Ask Arlen

Illustration by Theodore Iszler

Plummeting through the predawn sky, all Qtzl could think of was that his family would never know what had happened to him. He would burn his epitaph across an alien sky alone, while the only eyes that would see him—alien eyes—would mark him as a meteor.

It didn’t happen quite that way. He managed to bypass his malfunctioning navigational array, regain control of the craft before it began to disintegrate in the atmosphere of the planet, and fire up his braking field. It made his descent more spectacular, but slowed the ship. He downed it in a labyrinthine maze of mountains and sat quaking, but alive, wondering what he ought to do next.

“Qtzl,” Ship said. “You are alive.”

“Indeed. Thank you.”

“Your vital signs are quite strong, though your respiration is a bit elevated. May I recommend that we attempt communication with any nearby comrades?”

“Do that.” Qtzl glanced around, discomfited by the sound of hissing from somewhere to the stern of the small craft.

“Communication impossible. Order disregarded.”

Qtzl brought his eyes back to the spherical console display. “Impossible? Why did you recommend we attempt it, then?”

“Protocol,” Ship said, and managed to sound reproachful. “May I recommend that you get out and reconnoiter?”

“No, thank you. I d rather not find out, for the sake of protocol, that reconnoitering is as impossible as communication.”

“The planet’s atmosphere is breathable,” Ship informed him, reproach thickening. “I repeat: I recommend that you get out and reconnoiter.”

Qtzl did that, if for no other reason than that the continued hissing from astern made him nervous. Outside, he could see that the damage was severe. The bow planes used for atmospheric maneuvering were sheared off and the landing cradle had failed, dumping the craft onto its braking-field generator. The communications array was smashed beyond recognition and steam oozed from a seam behind the cabin.

“Damage report,” he ordered, trying to sound authoritative rather than frightened. “Source of steam.”

“Environment controls disabled… coolant chamber breached.”

Qtzl took a step backwards. “Are you likely to explode?”

“Likely? That is a judgment call. Likelihood of explosion, twenty to one against.”

“Possibility of repair?”

“Repair necessary to continued functioning.”

Qtzl tried to swallow around the dry patch in his throat. “No, no. I mean, what’s the possibility that I could repair you?”

“You installed my navigational array,” Ship said.

Qtzl colored all the way to the tip of his crest. “Point taken,” he said and trudged off in search of shelter, cursing his mechanical ineptitude. This was like a grade-B ixltl—foolhardy adolescent stranded alone on an alien and possibly hostile world, no way of contacting his loved ones. Alone against—

“Ship, life-form readings, please.”

“You are surrounded by an abundance of small life-forms, Qtzl.”

“How small?”

“Very small. The largest is approximately eight ixiqs long and four ixiqs in height.”

“Intelligent?”

“Intelligence is a relative concept. Could you be more specific?”

“Are they people?”

“No people are present.”

Qtzl sighed, ruffling his neck frill. Someday perhaps, ship consoles would be less dogmatic. “I need shelter. Could you—I mean, please locate shelter.”

Ship was silent for a moment, then said, “There is an artificial structure 100 itixiqs to the east.”

Qtzl’s blood froze. “Artificial?”

“A domicile. It is vacant… presently.”

Qtzl was both excited and fearful as he approached the domicile. It was perched near the top of a wooded slope, hemmed in by what he assumed were trees; only the second story’s high, peaked roof nudged above the many branches.

He entered through a door screened by flowering plant life. The building was, as Ship had said, vacant, but not empty. It was full of furnishings—some comfortingly and eerily familiar, others whose uses Qtzl could only guess at.

He was at once unnerved and delighted. A person lived here! An alien person whose dimensions were not unlike his own. He wondered how soon the alien would return. He opened his mouth to ask Ship, but realized Ship would only say—with impossible condescension—that it was not omniscient. That fact bothered Qtzl deeply just now.

His senses told him that no food had recently been prepared here and there was a fine layer of dust on the furnishings that spoke of disuse. Perhaps this was someone’s sabbatical refuge. His explorations revealed much of interest. There were but two small sleep chambers (or so he took them to be) with one padded pallet apiece. Both were flat; Qtzl couldn’t imagine sleeping on them. He was boggled by the number of belongings this alien had accrued.

He was also boggled by what he took to be representations of the planet’s natives. Although there were images of a number of fur-bearing animals—chiefly hanging within frames on the walls—by far the preponderance of pictures were of a bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical being that wore fur only on or around its head and which possessed two eyes, a small mouth, and a pointy, erect nose. They were neither terrifyingly ugly nor mesmerizingly beautiful, despite what the popular ixltls suggested to the contrary. But they were undeniably alien. Except for the eyes, Qtzl found the faces mystifying; without a neck frill and crest, how could he ever hope to read their emotions? Creator willing, he would never have to try.

During his meal of synthesized rations, Ship informed him that it had been doing some calculations. “Repair is possible,” it told him, and proceeded to rattle off a list of necessary materials. “Needed metals, minerals and chemical compounds are present in this planet’s mantle. They are also present in the artifacts found in this domicile, which indicates that the natives mine and refine them. This society would appear to be fairly advanced in metallurgy and chemistry. It should not be impossible to effect my repair.”

“But will 1 be able to do it?”

“I will offer instruction and guidance,” said Ship, and Qtzl imagined smugness in the tone.

“How do I go about obtaining the materials?”

“I have no idea.”

Kerwin Frees was a UFO chaser. He was a card-carrying member of MUFON. He was also a card-carrying member of CSICOP (which he referred to lovingly as “the psy-cops”), and saw no contradiction in the dual membership. He was both skeptic and true-believer but, at the moment, the true-believer was dominant, for Kerwin Frees was certain he had just seen a UFO land in the deep, piney woods beyond the south shore of Lake Tahoe.

He had not been chasing UFOs when he witnessed the long trail of light arcing from the heavens. He had been lying on the hood of his Saturn stargazing, drowning his senses in the immensity of the Universe and sipping a beer, figuring that next month when the tourists and fair-weather Tahoe-ites began to arrive, he would go to Montana where a rash of sightings had recently occurred.

He was immediately galvanized. The beer was forgotten. He had just enough time to lift his field glasses and track the fiery object s fall. Most people would have taken it for a meteor. Kerwin Frees did not make that mistake. The trajectory was all wrong, suggesting at least a partially controlled descent; its trail flattened out before disappearing behind a wooded ridge. It was not a jet—no jet had ever plummeted from that distance. It was not a space shuttle—he knew this because he had the shuttle schedule (hacked out of a NASA computer) memorized.

Kerwin Frees poured out the remains of his beer, tossed the can into the recycle bin in his trunk, and shut himself into his car with his CB radio.

Qtzl slept curled in a large cupshaped chair. He did not sleep easily or well, and was up before daybreak exploring his borrowed lodgings and pondering his predicament. On his own, he came up with the idea that Ship s Field Remote Unit should scan the foodstuffs in the alien’s larder, and he found what looked vaguely like a computer in a cozy, cluttered chamber. The FRU confirmed the find. It was a computer of sorts, and was connected to some sort of alien network. Munching on some dry, crumbly white squares Ship had deemed edible, Qtzl watched the FRU (which looked, appropriately, like Ship in miniature) put the alien artifact through its paces.

“The machine incorporates no intelligence,” Ship told him after exciting the boxy alien unit into a series of bleeps and chitters. “It models reality in simple binary languages which are relatively nimble, but not exceptionally powerful.… The network to which it is connected,” Ship added after a long pause, “is, however, rather extensive. If you will allow me the time, Qtzl, I can explore the pathways. Perhaps I can determine a means of procuring the materials necessary for the repair of my transport module.”

Qtzl allowed the time, and used it to his own purposes. Sometime in the middle of a fitful nap, Qtzl wakened to Ship’s strident desire to share its findings.

“This society functions on a free-market system not unlike our own. I have located sources for the materials you need, and can arrange to have them delivered to this place.”

“How?”

“Quite simply by placing orders into the computers of the various sellers. I already have experimented with such a tactic. The computers, lacking intelligence, do not question my addition of spurious orders.”

“But… how will we pay for it?”

“We have nothing with which to pay for it,” said Ship patiently.

“But that’s stealing,” Qtzl objected. “I won’t steal.”

“Then you will not get home.”

“Stealing is reprehensible.”

“Then we have a moral dilemma.”

Qtzl rolled his neck frill and waved his arms in a gesture he hoped looked more impassioned than frantic. “Options! I need options.”

“If you had some sort of legal tender, you could purchase the materials, and I could then place the orders legitimately.”

“Good! What tender?”

“Apparently, this society functions with a multi-leveled equivalency system. Precious metals are the actual units of value; however, one does not use them directly in bartering.”

Qtzl’s momentary relief flagged. “You mean, I can’t just go dig up some ores and do business?”

“Apparently not. The second tier of exchange involves chits called ‘money’ or ‘currency,’ which occur in a multitude of denominations and which are symbolic of the actual units of value. There is then a third level of exchange called ‘credit’ which exists solely as electronic information and which is symbolic, in its turn, of the currency. As nearly as I am able to determine, most business is conducted without any physical exchange of real property. All transactions are controlled by computers… which makes their lack of sophistication beneficial,” it added after a moment.

Qtzl pondered this, then decided it behooved him to ask, “In order to purchase our materials, what must I have?”

“You must have an accumulation of this symbolic data in an institution known as a ‘bank.’ ”

There was no Tlvian equivalent for the word, so Ship simply said it in the language of the builders of the network. “Bank.” It was a perfectly ugly word, Qtzl thought, sounding approximately like someone choking on vetshmil.

“And how,” he asked, “does one acquire these symbolic units of value?”

“One works. When one works, one’s employer deposits these symbolic units of value into the aforementioned ‘bank.’ The problem, of course, is that each employed individual is known to the system by a unique code which includes a name and a number.”

Qtzl had not thought it possible for Ship to sound perplexed or uncertain. He revised that estimation now, and was far from happy about it.

Meteorite. That was what the police, the late-night news, and the next morning’s newspaper labeled it. The only people who suspected it was anything else were fringers—crazies that used citizen band and the Web alike to report everything from abductions to Elvis sightings. It wasn’t long before a simple arc of light had been transmuted into a dozen or more close encounters of various kinds, including detailed (and wildly different) descriptions of the aliens.

Kerwin Frees was an experienced hand at this. He knew how to read between the lines, how to suck an atom of truth out of many gross tons of fiction. He took careful notes of each description of the earthfall, paying special attention to where the correspondent claimed to be at the time of the sighting. If he was lucky he would be able to use the information to triangulate and fix the landing site.

“What are these?” Qtzl asked, staring at the screenful of scribbles Ship presented to him.

“These are job listings. People seeking employees let their needs be known by posting them on this Network. It is fascinating, Qtzl,” Ship added, sounding almost enthusiastic. “These people are quite literate. They run the machines. The machines do not run them. Nowhere have I found a machine that is a decision-maker; they are merely implementers.”

Qtzl was too lost in his own miseries to care about the state of machine intelligence on this alien world. “I can’t read them,” he said glumly. “It might as well be the scratchings of zik-ziks.”

“I can read them,” said Ship. “What sort of job would you like?”

“Academic.”

Ship’s FRU uttered a mechanical grunt. “An academic position? How are you qualified for such a thing? You’ve never held a job, and it would be arrogant to assume you could teach the natives based only on your perception of superiority.”

“I meant,” Qtzl interrupted, “that what kind of job I’d like is academic. I can’t apply for any job. I can’t appear in person. After all, I don’t exactly look like a native, do I?”

“No, you do not. Therefore it will be necessary to obtain a position which does not require your personal attendance.”

“Oh, certainly. And how am I to undergo the Sizing-Up without making a personal appearance?”

“I am not certain that this society observes that ritual.” Ship was silent for a moment, then came back with a series of job listings highlighted on the computer screen. “Here, for example, are a number of entries which simply say, ‘send resume to’ what I assume are surface coordinates. Several even allow electronic submissions.”

Qtzl felt a stirring of interest. “So, assuming we find a job for which I’m qualified—then we tender my qualifications electronically?”

“Precisely.”

Qtzl ruffled his neck frill in agreement. “Then let’s find me a job that requires no personal appearances and which will pay well enough to cover the necessary purchases in a reasonable length of time.”

Ship went to work immediately, which put it out of communication with Qtzl for an inordinate amount of time. Bored and fidgety, he resumed his exploration of the alien abode. He was afraid to go outside—even with Ship monitoring his every move—so he settled for a further tour of his absent host’s belongings. In a small adjunct to the sleep chamber, he found some interesting garments which, for lack of anything better to do, he tried on. Standing before a reflective glass, Qtzl was admiring how the color of the robe he wore set off the turquoise of his skin when Ship beeped him. Hiking the long skirts, he hurried into the computer room.

“I have compiled a selection of positions for which resumes are requested and which do not rule you out by qualification,” Ship told him. “It is a short list.”

It was indeed a short list. A company located somewhere called Elk Grove needed an accountant, but Qtzl failed to see how anyone could keep track of imaginary units of value.

“Digits,” Ship said (smugly, Qtzl thought), “are digits no matter where in the galaxy one goes. We will send a resume there.”

Ship had also found an engineering position and several programming slots with a large company that seemed to be doing research in space travel. “You are an above average programmer at home.”

“But I don’t know any of the languages their computers speak, Ship.”

“I do, and what I know, I can teach you.”

“Why bother?” Qtzl asked, feeling useless. “You take the job. I’ll just… putter. Maybe explore the area.” He conjured an image of himself as the intrepid explorer, charting alien territory.

Ship quickly dismantled it. “Qtzl, it would be extremely unwise for you to leave this domicile without my Field Remote. You simply would not survive. There are large, wild life-forms in the surrounding woodlands.”

“You said there were only small life-forms in the surrounding woodlands.”

“I have revised my assessment, and widened the range of my scan. There are large life-forms. Four-legged. And they move in packs of three to ten individuals.”

Qtzl gave up the idea of exploring, intrepidly or otherwise.

Ship fabricated and sent a sterling resume based on a combination of Qtzl’s expertise (a rather limited set) and its own. A week passed without positive response. All of the prospective employers had insisted on interviews; three told Ship it was overqualified.

“This is more difficult than I anticipated,” Ship admitted.

Qtzl fanned his neck frill in frustration. “We have,” he noted, “a limited amount of food left.”

“However,” Ship continued, as if Qtzl hadn’t spoken, “I have found another employment opportunity. This one requests a resume, a photo, and published clips from anywhere in the United States.”

“United states…?”

“A group of sovereign or semi-sovereign provinces which function as part of a federation founded upon the principles—”

“What’s a ‘photo’?”

Ship idled momentarily. “A two-dimensional representation of a person rendered on paper in a chromatic medium—”

“Published ‘clips’… is that like published writings?” Qtzl’s interest was piqued. He’d exhibited a flair for both prose and lyric during his school days. In fact, he’d won a number of essay contests and had published a few pieces of short fiction and philosophy. Not that anyone had noticed…

Ship emitted the mechanical equivalent of a sigh. “The advertisement is from a city newspaper. A large one, judging from the estimation of its readership. They need a ‘columnist’—that is, one who writes prose of philosophical bent and gives advice to the readers.”

Qtzl twitched his crest. “Philosophy I can handle, but advice? About what?”

“It does not say,” said Ship.

“I need a… ‘photo,’ you called it.”

“Very good, Qtzl. Yes, ‘photo.’ You need one. And some examples of your prose.”

“You have that in your database.”

“Indeed. Shall I select a cross-section of your philosophical meanderings?”

As Ship’s AI system was not programmed for wry humor, Qtzl was sure he must have imagined the barb. “Do that,” he directed, feeling somewhat more buoyant. “I’ll find a ‘photo’ somewhere. They’re all over the backs of these… ‘books.’ ” During his rambling exploration, he had found a volume with a representation of an Earth personage in shades of gray. He found it now, and carefully excised it from the book’s glossy wrapping, using a foraged utility blade. By the time he had finished, Ship had produced several pieces of his finest commentary, and had come across sample advice columns in the newspaper’s online archives.

“It is called ‘Ask Angela,’ ” said Ship. “In it, a reader asks a question and Angela provides the answer.”

“What sort of question?”

“For example, this female complains that after the birth of their first young, her mate has ceased to accord her the requisite attention due her. She is uncertain what to do to recapture his interest.”

“And what advice does Angela give?”

“She tells the female to decrease her weight and revitalize her… assets. This is an approximation, of course. This will, according to Angela, put something called pizzazz’ back into the relationship.”

“That’s terrible advice! How can decreasing her body weight possibly increase her powers of attraction? A female is supposed to gain weight when she produces young. It’s the natural indication of her elevated status. Doesn’t this society have a mating codex? This female should sue for breach of attraction!”

“I am uncertain how this society handles their domestic matters. Perhaps the bearing of young is not as highly regarded here as it is at home.”

“Nonsense. The society will not survive long that devalues its young.” Qtzl stood and began to pace. “I shall not only tender my ‘published clips,’ ” he decided, “I shall give a real answer to this question. Ship, read me the entire column.”

Ship did, and Qtzl gave his own opinion about mates with wandering attention and the merits of a matron’s physique. He recommended legal action only as a last resort, suggesting that some remedial classes in couplehood might help the woman’s mate bolster his flagging attention span.

Scanning the photo of the Earth person for transmission, Ship said, “And what is the name of your alter-ego, Qtzl? Judging from the data I have accessed, Qtzl Fhuuii is not a common name here.”

“Well, I think it should sound something like that other one, er, ‘Ask Angela.’ ”

“ ‘Ask’ is a verb meaning to inquire. Angela is a name suggesting the columnist is a saintly being from the next world sent back to this plane to intercede on behalf of others.”

Qtzl was impressed. “All that in three syllables! Is there a word in this economical language for a saintly being from another world who’s stranded on this one?”

“Alien. Also known colloquially as an ‘ET.’ ”

“Well then. That’s it. ‘Ask Alien.’ ”

“I do not think we wish to call attention to your… non-local origins.”

Qtzl’s feelings were hurt. “Well, then you suggest something.”

Accordingly, Ship reviewed databases of common names beginning with the letter ‘A’ and came up with “Arlene.” Close to “alien,” but not close enough to draw suspicion.

Ship dispatched the packet to the newspaper and Qtzl began an expectant wait. While he waited, he returned to the transport module to assess the damage and began the painful process of learning the natives’ difficult language. “All gutturals,” he complained. “It’s enough to give a person a sore throat.”

By the end of another week, Qtzl had managed to read a book or two. It was challenging; even Ship was at a loss over certain words and concepts, and Qtzl began to suspect that he had stepped into a very strange world indeed, much like his favorite childhood story of Qalss in Tuiifooshand.

A decaday and a myriad resumes later, Qtzl had read a variety of books—mostly of a type called “science fiction.” It was not without its counterpart on his own world—every people, he suspected, dreamed of other peoples on other worlds. He also learned how to play computer games and developed a taste for something called “cheese puffs,” which was one thing his borrowed cupboards seemed to contain in abundance.

And then came the call. Not a call, precisely, for the only address Ship had left the newspaper was an electronic one. They wanted Qtzl—or rather, they wanted someone named—

“Arlen?”

“They apparently thought ‘Arlene’ was what they refer to as a ‘typo.’ I am not certain why they came to that conclusion. They want to know your last name and phone number. They wish to speak to you directly.”

“I has anticipationed them,” said Qtzl in what he imagined to be perfect American. “I has been studying them lingo.”

Ship was silent for a moment, then said, “Perhaps I shall tell them you are away and will call them back in several days. I believe that should be enough time to remedy your lamentable lack of language skills.”

Three days later Qtzl spoke to the newspaper’s managing editor. He was nervous, most especially when the man asked, “Where’re you from? Originally, I mean.”

“Uh,” ad-libbed Qtzl, “why do you ask?”

“Oh, your accent. I can’t quite place it. French, is it?”

French. Qtzl glanced feverishly at Ship’s remote self, stationed, as always, by the computer. The screen flashed to life and began to display information. French: Native of an autonomous provincial unit called France which lies across a large body of salty water from these shores.

“Ah, yes. Er, French, well…”

“No, wait… Canadian, isn’t it?”

The computer screen cleared and displayed one word—“yes.”

“How—how perceptive of you. Yes, indeed. I’m from, er…” He squinted at the screen. “Canada. Yes, um, Winnipeg to be exact.”

“Of course! Quebecois! I should have guessed. That explains why your name doesn’t sound quite French. ‘Quet-zell’—am I pronouncing that right?”

“Ket-zell,” Qtzl corrected him, eyes still on the computer. “It’s, er, Belgian. I’m—ah—third-generation Canadian.” He rolled his eyes. How would he ever keep all this straight?

“Why,” he asked Ship later, “didn’t we just say ‘yes’ to French?”

“Because then I would have been required to tutor you in the language. Teaching you American has consumed enough of my processing time.”

Qtzl did not let Ship’s cool derision deflate him. He had passed. He had pretended to be an Earth person—Human, they called themselves—and passed.

“Now,” Ship continued, “we’ll need a bank account in which your new employer can deposit your wages. We will also need a ‘credit’ account on which to charge your purchases. I shall take care of these details.”

“And I,” said Qtzl, “will bring home the xuti.”

In the next several days the letters arrived over the network to print neatly on the borrowed computer’s output device. Qtzl was to select the ones he found most interesting (though his new employer did offer suggestions), answer them and send them back with replies attached. A simpler job, Qtzl could not have imagined. Despite his first impression, the humans were not nearly so alien as he had thought, although it was clear their society possessed its share of peculiarities.

Ship’s memo: *Please see attached notes on the term “chain mail” or “chain letter.” I construe from these materials that chain mail is associated both with extremes in fortune and with protection from harm—from ill fortune, one must assume. Evidently, sending the chain mail along to the “target” intact engages protective function, while severing the chain disables it, thus calling down a curse on the hapless recipient. **For your information, a “nag” is a colloquial term for a hoofed quadruped of doubtful quality, usually referred to as a “horse,” scientific term, equus.

“Your employer called.”

Qtzl looked up from the book he was reading—one of a series about the inhabitants of a planet named Mars which, if the story could be believed, was this planet’s next orbit neighbor.

“And?”

“He likes the column. He referred to it as ‘kitschy.’ ”

“What’s that?”

“I am not certain. I could find no reference to it in the dictionaries at my disposal. It is most certainly positive. He also wishes to know if you wish to use the photograph we sent or mail him another. He indicates that a photo used for publication needs to be of a higher quality than the one we sent. He requires a scanned image of the original ‘black and white glossy.’ ”

“What is an ‘original black and white glossy?”

“The photo we sent was evidently a second- or third-generation print. We need to find an original photograph.”

“But I liked that one. I liked the way the person’s fur grew all around its face. It looked almost the same upside down as it did right-side up.”

“Mr. Barnett says he must have an original photograph either mailed or scanned and downloaded. I suggest we find such a photograph.”

Qtzl searched. He searched the bookshelves, the desk drawers, the closets. When that failed to turn up any sort of ‘black and white glossy,’ he turned to a tall cabinet in a corner of the computer room. It was not a pleasant task; the cabinet was overflowing with sheets of cellulose, paper and semi-transparent flimsies all crammed into brightly colored covers of a thicker material. After sustaining a number of small, painful cuts to his digits, Qtzl found a red folder that bore the title “Cover Shots.” This turned out to be just what he was looking for.

“Look!” he told Ship, holding the folder open for the Remote to see. “This is the most extraordinary bit of luck! Not only are there photos here, but they are very like the one of the human whose picture is on some of the books I’ve been reading.”

Ship looked. “Qtzl, the photo in your left hand is the original of the picture we have already sent.”

Qtzl held up one of the photos. “Are you sure? Perhaps it’s merely ethnocentricity on our part. You know the old saying—‘all aliens look alike.’ ”

“First, Qtzl, being a machine intelligence, I am not prone to ethnocentricity. Second, my optics are far more sensitive than your own. This is not only the same person, it is the identical photograph.”

Qtzl was amazed. The Deity had favored him with yet another miracle. “Relief! I was wondering how we were to explain to Mr. Barnett that I now looked like someone else.”

“I am given to understand,” Ship said, “that inhabitants of this planet change their physical appearance quite liberally by surgical means. Moreover, some writers use photographs that do not accurately represent them to their readers. It is possible that this photograph does not portray this… Stanley Schell. Put the photograph on the desk, Qtzl, and allow me to digitize the image.”

“Why didn’t you let me take the call from Mr. Barnett?” Qtzl asked as the FRU glided to hover above the picture.

“You were sunning yourself on the roof.”

“You could have called me in.”

“No need. I was perfectly capable of handling the situation. I explained that I am your secretary, Fru Shipley. The photo is sent. Your first column will appear in the Sunday issue. Credits have already been deposited to your account. At the current rate of pay I estimate it will take approximately eight month’s wages to purchase and process the materials necessary for my repair.”

“Eight months!”

“We must also purchase provisions, Qtzl. You are not a hunter. Therefore, we will need to shop at the local food depository.”

“And how are we supposed to do that? I’ve read National Geographic. I’ve seen ‘Godzilla versus Gamera’ and ‘War of the Worlds’; I look like a giant lizard and you look like a miniature Martian.”

“They deliver,” said Ship. “Our first groceries will arrive this afternoon at exactly three hours, post meridian. I suggest we stay out of sight. Now, should you not return to reading your mail? A number of people are seeking your advice today.”

Ship’s note: *A goose is a large aquatic fowl which makes a sound not unlike one of your sneezes and whose natural gait is a waddle. **Since Speechless is not explicit about what variety of buns to which the brother-in-law applied the goose, we can assume only that they were a baked foodstuff made of flour, milk, and eggs (perhaps goose eggs?).

“The groceries have arrived.”

Qtzl was slow to emerge from the Stan Schell novel he was engrossed in. He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and turned the page.

“Your taste in literature seems to have lodged in a rut,” Ship observed. “Is that not another Stan Schell novel?”

“I like the way he deals with alien races. Quite enlightened for someone who’s never met any.”

“He is a science fiction writer,” said Ship, as if that alone was supposed to deter Qtzl from reading his work. “That is an ‘escapist literary form about unlikely characters from implausible futures thrown into impossible situations.’ ”

“Such as being stranded on an alien world?”

Ship persisted. “He is not considered to be one of the greats.’ He is, I believe they say, firmly mid-list.”

“And what do the ‘greats’ write about?”

“War, sex, death… bullfights.”

“Ffsstt,” said Qtzl, “I’ll go get the groceries.” He padded downstairs, the soft, orange material of the leggings he was wearing puddling comfortably around his feet. The delivery boy had left the box of groceries in its usual place under the back awning. All Qtzl had to do was lean out of the door and get it. He peered through the transparent sliding doors. He slid back the door, stepped out and picked up the box, pausing for just a moment to close his eyes and breathe in the sweet, tangy air.

He loved that smell. There wasn’t anything on his world quite like it. Ship had determined that it originated from the sap of the trees that towered around the house. He had decided that when he left, a box of those spiky seed pods they dropped everywhere would come with him.

The snap of a twig and a chuff of sound brought Qtzl to sudden focus on the world around him. There, just beyond the deck where he stood, right up against the side of the house, a group of native life-forms stood and stared at him. Their black-lipped mouths were full of the flowering blooms that had appeared all around the alien domicile and though they seemed frozen with surprise, their jaws continued to move.

“Sh-sh-sh,” hissed Qtzl, clutching the box in his quaking arms, his crest flat to his head. “Sh-sh-ship!”

It took an eternity for Ship to respond. Qtzl shook harder; his crest got flatter and turned purple; more blossoms disappeared into the black mouths of the life-forms. At last, the FRU’s blessed hum could be heard behind him.

“Yes, Qtzl?”

“Are… are these carnivores?”

“No. Herbivores.”

His crest relaxed. “Are they… people?”

“No, Qtzl. They are called deer.’ A peculiar life-form variously celebrated and hated. My research indicates horticulturists hunt them because of their dietary cravings.”

Crest merely quivering now, Qtzl took his box of groceries back into the house. He put the groceries away; the FRU returned to the computer room.

“By the way,” it said when he appeared there a moment later and returned to his book, “they want to syndicate you.”

Qtzl’s crest flattened again. “They what?”

“We have been approached by a national newspaper syndicate. They wish to purchase your column for distribution to all of their publications. This is a good thing, Qtzl. This will hasten my repair.”

Qtzl glanced at the pile of letters he was scheduled to read that day. The one on top, like many others he received these days, was not asking for advice, but thanking him for advice already given. National syndication. “Will I be famous, Ship?”

“I believe so.”

Qtzl wrinkled his nose and whistled softly through the flattened slits. How strange if he should gain on this alien world what had so far eluded him completely at home. His fondest dreams to the contrary, no one took his philosophical meanderings seriously, or read his poetry in klatch shops, or hummed his songs as they went about their business. Not even members of his immediate family would take his advice. “Life,” he murmured, “is full of strange turns.”

Kerwin Frees had narrowed his search to a small valley between two low ridges. It was rural—even for the Tahoe area—but he was hopeful that among the clusters of summer homes and isolated retreats someone had seen something.

He had mapped a course that took him on a rough circuit of the area, going door-to-door. Not many doors opened. This time of year, most of the summer homes were awaiting their occupants, while the ski lodges had just bid their owners good-bye. Of the few people he spoke to, only two had actually seen the blazing trail of light. One, out for a late-night walk, had seen it reflected in the water of a large pond; the other, an insomniac, had glimpsed it as it passed over a skylight. A handful more claimed to have been awakened by something—some noise or tremor or explosion—and had assumed it to be thunder or a stray jet.

Still, he was able to determine approximately where the “meteorite” had skimmed the treetops. It was pushing twilight when he pulled his car into a little cul-de-sac called Perelandra Circle—an ironic and downright un-Tahoe-ish name. There was one cabin in the cul-de-sac, though he could see the smoke from a neighboring house weaving among the trees.

As he pulled into the drive, he was startled by movement on the roof. He glanced up, but caught only a flash of turquoise above the ridgepole. If it was raccoons, they’d taken to dressing up for their nocturnal forays. There was no car in the drive, but a light was on inside. It was extinguished even as he approached the front door. He knocked, he rang, he knocked again. He tried to peer through a front window. Once he thought he saw movement in the darkened recesses of the place, but he couldn’t be sure.

Probably a kid, he thought, or a woman, left alone and waiting for parent or partner to come back from the store. “Hey!” he called. “I just want to ask a couple of questions about a meteorite fall we had a while back. I’m a… an astronomy student and I was hoping I might find it. It’d really help my grades, you know?”

There was a long silence, then, a voice just on the other side of the front door said, “A meteorite?”

“Yes. It was May 6th. At about one A.M.”

“And it fell near here?”

“Very near. Possibly in that little valley behind your house. Did you see it?”

“No. I’m sorry. I did not see it. I was… not up at that hour.”

Kerwin Frees muzzled his frustration and asked, “Did you hear anything then? I talked to several people in the area who said they heard something that woke them up—like thunder or a jet going over.”

Now the silence was profound. Then, Kerwin Frees imagined he heard murmuring on the opposite side of the door. “Do you think you might open the door? It’s kind of hard to communicate like this. I’m really not dangerous.”

“Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“I understand. So did you? Hear anything?”

“I heard nothing. We had not taken occupancy of the house just yet.”

Frees frowned. “A minute ago, you said you were asleep. Now you say you weren’t in the area?”

“We were, as you say, ‘in the area.’ We were not in the house at that time.” There was a pause and some more murmurs. “We were camping… across the valley.”

“You still might have heard something.”

“We did not.”

It was a strange interview, Kerwin Frees thought later, as he drove home in the dark. The hidden speaker (and a hidden companion, he was fairly certain), the sexless, oddly accented voice, the ambiguous answers. A very strange interview. He let his imagination run with it; he had stumbled across a hostage situation, or one side of a love triangle, or someone who had broken into the house and was using it without the owner’s knowledge.

The more he thought about it, the more this last idea stuck with Kerwin Frees. He decided he would call the sheriff’s department in the morning and suggest that the house might bear watching. Could just be kids using the place as a party spot, or it could be someone a lot more sinister. He wasn’t prone to poking his nose into other folks’ affairs, and he didn’t feature himself as a good Samaritan, but he might be able to keep some poor schmuck from walking into a very sticky situation.

Stan Schell was tired. In fact, he was exhausted. It was day ten of a two-month book tour and he sat in a titanic Barnes & Noble in Sacramento wishing he was browsing for books instead of sitting behind his signing table praying the cluster of newcomers by the front door had come to see him. Still, he was grateful to be here; the other stops he’d made so far had been in small-town specialty stores that had barely enough room in them for the signing table, let alone the two or three people who might show up to have him sign a book.

Working on his second latte from a neighboring bistro, he caught himself wondering who had first noticed that books and espresso go together like bagels and cream cheese, and realized he was hopelessly bored. And depressed. And exposed. He was between two sale tables, in conspicuous view. He’d signed a few books—might even sign a few more—but mostly he’d sat under the flickering glances of browsers, trying not to read their thoughts. Sometimes people would stop, pick up a book and indulge in pleasantries, such as informing him that they didn’t read science fiction in a tone of voice that suggested they didn’t understand why anyone would.

At the bottom of the latte, he decided he’d had it with trying to look interested and interesting. He pulled a newspaper from his briefcase and pretended to be looking at the ad for his signing. Then he gave up all pretense and turned the page. An audible sigh escaped him—and went completely unnoticed by the flock of shoppers around the sale tables. The section he held—the section the promotions manager had given him because his ad was in it—was inhabited by gossip columns, allegedly witty and urbane commentaries, and advice to the lovelorn.

Stan glanced surreptitiously around. He seemed to have become such a fixture over the last two hours that people had ceased to notice him. He turned his eyes back to the paper. His mind was desperate for something to do. He read Dear Abby.” Then he read “Miss Manners.” Then he turned the page and met himself face to face.

He was simultaneously nonplused and pleased. Evidently the paper had run an article on the hometown boy as well as the paid ad. His eyes brought into focus the two words that appeared next to his face on the page. Ask Arlen. His gaze dropped to the text below. Dear Arlen, it said, I feel funny writing to a column about this…

“Excuse me, but could you sign my books, please?”

“Huh?” Mouth still hanging open, eyes possibly bugged out, Stan looked up into the face of a fan. She smiled shyly and proffered two of his novels for him to sign—a paperback and the hardback that would go out of print in a month, barring divine intervention. He dropped the mystery back into the briefcase and scrambled for his pen. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said and smiled.

The girl cocked her head and looked at him as he imagined Alice must have once looked at the White Rabbit. “You’re the guy that writes that advice column, aren’t you? Ask Arlen?”

He stared blankly at the flyleaf of the hardback, once again meeting his own black and white gaze. “Looks that way,” he said and signed his name.

When he visited the offices of The Bee, Ted Barnett’s face lit up in recognition. “Well, if it isn’t my star columnist.”

“No,” said Stan, “it’s not,” and proceeded to confuse the hell out of him.

At the end of an hour interview he knew that Ted Barnett did not read science fiction and that his star columnist was punctual, easygoing, undemanding, and transacted all business over the Net. He’d never missed a deadline. He had a unique slant on life (something Stan had already gleaned from a perusal of the column), and was from Quebec.

Stan also knew the columnist’s e-mail address. He hadn’t needed to write it down because it was his own—the local in-box of his summer house in South Shore Tahoe. It rather looked as if he was going to have to take a trip upstate. He did not request that his photo be removed from the column, nor did he, to Barnett’s obvious relief, insist that the columnist cease and desist. He could not have said why he did not do those things, although he suspected unhealthy curiosity and a fascination with the bizarre (which had contributed to his delinquency as a writer) were somehow involved.

“It seems,” said Ship, “that our descent did not go unnoticed.”

“Should we be concerned?” asked Qtzl around a mouthful of cheese puffs. “The human thought we were a natural occurrence.”

“One he is particularly interested in. If he locates the exact earthfall of this ‘occurrence,’ he will find… me. He is already very close.”

Qtzl’s crest pulled itself tightly against his head. He felt a strong urge to hiss. “What can we do?”

“Very little, Qtzl. We cannot move me.”

“You’re well camouflaged.”

“To your eyes perhaps. Who knows how well camouflaged a human will find me?”

Kerwin Frees was not a wealthy man by any stretch of even an impoverished imagination. He kept a bit in savings for the all too frequent rainy day and had a few investments. He lived frugally on a teacher’s salary during the school season so he could afford to chase UFOs the rest of the year. Now he dipped into savings to do something that would most assuredly cause his parents—happily far away in San Francisco—to throw up their practical hands in despair. He rented a helicopter to fly over the eighty or so acres he’d targeted as the most likely place for the UFO to have come to Earth. To make the sort of showy splash it had in the midnight sky, it would have to have been of a size that couldn’t fail to disturb even the densest forest.

He started the pilot at one end of the target valley and asked him to take a zigzag course down the length of it, flying as low as was safe, practical and legal.

The pilot, for his part, was closemouthed and taciturn, not even asking his client what they were doing until they were making their third dogleg over the forested slopes, Frees peering intensely into the greenery below, camera clutched in his hands. “Exactly what is it we’re looking for?”

“I’m not sure… exactly.” That was the truth. Did he keep his eyes peeled for a flash of sunlight on metal? For a burnt swathe of forest? For a few flattened trees? Yes, all of the above. “Something unusual.”

“Unusual as in what… Sasquatch?”

“What? Oh. Oh, no. Nothing like that. I’m a-an astronomy buff. I think a meteorite fell out here a while back. It’d be great if I could find it.”

“Wouldn’t that have been on the news?”

“It was.”

“Huh. Missed it, I guess. Not that I pay much attention to things like that. Ball lightning—now that’s something I’m interested in.” The pilot, suddenly garrulous, proceeded to regale him with a series of ball lightning stories, and Frees, guiltily interested, listened to them.

Somewhere in the middle of the third or fourth tale—one in which the pilot suspected the lightning of owning some form of primordial intelligence, Frees suddenly lost the thread of narration. His eyes had found something unusual: flattened treetops pointed as eloquently as any arrow to a long scar in the bare earth to their east. The scar ended in a dense thicket of brush. He took a flurry of photographs.

“What?” asked the pilot. “What is it? You see something?”

“Something. Could you get us closer to that… that scar in the ground down there. There—just beyond those broken trees.”

The pilot whistled. “See what you mean.” He heeled the ’copter over and headed back around for a second, lower pass.

“I don’t suppose,” said Frees, snapping madly away with his old Pentax, “that you could land us down there?”

“No-o-o way. Nobody could land down there. Except maybe your meteorite.”

Frees nodded and glanced around the area for landmarks. He found one of particular interest—the cabin on Perelandra Circle, which was, he calculated, mere hundreds of yards from the crash site. If there were people in that house, they couldn’t have avoided seeing the off-world visitor plummet to Earth.

The house did not look particularly lived-in. There were no vehicles around it. No smoke curled out of the chimney, though the air was beginning to cool slightly with the onset of evening. Stan contemplated his approach. He could sit here until his eyes froze open, feeling like a poor man’s Spenser, or he could get up and boldly go where nobody else had any right being.

He did not know martial arts. He did not carry a gun, mace, or pepper spray. He was, he had to admit, a poor excuse for a red-blooded American homeowner. Despite these drawbacks, he started up his car, pulled off the shoulder of the badly paved road, and drove brazenly into his driveway. No one ran out shooting. He heard no slamming of windows or doors.

He hesitated momentarily, then got out of the car, patting his pocket to make sure his cell-phone was still there. At the first sign of trouble, he would call the police. He should have called them before, he supposed, but he wasn’t sure what he might have said that would have made sense: “I think someone pretending to be me is writing an advice column out of my summer cabin.” Oh, yeah—that sounded believable.

He slammed the door of his car, then opened it and slammed it a second time. Then he approached the house, while having a loud conversation with himself. The front door was unlocked. He hesitated again, thought about the police again, then opened the door. “Hello?” he called. Silence. “Halloooo!”

The place was clean—had even been dusted—though the cleaning service wasn’t due to go over the place for several weeks. He made his way through the living room toward his office where he would surely find evidence of habitation. On the way, he peeked into the bedroom. The bed looked untouched. If there was someone sleeping in it, they were scrupulously neat.

In the door of his office he stopped cold. This was obviously the center of the interloper’s activities. The computer was turned on and apparently downloading something. Even as he watched, it finished up and returned to the main e-mail window. Curious, he opened the message icon that had appeared at the end of the download.

“Here’s your new batch of goodies, Arlen. There re some real doozies in here,” said the message, and was signed, “Alec.” Probably an editorial assistant. Still more curious, Stan opened the download and read:

Fascinating. It really was a doozy. In a sudden fit of unnameable urges, Stan sat at the keyboard, opened a word processor file, and wrote:

He was absurdly pleased with the response. Pity, he thought. Doing an advice column could be a kick. That did not answer the question of how someone else had come to be writing an advice column in his name… or rather, his face.

He was on the verge of searching the room in answer to that question when he heard the back door open and close. A peculiar humming tickled his ears. Hair rising all over his body (his chin felt as if it were in contact with a hedgehog), Stan slipped from the chair into the closet four feet behind it. Once there, he tried to peer through the louvers but found he couldn’t see a thing. He settled for listening.

What he heard was a bizarre series of clicks, whistles, hums, chirps and hoots that were answered by a similar barrage of sounds. He thought he could almost make out words, but couldn’t imagine what language he was listening to. It sounded made-up, but then, the only made-up languages Stan had ever heard were Esperanto and Klingon, so he hardly counted himself as an expert on the subject.

The sounds became suddenly more forceful and then, Stan heard his answer to the letter read back in strangely accented English. The reading was followed by a particularly loud hoot. “This misses the point entirely! For someone to display her teeth so prominently in a public place—well, it’s a miracle a fight didn’t break out. How irresponsible!”

“Ketzel, I believe it is you who is missing the point,” said a second voice in perfectly unaccented English.

“How so? Clearly—” (Stan could hear the manic depressing of keys on his keyboard.) “Clearly, to suggest this action is merely rude is to minimize—”

“Ketzel, who entered that reply? This file is freshly downloaded.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“More to the point,” continued the unaccented voice, “Where is the person who entered that reply? We were not gone above five minutes.”

There was a flurry of movement. One of them had left the room. Stan all but held his breath. A few moments later, the flurry was repeated in reverse.

“There is a ground vehicle before the house! Someone was here.”

“Excellent logic, Ketzel. Although, 1 should say the vehicle’s presence suggests someone is still here.”

“Would you, er, scan, please?”

There was a muted twittering sound and Stan’s hair saluted again. Instinct drove him to the floor of the closet to hide in a jumble of ski jackets, bleacher blankets and two large teddy bears he had purchased, but had never given to his niece. It was from this motley refuge that he saw the closet door swing open and peered up into the face of a giant, frilled lizard. Hovering near its shoulder was a sleek, silvery object that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the probes used by Martians in the movie “War of the Worlds.” The lizard’s monstrous orange eyes swept the closet, coming to rest on the assorted debris on the floor.

Stan, numbed to speechlessness, prepared to surrender. The lizard’s mouth opened and perfectly intelligible English words came out.

“I don’t see anyone.”

“Ketzel,” said the sleek, silver probe, “observe.” A gleaming tendril issued from the probe and aimed itself at the tip of Stan’s nose.

The lizard s eyes focused. “Oh,” it said.

“E-ee-ee-ee!” said Stan, and fainted.

“It’s him. There are some differences between the 3D and the 2D, but it’s him.”

“I would have to agree. I suppose it was remiss of me not to suspect he would have to return to this domicile at some point. It is nearing the time of year when many of the inhabitants of this particular society go on vacation.”

“Vacation?”

“Similar to what you were doing when we became… lost.”

Stan assumed he was dreaming. The only viable alternative was that, sometime in the recent past, a short-order cook in Tahoe City had hidden his stash of recreational drugs in a jar of chili powder.

“He poses a singular problem. What do we do with him until we can leave?”

Do with him?

“We don’t have anywhere near the resources we need to leave… do we?”

“No, we do not. The engine refit is nearly complete, but the long-range navigational array is still a shambles, and the port gimbals suffered severe damage when we skidded sideways among the rocks. Really, Ketzel, we are fortunate there is anything left of the forward steering mechanism at all.”

Stan was dismayed to realize he was listening to a real conversation taking place somewhere behind him. He opened his eyes. He was stretched out on the sofa in his office staring into the glass panels of the tambour door of a bookshelf. Reflected clearly in the panels was one helluva tall reptile and the sleek little probe Stan had seen in an earlier psychotic episode. He closed his eyes then opened them again. The reflections were still there.

Abandon logic, all ye who enter here, Stan told himself, and studied his uninvited guests as they continued to ponder his fate.

“Perhaps if we just keep him here, quietly, no one will notice.”

The lizard was probably not really a reptile, Stan thought, but merely looked like one. Maybe he was some sort of intelligent dinosaur—the kind Bob Bakker would just love to find on his front porch some cool summer evening. Hello, I’m homeothermic. It did resemble the dilophosaurs from Jurassic Park, the Movie… except, of course, that it was wearing his sister Genevieve’s fuchsia sun-dress. Absurdity rose in his throat, nearly choking him.

“Someone may notice the vehicle before the house,” said the Martian probe. “And it is probable that someone will mark his absence. He may well have informed someone else of his intention to come here.”

“I did.” Stan sat up and turned to look at his… whatever. “I told my agent, my editor and several close friends that I was coming to Tahoe to see who’s been using my address—and my face—to publish an advice column.”

There was a heavy silence, then the dilophosaur shuffled to face him. “Hello,” it said and its rubbery mouth curled into an approximation of a smile. “I’m Qtzl.” It glanced sideways at the probe floating silently beside it. “I’m from—well, very far away—and I’m lost and I need to get home again.”

“And you left your ruby slippers at home, right?” Good response if this is a hoax. Please let it be a hoax.

The reptilian head canted sideways. “Excuse me?”

“He makes a reference,” said the probe, “to a popular movie—ixltl, to you—in which the lost heroine gets home through the agency of a pair of ruby slippers she has inherited from a deceased crone. Yes, Mr. Schell, that is essentially correct. We have crash-landed on your world and our only means of getting home is damaged, though not beyond repair. We have hopes of earning enough capital to purchase all the materials necessary to restore it.”

Stan blinked. “You’re kidding. Look, this is a joke, right?”

The probe floated over to the sofa, pausing to hover right before Stan’s startled eyes. “You suspect a hoax, and this is understandable. Please notice that I am not suspended by any wires or strings.”

Stan waved a trembling hand around the probe. It was as good as its word. “OK. I see that.”

“Ship,” said the lizard. “Show him where you crash-landed. That will prove we’re not a hoax, won’t it?”

It was a spaceship. By God, it was a spaceship! Kerwin Frees’s hands shook as he let the foliage fall back into place. He took a step back from the mound of uprooted shrubbery. It had crash-landed here and had been carefully concealed. And there were signs that it was under repair.

By whom?

He glanced up the hill toward the little cabin on Perelandra Circle. By someone in that house?

He turned back to the ship, his camera bouncing against his chest. Evidence. That was what he needed. He pulled a couple of handsful of greenery away from the vessel and began shooting. He was between shots, looking for a different vantage point, when he heard someone approaching from uphill.

As often as he had allowed himself to imagine an encounter of the third kind, as often as he had invented his response, he had never imagined he might panic. But he did. He stumbled to the bow of the ship and threw himself into a ramble of underbrush, just barely able to twist into a position from which he could see the stern before he was forced to freeze.

A man appeared first—a bearded man in a forest-green shirt and jeans. Frees had no time to be disappointed before “it” came into view—a reptilian alien life-form in bright fuchsia. It was a sundress, he realized, a woman’s sundress. That fact had barely registered when he noticed the sleek metallic object floating between the two other figures.

The reptile, speaking, began pulling camouflage away from the vessel. Words floated back to Frees’s ears—English words. “See?… This… Ship… Believe us?”

Another voice spoke. The reptile’s mouth wasn’t moving, nor was the man’s. It must be coming from the floating “droid” which bobbed about the stern. A moment later, it began moving forward toward Frees’s hiding place. His throat felt as if a peach pit was stuck in it.

“As you can see,” the floater intoned in perfect English, “the bow planes have suffered the most damage. We are currently attempting to procure the materials necessary to repair them.”

“Will you really be able to do that?” asked the human, and Frees’s eyes were drawn to his face. It was a familiar face. He was certain that if his brain wasn’t caught in some insidious form of paralysis, he’d be able to put a name to it.

“Ship is fully capable of self-repair,” said the reptile. “We need only the materials. That’s why we… availed ourselves of your cabin.”

The man was nodding. “And my face.” He sighed. “OK. I believe you. Good God, do I have any choice?” He turned to look at the reptile. “How can I help?”

The reptile’s mouth widened, not quite showing an amazing set of teeth. “Don’t show the whistle on us, please.”

“Blow the whistle,” said the droid. “Whatever. Please don’t do it. Let us continue with our ruse. We ll be out of your chair soon, I promise.”

“Out of your hair,” said the droid.

“Whatever. We’ll be out of it. What do you say?”

The man glanced back and forth between the two aliens. “Can I see inside the ship?”

Kerwin Frees was gasping by the time he made it back up to the road. He was closer to the house than he’d meant to be, but the aliens and their human cohort were still downhill in the ship. He started to turn toward where his car was concealed, but caught sight of the vehicle sitting in the driveway of the cabin. He hesitated only a moment before hurrying to investigate it. It was a small Japanese sedan, fairly new. He slipped in through the passenger door and went speedily through the glove box in search of—ah—registration.

Stan Schell. Now he knew where he’d seen the guy before—on the back cover of several science fiction novels in his massive collection… and in a number of widely separated newspapers. Science fiction writer and advice columnist, what a combination.

The revelation gave him pause. He glanced around the property. No other vehicles—no camera crews. Nobody. OK, not a movie, then. Could it be a hoax? A publicity stunt of some sort?

He had no way of knowing, but he had ways of finding out.

The ship was real. At least insofar as Stan could tell. Not that he had much experience with these things except on paper, but the craft was not a Roswell Special—there wasn’t an ounce of tinfoil in it, nor one stick of balsa wood. It was made of metal and something that was like plastic or fiberglass. It was big, too—nearly as big as a semi—and complicated-looking.

Inside, they showed him which systems were working, pointed out where repairs needed to be made, let him sit at the controls. He kept trying to be skeptical, to pass it all off as an elaborate hoax, but he doubted anybody but Steven Spielberg could create a hoax anywhere near this elaborate. As far as he knew, Steven Spielberg had no reason to be playing jokes on a little-known science fiction writer.

He found another reason to disbelieve the hoax angle—Ted Barnett had assured him that the advice column with his face on it had been appearing and gathering loyal readers for months. It had evidently become a household word in homes where no Stan Schell novel had ever been read. Meanwhile Stan (I-don’t-read-that-section) Schell had gone unawares—where was the hoax in that? Maybe it was a conspiracy intended to see how long it would take a writer to discover his identity was being plagiarized. Maybe it was a test case to see if an identity could be plagiarized. Maybe…

Maybe these were aliens.

“Pardon?”

The lizard was looking at him through its gigantic orange eyes, its hands (or whatever) folded before its chest in a prayerful gesture. In his sister’s sundress. His laughter, already uncontrollable, segued into a fit of hiccups.

“Ship! There’s something wrong with Stan Schell!”

Oh, there certainly was. Either he was going not-so-quietly mad, or he was receiving the most extravagant gift the Universe could offer a writer of science fiction.

“He is laughing,” said the probe. “And he is experiencing something called hiccups. Not a life-threatening situation. There are several suggested cures—we might try startling him.”

The lizard was silent for a moment then said, “I believe we already have.”

Back at the house, Stan and the aliens had tea and cheese puffs. Then, “Arlen” composed answers to his letters. He kept the answer Scan had made to the first of these—out of respect, he said, for their host.

Oddly, Stan wanted nothing more than to sleep. Overwhelmed, he supposed, and he surprised himself by actually being able to sleep. He curled up on his bed and slumbered deeply until his cell-phone woke him.

It was his agent.

“Well?” he said “Did you find anything?”

Only two aliens and a wrecked space shuttle. Nothing to get excited about. “Yeah. Someone’s been using the cottage as a… base of operations. It’s not… quite what I thought it was, though. Look, I’ll have to explain it to you later. It’s… complicated.”

“Well, so’s this. I just got a call from The Tonight Show.”

“The… you’re kidding. I thought they weren’t interested in me.”

“They aren’t. They’re interested in ‘Arlen.’ A Mr. Barnett let them in on the connection between the column and Stan Schell and suddenly you’re famous—SF writer moonlights as adviser of the lovelorn. They want you to come on and read some of the letters you’ve gotten—and, of course, the ‘charmingly oddball’ answers.”

“But I don’t have any answers!”

“And they want you to field questions from the audience and just generally, um, be Arlen for them.”

“But I’m not Arlen! I’m Stan Schell! I write science fiction. I’ll talk to them about that all night, if they want.”

“That’s just it, Stan—they don’t want. Maybe we should just turn your trespassers over to them.”

For a moment Stan contemplated that—going onto The Tonight Show and telling them all about today. Maybe even showing pictures. There was a camera in the front hall closet. As soon as he had the thought, he discarded it. Doing that would result in one of several horrific scenarios: (1) No one would believe him; he would be labeled a crackpot; and his career would come to an abrupt halt. (2) No one would believe him but a legion of UFO chasers; he would become a poster child for “abductees” and hit the talk show circuit while his writing languished. (3) Everyone would believe him, including the government; he would end up in a witness protection program or, worse, he and the aliens would become “guests” of the US government.

“Look, just tell them I don’t want to do it.”

“Are you nuts? This could be—”

“Excruciatingly embarrassing, that’s what it could be. I’m a science fiction writer, dammit. A good one. Just keep getting me gigs as a science fiction writer.”

“There aren’t that many gigs for science fiction writers, Stan. At least not ones at your level. This could get you exposure.”

“Exposure? I’d rather run naked through Central Park.”

“Think about it, OK?”

“Yeah, right.”

“What is The Tonight Show?” the lizard asked the moment Stan poked his head tentatively into the office.

“Wh-why do you ask?”

“I have gotten an e-mail about it. I have been asked to appear on this The Tonight Show to discuss the column and share some excerpts,’ but I have no idea what this means.”

Explain a nighttime variety show to an alien. Interesting assignment. Stan supposed he could mis-explain it, but he knew that the FRU would be able to disabuse Qtzl of any false impressions. He explained as best he could, and was surprised at Qtzl’s immediate comprehension.

“Yes, yes! We have this at home, too. People speak and sing and dance and show their prowess at game or thought. Yes, I know this. But at home, these… shows are broadcast widely. Many thousands of people can experience them. Is it so here?”

Stan nodded. “The Tonight Show is probably the most exposure a person can get in one hour. It’s been known to make or break careers.”

Qtzl’s neck frill, which had risen to the occasion, sank back to his shoulders. “But, Stan, I cannot appear on your show. If I do, everyone will see me. Then what would happen?”

Stan had no answer to that. In his books, aliens were feared, loathed, embraced wholeheartedly, worshipped. He realized he had no idea how real human beings would react to real aliens. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Could you do the show?”

“How could I do it? I don’t write the column.”

“Well, you did write one reply. It was perhaps not as well thought out as it could have been—you missed a few issues… But that doesn’t matter, I could coach you. I could be in contact with you all the time you were on the show. I could put my words in your mouth.”

“How?”

The FRU chose that moment to float silently into the room.

“That’s how,” said Qtzl.

“Damn,” said Stan.

“OK, OK, OK,” said the young man in the third row. “I got one for you. There’s this girl in the group I hang with who’s real cute, but has this really disgusting habit, OK? Whenever we do fast food, she orders a hot dog, OK? And she takes a bite out of one end and then—this is gross—she turns the hot dog around so that I’m staring right at the bite and takes a bite off the other end. What can I do about that?”

“Not sit across from her?” Stan suggested. The audience laughed and Stan felt a warm glow spread across his cheeks. Cool.

In his ear, Ship chirped in annoyance. “Please, Stan, let Qtzl take care of this.”

“But seriously,” said Stan and paused to field Qtzl’s thoughts. “Are you really as dense as you sound? Don’t you recognize a mating ritual when you see one? This… female… is obviously attracted to you and is inviting you to partake of the Food Ritual with her. Your response, young man, should be to lean across the table and take a nice, big bite out of the proffered end of the food item. Unless, of course, you do not find the female attractive. Do you find the female attractive?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Then you simply must bite the dog, young man. The only other response possible is to get up and leave the eating area. But this would leave the female with the impression that you don’t like her and don’t wish to share her food.”

The audience loved it. Every off-the-wall second of it. A week later, Ship’s port bow gimbals were on their way to recovery and “Arlen” had been asked to appear on The Late Night Show.

Kerwin Frees stared at the row of photographs bobbing festively from a line hung across his tiny kitchen/darkroom and flogged his brain through a tangle of seemingly unconnected facts. Fact 1: An alien spaceship had crash-landed in the Sierra Nevada. The evidence of that hung right before his eyes. Fact 2: The aliens were staying in Stan Schell’s Tahoe summer cabin. Fact 3: Stan Schell knew the aliens were using his house. (Witness the series of photos, taken yesterday through Schell’s front window, of human and reptilian alien sharing cheese puffs in front of the TV.)

Then there was the Ask Arlen angle, which Frees had learned of while trying to glean information about Schell from his newspaper editor. It severely complicated the scenario, which as near as he could tell went something like this: An alien ship crashes. Shortly thereafter, Ask Arlen, a demonstrably weird advice column, appears in a Sacramento newspaper. Shortly after that, it goes into syndication. About this time, Stan Schell appears in Ted Barnett’s office asking after the author of the column that bears his picture. He reveals that the e-mail address to which Barnett delivers his reader’s letters is his own. Schell goes to Tahoe, purportedly to confront the face-stealing columnist. He discovers, instead, that there are aliens hiding in his summer cabin—something Frees had to assume was what he’d witnessed upon his discovery of the crash site. Schell immediately calls Barnett and “confesses” that he is the source of the column after all.

OK. What did that mean? That Stan Schell was fronting for aliens who came to Earth to write advice columns for human beings? Were we that pathetic, or was this some sort of very peculiar plan for world domination? And what was Kerwin Frees supposed to do with the information? He had been sitting on it for nearly a month, pretending to be gathering information, all the while wallowing in this insipid state of confusion.

He shook his head. Having achieved the dream of every UFO chaser the world around, he had no idea what to do next. The police were out. They wouldn’t believe him. His UFO-chasing buddies were also out. While he used them as sources of information (all of which he took with liberal amounts of salt), he wasn’t sure what they’d do with a real, honest-to-God alien. He realized he was afraid to find out.

Yet, the aliens would not be here forever. When their vessel was repaired, they would be gone, and he would have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. His options seemed to have dwindled to one. He moved to his computer, opened his e-mail exchange and carefully composed a message.

Stan Schell was writing up a storm. Whatever else this experience provided, he knew it would end up on the shelves of bookstores everywhere. Better still, it would leave the stores and find its way into homes nationwide. He had no doubt some people would actually read it. Since his face had appeared in newspapers countrywide and on TV screens, Stan’s modest sales had become decidedly immodest. His book covers were being redone—Stan “Ask Arlen” Schell, they would say. The only person who had any reason to know he had not always been Arlen had a vested interest in keeping the column alive.

To the first talk show host who speculated as to why a science fiction writer would write a wacky syndicated column for the socially troubled under a pseudonym, he owed the widely bruited tale that he had been afraid people wouldn’t accept advice from a writer of fantastic fiction. He had nodded amiably, too, when that same host suggested his mindset was a little bizarre. “A little alien?” he’d asked when the host seemed to be searching for a word. The audience chuckled. He loved that sound.

“Do you think anyone really takes your advice?” last night’s host had asked him.

Dear God, I hope not, he’d thought, opened his mouth and parroted Qtzl’s “Well, I should hope so. I mean, look at the (twullip, said Qtzl)… uh, crap these other columnists dish out. To take their advice is to perpetuate undesirable behavior by failing to respond to it in an appropriate manner.”

“Like neglecting to take a bite out of your girlfriend’s hot dog.”

The audience tittered.

Stan flushed, simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. “Exactly. How many nascent relationships have been throttled by such inattention to ritual?”

The tittering escalated.

“We should commission a study,” said the host and cut away to a commercial on laughter and applause.

Clearly, people didn’t know how to take Stan or his alter-ego. Was he a con man—a clever writer with his own money-making shtick, or was he a sort of a rain man, a walking malapropism, a social misfit who had somehow parlayed his cockeyed world view into celebrity? He was fairly certain no one had arrived at the truth—that he was a struggling writer being fed lines by an alien.

Interviewers hovered between the smugness of a shared joke and the credulity born of uncertainty. Some were afraid to poke fun at him for fear, his agent told him, that he’d reveal himself to be a sufferer of Asperger’s Syndrome or some other condition it would be socially indefensible to joke about. It hardly mattered. Qtzl didn’t seem to understand when he was being made fun of and Stan, though sometimes on the verge of bolting from stage or studio, would simply deliver his prompter’s solemn responses into whatever situation he found himself. The result was always laughter, which translated into book sales, fame, and fortune.

The fact that his books tended to be rather serious in tone only added to the mystery. There was nothing of Arlen in Stan’s novels (which were now all back in print and selling briskly, thank you), which led to his emergence as a character of great complexity.

Then the fact of his electronic link to an offstage source came to light. “Legal counsel,” he’d told the host of a much-watched daytime talk show. “I have to be very careful what I reveal about the people whose letters I’ve responded to. If I were to give away their location—even the town they live in—or their real names, which they sometimes confide in me… well…”

The explanation had not been acceptable to everyone. Before long it was being trumpeted by the tabloids that there was a man (or woman) behind the scenes. Someone was giving Stan Schell his cues. Speculation blossomed, naturally, and gave birth to a ludicrous array of ideas, the dominant ones being that (1) he was fronting for someone who was equal parts rain man and elephant man—a tragic, fragile soul who did not dare appear; and (2) his offstage prompter was a person of such fame and fortune that to reveal themselves would bring unwanted attention, even ruin. Candidates for this included the Queen of England, the President of the United States, a terminally dignified news anchor, and an ultra-right-wing radio personality with MPD.

All this spawned something Stan had always thought was an oxymoron—unwanted attention. Six months after he had first appeared on the Tonight Show, mentally humming “This Could Be the Start of Something Big,” he was beginning to whine about his “lack of privacy and personal control.” He’d heard any number of Hollywood celebrities make that plaint and had thought them unrealistic weenies. Deeply immersed in his personal drama, his own weeniness escaped him.

One afternoon, Stan Schell took control of his life in the only way he could. He shaved off his beard, leaving only a professorial goatee. He was congratulating himself and patting his face dry when the FRU shuttled into the bathroom behind him.

“Stan,” it said, “we have a problem.”

“Out of cheese puffs?”

“No, Stan. This is rather more serious.”

He turned to look at the FRU, vaguely disturbed, as always, that no expression could be read in the gleaming manta shell. “Not the Ship.”

“Someone has advanced the idea that you are a front for an alien presence on Earth.”

The only response that seemed appropriate was laughter. When he had gotten his hilarity under control, he asked, “Who’d believe such a ridiculous story? The person who made that up?”

“But, Stan, he did not make it up, as you well know.”

“He?” Stan felt his pulse leap. “He who?”

Ship proceeded to tell him about the college student who had appeared one evening trying to get information about the crash of a meteorite. “I have no doubt what he actually witnessed was our landfall.”

Stan shook his head. “Ship, think about it. Who’s going to believe a whacko tale like that?”

“Tabloids, Stan. UFO chasers. There is more. We have received a threatening e-mail. This person has said he will expose the location of this cabin to tabloid reporters if you do not—as he put it—come clean.”

“I can’t ‘come clean,’ Ship. Not without giving you and Qtzl up to…” He realized he had no idea what he’d be giving them up to. “How soon can you leave?”

“I estimate three more days of constant work on my part.”

“Did this guy leave a return address?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll have to try to stall him. I’ll… invite him up here—Thursday. That will give you your three days.”

Ship hovered silently for a moment. “What will you do, Stan Schell, when we are gone?”

“Me? I don’t know. Retire. Try to make it on science fiction alone. I can’t continue to be Arlen.”

“Why not?” asked Ship.

“I don’t think the way he does. I’m not alien.”

“In your books you purport to write from the alien’s point of view. Is that not what writing science fiction is all about—being able to put oneself in an alien setting of some sort? To be able to report what one sees through alien eyes? You once claimed you were a ‘damn good science fiction writer. ’ How can that be if your imagination fails to let you be alien?”

Damn. Outargued by a machine. An alien machine. Stan wandered into the library and pulled one of his books from the shelf. Stepping Over Shadows, the cover said—a story of aliens transported against their will to a strange new world called Earth. He perched on the corner of his desk and read the passage describing the alien protagonist’s first encounter with human beings. He skipped pages and read a paragraph or two about the alien’s voyage aboard the Earth ship. It was good, he thought. He had captured the alien’s sense of human alienness. And that had been written long before he’d met a real alien.

His computer screen still displayed the threatening e-mail. He read it, then sat down and sent a message to Kerfrees@shore.net. Then he called Ted Barnett at The Bee.

Kerwin Frees’s heart turned over in his chest as he read the e-mail. He was going to meet the aliens. He sat back in his disreputable overstuffed chair and stared at the pine knots in his ceiling.

Stan Schell’s message had posed one particularly disturbing question. “What do you want?” What did he want? Fame, fortune, notoriety? Or did he just want to be right? Did he just want to know that there was life Elsewhere—intelligent life, life we could shake hands with, communicate with, grow to like, even befriend as Stan Schell (damn him/bless him) had befriended his alien refugees. In three days he would know (hell, he already knew) that he was right. The question in his mind was—did he need the whole damn world to know he was right?

Stan heard the back door open and close. Qtzl came in, wearing a bright yellow sundress with orange tulips on it.

“I have come to say good-bye, Stan,” the alien said, and Stan read honest emotion in the odd eyes. “Ship has run a diagnostic and says we are able to leave here. I can return to my family—my world.” He paused and tilted his head from side to side several times as if he might shake the appropriate words loose. “I will miss having fame and fortune. It was something I never could achieve on my world.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Yes. I suppose you do.”

“But just imagine, Qtzl, what will happen when you return after all this time and tell everyone where you’ve been, and how you had to brave alien danger to get home? You’ll be a celebrity then, I’ll bet. Everyone will want to know your story. Everyone.”

“If they believe me. I have been known to… exaggerate.”

“You have Ship. Would Ship lie?”

The reptilian face brightened. “No machine intelligence has ever been known to even exaggerate, much less lie. But… may I take some Earth artifacts back with me anyway—a set of your novels, perhaps?”

Stan nodded, feeling a lump begin to grow in his throat.

“And this garment.” He fingered the hem of the sun-dress which came to just above his oddly jointed knees. “May I take this, too?”

“Sure. Sis won’t miss it. Take those pine cones you’ve been hoarding, too, won’t you? I sure don’t know what to do with them.”

Qtzl’s crest bounced up and down in pleasure. “Thanks, Stan. And now I must go. Ship is requesting my presence.”

Stan checked his watch. “Yeah. Frees will be here any minute. You’d better get going.”

They paused long enough for Stan to take a photograph of Qtzl in the yellow sun-dress. It seemed the appropriate way to remember him. Then the big lizard went to where Ship lay completely right side up on its landing struts, there to load his pine cones, books, and other Earth artifacts.

Stan waited. Not long. Kerwin Frees showed up punctually at his front door.

“Where are they?” He’d barely stepped across the threshold when the words were out of his mouth.

“They’re leaving.”

“They’re—? You conned me!”

“You didn’t leave me much choice. I couldn’t expose them.”

Frees gave him a panicked glare and bolted out the back of the cabin. Stan followed him down the hill to where Ship was overseeing Qtzl’s clearing away of the last bit of brush. It looked somewhat the worse for wear, its once gleaming sides burnt and battered looking. But it had assured Stan it was serviceably sound and quite capable of getting Qtzl home.

Frees had frozen at the bow when Qtzl, still wearing the yellow sundress, turned and waved cheerily. “Oh, hello! You must be Kerwin Frees. I’m Qtzl Fhuuii. Come to see us off, have you? How nice. Isn’t that nice of Kerwin Frees, Stan Schell?”

“Very nice.”

Frees’s voice was so desperate it nearly squeaked. “You can’t leave! Don’t you understand how important this is to Earth?”

“I think we realize how important it is to you.” Stan moved to stand in front of the younger man, making him have to dodge a bit to keep his eyes on Qtzl and the FRU. “Would you really have spilled this to your UFO-logist buddies—to the tabloids?”

Ship uttered the closest thing Stan could imagine to a mechanical sigh. “I believe he did, Stan Schell.”

Stan glanced up the hill toward the cabin. A small knot of people had appeared at the top of the trail, bristling with cameras and microphones. Someone shouted, and the knot loosened and began to tumble down the hill. Stan turned back to the spacecraft. “Good-bye, Qtzl. Good-bye, Ship. I think I can honestly say I’ll miss you.” He smiled. “Don’t forget to write.”

Qtzl’s frill bounced and his crest stood up smartly. “I shall write, Stan Schell. You’ll see. Check your e-mail often.”

“I didn’t do this,” said Frees, pointing uphill.

“Uh-huh.”

Qtzl and the FRU disappeared into the Ship.

Frees danced around, putting himself between Stan and the reporters. “I mean it. I didn’t do this.”

Ship uttered a soft, keening song, like a zephyr through the pines then, moments later, lifted itself majestically into the air. Any sound it might have made was drowned in the trampling of flora under the feet of the approaching journalists. Ship hovered above the treetops—posing, Stan thought, wryly—then disappeared in a long streak of light.

Just like in the movies. Stan tilted his head to one side. He wondered if the video currently being shot would be blurred—like the ones in those ever-popular sightings shows.

A babble of voices swamped his thoughts. Microphones thrust into his face. On the other side of them, over a tangle of arms, Frees stared back at him, face sweating.

“What just happened?”

“What did we just see?”

“What was that?”

“Can you explain what just happened, Mr. Frees?” Stan asked.

Kerwin Frees’s mouth opened and closed like a beached trout’s. “It was a spacecraft,” finally emerged. Frees’s eyes lost their glazed look. He grabbed a microphone. “It was an alien spacecraft that crash-landed here months ago and was mistaken for a meteorite. There were two alien beings aboard, which this man—” He stabbed a finger at Stan. “Which this man hid in his summer cabin. He used the aliens to parlay a successful career for himself as an advice columnist.”

It sounded so inane, Stan almost lost himself to hysterical laughter. The reporters prevented him. “That’s Stan Schell!” one of them exclaimed, and the many microphones pushed in closer.

“What do you say, Mr. Schell?” an eagle-eyed young woman peered at him from behind a red wind sock.

“And you’re from?”

“The Skeptical Examiner. We got a call saying that an alien spacecraft was sitting in this ravine. Was that what I just saw taking off?”

“Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but the so-called spacecraft is local. The rest of it—special effects. Hollywood.” He smiled at the woman. “I’m sure that makes perfect sense to you.” Frees shrieked. “That’s insane! You all saw the aliens! You all saw the ship!”

“Special effects,” Stan repeated.

“What about the column—Ask Arlen?” asked Frees. “You didn’t even know it existed until you saw it was being run with your picture. You tracked the writer here, to your summer cabin. And you found aliens.”

“Are you suggesting that aliens were writing an advice column?”

The reporters laughed; Frees reddened. “You know the truth.”

“Maybe I do. But nobody here would believe a story like that. I certainly wouldn’t, and I write science fiction. So my line is—no comment. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I have an advice column to get out.”

He pushed past the reporters, ignoring their cries for his attention, and made his way back up the hill. Frees, stranded below, managed to keep all but a few from following him.

Ted Barnett met him halfway up the hill. “What was that all about?”

Stan shook his head. “I couldn’t even begin to explain.”

“Was that an alien spacecraft?”

“Wasn’t that what I said it was?”

“Yes.”

“And did you believe me?”

“I’m here, aren’t I? I leaked the information, didn’t I?”

“That begs the question. Do you believe that was an alien spacecraft?”

Barnett hesitated. “I’m not sure. I hate to sound like a rank materialist, but the more important question to me is—are you really Arlen? Or was it somebody else?” His eyes grazed the clouds overhead.

“Why don’t you reserve judgment until you get my next column?”

Barnett nodded. “OK. How does this guy Frees figure into this?”

Stan glanced down the hill to where the UFO chaser was still drowning in journalistic undertow. “He concocted a story about aliens writing the column—about me hiding these aliens in my summer cabin. He was harassing me.”

“And this is your way of getting even.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s my way of getting the aliens out of here safely. Or maybe it’s my way of getting more free publicity.”

He left Barnett and went back up to the cabin, where he closed and locked the door in the faces of a couple of tabloid reporters. The act gave him a perverse and childish sense of satisfaction. From his office window he watched Kerwin Frees swimming uphill against a current of microphones and cameras. At the bottom of the hill, a handful of people were going over the crash site in minute detail.

Stan frowned. He hadn’t thought of that—hadn’t considered what kind of evidential residue Ship might have left behind. He called the police and reported that he was being overrun with trespassers. Then, musingly, still not certain what he had just gained and lost and gained, Stan Schell sat down at his computer to answer the day’s letters and meditate upon the alien point of view.