The Fresco Read Free

huddle. Could two huddle? She sucked in her cheeks and bit down hard, trying to convince herself she was awake. Half hidden in a grove of firs beyond the two aliens a gleaming shape hovered about two feet above the ground. The alien ship: a triangular gunmetal blue thing, flat on the bottom, rounded like a teardrop above. It looked barely big enough to hold the two beings, who were about her height, five foot six, though much lighter in build, each with four yellow arms and four green legs, and what seemed to be a scarlet exoskeleton covering the thorax and extending in a kind of kangaroo tail in back, like a prop. Or maybe wing covers, like a beetle. So, maybe they were bugs. Giant bugs. And maybe they weren’t. The exoskeleton could be armor of some kind, and they had huge, really huge multifaceted eyes, plus several smaller ones that looked almost human. The mouths didn’t look like insect mouths, though there were small squidgy bits around the sides. She couldn’t see any teeth. Just horny ridges. They couldn’t make words with inflexible mouths like that, so evidently they talked through the little boxes they had hanging around their…middles.
    â€œAre you receptor person?” the taller one asked. “That is, provider of sequential life with or without DNA introduced by another individual or individuals?”
    She thought about this, sorting it out, flushing a little as she thought, Oh, Lord, are they going to ask me about sex? She swallowed. “I’m a woman, female, yes, and I have two children.” With DNA introduced by another individual. Which explained a lot, if one was looking for explanations.
    â€œAre you recently injured?” the other, slightly shorter alien asked, reaching out with a pincer foot to stroke the swollen purple skin around her left eye.
    It felt rather like being touched with a pencil eraser: not hard, but not soft, either. Possibly very sensitive, she supposed, and the gesture was delicately nonintrusive. “A small accident,” she murmured, putting her hand protectively over the bruise. “It’ll heal up very soon.”
    â€œAh. You have our sympathy for being marred,” this one said.
    â€œAre you person of good reputation?” asked the taller one, with an admonitory glance toward its companion. “You have done no foolish or evil thing that would make others consider your words false or unbelievable?”
    â€œAll of us do foolish things,” she said. “None of us are perfect. I’ve never done any purposeful evil…”
    You didn’t mean to, Benita, but you hung your life out on the line like an old towel, to get faded and ragged. I wish you could go back, daughter, but we can’t do that.
    â€œâ€¦I don’t think I’ve done anything too ridiculous.” She sighed, and looked at her shoes.
    â€œWill you help us make contact with your people, so we may do so peacefully, without injury to anyone?”
    This was real! The idea went off like a roman candle, pfoosh, whap! Honest to goodness real! Good Lord, of course she would help avoid injury, though what could she do? “I will if I can,” she equivocated, trying to wet her mouth and lips. They were dry, achingly dry.
    â€œWe ask only what you can,” the tall one said. “We will first give you names you can pronounce. We will simplify our own names from our youth, our undifferentiated time. You may call me Chiddy, and my companion is Vess.” Chiddy held out a bright red cube about six inches square. “This is our declaration. Our investigation shows that this America section is the section most interested in search for extraplanetary intelligence, so you will go to your authorities of this America section, and you will give them this. When it is in the hands of authority, it will automatically do all necessary convincing, advising, and preparing.” It nodded, well satisfied with this exposition.
    The other