"I bet you thought you"d never see another Bug."

"Nope," said Mona Bastogne, a veteran of the seventy-year Human-Vermi war. "Humans lost that war when Bugs launched killer asteroids against the major planets in all twelve settled systems.

"What"s the Bug doing here?"

The leathery dark brown alien stood quietly on the desert floor, one hundred meters away. "He had six appendages, an exoskeleton, and looked like an eight-foot tall praying mantis.

"I'm an expert? "You're higher up the food chain, Norman. "That's why I called you."

The high desert was flat except for mounds of earth, like giants had dropped mudballs from the sky. "Desert vegetation had died and blown away years ago, thanks to a permanent cloud cover from the killer asteroids. "Behind Norman and the tall lean Bastogne, mesas dotted the landscape.

"Is it holding a book?" asked Norman.

Bastogne unwrapped a cloth around valuable binoculars and peered at the alien. "The Vermi's two middle leg-arms grasped the edges of a flat square object and held it over his crotch area, as if he were modest. "That was laughable.

"It looks like a book."

"Let me see." "Bastogne handed the binoculars to Norman. "Then she stepped back, brushed straight sandy hair from her face and checked the load in her shotgun. "Twelve shells. "She patted her right jacket pocket. "More shells".

One Bug.

The Bug seemed emotionless, a face full of flat panes, angles and deep black sinkholes for eyes - a snake with arms.

"He doesn"t have weapons," said Norman.

"Then let's get closer."

Five of the Bugs" killer asteroids had smashed into Earth, causing death, destruction, fire, tidal waves, throwing enough debris into the high atmosphere that the sun no longer shined. "The few survivors sacrificed their humanity as they scratched and scrambled to survive past those first months.

When they were only twenty meters away, Bastogne stopped so she and Norman could decide what to do next. Instead, the alien Bug boomed out, "Humans! A truce!"

In seventy years of war, if one thing was true, it was this: "Bugs did not communicate with humans". Bastogne and Norman were shocked.

"We"re not about to surrender," replied Bastogne.

"The Ladoon want to surrender," said the Bug, extending one claw with the flat green book. "Ladoon?" asked Norman.

"You won the war," said Bastogne. ""Once there were billions of humans. "Now we"re lucky if we find a few thousand. "Why do you wish to surrender?"

"We made a mistake," said the Bug.

"All of this was because of a mistake?"

"Yes. "Many were killed. "We are sorry."

"Sorry? "I"ll give you sorry! "I oughta""

Norman grabbed Bastogne"s arm and tried to hold her back. "She shrugged him off, racked a round into the barrel of her shotgun, aimed it at the neck of the alien in front of her, pulled the trigger and everything went into slow motion.

The Bug"s neck disappeared in ocher spray as the storm of pellets flew through and somersaulted the head backward. It landed eight meters behind his body and rolled before coming to a halt. The aliens knees crumpled and the Bug started to fall under his own weight, slightly backward.

Bastogne and Norman were spattered with rusty Bug blood. ""Dammit, Mona! "Couldn"t you control yourself for once?"

Incredulous, Bastogne looked at her leader strangely. ""You wanted more? His kind killed billions of humans! We were a thriving civilization living in twelve solar systems. That's what you need to remember! Now we"re raiding abandoned department stores for jackets! We scramble for every speck of food"!

"You want to know more? Do you think you need to know more?" Bastogne tromped over to the dead Bug body, picked up the book then stormed back and slammed it sideways into the Leader's chest.

"It"s in there."

The next morning, another Bug waited at the same spot. It stood quietly. Mona Bastogne was waiting. She walked up to the alien and shot it. Every morning there was a new Bug and every day Bastogne killed it. Bastogne's reservoir of impatience lasted one hundred thirty-seven days before she let Bugs utter another word.

When it finished talking, Bastogne shot that Bug, too.