A hollow-cheeked young man stood on the humming deck of the Red Ring of Flame Chain Station, his saffron furodo gi hanging limp in the centrifugal gravity, and tapped the doorbell with a finger. As he waited a young woman slid up behind him, black bowler hat pulled low over her eyes. She slung a natty violin case off her shoulder, knelt and opened it silently and lifted out a black length of cloth, wrapping each end around a hand. In one motion she stood and whipped the loop of cloth up above the young man's head.
The man moved barely at all, only leaned the upper half of his body to the side, but he had the woman's arms pinned against his side before the door glided open. A shadowy skull-faced figure appeared in the doorway, its round eyes and gaping mouth suggesting humanity without quite reproducing it.
"Sam, Lexy wants me to wear this mood headband," said the young man to the figure. One side of his mouth crooked downward.
The woman's quick lips grinned under the shock of blue hair that spilled from the hat. "I do," she said. She twisted, trying to pin the cloth on the man's head as it shimmered to pink and orange in her hands. "Vance! You'd be the baddest furodo master!"
Vance pulled Lexy into the room, where Sammy the Faj--not their only alien friend, but the only alien friend who wanted to take them out to wild alien parties--was standing, still open-mouthed, with a drink in his hand. "So, where are we going?" said Vance.
"Hold on," said Sammy in his slithery voice. "Let me see your costumes." His green eyes looked them over with the appraising squint that always made Vance think the faj was amused, though he knew Sammy smiled differently than humans did. The glow-white skull Sammy had smeared on his face had already begun to crack and he looked even more like a work of art than he usually did, with his long sculpted limbs statuesque in the dim light. "You're a gangster," he said to Lexy, peering at the pile of faux gold chains hanging down over her black tank top. Then, immediately, "You need a mustache."
Lexy blinked. "All right," she said. Sammy was fascinated by human facial hair. So Vance continued to hold her arms while Sammy got out a black pencil and sketched a painstaking affair that drooped over Lexy's lips like an indolent caterpillar.
"No!" said Vance. "She looks like a gigolo. You might as well draw chest hair on her now." The faj wiped off the attempt and penciled in one fine line, then popped off Lexy's bowler (placing it on his own rounded head) and picked up a tube to squirt something clear into his thick, three-fingered hands. He soon had Lexy's mop smoothed back into a slick, manly coiffure.
"What is that stuff?" said Lexy.
"Gel, for human hair."
"Why do you have human hair gel?" The only hair Sammy had was the fine, silky fur on his arms and legs.
"For when I want to smell like a human. I have human deodorant and human toothpaste too."
"Do you have anything for us to drink?" said Vance. He had dropped Lexy's arms and was gazing intently about Sammy's small quarters, the cramped angles of which resembled a pack of trapezoids trying to have sex with a circle.
"You know, humans don't smell like hair gel and deodorant and toothpaste. We smell like humans," said Lexy.
"You have faj perfume, Lexy," said Sammy. He dropped Lexy's hat back on her head and poured a pull of candy-pink faj liquor for each of them. Vance grabbed his off the counter. He took another glance at Lexy--her blue eyes exposed for once, her fine brows and freckled nose below the suddenly crisp and aristocratic hair. The incongruent mustache... she had such long eyelashes. Then he took a big gulp of alcohol.
"Oh my God, this is terrible," he said, his face flushing.
"I'll drink it," said Lexy. "I like it." She took the stem of a glass in each fist.
"We need to go," said Sammy.
"Where are we going?"
"We're going to crash a party." Sammy was touching up his make-up. He drew a black line around his startling lips, the faj lips that seemed to split his face in half and made a lavish setting for his canines. He pursed his lips around the toothless center of his mouth. It was this eerily half-human palate that gave the faji their lisp when they tried to speak English. Vance watched Sammy's hands work, his two opposing "elbows" on each arm giving him a sinuous grace. The black outfit he was wearing made his face seem to float. He was a fine faj ghoul--or a deliciously creepy human one.
Lexy smiled at Vance.
"I'm fine," he said.
"I know."
Vance tightened the black belt around his waist and stepped back into "waiting heron" stance. The anti-grav martial art didn't exactly lend itself to full-grav practice, but if he was going to be lazy enough to not make a proper costume he could at least ham it up a little. "Ready to go, Sammy?"
Sammy chucked his make-up in a drawer, drained his drink, said something in his own language and punched the door panel. It slid open and all three partygoers tried to step through at once. Sammy caught his shoulder full on the jamb and launched a stumbling pirouette into the corridor. He careened into Lexy, who fell on Vance. Sammy chuckled in his birdlike, whistling laugh.
"Oh, boy," said Vance.
