I loved, L O V E D this story.
It was so quietly and calmly spoken that the understated-ness, and the
almost sincere calm of the Syndicate aliens, was what made the story so effective.
From one perspective, a great thing is done for humanity, we are made part of a great civilisation. From another, a horrific thing is done to humanity and we are enslaved while our home is plundered.
I suppose the main character is faced with a situation (part-way through her induction, as the truth of the aliens is made clearer) so awful that the only option is to become part of the process, to survive the 'appropriation' of Earth, its people, culture and artifacts by becoming one of the appropriators.
And the dawning understanding of how very, very much she has made the wrong choice and now has no way back was similarly well written.
Mostly I think the sheer blandness of so many people's (the volunteers) motives was a nice touch. They are the ones who really are making the 'cries for help/attention', the ones who want to get out of their current situation any way they can. They easily take up with the aliens without a thought as it doesn't matter to them what the reality of the aliens or their motives might be. Anything for something else. (Or even for something different to do with one's time, if one doesn't get tenure....)
Humanity is lost because of all those people who don't care about being part of it anymore.
This is going to be one of those 'stays with you long after the story end' stories for me.
Please, please can we have more stories from Merrie Haskell?
[Oh and I was also thinking 'Childhood's End' by the end of the story and then......it gets mentioned in the outro.
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