Alien Gifts

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  "No, thanks, really." The last thing we needed was more people around. "I can have it fixed before they even get here."

  He contemplated his warm, dry cruiser for a moment, then shook his head. "Well, I'll give you a hand. Like to see you back on your way before I leave."

  How do you tell a friendly, helpful police officer that he doesn't need to hang around any longer—without raising suspicion?

  It's not a riddle. You don't.

  He went to get his rain gear and I pulled feverishly on the nuts that held the wheel in place. I didn't look at my watch again. I knew the minutes were ticking away and if I didn't have Aaron back on the road and in the back seat underneath the blanket by the time it started we didn't have a chance. Even that might not be enough. The officer joined me and took a turn on the tire iron and I held a flashlight for him, glancing at the van windows every few seconds, dreading what I might see.

  We struggled the flat tire off and had the new one on by the time it happened. So close. Despite my hopes, a greenish light began to flicker behind the van windows. My heart sank deeper than my feet in the mud. Aaron had begun to glow.

  ~o~

  The full magnitude of my cash sacrifice to the grubby little boy didn't manifest itself until my gas card was refused at the next fuel stop. The grease-spattered attendant came back from the register with a little smirk and pointed to the expiry date on the card—two days earlier. Oh, yes, a new one had come in the mail, but it was still sitting in its envelope in the pile of mail I'd been letting accumulate until after the housecleaning was finished. There couldn't be anything really urgent, right? I could let it go until the end of the week, right?

  I blushed and laughed it off and handed him my other credit card, aware of Aaron hunkered uncomfortably in the back seat under a blanket. This time the attendant wasn't back so quickly, and when he did materialize at my window it was with a dark, accusatory look.

  "Wouldn't swipe."

  "What?"

  "Card won't swipe. Happens sometimes." He waited, ran a hand over slick hair.

  Instinct gripped me and I dug through my purse, although I knew full well that the kid had cleaned me out. A useless collection of change rattled in the very bottom among the requisite paperclips and bits of tissue and linty peppermints. That was all.

  I went through it twice, then, face blazing, I looked him in the eye and said, "I don't have any cash. What can I do? Do you have an ATM?"

  He shook his head just enough to show his disdain. The hair didn't move. "Nope. Guess I can hang onto your card until you come back with the cash."

  I hated leaving my card behind, but there seemed little choice. "Okay, I'll be back later," I said. I took his name just in case he decided to go on an Internet spending spree and we hit the road again. Screw it, I decided recklessly as we gained speed. I wasn't going to find a bank machine and backtrack, wasting precious time. I'd get the card on my way home after I'd delivered Aaron. If it wouldn't work it was no use to me right now anyway.

  I found an ATM at a corner store when it was just about dark and took out a hundred dollars, all I could risk because I knew the bill payments would be coming out and I didn't want Tim to have a heart attack before I could explain everything to him. Aaron assured me that I would be compensated for my time and expenses but the way things were going, I wasn't keen on taking too many chances. The hundred would pay for supper, a motel, and hopefully anything we needed before we arrived in Ottawa tomorrow.

  Supper was fast food we ate in the van, and finally around seven o'clock we checked into a motel and I collapsed on the bed. This covert mission stuff was more exhausting than I'd expected. Aaron had suggested that one bed would be sufficient and made an enigmatic reference to "preferring the lavatorial facilities." I didn't aruge. It was cheaper than two rooms. The place was clean enough, anyway, and smelled agreeably of geraniums although there were none in evidence.

  In the next hour, while Aaron explored the dubious possibilities of cable television, his courteous interrogation of me continued. Was corporal punishment for children the accepted norm or aberrant behavior? Was globalization a disastrous economic blow for developing countries or the eventual savior of all? Would humans utilize nuclear energy more if they could overcome their fear of radiation? Did public radio and television cater to a small, super-intelligent minority? I wished I paid more attention to current affairs, answering with what I felt was inexcusable ineptitude.

  Just before eight o'clock Aaron said, "Would it be tolerable for you to use the lavatorial facilities now, so that I may retire for the night? The journey has been trés fatigant (twitch) very tiring."

  I was surprised—it was early, and I'd hoped to learn more about his race and their mission once I could get a word in edgewise—but I did as he asked. When I was through he wished me goodnight, went into the tiny, windowless bathroom, and shut the door. I turned the television down and lay on the bed, half-wondering what I was doing here. Suddenly lonesome, I called the kids, blocking the caller ID so that Tim wouldn't notice that I wasn't home. They all seemed to be having a great time without me, which didn't make me feel any better. After we said goodnight I turned everything off and promptly fell asleep.

  Disaster struck around midnight.

  I had to use the bathroom again, thanks to the copious amounts of driving-induced coffee I'd drunk all day. Only half-awake, I got up and stumbled to the unlocked door, tripped over a towel stuffed inexplicably along the crack at the bottom and was assaulted by a heavy, delicious redolence of chocolate, cinnamon and patchouli.

  A shocking impulse hit me: to throw myself on Aaron, (sleeping peacefully in the tub, still fully clothed and apparently unaware of my invasion) kiss him, caress him and goodness knows what else. Happily married and faithful wife that I was, I might have done it, too, if it wasn't for the fact that the alien's formerly pale mauve skin was now emitting a bright, unearthly green light. It bounced off the pasty walls of the bathroom with such intensity that I had the horrible impression of being trapped inside one of the kids' glow-in-the-dark toys.

  Safeguarding an alien all day had not rendered me as immune to panic as I had arrogantly assumed. Confronted with said alien glowing like a living Christmas light, and swept up by this sudden, inexplicable ardor, it shames me to admit it, but—I screamed. A small scream, but there it was. Worse, my bladder full of now-processed coffee betrayed me and simply let go.

  Aaron didn't even flinch.

  I staggered back from the weirdly luminescent alien and managed to close the door. The enticing chocolatey fragrance lingered for a few seconds, but it faded quickly with the door shut, and thankfully so did my inexplicable and embarrassing urges. I tiptoed across the bedroom and changed my clothes, then steeled myself, held my breath, opened the bathroom door and leaned inside to quickly wipe up the floor. Aaron still slept peacefully. When I closed the bathroom door again I fetched a deep breath of relief and stood with my back against the reassuringly solid wood—okay, plastic—for a moment. Then I went back to bed. Sure, I had questions, but I was just too darn tired to ask them. An exhausted brain is a very accepting sort of brain. And I no longer had to go to the bathroom, which was what woke me in the first place.

  I had a great sleep until about 2 a.m., when the motel caught on fire.

  ~o~

  "What the—what's that?"

  The RCMP officer straightened up slowly as green light leaked from the van windows, creeping out to the center line on one side and almost to the treeline on the other.

  This was it, dammit, I was going to have to take action. Why couldn't he have been an ignorant jerk of a policeman and just left us alone to change the tire in the rain? No, no, we had to get the nice guy.

  Stealthily, I bent to retrieve the tire iron from where it lay in the mud. My heart thudded uncomfortably in my chest. How hard did you have to hit someone to knock them out without killing them? I'd never even spanked my kids, for goodness' sake. And now I was going to have to conk a perfec
tly nice police officer over the head.

  Except that Aaron opened the van door and said, "Buenas noches, officer. Would it be possible pour vous pour me conduire to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, bitte? It is uiterst belangrijk. Dringend!"

  The green luminescence flooded from the van, limning the surrounding area with a light like a thousand Halloween glowsticks. The aroma that spilled out at the same time, swirling around and enveloping us as thoroughly as the still-drumming rain was, fortunately, different from last night's bathroom perfume. Coffee and doughnuts. It was wonderful. My stomach rumbled, though I'm sure no one else heard it.

  I couldn't see the officer's face, but I could imagine it. The slightly vacant gaze while his brain tried to process all those languages and also decide if there was any threat in this situation. I still held the tire iron at the ready.

  "Warten sie bitte," said Aaron. He reached up, flipped down the hinged upper portion of his left ear in a fluid motion, and wiggled something inside. "Attendez s'il vous plaît."

  He lowered his left arm to horizontal, shot back the cuff of the grey wool sweater, and began pressing buttons on his forearm. Between the dark, the rain and his bioluminescence, he didn't even look mauve tonight. Suddenly I knew what he was going to say next. I was back at my door, and it was all one big déjà vu. The whole thing—speech, gestures, tone—was rehearsed.

  "Please wait. Por favor espere."

  Only one other thing, besides the rain and the setting, was dramatically different from the night I'd met the alien. Aaron's voice was now decidedly female.

  ~o~

  I'm really pretty sure we had nothing to do with the motel fire. I know I was still asleep when the alarm went off because it wrenched me out of a most embarrassing dream. The smell of smoke permeated the room. Aaron came bursting out of the bathroom, not glowing, and the fire wasn't in there.

  "What is that?" he yelled.

  I was scrambling into my clothes even as I answered him. "Fire! Grab everything and get out to the van! Get inside quick and wait for me."

  Grabbing everything didn't take long because we were, as they say, travelling light. The electricity was out, probably some kind of safety shut-off, so we groped around in the half-dark. Aaron was still wearing the grey sweater and had the presence of mind to pull it up over his face before he left the room, bags in hand. I ran toward the office as sirens wailed in the near distance. All I could think of was getting Aaron out of there before the place was overrun with police and firemen. He wasn't glowing now, but who knew if or when it would start again?

  The desk clerk stood outside, bleary-eyed and wringing his hands in the harsh glow of the parking lot lights. I shoved the room keys at him.

  "Room 245, we're fine, but we're checking out," I said.

  "But, but—your receipt!" He took a step toward the darkened office, stopped, and turned back to me. He looked like he was going to cry.

  I waved it off. "Not necessary. Don't worry about it. Good luck!"

  I had the van on the road before the first fire engine turned into the driveway, but we didn't get far. A couple of miles down the road I pulled over onto the shoulder, turned off the ignition, and burst into tears.

  Aaron started.

  "But—but, we are safe! We are evitado! Escaped!"

  I gulped. "I know. I just realized I left my wallet in the motel room! I took it out of my purse last night to use my calling card and it's still on the night table. All my ID is in it!"

  Not to mention my debit card and what was left of our last hundred dollars. Damn, damn, and damn. I took a deep breath and fought back another flight of sobs. The van smelled like smoke and vanilla. I breathed out in a long, slow huff.

  "Well, I wonder what else can go wrong?"

  Aaron chuckled. "It is a testament to Fiamong's Rule, for certain."

  I looked over at him. He was shaking his head. I gulped back a sob. "What's Fiamong's Rule?"

  "A saying we have. 'Every foul scent finds its way to someone's nostril.' It means that every bad thing that is waiting out there will happen to someone."

  I managed a smile. "But it's not bad luck."

  Aaron smiled back and shook his head. "No, never that."

  "Well, here we call it Murphy's Law. 'If anything can go wrong, it will.'"

  "I believe Fiamong and your Murphy would get along just fine," Aaron said. He patted my hand in a fatherly sort of way. "And we will manage somehow. Can you drive again now?"

  I got us back on the road, but there were things I needed to know.

  "I had to go to the bathroom last night," I said finally, keeping my eyes on the highway ahead.

  "Ah."

  "I couldn't help but notice that you were...glowing."

  "Mmm-hmm."

  "And you also smelled really, really—er, good."

  There was such a long silence that I thought he just wasn't going to answer me. At last he said, "I apologize if you were unerledigt (twitch, twitch) unsettled."

  "Well, it was startling, but now, of course, I'm curious," I said, hoping he'd just start explaining without my having to beat it out of him.

  Aaron sighed. "Please understand, I do not fault you for your questions. It is just...it is somewhat embarrassing. On my world, we are the dominant species, but it was not always so. We have always been at risk of being hunted as food by some of the larger animals. We do, however, have a natural defence against predators."

  He shifted as if his seat were suddenly uncomfortable. "Our flesh is extremely poisonous to those who would make a meal of us. Our ancestors evolved the bioluminescence to warn predators away during the nighttime hours, so that we could rest without fear of being attacked. It is a response of our autonomic nervous system, and not something we can control at will."

  I nodded, thinking of those bright orange and yellow frogs you can always see hopping about on rainforest tv specials. "Some poisonous species here have something similar. But you're not glowing now."

  "No, the sudden interruption of the sleep cycle sometimes causes a temporary shutdown of that response. As long as it remains dark, however, it will eventually commence again, whether I am asleep or not."

  That could be trouble. "And the...er...aroma?"

  As I said it I realized the lingering smokiness had all but vanished. The light vanilla fragrance was all that was left, although for just a moment it was overlaid by something less pleasant, like vinegar and eggs left too long in the sun.

  Aaron's voice was low and he didn't look over at me. "That is a component of our...reproductive mechanisms. It is another nightly autonomic function linked to the relaxation mode preceding sleep. It will not happen if I remain awake. I'm terribly sorry if you were offended."

  "Not at all. Thanks for telling me," I said easily, and changed the subject. Poor Aaron! From his voice I supposed it was the equivalent of hearing that I'd barged into the bathroom and seen him naked. I felt terrible that I'd even brought it up, but there you go. Fiamong's Rule continued to rule the road.

  And that's when the tire went flat.

  ~o~

  Over the officer's head, Aaron—Erin?—winked at me, epicanthic folds rippling.

  "Hold on now. Is this radiation or something? And I thought you said this was your husband?" The officer sounded calm, even though he must be darn confused right about now, what with Aaron's healthy glow and unexpected female voice. I had to hand it to him, though. Naturally he wanted some answers, but he wasn't freaking out.

  My own brain was working feverishly as I tried to puzzle it all out and answer the officer at the same time. "No, no, it's not harmful, perfectly safe," I babbled desperately. "Just a side effect of some treatments— bioluminescence—occurs commonly in nature, you know. Did I say husband? I meant my sister. He's—she's my sister."

  My words ended in a nervous giggle I simply couldn't control, which cut off abruptly when I ran out of breath. The tire iron was slippery with mud and seemed to squirm in my hand. Now? Surely I'd have to hit him now?

>   Aaron—or Erin—moved smoothly into the gap. "Perhaps I should explicar?" He frowned and tapped his forearm. "Explain?"

  The officer nodded. He seemed, unbelievably, okay with it all. He hadn't drawn his gun, even though I had seen the deceptively innocent bulge of it in his holster earlier. He was standing in the pouring rain listening intently to a glowing green alien chat about cosmic shoehorns and pinwormholes while a patently lying woman with a tire iron in her hand stood two feet behind him. And he wasn't freaking out. What was wrong with this picture?

  I suddenly wondered again what I was doing here. I could have been home cleaning my perfectly normal, dirty kitchen.

  And then I got it.

  Yes, I'm sure you got it long ago. But you weren't subject to the effects of all those lovely, calming, pheromone-laden scents like I was. Your brain wasn't being chemically manipulated by a very nice, very clever alien whose race just happened to know that humans can recognize over ten thousand different smells which subtly but strongly influence our moods. And who could, at will, manufacture just the pheromone needed to make humans feel very, very friendly. Anyway.

  I had stopped listening when the realization hit me, but now I turned my attention back to Aaron and the officer. They were chatting as amiably as the rain would allow and just finishing up changing the tire. I don't know if the rain was intensifying that coffee-and-doughnut smell or what, but it was strong enough now to almost turn my stomach. Only I wasn't hungry anymore. I was mad. If I'd still had the tire iron in my hand I probably would have hit them both, but one of them had eased it out of my hand to finish the tire while I was lost in thought.

  With a final word and—I couldn't believe my eyes—a high-five for Aaron and a wave for me, the officer headed back to his cruiser. Aaron motioned me to get into the van. Cold with rage and disbelief, I got in, started the motor, and drove off. In the rear view mirror I saw the police cruiser switch off its flashers, swing a wide U-turn in the deserted highway, and drive off in the other direction with a cheery toot-toot on the horn. Unbelievable.