Space brat

By O. H. LESLIE
The aliens' invasion plan was logical. To conquer Man, they reasoned, you start with Baby and work up.
Mr. Gertz slapped his forehead in vexation, and his wife, Emma, shifted in their double bed and said: Louie, for heaven's sake. Go to sleep!
Sleep? Mr. Gertz mocked her speech. What are you, kidding? How can I go to sleep with that brat next door screamin' its head off?
It's only a baby. What do you expect?
I expect a little peace and quiet!
Poor little thing, she murmured.
Mr. Gertz grumbled.
The baby cried on.
Athra, Chairman of the War Council of Nahrla, squatted on the blood-red cushion and twisted the plastic features of his eyeless face into a portrait of contempt and impatience. He had listened silently to the arguments and counter-arguments of the council members, and only until their shrill, strident voices had grown tired of the useless debate did he speak. And when he spoke, they listened.
Fools! he said harshly. Seven orbits has the sun made of Nahrla. Do you think Jeheera has waited this long to make its plans?
A murmur went up at the mention of the hated name. Jeheera, their planetary neighbor, had hurled its declaration of war seven Nahrla-years ago. Still, the major preparations for the battle were not underway. The battlefield had been chosen: a distant world on the rim of the great nebula, a world whose green land areas and wide seas most resembled the terrain of the two combatants. It was traditional for Nahrla and Jeheera to fight on other worlds; through countless centuries, they had learned the bitter outcome of war on their own soil. Jointly, their exploratory forces had searched the galaxies for the scene of their next conflict. They had decided upon the planet called Earth by its inhabitants, and fixed the date of the engagement for forty years hence—a generation to the short-lived creatures of the green world, but only a brief span to the people of Nahrla.