Free Ten Sigmas & Other Unlikelihoods by Paul Melko

stop, stand and turn toward the bus stop that will take me back home. I’ve been a fool, but I’ll not be a hypocrite as well.
    “Hey! Human lady!”
    I turn to see the alien trotting towards me, and I am giddy with joy.
    “I’m ready,” I say. “Well, I have to grab my travel bag. I left it next to my desk. But all I have to do is go get it. Then I’m ready to go. Just give me a second. Hold on, okay?”
    The alien, a short one, but still cute, furrows his brow and shakes his head. “No need to prepare for request. Just need sample.”
    “Huh?”
    “Need sample of yellow-haired human lady.”
    “Oh. You don’t need a live sample?”
    “No. No authority to take live sample. Need fluid.” He reaches into his pack and pulls out a small clear cylinder.
    I finally notice the ratty clothing of the alien, the unkempt look, the yellow symbol on his sleeve indicating his student status. He’s a geek alien. Just my luck. The aliens were leaving and he was on a last-minute quest to finish a homework assignment.
    “Fuck you,” I say, spinning on my heel. Tears begin to flow and I am mad, so mad at everything. I start running.
    But he’s faster than me in my stockings, and he catches me within a block, jumping in front of me. “Stop!”
    “What? I gave at the office!” I yell.
    “Seen leaving syndrome on other planets. Common among us. On every planet.”
    “‘Leaving syndrome?’”
    The alien shrugs. “Escapist syndrome. Wanderlust.” He smiles slightly, pats my arm. “No better out there. No more hope than here. Less even.”
    I shrug, turn away, start walking down the street.
    “No sample?” he calls. “Need to get back.”
    I pause, then I finally nod. “Fine. Pick an arm.”
    The alien places the plastic cylinder against my skin. I feel a warmth, and the cylinder begins to fill with my blood, bubbling red.
    I wipe my tears away with my other hand. “I guess a part of me is going into space.”
    “Small part.”
    “You could clone me, maybe. Then it would be like I was there after all. I would grow up in your society, and it would . . .”
    “No.” He shakes his head slowly. His eyes are sad. “Still don’t understand. You live on this planet, nowhere else.”
    I sigh. “I know.”
    He reaches into his pack and pulls out a small clipper set. “I take something of you, and you keep something of me.” He snips a length of his gray-blue mane and hands it to me.
    It is stiff and coarse and I am suddenly happy, and I hug him before he can react.
    “Thank you.” I have to bend over, but I manage to bury my face in his shoulder. I hear the murmur of a purr deep inside him. He pats my head.
    “Got to go, human lady.” Pushing away, he turns up the street trotting back to his scooter. “Good luck,” he calls, and I wave.
    In a daze, I wander to the bus stop, still clutching the small bale of hair. I brush the end against my cheek, feeling the prickly coarseness. I see that there is enough for me to braid a necklace, maybe two, and I decide I will make one for Gabrielle and I will make one for me.

THE SUMMER OF SEVEN
    I n the summer of our fourteenth year, we weren’t the only one to live with Mother Redd on the
    farm in Worthington. That was the year the Seven came to stay.
    “After lunch, you’ll need to clean out the back bedroom,” Mother Redd said that morning at breakfast. One of her was busy frying eggs at the stove, while another was squeezing orange juice. Her third was setting the table. We had just come in from chores — picking diamond flowers, plucking sheep cloth, and, secretly, milking the beer bush for a few ounces of lager — and were lounging around the kitchen table.
    Meda, my true sister and our pod’s interface, asked the question we were thinking. “Who’s coming to stay?” It wasn’t a visit. For a visit, we wouldn’t bother to clean out the bedroom; we’d just pull out the beds from the couch in the downstairs den and let the visitor sprawl around the first