Service With A Smile

Gary Burgin sat up and rubbed his aching chin. The purple Turquani who'd just decked him didn't look back as it oozed back into its ship.

Seconds later, the spacecraft screamed into the cloudless Kansas sky, drowning out the Rolling Stones blasting from Gary's decaying lemon-yellow pick up.

"Okay," Gary said. "I probably deserved that."

He stood, dusted off the seat of his worn jeans and looked for witnesses. He hated it when aliens came in their own ships like that. Much safer to park on the back side of the moon and use the matter transmitter in his barn.

"How was I supposed to know it wanted to probe, not get probed?"

Gary Burgin has a problem. Well, he's got a lot of problems, but one in particular is weighing on his mind at the moment. He has no idea what aliens want. Which wouldn't be a problem if he didn't run Earth's only clandestine tourist agency for visiting aliens. Outer-space-type aliens. And because he's supposed to be running the whole thing on the Q.T., it's not like he can't ask anyone for help. Which is too bad, because he's really sort of cruddy at the whole tour guide thing.

To make matters worse, Arlene Reynolds is moving in on his farm. If she were moving in on him, that would be one thing. Unfortunately, she's moving in on his farm because the city wants to make a land grab and turn Gary's farm/tourist base into a shopping mall. Gary figures he'd have a reasonable shot at talking Arlene out of the whole thing if only she didn't hate him for having stood her up on their one attempted date. He hadn't wanted to stand her up, but when you've got rampaging, probe-happy delinquent aliens running around your home town. . . Well, something's got to give.

Now, Gary's running out of time. His alien boss wants him to shape up. His county government wants him to sell his farm. And Arlene wants him to jump in a lake. Preferably with a large block of concrete attached to his ankles.

Which makes this a perfect time for a trio of Gray aliens to come visiting. A trio of juvenile Gray aliens.

It's up to Gary to find some way to save his farm, keep the sweet tourist business going, hide three aliens and get the girl. Well, either that or say to heck with it all and go have another beer. Tough question.