Mike Resnick - I, Alien

They were sorry to announce Feerow’s death, which they all felt deeply. They had arrested my captors and they would be punished. They were still looking for those who had bombed our shuttle and would not stop until they, too, were punished. Nothing like this could ever happen again. The factories would be secure. There was no reason to deviate from our original plans.

My brethren looked to me for guidance and I led them, brilliantly, to a conclusion in which Earth government agreed to compensate us for any damage that might occur at any of the factories due to similar events in the future. They also agreed to provide their own security forces to guard our plants for the next fifty of their cycles.

Briice named the three sites. Siberia. China. Pakistan. All three offered isolated areas and a population eager and willing to work seven days out of seven.

I noticed the tightness of shoulders among the losing representatives and the relaxed limbs of those humans who represented the three sites selected. I also recognized, for the first time, the difference between polite smiles and genuine smiles of joy.

At the end of the day, I gathered with my brethren in blueness and pleasant scents while we congratulated one another upon overcoming the impossible.

“You facilitated well,” Briice said. “I had not expected to change my mind.”

“The humans were willing to sacrifice much for this,” I replied.

“How could you tell?” Tooland asked.

By the jaw muscles that twitched on one representative, and the way two of them flinched when various counterproposals were offered,

“Body language.” I turned a deeper shade of blue and emitted the scent of satisfaction. “I learned that their language is far richer than we’d ever imagined.”

Roitz flashed purple. “The muties? Well, you are the Tween. If you say they are rich, then they must be so. I do not see it.”

Because they did not wish you to see it.

In the morning, I stood in front of the wall of judgment and I could not stop myself from turning a rich shade of blue. I had done well. I had learned much. Surely the wall would recognize my value and reward me with a new position whose duties would occupy me for many years to come.

My name is Tween dy Kula Niiam and I can justify my existence. lam a Tween. I facilitate communication. I have years of experience and adapt quickly to new situations.

The wall flashed life colors, as I had expected, and rewarded me with the immortality that I had always wanted so very much. I thought my life was perfect. But then it gave me my new assignment, which was to last until completed. It would take longer than eternity to complete this task.

I turned dark green and almost brown. I could not restrain myself. This time, the always-silent wall broke its usual silence about assignments and offered me insight.

The reward for a job well done is more challenging work.

An old proverb. One I should have remembered.

I watched most of my brethren leave. Soon, a new crew would arrive to construct the factories and hire employees. Another crew would arrive not long thereafter to provide continual oversight.

I would not be at those factories. I was to walk among the humans and convert them to the way of truth, light, and profit margins.

I will live forever and I must spend that eternity among the heathen humans, attempting to save them from themselves.

How I envy Feerow!

DAYS AGO MY AEROKRAT left me at the edge of the forest. Now I ran back toward the break in the thick, tall woods, hoping to find him again. I wanted to return to his safety and bondage.

The sun fell behind the knobby trees, and heavy clouds killed the light. Rain exploded through the leaves, drenching the world in so much darkness and moisture I could hardly breathe.

Before long I fell down, and crawled on my hands and feet, slimy with mud, leaves, and sticks plastered to my thin clumps of fur.

I felt very alone, trying to find my way home. The trees loomed over me, threatening in the darkness. Creaks, snaps, and the sounds of animals skittering around in the darkness scared me.

Stumbling around in the night, I found a burrow in the space between a large root and the moist ground. Dirt caked my hands as I dug in for the night.

Overhead, streams of water cascaded down through large leaves and drooping limbs to soak me.

It would be a shivery night. My fur was only just starting to regrow after the anakoinosis.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. There was no advice, or past memories, to guide me on my path. It would be a shameful, lonely night, devoid of new learning.

When I was born, I broke free of my shell with my own hands. I picked the insides clean until I had a full stomach, and the brittle remains fell apart easily with a few punches and kicks.

I remembered this, as I remembered all things from long ago, and far away.

Many aerokratois stood around me when I broke free. They were pale and twice my height, with disgustingly smooth skin. The only visible fur grew on their heads.

Yet what fascinations they brought!

Until this point all the memories of my parents had swirled around through my body, mixing and intermingling, growing with me as I knit myself from egg.

So I understood what they said when they looked at me. Many of my parents understood their languages, though it had taken fifteen generations of anakoinosis to spread those memories all throughout.

None of my kind could absorb aerokratois memories, not the way our own foreparents’ memories were etched in each of us. The aerokratois defied true understanding because of their alienness. So we observed, watched, and learned to imitate the aerokratois ways.

Maybe, we thought, if we imitated them long enough, we could come to understand them without anakoinosis.

“Bob,” one of the aerokratois pointed at me. “This is your whiffet.”

“My what?”

“It will be your… assistant.”

Bob, I knew from the memories, looked upset.

“Assistant? I don’t want one of your little slaves, I want nothing to do with this.”

Another aerokratois stepped forward. “It is merely indentured servitude. Look, the leaders of the whiffets gave us their young willingly in exchange for the technology we gave them. It’s a fair trade.”

The memory of the aerokratois descending from the sky on a loud wind popped into my mind. They came with gifts: glittering objects, rare metals, strong spear-tips for better hunting, and diagrams for even more interesting machines.

“That doesn’t make it okay,” Bob shouted. “It’s wrong. You know it. Just because they were given to us doesn’t make using them right.”

The conversation, and my new master’s concern made me nervous. I walked forward and grabbed his hand. I formed words.

“I will serve you well, aerokrat. You will teach me all I can absorb.”

Bob’s mouth hung upon.

“How can it learn to speak so soon?”

The other aerokratois made laughter noises and shook themselves.

“They learn in the egg, we think.”

“You think?” Bob shouted. “Why haven’t we thawed out anthropologists yet? This needs to be studied. To be learned.”

I was excited. I would understand new things, things my foreparents had not known. Very few of the aerokratois seemed to care about learning. They had a desperate air about them, and only cared about one thing: the Great Repair.

But this aerokrat seemed different.

“We don’t have time,” the others told Bob. “The repairs must continue if we want to make the launch window. We have to fix the ship first, then we can study the whiffets with whatever time we have left. We can leave the scientists behind.” They made laughs again.