It was a beautiful spring day. The sun, high in the sky, beamed down on the bucolic scene, shadows and brilliant patches of light in stark contrast. A mild breeze kept everything dry and cool and urged the few billowing, cottony clouds to scud lazily across the blue, blue sky.

Across a wide meadow on the side of the hill waves of long grass coruscated under the whimsical wind. Trees encircled the meadow and, down at the bottom of the low hill a stream gurgled and chuckled its laconic way to the sea.

An occasional bird called out, a chirp or twitter, or even a longer musical phrase, which would often be answered in like fashion from somewhere else in the trees. A cricket sawed its continual mating beacon, and every now and then a squirrel would chime in to the languid afternoon with its raucous chitter and harsh rasping as it gnawed its way through a walnut shell.

In the distance on the other side of the little valley, set like a gem in the emerald trees and other wild flora, there was a small stone cottage, a lazy wisp of smoke issuing from a terra cotta chimney and complying with the caprice of the breeze. Clothing on a wash line also flapped and fluttered in the warm air.

The sounds of the afternoon continued undisturbed as Zerozep landed silently in the middle of the meadow in a vehicle that could best be described as an egg, no markings or protuberances. An advance scout of the Tandro Galactic Hive, she was scouring the outskirts of this arm of galaxy 2118. Her job was to survey the planets and other objects in the solar systems she found, looking for raw materials to feed the burgeoning fleet behind her. She was also on the lookout for potential food sources and/or sentient life that could pose a threat to the insurgency.

The scout looked a lot like a huge ant, about a meter and a half tall when standing at ease. Her large multifaceted eyes were set near the top of a triangular face that came to a point at the bottom with her mandibles, which she held tightly in place. Two antennae above the eyes flexed in slow motion. Six legs with articulate “fingers” converged on the underside of her thorax. Tubes that came from a pack on the scout’s back connected to spicules on its abdomen and a belt of some kind wrapped around the joint where her thorax joined the abdomen. Mysterious devices studded the belt.

She took one of those devices, waved it around a little, glanced at a small screen on it and then put it back in her belt. She removed the pack from her back and the hoses to her spicules popped off with a susurrant hiss.

The structure across the valley attracted her attention. Evidence of a sentient form, she thought.

She worked her way over to the small cottage, scanning and analyzing the various and abundant life forms that filled this world. All the forms she cataloged were carbon based. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, in percentages similar to the Hive world, make up the atmosphere and water covers most of the planet. This could really be a big find, she thought, a colony world!

As she approached the cottage a creature emerged from a side door carrying an empty basket. Most of it was covered with a substance made of polysaccharide organic fibers, cellulose, and showing brightly colored stripes. It was a bipedal creature. Zep had cataloged many such creatures on her watch, a wide variety of minor details, of course, but basically the same in form–two legs to stand upon, usually two arms to manipulate the extraneous environment, with a head on top.

The creature still hadn’t noticed Zerozep, not more than 10 meters away, and when it finally did it froze with its mouth open.

Zep scanned it and found nothing that could be construed as a weapon. Then she tried the mind touch and found, even though it was like sound-talking underwater, that a low level connection was possible. “Be calm, I mean no harm,” she sent in repetitive waves at the creature.

The being’s mouth opened somewhat wider as it received the soothing waves. “What the hell . . . ?” The articulated sound came from its mouth along with waves of mind fear. It dropped the basket and ran back into the house. It re-emerged carrying a long cylindrical object that it pointed at Zep.

“No harm, no harm,” Zep intensified the mind touch, “no harm, communicate.”

Without lowering what Zep’s scanner found to be a chemical discharge weapon with multiple sodium chloride projectiles, the creature sound spoke, “Go away!” Then it fired the weapon. The force of the blast pushed the scout back a step but the pellets ricocheted off the scout’s thick chitin harmlessly.

“No harm, communicate,” Zep kept repeating. She waved her empty forelegs opened wide in a universal gesture.

“You want to talk,” the creature said, more a statement than a question.

“Yes, communicate—talk.”

The creature lowered its weapon, broke it in half, removed two objects and replaced them with two others. “You the biggest damn ant I ever saw,” it said.

“Not ant, Tandro scout,” Zep mind touched. “You . . . talk.”

“I’m not sure what to say to a giant ant,” the creature said. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“Answer soon, talk more,” Zep mind spoke, her auto-link building the data base needed for speech translation.

“And why should I wish to talk to a bug? A giant bug at that, I’m feeling like Alice in Wonderland or something. Am I hallucinating? Have I finally gone off the deep end? And you . . . ” It hefted the weapon to its shoulder once again.

“NO HARM!” Zerozep mind shouted. “NO HARM . . . TALK!”

The creature didn’t fire this time, only held the weapon at the ready. “I’ve learned a lot in life,” it said, “but I’ve never heard of ants as big as you. You’re not from around here, are you? What’s a Tandro?”

Mind touch was getting easier. “Talk more!” Soon the language base would have enough vocabulary to allow Zep to communicate with the creature in its own language, proven to be best when contacting indigenous life forms.

The creature blinked the fleshy shades that covered its ocular organs then it launched into a long dissertation that touched upon “weather,” “politics,” “sex,” “men,” “taxes,” and a litany of subjects that can all be attributed to any number of social civilizations. Zep learned the creature was a “woman” and her name was Clara. She lived alone in the cottage with her 11 cats, 2 dogs, and numerous feathered creatures called “chickens.”

After a while Clara wound down with Zerozep beaming serenity at her the whole time. Finally she said, “Well, you might as well come in and make yourself to home.” Clara, intrinsically a social and gregarious person, couldn’t think of anything else to do. “Let me get my wash,” she said and quickly took down the flapping cloths.

“I appreciate your hospitality,” Zerozep sound spoke and followed the old woman into the cottage.

The inside of the house was redolent with an intoxicating aroma that had a profound effect on the Tandro scout. It was as if she had died and gone to sacred Holy Hive. All her desires, hopes, dreams, likes and dislikes, sins and triumphs melded together into a serene, harmonious whole. She liked it a lot.

One room filled out the floor plan, an iron stove on one side, a fireplace on the other. Heat emanated from the stove, the fireplace setup for a fire when the temperature called for it. The furnishings, tables and chairs, cabinets with glass fronts, were sturdy oak. Pictures, landscapes mostly, were hung upon the walls. A sink, a long handled water pump, and a nice view of the woods behind the cottage were adjacent to the stove. Laying the shotgun crosswise on the large table in the kitchen area, Clara sat down. “So, what can I do for you, my strange friend? Why are you here?” she asked.

“I’m exploring for the Tandro Galactic Hive,” Zep said. “We’re looking for fertile worlds we can colonize. Your world is perfect! I will get great rewards for delivering this system to the hive.”

“What about us humans?” Clara asked, “Just kick us to the curb?”

Zerozep made a raspy chittering sound, “Oh, no! The Hive takes other sentient life forms quite seriously and will do everything in its power to preserve any species that’s reasonably self aware.”

Clara’s eyes narrowed just a bit, “You mean put us in a zoo?”

“Technically, yes,” the scout replied. “However, it’s done in an unobtrusive way so the indigent species can feel as comfortable as possible.”

“Meanwhile you ‘Tandros’ consume the planet?”

“We’ll be responsible about it,” Zep said. “replenishable resources will be replenished with the local hive being careful to leave plenty for you humans.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” Clara said, unable to stop a quick glance at her useless shotgun.

“It’s not so bad. Just think of the technological advances you’ll make as you learn of the Hive,” Zerozep said. Then, “What’s that smell? It’s heavenly delicious.”

“I’m baking today,” Clara said. She got up from her seat and went to the oven, looked inside then removed a baking tray. “As a matter of fact, they’re done. Would you like to try one?” She used a spatula to remove one of the hot objects from the tray and placed it on a napkin in front of the alien scout.

The odor from the object washed over Zep producing waves of ecstasy a quantum level greater than what she’d previously felt. Her spicules quivered. “Wha . . . what do you do with it?” she asked.

“You eat it. Go ahead, it won’t hurt you.”

The alien scout picked up the warm object, her antennae touching it lightly. She scanned it and found no inimical substances so she opened her mandibles and took a bite. “Ohhhhhh . . . “ she sighed.

*****

Zerozep awoke in her cruiser in orbit around the blue-green planet. Apparently her autonomics returned her there after she lost conscious awareness. All scouts were programmed that way; upon loss of consciousness they would automatically return to their point of origin. Depending on when consciousness is regained, that programming could drive an individual the whole way back to the home hive.

She remembered what happened. The bliss, the ecstasy! Oh, how she wanted to go back for more! She knew she couldn’t, of course, she had work to do. The first thing she did was scratch this system from the “A” list. As a second thought she placed the system on the “prohibited” list. If something like this got loose in society it could wreck the entire galactic empire. Plus, if I tell anyone about this they’ll probably ruin the whole thing and I’ll never get any more. No matter what happened, she knew she had to have more!

*****

The big ant took a bite and froze up. Its mandibles returned to their tightly folded positions, it rose, turned and slowly went through the open door. Clara wondered if she shouldn’t do something. But what could she do? If she mentioned the episode to anyone they would lock her up and throw away the key.

“Gee,” she thought, “What a fuss over a chocolate chip cookie!”