I decided to try again. “What can I and my shop do for you, ah, Mr. Teeth?”

“The name’s Hro’garh,” he (most definitely a ‘he’, by the way) told me, and the voder gave up on the name, or more likely was designed to leave it alone. There were consonants and sibilants and even a glottal stop in there which I for damn sure was not going to touch with my ape voice box. “I came by to commission a surfboard, a custom board, of course.”

“Of course.” As if that was just what I expected when I had my tea this morning with my spam, eggs and rice. Did I forget to mention that he’s a quarter tonne of carnivore? No, I guess I had. “What happened to your board?!”

This was a pretty notorious thing; I’d seen about a dozen news items about the giant alien board, fully five meters long.

“Sadly. It met with misadventure, some local color-”

“Who was stupid enough to-”

“A great white.”

“Oh.” I had not heard about that. A quip about my condolences for the board or the family of the shark danced on my lips but I manfully swallowed it as ill-advised. Quarter tonne of wet dog…

“I can’t make a board like the one you had-”

“I don’t want one like the one I had. No offense, but the master craftsman is hundreds of light years and a thousand years ago. I want an original, Earther board. The best you can make.”

Of course, I just had to be the guy… “Why me?! What about-”

“The first person I thought of was you. Are you saying you won’t do it, or can’t?”

“Yes! I mean, of course! I mean…” God help me! “I’ll do it.”