36.

IT’S LIKE WE’RE AT A science fair, and we’re the judges and Edsley’s presenting. He throws questions and commands at Klaus, starting off nice and simple, but getting increasingly complex.

“What’s your name, bot?” he says.

Klaus replies:

“MY naaame is KLAUS. HOW-ev-errr, I have ALL-so been PRO-graaamed to RE-spond to ‘DUDE,’ ‘brooo,’ ‘bruuuh,’ ‘BUD,’ and ‘tuuurd GOB-lin.’ ”

“Really, Mike?” Mikaela says.

“That doesn’t seem necessary,” adds John Henry Knox.

Edsley ignores them and goes on.

“Klaus,” he says. “What’s the longest word in the English language?”

“The LONG-est wooord in the EN-glish LANG-uage is PNEUM-o-NOUL-traaa-mic-ro-SCOP-ic-SIL-ic-o-VOL-cane-ooo-CO-nee-os-IS. The wooord CON-tains FOUR-teee-FIVE let-terrrs.”

“Klaus,” Edsley says, “perform the following calculation: 24.978 plus 7,082 times 39 divided by 3.14159265359.”

“The AN-sweeer is EIGHT sev-EN NINE FOUR one poooint FIVE threee one NINE FOUR FOUR one EIGHT FOUR EIGHT twooo NINE sev-EN threee SIX.”

“Klaus,” says Mike, “say, ‘Excuse me, Mister. It appears your butt has fallen off. Would you like a grapefruit?’ ”

“EX-cuuuse ME, Mis-TER. It APP-ears your buuutt has FALL-en OFF. Would YOU like a GRAPE-fruuuit?”

“Now say, ‘Dang it. I have a terrible itch in my kneepit.’ ”

Daaang IT. I HAVE a terr-IB-ull ITCH in my kneee-PIT.”

“Now say—”

“Okay, okay, Mike,” I say, before he can make the bot say anything else. “We really don’t have time for show-and-tell. If you want to stick around and help us try to save the planet, you’re welcome to.”

“Wait,” says Edsley. He turns to Dan, and all of a sudden he seems nervous. Shy. “What do you think, man?”

He probably wants Dan’s opinion since Dan’s the one who designed and built and first programmed the bots.

And after a second of thinking about it, Dan says, “Good work, Mike. I’m impressed.”

Edsley beams.

And I use the same line on him that Kermin, the alien, used on me:

“It is conceivable,” I say, “that you are not as stupid and useless as you seem to be, human. Now can we please get back to—”

And that’s when it hits me.

Hits me as hard as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs hit the Yucatán Peninsula down in Mexico sixty-six million years ago.

I think I’ve got it.

I think I’ve figured it out.

I think I know what we can do to try to keep the Plerpians from wiping us out.