Savages

• George Margvelashvili, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2009

Xenich watched the creatures scream and swing their strangely shaped appendages at each other, trying to work out why they weren’t already at each other’s throats. He had still not entirely accepted the fact that these were the current leaders, and future representatives of their planet. His head hurt, the unpleasant sensation aggravated by the bad quality of the recording, so he snapped his fingers and the screen disappeared. He made a mental note to lecture Bou about not using local technology, even if it was formatted to fit a holograph. By pressing a few buttons in one of the four armrests of his chair and unlocked the ship’s manual controls. “Never trust an autopilot” his father had said, and this principle had not yet let Xenich down. He was laughed at for his mistrust of modern technology but there were too many legends about faulty machines for all of them to be lies. So he guided his chair to the bridge, let it settle into the prepared groove and began directing the ship towards the majestic blue sphere suspended in the cosmos before him. As he flew he thought about the planet’s complicated ethical system. For instance the residents of nearly every continent claimed killing was wrong, and would be punished if not in this life then in the next. But at every minor dispute the people would gladly slaughter each other, usually in the name of the god that would punish them for it later but if that wasn’t ironical enough then in the name of peace. Then when there was no war, they would occupy themselves by worrying about the future of their planet. These people were terrified of all possible threats from overpopulation to global warming, but nothing scared them more than having to put up with a less comfortable lifestyle so their protests (another way to make life more interesting) were weak and thus quickly silenced by the generally greedy government. Xenich wondered if they actually realized that soon they won’t have a planet to live on let alone be overpopulated or polluted. Anyhow they were ridiculous and hypocritical but still, in some strange complicated, possibly even twisted, way they were entertaining and that disturbed him the most. The fact was that they were entertaining for all the wrong reasons, entertaining like a pet that growls at the mirror, or trembles at the sound of thunder. Xenich felt a sudden surge of pride for thinking of such accurate and clever metaphors and nearly immediately felt ashamed. The culture of these creatures was contagious. Suddenly he felt angry. How could these savages, these…these vain little beings that are sawing the branch they’re sitting on, be accepted into the GUIB (Galactic Union of Intelligent Beings), and why does he have to do it? Did they deserve a privilege that other, more sophisticated races didn’t get (Even if the Snaels didn’t have a writing system (or language for that matter) and the Gerkheens actually showed any signs of life once every three years)?
“Not if I can help it” Xenich said and began to turn the ship around…