Robert Verdon, #278, Another Missed Opportunity

Inside a cold space at the top of a water tower

the alien hides, protected by a force-field

powered by whatever’s thrown at it, but

still is terrified to go out in case it gives itself

away … it can only eat rhubarb on this planet

and looks like a rat, though as large as a camel,

and cannot change shape as in the movies,

and though it speaks 100 earth languages like a native

and has the secret of eternal life, the philosopher’s stone

and a few other goodies ten-a-penny at home

and worth oilfields here, it has frozen … maybe nobody

deserves these gifts (as its predecessors claimed) and in any

case it has a classic case of new-planet agoraphobia …

the ship can change shape and after a few days the water

tower blasts off again, headed for the centre of the galaxy.