Alien (person)

“ The lute alone, and not the voices low
That sang of old to some forgotten touch.
The lamp I give, but not the glimmering flame
Some alien fire must light, some alien dusk
Enisle, ere it illume your land and sea.
The shell I give you, Ares, not the song
Of murmuring winds and waves once haunting it;
The cage, but not love’s wings that come and go. ”

“ The age-old creature lay flat upon the soft, caressing sand, the keen, sensitive impulse of its alien intelligence reaching out—probing the subconscious minds of the two sleeping Earthians! And it quivered and tensed as wave after wave of maddening terror swept through its being! ”

“ Lay beneath us as though death had reached out of the unknown to annihilate suddenly all living things upon this alien world, leaving in it only the cold and the silence and the death that enwrapped it now! Neptune—we had flown across the awful void toward it for week upon week, prepared to find within it any strange beings, any alien and terrible form of life, but never had we been prepared to find it without any life whatever—an utterly lifeless world! ”

“ I found that I had a problem—I couldn't figure which one of my three stumpy legs to start walking with. I extended all my eyes and examined myself. I looked like an Alien wearing a checked kilt.
Unhappily, I tried to lick my labial fringes with my tongue—and suddenly realized that I had no tongue! It was an unnerving realization, even to me. But then I knew why the Aliens were transmitting hatred of themselves; any Earthman who knew what an Alien looked like would attack me on sight. ”

“ Earth held no new thrills. But in the possession of this new, alien body he felt promises of strange, exotic joys.
A lawless exultation rose in him. He was a man without a world, free of all conventions or inhibitions of Earth, or of this strange planet, free of every artificial restraint in the universe. He was a god! With grim amusement he thought of his body moving in earth's business and society, with all the while an alien monster staring out of the windows that were George Campbell's eyes on people who would flee if they knew. ”

“ Thus when an atmosphere, Alien by chance to us, begins to heave, And noxious airs begin to crawl along, They creep and wind like unto mist and cloud, Slowly, and everything upon their way They disarrange and force to change its state. ”

“ The perfume was redolent of alien mystery, and it thrilled and troubled the Earthmen, who became silent as they approached the bridge, feeling the oppression of eery strangeness that gathered from all sides in the thickening gloom. More deeply than in daylight, they apprehended the muffled breathings and hidden, tortuous movements of a life for ever inscrutable to the children of other planets. The void between Earth and Mars had been traversed; but who could cross the evolutionary gulf between Earthman and Martian? ”

“ No alien land in all the earth has any deep, strong charm for me but that one; no other land could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. ”

“ Trained in the precise methods of the physical sciences, he had long fought against the fascination of the immense puzzles which the archeologists were trying to solve, but no man could long escape. In the quiet, starlit blackness there rang the ancient memories of a planet vibrant with life, a planet of strange tongues and unknown songs—a planet that had died so violently that space was yet strewn with its remains—so violently that somewhere the echo of its death explosion must yet ring in the far vaults of space. ”

“ It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see and smell them with ease.
My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old exhibitionist urge. ”

“ But I can show you more to disprove it than you can dig up to prove it! What happens when I assassinate an alien? His human vehicle croaks, while he himself swells up, turns a vivid horrid hue, and goes pop. ”

“ Have we not Temples of Love on Mars? What if we should fill those temples with android men and android women? Expose both the Earthman and Earthwoman first to danger: see that they walk in the shadow of death. Frighten and terrify them, make them struggle desperately to survive. Drive them to the brink of despair by confronting them with unknown dangers on a planet alien to them. ”

“ Within that cube lay dormant matter that could be formed into a brain—an alien but mighty brain. Suddenly, Underwood felt an irrational kinship with the ancient creature who had so conquered time, and in his own mind he silently vowed that if it lay within his power, that creature would live again, and speak its ancient secrets. ”

“ If I were writing an 'interplanetary' tale it would deal with beings organized very differently from mundane mammalia, and obeying motives wholly alien to anything we know upon Earth—the exact degree of alienage depending, of course, on the scene of the tale; whether laid in the solar system, or the utterly unplumbed gulfs still farther out—the nameless vortices of never-dreamed-of strangeness, where form and symmetry, light and heat, even matter and energy themselves, may be unthinkably metamorphosed or totally wanting. ”

“ Over the masses of huge, shining buildings were flitting great swarms of the long black cones, moving from roof to roof, while in the shining streets below them moved other hordes of active figures, the people of the city. And as our eyes took in these latter I think that we all felt something of horror, in spite of all the alien forms which we were familiar with in the thronging worlds of the Galaxy. ”

“ If he had been strapped to the table by unfamiliar aliens, if the scent of alien flesh—or non-flesh—had been strong in the room, if the fingers—or appendages—which greased his temples and clamped an electrode to each one had not felt like human fingers, if the men talking to him had spoken in voices too harsh or too sibilant for human vocal chords—if all that had been the case whatever composure still remained his would have vanished. ”

“ The first alien gripped his companion's sleeve. "Pretend you don't know it." They moved along, with no outward sign of their sudden terrible awareness. Their minds were racing, fearful, but they kept on. Flicker crouched along the bulkhead and followed.
The aliens came to the hatch. Flicker tensed, ready for them. He heard them undog the hatch, heard its squeak as it opened, and he tensed, his muscles quivering eagerly.
Three beams of light stabbed down the passageway at him, brilliant, staggering him back against the bulkhead. ”

“ Nobody had ever seen an Alien—they invariably exploded to dust before they could be captured—but the horror of their senseless brutality was revealed in the hideous human corpses they left behind them.
Norden had been drafted while there was still optimism. Men could build a hundred ships to the Aliens' one, equally radar-proof, free from danger of magnetic or electronic detection, and nearly invisible in space. ”

“ A boy-scout called at the house and produced an official paper asking for the names and addresses of any aliens who might be residing in the house. We have one such alien, a German maid for the children, a most unwarlike and inoffensive alien. ”

“ At least, our pathway to it follows strange ways, that you could never understand. You are no scientist or scholar. How could you grasp such unknown and forgotten matters? How could anyone in your world?"
Newlin stared at her, seeing things he had only guessed before.
"You are—alien," he said.
"You can't guess how alien," she answered. "I said I was not of Venusian stock. My people came from outside. Our world exists in the same plane as yours, a planet circling one of the nearer stars. This place was never our home, but we had colonies on Venus, Earth, Mars and one of Jupiter's moons. ”

“ The alien corn was bad, but still she had always been used to that; but the alien paddy, the alien maize, is more disheartening, to say nothing of the alien people, when I want so very much to be with you, with whom I could find nothing alien. I know we shall die of old age before we meet again. ”

“ The Aliens work by mental control. We've had everyone brought into this building, have double-checked them, and have sealed the doors with a time lock. It turned out that one of the men was missing—we'd only imagined he was among us when we assembled.
"We scoured the planet before we landed and saw no signs of the Aliens. We've seen no Alien ships land since we arrived. We have no idea where they are, except that there's one sizable area not far from here that we can't seem to penetrate. The only evidence we have that the Aliens arrived after we did is that they told us so. ”

“ But how, if the alien nature contradicts his own, fights with it, perplexes, and confounds it? How, again, if not one alien nature, but two, but three, but four, but five, are introduced within what once he thought the inviolable sanctuary of himself? ”

“ But the aliens mustn't know it, for anything that would startle them or make them suspicious might turn the tide of their indecision instantly, and bring sudden violent, purposeless death—
The arm could be used to keep himself alive—if he had to. The thought of the one alien crept through his mind: the cold, unyielding hate, and the fear. The others were merely curious, and curiosity could be his weapon, to help him establish the link that was so necessary. Somehow, contact must be established—without frightening them, or threatening them in any way. ”

“ To Winfield Fowler, physician, Perth, Australia: I, Horace Austen, am lost in an unknown new world, where alien terrors reign, that lies in a crater in the Mountain of the Moon. I implore you to come to my aid, for the sake of mankind. Bring arms, and my equipment—the Rontgen tubes and coils, and the spectrometer. Ascend ladder at west pinnacle. Find my friend Melvar, maiden of the crystal city, whom I left beyond the Silver Lake. ”

“ Coming as an alien from unknown scenes, the one thing in the country that spoke of change, yet itself more lasting than any, it seemed to be ever pursuing some secret purpose: persistent, relentless: a very Nemesis of a road.
On either side of it were barren "dunes," grudgingly covered by straggling heather and gorse, and to the South, at a little distance, rolled the dark-blue sea. ”

“ It almost never connotes anything alien.
It's as if the Monolithian philosophy has been thoroughly absorbed into our culture, while the aliens themselves have retreated into the background, content to keep a paternalistic eye on us. ”

“ And paradoxically enough, being the only Earthman on the streets had made him feel less alien than before. He attracted no attention, in a spaceport city: he walked side by side with squat Dritik and spidery Oladsa, beings of a hundred different races from as many stars. ”

“ His mind was imprisoned in the body of a frightful native of an alien planet, while, somewhere on the other side of the universe, his own body was housing the monster's personality.
He fought down an unreasoning horror. Judged from a cosmic standpoint, why should his metamorphosis horrify him? Life and consciousness were the only realities in the universe. ”

“ Mankind is faced with such a possibility in this unusual science fiction novel. In a future age of interplanetary travel new worlds and alien races are awaiting discovery and a decision must be made. Who will be the first interstellar explorers—and make the first alien contact? ”

“ No sign of Pat or Kroger yet, but the sand here is hard-packed and damp, and there are normal-size footprints mingled with the alien ones, sharp and clear. The aliens seem to have six or seven toes. It varies from print to print. And they're barefoot, too, or else they have the damnedest-looking shoes in creation. ”

“ It was simply that sooner or later some alien race would risk whatever unknown power the others feared. If the aliens won, the vast potential power of Earth would then be turned against all the humanoid races of the universe. Humanity could be driven from the galaxy. ”

“ We were specially trained in techniques for establishing mental contact with alien intelligent life forms. Well, we found some planets with life upon them, all right. But it was primitive life, not worth bothering about. ”

“ I could not understand it, for I perceived your enemies the instant your ship touched the surface of the planet.
"Our ancient myths and legends speak of creatures such as you, animals who could survive without the abasa, but never were they spoken of as having the intelligence you display. Whatever you have done, you have dispelled our one great legend—not only is metal not reserved for the non-existent gods, it is also permitted to such creatures as you. ”

“ It was at times like these that this young man, born into a chaotic world of alien beings intent upon inexplicable courses of action, inspired by unknown and possibly sinister ideals, was upon the point of dashing his head with maniac energy against those heavy ancient stones which, by comparison, seemed less foreign to his distracted soul. ”

“ Inside the chamber, a giant multi-faceted crystal began to rotate slowly in the gimbals which held it suspended from the ceiling. Sharp individual beams of light swept over the face of the alien being on the table. ”

“ Alien the First shrugged. "They make interesting toys," he said. "But, of course, they are useless crutches in building a civilization. They bring good prices when peddled for the amusement of our children and the shallower-minded adults."
"Listening to your remarks about our spaceships," I continued, "I presume all of you teleported here. We Earthmen may not be very good at Mind Control, but I think we have a good grasp of the principles, and I don't see how you could teleport without some sort of terminal device. ”