The guard stared straight ahead. His name would be divulged except he happened to be an extraterrestrial in service with an exploratory extraterrestrial space vehicle, meaning the syllables could threaten to twist beyond recognition whichever tongue should attempt pronunciation, and not a few would contract a sore throat. So this tale will have to call him The Extraterrestrial Guard.

Anyway, this Extraterrestrial Guard would say he had plenty of experiential practice in watching over abductees who’d been transferred to the exploration room and affixed to the examination table. But this time, the superiors had succumbed to the power of excitement and overlooked the gagging option, which allowed this particular specimen (who happened to possess the male attributes) to go on and on about where he was and what about his wife and daughter.

All extraterrestrial guards were strictly forbidden from conversational intercourse with an abductee/specimen unless expressly permitted. Yet this Extraterrestrial Guard could not endure the train of questions without trying to ease the specimen’s apprehensions.

“You are inside what you and your fellow planetary inhabitants would call an alien ship. Extraterrestrial is your fancier term. You will be fine. Your daughter, your wife, they are… of course you will all undergo… as all alien abductees must undergo… try to not fret much. It actually ends up a really--”

“Undergo? Undergo? What must we undergo?”

The extraterrestrial guard tightened his lip and sought to restore his original stoic bearing. But the earthling specimen did not cease his passionate questions.

“Orifice probes,” the extraterrestrial guard hissed at last betwixt clenched teeth. “I do not agree with all of it but I am only a lowly guard. Regulations strictly prohibit me from discoursing with you. But no specimen is ever harmed. Not irreparably.”

As though never hearing of a regulation that prohibited guards from speaking to specimens, this Extraterrestrial Guard added, “I swear, of all the planets I have traveled and of all the inhabitants I have encountered, you of the earth, you earthlings, really are the most… the most… no other sentient beings complicate things more than you earthlings.”

“Orifice probes? What… what do you mean…?”

For the millionth time over four or five light-years, this extraterrestrial guard wished that to save the trouble of a long explanation, he could produce a recording from that fateful meeting when the commanders laid down the truest purposeful meaning of why all extraterrestrials exist, as well as the motive that drove constant exploration.

The teaching moment erupted when the same extraterrestrial now guarding the earthling specimen who insisted on asking pesky questions, had himself asked a pesky question about why it was so important for them to travel the universe for the sake of probing orifices.

The Extraterrestrial Commander was not pleased to again explain but any ear could hear the pride rooted in his heart for the legacy of orifice-probing extraterrestrials.

“It is tradition. Probing the orifices of abductee… Specimens, whatever term we will use. What point would there be in abducting inhabitants – taking up a specimen from a planet – unless we could make them immobile on examination tables and then conduct orifice probes? How could our planet sustain her citizens’ welfare if not for all the job opportunities in the manufacture of all the different tools and gadgets we now have available for whatever the orifice probe requires? Or would you prefer to put lubricant designers out of business?”

Making one last attempt at a facsimile of understanding, the guard (who had in those days held the rank of Intimate Operations Observer) asked, “Very well, I understand the tradition an,d in some ways, I do revere it as much as any fellow extraterrestrial. But must they endure those feelings of not knowing what will happen? And must they always be tied up with their legs spread? Oh, and I do not wish to put lubricant designers out of business.”

“Hmph. Yes, as you say, or as your nearly nonexistent lips appear to say. What gives me greater cause for concern is that you say you revere our extraterrestrial tradition of probing orifices, yet your eyes betray an obvious lack of interest in the probing of orifices. I am given a sudden cause to wonder whether you are the pure extraterrestrial your pedigree papers promise you are.”

“It isn’t that I have anything against the probing of an orifice. But wouldn’t it be better to soften their resistance or assure them all will be fine and that they will end up in what their fellow inhabitants would call an orgy during which erotic pleasures will go on and on like sailing on earthly seas?”

The commanding extraterrestrial looked at the younger and greener extraterrestrial as though spewing a mouthful of coffee so watery-weak, none but a sissy extraterrestrial would tolerate it.

“You listen to me and you listen good. No concept can be more abhorrent to our race of intergalactic adventurers than to not abduct an inhabitant from a planet and tie them up for extensive probing of their orifices. The fellow extra-terrestrial daring to suggest otherwise treads in deep waters. At the least, we creep close to the danger zone of ancestor insult. We must now conclude this meeting before I really lose my temper and order your immediate demotion to guard duty.”

And so the purpose of all alien adventures was revealed for the sake of universal posterity: the probing of orifices. Earthling orifices had proven to be the most desirable in all the universe for extraterrestrial probing pleasures.

Alas, the extraterrestrial commander still lost his temper and still issued a demotion order. And now this extraterrestrial guard risked further disciplinary actions if he should be caught speaking to an abducted specimen.

The Extraterrestrial Guard was about to speak with as much economy as he believed he might get away with when the commander and his crew burst through the door and behind them they were wheeling what the earthling specimen knew as his wife and his lately-turned daughter of eighteen earth years.

As though able to smell disobedience, the commander approached the Extraterrestrial Guard, and said, “Have you been speaking to the specimen?”

Should it be continued?