Author: Colin Jeffrey

“I didn’t say it was your fault,” Aldren Kleep moaned, rolling all seven of his eyes at the human standing before him. “I said I was blaming you; It is a completely different concept.”

The human began to protest again, citing ridiculous notions like “honesty” and “fair play”. Kleep shook his heads in unison. “You really don’t have a clue, do you, Earthling?”

Kleep had been working among humans for nearly five of their earth years now, and was still dumbfounded by their naivety. How a race almost totally unable to utilise (or even understand) the art of perfidious bureaucracy had managed to survive for so long, he could not fathom.

“But you’re shifting all of the blame for this failure to me!” The Earth creature whined. “I have done absolutely nothing wrong.”

“Ah!” Kleep smiled with three of his mouths. “Now you get it!” With that, he waved his hand over a console and the human disintegrated. “A pity you won’t be able to use it.” He added.

The communicator on his console honked. Kleep eyed the caller flag. It was Farnit Popple. Right on time, he thought. He opened the screen.

“Popple, you unregistered offspring of a tram driver,” he chided, citing a popular insult amongst his race. “Have you called to congratulate me?”

“Indeed I have, sir,” Popple replied, ignoring the insult, faces smiling in mock bonhomie. “Yours is a triumph of manipulation and underhandedness, unrivalled in the annals of pettiness,” his voice dripped with all the sincerity of someone selling holiday timeshares. “Your work will resonate through the great halls of red tape for a thousand orbits.”

Aldren Kleep allowed his most supercilious smugs to occupy all three of his faces. “Yes, it was, masterful, wasn’t it?” He preened. “And I fully deserved it, because I am so much better than obnoxious vermin like you.”

Popple smiled back, his facade of cordiality unwavering at the verbal abuse.

After watching Kleep wallow in his own grandeur a while longer, Popple politely coughed into two of his hands, spoke again.

“There was one other tiny thing, sir, if I may?”

So full of hubris that he would almost consider the possibility of not short-changing a beggar, Kleep hadn’t caught the slight shift of tone in Popple’s voice.

“Oh, yes?” he replied, absentmindedly, almost forgetting to add a deprecating taunt. “And what would that be, rodent?”

“I have taken the liberty of petitioning the council for your great presence as champion for our upcoming project,” Popple said. “On the Homeworld”

Kleep’s faces dropped.

“What?” He half-whispered.

“Yes, sir,” Popple continued. “it is a gigantic undertaking, and a challenge that must not fail. I thought immediately of you and your vicious work ethic and cruel discipline.”

“WHAT?!” Kleep screamed at the screen, his purple skin turning bright green. “Withdraw it! Immediately!”

Popple could barely keep the smirks off his mouths now. “Apologies, sir, I would not have suggested it, had I known you would not be happy,” a gleam twinkled in five of his eyes. “I humbly beg your forgiveness…” He paused, savouring the moment. “But you have already been accepted.”

Kleep was screaming in rage now, throwing his arms about, knocking over furniture.

Popple continued, unfazed. “Of course, being on our own planet, there will no humans to get in the way,” he added. “Or to blame.”

“Nooooo!”

Popple flicked off the communicator with a triumphant wave of his hand. “Checkmate,” he said to himself, quoting from one of the games he had learned on Earth. My game.