Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

best word for it. I’d have a really difficult time explaining it to you.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYou’re out of turn.”
    â€œYou’re evading.”
    â€œOh. Well, in that case, let’s say it’s a sort of societal taboo. Asking me to talk about it would be sort of like me asking you to describe in graphic detail the sexual encounter between your parents that resulted in your conception.”
    â€œIt was during their honeymoon in Cancun,” I said.
    â€œWhat position did they use? How many thrusts did it take? Did your mom bark in pleasure?”
    I reddened. “I think I see what you’re saying.”
    â€œI thought you might,” Joshua said. “Speaking of which—any brothers or sisters?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “Mom had complications during the pregnancy and nearly died. They thought about adopting for a while but they decided against it. Can you die?”
    â€œSure,” Joshua said. “More ways than you can, too. Individual cells in this collection die all the time, like cells in your body die. The whole collection can die, too—I’d say we’re probably less prone to random death than your species is, but it happens. The soul can also die, even if the collection survives. You in a relationship?”
    â€œNo. I had a girlfriend at the agency for a while, but she
took a job in New York about six months ago. It wasn’t very serious, anyway—more of a tension release thing. How long do you live?”
    â€œThree score and ten, just like you,” Joshua said. “More or less. It’s actually a very complicated question. Do you like your job?”
    â€œMost of the time,” I said. “I don’t know. I think I’m good at it. And I don’t know what else I’d do if I wasn’t doing this. What’s your spaceship like?”
    â€œCrowded. Smelly. Poorly lit. What do you do when you’re not working?”
    â€œI’m pretty much always working. When I’m not, I read a lot. Got that from being the son of a literary agent. When my mother moved out, I made my old room into a library. Other than that, I don’t do too much. I’m sort of pathetic. How do you know so much about us?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Joshua said.
    â€œYour English is as good as mine. You know about stuff like video games and cable television. You make references to fifties horror films. You seem to know more about us than most of us do.”
    â€œNo offense, but it’s not that hard being smarter than most of you folks,” Joshua said. “Your planet’s been broadcasting a bunch of stuff for the better part of the last century. We’ve been paying attention to a lot of it. You can actually learn English from watching situation comedies several thousand times.”
    â€œI don’t know how to feel about that,” I said.
    â€œThere are some gaps,” Joshua allowed. “Until I actually got down here, we were under the impression ‘groovy’ was still current. It’s all those Brady Bunch reruns. Stupid Nick at Night. For the longest time it never really occurred to us that they
weren’t live broadcasts. We thought that the repetition had some ritual significance. Like they were religious texts or something.”
    â€œI’d think the fact that the Brady Bunch never aged might have been a tip-off.”
    â€œDon’t take this wrong,” Joshua said. “But you all pretty much look the same to us. Anyway, we figured it out eventually. My turn.”
    Â 
    The question-and-answer session went on for another couple of hours, with me asking larger, cosmic questions, and Joshua asking smaller, personal questions. I learned that the Yherajk spaceship was a hollowed-out asteroid that traveled at slower-than- light speeds, and that it had taken them decades to travel from their home planet to here. Joshua learned that my favorite color was