Hi, Colonic

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.