Diary of a Naplian I had a strict upbringing, which is maybe why I am the way I am. Back then it was all, ‘pray to the spirits, worship the rising sun and be thankful for the nourishing rains’. Well that’s all utter crap. I remember asking some security guard on the gates of the alien base why they didn’t bother sanctifying the ground before removing all the trees. He had no idea what I was banging on about. I tried to explain by drawing pictures in the dust but he laughed. Seems the only word of our language he knew was ‘doonum’, the name for the night plant that grows in dung. He gave me a media player. At the time it was the most incredible object in the universe though in hindsight it was a cheap disposable thing that he undoubtedly used for watching other people perform improbable intimate activities, at least that was mostly what I found in it. It also had educational options and from this I learned about stars, their energy and how biospheres form. Everything I understood was a lie. Why did we pray to the sun, it had been burning for millions of years before we existed and would no doubt continue after we were no more? The land didn’t care what we did to it. The aliens were clearly not bothered and they were able to travel between worlds on their technological ships. Chanting over sick people was revealed to be a joke. My parents were ignorant and the village shaman a liar, bent on keeping us all grovelling in the dirt.

I showed my media player to my friends but one informed the elders and they took it from me. They actually destroyed it. I was so angry I struck the shaman and was expelled for a year.

Returning to the alien base I found the guard again. He wasn’t bad; he gave me food and a few other things in return for copying some of the intimate acts he showed me on another media player. I don’t think our anatomy aligned properly though he seemed pleased.

Soon I was peddling out media players, substances and other stuff to my old friends and getting quite a stash of shiny stones that the aliens seemed to prize so highly.

As more people came to me I needed help to deal with all the stuff. By this time I rarely did the intimate acts except to amuse some of the more influential aliens. Generally speaking I was able to get other doonums to do this though I would deal with the payment.

Now three years after the aliens arrived I have more than eighty people working for me, including a few humans and a couple of kastorian mercenaries. Vice, a term that never existed in our language before the aliens showed up. I control most of it around the northern section of the base and regularly deal with imports. I have runners taking the goods to the far villages, smuggling the merchandise in for payment. I have even been elected to the government, legalising our currency.

My father came by the other day with my childhood match. Apparently I should have come back to the village more than a year ago to renew the pledge. I had totally forgotten. Dressed there in their stitched hides staring at the holo-visions while trying not to look over at the dancers I pitied them. I told them that the only thing I wanted from them and their culture was their money. They didn’t even know what I meant - sad doonums. I sent them packing though slipped Dushta a comms and told her what to do when it makes a noise. Given a make-over she could earn me some solid cash. I laugh at my own past ignorance. Where once I thought the shining spires of the alien starbase was magic and their ships the boats of the dead lifting them to commune with the spirits in person I now know that this base is little more than a frontier port and the ships are little more than freighters common throughout the universe. It’s odd, the universe feels bigger and smaller at the same time. Where once I wouldn’t have dreamt of going beyond the river, I now jump on a shuttle to the other side of the world and don’t give it a second thought yet I know that there are countless other worlds out there. One day I intend to buy my own ship and start exporting directly.