Daisy kissed me on the cheek when I got home and then went upside my head, and
Tony made everyone come and see my new knee. While I was in, someone had sorted
out the affairs of the Process, and a government trustee had left a note for me
at general delivery. I got over fifty dollars and bought a plane-ticket for a
much-deserved week in the Honduras. I tried to take Daisy, but she had stuff to
do. I beach-fronted it until the melanomas came out, then home again, home
again, only to find that the house crime-scene taped and Tony the Tiger and
Daisy Duke were nowhere to be found in a month of hysterical searching.
So now, on the first beautiful day of spring after a fricken evil, grey winter
of pain and confusion, I work on my tan and sip beer and lemonade until the
sirens go and the traffic stops and every receiver is turned to the Emergency
Broadcast System -- *This is not a test*.
I flip open my comm. There's a hubble of the mothaship, whirlagig and
widdershins around our rock. The audio track is running, but it's just talking
heads, not a transmission from the mothaship, so I tune it out.
The world holds its breath again.
#
The first transmission comes a whole pitcher later. They speak flawless English
-- and Spanish and Cantonese and Esperanto and Navajo, just pick a channel --
and they use a beautiful bugout contralto like a newscaster who started out as
an opera singer. Like a Roman tyrant orating to his subjects.
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