The Road to Roswell

by Connie Willis

“There are three kinds of extraterrestrials,” the man explained. “Grays—those are the ones you see in the movies with the silver skin, big heads, and almond-shaped eyes—and Reptilians—they’re worse than the Grays, they want to take over Earth—and Venusians. They’re tall and blond and look outwardly human, but you can tell they’re aliens because they just feel wrong. The sight of them makes your skin crawl.”

Reverend Buckley, Francie thought. That sounded reassuringly normal. “He’s a high priest in the Church of Galactic Truth,” Serena said. “He’s been in telepathic contact with entities from Venus, Saturn, and Aetherium Six, and he’s really interesting.” I’ll bet.

It didn’t even have eyes. Or a body. Just dozens and dozens of serpentlike tentacles radiating from a central point.

No human would ever have come up with an ordinary tumbleweed as an extraterrestrial.

But at the same time she was furious—livid because this meant aliens did exist, which meant Russell and all those other UFO nuts had been right, and outraged at being manhandled and kidnapped.

Say you’re in the middle of nowhere, nobody for miles and no hope of rescue. You sit down and start playing solitaire and somebody will immediately come along and tell you to play the red eight on the black nine.”

“I told him it’s the code cowboys live by. Never shoot first. Be hospitable to strangers. Be loyal to your partner. When you make a promise, keep it.”

“Even though our biologists think the Hosbitaii may have originally evolved from plants, they don’t consider our plant life as having consciousness. Apparently the Hosbitaii attempted to communicate with a prickly pear when they first landed, with predictably bad results, and Indy apparently spent a half hour trying to convince a Joshua tree to drive him to a tsurrispoinis before he abducted you, so the Hosbitaii have decided that plants are too far down the evolutionary scale to count. I got the idea they’re annoyed by that, as if their own side had let them down.”

“Done.” That’s the right word, she thought. “Done.” This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a ride home.