I've got a list of names | Glowfic Constellation

Afen is disappointed in the universe. He bounds back and forth across his room explaining why to his wife, his infant granddaughter, the end table, and a reporter flabbergasted by her good luck and cringing silently against the wall in the hopes he won't remember she's there.

"There is no reason to suppose that a species evolving independently of Amentans, with their own evolutionary history and living mammalian species likely related to theirs, would end up looking like us. None. Every explanation every scientist has ventured to the press has been unimaginative and unconvincing retroactive refitting of bad models to baffling data. Aliens shouldn't look like us but with different hair colors. Aliens that are not made out of carbon at all would be unsurprising; aliens with only as much physiological dissimilarity as exists between us and animal species on our planet would be mildly surprising; aliens with opposable thumbs would be truly remarkable. This is not remarkable and biologically enlightening; this is just inconsistent with everything we understand about the universe. It doesn't teach us new things about evolution; it should make us rethink evolution. - don't quote that part, they'll take it out of context."

Reporter nods rapidly.

"All of that said, I've picked up three of the languages and I'm working on building a good machine translator, it's a challenge with as little as they've produced in the way of electronic records. I'm absolutely going there to meet them as soon as the politicians figure out what to do with themselves."

"Do you have any predictions about that?"

"About politics? Why would I have predictions about politics? They deliberately obscure relevant information, for one thing, and for another it's deathly boring."

"- I mean, sir, surely you hear from your son about -"

"I have seven children and some of them are very dense indeed but not quite dense enough to try to interest me in politics."

"I was referring to -"

"I know who you were referring to. If you want a statement from Aitim go bother Aitim."

"Thank you for your time."

"I did not alter my activities in response to your presence and therefore you can't yet be said to have wasted any of my time though you should go before you do."

...out skitters the reporter.

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"People are going to die of neglect if you keep shouting them away. We're here to help. I don't know what dentist you're talking about but we're definitely not supposed to perform any involuntary sterilizations here."

"Oh, where are those performed?"

"I don't know all the rules for other regions. It's safe in Massachusetts. Please go away."

"It's not safe in Massachusetts. They lived right across the way. The place they took her to was that building -" he points - "right over there. Right here in Boston the aliens sterilized someone against her will for no reason! They're monsters! Don't trust them! Don't work for them, don't ever tell them anything, help hide people who they're looking for!" He has turned back to the street.

The pediatrician takes to rushing out to talk to people who look possibly on the way to the clinic and talking to them before they get too close to Theodore.

Theodore follows her. "They sterilized my sister-in-law. She went to the dentist not five blocks from here and they took her to that building right there and sterilized her. Don't trust her. She's going to take away your children. You can never trust an alien. Don't ever use their birth control, don't let them vaccinate your children. If you're not married, get married right now so you can have children before they sterilize you!"

A feverish little kid looks blearily up at him and his brother looks uncertainly between pleading pediatrician and Theodore.

"What's your name?" he says to the feverish kid.

"R-r-r-roger."

"Family name?"

"Cartwright," says Roger's brother, "why?"

"Look, I can help you. I won't do anything else," says the pediatrician.

"My sister in law is Kitty Carver and she went in to get a tooth looked at and they sterilized her. I'll come find you, he'll be okay, I swear he'll be okay, but the aliens hate us and they lie, everything they say is a lie. Ask her whether she wants to let Roger grow up and be the father of as many children as he wants, she doesn't, she wants to sterilize him so they can fill the world with their own children."

"I don't! I don't even know how to do that!" exclaims the pediatrician.

"How do you figure he'll be okay," asks the elder Cartwright.

"I'll make you a deal," Theodore says to the pediatrician, "If you let me throw out all of the birth control in the clinic and stop offering people that I'll stop bothering you."

"I run a pediatric office! I don't have any! I can't even get you into the supply cabinets for the other doctors!"

"Do you want Roger to grow up and be allowed to have as many children as he wants?"

"I want him to grow up! He could die!"

"And be allowed to have the children he wants, that part is important, do you want Roger to live in a world where he can have the children he wants."

"He's nine! Get away from my patients!"

"I have better medicine," Theodore says to Roger's brother. "They hate us, they can't be trusted, she hasn't even said that one of the other doctors won't do it, just that she doesn't know how. She thinks they have the right, and so you can't trust her - I have medicine made by humans for humans and he'll be okay but they are evil and they are lying and she doesn't want him to have a good human life as a free Massachusetts citizen, she doesn't have any idea what a good human life is."

"Humans don't have medicine that consistently works!"

"I don't want to leave to get it now because I want to warn more people," Theodore says, "...but I guess I could leave and get it now, if you'll help me warn people off the clinics once Roger's better."

"Please just come in and I'll treat the disease and I won't do anything else," the pediatrician says. "He's making it up, he won't have anything better than willow bark and leeches - please let me help -"

Elder Cartwright brother is uncertain.

"They can't all be evil. But one who won't even admit 'yes, we sterilized a woman for being a bit slow, when she'd only just gone to the dentist, because we believe it's good to sterilize people for that' - you can't trust ones who won't even admit it. Look, you can come back tomorrow if he isn't all better overnight."