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Walt Horndel hadn't meant to kill his wife. She'd just been in one of her snotty moods, jabbering about why couldn't he tell her when he was coming home late, and how did he expect her to have dinner ready when he got in if she didn't know when he was getting in, and like that. Walt decided to use the technique he called the "blitzkrieg" -- a sudden punch in the face, to let Tracy know she'd stepped over the line and he didn't want to hear any of her bullshit. Only this time there'd been a crack -- an audible crack from her neck, like when you pull on a turkey wishbone. She fell on the floor and just lay there, her head turned to the side, and he realized suddenly that he must have hit her too hard. It wasn't his fault. He'd just underestimated his strength a bit. It was her fault, really, for jabbering at him like that when he'd just gotten back from a long, hard day at work. Sure, the last five hours of the long, hard day at work had taken place at Tresko's Bar and Grill, but so what? Sometimes you had to relax, unwind. Who didn't? "Aw, geez," he said, looking down at Tracy's body on the kitchen floor. "Aw, hell. God damn you, Tracy, look what you went and made me do. Son of a bitch..." Then she moved, and Walt felt a little better. "Don't you give me a scare like that, you bitch," he said. But he was smiling. He was glad he didn't have to make up some kind of story for the cops. * * * Eerceon had entered the planet's atmosphere earlier that day. It had gone around the planet's magnetic belts and descended through one of the clear zones over the poles, then headed for the temperate zone. Even aside from the magnetic belts, though, the background and artificial electromagnetic fields were complex and required some tricky maneuvering on Eerceon's part. It waited a while, resting. Eerceon had picked up TV signals long before it had gotten to the Earth, and although it couldn't see the images, it was clear that they had been produced by intelligent life. Now it just had to find a likely host. The place it landed had a brown dirt floor with small green plants growing in it here and there. Tall brown trees around it had green leaves. The first animal life-form Eerceon encountered was a squirrel. Almost certainly this being was too small to be the local intelligence. It went up a hillside to what looked like a level plateau. There was a metal railing around a road on the plateau, a clear sign of a technological society. The first humans Eerceon encountered sped by in a blue-and-silver blur too fast for it to catch. They were using a vehicle powered by some sort of thermal engine. Ingenious, really. Eventually, Eerceon came to a house. But the life-forms inside were alive, and Eerceon was too ethical to take over a life-form's body while the life-form was still using it. The second house was the same way. And the third, fourth, and fifth. The sixth time, Eerceon was incredibly lucky. A life-form seemed to die just as Eerceon entered the room. Eerceon carefully checked the electromagnetic patterns in the life-form's nervous system. There had definitely been an interruption. The field activity was unmistakably becoming more random. It fit the pattern Eerceon had seen on hundreds of worlds for central nervous system death in a large animal. It entered the life-form's body just to make sure. If the life-form revived, Eerceon would of course leave at once. In the body, it checked the genome; simulated meiosis and likely embryonic development. In short order it had a fair idea of how a human body worked. Yes, this life-form was very definitely dead. Killed, apparently, by the other life-form in the room. Eerceon was still, contemplating that finding. If one intelligent life-form had killed another, one or the other must have been egregiously in the wrong. It decided to find out which. It repaired the most important damage to the body, the disruption of the central nervous system and the vertebrae and ligaments protecting the spinal cord. Eerceon's control of the body at all levels was total, down to the molecular level, and it completed the repairs very quickly. * * * Eerceon came to with Walt patting her face. "You okay, honey? I didn't really mean to hit you that hard. I'm sorry, honey. Here, have some water." A small vessel contacted Eerceon's lips and water flowed into her mouth. She quickly tested the water, found that it was mostly pure, and decided to gulp it down. "That's better," said Walt. "I'm really sorry. Think you can get up and give me my dinner now?" "Dinner now," said Eerceon, trying out the mouth and vocal cords. "Yeah. How 'bout it. Been a long day." Eerceon was rapidly checking the meanings of the phonemes it was picking up in the dead woman's memory. It played back some of the memories it came across, selecting memories which appeared to be important. Dark blur into light blur. Wet, cold. Noise. "Say Mama, Tracy Ann! Say Mama!" "Ma, ma!" "There, did you hear it? She said Mama!" "I'm afraid you've earned a taste of the strap." Some actions rewarded, others punished. Stimulus, response, conditioning. "I want this toy, Mama!" "You can't have that one, Tracy Ann, that's a boy toy. Don't you want a nice dolly?" "Tracy, you really have an aptitude for mathematics. Are you sure you don't want to take the AP advanced course?" "You have to marry me, Walt! I'm gonna have your baby!" "Don't hurt me, Walt!" "You've had a miscarriage, Missus Horndel."
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