The earliest convenience for the Pick turned out to be just as Laura was finally preparing herself for bed. The fried fish, delicious at the time, now weighed heavily in her stomach, demanding her brain to shut off and let it digest.

"Hello?" Laura tried to sound like her brain was still working, "This is the United – "

"I am just screaming at you because an infinitely high Tensor recommends it."

"Uh," Laura wished she could hang up a translator bug. "We're sorry to have bothered the Pick Embassy, but – "

There was, as promised, a scream from the other side of the connection. "I am impatient with the deformed cattle! What do you want?"

Laura had long since trained herself to bear humiliation. This was an in. She took a calming breath and let the words roll out. "We wanted to gauge your interest in a potentially lucrative cultural partnership connected to foodstuffs."

"Your food?" Something clicked and shuffled in the background. "Yes. We demand your food. We'll take it from you! How cheap?"

This conversation was starting to feel familiar. Half of her brain slipped closer to the dream state while a socially-trained rump asked, "How much do you need?"

Another scream. "I am annoyed! Why do you not already know?"

"Clarify?" Laura was reminded of shifting gears in an old car. What could the dinosaur possibly be thinking? "We don't know how much food you want to buy. How many people do you want to feed." Maybe the dinosaurs had their own party to cater. Koen would enjoy that job if she could get it for him.

"People? No people," said the Pick. "Clarify! We want to take your food and stuff it into our expensive domesticated animal."

Another gear-shift. "Of…course we can provide animal feed." Why not? Koen ought to learn to tame his ego, too. "What sort of animal? Is it here in the Zogreion?"

"I am impatient. I will accept a free sample of whatever slop you cattle eat. One month's supply."

Negotiation mode needed no help from Laura's executive functions. It clicked into place automatically. "One day's supply, for my organization's garbage transport fund."

"One month for the cost of transporting the food."

"Transporting it from our Earth."

"For that cost, one day. It will be a trial."

"Payment in advance."

A series of harsh cries. "Payment after we descend upon your banking system and drive you shrieking into the snow. I am posturing in rage!"

"Payment on delivery," insisted Laura.

A pause.

"Agreed," said the Pick. "Arrive at our embassy tomorrow."

Tomorrow. Tomorrow was Koen's welcome party. "Tomorrow we actually are holding a social event –"

"I demand tomorrow! Now flee my conversational territory. Flee!"

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The translator clicked.

Laura lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how to schedule Koen's party tomorrow and this delivery.

She needn't have bothered. This order, like so many others, was the second to last.

***

It was 4am when Laura's translator shrilled again.

"What is it?" she asked, bolting awake, heart hammering. "What's wrong? What's going on?"

"I am waking you up," came Severo's voice in Laura's darkened room. "We have a highest-priority military-to-military call…"

It's world war three, thought Laura. Our Earth is blowing up. I have to get home. Mother! Wait.

"A call?" real-time calls could only come from this side of an accelerator.

"From the head of the embassy of…The Pick that Administers Direction?" Severo hummed. "Nice name. And a military leader of a diplomatic mission. I like it." The military attaché sounded as bright as if it wasn't the middle of the night. Who the hell was calling her in the middle of the night?

"The Pick?" Laura rubbed her face. "Ambassador?" That scarcely helped. Why could he possibly want at this hour? What could be so important?1

"I've already assigned him a name. We'll call him General Graa."

"Severo, that's – "

"Here he is."

"I am eagerly searching for food!" Screeched a new voice.

"General! Sir! I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I talked earlier with your colleague about a food deliver…" A terrible fear reached out of the darkness and seized Laura by the base of the skull. "Are you expecting it now?"

"No! I am dismissive. Cancel it. Are you planning a gathering? A party? Are you an ape? From Africa?"

Relief battled with confusion. "I'm sorry?"

"Submission. Good. I am smug."

"I mean...clarify? What do you want?"

"I want your taxonomy, human! Are you from Africa?"

"Um." Laura swallowed the night's dry spit. "Sir, if this is a negotiation about the price – "

"Answer my questions! I am becoming more fearsome in my wrath."

More harsh croaks. Laura winced. She had no time to think about how much she hated dealing with nonhumans. Instead she simply said, "I'm not from Africa. I'm from China. Asia."

"Asia? I am impatient. I modify my orders for a poorly-trained beast. Tell me where you are from originally. Are you an upright African ape or aren't you? Obey immediately!"

Laura considered routing this asshole, whoever he was, to Koen. But there was a lucrative deal on the line. "I believe that is so, sir, yes. I have read that humans originally evolved in Africa."

"I am ecstatic!" crowed the voice. "The egg balances in impossible perfection."

"Um. Clarify?" The thought pounded in Laura's brain: it's four AM. Four AM. Her body wanted to strangle General Graa until he shut up and it could go back to sleep.

"You will make room for me at your gathering tomorrow. You will stand aside and let me feed, as I command!"

"You…gathering? Clarify, you want to come to our party tomorrow?"

"Yes. You will provide your normal food."

"Yes. Our cook will – "

"I am leaving! I command you to welcome me tomorrow at dusk. Be warned! I will come!"

Click.

Laura stared at the ceiling, breathing rapidly.

"It sounds like Koen will have his nonhuman guest after all."

And now she was talking to Severo.

"Make sure he puts out extra potato chips," said the security chief.

1 See Engel and Young (1992) "Daily and seasonal activity patterns of common ravens in southwestern Idaho".