Despite the predicament of having been evicted from the planet Earth along with most of the rest of the human populace, Phenix Paggase and Kate Taggart were having themselves a grand time. It was like a massive party, with literally thousands of people hopping lightly about in microgravity interacting in a way that would make the United Nations look about as stuffy as the U.N. has always looked.

First they came across a group of tribesmen, who she guessed at first were from Africa but couldn't ask them because she couldn't speak their language. Nix could speak with them however, and informed her they were actually from New Guinea.

"I think," he added, "they have a strange dialect. I'm having difficulty reading their minds."

"Minds have dialects?"

"Well it's more complicated than that. Dialect is the easiest word I can think of to describe it. Different cultures program minds in different ways."

"Program?"

"Uhm.. er.. develop minds in different ways."

"..Oh." Kate then realized that when Phenix talked, sometimes his lips didn't seem to mesh with what he was saying, as if he were from a badly dubbed japanese karate movie.

They spent awhile with the tribesmen as they had a great drum jam party and displeased many others nearby. The acoustics of the cargo bay were strange. You couldn't yell loud enough to be heard past twenty feet. Sound just didn't travel well, which in this case turned out to be a blessing.

Next they came across two groups of men fighting over who was more scottish. At first Kate thought the men in kilts were truly from Scotland, but as they listened to the argument they learned that the men dressed in kilts were actually from the west coast of America. They had been performing caber tosses at some renaissance faire. The men who were actually from Scotland wore blue jeans, collared shirts and thick jackets. They still had pints of bitter in their hands, as they had been drinking at an actual pub which was actually in Scotland when they were transported to the cargo ship en masse. The argument was actually very entertaining, and Kate could see both sides of the argument, but when words came to blows, Nix suggested they move on.

Next they found... [TBC]

Next they found a few dozen Earth children who each seemed to be from different countries, and were all getting along strangely well, apparently because the majority of them were too young to realize they were supposed to hate one another.

"What are they doing?" Kate asked Nix.

"Oh just playing. Here. Have a sit down." He motioned to a few suitcases which were absently set on the floor and obviously hastily packed. Clothing was half hanging out of them. She sat in one that looked partially comfortable and actually was, and she looked back into Nix's dreamy eyes.

"Yes?" She said breathfully, trying desperately to remember that she's married to a great, wealthy man who puts her up on a pedestal.

"This is where you ask me about your husband."

"It is?"

"Yes. See. I hate to add more confusion to your perspective of reality since you're obviously reeling from what has happened thus far today, but the last time we went through all this you asked me about your husband and I didn't know, and we tried to figure out what happened to him and by the time we found out what had happened to him it was too late to save him. We travelled very far from Earth. I tried to get you to forget about him because by then I'd fallen massively in lust with you but you'd have none of it. You insisted we went back for him and so we did. And by the time we got back to Earth it was a few hundred years later and he was quite dead and the Earth had turned into what you referred to as a very large and fashionably tasteless shopping mall."

"Phenix, was it?"

"Yes, dear. That's my name. My friends call me Nix."

"You lost me back there when you were talking about my perspective of reality."

Phenix took Kate by the hand, "Oh Kate, darling. You're not making this any easier."

"Reality is objective is it not?"

"Oh no. Not at all. Perhaps at one time it was meant to be but that's before it got all buggered up a few universes ago. Now it's very very subjective," He dropped down to one knee, and Kate was trying desperately not to blush. "I learned last universe that everyone's objective reality has been subjectively influenced by an obnoxious robot and his pet mechanical bird."

"What?"

"Well really that's not important now. I attempted to undo what they had done but was completely unsuccessful, and now I'm finding myself in a bit of a timeloop, repeating the same thing over and over. Well, actually this is just the second time but I imagine I'm rather trapped and this time I want to do everything right."

"In what way?"

"Last time you grew to hate me, because I was selfish and probably could have gone back and helped you find your husband, but I was too desperately in lust with you. I wanted you for myself. So when I could possibly have been heroic I was instead selfish and then totally failed to ever get with you. And over the years as we had one misadventure after another you grew to respect me as a trusted friend but could never see me in a sexual way because I'm an alien after all and there was that pesky bit about how I never really helped you save your husband. And I grew to love you beyond my immature libido, because you really are an amazing and fantastic woman."

"Can we just go back to that bit about reality being subjective?"

"No! Kate I've been practicing this speech for years."

"You've forgotten one little thing Phenix."

"Really I prefer it when you call me Nix."

"I've only just met you and you speak as if we've spent our entire lives together."

"Well we have. Or rather we had. Last universe. I'm the me of the last universe and you're the you of this universe. The me of this universe was supposed to have already met you a few weeks ago, but I managed to knock him out, left him on a deserted planet so there was no chance he could be rescued, and took off straightaway in his spaceship to here. I wanted ample time to change things this time before the other me messed everything up."

"You're not making any sense at all."

"Oh I know I'm buggering everything up again." Phenix looked about frantically and Kate couldn't help but see this as incredibly majestic and fascinating about him. He just seemed like some sort of strange Grecian god. Like Hermes maybe, only without any feathers on his ankles. "Look. How about I just do this?" Phenix stood up and crossed to the nearby wall where there was a convenient viewscreen display and some controls which Kate noticed Phenix expertly negotiating for information.

"I know where your husband is now," Phenix said. "He's still down on the planet. All we have to do is try to find a way to get down on the planet before this cargo ship races away. We only have about twenty minutes. There should be some kind of escape pod somewhere." And with that the display finally showed a cross-section blueprint of the cargo ship in which they were presently imprisoned. "Ah! There it is! Just a few meters away down the corridor. Now all we have to do is start a fire here in the cargo bay and that will set off the emergency evacuation detail. Or perhaps I could just fool this computer into thinking there was a fire..."

Suddenly a bright flash appeared from the ceiling of the cargo bay and shot a laser blast straight down amongst a group of marketing analysts from San Francisco who were chewing the fat with some computer technicians from London. The whole lot of them scurried away screaming as some nearby luggage caught fire. Alarms sounded and the cargo bay doors opened up.
"In heavens' name, Phenix! What are you doing?"

"I so wish you'd just call me Nix!"