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André meets Rennil's family
Crossgate Road, André mused. I wonder how it got its name.
The cab driver turned onto another street at a traffic light and proceeded at its lower speed limit. He slowed down to a creeping pace and pointed at one of the houses. “This is your address.”
“Look at all the cars there. I hope you can find a place to turn around and get back.”
“If you could bear with me, sir, there’s a park and playground just down the next block. I should be able to turn around there and head back out when I let you out.”
“That would be okay. Do what you must.” I’m here to confirm my suspicions, not because I want to be near that strange child again. Take your time, Monsieur.
André paid the cab driver and got out. He walked up to the yard lamp at the end of the walkway and confirmed the address. Do I really want to do this? I’d better—I’ve come all this way so far. Taking a deep breath, André strode up to the door and rang the doorbell.
A man who appeared to be in his late 40s answered the door.
“Hello, I’m … .”
“André, come in,” called a voice from inside the house. The American Air Force man, Lyle, waved to André from across the room.
“I guess I’m in the right place, then.” Following the gestures from the man who had opened the door, André stepped inside.
“Here, let me take your coat,” the man offered.
“Sure.” André felt uneasy as he took off his coat and handed it to the man. I’ll make note of where you put my coat, just in case I need to make a quick exit.
One of the other men stood up and offered André the large comfortable chair where he had been sitting.
“You needn’t get up on my account,” André protested.
“No, please,” the man insisted. He held out his hand to André. “My name is Perry Thompson.”
André studied the man’s face. “For some reason, I feel that I’ve met a relative of yours.” He shook his head. “I can’t figure out why.”
Perry gave André a warm smile. “Perhaps it’s because you actually have met one of my blood relatives.” He turned and motioned to someone in the next room.
A strange small woman came out carrying a newborn. She might have been Southeast Asian, except her eyes were huge like the alien child that had been at André’s house. Walking behind the small woman was a man who appeared both human and alien. Holding the man’s hand was a small child.
The child looked up at André as if she recognized him. She stepped up and stood in front of André. She then turned and spoke to the others behind her in a very strange, alien-sounding, language. The girl pointed at André as she spoke.
“That’s the child!” André exclaimed. “That’s her!” He began to feel faint. “I have to sit down. Please forgive me.”
“This is the girl who was in your house, and that you put on the plane,” Lyle explained. “Her name is Rennil, and she is the same child who is on the political billboards that you’ve seen on the news.”
André sat in the large chair. Not a moment too soon—I’m so dizzy.
Rennil put her hand on André’s arm in a comforting and reassuring way. She spoke to him in her soft alien voice.
“I don’t understand your language.” André reciprocated Rennil’s sincere affection by placing his hand on hers. I don’t believe I’m touching this alien creature … or person … whatever she is. He looked around at the others in the room. Some of them were normal people, and some of them seemed to be of the same stock as the alien child.
“This is what you came here for, isn’t it?” Lyle asked.
“Yes, it is.” André nodded. He lurched and cringed as Rennil climbed into his lap and cuddled into him. In an unexpected reflex, André put his arms around the child and held her to him. I don’t believe I’m doing this.
Perry put his hand on André’s shoulder. “Rennil is my granddaughter. Her father is my son, Sennef.” He gestured toward an older alien woman on the sofa. “This is my wife, Jenna—she is Sennef’s mother, and Rennil’s grandmother.”
“Have you heard Perry’s story?” asked the man who answered the door.
“No, I don’t think I have. I’m sorry, I missed your name.”
“We didn’t want to overwhelm you right off with everyone’s name. I’m Alan Renquist. About 25 years ago, Perry and I were starwatching with our amateur astronomy group.”
“What does that have to do with all this now?” André asked.
“Everything,” Alan answered. “That night back then there was a throbbing wave of some type of energy field, that swept down on us. It started to float us away. I was able to hold onto a tree but Perry’s branch broke off and he was carried away. I won’t bore you with my miserable years defending myself from accusations of Perry’s murder. All that time, Perry was on the planet Nenmar across the galaxy. He assimilated into the Nenmaran culture and married this Nenmaran woman, Jenna whom you see here. Their children had families of their own, one of whom is in your lap now—little Rennil.”
“That throbbing. I felt something like throbbing when Rennil appeared in my yard. I thought she might have caused it.”
“No, she was just more or less riding on the throbbing waves. She had disobeyed her parents and gotten caught up and carried here. It just so happened that she landed in your yard. She, and we, are very fortunate that you are a kind and decent person. I shudder to think what might have happened to her had she landed in the wrong place.”
André looked down at Rennil, who looked back up at him. Her huge eyes were bright with irises full of colors, browns and yellows. André felt in response an affection and concern for Rennil. “Her existence as an alien from space must have every government agency and curiosity seeker from around the world about to converge here. Have you any protection arranged for these people?”
“We’ve already been through that,” Lyle interjected. “It subsided shortly before you arrived. You missed all the traffic jams following us around.”
“Do people not believe they are from another planet?”
“They do, but they don’t fit most people’s preconceptions of what space aliens are supposed to look like. Our staff psychologists analyzed the public reaction for me. Their conclusions gave me the freedom to safely bring these good decent alien people out in the open.”
“Who are these psychologists you mentioned?”
“I’m not allowed to reveal that.”
André chuckled. “Military secret, I presume?”
“My telling you about them at all is borderline for me.”
“Ah, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.” I hope I’m not coming across as sarcastic. “I mean that sincerely.”
“I appreciate that.”
“It would seem to me that foreign governments with many different interests, some of them hostile to your country, would have this whole area swarming with spies. You’re not concerned about that? Suppose they sent a covert team to kidnap these people, including little Rennil here?”
“This may sound strange,” Lyle replied, “but our openness is our best defense against that very thing.”
“I won’t ask you to explain that one.”
“You’re right about that—don’t waste your breath.”
“You have this child in normal clothing.” André looked around at the other aliens. “It appears that they all have been shopping. You took them shopping in public?”
“I did.” One of the alien-looking people walked over to behind the sofa facing André. “I’m Penna. Rennil is my niece. I came to live here much in the same way as Rennil is here now, except that I was extremely fortunate to find my human relatives here. I was born on Nenmar and grew up there. Like Rennil, I was caught up by the Cosmic Storm when I disobeyed my father and didn’t run from it. That was several years ago, so I know both places, languages and cultures.”
André nodded. “Parlez-vous Français?”
“No,” Penna replied, “but my husband can read and write French very well, but he can’t speak it because he’s deaf.” She gestured toward a normal-looking man across the room.
“So you’ve assimilated into this culture fairly well, I would presume from what you’ve said. If this alien language is your native tongue, how did you learn English? You speak it very well.”
“My father taught it to me on Nenmar.”
“How did he learn it?”
“He’s a native speaker. Remember, he grew up here—not Nenmar.”
“This is amazing.” André looked around at the diverse people in the room. “It’s like Earth and Nenmar are just different provinces of the same place.”
“You could say that.” Perry nodded. “You could say that.”
“What’s this Cosmic … uh … whatever thing one of you mentioned?”
“It’s sort of like the Gulf Stream in the ocean,” Perry explained. “I have that on good authority.”
“What ‘good authority,’ may I ask?”
“Barmeth, from the planet Gatton.”
“I thought your family was from Nenmar?”
“They are,” Perry replied. “Nenmar is about 300 years behind Earth in technology. Gatton is many centuries ahead of us in technology.”
“Gatton is a different planet altogether?”
“Yes.”
“Then are they controlling us all?”
“No, but we are very fortunate they are friendly to us and help us.”
“They can control the technology we have,” an older human woman added. “I’ve seen what they can do with the municipal computer systems.”
André turned to look at her. “How do you know that?”
“I’m Susan, Perry’s sister. I work for the County as a technical manager of their computer systems. I’ve seen first hand what Barmeth can do to data records and not leave a trace of his presence.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?” André asked. “After all, they could bring the world to its knees in a matter of minutes with that capability.”
Susan became thoughtful and nodded. “They could, but they won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I’ve seen repeatedly that their motivation has nothing to do with controlling us. Ruling over us would be a waste of their time. They seem to be more interested in civilizations growing healthy in a natural way.”
“So they’re sort of cultivating us? And the Nenmarans too? That in itself is unsettling.”
“I’ve sensed nothing like that in them,” Susan replied. “It seems more to me that they are just steering us clear of trouble that they can see and we can’t.”
Rennil sat up in André’s lap and poked him in the chest as she said something in her language.
“I am so very amazed at the innocence in this child.” André noticed the softness of the blows to his body from Rennil’s alien fingers without fingernails. “It’s hard to imagine a human child being so at ease with someone so different from him.”
“You are very right,” Perry agreed. “You can imagine how grateful I was that they accepted me when I arrived there not knowing anything about their language or culture.”
“And I was grateful,” Penna added, “that my father had taught me so much about Earth and one of its major languages before I got here—it probably saved my life.”
“English is spoken in so many parts of the world. You were fortunate indeed to be fluent in it before you got here.”
“But now I also am fluent in Spanish, Russian and Japanese,” Penna added with an air of pride.
André warmed to Penna and smiled at her. “Being multilingual is a good thing. You should be a translator knowing all those languages.”
“That’s exactly what I am,” Penna chuckled.
A feeling of deep comfort came over André. “I think I’ve accomplished what I came here for, and so much more.” He picked up Rennil and stood her on the floor; then he got up from the chair. “Thank you very much for your hospitality to me. I know I’m intruding on a family gathering here, so if I could have my coat, I’ll be going now.”
Alan retrieved André’s coat and handed it to him. “You’re not intruding.” He shook his head for emphasis. “I was watching the way you and little Rennil related to each other with your eyes. You’re a part of our family, now, ‘Uncle André.’ Come back anytime.”
“Well, I’ve never been so familiar with aliens before.” André felt strange speaking to people whom he had met only a short time ago. It’s as if I’d grown up with them.
“Your cab will be here in a moment,” Lyle announced.
“Thank you for calling one for me.” André glanced out the window and saw a taxi parked and headed in the right direction. He waved to everyone in the room as he stepped out the door. “It was good meeting each and every one of you. God bless.”
André felt a nip in the air as he watched his breath drift in the wind. The heater in the taxi provided welcome warmth.
The driver displayed the destination on the taxi’s viewer. “That’s the correct hotel, sir?”
“Yes, it is. How did you know?” André spoke again before the driver could reply. “Oh, never mind—I know how you know.”
The driver smiled and drove out into the street.
© Mark Caldwell Walker