"Hello," said Dexter Gray to the big, hairy alien. "How are you? It's nice to meet a visitor to this planet."
The alien tourist rose to its full height. Dexter hadn't realized until just that moment how large it really was; it towered at least two feet above his head. It looked down on him and Alex and made snuffling noises with its big black nose.
Alex Dalton took a small, non-threatening step forwards. "My name's Alex," she said. "What's yours?"
The alien made a deep rumbling noise from somewhere inside its body. It sounded like the sound a purring cat would make, if the cat were the size of a Berengarian dragon! "Hroooou," it rumbled at Alex.
Alex blinked. "Who? You, of course!"
"My name is Hroooou," rumbled the alien.
"Hroooou," repeated Alex. She smiled. "Nice to meet you. This is Dex."
Hroooou grinned and pointed at the communicator pin on Alex's chest. "Talking machine has funny accent," he rumbled.
"The universal translator? Well yeah, that's human technology for you..."
Dex jumped into the conversation. "Say, Hroooou... Where are you from? We've never seen another member of your species before. It must be from a long way away, right? Toward the Core?"
Hroooou shook his shaggy head. "Outside." It raised a massive paw and turned it palm up. A three-dimensional jumble of lights and colors appeared in mid-air, swirled around in a tiny tornado, then settled into a pattern both Dex and Alex instantly recognized. A slowly rotating spiral of a myriad tiny sparkles hung a few inches above Hroooou's open palm, surrounded by several irregular blobs. One of the blobs was flashing on and off. "Home," growled Hroooou.
Dexter was dumbstruck. "You live there? In the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical galaxy? But that's--" he tried to remember how far it was from Earth but couldn't "--that's far!"
Hroooou closed its fist and the magical star map vanished.
Dexter was warming up for another barrage of questions, but the big alien beat him to it. "What is that?" it asked and pointed to a nearby trashcan.
"It's garbage," replied Alex.
The tourist looked at her uncomprehendingly.
"It's uh... Garbage is refuse. Stuff we throw away because we don't need it anymore. Y'know what I mean?"
Hroooou wrinkled its snout and rumbled disagreeably at the concept, but offered no other comment. "Thank you," it said to Alex. It reached into one of its pouches and withdrew a small rectangle, which it handed to her. Then without another word it turned and ambled off.
"Uh... bye," said Dex to the big hairy back.
Alex sniffed the little rectangle, raised an eyebrow, and popped it in her mouth.
"Wha--! Are you crazy?!?" sputtered Dexter.
"It's like strawberry ice cream!" she exclaimed around a huge ear-to-ear grin.
The next hour was spent window-shopping. Alex had actually made a purchase at the last shoe store they went into, so now they were hunting for matching clothes so she could wear them on her next date with Dex. They rounded a street corner and saw their alien tourist friend.
It was standing in the middle of the street, forcing the light vehicle traffic to detour around it, and staring intently at its city map. Drivers were shouting angry words and flashing even angrier gestures at it, but Hroooou didn't even notice them.
Alex giggled. "Maybe they don't have sidewalks in the Sagittarius Galaxy," she joked.
The big alien looked up from its map and spotted the two Starfleet officers. It immediately strolled over, much to the relief of the delivery van driver who had been trying to squeeze around it, and held the map out to show Dex.
"Where is zoo?"
Dex showed it.
"Thank you," it said. It reached into its pouch and handed Dex a small rectangle, then ambled off in the direction Dexter had indicated.
Dexter smelled his gift, shrugged, and stuck it in his mouth.
"Vanilla," he declared to Alex's immeasurable delight.
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