If you're intending to start from the start, go to the previous post.
In this chapter, we meet the Bun, who have just arrived at our planet....
TWO
Third Galactic Commander Blarg looked doubtfully at the Saint Peter Autoglow Respondomatic Human Deception Suit as it hung in the gravitic field. It was clad in a resplendent white toga. It did look exactly like an Earth human; aside from its intentionally awe-inspiring qualities, there was nothing unHuman-looking about it. It had hair, moles, wrinkles--the works.
On the other hand, the sight of Blarg, a powerful and experienced interstellar military leader, commander of thousands, would have filled any Earth child with glee. He had cute, long white ears with pink linings; his nose bobbed as he hopped about; his cotton tail was the picture of glossy adorableness. His commanding ruthlessness, and skill with a gamma pistol, were not immediately apparent.
Blarg was an up-and-coming leader of the Bun’ army, soon to be a general—a bunny to be reckoned with, and he knew it. He did not know what effect his appearance would have had on the Earth primates’ young, and would not have particularly cared. He had his mission: gather an army of the Earthlings, use it to take the Southern icecap of this oddly blue planet, and get home with the goods.
The Saint Peter suit would be Blarg’s sometime home in the weeks to come. The suit, actually a cybernetic transport device for Bun’ invaders, was designed to lull humans into accepting Bun’ instructions. It looked alive to anyone without a flouroscope, and though the suit was currently unoccupied, the eyes followed his movements automatically.
Blarg wasn't going to admit it to anyone, but the gigantic Suit--twenty times his height--scared the little grey pellets out of him. He knew that, once he was zipped inside, the signals from its blue eyes and pale hands would be neurally altered to make sense to his paws and whiskers and adorable button eyes, but still...—well—there was nothing for it—
“I’m going to get inside for a test maneuver, Superior Assistant Berv. Hold it still for me, will you?”
Berv sighed. He knew that Blarg had only skimmed the operating instructions, and had scoffed at the simulator. But there was no arguing with Blarg, especially when he referred to Berv in his full title of ‘Superior Assistant.’ Berv steadied the leg of “Saint Peter,” and just to make it look good, held the aperture control with his bunny teeth. Commander Blarg hopped in athletically, from the back.
This was so unnecessary. The suit would have automatically –
“Yeeaghh!” Blarg wailed as the suit sucked him in. The rear entry port sealed with a pop, the seam disappearing from view.
Why couldn’t he have just read the directions, Berv thought; but he looked up at the eerily Earthly eyes-- though he knew Blarg was actually in the belly of the thing-- and said, “Is it working correctly, Sir?”
“Ah—whoaa—uh” said Blarg, as St. Peter staggered out of the gravitic hangar. “Ah, yes.” The Suit's eyes locked with Berv's. “YES,” Blarg said, as the Holy Magisterial Voice Transamplifier kicked in, IT’S WORKING JUST FINE... OF COURSE.” The voice had been carefully constructed from an amalgamation of the voices of humans Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan, and Barry White, as detected from television transmissions. Its lowest volume setting was a dull roar. The audio engineering, however, matched perfectly with the Saint Peter Deception Suit, which was nearly seven feet tall. The suit seemed enormous indeed in the Bun’-designed galley; the head grazed the ceiling, and the muscular shoulders took up a lot of space. Blarg put the suit through a few moves, testing the maneuverability. Saint Peter jumped, knelt, and spun on one foot, his drapery whirling aesthetically; blonde hair tossed dramatically.
“Very impressive, Sir,” Berv said. In fact, he was a little alarmed at the gymnastic display.
The sensory receptors in the Saint Peter suit had been a particular point of pride for the Ship’s Bun’ engineers, as they transmitted all sensations, from heat and cold, to pleasure and even pain where appropriate, directly to the neural network of the Bun’ operator inside. The operator thus began to feel many of the authentic sensations of Earth’s sentient primate life form, transmitted and interpreted for Bun’ neurons.
“Will you be taking it for a walk about Heaven?” Berv asked. Heaven was sixty-one levels up and two miles astern in the Mother Ship. It had pearl colored walls, and spiral golden paths. It was a mile high and a mile wide, and specially constructed to awe certain religious humans. It had 30% Earth gravity, and the floors and tiers appeared, to human eyes, to be constructed of translucent air and clouds.
YES, he boomed. OKAY-- LET’S SEE WHAT THIS SUIT CAN DO. AND BERV-- INITIATE OPERATION RAPTURE. He strode confidently toward the elevator, illuminating the passageway as he went, with a comforting honey-colored glow that emanated from his perfect pale skin. Berv opened a communications gravlink to Earth Operative Bing; she would be glad for the go-ahead. Then he saw that Blarg was striding towards a headache.
“Remember, Sir, that the bulkheads are not constructed for the height of the—“
Blarg forgot.