Illegal Alien

Frank pointed at the alien. There was no reason to think the gesture would make sense to the creature — pointing might only be meaningful to beings who had been spear carriers in their past. But almost at once the alien’s mouth moved. It was a complex structure, with an outer horizontal opening and an inner layer of tissue that had a vertical opening, letting it make a variety of rectangular holes. "Hask," said the alien. Its voice was smooth and deep — Frank had seen nothing on the being that might be genitalia, but it sounded male. The voice started softly, but the volume lifted by the end of the word.

But then Frank realized that he hadn’t really established anything. Was Hask the being’s personal name, or the name of its race? Or did the word mean something else? "Hello," maybe? Frank pointed at Cletus. "Clete," he said. The alien repeated the word back, and this time Frank was positive that the sound was coming not from the mouth, but the alien’s chest. One of the pockets on its vest contained a small rectangular object; its outline was apparent by the way the fabric was distorted, and the top of the unit was peeking out of the pocket’s flap. The sound had apparently come from it.

The alien pointed at Frank and said his name — this time it did come from the alien’s mouth. He then pointed at Clete and said Clete’s name. Both times the word started softly, but grew louder over the length of the syllable. The alien pointed at the Russian. Frank looked at him, but was damned if he could remember the man’s name. "Sergei," said the Russian.

"Sergei," repeated the device in the alien’s pocket, and then, a moment later, the alien said "Sergei" on its own.

Frank then indicated himself, Clete, and Sergei. "Humans," he said.

"Wait," said Sergei. "I object to contact being made in English."

Frank looked at the man. "This isn’t the time—"

"Certainly is time. You—"

Clete spoke up. "Don’t be a pain. Dr. Nobilio is in charge here, and—"

"Nyet."

"For heaven’s sake," said Frank. "We’re getting this all on video. Let’s not squabble."

Sergei looked angry but didn’t say anything further. Frank turned back to the alien, repeated his pointing at each of the people in turn, then repeated the word, "Humans."

The alien touched its chest, just as Frank had touched his own moments before. "Tosok."

"Tosok," said Frank. "Hask."

"Humans," said Hask. "Frank. Clete. Sergei."

"Now we’re cookin’," said Clete.

*3*

Captain Raintree and the remaining Russians came closer. Dozens of the Kitty Hawk’s crew members had found reasons to come up on the flight deck, and Hask was soon surrounded by an awestruck crowd. Frank and Clete spent hours teaching the alien English nouns and some simple verbs — such as "walk" and "run" and "lift."

Frank noted more details of Hask’s appearance as time went by. The alien had four mirrored silver lenses — two on the front of his dome-shaped head above the forward arm, and two more in back above the rear arm, an arm that was somewhat less robust and a bit shorter than the one in front.

There seemed to be some sort of rust-colored dental plates inside the mouth at the front of the head, but there was a second mouth that lacked such plates in the back of the head. There were also two small orifices at either side of the head, and it seemed that it was through these that the alien was breathing.

As they began building complex phrases it became clear that the Tosok manner of speech was to start each sentence at a low volume and raise it until the end of the sentence was reached. Hask seemed to have trouble following what Frank was saying because the human wasn’t able to emulate this effectively; Hask was only able to parse Frank’s speech if Frank paused for a full second between sentences.

After about an hour a seaman came to within ten feet of Frank, then motioned to catch his eye. Frank said, "Excuse me," to Hask — not that those were words Hask yet knew, but Frank hoped the alien would understand that they were meant to be polite. He walked over to the seaman. "What is it?"

"Sir, we just got a message from NORAD. They’ve located the alien mothership. It’s in a polar orbit, about two hundred miles up. And, sir, it’s huge."

The Kitty Hawk set course for New York. The alien came inside the aircraft carrier and allowed Frank and Clete to lead him to the wardroom. To Frank’s astonishment, once they were inside, Hask reached up simultaneously with his front and back hands and let the four mirrored senses fall into his square palms — he’d been wearing the Tosok equivalent of sunglasses, although Frank couldn’t tell exactly how they’d been held in place. Hask stacked the mirrored lenses into a neat pile, and dropped them into one of the many pockets on his vest.

Hask’s eyes were circular and moist. One of those in front was orange, the other green; one in back was also green, and the fourth was silver-gray.

Each had a small vertically oval black pupil in it; each pair seemed to track together.