Touched by an Alien

“But that sounds very familiar to me, as the granddaughter of people who were also part of what was, in some places, called a Final Solution.”
    “The Holocaust,” Reader said quietly. “Over six million Jews, homosexuals, and others considered deviants murdered.”
    “Your planet did it more humanely. For them. But not for you or for us. They sent you all here as bait.”
    “No idea what you’re talking about,” Christopher said. He really couldn’t swing the lying thing, since he was looking at his shoes when he shared this.
    “Funny you should say that, since I’ve never heard a bigger line of bullshit than the one you tried to hand me about your transference system working one way but not the other. If you were talking time travel, I might buy it. But you’re talking the laws of physics. I realize your planet’s very different from ours. But not so different that an A-C man and a human woman couldn’t have a functioning, normal child. Or is Paul some total freak by either race’s standards?”
    “He’s as normal as the rest of us,” Martini said. “For what that’s worth.”
    “So if it works one way, it can work the other. If the door on the other end isn’t locked, of course. Which it is. To you and to us.”
    “What makes you think any of this, Kitty?” Lorraine asked. “We’ve been told the full history of our world and why we came to yours.”
    “Have you? I doubt it. You’re a new example of the immigrant experience that America had in the early nineteen hundreds. People fled their homelands, many times due to religious persecution, to come settle in the Land of Opportunity. It’s what built this country. But what the immigrants told their children wasn’t always the total truth.”
    “You’ve already said we can’t lie,” Christopher said. “Pick a side.”
    “You can’t lie. But you all avoid giving out key information unless you’re asked point-blank. But you know what was interesting about the whole scenario when I said your translations were wrong?”
    “I’ll play,” Martini said as he leaned his head back against the wall. “What?”
    “Your Sovereign Pontifex wasn’t the one protesting against my charge. Oh, sure, he made a little show for the youngsters, but he wasn’t the one defending the translations. He left that to Beverly.”
    “Because it’s her job,” Christopher snapped.
    “No, because he can’t lie any better than the rest of you, and he’s started to pick up that I’m aware of it.” I looked at Reader. “How long did it take you to figure it out?”
    He shrugged. “A few months, but I wasn’t kidding—we didn’t have the same level of action when I joined up. You’re right on schedule if I compress my first two months, and my first run-in with Mephistopheles into about a day and a half.”
    Reader looked at Martini and Christopher. “I haven’t said anything because I couldn’t come up with any idea of how to fix it, so why make it harder for you guys?”
    “Said what?” Martini asked. It was clear he was asking to ensure we actually had guessed right.
    I answered. “That your home world sent you to Earth not to help us or give you someplace to go be useful but to use you all as bait to get the parasites distracted elsewhere.”
    Reader nodded. “And they don’t want you back, any more than they want us to emigrate. We’re on our own together.”
    “Why would they do that?” Claudia asked in a small voice. “We brought supplies to help. They still send us things.”
    “Now and then,” Lorraine added.
    “To ensure you don’t die out here, would be my guess.”
    “Why would they need to?” Lorraine asked. “The ozone shield protects our home world.”
    “Yeah, but can it or will it forever? If we take the Heaven and Hell situations literally, Hell is hot, very hot. You all come from a planet with double suns. I’d have to guess it’s pretty warm there, particularly since you all wear black in the desert in the summertime. And you don’t sweat while doing it. None of you sweat, not even when you’re running fifty miles in a second.” Not even Martini through hours of vigorous, fantastic sex. I’d sweated, but he hadn’t.
    “If there was an entity searching for his new home and he came from someplace very hot, then why would he aim for, say, an ice planet or this little green and blue jewel in the middle of nowhere? He’d aim right for the planet with a lot of heat and burning suns, where his body would