The Origin of F.O.R.C.E.

After some deliberation, Blunt and Hoffman decided it was better to bring Whatsit to the Dalai Lama than the other way around. There was no good way to tell the Tibetan Tulku it was imperative he meet with a 5 foot tall alien lizard at a secret location in the United States. Another problem was the Tulku’s age. He was only 13 years old. Jim thought the young age was a big plus. Teenage curiosity and openness to new things he hoped were universal. Right?

Diane was more reserved. Yes, the age thing was a benefit, but the young age of the Lama would mean his protection would be the first concern of his guardians. She had a pretty good idea how they would react to Whatsit. Shoot first and ask questions later was probably the initial reaction. She predicted as much to Jim on the long plane trip to Tibet.

Peering over the top of her glasses, she said, “You know we’re going to meet dogged resistance to any meeting. How in the world do we get them together for the test? They think we’re coming to visit him as US Ambassadors pledging support to the rising new Dalai Lama.”

“How do you plan on getting our friend here,” she said pointing to Whatsit, “anywhere near the boy?”

Jim looked at her with a sideways grin. He was beginning to like the way she peered at him over the top of her glasses.

“Meet the unusual and special gift the US Government is presenting to his nibs,” he said, gesturing at Whatsit.

As Diane’s eyebrows rose, he continued, “I had a special cage built to house Whatsit for the brief time it should take to introduce him to the Dalai Lama. It’s my strong hope that if the boy has any ability to mentally communicate, it will be apparent very quickly. If the Lama is able to interact telepathically even in a limited way with Whatsit, curiosity alone should make the rest of the meeting go smoothly.”

As he watched the wrinkles in Diane’s forehead begin to form her unspoken doubts, he raised his palm towards her and said, “I know, I know. I’m worried about the first meeting. I’ve tried my best to communicate to Whatsit that he must not take control of the Lama. He must not scare the lad.”

“Your ability to understate is amazing, Major Blunt. Have you even considered the fright Whatsit will feel being shut up in a cage surrounded by Human strangers? If he lets his emotions get the better of him, we could see a quick meltdown.”

“Yes, I thought about that. I’ve promised Whatsit he’ll not be left in the cage longer than an hour, and he’ll receive a large plate of ground steak when we get back to the plane. If we get near the time limit, he’ll begin to act like a naughty lizard, forcing us to renege on our generous gift for the safety of the Dalai Lama. The perfect excuse to leave with no one the wiser they just met an alien from another planet.”

“Cute,” Diane replied as she looked over at Whatsit and smiled. “You think he really understands what you need him to do?”

“We’ll see,” Jim said. “Proof’s in the pudding so to speak.”

The rest of the flight was uneventful save for the many boring hours spent flying over the ocean. The big passenger plane landed at the Tibetan airport, and Whatsit calmly entered the cage. Blunt covered it with a tarp just before the cargo doors opened. Several Tibetans maneuvered the cage into the bed of a truck, and they headed towards the Dalai Lama’s compound. Jim stayed close by, stroking the lizard’s arm through the bars in an effort to reassure him.

At last the truck rounded a curve and the landscape of palm trees and low scrub greenery opened up to reveal a large Asian architecture building surrounded by an ornate stone wall. As sunlight played across the wall, it looked like each stone was covered with glitter, giving the whole thing a jewel-like appearance. The large, wooden gate leading into the compound was about a quarter mile distant when Jim felt the muscles in Whatsit’s arm tense. Glancing at the lizard, he was surprised to see Whatsit was agitated. Maybe that was not a good description. Excited was a better word.

Jim projected a picture in his mind towards Whatsit he had come to realize meant, “What is wrong?”

Whatsit’s response was astounding. A keening wail whispered from his mouth as he grasped Jim’s arm with his hand, looked at him and projected the clear mental picture of happiness. Blunt turned to look at the gate with wide-eyed surprise as it opened to admit the truck. Diane could tell from his reaction something was happening. She leaned over and grasped his hand and squeezed it.

The truck wound around a gravel drive leading to the main dwelling and lurched to a stop. The entrance to the house was beautiful, with manicured flowering bushes in carved clay pots lining the staircase. Ten men in red outfits and black loafer-like shoes marched down the wide steps, lifted Whatsit’s cage and carried it up the stairway. Jim and Diane, feeling odd about the bustling reception, climbed off the truck and followed the cage and the marching men up the stairs and into the house.

The men marched the cage through many hallways in the building. The cooling temperature as they moved deeper into the structure was a welcome change from the oppressive mid-day heat in the truck bed. The last hallway opened into a great room. At the far end of the space was a raised dais where a young boy waited. Jim and Diane knew they were in the presence of someone of singular importance.

The Red Guard lowered Whatsit in front of the boy and moved away. Jim and Diane stood beside the cage. The young boy approached, deep in thought.

The room was silent. Somewhere off to the left, a bird twittered, and you could hear its wings ruffling. The sound seemed to break into the boy’s reverie. He was Asian, a little over 3 feet tall, with nut-brown skin tones, almond-shaped dark eyes and hair cropped so short he appeared bald from a distance. Very young but with a demeanor and look in his eyes indicating a great depth of patience and intelligence.

He looked at Jim and in perfect English said, “Please open the cage and let WrrNrr Zennk out.”

The look on Jim’s face was a combination of surprise, confusion and outright skepticism. He managed to say, “Huh?”

Diane was quicker on the uptake. She turned to Jim with a sideways smirk and said, “Major Blunt, please let Whatsit out.”

Jim felt like his brain was fogged. Fumbling in his pocket for the key, he opened the cage. Whatsit came out in a quick lunge, wrapped his arms around the young boy and both of them hugged each other.

The Dalai Lama looked at Jim and Diane and said, “Now why don’t you tell me why you’re really here.”

Jim glanced at Diane and shook his head in amazement. She grinned back at him.

***

Watching the teenage boys interact was captivating. You couldn’t push aside the fact one of them was a Human boy and the other a tall, green lizard, but there was no doubt they were kids having a good time. The Dalai Lama had moved a large cushion onto the floor and was sitting in a lotus position. Whatsit lounged on another cushion, his head propped up by one crooked arm in a very Human-like position. No words were spoken between them, but every once in a while, Whatsit, now known as WrrNrr Zennk, would look askance at Jim, cock his head and point, and the Lama would burst out laughing. Jim was beginning to get a complex made even worse by the fact that Diane was highly amused by the whole thing.

“I don’t know what is going on, but I don’t like it!” he said with no little frustration.

“Oh, Major, just relax,” Diane purred, her eyes glinting. “They’re only having fun.”

“Yeah, fun at whose expense?”

Finally the boy Lama spoke to them.

“WrrNrr Zennk is a very intelligent creature, and just so you know,” as he looked at Jim, “He thinks you’re a good Master.”

“His name is WrrNrr Zennk, and he’s about 12 of our years old. He was on a training mission with his father when their craft was shot down by your men.”

The boy Lama’s eyes glistened with humor as he said, “He has a pretty good sense of humor by the way. WrrNrr Zennk accepts you as his Master even though you come from an inferior race. He is compelled, by hardwired Chrysallaman traits he can’t control, to defend you with his life despite the fact he knows you will ultimately be destroyed by the superior Chrysallaman warriors when they return to conquer the Earth.”

He looked at Whatsit, lounging on the floor cushion, absently toying with a beetle that had flown in a window and landed near him.

“Somehow I’m able to converse with WrrNrr Zennk mentally just like I talk with you verbally. I cannot explain how I’m able to do this, but nevertheless I can. By the way, Major Blunt, he actually prefers the name Whatsit to WrrNrr Zennk. Rather curious that, but nonetheless so.”

“Sir, how do I address you? I have some questions, but I don’t know your name,” Diane asked.

“My name is Tenzin.”

“Tenzin, do you know why we wanted to meet with you and introduce Whatsit, I mean WrrNrr Zennk?”

“Yes. You need something from me and you thought the only way to convince me to help you would be to put me in direct contact with our alien friend here.”

The boy’s entire demeanor was so relaxed that Jim and Diane stared at him in open amazement. In fact, Jim kept waiting for the boy to float up into the air on a cloud or something.

Diane pressed on. “Tenzin, we need to study and try to duplicate your mental ability to communicate with Whatsit.” She kind of liked the name Whatsit come to think about it. “I’m afraid his pals are coming back with a vengeance, and we must be able to talk with them and understand them when they return.”

“And it would be a great advantage to be able to mentally overpower them when and if they do return,” the Lama replied dryly. “Major Blunt practically shouts his thoughts at me. It’s a good thing Whatsit is only able to get limited pictures of thoughts from Major Blunt’s mind and not his actual words. If he knew the Major’s plans to wipe out his people when they return to Earth, our lizard friend might just curl up into a big green ball and wither away.”

Blunt looked at the boy guardedly. “You know all that from just being in the same room with us?”

An amused look broke out on Tenzin’s face. “Oh, yes. I can read the thoughts of most people if they’re within 30 feet of me. Whatsit has a much more powerful ability to project and receive thoughts. I was able to detect his presence when you were about a half-mile away. It was as if my mind’s eye could see a glow in the distance. My mind is not as powerful as his so he was not able to detect my mental calls to him until the truck was about a quarter-mile away. When I did finally contact him, he became very excited and focused on communicating with me. He really misses being able to talk with others. You see, he can only talk, as we are right now, by mentally linking with others. He has not encountered a single Human he can talk to until he met me. It would be like you having your voice box cut from your throat and only being able to communicate with other people by drawing stick figures. Can you imagine the frustration and loneliness?”

Neither Jim nor Diane had considered Whatsit from that point of view. They each made a mental note to spend more time trying to ‘talk’ with the young lizard.

The Lama looked at them both and eerily said, “Good for you. He will appreciate that.”

Jim and Diane stared at each other in utter disbelief.

“Now,” Tenzin asked, “What do you require from me?”

His demeanor was direct, to the point. Diane decided she would be just as direct.

“Tenzin, all I need from you is a swab from the inside of your cheek. The swab will be soaked with a sample of your genetic code, your DNA. At my lab, I’ll be able to test your DNA against what I will call normal DNA. I will be searching for any differences in brain design from normal. I must know and understand those differences.”

Tenzin looked at her, his almond-shaped eyes inscrutable. He smiled, ran over to his cushion on the floor and plopped down with his legs in the familiar lotus position. Whatsit stopped doodling with the beetle and cocked his head as if he was listening to a radio. Shortly, Whatsit looked over at Diane and Jim, and in a very Human gesture, gave a thumbs up. Then he pointed a finger at Jim, looked back at Tenzin, shook his head and circled his ear with his finger. Tenzin rocked with laughter. Diane thought the red blush brightening Jim’s cheeks was priceless, and she put a hand over her mouth in a pointless attempt to hide her own smirk.

Climbing back to his feet, the Lama walked back to Diane and said, “Whatsit thinks your idea is great! He desperately wants to be able to talk with someone. So how do we do this?”

Diane reached into the small leather bag hanging from her shoulder and produced a test tube closed with a rubber stopper. Inside the tube was a small amount of clear, viscous liquid. She then produced a cellophane-wrapped cotton swab on a thin stick. She removed the rubber stopper and tore away the cellophane.

“If you will please open your mouth, I’ll take the sample I need from you.”

With Tenzin’s full cooperation, she ran the cotton swab against the inside of his cheek, dropped it into the tube and pressed the stopper back into place.

The Lama stepped back and said, “I believe our meeting can come to an end.” He looked over at Whatsit and then back to Jim. “I have told Whatsit to get back into the cage where you will cover him for the trip back to the plane. I think it would be in everyone’s best interest he not be seen by the general public.

“It was a ‘unique’ pleasure,” and he smiled at his turn of phrase, “to have met both of you and contribute to your efforts to protect the Humans on planet Earth.”

He then leaned forward and whispered, “You both have a wonderful future to share, and I hope you enjoy it.”

With those enigmatic words, he turned on his heel and strode from the room. Jim and Diane stared as he left the room and then looked at each other.

“Now what do you suppose he meant by that?” Jim asked.