Andy shook his head. “No, I was captured.”
“But you escaped!” Father slapped Andy on his back. “That’s my boy! How’d you do it?”
“It’s a long story...”
Mother interrupted. “In that case, I think it would be best told at the table. You’re just in time for Columbus Day dinner, Andrew. We saved your place.”
Andrew smiled. He certainly looked happy to hear that news. “Great!” he said. “But I hope there is room at the table for one more.”
“One more?” mother asked, with more than a bit of curiosity.
“Yes,” Andy replied. “I’ve brought home a friend.” He called out to the backyard. “You can come in now.”
The backdoor opened and a young woman stepped into the kitchen. She was on the tall side, with long straight brown hair, and the graceful athletic build of a tennis player. She wore no makeup, tattoos, earrings or piercing. Instead she was pretty in a clean-cut, natural, outdoor-girl kind of way. Her eyes were bright with intelligence.
“Mom, Dad, this is Alice. “ Andy said. “I met her in Kennewick.”
“Hello, Mr.and Mrs. Hamilton,” Alice said, in a bashful but charming voice. “I’m really glad to meet finally meet you.” She smiled a win- ning grin, filled with friendliness and good will. For just a fraction of a second, her eyes switched to Sally, and flashed her a greeting too, warm but filled with an inner message of shared impish irreverence. Sally liked her instantly.
Sally caught the electric look her parents exchanged as well. She had never seen that look before, but she knew what it meant. Despite his good nature and good looks, Andy had always been either too serious or too shy to be very successful with girls, and had only twice before managed to bring girlfriends home to meet the family. Both cases had been doubtful propositions, and her parents had correctly summed them up at first glance.
But this one was different, and everyone knew it. This one was a keeper.
There was no doubt about it. Andy had finally brought home the allAmerican girl.
Mother gave Alice her broadest of smiles. “Welcome to our home, Alice. Call me Mom.”
They sat down at the table. Dad broke out a bottle of champagne, and filled everyone’s glasses, even Sally’s. This was very unusual, since she was only 16, and her parents had never let her drink before. But this was a special occasion. Her brother was back, and from the looks of things, he had brought home a sister, too. What a Columbus Day!
Alice, though, took only the tiniest of sips of her drink, a fact which did not escape Dad’s attention. “So, are you a teetotaler?” he asked her.
Alice seemed a bit confused and glanced at Andy, who nodded.“Yes, I guess I am,” she said modestly.
“Well, that’s all right,” father said good-naturedly. “It’s not my way, but it’s a lot better than its opposite, that’s what I always say.” He gave Andy a little mockpunch on the shoulder. “That’s a hell of a girl you’ve got there, son.”
Andy gave Alice a knowing glance. “Yes. You can say that again.”
Alice eyed the turkey in the center of the table. “What kind of bird is that?” she asked.
Everyone froze in astonishment at the question. Sally spoke up. “It’s a turkey. You mean you’ve never seen a turkey before?”
“Never one as nice as that,” Alice said, with a smile good enough to beat a speeding ticket.
Dad broke out laughing. “You bet you haven’t. There’s no turkey in the world that’s as good asMartha’s turkey. Wait till you taste it. Come on everybody, dig in!”
The turkey was passed around. Dad, who never said grace ordinarily, broke his custom.“For what we have received this day, Lord, we are truly thankful.” Sally nodded her approval. While a patriotic family, the Hamiltons were not holy rollers. But this really was a day for thanks. Alice seemed to mumble a little silent prayer of her own, and made a curious sign with her hand. It was an odd gesture, which set Sally to thinking that perhaps she was a member of some other denomination, Mormon perhaps. There were supposed to be a lot of them out west. That would explain her being a teetotaler too. Sally was delighted. It would be fun learning about the customs of a different group of people.
“Well, time to eat!” Dad said. and cut himself a large mouthful of turkey. Everyone else started eating too, but Alice just sat there watching.
“What’s the matter dear,” Mother said. “You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?”
“No,” said Alice. “I was just er...thinking.” With that, she picked up her knife and fork, and started to squeeze them in various places. Then, apparently annoyed by something, she grasped the silverware completely incorrectly and tried to cut her turkey.
It would have been too impolite to say anything about Alice’s weird table manners, so everyone tried to ignore them and picked up their own silverware and resumed eating. Immediately, Alice slowed down her attempted cutting, and changed her grip on the knife and fork to approximate the technique everyone else was using. Sally shot her brother a curious glance.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Andy explained.
“I’ll bet you have,” Father said genially. “So son, tell us all about it. What happened?”
“Well, Dad, as I’m sure you heard, the attack was a total disaster.”
Dad looked surprised. “No, we heard it was a victory.”
Andy shook his head. “Uh, uh. All our tanks and planes were destroyed before they ever got off a shot. I realized that the Minervans could easily spot and destroy any vehicle, so I brought my men in on foot.”
“Taking advantage of cover, like I taught you?”
Andy nodded, and took a bite of turkey.
“That’s my boy!” Dad exclaimed. He turned and explained to Alice. “I taught him to hunt, when he was a boy. Taught him how to take maximum advantage of cover, so as to be able to get within striking range of even the smartest game. The real wilderness skills, that they don’t teach anyone anymore, not even in the Rangers.” He shot Alice a friendly grin. “I’ll bet those Minervan slimeballs never knew what hit them.”
Alice seemed to gag.
“What’s the matter, dear,” Mother said. “Did you get a bone caught in your throat?”
“No, I’m OK,” Alice said, and reached for a glass of water.
Dad turned back to Andy. “So son, did you bag yourself a Minervan?”
“Yeah, I got one,” Andy said, without a trace of triumph. “All told, my platoon nailed six.”
A dark look crossed Alice’s face.
“Way to go, Andy!” Father exclaimed, oblivious.
“But, then they hit back hard. We were wiped out.”
Father appeared stunned. “You mean they’re all dead? All your bud- dies? Sammy, and Derek and...”
Andy interrupted.“Dead. Blown to pieces. Killed to the last man.I’m the onlysurvivor.”
Father clenched his teeth in cold rage. “Why those filthy, murdering pagan bastards. I wish I could meet one, just once. I’d tear its head off with my bare hands, and stuff it, mount it, and put it on that wall.”
Alice dropped her silverware, causing everyone to stare. It was apparent to Sally that something Father said had bothered her.
“You don’t like what Dad just said?” Sally asked Alice.
Alice was quiet for several seconds, as if she was gathering her thought. “I think peace would be a better way,” she said finally.
Sally did a double take. The idea of peace was so original it was refreshing. It was not that she had any sympathy for the Minervans, but all the stupid chanting demanding their demise had gotten boring.
“That’s a kind-hearted point of view,” Father replied. “But use your reason. How can we possibly have peace with satanic fiends like the Minervans. They are pure evil.”
“They’re not evil,” Alice objected. “They’re just...”
“Now child,” Mother interrupted. “I’m a woman, like you. So natu- rally Idon’t care for all this war talk. But the Min
ervans are hideous monsters. Look what they are doing to those poor children! They have to be stopped. We have to kill them. There’s just no other way.”
Sally waited to see what Alice would say, but the young woman just stared at the table and said nothing.
Father turned back to Andy. “So, they captured you. What happened then? Did they torture you?”
Andy was silent for several seconds, during which Alice turned to look at him, as if keenly interested in his answer. “No,” he finally said. “Not physically anyway. But mentally…” Tears formed in Andy’s eyes. “It’s horrible what they do to you. They strip you of your dignity. They rob you of your humanity.”
Alice looked stricken. Sally wondered what the Minervans had done to her. It must have been really terrible. Yet she still wanted to make peace with them. How interesting!
Apparently deciding it would be a good idea to change the subject, Mother interjected. “So, Alice, tell us about yourself. Were you born and raised in Kennewick?”
“No,” Alice said. “I just moved there when my friends did.”
“Well, if you are not from Kennewick, let me guess where you are from.”
Alice smiled. “Do you think you can?”
“Yes,” Mother replied. “You have very charming accent, and it kind of gives you away.”
Alice seemed to freeze. “It does?” she asked timidly.
Mother continued. “Yes. You talk just the same way those nice peo- ple do in the cheese commercials. What’s that place, Sally?”
Sally knew the answer. “Wisconsin, land of cheese.”
Mother nodded. “That’s it, you’re from Wisconsin, aren’t you?
Alice said, “Well…”
Father interrupted. “Let’s hear you say, ‘Ya, sure, you betcha.’”
“Ya, sure, you betcha,” Alice said.
Father laughed. “Ya, sure, you betchashe’s from Wisconsin.”
Andy turned to Alice.“Younever told me you were fromWisconsin.”
“You never asked,” she replied.
Where was Wisconsin? And what was the significance of being from there? Aurora had no idea. But for some reason Hamilton’s parents seemed to find the idea of her being a Wisconsinling reassuring. Since she had to be from somewhere, it seemed well to let the matter rest there.
She kicked herself for having made such a sweeping vow to abstain from using her telepathic powers in dealing with those close to Hamilton. There was really so much she didn’t know about Earthlings, and without the ability to use their minds to indicate customary responses to any given situation, maintaining the charade that she was one of them was extremely difficult.
The start of the dinner had almost been a disaster. How was she supposed to know that the dead animal on the Hamiltons’ table had been of a type familiar to every Earthling? It had been apparent to her from its general structure that it was some kind of bird, a food that Minervans never ate. Strictly speaking, however, only the consumption of owls was sacrilege, so once she found out the dead animal was not a member of that sacred genus she had been able to will herself to eat it. But she had never used Earthling eating implements before, and had not realized they were unpowered. Thus she had spent several seconds trying to find their tactile actuators before realizing there were none. Sensing the puzzlement caused by her efforts to turn the implements on, she had switched to using them as simple physical tools, which apparently was the right approach. However who would have expected that the Earthlings would attach great ritual significance to the method by which one held an eating implement? It was amazing. People, who were apparently fully willing to allow their children to be sent to the slaughter in suicidal attacks on beings who had done them no harm, could become totally horrified that someone would hold eating implements with their sharp edges emerging from the bottom of a closed grip instead of from the top! Fortunately, the discomfort the Hamiltons had felt about the way she was holding her eating implements had been so strong as to project itself into the room’s common mental space, and picking up on this information she had stopped herself in time to copy the eating methods of the others.
The bird had reeked, of course. But it was not as bad as the food she had smelled from the public eating-places they had walked by on their way to the house after they had left the train station.Tasting the meal, she had assessed that it contained all ingredients necessary for short and medium-term metabolism, mixed with a variety of mild poisons and carcinogens. The toxic levels were low enough, however, to permit survival with only modest bodily damage, and by exerting her full willpower, she had been able to master the food’s somewhat nauseating flavor well enough to permit consumption without vomiting.
It had been wretched having to listen to the family’s view of the Minervans. In many ways they seemed like well-meaning creatures. They certainly loved each other, and believing her to be a potential Earthling mate for Hamilton, were clearly willing to extend their empathy to her as well. But the hatred of at least the two older Hamiltons for her people was apparently without bound. And their hatred and contempt for Minervans was made worse by its total sincerity. Without question they honestly believed that for the sake of all that was good, the Minervans needed to be wiped out.
Hamilton had shown some discomfort with these opinions, as well he should. But he had really upset her when he said he had been mentally tortured by the Minervans. That was very unfair. The Hamiltons were obviously very proud of their house, but it was clearly a filthy little hovel compared to the quarters she had provided to their son. And she had, after all, saved his life—twice. It would have been nice to hear him express a little gratitude.
In certain ways Sally seemed the most interesting of the group. It wasn’t anything she said, but certain thought-shadows she projected into the room’s common space indicated a kind of skepticism, as if she didn’t fully accept the standard Earthling mythology. Aurora wished she had permission to enterSally’s outer mind, as she deemed it probable that the teenager’s proto-rational tendencies were even stronger than her brother’s. The key scientific question was how much stronger. She was, after all, female, so one would expect her to have the better mind. But if her superiority was so great that it could not be explained by feminine advantage, then the only alternative, given the two subjects close genetic background, would be that proto-rationality was stronger in Earthlings when they were younger. If that were the case, it might indicate that the dismal quality of Earthling minds was, at least in significant part, an acquired characteristic. Thus Earthling insanity might not be an innate trait, and therefore, with proper training from infancy, it might be possible to raise Earthlings who would be capable of peacefully coexisting with humans. These were very exciting thoughts. Unfortunately, however, circumstances dictated that science would have to wait.
The dinner being over, Hamilton’s father said, “That was great. Why don’t we all go into the den and watch TV? I want to catch the news.”
They went into another room that was filled with soft, smelly cushions. Fortunately, there were dog-hairs all over the place, and to some extent these masked out the odors of the decaying furniture.
Father Hamilton turned a knob, and an electrically activated cathode ray video monitor lit up, showering the room with X-ray and beta ray radiation, along with multi-color visible light. Aurora looked around for a seat as far as possible from the dangerous machine, and found it on a raised cushion next to Sally.
The visible light emissions from the video monitor resolved themselves into crude, but identifiable two-dimensional representations. A familiar and detestable image appeared.
“This is Kolta Bruna reporting for the Galactic News Service.”
Sally caught Aurora’s eye with a sly look and gave her body a little wiggle in mocking imitation of the reporter’s erotic style of body move- ment. Aurora acknowledged the girl’s insight with a nod and a smile.
“If it isn’t the alien sex-pot,” Father Hamilton said, looking at the video monitor
.
“What a hussy,” said Mother Hamilton.
Aurora felt her feelings towards the whole family grow warmer. At least they could see through Kolta Bruna.
“I’m here in the Earthling city of New York, where earlier today a Minervan priestess went on a rampage through the airport, murdering two theology honor students before escaping into the town, where no doubt she plans more killings. Authorities are advising all citizens to be on the lookout, as the owl worshippers can be extremely dangerous and have a demonstrated proclivity for murderingchildren.”
“How horrible,” Mother Hamilton exclaimed.
Father Hamilton turned to his son. “I just hope that witch comes this way.” He gestured to the projectile weapon mounted above the fire-cave. “We’d know what to do with her.”
Kolta Bruna continued. “An Earthling woman attempted to assist the Minervan by attacking other innocent bystanders with a knife. In the course of the resulting struggle, she was accidentally killed. Subsequent investigation has discovered that the Minervan’s accomplice was none other than former White House Communications Director Lisa White, who is widely suspected for treason in having revealed the positions of the Peruvian resistance fighters to the Western Galactic fleet.”
“In response to the brutal killing of their colleagues, a group of the- ology students apprehended another of the Minervan’s travelingcompanions, a Northern Confederation priestess named Urania. The students are now holding Urania in one of their holy temples, and say they will not release her until and unless all galactic powers agree to terminate support for the Minervans. The Northern Confederation and the Central Union have agreed to this obviously reasonable request. The Eastern Empire has made no comment. However the Western Galactic Empire has announced that it will not negotiate with what it termed, and I quote, ‘assassins.’”
“The Galactic News Service has learned that Urania was the princi- ple official in charge of recovering Inca artifacts from Peru after the elimination of the Christian resistance fighters based in that country. The recalcitrant attitude and inflammatory language of the Weegees during this crisis is not only endangering the life of an innocent citizen of a major civilized power, but putting in jeopardy the safety of thegalaxy’s treasure house of priceless and irreplaceable Incaart.”
The Holy Land: Fanatical Earthling planet assassins are spreading chaos through the galaxy. Is there any nice way to stop them? Page 25
