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The first transmission comes a whole pitcher later. They speak flawless English — and Spanish and Cantonese and Esperanto and Navajo, just pick a channel — and they use a beautiful bugout contralto like a newscaster who started out as an opera singer. Like a Roman tyrant orating to his subjects.
My stomach does a flip-flop and I put the comm down before I drop it, swill some shandy and look out at Lake Ontario, which is a preternatural blue. Rats-with-wings seagulls circle overhead.
"People of Earth," says the opera-singer-cum-newscaster. "It is good to be back.
"We had to undertake a task whose nature is. . . complex. We are sorry for any concern this may have caused.
"We have reached a judgment."
Lady or the tiger, I almost say. Are we joining the bugout UN or are we going to be vapourised? I surprise myself and reach down and switch off my comm and throw a nickle on the table to cover the pitchers and tip, and walk away before I hear the answer.
The honking horns tell me what it is. Louder than the when the Jays won the pennant. Bicycle bells, air-horns, car-horns, whistles. Everybody's smiling.
My comm chimes. I scan it. Dad and Mum are home.
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