Bugs from Space
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
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A special dedication to David A. Carter's pop- up book: "Bugs In Space", which I recently read to a small person of my acquaintance.
And thanks to "Private Tamama"- I sort of borrowed the idea of Webby getting lost and Mr. McDuck thinking she's been kidnapped from her story "Kidnapped".
And I admit to being somewhat inspired by the Ducktales episode "Microducks from Space".
By the way, does anybody have a bunch of old Disney Adventure's digest with Ducktales (and Launchpad) in them to sell, cheap? With the cost of mailing them to me, it probably be would have to be a bunch to be worth my while. If so, please e-mail me at (Yes, I've checked ebay and amazon! I'm not interested in perfect, expensive copies! I'm not putting them in mylon bags for 50 years! I intend to READ them!)
I know I should of bought them in specialty shops when I had the chance! I was mad was suffering from the delusion that Disney would come to it's senses sooner or later and stop mistaking making Launchpad look dumb for something that was doing them an earthly bit of good!
I can't believe I'm the only one who TRIED to talk sense into Disney about this. I suspect Pixel did See "Cars". (Lightning McQueen) The King is Mickey, green car who "wins" race is Donald. Also Toy Story (Buzz Lightyear), Monsters Inc.(Sully- who acts the most Launchpad like.)!
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An alien spacecraft was spotted by the Daily Planetarium traveling "not far" (in astronautical terms)from Earth. DASA wanted to check it out and find out what they aliens wanted. All the astronauts they've hired since "The Right Duck" were either too belligerent- too likely to start a fight- or too cautious. They might make Earthlings look like doormats if the aliens were bullies.
So they asked Launchpad because he is friendly, cooperative but definitely not a doormat. They also wanted a local hero for publicity reasons, and Launchpad has dealt with aliens before. Besides, the "number crunchers" have been giving them a hard time about training Launchpad and then only using his services once.
Also, he is married to a photographer, namely ME and they talked me into going too. "Are you sure you want to come? I don't mean to suggest you're scared..." Launchpad began.
"I'm petrified! But I'd be just as worried about YOU if I stayed home than I am scared of going- so I might as well come. What makes you think I WANT to live without you, anyway?" I asked. "Too bad it's impossible to kiss you while wearing a space helmet." Launchpad said. "It'll be ok, baby." Launchpad added. He calls me "baby" a lot. (Hey, maybe THAT'S why some people seem to think my first name is either "Beth" or "Bella!")
So Launchpad and I blasted off in a spaceship DASA designed.. Feeling an awful lot like Lt. Uhura, when Launchpad asked me to send friendly greetings to them, I couldn't resist saying "Hailing frecencies open, Cap't." Being as a big a Trekie as I am, Launchpad laughed."Greeting from Earth! We come in peace! Please respond!" I said to the aliens.They answered back in somewhat overly perfect English.
"Greetings! We come to trade! We have been receiving Earth's radio- and later TV- signals for years, so we have learned English! We understand you use a lot of oil and need even more. Well, we have LOTS of the stuff and not much use of it. We like the dark, don't mind the cold too much- water, wind and solar power meet our needs. But there are spiders on our planet that have started eating us lately. Did we mention we are insects? Well- we are.
The spiders only used to eat our non-intelligent cousins- but are eating us too, lately. We're not sure how smart they are. We understand you have a lot of pollution on your planet and want to be rid of it. We will filter it out and replace it with oxygen. You let us have the pollution, we use it to kill- or least scare off- the spiders. We will pay you with oil for your pollution!" They said.
I turned off the 'mike' a minute, and made sure I had done so. then I said to Launchpad: "Sounds a little too good to be true, don't you think?" "Maybe- but these are aliens- alien bugs too! Who knows how they think? They COULD be telling the Truth. How do you KNOW if you can trust somebody or not?" Launchpad asked. "Trust them and see what happens. I'm sorry, Launchpad- but that's the only way to find out for sure and for certain whether or not you can trust somebody- trust them and see what they do." I said.
So I told the aliens that we did not have the authority to grant their request, but we would convey it to our leaders and let the aliens know their decision.
Soon we received orders from DASA: "Tell they to come on down. They can see Earth from where they are, they can pick up our TV signals. What's the point of saying "No"? If they're hostile, they'll use it as an excuse to attack. If they're not hostile, why get them mad at us for saying "No?" So we told them to follow us down, and they did- but they were attacked and frightened off by any angry mob.
For when news of this leaked out on Earth, panic of the first order ensued. All sorts of wild rumors about aliens taking over our planet, stealing our air, enslaving us, etc., spread like wildfire.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Beakly and her granddaughter Webby were on a shopping trip. They were nearly trampled by panicked people and Webby got separated from her grand-ma and got lost in the crowd. Webby was looking for a policeman so she could tell him that her grandmother had gotten lost when she spotted the alien craft landing on Earth. Curious, Webby went over to the aliens to talk to them.
She was the first "person" to talk to them. Being unfamiliar with "humans" they did not realize she was a child. Adults in the Disney Universe are shorter than here, they thought she was a short adult. Especially since she TALKED with them instead of screaming and panicking and carrying on.
They thought she might do as an ambassador. They took her to their ship to speak with her about the possibility.
MEANWHILE, Mr. McDuck finds out from a panic-stricken Mrs. Beakly that her granddaughter is missing. He calls for a search, but the cops have their hands full with trying to calm everybody down. So Launchpad in his copter and Gizmoduck in his helmet-copter buzz the city, searching for Webby.
Launchpad comes back to report that Webby was seen talking to the Aliens who took her away- but he doesn't know where they took her. "Great! Aliens took my darlin' Webby! You don't know where she is! Do you have any GOOD news?" Mr. McDuck asked. "I just saved a bunch of money on my plane insurance by switching to Gecko?" Launchpad joked, feebly. "WHAT?" Mr. McDuck roared.
"I'm sorry. I know this is no time for dumb jokes. I just feel so blamed HELPLESS! Webby calls ME "Unca Launchpad" sometimes(1), did you know that? So you're not the only uncle-by-proxy around here!" Launchpad said.
"I feel helpless too! The police can't help right now, half of Duckberg is panicking on the streets, the other half has barricading itself in at home! Gizmoduck just radioed in- so many people think they've seen aliens he keeps getting sent on wild-goose chases- or rescuing people hurt in the panic! He's seen no sign of Webby anyplace!" Mr. McDuck said.
"Unca Scrooge? I gotta idea. You know that new movie about invaders from space that is about to open? One of the movie studios you own made it, right? What if you fib and say this all started when a publicity stunt for that movie got out of hand?" Huey suggested.
"That's a very good idea, Huey! People would calm down long enough to find Webby. We might be able to reason with these aliens. How did you think of that?' Mr. McDuck asked. "Teacher was telling us about the Orson Wells "War of the Worlds" scare the other day." Huey replied.
Meanwhile, Webby was having a Tea Party with the aliens. Since she was playing at being grown-up and they were unfamiliar with Earth customs, they still hadn't caught on to the fact she was a kid. They just thought Earth "people" were weird. (Got that right!)They started to speak to her about being their ambassador. Webby of course thought they were "making believe" and played along.
Then their ship (which had landed in a deserted lot not far from Duckberg) picked up a telecast in which Mr. McDuck told people that the alien invasion was just a publicity stunt for his new movie gone wrong and apologized to all concerned. "Lookie! Lookie! It's my Unca Scrooge! Hi, ya, Unca Scrooge! Opps! I forgot! He can't see me- TV only works one way! I better be getting home, though. I love to play 'mbasssdor with you two some other day, though. Right now my Granny and my Unca Scrooge must be getting worried about me." Webby said.
"But we want you to be our ambassador for REAL. This is not a game." one of the aliens said. "Huh? I can't do that! I'm just a kid- only eight years old! I can't be an ambassador till I'm a grown up and that's a long way off!" Webby said. "You are an immature member of your species? Why were you the only one to talk to us sensibly instead of screaming and panicking, then?" the other alien asked. "You ran away too fast. Too many silly grown-ups panicked and yelled because they thought you were invaders. The police would of come and tried talking, I hope, if you had stuck around. " Webby said.
So the aliens took Webby home to Mr. McDuck's mansion. I afraid he met them with his shotgun. "Give me back me darling Webby you kidnappers from Kypton!" he yelled. "They didn't kidnap me Unca Scrooge! I got lost and they were nice to me and they took me home. They thought I was a grown-up because I talked to them instead of acting like a dope. They wanted to make me their ambassador. I told them I was too young and they took me home!" Webby said.
"The child speaks the Truth. We apologize to you, we have no childhood as you know it. We hatch from eggs, too- but as larva who are full-grown within a very short while. Once we understood she was a hatchling, we returned her to her nest. We would still like to trade with your planet.
However, we do not understand why you said we were only a -a "publicity stunt"- whatever THAT is- for a movie (which we know about from your commercials). Perhaps you can explain?" the alien said.
"Er-yes. I afraid I lied about that to stop people from panicking long enough to find Webby, at least. I'm glad it's given us a chance to talk like civilized people. My name is Scrooge McDuck. What is yours?" Mr. McDuck asked.
" We also have no names as you know them, being part of a hive. But the child, Webby, calls me "Al" and my partner "Leon". I gather this is a joke- based on your word "alien", meaning people from another place.
We do not understand this telling of deliberate un-truths- you call it "lying"- you do. This seems to us to be a waste of time. Truth is slippery and leaks out. Or people pretend to believe you because they don't care. Yet, if you tell people that we are real and we mean you Earthlings no harm, will they believe you? Will they panic again?' "Al" said.
"Sometimes it is necessary to lie to people to get them to believe the truth, crazy as that sounds. To get people to believe you aliens only wish to trade with us- as I certainly hope is the truth- it is necessary to fool them with a little deception, first." Mr. McDuck said.
So over downtown Duckberg people saw the alien spaceship have a air "battle" with Gizmo-duck. They saw him "defeat" the "alien invaders", they saw the bug-aliens "surrender" to him. They did not know it was all as phony as a three-dollar bill. But it was the only way to convince them that the aliens were harmless and could be trusted to trade with us.
Once people beleived that Gizmoduck had defeated the "Evil Aliens"(and could presumably do so again if necessary), they were willing to be Nice to the aliens. Mr. McDuck went on TV to explain he fibbed about the aliens to lure them out of hiding. Soon a trade agreement with the aliens was signed. They filtered out Earth's pollution (which isn't as bad a problem on Earth-Disney as it is here, but is still a problem)and turned it into spider-spray. The alien bugs used it to chase away the spiders that were trying to eat them.
They helped us build a space satellite to dock spaceships in for refueling so we could fly to other galaxies. Otherwise the spaceships would be too heavy to escape Earth's orbit carrying enough fuel to get there AND back.(2)
The End.
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(1) At least once, in Disney's Ducktales #13, in a story called :"Unk -Unk".
(2) Which is why WE haven't been to Mars yet, in case you were wondering. The space shuttle would be too heavy to get into orbit carrying enough fuel to get Mars AND back again. (And if I were an astronaut, I'd go on strike until they FIX that thing proper-like!)
And the "international space station" is two rockets moored together in permanent orbit and does NOT deserve the name. You can't refuel or change ships there. Some space station, HA! (Guns we got money for. Tanks we got money for. Stupid weapons of mass destruction that aren't there, we got money for...)