One million years before the current date, a young woman wandered the hall of an alien mothership. She wore the thin white-gold suit of an astronaut, and her round helmet had a gold reflection. She made careful steps beneath bands of blue light to wall that looked like an aquarium. On the other side was an alien.

The woman recognized that it had a chest like a human, but it had four arms, a horse-like face, and no hair at all. Where its waist would be, there were many tubes and wires. Its arms were crossed over its chest and its long head was pressed against the breast, like it was a mummy interred in a bright tomb.

“Hello?” the woman asked and raised her gold-colored visor. She was young, with short black hair and bright brown eyes.

The creature behind the glass turned its head and opened many eyes. They appeared from thick lines across its head and body, eyes of all colors, shapes, and sizes. A smile was drawn up the alien’s pale-blue head, revealed long serrated teeth.

“Hello,” it replied in English, through the intercom above the astronaut. It spoke with the voice of a human woman.

“A-Are you one of them?” the woman asked. “You don’t look like the invaders.”

“That’s an interesting question,” the alien replied and leaned forward on its crane. It pressed its six three-fingered hands on the glass and flexed its long, elfin ears. “I am not an invader.”

The woman felt a sensation of relief. She knew the alien was telling the truth. “How are you speaking like that?” she asked.

“Is that really what you want to be asking me?” the alien continued. “Earth has been destroyed and your population dwindles. You and your allies have embarked on this ship to capture it, correct? You wish to escape Earth aboard my vessel.”

The woman’s eyes rounded. She felt compelled to nod.

“You possess something interesting, human,” the alien said. “I’ll make a trade with you. Stay aboard this ship and I will grant you one thing you desire.”

“You’ll… grant me a wish?” the woman asked.

“How about I put it this way,” the alien said. “Give me a quest, human. If it takes me ten-thousand years, or ten-hundred thousand, I will complete it.”

“A quest?”

“Do you not understand the meaning of the word?”

“No, I—”

“Speak up.”

“P—!”

The alien’s long lips curved in a grin. “I’m waiting, human.”

“Please, save us!” the woman shouted. “Save the human race!”

Laughter flooded the intercom. The alien’s lower arms writhed and shriveled, sunk into the alien’s chest. Its head became bulbous, its eyes shrunk and disappeared, its ears retracted. The bulbus shape of the head, like tumors shifting below the skin, became small and recognizable. When the tumors disappeared, the astronaut saw the alien had changed its shape from that of an inhuman monster to a distinctly beautiful human man, or woman.

“Very well,” the alien said with a clever smile and returned to the wall of the aquarium. It crossed its arms over its chest and placed its head in a metal brace. It closed in a visor around the alien’s eyes.

“Quest accepted.”