Planetary Links

In an odd sense, Peter was as much of a teenager as anyone would have thought someone to be like on earth, except for the fact that he wasn't born on earth, and he didn't live there either. Peter enjoyed going out and spending time with his friends, and playing games where he lived, just like any other boy his age living in the universe just next door. While they knew of the existence of earth, the people of planet Xhran didn't have any motivation to further expand their reaches.

So unlike their earth counterparts, the people of xhran did not thirst for knowledge about the places beyond their humble planet. They did not need to know whether there were creatures on other planets who were richer, or more advanced than they were, because it wasn't in their nature.

The characteristics of the inhabitants on planet xhran would certainly have amused the people of earth, for it did not matter where on xhran you came from, everyone was able to do anything on their planet. They didn't have a word for "alien" because they thought everyone was the same. Why should Peter feel the need to get better grades than his friends in school if all of them learned the same things in the end? He didn't feel that way, which was what the difference was between earth and xhran.

By having no diversity in their planet, they were able to coexist without conflict, and without struggle or argument within their planet. They did not have a leader, and when there was a non-xhran problem (an external problem as they liked to say) everybody would work as they could to solve it.

There was no denying that the people of earth would learn about this planet and seem intrigued, but think that their system was better ultimately. People of earth had always been told that they should celebrate their differences, and that diversity was something to be proud of. Innocent people died on earth every day due to conflict because of their diversity, while on xhran there were no problems.

One might think to themselves, if I were to live on either planet, which one would I choose? The fact of the matter was that while one planet was peaceful and green, the other planet was violent and grey. There were oppurtunities for everyone on one, and favortism on the other. While the choice might seem obvious, there are further things to think about when thinking about cities.

It just so happened that on an evening (technically speaking) of a "summer" rotation in both xhran and earths' axes, there was a small spaceship that landed softly on the ground of a large plain in the uninhabited parts of the xhran countryside. There were fewer people in xhran, the population was considerably lighter, for they had only managed a couple different ways of large scale agriculture, which limited families to strict numbers of 3 or sometimes 4.

It also just so happened that the small spaceship that had landed on the plain so innocently, would not be found by anyone for another year. This was a problem, because the senders of this spaceship, were people of a restless place with no patience whatsoever for the impoliteness of the "new thing" they had discovered.

When it was indeed found, the people were curious of where it had been sent. People with left side brains thought that maybe it could have been sent from another land, somewhere with different ideas than the ones here. The right side brains agreed with them, but provided other alternatives for where it could have come just in case they were off.

There were instructions in a capsule inside of the spaceship, drawings of earth and the solar system. The people of xhran immediately recognized the charts of the sun and the planets, as they had invented telescopes no less than a century ago. There were pictures of planet earth and the people inside of it waving, and seemingly friendly looking.

Nearly 5 years had passed by the time the people of xhran had figured out the meaning of the capsule that was sent to them and how to get a message back to them. Volunteers offered to deliver the message in person, and as a whole, the people agreed. A ship was released into space, containing Peter, the heroine of this story. Peter was a fine boy, he was tall for his age, with golden hair, and bright green eyes. He was no smarter than his friends, and no more athletic than them, and he was someone who used his right side of his brain more often than the left. It was the only difference his people had accepted within their race. There were people who were more creative and free thinkers who had left brains, and there were people who were more analytical who thought with their right brains.

Needless to say, he was very taken with the ship and the idea of putting his studies to use on his adventure. The room in which he stayed on for the majority of the ride to Earth was rather small compared to the one he had at his home, not that he could complain. There was one window over his bed, and whenever he couldn't fall asleep, he would stare out of it until it had become too fogged up to make out anything but the blackness that surrounded him. There was a single light in the room, connected to a lamp on the beside table of the book which was where there were books put into a neat pile below. A desk was on the opposite end of the room, with a couple of loose papers that had managed to escape from the mass of them all shoved hastily into a great folder that had been thrown onto the desk earlier in what might have been frustration. The last piece of furniture in the bunker was an old dresser, fit with a total of 3 drawers, in which two or three of Peters' outfits were folded and put. The topmost drawer was the only one being used by him, for the right-brainers who had sent him had told him it would be a short trip. He was perfectly fine with this, as he saw that the shorter the trip was, the less he would think about it, and he tended to think about things too much. Not that it ever became a problem, of course.

He arrived on Earth a short while later, in the only clear spot he could find. He walked out onto the grass, that seemed so familiar to his home he couldn't believe he was in another galaxy. He walked across it for a while, before approaching a wooden cottage, on the side of a brilliant blue lake that was almost concealed by trees. He walked up to the cottage, examining the intricate detail of each stone on the way up to the door. He stopped on the porch, running his hands over the painted and carved wood, his heart pounding at the strangeness and yet familiarness of it all.

Peter opened the door, and walked in, not knowing that Earth was against this of course. He smelled an unusual fragrance, not quite reminding him of anything he had smelled before, but giving him a warm and cozy feeling. His nose led him to a suburban kitchen, where there was spagetti and meatballs cooking, being watched by a woman a head shorter than him. He walked up to her and smiled, but before he could say anything she screamed, and started speaking to him the way a mouse would speak to a lion who was planning on eating him.

"What are you doing here?" She stuttered nervously. "I haven't seen you around before, and I know everybody in the neighborhood" Miraculously, it seemed the planets could speak the same language after all, because Peter explained his situation. She gawped at him, her mouth falling open a little wider with each word he spoke to her. After he finished explaining she urged him to come with her, and she took him to the airport, where they booked a flight to Washington D.C. where she gave him specific instructions on where he should go to meet the president of the united states.

Meanwhile, in a big white house, THE white house, in fact. Newly elected president Ellie Harold had been pacing furiously for the past half an hour. She had been shown disrespect before, but now they had crossed the line. Her angry footsteps must have drawn the attention of her husband Larry, who came in looking rather reproachful.

"Ellie, why are you upset this time?" He asked, in a playful way he knew she liked, but in a tone that suggested he might have also been afraid of her response.

"It's the news reporters. I swear, every single time I talk to them they go on and on about how there are so many bad things happening to America at the moment and how I must be having difficulty. The amount of power that the men reporters think they carry is enough to make my water boil anytime. They think that because I'm a woman I'm apparently less capable of doing things than they are. I AM THE PRESIDENT FOR JESUS SAKES!" she stomped her foot angrily, and collapsed on the floor, to which Larry rushed over and picked her up gently.

"We knew this wasn't going to be easy, didn't we? The first female president of the united states and we knew there would be the people who refused to accept it. Well screw them, they can go shove their-"

He never got to finish, as there were people marching into the office in suits, carrying what looked as a college student behind them with golden hair and the most peculiar green eyes she'd ever seen.

"I don't believe it!" she nearly screeched when Peter had finished his story. "I have to see this spaceship, and go back to your planet with you and talk to your people, this is so amazing, I remember when we sent that capsule 6 years ago, wow!" She finished, her eyes shining brightly at the prospect of new adventure.

Peter, almost as enthusiastic as she was took her back through the whitehouse to the plane that she had scheduled to fly them back to Montana where Peter had landed in the first place as soon as she heard he was an alien.

Remarkably, with the entire united states holding its breath as their president flew across space itself to find out more about a planet in another galaxy, time seemed to freeze for everybody on earth. There were the people who had busied themselves with work, refusing to believe that there was something new happening, desiring to resume normal life. There were the people who couldn't do work because of the things happening. There were the people who could do work but spent every minute of their freetime wondering about the mysterious planet. There were people who didn't care. As earth was in every other way, it seemed the diversity of their opinions reflected that.

Ellie had gotten the second and only other room on the spaceship, her head swarming with thoughts and worries about what she might find when the ship landed. She had barely convinced the secret service to let her go alone, when she had told them that it didn't matter whether she was dead because it was the discovery of the new planet. While they didn't like this, she continued making a point about how she couldn't pass up this oppurtunity, ending with an argument of how america would be ahead if they were the ones who had sent somebody to a different planet first.

Eventually she had been cleared by everybody who had the power to stall her adventure. Her phone had died a while back, and so now she was reverting back to using an old notebook to jot down observations of space and the spaceship, and what would hopefully be an entirely new planet they were going to.

Arriving on xhran shortly after departure of earth, Ellie walked out of the ship and was amazed and beside herself that they had landed in another planet. She followed Peter back to the city, where she was greeted by hundreds of eager people, all who took time out of their day to meet someone new. She had been informed of the planet and how it worked, and she knew of course that there wasn't a lot of diversity, but it was all just another part of the fascinating "alien" dream she seemed to be living out. She met with as many of the "aliens" that she could, talking to them about her life and her life on earth, while right siders compared, left siders dreamed. She was given food after nearly 15 hours of talking to new people, and discussing the differences of their planets. She figured it was the adrenaline that had made her behave in such a way as to not be hungry after so long without food.

Dinner was different, certainly. They had rice, and corn, and bread, although there was nothing that was canned, or stored, which she thought was absolutely lovely. No wonder they all looked so healthy and nice.

She was led after dinner, into the heart of xhran. Their city was magnificent, looming taller than most of the buildings in new york, it stretched far and wide, and tall, exciting Ellie as she had never been excited before. She was given a tour of all of the different shops and places within the marketplace, and bustle of the city. She had never quite had so many questions as she did then, but restrained herself from overwhelming them with more than they had already discussed.

There was so much more to be done, she thought eagerly. As she lay awake in her bed that the xhran had given her graciously. She was going to write out a list of questions the following morning to make sure that they had gotten everything they needed from each other, and she was sure they would do the same.

She also really wanted to go back to the shopping center, as she had so much fun when she had gone earlier, and it was a great way to learn about the city that she was in.

The following day, Peter took Ellie into the tallest building in the market city, and they met up with a group of the people most interested in what she had to say. Luckily for her, they also had a list of questions that they wanted to ask her as well.

"So, on earth, you mentioned it yesterday- what is a dog?"