Alien pregnant by elvis, p.32
Alien Pregnant by Elvis, page 32
Our boat-of-ether rocks. The voice is stronger than ever, shaking our concentration.
Four teenagers blink, captivated by the light shining across their upturned faces. We had them nicely snared, but the distraction of that cursed voice weakens our grip. Gryffinloch murmurs alarm.
“We shouldn’t have tried so many at once!”
“The voice has us confused,” Fyrfalcon answers. “Take care—”
I cry out. “One wakens!”
Three of those young faces still exhibit rapture as they stand uncritical, accepting. But the fourth—a gangling child-woman—casts another kind of glow. As she rouses, her eyes narrow and her mouth forms words. Tapped into her mind, I sense her effort to see. To really see!
What am I staring at? Why . . . it looks transparent, as if it isn’t really there at . . .
“Flee!” Fyrfalcon screams as we are blinded by that deadly gaze!
“It’s late, but let’s go with this caller’s notion and see where it leads.
“Once upon a time, legends say elves and dwarves and trolls shared our world . . . all those colorful spirit creatures our ancestors warned their children about, so they’d shun the forest.
“My wife’s an anthropologist, and we read our kids stories she’s collected all over the world, many of them amusing, moving, even inspiring. But after a while you start to notice something—very few of those old magical characters, the pixies and sprites and spirits, were people you’d want as neighbors! Sometimes beautiful and exciting, creatures in fairy tales also act petty, tyrannical, and awfully stingy about sharing their knowledge with poor human beings. Always they were portrayed as living apart, on the edge of the unknown. In olden times that meant just beyond the firelight.
“Then something changed. Humankind started pushing the circle outward, and all those fancy beasts of legend faded back as well. Yetis and Bigfoots. Elves and lake monsters. They were always said to be just beyond the reach of torchlight, then lanterns, then sonar and aerial photography . . .
“Now maybe that’s because they never were more than figments of our over-fertile imaginations. Maybe they were distractions, that kept us from properly appreciating the other species of very real animals sharing our world.
“Still, I can entertain another possibility.
“Imagine such creatures really did exist, once upon a time, behaving like spirit folk in legend. But at some point we started shucking free of them, conquering our ignorance, driving them off to let us get about our lives . . .”
Scattered, riding fragments of our broken boat, we call to one another across space.
We survivors.
By now those teenagers are rubbing their eyes, already convinced we were hallucinations. That is what happens when humans see us with skepticism. Now we blow away like leaves, like wisps of shredded dreams.
Perhaps the world’s winds will bring some of us together to begin anew. Meanwhile, I can only drift and remember.
Some years back we plotted to end this plague of reason. We stole human babies and took them to a southern isle. Then, back in the world of humans, we caused “incidents” and false alarms on radar screens, trying to set off that final war. Let their mad genius consume itself in its own fire, we thought. It used to be so easy to provoke war among men.
But this time things were different. Perhaps it was the new thinking, or maybe they sensed the precipice. There was no war. We grew depressed.
So depressed we forgot our charges on the island. When at last we checked, all the infants had died.
Such frail things, humans.
How did frail things ever grow so strong?
“It’s dark out and the wind’s picked up. Let’s push this ghost story as far as it’ll go.
“We were talking about how fairy folk always seemed to flit just beyond the light, beyond our gaze. Since Earth is pretty well explored now, the few remaining legends speak of arctic wastes, the deepest depths . . . and outer space. It’s as if they are both drawn to us and terrified.
“I can’t imagine it’s our weapons such creatures would fear. . . ever see a hunter come home with an elf pelt on his fender?
“Now here’s a thought . . . what if it’s because of a change in us? What if modern humans destroy fairy creatures just by getting close!
“. . . You laugh? Good. Still, imagine today’s Cub Scouts, running, peering into forest corners their ancestors would have superstitiously left alone. Ever wonder why the change?
“It could be just curiosity.
“Or else . . . maybe they’re chasing our species natural foe. Perhaps that’s really why we seek Nessie and Yeti, hounding them to the far corners of the Earth. Or why we’re pushing into space, for that matter!
“Maybe something inside us recalls how we were treated by our fairy friends. Subconsciously what we’re after is revenge!”
Monsters. Driven off our own cursed planet by these flateyed monsters.
The experiment got out of hand.
How I wish we never’d created them!
“Time’s up boys and girls. Whatever you call them—elves or UFO aliens—whether they exist or were just another fancy dream we invented—I see no point in giving them any more of our time.
“Tomorrow night we’ll move on to more interesting stuff . . . the Big Bang, neutron stars, and our hopeful search for some real intelligent life out there.
“Until then, people, good night. And good morning.”
Stop Press
by Mike Resnick
Award-winning author Mike Resnick himself says that he is “uniquely qualified to write for this book, having spent three years editing The National Insider and The National Tattler back in the late 1960s.”
He has since written some thirty-odd novels, including Santiago, Ivory, and Prophet, edited a number of delightful anthologies, and has (at this writing) won two Hugos.
He also has the habit of doing stuff like this to his editors.
November 10, 2331
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
10 Asimov Avenue
Luna
Dear Sir:
Allow me to introduce myself. I represent the twelfth generation of free-lance writer in my family, dating back to the fabled Mike Resnick of the late 20th century. I have long been an admirer of your fearless yet entertaining no-holds-barred brand of journalism, and I think I have finally come up with a story so unique, so bizarre, so positive outre, that it will prove the beginning of a long and happy relationship between us.
Would you be interested in an interview, with holographs, of Boris Korchev, the three-headed shortstop of the Ganymede Geldings? I could let you have an exclusive for 5,000 credits.
Cordially yours, Melvin Resnick 666 Glory Road Heinlein City Ganymede
November 15, 2331
Dear Mr. Resnick:
Thank you for your interest in our newspaper, but I suspect you’ve been out of touch with it for some time now, or you would know that we ran a feature last June on the New York Yankees’ Fourteen-Headed Infield, including an exclusive interview with Wilbur “Ten-Eyes” Plitkin.
If you come across any truly unique features in the future, please keep us in mind.
Yours,
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
PS—I can find no historical reference to a 20th century writer named Mike Resnick. In point of fact, the major literary figure of the 1990s was my own ancestor, the still-beloved Esther Friesner.
November 19, 2331
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
10 Asimov Avenue
Luna
Dear Editor Friesner:
I’m sorry my last proposal didn’t suit your needs, but I’ve come up with one that you’re absolutely going to love. What would you say to exclusive coverage of the recently-concluded experiment at the Genetic Engineering Clinic here on Mars Base, where an eight-legged horse just gave birth to an elephant with five trunks? (The sire was a Patagonian woodmouse.)
I could let you have this for 3,500 credits.
Looking forward to working with you, I am—
Hopefully yours, Melvin Resnick
17 Tars Tarkas Blvd.
New Barsoom
Mars Base
PS—Esther Friesner, you said? Never heard of her. I’ll have to check my library’s data banks.
November 29, 2331
Dear Mr. Resnick:
Five-trunked elephants are a drug on the market. I refer you to our issue of August 23. If you will turn to Page 38, you’ll find a story about the breeding of a five-trunked elephant with Rosie and Posie Plootz, a pair of tightrope-walking Siamese twins from Duluth, Minnesota. It was barely filler material back in August; it’s certainly of no interest to us today.
I urge you to study our journal more carefully before wasting your time tracking down stories that are too mundane to appeal to our sophisticated readership.
Best wishes,
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
PS—Surely you jest. Esther Friesner was one of the Literary Greats. I’m proud to have her blood flowing in my veins.
December 8, 2331
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
10 Asimov Avenue
Luna
Dear Mr. Friesner:
All right. This time I’ve got a story for you that you can’t turn down!
I have uncovered, at great physical and financial cost to myself, one of the more bizarre scandals in the history of the entire human race. Even at this late date I can hardly believe the evidence I have amassed, but there is no question that when you run this article, governments will fall and you and I will almost certainly share a Jacqueline Suzanne Memorial Prize for our journalistic efforts.
What would you say if I were to tell you that Solar President Meacham is having an affair with Tprxt, her insectoid Neptunian maid?
I have it all here—eyewitness accounts, signed statements, and some of the most explosive holographs ever taken. I’m a little short of cash at the moment, but a good-faith advance of 2,500 credits will assure you the exclusive rights to the story, until we can negotiate a final price.
My first loyalty is to you, but I can only hold this offer open for 48 hours. If I have not heard from you by then, I will have to submit it to The Interplanetary Inquirer.
Excitedly yours,
Melvin Resnick
AAA
Ace Outpost Sheckleyville
Venus
PS—Spelled F-R-I-E-S-N-E-R, the same as yours?
December 14, 2331
Dear Mr. Resnick:
What is so newsworthy about President Meacham having an affair with a Neptunian? My own wife is an egg-laying seven-limbed Mercurian porble, and I take extreme umbrage at your pedestrian notion that there is something unsavory about interspecies romance.
More to the point, President Meacham has already admitted to youthful indiscretions with a Tritonian sea-slug and a Callistan muuda-muuda, and in fact was once married to an ammonia-breathing trisexual marsupial native of Alpha Centauri III when she served as our ambassador to that troubled world.
This is tame stuff, Mr. Resnick. Perhaps you might be better off considering the science fiction market; journalism is a very difficult discipline, second perhaps only to the contemporary romance novel, and not everyone is fit for it.
Yours,
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
PS—Yes, the spelling is the same. I urge you to read Hooray for Hellywood and Gnome Man’s Land; they practically define the Serious Literary Novel, circa the late 20th century.
December 22, 2331
San Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
10 Asimov Avenue
Luna
Dear Sam:
I may call you Sam, mayn’t I? I feel as if I know you by this point in our correspondence, and despite your refusal to accept any of my previous proposals, I intuit that a certain bond of friendship and mutual professional respect has developed between us.
I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Sam. I’ve suffered some financial reverses of late, and my wife is expecting our first child, and while I would never want this to influence you, I just want you to know that if you can see your way clear to purchasing the following, you will have an eternally grateful friend.
Not that the story needs any special consideration. The instant I stumbled across it, I knew that it was tailor-made for The Interplanetary Tattler. (Get ready now; here it comes!)
How would you like an exclusive interview with Lt. Hemloch Willoughby, the pilot who, when marooned without food for seventeen days in the Sirius system, survived by eating his own genitals? What pathos! What human interest! What a triumph of the indomitable human spirit!
2000 credits takes it away. (For an extra 500,1 can arrange an interview with his wife. Well, his ex-wife.)
Please reply soonest.
Expectantly yours,
Melvin Resnick
206 Lensman Street
Kinnison Village
Titan
PS—Late 20th century, you say? I wonder if she ever met Mike Resnick? Probably not; he was much too busy turning out classic after classic.
December 29, 2331
Dear Mr. Resnick:
Oh, Lord, not another Marooned Pilot Eats Own Genitals story! Maybe the Biloxi Times or the Fort Wayne Journal might be interested, if you catch them on a slow day, but we specialize in the unusual.
I admire your persistence, but you’ve missed the boat again. I can only suggest that you read the slogan on our masthead—“Home of the Unique, The Bizarre, and the Deeply Warped”—and commit it to memory.
Yours,
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
PS—I doubt that they ever met. She had class.
January 6, 2332
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
10 Asimov Avenue
Luna
Friesner:
How can you keep doing this to me? The wolves are at the door. I am reduced to renting a ship from Hertz (my own has been repossessed), Solar Bell is threatening to shut off my subspace radio transmitter, my wife is about to bring our first child into the world, and you keep rejecting stories that any editor would be thrilled to run.
I’m giving you one last chance, and then I’m going to start giving The Interplanetary Inquirer first look at all my material. I mean it, Friesner; I am a desperate man.
All right—here it is, and if I say so myself, it is the most explosive story I’ve unearthed thus far.
I can prove that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was actually a woman, a nightclub stripteaser named Lola Puloza who was once billed as “The Hottest Mexican Export Since the Tamale.” She fled to the United States in drag to escape from her gangster boyfriend, became Robert F. Kennedy’s lover (the affair with Marilyn Monroe was just a ruse to hide the real truth), and was in fact assassinated not by Lee Harvey Oswald but rather by Salvatore Diego Gomez, her estranged Bolivian husband whom she had not seen in 23 years.
I can supply dates, signed testimony, even a never-before-seen videotape of Puloza putting on her JFK makeup prior to escorting Jacqueline to a state dinner. (Yes, the story of Kennedy’s womanizing was another ruse, so that JFK would never find “himself’ alone in a bedroom with Jackie.)
This is the story of the century; the day after you publish it, they’ll have to rewrite the history books.
Please remit 500 credits by return mail.
Desperately yours,
Melvin Resnick
Ringworld Hotel
7th Ring
Saturn
January 11, 2332
Dear Mr. Resnick:
History books were made to be rewritten. They rewrote them in 2328, when we proved that JFK was really Elvis Presley in disguise, and again eight months ago when we broke the story that the second and third shots in Dallas were actually selfadministered because Elvis was depressed over the sales of his latest record.
As for your revelation, I’m afraid that you have somehow been misinformed. Our resident psychic, Mme. Shwartz, just had her weekly conversation with Elvis’ ghost, who denies ever having been a Mexican stripteaser, and certainly not one called Lola Puloza.
Yours,
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
PS—I of course read The Interplanetary Inquirer every day, and I have yet to see your byline appear there. I’m afraid that your threats carry no more punch than your stories.
January 29, 2332
Sam Friesner, Editor
The Interplanetary Tattler
10 Asimov Avenue
Luna
Dear Scumbag:
Screw you and your lousy rag!
All I can say is that this is despicable treatment to give a struggling writer, just because his ancestor aced yours out of a couple of Hugo Awards more than three centuries ago.
Disgustedly yours,
Melvin Resnick
c/o The Malzberg Memorial
Home for the Terminally Morose
17 Herovit Road
Ridgefield Park, New Jersey
PS—My wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. In the charity ward. No thanks to you. If I have any say about it, he’s not going to beat his head against a stone wall trying to be a writer. As soon as he’d old enough, I’m sending him to plumbing school, so he can work at a profession where people appreciate his efforts.
Interoffice Memo
From: Sam Friesner
To: Press Room
Stop press. Remake Page 1. Two-inch block letters, as follows:
MOTHER GIVES BIRTH TO NORMAL BABY!!!!!
Memo to self: Cut Resnick a check for 5,000 credits, and offer him another 10,000 if he can supply a holograph in time to make the early edition.
