Angry Young Spaceman by Jim Munroe Read Free Book Online Page B

aren’t there Octavian dolls?” I nodded towards the girl as I said it.

    He nodded. “Yes. The human dolls are very popular. More popular.”

    “Huh,” I said. No further conversation ensued. I may have gotten the impression that all Octavians were closed-mouthed but for the two polar opposites of Mr. Zik at the front of the bus. And in fact, the whole bus refuted the idea that Octavians were the same — there was every shape and size.

    Every Earthling has seen a beautiful Octavian model — her shapely upper torso ending in suggestively undulating tentacles, her mysteriously pupil-less eyes and an upswept headcrest — but she bore little resemblance to the people on the bus. Closest were the two giggling schoolgirls, make-up-less and plain, who kept looking back at me. The old man two seats over was terrifying to me, his head a withered old balloon and the soft skin that ridged the top of his head lined with purple veins. And there was a middle-aged guy in a suit and tie who was so fat even his tentacles moved sluggishly. Despite his appearance, the round crackers he was eating made me think about how hungry I was.

    I watched the scenery in an effort to take my mind off my stomach and my bladder. The huge pink and grey columns of rock and the scrub brush were good for about thirty minutes before I started thinking viciously intolerant things about people who didn’t have bathroom breaks.

    The bus headed off the main throughway.

    “Great!” I said.

    “Yes, we will stop to use the toilet. Are you hungry?”

    “I’m starving!”

    Mr. Zik stared at me blankly.

    “I’m not really starving, I just feel like I’m starving.”

    “Ah yes,” he said. “Starving. Ssss-sss-ss.”

    A second after I said “starving” I had been worried he would take it as a criticism of his hosting, but evidently he wasn’t that sensitive. I relaxed a little.

    We piled out of the bus and I headed towards the bathroom with an icon of an Octavian with thick tentacles (thinner tentacles and cocked head indicated the female) and I got into a booth. Poised on tiptoes, I whipped out my johnson and let it fly.

    It was easier than it would have been in an oxygen atmosphere. I’d say about 80% accuracy. 85%, even. Not bad for a first try. And I wasn’t the only one to have missed the hole in the wall today, either — why did they make it s’damn small? But compared to a lot of alien toilets, this one was only mid-range challenging. At least it stayed stationary.

    I left the booth, washed my hands and walked out, hearing a few indecipherable comments and laughter in my wake. I found Mr. Zik outside the restaurant and we went in. There were a couple of policemen eating soup over a small table, their zap guns holstered. They stopped eating to watch me walk to the counter.

    When the counterman turned around, Mr. Zik pointed to himself and said something. Then he pointed to me and said something else. I smiled uneasily.

    “Sligllgy blick?!” asked the counterman, his eyes wide..

    “En, sligllgy blick. Koogeem.” Then they laughed together.

    “Koogeem” meant “offworlder.” I smiled and nodded, repeating my mantra: Trust your host, trust your host.

    The counterman prepared the food and brought it to us, two plates of seed-speckled seaweed, red dumplings and other vegetables that I didn’t recognize.

    “Oh Kay?” said the counterman when he gave it to me.

    At first I thought he was speaking Octavian, but then I figured it out and nodded.

    “OK!” he confirmed, and the policemen behind us laughed.

    I kept telling myself that I was lucky to be on a planet with human-suitable food, even if I had to eat a lot of it by Octavian standards. I took my fork out of my pocket and started eating.

    I knew this would cause a bit of a stir. We had been warned that a fork may be mistaken for a weapon and so it was best to start eating with it immediately. The policemen made gestures towards it and looked to be deciding who