I won’t lie to you. There are a lot of us, and not so many of you. Don’t expect to overturn the culture. Just be . . . with us. But don’t think that just because you’re joining with something larger, you won’t still be you. Fully you. And by that I mean fully yourself, and fully human.” The smile slowly escaped its wide face. “Or are you going home?”
“No,” I said. “I mean . . . yes. Or . . . I mean . . .” I turned my head slightly and looked back at the gray box. “There are people there . . . friends I’d like to see again.”
“We can arrange for you to talk to them. Exchange messages. Even several if you want.”
I bit my lip and thought a moment longer. “Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” George slapped its hands together again, and this time the expression seemed much more like joy. “Good! Very good. We’ll work out something about talking to those friends. Now, let’s—”
“I just have one more question,” I said.
The big head tilted to one side. “What’s that?”
“Why me?” I asked again. “And this time, really. Why me out of eight billion people?”
George nodded. It gave a wave to its right, and the flowing star scape faded. “It wasn’t just you, of course. We tried to get as many as we could, what you might call a ‘representative sample.’” The alien looked at me, and now the small eyes seemed to be studying me more closely than ever before. “We’re really selfish, Doc. We want what you got. What makes you unique. All those individual threads pulling together . . . that’s how we stand up when civilizations that are on their own fall apart.”
“So where I was born—”
“Where you lived, where you worked. And the fact that you’re not married. And you have little immediate family. All that was a part of your name coming out of the hat.” The broad smile returned abruptly. “And I have to admit that name didn’t hurt. A name like that . . . it just has to be preserved.”
I found myself laughing. George stood. I stood. And right about then I realized that somewhere I had lost my coat. Maybe I had left it on the bus, or at the university, or in Detective Kelly’s car, but all those places seemed light-years away now. Maybe they really were.
George advanced toward me, and this time I didn’t back away. “Welcome,” it said.
I extended my own hand. “So, my being a paleoichthyologist didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“Oh, no,” said George. “That was a big part of it. The next place we’re going? The people there are aquatic. We’ve been watching them for a couple of thousand years, but they’re quite unique. We think you might have something to contribute when it comes to understanding them.” George’s large purple fingers looked even larger from close up. “Who knows?” he said around that very wide smile. “Maybe you’ll be doing my job.”
We shook. It was a little awkward at first, but we worked it out.
RONIN
WILLIAM McCASKEY
I.
There is a stillness to the air, like the pause when you reach the highest point of a jump. That split-second hang, weightless, waiting for the inevitable plummet back toward the ground. The light moves oddly through the trees, the branches casting shadows that twist and spin on the ground. I step forward slowly, testing the footing with every step while reaching out with my other senses for any sign of my quarry. Silence has been laid over this part of the forest, muffling even the crunch of dry leaves beneath my feet. I come to the edge of a clearing and stop; the light washes the open grassland in a silver sheen that glimmers on the tall grass like crystals.
A dark shadow passes overhead, and not even the Silence is enough to quiet the heavy beat of leather wings against the air as the dragon circles the meadow to land in the center. The surrounding light highlights the emerald scales of her back, while the scales of her underbelly shine with a faint pink glow of