Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi (read me like a book .TXT) 📕

“All right,” I said. “Question and answer time.”

“Gasp,” Joshua said. “Torture me all you want. But I’ll never tell you the location of the rebel base.”

Joshua and I were sitting at my dining room table. More accurately, I was sitting at the table; Joshua was sitting on it. Between us was a Pizza Hut carton and the remnants of a large pepperoni pizza. Joshua had eaten four slices. They lay, haphazardly, near the center of his being. I could see the slices slowly disintegrating in an osmotic haze. It was vaguely disturbing.

“You going to eat that last piece?” Joshua said.

“No,” I said, turning the carton towards him. “Please.”

“Great,” Joshua said. A pseudopod extended, folded around the crust edge, and withdrew back into his body. The slice was surrounded and joined its brethren. “Thanks. I haven’t had anything all day. Carl thought it might be upsetting to you to see food rotting away in the middle of something that looked like dried glue.”

“He was right,” I said.

“That’s why he’s the boss,” Joshua said. “Okay. Here’s the rules for the question and answer period: you ask a question, then I ask a question.”

“You have questions?” I asked.

“Of course I have questions,” Joshua said. “From my point of view, you’re the alien.”

“All right.”

“No lying and no evading,” Joshua said. “I think we can be pretty safe with each others’ secrets, because, really, who are we going to tell? Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“Good,” Joshua said. “You go first.”

“What are you?” Might as well get the big one out first.

“A fine question. I’m a highly advanced and organized colony of single-celled organisms that work together on a macro-cellular level.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Wait your turn,” Joshua said. “How did you get this place? These are nice digs.”

He was right. They were nice digs. Far better than I could have afforded on my own (until today, that is) — a four bedroom ranch on three quarters of an acre, overlooking the valley and abutting Angeles National Forest in the back. Occasionally I woke up and went out back to find a deer in the yard or a coyote digging through the trash. That passes for nature here in LA. It was just above the smog layer, too. Such are the advantages of having prosperous parents. My mother left it to me after my father died and she retired to Scottsdale, to be closer to her mother’s nursing home.

The only thing that could be held against it was that it was in the wrong valley — San Gabriel, where the “real” people (read: not in the movie business) lived. Every once in a while one of the other agents would mock me about that. I would smile sweetly and ask them what the rent was on their one-bedroom condo in Van Nuys.

“I’ve lived here all my life,” I said. “My mom gave me the house when she moved. What does ‘highly advanced and organized colony of single-celled organisms’ mean?”

“It means that each of the cells in my body is a self-contained, unspecialized organism,” Joshua said. “How did you decide to become an agent?”

“My dad was an agent — a literary agent,” I said. “When I was a kid, he’d bring his clients over for dinner. They were weird but fun people. I thought it was cool that my dad knew such weird people, so I decided I wanted to be an agent. I must have been about five. I had no idea what an agent really did. If you’re actually a bunch of smaller creatures, how do you get them all to move and act the way you want them to?”

“I don’t know,” Joshua said. “Do you know how you make your heart beat?”

“Sure,” I said. “My brain sends a message to my heart to keep beating.”

“Right,” Joshua said. “But you don’t know the exact process.”

“No,” I said.

“Neither do I,” Joshua said. “Do you have Nintendo?”

“What? No,” I said. “I had an Atari when I was younger, but that was a long time ago. Do you have any organs, like a heart or a brain?”

“Not exactly,” Joshua said. “The cells take turns performing functions, based on need. Right now, for example, the cells on my surface are collecting sensory information. Other cells not otherwise occupied are performing cognitive functions. The cells around the pizza are digesting it. Like I said, I don’t think about doing these things, they just get done. What about cable?”

“Basic plus HBO and Spice Channel.”

“Naughty boy.”

“I wanted Showtime. They screwed it up. I never got around to fixing it.”

“I believe you,” Joshua said. “Really I do.”

“Are you male or female?” I asked.

“I’m neither,” Joshua said. “My cells reproduce asexually. Spice Channel will do nothing for me. Do you have a computer with an Internet connection?”

“I have a Mac and America Online,” I said. “Why are you asking about these things?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a gelatinous cube,” Joshua said. “It’s not like I’m going to be getting out of the house much. The neighbors would talk. So I want to make sure I’m going to be able to keep myself amused. Got any pets?”

“I had a cat, but he ran away about two years ago. I say ‘ran away,’ but I think he was hit by a car or eaten by coyotes. The Escobedos next door have a retriever, Ralph, that will occasionally get out of the yard and come over for a visit. I don’t think you need to worry about Ralph, though. He’s 15 years old. He might be able to gum you, but that’s about it. Anyway, he never comes in the house. So, if your species reproduces asexually, the means you’re a clone of some other Yherajk, right?”

“Eeeeeeeh…..” Joshua sounded suspiciously like he was trying to evade the question. “Not exactly,” he said, finally. “Our cells are asexual but we have a way of creating new….‘souls’ is probably the best word for it. I’d have a really difficult time explaining it to you.”

“Why?”

“You’re out of turn.”

“You’re evading.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, let’s say it’s a sort of societal taboo. Asking me to talk about it would be sort of like me asking you to describe in graphic detail the sexual encounter between your parents that resulted in your conception.”

“It was during their honeymoon in Cancun,” I said.

“What position did they use? How many thrusts did it take? Did your mom bark in pleasure?”

I reddened. “I think I see what you’re saying.”

“I thought you might,” Joshua said. “Speaking of which — any brothers or sisters?”

“No,” I said. “Mom had complications during the pregnancy and nearly died. They thought about adopting for a while but they decided against it. Can you die?”

“Sure,” Joshua said. “More ways than you can, too. Individual cells in this collection die all the time, like cells in your body die. The whole collection can die, too — I’d say we’re probably less prone to random death than your species is, but it happens. The soul can also die, even if the collection survives. You in a relationship?”

“No. I had a girlfriend at the agency for a while, but she took a job in New York about six months ago. It wasn’t very serious, anyway — more of a tension release thing. How long do you live?”

“Three score and ten, just like you,” Joshua said. “More or less. It’s actually a very complicated question. Do you like your job?”

“Most of the time,” I said. “I don’t know. I think I’m good at it. And I don’t know what else I’d do if I wasn’t doing this. What’s your spaceship like?”

“Crowded. Smelly. Poorly lit. What do you when you’re not working?”

“I’m pretty much always working. When I’m not, I read a lot. Got that from being the son of a literary agent. When my mother moved out, I made my old room into a library. Other than that, I don’t do too much. I’m sort of pathetic. How do you know so much about us?”

“What do you mean?” Joshua said.

“Your English is as good as mine. You know about stuff like Nintendo and cable television. You make references to 50s horror films. You seem to know more about us than most of us do.”

“No offense, but it’s not that hard being smarter than most of you folks,” Joshua said. “Your planet’s been broadcasting a bunch of stuff for the better part of the last century. We’ve been paying attention to a lot of it. You can actually learn English from watching situation comedies several thousand times.”

“I don’t know how to feel about that,” I said.

“There are some gaps,” Joshua allowed. “Until I actually got down