Mike Resnick - I, Alien

Both front air bags in the front, the one on the steering wheel, and the one in the passenger side of the dash, had deployed with astonishing explosive energy, uselessly. My seat belt had restrained me from coming into contact with my bag, and Jerry’s head had simply glanced off the other.

I was fine. My shoulder hurt a bit, but I felt okay. I unhooked my belt and leaned over Jerry, listening.

I heard no breathing. Jerry’s gun was nowhere in sight. It didn’t matter. Jerry wouldn’t be using it. I reached into my jacket and brought out my own piece, a black plastic 9mm semiautomatic. I checked it over, put it back. Then I got out.

Inspecting the front of the car, I was surprised at the minimal damage. The thick plastic and fake-chrome bumper had deformed only slightly. Not only was the car still operable, it was hardly touched. They make good vehicles, I thought. Nothing like a big old car. I hated compacts.

There were woods nearby, and I took myself for a walk. Following a deer trail, I passed through a copse of beech trees and came out into a little clearing.

It was a perfect day. The sunlight warmed and the wind cooled. The high sun backlighted a single cloud of writhing wisps and smokes, illuminated to an ethereal glow. It could have been some long-departed spirit, once earthbound but now free.

I was that spirit. I was a ghost on this planet, a shade of my former self, my former life on a planet far across this island universe that my race shared with the dominant species of this world. My essence had been transmitted across the vast black reaches, and I took up a new life here. The irony, the irony of the nature of that new life.

I smelled the sea and watched a white gull circle below the cloud. Birdsong came from a stand of timber to my right. A breeze came up and stirred the tall grass and made the sound beach grass makes with wind in it, a high, thin, brittle rustling, as if the grass were made of paper.

I smelled sea smells and earth smells, and the mixture was heady. The sky seemed bigger, out here in the boondocks, and the earth and sky was all there was. I heard no highway sounds. I looked down. The black earth was damp. I watched a beetle crawl along the ground, then disappear under a rock.

An insect flitted by; a blur of color, a flutter, then gone.

I felt odd, but good. I was aware of the world, and my place in it, interloper though I might be. I was here. Why? To see. To see, I thought. And I saw. I saw all this. I was alone on the Earth. There was only the Earth and myself, in solitude with my senses. My life—my lives—and their particular details, their shape and contour, their fits and starts, and this final faltering, were of little importance. All that mattered was that I was alive. I was here. I saw, I experienced. From this I derived an immense satisfaction, wordless and incommunicable.

But what of the life I had supplanted, usurped? That individual—Charles “Charlie Fish” Bonanno—was gone, and his demise posed an ethical problem, for all that he had possessed the morals of a slug. What rankled most was that it had all been in vain. “Juliano” could have been a transplant himself, an agent, an assassin sent by the galactic criminal organization I had betrayed eons ago, in another star system at the other end of the starry swarm of the Milky Way. Their tentacles were infinitely long. They were still reaching for me.

There was no remedy for it. I had no way of communicating to my protectors. There was no instrumentality on this planet capable of sending a distress signal. I was trapped here. The trouble with the Witness Protection Program was that it was a one-shot affair, so to speak. You got one chance to escape and hide. It was useless. If they could find me once, in time another assassin would come. Of that I could be quite assured.

I took a deep breath, then walked back to the car. I wedged my stocky frame into the front seat, and took out my primitive firearm. I slid out the clip, looked at it, then shoved it back into the handle.

Releasing the safety on the automatic, I glanced at the still form on the floor beside me. Was he or was he not an agent sent by the Organization? I didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. It was only a matter of time before such a one appeared. My only recourse was clear.

Holding the gun upside down, I placed the barrel between my lips and fired a bullet up through the roof of my mouth and into my tiny human brain.

IT’S STRANGE TO BE on a starship instead of on Mrrthow. It’s even stranger when you realize that no one on Mrrthow has any starships. Still, I am onboard a starship, so somebody has one. The people who own this one aren’t from Mrrthow. They aren’t people by my definition of five days ago. My new definition is more universal—any being that controls my food and air and pays me a salary is “people.” That’s a practical definition and I’m a practical vavacq.

As a practical person, I am cleaning the tables in the galley. My reading of cautionary romances on Mrrthow led me to believe that this would be done by machines, but I am informed that machines cost more than General Maintainers (Probationary) and it is not half so satisfying to hit machines. I don’t know how I know this language nor how my credentials were in order. I suppose I am a pawn in a game with many Hidden Players behind the scenes. I’d worry about it, but the first thing to do is survive.

Lady Susan came into the galley, ducking to avoid hitting her head. She’s a human and they run to height. She drew her five-fingered hand along the tabletop. “Not clean

Humans don’t like vavacq. (Yes, there are vavacq out here. This puzzled me at first.) Lady Susan takes this cultural trait and nurtures it. “Vavacq,” she said. “If your race practiced genetic engineering and forced culling for a few million years, they might be eligible to apply for a junior partnership in a lichen. You,” she sneered, “would not have made it to the second generation.” When she sneers, her shiny white omni-vore teeth contrast with her brown face.

I finished my cleaning and returned to my cubicle. I passed other crew on the way; none of them are vavacq, but none of them are human either. I think Lady Susan is on some sort of a training mission. I didn’t expect so many species. Our scientists said this was highly improbable; another good theory done in by facts. “Never thought about it,” was the majority opinion (this fits in with my new definition of people). This was followed by “It’s always been that way.” A few of a more mystic persuasion believed that an Elder Race had seeded the galaxy with life-forms for their own unknowable purposes. These were referred to as the Eldest Ones, the Gardeners, or the Causal Ones, depending upon the particular sect involved.

My quarters are small. My current possessions are two uniforms and a toilet kit. I have been accessing the available sections of the ship’s computer memory. Most of that seems to be pornography. There is background information in other languages, but I don’t know them. I don’t know how I learned this language I’m speaking. I’m going to sleep.

The captain is a Lobote—descended from a pack carnivore; we are the surrogate pack. I’m avoiding Lady Susan; she must dislike me as a vavacq specimen. I have not had a chance to be personally offensive to her. Given her size and obvious strength, I think the proper retort to her rudeness is a dignified silence or a “Yes, ma’am.” I’m the only vavacq on the ship. I know there are others in the galaxy. No one thinks I’m unusual. There are references to vavacq in some of the novels. Favorable, unfavorable, or background depending upon the author’s species or personality. It’s clear that vavacq are not the Master Race by any means.