"Connie Willis - All Seated on the Ground" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

takes off again. I’d never believed the aliens would do that either, and they
didn’t, although they did land in the southwest, sort of.

They landed their spaceship in Denver, in the middle of the DU
campus, and marched—well, actually marched is the wrong word; the
Altairi’s method of locomotion is somewhere between a glide and a
waddle—straight up to the front door of University Hall in classic “Take me
to your leader” fashion.

And that was it. They (there were six of them) didn’t say, “Take us to
your leader!” or “One small step for aliens, one giant leap for alienkind,” or
even, “Earthmen, hand over your females.” Or your planet. They just stood
there.

And stood there. Police cars surrounded them, lights flashing. TV
news crews and reporters pointed cameras at them. F-16’s roared
overhead, snapping pictures of their spaceship and trying to determine
whether A) it had a force field, or B) weaponry, and C) they could blow it up
(they couldn’t). Half the city fled to the mountains in terror, creating an
enormous traffic jam on I-70, and the other half drove by the campus to see
what was going on, creating an enormous traffic jam on Evans.

The aliens, who by now had been dubbed the Altairi because an
astronomy professor at DU had announced they were from the star Altair in
the constellation Aquila (they weren’t), didn’t react to any of this, which
apparently convinced the president of DU they weren’t going to blow up the
place a la Independence Day. He came out and welcomed them to Earth
and to DU.

They continued to stand there. The mayor came and welcomed them
to Earth and to Denver. The governor came and welcomed them to Earth
and to Colorado, assured everyone it was perfectly safe to visit the state,
and implied the Altairi were just the latest in a long line of tourists who had
come from all over to see the magnificent Rockies, though that seemed
unlikely since they were facing the other way, and they didn’t turn around,
even when the governor walked past them to point at Pike’s Peak. They just
stood there, facing University Hall.
 They continued to stand there for the next three weeks, through an
endless series of welcoming speeches by scientists, State Department
officials, foreign dignitaries, and church and business leaders, and an
assortment of weather, including a late April snowstorm that broke
branches and power lines. If it hadn’t been for the expressions on their
faces, everybody would have assumed the Altairi were plants.

But no plant ever glared like that. It was a look of utter, withering
disapproval. The first time I saw it in person, I thought, oh, my God, it’s Aunt
Judith.

She was actually my father’s aunt, and she used to come over once a
month or so, dressed in a suit, a hat, and white gloves, and sit on the edge