Invasion

it. I ran straight for him, screaming, screaming -and felt a pressure around my skull, then in my skull, then overwhelming me, pushing me down, taking full control, pushing me to the back of my own brain, pushing me into darkness…

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    25.
        
        When I regained consciousness hours later I was in the farmhouse again.
        I was sitting behind the desk in the den. Through the window on my right I could see the crown of our hill and the barn bright red in the snow. Saturday must be well along, I thought, for the sky was light. The snow was falling, although not so fast and thick as it had been coming for days now.
        I was not alone. One of the aliens was standing just outside the door of the den, watching me. Its mandibles clacked together, opened, clacked shut, opened… Another alien was in the room-and Toby stood at its side.
        The boy's face was pale, his eyes blank.
        "Do you know where you are?" he asked me.
        My mouth was dry. I nodded.
        "Do you feel all right?"
        I understood that I was not talking to Toby at all but to the alien beside him who was using Toby's brain and tongue and lips to communicate with me. I said, "I feel rotten."
        "Physically or emotionally."
        "Emotionally."
        "That's all right," Toby-alien said.
        "Maybe to you it is."
        "We have found that we cannot control an adult mind or learn much from it. That is why I am not inside your head, speaking to you from within. You wouldn't permit it. You would be overwhelmed with fear and disgust. Therefore we will use your son to converse with you. Is that satisfactory?"
        I said nothing.
        "You are a writer," Toby-alien said.
        I was surprised by this approach.
        I don't know what I had been expecting, but I certainly hadn't anticipated this.
        "No."
        "You've written a book."
        "One book. That doesn't make me a writer."
        "Nevertheless, you can write. You can put these curious little symbols down on paper, order your ideas, convey your impressions and emotions to others of your kind."
        Reluctantly, I said, "Yes."
        "And perhaps to us."
        "You killed my wife."
        "That is beside the point."
        "It is the point."
        The alien's mandibles worked furiously, and its amber eyes regarded me with unknowable intent. Through
        Toby he said: "We cannot know what you are thinking by stepping into your mind.
        Your fear is so intense it blocks out your thoughts. But we want to know what you perceive of your existence and of the universe. We want to understand what evolutionary level you represent. Therefore, we wish you. to put your thoughts into writing. We will read the writing through the eyes of your son and interpret your worthiness from the content thereof."
        "My worthiness?" I said.
        "You will write another book."
        "About what?"
        "You will write about us, about all that has happened here at Timberlake Farm during the last several days," Toby-alien said. "Then we will learn how you perceive us, and we will be able to put this affair in the proper perspective."
        "No."
        "No?"
        "I won't write a book."
        "You will write a book."
        "You killed my wife."
        "What does that matter?"
        "Are you crazy?"
        "We do not understand the concept of mental instability."
        "Because you're all crazy and you have nothing sane to compare yourselves to," I said.
        "You will write a book," Toby-alien said, and as he spoke he began to twitch. Spittle bubbled at the corners of his mouth.
        "What are you doing to him?" I demanded.
        "Nothing," the alien said through the boy. "But we find it difficult to use even a child. Such a strange species. He resists my thought control, and from time to time he throws fits much like those people you call epileptics."
        "If I write the book, will you let Toby and me live? Will you go away from this world?"
        "You will write a book."
        "I need that promise."
        "You will write a book."
        As Toby began to twitch even more violently, I surrendered.
        "Okay. I'll write the book. I'll put it all down in print. Just don't torture the boy."
        "I am not torturing him. This spasm is simply an uncontrollable psychological reaction to my presence in his mind."
        "You say you're