THE DRIVE HOME

"Third!" I bemoaned. "I can't believe he ran third!"
"Hey, it happens," Jim shrugged. "Ya win some, ya lose some."
We were about halfway back to the house. I had been lamenting the loss of my 2 bucks the whole way. Can't say I was getting much in the way of sympathy from the monkey boy.
"We've gotta go back," I said with some insistance. "They've got my money. I want another chance."
"Can't. The kids will be getting back from school soon. I have to meet the bus."
I was, if you can't tell, a little more then peeved. The big ape had won money. I lost. I'm smarter, I'm sure, than any ordinary monkey boy. It simply wasn't tolerable.
"Hey, Frazz, I think you're a little too wrapped up in this. It's 2 bucks, after all. Maybe horse racing isn't for you.
"Hrrmph," I pouted. Not for me? Jim had said earlier it wasn't about the money. I had more than a glimmer of insight into that now. I had been defeated.
I wanted to win.
"There's always tomorrow."
Just what I needed. Cliched truisms.
I sunk down in my seat and stared blankly out the window. I had never felt like this before. I began to think these monkey boys were rubbing off on me. Perhaps I was, after immersing myself in a bit of their culture and ways, getting too close to the natives? Was this the beginning of going native?
I began feeling a bit corrupted.
We turned into the drive and exited the car. Jim bade me farewell and I headed for a new little place I had found, Mama Renee's. The latkas were really good at Abbas', but were even better at Mama Renee's. And right now all I wanted to do was indulge myself.
9 latkas and 2 Cokes later I returned to my quarters. The message light was blinking on my computer. I sat down at the desk and fired up my box. Opening the communique from Research Prime, the research and science wing of the Confederation, I received some disturbing news:
"Frazzi, Glore has missed 2 check-ins, Probably just a machine malfunction, but you must contact him and render any assistance ncessary."
Great. Glore was another xenosociologist, a Blurbo, assigned to the planet. He was stationed on the west side of town and had taken residence in a little suburb called Olmsted Falls. We hadn't had contact since landing here save to exchange contact numbers for the monkey boy's communication web. A precaution in case we needed to reach each other and our normal linkages were unavailable. He hadn't contacted me about any problem.
This was not good.
I responded back to Research Prime that I was investigating. I got out my local communicator and dialed Glore's number. There was n9 answer.
I had a bad feeling Glore had a serious problem.
And that meant I had a problem......

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