A Paradigm of Earth by Candas Jane Dorsey Page B

that bullshit. I got away, I left it behind, because it hurt. I apply for this nice safe job and get Blue instead. Do you think I want to be torn open like this? But who else will? Who else tried to take that one somewhere human? You have to rock those gargoyle children in your arms no matter how they look; you have to love them just the same. Do you think you can leave this one”—her arm around Blue—“inside some institution and teach life on Earth from videos and the net? From movies? And not anything else? It wouldn’t work, it doesn’t work. And what one of you tried to take the alien home and open your private life?”
    She saw the blue-suited one blush when she said “movies” and it fueled her anger, but she saw the grey suit lean forward to answer her last challenge, and her anger left her.
    “Besides,” she said, “it isn’t up to me. It’s up to Blue, and all my passion is for nothing if that one wants to ride the wind away from my door.”
    “I think the wind can blow on without me,” said the alien.

    journal:
    That ephemeral and perhaps sinister attraction this stranger to Earth has followed through the unfamiliar patterns of a eity built by minds still alien, hands driven by unknown visions, was not volitional and was scarcely recognized even by Blue as a compulsion. Yet it is possible that design could not have brought our dear blue alien more neatly to the right door.
    Blue is alien in form as well as convention. Everything is new and unexplained, with an emptiness where the familiar should be. A stranger in a maze of strangers, following an unerring path to an uncertain destination.
    The key prefix is “un-”. Even as countless humans have searched, search, and will continue to search for pronouns, so we search for definition of the stages of formation of a human life. This life is un-formed, -filled, -fulfilled. Never mind the alliteration. The meaning is clear enough. There is much for us to do to make Earth a real place for any alien to live.
    Live is an active verb as well as a passive one. Living well takes more than information, energy, or opportunity alone, but the three together begin to define the process. The rest is gestalt, synergy, and mystery. As it should be, to promote the growth of understanding and with it joy.
    So “un-” is one prefix for description. But Blue is also characterized by the response to that vague and mysterious stimulus, which occurs on a level no other has done, and so is seductive. Brings the alien being, stuffed with knowledge and habits but with no understanding of the patterns, through the streets and parks to one particular door, a perfect choice made without choice, a design beginning to form—but not by design.
     

    “Mr. Grey,” she said, “or should I say Chief Inspector Grey or something?”
    “You could even find out my name,” he said, “although I’m rather enjoying having an alter ego.”
    “Whatever,” said Morgan. “Can you explain why there is a construction crew on my property?”
    “Oh. They’re putting up a shed for the surveillance operation. Your garden shed is far too small.” He had a rather pleasant smile, actually; it was the way he used it that pissed her off.
    “Ah. And my permission?”
    “I think you will find that the new security legislation passed in the last sitting of the House of Commons covers the matter quite thoroughly.”
    “I see.”
    “Of course, if you object, there are some other measures in law which could be taken.”
    “I object to the cameras.” She handed him the empty tissue box into which Jakob and Russ had dumped the little eyes after they disconnected them. “Twenty-five so far. I think we have most of them. The ones from the bathrooms were a little tricky to get.”
    “Ah,” he said. “Yes, well.”
    “Yes, well. The audio of course we can do little about, as well as any other equipment outside the house.”
    “I’m afraid that’s the case.”
    “Any way we can avoid