Sears and Roebuck (the Klave)

Sears and Roebuck are a binary pair of alien ambassadors known as the Klave who appear in the Doom novels.

WARNING:Spoilers below
Little is known about the Klave home world, as none had ever been there, but the main characteristic of their world is that the gravity is stronger than on Earth. The Klave race is inherently binary, paired with another identical Klave for the entirety of their lives. This pair does almost everything together, including walking, speaking, and other physical actions in an almost mirror image-like way. They also share thoughts, usually in a verbal sense, and are heard constantly murmuring to one another. It is also speculated that should any single member of the Klave die, the other will die as well. They find it incomprehensible that beings and objects exist in a singular form, and when speaking to a group of people, they will address a certain pair, then a second pair, and so on, even leading to specific beings being spoken to more than once (e.g. Person A and B, then A and C, then B and C). Physically, Arlene described them as being a combination of Magilla Gorilla and Alley Oop with Popeye-like arms, tiny, stumpy legs and a greenish-yellowish shade of hair. The only singular expression that Flynn and his allies can understand, at least partially, is their peculiar tick of rubbing each other’s foreheads, which Flynn surmises is an expression of frustration.

The Klave pair known as “Sears and Roebuck” (their own monikers) are allies to the humans and have a rather impressive knowledge of the literary criticism wars that have plagued the universe for billions of years. They had attempted to warn Earth of the impending invasion, but their message arrives too late. Nonetheless, they extend an invitation to their space station so they can plan a way to bring the fight to the Freds, who had created the demonic invaders.

Flynn, Arlene, Albert, and Hidalgo make landfall on the station through the Phobos portal, and Sears and Roebuck make their first appearances. Conversation with them became rather taxing, as the aliens’ English skills were very broken and almost incoherent (in order for them to communicate properly, they had to assign a certain English word to whatever it was they were trying to translate, usually resulting in problematic nonsense), but they still get enough intel to know who the real masterminds of the invasion are and why humans are so threatening to both sides of the war in the long scheme of things (their ability to wholly die). They also claimed to be the ones responsible for creating the soul spheres that Flynn and Arlene had come across on the Phobos and Deimos installations. As they depart for the Fred ship, circumstances beyond everyone’s control force them to take flight to the Fredworld itself.

En route to the Fredworld, S and R (as Flynn frequently calls them) locked themselves in their living quarters, fearful of the impending battle ahead. Like the Freds and the Newbies, the Klave also cannot truly die, and their souls will remain dormant and invisible, and they feared that the battle to be on the Freds’ home planet will be wrought with disaster, resulting in their eventual demises. As mere ambassadors, they came off as pacifistic. But once they reach the home planet, find it in shambles, leave for Skinwalker and try to stop the res-men from their experiment with the marines’ soils civilly, leading to failure on their part, they strike back in a rather comically described fighting technique (their smalls legs spinning like gyroscopes and their arms swinging to and fro, crushing skulls and snapping limbs alike). However, a single laser swipe cuts their lives short.

When Flynn and Arlene later come to, they find the lifeless forms of Sears and Roebuck and effectively bring one of them back to life (they aren’t sure who it was exactly, as they both look exactly the same). The single Klave was then able to resurrect his companion through unknown means, and, together again, they travel with the two marines and their entourage of soldiers back to Earth to try and deal with the res-men. However, the res-men fail to arrive (due to the actions of the duplicated marines’ souls in the computer simulation), and as the ship makes landfall, Sears and Roebuck become anxious to return to their home world. They claim that they must contact their “uncles” in order to return home, admit that it has been "a slice”, and walk off. They are never seen again.