“I dunno,” said Papa O’Neal grumpily. “How many?”
“Just one,” Mueller said. “But it takes a really big lightbulb.”
“I don’t get that one,” Elgars said.
“They’re hermaphroditic,” Wendy said. “They can’t really self impregnate, not without help. But any two can reproduce with any other two so since ‘go screw yourself’ is an insult, people joke about them screwing themselves.”
Elgars nodded her head. “I still don’t get it.”
“Think about it,” Cally said. “In the meantime: Why did the Himmit cross the road?”
“I don’t know,” Elgars said.
“It didn’t; it’s on the wall behind you,” Cally said with a grin.
Elgars regarded her calmly. “This is a joke?”
“Never mind,” Wendy sighed. “Then there’s the one about the Himmit who sat in his car for three days, in a no-parking zone, blending into the upholstery of the driver seat.” She paused for a moment. “He got toad.” She looked around. “Get it? Toad. T-O-A-D.”
“Aaaagh!” Papa O’Neal shouted. “That’s awful!”
“I don’t get it again?” Elgars said. “What is a Himmit?”
“One of the Galactic races,” Cally answered, shaking her head and throwing a biscuit at Wendy. “They sort of look like big frogs. They can blend into the background so well it’s like they’re invisible.”
“Thank you,” Wendy said, bowing at the table. “Thank you… Or the Himmit in the piano bar? One of the customers says to the piano player, ‘Do you know there’s a giant invisible frog having a beer on the wall behind you?’ And the piano player said: ‘Hum a bar or two and I’ll pick it up.’ Or the one about the extrovert Indowy? He looks at your shoes while he’s talking to you.”
“Those are awful!” Cally said.
“Worse than the bisexual joke?” Mueller asked. “Okay. Two soldiers in a foxhole. One says, ‘I heard about two orphans passin’ through town today. Those godamn aliens hit their town a week ago, killed their dad — he was a marathon runner, of all things — and ate their Ma. Didn’t eat him — just her. Crazy damn aliens, why’d they do that?’ The other says, ‘You idiot. Their Pa’s lean’.”
“That’s terrible,” Shari said. “Nearly as bad as this one. What’s a good mascot for the ACS? A lobster: so good to eat, so hard to peel.”
“Hey!” Cally said. “My dad resembles that remark! What do you call a Crab on a sugar high? Flubber. It just bounces and bounces… You know what they call a Crab studying Marine Biology? Speaker to shellfish.”
“How do two hungry Posleen greet each other?” Papa O’Neal asked, not to be outdone. “With salt and pepper of course.”
“Why did the Posleen leave an honor stick at the McDonald’s?” Cally asked. “They saw the sign ‘6 billion served.’ ”
“You barely remember McDonald’s,” Papa O’Neal said suspiciously. “Who told you that?”
“Just… a guy,” Cally said with a twinkle in her eye.
“Oh, shit,” Mueller muttered. “Hey! How did the bus full of lawyers escape from behind the Posleen lines? Professional courtesy.”
“What guy?” Papa O’Neal asked.
“What did the Posleen say when they took Auschwitz?” she asked, ignoring the question. “ ‘I prefer Sushi.’ ”
“What guy, Cally?” Papa O’Neal asked again.
“Just a soldier,” she answered. “At the Piggly Wiggly. He told a joke and so did I and I left. It was no big deal…”
“What do you call Posleen in the open and a Fuel Air Explosion?” Mueller asked desperately. “A Whopper and fries.”
“What do you mean, no big deal?” Papa O’Neal said dangerously. “I don’t want them changing the song to ‘Cally went down to town.’ ”
“Okay,” Shari sighed. “Look at me, Michael O’Neal.”
“Yes?” he said grumpily.
“What do the Posleen call call Carl Lewis?”
“I dunno,” Papa O’Neal said, shaking his head. “You’re not going to let me pursue this, are you?”
“No. Fast Food.”
He snorted. “Okay.”
“What did the Posleen say when confronted by an Ethiopian?”
“I dunno,” he said smiling at her. “What?”
“ ‘Nouvelle Cuisine AGAIN?’ I gotta million of ’em. What do the Posleen call a doctor?”
“What?”
“Lunch. What do the Posleen call a construction worker?”
“I dunno.”
“Lunch. What do the Posleen call a politician? Competition. What do the Posleen call a lawyer? Trouble. Do you know why they substituted lawyers for Posleen in their chemical warfare experiments? Lawyers bred faster. There are things a Posleen won’t do. And the researchers were taking pity on the Posleen.
“And last, but not least: Why did the Posleen take less than a month to go through China? Well, you know how it is, you eat Chinese and an hour later…”
“Jeeze, you’re something,” O’Neal said with a laugh.
“You got any Van Morrison in this dump?” she asked.
“I think I’ve got his ‘Best of,’ why?”
“Because I want to dance,” she answered, taking his hand and standing up. “Come on.”
“I’ve got two left feet,” he protested.
“You put your arms around me and shuffle around,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “How hard’s it gonna be?”
“You might want to rephrase that,” Mueller muttered.
“Oh, shut up.”
As the music changed in the background, Elgars poured a small sip of the better moonshine. She swirled it in her cup and looked at Mosovich. “I think now is a good time.”
“Now’s a good time for what?” Cally asked.
“I told Mosovich about a flashback while we were walking,” Elgars answered. “There was something about it he really didn’t like.”
“Yeah,” Mosovich said. “You’re right.” He poured himself some of the moonshine and leaned back. “What I didn’t like about it is that the person who had that experience is real, and she’s really dead. I saw her die.”
“Where?” Cally asked.
“Barwhon,” Mueller interjected. “We were both on a recon team that was sent out before the expeditionary force even got there. We were guinea pigs to see how dangerous the Posleen really were.”
“You can’t remember that time,” Mosovich said. “But… there was a lot of disbelief. ‘Alien invasion? Right, pull the other one.’ That got dispelled pretty quick when a high-level delegation on Barwhon got eaten, and the tape got back to the World. Anyway, we were on a recon of Barwhon doing an order of battle and analysis of the terrain and fighting conditions…”
“Bad and bad,” Mueller said.
“I guess we did our job too well,” the sergeant major continued. “We got a call to capture a Posleen and return it. I figured that we could capture one of the nestlings easier than an adult so we attacked a camp that was also holding some Crabs as a walking larder. When we did, the Posleen turned out to be a bit better at fighting than we had given them credit for. All the stuff we know now; the sniper detection system and the way they just swarm to the sound of fighting. Anyway, we lost a bunch of real legends in the special operations community, including our sniper, Staff Sergeant Sandra Ellsworthy. The description of your flashback correlates exactly to her death.”
“Yep,” Mueller said. “I thought the same thing. It’s like listening to Sandra tell it, complete with the southern accent.”
“You know,” Wendy said. “That’s hardly coming out at all anymore. The accent I mean.”
“Anyway, that’s why we freaked,” Mosovich said.
“What do you think?” Elgars asked quietly. “Do you think that the Crabs put your friend’s head in mine? Am I Anne Elgars or this Ellsworthy person? Similar name, both snipers? You think that’s it?”