Weekend Flash Fiction Fun: Xavier Xanthum and the Unsettling Settlers

Ha! it took me until well into Saturday, but I have for you an all-new story, the 20th installment in the adventures of Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer.      

 

Xavier Xanthum and the Unsettling Settlers

 

“I don’t think this was a good idea.” Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer, found the words uttered by his ship’s AI to be both true and pointless.

 

The spears aimed at him from all sides were, alas, all too pointed. Xavier attempted a tried and true approach. “I come in peace.”

 

“And you’ll go in pieces.” The response came so quickly that Xavier knew it hadn’t gone through the translator box.

 

“What the hell? You speak Galactic Common? Here?” Oops. Not tactful.

 

Larry, the AI, gave him a local history lesson. “New Home was settled about ten generations back by a group opposed to all tech. They spent the first two or three hundred standard years eliminating any tech that came with them, even most machinery.”

 

“And the last couple of hundred years?” Xavier asked his AI in a voice he hoped was quiet enough not to be heard by his captors. Judging by the spears and loincloths, they had succeeded all too well.

 

“For the last 180 standard years half the New Homians have been trying to reinvent it all, and the other half have been running away from it, and them.”

 

Xavier was pretty sure which half he’d found when he’d landed on what had registered as an uninhabited continent. The Library had said there were no sentient beings on this planet, which the Library had called two ought seven four six six Galia. He’d expected to make a record of the flora and fauna and move on.

 

“They erased their own existence,” Larry supplied. “No records.”

 

“So how did you—never mind.” Larry had his ways. No erasure of anything was ever complete. “How do I talk them down?”

 

His captors were remarkably patient. They stood at guard and gave no sign they heard him talking. He was being quiet, and the AI spoke through an implant in Xavier’s left ear.

 

“I don’t think you can.”

 

That wasn’t good news, but Xavier Xanthum hadn’t survived two decades of utterly unprofitable space exploration by giving up. “I need a distraction.” It was only twenty feet to the hatch of the Wanderlust, and once there he could slam the door in their faces. But those pointy things they were holding looked like something they could throw.

 

“Perhaps if they see you are not alone?” Larry suggested.

 

“But...” He shrugged. Larry was good company, sure, when he wasn’t a total pain in the arse. But Larry was Wanderlust’s AI. He didn’t have a body. Of course, there was that thing he did…

 

A pair of glowing eyeballs materialized next to Xavier. They grew larger and brighter until they were impossible not to notice.

 

Xavier’s captors stepped back a few inches. Now was the time to try a little psychological warfare.

 

“As you see, I’m not alone, and my companion isn’t subject to perforation.”

 

“You are.” The spokesman still wore his sneer, and still spoke in plain though coarse Galactic Common. As Larry began to move off to the right, he gave orders for half his men to follow the eyeballs, while the other half kept those sharp pointy bits aimed at Xavier. When speaking to his own people, the leader’s Common was full of words Xavier couldn’t understand. Five hundred years was a long time in the life of a language.

 

This guy could switch between the two versions of the language. That was interesting. He shouldn’t be able to do that, if he’d been as isolated as Larry claimed they all were.

 

“Who are you?” Xavier blurted the question before he could think.

 

“You can call me Theo. The hand of God, in your case.”

 

The bastard was playing with him. Well, once Larry was in position, he would… do something. Larry must have a plan. “Well, Theo, am I to assume that you might have another name as well? One that I might find on the Galactic Most Wanted lists?”

 

Theo actually laughed. “Oh, no, nothing of the sort. I, ah, had a bad landing in the area a few years ago. Now I’m their leader.”

 

He was also speaking in rapid Common, using the accent of the Sol system, and it was a safe bet his followers couldn’t understand him. It was also clear what he wanted, and Xavier wasn’t giving up the Wanderlust.

 

“You’ve nothing against me, and I’ve nothing against you. Call off your men and I’ll go away, and forget I ever saw you,” Xavier offered.

 

“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all. You see, they need a sacrifice to the rain gods.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“Oh, yes. You’d be surprised how quickly people revert to animistic beliefs once they have no access to scientific explanations of things. You’re elected for the star role in the rain ritual.”

 

Meaning he’d elected Xavier, so he could have the ship.

 

Theo continued. “Anyway, you and your machine are anathema. Sacrilege.”

 

Sweat was running down Xavier’s back, though he’d felt a little chilly when he first stepped outside.

 

“Larry?”

 

“Just about ready, Boss. Keep him talking.”

 

Xavier followed orders. They were discussing the recent drought when a voice boomed all around the clearing, coming from Larry’s eyeballs and from the ship… from all the air. And it was speaking, not in textbook Common, but in the same dialect Theo had used to his minions. He turned, startled, and both his spear and the others pointed at Xavier turned with him.

 

Not stopping to determine what Larry was saying, Xavier bolted for the hatch. It slammed behind him, and he shouted, “Take us up, Larry!”

 

The Wanderlust began to rise, and Xavier peered out through a viewport. It was Theo now who stood at the center of a circle of spears.

 

“What did you tell them?” Xavier asked, moving to his pilot’s seat.

 

“That Theo was selling out. About to go away in the evil machine. They may have decided he will be an acceptable sacrifice to the rain gods.”

 

“Oh, dear. Should we rescue him?”

 

“I don’t think so.”

 

On the screen in front of Xavier flashed an image of Theo’s face on a Wanted poster. The list of crimes was long, horrific, and deserving of worse than he was getting down there. Xavier strapped in.

 

“Next planet, Larry.”

 ###

 

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 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026 

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