CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Griffnack had a problem. The holo-protection of the planet Earth continued to rotate in front of him. Griffnack continued to stare at it, as he had been doing for the last hour, trying to find a loophole that could solve his problem. None was forthcoming. He really did not want to destroy the planet Earth. But as a first class planet surveyor for the Unified Universe Union (a name he'd grown to detest) he seemingly had no choice.
The UUU consisted of over five hundred races, all originally from different plaents. An impressive number, but not quite as impressive when one considers that there are thousands, perhaps more than one hundred thousand, races in our Milky Way galaxy alone. Doubtless there were more in the other galaxies of the known universe (and just how many galaxies?) but the UUU wouldn't be universal for some millenia. The task of "cleaning up" the Home Galaxy (their sterile name for the Milky Way) came first. Thousands of races, but there used to be more before the UUU's sterilisation project was put into effect. If had been decided by the new ruler of the UUU, a long-lived Skragga'Job from the planet Noo'Bak, that if the UUU was ever to achieve its goal (uniting the entire universe under UUU rule and then....well, nobody quite knew what came next) certain planets would have to be sterilised along the way. Planets which could interfere with the future well-being of the UUU would be completely eradicated. Only planets which were ready to be admitted to the UUU, or would one day be ready, were left untouched. When it came time for a planet to join they weren't given the option, they were simply told they would be joing and forced to adjut. Not that many new planets had joined in the last thousand years, since the Skragga'Job had taken over. With in excess of five hundred members, the UUU had become quite particular about who would join in the future. They didn't want "inferior" races watering down their grand Union. Earth, if it continued on its present course and sadly Griffnack could find no evidence that it would diverge, would never reach the criteria for UUU membership.
(Ironically, a substantial amount of the founder members of the UUU would have been rejected membership and sterilised if they had faced the current membership criteria. Although there were rumours that such planets would be "removed" at some point in the future, befor the Universal expansion begun. That is, if the Skragga'Job had its way.)
Griffnack had eradicated dozens of planets. He had to, any memmber of the UUU not doing their duty would be eradicated themself (another of Skragga'Job's new rules) and Griffnack did value his life more than the lives of the six billion inhabitants of Earth. That didn't mean he wouldn't try his hardest to grant Earth a stay of execution, at least. It was strange, although he always felt some regret at ending a species' existence, he'd never felt it as keenly as he did today. Perhaps he was getting soft in his old age. He was after all ten thousand years old. Or perhaps there was just something about Earth.
To the untrained eye it was much the same as any other planet with a sentient race at level 17 development (by point of comparison, the Skragga'Jobs considereed themselves to be at level 28,304 development, though Griffnack scoffed - never openly of course - at that.) They had taken slightly longer to reach level 17 than the almost impossibily high standards, but were actually somewhat above the galactic average. They still had wars, bigotry, organised religion and many other undesirable features, but all species at level 17 had those. All species in the UUU had had them once. Griffnack believed that it was their sense of humour which had won them a place in his heart. Mostly inane, of course, but sometimes, and especially on their electronic form of communication known as the "internet" it reached the level of the sublime. Sublime for a level 17 species, that is, but it was enough to amuse Griffnack. Why, he's seen an amusing animated image of a monkey peeing on itself which was almost at level 18 on the humour scale! No, Griffnack was determined to only destroy Earth if it was absolutely necessary.
He turned off the holo-image he'd been staring a hole in and locked out of the ship's window at the planet Earth (what arrogance calling it that, as though their planet was the only one with "earth" on its surface or something, he thought, amused) below. The ship was in a slow orbit. He decided to look at their "internet" again. Maybe if he could find more example of level 18 humour he could buy them more time. Although humour wasn't exactly valued by the Skragga'Job ruler of the UUU. For some reason he became distracted by images of their female celebrities (he was not attracted them, of course, but if he had been humanoid he might have been) and noticed one he'd never seen before. She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful on the planet his ship's computer told him. But there was something more to her. He ordered a life-size holo-image of her to appear before him and, sure enough, there was a glint in her eye...no, she couldn't have been! Surely not! They wouldn't do it again, not so soon! But the glint was unmistakable!
Griffnack smiled. Okay, so he didn't have a mouth, but it's easier to say that he smiled rather than describe what his massive body actually did.
She was an Ezzit. There was no other explanation.
He grinned. It would have been quite a sight of anyone was around to see it.
The Ezzit were a member race of the UUU, a race of nearly omnipotent beings who liked to play with the simple minds of lesser races. What they did to those races depended on what level they were on, but for a level 17 species the Ezzit would always visit the planet in the form of said species and, with some simple tricks, convince the inhabitants that they were a Messiah come to save them from above. Well, the coming from above part was true at any rate. An Ezzit had visited Earth just two thousand years ago, nothing to the Ezzit, and taken the name Jesus Christ. It had caused quite a stir. It was very unusual for one to be back so soon. It may even have been the same Ezzit, though this one was in the form of a human female.
Griffnack wasn't surprised that he'd know nothing of the Ezzit on Earth, despite being a UUU member they were very secretive and kept almost entirely to themselves.
Griffnack checked the soon to be Messiah's details, she was approaching her 25 year on the planet. She was bound to reveal her "true" self soon and start a new religious movement. Oh yes, things were about to get very interesting on Earth. Millions would die, maybe more. It was hard to predict exactly what would happen with two Ezzit visiting in a two thousand year span.
And that was reason enough to convince even the Skragga'Job to spare Earth, at least until its next review was due in five thousand Earth years. Not only because a member of the UUU was on the planet, but because the coming turmoil would provide much entertainment for the UUU members.
Griffnack couldn't have been happier. To think that he'd almost missed this! The Earth had another five thousand years at least before its eradication and he'd enjoy watching it in that time. And it was all thanks to a practical joke by an Ezzit. Imagine that. A whole species saved because of one Ezzit posing as a human female named Natalie Portman.
For people who don't read the MF but love sci-fi!
