17

Lunch was strange. First, she spoke into a "telephone" to order it. A kitchen on the other telephone prepared the meal, then a delivery person brought it to her house in exchange for money. He supposed in a place with high speed tranport, this made sense.

Then there was the food. A small grain, in great quantities. Small strips of meat and vegetables. That wasn't so strange, exactly, but the sauce tying everything together was like nothing Deeter had ever tasted. Sweet, sour, spicey, salty and bitter all at once, in a wonderfully marvelous combination.

"Look at you trying to put it away," Timbella laughed at one point.

He smiled and swallowed. "Unfortunately I am not often able to eat very much on my travels. My stomach is not very big, I will have to stop eating now."

"Your travels to escape the intergalactic police, huh?"

"Do I detect a tiny bit of skepticism?"

She shrugged, then began putting away the food. "You've admitted that you're totally low tech, so I don't get how you can escape these guys. I mean, I don't really believe they exist. I guess part of your story is reasonable, you do have that translator, and sure, I don't know every language on the planet, but none that I've heard sound anything like what you said without it."

"Doesn't it make more sense that I'm a low-tech person who only knows about the Watchers because I was told about them?

She came back from putting the food away. "Well, you could have just made them up. Maybe you're crazy and just found that thing randomly and made up a big story to support it."

"I haven't even told you where I got it."

She sat next to him again. "No, you just said it was magic, and yeah, I kinda stopped paying attention after that. I mean, magic doesn't exist here outside of myths and legends. I mean, you know, doesn't all the stuff we have here seem like magic to you?"

"Not really, because the kind of magic with which I'm familiar is very, um, nature-centered."

She pursed her lips. "Maybe magic only exists where you're from."

"If that were true, why would my translator work?"

"How does it work anyway!" she nearly shouted.

"Calm down."

She sighed. "Maybe it's a virus. Um, a life form too small to see without a microscope."

"Ah yes, that makes so much more sense," he said dryly. "I only showed you that because it was simpler than my other magical tool."

"Which is?"

"How I escaped from the Watchers."

She stared at him. "BUT WHAT IS IT."

He pulled the leather straps up to retrieve the jewel. "This. It's one of a pair that I use to travel."

"Oh. Of course, teleportation." She rolled her eyes.

He brought out the other one and put one in each of his hands. He concentrated on the Professor's flat, and the portal appeared.

"Holy fuck!"

"Come on," he said, extending his hand. She took it, very cautiously. They walked through, to the space between, and through another portal.

"Shit, we're back at the Professor's. Oh man, he's gonna be pissed."

"Timby?" called a voice.

"Yeah Prof, it's me and Deeter again. He thought he'd show off. Please don't shoot us."

The Professor came out from behind one of the screens. He was holding a rather large black metal device, with two tubes and a handle. He lowered it when he saw that they were indeed whom they said they were.

"How the fuck did you get in here?"

"Deeter showing off," she repeated. "He has mad lockpick skillz. It's partly my fault, I totally didn't think he could break your systems."

He nodded. "OK, I don't really believe this, but I'm gonna hit the toilet. You guys better be long gone with everything intact by the time I get back, got it?"

"Got it," she said. As soon as he turned his back, Timbella clutched Deeter's shoulder. "You fucking imbecile. He would have killed us."

Deeter swallowed, but kept quiet, and returned them back to her place.