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&039;Been sick?&039; I asked stupidly as he staggered back into the living roo teeth, was I?&039; he spat

I switched on the television and the fixed plastic grin of a news reader stared back at e of the huge, dark alien ship

&039;I still can&039;t getto myself

&039;Neither can I,&039; Rob replied

&039;Soht&039;

&039;Oh yeah, there was so&039;

&039;What?&039;

&039;Just a press conference or so like that&039;

&039;And as said?&039; I pressed

&039;Don&039;t remember&039;

&039;What do you mean, you don&039;t remember?&039; I snapped, irritated by le most important event in history and you can&039;t remember what&039;s happened&039;

&039;Listen,&039; he hissed through clenched teeth, &039;this is the worst fucking hangover in history How do you expect me to keep you up to date with the nehen I can&039;t even focus on the fucking screen?&039;

I said nothing I just waited for the headlines to come on

It was almost half-past twelve

By half past one I&039;d seen everything I needed to see The press conference gave me all the infor aital television and mobile phones and the like, there wasn&039;t much that could be kept hidden With so , how could anyone keep anything quiet anymore?

So these were the facts as I understood them; an observation station in South Australia picked up a distress signal froin on the outskirts of our solar syste The vessel was tracked, visual contact was uided towards the planet and, eventually, out over neutral waters off the coast of EnglandAt one o&039;clock this(our time) one of the occupants of the ship voluntarily allowed itself to be taken into custody to explain their sudden and unexpected arrival here

That was the point where I&039;d had to stop and try and getThese really were aliens - that was the hardest thing to accept Okay, so I&039;d seen their ship arrive and it was obvious that their intelligence and capacity were far beyond anything we hued to do, but it was still difficult to try and come to terms with the fact that alien contact had finally been made So how did they colish? Apparently they could speak all ourtrue It reinal Star Trek series were always just humans with different coloured hair, skin, costumes or all three It seeuage word-perfect but, then again, they were obviously so technically advanced thatIf we could decipher ancient hieroglyphics when there was no-one left using them, why shouldn&039;t they be able to work out e&039;re saying to each other when there are billions of us talking, writing and broadcasting all round the planet every ain, what I heard was plausible It see and that the engines or reactors or soed towards the end of the aliens&039; present et home, it was as simple as that Our planet, I learned, was the closest with an at them temporarily but as close I wondered? A billionwhy, if these creatures really were so advanced, couldn&039;t they just patch up their ship and limp home?

So they were stuck here That was the short and the tall of it, they were stuck here with noback Apparently they had called for help, but that help would be at least several

When the people on the television started harping on about the scientific importance of the visit and how ot bored and switched the television off