By Frank Roberts

Craig opened his eyes. And shut them right back again, desperately wishing the room would stop spinning.

“Ah, I see you finally woke up, Dr. Donovan.” He heard someone say.

He carefully crack-opened his left eye and scanned the room. It seemed calm, but somehow he didn’t quite trust it yet. Finally he opened both eyes and looked around, trying to figure out where he was and how the hell he could have managed to change the sheets on his bed while he was sleeping in it.

He saw a large room with snow-white walls and ceiling, with a number of beds, of which about one third was occupied. Guessing he was in a hospital, he tried remembering how he ended up in bed, while visiting one of his patients. He always took care to maintain a professional detachment. There was no way he could have… Then it hit him: the accident. He was driving home when a red “BMW” flung at him from around the curve and, trying to avoid a head-to-head collision, he slammed into the side barrier. So, in this case he’d be the one visited.

“I’d like to discuss a job offering, if you don’t mind.” He heard the same voice again.

Craig looked around him again and, surprisingly, he saw no one, save from his roommates. Come to think of it, he didn’t see anyone on the first look either. So, either this someone wasn’t there (brilliant thinking, isn’t it) or he moved really, really fast. Craig was more inclined to believe the former, which meant he was beginning to hear voices. Which, for some reason beyond him, were offering him a job. On the other hand, with him being a psychiatrist, it made sense. And could be seen coming a mile away, with all the lunatics he had been treating all these years.

“Dr. Donovan?” Said the voice again. “I know you can hear me.”

Well, it was persistent, if nothing else. But Craig was taught from childhood never to talk to strangers. He grew up since then and talk to many people that were really strange, but he didn’t like the cocksureness of this voice. Besides there’s not much use talking to voices that exist solely in your own head, is there? Then again, he didn’t have anything else to do. Besides, he thought he ought to try and solve this thing himself before turning to others, even if those others were his friends.

“Hello?” He ventured cautiously.

“Finally! Good morning, Dr. Donovan.” Said the voice and Craig noticed something strange: it wasn’t a voice in the conventional sense. He didn’t hear anything. It was as though concepts appeared straight in his mind, not bothering to enter it by any of his five senses, and were translated into words he could understand. Then he digested the words he “heard”.

“What do you mean “finally”? You’re my voices, so please behave yourself in the appropriate manner.” He said, offended.

“Voices? I don’t— Oh… I see. You think you have gone mental and hear voices. I assure you, doctor, that you are exceptionally healthy. I’m regarding your mental state, of course. Your physical well-being is somewhat limited at the moment, as you have probably already deduced.”

“You bet your sorry— Wait a minute, if you’re not voices I’m hearing, who the heck are you? And why am I hearing you?”

“That’s rather hard to explain… Well, in short, I represent what you call aliens and I’m speaking with you, using what you’d call telepathy. Of course, it’s not telepathy in the exact sense you seem to…”

“Hold it.” Craig interrupted what seemed to turn into a long lecture, which he strongly doubted he could understand. “You’re trying to tell me aliens actually exist and all those people who were sent to me were treated for no reason at all?”

“Well.. No. The people you treated were actual loonies. We don’t use flying saucers. Hardly ever did: a very ineffective way of getting somewhere, much like your own transportation means. And “aliens” as you understand them don’t exist. There are no “little green men” or, at least, we haven’t found them so far. However, in the traditional meaning of the word, which is “different from”, we are alien to you. You see, life has evolved all over the universe, defying the scientific notion that the odds of that are incredibly small. And, once again defying all rules of probability, it has evolved into the same form humans wear. That is, there are men out there, but they’re neither little nor green. We all look about the same. Allowing the usual dispersion of personality perks, of course. However, we are also all different in many ways. Some of the “aliens” developed other skills than “humans” in their battle for survival. This “telepathy” is one of those skills. You have several others. Once an official contact between different “alien” government had occurred, it was decided all of these skills should be developed by all civilizations. This is where people like me, the contacters, come into lives of people like you, the contactees.”

“Why?” It wasn’t the smartest thing he could’ve said, but nothing else came to mind at the moment.

“Oh, come on, doctor, you’re an intelligent man… But I suppose there is the shock factor… Alright, lets start with defining the term “contactee”: The contactee is an individual, who, by a certain set of circumstances, came to possession of some skill he (or she. We don’t have any sex distinctions, except… Well, when mating.) did not previously possess, nor would have, had it not been for those circumstances. Naturally, those individuals are of our highest interests, as they might give us the key to uniting all of our “humanities” into one single people. You, doctor, have developed the telepathy skill.”

“Pardon? How do you figure that?”

“Please, Dr. Donovan, you don’t really think I can hear your words? You answer me by transmitting your thoughts.”

Craig nodded slowly. “You’re probably right. And that means I don’t have to know, ever see or even hear about a person in order to talk to him… Basically, I can talk to anyone on the whole planet.”

“If that person can answer you, yes.”

“I wonder if it’s limited by distance… Wait a minute, if you can’t hear me, how’d you know I was talking?”

“I’m disappointed, doctor; just when I was sure you managed to get a hold of your senses… It doesn’t take a college degree to know you’d use the form of communication you know best to reply to me. At least, until I pointed out you could use another way.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said, or thought, Craig. “Guess I could’ve figured it out myself. Anyway, what’s that job you were talking about?”

“Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. Congratulations, doctor, the first shock is over. Now comes the tough part.”

“The tough part?”

“Yes, well, so far the contactees have reacted in one of two ways: they either work with us or they commit suicide. We much prefer the former, but the second choice is still a quite popular one.”

“I’ll bet. Not much of a happy life once you become a freak of nature.”

“That’s the general motivation, yes. However, this is the first time we’ve had a psychiatrist become a contactee. Perhaps, you’ll be the one to start a new line of responses.”

Craig pressed his lips together, forgetting his conversation partner couldn’t see him. “Perhaps. But you still haven’t told me what the job is.”

“Well, we need to study what enabled you to develop the skill, if we are ever to reach our goal. Then every planet, including yours, will be able to use it.”

“Are you trying to convince me to give my brain up for testing?”

“Well, I… Oh. No, we don’t need to kill the patient in order to study him. That stage of science is long gone. Speaking of which, we are trying to get the necessary equipment to be developed on your planet as well. Anyway, all you will have to do is show up in our research facility once every while for an examination. And then, while we process the new data, you’re free to live your life exactly as you lived it before you heard of us. Naturally, your time and efforts will be compensated.”

“Research facility? Where is that?”

The voice seemed to giggle. “You’ll love the location: it’s in what you call the Bermuda triangle.”

“Where the planes disappeared?”

“Quite right. Things were quite a load of trouble: for a while we had no way of knowing when they would appear and our teleportahad to go on as scheduled. Some of your planes got caught in the outgoing beam. Once they were off the planet, we couldn’t return them, so we had to accommodate them wherever it was they ended up. Since the planets are mostly similar it wasn’t such a difficult task, but it still required handling. Of course, since then we have managed to get hold of the schedules of the planes going over our skies and that mistake never happened again.”

Craig closed his eyes. “Well, that’s definitely a lot to think about and I’m definitely in the place to think things through. Why don’t you call me after I check out? I ought to have decided by then.”

“Of course, Dr. I will be anticipating our next meeting.”

Craig Donovan lay on his bed, trying to grasp the ideas he’d just been presented and make a decision. Of course, deep in his heart he already knew what it would be and, as he later found out, so did the “aliens”: the suicidal contactees simply weren’t contacted anymore.