The Last Starfighter by Alan Dean Foster Page B

the insignia on the front. His manner changed abruptly.
    “Pardon me, Starfighter . I am Navigator/Systems Operator Grig. At your service, sir.”
    He performed an awkward salute which Alex found interesting to observe but impossible to duplicate. So he took the thick hand and shook it instead. Grig inspected his freed limb thoughtfully.
    “Curious custom.”
    “We like it.”
    “Individualistic yet intimate, this personal physical contact. Never cared much for it myself, but everyone is entitled to his own mode of greeting, isn’t he?”
    “If you say so, Grig.” Alex nodded toward the line of silent gunstars. “You fly those?”
    “Me, fly? You mean as an attack pilot? Dear me, no. I am a Navigator and Systems Operator. I run the ship during combat, thus freeing the piloting Starfighters to do what they do best: fight.”
    “Your job sounds tougher than the other.”
    “Not in the least. I have only mechanical problems to deal with, instead of mental ones. You are named?”
    “Sorry. I’m Alex Rogan.”
    “Two names?”
    “That’s our custom.”
    “Naming does vary from system to system, culture to culture. I find the use of more than one name unnecessarily duplicitous, though there are those species who make use of a dozen names or more.”
    “Hate to have to sign my name like that.” Alex studied his new acquaintance. Grig was more than polite; he was downright deferential. He also struck Alex as straightforward, honest and devoid of guile. Maybe this was his chance to get a straight answer or two to some questions.
    “Listen, Grig, maybe you can help me out. See, I was playing this game back home, a videogame, and this guy comes along, only he’s no guy. He’s an alien, a non-human. I get into his car, only it’s no car, it’s a spaceship, and there’s been a biggggg mistake somewhere along the line.”
    Grig stared back at him. “My friend, you sound very confused.”
    “That’s the understatement of the century, Navigator.”
    “You said there’d been a mistake. What kind of mistake?”
    “I don’t belong here. I thought I’d won some kind of big prize or something for reaching a score of a million on the game. I thought maybe we were going to go to the downtown motel to discuss it. Then I thought maybe I’d have to go into L.A. or something to accept it. So I end up going a lot farther, and there’s no prize.” He indicated the pile of clothing. “I can’t put these on. You called me a Starfighter. I’m no Starfighter, just a kid.”
    “Starfighter ability is not a function of age, Alex Rogan.”
    “Just Alex.”
    “Alex, then. It is a matter of a special combination of unusual talents courage, flexibility under stress, the ability to make rapid decisions while under great pressure, reflexology, mental acuity, determination and more. I am not qualified to enumerate all of them, much less to explain. But you were brought here to be a Starfighter, it would seem, and you have been issued the uniform.”
    Alex shook his head violently. “Uh-uh. Not a chance. I’m not putting this on. I don’t belong here. I told you, it’s all been a big mistake.”
    Now Grig appeared uncertain. “Am I to understand that you are actually declining the honor of becoming a Starfighter?”
    “You got it.” Alex said it with a relieved sigh, pleased to at last have made his point to someone . “Besides, how can you call it an honor when the ambassador from the League refers to it as belonging to ‘primitives’?”
    “Because a talent is rare does not make it less valuable, Alex. We have artists who utilize primitive techniques. That does not make their art less valid. There are concertiflows who design musical superstructures based on motifs thousands of years old. Their flows are no less effective for that.”
    “Well, mine is,” Alex insisted stubbornly. “I don’t belong here.”
    “Extraordinary. Unheard of. Not for your presence to be a mistake, but for you to decline the honor of