A Light Snack: The Adventures of Human Gina

 "Oh, man! Something smells great." Gina stopped in her tracks and turned slowly, sniffing. "This way!"

 

Booj, a bulky resident of a moon of a Jovian primary, lumbered behind her. She couldn't pronounce what his species called itself. Alongside him was Erb, a Llobban she had met at something like this system's equivalent of the county courthouse. They had hit it off, she finding the Llobban interesting and kind of funny, and it - its gender still hadn't been determined - being starstruck at having met a celebrity. Gina had never had a hanger-on before, and was simply experiencing the experience for its own sake for the time being. She was famous, after all, and she was still enjoying it.

 

"Human Gina..." Erb said.

 

"Jeez, just 'Gina' is fine, you know."

 

"Yes, of course. Human Gina, these places are pretty popular. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet. Have you heard their advertisements?"

 

"Dang. You have ads?" She shook her head. "I had hoped being in a completely different star system might get me away from that."

 

"Oh, but the ads are why they're so popular. In fact this one is one of many. The advertisement song goes like this," and he raised his mouthparts and sang an eerie, ululating harmony all by himself, what sounded like three individual parts, as his many tentacles slapped a complex rhythm on the ground.

 

A couple of passersby took up the chant, adding what sounded like a full chorus to Erb's trio, and kept singing along until Erb had finished. That surprised Gina, who had never heard an ad jingle she wanted to hear again, let alone sing on its own merits, and especially not sing along extemporaneously on the street. Booj had been humming in his own basso rumble, too. Her translator made no attempt to parse meaning from the song. To her, it sounded like a traditional joik from her native Sweden on Earth, a sung musical style that didn't rely on words, just vocal sounds.

 

"Great, isn't it?"

 

"I reckon." Gina wasn't a fan of joiking. She looked around but the other singers had immediately lost interest as soon as the song had ended. "Is this really the place? Let's go in. It smells terrific and I'm starved."

 

- later –

 

Erb's four eyes all goggled at her. Booj looked uncomfortable.

 

"This is delicious." Gina tore into the cut of meat, sliced it along the right axis to puncture all the gas cells, wadded it up and stuffed the wad into her mouth. "What did you call it again? Wait," she added. "Translator record. Okay, tell me again." She burped.

 

Booj boomed something that the translator still hadn't worked out. "It is a kind of animal from the primary of my moon. They grow very large, a fully grown adult is about four kilometers long," the translator provided unit conversions automatically. "Fortunately the meat keeps a long time, it takes a couple of years to eat one entirely." He observed her plate. "This one might be gone sooner, though."

 

"Really? How so?"

 

"You have eaten enough food to sustain me for approximately twenty days."

 

"Serious?" Slice, wad, bite, chew, swallow. "I'm only just now starting to feel like I can stop eating. This stuff is not filling at all, you guys. Twenty days, really?" She burped richly. She had been burping almost continually throughout the meal.

 

Beyond Booj, Gina could see something that resembled a handsome Persian rug advancing toward them.

 

"Oi! You!" Ah, a language the translator already knew. "You've been here four hours."

 

"Yes, I have. The food is delicious!"

 

The rug wasn't mollified in the slightest. "You've been here four hours! You have been eating non-stop! You go home now!" It rippled angrily. She couldn't tell exactly where its speech was coming from, or even exactly where its mouth was. If it had a mouth.

 

"Hey, I thought this place was all you can eat. Erb said it was all you can eat."

 

"All it can eat, yes! All he can eat, yes!" The rug indicated Erb and Booj in turn. "Not all you can eat! You eat more than I can afford! You eat the entire undecipherable all by yourself! You go home now!"

 

Gina exchanged looks with Erb and Booj who, despite having evolved a few stars away from Gina and her forebears, nevertheless understood each other without having to say each other. Somehow shrugging its tentacles in a very human way, Erb got up first. "Okay, we're going." She burped.

 

"Thank God," the rug said. Gina wondered if the translator had gotten that right. It didn't sound quite like a unit conversion.

 

"Hey," she said. She grinned slyly at Booj, whose eyes widened. He had come to recognize that grin. "Do you think I could take some of this to go?"

 

The rug flapped. "No! Hell no! You go home now!" It devolved into untranslatable ranting until Booj had also risen to his feet, and all three were headed for the exit. "Wait!"

 

She turned back. "Yes?"

 

"You're famous, right?"

 

She looked at Booj, who shrugged. "I guess."

 

"Would you take a picture with me so we can put it on the wall?"

 

She was still enjoying it. "Sure."

 

And she burped again.