Labyrinth

The human recognized the lighted windows of an eating establishment. The sign above the door indicated that some beings around here spoke his language and a few other languages as well, some that he recognized, and others that were completely alien to him.

The passage here was wide. There was enough room for several businesses along the tunnel; and there was ample vehicle parking along their frontage.

He set the bus down near another one like it. Among the strange vehicles here, it was the only vessel even remotely familiar to him. He walked around it once and noted that it was in fact, the same model as his; only this one was far more beaten up. She looked as though she had seen better days. It was odd he thought, that a bus constructed in his sector, would be found so far away from home. As he grew older and moved farther away from the home section, he came across less and less which was familiar to him. Sometimes however, objects made their way across the boundless distances of the labyrinth on their own; being traded from hand to hand by many beings over many lifetimes.

The atmosphere gauge showed that this was a human-friendly area and that the air and outside pressure were adequate. Good, he thought. He hated the hassle of wriggling into a pressure suit.

Tik climbed out through the port hatch and dropped to the metal sidewalk. It was good to stretch his legs. He held his fists straight out from his body, yawned and then entered the restaurant.

A chime sounded as he walked through the door and everyone looked up from their meals to see the stranger. Tik looked around. They were all Hochaskans save for the android serving food behind the counter; and the one other human sitting in the last booth to his right. He smiled at all who were around him, and then stepped up to the row of stools near the register. The Hochaskans, seemingly satisfied for the moment that he was not a trouble maker, lowered their large blue heads back to their meals and quiet conversation. Tik addressed the android waitress. "Do you take lab currency here?"

The chrome skin of the machine gleamed under the bright lighting as she turned her head towards him. In her electronic voice she said clearly, and in his own language, "We take any currency you have Human. Business is not brisk in these parts. We will accept anything we can get."

This was good. He sometimes found that in rural areas, the universal money was not always accepted. Still, he could usually find financial institutions that would convert some of his currency to whatever was used locally. He was now faced with the decision of what to order. He knew that the Hochaskan food would be poison to him. But there was one other human in the establishment, and he seemed to be enjoying nourishment. Just then he looked down to the end booth where the older man sat, and was not surprised to see that he was motioning for Tik to join him. In many alien areas, he found that humans almost always gravitated toward one another. The old man shouted to the waitress, "He'll have what I'm having." Then he looked towards Tik again and said, "Please, come and sit." The traveler did as was requested of him, and walked down to the end booth.