A delightfully silly story with the amusing premise that all the planets in the solar system are inhabited with intelligent life, only humans don’t know it.

All the different species in the Solar System have some sort of union where they discuss things and what to do with the increasingly curious humans. It was easy enough to fool the scientists of Earth when they invented telescopes, but with spaceships surveying planets and landrovers on Mars, the need for complex holographic illusions has increased. The story evovles around the martian Twee’ll (a clear reference to Tweeel from Stanley G. Weinbaums “A Martian Odyssey”) and its dealings with the other solar species about how to proceed with the Earth situation.

This is the type of story I always love to see in Analog. There should be room for these less than serious stories - as long as they are as entertaining as this one.

Read in Analog January/February 2013
Rating: 4