decent Centaurian would ever find him sexually attractive again and he certainly wouldn’t want the type who would go with a former prisoner. He cried because petty thieves and criminals shook their tentacles at him and told him they were better than him. Those thieves and petty criminals had never upset a whole planet. He felt so awful about himself and he was sure all those criminals really were better than he was. He hated being with other prisoners and he hated being alone. And little Blue Grey Tentacles cried and cried and cried for a mudbath.

There was a short, two (Terran) day winter when Porrila was furthest away from Proxima Centauri in its orbit. Then the little alien was cold in his prison cell. There was a slightly shorter summer when Porrila was closest to its sun. Then the cell was uncomfortably hot. There was not even the cycle of day and night as on Earth. Porrila kept always the same face to its sun as our moon does to the Earth. Proxima Centauri always stood in exactly the same position in the sky. The blood red sunlight shining through the one prison window always hit the cell floor at exactly the same spot. Then something broke the prison monotony. Sunlight was increasing, the sun was a bit brighter and more yellow, like our sun. For the first time the prison cell was well-lit.

Blue Grey Tentacles shuddered and couldn’t enjoy the light. The alien knew from his earliest childhood what it meant. Proxima Centauri was flaring. There was a small cubbyhole he could go to during flares. Otherwise the radiation would kill him. His octopus-like body squeezed into it. A human could not have got in. The alcove wasn’t comfortable but it kept him safe. He could even move about a bit in there. The cubbyhole was designed for adults larger than Blue Grey Tentacles. The alien wriggled about till he could see into the sunlit cell. “Even the sun hates me.” He thought. Blue Grey Tentacles knew Proxima Centauri’s flares affected the whole daylight side of the planet. Still he felt the flare was punishing him personally. “Please don’t hurt me, Great Lord Sun” he shouted aloud. He felt that the shafts of radiation from the sun were trying to strike him like the spray of cold, clean water when they forced him to take a prison bath. The sun was judging little Blue Grey Tentacles as the Centaurian judge had. He remembered clearly the judge saying, “Don’t imagine the short sentence means you’ve got off lightly. You will never finish paying for this crime as long as you live.” That struck terror into the whole of his little alien being. “I will never finish paying as long as I live.” he repeated to himself. An adult would have found that difficult to handle.


 * (To be continued)