– “How do you suggest we do this?”

– “I dunno. Maybe we can just zap ‘em?”

– “Zap ‘em? What d’ya mean?”

– “Well, we get ‘em onboard and then we zap ‘em. Right? Then they won’t make any resistance.”

– “Why would they want to make any resistance?”

– “Because, facing their own death by getting slaughtered and then eaten is unlikely to make them very thrilled.”

– “Oh, I see.”

– “Alright.”

– “Then who does what?”

– “What?”

– “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking you!”

– “But I’m askin’ you ‘bout what you mean!”

– “You didn’t make that very clear!”

– “Oh, like you’re ever being clear!”

– “Sorry…”

Zappa stares questioningly at Zipper, but he just stares back. He’s holding the weapon steadily in the firm grip of his hands. Then Zappa finally nudges Zipper and he waves the gun at Zappa by mistake, but Zappa bursts out: – “Hey, hey! Watch out with that thing!”

– “Oops, sorry!”

– “Hey, I just got an idea! What if we zap ‘em before we bring them onboard?”

– “Oh, that’s really clever Zappa!”

– “Yeah, I think so too!”

They head for the teleporter to beam down to Earth. As soon as they set their small, weird and ugly feet on the face of the Earth, they hear someone scream nearby. Unfortunately these aliens hadn’t thought this through. They didn’t think of being discrete.

The screaming person turns out to be a woman who’s standing right behind them with wide open eyes and mouth. Zappa turns around and when he sees the screaming woman he yanks his head back a bit because the direction of his ear is now picking up the screaming better so the louder sound almost shocks him. – “Well Zipper, will you please shut up that woman?!”

– “Alright,” Zipper exclaims and he heads for the woman raising his zapgun at her. Before she can realize what they’re doing, he has already zapped her.

– “Good, that was the first one. How many do you think we need to have?” Zappa asks Zipper.

Zipper picks up the collapsed woman from the ground and turns around with her in his arms to face Zappa and answer his question. – “I think we need more than this one.”

– “Yeah, I could figure that one out too. But I mean… how many? We need to have some to process right now, and we need some for breeding too.”

– “Hmm, yeah, you’re right. That’s a tough one. I think we need around a hundred to butcher right away, and then an additional hundred for breeding. These humans are so unproductive when it comes to breeding. For every ten females, we only need about one male. Don’t you think?”

– “No, I don’t think they work that way.”

– “Oh? But they’ll just have to.”

– “As far as my research has shown, the females aren’t really that demanding if they can only get what exists, and if they are led to believe that the male assigned to her is the only one, then she’ll be willing to accept it, I think. And the males, oh well, they love the act of procreation, so it shouldn’t be a problem to make them fornicate with more than one woman.”

– “Oh, Zappa! You’re truly clever! Of course, that’s why you became a scientist and I became your zapper, Zappa!”

– “Yeah, and you’re also named Zipper, because I often tell you to zip it!”

– “Oh, sorry, boss!”

Zipper is starting to get a bit impatient. He is moving a bit unsteadily and when Zappa asks what’s wrong, Zipper just says, “She’s getting kinda heavy.”

Zappa nods and allows Zipper to beam her up into one of the cargo ship’s small breeding compartments.

When the woman has been beamed up into the ship, Zipper finally returns to Zappa. He says: – “So. Now she’s been safely secured.”

– “Where’d you put her?” Zappa asks.

– “ I put her in the breeding compartment.”

– “I think she’s a bit too old to breed, so just put her in the kitchen section.”

– “Alright, boss.”

When Zipper has beamed the woman to the right compartment, he’s finally ready to look for some more human beings for their cargo ship. They have to return to their home planet soon, because their people are starving.

They roam the nearby surroundings to find some easy targets, but this area seems abandoned. They teleport back to the ship and decide to raid the nearby city. A bigger city with hundred of thousands of people will be a good place to fill their stocks. They don’t bother about being detected, because their ship has the best armor in their whole quadrant, at least as far as they know, but these human beings are far behind them technologically so the aliens don’t fear that the humans will ever catch up with them. The aliens don’t bother eating and breeding the humans either, ‘cause they have seen how badly evolved they are, and they have seen how the humans fight and kill each other with no reason, so surely the humans won’t mind if a few hundred people are going to be missing. It shouldn’t be new to these humans, ‘cause the aliens have heard the rumor of how other of their fellow space beings have come to exactly this planet for the same reason as why Zappa and Zipper are here now. And furthermore, these humans don’t treat their fellow beings of, believe it or not, lesser intelligence, that nicely, so surely these humans don’t mind being treated the same way as they treat their cows, pigs, chickens et cetera.

Zipper and Zappa are on their way to New York. They might as well start at one of the Earth’s biggest cities right away. These humans can fight back all they want, but neither Zappa nor Zipper expects them to. Why would they? They have observed the humans for quite some time to be sure that they don’t violate the galaxy’s prime directive, and the intelligence they have gathered so far, only reassures them that this is the right thing to do. Actually, they do the humans a favor, ‘cause ridding them of some of their fellow citizens would only be a burden lifted off their shoulders. Zappa who has surveyed the Earth for about half an hour (yes, it really didn’t take them longer than that to figure out the ways of the human beings because of their very high intelligence. These aliens might not seem as intelligent as they really are because of the way they are portrayed here, but they’re only described that way, so every common Earthman can understand their reasons and ways), has surely seen enough signs that a lot of these Earthlings keep asking themselves what they’re living for, so these aliens might as well help them along.

They arrive at New York in a few seconds and even though they don’t expect the humans to fight back, they cloak their space ship so the humans won’t be alarmed. And not to scare off the humans by taking some of the humans in turns, they select a few hundred people and then they teleport them all onboard at the same time. The beam each of them into a small compartment, and then they release a dose to each of them with neural relaxation, so they won’t complain that much.

On the surface of the Earth the ground is shaking a bit as the massive teleportation of two hundred and 15 human beings begins. A woman vanished while breastfeeding her baby boy, a school girl disappears right as she has put up her hand to answer her teacher’s question, and an old homeless man disappears right as a generous passerby is just about to drop a hundred dollar bill into his hat he holds outstretched. A lot of people vanish from New York this day, but the rest of all the thousands of people who don’t get beamed to the aliens’ space ship are too baffled and shocked to do anything before the space ship has finished the transports and in a blink of an eye they have left the atmosphere of the Earth with their cargo bay filled with fresh new meat and cattle.

No matter how hungry you are, you’ll find a way to fill your stomach. And no matter how clever you are, there’ll always be somewhere out there who’s cleverer than you, who just might think of you as their dish of the day.

© Copyright, Ida Pedersen, 2010.