Mike Resnick - I, Alien

She leans farther over the boat. Of course, if you insist on circling under this boat, I’ll never know, will I?

Her mouth purses up, her eyes closing. Oh dear, that was a bad one. Gave up the little pills last week; they made me dizzy. Did you get them?

I hadn’t. Were they in a nice bottle, I wonder?

She isn’t leaning over the side anymore, and by her voice, I judge that she is lying down. The old woman is sick. Now that I am paying attention, I notice by the quaver in her voice that she is very sick indeed. The creatures’ inadequate medicine can’t help her. No wonder. They still burn fossil fuels and use disposable diapers. (Yes, I’ve seen a few of those, as well.)

I glance into the deep. So I’ve got the old man’s ashes. Well, as I say, people grow to like their monsters. In fact, she implied that—in my little stack at the bottom of the lake—I have everything she owns of value. It is startling to think that she has no one else to give them to, while for me, they’re just trinkets and collectibles. It shames me.

I am hovering now, some distance out from the boat, where it’s easier to see what she’s up to. She’s just sitting there, watching the water, no binoculars, no frenzy of anticipation. That’s when the decision comes to do it.

The sun is setting behind the crags, dragging a mist over the water. Anyone out for an evening stroll won’t see past the shoreline. I rise up, breaking the surface, unfolding my neck with considerable effort, and at the same time, extruding my tail in a matching curve above the water. The cool breeze wicks heat from my skin. I turn to regard her as she sits in the little boat. She is so small, her skin a pale pink like a turtle’s tongue, her head sprouting white hairs as delicate as dandelion pollen.

Normally, I would immediately plunge back down, but something keeps me frozen in place. For one thing, she hardly reacts to my appearance, giving me a surprise of my own. She just sits and watches me, nodding to herself over and over. I swim a little closer, despite the strain of holding my head up. I have my pride, after all. Monsters aren’t weaklings.

Her face has taken on an expression that I’ve learned is a smile.

You’re just as I always thought you would be. Quite wonderful She nods again. Thank you.

I let myself sink slowly, so as not to splash her. As I descend, I note that she has a long rope coiled in the bottom of the boat.

It hasn’t been easy to teach her. At first she tried to give me the entire rope, and there was no end of misunderstandings. At last we got her end securely tied and a noose rigged on my end.

Half the night is gone now, and we must hurry in order to finish before daylight attracts unwelcome attention. Sometimes my helper rests, and I think she may not last until morning, but if she’s in pain, she doesn’t show it. She keeps herself entertained by guessing what we’re dragging around down here. She has quite an imagination. Yet I feel sorry that I can’t tell her, sorry that at least one Earth creature won’t know the story of how I came here and how I went Home.

Above me, the motor screams under the strain of hauling the rocks, and the cacophony has shattered my tympanic membrane. Despite the pain, I reattach the noose, and give a tug on the rope. The old woman guns the engine, while I push with my nose. Somehow, the rock comes loose.

And so on, through the long night, moving enough rocks to allow my passage into the chute.

Now, dawn strains down through the depths, faintly, like the memory of a memory. I know that our time is gone.

But we are ready.

Swimming to the surface, I find her lying in the bottom of the boat. I arch over her, worried.

She says, Did we finish the work? Did you find what you were looking for? She opens her eyes, but they are cloudy.

I lay my head on the gunwale, resting, past all pride in front of her.

She nods. Good, It feels so good to finish something worthwhile,

The mist on the water is rising, creating a thin white curtain, not like a lake at all, but some region of half-water, half-sun. Behind this scrim, I can perform the feat she’s asked of me. Not that I care anymore, what people see. They’d see a monster wresting an old woman down to a watery death. A lurid tale. One I’ve fostered, I suppose.

She has managed to sit on the side of the boat, legs dangling over, rubber boots filling with water.

I’m ready, she says.

I open my mouth, and gently take her in my jaws. The thick coat she’s wearing protects her skin from my teeth. She has folded her arms around my upper head, holding on tight. Then she pats me on the forehead. By this I know I have her permission to take her under.

And so I sink down. It’s difficult to see where I’m going, her arms being in the way, but I send out pulses, and the path is clear. Her hair streams behind like bright grasses, growing dim as I leave the upper regions.

All night I’ve been thinking how needless it is for her to die of simple physiological malfunctioning. My kind don’t live forever, but creatures like her have pitifully short lives. So I think of taking her through the chute, which, if done quickly, she might survive. Perhaps she could heal under our ministrations.

But I am not heading toward the chute. Instead, the old woman and I are approaching my lair. Her grip is loosening, but mine is steady. Now that we have arrived, I settle on the sandy floor, and wait with her. She has stopped breathing, but I sense her thoughts may still flow, and I would be ashamed to hurry this part.

It is a good time to reflect that during my imprisonment here not all things have been bad. I’ve formed a relationship with the local creatures. A twisted one, and built on lies, but still, it was better than being alone. Frankly, some years the tourists kept me alive, though it is a difficult thing to admit. And now, on the last day of my sojourn, I have made a friend. I feel that I know her, and her husband, too. Through the night she talked about their life together, and I listened well. So it is hard to bring her here instead of the chute.

But I think she wanted to be near the old man. She said so, though she didn’t know all the options. I have had to figure out, from what I know of her, what to do.

I carefully tuck her body into a crevice, amid my collected treasures. Then I find the vase and wedge it next to her, securing it with a good stone.

A strange feeling comes over me, like deep waters trying to flow through my tissues, trying to pass through my body in hidden channels. I let the feeling surge and ebb.

Then I carefully nip the strand of pearls from her outstretched hand.

It’s the only thing I’m taking Home.

Yet there is one more thing I have to do. As I rise to the surface, the sun is fully up, and the day’s warmth has brought a crowd to the overlook.

I wait until the last of the mist has evaporated. Then I arch steeply up, sliding out of the water, and raise my pectoral flipper at the astonished onlookers. Before they can loose their boats on the water, I speed downward, laughing, toward the still-glowing chute.

I‘VE SPENT A LOT of time watching Earth—more than forty of that planet’s years. My arrival was in response to the signal from our automated probe, which had detected that the paper-skinned bipedal beings of that world had split the atom. The probe had served well, but there were some things only a living being could do properly, and assessing whether a life-form should be contacted by the Planetary Commonwealth was one.

It would have been fascinating to have been present for that first fission explosion: it’s always a fabulous thing when a new species learns to cleave the atom, the dawn for them of a new and wondrous age. Of course, fission is messy, but one must glide before one can fly; all known species that developed fission soon moved on to the clean energy of controlled fusion, putting an end to need and want, to poverty, to scarcity.