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door. It was unoccupied. I entered the conference room with the water bottle and the dolly, closed the door, locked it behind me.
"You have got to be kidding," Joshua said.
Joshua had returned back to the aquarium and had stayed in the conference room after our meeting was done. My job had been to find a unobtrusive way to get him from the conference room to my place. Carl wouldn't tell me how he had gotten Joshua into the building unnoticed, and he wasn't giving me any tips on how to get him out. Think of it as your first challenge, he said. Were I palming off the first known extraterrestrial on a subordinate to take care of, I think I'd be a little more concerned.
"We give you three hours to come up with something, and this is the best you can do," Joshua said. "I'm not scared yet, but I'm getting there."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I had to improvise." I wheeled the bottle over and sat it next to the tank. I had figured that a five-gallon water bottle would be big enough to fit Joshua in. Now I wasn't so sure.
Neither was he. He extended a tendril out of the aquarium and sent it down into the bottle and waved it around, as if to check it for roominess. "How long will it take to get to your place?" he said.
"Probably an hour, maybe more," I said. "I live in La Canada. The 405 will be jammed up, but once we get over to the 210, it should be pretty quick. Is it going to be a problem?"
"Not at all," Joshua said. "Who doesn't enjoy being crammed into a five-gallon plastic bottle for an hour?"
"You don't have to stay in the bottle once we get to the car," I said. "Once we're out of here, you can spread out." This wrinkle in the plan was as new to me as it was to him. I had assumed he'd stay in the bottle the whole trip. But my car upholstery was a small price to pay for interplanetary peace. I'd just have to remember to get one of those little pine tree air fresheners.
"Thanks, but no thanks," Joshua said. "The conversation where you try to explain to a highw
