Alien Gifts Read online

  Aaron was wrapping himself up in the blanket from the back seat to try and damp down the glow. The aroma of fresh-baked bread began to fill the van.

  "Stop that!"

  Aaron jumped a little and the scent faded. I didn't look at him.

  "My apologies." I caught a whiff of something like Easter lilies, but it was very muted. His voice was back to normal—or what I knew as normal.

  I gripped the steering wheel hard to steady my hands. "How long until that officer gets suspicious and starts the whole detachment looking for us?"

  "I do not think we need to worry about that. I verborgen (twitch) concealed a scent emitter on the officer's coat which should keep any uncomfortable thoughts at bay until the end of his shift, which I ascertained was just commencé (twitch) beginning." Aaron spoke stiffly, staring straight ahead out the rain-streaked windshield.

  "You can cut out that whole language thing, too. I notice it only seems to happen when you're looking for sympathy."

  "I take it you have come to some conclusions," he said after a few minutes.

  "You take it right."

  We drove in chilly silence for a while, and I pulled into the next 24-hour coffee shop parking lot. Aaron's glow seemed to fade in the bright lights of the lot, although at this point I was almost past caring. I parked under the harsh glare of a light, got out and went around to the back of the van and rummaged through the summer refuse until I found the weapon I wanted. Then I went in and bought a large coffee. Black. I never drink it black, but the mood I was in, it was the only thing that seemed appropriate.

  Back in the van I took a careful swig of hot coffee and rammed my weapon—one of the kids' sets of beach noseplugs—down over my nostrils.

  "No, no! That is not necessary!" Aaron looked genuinely distressed, his epicanthic folds thinning and flattening out.

  "Would you trust you? I'll take them off when I've heard what you have to say, without any subliminal messages," I said. "Now, what's with the whole scent thing?"

  Aaron shuddered, looking at the noseplugs. "What a horrible device," he said, his face crinkling in distaste.

  "Just answer the question." I was in full angry-mother-mode now, and I wasn't taking any nonsense.

  Aaron sighed. "Aroma is an integral part of our language," he said. "We discovered in our study of your race that humans, while they do not use it as we do, are also subtly influenced by scent."

  "Mmm-hmm. Well, I've never gone off on some wild road trip before, just because someone smelled good." I took another swig of coffee, which I could hardly taste with my nose plugged. Good thing, too. I hate black coffee.

  "Controlled pheromone emission is also a natural ability among my people," he said, "although it is unmonitored when we sleep, just like the bioluminescence and the other...aromas you noticed."

  Well, that explained one more thing, anyway.

  "We decided to use it, and the scent emissions, only to make humans more amenable to helping us," he added defensively. "It's only a marginal influence."

  "And, don't tell me, you can change your gender appearance at will, too." I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but it wasn't easy.

  Aaron just nodded.

  "Handy," I commented. We sat in silence.

  "You're thinking we should not use any sort of influence," Aaron said glumly.

  "Let's just say that in general, humans don't like that kind of thing. It seems like a dirty trick to us." Aaron started to protest, but I held up a hand. "Anyway, what I need to know right now, before I take you any further, is what you're really doing here. If you were just dropping in to say hello, I can't see that you'd need to resort to any kind of 'influencing.' You must want something."

  Aaron stared at me for a long moment, and I stared right back, breathing shallowly through my mouth. The noseplugs were 'way too small and hurt like heck, but I wasn't taking them off, not yet, not for all the polite aliens anyone wanted send knocking on my door.

  Finally he shrugged and rummaged in his pocket. "I have a list."

  Oh, right, a list. Well, I should have known. The aliens came to earth, and they brought their shopping list with them. Earth, the galactic convenience store.

  He read it aloud slowly, translating as he went. "Primarily, our first trade choice would be uranium, specifically of the type enriched in the fissile isotope 235 if you have it. Failing that, we would be interested in purchasing unlimited amounts of plutonium, neptunium, americium, curium..."

  The names slurried over me, familiar, but—what were they? Something I'd read, heard a news story about... uranium, plutonium...and then I had it. I had it, but I didn't believe it.

  "Wait a second. You want to buy unlimited amounts of our radioactive waste?"

  "The spent fuel of nuclear energy production, yes, if that's possible. We use it to power our interstellar drives, but the natural supply of uranium on our planet, not plentiful to begin with, has been all but depleted. As I ascertained in our earlier conversation, you have not yet developed a productive use for this material, and we'd be willing to enter into a trade agreement with earth for its purchase."

  "But—but, it's so dangerous! How can you use it safely?"

  Aaron squirmed a little in his seat. "There are...protocols, shieldings, certain technologies...you know." He sighed. "We're not really supposed to talk about that, give you any ideas. It's kind of...a directive we have."

  I tried to stifle a laugh and the noseplugs almost shot off my nostrils. "Yeah, I'm sure we'll have the same thing in a couple hundred years." I gave him a hard stare. "That's really all you want? To buy our radioactive garbage?"

  He met my gaze steadily. The folds around his eyes stood in sharply defined rings, making him look like a very serious owl. "That's all we want," he said, "That, and to develop a good relationship with the people of your planet."

  "Well, if I know the people of this planet, they'll make the business deals first and talk friendship later," I said. But I believed him. I took off the noseplugs. The van smelled a bit like smoke, a bit like burnt coffee, and a bit like old beach gear. In other words, just as it should.

  It was still a dark and stormy night, but there's no actual rule that says a story can't happen then. We had to put a good many miles behind us yet if I was going to get Aaron to Ottawa on time. In a little while I'd have to pull over and sleep for a bit, but for now I wanted to keep going. If Aaron's glow got out of hand, we'd cover him up with the blankets. I stuck out my hand and he shook it solemnly.

  "Welcome to earth," I said, "Let's start over, and this time I'm asking the questions."

  Aaron chuckled and nodded.

  "This time I want to know your real name and your gender." I started the van and pulled out of the lot, back onto the slick blacktop ribbon that would hopefully take us to Aaron's appointment with destiny and no more encounters with Fiamong, Murphy, or their pet sayings. And then, thank God, I could go home and do nice, normal, non-adventurous things like scrub floors and clean windows. I realized I was actually looking forward to it. A little.

  "Could we have a little cinnamon-roll in the air?" I asked, and as Aaron's jaw-ridges popped out in a grin and just a hint of sweetness filled the van I added, "And for goodness' sake, don't fall asleep before we get there."

  o~o~o

  Encountering Evie

  -1-

  Close Encounters of the First Kind:

  UFO’s are witnessed at close quarters

  Scout yawned and slid his fingers absently over the shimmering holochrom display. Another planet, another sensor scan, another ream of data logged.

  Might be time to transfer out of Scout division, he thought. Look for something with more action.

  Ship noted.

  Scout twitched the folds of skin on his back, annoyed. Ship's AI stayed attuned to his thoughts unless he specifically requested privacy, or intentionally damped down his telepathic jara waves. Sometimes he forgot that.

  Maybe
I'm ready for a little danger, he thought back defiantly.

  asked Ship.

  "Because I'm starting to think of my job description as my name," he said aloud. "I don't think that's a good sign."

 

  "Oh, never mind."

  He'd logged countless planets on his missions, some empty, some inhabited, some evincing the first wet squirming signs of life. He didn't know which he preferred. The empty ones were less work, those with life were—sometimes—more interesting, but also more disturbing.

  Scout turned his dusky, lobed eyes back to the holochromatic planet display. This one was inhabited. Fledgling nuclear capabilities, scattered hostilities, ecological corruption; the usual mix of beauty and ugliness. No indication of jara activity. Scout shuddered. Millions of minds, only half-alive. These planets he regarded with horrified fascination, as he'd view a dead alien insect. He'd study it, but with a pervasive feeling of faint revulsion.

  "Boost shielding fifty percent," he directed Ship. Scout logged the entry time and slipped through an inviting hole in the planet's monitoring systems.

 

  Scout traced a long, coppery index finger down a holochrom slide to start the scans, and sat back in his skimchair.

  And jolted up again. Something from the planet surface had brushed his mind like the stroke of a fingertip. No jara activity?

  It was not a call, not a word, nothing so distinct or deliberate. More like a possibility, a latent energy oscillating below the surface of ordinary consciousness. Scout shivered, the vestigial hairs on his forearms pricking up like hackles. Telepathy of any sort was rare in the charted universe, one reason his own race had risen to a somewhat discomfiting superiority. He had not expected to find even a trace of it in this solar backwater.

  "Interesting," he breathed. "I think we'll have a look." Another hazard of Scout missions, talking to oneself. Well, he'd talked to less interesting lifeforms. It felt healthier than having Ship silently inspect his thoughts.

  Scout propelled the skimchair to the opposite side of the console and plucked a jarakiva booster from the medkit, the pearlescent drug swirling lazily inside the clear disk. He pressed it into the thinly furred skin behind his left ear, barely feeling the prick of the injection, then configured one set of sensors to work in tandem with his own jara waves. The "signal" from the surface intensified, but it was still random, formless. Scout crosslinked to the incoming data readouts, then piloted the craft swiftly around the globe, seeking the source of the unexpected mental energy.

  "There you are," he murmured. The ship hovered well out of visual range in the sky above a small habitation. At this distance he hardly needed the jarakiva booster to pinpoint the single entity from whom the signals emanated. Scout bent eagerly toward the display.

  A young female in early childhood wandered a small grassy area near a dwelling, chasing tiny, twinkling lights in the descending dusk. Her delight was palpable. Telepathic bursts sparked like laughter in his brain.

  That was all he could discern from this distance. Scout snorted in frustration.

 

  "I know, I know."

  Detection wouldn't be the end of his career, but Scouts were expected to avoid it if possible. There was something, though, something about this girl, the touch of her alien mind on his, that compelled him to know more.

  Suddenly deciding, he boosted his shielding further and dropped the ship towards the surface. Ship said nothing, once the decision was made. The girl's mind brightened at this close proximity, burning with a sweet, steady flame. Scout caught his breath, his twin hearts shaking his breast with their hammering.

  "Closer," he breathed. He must get just a little...

 

  Scout ignored Ship. He was drawn to this mind like a moon moth to candlelight. The connection felt almost spiritual. Ship couldn't understand, and Scout couldn't explain.

  The girl looked up, directly at the craft as it hovered above her. Scout knew she would see it clearly. The shielding allowed the ship to slip past peripheral vision, but a direct stare would penetrate the illusion. She pointed up with a small finger.

  "Lights, Mama," he knew she said. The words coalesced in his mind as plainly as if they had been audible. Immediately a second figure emerged from the shadowy overhang of a porch, crossing swiftly to the child. Scout's chest contracted, squeezing against the wild pumping of his hearts. He'd been so focused on the child, he'd missed the mother.

  The woman's gaze followed where the child pointed, and she swept the girl up in her arms. A wave of anxiety from the child washed over Scout. It jangled his nerves and twisted his guts, burning his brain like a venomous sting. From the mother he felt nothing. She was not a telepath; only the child.

  Evie, he picked out of the wild mental tumult pouring from the girl now. Her name was Evie. The mother turned and ran for the house, cradling Evie close. Scout felt the door slam shut behind them. Shaking, he dragged his mind from the telepathic maelstrom of Evie's jara.

  Reflexively his long fingers maneuvered the colors of the holochrom, diverting power from the shielding and the sensors to the engines, pushing for maximum speed away from there. Away from the disgrace of having been seen and from the child who had touched his mind.

  Ship said, more wryly than its programming should have allowed.

  Scout snatched the jarakiva booster from his neck and hurled it across the bridge in an uncharacteristic gesture. His fingers shook.

  "Definitely time," he said. "Definitely time for a change."

  -2-

  Close Encounters of the Second Kind:

  UFO's cause physical effects on humans, animals and objects

  Evie was twelve the summer her mother finally let her take an astronomy course over the 'Net. She'd been fascinated with the sky for years, but had to content herself with books from the library and what television programs she could find, and of course the astronomy websites. She'd soaked up everything they offered, but the course made her feel like she was finally making real progress in understanding the universe.

  This hot August night she sat on the windowseat she'd cajoled her father into building for her. Her mother had been strangely against it. She had always disapproved of Evie's interest in the stars. Evie knew it was only fear; she'd read that easily enough when she was still innocently tuning into others' thoughts without realizing it was wrong. She didn't understand that fear. What could be frightening about the universe?

  Evie leaned her temple against the cool glass and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. Galileo, her cat, leapt up beside her with easy grace and curled up next to Evie's feet. She stroked his calico fur absently, glad of his easy company. With Galileo there was no need to shutter her mind.

  Her new astronomy books lay strewn over the bed, where Evie had rifled the pages, dipping eagerly into their secrets. A nagging at her mind distracted her, though, drawing her to the window. It was almost familiar, like a faraway memory. It reminded her of the emptiness she'd tried for years to fill by reaching out to the minds of other people. None had ever responded. Sometimes...sometimes she'd felt a twitch, a mind with potential, but she could never touch it, never reach deeply enough to trigger a response. The frustration was excruciating.

  Finally she'd given up, when others started complaining of sudden headaches in her presence and watching her with covert suspicion. Now she struggled to quiet her mind, and it grew more difficult all the time. She'd never mentioned it to anyone. She knew her parents suspected something odd about their daughter, but they said nothing. Sometimes she wished they would.

  Galileo seemed restless tonight, too. He didn't drowse on her feet, as he usually did, but stood again and paced the length of the window seat, mewling inquiringly.

  "I don't know, Leo," she said to the cat. "There's something weird in the air tonight." She fo
cused the darkening sky beyond the windowpane, reflexively picking out the constellations.

  "Look, Leo, there you are," she said, pointing to the cluster of stars in the lion constellation. "Are you going to get that pesky crab tonight? Are you, boy?" Evie tickled the cat under the chin, but he wouldn't turn his slitted eyes to the sky, where the starry outline of Leo stood eternally poised to pounce upon the unfortunate Cancer.

  Evie idly picked out some of the stars, still chatting to the cat. "There's Regulus, and that one's Algeiba," she said. "And that really bright light, right between Cancer's claws, that's not a star at all, it's Jupiter."

  Galileo yawned widely, pink tongue curling, and lay down, then immediately rose again and arched his back in a long stretch. Evie glanced at him, then turned her face back to the window and frowned.

  "Why does it have to be so hard, Leo?" she whispered. It tortured her, this terrible yearning for closeness when she looked to the stars. They were so far away, so removed from her touch. Conversely, the people who made up her world were too close and had to be kept at bay.

  Jupiter was moving.

  Evie blinked, focused on the flickering light again. No, of course the planet wasn't moving, it had to be something else. She wasn't one of those people who couldn't tell a planet from a passing airplane. This light was moving closer. Fast.

  Coming to fill the hole in my mind, Evie thought absurdly.

  She stared, barely blinking as the light grew inexorably larger and nearer. It fractured into several lights, strung out like a child's dot-to-dot puzzle around the perimeter of the object.

  Galileo hissed, his green eyes riveted out the window, where seconds ago Evie couldn't persuade him to look. The fur on his hackles bristled like a wire brush.

  "It's a ship," she whispered, as the shape became undeniable. Not a plane, not a weather balloon, not the planet Venus, but a ship, a craft, a vehicle.

  And Evie recognized it.

  A memory, buried and long forgotten, materialized. Chasing the neon twinkles of fireflies in the yard, the creak of the wicker rocking chair signifying her mother watchful on the porch. It was dusk, and the grass glistened wetly underfoot, pungent and freshly cut. She'd been happy. Then she'd looked up and something had jumped inside her head. There'd been lights, just like these lights. Her mother had scooped her up and run into the house. She recalled the terrified bounding of her mother's heart as she crushed Evie close, and that was the first time Evie's mind had been engulfed by her mother's fear.