A Little Green Man Saves the Day
by Alissa Grosso 

 

I stormed into the Cultural Concordance office, dwarf in tow. My hair was a mess, my clothes were askew, and the dwarf was babbling about pigeons and Sylvester Stallone. 

He wasn't really a dwarf, of course. He was a Penniken National, but the Midwestern farmer who had discovered the little buggers in his wheat field had labeled them dwarves and the name, like Columbus's Indians, had just stuck. 

"You can't bring aliens in here!" shouted a young woman in neon colored clothing.

"This is the division of Cultural Concordance in Extraplanetary Affairs," I said as if logic would somehow have an effect on her.

She pointed to a sign on the wall. It was a piece of paper on which someone, probably the neon clad employee, had written "No Aliens" in black magic marker.

"It's because of that big rally they had last week," she explained.

There was a few seconds of silence as I tried to remember anything at all about the Penniken Nationals holding a rally.

"Those were illegal aliens!" I said as I finally recalled the rally that had occurred last week. This didn't seem to register with her, and I could have gone into great detail explaining the difference between illegal aliens, and the ones that came from outer space, but I didn't have the time.

"I'm Professor Rand, from Kegler University," I said.

"Oh," said the woman with a big nod. "You're the woman covering for Joe for this diplomatic thing. I'm Megan, his intern. Can't you just have the alien wait in the hall or something?"

"Look, he's not an alien, he's a dwarf, I mean, he's not a dwarf . . . he's with me, ok? I am his host until negotiations with his home planet are complete. I need to find all of Joe's files on today's reception. Where would they be?"

"Um, in there, I guess. That's his office," she said pointing at the door to my left.

I walked into the office with the dwarf still following me, though he and Megan were exchanging suspicious stares. Leave it to the division of Cultural Concordance on Extraplanetary Affairs to hire a xenophobic intern. To be fair, it wasn't all their fault. Since the Equal Internship Opportunity bill was passed, all government offices were mandated to accept interns from any and all academic areas of study. God only knew what Megan was majoring in.

The good thing was I didn't have a hard time tracking down Joe's file on the reception for the diplomat from Dala Varo. The bad thing was the file was almost completely empty. I was beginning to wonder if Joe really had caught the flu bug, or if this was a procrastination-induced illness. All that was in the folder was a memo concerning an informational meeting for all reception committee members that began in three minutes. I burst out of the office into the reception area where Megan was busy amending the "No Aliens" sign with the words "or Dwarves."

"Jeez, what's with you?" said Megan. She was standing on a chair so that she could reach the sign. The chair had wheels at the bottom of the legs, and the way that she was leaning against the wall, I was sure that the chair would slide out from under her and she would land flat on her face. I waited for this to happen, but somehow she managed to defy all known laws of physics.

"There's a meeting at 9:30," I said. "Where's the commissary of the Extraplanetary Law Division?"

She made a tsk, tsk noise.

"Didn't you read the note I left you?" she asked. "I left it on your desk."

I assumed she meant Joe's desk since mine was back at Kegler University's Interplanetary Art and Cultural Studies Department. I rifled through his clutter but found nothing. I burst back out of his office. Megan was sitting at her desk.

"I couldn't find it," I said.

She shook her head as if I was an incompetent fool. She lifted a piece of paper off her desk and handed it to me. It said, "Rec. com. mtg. 12."

"Does this mean the meeting's been moved to twelve o'clock?" I asked.

"Uh, yeah," said Megan with the valley girl inflection going full force.

I went back into Joe's office and tried to put all the papers back in place. I found a scrap of paper on which he had scribbled a bulleted list. It said:

- Food
- Flowers
- Make Sure Nobody Does Anything Stupid

Right. Well, it was a start.

I burst back out into the reception area. Megan seemed to be rather busy counting ceiling tiles. I looked at the list I held in my hand, looked at the "No Aliens or Dwarves" sign, and then pulled from my bag a copy of a short piece on Customs and Taboos of Dala Varo.

"How many Reception Committee members are there?" I asked.

"I don't know twenty, maybe fifty," said Megan at last taking her eyes off the ceiling.

I handed her the copy of the customs and taboos report.

"Make me a hundred copies of this, please." I held it out to her, but she didn't make a move to pick it up.

"The copier's broken," she said.

"This is a big complex. There must be more than one copier."

"That means I'll have to go all the way to another department."

"There's a diplomat coming all the way from another galaxy," I said as I hurried out of the office with the dwarf close on my heels.

It would have been easier to look up a list of local catering companies from the comfort of Joe's office, but I didn't really feel like dealing with Megan the fluorescent intern any more than I absolutely had to. There was a computer in the telephone booth at the coffee shop around the corner. I set the dwarf up with a cup of hot chocolate and a donut at the counter and barricaded myself in the phone booth. The first three places I called were all booked up, and couldn't handle anything on short notice. The next two were no longer in business. The one after that wasn't really a catering shop, but a dog grooming center, although they did carry gourmet dog biscuits, and offered special birthday party packages where your dog and all his friends could come to celebrate that special day. On my seventh try I struck paydirt, or at least found a caterer who was only two blocks away, and could cover an event today.

At about the same time, the dwarf flung a donut all the way across the room striking a young man on the head. I watched the whole thing in horror, and then struggled for two minutes with the door to the phone booth that had gotten jammed. By the time I fought myself free, the dwarf was surrounded by a small crowd of angry customers who were chanting, "No Aliens! No Aliens!"

"He's not an alien. He's a dwarf."

I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him with me as we ran out the door. I did not have time for a xenophobic riot. 

We were halfway to the caterer's when I finally asked him, "Why did you throw that donut?"

Dwarves understand us pretty well, but they are choosy about which questions they will answer. That's why the negotiations were taking so long. That's why we couldn't call any of them by name.

"I thought it was zakka," said the dwarf by way of explanation.

'Zakka' was a dwarf term that had about seventy definitions. I tried to figure out which one he was referring to, and finally decided that it was probably the small round object used in the popular sporting event, gellek. I wasn't familiar with the rules of gellek. I wondered if it in any way involved hitting people in the head with zakkas.

Before we walked into the catering place, I warned the dwarf not to throw anything or incite any riots.

I explained the situation with the reception for the diplomat to the caterer who nodded sympathetically and typed something into a computer.

"I have a great new software program," he explained. "All you do is enter the species you are cooking for, any additional dietary requests or conditions, and it figures out the perfect meal for you. So, what we are looking at is the Dala Varo diplomat, the dwarf, and a bunch of humans. Any special requests?"

"No donuts," I said.

"Great. Now I just hit this key, and . . ."

The computer began to make a high pitched squealing noise. The dwarf started running around in circles and flailing his balled fists in the air.

"Oh great, fatal system error. That means I'm going to have to reboot."

The dwarf's running was getting quicker, and his flailing motions were looking more and more menacing.

"Can't you make that squealing noise stop?" I asked shouting over it.

"I'm trying," he said.

But I was afraid the dwarf's head was going to explode. I scribbled down the address for the reception on a piece of paper for him.

"Just have the food there by five o'clock!" I shouted as I grabbed the dwarf by the arm and raced out the door.

I glanced at my watch. It was already eleven o'clock, and I hadn't even started looking up places to get flowers. Flowers? It was a reception for a diplomat, not a wedding. What were the appropriate flowers for a diplomatic reception anyway?

I had neglected to hang on to a copy of Customs and Taboos of Dala Varo which meant I would just have to hope there was no such thing as offensive flowers in their culture. 

There were no less than ten flower shops in a two block radius. It took me six stops before I found a florist that stocked more than just roses, and could get out my delivery before four o'clock. I went with tulips because they seemed rather innocuous and because they had a lot of them. 

I ran back into the lobby at two minutes to twelve. The dwarf was chattering away about the tulips, but I was only half listening to him. I spotted an elevator, and made a dash for it.

"Professor Rand?"

I turned around, and did not recognize the man standing next to me in the elevator. In my surprise, I had let go of the door, and now it threatened to close right on the dwarf. I threw myself into the narrow opening. The man hit the open door button, to save both me and the dwarf from any irreparable harm.

"Thank you," I said, when I had more or less recovered. The man was rather attractive. I'm sure I hadn't met him before. I wouldn't forget a pair of eyes like that. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I recognize you."

"No, you wouldn't. My name is Duke Lange, Extraplanetary Law." We shook hands. "I had the pleasure of attending one of your lectures a few years ago on Bendaugan Social Customs. It was when we were having that little tiff with the Bendaugans over public air space. It was a fascinating lecture. What brings you here to the bureaucratic side of things?" 

I was distracted by the dwarf's sudden fascination with the elevator's keypad. If I wasn't mistaken, he was either in the process of using his superior mental powers to mesmerize the electronic device, or some bit of the machinery had managed to mesmerize him. Either way, it didn't look good. I yanked on his arm, and pulled him away from that section of the elevator lest bad things should start to occur. 

"I, uh, what am I doing working for the government?" I said a bit flustered but recalling dimly that Duke Lange had asked me a question. "I, well, I'm simply covering for a friend of mine. Do you know Joe Held?"

"Cultural Concordance. Sure, I know Joe. Is he away or something?"

"Out with the flu."

"Well, that's a bummer. I mean what with this big reception and all. Everyone's as stressed out as can be over this thing. Apparently it's very important that we maintain a wonderfully cordial and friendly relationship with these Dala Varo folks. Well, it's good that you were able to cover for him. Are you all set for this afternoon?"

"Yes, well, not really. I mean, I'm not sure. I was hoping this meeting would help clear some things up. Is that where you are headed?"

"Meeting?" asked Duke. "Oh you mean the communication meeting. Right, that was pushed back to three."

"Three? But I thought the reception was supposed to take place at five?"

"Oh, it's just one of those last minute sort of things. Make sure nobody commits a Dala Varo faux pas or something. Peaceful communication, that sort of thing. It's great that you'll be there what with your background in alien culture and all."

The elevator came to a stop at the third floor. 

"My stop," announced Duke. "So, I'll see you at three. If you need anything, just give me a call."

"I could use a new intern," I said hopefully. 

"Oh, you're stuck with that color therapy major, aren't you. I'd gladly trade you my fish in training, but I'm afraid moving his tank would be just about impossible."

The doors slid closed, and somehow the dwarf mesmerized the keypad to take us to the Fifth Floor where the Cultural Concordance office was located. 

Color therapy. Well, that explained the neon clothing, I guess. Megan, fortunately or
unfortunately was nowhere to be found. There was a piece of paper with the words, "Out To Lunch" written in black magic marker taped to her desk. It was a bit of an understatement. 

What Duke had said about avoiding faux pas reminded me about the customs and taboos list I had asked Megan to copy. I recalled where she had left the note for me this morning and started rummaging through the papers, nail files, and magazines on her desk. I finally found the original that I had given her. There were no copies anywhere in sight. Probably, the walk to another department had proven to be too much for her. I sighed deeply, glanced up at the "No Aliens or Dwarves" sign, and grabbed Megan's wheeled chair and dragged it over to the wall. I climbed up, and leaning against the wall reached up to pull the sign down. The chair rolled out from under me, and I fell hard on the floor.

"You missed," said the dwarf, and I don't know if that was supposed to be an attempt at humor or not. I looked up at the sign tacked to the wall above me, now taunting me with its idiotic message.

"You are so weird. What are you doing lying on the floor?"

It was Megan. I expected her to give me a hand, and help me up, but instead, she grabbed her chair rolled it back in front of her desk, sat down, and began to flip through one of her magazines. I pushed myself to my feet.

"I went upstairs to copy that thing for you, but there's a new rule that copy machines can't be shared between departments," said Megan without looking up from her magazine.

"Well, this is an extraordinary circumstance. The copier here is broken."

"Rules are rules," she said. "Without rules what would we have?"

"Anarchy," I ventured.

"Bad stuff," she explained.

I still had three hours until the meeting, which I figured should be enough time to track down a working copier. I started down the hallway, with the dwarf following close behind me.

"Tell me, that thing you did to the elevator, you couldn't maybe use that to fix a broken copier?"

"There are things that are best left unsaid," stated the dwarf, a statement which would probably have been better left unsaid.

The next department down the hall was the Extraplanetary Linguistics Department. There was a piece of paper with the words, "Out with Flu" written on it in black magic marker taped to the door. It seemed a little hard to believe that the whole department had caught the flu on the same day. I tried the door. It was locked, and it looked dark inside. I hoped that linguistics had completed all their research for today's reception. I have attended a few diplomatic events where the two factions cannot understand one another. It is never pretty.

Next stop down the hall was Accounts Payable. The door was open. Their reception area was littered with various signs written in black magic marker. I don't think there was a free inch of wall. "Get your Check Requests in ON TIME!," "All office supply purchases must be pre-approved," "Unnecessary expenses are not acceptable," "No Aliens Allowed." I wondered if tulips would be considered a necessary expense. There was no one at the receptionist's desk, but there was a sign taped to the desk that said, "Out to Lunch." I walked around the desk, and went in search of a photocopier. 

There was a big sign taped to the copier which read, "Interdepartmental copy use is strictly forbidden." I pushed the sign aside, and stuck the customs and taboos sheets into the machine.

"Eww! What's that thing!"

I spun around expecting to see Megan standing there. She wasn't. I think it was her twin sister. Her clothes weren't quite as bright, but she was staring at the dwarf as if he were a radioactive rodent. 

"He's a dwarf," I said as I hit the start key.

Nothing happened.

"It won't work," she said.

"How do you know?"

"You're department hopping. Only people from this department have keys to operate this copier."

"There's a very important diplomat coming here this afternoon, and if I don't get this
information distributed someone's liable to do something stupid and initiate an intergalactic war. The copier in Cultural Concordance is on the fritz, and I need to find a working copier so I can get this material out."

"It's not really my problem," she said with a shrug. She was swinging a key ring around on her index finger, and staring suspiciously at the dwarf. I made a desperate lunge for the keys. She stepped aside, and I went tumbling to the ground. I was lying on the floor, when Megan entered the room in a flood of fluorescence.

"You are so weird," said Megan. "Why are you always lying on the floor?"

As I watched. She took the key from her clone. Stuck it into the copier, and proceeded to make half a dozen copies.

Clumsily I got to my feet and sputtered out my cry of dismay, "How come she gets to break the interdepartmental rule?"

Megan made a little tut-tut noise that seemed to rattle the dwarf as much as it did me.

"This isn't interdepartmental business," explained Megan. "It's personal business. I'm not violating any rules." She held up the magazine whose glossy pages she had been busy copying as proof. It was opened to an article with the headline, "How to Make the Most of Your Internship."

I grabbed my customs and taboos sheets.

"This is personal business," I declared.

"Nice try," said the two interns in unison.

"Well, it is," I pleaded. "I don't even work here. I'm just filling in for someone."

They wouldn't budge, and I didn't have the time to spend the whole afternoon debating photocopier rights.

*** 

The rest of the afternoon was spent hunting down a working photocopier in between returning phone calls from the florist who wanted to know if baby's breath would be alright, if I would need vases, and who the gift card should be made out to. The caterer only called once to see if I knew of any food allergies he would need to work around. I didn't. 

I finally ended up going downstairs to Duke Lange's office in the law department to make my photocopies for the meeting. I stepped into the department, and nearly walked right into a human sized fish tank. I let out a startled cry.

"My intern's" said Duke with a wave of his hand indicating the giant tank. "Would you believe the government paid for the installation of this thing to accommodate his 'special needs?'"

"What sort of needs are those?"

"He's growing gills."

"Oh."

There was a black magic marker sign taped to the tank which read, "Out to Lunch."

"Copier's this way. I need to run down to the commissary to get set up for the meeting. I'll see you down there."

I hadn't imagined that it would take me more than ten minutes to make the copies, but I hadn't counted on running out of paper, then not being able to find any more. I went back to the reception area to see if the paper was hidden anywhere. Fishboy returned from lunch and stood glowering over me.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"The copier's out of paper. Where do you keep your extra paper?"

"Megan told me about you. You're violating the interdepartmental copying ban, aren't you? I could turn you in, you know. You could be fired or something."

"I don't even work here," I said in frustration. I looked at the clock and realized that the meeting had already started two minutes ago. By the time I got these copies done, the meeting would be over. I grabbed what I did have, and ran towards the elevators, realizing along the way that I didn't have the slightest clue as to where the commissary or the dwarf was. I didn't have time to go chasing after aliens. I just hoped that wherever he was, he wasn't throwing pastries or inciting riots.

Fortunately there was a sign that read "Commissary" with an arrow pointing down the hall. Unfortunately, the arrow led right to a supply closet. I wandered around for awhile looking for more misleading signs and trying doors until I finally happened upon a room where a bunch of people were simultaneously scratching their ears, winking their eyes, and tapping their feet. 

I saw Duke and hurried over to him.

"I was afraid you weren't going to make it," he said. "A lot of people have gone home early with the flu."

"Apparently the entire Linguistics Department," I said.

"Did you hear that someone broke into the Linguistics Department offices? The door was forced, and there were papers strewn all over."

"They were probably trying to use the photocopier," I said. "What have I missed?"

"We're going over some hand signals to use in case of emergency."

The man at the front of the room began to hop around on one foot while plugging his fingers in his ears. Everyone else followed suit.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"This is to signal a misunderstanding between us and the diplomat."

I could only imagine that the sight of twenty people hopping up and down on one foot with their fingers plugged in their ears would cause more misunderstanding.

"Are you okay with food and flowers?" asked Duke as we were leaving the meeting.

"Everything's set. The deliveries will be arriving any minute."

With that in mind, I headed down to the banquet room where the festivities were set to begin. What I discovered was chaos. Employees were running about in every direction. Approximately two hundred bouquets of flowers were strewn about the room with a little gift card attached to each one. In the center of the room was Megan in a fluorescent green ensemble distributing what appeared to be cans of paint and green rain ponchos.

"What's going on here?" I shouted managing to place myself bravely in the path of one of the sprinting horde.

"The diplomat from Dala Varo arrived early, nothing is ready, and half the staff went home sick," explained the frantic woman dashing across the room. I watched perplexed as she began to hurriedly cover the mulberry colored wallpaper with bright green paint. The woman painted right over the piece of paper which someone had taped to the wall with the words, "Don't Post Any Signs" written on it in black magic marker. I watched even more perplexed as the dwarf grabbed one of the buckets of paint and began to spread the stuff on his hands and face.

I was about to rescue him from this apparent fit of lunacy, when I heard my name being called. I turned around and saw a delivery guy from the catering company standing in a sea of moving bodies looking as lost as I felt. I looked back once at the now chartreuse dwarf and then hurried over to the catering guy.

"I have ten cases of unsalted pretzels," he said, the frantic mood of the whole room creeping into his voice, "and I need somebody to sign for them." 

I grabbed the clipboard from his hand, had the pen poised to sign, and just as I was touching ink to paper I stopped.

"Ten cases of unsalted pretzels?" I asked, incredulous. For verification I looked at the invoice which did indeed indicate that the delivery consisted of ten cases of unsalted pretzels. "I didn't order ten cases of unsalted pretzels!"

"Hang on a second," said the delivery guy. He grabbed the clipboard back from me and started flipping through some papers. "Is this for an interspecies gathering?"

"Yes, this is a reception for a diplomat from Dala Varo."

"Well, then, that's the deal with the unsalted pretzels. See, the software we have goes through the list of each species' eating habits and digestive specifications and picks out the foods that will be agreeable to both. We have this Dala Varo guy, human beings, and that little green man over there to account for."

I looked over to where he was pointing. The dwarf was covered from head to toe in bright green paint.

"The only thing that we can all agree on is unsalted pretzels?" I asked.

"Seems to be the case."

"This is going to be an interesting reception."

I signed for the pretzels, grabbed hold of a few flustered employees and set them to work tracking down bowls and trays on which to put the pretzels. I grabbed a few more employees and set them to work tracking down vases for the flower bouquets while I began unwrapping the bouquets and taking off the little cards each of which was inscribed Dala Varo in beautiful calligraphy. I was about halfway through the enormous stack when I noticed that Megan's twin, the one who wouldn't let me use the copier, was clipping all the flowers off the unwrapped bouquets.

"What are you doing?" I shouted.

She sighed and shook her head as if I was the crazy one.

"I don't know what you were thinking," said Megan suddenly materializing beside me. "Buying red and pink flowers. It was like you were trying to instigate an intergalactic war or something."

"What are you talking about?"

She shook her head at me and handed me a typewritten packet with the heading, "Communication with Dala Varo."

"What's this?" I asked. She rolled her eyes at me.

"It's the stuff that was with the note you left on my desk," she explained.

"What note?"

"Are you out of it or what? Hey, if you're coming down with the flu, too, could you do me a favor and not breathe on me. I really can't get sick right now. They want people to be in peak physical form for space travel."

Before I could ask what she was talking about, she handed me a rain poncho and a crumpled up piece of paper. I unfolded the piece of paper. It read:

Megan,

Please pick up the following items for this afternoon's reception:
- Green garments
- 20 Gallons of green paint
Please see the attached packet of information for further reference.
Thank you.

Sincerely,
Professor Rand

Maybe Megan was right. Perhaps I was coming down with the flu. I certainly felt a little woozy. I could not for the life of me remember writing such a note.

I looked back down at the packet. The first sentence read, "Color is very important to the residents of Dala Varo." Of course, I knew this from my studies of Dala Varo, but I was pretty sure I had never laid eyes on this packet before. I skimmed through it. "The residents of Dala Varo have chameleon like skin that can change to express their emotions. Their primary communication is through the use of color. For example the color red symbolizes anger, hostility and war. The color green symbolizes welcome, friendship, and peace."

I took another look around the room which had become remarkably green within the past few minutes. I looked at the vases full of green stems, and the red and pink blooms that were hastily being picked up. Things were starting to make sense. I looked back down at the packet in my hand and noticed the words, "Prepared by the Linguistics Department." Someone from the Linguistics Department must have forged a note in my name, and saved the day. Except, everyone from Linguistics was out with the flu. 

"What's going on?" asked Duke as he ran across the room to me.

"Who would be smart enough to break into the offices of the Linguistics Department and steal this packet of information?" I asked.

"What?"

"Whoever broke into the offices, stole this packet of information, and forged a note in my name, and saved us from complete diplomatic ruin. Who would be smart enough to do such a thing?"

"No one that works here," said Duke. He took the packet from my hand and began to flip through it hastily.

The now green dwarf came running up to me.

"You must change your garment," he said pointing at my bright red sweater. I pulled on the green rain poncho. I thought about the word "garment" which somebody signing my name had used in a note to Megan. I thought about the strange way the dwarf had been able to manipulate the keypad of the elevator. I wondered if it would work on a locked door.

"It was you!" I shouted turning to the dwarf, but there was no time to hear his explanation. The diplomat from Dala Varo had just entered the room.

Upon seeing the abundance of green that greeted him, his skin immediately turned to a rich green color. 

"Ooh, did you see that?" said the accounts payable intern. "Just like a mood ring."

With the lack of a Linguistics Department and the fear of using the wrong color, it seemed that our communication with the Dala Varo diplomat was pretty limited, but he did join us in eating some unsalted pretzels. After taking a few bites his skin turned a bright shade of purple. Blood drained from my face. I felt like I was about to pass out. The caterer's software must have made an error. We had just poisoned a diplomat.

"No, it's alright," said Duke flipping through the packet. "Purple indicates a pleasurable sensation. He likes them!"

I was glad somebody liked them. They tasted pretty bland to me.

The reception lasted about an hour, most of it consisting of very rudimentary attempts at conversation between the diplomat and us. Exhausted from his journey, the diplomat was eventually able to signal that he would like to get some rest. We at least had the foresight to send a few employees and a few buckets of green paint ahead to the hotel where he was staying to make sure that there wouldn't be any misunderstandings.

"Well, I think that went well," said Duke as everyone set about cleaning up the room.

"Quite well," I agreed trying not to imagine what would have happened if the diplomat had seen the walls with their unpainted red wallpaper. 

"I hope Joe doesn't recover from the flu too soon," said Duke.

"What?"

"I enjoy working with you. I was hoping that you could stick around for a few more days."

My face turned bright red.

"Are you signaling hostility?" asked Duke.

"No," I said quickly.

"That's good, because I was going to ask if you wanted to go somewhere for dinner. Someplace that doesn't serve unsalted pretzels."

"I'd love to."

Duke took off his poncho and began to unbutton his shirt. I wasn't sure what he was doing until he revealed the purple t-shirt he was wearing underneath.

"So, what are we going to do with all these pretzels?" I asked.

"The diplomat likes them," said Megan. "I'll bring them to Dala Varo."

"You'll what?" I asked.

"Don't get all upset. There's plenty of room on the spaceship."

"Did you just say you're going to Dala Varo?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Megan. "That packet you left on my desk gave me the idea. I'm changing my internship. I'm going to study the residents of Dala Varo."

"You don't even like aliens," I said.

"Yeah, but I speak their language. Besides, the dwarf turned out to be pretty helpful setting up for this reception." She didn't have a clue as to how helpful he had been.

"What sort of bodies of water do they have on Dala Varo?" asked Duke. I gave him a weird look. "Hey, I was just figuring if we were sending interns to Dala Varo . . . Hey, but if Megan's leaving that means we're going to need a new Cultural Concordance intern. What a nightmare. Do you know how hard it is to find a good intern these days?"

"Oh, I think I know someone who would be perfect for the job," I said looking over at the dwarf in his green paint.

