" - I think ship to ship combat's just not my job. I will make it no report, then. - do you want to tell me more about the ship to ship combat. That sounds so cool."

"I'd actually like you to contact the embassy to Ibyabek for me."

"- I don't even know how I'd begin to go about that. I can Google it but I'm not actually very optimistic that will turn up anything helpful. How do you spell Ibyabek."

He spells it in the Kularan alphabet.

"Okay, so, I'm Googling the embassy but it's not coming up, do you have alternate contact information for them? Or if we put in the papers that someone from space landed here, will they contact us?"

"I wouldn't... expect that to be necessary. I don't have contact information."

"Well, then maybe you can handle that yourself once you're out of the hospital?  I hate how the hospital smells and I want to go play Angry Birds in my car."

"...enjoy."

Off he goes. 

The nurse comes back a little later, to adjust his meds and bring him a meal, rice and beans and cheese and salsa and an apple and a cheese stick.

He's just gonna... convalesce and eventually ask if there is an understood reason why he would suddenly speak their language given that he did not know it before.

- no! The nurse thinks that's really unusual. ...she's vaguely heard about head injuries and people speaking in tongues so maybe it's that.

...maybe. The language is at least related to Kularan so maybe it's not that big a leap? He might have seen movies in English once.

Maybe that explains it, maybe not, she doesn't really care. He looks well enough to discharge maybe tomorrow.

"I don't have anywhere to go," he points out.

"I don't really know why you're telling me that and I feel sort of like you think it's my job to do something about it."

"Well, in a civilized place it would be."

"I don't know how they do things in space, spaceboy, but here on Earth I get paid $11.25 an hour and I would need to be paid approximately twice as much as that to solve your problems."

"On a civilized planet you'd have everything provided for you and wouldn't need money," he mutters.

"Ah, see, that sounds nice, I wish I lived on a civilized planet."

"Do you know what people around here with nowhere to go do normally?"

"Crash with friends, live on the streets, get a job until they can afford an apartment? There's homeless shelters if you're not on drugs. I don't know if they kick you out for painkillers you're prescribed for a cracked skull."

"Disgraceful," he says under his breath. "How do people get jobs?"

"You look for signs on storefronts, or check listings on the internet, or ask people 'hey, do you know anywhere that's hiring'?"

"Hey. Do you know anywhere that's hiring?"

"Yep, if you're a certified nurse."