“I’m only letting you stay because Mr. Ohghhi… he wants you to, and I don’t want to upset him. Negotiations are at a very delicate stage. Tomorrow when I have lunch with my fiancé, I’ll ask him about it, but I’m sure he’ll want you to find another place to stay.”

“Do you have any vitamin A?” Hutchins said.

“In the bathroom.” Chris pointed at the door. It was shut. “Bets, you come out of there. You are not allowed to have electrical appliances in there.”

Bets slid the door open. “I was brushing my teeth,” she said indignantly, holding up a pink toothbrush shaped like a bunny.

“I’ll bet.” She got Hutchins aspirin and vitamin-A packets and herded Bets out of her apartment. “I’ll get you a bathroom schedule and the apartment rules,” she said.

Mr. Nagisha’s cousins were squatting around a hibachi in the middle of the landing, cooking something vile smelling. Chris stepped over them and started down the steps. She wondered how Mr. Nagisha would take the news that Mr. Ohghhi .… her alien had sublet half of his room to Mr. Hutchins. Probably not very well, unless he could think of a way to make money off the deal. Mr. Nagisha had welcomed him with open arms since NASA had agreed to pay the equivalent of a six months’ lease.

Even at that, he had insisted on rent based on changing property values, which were soaring with the sudden influx of people. He was going to make a killing.

Molly was sitting on the steps above the landing reading Variety. “Have you seen Mr. Nagisha?” Chris said.

“My mother’th talking to him about how you took the curling iron away from Berth. She thayth…”

“Are they in the apartment? I need a copy of the bathroom schedule.” She pushed down past their trunks and almost stepped on the old man who had just moved in. He had a baseball cap that read “Blue Harvest” pulled down over his eyes and was snoring loudly. She took hold of the banister to make the last jump over Mr. Nagisha’s file drawers and lap terminal and knocked on his apartment door.