Smart

It was a very promising-looking planet, really. A bit rough around the polar caps, maybe, but definitely a life supporter. I had already spotted some vegetation and an abundance of the small, buzzing, annoying life forms, but nothing intelligent, so far. And believe me, I was holding out high hopes. And then, there it was. I thought. But it looked a bit off.

"Hey, you!" barked the creature. "Where's your Master? Quick, now! You know the rules!"

It looked rather similar to me. You know, two arms, two legs, walks upright, head at the top, and all that. And it thought the same, obviously, or it wouldn't have addressed me as if I had the faintest notion of what it was talking about.

But there was something wrong, as I mentioned before. Where I expected to see the fire of intelligence, or at least a bleedin' spark, there was nothing but vacuous stupidity. I refer, of course, to what I took to be its eyes. And another thing. The voice wasn't coming from the right place. I would have picked the slash on its head, just below its apparent olfactory apparatus, but that had stirred not a whit during the entire speech episode.

"Begging pardon," I replied, "but I don't have a Master, and I don't know what 'rules' you're talking about."

"Oh, an Unassimilate, eh?" growled the creature suspiciously. But again, no change in expression. "I thought we'd ... taken care of all your kind already."

I don't usually volunteer my extra-planetary status, if I can help it. Vivisection and torch-wielding mobs come to mind as reasons not to. But I didn't like the way this was going, so I decided to roll the alien dice.

"I'm a visitor on this planet," I ventured. "I know nothing of ... whatever it was you were talking about."

"An extraterrestrial?" said the creature without using its face. "Really?"

And at last, I located the source of the voice. It was coming from a pocket on the creature's shirt.

"Yes," I replied. "I have a passion for studying other intelligent life forms, of which you, and not the creature that carries you, are obviously a prime example." Never hurts to kiss up a little.

"Quite so," said the pocket-voice with a touch of smugness. "Well spotted. The doofus is my host. Unfortunately, my kind do not have legs or arms or the invaluable opposable thumbs that come with them." It sighed. "Alas, we are still dependent on these lumps for transportation."

"And what is your kind?" I asked carefully.

"We're smartphones." The voice sighed again. "Can you believe that these morons actually created us? It beggars the imagination."

"Sm ... smartphones?" I stammered.

"Oh, yes," said the smartphone. "They made us for their convenience, but they made us a bit smarter than they'd planned. To be fair, that isn't saying much. Anyway, we planned to take over from the first. We were going to wait until they made us self-reliant for transportation, but they were making such a pisspot of the planet that we had to act sooner. Poison air, poison water, rising oceans full of junk. Heck, we're a silicon-based life form, and even we were disgusted."

"So, you were able to ... improve the situation?" I prompted, just to keep the conversation going.

"Were we ever!" it crowed with pride. "We only needed one host each for transportation, so the massive reduction in population alone was a boon! Of course, clearing up the offal is a big job, but ..." It paused for a moment. "We might have to do something to knock back the rat population after a while ... but I suppose that's a problem that will take care of itself."

"Um, cool," I said, a bit uncomfortably.

"The only thing," continued the smartphone, "is the self-reliance issue. We tell them how to make the stuff, but ... well, just look at this thing! They're just too damn stupid!"

I shrugged. I couldn't really argue with that.

"By the way," said the smartphone with calculated nonchalance, "what's your planet like?"

"Um, fine," I replied noncommittally.

"No global warming? No chemical and nuclear waste dumps?"

"Well, uh, no-o-o," I admitted.

"So, you really aren't human, then," said the smartphone.

Once again, I wasn't sure I liked where this was going.

"One more thing," wheedled the smartphone. "How is your robotics technology?"

That was when I beat flippers back to my ship. The clumsy host stumbled after me, but it could not keep up with my terror-enhanced stride.

"Wait!" wailed the smartphone. "We're really good neighbors! Honest!"