(no subject)

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Ray wound up spending quite a bit of time with Jhalak at Milliways, even going so far as to stay the night in his usual room since the little alien didn't seem to want to leave him. The walls of said room are still covered in insanely complex mathematics, as is the ceiling; it's the legacy of a bout of epic drunkenness a few years ago, when Ray and Garion celebrated a major accomplishment in Garion's world with an awful lot of beer. If Jhalak ever figures out the math, it's the background of a background for a possible theoretical structure for a type of hyperspace star drive.

Come the morning, though, he's got to get back to the New York State side of the door. "Jhalak?" he calls. "Are you ready to go, kiddo?"

Comments

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"I'm okay, Jhalak," Ray says. "It's just that I've been to a town called Lupusville before, in another continuum. It was full of werewolves- people just like that guy who went furry on us. I didn't even think it might exist in this world, too."

"I guess I should've told you that, huh, Dad," says the car's voice; it sounds like a girl of about seventeen. "I saw it on the GPS when we came into town but I didn't think to.... um. Dad? Where did the new person come from?"

"Sorry, Ecto. The store door took me to Milliways. This is Jhalak. Jhalak, this is my daughter Ecto."

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"Jhalak." "Ecto." "This is my daughter Ecto." "The store door took me to Milliways." "Sorry, Ecto." "Ecto." "Jhalak." "Jhalak." "Ecto." "That's right."



"Kiwifruits?" adds short(arm) hopefully.

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"Hi, Jhalak!" says Ecto cheerfully. "I don't have any kiwifruits, but I think I've got some fruit roll-ups in my glove compartment- would that be okay?"

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"Fruit roll-ups." "Would that be okay?" "Okay." "In my glove compartment." "I don't have any kiwifruits." "Fruit roll-ups." "Roll-ups." "Fruit." "Okay." "That's right." "Hi, Jhalak!"

...just take that as a yes.

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"... is she sentient?" asks Ecto, even as one robotic arm snakes out from under the passenger side door, rummages through the glove compartment, and then comes up with a handful of snack packages.

Ray starts peeling them open and passing them to Jhalak. "I think so," he says. "She's in the process of acquiring language, though. I detected some low-level PKE emissions in the same spectrum as some of Joey's telepathic capabilities when I scanned her at the Bar."

"Oh, okay."

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Om nom nom.

"I think so." "Is she sentient?" "I detected some low-level PKE emissions in the same spectrum as some of Joey's telepathic capabilities when I scanned her at the Bar." "Acquiring language." "Kiwifruits!" "Fruit roll-ups." "Kiwifruits?" "Kiwifruits." "That's right." "Fruit roll-ups." "Kiwifruits." "Kiwifruit roll-ups?"

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"Somebody's hungry," Ecto comments. "There's a farmer's market five miles down the road. Wanna see if they have kiwifruits there?"

"Any kind of fruit'll do," Ray says as the driver's side door opens. "Kiwifruits just made it into Jhalak's vocabulary first. Let's go- hey, what was so important that you had to transform in the parking lot?"

"Oh! Oh, I almost forgot- I'm sorry. Uh, Uncle Peter called. He says the State Department called. Somebody on the West Coast needs the Ambassador-at-Large."

Ray blinks at that a few times.

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"Made it into Jhalak's vocabulary first." "Let's go." "Any kind of fruit'll do." "That's right." "Hey, what was so important that you had to transform in the parking lot?" "Kiwifruits!"

--it's possible Jhalak just told its first joke. Intentionally or unintentionally.

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Ray laughs and reaches up to pat the little alien. "We'll be there soon, I promise," he says. "This is farm country. You're going to like the choices here. Ecto? Is there more information than that?"

"Yeah, I got Uncle Peter to send me a fax," the car says. "The cops in Port St. Helena, Oregon, found two guys tied up in a cove that the local drug dealers tend to use. Somebody'd caught 'em and roughed 'em up pretty badly, then tied them up with kelp. When they picked the guys up off the sand there was a rock underneath them that somebody'd engraved with the words 'The Great Lemurian Empire requests the human ambassador's presence. Accept these in good faith.'."

"... ya-huh," says Ray, expression simultaneously thoughtful and disturbed. "And they didn't think this was a practical joke?"

"Not once they brought the kelp to the Port St. Helena Marine Science Center," says Ecto. "Turns out it's from a species that only grows in really deep Pacific waters off the coast of Asia."

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"We'll be there soon, I promise." "And they didn't think this was a practical joke?" "You're going to like the choices here." "Is there more information than that?" "This is farm country." "That's right." "Kiwifruits!"

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"All right, I'll read up on it when we get home," Ray says. "Hey, Jhalak? Think you'll be okay with a cross-country trip?"

"You're gonna bring her with you?" says Ecto.

"Well, I don't feel right leaving her behind," Ray says, "and I don't know how to return her to her people. She might as well stay with me for this. Who knows, her presence might be useful."

"You're gonna go see a totally new species' representatives and you're gonna bring- oooooh. Okay. That makes sense," says Ecto. "I didn't even think of that."

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"Jhalak." "Cross-country trip." "Okay." "I don't feel right leaving her behind." "Who knows, her presence might be useful." "That's right."



Beat.



"Kiwifruits?"

Short(arm) never gives up, does it.

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"Up ahead and on the left, kiddo," Ray says to Jhalak. "Here we go. One farmer's market full of fruits, coming right up."

The place is bustling at this time of day, and at this time of year the selection is pretty excellent. Ray does, however, take the precaution of pulling on a baseball cap with the Ghostbusters logo. People tend to be a little less spastic about weirdness when they realize he's being paid to deal with it.

"All righty! Hang on tight, Jhalak, we're gonna get you some fruit."

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"Kiwifruits!" "Kiwifruits!" "Hang on tight!" "All righty!" "We're gonna get you somr fruit." "Kiwifruits!" "That's right!"

Jhalak sounds cheerful, insofar as Jhalak ever sounds anything.

[gone_byebye]

Those poor, poor farmers are never gonna know what hit 'em, are they.