They didn't put me under glass this time, but I still couldn't move. I stared into another lab, rows of stainless steel tables and computers and large tanks containing many of my brethren in a liquid solution. I was terrified, but couldn't do much about the situation.

When the long haired man appeared, I hissed in fright and spat in his direction, but he anticipated this, ducking away at the last moment. "Whoa! Easy there, little guy!"

He pulled out a stack of laminated cards. "Look! I got something for you."

He dangled a piece of meat in front of me. "Ah?"

I did feel a bit hungry. My drool sizzled as it fell on...whatever I'd been secured to. I couldn't move my head enough to look down.

"We're going to play a little game. I'm going to hold up a card, and you're going to read it, and if you do well, I'll give you a treat. Got it?"

I didn't get it.

"Dug," I said.

"Yes. I'm Doug. Now pay attention."

He held up a card with the letter A on it.

I snapped to attention. I had seen the letter on a soda machine, and the symbol repeated numerous times in the dead man's book.

"Ayy," he said.

"Ayyy," I repeated.

He fed me a piece of bacon.

As nice as that was, I hungered more for the knowledge he doled out.

"Fifth lobe is activated," Kurt muttered (2). "Must be the speech and cognition areas. Brain stem is completely dark. He seems to be in a meditative state...You sure you should be feeding it bacon?"

We went through the entire twenty six letter alphabet, and an entire two packages of bacon, both cooked and uncooked. The cooked version tasted interesting, but the uncooked kind really convinced me that maybe I didn't have to eat Dug and his friend.

So I knew letters. That didn't mean I could communicate.

"B-I-B-L-E," I spelled, quoting the cover of Reverend's book.

"Bible," Doug said.

"Bible," I repeated.

I sighed. I couldn't figure out why he pronounced it like `eyeball' instead of `bibblee'. My lack of understanding depressed me.

"Do we have a bible in here somewhere?" Doug asked his cohort.

"Do I look like I read the bible?"

Doug frowned. "Be back in a minute."

He was actually gone ten minutes, but he returned with a yellow book. The object looked different, but it had that same word on the cover.

"Ah?" he pointed to the cover. "Bible!"

"H-O-L-Y," I read. "Hoelye."

"Holy, yes. It means, um, really really pure..." Doug paused, apparently realizing that I didn't understand the word. "Pure is like, um, really, really good."

"Good," I muttered, not following.

He opened the book, held it up for me to read.

"G-O-D."

He pointed to the ceiling. "God."

I sighed, overwhelmed by all the words. There had to be thousands of them on that little page.

"Uncle Dug, what that?" A squeaky voice said outside my field of vision.

"It's...an alien."

"What's the alien's name?"

"It's..." He said "Hunter" in my language.

"What's that in English?"

"He doesn't have an English name."

The voice sighed in response. "I know. I'll think hard and make a name for him."

"Okay. You do that, sweetie. Have you met with Gretchen Goose today?" (3)

Gretchen Goose? My tail curled into a question mark.

"Yes, uncle. Today we read a book."

A little voice, charmingly stupid, pleasant to listen to. I tried to move my neck to get a better look, but they had braced it against something. I sighed in resignation.

As if reading my mind, Doug bent down, and the fat cherubic face of a curly haired blonde girl appeared.

She smiled and waved to me. "Hi!"

I waved back. "Hi."

The girl frowned at Doug. "Why you have him stuck in that thing for? Why won't you let him move around?"

"Honey, um, you see those things sticking out of its head? Those are electrodes we're using to measure its brain. We don't want the little guy rolling around and pulling them out. It could hurt him really bad, and mess up the experiment."

Her eyes widened. "Oh! So what have you been doing with him?"

"Oh, just teaching him the ABC's and seeing how his brain reacts."

"Gretchen Goose knows the ABC's. Why don't you have him talk to Gretchen Goose?" (4)

"Honey..." Doug paused in thought a moment, then kissed her head. "Sarah, you're brilliant!"

"No," said Dr. Newton.

"What!" Doug protested.

"Just no."

"But it's perfect! We can monitor the program at every node and measure brain activity. You've seen the test scores on children. He'll be communicating fluently in no time at all! Think about how many volumes of alien culture we can mine from this little nugget!"

"I can't believe this. You actually want this creature to experience Rosedale Square."

"And how did you first learn English?"

Dr. Newton sighed. "Fine. But what's the kid going to think? The creature's sure to melt the contacts."

Doug smiled at the girl. "It'll be fine. You can already read, can't you honey?"

"Yes. Wait. What are you doing with Rosedale Square?"

"We're going to take apart your headset and put it on the little guy."

"But how will I meet with Gretchen Goose now?"

"Use your imagination. That's what Gretchen Goose taught you, didn't she?"

"Yes, but what will I do?"

"You can read, honey, can't you?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Then you'll have to do that from now on, honey. You see, it's very important that we teach, um, little guy how to talk so we can learn things."

She sounded almost tearful. "But I want to talk to Gretchen Goose!"

"Honey, do you want to keep talking to a fictional character in a dream program, or do you want to see this little guy actually talking to you?"

"He already talks. He said hi."

"He's smarter than that, Sarah. We're going to find out how smart."

She sighed. "Can you buy me another Gretchen Goose dream?"

"Sure, honey. I'll order one for the next interstellar shipment."

Sarah pouted. "But that takes a looong time!"

"I think we have a spare child's headset somewhere around the base," Dr. Newton muttered. "I'll ask Betty if her son still has it in his room somewhere."

"You hear that, Sarah? We'll look for a spare, okay?"

"Okay, uncle."

Doug disappeared again. He returned to the lab with a headband with things sticking out of it, dismantling pieces, screwing little devices in their place.

He soldered something to a piece of telephone equipment, securing the thing to my head. The pressure of the device upon the probes they'd inserted into my skull caused me shooting pains.

Doug switched it on.

I felt a rhythmic thrumming on the sides of my head, but nothing else happened.

"Is he meeting Gretchen Goose yet, uncle?"

"I'm trying to get him there, darling."

"Try lobe five," Kurt said. "That may get better results."

"We don't know if that's the part that regulates dreaming. It's easier when they just have temples."

He scooted the electrodes down a bit, waiting for something to happen.

I blinked, and saw brownstone. I flinched.

The man moved the electrode. Nothing again.

"Wait," said Newton. "Move it up some. I got a blip."

The probes moved, and my eyes lost focus.

I stood somewhere else, surrounded by brick buildings.

Houses. Dwelling places for humans. I recognized them from photographs I'd seen around the base.

Well, roughly. The brownstone ones seemed...antique.

My heat vision did not work for some reason, and even my sense of smell did not alert me to the presence of strangers.

I spotted colorful figures in the distance, but practically jumped jumped out of my exoskeleton when a neon green creature popped out in front of me.

A human sized Canada Goose.

"Hi! Sorry to startle you. My name is Gretchen Goose! What's your name?"

[0000]

(2) Some readers don't like Ernie getting a brain operation. Refer to footnote from Chapter 1 for an alternate/spoiler.

(3) The original version has Big Bird and Sesame Street, called "Sesame Time" because it's a virtual reality simulation.

(4) See Chapter 128: Appendix, Item III for original version.