Rajnar Vajra: Doctor Alien’s Five Empty Boxes

After an admirably brief hesitation, Phillips forced himself to walk toward the desk. I imagine he planned to ask questions, but all he could do once he got close to L was stare. After a moment he wrinkled his nose. Under other circumstances, I would’ve found that comical because L uses something he calls “olfactory camouflage,” constantly matching his body odor exactly to his surroundings, which meant the cop probably smelled himself—from the outside, as it were.

“How may I improve your life?” L asked him, but Phillips just turned and headed back toward me.

Braun pulled his eyes off L to glower at me. “We’ll be waiting outside for the next four hours, then two other cops will take next shift. We got officers with your wife and kid. You good here?”

“Yes,” I said. “And thanks for everything.”

Just then, my cleaning robot decided it simply couldn’t eat another joule and it unplugged itself to scurry toward the flakes of dirt the cops and I had tracked in. The seven-foot-tall machine with its multitude of waving steel arms, designed by Tsf to resemble themselves, always made an impression on the uninitiated. So if the cops departed with a little extra haste, we must forgive them.

L extruded a limb and waved it to attract my attention. I walked over to his desk. “Such rude myrmidons.” His voice emerged from the device he wore as a pendant, a personal voice amplifier. Although he could duplicate virtually any kind of noise and had proved a supergenius at languages, he needed mechanical assistance to be loud enough for human ears. “Still, I ignore their slights for I have more interesting matters to discuss. But first I must ask, are you in need of therapy yourself from the recent trauma?”

“I remain sound in mind and habitually unsound in body.”

“Delightful news!”

“Some detectives asked me for a client list. Can you take care of that?”

“With ease. And since the subject of lists has arisen, have you scrutinized your revised schedule for today? I transmitted it an hour ago.”

“I’m sure my DM got it, but I haven’t looked it over.”

“Then I shall summarize. I canceled all your appointments for this week save for your usual daily failure with Cora.”

“You did? Why?”

You wouldn’t think anything that appeared so alien could look smug, but L managed it. “Being reduced to fragments might be less than therapeutic for your clients.”

I rubbed my tired eyes. “You’re borrowing trouble. The bomb squad checked out this building from the roof down and the police have been watching the place nonstop since yesterday.” I didn’t mention the government surveillance or the invisible bomber on yesterday’s videos.

“Are you familiar with the English phrase ‘better safe than sorry’?”

“Oh. Point taken.”

“Your gift of free time is adorned with lagniappe!” L shifted position to jut over the desk as if he were about to launch himself into space. “You now have the leisure to hear about my latest discovery. Doctor, are you familiar with the term ‘acronym’?”

I stifled a groan. “Sure.”

“Ah! Then did you know that acronyms were once referred to as ‘cable codes?’ “ L used the temporary limb to point at an open book in front of him, one of many on his desktop including both volumes of the compact OED. L had become a serious—make that an obsessed —student of human cultures and languages, which in turn had become a damn nuisance.

“That I didn’t know,” I stated with an abundant lack of enthusiasm.

“If you wish to remember it, you only need memorize AWORTACC, which itself is an acronym standing for—”

“Acronyms Were Once, etcetera. L, I’m starting to understand the way you think.”

“Ah! Ah! But AWORTACC is not only an acronym. In this context it is also a pneumonic! A pneumonic is—”

“Hate to interrupt,” I lied, “but what came in those crates over there in the corner?” The five large boxes in question were shiny and tan-colored, certainly not cardboard or wood. They all lay side-by-side, which made me suspect they were heavy.

“A new patient. He, she, it, or something else, no judgment implied, arrived early this morning.”

I glared at him. “Why can’t you get it through your… look, you’re supposed to call me the minute—oh hell, never mind.” I’d been down this road too many times before, and it always terminated in a dead end. Despite all my pleas, requests, and orders to inform me the instant a new alien patient arrived, L would never call me at home. He always had some rationale; perhaps the real reason involved religion.

I’m probably handing you the wrong impression. I thought highly of L, and in most areas he was great at his job. True, his constant verbal games had gotten old enough for their beards to grow mustaches, but I loved to hear him talk about exotic beings he’d met and his own species, the Pokaroll. His take on psychological matters was always fascinating. An example? Well, he told me once that the most surprising thing that ever happens in a person’s life is getting born, or in his case hatched, and that all artistic expression amounts to an attempt to handle the shock. Could be true—for Pokarolls, anyway. Back to my story!

“How,” I asked through teeth trying to unclench, “did the boxes get here?”

“A Tsf Trader brought them,” L said.

I went from glaring to staring. “Just how long ago?”

L didn’t need to consult a timepiece any more than I did, but unlike me his internal chronometer was natural. “Three hours, no minutes, and twelve seconds.”

“What did this Tsf say, exactly?”

The translator emitted a rapid series of clicks—Tsf speech.

Patience, Al, I told myself. “In English, please.”

“Get on the horn, pal, and tell the Doc he’s got ‘splainin’ to do.” Yep, sounded like a Tsf. Whoever had programmed their translation devices had squeezed in every cliché, slang term, tagline, and snowclone inflicted on the human race during the last century. As I’d once suspected but now knew, they’d been acting in strict accordance with the ET Operating Manual and had been monitoring our entertainment transmissions for decades.

I glanced at the boxes again wondering which one, if any, had contained my new patient; they all appeared identical.

“Did the Trader vouchsafe his or her name?” I asked, hoping that “vouchsafe” would keep L from his daily ritual of pestering me for a new word to play with.

He generated a thin finger, used it to flip open the OED’s P to Z volume, turned a few pages, extended an eye-stalk to study the practically microscopic letters, and made a little squeal of joy. “Yes! The Tsf vouchsafed the name Deal-of-ten-lifetimes.”

“Deal! Haven’t seen him since—”

“Him is currently a her, Doctor, judging by the green cilia coloration.”

“Got it. So what information did she leave me concerning the patient?”

“She vouchsafed none.”

I was already regretting forking over that particular word. But that wasn’t my main problem. “Hang on. I’m supposed to be treating an alien I know nothing about? Again?” I’d also been vouchsafed no clues about Cora, my long-term patient who’d come with Tad, but the Tsf had only been indirectly involved with that fiasco.

“Perhaps you could discuss it with the Tsf herself?”

I blinked a few times. “You mean Deal is stillhere? For God’s sake, why didn’t you say so right away?”

“Why rush? Life is brief and the one thing we lack time for is excess haste.”

I took a slow breath. “Where is she?”

“Gara’s demesne.”

Well, I thought, at least Deal won’t be the weirdest thing in that room.