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  “Does that mean more work for me?” Dave asked.

  The Grenouthian pointedly ignored the Farling’s stand-in and turned to the Verlock. “Why don’t you start us off with some basic scaffolding, Slomo?”

  “What’s basic scaffolding?” Julie asked.

  “Motion capture for standard sequences, like running down a corridor or getting in or out of a lift tube. Once we have those in the can, the animators will be able to use them over and over again as the plot requires.”

  “So we’re going to have to go out and run around the corridors in these costumes?”

  “No need,” the director said. “Flower has a nearly unlimited library of stock imaging from the ship’s interior. We just need to capture each of you in motion and run a filter to remove the background. Then we’ll slap your hologram into Flower’s stock imaging and the animators will take it from there. “Brynlan?”

  The Verlock offered the bunny a facetious salute, and then began sprinting across the stage at his top speed, which was regular walking pace for most bipedal species in the same height range.

  “Good, good,” the Grenouthian said, peering at the viewfinder of the nearest floating camera. “You must be working out. Now come back at your regular speed.”

  The bulky alien ambled back at a pace that would have left a three-toed sloth behind but would have lost to most species of giant turtle.

  “Perfect. How about some of those balancing exercises I’ve seen Verlocks do. We can pass them off as martial arts training.”

  “You’re really trying to make me sweat,” Grynlan said, but he slowly raised his arms over his head while shifting his weight to one leg and bringing the other off the floor behind him. Then he reached back with one hand to grasp his foot while leaning forward and sticking the other hand way out in front.

  “I can’t believe the Verlock is more flexible than I am,” Julie whispered to Bill behind her hand. “I couldn’t do that in a million years.”

  “You could be doing it by the end of the week if you’d start the yoga regimen I suggested rather than sticking to the minimum stretches,” Flower scolded over the girl’s implant.

  “Great,” the director declared. “Take a break, Brynlan, and let’s see what you can do, Lume.”

  The Dollnick launched into a tumbling run, flipping from his feet to his upper hands three times before leaping high in the air and coming down with all four of his arms stretched behind his back, creating twin V’s.

  “Way to stick the landing,” the director complimented him. “I’m beginning to think that you’re wasted as a mastermind.”

  “He could be our secret weapon,” Jorb suggested. “I can imagine a scene where the villain and his minions have captured us all, but they don’t pay attention to Thinker because of his reputation as an armchair hero. You’ll have to put something in his back story about being a former assassin.”

  “Why former?” the Vergallian schoolmistress asked, struggling to adjust her halter top. “And if I get my hands on the artist who thought it made sense for a superhero to run around in this sorry excuse for a bra, I’m going to kill him.”

  “Them,” Flower said. “Your Battle Royale char was created by a team of young men.”

  “Figures,” Avisia scoffed. “Just for the record, I refuse to jump wearing this thing.”

  “Julie, Bill. Let’s have some slow dancing,” the Grenouthian ordered.

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense for Brynlan to do all of the slow stuff?” Bill asked.

  The director pinched his nose between a furry thumb and forefinger. “Not dancing slowly, slow dancing. Arms around each other, cheek to cheek. The main reason I cast the two of you is so we could have a romantic interest.”

  “I’ve never slow danced,” the young man mumbled.

  “Julie, you teach him.”

  “I’ve never slow danced either,” Julie admitted.

  “What a species!” the Grenouthian groaned. “New homework, the two of you. Learn how to slow dance.”

  “Did Flower put you up to this?”

  “Look, we need a romance interest and Harry is too old for you. I’m not fooling around with cross-species nonsense or we’ll get stuck with an ‘Adults Only’ rating, so the two of you are it.”

  “Is adult anime even a thing?” Dave asked.

  “Unfortunately, but it’s not a direction that either Flower or myself are willing to go. If I wanted to produce pornography, I would have taken the job on Timble.”

  “They wanted you to direct sex documentaries?” Harry asked in disbelief.

  “That’s right,” the Grenouthian said angrily. “They said it’s an underserved market and the sky is the limit. The only reason they asked me to the interview was because of my experience with Humans and the fact that none of their studio directors were willing to take the job. I told them where they could stuff their guaranteed salary and ten points in the production.”

  “So why did you and Flower decide on making superhero anime that you don’t even have a plot for yet rather than doing something more conventional.”

  “What we’re doing is conventional,” Flower said. “My preference would have been educational anime for children, but it’s a tough market to break into, and I don’t know if I could have gotten so many of the Bitters to participate. I’m trying to manage an economy here, if you haven’t noticed.”

  Seventeen

  “I’m nervous,” Rinka confessed, as she followed Julie into the library. “Are there any other Drazens here? Maybe I should go home.”

  “We’re early,” Julie reassured her. “I like the white ribbon.”

  “This?” the Drazen asked, extending her tentacle, which was wrapped in a white spiral like a barber’s pole. “You don’t think it’s too dressy?”

  “Not at all. Do you have a preference for which game we play?”

  “I wouldn’t know any of them. Are they all two-player games?”

  “Most of them are flexible, though some have a maximum of four players, like Scrabble.”

  “Scrabble, I like the sound of that,” Rinka said, and then began singing softly to herself.

  Julie was starting to worry that the Drazen girl would panic when Bill showed up with Jorb in tow. She took a Scrabble box from the game stand Dewey had set up and led the way to one of the small tables with four folding chairs.

  “Oh, here comes Bill,” Julie said. Her voice sounded so unnatural to her own ears that she felt a sudden sympathy for the Grenouthian director’s earlier attempts to teach her acting. “It looks like he has our friend Jorb with him.”

  Rinka grabbed Julie’s forearm below the table and whispered fiercely, “You can’t leave me alone with him.”

  “Of course not,” Julie said, and called to the newcomers. “Hey, guys. We were about to play Scrabble. Want to join us?”

  “I would be honored,” Jorb replied formally, taking the chair opposite Rinka’s. “You’re the choir mistress who presented to Flower’s student selection committee on Union Station,” he continued, speaking directly to the Drazen girl. “I’ve heard wonderful things about your work here.”

  “Thank you,” Rinka replied in a voice so low that the humans could hardly hear her. “Julie told me that you and she are friends and neighbors, Bill. It must be nice to have somebody so close you can talk to.”

  “We mainly see each other at the dojo or theatre practice, though these days we’re just standing in for anime,” Bill said. “Has anybody played this game before?”

  “I have,” Julie said, “with my teacher bot. I’ve never had to keep score, though. The rules are on the inside of the cover.”

  “Let me see that,” Jorb said, as if he were claiming the wine list in a restaurant, and ran his eyes down the dense text. “Looks pretty straightforward, with points on the tiles and multipliers on the board. We all pick a tile to set the order of turns, and whoever goes first gets a double word score.”

  “You can read English?”

 
“I picked it up studying your martial arts manuals. We used to get some Humans at the dojo on Union Station and I wanted to understand their fighting styles.”

  “My spelling is pretty terrible,” Bill said. “Maybe we could do teams. How’s your English, Rinka?”

  “I learned to read it for a course I took at the Open University and my students here all speak Humanese. I only activate my implant if I don’t understand something.”

  “Why don’t we play Humans versus Drazens,” Jorb suggested, giving the felt bag holding the wooden tiles a shake. “The ladies can pick a letter to see which team goes first.”

  “I hate going first because there are no words to build off,” Julie said. She put her hand in the bag and pulled out a letter. “P.”

  “L,” the Drazen girl declared, showing her own tile. “Now what?”

  “Put your letters back, I’ll shake up the bag, then we each take seven letters in the order we’ll be playing,” Jorb told her. “Everybody take a rack to hold the letters.”

  The bag made the round of players as they all populated their racks, and then Rinka asked, “Do I have to use up all seven letters?”

  “No, it’s really hard. I only managed it a few times playing my teacher bot,” Julie replied.

  “And how about the teacher bot?” Jorb asked.

  “It played down to my level, I guess. All the games worked that way.”

  “I’m not sure about the spelling, but I remember the instrument,” Rinka said, and began laying out letters. “Z, I, T, H, E, R, S.”

  “What are they?” Bill asked.

  “Stringed instruments with a flat sounding-box,” the Drazen girl explained. “Is it a good word?”

  “Move the ‘Z’ onto the double letter,” Jorb advised her. “Let’s see. That’s twenty and nine, times two for going first, plus fifty for using up all of your letters. One hundred and eight for Team Drazen.”

  “I can’t believe you used up all of your letters,” Julie said, studying her own rack.

  “Beginners luck,” Rinka told her, drawing seven new tiles from the bag.

  “Sorry I’m taking so long. I just—there. D, O, N, U, T,” she declared, pluralizing the word with the ‘S’ of ZITHERS.

  “Triple letter on the ‘U,’” Jorb congratulated her. “That’s nine for Team Human. Are we playing you have to use words related to our professions? I have, T, R, A, I, N, I, N, G.”

  “We’re dead,” Bill groaned.

  “Nine, double for eighteen, plus fifty,” the scorekeeper said. “That’s a hundred and seventy-six for Team Drazen. You’re up, Bill.”

  “See how he used the ‘I’ that Rinka put down in the middle of his word?” Julie said to Bill.

  “There’s no ‘I’ in couple,” the Drazen girl recited, causing Jorb to wince.

  “I thought there was no ‘I’ in team,” Bill countered, studying his letters. “Anyway, I only have one vowel and it’s a ‘U’. Sorry, Julie, but this is all I can come up with. F, O, U, R.”

  “You got a double word,” Jorb said. “Fourteen and nine makes twenty-three for Team Human. Speaking of doubles, isn’t two always better than one?” he added, risking a quick smile at the Drazen girl.

  “You sound like Flower,” Julie said, arranging and rearranging her tiles on the rack. “I think her goal is to fill every cabin on the ship with a family to maximize the number of people on board.”

  “Is it me again already?” Rinka asked. “I have T, O, G, E, T, H, E, R.”

  “Triple letter on the ‘E’ and the ‘R,’” Jorb said. “That’s sixteen plus fifty, Drazens have two hundred and thirty-two.”

  “Don’t you have to write anything down?” Bill asked.

  “It’s just a few small numbers. My memory isn’t that bad.”

  “H, A, L, V, E, D,” Julie declared, making the word with the ‘H’ in TOGETHER so it reached the triple word score at the bottom.

  “Are you sure that’s how it’s spelled?” Bill asked doubtfully. “I thought it was with an ‘F.’”

  “You’re thinking of the other half,” Rinka told him. “Halve means to cleave something in twain.”

  “To what?”

  “Forty-two,” Jorb reported. “The ‘L’ was on a double letter, so Team Human is up to sixty-five. I have C, O, U, R, T, I, N, G,” he continued without a pause, building the word around the ‘T’ he had previously put down for TRAINING. “That’s twelve times two plus fifty—three hundred and six for us.”

  “I never even reached two hundred playing with the teacher bot,” Julie commented.

  “Together, courting,” Flower said in Bill’s head. “You could learn something from your friends. Do you want my help?”

  “I want a seven-letter word,” Bill tried to subvoc, but it came out like a whisper, causing the other players to look at him oddly.

  “I meant do you want help with Julie,” the Dollnick AI replied. “I have lots of ideas.”

  “Is there a time limit?” Bill asked, looking back and forth between his rack and the board. “I have some words, but I want to get the most points.”

  “I’ve never played so fast in my life,” Julie said.

  “Your teacher bot didn’t go immediately after you did?” Rinka asked.

  “It always took the exact same amount of time as I used with all the games we played. I don’t know if it was just being polite or if it was trying to teach me a lesson.”

  “J, U, G,” Bill announced, taking the triple word score opened by the ‘G’ in COURTING.

  “Thirty-nine,” Jorb said. “That’s a hundred and four already for Team Human. Has it ever occurred to anybody that this game would be a great way to exchange secret messages?”

  “What do you mean?” Julie asked.

  “You know, like Bill could put down, T, O, N, I, G, H, T, and you could reply, A, N, Y, T, I, M, E.”

  “How could you do that?” Bill demanded.

  “Sorry, I was just teasing,” the Drazen apologized. “I thought it was pretty obvious that you like her. I didn’t mean to embarrass anybody.”

  “What?” Bill’s face turned red, and he sputtered, “I meant, how could you come up with two seven-letter-words without even thinking?”

  “I wasn’t counting,” Jorb said. “I guess I’m sort of locked in.”

  “P, A, R, E, N, T, A, L,” Rinka announced, emptying her rack for the third straight time. “I used your ‘L,’” she added to Julie.

  “Double ‘P’ plus double word makes twenty-six plus fifty for using up your letters,” Jorb reported. “Three hundred and eighty-two.”

  “Don’t rush,” Bill said to Julie as she started laying out tiles.

  “I mainly have vowels and I need to use them up,” the girl replied. “I’m not going to get a seven-letter word so I’m hoping to pick up some letters with points. P, E, E, L.”

  “You and Bill are getting all of the triple words,” Rinka observed.

  “That’s because you and Jorb don’t need them.”

  “Eighteen, and you’re up to a hundred and twenty-two,” Jorb calculated. “I can use a triple if you want. I have D, O, L, L, N, I, C, K. That’s sixteen times three is forty-eight, plus fifty, gives us four hundred and eighty.”

  “Dollnick?” the Drazen girl asked in disbelief.

  “I’ll take it back,” Jorb offered, belatedly recognizing that he had ruined the subtext of his word exchange with Rinka for the sake of scoring points. Bill grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

  “It’s better you keep putting down big words because it will put us out of our misery quicker.”

  “But I just remembered from the instructions that Dollnick is a proper name so I can’t use it,” Jorb protested.

  “It’s also a noun,” Flower interjected over their implants. “Plus, it’s my ship and I say it’s a word.”

  “I think I have to powder my nose,” Rinka said, rising from her chair. “Coming?”

  Julie took a second to figure out that the Drazen girl was
talking to her. “Oh, right. Me too. We’ll be right back.”

  As soon as they were out of sight, Jorb wrapped his tentacle around his face to cover his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at the Scrabble board.

  “What’s wrong?” Bill asked.

  “You heard her,” the distraught lover replied. “She wants to powder her nose.”

  “I guessed that was just something Drazen girls say when they have to use the bathroom.”

  “Is that how it works with Humans? With us, it means she smelled something she didn’t like and she wants to desensitize her olfactory organ. We have a special powder for that.”

  “You’re saying she thinks we smell?”

  “It’s figurative, not literal. Why did I have to put down DOLLNICK? You saw that she got upset right afterwards.”

  “She was upset?”

  “It was going so well,” Jorb continued. “First we got all that career talk out of the way, then she put down TOGETHER to let me know she’s considering my suit. I put down COURTING so she’d know that I’m serious, and she put down PARENTAL to remind me that her family isn’t on board. Then what did I do? What did I do?” Jorb repeated.

  “You put down DOLLNICK.”

  “I put down DOLLNICK! What was I thinking?”

  “If I had your letters, I would have put it down if I’d seen it.”

  “Thank you,” Flower said over Bill’s implant.

  “But we were having an intimate conversation and now she must think that I’m nuts. DOLLNICK? What’s she supposed to make of that?”

  Rinka stopped and grabbed Julie’s arm before they made it to the bathroom. “DOLLNICK?” the Drazen girl repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean? Does he think that Flower can fill in for my parental guidance?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Flower commented in Julie’s head.

  “I was relieved that we got all of that career stuff out of the way so quickly, and when he put down COURTING, well, I don’t have to tell you that my heart skipped a beat. But DOLLNICK?”

  “He used up all seven letters,” Julie pointed out. “What was he supposed to put down?”

  “It’s not about the score,” Rinka said. “I’m worried that he’s too competitive.”