CHAPTER 42

MOTIVE: FOOD

Next the Vuralans. So you guys ate a bunch of Earthlings right?

VURALAN: Rrrr

WAR HAWK: Did they taste good?

VURALAN: Rrrr

WAR HAWK: Pleasure speaking with you.

Yes, the Vuralans landed on Earth solely to eat humans. I have no problem believing this.

The Vuralans landed near an isolated vacation camp near a lake.

Once there, they proceeded to do nothing but chase humans around, and finally eat them. As mentioned before, they did all this naked.

This went on until they were shot and killed.

I believe the Vuralans wanted nothing more than a meal because this was one of the dumbest operations in Earth’s history. It only makes sense that it has as its motive something equally stupid.

Yes, the Vuralans are that dumb. I’m still shocked they can fly a spacecraft. But the rest of you are not. And using humans as a food source is suicidal idiocy.

Let’s talk about proteins. They come in a wide variety of strains. The proteins from one planet are highly unlikely to be compatible with proteins that developed on a completely different planet. And when a digestive system tries to break down non-compatible proteins, the results aren’t pleasant. Your digestive system is a complex chemical factory. Throwing stuff in that it isn’t designed to deal with throws it completely out of whack. Want to know what will happen?

Your body doesn’t digest the human proteins. Meaning chewed up human passes through your digestive tract in a large mass. At this point, several things can happen, and they’re all bad. Just because your body isn’t digesting the human meat doesn’t mean it isn’t going to react to it. Your body will probably decide this stuff is poisonous and try to flush it out of your system as quickly as possible. Whether you want it to or not. And there might be something in undigested Earthling that really is poisonous to your system. If that happened, you can experience tissue and organ failure all up and down your digestive tract. Finally, there are probably some terran microbes that tagged along for the ride through your stomach. They can digest human carcass, and you’ve introduced them to a nice warm environment and given them plenty to eat. This means they will multiply and push out the bacteria that’s already in your intestinal tract; bacteria that you need in order for your guts to function properly.

It’s safer to eat your gun, which at least is mostly made of nonreactive metals that just pass through the body. Allegedly. I once heard of a guy who ate his gun. He died. He ate the poison tipped ammo.

Ironically, this is the same thing that keeps most of you safe from Earth’s diseases. The protein difference means all the nasty germs and flu bugs down there won’t infect your system. But there’s a huge difference between shrugging off a few microbes and jamming several kilograms into your intestines or whatever turns your lunch into your poo.

Let me put it like this:

Humans…

…plus lunch…

…equals death on the toilet.

What happens if your proteins are compatible? Then you are in even bigger trouble. Just ask the Gorgonians and the Sondrak. Their entire invasion force was wiped out when a few humans sneezed on them. Now imagine how much worse it would have been if they had ingested human flesh.

I’m a bio-enhanced fighter. That makes me immune to any disease, from Earth or otherwise. If I didn’t have these protections I probably wouldn’t have returned from my Earth reconnaissance alive.

In the end, the humans did the Vuralans a favor by shooting them all before they died of dysentery. So I don’t believe the rest of you came down to Earth in search of food. Even if you do have a secret desire to crap out your own insides, there are cheaper ways to get that done. There are a couple of takeout joints that come to mind.