Illegal Alien
“I was up against two opposing demands: his longing to be pronounced a man, and the government’s preference that he was not.”
AUGUST 5, 2025
The illegal alien claimed he was from the past. He claimed many convenient and impossible things. That he was an Australian, that he had studied biology and anthropology at a prestigious university, that he had been hired by NASA, that he had been sent on a lightspeed mission to survey a healthier world exhibiting signs of intelligent life. And that he had returned, as directed, to his home, the planet Earth, in the interim of which had eclipsed a few hundred Gregorian years.
“I envy you,” Dr. Gillam said, eyeing the brief projecting from his holoband. The UV-filter windows in his office cast the room in a purple hue, which made his skin look green. “But I know why they chose you to go see him. It’s the ‘nun effect.’ Patients see a hijab and suddenly they’re confessing.” He was my senior, so I laughed, but only half-heartedly. This incurred a skeptical eye. “Or maybe it’s because you’re a woman and they figured out a sure-fire way to get any red-blooded male who’s been alone for centuries to prove that he’s a human being.”
I was spending all day as second-in-command to Dr. Gillam at the Defense Hospital, all evening as last-in-command to my parents for as long as I continued to be so blatantly unmarried, and every second of every day wanting anything to happen to me — even something “lethal” and “indeterminable” because I was so, so bored.
“I suppose it has nothing to do with my Ph.D.,” I offered politely. He became distracted by a sun sore on his hand which, after he scratched it, began to flake and bleed. I reminded him, “My paper on the psychiatry of displacement?” The information did not appear to register. I surrendered and moved on. “Genetically, I’m not sure it will be so easy to prove whether he is or isn’t human — ”
Dr. Gillam huffed and began scratching another sun sore on his eyelid.
“The vessel he arrived in is too advanced to have come from the century he claims. And his story is fantastical, regardless. When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. It doesn’t take a genius to do this job. It’ll be like telling the difference between being alive and being dead.”
I had nothing to say to him. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be so uninterested in the definition of “living.” And what was so inconceivable about zebras? But I wanted the meeting to end, so I suggested, “Well, since he supposedly looks like us, acts like us, there is the possibility that he really is from Earth, returning — ”
“Let me make it perfectly clear,” said Dr. Gillam, reaching for a tissue to dab on his ear. He was riddled with sores — typical for a man of his age who grew up before it was mandated to wear SPF 90. He lowered his voice and leaned forwards. “There is no historical record of this ‘man.’ Besides, it is against international law to send men on lightspeed missions through outer space. And with all the conspiracies running riot that the rich and powerful are buying one-way tickets to a cooler planet … It is not your role to make accusations. Forget possibilities. Anything that is not from this planet is not a human being.”
A few things had prompted me to accept the assignment which government officials had described with disclaimers such as “risk of exposure to lethal biological matter” and “indeterminable consequences on the mind” and “first in the history of humankind.” I was ambitious, and to have a patient whose diagnosis lay on the scale of time, space and humanity seemed enough to justify an academic tenure. But, mainly, I was spending all day as second-in-command to Dr. Gillam at the Defense Hospital, all evening as last-in-command to my parents for as long as I continued to be so blatantly unmarried, and every second of every day wanting anything to happen to me — even something “lethal” and “indeterminable” because I was so, so bored.
I’d read what limited information I had been provided. In the brief, there were no pictures, and he was referred to by number only. I’d seen the viral footage circulating on social networks of a small aircraft almost burning up on re-entry into the atmosphere over the Great Dividing Range. It was a lonely image. That loneliness made me inclined to believe he was a human being.
So I found it bizarre and disconcerting how difficult they made it for me to carry out my pre-approved visit. Security made a grand ordeal of external sterilization and signing non-disclosure agreements and waiving a multitude of my human rights and putting me through checkpoint after checkpoint.
Finally, after waiting hours for transport, they blindfolded me for the duration of the dronejetter flight before kicking me out into a muggy climate. A rough voice projecting from my holoband instructed me to uncover my eyes. I was at the doorstep of a small demountable with a doormat that read “WELCOME.”
“Am I here?”
But when I threw a glance over my shoulder, I found there was no one else around. The dronejetter was a freckle in the sky. The heat was painful, which meant I was under an ozone gap. I appeared to be on a tropical island large enough to accommodate a tiny community. The demountable before me had been electrobarbed off from all others nearby, and the transparent shimmer of the shield stretched farcically high. In the distance, over a vast strait, I thought I saw a haze of land that was my country.
The only light came from a skylight in the ceiling. There was a flap at ground level on the back wall; I assumed it was for animals until I saw the remnants of a meal in a tray beneath it. If he was indeed a man, this was a prison. If he was not, it was a cage.
I turned back to the door and raised my hand. Then I froze. The door seemed suddenly to be a trap; I had the impression of a large, hungry animal sitting behind it.
In the end, I knocked.
After a minute, I heard shuffling noises and then the door opened to reveal — this was my first thought — a man.
His posture was stooped. He seemed ground away. But when he glanced at me, almost without interest, a thunderclap transformed his expression. His eyes widened and his mouth opened, and the wind knocked out of his chest sent tears springing to his eyes. It took me a moment to understand the look was one not of pain or terror but of the most basic and surprising joy. He dropped his head and placed his hand over his chest.
“Assalāmu ʿalaikum,” he greeted.
Automatically, I replied, “Wa ʿalaikum assalām.” I knew, then, that Dr. Gillam had been right about why they had sent me.
The man — the being — recovered himself and gestured for me to follow him inside. I commenced my examination of his surroundings. The interior of the demountable was a single room with an ensuite. It was bare and neutral-toned save for a few pillows on the ground, which I supposed were his bedding. I watched him hastily rearrange them to create a sitting place. No desk, no books, no writing utensils. The only light came from a skylight in the ceiling. There was a flap at ground level on the back wall; I assumed it was for animals until I saw the remnants of a meal in a tray beneath it. If he was indeed a man, this was a prison. If he was not, it was a cage.
“Please,” my patient said, redirecting my attention to the pillow he had placed nearest to the corner. I sat cross-legged and he mimicked me, leaning against the adjacent wall.
“Are you a doctor?” he asked.
“Yes.”
And then he was quiet and still.
There was no way around it; he looked like a man. He was wearing a white jumpsuit with white socks. His face was long and kind, and his hair was the color of tree resin, downy and floating around his head in some places as though under the sway of balloon static. Even his beard was fine and soft, and his eyes were flecked with gold. His skin was dark but remarkably clear of sunspots, which made me self-conscious about my own. I couldn’t tell his ethnicity. I considered the possibility that racial mixings had been different a few centuries ago. Only there was something in his wide brow and his clear expression that made him seem unusually noble, that made him seem like a man from outer space.
“I wish I could offer you something to eat or drink,” he said, gesturing to the empty enclosure.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. We were both breathing quickly, both blinking too much and both sitting upright with a pole of adrenaline bolted into our spines. I began unpacking my briefcase. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.”
“Agreeing?” His gaze landed on the inside of my briefcase. I felt him cataloging my equipment, attempting to guess the use of everything as a biologist or an anthropologist would. Then he laughed in disbelief. “I’ve been asking to speak to a doctor. Nobody told me you were coming.”
This was news to me, but I felt it was best not to disclose as much. My holoband was recording everything we were saying and, I suspected, broadcasting it live to Defense.
I wished he were less intelligent. It would have made it easier to assert the doctor-patient dynamic. We both knew he was being violated, not only his flesh but his privacy, since I was reporting back to strange, faceless men every confession of his body down to the script in the nuclei of his cells.
“I haven’t seen a human face in almost a year,” he went on as I set up my kit. His accent was strange, although that didn’t mean much. “I’ve been traveling for so long. And since I arrived, the guards wear armor over their faces so all I can see is my own reflection. But it’s useful, since they won’t give me a mirror.” He looked at me with curiosity. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a surgical mask?”
The suggestion amused me, and so I surrendered to my urge to look back into his face.
“Surgical masks don’t do anything,” I said. Then I opened my mouth wide so he could make out the shimmer of the breathable biofilm sealing the space between my lips. His wonderment was intense. His pupils dilated.
“Incredible,” he breathed, tilting his head. “Is it organic?”
I nodded. “From some kind of extremophilic lichen.”
He laughed again, and his laugh was like mellow chimes, light and resonant. All the time I was thinking, This has to be a human being. He caught me watching.
“What’s your name?” he asked quickly, as if it was his last chance to grab a foothold.
“I’m not allowed to tell you.” I raised the holoband on my wrist so he could see the blinkering light. Whether or not he knew what it was, he understood. For a moment, his eyes glittered with resentment.
“And if I tell you mine?”
“You will be punished,” I told him flatly.
And then we were serious. I rearranged my pillow so I was sitting directly opposite him. I wanted things to be formal. I needed the authority of my position.
“Do you know why I’m here?” I asked.
“I know why I asked for a doctor. I thought, of all people, a doctor might help me.”
“I’m here to determine your humanity.” He must have known it already, but his eyes dropped in shame, which was probably the point. “Did you ask for a Muslim doctor?”
“No.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “They sent you to test me.”
He was right, of course, and he probably also knew, as I did, that no amount of questioning could allow me to judge whether or not he was telling the truth about his beliefs, because to be a Muslim was not a password but a state of the heart, and I could very well auscultate what his heart sounded like but only God could know what it was saying. They had not just sent me to “test” him but to taunt him. There was the threat of dignity in his face.
He slapped his hands on his knees and stood up with a grunt, spreading his arms out by his side like an anatomical drawing.
“Go ahead,” he said. I stood to match him, and for all the assessment in my eyes, there was assessment in his. He joked darkly, “Am I allowed to consent?”
I wished he were less intelligent. It would have made it easier to assert the doctor-patient dynamic. We both knew he was being violated, not only his flesh but his privacy, since I was reporting back to strange, faceless men every confession of his body down to the script in the nuclei of his cells.
I examined him in silence for the rest of the afternoon. It was not a distancing silence. It was the companionable concentration of two scientists in the field. Occasionally, he interrupted it to inquire about the mechanism of a certain device, and often this was followed by an admiring comment on the advance of technology. He was particularly taken by the holoband, which I used to auscultate his heart sounds by pressing my wrist against his sternum. The band projected sounds of his heart valves bursting open and slamming shut, the iambic pentameter testifying he was alive. He wasn’t bewildered, only impressed.
“Very handy,” he said.
I tested his reflexes, listened to his lungs, shone a light into his eyes, and then made him lie down so I could perform a rudimentary survey of his viscera with an ultrasound. I even looked at his fingerprints under a nanoscope: Human.
When it came time to take his blood, he became suddenly unsure.
“What do you need it for?” he asked.
“DNA.”
“Right, of course,” he said, but he didn’t relax. “And how soon will you know the result?”
“Almost immediately.”
He took a long breath in and out. It was the first time since meeting him that I reminded myself there was a chance he might be alien. I wondered what calculations he was making. Ultimately, he sat down and rolled up his sleeve. I was aware of his body heat as I ran my thumb over the crook of his elbow. His brachial pulse was bounding, and then I came across his median cubital vein. I wiped it with an alcohol swab. His skin shone.
“Sharp scratch,” I said.
He held his breath. And then the needle was in. When dark fluid came flowing into my syringe, we both relaxed audibly.
“Sharp scratch,” he echoed. “My doctor used to say the same thing.”
I extracted several syringes and he submitted without protest. With some trepidation, he watched me connect the first syringe to my gene assay machine.
“You seem nervous,” I said under my breath. I risked a glance at him. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“I’m not sure, now … I’m sure I was a human being when I arrived,” he said. “Under these conditions, I don’t see how I could still be. It seems counterproductive to their goal.”
“And what do you think their ‘goal’ is?” I humored him, bandaging his puncture wound.
“You said I would be punished if I said the wrong thing. But I’m being punished already,” he said. “I’m being punished for being a stranger. Like the sleepers of Ephesus, or whatever name you know them by. They sought refuge from persecution in a cave, and when they awoke from a sleep they thought had lasted no more than a day, they went down to the townspeople, not realizing they had slept through many years, and the strangeness of their clothes and their money made the people afraid. If the past is a foreign country, then what does that make me? Do you know that quote?”
I shook my head.
“We used to say it in my time. ‘The past is a foreign country.’ Maybe the future is an enemy state. And the present is what? A hung jury? A gridlocked congress?”
I laughed because I thought he was wonderful.
“What’s a congress?” I asked.
A wistfulness came over his face. “I feel like you’re younger than me,” he said. “But I think we’re the same age.”
The gene assay machine dinged. We startled and turned to it.
The screen read: HUMAN.
After a while, I stopped and turned to face him. He came to such an immediate reciprocal halt that I had the sense he was mirroring me. I examined him. He examined me back. Was I alien to him — I, who was from a future country?
We both stared, willing it to mean something conclusive. The truth was, not even a genetic verdict could keep me from rationalizing his humanity away. Off the top of my head, there was panspermia — the theory that our species existed in other galaxies, originating from the same biological seed as human beings on Earth. It would mean that, genetically, he could pass for human, maybe even technically was human, but it wouldn’t matter. What mattered was how he had come here, and whether he was allowed to stay. He seemed to have come to that understanding before I did—the DNA result gave him no relief.
“I’m dying,” he said.
I looked to him for signs of malaise, but his cheeks were flushed with health and his eyes were bright.
“I’m dying in here. I don’t have any books, not even a pen. I haven’t spoken with another person in … I don’t know how long. Even all this politeness is cruel. I miss people, I miss animals and trees. I’m not allowed to step beyond the front door or a microchip in my shoulder will shock me. They won’t even let me have a map of Australia. They won’t even admit Australia is a country.”
“It’s not,” I told him. “We don’t call it that anymore. We gave it a better name.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not allowed to say.”
He looked into my face for a long time, and in the abyss between what we wanted from each other and what we could give I felt all the distance between two alien beings. My honesty was up against two opposing demands: his longing to be pronounced a man, and the government’s preference that he was not. The existence of lightspeed technology was a Pandora’s box; if this traveler was human, it would confirm widespread suspicions that those who could afford it were buying a way out of the heat. It would spell global riots and political disaster. But then, if he was alien, to accept him, to “open the doors” in such a way, to the entire cosmos … The consequences could be cataclysmic.
The sun was setting; darkness seeped into the enclosure. I felt dampened by the shadow. I stood and took a turn about the room and he followed suit. I noticed his footfall was completely soundless. I only heard the swishing fabric of his clothes. The windows were beyond reach so that it impossible to see outside. The air conditioner groaned, washing stale air around the room. I kept circling, trying to think.
A sudden awareness of our alliance alarmed me, along with embarrassment at the possibility that I was being duped. “The planet is burning,” I said to confront him. “I wouldn’t have come back. I don’t know why anyone would.”
After a while, I stopped and turned to face him. He came to such an immediate reciprocal halt that I had the sense he was mirroring me. I examined him. He examined me back. Was I alien to him — I, who was from a future country? The only unearthly thing about him was his hair. Even the inertia of coming to a standstill had been enough to send it floating out of place. Maybe his body had forgotten about gravity. The thought made me so light-headed I had to return to my makeshift seat. He watched me in the dark, unmoved. After a moment, he lowered himself to the ground beside me.
“Most nights, I have a dream that someone has finally been allowed to come see me,” he said in a hushed voice. “Every time I hear them knock, I sprint to open the door, but it’s locked. I try to break it down, I throw my whole body against it, and I can hear their voice on the other side, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. I scream, ‘You have keys! Use your keys!’ And just as I hear them put keys into the lock, a gunshot goes off, and they die.”
His breath was quiet and measured. I thought of his alveoli, the chemistry of gas exchange.
“We don’t have guns anymore,” I whispered.
“Good. But what about my dream?”
“I think it means you’re lonely.” I thought it meant his loneliness was being weaponized. And then a sudden awareness of our alliance alarmed me, along with embarrassment at the possibility that I was being duped. “The planet is burning,” I said to confront him. “I wouldn’t have come back. I don’t know why anyone would.”
“I’m sure you do,” he told me. “It’s human nature.”
Sadness landed a blow to my chest. “How could you do it?” I asked, buckling. “How could you leave, knowing the probability that you would die, or never see your friends and family again?”
“Haven’t you risked all that by coming to see me? Given the promise of what you might find, what would you have done in my place?”
In the unlit room, with the halo of delicate hair floating around his face, I felt like we were in an expanding darkness that stretched on and on, infinitely. It seemed fitting that this room was his home.
It was hard to make out his expression in the dark. It could have been humor or disappointment. But fear, unmistakable, rang through his next question: “What will happen to me if they don’t believe I am a man?”
“Do you have dreams about traveling to other planets?” I asked quietly, even though I knew the microphone in my holoband would pick up everything regardless. A fleck of gold twinkled in his eye like an evening star. He turned his face to the skylight.
“Of course,” he said casually. “I dream all sorts of things. One place, in particular: bright and temperate, flush with greenery, sweet-tasting rivers, leaves larger than a man, winged creatures, animals with tails, mountains that erupt with fire, and people, all sorts of people, people that look exactly like you or me, so much that you might even think they were human beings. I dream of this planet as often as I would if it were my home.”
“What is it named?”
“They don’t name places the way we do here. In their language, they call it ‘the world.’ I dream of going to the world and being welcomed. I dream they introduce me to a man they call ‘the archivist.’ He sits with me and is as eager to learn from me as he is to teach me. I learn about his God, he learns about mine, and I feel our beliefs are the same. We swap languages, prayers, food, history, science, literature, clothes, names. These are his people’s units of exchange.”
“It sounds beautiful,” I said.
“Yes.”
I turned to him. His eyes were clear, open.
“Do you ever dream that you make a deal with the archivist, and he returns to Earth in your place?” I asked.
A small huff of air escaped him. It was hard to make out his expression in the dark. It could have been humor or disappointment. But fear, unmistakable, rang through his next question: “What will happen to me if they don’t believe I am a man?”
“I don’t know. You could be expelled.”
A beat of silence passed. He sat up and turned on the lamp. I stayed seated, watching him. I felt emptied. The muscles in his jaw tightened and would not unclench.
“How?” he asked rigidly. His face seemed lit with a solar glow. His eyes burned. “I mean, physically, literally — how? Even if I really am alien like they say, even if I survive the journey back, everyone I know on that planet would have died by the time I arrive. It would be the worst kind of exile. I would be as alien to those people as I am to you now. I could spend eternity being expelled back and forth.” His body began to tremble like iron rods under immense pressure. “Is this what it means to be human? To treat each other this way? Should I be cruel, too, so you’ll be forced to accept me as one of your kind?”
I ran my hands over my face and let out a long breath. I couldn’t blame him. It was too much. I was exhausted. There seemed to be nowhere left for us to go, no way for us to help each other.
In a sudden movement, he seized me by the shoulders, so I was forced to look at the desperation in his face. I tried pushing him off, but his strength was extraordinary. The gentleness in him had been replaced by fury and pain.
“What do I have to do,” he begged, “to prove I can be cruel? I’ll do anything! I’m scared what I might do!”
“Calm yourself!” I cried, and for the first time I was afraid. I eventually managed to throw him off and flee to the opposite side of the room, wondering why the dronejetter hadn’t come to evacuate me already. I looked around for a weapon, but the room was empty — there was nothing to kill another person with, or even yourself.
My assailant was still kneeling on the ground. He seemed dazed. He looked down at his hands and then up at me, uncomprehending.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’ve never been violent in my life.”
I ran my hands over my face and let out a long breath. I couldn’t blame him. It was too much. I was exhausted. There seemed to be nowhere left for us to go, no way for us to help each other. Slowly, I approached him and knelt by his side.
“Pray with me before I go,” I said.
He looked to me in surprise.
“Why?”
“Because whether or not you’re a man …” I sighed. I had lost the ability to care what my holoband would hear. “I believe that you have a soul.”
When he saw I was sincere, something speared him, and he looked at me with terrible longing. And when he moved again, I thought this time he would really attack me, but all he did was come close enough to whisper in my ear his true name.
“Oh, no,” I said. It was over. I knew it was over even before I heard the blades of the dronejetter descending in an emergency landing just outside the front door. With desperation, with love — not romantic love, it was more than that — I burst with a sob: ‘Oh, God, why did you tell me? I told you, you’re not allowed to tell me your name! They won’t let me back here anymore! You’ll be reassigned! Why did you say it? Was it so important for me to know?”
“Yes,” he said, full of pity. “Thank you. It was important. I believe it has saved me.”
Someone bashed in the front door, but he didn’t seem to notice. The smile on his face was otherworldly.
After weeks of quarantine, I was back in Dr. Gillam’s purple office. My holoband had been taken into government custody, replaced with a permanent comms plate under my skin.
I sat staring at the sun spots on my hands while Dr. Gillam lectured me. The traveler’s hands had been dark, smooth, unblemished. It was illegal to mention him to my parents, but I would have kept him secret anyway. I still had a bruise where he had touched me.
Now Dr. Gillam informed me that after stalling immense pressure to address viral footage of the vessel arriving, Defense was releasing confirmation of the traveler’s existence today, as well as the verdict that he was an alien being. This was Dr. Gillam’s official impression, arrived at after a two-minute telehealth consultation.
“What will we do to him?” I asked.
Dr. Gillam gave a non-committal shrug.
“We’ve got to figure out where he should go. It could take years. It could take forever.”
Nothing he was saying registered in my mind. I felt like someone had swapped my life out for a replica in the short time I’d been away. I didn’t recognize ordinary things. When people spoke to me, I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I looked back at my own hands, at the roping of my veins. Sharp scratch, I thought. How could he know that unless he was a human being?
Dr. Gillam clicked his fingers irritably in front of my face, and it made a patch of his skin flake off onto the desk. He smelt like flesh rotting in the sun. Before he could berate me, someone screamed down on the street. Dr. Gillam delayed his reproachment to investigate at his window, then I heard him invoke a deity. The terror in his voice brought me back from a flatline.
“Th-th-there’s more,” he exhaled.
I joined him across the room. In the distance, in the cold sky, like falling stars, were tiny objects blazing through the atmosphere.
Dr Gillam fell apart. He started raving, racing to the phone to roar down the receiver. On the streets, more and more people joined in on the hysteria.
I can’t say what I was feeling. The bruise on my arm became hot. I knew I should have also been afraid for my country, for the world, but I was thinking only of the people inside those vessels hurtling down to the Earth. I thought how alone they were. I thought how long they had been waiting to see us. I thought of them imagining our welcome, coming to us with so much hope that their ships were burning.
First published in the anthology New Australian Fiction 2024, edited by Suzy Garcia.
✺ Published in “Issue 31: Fiction” of The Dial
