by Clyde Key
* * *
When Ed got back to headquarters, he went stopped to see Lt. Marilee Sharp first. He asked her to send somebody to pick up Major Baines at the magport when his train arrived from Deming.
“Sir? If I may ask, why did Major Baines go to Deming?”
“Certainly you can ask. Baines just wanted to see the scenery.”
“Yes sir,” said Marilee. Ed thought he also heard her muttering something about old people, but he wasn’t sure.
Ed went to his office then. The blue alien, who had just got back from Flagstaff, followed him. Ed sat at his keyboard and started typing the requisition for his new quarters. He also requisitioned a pit beside it for the alien. Ed whistled a tune while he typed.
“Do you make the strange sound to confuse my sight?” asked the alien.
“Nah. I just whistle when I’m in a good mood, Blue,” said Ed.
“Veezee do not have mood. Veezee are not like you.”
“Maybe I can teach you to have a mood sometime.”
“Instead Veezee can teach humans not to have good mood.”
“Too late for that,” said Ed.
38
Jan. 10, 2113
It was Arlene Sisk’s task to announce it to the nation, as it had been her unpleasant duty first to convince President Litton, her cabinet, and the leaders of both houses of congress. Now she studied her notes and mentally rehearsed the announcement as PNN technicians worked to adjust the cameras and lighting in the DC studio, a task that was all the more difficult since she had decided to forego the heavy skin cream. Sisk’s stain had faded considerably but she was still pale green and somewhat splotchy.
For the first time since the Visitors arrived, she wondered if AABC had always been wrong in welcoming them to the planet. Certainly there had always been a few dissenters like Ed Halloran who warned that we didn’t really know what they would be like, but they had been dismissed as old reactionaries, not to be taken seriously by an enlightened population. Arlene’s goal had been to live long enough to welcome The Visitors to our planet so they could teach us how they achieved their perfect civilization. But now that they were here, it was all so different!
And now she worried whether she had made a mistake by appearing without her thick skin cream.
