didn’t know if that was because it had actually become softer or because I was getting used to it. “Are you going to come out?”
That required a moment’s thought and a deep breath before I responded. “If I do, can I get back in?”
“Sure. Why not.”
“And will it take me back to the . . . back to Earth?”
“Absolutely. If that’s what you want.”
There really didn’t seem to be any alternative. I could stay in the box, or I could step out. I had no reason to think that I was any safer inside the box, and every reason to believe that if what was out there in the darkness wanted to do me harm, harm it would do. Still, getting my feet through that door was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
“There you go,” said the voice. “Now I can officially welcome you aboard.”
“Umm. Thanks.”
“All right now,” said the voice. “I’m going to come over there, so don’t scream.”
I took a half step back, grabbing at the opening of the box. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
Something moved in the darkness. Something rather large. A moment later, what looked very much like a bipedal purple hippopotamus stepped from the shadows. It stopped at the edge of the circle of light, about a dozen steps from me, and regarded me with small dark eyes. The hippo impression was strong, but it didn’t look particularly like one of the dancing Disney variety. Instead of a tutu, it was wearing a pale gray jumpsuit that covered all but its broad purple feet and its blunt-fingered hands. It was a good ten feet tall, and it had a heavy, creased chin that instantly reminded me of an alien I had seen before in a film.
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” said the hippo. It raised one hand—a hand that turned out to have only three fingers—and snapped two of them together. “Boom!” it said. Then it uttered a series of uh, uh, uh sounds that were unmistakably a laugh. “Sorry, that was a joke.”
“You didn’t kill half the universe,” I replied, getting the reference.
“Naw. More like a third, tops.” More uh, uh, uh. “Sorry.”
“Yes,” I said. “Another joke.”
It made a kind of trilling snort. “You get laughs when you can.” The hippo reached to the side and from somewhere produced a kind of bench, which it dragged over and settled on, straddling the narrow centerboard with a heavy leg on either side. It made a gesture to my right. “Take a seat. We may be here awhile.”
I looked, and there was a chair. It was kind of midcentury modern, with curving arms of pale wood and a lime green cushion caught between them. It most definitely had not been there a moment before. I started to ask how it had gotten there, changed my mind, and pulled the chair close to the opening of the box before I sat. The chair looked very much like something you might buy at Ikea. It was rather comfortable.
“There,” said the hippo. “So, you’re Samuel David Harold Fetherstonhaugh.” The alien pronounced it properly.
“Yes,” I said. It shouldn’t have surprised me that the alien knew my name. After all, it had sent the detective to pick me up. But hearing my name come from its not-quite-lips still seemed . . . just weird. “And what should I call you?”
“Whatever you want. Spock? Klaatu? No?” It shifted a bit on its chair, and the board below it creaked. “Let’s just go with George. George is good.”
“And are you . . . I mean, do I say ‘he’ or—”
George did something with its shoulders that might almost have been a shrug. “He, she, it, they. You go with whatever makes you comfortable. Trust me, I won’t be offended, Doc.” Its little, very hippo-like ears did a flutter. “By the way, I’m going to call you ‘Doc.’ Because all those other names . . .” It waved one blunt hand. “They’re kind of a lot.”
I was starting to feel like, any second now, I was going to wake up in my house on the