I actually tried to go to work this morning, but I got there only to discover that those few who made the similar effort were only the ones who had no family at home and wanted company while they sat around staring at the sky and discussing current events. Admittedly my family was driving me crazy... but there was still a swimming pool in the back yard that still had water in it.

What a beautiful day to be invaded! I retired to the pool with a float mattress, a paper fan and a bodice-ripper-- one of those lovely semi-dirty novels which had on the cover a handsome, sneering pirate and a sleepy-looking chick with her bodice half ripped off, hence the name. I read a few pages then lost interest and skipped ahead to the good part. When that was done I looked around, feeling quite er, sleepy myself. I tossed the book over to a lawn chair and that left me alone in the sunshine with a perfectly good free hand. However, there were several house windows looking my way and since every member of my family was home and scampering around the house today...

I sighed, folded the fan and crossed my hands behind my neck, enduring the sunlight to stare up at the sky. It should be coming into view again soon-- and there it was. The big spearhead shape that orbited our planet six times each day. I had seen it enough times now that it looked familiar, but I hadn't yet stood still long enough to watch one complete passage from horizon to horizon. Maybe now. I had nothing better doing. So, I splished my toes in the water to cool my legs off, and kept my gaze steady.

The ship looked, from my perspective, as big as a Matchbox car would look in my hand. And that meant it was really, really big. A scientist on the radio this morning told us how he had figured its length as eleven miles. He said that twelve of our space shuttles could fly wing to wing into the maw of one of its engines and have room to spare. Assuming its occupants were human-scale, and the interior was divided into fourteen-foot levels, and one crew member per twenty square feet, the total persons on board were a number that took the scientist about five seconds just to pronounce. Why not just say, "We're officially toast"?

I had tracked the ship across about a quarter of the sky, but I was so comfortable in the sunshine and water, I thought I was going to fall asleep for real.

A gunshot sounded from inside the house, and my mother screamed. I took my eyes off the ship; in fact I nearly feel fell off my mattress, in my hurry to paddle over to the side. But think about it. Gunshot and scream meant accidental discharge and a tense woman. Gunshot, five seconds and then a scream would have been the discovery of somebody's brains all over the workshop wall. So I went in the house leisurely, after wrapping a towel around my person.

Father looked reasonably intact, and had a rifle in his hand. He was yelling, "It's not like I meant to do it! You don't have to yell at me, it was my ear that was right next to the barrel!"

And Mother shouted, "I just wish you would just stop all this! Being invaded from space is bad enough by itself without you acting like you're preparing for World War Three!"

"Space War One," I said.

Father said to me, "I hope you're ready to jump in the truck the moment I say the word!"

"Ready and waiting," I said.

He said, "You don't look it!"

I said, "Do you suppose they'll let us live long enough that we'll need to bother with patching the roof?" and sailed through to the kitchen.

"Now, young lady, this is all bad enough without that kind of flippancy from you!" said Mother. "You just have no idea of the responsibility, because it's not you who's going to have to watch all your children slaughtered before your eyes!"

"Think of your mother's feelings," Father said, heading off with his weapons. "I've finished cleaning your pistol. You come get it and put it away."

"Okay, soon as I get dressed!" I went on into the kitchen, talking to nobody but myself: "Yeah, uh-huh, me and a .38 versus the eleven-mile thing. And they told me not to shoot at a bear because that'll only make him mad?"

Mother said, "I thought I'd have a heart attack when that thing went off. Why he has to bring all those guns I don't know. We'd be better off bringing more food. Who knows how long before the cities start to shut down, panic runs wild and the riots begin."

"The truck springs will break if you add another split pea," I said. "Want some crackers and cheese?"

"I am trying to get ready to leave! You could be helping, you know!"

"Hey, I'm packed. I even filled Cocoa's seven-day feeder for you." Then I hollered after Dad, "Hey Dad, want some crackers and cheese?"

"I want some! Bring 'em to the garage, okay?" That was my little brother Sam who zoomed past me wearing full camos, an enormous backpack, and Ranger boots.

"Oh, God have mercy," I said.

"It's a better idea than the bikini," he said.

"Assuming you actually walked somewhere in that, you would expire of heat within one mile, and you would drop the backpack in fifty yards."

"If you walked anywhere in that you would get raped eighty-nine times before leaving the front yard," he said.

"SAMUEL!" My mother shouted. "Don't you talk like that!"

"I never said this was my final choice of costume. I'm going to change before I head for the hills." I continued after the crackers and cheese. The Colby was there in the fridge where it belonged, but the Ritz were missing. "Sammy! Did you take the Ritz!"

"They're in my backpack. They're gonna taste better after five days without food."

"No, I'm going to eat them the first day. Right now, in fact. Hand them over!"

"Children," said Mother, with her fingers pressed to her temples.

Uncle Tim's voice came loudly from the front room: "Hey, y'all come look at this!"

We all went to look at that. The TV announcer was saying, "... I repeat, just in, this breaking news. In a few moments our visitors from space will address the world in a public broadcast. The topic is yet undisclosed. Will we learn the reason for this astonishing new contact? Will we see the faces of the occupants of the spaceship? Are their intentions hostile? Stay tuned."

We stayed tuned. Every last one of us-- including the dog and, eventually, Dad-- all sat on our bottoms staying faithfully tuned.

"They just better think twice about landing," Sammy said, threateningly. "Unless they want to be really, really peaceful."

Dad said, "Remember what Solzhenitsyn said? 'If only we had made a few of them disappear as they came to round us up, they wouldn't have been so quick to send more.'"

"What would they WANT with us, though," Mother said.

"They figured out they've got to reduce Earth's population to one billion in order to effectively control the whole planet," Dad said.

I said, "Dad, that's the us them who would have to do that. This is the them them."

There was some static, then another type of static. Then a screen transition effect that I'd never seen before, and I knew right then that we weren't in Kansas anymore.

It was a slick-looking talking-head kind of guy I had the feeling we'd all be getting used to in the days to come. He said, "Citizens of Earth, (dramatic pause) The hour of our deliverance has come. No longer will we languish in ignorance and isolation. We will join the Galactic Empire as a new subject world. There will never be another destructive internal war of Earth's citizens killing each other over misunderstandings and differences of opinion. Peace has arrived, and with it justice, learning, and the dawn of a new era of space exploration.

"The mighty space vessel you see in the sky, the Super Star Destroyer Executor, means no threat to Earth's citizens or environment, on the contrary, the crew and officers are humans like yourselves, and will foster exchange visits between the planet and the ship for the purpose of allaying your fears and allowing our enlisted men a chance to visit a planet similar to their own home planets.

"We are already working on integrating a portion of our informational network so that it will be accessible to the citizens of Earth through their internet connections. No doubt you will find many of your questions answered there, as well as a glimpse into a galaxy which has previously been unknown to us."

"Write that down," Mother hissed to me, and I went scrambling after a paper and pen to record the internet address at the bottom of the screen.

"Now I'm sure it would allay your fears if you could meet the men who command this great ship. Here they are," and the camera zoomed out so we could see who was there with the talking head.

First, there was an old guy in a handsome English suit, complete with walking stick. He started to speak, in an absolutely perfect accent. My dad burst out, right over the top of what he was saying: "Look at him! That whole tweed suit routine. Looking like Sherlock Holmes. That one's the ringleader! You watch. I can tell."

"Shhh," said Uncle Tim.

My mother said, "How could you not obey every word the man says?"

Dad said, "Oh, you! Listen to you! Now that's the last thing we need!"

The next guy had a sensitive, noble face, and was dressed in one of those three thousand dollar suits. "Drug dealer," I said.

"Drug dealer," said Uncle Tim.

"Do you really think so?" said mother.

Sammy said, "They're really lizards under there, you know. Like in V: The Miniseries. Watch when they get around birds, they'll go crazy."

"Who, the lizards?" I said.

"Shhh!" said dad.

The next guy had on a uniform and boots.

"Oh, my God," said dad. "That's the killer, right there. That's the one in charge of making us all disappear. You just watch."

"But he's not bad looking for all that," I said.

Dad said, "Oh, now that's the LAST thing we need!"

Sammy snickered, "I wonder if they need any virgins for their weird sexual experiments?"

"Shut up," I said.

Mother shouted, "Samuel James Rasmussen, you go to your room right now! Where you've been learning how to talk, I don't know!"

I said, "Hey, Sam, that's a great idea! They might even need some girls, too, and that way I could go along and keep you company!"

Sammy said, "EWWWW!"

Dad said, "Young lady, you go to YOUR room too!"

Mother put her face in her hands.

That was okay. I didn't mind going to my room, since there was a computer in there. I took the space-guys' new URL with me.

* * *

Sam joined me in my bedroom and I didn't even try to kick him out. I said, "You got to get a load of this."

He said, "Imperial Greetings dot com?"

I said, "Right."

He said, "Wow."

It was a big site and nicely designed. There was a gallery of "recent tours" and the pictures they had were phenomenal, with brilliantly-colored pictures of nebulae and star formations I had of course never seen before. I thought that "Galaxies" book had fabulous pictures in it-- here were better ones. There was a note from "Webmaster Kurt Moriss" congratulating himself on having invented the first graphics converter from an alien code.

There was a bulletin board which I'd already explored a little. It was mostly hundreds of Earthlings who had already gathered around the electronic campfire to share their glee and exultation, or worries, suspicions and superstitions.

I was somewhere between the two, but I hadn't posted. I figured this was all for their benefit-- none of them spoke up on the board, and the reason was to give us Earthlings the idea that we were alone here and could safely blab our brains out. Nice information-gathering post!

I went back to the introduction page, for Sammy's benefit. It said, "This website has been created to answer some questions which you may have regarding the Galactic Empire of which your planet is a small part. We realize that as a newly contacted civilization, you may be feeling a wide variety of emotional responses. Eventually you will get to know the Emperor as a generous and benevolent leader, and find your place in the system of Galactic commerce. You are fortunate to be a planet dominated by Humankind. The Imperial Space Navy, comprised of Humans like yourselves, will do everything possible to ease your transition into the new reality you now face, and lay all of your concerns to rest.

"Laid to rest," Sammy said. "Ooooh. Ominous."

I had already noticed that problematic phrase.

He said, "Look at that 'Standard Notice to Visitors'!"

That was down at the bottom in fine print. "Any official communiques between the Imperial Forces and the governing authorities of your local system will be so marked and may not be changed in any way. The Emperor desires peace and will not tolerate deliberate misinterpretation or spreading of distorted information."

"Oh, he won't, won't he?" said Sammy.

"He won't tolerate deliberate misinterpretation of distorted information," I said. "Okay."

"Who the hell do they think they are, showing up and telling us..."

"For one thing, their ships are bigger than ours," I said.

"There's only one ship, singular, that I can see. Once we take that one out they'll think twice before sending any more."

I gave him the look.

He shut up.

Lighten up! -- that's my motto.

I clicked where it said Personals.

"Oh, please," Sam said.

A list of names came up. I repeated innocently, reading from the webmaster's note, "'The purpose of mirroring this section is to help to introduce the officers and crew of Super Star Destroyer Executor, who are humans like ourselves',"

"Earth gets invaded, but Miss Kelley remains the same."

"And when the Space Princess in the chain-mail bikini shows up, you're not going to be interested," I said. "Uh-huh."

He said, "Cover of the National Enquirer: 'Girl gives birth to half-alien mutant...'"

I hit him.

He said, "'Born with glowing red eyes and ten horns on its head...'"

"What kind of late-night B-movie crap have you been watching?" I clicked one of the names at random.

"'Here's a picture of 'Uncle Sam' holding the new bouncing bundle of joy...'"

A picture popped up, of a nice-looking guy in a uniform similar to the one I'd just seen on TV. I said, "He looks human to me."

Sam said, "So write to him. Put, 'Hey baby, I'm yours. Earth girls are easy.'"

I hit him again, and he laughed his guts out.

I clicked a few more pictures, of Lieutenant this and Sergeant that. "Where's the cute admiral in the shiny boots, who's going to come and take us away ho, ho, he, he, ha, ha?"

I scanned the list, but I didn't see any admirals.

Sam said, "Look at that one! Commander Gale Fitch. I wonder if she knows Aunt Gail the Bitch?" and he fell about laughing.

I said, "They can't be that bad, if they've got female Commanders."

I clicked. 'Gale' wasn't a woman. In fact, he looked like a young James Mason-- not bad. Not bad at all.

Sammy said, "He doesn't look like a Gail."

I said, "Stormie O'Martian."

Sam said, "What?"

I said, "Stormie is a girl's name. Gale isn't. But he is a storm. Gale, get it? Yes. A wild, stormy night!"

"Don't go there."

"I'm there! Hey! Fierce winds and lightning flashes, crashing waves, and the SS Kelley alone on a tossing sea with its sails torn to shreds. Gale Force. Oooooooh!"

Sam said, "If you're going into slut mode, I'm leaving."

"'Twenty-six, never married'," I read. "'Studied Avionics, Xenosociology and Alien Relations, Imperial State University of Claer. Continuing education in spare time. Hobbies metalcrafting and The Princess. Seeks fully human woman for friendship or more. Planetary origin irrelevant."

"Weird," Sam said.

"Sounds cool to me," I said. "What the hell's The Princess? How do you have a princess as a hobby and still be single?"

"Mr. Geek Buttkisser Webmaster probably scrambled it."

"Well, as long as he got the picture right. I'll take one of these. Where do I sign up?"

"Great. Now my sister's going to study Alien Relations."

I found where it said 'message' and clicked. A blank box appeared. I wondered if I was supposed to put my email address there.

Sam sat up straight. "You WOULDN'T."

I wrote in the box, "Baby, I'm yours. Earth girls are easy."

Sam screamed, "Mom! She's flirting with the enemy!" and ran out my bedroom.

When Mom came running in with a rolling pin I was sitting on my bed all innocent, petting the cat and reading Cosmo.

I said, "Yeah, right."

Then I actually forgot all about it. Half an hour later the phone rang. "Hey, the phone works again!" I said, to nobody in particular. This morning it had been overloaded by the number of people phoning each other up to talk about the huge spaceship flying over their heads.

I picked it up. "Hello?"

He said, "Greetings. My name is Gale Fitch. Did someone from your household send me a message?"

I stood there.

He said suspiciously, "Is anyone there?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Are you Kelley Rasmussen?"

He sounded English until he tried to pronounce my perfectly ordinary name. I said, "Kelley Rasmussen."

He said, "I beg your pardon."

I sat down on my bed, on top of the cat, who came unscrambled at me.

He said, "I received a message--"

I said, "I was joking."

He said, "Yes, it seemed so, nevertheless you did send me a message."

Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if this was one of Sammy's friends playing a joke on me. But Sammy didn't know anybody who talked like that.

He read out, "4112 Tenth Avenue, Federal Way, Washington. 253-941-0495."

"It's supposed to be unlisted," I said.

"This computer technician, Mr. Moriss, is a very clever fellow. He has a list of addresses which included yours."

I said, "Oh, does he? Ask him if he's the one who hacked a major online music distributor and published my Visa number and phone number on the internet."

There was a pause, and I could hear conversation in the background.

I petted the cat, looked around my bedroom and doubted my sanity. At that moment Sam stuck his head in the bedroom door. "Do you know where the wicks are for the kerosene heater?" The look on his face told me what I wanted to know-- he was completely ignorant of who I might be talking to on the phone.

"Garage, workbench, bottom drawer," I said.

"Kay." He closed the door behind him.

I broke into a sweat.

The man on the phone said, "He says it was him. Hacking, and publishing private information, surely that's not allowed by your laws?"

"Nope," I said.

"I'm surprised he admits it. Perhaps he thinks his services to us render him immune from local law enforcement. Would you like me to kill him for you?"

I had the sense that Mr. Buttkisser Webmaster was standing right there listening, and this was all for his benefit. I said, "Yes."

He said, "All right."

I said, "And then bring me his body."

"Gift-wrapped?" he said. "Is this a usual courtship ritual in your culture?"

I laughed.

Gale Fitch was chuckling. "There-- he left in a hurry, wondering if it was a mistake to cooperate with the space aliens after all."

"Huh," I said.

There was a click on the line. I said, "Hello?"

My mother's voice said, "Who is it who called?"

"It's for me, Mom," I said.

She hung up.

Gale said, "Isn't this a private connection?"

"Oh, more or less," I said.

"All right-- I've found your house. I think. Is there a swimming pool behind the house?"

I said, "What?"

He said, "Is your roof green?"

"That's moss," I said. "The roof is brown. Are you looking down at my roof?"

"Why don't you walk out by the pool and wave so I can be sure I have the right place."

I wanted to sputter some more, but I decided to at least feign intelligence. I said, "Just a second, let me get the cordless phone."

Mom was in the living room sorting through her boxes of family photographs. She said, "Why didn't I put these into an album while I had more time?"

I took the cordless phone out in the back yard and looked up. There was the big spearhead, just beginning its course across the sky. And here was the phone in my hand. Was I really speaking to a person who was inside that spaceship, who had not been born on Earth, who had visited planets orbiting stars that were only a pinprick of light to me? Was it possible? For a second the world spun on without me, while I just thought and thought and thought.

"Is that you?"

"You're telling me you can see me?"

"White top with short sleeves, blue trousers?"

I glanced around. No neighbors had windows overlooking our backyard. Anybody up in the trees?

"You have brown hair. I can't see much closer than that. Wave."

I waved at the spaceship.

"All right. Got it. Now would you go around to the other side of your house?"

"Why?"

"I'll send down a holoproj. They do come down kind of fast, so I'll drop it into your pool, but I don't want you to get splashed or hurt in case I miss, unlikely as that is."

"You're dropping something into my pool?"

"So that we can communicate better," he said. "Would you like to?"

"Um... sure," I said. "Yeah."

It occurred to me that I should have run it by Dad before giving him permission to fire something from space into our swimming pool.

Or maybe not.

"All right. Walk to the front of the house."

I did so, going around the side gate instead of through the inside. I said into the phone, "So, do you guys always give newly discovered planets a list of potential dates to choose from?"

"That's the information capsule usually sent ahead to planets with appropriate human populations. The data required remarkably little translation. I have to hand it to 'Earth'. It's remarkable that you've come as far with technology as you did without any contact with other civilization. From what I hear, only a few generations ago you would have had no idea of the technology you have now. Perhaps a few generations later and you would have discovered us." He laughed.

"Thanks," I said. "On behalf of Earth. Thank you so much."

There was a pause, and I wished I had just thought the sarcasm instead of saying it. Did he get it? Or was he wondering what I meant? Or was he warming up the superlaser to slag my continent just for that?

He said, "How did you and your family react to our appearance?"

I heard the sound of breaking glass from inside the house, and then Dad hollering something I couldn't make out. Mom replied. Dad replied. Mom replied. Great, a married fight. Just what we needed right now.

"More or less okay," I said.

"And then you sent that charming message to me."

"Yeah, but, it is perfectly clear, right? That Earth girls are not easy? It was just a joke."

"A popular joke, it seems. There have been several other messages also containing a line like that."

"Other messages?"

"Earth's inhabitants have responded very favorably, almost up to the level of Imperial Center."

"You're kidding. Really?"

"Per capita, yes. The majority of the responses come from your own United States of America. Your women seem quite fearless."

"Americans are like that. We joke about everything, including The End Of The World As We Know It. That doesn't mean you won't get your ass handed to you on a plate if you mess with us."

"Really," he said, and managed to pack into that one word half the frostiness of Titanic's iceberg.

"Not the you you," I amended quickly. "The general you. Most not-American parties. I didn't mean, necessarily, um, you."

"I understand completely," he said.

"So. What is Imperial Center?"

"The central world of the galaxy," he said, bemusedness replacing the frost.

"Hence the name," I said. "Imperial Center. Okay." I stood there in the driveway, next to our big pickup camper crammed to the gills with survival stuff.

There was a long, thundering w-h-o-o-s­-h over the top of the house, with a roar and flash like lightning in the daytime. And a splash. I ran toward the back.

When I got to the pool I found water all over the concrete, as if the pool had hiccupped. The surface rippled with waves. From beneath the water tiny bubbles surged up. I came near and peered in. There was a dark shape at the bottom, which gradually rose to the top and bobbed there like a pool toy. It was about the size of my head, dark metallic and looked awful, all grooved and scarred like some ancient iron device from Frankenstein's laboratory. It could have been a cannonball, except that it was floating in our pool. Then it hissed and broke in half, and a smaller shiny silver ovoid hovered out. I stood there with my mouth open, the phone entirely forgotten in my hand.

I didn't even think about running and screaming, even when it hovered at shoulder level in my direction.

There was a pop and a half-second of wavering light, then above the silver globe a hologram of a uniformed man appeared. He glanced around at the surroundings, just as if he was a real person and could see 360° around him. Then looked straight at me-- maybe he could. He said, "Let's try this again now. Good morning, Kelly Ann Rasmussen. I'm Commander Gale Fitch. Most pleased to make your acquaintance."

My knees suddenly felt in dire need of support. There was a plastic lounge chair. I put my rear end gratefully on it.

"Hello," I said.

"Yes, that's more like it," he said. He leaned casually against the corner of a console while he spoke. At a movement of the remote control, which I could see in his hand, the floating silver disk followed me and stayed conversation distance away. "Now I can see you. Pretty girl! You look just like my sister. You even have your hair the same way."

Shoulder-length page boy. Really outdated since the seventies but I just like it that way.

"This is unbelievable," I said. "You can see me?"

"Yes, of course."

"You can see all around?"

"Sure. Except for straight down and straight up."

"There's nothing under that thing."

"Under-- the holoproj? It's a repulsor. You don't have repulsorlift, do you?"

"No," I said. "Boy would they love to get their hands on it-- I mean the tech people. The things we could make using that!"

"I can imagine."

"But you've just handed it to us, haven't you?"

"The Galactic Empire has never had a no-contact policy. It's inevitable that your society will change greatly."

"Y-yeah," I said. "Can I touch?"

"If you want to." He seemed amused.

I got up from the lounge chair and touched the floating disk-- but it took willpower, like deliberately putting my finger into a flame.

I touched it. The shiny metal was cool and smooth, in a way reassuring, and in another way not, because my fingers sensed that this was fundamentally different from any metal I'd ever touched before.

I tried pushing it a little, and it went where I pushed, but with some resistance. When I let go, it came right back to its original position. "Can it pick me up?"

"I suppose it could, though it's not designed for carrying anything."

"Okay. Can you lift it?"

The disk floated a few feet higher. The image of the man leaned over, putting his hand on some edge I couldn't see. "I told you I can't see directly beneath."

I grabbed both edges. The disk dipped a little then recovered, and there I was, hanging from NOTHING. Literally.

I let go, dropped to the patio. I went back to my lawn chair and the two-foot high figure of a man came back to where he could easily talk to me. "Are you satisfied?"

"UFOs, here we come!"

"What are UFOs?" he wanted to know.

"That," I said, pointing at him. "Unidentified Flying Object."

"It should be identified. Doesn't it say 'PL-RP' with a serial number right there on the side?"

"It can just zip around wherever it wants to? Man, the possibilities! Flying cameras, and flying cars, and cranes, and wheelchairs, and window washers, and search and rescue-- wow!"

He was smiling. "I've never directly participated in the discovery of a new planet."

"Huh," I said. "I've never talked to a man from outer space."

"You don't seem dismayed."

"Picture me not dismayed," I said.

He turned his head. Someone had spoken to him. "Would you wait a moment?" he asked me.

"Sure," I said.

I heard a yell from behind me. That would be-- Daddy. He had seen the hovering thingie? And he had run back in the house again. Of course it behooved me to make some explanation-- later. I had a strong wish to be waiting here when Gale Fitch returned.

He returned. He had a smile and said to somebody off-camera, "I should have flowers or something." Then he said to me, "Realizing that you hardly know me-- would you like to go out with me tonight?"

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"Yes," I said.

"She says she will," he said off-camera.

"Who's interested?" I asked.

"It's for a good cause! Mr. Halbstraum sees the possibilities in this."

"Who's Mr. Halbstraum?"

"He's the PR man."

"I see."

"Yes, in view of the number of responses we've received, he would like to see just how many of you ladies are serious about meeting with some of us. We could all get together and have dinner or something. He could get some good publicity out of it."

"Um, okay. Right. Well, I'm totally available!"

"Good!"

"Tonight?"

Brief off-camera consultation. "Yes, tonight."

"Where?" I asked.

"Apparently that's yet to be decided upon."

"Space Needle," I said.

"Excuse me?"

"Have it at the Space Needle restaurant. They've got a ballroom and stuff, very classy, with suitable price tag. And the futuristic spacey theme is just what you'd like."

He started talking to the off-camera guy again.

I said, "Tell you what, take your little floaty thing and hover straight up about fifty feet, and look due north. See beyond the downtown area, there's a big round disk perched up on a thin, elegantly-curved stem? Go up! You'll see it!"

"All right," he said lazily, and the hologram on its silver base shot out of my sight in a vertical direction.

So there I was all alone in my back yard, sitting on a lawn chair. "Elvis has left the building," I said.

Dad charged back out of the house, holding a twelve gauge. "Where did it go?" he bellowed, looking around with the gun at the ready.

"What? What?" I shrieked, instantly absorbing his excitement, and therefore expecting nothing less than a grizzly bear to come running at me out of the blackberry bushes.

"The alien thing!" he yelled.

"Oh, that? That's not a-- it's not--"

The alien thing zipped back down at that second, and the hologram of Gale Fitch said cheerfully, "Oh, yes, I see it! You say that's got a restaur--"

My dad blew him away.

The shotgun's roar right next to me made both ears go instantly numb. I screamed but could barely even hear myself.

The pretty silver disk exploded in mid-air, breaking apart in a showering display of sizzling metal chunks that fell all around the pool like Fourth of July fireworks.

I held my hands over my ears and whimpered, and wondered if I'd be deaf the rest of my life.

I could hear Dad yelling, "Are you okay? It didn't hurt you, did it?"

I yelled back, "It wasn't after me! It was good! I was talking to it! I mean, him! What have you done?! It was friendly!"

"What was it doing down here, if it was friendly?"

"It came to talk to me! It came down from space just to talk to me! It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life, and now look at it!"

My pretty new toy was all just a fiery busted-up wreck, sizzling on the concrete.

I burst into tears. That's stress for you. I hadn't joined the suicides, car wrecks, looting and spouse abuse already going on, but like everybody else on the face of the Earth, I felt it. My tears expanded instantly into a full-scale hysterical crying fit.

Dad held his shotgun and looked confused and angry. Mom came dashing out of the house, yelling, "What happened? Who's shooting?"

The cordless phone on the table next to me started ringing. I snatched it up and pushed the button. "Hello?!"

"What happened?" Gale Fitch inquired.

"It's you!" I gasped. "You're alive!"

Dad said, "Who is that?"

"It's for me!" I yelled, holding the phone with both hands just in case anybody tried to wrestle it away from me.

"Who is it?" Dad demanded

"What happened down there?" Gale Fitch wanted to know.

"Your floating thingie had a little accident," I told him, glaring over at Dad.

"Oh? An accident, or human interference?"

"Yes," I said.

"I see. Wait a minute, then. The PL-RP's are military devices, and there might be some responses triggered if it's destroyed."

"We didn't mean any harm," I squeaked.

"Who's that on the phone?" Mom said.

I heard nothing but silence from the phone. The camera was better, where you could see if you had his attention or not.

I said grimly, "Hey, Dad, great work. It's Space War One for real, and YOU'VE just started it."

"Who IS that?" Dad said.

"What are you talking about?" Mom said.

"This guy I met on the internet from the ship," I said, pointing skywards. "He sent this great little floating camera down to talk to me, and Dad shot it!"

Mom looked at Dad.

Dad looked at Mom.

Sammy joined us in surveying the wreckage around the pool. "What happened?"

I said, "Dad just destroyed alien military property, and you'd better duck and cover 'cause we're probably going to be vaporized."

"Excellent," he said in tones of deepest appreciation, then got this I have an idea look on his face and dashed around the side of the house toward the front.

"I love my family," I said.

"Well, you know what? It's NOT my fault!" Mother said. "I am sick and tired of taking all the blame for everything around here. I do all the work and take all the blame. Why am I not Queen?"

"Did anybody ask you?" Dad said.

"Why don't you put the damned gun away? I always said those things were more trouble than help!"

The phone in my ear started ringing, and that pleasant lady's voice said, "If you would like to make a call, please hang up, then try your call again."

I turned the phone off. "Thanks, guys."

I went over and picked up a piece of the melted casing, caressing it with my fingers. Definitely alien. It felt alien, through and through.

As if I knew that just by the sense of touch. I sighed deeply and went in the house.

Back to the internet? Leave him another message? Or maybe call the phone company and see if I could trace him back along that number?

Mother scampered back in the house again. The woman was one hundred percent stressed and living on a thin edge. A couple gunshots more or less didn't make much difference. She said, "Kelley, would you write 'toilet paper' and 'plastic spoons' on the list?"

I complied.

Then I went to the family room and sat on a hassock, cradling the phone, wishing for it to ring.

Uncle Tim was flipping channels. At least one-third of the channels he went past had a talking head and an icon of a spaceship. The Discovery channel was doing a thing about light speed and space travel. The History channel was yapping about some zillion-year-old cave with a wall painting of an arrowhead and stars. The public access channel was airing a rather homemade-looking sequence with Nazis marching in the background and the cute Admiral's face in the foreground. Uncle Tim watched that for about twenty seconds, then went on flipping.

"Why don't you let me have it," I said.

"Okay!" He made a fist.

"The remote," I said.

Somebody knocked on the door. I flew straight up and zoomed to the door without my feet touching the ground, and yanked the door open with an expression of joy and anticipation on my face.

"Hi, I'm Jessica Barker from KIRO News-7," said the pretty lady. "I understand there was an incident here related to the spaceship?" Behind her was a cameraman. Behind him were six policemen and a dog on a leash. Down at the curb I spotted the Channel 4 News van.

So that's where the little skunk had run off to. I said, "Was it my brother who called you?"

"Oh, I'm afraid our source wished to remain confidential," she said. "You must be Miss Kelley Rasmussen?"

No, I'm Miss Mary Mud, and my brother's Mr. Dead Meat. As tempting as it was to slam the door in her face, or lay down on the floor and have a tantrum, I had to remember reality in this case. I'd had a lesson with media last year when one of my bosses fell afoul of public opinion and got smeared six ways from Sunday. There is no escape from them, and their degree of viciousness depends on your cooperation; therefore, cooperate.

"Yes," I said. "But all it was was, I answered one of their online ads, and one of the crew sent a floating camera down so he could talk face to face, as it were. My dad didn't know about that and thought he was saving me from having my brain extracted or something." I laughed, and Jessica Barker laughed with me. "They said lots of people have communicated with them already. I don't suppose this will be big news for very long. It's right around here, in the back yard, if you'd like to see what's left of it? There's not a lot, I'm afraid."

I stepped out of the house toward her, closing the front door behind me.

The cordless phone was still in my hand. I pushed the intercom button. "Mom? The TV reporters your son called are here. I'm taking them out to the back yard."

I hung up. I didn't even want to hear the response.

They all trooped around into the back yard. I never realized what a small area that was until I saw it all filled up with camera crews and police. Some started taking pictures, and a team of guys with plastic outfits and beeping instruments started scooping up all the little pieces into yellow boxes.

Jessica Barker stayed in my face, asking prying questions. The more she pried the more inane I became, repeating my excuses and that brief summary of events at least four times over. Eventually she went after Mom instead.

Sam was nowhere to be seen. He was probably over at his friend Tony's house, watching the circus through his periscope, being very well amused by it all.

I looked for Dad. The Channel 4 people had him in the spotlight, and he was telling the world his opinions. I hoped somebody would edit that before it went on broadcast. And what if the invaders turned on channel four?

I guess I could have told Jessica Barker more about how friendly they seemed and the nice idea about having dinner in the Space Needle-- but of course, I didn't know if anything would come of that now, or if I was still an eligible person to attend a friendly gathering after my dad blew some of their equipment to smithereens.

I noticed a rather handsome dude standing around all blue jeans and leather jacket, watching the proceedings, and watching me. Then I noticed who it WAS and nearly fell off my pins.

I walked very casually over to him and said quietly, "Gale Fitch? What are you doing here? How did you--"

"Flew," he said. "I wanted to see for myself."

"Yeah," I said. "You just flew." I was looking him over as hard as I could. He was a true beauty, tall and handsome and all muscle. All the lights were back on in Miss Kelley's house. Earth girls are easy.

"But be quiet about it. I don't want to be treated the way those pieces are being treated."

"Gotcha," I said.

"Did you tell them my name?"

"Um... yeah. Is that okay?"

"I don't see why it wouldn't be. Just curious. That woman's looking at us..."

Jessica Parker indeed was.

I said, "Here, come into my room. We could go out but everybody's blocking the driveway."

I pulled him in the house and into my bedroom, and shut the door behind us. "She'll come through the window if she's suspicious enough," I said.

"We have media reporters on our worlds, too."

We stood there looking at each other.

"Have a seat!" I said, indicating the one chair in the room, which was the one in front of the computer. He sat. I plopped Indian-style on the bed. "So, where did you-- how did you-- what did you fly in to get here?"

"I was dropped off by the cloaked shuttle that's been ferrying the officers to and from your planet's surface. Your military airplanes seem determined to make nuisances of themselves, but we don't want to have to shoot any of them down if we can avoid it."

"Oh, yes, just as well," I agreed.

He was looking around at all the stuff in my room, the books, trinkets, the clothes and shoes scattered about.

"You want to look at anything, go ahead," I said.

"I want to look around at the whole planet," he said with a grin. "I do like this place so far, and thanks to you, here I am in the first wave with nothing to do but get acquainted. I don't know why you picked me out of the list, but I'm glad you did."

"I picked you out because you're cute," I said, grinning.

He didn't immediately tease me back, like an Earth boy would have. I could see some uncertainty on his face. He was trying to figure out what I meant. He certainly wouldn't mind fucking me senseless as payment for the sudden shore leave, but he wasn't sure how to express this willingness or whether now was the proper time.

I bounded up off the bed as if kicked. "I've got Tomb Raider 6. It came in the mail this morning. Want to see?"

Something about exhuming dead bodies to rob them of their ceremonials? -- that was all over his face, but he said, "Sure," lightly enough.

"It's a game," I said quickly. "See?" I held up the Angel of Darkness box. "You're this gal named Lara Croft, who has to run all over the world in search of artifacts, shooting everybody she encounters, and her boobs don't bounce and she doesn't break a sweat."

"Sounds like The Princess," he said, studying the box.

"The Princess? Oh, the thing you listed on your ad."

"You've never heard of it?" He was amazed.

"Just as you've never heard of Tomb Raider!"

"Well, it sounds similar. The Princess is a character named Leia Organa, who's an enemy of the Galactic Empire-- don't ask me why this is still legal, I guess just because so many people are crazy about playing it. When I first started was on a visit to my home planet, and I spent most of my vacation immersed in this brainless new game. I thought I'd have to have psychiatric help in order to ever have a life of my own again."

"I know that feeling," I said. I could smile and sit down again.

"The first game was called 'Star Wars'. There's a huge round battle station called 'The Death Star' constructed just to blow planets up or something, commanded by Grand Moff Tarkin, of all people. It blows up Princess Leia's planet, then she has to escape through all these great levels. It's basically impossible to win unless you know the secret-- you have to shoot a certain place in a hallway and jump into a trash compactor. From which Princess emerges with her pretty robes still white and her hair in place. Her boobs don't bounce either."

"Wait a second," I said.

"Yes, I know, the guy who wrote the game had to leave in a hurry after this kind of libel. Tarkin's got a lawsuit and a reward out for him. But the game is still out there and it is a blast."

"Wait, wait," I said.

"What?"

"I have heard of it."

"You have?"

"Yeah--" I grabbed my handy Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide and waded into it. There it was: "'Star Wars. Made for TV. Unimpressive Star Trek imitation, with fairy tale overtones. Princess Leia Organa and her friends battle a tyrannical Galactic Empire for domination of the universe. 3/5 stars.' I saw that! I remember. Years ago. It was on the Late Late Show. I thought it was kind of cute, but silly. I think they did a sequel, too, but I never saw the sequel."

Looking deeply impressed, he took the book from me and read the entry again. "That is strange," he said. "They'll want to know about this."