“Hey, Steve, you gotta watch this! The Aggies are gonna beat the Okies!”
“Naw,” declared his avid companion with certainty. “Oklaho-ma’s just lay in’ back, playing with ’em.”
“No, man, they’re gonna beat ’em.” He glanced over at the third member of the party. “What do you think, Steve?”
“I haven’t been watching,” his friend replied.
“Aw, man.” In a whisper loud enough to be overheard, the speaker addressed his other companion. “Told you we shouldn’t have brought him.”
“I know, Rich, but Steve spends too much time in quakers as it is. He needs to get out more.”
Steven Suttles ignored both of his colleagues and sometime friends as he waved at the bartender. The big man was there in seconds.
“You want something else, sir?” Ross Ed glanced down at the man’s glass. “You haven’t finished your beer.”
“That’s okay.” Suttles waved absently. “I’m still admiring your prop. Tell me: what planet is he from? Not Mars, surely.” He grinned to show that he meant no harm.
“Of course not, sir.” Ross Ed returned the smile. “Men are from Mars; women are from Venus. Aliens are from Hollywood.”
Suttles rubbed at his forehead. “I’ve seen a lot of sci-fi films. I don’t ever recall seeing anything that looked like this.”
“There are a lot of movies out there, sir. Made-for-cable and direct-to-video as well as the theatrical releases.”
“Fair enough. If you won’t tell me what planet, how about identifying the relevant solar system?”
“Planning a vacation?” Speaking through Jed, Ross Ed heard himself reciting a series of numbers that meant absolutely nothing to him. He must’ve retained more of that twelfth-grade math than he thought.
“Those are the requisite coordinates,” his voice concluded. “Nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
“Why not?” The exceptionally thoughtful officer took another sip of his beer.
“You know the big feedlot just northwest of town?” Ross Ed told him. “Methane. You wouldn’t want to live on a world that smells like pig shit.”
Suttles considered. “Wouldn’t be so bad if you were a pig.”
“Then you’d have to wear a different uniform,” the alien corpus replied through Ross. Laughter came from those of the bar’s regulars within hearing range.
“Must be a long ways off.” Suttles debated whether to order another brewski. “What about propulsion?”
“Not a problem,” Ross’s voice replied from the vicinity of the body. “You get on your bike and ride, baby, ride.”
The officer grinned. “I didn’t know it was possible to pedal faster than the speed of light.”
“Light doesn’t have any speed,” Ross Ed heard himself saying. “You misperceive the true nature of velocity. It has to do with the rear speed at which everything else is moving. Your beer, for example. What you call the ‘speed of light’ is not only not relevant, it’s an irrelevance. Especially if you’re trying to get someplace. Your kind makes physics much more complex than it actually is. If you’re going to account for actual relative velocity in your travels, it’s better to just go around it.”
Suttles blinked. “Go around it?”
“Sure.” Ross Ed buzzed the kitchen. They were running short on tall glasses. Moving to Jed, he hefted the limp body and began to jiggle it. Arms and legs went flopping in all directions, gangly and unpredictable. “See? Relative velocity of objects in motion is the same, but they’re all circumscribed by the same center.” He shifted the body back and forth, side to side. “The peripherals don’t matter. It’s the center that has to be adjusted relative to everything else. That’s how you avoid the speed of light. You avoid it and it goes past you. In the interim you’ve advanced.” He snugged the corpse back in its alcove. “Nothing to it.”
Those patrons near enough to observe the encounter had giggled readily at the sight of the six flopping alien limbs. Few had paid any attention to Ross Ed’s disquisition.
“Any other mysteries of the universe you need solved?” the dummy seemed to squeak.
“Yeah!” Another customer broke in before Suttles could respond. “How can I get this sweet little gal over here to give me more than a smile and a nod?” He indicated the woman seated across the table from him.
“Better forget it,” the alien voice declared. “It’s the time of the month when she isn’t interested. But she doesn’t want to tell you that because she’s afraid you’ll go running after somebody else.”
The man looked uncertain, then joined those around him in laughter. As for his well-lubricated female companion, she looked sharply in the alien’s direction, then smiled in confusion at Ross Ed.
Suttles had waited patiently for the byplay to end. Now he leaned slightly toward the bartender, keeping his voice level but low. “How do you let light ‘go past you’? What if you can’t get up to minimum speed?”
“What’s the matter,” the dummy chirped as Ross Ed moved his lips, “motion sickness?” A few people chuckled, but for the most pan this line of questioning left them uninvolved and indifferent.
“Let’s keep it simple.” Suttles started in on his second beer. “Suppose I just want to go from here to there as fast as possible.” He pointed to the far side of the room.
“Adventurous sort of traveler, aren’t you?” Ross Ed recited a rapid-fire series of chemical instructions which Suttles, while appearing uninterested, actually did his best to memorize.
“Of course the trick,” the bartender went on in his other-worldly voice, “is to make sure that all of you is involved in the transposition. It can be awkward to have part of you make the jump while the rest is left behind.”
“Which pan?” queried Matt. The two younger officers howled at their own joke without really comprehending its foundation.
“Excuse me.” Suttles slipped off his stool. “Got to go.”
“What are you talking about?” One of his companions fumbled at his arm. “It’s early yet.”
The older man smiled apologetically. “Sorry, guys. There’s something I have to check on.”
As he turned to leave, his eyes met Ross Ed’s. Contact was made and lost in an instant, but there was enough there to put the bartender’s nerves on alert. Curiosity he could have pardoned, but there was much more. Real intelligence, and a certain apprehension.
