I'm on a planet inhabited by hobbits, called Isuza. I'm neither human nor hobbit, but an alien tourist. Isuza's a member of the Galactic Federation, but a backwater; few tourists come here, so I stand out. But hobbits are polite.

However, I do get asked for my registration papers a lot. An illegal alien is on the loose--a strange creature appearing from nowhere and vanishing impossibly. Worries the town I'm staying in, since the alien has shown no signs of cooperation with the traditional treasure-hunting rules, and its secrecy makes them suspect it wants to rob the planet of some cultural heritage. Though no one can figure out what! So far it's been spotted at craft fairs poking through jewelry booths and sampling the local beer. Pretty much like any tourist.

The Mayor asks me to help find it.

Chase scenes follow, but I've forgotten the details. Except... at last I do catch the creature.

It's a human. A human by the name of H.G. Wells. Perched on his Victorian time machine, all brass and crystal, like a Byzantine bicycle that sprouted curling tendrils of gold and silver wire. Time and space are a continuum; is it any wonder, once he mastered time, that he'd turn to space?

I explain to the hobbits that "I know this being. He's a writer of fables about space- and time-travel that inspired his species to send up their first spacepods [hobbitese for satellites]. He invented that spacetime bicycle he rides."

Terran readers may find it odd that I'd ignore the half-century gap between Wells and Sputnik--bikes to satellites--but change here is slow, for hobbits like stability. Half a century is nothing to a hobbit, if anyone bothers to check.

Wells explains he didn't just blunder in here. "I'm on a quest; I need hobbits." And not just any hobbits. "I need to find a rare species. Unlike all other hobbits known, your species, when young, are thin but nearly as tall as me, correct? You go through metamorphosis and come out short and stout--er, excuse me, normal-sized. With tall, slender young, you instinctively want to nurture and teach tall, immature creatures, and you're well-known as excellent tutors for the fledglings of the Stork People. It's how I heard of you."

As he mentions the Storks, relief all around. Hobbits like the Storks. Perhaps this alien's not so bad. Is Wells a gawky young creature too, asking to be tutored?

"That symbiotic relationship has worked out well for you both. Now, Storks and my people--called Human Beings--are much the same height and build. So I've come here hoping your people will feel at least a shadow of the same instinctive drive to teach MY people! You see, I need hobbits who will come with me to Earth."

He takes a deep breath. "We need you to find our Ring."

I'm shocked. From Tolkien's book? Sauron's ring, the Ring of Power? Has Wells gone crazy? That thing is deadly!

Wells sees me flinch--how my ears pull back and flatten. He speaks over the hobbit-heads to me: "No, no! Not THAT ring. This is a different species of hobbit. Different history. Different Ring."

The hobbits are still getting over their own astonishment. The Mayor says "Your people... you LOST your Ring of External Awareness? I've never heard of a species so irresponsible! How could you have survived without it?"

"A ringless people," the Town Marshal chimes in, "will only care about their own species' status games--politics, money, fame."

The Ecologist adds "They're blind to the state of other species, or of the world."

The Psychologist: "Turned inward. A snake eating itself!"

The Historian add "Either war or eco-crash, every time."

H.G. Wells snorts from his crystal saddle. "Lose it? We never HAD such a ring, not in all recorded history. All we built, we built ringless. Never knew they existed till we met other races and found they all had a Ring to guide their rise. But MY species--if we have a Ring at all--has NEVER been able to recognize it.

"I hope you will."

I hope so too. H.G. Wells was often wrong in practice (like his uncritical faith in central planning) but he was one of the first humans to consider the welfare of his species, and planet, as a whole. A behavior that, in Galactic terms, that makes him... normal.

But for a Human--a Ringless monster--it makes him a rarity. It damn near makes him a saint.

EARLIER THAT NIGHT

I dreamed of a planet inhabited by Shire-like hobbits (no metamorphosis from stringbean to squat), a different treasure (a big gem like the Arkenstone in The Hobbit), and a different teleporting alien treasure-hunter (who saw us not as humans or hobbits but as big scary parrots). Next I dreamed Wells's Quest, with all the same elements (even the huge birds) but more coherent and explicit in its message.

Don't tell me dreams are random, or just processing today's memories. I caught my dreams editing. Rough draft; tighter final draft.

DECADES LATER

Linking Tolkien and Wells makes sense; both are thought of as escapists, but were quite political.

TOLKIEN: most of Middle Earth's leaders are tribal autocrats; only the Council of Elrond, plus Galadriel, Faramir and Cirdán the Shipwright really think of Middle Earth as a whole. You can dislike Tolkien's ideal of self-sacrifice to benefit all--Philip Pullman finds it childishly black-and-white; Michael Moorcock thought Tolkien praised sacrifice to deny that all his WWI comrades died for nothing. But it's there.

It's not just Lord of the Rings; in his play The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, based on an old English poem, the Battle of Maldon, the English held a secure position against Viking invaders; but the Viking leader knew the English commander was proud and chivalrous; he said "This is no fair fight! Let us onto the level field, so we have a chance!" The English leader did--and got his company slaughtered.

Tolkien argues the poem's distinction between chivalry (courtesy & fair play in games) and honor (risking death to protect others) shows the roots of English “fair play”--not in the commander's mad surrender of a safe position, but rather in the common soldiers' (and the poet's) clear sense he betrayed his responsibility to protect his people by mistaking his right to risk himself for glory with a right to risk others.

WELLS similarly critiqued imperialism (The War of the Worlds) and class privilege (The Time Machine) in favor of science-based leadership. His technocratic utopias feel too centralized to me--ant colonies. But the status quo he loathed was clueless aristocracy, and he warned where such stratification ends--lotus-eating Eloi and cannibal Morlocks.

The dream agrees with Tolkien's play, and points out Wells sought a similar Ring of External Awareness. Obligation to other individuals, species, ecologies.

Even if our current leaders crave that other Ring of Power, the dream makes the point that we have built a civilization--well, a barbarism--on our own, without magical or divine guidance. We can be proud that we evolved the very concept of External Awareness, of working for life as a whole. But it's time for us to up our game, to make that normal, not a rare heroic trait in idealistic fiction.

This political message is clear; but why me, why now?

My health is fragile, yet I force myself into stressful situations, saying "I must learn to handle this" ...and then get sick. I pushed it today again. And I'll pay tomorrow.

No matter how cautious I look to the healthy, I'm still like the English leader at the Battle of Maldon: irresponsible toward those in my care. Even when it's me.

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