Free Alien Upstairs by Pamela Sargent Page A

she said.
    "What?"
    "Maybe he does. On a secret project. We could get into real trouble."
    "People on government projects don't tell everyone they're aliens if they want to keep a project secret. And they don't go around stealing memories."
    Â 
    A bald post office employee ushered Sarah and Gerard to a queue. In a far corner, a young woman in the Postal Service uniform stood near a computer screen; she was in charge of giving zip code information to those waiting there. A long line had formed at the computer next to the scales used for weighing packages; a tall black man, also part of the Postal Service, stood near the computer, ready to advice those who did not know how to stat their letters into the system. A fat middle-aged woman in Postal Service gray roamed the room; Sarah did not know what her job was, but assumed it had some sort of title. The Postal Service people had job security, even if there was little for them to do.
    The line inched forward. The old woman in front of them bounced restlessly from one foot to the other. Sarah sighed. Two young men in the adjacent line were murmuring something about gold shares. Her lips curled. Anyone who could afford gold shares would have data-links and a printout machine in his home, and would not be standing on one of these lines.
    The people in front of them were finally dispatched, and the old woman approached the window.
    "Why, hello, Mrs. Morris,” the young man behind the window said. “How's Jenny? Haven't seen her for a while."
    "Fine, fine. She got promoted to sergeant last week, she might get transferred over to Scranton, though. Sad seeing all your children move away."
    "Yeah, it sure is.” The young man disappeared for a moment, then handed her two letters and a package. Sarah waited impatiently for the old woman to move away.
    "Hey,” the woman said, “this letter took three weeks to get here."
    The young man's mustache twitched. “Sorry. You know how it is."
    "When you delivered the mail, it took two or three days, and now you've got those whosits to stat letters into, and it takes three weeks."
    "We do the best we can, Mrs. Morris.” The fat middle-aged woman moved closer to them, hovering near the gray-haired woman. The old lady turned suddenly, almost bumping into Gerard, then departed.
    Sarah moved up to the window. “Sarah Jaynes and Gerard Litvinov, 141 Oak Street."
    The young man left the window, then returned, shoving the mail through the slot under the glass.
    "And do you have anything for Raf Courn?” Gerard said. “He's at the same address."
    The young man exhaled loudly. “You picking it up for him?"
    "Yeah,” Gerard said, sounding uncertain.
    "Well, you can have it, Buster, it's just cluttering things up around here. But you should of told me when you asked for yours. Now I gotta go get his, too. If you're getting mail for your friend, tell me right off, okay?” He disappeared again.
    "I think they'll just hand mail to anyone who asks,” Sarah muttered. Gerard motioned to her to be quiet. The man came back and handed them a letter.
    "By the way,” Gerard said rapidly, “Mr. Courn didn't by any chance leave a forwarding address, did he?"
    The man groaned, “Listen, Mac, if he'd done that, we would have sent this thing on, wouldn't we?” Sarah became conscious of restless mutterings and stirrings behind her. “Look, you tell your pal that we can't be efficient unless we get the right data. You tell him to fill out a change of address. Okay? We try, you know? Then we get complaints. You think it's just one lousy letter, but I say just multiply it by a million and see what you get, and then add on a million more special delivery letters people just got to send in the old way because they think we got nothing better to do than sit around and read what comes over the computers and they want their privacy. You tell your friend. Okay?"
    Gerard backed away. “Sure.” They left