Illegal Alien

Frank held up the portable computer, hoping the alien would recognize it, and know what to do with it. It was a gamble: Frank certainly wouldn’t recognize a specialized Italian farm implement from A.D. 1800, let alone one from a culture that wasn’t his own; there was no real reason to think that the newcomer would recognize a two-century-old Tosok computer.

The alien reached out with one of its long arms — from the way it moved, it appeared to be jointed every twenty-five centimeters or so, rather than being a tentacle of pure muscle. Frank took a deep breath and continued to close the distance between them. The alien was indeed wearing some sort of space suit, made of a silvery fabric. There was a clear strip, though, near where each leg joined the torso, and through it Frank could see the creature’s real skin, a scaly yellowish gold. The clear strips were meant to allow the alien’s eyes to peer out — Frank could see two oval-shaped eyes, one atop the other, on each leg. The eyes had lids that closed from left to right, but no two eyes on the same leg ever seemed to shut simultaneously. The tanks of gas on the legs joined directly to the suit at the base of each leg; presumably that’s where the creature’s six breathing orifices were located.

Frank continued to hold the computer out in front of him. Because of the alien’s short height, he could look right down on it from above.

It really did seem to be perfectly radially symmetrical; if it had a preferred front side, Frank could see no indication of it. One of the six arms reached out to Frank. Although its tip was gloved in the same silvery material, Frank could see that it was bifurcated. The two branches easily plucked the computer from Frank’s hand. The suit had been warm to the touch; it was radiating excess heat — the alien perhaps came from a cooler world than this one.

The alien folded its arm back, bringing the computer up to one of its vertical pairs of eyes. It turned it around, apparently unsure how to hold it.

Frank’s heart fell — they’d have to start over from scratch, apparently, trying to learn to communicate.

Suddenly a second starfish alien emerged from the spherical lander. It came toward Frank quickly, its body rotating as it did so. When it got close, Frank saw that it had something in one of its hands — a device that ended in precisely the same sort of tripronged connector he’d come to associate with Tosok technology. The second alien took Hask’s computer from the first alien and plugged it into the device it had brought along. Lights began flashing on both devices.

Frank was aware of a high-pitched buzzing sound, barely audible. At first he thought it was coming from Hask’s computer, but his ears soon focused better on the source. The two aliens were apparently conversing, using mostly ultrasonics. The buzz alternately came from one of them, then the other.

The lights stopped flashing on Hask’s computer. The second alien disengaged it from the device he’d brought, and proffered it to Frank. Frank was surprised, but took it back. The alien handed the other device to the first alien, then twirled back a dozen meters.

The buzzing started again from the first alien, and within seconds, the synthesized voice Frank had come to associate with Hask was emerging from the device the starfish creature was now holding. "Do you understand me?" said the voice.

"Yes," said Frank, his heart pounding with excitement.

"There is no accepted way to render my own individual name in the subset of the Tosok vocal range that you apparently communicate with. Please assign to me a name whose sound you can replicate."

Frank was momentarily lost. "Umm— Tony. I’ll call you Tony."

"Tony. And you are?"

"Frank."

"We came as soon as we received the Tosok message. I saw from orbit that we were not too late."

"Too late?"

"To keep your planet from being wiped clean of life."

"You came to prevent that?"

"We did. The Tosoks tried to extinguish us as well. We are… resilient. They have been subdued."

Frank felt his features spreading into a broad grin. "Welcome to Earth, friend."

The new aliens — already dubbed Twirlers by CNN’s correspondent — were originally from the star humans called Epsilon Indi, which, although it was eleven light-years from Earth, was only nine from Alpha Centauri. The Twirlers had begun using radio centuries before humanity had, and so a high-speed Tosok mothership had been dispatched to that star, arriving there thirty-odd years ago. Although it took decades, the Twirlers had managed to defeat the Tosoks.

There were twenty-six Twirlers aboard their beautiful mothership, but it was Tony who served as the sole communicator with humanity. And today, Tony was addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations. He stood at the same lectern Kelkad had used five years before, the great seal of the planet he’d so recently arrived upon spread out behind him, embraced by olive leaves.