Грегори Бенфорд - Not One of Us - Stories of Aliens on Earth

“Wait,” said Donna.

“What’s that?” said Glreerak.

It had been an intense evening. Donna had been overwhelmed by the menu at Linger, a trendy eatery with a spectacular view of Denver that Jared had never been willing to brave due to its world cuisine-inspired menu. Indeed, Jared would have hated it—would hate it tomorrow, given how spicy everything had been. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t notice anything even as fundamental as altered digestion. He’d been withdrawn and preoccupied of late, even for him, and had become nervous as well, startling at loud noises, rubbing his eyes.

To be fair, Linger’s menu had been a little weird for Donna, too, but she’d done all right with red wine, an order of sweet potato waffle fries, and the kofta, which turned out to essentially be meatballs dressed up for a night out.

Glreerak had liked everything, and the drinks along with the view of the city skyline had made it a bit homesick for its watery world.

“You can control other creatures with your mind?”

Glreerak didn’t answer; it just sipped on its cocktail, some weird thing called “Streets of Puebla” that Donna hadn’t liked at all .

“Well,” it said after swallowing, “yes. My telepathic prowess is why they chose me.”

Whatever she’d eaten for dinner felt like a cold and leaden lump inside her.

“So you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That you’d be able to control… us .”

“No!” Glreerak pursed its lips. “We wondered— hypothesized , as my mate would say. But we didn’t know . I mean, it was a week before I felt comfortable enough to try, just to see. And it was you who inspired me, Donna. Your body was so soft—you seemed so receptive to pleasure. I had to see you! The shape of you, all of you. The way you responded to him, I couldn’t let my time on Earth go by without taking advantage of the endless possibilities you suggested to me…”

Was it wooing her with sweet talk to distract her from the idea of a mass invasion? Were Glreerak’s people testing the waters, so to speak, to turn humanity into their next generation of garbage-hauling slaves?

“You know, Donna,” it said, reaching its hand across the table to take hers, “when your husband takes his turn living in my head, we will be revealing our planet’s secrets to your species.”

More than thoughts of their lovemaking, this distracted Donna from her worries of a future invasion. “What?”

“Eventually he will return with me. I am to spend a year with him, then he will spend a year with me.” Glreerak looked upset. “I know he has been concerned about how to tell you—how to explain his absence. I thought you should know, though.”

“He agreed to all this without…” Donna shook her head. She was so unimportant to him. What a fool she had been!

“Are you upset about the idea of losing him for so long?”

Donna looked up from her wine, saw the gleam of the ocular implants as it tilted its head at her like a quizzical puppy. She was upset—but she was upset about losing Glreerak; jealous that Jared, who had all the sense of wonder of a sack of potatoes, would get to live with it on its planet. Would get to see how it made love to its mate.

She laughed. It was the only thing she could to, really. “Well, maybe he’ll come back with a few new tricks to try on me after watching you with your mate.”

“Perhaps. At home, I would be the one to be fertilized.”

Donna blinked at it. “You’re a woman?”

“No, you’re a woman. I’m barely female! It’s rather a bit more complicated, at home. If we were interested in reproducing, my mate would fertilize me. Once the egg developed to its solid jelly form, I would pass it back to be incubated in my partner’s pouch. Eventually we would give it over to the city, where it would be implanted into a host along with the rest of the eggs around its stage. Once fully mature, it would hatch, and eat its way out of—well,” it trailed off, seeing her face. “The point is, when we fuck for pleasure, it’s a bit different.”

“Sounds like it will definitely broaden his mind.” Donna smiled. “Glreerak…”

“Yes?”

“Even if we only have a year, we have a year. Together. Let’s make it a fun one.”

“It has been already!”

“Sure, the past few weeks have been great, but still—you didn’t come all the way to Earth just to go to work under DIA every day and live in Aurora.”

“Well, a month from now, Jared’s going on a tour of world heritage sites…” Glreerak paused. “Don’t be upset… you were to come on that one. Mr. Smoot has been arranging it with your job. It was to be a surprise. That’s why I didn’t tell you, either. You know I would have, don’t you, Donna?”

“Well then let’s at least go away for a weekend. To the mountains, maybe. Together. Just the two of us, I mean. When we go abroad, I’m sure we’ll have all kinds of handlers and such. If you—if Jared could get a half-day some Friday…”

Glreerak nodded, smiling in that way Jared never smiled at her. “Sounds delightful,” it agreed. “I’ll ask for the…” its eyes went a bit dim as they did when it was searching through Jared’s mind for the correct turn of phrase, “ time off .”

“Good.” She reached for the small menu beside her elbow. “But first, how about dessert?”

She decided on Steamboat Springs. It was inexpensive now that the snowpack was mostly gone, she knew no one who lived in the area, and there was a legendary hot spring up there, Strawberry Park, that was supposed to be gorgeous. Plus, the drive up would show Glreerak the mountains, where the aspens were still the pale gold-green of springtime against the dark pines.

It was exhilarating. The whole drive, Donna felt like she was going on a dirty weekend, even though it was her husband was in the passenger’s seat. Well, sort of.

Glreerak was pleased with everything—pointed out gorgeous vistas, gasped as they crested various passes. Jared would only have remarked on the traffic; worried whether they should have made dinner reservations.

Saturday, they took a picnic lunch up to the springs, sandwiches and chips and a can of the kale-flavored soda that Donna had only ever seen Glreerak buy. By late in the afternoon, they’d had enough of dipping in the various pools, heating up and cooling down by turns. But that was fine, they had urgent business in the hotel room.

Donna’s googling had told her Café Diva was a hot spot even in the warmer weather, but when they walked in the door, she saw something she didn’t like one bit. Vicky and her husband Mark were there, and before Donna could suggest ought to go elsewhere to avoid being spotted, they were.

“Donna!” cried Vicky. “I didn’t know you and Jared would be here this weekend. You sly dogs, are you on a lovers’ getaway?”

“Haha,” said Donna, just like that—not a laugh, but a statement. “Yeah, we are, you caught us.”

“We are, too! Come on, join us for dinner! It’ll be fun, you can go back to your place after.” She winked outrageously at Donna. “We’ve only just ordered starters.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to…”

“To what? Have fun? Come on, you won’t be bothering us.”

Donna looked to Glreerak. It shrugged.

They actually had a really nice dinner. Glreerak did well with Vicky and Mark, even if sometimes it had to think, scanning through Jared’s brain, before responding. Donna ordered a second bottle of wine to keep them from noticing too much. It seemed to work.