“Oh man, this is good!” Dallas said, chowing down on his beef dip. “You say this isn’t real beef?”
“Well technically it is, right down to the atomic level, but yes it is created from raw material and reassembled as beef” I said
“And the beer?” he picked up his glass and had a sip
“No, thats real. Life’s too short for fake beer. We have several breweries on the ship, and several hundred tons of hops and malt and barley” I took a sip of mine “Brew-masters are like gods now. Or maybe more like your ‘Rock Stars’. So about these Space Aliens?”
” Oh yeah,” he said pushing his plate away ” these guys were real grody,” ( “disgusting, revolting” Alice whispered in my ear, translating slang as it came up)
” Imagine a giant four foot high hairy testicle with six spider legs sprouting out of the top. Two more legs sprouting from the side of the ball sack with 20 or so wiggly appendages on each. ” He shivered
“Ew!’ Juliette exclaimed as she materialized to clean up the table
” I Know! Right? The legs were the real horror. They had four.. um.. knees I guess you would call them, and each knee had like a stinger coming off of them and the feet of these looked almost like human hands.”
“What did they want with you?”
“Dude, I really have no clue. One minute I’m surfing, next thing I know I’m in a transparent box on a spaceship surrounded by space testicle spiders!.” he shuddered again ” Shoulda found a chubbier kid to hang on to”
“GOUDAGOUDAGOUDAGOUDA” Ted said
“Whats that Timmy? Lassie’s fallen in the well”
“GOUDAGOUDAGOUDAGOUDA” Ted reiterated
“Yeah, you’re right little buddy, I guess we’d better get on with the tour”
“GOUDAGOUDAGOUDAGOUDA” Ted stated
‘What? Why?….Not that I mind but..curious.”
“Whats going on?”
“Ted… I mean the Library, wants you to tag along. Apparently wants to meet you in person.”
“Why? Did someone barf in the romance section?”
“Ha Ha! Not that kind of library.”
“Hey Cap!” He yelled across the room “The library wants Murray to tag along with me for awhile. Is that cool with you?”
The Captain walked over and said “This is highly irregular.” Kind of his “go to” line
” I get it, but the library moves in mysterious ways.”
The Captain looked at me. “Have you completed your regular duties?”
“I still have to provision some heads in sections 51 and 52.” I said, ” Give me a minute to get those covered.”
I tapped my wrist and said “Wallace”
Wallace’s large bald head appeared floating on the table.
” Wallace here.”
” Can you provision 51 and 52 for me?”
” Why? You hungover again?”
” What? No! Well Maybe a little. I’ve got this thing…”
” You’ve always got a thing. Yeah, sure. But you owe me a beer!”
” You are a dear, honest, and noble friend.”
” Please don’t make me clean up my own vomit.” He grinned and the image flickered out.
“Okay” Dallas said ” lets get this dog and pony show rolling!”
Alice had no translation for that.
