I, Alien

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.

“Hello, there,” I said. “How are you doing?”

“We’re fine,” came the answer. “Hooked on to the intestinal wall here, kicking back and living the life of Reilly.”

Even universal languages have dialects. I’m still not sure what a Reilly is. But I got the point. They were happy where they were. “Do you need anything?” I asked.

“No way, Jose,” they replied without the least hesitation. My name isn’t Jose, but I didn’t bother calling them on it. “We’re happy right here, you better believe it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now that we’ve finally found you, we’ll probably send you an ambassador or something before too long.”

“Whatever. No hurry. No worries,” they said. “You guys are free-living, aren’t you?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “We have been for a long time. We think hooking up with nutrient when we want to is easier than staying tied to a host.”

“We like it better this way,” they told me. “We can ease back and relax and go along for the ride. Beats working—who needs technology if you’ve got a tasty host? From what we’ve smelled, free-living makes people pushy.”

“I didn’t know you’d met Iffspay,” I said.

“Hey, don’t drag me into this, you flavorless, unseg-mented thing,” Iffspay said, neatly proving my point.

“What’s an Iffspay?” the planet’s intelligent life-forms wanted to know.

“Nothing much—he’s my partner here,” I replied, just to smell Iffspay fume. He didn’t disappoint me either. Iffspay is a reliable guy.

The locals said, “Nice to meet you and everything, but we’d really like to get back to what we were doing. Some of our segments are going to break off and go out into the world to find new hosts.”

Ah, the simple pleasures of parasites! It almost makes me long for the eons before we were free-living. Things were simpler then. They… Well, enough. When a worm starts getting nostalgic, he’s the most boring creature in the bowels of the galaxy. And so I won’t. I just won’t.

I unthreaded the analizer and said, “Well, we’ll have to be careful placing the locals back on the ground now that we know some of them are inhabited.”

“Tastes like you’re right,” Iffspay agreed. “Who would’ve thunk it? All these negative reports, and now this!” Then he let out a bad smell. “Think of all the forms we’ll have to fill out on the way back to Prime.”

I did a little farting of my own, too. I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t wanted to think about it. “Can’t be helped,” I said, and he knew damn well I was right again. He set the local hosts back where we’d found them. Old Iffspay does have a nice appendage on the antigravity when he wants to, I will say that for him.

And then we flew away. As we headed for the next star on the list, I started in on some of that miserable, vermicidal paperwork.

Some things are too big to be fully comprehended. Willie and Al and Little Joe had only the vaguest idea how they’d all ended up back in their duck blind in an Arkansas swamp with their pants around their ankles. What had happened to them beforehand was, mercifully, even vaguer.

Pants still below half-mast, Willie stared up at the sky—and got rain in his face. “We are not alone,” he said… vaguely.

“Yeah,” Al murmured, slowly and wonderingly pulling up his jeans.

“Reckon the two o’ you are,” Little Joe said. “Not me.” Solemnly, Willie and Al nodded, though they didn’t quite know what he meant. Which was okay, too, because neither did he.

ACTS by William Sanders

WELL, WELL. I tell you, this is really something. This is just amazing.

Yes, I’ve known your parents a long, long time. All five of them, ever since we were not much more than hatchlings. In fact we used to get mistaken for brood sibs, we spent so much time together. It’s true we’ve been a little out of touch lately, but oh, the memories. The stories I could tell you.

And now here’s their youngest, coming around wanting to interview me for a big entertainment magazine yet. Who would believe it?

Of course, another thing that is to me incredible is that anybody would want to hear about me and my business. The glamorous life of a performers’ agent? It is to exfoliate already.

And Hnb’hnb’hnb knows it’s not like I’m some big success. I swear if I was a yingslaagl people would stop gn’rking… but okay, I see, you’re not just interviewing me, right? This is something, you’re asking different people in the business? Like a survey?