I wrote this and posted it here 6 years ago, but I wasn't completely satisfied with the result, so I rewrote it and made a new image. Image made in Carrara. Room made by me in 3dsMax. Chair by LuxXeon from Renderosity freestuff. “Are you ok?’ . He turned around in his chair. The alien walked across the room toward him and the automatic door swished closed. Like all of its species it had no distinguishable gender-indicating characteristics, and was dressed in the unisex garment favored by the aliens, but in the short time he had been here, he had become accustomed to the sounds of the aliens’ voices, and this one sounded like an adolescent female. “I’m ok” he said, and turned back to gaze absently out the large window in front of his chair.. The alien walked across the room and stood beside him. She looked at him, and smiled. Or at least it looked like a smile, he wasn’t quite sure. “I just wanted to check on you” she said. “I hate Martians”, he said. “We’re not Martians” the girl answered. “You came from Mars” he said. “No,” she answered, “we came from 40 Eridani. Well, actually 40 Eridani’s second planet. 40 Eridani is the sun. We set up our base on this planet, Mars.” “Why do you care if I’m ok?” he said without looking at her. “Because” she said slowly, unsure what to say next. “because you’re our guests here, at least for now, and besides, I kind of like you guys.” She paused for a moment. “When my father got this assignment, I wasn’t too excited, because I’d be leaving all my friends, and, besides, I wasn’t too excited about the possibility of meeting space aliens – just face it, you guys are a bit creepy looking – but now I’m starting to like you guys. You’re a lot more like us than I thought you’d be.” “So you like us. Is that why you destroyed Earth? Because you like us?” “That was an accident” she said. “We had no idea that was going to happen. Besides, Earth’s not actually destroyed; It’s just….” She paused, unsure how to continue. “The atmosphere and the water are poisoned,” the boy finished for her. “All the animals are dead, and almost all the people. All because of those damned microbes you guys turned loose.” “That was a complete accident” the alien girl said, almost crying. “We had no idea those germs would be so deadly. I had that disease when I was three, and I missed a week of school, but nothing else.” “Well it killed us” the boy spat back. “Wiped out the entire human race.” “Not all of them” the girl answered. “Some survived. You survived.” She got up and walked across the room, trying to avoid looking at the boy. “175,000 humans survived. That’s quite a lot” “There were over six billion of us” the boy said. “For everyone that survived, there are thirty-five thousand that didn’t.. Why did you even come to Earth anyway?” The alien girl walked back across the room and sat back down in the chair. “I told you before; we originally came just to study your solar system. We never expected to find people here. In all our explorations, we’ve never encountered any aliens before, until you guys” “We’re not aliens” the boy said, “You are”. “I guess that depends on your point of view,” she answered. “But to answer your question, we started finding all those probes you guys sent up here – I particularly liked the cute little car that ran around snapping pictures – and when we were exploring the outer planets we found some of your probes with little plaques about your planet. And there were the ones you left on your planet’s moon. And then we deciphered some of your “is anyone out there” radio transmissions. Then don’t forget the thing your media mentioned about that search for extraterrestrial life, I forget what it’s called…” “SETI” the boy said. “SETI, yes, that’s it, she said. Well it became obvious that you were interested in meeting your neighbors, and so were we, so we sent a delegation there. They landed a shuttlecraft in front of that building with all the guards, well actually they weren’t going to land it there originally, but the guards disabled one of its engines when they flew over it, to take some photographs.. I never would have thought those projectile weapons could be capable of that.” “That ‘building with all the guards’ was the residence of one of our leaders,. The president of the country that I lived in actually. It’s called the ‘White House’.” “That woman was the leader of your country?” the girl said; “On my planet women aren’t allowed to be leaders. We don’t have the right instinct-memories for it. Same reason men can’t be doctors.” She got up from the chair again. “A few days later, the epidemic broke out. And you know the rest” “Then you brought us here” the boy said. “To Mars.” He looked out the window. “But I can’t stand it here. It’s not like Earth. The sky is all wrong. It’s pink.” “Pink is the normal color for the sky on Mars. Just like on my planet the sky is yellow” “What’s your planet called, anyway? You guys always just call it ‘our planet’ or ‘back home’.” The girl made a guttural, choking sound. The boy jumped up and turned around. “Are you ok?” he said. “Yeah, “ the girl answered, “why wouldn’t I be?” “You sounded like you were getting ready to hock up your guts or something. I thought you might be choking.” “Oh, well that’s the name of my planet. In one of our ancient languages it means ‘the world’.” “So how long are we stuck here, then?” the boy said, slumping back into the chair. “We have several teams on Earth trying to decontaminate the planet. My father is one of them. They’re working there continuously, 28 hours a day, nine days a week.” “Huh?” the boy said, looking up. “That’s an expression we use that means ‘continuously’. My planet’s rotation is 28 hours, and our moon takes 36 days to make an orbit.” And what if they can’t fix it?” he said, “are we stuck here? Or will we have to move to your planet, or what?” “We also have what you guys call a ‘Plan B’. In a nearby solar system there is a planet with condition similar to Earth. It has a lot of plants and a few animals, but no people. You’d be able to settle there with very little difficulty and rebuild your civilization. We’d give you any help we could.” “What, another yellow-sky world with a name nobody can pronounce without throwing up?” he said “You could call it anything you wanted.” Then she smiled. “and actually, I think the sky there is blue.”