Damocles by S. G. Redling

this point. When you’re dealing with an advanced race, you can’t make assumptions.”
    “What makes you think they’re advanced?”
    “Well, they just landed from outer space. I think that’s a clue.”
    Before Mamu could comment, a flurry of activity rippled back from the barricade. The door of the shuttle cracked open, the seal breaking with a hiss quiet enough that only the most sensitive recording equipment tipped off the crowd. The soldiers holding the barrier bars tightened their stance as cameras and pom-guns wheeled into position to cover every inch of whatever was emerging from the vessel.
    Loul pressed in tight against Mamu and his work partner to watch the video display of the high-mounted camera. The Red Sun fell low on the horizon, warm light pouring between the barricades and the ship. He wondered if the occupants had waited until the harshest of the lights would not be shining directly into their eyes. If they had eyes. The ship’s door swung out and metal steps lowered to the ground. This was really happening. Contact with extraterrestrial life was happening right now.
    Loul’s first thought was “shit, they’re tall.” Then, “shit, they’re real.” Then, “shit, they’re really tall.” Again he felt a deep and juvenile longing to have Po and Hark here with him so they could celebrate this unbelievable sight. Also so he could throw it in Po’s face that Loul’s belief of what space travelers would look like was more accurate than Po’s. Po had always held out the belief that alien life would be reptilian and very small due to the demands of space travel. Loul had held that gravitational and environmental conditions would be different on different worlds and space travelers could well be twice the size of an average Dideto. Squinting at the forms in the monitors, he wouldn’t say they were twice the size, but they were certainly a head or two taller than even himself.
    They wore space suits, again something Loul silently applauded himself for predicting, and he wondered how much of their size was suit and how much body. Or was it possible that the bodies and the suits were interrelated, a sort of biomechanicalcomposition that made space travel possible? He could hear his own pulse pounding beneath his jawbone as he resisted the urge to push the barricades out of the way and see these creatures with his own eyes.
    They moved silently, slowly. Their impossibly long legs bent with the gracefulness of the waterbirds that staked out the lake behind his parents’ house. That’s what they put Loul in mind of—tall, silver waterbirds. They even moved in the same chevron formation. Gray shaded visors covered their faces, and Loul’s mind nearly melted running through the possible facial formations hidden beneath them. Were they birdlike? Reptilian? Despite the elongation of their bodies, they had a human appearance. Maybe they could take on any shape they encountered?
    Several steps away from the ship the team of five stopped, standing perfectly still. With no view of their faces, it was impossible to tell if their stance was aggressive or passive. With every inch of their bodies encased in the gray suits, Loul couldn’t even be certain they were alive and not some sort of humanoid machine. They stood still for several long moments, the crowd behind the barricade rippling with excitement and activity, radios squawking as archivists and consultants jockeyed for the best position. Finally Loul saw the three ranking generals lining up behind the central barricade and felt a pulse of pride shoot through his gut. They were following the protocol he himself had recommended all those years ago—that if alien contact occurred, to face it with ranking officials unarmed, surrounded by military in a nonaggressive stance. He had explained that by showing the invaders weaponless leaders, they would be silently giving a message of fearlessness.
    It had made sense at the time, but at the time there