Free Being Alien by Rebecca Ore Page B

happens now?"
    The male wiggled his nose. “Maybe you can become friends with us?”
    “I’m not going to be kidnapped.”
    “No, not kidnapped,” the males said. “We need to talk to Alex, and with you.”
    We parked behind another bar, in Berkeley on Telegraph, not in Oakland. Carstairs, alone in his car, pulled in behind us, got out and watched, his eyes trembling in their sockets as a Barcon got out, then Alex, both huge males, easily 220 pounds and over six and a half feet, then the last Barcon, only slightly smaller, got out and stretched. At first, I thought Alex was in cuffs, but he was just rubbing his wrists, holding them together, Then Alex looked at Carstairs as though he hadn’t meant to involve his human friend in this, whatever this would be.
    The Barcons looked around the parking lot, then began discussing the situation in Barcon. “All right, you humans know,” the male Barcon who hadn’t ridden with Reeann and me said. “But it’s worthless knowledge.”
    Carstairs looked at Alex as if Alex was his connection for maximum head candy. Alex shrugged slightly, then we went in, by black and white couples and singles, to an empty back room. We all sat down in a booth.
    “You used drugs,” the littlest female, the one who’d been scared in the bar, told Carstairs. “And you resigned your job. Why?"
    Carstairs hunched over a beer in a frost-rimmed mug.
    “You are…” He didn’t sound straight, and he didn’t finish.
    “Alex,” her mate said, “why?”
    Alex sighed and reached for a pecan in a bowl set on our table, cracked it with his teeth, smiled at Carstairs as he tongued the meat separate from the shells, spit the shells out onto his fingertips. Finally, he answered, “I think the bird is right.” Meaning Karriaagzh. “We should expand contacts, give these people gate systems.”
    “No,” the littlest female said, “the wait magnifies your terror of jail, so you’d like them to know now. You may have to be rotated out before the contact.”
    “Why?” Carstairs asked.
    “Because of you,” the chief male said.
    “I resigned. I suspected.”
    “Alex told you?”
    “No. I got a sweat sample. It wasn’t conclusive.”
    Alex looked up at Carstairs and picked up another nut. 
    “Tell Alex about jail, Tom,” the smallest female Barcon said. She looked just like a big black man slumped over a beer and stirring it with a swizzle stick. Alex flinched.
    I said, “Federal prisons wouldn’t be quite like the state prison camp I was in.”
    “But they give such time to spies,” the female Barcon said to Alex. “Very cruel to disguised outsiders, no?”
    Reeann said, “Let Tom and me leave. I’m not part of this.”
    “I’ll take you all God dammit down,” Alex said.
    Reeann began laughing. Is she hysterical, I wondered. Carstairs giggled for two seconds, then said, “You befriended me because of my weapons work, Alex?”
    Alex said, “No.” Veins in his eyes seemed to be enlarging. Then I saw a tear roll out of his eye, larger than a human tear. Maybe his skin had a different surface tension? “Someday, you’ll find a way into space, and the Federation will turn me over to the FBI as a peace gesture. The more I’m with you, the less I want you to see me as an alien.”
    “Oh, Alex,” Carstairs said.
    Alex said, “Jerry, my wife was with me here for two years. She died, a trivial accident, on Karst. I’m alone here except for humans. These are no company.” He swung a hand at the Barcons.
    The other female Barcon, silent up until now, said softly, “He wouldn’t re-mate.”
    Carstairs looked   nervous— hey, what are the implications, Carstairs baby.  Then he asked, “You aren’t going to hurt me?”
    “No,” the chief male said, "as long as you don’t betray him ahead of time."
    Carstairs began to smile then he frowned and asked “Time dilation?”
    Meaning, did you get here by flying at near light speeds?
    “Time doesn’t play a part in it,” Alex