Aphelion

Two of the aliens were Area 51 'guests' who had gone AWOL. They were trying to settle a personal score with the third alien (who had already hustled the narrator) -- it appears that his presence on the planet, let alone outside the Area 51 perimeter was unauthorized.<br><br>As Lee says, this wasn't meant to be a story about earth-shattering events; it really served to show that the folks Out There may not be all that different from the folks Down Here (although in this case, there was no display of their mating habits).<br><br>Robert M.