miles from their homes and now they can't get back. It's not their fault they're stuck here, is it?'
'No,' Clare agreed, 'but it's not my fault either. I'm sorry, Steph. I just don't seem to be able to get into the spirit of interplanetary co-operation as easily as you have. Not just yet, anyway.'
There followed a long and unexpectedly awkward silence in the conversation.
'This reminds me of something I was working on at university last term,' Rob said suddenly.
For some inexplicable reason best known to himself, my younger brother had decided to study towards a degree in twentieth century English history. Personally I couldn't see the point. I had always considered any historical study to be a complete waste of time. Where was the sense in continually looking backwards? My philosophy was simple - if you spend all your time looking backwards, you're going to walk into something eventually.
'So what were you studying?' James asked, sounding only half-interested.
'We were looking at the increase in immigrants who set up home here after the end of the Second World War.'
'What's that got to do with the aliens?' Siobhan asked.
'Just think about it,' Rob continued, adopting a pretentious tone of educated seriousness. 'When those people first arrived here back then the indigenous population were paranoid. The newcomers were different, and because they were different people were afraid of them.'
'I'm not frightened of anyone,' Clare snapped.
'I didn't say you were. That's not the point I'm making at all...'
'So what are you saying?'
He took a deep breath before trying to explain, obviously choosing his words carefully.
'In the forties and fifties, many of the people born in this country were convinced that the immigrants were here to take their jobs, families and homes from them.'
'What's your point?' I wondered.
Rob cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked around the room, paying particular attention to Clare and I.
'Those people were frightened because of their ignorance and their short-sightedness. I'm just trying to make you see that you've got a fear of the unknown and as soon as you learn more about these people, I'm sure you'll be more than willing to share the planet with them.'
'You're a patronising bastard,' I sighed. 'You make it sound as if we don't want anything to do with the aliens.'
'Do you?'
I shrugged my shoulders.
'I don't know yet.'
'Clare?'
'I'm just not interested,' she said, very definitely.
'You should both just give it time.'
'But it's not just about time, is it?'
'Come on,' James interrupted. 'I can't believe that we're even having to talk like this. Regardless of what you might think about the aliens, you've got to admit that there is a hell of a lot we stand to gain from having them here with us. You've got to be able to see it?'
'Whatever,' I mumbled.
The children returned to the room, bringing a welcome distraction from the increasingly heavy conversation. Their noisy, muddy arrival came as something of a relief.
I really hadn't intended to sound anti-alien. I knew that their arrival here was of monumental importance to every single person on the surface of the planet.
But there was still something that bothered me. Something that didn't quite ring true.
All caution was being thrown to the wind. In an age when the person who reads your gas meter needs full identification, we were being asked to embrace these visitors from the other side of the universe with open arms.
I wanted to accept them, I really did. But I needed to be able to trust them first.
Chapter 12
Part II
RELEASE
12
The last Wednesday in August. Almost a month to the day since the aliens had first arrived.
I got up at eight. I had a shower, got dressed, and then ate some breakfast sitting on a deckchair out on the lawn. Robert was already up and about. He was hiding indoors in the shadows, glued to the television. There was an early morning discussion programme on which I couldn't bring myself to watch. The subject of debate was the release of the aliens from their camp at Brymer.
It felt like the last three weeks had passed by in three minutes. Looking back, the days and hours seemed to have disappeared in a continual whirlwind blur of new alien revelations and cascaded information. Every newspaper I'd picked up, every poster I'd seen, every television programme I'd watched, every radio programme I'd listened to and every website I'd visited seemed to have mentioned the aliens. Just after his youngest daughter had been born I remembered my