Yesterday, curious about the planet’s code name, I entered an establishment where the natives consume waffles. I was shouted at, pointed at, kicked, and then chased back outside while being assaulted with sturdy objects.
Given the peculiar (even vulgar, if I may be so blunt) appearance of most With Wafflers, I find this treatment puzzling. It’s clear that there is some manner in which I’m failing to assimilate. Unfortunately, my period of background reading and cultural instruction before coming here was limited, due to the haste with which I was obliged to flee my own planet—in my idealistic naivete, I had never anticipated just how vindictive governmental hairdressers could be.
Anyhow, though I am speculating in an informational vacuum at the moment, observation has led me to wonder if I would encounter fewer difficulties among the With Wafflers if I covered my genitals, as so many of them do.
Of course, this notion may merely be a stress-response to my social and intellectual isolation on a primitive planet five thousand light-years from home.
Meanwhile, through further investigation, I discovered that partially used waffles are sometimes deposited in a receptacle code named “trash can.” Using stealth and cunning, I managed to acquire one of these… and must now report my puzzled disappointment. It’s rather like getting close enough to a spectacular nebula to discover that, in fact, it’s just space rubble.
Still lingering in the vicinity of Caesar’s Palace for the time being, I remain uncertain of my plans and increasingly confused about the actual date.
Disaster! I have been seized by my enemies!
According to the time-traveling Glamorgellian scientist in the cell next to mine, my captors are not, as I feared, mercenaries preparing to collect the bounty on my head by returning me to my home planet to face unspeakable punishment. Instead, it seems that my disguise has been
The victuals in this facility are tolerable, though far from exciting. My quarters are not uncomfortable, but the abundance of odors overwhelms my senses.
Captivity is proving to be surprisingly educational. The time-traveling Glamorgellian scientist, code named “Spot,” has been on the Planet with Waffles for seventeen centuries—or five minutes, or sixty-four metric tons, depending on which time-keeping system you use. In any event, an experienced veteran of this planet, he is a veritable font of information about it. However, he’s not sure of the galactic date either.
According to Spot, I am physically identical in every way to a popular indigenous With Wafflish subspecies, code named “Golden Retriever.” Spot assures me that I was given good advice about the wriggling and drooling, but someone at ICOCR should have cautioned me against questioning the natives. My repeated attempts to communicate, in search of information, appear to be what attracted suspicion to me and led to my being incarcerated here. According to Spot, my conversational overtures were almost certainly misinterpreted as hostile, or at least annoying.
Additionally, I now learn, I was not given the requisite accessories, talismans code named “collar and tags,” which virtually all extraterrestrial species here need in order to move about without undue interference (and eventual incarceration).
ICOCR is going to receive a
Moreover, I’m not the only one. By now, I’ve recognized nearly twenty other sentient races imprisoned in this facility, most of them having arrived on this planet without suitable talismans, either.
Spot assures me, however, that I am likely to be released soon, thanks to a bureaucratic loophole, code named “adoption,” which is usually applied to members of my species. This is fortunate compared to his own situation. Spot tells me he resembles a Wafflish subspecies code named “bull terrier,” and consequently encounters not only legal difficulties wherever he goes, but also projectile weapons. Given that Glamorgellians developed time travel, inter-dimensional travel, and chew toys, I find the With Wafflish attitude to Spot’s race truly shocking. Spot, however, assures me that he’s accustomed to it after five minutes or seventeen hundred years or sixty-four metric tons, and has even grown to enjoy his sojourn on this planet. His assignment here, which he is currently wrapping up, has been to study the effects of global warming on processed organ meats in a carbon-based planetary system. So far, his findings are staggering in their galactic implications.
According to the Shirulian explorer code named “Lassie” in the cell on my other side, our situation is more precarious than Spot or I realized. If we aren’t adopted within a specified number of solar cycles, we face execution.
This strikes me as a rather severe penalty for traveling without talismans.
When my caseworker at ICOCR warned me that the Planet with Waffles is a primitive, backward place, I should have taken her more seriously.
Fortunately, Lassie has a plan. There is a rebel group which she believes can be convinced to attack this facility and free us. Members of the current dominant species on this planet, they are sophisticated enough to oppose the execution policies which currently threaten our lives. Unfortunately, they are also too timid to act without sufficient influence from someone among us. However, Lassie, like all Shirulians, possesses telepathic abilities and—what luck!—has experience in astral projection. Under her influence, the rebels are expected to attack tonight.
Success!
Upon being set free by the rebels, Spot (depending on which time-keeping system you use) went home to his own space and time, or will go home to it, or is gaining mass and weight there. He intends to publish his findings on global warming and processed organ meat so that an interstellar exploratory committee can be established to examine the ramifications of his research. Lassie, remarkably well assimilated into Wafflish culture, is on her way back to Hollywood to resume her career.
Meanwhile, I have been adopted by a member of the anti-execution rebel league, and she has provided me with the appropriate talismans to protect me from another episode of incarceration. I have filed a complaint against the ICOCR for their life-endangering negligence. For the time being, I am working on a comprehensive guide to With Wafflish customs so that other galactic fugitives may be better prepared than I was for the pitfalls of assimilating into this world.
THE INJUSTICE COLLECTOR
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
RECORD OF PROCEEDING
Injustice Collector 0080 Presiding
They trusted us with their children.
Later, they claimed they trusted us because we resembled animals from their world. Canines. I have seen representations of such things, and the resemblance is superficial.
We are thinner, taller, and we do not stand on all fours. (Many of my people were insulted by this implication—that we could not walk upright—but I was more insulted by the look of the beasts: shaggy, unkempt,
