Mike Resnick - I, Alien

“Leave him behind.” Trey shrugged his shoulders. “They’ll find him.”

“He’ll be dead when they find him!” Amy put her hands on her hips and thrust her face forward. How odd. In a strange kind of way, this reminded me of the ballet that had been presented for us during one of our initial meetings.

“Let him die.” Bill muttered. “Look what they’re doing to us.”

“I won’t be an accomplice to murder,” Amy screamed. “Besides, it’ll kill the cause, not help it. Those idiots who bombed them probably undid everything we’ve managed to accomplish.”

So someone else did this. It was logical. These four humans were too disorganized to have planned anything successfully.

While they argued, I glanced around the room and began easing toward the door. I didn’t know what these people wanted, but I knew I couldn’t give it to them and Feerow was dying. If I escaped, I might be able to find help in time to save him.

They weren’t looking in my direction. They were too occupied with their internal dispute.

I reached the door and struggled to turn the doorknob with my upper limb’s digits. The door creaked when I opened it. I glanced quickly toward the humans, but they were too busy shouting at one another and waving their arms about to notice the small noise.

I ran, screaming fear in the strongest scent that I could possibly release. I felt like I’d run 100 kilometers, but they told me later that I had only gone a single kilometer before a hovercraft descended and six huge Earthlings dropped to the ground around me.

“We’re from the government,” the first one said, “and we’re here to help you. Just let me fasten my harness around you.”

The next thing I knew, I was being pulled off the ground into the hovercraft.

“You’ll be fine in a few days,” the doctor told me.

I opened my mouth and strange gurgling noises were all I could manage.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s no indication of any permanent damage. The swelling will gradually subside and you’ll be talking normally again in no time.”

I struggled to find some way to communicate and remembered the way my captors had gestured with their hands. If my theory was right, I might be able to convey a question with the right motions.

I rolled all but two digits into my upper limb. There had been two of us. He stared and I could see his eyebrows furrow together. I wish I understood what that meant.

His eyes widened and he asked, “You want to know about your friend?”

He looked away and said, “His injuries are much more severe than yours. I’m afraid I don’t have much hope for recovery.” He looked back at me and added, “I’m sorry.”

I stood there, unmoving, hoping for more. One of the human escorts moved forward and said, “They arrested the people who held you. The people who bombed your shuttle died, but they belonged to a fringe organization. Authorities don’t believe they acted alone. They’re investigating.”

If I lived forever, I would never understand humans. Their actions were insane. I bowed slightly to the doctor and followed my escorts out of the hospital.

I said little to the others when the humans returned me to our lodgings. They apparently assumed I felt ashamed because I had lost one third of my speaking ability.

They were half right. I felt shame, but I felt that emotion because I had made some horrible misinterpretations which no Tween should ever have made.

I stood before the judgment wall the next morning and struggled to form the words to the best of my ability. The wall blinked puzzlement. I knew death would come, as it had to my predecessors, and I waited, half-longing for the end so I would no longer feel shame for my earlier failure.

The wall told me to step forward and place my digits against it. I did, and waited to feel the softness of death.

Instead, I felt a sharp tingling sensation that traveled through my digits to my upper limbs, and then up my body until it reached my jaw.

The pain was almost as intense as the original injury. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the wall. I would not scream. I would die with dignity.

The vibrations stopped and the wall exploded with the colors of life.

“I don’t understand,” I said in a perfect tirade of spoken words, smells, and color. With that speech came full understanding.

The wall had cured me. It had performed a cost analysis and had determined it would prove more cost effective to cure me.

I was blessed. If few had been injured, even fewer had ever been cured.

I bowed low and thanked the wall profusely. The wall, as always, remained cold and nonfunctional after dispensing its verdict. I would never know why it had gifted me with healing and life, but I accepted this blessing as an opportunity to correct my errors of omission.

We had not yet signed a contract. My fellow teammates had decided to withhold even the three site names while they contemplated this latest development. By the time I arrived for our private meeting, they were considering abandoning Earth and forfeiting our option payment.

“It’s bad enough that they are idiots,” Vaaishya dy Keem Briice said. “But they attempted to kill us. If they had planned better, we would all be dead.”

“What if they wait until all our factories are built and then destroy them?” Vaiishya dy Baase Roitz asked. “The potential losses could be devastating.”

“They are not idiots,” Vaaishya dy Ziam Toolan oozed the scent of repulsion. “They are madmen. We could never trust them.”

Toolan turned to me. “Why didn’t you recognize this? It is your duty to facilitate communication. Should you not have led them to reveal their insanity?”

I waited for the sound and scent to die down before speaking. “I have had a learning experience,” I said. “I spent some short time as their captive and I learned that some of our original beliefs about their communication were incorrect.”

The room filled with silence louder than any I had ever experienced in my life. “I confessed my failing to the wall just a short time ago and waited for termination. Instead, the wall healed me so I could stand before you now, able to communicate normally. The wall would not have spared me if I didn’t still have something to contribute.”

“The wall spared you because it would take too long to send another Tween!” Roitz said. He turned yellow and emitted the scent of contempt.

No one else said a word. They all sat there with their smooth faces and perfectly still limbs, secreting scents of dissatisfaction and turning yellow with displeasure. They all agreed with Briice.

“We should meet with the humans tomorrow and discuss our concerns,” I said. “I will facilitate the conversation.”

With that statement, I left the room and did not return. I spent the rest of the day and most of the night using the Earth viewing machines to study everything I could find about humans… with the sound off.

I saw patterns.

The humans sat stone-faced and motionless at our table the next morning. They said all the right words. They disclosed all the right details. They performed all the proper rituals.

But I was not fooled. Not anymore.

I saw patterns. Layers and layers of patterns.

The woman beside me wore a silk suit that fit her perfectly and shoes made of fine leather. The man across from me wore an equally well-fitting suit and shoes made of crocodile skin. Behind us, the escorts wore ill-fitting uniforms made of inferior cloth and their shoes were identical, black, and of inferior quality when compared to those shoes around me.

Even their clothing was a form of communication! It shouted their caste standing.

The human representatives sat stone-faced, without any of the gestures I’d seen during captivity, and I realized then that this was more for their benefit than our own. Without gestures and expressions, it was easier to lie.