Mike Resnick - I, Alien

Regret gifts. My clan is known for its impeccable courtesy, but naturally rumors immediately circulated that the infertility was my lack and fewer clans were eager to offer candidates. Eventually a suitable mate was found for me. The preliminary ceremonies were performed before I left; our final union will take place when I return. And of course I will have to assume the burden of recompense for the regret gifts—it is the courteous thing to do.

Damn courtesy. Is there no room for me in my life?

“Your disobedience is unheard of, Student Candidate. I insist you move on to another culture at once.” My Supervisor is angry with me. Her crest has even changed color.

“Forgive me, Supervisor.” I use the most respectful tone I can summon. “You are right—I have allowed myself to become fond of this culture. I see now that my objectivity has been compromised, as you feared. I apologize.” I watch carefully and see her intense coloring begin to fade. “I will gather my belongings and records and move on at once.”

“See that you do so, or I will Recall you immediately.”

I realize that I must act quickly or yet another “choice” will be forced upon me. For there is another aspect to Recall—it can be activated at the other end as well. Occasionally, in the long history of the study of other cultures, scholars like myself have “gone native”—a rarity, admittedly, but the institute is meticulous in planning for every contingency. Except surveys, I think wryly.

“It will take me several days to pack my belongings, sever my housing agreement, and arrange transportation. The island archipelago that looks the most intriguing is at some distance from this land mass. I will contact you as soon as I arrive there. Communication ending.”

I go down to the seashore. It’s a stormy day, cold and blustery, with few people on the sand or in the water. I sit on a log and stare out over the steely waves.

I take out the Link. The Recall field is effective at some distance, I have been told, and is tuned to me alone. (It would be unthinkable to accidentally bring along unintended passengers.)

I reach back and hurl it as far as I can into the roaring surf. The currents here are particularly fierce. It will be carried away in the endless roll and beat of tides.

Perhaps I will be thought of as one of those scholars who paid the ultimate price for attempting to enlarge my people’s body of knowledge. My clan will mourn my loss; I was a promising youth tragically snuffed out before I had a chance to fulfill my potential. Other clans will sorrow with my family.

Or perhaps my Supervisor won’t be deceived by the dying of the Link’s signal. She will remember my behavior and report it to the governing board. My parents will be informed that I “went native,” and will be shamed. My disappearance will bring dishonor to my clan.

I realize I don’t care.

A great weight lifts from my shoulders. For the first time in my life, I’m utterly free! No obligations or duties to the endless line of the generations. I feel light and giddy. School’s out!

There’s a Padres verses Giants game this afternoon— an important one in the pennant race. Benny’s pulling two-for-one drafts and offering hot wings to all comers who show up in team colors. I must go home and get my Giants’ cap and jersey.

I may even learn to surf one of these days.

I TOOK A MOMENT to construct myself from stray carbon in the atmosphere, since I’d been spending time, the last few days, as patterns in the static electricity across the surface of the television screen, the drapes, and every other ungrounded surface in the room, including the cat. Admittedly an incognito method of relaxing, but every time the maid came, I got nervous.

I was on a planet called the Earth, out past Cen-taurus. They had named it after some dirt. I’d arrived there some weeks ago, in the center of a masked implosion, and had quickly set up shop. I’d rented an apartment, bought a car, and had some business cards made up. I’d also altered my entire makeup for the trip.

I’d changed my physiology, my body type, my language, taste in clothes, political opinions, and I had developed a proficiency at gargling. I’d even grafted a mild seafood allergy into my anatomy, just to round the picture out. Still, “a rose by any other name,” or so they say on Earth, and that goes double, I am sure, for aliens.

I’d been sent to catch a criminal. The Naag, to be exact. A purely mental form of life, his ancestors had not been small and furry animals or even large and slimy ones, but catchy songs caught in the heads of other sentient beings. They had evolved from there into entirely independent superegos, in complete control of whatever organisms they decided to possess. Literally, the Naag were a parasitical and highly specialized variety of guilt.

The one I had been sent to catch had claimed to be on Earth spending vacation time “in some of the planet’s magnificent Catholics.” I did not believe a word of that. I knew him all too well. He was a xenoformer. That meant he altered worlds illegally, changing their atmospheres, topographies, and biospheres for large amounts of illicit cash. The Earth was his next target.

It didn’t take me long to find him. He found me, in fact. Broke into my apartment with a borrowed human body and a screwdriver. I stepped out of thin air right behind him and I tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hello, Naag,” I said.

You should have seen him spin around. The centrifugal force of it restyled his hair. I decided that it suited him.

“How are the Catholics?” I said.

He went white. “They’re wonderful,” he said. “I like the Jewish mothers, too. And most of the rest of humanity in fact. Although some of the marketing people make me nervous and I try to steer clear altogether of Los Angeles.”

I shook my head. “It’s crap,” I said. “You’re xenoforming Earth.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. What is it this time? An ocean planet for the Hyrrions? Or what about something hotter, for the Nuwa Chythicans?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, really? Then why did you break in?”

He looked down at the screwdriver he still clutched. I saw his eyes go hard.

“Don’t even think it,” I said. At the same time, I pressed a short gray cylinder up against his head. “You know what this is?”

He rolled his borrowed Earthling eyes to get a look at it. “A psychological injector?”

“Good. You know what’s in it?”

“How many guesses do I get?”

“Forty millicogs of pure, uncut forgiveness from the Monks of Xalia.”

“You didn’t even let me guess.”

“The most guilty beings in existence,” I went on. “They think everything’s their fault.”

“Even shaving?”

“Especially shaving.”

“They sound fantastic. I’ll have to visit sometime. Bring the kids. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

I shoved him up against the wall. “They train themselves for centuries in self-forgiveness. It’s painstakingly harvested and concentrated in mental collectors. Do you have any idea what this stuff does to Naags?”

He did, evidently, because he dropped the screwdriver, and he didn’t fight me when I used the cord from one of the Venetian blinds to tie him to the credenza.

“No, no,” he said. “Never mind me. I’ll be fine. You go have your fun. I like being tied to the credenza.”

I didn’t listen, as on the one hand, this was typical behavior for a Naag and on the other I had locked myself in the bathroom, where I’d dropped a tab of standard issue, psychoactive, prepaid calling acid. It was time, in other words, to call the cavalry and I planned to do it through a telecommunicative hallucination.