Mike Resnick - I, Alien

And the locals still didn’t try to escape. I can’t tell you exactly how much I resembled them—how do you evaluate a sense you haven’t got yourself?—but it must have been close enough for government work. I was glad the suit had its own powered heat-seeker; the rain would have played hob with the one I was hatched with, which naturally isn’t anywhere near so strong.

I wanted to get really close before I paralyzed them, for fear all that water coming down out of the sky would attenuate the beam, too. And I did. I got so close, my instruments could tell they were emitting air vibrations themselves. The ones from the ship had much more pleasing patterns, but I wasn’t there to play art critic.

Ready… Aim… The calm suit’s appendages aren’t as sensitive as real ones, so I squeezed the control inside just as hard as I could. “Got ‘em!” I told Iffspay. “Bring me back, and bring them in, too.”

“Keep your integument on,” Iffspay said. There are times when I’m tempted to turn the paralyzer on him. Leaving him unable to communicate would be all to the good. That’s what / think, and nobody’s likely to make me change my mind.

Up went the locals, one by one. Iffspay saved me for last, just to annoy me. He did, too, but I wasn’t about to let him smell it when I got back to the ship. He was bustling around when the antigravity beam finally pulled me back aboard. The locals were all lined up neatly, ready for us to start doing our latest check. Two of them emitted significantly more heat than the third, which meant they had more body mass.

All three of them also went on emitting high amplitude air vibrations. “Why are they doing that?” Iffspay asked irritably. “Aren’t they supposed to be paralyzed?”

I had to check the manual before I could answer him. “It says paralysis only inhibits gross motor functions. If it inhibited all movements, they’d die.”

I got out of the calm suit. I didn’t need it anymore, and we’d made the capture. The paralyzed locals weren’t going to interfere. As I put it back in the closet, the amplitude of their air vibrations increased even more. “They’re still sensing us somehow,” I said. “Those waves have to be voluntary.”

Now it was Iffspay’s turn to check the manual. Yeah, yeah, I know—when all else fails, read the instructions. At last, he said, “I think they’re photosensitive to some of the wavelengths we use for heat-seeking.”

“Oh. All right.” That even made sense. “I wonder if those were alarm calls, then. They might have been surprised when they perceived me changing from something like their own shape to my own proper one.

“Who cares?” Iffspay said. “Let’s get them ana-lized, and then we can analyze the data—not that there’ll be any data to analyze. We’ll do it by the book, though.”

“By the book,” I agreed. And, by the book, we did the two bigger specimens first. We had to check the manual again to make sure just where to analize them. Iffspay thought the orifice emitting the air vibrations was the one that would take the probe, but he turned out not to be right. Evolution was even crazier than usual on that planet, you betcha.

And the manual didn’t exactly match the specimens we had. By what it said, the orifice should have been accessible once we figured out where the space fiend it was. But the locals had integuments more complicated than what the manual showed. Good old Iffspay was all for cutting right on through them. Iffspay never was long on patience, I’m afraid.

“Let’s try peeling them instead,” I said. “That way, we’re less liable to injure them.”

“Oh, all right,” he said sulkily. “It’ll take longer, though.”

I was the one who got to peel them. Since it was my idea, Iffspay didn’t want thing one to do with it. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, either, not getting started. I kept thinking about gross and fine motor functions. If the locals weren’t perfectly paralyzed… well, they’d splatter me all over the walls of the ship.

But I managed to peel the first one without doing it any harm I could detect—its heat signature and the kind of air vibrations it emitted didn’t change at all— and without getting hurt myself. Once I’d taken care of the hard part, Iffspay grabbed the glory. He bent the local into the position the manual suggested and threaded in the probe.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, nothing,” Iffspay answered. “The computer can check me later, but there’s nothing. A big, fat, juicy nothing. So much for that.”

“Don’t prejudge. We’ve still got two more to go,” I said, though I wasn’t what you’d call optimistic about them either.

“Go on and peel the next one, then,” Iffspay said.

“Why me again?” I asked him. “How come I get stuck with all the hard stuff?”

“Because you did such a good job the last time,” he answered. Iffspay tastes smooth, no two ways about it.

After letting out a few last bitternesses of annoyance, I got to work on the second large local. Fortunately, everything went well. In fact, it went better than it had the first time, because I’d had the practice of doing it once. I reached for the probe once I’d got the local into the position—I did it myself that time— but Iffspay already had it in his appendage.

“This is the last lump,” I said angrily. “You’re going to peel the third one, and I’m going to do the analyzing. And if you don’t like it, I’ll talk to a lawyer when we get home. There are limits to how much you can impose on people.” I had really had it.

Iffspay could tell, too. “Fine. Fine!” he said. “Don’t get all disconnected from your nutrient provider. You want to analyze the third one, be my guest. Meanwhile, though…” He inserted the probe. He tried to go on as if everything were normal, but my talk about lawyers had put a bad smell in his chemoreceptors, let me tell you. After he withdrew the probe, he added, “Nothing again. Not even a hint. If you want to waste your time with the last one, be my guest.”

“I want to perceive you peel it,” I said. “That should be funny enough to go on the planetwide sensorium special.”

“You’ll find out.” Now I’d got Iffspay mad. I could taste it. And, of course, when he got mad, he got clumsy. I wish they would put the recording of the botch he made of that peeling job on the sensorium special. He’d have an offer to do sitcoms so fast, you wouldn’t believe it. The local’s air vibrations increased in amplitude, too. I don’t think it much cared for what was going on. After what seemed like forever, Iffspay turned to me and said, “There. All yours.”

I took the probe. But it didn’t want to do what it was supposed to. I had to feel around near the target area. “You bumbling idiot,” I said. “There’s still a layer of integument here. The other two had this layer—weren’t you paying attention when I dealt with them? Once you get this down, then it’s pay dirt.”

“Well, take care of it, then, if you’re so smart,” he said.

“Oh, no. The deal was you’d peel this one and I’d probe it. You finish your job, and then I’ll do mine.”

He made a stink about it, but he did it. I suspected there’d be some long, nasty silences on the way to the next star. Well, too bad. I know what my rights are, by the Great Eggcase, and I know when to curl up for them.

“I hope you’re satisfied now,” he grumped when he’d finally got the peeling right.

“Couldn’t be happier,” I told him, just to smell him fume.

And I meant it literally. This time, the analizer went in just as smooth as you please. I extended an appendage through it—and made contact!

Photosensitive creatures use energy waves to talk. I suppose you could talk with air vibrations, too, though I’ve never heard of any intelligent races that do. Too much ambiguity either way, as far as I’m concerned. Taste and scent, now, those are universal languages. No doubt about ‘em.