Sanchez was from eastern Kansas, he remarked that the village, the fields and the countryside reminded him of home. It reminded me of small town home, too. The houses were neat but not fancy, each house had a barn or workshop behind it. Back home, such houses would have a sign out front advertising the hundreds of side jobs rural people did to make ends meet. Honest work like selling fresh eggs, welding, small engine repair, hair cutting, log splitting, child care. My father thought you could combine tasks, like log splitting and child care. No more lazy kids sitting around with coloring books or playing with Legos, my father would say “You kids better have those three cords of wood split and stacked by five o’clock, or no juice boxes for you. And no crying if you hit your foot with the maul, walk it off. It’s just a flesh wound.” I may be exaggerating a bit.

There were vehicles in the road or fields and, even though they were clearly alien, they also reminded me of home. Every vehicle had a dented fender, or a body panel that was a different color. These were working vehicles, for working people. My kind of people. Except they were aliens, and they had attacked Earth without provocation. Now that I thought about it, I hoped neither of our two hamvees had been commandeered from this particular village, that would make for an awkward situation.

A male hamster walked partly into the street ahead of us and waved, in what I hoped was a friendly, or at least non-threatening, manner. I could tell he was male, because the fur on his face was a light downy coat all over; females had facial fur almost too fine to see. Also, males had bigger whiskers.

He was wearing overalls. Blue, denim-type bib overalls, with patches on the knees, an outfit identical to several my father wore for working around the house. And a straw sort of baseball cap, with a wide brim. The hat had a logo, was it a hamster sports team, or a seed business, maybe the logo of the company that made the tractors in the fields? I called a halt, got out, and told Sanchez to stay put, with the engine running. My rifle was on the seat, I had my sidearm, but otherwise was unarmed. Hearts and minds, I told myself, hearts and minds. See if we can start things off peacefully; I could get rough later if needed, but a rough start was hard to overcome. Besides, the pair of Chickens, weapon pods bristling, were hovering in plain sight, ready for action.

My zPhone was already set for Ruhar, I held up one hand, and said simply "Hello."

The hamster spoke into his own sort of zPhone type device. "Hello. Welcome to Teskor. Teskor is our village."