Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed was a considerate enough lover to take additional pleasure from the writhing of Fist-Held-Sideways’s body. He squeezed her tighter, and they both relished the simultaneous climax of their intercourse. As they relaxed, floating in the room, the warm afterglow of the neurotransmitter washing over them, Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed thought that the Five Gods had indeed been wise. Only together could males and females experience such joy, and—oh, the gods had indeed been brilliant!—it happened simultaneously, compounds from his body mixing with chemicals from hers, producing the neurotransmitter. The simultaneity, the shared experience, was wonderful.

Of course, as usual, it would be a problem figuring out what to do with the new children. His race had been saddened indeed when it discovered that any process or barrier that prevented conception also prevented orgasm, and that, because of the neurological interdependence of the fetuses and their host, to terminate a pregnancy would kill the mother.

No, the only method to keep new children from being born was to avoid copulation altogether. And, well, when a female was in estrus, her pheromones—those wonderful, wonderful pheromones—were completely irresistible.

The had no choice. With an ever-expanding population, they had to find new worlds to colonize.

* * *

Darren’s next-door neighbor’s brother-in-law worked for Newsworld, the CBC’s all-news cable channel. He’d met the guy a couple of times at parties at Bernie’s place. Darren couldn’t recall exactly what the guy did. Director? Switcher? Some behind-the-scenes function, anyway; they’d had a fairly empty conversation last time, with Darren asking him if Wendy Mesley was as cute in real life as she looked on TV. Of course, at this time of night, he didn’t want to call Bernie and wake him up—“next door” was a bit of a misnomer; Bernie’s place was the better part of a kilometer up the country road.

But at that last party Bernie had held—back in June, it must have been—Bernie’s brother-in-law had had to leave early, to get down to Toronto and go to work. So he pulled the night shift at least some of the time, meaning there was a chance he might be at the CBC right now. But what the heck was the guy’s name? Carson? Carstone? Carstairs? Something like that …

Well, nothing to be lost by trying. He got the CBC number from Toronto directory assistance, dialed it, and was greeted by a bilingual computerized receptionist, which gave him the option of spelling out the last name of the person he wanted to speak to on his touch-tone phone. Fortunately, the system recognized the name by the time Darren had pressed the key corresponding to the fourth letter—the last name, as the system informed him, was in fact Carstairs, and the first name was Rory. Darren was transferred to the correct extension and, miracle of miracles, the actual, living Rory Carstairs answered the phone.

“Overnight,” said the voice. “Carstairs.”

“Hi, Rory. This is Darren Hamasaki—remember me? I live down the street from your brother-in-law Bernie. We met at a couple of his parties.” The words of the automated attendant echoed in Darren’s mind: Continue until recognized. “I’ve got one of those beards that a lot of people call a goatee, but it’s really a Vandyke, and—”

“Oh, sure,” said Carstairs. “The space buff, right? You were pointing out constellations to us in Bernie’s backyard. Say, nothing’s happened to Bernie, has it?”

“No, he’s fine—at least, as far as I know. But—but I’ve got some news to report, and, well, I didn’t know who else to call.”

“I’m listening,” said Carstairs.

* * *

The carefully devised Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, issued by the International Academy of Astronautics in 1989, had been based on the assumption that governments would control access to the alien signals, that giant, multi-million-dollar radio telescopes would be required to pick up the messages.

But the signal Darren had detected was optical. Anyone with a decent backyard telescope had been able to pick it out, once he’d made known the celestial coordinates. And in all the places on Earth from which Groombridge 1618 could be seen at night, people were doing just that. Sales of telescopes were at an all-time high, exceeding even the boom during Hailey’s last visit.

Darren Hamasaki became a media celebrity, interviewed by TV programs from around the world. Of course, all the usual SETI pundits—Seth Shostak and Paul Shuch in the U.S., Robert Garrison in Canada, and Jun Jugaku in Japan—were also constantly being asked for comment. But when the mayor of Las Vegas decided to do something about the alien signal, it was indeed Darren that he called.