Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences Read Free Page A

the house. The aliens order us to form lines. They give us assignments. I’m outside. The girl is in. She smiles at me before she goes into the house. It’s a sad smile but a smile just the same.

To Senator & High Lord Vertenomous:
    Our scouts were largely correct in their assessment of this planet. They are as primitive as we thought, although it seems that several thousand are capable of hearing. The extent of machine use was underestimated, which I think you might include in your own reports to the president and High Council.
    We have destroyed more product than I’d hoped. They are a willful species, and this has made them difficult to categorize, assign, and control. They will learn.
    The colony is secure for development. There are remote regions where some product may still remain loose (we have initiated sweeps, so I am certain most of the free product has been exterminated). However, those that remain are not a threat.
    My report, of course, goes into great detail on all these subjects as well as on plans for development. Right now our biggest challenge is destroying the machines and removing some of the product’s primitive structures. This will take time, but I expect more design and reconstruction crews to arrive before one more revolution of their moon. Given the quantity of product and the quality of the environment, I am certain the company will have no trouble attracting settlers. This will be a desirable and profitable colony. Congratulations.
    ATTACHED NOTE TO THE OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE :
    Dear Father,
    If you could expedite my wife and daughters’ arrival, I would be very grateful. This is an excellent planet, but it is difficult to be so far away from civilization and my family. There is something in the primary species here that troubles me — some melancholy aspect maybe. Sometimes their minds become shadowy and difficult to read, and at other times there are disturbing spikes of raw power that must be some kind of feedback from our minds. It would be a great comfort to have my family here as I build this colony.
    I hope all goes well on Sanginia.

There are probably about sixty of us living at Lord Vert’s, but sometimes they bus in workers who can’t “hear.” We at Lord Vert’s are all hearing product. That’s what they call those of us with enough telepathic ability that they can speak to us in our minds. Because of this talent (or is it a curse?), they sometimes bus us to other work sites to use us as translators for nonhearing slaves. This allows the aliens to avoid talking, which they hate to do. Their voices creak like rusty door hinges. I think it actually hurts them to talk.
    This morning, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. We walk across the lawn, still damp with dew. The Sans have us building four separate dorms, so they break us up into four crews. Michael and I are on the same crew. We’re assigned to the dorm that is closest to being finished.
    “Do you think they think we all look alike?” I ask him as we enter the dorm.
    “Shut up,” he says.
    He says this to me pretty often. I don’t take offense because I’ve gotten used to it. In fact I’ve come to view it as a sign of affection, though I keep this observation to myself.
    “I’m just saying, they all sort of look alike to me,” I say.
    “They’re all the same color,” he says.
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So, we aren’t.”
    “Maybe they don’t notice.”
    “Shut up,” he says.
    A Handler orders us to paint the main room. We slip into jumpsuits that I think are supposed to be for mechanics. Before we arrived, the aliens had filled a room with clothes for us. It looked like a mix of Gap, Old Navy, and stuff from expensive stores. We got the jumpsuits the day we started painting.
    We paint with this guy in his thirties named Jerome. He’s a black guy, thin and ropy and talkative. Well, more than talkative. His mouth does not stop moving; it’s kind of hard to figure out how he breathes with all those words