Truly this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, possibly involving dipping crab legs in syrup together. Erin nods to show she heard and understands and leads the way out to Bobby B's, where she flops into a comfy chair and digs out a cigar and one of her knives to cut it. It smells, faintly and oddly, of savory herbs; when she lights the thing up you'd swear she was cooking something with garlic.

Shiroe's gonna have to get the glasses, Erin's not gonna knock something over and get yelled at for breaking 'em when the ship is repairing itself so slowly these days.

"So," she says at last, after a few puffs and plenty of time for this guy to get comfy. "You said the last time you were on an Earth. Not to be overly blunt but how many layers of being kidnapped into another dimension are you on, my dude?"