Huh. They still aren't leaving."Timicus closed his eyes and muttered in an ancient language a moment before clapping twice and then sneezing."Bless yo...." Thank you. I'm allergic to dragons, you know." But there isn't going to be any dragons, right?"A scream from the distant men was followed by a sudden hush, and just as Eric saw what appeared to be an extremely fast moving cloud, the entire enemy army ran like hell eastward."Oh shit!" Eric said just as Timicus sneezed again."Oh shit is right. I. Gladyou're having fun, but I bet it is getting pretty bruised. Are you goingto want your little hubby back tonight? If you'd like to go another round,I have a friend who just invited us for drinks and maybe some dinner. Yousure? Wonderful!" She hung up."Well, we'll have to pick up some more things tomorrow, but that's aboutit for this trip. A friend wants to meet us for drinks, as you probablyheard. He saw your photos and wanted to meet you," she said with asideways wink at Pica.We started back. "Didn't seem all that bad, to me." Drives were a little off, and the putting was awful." Well. It was your first time out for -- what? -- four days?" I'm gonna have to practice every day until we leave here on Monday," she said."OK." Do you still have your apartment?" It's not exactly an apartment. It's two rooms, a bath, and access to the owner's kitchen," I said. "But, yes, I still have it, through this month." We gotta have someplace to go, to be -- together," she said."Well, my place is. . hang out?”He wasn’t getting it, and her heart began to sink. She considered finding Schaffer and fetching him to translate, but she would be too embarrassed. While he was no doubt guilty of exactly the same behavior, she didn’t really want any coworkers or UNN personnel to see this side of her.“I don’t have much to do. I’m stuck here,” she said, growing frustrated and starting to ramble. “The snow,” she gestured to a nearby window, “I have to stay here.” She pointed at the ground, the alien’s.