Like a Bird, Like a Fish
by H. B. Hickey
When a strange ship crashes in Guadalajara, the villagers call Father Vincent. When the
priest realizes that the visitors are lost and their ship is broken, he calls Pablo, who
can fix anything (although generally mañana). And when everyone realizes that the
visitors, who have already conquered their own realm where time-is-space and vice versa,
mean to conquer Earth next (after all, Earthlings make good food), it seems too late to
call anyone.
Father Vincent was sorry that the villagers had called him. They should have set the
fire. But it was too late.
“You will come in peace?” he asked, his voice beginning
to tremble. “You will do no harm?”
“Like a Bird, Like a Fish” by H. B. Hickey, in Worlds
Beyond, February 1951.