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A Foolish Consistency
    A Short Story
     
    Tim Tracer
     
    Reverend Harry Lochsteed had just managed to unclasp his secretary’s tricky, double-latching silk brassiere when he felt a curious tingling sensation in his legs.  He was no stranger to curious feelings — he often told his worldwide viewers on his hit weekly television sermon, God’s Servant Speaks ,about the sensitivity he had to all things spiritual — but this was a new one.  He was losing all feeling below.  This could definitely pose a problem with his amorous secretary, a busty brunette laid out like a Thanksgiving turkey on his desk, eyes pasty, face expressionless like so many of his loyal congregation.  Worse, the feeling was spreading up his body.
    “Something wrong, Reverend?” the woman said.  “They’re not fake, if that’s what you’re thinking.  I mean, I did have one simple operation, but it was . . .”
     While her lips continued to move, Harry couldn’t hear a word she was saying.  The room went dark.  His whole body was now tingling.  He felt warm then cold, as if he was passing through a current of hot air.  Blue stars flashed in front of his eyes, and then his senses came back to him.  He could hear and see.
    And what he saw nearly made him wet his pleated pants.
    On the other side of a sheet of transparent glass was a spindly, chocolate-brown creature with three legs and no arms, wearing what resembled a Hawaiian straw skirt.  It looked like a broomstick with legs.  Its head was shaped like a football, adorned with a single yellow eye.  Harry opened his sound to scream, but before he could the creature let out a squeaky gasp.  The eye blinked rapidly, then the creature stepped up to the glass.  When it lifted its head back, Harry saw that it had a small, triangular mouth.
    "I am very sorry, zalzan," it said.  When it spoke, it sounded and looked like a cat coughing up a hair ball, jerking its head back and forth, splattering spittle on the glass.  “Very sorry for my reaction,” it continued.  “I have only seen a few of your kind up close, and I forgot how hideous was your appearance.”
    His tripple-bipassed heart thundering away, Harry took in his surroundings.  He was evidently in the middle of some kind of glass bubble.  When he touched the glass with his hands, it was firm and unyielding.  A stream of cool air was blowing up his pants from a vent in the floor.  Surrounding the glass bubble was a cramped room filled with blinking electronic displays and monitors showing various television channels.  His latest show, taped last Sunday, could be seen on one of them.
    "Where am I?" he said.
    "You are on my faceship, of course."
    "Spaceship?"
    “Precisely.”
    Harry started to hyperventilate.  He reached for his inhaler, then remembered he had left it in his desk.
    "What’s wrong, zalzan?  Your tiny eyes grow in size."
    "My—ashthma—can't—stop—" Harry managed.
    The creature stepped over to one of the consoles, and, reaching up with one of its legs, tapped a button.  After a few moments, Harry could breathe easier.
    "How did you do that?" he asked.
    "Simple.  Increased oxygen in air flow.  Help you heave."
    "Breathe?"
    "That too, zalzan."
    "Why do you keep calling me that?"
    The eye blinked rapidly.  "Well, because that's what you are.  You are zalzan.  Oh, well, of course you don't know what that means, being zalzan.  It is our word for beings who are not yet worthy of contact."
    "Are you going to kill me?"
    "Of course, shot."
    "What?  Oh, my father, who art in heaven . . ."
    "Not.  Of course not.  That's what I meant to say.  Although I think I have a fairly good understanding of your language, I sometimes say the wrong word.  My English, it is not always so good."
    "No, it isn't."
    "Well, you try learning thirty six languages and see how well you do," the creature said indignantly.  "I think I speak well considering I had only one leer to learn."
    "You mean, one year to