Alien Gifts Read online

  The water was so icy I could barely force myself into it, but it took my mind off my leg for a minute. Ricky and I lay down in its chill embrace, panting, teeth chattering. The dog splashed in beside us. In the direction of the platform, the trees danced wildly now, telling me that the slow rotation we’d seen starting must now be creating a wash like a helicopter’s rotors.

  “Ricky, thanks for your help back there. You did good.”

  He stared at me for a second, then grinned and shouted back. “No problem, Danny.” The grin faded as the roar from the platform stopped abruptly. Trees still whipped around in the gale, but even with the wind it felt like silence by comparison.

  I should have made us both duck under the water right then, but I was too mesmerized to think of it. In place of the roar, a whirring like a million bees in flight filled the air, and the platform rose above the treetops, spinning like a flywheel.

  Ricky breathed a word I’m pretty sure his mother doesn’t even know he knows. I echoed it.

  Lucky for us, the heat I’d expected didn’t come. The underside of the spinning platform hung above the trees, and pulsed an eerie blue-yellow for a minute, like the heart of a match flame. Then it flew straight up like a pebble from a slingshot, too fast to really see movement before it vanished. The downdraft stopped abruptly, and within a minute the trees had settled. That now-familiar hum like the motor of an ATV came through the trees, but I didn’t expect a vehicle anymore. I thought I knew what was happening. The rails, the cylinders were probably retracting back into the earth, disappearing without a trace.

  I realized I didn’t really care.

  We were both panting and shivering. We limped slowly out of the water, teeth chattering harder than ever as icy water ran off us in rivulets. The dog shook all over us and Ricky squealed—a nice, normal sound. The sun picked that moment to slide out from behind the clouds, and I ordered Ricky to strip down to his underwear while I did the same. Hobbling, I retrieved the backpack, found the matches and we gathered enough dry wood to get a little fire going.

  “Should we get out of here?” Ricky asked, when our shivers had finally stopped.

  I shrugged.

  “Maybe so, but I think—I think it’s gone. Whatever it was. I think we’re better off getting dry as we can before we try to hike out.” My leg throbbed. It was going to be a tough walk.

  He looked up, to where the platform—I might as well start calling it a ship, I thought—had disappeared into the clouds. “What do you think it was?”

  I hesitated. It was the hesitation of not being sure, and of not being sure how your thoughts might be received. Suddenly it mattered what Ricky thought of me, more than it ever had before. I took the coward’s route.

  “What do you think it was?”

  He shrugged and frowned. “I think it was something from aliens. Some kind of UFO.”

  Apparently that sort of cowardice is not a concern for nine-year-olds. I nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. That metal wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. Heck, none of it was like anything I’ve ever seen.” I shook my fingers, still a bit tingly from the cold that had bitten them, although the sensation was fading.

  Ricky hunkered down and poked another stick into the fire. “You think they were watching us or something?”

  “Maybe. For some reason I didn’t get the feeling there were actual aliens there. It might have been a probe or something, gathering information.”

  “It must have been there for a long time, because of all the trees that were growing on it.”

  “Exactly,” I said. "So the chances that there were any kind of creatures in it—”

  “Yeah, I doubt it. I wonder what they were looking for?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “No idea. Maybe just studying the earth or something. Not many people out here to study.”

  “Except us.” He flashed me a grin.

  “Ha, yeah.”

  We fed a few more twigs into the flames, the growing heat casting a welcome warming radius. “Are we going to tell anyone about this?” he asked me after a few minutes.

  I looked at him. “Do you think we should?”

  He pulled a deep breath. “I think it might be better if we didn’t.”

  I nodded. “Me too.” I fished sandwiches out of the backpack and passed him one.

  He unwrapped the plastic and bit into a mashed peanut butter and jam. “But what are we going to tell Mom?”

  He had a point. I was going to have a limp for a while, and it would be pretty obvious that we’d been drenched. I squinted into the sun for a second, then looked at him as I bit into my own sandwich. “That I twisted my ankle on a rock?” I suggested.

  He nodded wisely. “And then we slipped and fell in the stream coming back, since it was hard for you to walk. ’Cause it would be nice if she let us go geocaching again sometime,” he said around bites of sandwich.

  “When I get a new GPS,” I said. “I have no idea what happened to it.”

  He threw me a grin. Getting up, he walked to the spot where I thought he’d stumbled as we ran for the water. He pulled the GPS out from under a rock. “I thought it shouldn’t get wet,” he said, proffering it to me. “And we might need it to get out of here.”

  I grinned back at him. “Yeah, we might. But you carry it,” I told him. “I think you can handle it. Maybe next time we’ll bring your mom along too.”

  “Next time,” he said. “I like the sound of that. But I don’t think I want to come back here.”

  I chuckled. “Me neither. But there’s lots of other places we could go.”

  “I never did get to find a real geocache,” he said, pushing a button on the GPS experimentally.

  Kids. They’re never satisfied.

  But it struck me that maybe I am.

  o~o~o

  Alien Gifts

  Shallie woke, remembered what day it was, kicked off the thin microfiber sheets and rolled out of bed. Through the sleep pod’s skylight, a sulky trickle of orange sunlight outlined the silent computer and the metal footlocker holding Shallie’s clothes. Those things and the bed just about filled the pod. She flicked on the computer and set the screen to mirror mode so she could scrape her dark hair into a neat topknot. She pulled a clean excursion overall out of the footlocker and slipped it on, practically dancing with anticipation.

  Today was the day she’d finally get to meet the aliens.

  Her parents had already emerged from their own sleep pod and sat at the tiny table in the middle of the living pod, eating breakfast.

  The inflated pod walls undulated slightly, giving under what must be a brisk wind outside on the planet’s surface. The place seemed prone to wind and dust storms. They didn’t last long, but this part of the planet was covered with such deep dust—regolith, her mother called it—that sometimes the landscape could change dramatically during a storm. Shallie hoped nothing big would blow in today.

  “Breakfast is ready,” Shallie’s father said with a smile, squeezing food paste from three different tubes onto Shallie’s plate and adding a few spoonfuls of water. He passed it under the heating lamp and the paste squirmed and reconfigured itself into more solid-looking mounds of nourishment. Some people liked to watch while their meal went through this transformation, but Shallie didn’t. The long wriggles of paste reminded her of colorful worms.

  It had been a long time since Shallie had actually seen a worm, back home on Earth—a hundred and six years, in fact. Of course, she’d spent a hundred and five of those years in cold sleep, so it really felt like less than a year. Ten months on the ship, two weeks on the planet, preparing. Still, even a year was a long time, and there was something about just knowing it had been more than a hundred years, even if she hadn’t experienced them, that made it feel indescribably long.

  “Is everyone else ready?” she asked her mother, spooning a bite of “waffle” into her mouth. It tasted a little like waffles, Shallie thought, but mostly not.

  Shallie’s mother didn’
t look up from her screen—probably reading another report. Sometimes Shallie wondered how there could possibly be so many topics requiring reports, but her mother was the mission leader, so Shallie guessed she had to know about absolutely everything.

  “Reports look good,” her mother said. “The rest of the team is on track, and word from the Others says they’re ready, too.”

  “Will I be able to talk to any of the kids?” Shallie asked.

  Her father chuckled. “I don’t know about talking,” he said, stirring more sugar powder into what he called his almost-coffee.

  “None of us are doing more than very basic communicating with the Others yet. But you should have a chance to interact with Other children, yes.” He reached out and tweaked her topknot. “That’s why we brought you a hundred years from home, right?”

  She grinned. “Right.” She opened her screen and brought up the rudimentary communication symbols they’d worked out with the Others, even though she was certain she had them memorized. For today, she had to be sure.

  Tlik’chik woke, remembered what day it was, detached from the sleeping-mesh and tumbled out of the darknest. She blinked in the orange sunlight pouring in through the bignest’s light panels and padded to the wash chamber, where her parents lingered over their morning wash. Joining them in the thin trickle of water, barely enough to wet her feathers, Tlik’chik shivered in the cold as the family preened and washed each other. Then Tlik’chik’s father braided her hair and curled it around her head in his own special way, pinning it tightly, while her mother heated foodpods in the warmer. Finally Tlik’chik scooted away from her father’s fussing, snatched up a couple of foodpods and took them to the biggest window with a view of the planet’s surface. She squirted breakfast into her mouth, barely tasting it.

  Today was the day she’d finally get to meet the aliens.

  Tlik’chik dialed down the opacity of the light panel so she could look outside without squinting. Even after quite a few cycles on this planet, the orange sun’s light always felt a little too bright, a little too strange, and sometimes it made her head ache. She wondered if the aliens found it uncomfortable, too. She’d read all the data about their home planet, so she knew their own sun was even brighter, hotter and yellower than this one. Tlik’chik took another squirt of breakfast and tried to imagine it, but failed. She wondered what the aliens would think of her own planet’s sun, its beautiful dark-red glow so much gentler than this one. A strong wind had picked up outside, swirling tall cones of pale dust into the air and sending them dancing around the bignests of the rest of the duty clan.

  “Are you ready to meet the aliens?” Tlik’chik’s mother chirped, her short fingers flying over the touchscreen, checking the data. The pads on her fingers made soft bumping noises in the quiet bignest.

  Tlik’chik turned from the window and threw the empty foodpod into the recycler, dropping the other one into her pocket. Tlik’chik’s father was fastening his honor tabs onto the front of his uniform.

  She felt a sudden surge of pride that he’d been selected to lead the contact mission.

  “Definitely! I want to know what their kids are like. Do you think they’ll want to play itri-sticks with me?”

  Her mother looked up from the touchscreen and smiled. “It might take a while to teach them how to play, since we don’t have much of a common language yet,” she said, “But that’s why we’re here, after all. I think itri-sticks would be a great idea.”

  Tlik’chik rummaged in her bag of belongings until she found the long box of polished, brightly-colored wooden sticks, and slipped it into her pocket. She might play itri-sticks with an alien! It was going to be an amazing day.

  Halfway between the human camp and the alien one, a weirdly-twisting tree thrust gnarled branches toward the planet’s greenish sky. The tree bore a full, rustling cover of pale yellow leaves, and beneath its canopy was the spot where the two missions had decided to meet. Until now, they’d communicated only by simple messages, each trying to learn as much as possible about the other side. Shallie had seen a picture of the meeting place, taken by an observation flyer, but she hadn’t been there herself—no one had, yet. Secretly, Shallie wondered why they didn’t just get together from the beginning—surely it couldn’t be any more difficult than learning a new language on Earth, which lots of people did every day.

  But, no, her mother said. This was so much more important than just learning a language; the very first meeting with beings from another planet. And although it seemed both sides wanted only friendship, they had to be very careful. If they didn’t know enough about the other culture, someone could make a terrible mistake by accident—make a rude gesture without realizing it, or use a word in an offensive way, and then who knew what might happen?

  Shallie thought the grown-ups were probably being too careful—grown-ups often did that—but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She’d made a point of learning everything she could for herself, though. If anyone was going to make a terrible mistake today, it wasn’t going to be her.

  The pod walls swayed to one side and then snapped upright again. A small hissing, almost like rain but with a harder edge, filled the pod as dust peppered the outside.

  “The wind’s really picking up out there,” her mother said, worry evident in her voice. “I wonder if we should try to postpone the meeting?”

  “No!” Shallie almost shouted. She’d been waiting for this moment. “If I have to wait another day to meet the aliens, I think I’ll die!”

  Her father smiled indulgently at her. “I don’t think it will be quite that serious,” he said. He went to one of the pod windows and peered out. “It’s windy, and there’s some dust blowing around, but I doubt it’s going to get any worse than this. If we wait for a day with no wind, we’ll never meet them!”

  “Let’s see what Tomaso thinks,” her mother muttered, and pulled out her communicator. She held a low-voiced conversation with her second-in-command as Shallie gathered up the drawings she’d sketched as a gift for the alien children. They were all scenes of Earth as she remembered it; their house, her school, the park where they liked to camp. Dogs, cats, horses, other earth animals. Flowers, trees, cars and airplanes. Shallie had carefully printed the names of everything at the bottom of the pictures. She hoped they’d like them as she put them carefully into the envelope she’d brought along, and slid some blank pages and coloring sticks into the envelope, too. If she could manage it, she’d ask them to draw her some things from their world.

  “Okay, we’re going ahead,” her mother announced, slipping her communicator back into her pocket. “Inspection outside in ten minutes.”

  Shallie stood by the door, tapping her foot impatiently as her parents gathered up the things they were taking as meeting-gifts and finally led them outside the pod. Nearby stood three more pods, identical to theirs, where the rest of the mission crew lived. There should have been four, but one family had not come out of the cold sleep when the rest of them had awoken. It had been the other family with a child; all three had died sometime during the voyage, which Shallie thought privately was actually just as well. The deaths hit everyone else in the mission hard, but she thought it would have been worse if only one or two had not awoken. Imagine being the one left? She shook her head. She didn’t want to think sad thoughts now. They were actually going to meet the aliens!

  The other mission members emerged and drifted toward them, chatting nervously and checking equipment as they walked.

  A gust of wind scudded into her, and tiny bits of dust and sand stung her cheeks. The envelope twisted in her hand, almost flying out of her grasp. She blinked, turning away. “Ow!”

  Her father was at her side, shielding her from the wind. “Here, walk beside me,” he said, and she took his hand as they turned their steps toward the meeting place.

  Tlik’chik and her family and the rest of the duty clan arrived at the meeting place just a little ahead of the aliens. She was happy about that—it woul
d be so exciting to watch the aliens come into view, walking on their long, skinny legs. One of the first things both sides had done, long ago when communication had been established, was to exchange pictures so each would know what the others looked like. Tlik’chik had studied them diligently, wondering over the aliens’ flat, bare faces, lack of feathers, and long, thin limbs.

  They weren’t ugly, she’d decided long ago, although some of the duty clan thought they were. They were just different in an interesting way. She liked that they had hair on their heads, like her people did. It made them a little less strange.

  Tlik’chik’s mother leaned close. “Are you excited? Not frightened, are you?”

  Tlik’chik held up three fingers and shook them, no. “Of course I’m not afraid! This is the most exciting thing ever!”

  Her mother smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment. “Good girl.”

  The wind whistled and snapped the leaves of the tree over their heads, whipping even taller cones of dancing dust to life. Tlik’chik reluctantly closed her inner eyelid to protect her vision, hating the way it made the scene before her a little unfocused. Still, she’d see even less with her eyes full of dust.

  And here they came!

  The aliens crested the top of a low rise, all dressed in similar, one-piece clothing of different colors. They did not seem to march in any ceremonial way but formed a loose group. One smaller alien detached itself from a taller one as they came into view. Tlik’chik thought the shorter one must be the alien child—there was only one among them, just as she was the only one in her duty clan.

  She fingered the itri-sticks in her tunic pocket nervously, her mouth suddenly gone dry. She hoped the alien child wouldn’t think they were stupid.

  As the aliens grew closer, Tlik’chik was relieved to see they weren’t all that much taller than her people. Her father stepped forward and held up a hand in the traditional greeting.