“Hello there!” his translator burst out. Sam leaped back. He hadn’t heard a single Snorf from the ox. Why had the translator chosen to work at this time?
“Hello yourself,” he replied, but the translator remained silent. Puzzled, Sam moved closer to the ox. He repeated the greeting with no result. He stepped closer until he was at the exact position where he had heard the first greeting.
“Don’t move away!” blared the translator. “We’re having a hell of a time boosting the volume to a level you can hear.”
“Uh, where are you?” Sam wondered, looking around. Ghosts?
“Down here! Lean closer so we don’t have to shout.”
Sam glanced down and noticed that his translator dangled into the mass of hair on the ox’s back. Just beneath the box, among the ox’s thick hairs, were a few tiny, black specks that looked suspiciously like fleas. He could barely make out a shining dot in the midst of them—their booster, perhaps?
“Put the box down near us,” the translator blared again.
Sam did so, trying to avoid crushing any of the specks accidentally. “You, you live on this animal?” he asked in amazement.
“Of course we do. How else can a race our size survive?” the specks replied.
Sam pondered on why he had never before considered the question of scale among the various races in the Hegemony. Most of the galactics he’d met to date were more or less humansized, provided that you accepted a 200 percent variance as “humansized,” of course. Still, given the breadth and scope of galactic civilization, almost anything might be possible. Why not intelligent fleas?
Sam leaned over the ox’s back, trying not to get a snootful of the creature’s overpowering aroma as he did so. “I say,” he shouted into the thick hair. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Greetings, yourself, whatever you are. Sorry to take so long to get back to you but we’ve had to run quite a ways from the campsite to get within range.”
“Campsite?” Sam replied, hoping that the translator would convey his confusion at the term the flea had used.
“Oh yes, most of this region is set aside as a truzdl wilderness area. Great for the kids. We usually live in Great Neck, Mane—prime real estate, you know. Anyhow, it’s nice to occasionally get away with the kids and commune with raw nature, as it were.”
Kids? Sam tried to imagine little uniformed truzdl flea-scouts setting up tents, building campfires, and telling scary stories as darkness fell. He wondered if they earned tiny merit badges as well.
“I am a human,” Sam explained with his mouth as close to the translator as the stench of the ox would allow. As he did so he could just make out the very faint, high-pitched chirping noises, almost at the limits of his hearing, that must be the truzdl’s language. “From Earth,” he added, just in case they had never heard of humans.
“Fascinating,” the box translated. “We have, of course, heard of your planet and are anxious to go there some day. Do you have any recommendations as to which sights would be worth a visit?”
For a second Sam contemplated recommending the primary sites that seemed to fascinate most of the galactic tourists—Disneyland, Hoboken, and Kawasaki’s Rib ’n Sushi Bar. But then he reconsidered, unsure of whether Disneyland would have rides small enough to accommodate these flea-sized creatures, uncertain of how they would deal with Kawasaki’s fare, and afraid that the tiny truzdls might get mugged in Hoboken by the local insect population, none of whom were signatories to the Galactic Accords.
“Perhaps you’d like to visit a cattle ranch,” he suggested, and described how Earth’s vast ranges were dotted with thousands and thousands of bison, steers, sheep, llamas, and yaks.
“It sounds like heaven,” the truzdls replied. “Yes, when we get back from our mission we will spread the word. I imagine that many of our race will want to colonize such an exotic and sparsely populated world.”
Upon hearing those words Sam immediately regretted his suggestion. The last thing Earth needed was an increase in the vermin population, being already overrun with flies, mosquitoes, ticks, no-see-ums, and lawyers. Still, a population of intelligent fleas might make life more interesting for the less fortunate, being able to converse with their vermin. It might even enliven some midwestern communities, there being little else to do in many of the smaller towns.
Sam spent the rest of the evening making friendly conversation, interrupted only by the occasional shifts of the truzdl’s host and Sam’s frequent dashes for fresh air as the sham-ox continued to process its feed. The truzdls were good company, pleasant conversationalists, and, to hear them tell it, very well traveled.
“We do have one tiny request,” Bunion, the principal speaker, asked matter-of-factly. “We would appreciate it if you didn’t mention our presence to anyone.”
“Are you stowaways?” Sam asked with a smile.
“A single ticket is a lot cheaper for us, you see. As you know, the Glimmoras assess a head count for passengers and we couldn’t afford that,” Bunion replied.
Matter of fact, Sam hadn’t known that. Hmmm, maybe the lower fare was why Ahbbbb had arranged for him to share this cabin; she was never one to miss on the opportunity to shave expenses, usually at his expense.
“Have you ever considered getting group rates?” Sam asked.
Snorf ate his feed throughout the night, pausing not an instant to relieve itself of mounds of processed feed that the floor magically absorbed with a soft, slurping sound. Sam half expected each ingestion to be followed by an “Ahhhh,” but that never occurred. The mock-ox belched irregularly, when it wasn’t breaking wind, and, between the two, suffused the cabin with such pungent presence that sleep, punctuated by frequent dashes to the passageway for fresh air, was impossible.
What if, Sam worried in the dark soul of the night, there should be a spark from some device? Would it ignite the methane-rich atmosphere of the cabin and destroy the ship, killing him, the ox, and the population of truzdls that inhabited it? There was another blast of wind that took his breath away.
He wondered if there was a lighter in his kit as he dashed for the door.
The auto-chef bleated the warning of the approaching carnivore to the passengers as Sam entered the common room for breakfast. By the time he arrived there wasn’t a soul in sight.
When Sam stated his desires for breakfast, the crystalline auto-chef produced a greenish-yellow pellet and a tiny cup of thick, bitter broth for his breakfast. “Eggs and coffee,” it announced. “Per spec.” Sam wondered what alien race had programmed the machine and what Earth had done to make them hate humanity so much.
“I said that I wanted cereal,” Sam protested. “I explicitly said cereal, with milk!”
“Humans eat eggs. Humans drink coffee,” the auto-chef stubbornly argued.
“But I don’t eat eggs or drink coffee,” Sam screamed.
“Have I mistaken your species?” the auto-chef said incredulously as it blinked in confusion. “Please state your race.”
“I am Sam Boone, Earth human,” Sam said obediently. “And I want my damned cereal!”
“Sam Boone is human creature. Humans eat eggs and drink coffee. What is wrong with this logic?”
“It’s the premise, not the logic,” Sam muttered murderously. “And if you don’t produce something edible I will personally reach inside there and rip out your stupid, arrogant guts!”
“You have declared yourself as a predator and therefore a possibly violent and abusive being. The crew of an interstellar ship in flight is authorized to defend itself to the death against such beings.”