Agent to the Stars
The space-faring Yherajk people have come to Earth to begin humanity's first interstellar friendship. There's just one problem: They're hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. Gaining humanity's trust isn't easy when you look like a B-movie terror, and Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal.
Thomas Stein knows all about closing deals -- he's one of Hollywood's hottest young agents, but he's about to learn it's one thing to sell your client when she's a hot young starlet and another thing entirely when your client is an alien species!
Approx. 97,107 words.
is in the meeting?"
"He didn't say," Miranda said.
The second-floor conference room sits adjacent to Carl's office, which is at the smaller end of our agency's vaguely egg-shaped building. The building itself has been written up in Architectural Digest, which described it as a "Four-way collision between Frank Gehry, Le Corbousier, Jay Ward and the salmonella bacteria." It's unfair to the salmonella bacteria. My office is stacked on the larger arc of the egg on the first floor, along with the offices of all the other junior agents. After today, a second-floor, little-arc office was looking somewhat more probable in the future. I was humming the theme to "The Jeffersons" as Miranda and I got to the door of the conference room and walked through.
In the conference room sat Carl, an aquarium, and a lot of empty chairs.
"Tom," said Carl. "Good of you to come."
"Thanks, Carl," I said, "Good of you to have the meeting." I then turned to the table to consider probably the most impo
