Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6

Chapter Three:

Lynne Has a Working Earpiece, but Working isn’t the same as Working

Lynne spent the rest of the morning, which wasn’t long, once all was said and done, finishing the weather reports, and had them filed to be sent out right after lunch.  Slightly late, but not late enough to warrant a warning.  She used her lunch hour to go and get her earpiece.  Although she did not show it, it was slightly disconcerting to speak, but not know what you were saying.  Oh, she knew what she intended to say, but unless she heard it with her earpiece, she was never one hundred percent certain that what she intended and what she actually said were one and the same, even though she’d never had it be the case otherwise, as far as she knew.  But she waited until the reports were done to test out her earpiece.

She wasn’t entirely sure that the earpiece would be able to translate the creature’s language.  The technology used to run it worked by analyzing the sound waves that entered it and the pattern they followed.  That said, there was a limited pattern of sound waves built into it, and she frequently had to send it in for upgrades when new languages were added.  And she hadn’t mentioned this to Linae, but she had never seen anything like this creature.  She wondered briefly what it was called, what it’s name was, even.  So, to test it out, she decided to ask.  To his credit, he had been very good while waiting for her to finish her work.  She had given him a couple of magazines, and though she figured he couldn’t actually read them, he looked through them intently, although he did tear a few pages out of them.  She tried not to mind that.  But now she called him over and he came to her.  First, she explained that she could understand him now, and then she asked him what his name was.

“Benedict,” he told her.  So far so good.  The rest of their conversation was not the greatest, but it was passable.  Strangely, the earpiece picked up about half the words that Benedict said, something that Lynne hadn’t encountered before.  With the earpiece it was usually all or nothing, so to speak.  But this garbled translation coming out of her earpiece was better than nothing, she told herself, and she continued to press the creature for information.  Because of the imperfect translation, any kind of overly complicated explanation came out as pure nonsense that made next to no sense (for instance, she was almost certain he was trying to explain how he had ended up in their world, but too many crucial words were missing for her to truly understand), but simple concepts came across correctly, for the most part.  This method worked best, Lynne learned, if she asked him a question that could be answered in one or two words.  From what she could tell, Mr. Elwood had been correct, the name that Benedict wrote down earlier was indeed the name of his hometown (and was actually Hinagura) and not the world he came from.  He didn’t appear to know the name of his world, and didn‘t seem to have known that there was more to his world than where he lived, but she wasn‘t entirely sure that was what he meant.  And because of the earpiece’s translation jumble, she couldn’t ask him to simple describe where he came from and try to go from that.  To walk to an unknown world would take a very specific description, not one with half the words missing.

All this back and forth questioning and guessing left the two of them feeling worn out, and Benedict refused to say anymore until he got something to eat.  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Lynne said. She was not perturbed by this lack of thought, but merely went to the break area to get him something to eat.  She came back with some fruit, which he wolfed down and then demanded more.  She didn’t need her earpiece to figure that one out.  “I guess they didn’t feed you over there,” she said.  She hadn’t been properly introduced to Mr. Elwood, so she didn’t really know what his relationship to Benedict was.  Nor did she worry about it, since it seemed to be over.

Watching him eat the sandwich she brought back, she felt a warmth wash over her, like when she watched her pet mini-coon eat its mini-pellets after a long day.  “Ah, such bliss,” she said to herself.

“What?” Benedict said, looking up from the sandwich.

“Oh nothing,” Lynne said.  She hadn’t realized that she had been speaking when she said that.  But that sparked the thought that she should probably let Linae know what she had found out at least.  She went back to her desk and typed up the information she had gotten from Benedict in a message to Linae.  She also told her about the quirk with her earpiece, and sent the message.  

Chapter Four:

It Doesn’t Take a Genius to Know the Unknowable or a Village to Find a Child

In spite of her desire to have nothing to do with the creature and its return, Linae couldn’t help doing just a little bit of research into where it might belong.  There were a handful of sites that listed the different inhabitants of various worlds.  Some where personal logs from travelers or walkers while others were official lists from the IWF itself.  The most interesting site was a wiki that anyone could add to, and Linae spent a good chunk of time just clicking links from one article to the next, deviating a bit from her original goal.  She liked to read about the places she had already been, and even added to a couple of entries herself.  But because the wiki could be edited by anyone, the information had to be taken with a grain of salt.  Still, it was a start, at least.  Unfortunately, she didn’t see any articles that mentioned inhabitants that looked anything like the creature, and none of the entries with pictures were remotely close.  After catching herself going off track again, she closed her browser window and got down to some real work.

No sooner had she closed her browser than she heard the incessant PING of a message.  A message from Lynne, she noted, and opened it, hoping to hear that the situation was taken care of now.  This appeared to be less and less the case as she read the message, and it became more and more clear that they were going to need more than just the two of them to solve this mysterious, as she had started to think of it.  So she sent a message back to Lynne, telling her about the information she had failed to dredge up, and suggesting they call an impromptu meeting with the other agents in that day.

“I thought we were supposed to keep this on the quiet side?” Lynne messaged back.

“Who said that?  I know I never did,” sent Linae.

It took a few more messages, but they finally decided to divide the list of available agents between the two of them and send out a brief explanation of the situation, asking them to meet and share any thoughts.

“Well, that’s that,” Lynne said once her messages had been sent, and she turned to watch Benedict again.  By then he had long finished his sandwich, and had been watching Linae typing her message.  He asked her something that she wasn’t sure of, so she asked him to repeat it, and when she still couldn’t understand his reprise, she asked him to rephrase it.  What he said to her next could only be translated as “Where are my clothes?”

An hour later, a handful of the other travel agents under the employ of the Tulin-Walker Travel Agency were gathered in the break room, including Supervising Agent (SA) Myrna.  Granted, the room was not really intended for this purpose, being only about the size of a double-sized bathroom, but there were enough chairs for everyone, and Lynne brought muffins, which lured in a few more agents.  She had picked them up while trying to find appropriate clothing for Benedict, after determining that the lab he came from must have confiscated his clothes (that was the only explanation she could think of).  But she couldn’t find any clothes that he liked that would fit him, being a rather awkward shape in a world of humanoids.  So she bought a blanket for him to wrap around himself.  “That’ll have to do for right now, but I’ll work something out for you later,” she told him, and he accepted the blanket.

“What is that?” Linae asked when she met them in the break room a few minutes before the approved meeting time.  An agent who was also a friend of hers, Brooke, was already there as well.

“It’s a blanket,” Lynne explained, giving her a slightly bemused look.  Brooke tittered, since she’d already heard the story and just kept thinking of a nudist…whatever Benedict was.

“I can see it’s a blanket,” Linae replied, glancing over at Brook, “Is he cold or something?”

“Not exactly,” Lynne said, and explained the situation again.

“He’ll have to take it off,” Linae said, “Otherwise no one will get a good look at him.”  She looked at Benedict, who was falling asleep in the molded chair he was sitting on.  He did look cozy, all wrapped up as he was.  “We’ll wait until everyone’s here, then we‘ll strip him,” she said, more to herself than anyone else, but Brooke heard her and giggled again.

“Interesting things do seem to fall in your lap, Lin,” her friend said, with just a bit of a leering grin peeking through her facial expression.

“I’ll ignore that,” Linae told her.  She was still secretly hoping to pass this mystery off to one of the other agents.  Perhaps one of them would be so impassioned by the creature, no, Benedict’s plight that they would take it on personally.  At the least, another collaborator would be helpful.

“Oh, you make a big show of hating anything outside of your usual prospects, but I know you love to tackle something new,” Brooke teased.

“Do I, now?” Linae said right back to her, eyebrow cocked, “And how do you know this, pray tell?”

But Brooke just smiled at her with an annoyingly mysterious grin, “I have my ways.”  Linae had decided to let the topic go.  She liked Brooke, but the girl could be maddeningly cagey when she wanted to be.

Now, with almost everyone in the room, and no new additions for the past five minutes, Linae cleared her throat and called for everyone’s attention.  The idle chattering stopped, and all eyes turned to her.  For a moment Linae felt her voice dry up, but she cleared her throat again and then addressed the crowd.  “You should all know why we’re here.”  But before she could get any further, someone (she wasn’t sure who, and she wasn’t looking) called out, “Have him talk!”

There were murmurs of agreement, and Linae noticed that most of the gathered agents were wearing their headsets.  Of course they wanted to hear the garbled translation for themselves, Linae told herself.  She was just a little surprised that the issue would be brought up so quickly.  “Well, if that’s what you want,” she said, and looked to Lynne, who shrugged.  “Thanks a lot,” she thought, and then prodded the sleeping creature.

Benedict opened his eyes and stared at the gathered crowd (which really wasn’t much more than eight people).  “Xxxx xxx xxxx xx xxxxx xx?”

The crowd gasped.  And then smiled as if one person.  With a simultaneous cry of, “That so cute!”  Linae was aghast, but Lynne just nodded.

“Yes, well,” Linae continued, a little flustered.  She hadn’t actually thought about the response anyone else would have to Benedict, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have considered that one.  “True as that may be, there is a more important matter at hand.”  But not only had the agents started conversing among themselves, Benedict had started talking to Lynne, demanding answers about what was going on.  Which only further spurred the suddenly smitten agents.

“Oh my goodness, he’s darling,”  “It’s really going halfway through the translator,”  “Let me get a pic of this.”  And then there was a rush of agents grabbing cameras and snapping semi-silent photos of Benedict and Lynne conversing.

“Now hold on, if we’re going to do this, do it right!” Linae said to the crowd, hardly believing the words coming out of her mouth.  To Lynne, she said, “Tell him to take off the blanket and, I don’t know, strike a pose or something.”

“What for?  Candid shots are fine,” Lynne replied.  Benedict had clung to her when the cameras came out, and she was still stroking the top of his head, pausing now and then to massage his ears.  

Before Linae could respond, a couple of agents called out, “Identification shots, of course!”

“If we send them around to all the walkers we know,“

“…someone’s bound to know where he comes from!”

“Of course, it’s so obvious.”

While Linae was glad that everyone caught on to her idea without her actually needing to say it, it also pointed out that none of them knew anything more than she or Lynne did.  She would have felt discouraged if everyone wasn’t so enthusiastic to help out.  Lynne had explained what the cameras were, and when she told Benedict what they wanted him to do, he was a little more enthusiastic about it.  He obliged the agents who circled around him, getting more shots than Linae thought was necessary.  But who was she to deny them their fun, especially if it got the job done.  

The rest of the “meeting” ended up turning into a “get to know Benedict” party.  The agents that brought their headset talked with Benedict incessantly, but since they couldn’t speak the way Lynne could, their translation mouthpieces (as far as anyone could tell) produced the same garbled conversation to him that their earpieces revealed to them.  This made the conversation sound something like a strange game of Telephone, but no one seemed to mind that much.

Linae had to admit, she was pleased with the amount of interest everyone was showing for the situation, much more than she would have assumed.  Almost everyone promised to help in some way, especially those with connections to the IWF.  As she headed home for the day, she felt considerably better than she had when she came in.  Soon everything would be back to normal, she just knew it.

Chapter Five:

Lynne and Benedict Go to Earth and Live to Tell the Tale

It was by mutual agreement that Lynne took Benedict home to her apartment for the night.  She was pleased to do it, having a soft spot for most small creatures.  In fact, it was only her practical nature that kept her from overrunning her living space with all kinds of pets.  At the moment, she limited herself to one mini-coon that lived in its own terrarium, although she let it out on occasion when she was home.  And the first thing she did once she and Benedict arrived at her home was introduce him.

“This is Little Bandit, my pet mini-coon,” she told him, taking the animal out of its cage.  “He’s from Andenita, where everything is like our world, but smaller.”  Mini-animals were popular pets in Rearn, and especially in Rigdun.  Many walkers made their living by licensing and selling goods from other worlds in their world, but selling other animals was a bit of a grey area.  Lynne would not have bought a mini-animal of her own accord, but her personal pet was an abandoned mini-coon that she couldn’t bear to part with, even though her original intention had been to take it back to Andenita.  “You two can play while I made dinner.”

Lynne put a small pot of water on the stove to make some pasta and watched Benedict playing with Little Bandit while she waited for the water to boil.  This mostly consisted of Benedict letting Little Bandit run over his body, a scene that was almost too cute for words, Lynne thought.

Once the pasta was done, Lynne tossed it with a little butter and parmesan cheese, noting that she was almost out.  “I’ll get some while I’m out tonight,” she made a mental note.  Then she divided the pasta into two bowls and set them at her dining table.  She added two forks, one by each bowl, and poured two glasses of water.  With dinner ready, she put Little Bandit back in his terrarium (“Otherwise he tries to steal food from the table,” she explained to Benedict), and the two nonpets sat down to dinner.  While they ate, Lynne explained her plans for the evening.  Since it involved walking, she explained how it worked, and where they were going: a little place called  Alantown on a world much like her own called Earth.

As Linae prepared to go home at the end of the day, Brooke poked her head into her friend’s office.  “Feel like going out tonight?”

“Do I ever!” Linae said.  The last thing she wanted to do was go back home and try not to think about what had happened that day.  It would be much easier not to think about it at that new club in Arron, the next town over.  “Let’s see if the Duoke machine at Arrow Arrow  is as good as everyone says it is.”

“Sounds good to me,” Brooke said, “But first let’s get something to eat.” 

“Definitely,” Linae agreed, and the two of them left together, ready for a night on the town.  

Lynne generally did not get to know the inhabitants of the different worlds she walked to, at least, not in a way that was deeper than the occasional “hello,” or other mundane bit of conversation filler.  But Rachel X. Wright was a different matter altogether.  Although they had only been friends for a couple of years, they both considered the other a friend above all friends, for reasons that will be discussed later.  

Since she was taking Benedict with her, she focused very specifically on Rachel’s door.  She took Benedict’s hand, closed her eyes, and spoke, “Go,” the signal for them both to take a step.  With the next step they were in front of Rachel’s door, just as Lynne had seen it in her mind.  The door opened almost instantly, and a young lady stood before them.  Slightly on the short side, with a round face framed by barely chin-length black hair, Rachel smiled at her friend.  

“I knew you were coming.”  This was Rachel’s special ability, knowing.  Specifically, knowing what to do.  It was a by turns vague and specific, but always emerged as a kind of feeling.  And it only made itself known when she had to make a decision.  Sometimes she could get the feeling simply when wondering whether to use the bathroom or wait until later.  Earlier that day, she had been thinking about what she should do that evening, and she just got the feeling that someone would show up that evening.  An unexpected visitor usually meant her friend Lynne, and as she wondered what snacks to pick up, she just knew to pick up some parmesan cheese as well.  And Rachel told this to Lynne, who exclaimed, “Perfect!  I just ran out.”

The two girls hugged.  “I have a special favor to ask you,” Lynne said, and quickly motioned to the creature beside her.  “This is Benedict.  He’s from a world, but I don’t know which one yet.”

“Heya,” Rachel bent down and offered him her hand.  Having gotten used to that at the meeting earlier in the day, Benedict shook it.  “Good job!” Rachel told him and gave him a thumbs up.  Then she stood up and turned to go inside, “Come on in,” she said, though Lynne needed no such invitation.  “So what’s up,” Rachel asked once they were inside.  She sat in a flowered armchair while Lynne and Benedict were situated on a matching couch.

“Not anything too big,” Lynne answered, “But Benedict doesn’t have any clothes, and I couldn’t find anything that would be appropriate…”

“I can understand how you might have a problem,” Rachel said, regarding the light blue creature who was currently helping himself to the bowl of chips she had set out.  “But I don’t think you’ll find anything more appropriate in any of the stores around here.”

“Actually I was wondering if you’d be able to whip something up for him?”

“I was hoping you’d ask,” Rachel replied with a twinkle in her eye.  She got up and started rummaging in a bag on the table in the dining room, which was connected to the front room (an acquired name for the area most people called a living room).  “Ah, here we go,” she pulled out a tape measure.  “This shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, and grabbed a pen and a pad that were next to the bag.  “Okay, kiddo, step away from the table and let me measure you,” she said to Benedict, and Lynne translated, explaining that her friend needed to get his measurements to make him some clothes.  Benedict gave her a look that told her more than if he had said what he was thinking about the obviousness of her statement, and gamely let Rachel move his limbs around as needed as she measured him from every possible angle, making notations on the pad.

“So what do you think?”  Lynne asked as Rachel rolled the tape measure up again.

“Well, I have a few patterns I can modify,” Rachel replied, “and I’m off tomorrow, so I can get started right away, but really, I don’t see this taking any less, fewer,” she corrected herself, “than five days.”

“Looks like you’ll be wearing my old t-shirts for a while,” Lynne said to Benedict.  Benedict just shrugged.

“Hold on,” Rachel said, and went to a room toward the back of the house.  She returned to the front room a few minutes later, holding a bundle.  She unfurled it with a little more flair than was necessary (she knew this), revealing a loosely crocheted, although well made, child-size poncho.  “Try this on,” she said as she handed it to Benedict.  Before Lynne could translate, Benedict slipped it on, adjusting it a little.  “No, this part goes in the front,” Rachel told him, kneeling down to help him get it on straight.  After a moment, he gave her a thumbs up.  “You catch on quick, I see,” Rachel said, beaming at her handiwork.

They spent the rest of the evening looking at the patterns Rachel thought would best suit the work she’d have to do.  Once she and Benedict agreed on an outfit, she let him and Lynne into another room in the back of the house where she kept her stash of yarn, and the three of them perused the collection.  Different materials were selected, rejected, tried next to other colors.  In the end, Benedict and Rachel compromised on a set of variations on light brown and tan, with a little dark green thrown in for luck.

“Just in time, too,” Rachel said, and the three of them settled in to watch one of her favorite shows.  Rachel didn’t usually watch a lot of TV, being more of a movie person, but she had one show she always watched from Monday to Thursday.  Since it was Tuesday, it was time for The Everyman, a kind of “everybody loves everybody” sitcom.  While she watched, Rachel got started crocheting a shirt for one of the outfits she would make for Benedict.  Lynne was more interested in watching her friend work with the yarn and hook more than she was in watching the show (she only caught sporadic episodes, so she was a little lost anyway), although Benedict seemed to be glued to the screen, despite not being able to understand any of it.  But for Lynne, there was something fascinating about watching the yarn turn into a long chain of loops that would somehow form a dense fabric.  Rachel seemed so serene as she pushed the hooked needle into a loop, put the yarn over the hook and pulled it back through, then put the yarn over the hook again and pulled it through the two loops on the hook, in a motion so automatic it looked like she might have been born to do it.  “No, just years of practice,” she’d said when Lynne pointed this out once.  Lynne had no desire to do it herself; watching her friend was more than enough for her.  A sense of peace settled over the room as the sound of a laugh track filtered out the television into the background.

After a few rows, Rachel paused and told Lynne, “Tomorrow, don’t be afraid to go for the big one.”

“Huh?” Although Lynne knew that Rachel tended to get mysterious and prophetic when she crocheted, it still caught her by surprise.

“Just think about it,” Rachel said, and returned to her project.

Elsewhere, Linae limped her way home after spending the night out with Brooke.  They had hit the club and had a little more fun than was wise, what with work in the morning.  Unlocking the door and quickly letting herself and her friend in, Linae kicked off her shoes and made for the one thing she could think about at the moment.  Her squishy, old couch, the only good thing that she’d gotten from her late uncle.

“Ah, life is hard,” Linae moaned, immediately sprawling herself out on the sofa.  

“You work too hard, you really do,” Brooke told her.  She gingerly moved her friend’s legs and sat down on the sofa, laying Linae’s feet in her lap and starting to massage them.  “And then you play as hard as you work.  It’s no wonder you get worn out like this.”

“Mm,” Linae approved.  They often did things similar to this, although Linae was unaware of her friends’ true intentions.  “Say it again.”

“Say what again?” Brooke teased her, as she always did.

“You know what I like to hear,” Linae said, with a little lilt in her voice.  And her friend obliged her.

“You work so hard, Linae,” Brooke said in a low voice, her fingers working their way across her friend’s feet and up her legs.  Although she longed to go further, she never strayed beyond the thighs.  “You should get a promotion with all the work you put in.”  This was all pure nonsense, of course.  Linae never aimed to work hard, and often avoided the kind of hours that others put in as a general rule.  But they both enjoyed their little ritual, especially Brooke.  It was a nice break from the usual face she had to put on at the workplace.  One day she would move on, she knew, and maybe she wouldn’t be able to spend time with Linae like this.  Linae would probably stay at Tulin-Walker for the rest of her life, she thought, and what would become of them then?  She didn’t like to think about that, so for the moment she just savored the chance to be close to a good friend.  She also did her best not to think about the guy she had noticed watching them the whole time they were at the club, singing duet after duet on the duoke machine.  It probably wouldn’t even be there in three weeks, and chances were very slim that they’d run into him again.  And part of her knew that she was just feeling a little, a very, very, very little bit jealous.  When Linae fell asleep on the couch, as she usually did, Brooke gently extricated herself from under her friend’s legs and covered her with a blanket.  She gave her the tiniest kiss on the forehead (as she also usually did), and then quietly let herself out of the apartment, locking the door behind her.

Chapter Six:

Advances in Language are Made, but No Other Advances for Lynne

“Lynne, you’ll never guess what!” an excitable agent by the name of Mary Ellen exclaimed as she burst into Lynne’s office.  Benedict and Lynne both looked up as she came in.

“What?” Lynne asked, pausing from reading the multitude of messages she had received since the previous day.

“You’ll never guess who I got to come in today!” Mary Ellen continued, as if she hadn’t heard Lynne at all.  Without waiting for a response, she went on, “Grayson Mason!”

“Who?” The name sounded familiar, but Lynne couldn’t exactly place it, especially since she was trying to type a response to another message while paying enough attention to Mary Ellen to not appear rude.

“Only THE most premiere senior member of the translation division of Halix Ind., Lynne!” Mary Ellen told her.

“Oh, that’s not true,” a voice from behind her said, and she rolled her eyes.  She moved aside to reveal a young man standing in the doorway.  “Grayson Mason, Miss Zink,” he said, shaking her hand.  “I do work with the translation division, but I’m hardly as important as Miss Liason makes me out to be.”  

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Mason,” Lynne said, returning his handshake.

“I brought him to talk to Benedict, isn’t that a good idea?” Mary Ellen said, and waited.  Lynne, however, missed this last sentence as she was too busy noticing Grayson Mason’s strong shoulders and neatly trimmed, soft brown hair.

“Please, call me Grayson, Miss Zink,” Grayson told her.

“And you may call me Lynne, Grayson,” Lynne replied, distinctly liking the way that sentence sounded.

Mary Ellen wrinkled her nose, not used to being ignored.  “Perhaps we should get down to business.  Grayson doesn’t have all day, after all.”

“Yes, of course,” Grayson and Lynne said at the same time, breaking eye contact for the first time since they had introduced themselves.

“The idea I had,” Mary Ellen continued, “was that Grayson can listen to Benedict’s language and analyze it.  Then he can build a new wave panel for the headset and we can all understand him,” she said, unaware of the pronoun confusion she had just committed.  

“Well, I’ll submit it to the division head,” Grayson said, “But I might be able to figure out a little bit right here and now.”

“I see,” Lynne said.  “How would that work?”

Grayson put his briefcase on her desk and opened it, pulling out a laptop computer.  “I’ll listen to Benedict as he speaks and upload the information into here,” he told her, “You can tell me what your earpiece translates, too, and I’ll match it to the data the computer gets.”

“Oh, I think it’ll be easier than that,” Mary Ellen said, “After all, our Lynne here is a Speaker.  You can just listen to her and ask her what she said!”  She paused after this, waiting.  Lynne, however, said nothing.  She didn’t even comment on the “our Lynne,” mostly because she hadn’t been paying attention to what Mary Ellen had said at all.  Fortunately, Grayson picked up the conversational slack.

“Well, that does simplify things a bit,” Grayson admitted, “but even so, it’s a little more complicated than all that.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Mary Ellen said, and with a quick wave, she made her way out of the door.

“Good, I thought she would never leave,” Grayson said quietly, just in case Mary Ellen was still near enough to hear him.

“She’s a good agent,” Lynne said, sneaking back over to her desk to finish up the message she had left half-typed.  “Just let me finish this up.  And then we can get started.”

“Of course,” Grayson said, “Take your time.”

Once Lynne was done with a few “just one more message”s, Grayson explained again how he would analyze Benedict’s language, and they spent the rest of the morning hard at work.  Lynne explained to Benedict what Grayson would do and how that would help them get him home sooner, and once he understood, Benedict was very cooperative.  Lynne also did her part to help in their effort, although her conversation with both Grayson and Benedict kept being interrupted by agents coming to check in.  Lynne suspected they just wanted to see Benedict again, so she tried to be fair to all of them, but after the first three interruptions, even she was starting to get a little ticked off.

In spite of the interruptions, after a few hours, Grayson felt confident that he had a fair grasp on the language.  “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to give the sound wave editor a real test,”  he told Lynne.

“A real test?”  Lynne suddenly remembered the words her friend had said the night before.  “The big one,” she murmured to herself.  “Do you think it could handle a formal description of his home?” she asked Grayson.

“I don’t see why not,” Grayson said.

“All right, then,” said Lynne, and she spoke to Benedict, “I need you give us a description of where you came from in your world, especially the areas around your home.  Be as detailed as you possibly can.”

And so Benedict began to describe his hometown of Hinagura.  With her earpiece, she could only catch every other word, but she watched the log from the sound wave editor on Grayson’s computer.  She watched the words scrolling on the screen for the ones that matched the random words she heard, and as far as she could tell, it was accurate.  She watched as Benedict described the village and its little houses, the people that lived in it, the forest that surrounded it, and anything else he could think of.  There really was plenty to work with there, Lynne knew, but part of her didn’t feel quite right about it somehow.

“Okay, now read it back to him,” Grayson said once Benedict finished, “And ask him if it’s accurate.”

Lynne nodded.  She wouldn’t have thought to test it like that, and was glad that she hadn’t decided to go into translation for a career.  While it was nice to work with Grayson, she wouldn’t have wanted to spend the rest of her days doing what they did this morning.  Getting back to Benedict, she told him what she was going to do, and he nodded.   Concentrating carefully, she spoke and read what was on the screen.  For his part, Benedict listened very closely, nodding at appropriate times.  When it was all said and done, she asked him how it sounded.

“Close enough,” he told her.

“It can’t be just close enough,” she replied, noticing her words appearing on the computer screen.  “If the description doesn’t fit perfectly, then we’ll end up in a completely different world.  And how would you get home then?”

“So you’d try again if you didn‘t get there the first time,” Benedict told her, as she surreptitiously checked the screen’s translation.  “Do you have limits on your ‘walking’ or what?”  Fully translated, he was cheekier than she had imagined.

“You’re right, of course,” Lynne replied, humoring him for the time being.  Granted, he was right that they could just try different interpretations of his description until they landed in the world, but first off, she had no idea how many worlds that could take, and second off, she was definitely not going to be the one to take him back home.  She simply didn’t feel secure enough to walk through a myriad of unknown worlds, even if her headband had never failed her.  It was bad enough to be stranded in a world that other walkers knew about, but to be stuck in one they didn’t… the thought sent shivers down her spine.  Metaphorically, of course.  She just wasn‘t going to tell him that at the moment.  “But it would be much easier to get it right the first time, don’t you agree?”

“Of course it would!” Benedict said, making a slicing motion in the air as he said it (for emphasis, Lynne assumed).  “But don’t think you can give up just because it takes a long time to get to the right world.”

“I have no intention of giving up.”  Because she had no intention of going at all.  Or so she thought.  But reading the description of his home made her curious.  Could there really be a world where majestic purple mountains speckled the background, and it continually smelled of ariethens, whatever those were?  And where had he learned such flowery language?

“Too right, you don’t,” Benedict said, decisively.  “So is he done yet or what?  I’ve been talking all morning, and it’s definitely time for lunch.”

“Is it?” Both Lynne and Grayson said.  Lynne noticed for the first time that she was getting hungry.

Grayson closed his computer and placed it back in his briefcase.  “I think I’ve got all I need here.  I should be able to rig something up… for you,” he said, a bit awkwardly.

“Can you really?” Lynne asked, quite impressed.  “You got enough from just one conversation?

“Well, it did last all morning,” Grayson pointed out, “And your contribution really helped a lot.  It probably would have taken days without… your…”

“Yeah, I know,” Lynne was never very good at accepting compliments about her speaking ability.  It made her feel awkward to be thanked for something that she did without even thinking about it.

“It’s truly a fascinating language,” Grayson contined.  “It seems quite similar to Fantica, but with a mix of Grion and Hunglish.”

Benedict waited, getting more and more irritated that this conversation that he couldn’t understand didn’t seem to moving in the direction of the room with the food.  He also didn’t understand why Lynne and Grayson (as he understood them to be called) couldn’t be talking and walking at the same time.  After what seemed like ages upon ages, finally Grayson picked up his briefcase, said a few more words to Lynne, and went out the door.

“All right, let’s get something to eat,” Lynne spoke, grinning at him for some reason.

“It’s about time,” Benedict grumbled, but took her hand when she offered it, and they both went to the break room, where Lynne had left a lunch of egg salad sandwiches with chocolate chip cookies for the two of them.  (Clearly labeled “Lynne & Benedict” so it wouldn’t be stolen.  Or if it was, she could claim restitution because their names were on it.)

Linae had spent the morning forwarding all the messages about Benedict to Lynne, since she was in no mood to deal with them.  The effects of her night out and sleeping on the couch were all to evident in her demeanor, though she did her best to hide it.  She was very fortunate in that the only client she had that morning had called to cancel, giving her way more details than were necessary to explain why he couldn’t come.  If she could have truly spoken her mind that morning, she would have told him straight out that it didn’t matter to her what had happened to his portfolio and where it had somehow ended up without his knowledge; all she needed to know what that he wasn’t coming, and when he could reschedule to.  But she politely listened while he went on and on about things she didn’t care about, prompting him at certain intervals to make a date to come in again later.

As usually happens at certain intervals during the day, the needs of her bladder kicked in and let her know it was time to make towards the toilet.  The Tulin-Walker Travel Agency had one restroom area, with three stalls and one sink.  As Linae finished up the familiar rush and splash, she heard the sound of an all too recognizable voice long before she heard the door open, although she couldn’t make out the actual words until Mary Ellen actually came in.  

“…believe the ingratitude of some people!  Honestly, honestly!  Here I practically drop the solution into her lap, and does she thank me?  Not even a word!  I guess she was too busy making peep-eyes at Grayson!”

Linae thought Mary Ellen was just talking to herself until she heard the voice of her companion.  “You mustn’t take this so personally, ME, I’m sure they just need time to see the true benefits of your gift, that‘s all.  Once that language is all sorted out, they’ll be falling at your feet with gratitude.”  Language?  Did this have to do with the creature and this situation, Linae wondered (she couldn’t bring herself to think of them in different terms).

“Grayson better say something at least,” Mary Ellen grumbled, and then entered the stall next to the one Linae was in.  This seemed a good time to get a move on, Linae thought, so she wiped herself and pulled up her pants and panties in one movement.  As she exited the stall, she said a quick “Hey,” to Mary Ellen’s confidante, a relatively new agent, new enough that she didn’t remember her name.  The other agent just gave her an extremely pointed look.  Linae ignored this and simply washed her hands and went back to her office.  She figured that if anything really had happened with Lynne, she would hear about it sooner or later, whether she wanted to or not.  She went back to check her messages, and once again sent all the ones regarding Benedict to Lynne.  Although if what she heard in the bathroom was really regarding Lynne, then the senders might be waiting for a long time.