Promises Kept

A Story by Johnny Z

An otherworldly take on a timeless fairy tale

Promises Kept

By John D. Ziegler

Lucille stopped to pick up her favorite toy �" a beach ball �" on her way out through the air lock. Her mother looked up from her work of repairing the hydroponics unit as she passed. “Where are you going, girl?”, her mother asked with more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“I could use some help here!”

“Oh mother! I’ll be right back!”

Lucille stopped on the other side of the airlock for a moment to take in the view. The official name of this planet was Planet XST, known to the pioneers as Ecstasy and to the youngsters such as Lucille as Excessively Sucks Toes. The planet was very similar to Earth as far as atmosphere and flora were concerned. Its fauna was primitive compared to Earth's, but the pioneers didn't mind; they were already thawing and cloning their livestock anyway and would have had to take measures to replace it anyway. There had been no signs of intelligent life found here, and as time went on the chances of any suddenly showing up became more and more remote. The lack of advanced indigenous life forms made XST a nearly ideal place to raise Earth animals such as cattle as well as children because there were very few hazards present. The reason that the pioneers called this place Ecstasy was because the planet was to them like a giant babysitter where they could allow their children to run free more or less unsupervised. There were hazards, of course, such as cliffs, rock-strewn gullies, swift rivers, and deep pools, but on the whole, XST was an idyllic place to farm and rear children.

The children were not as impressed with XST as their parents were, of course. They found Planet XST as well, boring. Yes, the scenery was spectacular, and yes, it was safe, but there was nothing to do! You could only walk around and look at the landscape so much. Also, the pioneers were spatially separated across the planet, meaning that for the most part there were great distances separating families and that there was no one to run around and play with. The closest family to Lucille that had children her age was nearly a two day trek away, and the last time she had gone to visit that family her father had become very upset because she had kind of forgotten to let her family know that she was going. So Lucille spent most of her time either helping out around the farm or exploring the area around the farm. An unexciting life! He favorite toy was this beach ball. Since Planet XST had less gravity than Earth, she could throw the ball high up in the air. She amused herself by throwing the ball, then dancing with an imaginary partner as the ball slowly came down to where she could catch it. It was not as satisfying to her as dancing with the Johnson boy and letting him fondle her buttocks, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

Her favorite place was a little fern-covered forest glen surrounding a deep, quiet pool. Lucille liked to think of it as ‘her' pool and went there often to escape from her domineering parents and to dream about the Johnson boy as she tossed her ball ever higher. She threw the ball straight up as hard as she could and watched with satisfaction as it sailed almost out of sight. She was beginning her third dance with the Johnson boy, sighing with sinful pleasure as his large, calloused farmer hands fondled her buttocks. She was so involved in this pleasurable fantasy that she completely forgot about the ball. She was shocked out of her reverie by the sound of the ball bouncing off of a nearby flat rock and watched in horror as the ball took a single huge bounce before landing in the exact geographical center of the pool. A vagrant breeze blew the ball over against the cliff on the other side of the pool. Lucille was heartbroken because the only way to reach the ball would be for her to swim over to it, and she didn't know how to swim. Besides, her father had told her many times that if he ever caught her so much as wading in that pool unsupervised, she would be an ancient old woman before she left the habitat again. She sat down beside the pool and began sobbing at her loss, at this cruel turn of luck, at how unfair the world was. She remained there, her head down in her arms, for a very long time.

•••

“What’s wrong?”

The voice sounded as if the speaker was speaking through a straw. It had a bubbly, hissing quality that made Lucille's hair stand on end. She slowly lifted her head and looked around. The owner of the voice was a creature unlike any she had ever seen before. It appeared to be humanoid, or at least it had a head, two arms, two legs, and a torso, but that is where the similarities ended. Its skin was pale, almost translucent and appeared to have a wet, glistening shine to it, but Lucille realized after a moment that the shine came from the layer of glistening slime that covered the creature's skin. Its hands and feet were webbed, and it lacked both hair and ears. When Lucille looked, it was resting its head on its webbed hands.

“Ewwwww! What are you?”, she asked the thing. “And what are you doing here?”

“I am a dringot, and I live here. This is my pool!”, the creature said. “Do you want me to retrieve your thing for you or not?”

Lucille suddenly realized the significance of this exchange. This creature was the first creature on XST to display even a modicum of intelligence!

“How did you learn our language?”, she asked.

“I listen and learn,” it replied simply.

“Are you male or female?”

“I am whatever it is necessary for me to be in any particular moment or gathering,” it replied. “Do you want me to retrieve your thing for you?”

“Oh yes, please!”

“And what do I get if I do this for you?”

The ugly little b*****d wants to trade something, Lucille thought. “How about my undying gratitude?”

The creature pondered this for a moment. “No, gratitude is not edible and will not increase my stature amongst my fellows,” it replied seriously.

“Well, what DO you want then?” Lucille asked him, thinking that there was very little that she had that would appeal to a creature such as this.

The creature looked up at her and said: "All I want is to be your special friend for a day."

Lucille tried to keep the look of disgust off of her face. “Is that all?” She asked.

"There's more. I want you to carry me home and introduce me to your parents. Then I want to sit next to you while we eat a yummy lunch. Finally, I want you to carry me into your sleeping chamber, set me on your pillow, and allow me to sleep next to you for that evening."

Well! She was a kid, but she certainly knew what THAT meant!

“Is that all?”

“Yes!”

Lucille logically analyzed her position here. One, this creature was the only thing that could retrieve her ball. She had no replacement for it, and the likelihood of finding another one was slim to none. Two, she couldn't swim, and therefore she couldn't retrieve the ball herself. Three, this ugly creature could swim and would get the ball for her provided that she did some pretty disgusting things to it. Four, she had no intention of ever touching or even talking to this vile thing again if she could help it. She came to the conclusion that the creature was the only thing that could retrieve her ball but she had no intention of fulfilling any of its demands for doing so. This meant that to get her ball back, she was going to have to pretend to go along with the nasty thing and then run like hell as soon as she got her ball back. She turned to the creature and smiled her most charming, manipulative smile. "Why, I would be happy and proud to fulfill every single one of your wishes if you will only retrieve my ball!", She said sweetly. The creature disappeared under the water with a loud splash and a moment later was pushing her ball back toward shore. When it was a few feet from her, the creature put its head under the ball and propelled it in the air so that it bounced right at Lucille's feet before heading for shore itself. By the time it got there, however, it was treated to the sight of Lucille grabbing her ball and running away, back toward her habitat.

“Wait!”, it yelled. “You promised!”

Lucille yelled back, “You have got to be kidding me! There is no way I am going to invite a vile creature like you to lunch, let alone let you sleep in my bed! Are you crazy!” Then she turned and continued running back to her habitat. The creature stared after her for a moment then slowly started making its way in the same direction.

•••

Lucille was slightly out of breath when she reached the habitat. Her father, the colony’s resident botanist, was seated outside the airlock classifying samples. “What are you running from, dear?”, he asked her.

“Oh, Daddy! There’s an evil smell coming from that pretty little forest pond down the road. It also seemed like it had a greenish tinge, kinda like those algal blooms I was reading about in my Biology lessons.”

"Hmm, that could be serious, especially since we were planning to use that pond for fish farming," her father said. "We might need to nuke that pond now to get rid of the smell and get it ready for catfish." He was, of course, referring to using a chemical poison to eradicate all life currently in the pond and not using a thermonuclear device, which would, of course, make fish farming impractical for the next several generations.

Lucille smiled. Perfect! This would solve her problem with the obnoxious little frog-thing, or whatever it was. "Give me the stuff after lunch, Daddy," she said, "And I will do it for you this afternoon!"

“I thought that you were supposed to help your mother repair the feed pump on the hydroponics unit,” he said.

Lucille laughed and said “Momma was almost done when I left this morning. Besides, I like fish much better than spinach!”

Her father laughed and set his samples aside. “C’mon, let’s go eat lunch. We can dig out the chemicals later.” Lucille laughed and dutifully followed her father into the air lock.

•••

Lunch was the main meal of the day at the habitat where Lucille and her family lived. At first, their meals had consisted of the freeze-dried and canned stuff that they had brought with them. It was edible and allegedly nutritious, but the most operative word describing the canned food was bland. They had prioritized getting their hydroponic gardens operational and soon were able to add fresh produce to the fare. The livestock had arrived as frozen embryos that were thawed and developed in the laboratory; they formed the brood stock for a new generation of chickens, goats, swine, and cattle that were now beginning to fill fields and pens across Planet XST. Meals now were veritable feasts when compared to the canned slop they had started with.

As usual, lunch was a feast, a smorgasbord that showcased the bounty of XST. This was also a time when the members of Lucille’s family caught up with each other; conversations covered everything from livestock breeding to which colonists were breeding; no topic was sacrosanct. Lucille was asked to explain the ‘algal bloom' that she had discovered, and her father discussed how they were going to deal with it. Suddenly there was a loud bang outside the air lock. At first, no one took much note of it �" the equipment was noisy and occasionally made some noise. This noise, however, persisted to the point that it started to become distracting. Finally, Lucille's father went to see what was making the racket. He came back after a couple of moments, a perplexed look on his face. "There's someone to see you out at the air lock.", He said to Lucille. This brought the lunch time conversations to a sudden halt. Visitors were rare here, and they NEVER came unannounced. At first, Lucille was embarrassed by the attention, but then she realized that the only possible visitor that would come to see her would be the Johnson boy. Her heart beat a little more quickly as she practically ran to the air lock. She opened the door and stopped in shock. The thing from the pond was there! He looked a little worse for wear, probably because he had been out of the water longer than he should have been.

“I came to collect on your promise to me.”, he said.

Lucille glared back at him. “I have no idea what you are talking about! You must be mistaken.”

Lucille's father, who had followed her back to the air lock, asked: "What is this about?" Before Lucille could answer, the creature explained how he had seen Lucille lose her ball in its pond and that he had offered to recover it for her if she would take him to lunch, introduce him to her family, and carry him to her bed. Lucille's father turned to her and asked if what this creature said was true. The look on her face told her father all he needed to know.

“You gave your word to this creature. He did as you asked and now you must honor your word.”

Lucille looked at her father in horror. “You have got to be kidding!”

By now the rest of the family had filled into the hallway behind the doorway. Lucille’s mother looked at her with undisguised disgust. Suddenly she reached out and slapped Lucille sharply across the face.

“Why did you hit me?” She demanded.

“Because you are a lying, manipulating little b***h!”, her mother screamed at her. “You are going to keep your word to this poor creature or your a*s is going to be out of this habitat before lunch is over!”

Lucille stared at her father and mother in shock. "You can't mean that!", She screamed back at her mother, although something told her that her mother was serious about throwing her out. She looked at the rest of the family for support, but to a person, they turned their backs on her. They were choosing this, this ... thing over her! She looked back at the creature. It was such an ugly, repulsive thing, something that certainly had no right to demand that she honor her word to it. Realizing that her only alternative was expulsion from the habitat, Lucille bent down close to the creature and asked it if it would like to eat lunch with her and her family. When the beast eagerly nodded yes she scooped him up and carried him back to the galley. It was placed in a seat next to her and lunch continued.

The creature had a huge appetite, and it seemed like it was going to eat forever. Also, the rest of the family went out of their way to be hospitable to the vile thing. Her little brother even went so far as to fetch the monster a bucket of water so that it could douse itself and keep its skin moist. Finally, the family began to wander off to attend to their afternoon tasks, leaving just Lucille, her mother and father, and the creature.

“Well, you must be exhausted!” Lucille said gaily to the creature. Please let me escort you to the air lock so that you may return home to rest.”

The creature looked up at Lucille and said: "Part of your promise was that I would sleep here tonight and share your bed." Lucille gasped. She had forgotten that.

Lucille’s parents exchanged a glance. “Did you promise that too?”, her mother demanded.

“Well,...”

She received with another stinging slap. "You WILL keep your word! ALL of it!"

The creature looked up at Lucille with something like pity. “I am sorry for all the pain you are suffering!”, it said. “But you gave your word, and I gave mine. I held up my part of the bargain, and I expect you to do the same.”

Lucille nodded dumbly and bent over to pick the foul creature up. She would get through this, she figured. She could always burn the sheets and blanket afterward. She picked the thing up and headed toward her quarters.

•••

The census takers were amazed at the farm. It was hard to believe that it had been ten years since this family had migrated from Earth. There were fields filled with everything from tomato plants to cattle, and all seemed to be doing extremely well. There was sadness too, for there were three graves in a woody plot near the house. Lucille's mother had had a stroke shortly after the creature had visited, and although she had hung on for over a year, had finally succumbed. Her father had keeled over in the fields last year. They had been trying to get him to turn over the heavy work to his grandsons, but he had steadfastly refused.

The third grave belonged to the unlovely creature that had visited that day so many years ago. The morning after his sleepover with Lucille, she had come out of her bedroom and announced somewhat proudly that the creature had decided to be a male and that he was going to stay with her permanently. She had literally worn him out, although to her credit she did produce him nine half-human, half-whatever sons who now virtually ran the farm and were mostly responsible for its success. They at least appeared mostly human, except for a glistening layer of slime that helped keep their skins moist. The creature tried to explain to Lucille that his kind was only supposed to breed once every generation and that it took way too much energy to do more. As usual, though, Lucille didn't listen because she was getting what she wanted out of the deal. After the creature finally died of overwork, Lucille spent her mornings wandering near the forest pond, hoping to discover if the creature had any relatives living there.