The Monumental raised his front flippers and made a motion with them as if doing the breast stroke. "New topic: our meeting. Where is it?"

Laura looked down at the huge, cigar-shaped sophont on the floor and thought of embassy's conference room with its table and chairs. The various cramped, right-angle turns between this room and that. "Why, our meeting is right here, sir."

Digeridoo's ears jerked back toward her and with a squeal of little wheels, he rolled onto his back and squirmed like a playful kitten. "I am sorry, your royal highness. It is impossible for me to marry you. My wife would kill me."

He rolled back over and panted for a moment before addressing Mark. "New topic: I will relax. How is it I can climb in front side furniture?"

Laura and Mark turned around. The wall in front of Didgeridoo was almost entirely occupied by the salt water fish tank.

"Do you – " Laura stopped herself and said. "Mark, please ask our guest if he would like to lie down on the couch."

Mark relayed the message, pointing to the couch next to Didgeridoo.

Didgeridoo didn't track Mark's finger with his ears, but his own translator rumble-squeaked something and he gaped, wiggling. "Maybe cannot understand your queen's command. You stretched your hoof in the direction of a dry object. It doesn't have roots. I am pointing to the furniture in the northeast corner of the room. It smells like fish. I like it. However, it is very high from the ground. I do not know how you habitually climb in."

"It's a fish tank," Laura said. "It isn't furniture. It isn't for sitting in." Three minutes! When the hell was Li going to arrive? Waffles!

Didgeridoo flipped again onto his back. "I feel very disappointed and not comfortable. I feel very ashamed. I repeat: because you are a woman, please don't talk to me."

"Mark," said Laura. "Please repeat everything I say to our guest."

She didn't say, "This meeting is a disaster and it's all your fault," but Mark believed that was what she was thinking.

"Tell him I'm sorry we don't have a suitable place for him to rest but we would be happy to serve him food while we wait for the ambassador." Laura said, and resisted tapping her feet while Mark relayed the message.

"Yes," said Didgeridoo, still showing Laura his belly.

Laura sent Mark into the embassy's tiny cafeteria to scrounge something up, then smiled awkwardly at Didgeridoo, staying silent.

Much relieved, Didgeridoo flipped back over. His castors screeched across the floor.

"What kind of food did you ferment for me?" He asked when Mark returned, panting.

"Uh," he said, staring at the packages in his hands as if he'd never seen them before. "Chocolate pudding and canned tuna?"

Slitted nostrils opened and snuffled between Digeridoo's eyes. "I want to confirm that the food that you have brought me is not your nauseating smell's source."

Laura groaned and Mark sniffed his food offerings. "I thought he'd like fish," he whispered.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Didgeridoo flattened his ears and slapped his tail on the floor. "The fish has been fired in a kiln! Humans, you must clarify that you put the fish in a kiln and now you are talking to me! Don't you know that my wife writes letters to the Pyramid of the River Delta, which is filled with Gleaming Specks of Mica? No, you must know! You are making a lot of emphatic pyramids on this near-future Salmon Festival!"

Mark looked at Laura with panic in his eyes.

Laura knew nothing about her guest's mating habits, but she had read the the spec sheets that Mark had given her and the terms of the contract that the Monumentals were offering. Money and future trade considerations in exchange for the manufacture of a million devices called, by the translation software, "Toy Pyramids of the Salmon Festival."

Meanwhile, Mark's tuna had gravely offended the religious sensibilities of her guest.

"Uh. No." Laura smoothed down her blouse, as if patting an anxious horse. "That was…a terrible accident. No baked fish." Then, before Didgeridoo could show her his belly again, "tell him, Mark."

"It was a mistake?" he said.

"Just…take away the…accident." How else could they stall? "And maybe it's time for Mr. Didgeridoo to see the sample we've prepared for him."

The Toy Pyramid of the Salmon Festival had been manufactured in Shenjiang at great expense to the ludicrously high standards demanded by the Monumentals' spec sheets. It looked like the Antikythera Mechanism had mated with a Rubix Cube.

Mark held the sample out to Didgeridoo, who sniffed it. His whiskers ran over Mark's out-thrust hands. "The smell of cooked fish is disgusting! What is this paste of bitter grass?"

"You didn't wash your hands, Mark?"

Mark channeled inward his flash of rage.

"I will take the toy pyramid of the day of the salmon," said Didgeridoo. He delicately grabbed the pyramid between his front teeth and rolled over onto his back, curling around the toy and prodding at it with whiskers, tongue, tail, and all four limbs.

"I'm sorry I didn't do more cultural research," said Mark, but Laura could hear the anger in his voice.

"I am satisfied so far." Didgeridoo bumped his snout into Mark's ankle, leaving a smear. "Now give me that mud from earlier."

"Huh?" said Mark.

"Clarify!" Laura hissed at him.

"Clarify?"

"Mud!" hooted Didgeridoo. "Dark mud! Silt! Soft mud! Loose mud! (click)unassigned word(click)! Clay and water and organic granules! Please give me that mud so that I can test the toy you made for me. Is the toy effective?"

"The specifications didn't say it needed to work in mud," Laura said. "No, never mind, sorry. Don't roll over! Mark. The chocolate pudding. Go back and get it and tell him that that's the mud he wants." And at his wide-eyed expression. "Don't you roll over at me, either."

Mark gave himself a shake and dashed back out of the lobby, running to recover the pudding.

"Bitter grass," mumbled Didgeridoo when the little tub was handed to. "I am unhappy because of this smell. However, it is appropriate in texture."

Pudding splashed.

"It is apparent that the toy operates well in normal conditions," Didgeridoo concluded. "Even in stick conditions. I am happy because your species meets our lowest standards of manufacture. We will eat, then we will discuss payment."

"Eat?" said Mark.

"Yes," said Didgeridoo. "Food is a negotiation prerequisite condition."

Mark looked at her.

"When will the ambassador arrive, translator?" pleaded Laura.

"In five minutes."

Laura considered just standing here and smiling for another five minutes at the obnoxious sausage in her lobby. She considered being responsible for the failure of humanity's first inter-species manufacturing deal. Her nose wrinkled as she unbuttoned the cuff of her right sleeve.

A royal tang was startled a few seconds later by a flash of movement in one of the walls of its world. It was even more startled when the sky opened and Laura's hand plunged through.