ET n.

I was moved to concoct that fragment as a result of running through a file of magazines and comparing the ideas of the writers on the form that intelligent extra-terrestrials might have. The authors are nothing if not industrious in devising a variety of shapes for their e.-t.’s.

e.t.’s… Extra-terrestrials; natives of other worlds. Any resemblance to d.t.’s is probably not wholly coincidental.

The xenologists and e-t mineralogists who were crazy enough to work out there.

The Place has sectional gravity to suit our Extraterrestrial buddies—those crazy ETs sometimes come whooping in for recuperation in very mixed bunches.

The extraterrestrial (ET)…was therefore nonhuman by definition.

He couldn’t resist an opportunity to talk with an E.T., anywhere, anytime.

Blowing on it, he muttered as his temper slowly wound down. ‘Stupid, practical joking E.T.s…damned fickle aliens…’

‘You don’t agree with me that we’ve just met some ETs?’ Carol came up beside Nick and slightly teased him with her question. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered slowly. ‘It seems like quite a leap to make. After all, if there is an extraterrestrial infestation in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it should have been found before now. Submarines and other boats with active sonar must cross this region at least once or twice a year.’ He smiled at her. ‘You’ve been reading too much science fiction.’

What can I tell her convincingly? Of the iron Rule Number One in ET contacts?

When they first detected our distress call the astronomers went delirious: they thought they’d found an intelligent extraterrestrial signal, after more than a century of searching. They were sore as hell when they realized it was only a dinky old waterbot in trouble, not aliens trying to say hello. They didn’t give a rat’s ass of a hoot about Forty-niner and me, but as long as our Mayday was being beamed out their fancy radio telescope search for ETs was screwed.

‘Well, hello there!’ I heard my father say over the comm. ‘This is General Xavier Lightman of the Earth Defense Alliance. Where do you assholes think you’re headed?’ After a pause, he added: ‘Klaatu barada nikto, fellas.’ Then, perhaps taking his own stab at some gallows humor, he whistled the five-note message used to communicate with the friendly ETs in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The same tones that bookended each of the Europans’ montage transmissions.