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kissing exacdy, more like biting. It was strange. But nice. I couldn’t believe he was out there, though. Back then, even in my wildest imaginings, I would never have guessed the reason why he chose to guard my door that night.
    “You were watching over me,” I said. “Protecting a girl you don’t hardly know.”
    “Why do you call yourself a girl?” Althor started to reach for me, then paused. When I didn’t object, he pulled me into a hug.
    I held him tight, the curls behind his ears tickling my nose. Closing my eyes, I willed that moment to last forever, as if I could preserve it in amber and take it everywhere I went, to bring out whenever loneliness threatened to overwhelm me.
    After a moment, I pulled back my head. “I have to go to work If I’m late, I’ll lose my job.”
    “Can I walk you there?” he asked.
    I laughed, that kind of soft embarrassed sound you make when a person you want to like you acts as if he does. “Okay.”
    “I am sorry. About last night. I should have asked then.”
    “I wanted you to.”
    “You did?” He smiled, his teeth flashing. “I kept thinking, She will say something. But nothing. So I thought you had not the interest. Sometimes I forget how different customs are here. That things are expected from the man which feel unusual to me.”
    I had no idea how to answer that. So I said nothing, just stood up with him.
    When we came out of the building, into afternoon sunshine, his face blanked. Then he said, “It’s fourteen hours since I meet you.”
    “Is that a problem?”
    He pushed his hand through his hair. “No.”
    It was obviously a problem. His unease made a pale silver mist around him. Yet despite that, he still meant to stick around. It seemed encouraging. I didn’t really believe what he had been telling me about himself. Why would a futuristic fighter pilot lost in the wrong time and place hang around to walk a waitress to work?
    As we went down the street, an old Ford drove by. Althor spun around and walked backward, watching until it disappeared around a corner. Then he turned back. “I can’t get over it. Another car.”
    I was about to ask if he was into old cars when I saw something in his hand, a gold box with rounded edges. I had no idea where it came from. His clothes had no visible pockets and it hadn’t been hanging from his belt. Its color was changing and its sides becoming more angular. “Is that your transcom?” .
    He looked down at his hand. “Oh. Yes.” He turned his attention to it, making lights blink as we walked.
    “My friend Josh makes gadgets like that,” I said. “Radios and stuff.”
    “I doubt he can make a transcom.”
    “Are you still looking for signals?”
    “No. I check my Jag.” He paused. “I am check my Jag.” He squinted at me. “I checking my Jag?”
    I smiled. “I am checking my Jag.”
    His face blanked. “Yes, that is the correct grammar. I am checking my Jag.”
    I almost jumped. His voice had come out in perfect English, with almost no accent.
    Then his accent returned. “I speak English better than it shows. I just don’t use it much. It takes a while to reintegrate the programs.”
    Reintegrate the programs? “You mean, on your plane?”
    “My plane?”
    “You said you were a pilot.”
    “It’s not an airplane. It’s a ship for space.”
    I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, Althor. If you really have a ship, how is it up there while you’re here?”
    “I sent it back up.”
    “How?”
    He lifted his transcom. “With this.”
    “How can that box make a ship take off?”
    “The hull acts as an antenna. It receives transcom signals on a narrow bandwidth and sends them to the onboard web system.”
    “And that’s flying your ship right now?”
    “No. The Jag can fly itself.” He glanced at the street with its broken manhole covers. A gust of wind blew pieces of an old newspaper along the gutter. “I think it is more safe in orbit.”
    “It’s not safe up there. The military will