“Not even one of your gas-cloud computers?”
“Not even. To be safe enough, this computer would have to being thousands of times larger than a Boov ship. Than even the largest Boov ship. If it even could be done. Who would build such a thing? Where would a person keep it?”
“It would really be that big?”
J.Lo chuffed. “It would have to be alike a small moon!”
We each stared at the other without speaking. Even the crickets stopped chirping. Then we both turned at once and looked at the small purple moon hanging over Mexico.
“You don’t think…” I said.
“No,” said J.Lo, but he sounded less certain. “The electric brain would have to take up the most of the ship. No space for alls the Gorg and supplies.”
“How many Gorg and supplies do you need when you can just clone more?”
“Hm.”
“This is good,” I said. “If you’re right, then you can fix the receiver and build more teleclone booths, and we can use them, too. Humans will be able to use the Gorg’s own computers against them.”
“Possibily.”
“We’re gonna have to tell someone. Soon. Maybe someone at the Bureau of Missing Persons. I was planning on maybe dropping by there tomorrow to see if they found my mom anyway.”
We did go to the bureau the next morning, but the offices were empty except for the suit man named Michaels.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said without any hint of surprise in his voice. “We haven’t found your mom yet.”
“Yeah, well, not to be rude,” I said with a wave of my arm, “but it doesn’t look like you guys are trying very hard.”
“Tch. It’s just because of the meeting.”
“What meeting?”
Michaels grinned. “I thought everyone knew. The meeting with the Boov representatives on the quad. It’s going on right now.”
“What are the Boov meeting with us for?” I wondered aloud. We were walking to the center of campus to check it out.
“Maybies we should tell these Boov about our telecloner,” said J.Lo.
I wasn’t crazy about that idea. I couldn’t blame J.Lo for still wanting to think the best about his own people, but I thought the Boov might just arrest J.Lo, use this new information to beat the Gorg, and go on treating us humans like the rejects they thought we were.
There was a big crowd of people on the quad—a thousand at least, facing a plywood stage. And on the stage stood five Boov. One of them had fancier clothes than the rest. He was speaking to the crowd.
J.Lo gasped.
“Smek!” he whispered. “It is Captain Smek himself!”
“They are a horrible sort,” Smek was saying, “and will not show the Noble Savages of Smekland the respectfulness that you have enjoyed fromto the Boov. The Gorg are known acrosst the galaxy as the Takers, and they canto only take and take and take!”
The Boov guarding Smek snapped their fingers again and again. It’s what the Boov do to applaud.
J.Lo was shaking and pushing up against me. I kept a hand on his shoulder and steered us to the back of the audience. “We knows of the meeting between to the Gorg and Smekland leaders yesterday,” said Smek. “The Gorg have probabilies made for you some fancy promises. Do not be believing them! They lie! They will enslave your race, just as to they have done so many others! They will destruct our world!”
There was a lot of grumbling in the audience. Smek was not a popular guy around this part of the Milky Way, for obvious reasons.
“In closing,” said Captain Smek, “the Boov are beseeching you: do not give up to the Gorg our world because of petty grudgings! Fight with us—”
A guardBoov whispered something to Smek.
“Fight alongside us,” Smek said, “for a brighter, shiny Smekland!”
The guardBoovs snapped their fingers again.
Smek took a breath. “Repito. Señoras y Caballeros del Estado Unido de America—”
“Fat lot of good this’ll do,” I whispered to J.Lo. But I would be wrong about that. Some people would end up joining the Boov to fight the Gorg. Not that it made any difference.
Folks were already leaving, talking among themselves, mostly about how they didn’t believe a word of it. A few gave J.Lo weird looks, but there was plenty of reason for that without suspecting he was a Boov. It might seem crazy that we passed him off as easy as we did, but I think people mostly see what they expect to see. You could look at us and suppose we were a girl and her alien friend wearing a Halloween costume in August, or you could see two kids being kids. Which would you see, honestly?
“Don’t look at him,” one mother even said when she noticed her daughter was staring at J.Lo. “He’s just trying to get attention.”
When I finally noticed Smek again, he was repeating the final, resounding line of his speech:
“—para una Tierra luminosa de Smek!”
Then came the finger snapping again. By now some of the little kids in the front were doing it too. A few adults booed, but most everyone who had stayed was silent.
Captain Smek stepped down from his stool and left the podium, and a little man took his place.
“Oh, look,” I said to J.Lo. “It’s Mitch from the bureau.”
He was holding up his hands and shaking his head at the people who still jeered at Smek, and trying to hold the dwindling crowd. Smek and his bunch looked like embarrassed children as they hustled away from the quad.
“People? People?” he was saying. “Can we show a little hospitality? Captain Smek took the time to explain his case, and that took some courage, and now I think we should give him a hand. No? Is everyone leaving? Just a couple of announcements? Tucson Airport District leader Dan Landry will be speaking tonight about his recent conference with the Gorg? That’s in Prochnow Auditorium at eight…also…People? Also, there are new test dates scheduled for doctors to get recertified? These are posted on the big tree next to the…thing…you know the one. Until we can prove who is a real doctor and who isn’t, people, remember: use good judgment. Just because he has his own scalpel doesn’t mean he should take your appendix out.”
Nearly everyone was gone now. J.Lo and I made our way up to the stage.
“One last announcement? People? No? Don’t come crying to the bureau when you don’t know where to get your milk shake vouchers. Oh, hello, Gratuity.”
His voice was still being amplified, so he pushed the microphone aside and sat down on the edge of the stage.