Mike Resnick - I, Alien

I let it carry me. It walked back in the direction from which the fir-cone had come, but not very far. The wind was still blowing in the same direction, but the wet was different. I harvested some nourishment from the creature to strengthen me and went out of its body to go look. There was a steep bank there, with a smell of sharpness as though the steepness had been made not very many warmcolds ago. The hard surface bridged the gap between one steep bank and another, and beneath—in the low place—there was wet. So much wet. Unimaginable wet.

As though the rain that falls in the forest, all of the rain that had ever fallen in the forest, had collected in one place, so much rain that it did not soak into the tree-floor, so much rain that it stayed whole and wet even though it lay upon the ground. That was where the wind picked up the water, blowing over this huge wet; and behind the wind, instead of a forest, there was a flat land with soil that was so fat with nourishment that the taste of it was dizzying.

There were things growing in the flat land, things in regular array, juicy things with fruit in them ripening in the warm. I left the creature; I needed all of my substance with me to explore, and lay the creature down softly on the hard surface before I fled into the flat land.

The bright came. But I was safe below the surface of the flat land, feeding from the juicy things with a hunger I had never known before. There was so much. It was so good. The juicy things grew sere and withered as I fed, but I didn’t care, there were so many of them—nothing that I could sense as far away as I could sense but food.

I could no longer sense the aware one. I was in a new place, on my own. I no longer even thought of the aware one. I knew my purpose. I fruited and fed, and fed and fruited, and when the creatures brought poison into the flat land I crept into one of them and traveled to more food. There was no end to it. There were fewer and fewer creatures, and poison in the flat lands behind me; but they could not keep me from the food.

Now the warm is over and the cold is coming, but I will not sleep. I have found a place in a nest of the creatures, full of moisture, full of food, and I will keep myself aware there for the cold. When the warm comes again, I will try to get back across the hard stony thing to the place where I was born to find the other, to share the nourishment I’ve found.

I am of the aware one; I am the aware one. There was only one: now there are two, and with the nourishment I have found we will feed and multiply, and be the caretakers of this wonderful new world—and all the creatures in it.

MY NAME IS TWEEN dy Kula Niiam and I can justify my existence. I am a Tween. I facilitate communication. I have years of experience and adapt quickly to new situations.

I repeat these words every morning while facing the judgment wall and wait to learn if I continue my duties or expire. I stand still and calm, keeping my skin color a reverent shade of pale blue, and oozing the sweet scent of dedication. When the wall flashes life colors, I bow three times and back out of the room.

I have performed this sacred ritual every morning of my life. The difference now is that I know I will not die as long as I am assigned to the negotiating team on Earth. Our work is important. We cannot pause to wait for our home world to send a replacement.

Once the contract is signed, a new team will arrive to oversee the construction of the three factories and sublight delivery systems. They will hire humans at a fraction of what we pay our lowest caste laborers on any of our colony worlds.

Then I shall return home and once again face the possibility that the judgment wall will find me no longer useful.

This will not happen, though. Not to me. I am efficient, meticulous, and highly useful. I shall merit at least one life extension for my work on Earth, and I would not be surprised to be granted immortality. Such a reward is rare, but I have done very well.

I was thinking about this when the shuttle arrived to take us to our meeting with the humans. I sat down in the first seat behind our human escorts and turned a happy shade of blue. Vaaishya dy Muwa Feerow sat down beside me and emitted the pleasant odor of success.

“Today, we will sign the contracts and our work here will be done.” He punctuated his statement with the rich aroma of satisfaction.

“I pity the vaaishya who must stay behind to assist the new team overseeing construction and management.” I turned a sickly shade of yellow to convey my thoughts about that particular task.

“Pray it will not fall upon my shoulders.” Feerow turned a matching shade of yellow and the richness faded into the tangy scent of concern.

“They are all idiot savants,” Feerow added, “except for those who are not. Some are merely idiots.”

We flashed laughing shades of purple and filled the shuttle with the thick aroma of humor. Our Earth escorts at the front and back of the shuttle stood watching, deaf to most of our conversation.

Poor idiots. They lacked two of the basic components of language. Their bodies could turn only one color and that was a reddish tone that indicated embarrassment. As for scents, they could only emit one and that was a most unpleasant odor that none of us wished to encounter again.

How tragic that the first oxygen-breathing, intelligent life-form we encountered was two-thirds mute!

The first Tween to encounter humans was terminated by the judgment wall. So were the next three Tween representatives to Earth. I was warned that all had gone mad from their efforts to learn so many different languages, each of which were splintered into numerous dialects.

I am the fourth Tween, but I do not fear insanity. After the deaths of the other Tweens, the Earth representatives selected their best communicators. They speak one common language clearly, consistently, and without any of the neurological problems that afflicted the first group of human negotiators.

Those humans, according to the notes left behind by my predecessors, were subject to fits that caused their faces to twist in odds ways and their limbs to flail about while they were speaking.

Feerow must have been thinking along the same lines. He said, “Have you ever paused to think about the problems our brethren will face after we sign this contract? The humans have so many strange customs and they only expect to work five days out of every seven. I cannot comprehend a species that can set aside their work like it is something other than part of themselves.”

He turned yellow-almost-green and added, “I would rather expire than live among these people. I pray I will not be selected.”

“Blessed is our judgment wall,” I said, “and perfect in its choices.”

Feerow turned blue again and emitted the scent of contentness. “Yes. Thank you for reassuring me. Perfect is our system, unlike the chaos of Earth.”

I nodded and then the impossible happened. I heard the screeching of the shuttlels brakes, the crunch of metal hitting metal, and a loud whooshing sound that I could not identify. Airbags exploded and we struggled to free ourselves and see what had happened.

I smelled smoke. When I escaped the airbag and stood up, I saw fire at the front of the bus. Our human escorts rushed forward into the flames and I, being wiser than they, ran toward the emergency exit at the back of the shuttle.

My fellow team members all did the same and I feared I would be the last to escape, if I escaped at all.

“The window!” Feerow shouted. I was closer to the window than he was and thus I stood on the seat and pushed my body through the shattered window while he faced the approaching flames.