Agent to the Stars, page 30 by John Scalzi
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31
ay patrolman why you have 40 pounds of gelatin in your passenger seat is one I think we'd both rather avoid."
I laughed. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sort of amazed you know what a highway patrolman is."
"Why?" Joshua said. "You've been beaming 'CHiPs' into space for decades." He wiggled his tendril again, and then sighed. He must have picked that up purely as a sonic affectation because he had no lungs from which to exhale. "All right, here I go, " he said, and started putting himself into the bottle.
He came dangerously close to filling up the bottle. In the last few seconds, a thought popped into my skull: I'm going to need another bottle. It didn't occur to me to question the logic of that thought. He was gelatinous, he should be able to divide up. It became academic when he topped out about three millimeters from the top of the mouth of the bottle.
"Comfortable?" I asked.
"Remind me to stuff you into a medium-sized suitcase and ask you that same question," Joshua said. His voice was diminished and tinny, no doubt due to the relatively tiny amount of surface area he had to vibrate.
"Sorry," I said. "Listen, do you need this open? I'm thinking it might be better if I put the top back on this thing."
"Are you out of your mind?" Joshua said. "Keep it open."
"Okay," I said. "I didn't know. I suppose you need to breathe."
"It's not that," Joshua said. "I'm claustrophobic."
"Really?"
"Look," Joshua said. "Just because I come from a highly advanced alien species doesn't mean I can't be intensely neurotic. Can we go now? I already feel like I want to scream."
I hiked the dolly up on its wheels, wheeled over to the door, unlocked it, and headed out into the hallway. It was still early enough in the day that the office was still busy. I was worried that someone might ask me why I was wheeling a five-gallon water bottle around until I remembered that I was on the second floor, the land of senior agents. A senior agent would naturally assume