Little Green Card
Knock-knock-knock, I open the door, guy standing there says 'I wanna emigrate'.
It's like 4.30 in the morning, I got up so quickly I put my skin on back to front, and all so that a short stranger with a bad-smelling cigar in his mouth can tell me he wants to emigrate.
"So emigrate. It's a free country. Please yourself."
He shakes his head. "No, you don't understand. I want to emigrate to where you come from."
It's still 4.30 in the morning, and where I come from we like to sleep later than that. "You wouldn't like it," I say. "Where I come from, you can't smoke."
Small guy chuckles. The cigar wobbles. "I live in New York City," he says. "No Smoking signs don't scare me."
Meanwhile I'm closing the door on him, but he gets his foot in the way. Not that a foot is such a big deal, but by now it's 4.31 and I'm waking up a little and I'm beginning to realise that nothing like this has ever happened before in all the time I've been here. I look at his face for the first time, it's not a mad face as far as I can tell, and I begin to think Uh-oh, maybe we've got a live one here.
The guy says, "Do you really wanna talk about this out here on the doorstep where anyone can hear your business?"
"I don't really want to talk about it at all," I explain. "I don't even know what we're talking about. Are you aware it's not even 4.33 in the morning yet?"
"Besides," he says, "this is an embassy, isn't it? The Embassy of the Planet 9Gamma?"
I begin to think well, you know, maybe he's right at that. You don't necessarily want the neighbours hearing a whole lot of crazy talk. Or even, at just gone 4.30 in the morning, the milkman. I invite the short guy in.
"Gary," he said, as I helped him out of his heavy coat. "Gary Parks."
We shook hands. It would have been easier if we'd finished taking his coat off first, but he was eager.
"Pleased to meet you, Gary, and my name is--"
"Your Excellency," said Gary. "That is, I believe, the correct form of address for those of ambassadorial rank."
"Well, suit yourself. I usually go by Ritchie."
He pointed his cigar up at me. "That accent. That's a total giveaway."
"It's a Lancashire accent, Gary. Not especially common here on the south coast, but certainly not unique. Listen, come through to the kitchen, I'll get the kettle on."
I watched him for signs of disappointment as we entered the kitchen, but I didn't see any. Which was slightly disconcerting. The kitchen was small--just about room enough for us both to sit down by the fire, if we didn't mind our knees bumping. It was a small house, a terraced house, two bedrooms, one living room. Built to house Victorian working folk. Nothing grand about it.
"Have a seat, Gary. Tea?"
"Sure. What's that?"
"This? This is a gas lighter." I lit the flame under the kettle with the hand-held sparker. "See? What, you don't have these in New York?"
"I'm all electric."
"What did you think it was?" I pointed it at him.
He rubbed at his nose a little. "I don't know. Immobiliser ray, or whatever. I'm not really a technology guy."
"Well, it's a gas lighter. Has a battery in the handle. Lights the gas. Milk and sugar?"
"Sure. Thanks." While the tea was standing, I took the opportunity to scratch my lower spine. It was itching me to buggery-and-back.
"You in pain, Your Excellency?" He was staring at my contorted features, and he sounded concerned. Or excited.
"Ritchie," I said.
"Sure, Ritchie. You're not having a heart attack, are you?"
"No, no, it's nothing. I've just got my skin on back to front."
"Oh, I'm sorry," said Gary, and he stood up and turned his back on me.
Nice manners, Americans have. So, I thought--hell, why not? I made my adjustments, and then I said: "OK, that's better. Sit down, Gary, your tea's just about ready."
"That happens a lot, I suppose. With the skin, I mean."
I poured the tea. "So, Gary--you're a long way from home."
He put sugar in his tea. "Aren't we all, Ritchie?"
I sat down opposite him. "What brings you to the UK? Specifically, to an English seaside resort in the off-season?"
He stirred his tea for a while, then he said: "I thought I made that clear, Your Excellency. I wish to apply for permission to emigrate. To your homeland."
I don't take sugar, so I had nothing to stir. "Gary, look, I don't know what you think--"
"What I know," he said, "never mind what I think, what I know is that you people have been here for several decades, at the very least, that the governments of the Earth know about you, and deal with you, that your presence here has been kept a secret from the peoples of the Earth so that the rich and powerful can keep control of all your technology for themselves, and that this here is your Embassy to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It's a secret embassy, obviously, which is why it looks like such a dump."
I laughed. "A secret deal between space aliens and politicians? Oh please, Gary! Next you'll be telling me all about the secret Jewish world government, and the Catholics and the Communists and the--what do you call them--Illuminators?"
"Illuminati," said Gary.
"There you go! Illuminati. There you go. Them and the Jews, huh?"
He banged his teacup down in its saucer. "No, no, please, I'm not one of those crazies! I'm not one of those conspiracy nuts. For God's sake, me anti-Semitic? Please, my ex-wife was Jewish."
I gave him what they call in Lancashire an 'old-fashioned' look. "Your ex-wife was Jewish, and you tell me you're not an anti-Semite?"
He chuckled. His cigar didn't wobble, because he'd already put it out. "Actually, she's--I call her my ex-wife, but in fact she's dead."
Ah. Well, that made sense of things a bit. "I'm sorry. My sympathies, Gary, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah, about eighteen months ago. Matter of fact, that's one of the reasons I want to emigrate. Nothing much left for me here."
"Sure, sure. Of course. I'm sorry. Look, you ever had a Full English Breakfast?"
"No, I guess not."
"Me neither. Tell you the truth, I don't think it actually exists. Except in the imagination of the Tourist Board. All anyone in this country eats for breakfast is cereal. One thing I loved about New York when I was there, everyone goes out for breakfast. They still do that?"
"Yeah, I guess." He reached into his coat pocket. "I brought all my documents with me."
I walked over to the refrigerator and began rooting around in there. "I think I've got some bacon in here, somewhere. Eggs, maybe a few tomatoes. That and some fried bread, what do you say? Go down well on a cold morning, wouldn't it?"
He came up and stood behind me, and shoved something towards me. It was a US passport.
"Well," I said. "An American with a passport. There's a rarity." I dug out the frying pan, and chucked in some rashers.
"Yeah, we're not exactly the best-travelled people in the galaxy are we? But I guess you could say I'm sort of a deracinated Yank."
"Oh? How do you mean?"
"You know. The years I've spent researching--all this." He waved a hand around at the little kitchen. "You guys, and everything. I suppose I think of myself as more of an Earthman than an American, really."
I added the tomatoes to the pan. "You do eat bacon, do you?"
"Sure. I like bacon." He sat down again, and drank some more of his tea. "Smells good, in fact."
"Help yourself to more tea. There's plenty in the pot."
"Thanks, I'm good. Matter of fact, I have two passports."
"Two?"
"Yeah, my mother was British."
"Get away. From around here?"
"No, from somewhere in Scotland. West Scotland I think."
"An American who doesn't know precisely where his Scots ancestors came from? Now that is a rarity!"
He didn't join in the joke this time. "Well, see, she died when I was young."
"Oh, mate--I'm sorry."
"Yeah. Just a kid, really. Her and me both, I mean."
"I'm sorry, Gary. You've had a tough time. What about your father, was he British too?"
"No, he was--no, he wasn't British."
Breakfast was ready, and it went down well. While we ate, I wondered what I was going to do about Gary. Whether I was going to be kind, but efficient. Or whether I was just going to be efficient.
"Suppose," I said, "that all you believe were true."
Gary nodded. "Sure." I was washing and he was drying. He was more meticulous about drying than I was about washing.
"Just supposing, I mean. What makes you think you can just walk in off the street, onto the sovereign territory of another nation, and simply expect to be given emigration rights. Just like that? You wouldn't get far at Australia House with that approach, I'll tell you. At 4.30 in the morning."
He put down the tea towel. "See, that's why I brought all my documents. I've got my passports--"
"I know, I know."
"--my birth certificate, my health insurance, my--"
"But, Gary, there's more to it than that. Even if I was who you thought I was, I couldn't just immigrate you by clicking my fingers. It doesn't work like that."
He put his hands in his pockets, and looked at the floor. "What, you don't think I'd make a good citizen? Well, I think I would, I think I could--I'm good at fitting in. For instance, I'm not Jewish, but my ex-wife's family, they accepted me one hundred per cent right from the start. That's the sort of guy I am. I'm an adaptable guy."
I put a hand on his shoulder, and made him look at me. "Gary, Gary! I think you'd make a great citizen. You're a hell of a nice guy, I can see that. You are a diamond geezer, a good bloke. I just don't have the authority. I mean, even if I were who you think--"
"Ambassadors can do that." He was still sulking. "I looked it up."
"Not this one," I said. "I'm sorry."
He went over to his chair and picked up his coat. "Maybe I should try one of your other embassies. I found this one, I can find the others."
I got between him and the door. Not being too obvious, I hoped, but I got there all the same. "Gary, listen--sit down. How's this? All right? Sit down, I'll get a pad from my office, I'll take down your details. All right? I can't really say fairer than that."
"Sure. OK." He sat down. "Sure. An official form--is that what you're saying? It's an official immigration form, and you're going to fetch it from your office."
"That's it," I said. "An official form. You wait there." I fetched a plain yellow legal pad from my bedside table--sometimes I wake up at night and I write poems to help me sleep--and a ballpoint pen and a plastic folder to put the pad in. I looked at another thing, a kind of sharp little thing, which I might have picked up, but I left it where it was, pretty sure I didn't need it. Sad, really, if you think about it one way, but there you go: I was pretty sure I wouldn't be needing it.
Gary was where I'd left him. That was sad too, in a way.
"OK," I said. "Let's get some details down. See what happens from there."
"Sure," said Gary. "Thanks. I have all my documents right here."
He told me stuff and I pretended to write it down. Squiggle-squiggle, what did he know?
"Is that what writing looks like on 9Gamma?" he said.
"No," I told him. "This is shorthand. I learned it at Brighton Tech."
Name, address, date of birth ... then name, address, date of birth.
"I just gave you--"
"Everything has to be done in triplicate, Gary. Obviously."
He held up a palm to acknowledge his culpa. "Of course, of course." He shifted around in his seat, fiddled with the buttons of his coat across his lap. "Sure, I understand. Of course." Name, address, date of birth.
Occupation of applicant. "What do you do for a living there in Gotham, Gary?"
"I used to work as assistant manager of a small bakery. My ex-wife's family--"
"Hold on, Gary: used to work? What are you telling me, you're unemployed?"
"No, no--listen! I'm not unemployed, I mean the job's still there if I want it. I just mean, you know, I gave it up so I could--"
"OK, Gary. Occupation of applicant...?"
Mother's details, father's details. Snag. Hesitation. Applicant looks uncomfortable.
"What is it, Gary? You don't know your father's place of birth? Don't worry about that, that's nothing to be--"
"What it is, Your Excellency..."
"I'm Ritchie."
"The thing is ... Look, hey, I'm not saying this to blame you, I mean I'm not looking for compensation or anything but--I think my father might have been one of your people."
I shook my head. "Impossible."
"What it is, Ritchie--I believe my mother was what they call an abductee."
I put the pad down. "Gary, there's no such thing."
"No, but what I'm saying--"
"The people who you think I am--if they existed, those people--I can tell you now, categorically, they don't go around abducting people."
"You don't?"
"No, Gary. You might find this hard to believe, but having travelled uncounted billions of miles through the dark wastes of infinite space, the first thing we want to do when we arrive isn't pick up a bubba's wife outside a truck stop, sodomise her, and dump her in a turnip field in Arkansas."
He had to sit back with that one for a while. Run it through his head, with his lips moving and his eyes screwed up. "But all those people--all those abductees. I mean, there's hundreds of thousands of them. They can't all be lying or mad."
I put my elbows on the table between us and leant forward and looked right in his eyes and said quietly: "Gary, why not?"
He looked back at me and beyond me and eventually he said: "Well, yeah, now you come to mention it, no reason at all. I guess. Well, shit, what do you know."
"OK, so father's place of birth--unknown. Thrice unknown."
"Is that going to be a problem? Could that count against me? Because, maybe--"
"I don't see it being a big issue, Gary, in the long term. Relax. Don't worry about it. Let's move on." I pretended to read back my shorthand under my breath while I tried to think up some more questions. I wanted to do this properly. Efficient and kind, I was going for.
"The unemployment thing," said Gary, not taking the silence very well. "I could get a reference letter, I mean I'm sure I could get that faxed over here if--"
I shook my head. "Not important. What is important: what skills etcetera would you bring to your new land?"
Gary took a cigar out of his coat pocket, lit it, apologised and asked if I minded. I didn't. "Skills?"
"Skills etcetera," I said. "In your own words." I leant back, pen behind my ear, arms crossed.
"Well ... like I said, I don't really have that much going on in New York any more. Also--"
"That's not a skill, Gary, nor an etcetera. It's a personal sadness, which is a different thing." Cruel to be kind. Kind and efficient. Doing it properly.
"Sure, right, but I was going to say--I can mix real well. I'm a good mixer. I get on with people."
"People?"
"Yeah, yeah--you know, people of all races and colours and ... What can I tell you? I'm easygoing." He frowned. "I guess it's not much, when you look at it. And I don't suppose you have a whole big crying-out need for bakery managers where you come from."
"In Lancashire? No, all vacancies taken. But don't put yourself down. What you said--that's true. You do get on with people. I don't usually open up my kitchen to complete strangers at 4.30 in the morning, believe me. I opened up for you, didn't I? Cooked you an English breakfast. That's a useful skill, in anybody's language."
"It is?"
"Sure. Look how far it's got you here today. I'm going to write it down. Under 'what skills etcetera,' I'm going to put 'exceptional interpersonal abilities'."
"OK. Great."
Squiggle-squiggle. Going well, kind and efficient, but I was running out. Going to have to be efficient and kind now. "OK, Gary, that's about it."
"It is?"
Scanning the squiggles, nodding my head, "Yup ... uh-huh ... right ... Yeah, that's the lot. What I'm going to do now, I'm going to run this through the computer downstairs."
He went pale, and his cigar went out. "Oh God. Really? Oh God. Thanks."
"So let me shake your hand and wish you good luck, and you just sit there while I--"
"How long will it take, do you think? Until I get an answer? Will it be today?"
"Half an hour, something like that." I didn't want to drag it out any longer, I'd done my bit, surely-to-hell. "An hour, depends how busy the network is."
"Sure. Yeah, sure. God, I don't believe it. Wish me luck."
"Good luck," I said. I poured him a glass of brandy, and he drank half of it straight off and said wish me luck again so I wished him luck. And then something else came out of my mouth, as if my mouth wasn't really under my control, as if it was sovereign territory, a bit like when I wake up in the night and write poetry and in the morning I don't know what I've written until I look at the yellow pad.
I said: "Aren't you afraid they'd have to kill you?"
"What?"
"If you went to a secret alien embassy and knocked on the door and said you knew all about them. Wouldn't they have to kill you, don't you think, because they couldn't let you walk around with all that secret knowledge?"
Gary seemed pretty relaxed about that. "Well, I don't know why they would." He meant it, I could tell by his face, by the set of his shoulders. "I certainly don't know any more now than I did when I came in. Except that you don't abduct people and I don't know why you wouldn't want that getting out--unless maybe you have shares in one of the supermarket tabloids."
He laughed, and I sort of did too. "Now there's an idea! My accountant missed a trick there."
"Anyhow, you don't want to kill people."
"No?"
"No, hell. You don't like killing people. Who does, except crazy psychos? And doctors. Whole lot easier, seems to me, you just give me my little green card, I emigrate, then everyone's happy. Well, everyone except my plumber--I owe him two hundred bucks that he's never going to see in this life, the cheating little shit."
"You don't strike me as the sort to stiff a tradesman," I said.
"Well, this guy, he pretty much stiffed me to begin with."
"Then, fair enough, I guess."
"Besides, going back to if you'd kill me and all that, I've got this." From underneath the coat on his lap he produced the gas lighter. He showed it to me, but he was careful not to point it at me.
All it was was a gas lighter, it came with the stove, but I didn't say anything about that.
I sat in the basement for a while, thinking, twiddling with a few things. Give it half an hour, I was thinking. Make it look right. When he's gone, I'll go back to bed, catch up a bit. Where I come from people don't get up at 4.30 in the morning, not for anything.
I lasted ten minutes, then I had to go back to the kitchen. Half an hour was beyond my powers.
This thing I had buzzing in my head was neither efficient nor kind, because really I couldn't imagine what alternative ending there was except that there wasn't one. But kind and efficient to me. In the solemn name of insomnia, I had to say this one last thing to him.
He stood up as I entered the kitchen. His eyes asked. His shoulders pleaded. His cigar lay forgotten. The gas lighter was back on the counter next to the stove.
"Gary, you know I said you couldn't smoke where I come from?"
"Oh, sure, I forgot." He looked around for his cigar, found it, started stubbing it out.
"No, that's not my point, enjoy your cigar. My point is, you can't smoke there because--well, to simplify things somewhat, to put it simply, there's no oxygen. No air."
"Oh. OK, I understand."
"Do you understand? A human being landing on my planet is going to survive for about one second." A lot less than that, probably, but I was simplifying. "It's physically impossible for humans to live there."
He made a smile with half his face and said: "Then how come you can live here?"
"Oh Gary, think about it! Think about it, will you--we're superior beings, man! We are zillions of years ahead of you in every way."
"Oh. Oh yeah, sure, I forgot."
"We came to your planet, remember. You didn't come to ours."
He nodded. I wished he'd smoke his cigar. "Sure, yeah, sure. Obviously."
"I mean, Gary, I'll tell you how advanced we are--where I come from not only don't we abduct abductees, but we wouldn't even think up such a crazy story. That's how advanced we are--even our liars and our crazy people are a zillion years ahead of yours."
I was panting a little. A zillion years of superiority, and I was panting. I didn't know what I wanted his reaction to be. Either way, it couldn't change the end, only the details. I think I just wanted him to get it.
"Thing is," he said, "if I'm a kind of half-breed, like I suspect--"
"I thought I explained that."
"Yeah, but I'm just saying, if. You know?"
I sat down next to him. Our knees bumped. "Have a cigar, Gary. In fact, give me one of those, will you?" We smoked our cigars. He tried to speak once or twice, but I shushed him. I just wanted to be quiet and enjoy the smoke. Wasn't a bad cigar. Not Cuban, but not bad.
When we'd finished, he said: "I figure I'll take my chances, you know?"
I stood. He stood. "Gary, in that case, I have some very good news for you."
"The computer?"
"Yes, the computer has processed your application, and--well, you're in."
"Oh my God."
I squiggled on the yellow pad and showed it to him. "You know what that is?"
He shook his head.
"That is your citizenship number. Eventually, you're going to have to memorise that, but you can worry about that at the other end."
"OK. Oh my God."
"Well, if you're about ready...?"
"What about--do I need papers? You haven't given me any papers, and I don't know if I can memorise my citizenship number right away, because the script is unfamiliar, so--"
"Of course." I looked around the kitchen, and saw a little bit of metal lying on the windowsill. "I have to do something, Gary, and I'm afraid it's going to hurt a little. Actually, it's going to hurt. Forget I said little."
"OK, sure."
It did hurt, and he was delighted. He looked at the metal piercing the flesh of his arm.
"When you get there, Gary--"
"It looks just like a paperclip."
"That's right, it's supposed to. When you get there, this will convey all the necessary information to the authorities at the other end. You just show them this, and they'll take it from there." I was in a hurry now. I wanted to get back to bed, that's all I wanted to do, even if it meant writing poetry, I just wanted to get back to bed. I gave him a paper towel for the blood on his arm, and I took him down to the basement, and I sent him through. From kitchen to destination, the whole thing took about two minutes, so as it turns out the last substantive words of his life were It looks just like a paperclip.
Later I asked around and I discovered that although this was the first time this had ever happened to me, and the first time I'd ever heard of it, it wasn't the first time it had ever happened. Every now and then, it seems, some crazy earthman--well, maybe that's not fair; crazy, they could be, or idealistic, or ambitious, or all three or something else altogether--anyway, some person will turn up at the door of one of our places, demanding citizenship or asylum or a guided tour, or wanting to sell us some coloured beads. And what we generally do in such cases, it seems, is kill the poor bastards and dispose of them via the basement. Or else turn them over to the native authorities and let them deal with it.
I think my way was kinder. At least my poor bastard got a decent breakfast inside him first. A proper, stick-to-the-ribs English breakfast. When he'd gone, I came back upstairs, and opened the windows to let the smoke out, and screwed up the yellow squiggle sheets and tossed them on the fire in the tiny kitchen.
First published in Interzone in 2002, this story is fairly typical of my approach to SF: I start with a common science-fictional or fortean cliché (such as secret deals between spacemen and Earth governments) and speculate about some of the mundane details, the practicalities. If, like me, you spent your childhood wondering where the dustbins were on the Tardis, you'll know just what I'm talking about.
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