by Lyn Gala
James curled his tentacles around Max's wrist. Xander slapped the pool with his long tentacles and Kohei abandoned his pirouettes. When Max waded in, the offspring crowded near. Max turned around to look at Rick, who still kept a certain distance, although he was inching closer.
“Rick Father,” Xander called. He ran his tentacles across Max’s arm before he swam for his father.
Rick quickly entered the water and pulled Xander close.
“Your father's work is valuable. Now I know I have to keep him safe,” Max said. He could only hope that time would help Rick get more comfortable with the idea that Max was a warrior. Everything Max had done was to protect the family, so it felt unfair that his actions had put an emotional distance between them.
James let go of Max and swam over to his father, where he curled his tentacles around Rick’s. “I help. I protect Rick Father and Xander Sibling and Kohei Sibling.”
“You were much help.” Rick curled his tentacles around his son. Kohei had glommed onto Max's left hand, but now he launched himself toward his father. Max smiled as he watched them all crowd around Rick. The offspring were not the most social children in all creation, so it felt nice to see them connecting. After a second, Xander's tentacles escaped the general mass and started reaching for Max.
Half-afraid that Rick would retreat from him, Max moved closer. Xander stretched until he could wrap his tentacles around Max’s arm. Then Xander pulled with significantly more strength than Max had realized the little one possessed. The next thing Max knew, he was engulfed by tentacles as Xander drew him closer. It felt good.
And cold.
“Query. Did someone reduce the temperature on the pool?” Max asked.
Rick answered. “Invaders wanted conservation of energy to recharge their ship.”
The offspring shifted and Max was pulled closer until pressed up against Rick's warm central head. “You do have the heat turned up, though, right? Query?”
“I do,” Rick agreed. He raised a tentacle as if expecting Max to flee. Eventually he wrapped it around Max's waist.
The offspring had claimed Max's left hand and his entire arm was wrapped in tentacles, but he reached around with his right to embrace Rick. When he touched something slick, the folds of skin warned him that he had touched Rick’s eyeball. Rick was smooth everywhere except where his tentacles met his body and around his eyes. “I'm sorry,” Max blurted.
“Query. What do you regret?” Rick tried withdrawing his tentacle, but Kohei wrapped his own tentacles around it, holding Rick in place.
“I regret touching your eye,” Max said. “I apologize for touching your eye.”
The eye closest to Max dilated. “Eyes are to be touched.”
“Seriously?” A full-body shudder ran through Max.
No one answered him, but given that Max had not properly marked the question he wasn't surprised. He tried again. “Clarify. Human eyes are not for touching. Query. Can I touch the eyes of the people?”
“Understood. I will not touch your eyes,” Rick said. “You may touch my eyes with comfort.” Rick tightened his tentacle around Max’s waist again.
And there they were, right back to the alien and bizarre conversations they'd had before invaders had decided to attack the ship. Max leaned into Rick's head and shivered. Rick might be a wonderful hot water bottle, but Max's limbs were still slowly losing feeling.
“Are the offspring safe in such cold water?”
“I am cold, cold. Kohei warm. Kohei keep me warm,” Xander said with a hnng-hnng noise added onto the end.
“I warm too.” James crawled over Max’s shoulder, lifting himself out of the water to perch on Max’s head.
“James is warm on land,” Xander complained.
“I am warm enough for Xander,” Kohei said, and that ended the escalations. Max smiled. It had sounded so much like him and Petey fighting over the Halloween candy that it was hard to believe he was on an alien ship.
“I think I am too cold to stay in the water,” Max said. He shivered. While he should swim to the edge, he hated leaving the little island of warmth he had found. But if he didn’t, his toes might freeze off. He had enough problems with potential kidney bruising, so he didn’t need to add frostbite. Max started to pull away from the family puppy pile.
James stayed on his head for a few seconds before he slid off, but when Max kicked his legs to swim toward the edge of the pool, Rick hung on. Max had to swim with his feet because Rick held so tightly all the way to firm ground, where Rick released him. “Query. Option. You may choose new living section,” Rick said.
Max stopped at the edge of the water and turned to look at him. That had come out of nowhere. “Query. Why would I want a new room?” Max asked. It had taken him time to learn to use all the latches and knobs in the room he had. Even though Rick had been quick to offer his help with any of the equipment, Max’s pride had prevented him from taking up too much of Rick’s time. Trial and error had allowed him to figure out most of the features, although Rick had to help Max with the use of bathroom.
“Come.” Rick headed for the door at warp speed.
Max blew out a breath. Rick was excited about something.
“Rick Father warmed Max Father,” Xander said.
Max grabbed the thin fabric Rick had manufactured after Max had described a towel.
“I was not dangerously cold,” Max said, “Not unless I stayed in the water much longer. Query. Do you need more warmth?” Max was uncomfortable leaving Xander in such cold water.
“Kohei is warm,” Xander said. “Air is warm.”
Max assumed that meant Xander could warm up by getting out of the water. “James, help with warmth,” Max said.
James hit the surface of the water with a tentacle. “Xander be warm!” he said loudly as Max was putting his pants on. Max didn’t know whether the clever little git was avoiding making a promise to help keep his brother warm or if that was a poorly worded vow. Max would come back and check on them soon, but he had to trust that Xander could speak up if he needed more help.
Grabbing his shirt off the chair as he passed, Max followed Rick through the pool room door closest to the control room.
The corridor was empty, but Max turned right. His instincts were still sharp because he found Rick halfway to the control room.
“Hurry, hurry,” Rick said before he headed for the lift. Max broke into a trot. Rick’s excitement was infectious. Max smiled as he crowded onto the lift with Rick’s oversized head. They went up one level and then the lift opened onto the corridor right outside the control room.
Rick placed a tentacle at Max’s back and urged him forward. Max frowned, but he followed Rick’s tacit suggestion and touched the control to open the door. Back when he’d been exploring the ship, he’d found this door locked every time. Now it opened. Max raised an eyebrow and headed into the control room.
“Go, go go,” Rick said. He was spinning slowly, which reminded Max of Kohei and his pirouettes. Max followed the gentle pushes to a door on the other side. Now they were in a section that Max had seen on the computer diagram that James had displayed. None of the access shafts led to this part of the ship, or at least none of the ones large enough for a human did. And as far as Max could tell, the only access was through the command room.
The second they entered the new area, Max could immediately tell the difference.
The corridors were wider, the floor softer. Instead of the simple grayish white color that dominated the lower ship, this deck had colors—blues and greens and grays that swirled together in a way that made Max think of water. Even the lights overhead flickered and wavered in a way that reminded him of sunlight as it filtered through the lake when he was a child and swam under its surface. Max ran his hand across the wall.
“Query. Color preference?” Rick asked.
“I prefer this. It's beautiful,” Max said.
Rick shimmied. “I chose designs. I fabricated colors and lights.”
“Yo
u created a feeling like water without water. It is impressive.” Max meant it. This part of the ship had a soul in a way that the rest didn’t. The lower decks were functional, not beautiful. Rick gave a quarter turn and then continued down the hallway, but he kept his largest eye on Max.
Max ran his hand along the wall. There were slight texture differences between the metallic gray and the shimmery blue and the soft green. Rick had chosen different materials rather than applying a color on a single material. It was stunning.
They entered the lift, and a large red jellyfish creature decorated the upper corner. Max touched one of the long tendrils that hung down from the bell-shaped body. They were far thinner than Rick's or even the children’s tentacles, and the body appeared far too insubstantial to hold anything approaching a brain. “Query. Is this from your home world?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like a jellyfish from my world.”
Rick touched the figure with a single tentacle before saying, “They are most dangerous.”
“So are jellyfish,” Max said. It was strange to think that two planets light years apart with dominant species as different as him and Rick could have such similar animal life.
Then again, maybe all inhabited planets had some version of a jellyfish. Certainly tentacles were more common than boned limbs, so it made sense that jellyfish would be more common than horses. Max wondered what these people would think of a horse... or giraffe. Having a little tiny head so far away from the body would have to seem strange to beings that had, for the most part, developed a head and body structure that was joined. Max figured they thought he looked pretty funny with a weird sticklike neck separating the two.
Rick stopped near a metallic teal ripple and touched the pad to open the door. “Option. You sleep here.”
Rick moved to one side and Max walked into the room. It was substantially larger and sections of wall stuck out, almost like someone had hung cabinets and forgot to add doors.
Max walked to the far wall where the bed had been in his own quarters. It had the same sorts of abstract swirls, only greens and yellows interrupted the shades of blue. It reminded Max a little of pictures of Earth from space. “It’s beautiful.”
“Explore,” Rick said.
Maybe Max was developing a vivid imagination, but he could’ve sworn Rick sounded proud. He should’ve been. He had an incredible ship. Max felt for seam that would lower the Murphy bed structure. It took him a second because the seam was up higher than he'd expected, right underneath the cabinets. Max triggered the latch and then stepped back as the sleeping platform took over the space. The room was larger, but the bed was close to a queen-size, so with the bed down there was still a lack of open space.
“Emergency supplies,” Rick said, and he pointed toward the area underneath the cabinets. Max sat on the bed and the surface yielded like the most expensive mattress in creation. He’d had a hookup on a thousand-dollar mattress once, and this thing made that seem like a Wal-mart hide-a-bed.
When Max looked up into the underside of the “cabinets,” mechanical controls and gauges covered the surface. Max reached up, hoping that if he was about to hit an emergency fire suppression system or something that Rick would stop him. His fingers hit glass or a cool plastic of some sort before he could touch any of the controls.
“In emergency cover withdraws,” Rick said. He climbed onto the bed next to Max. Max spotted a number of deep storage cubbyholes, but he didn't own anything besides one spare pair of pants, but he could have fit his entire wardrobe from back home into it. He had the feeling that these quarters were intended for either officers or family members.
“This is a nice room,” Max said. Something in his soul warmed at the idea that Rick wanted him to live in the private half of the ship. “Thank you.”
Rick gave another all-tentacle shimmy that meant he was happy, Max would never say it to Rick's face, but it reminded Max of the way his family dog would get excited when people came home. Snoopy had often given that same full body shimmy at the door. Max ran his hand along Rick's tentacle. It quickly curled around Max’s wrist.
“You can stay here weeks three,” Rick said.
His brain on automatic, Max was about to correct the word order, but the meaning of the words registered, and he swallowed. The easy joy of a few seconds ago suddenly developed a darker edge. It was like someone had turned on the dum-da-da background music and clouds had covered the sun. Metaphorically, anyway.
“Query. Why would I only stay here three weeks?” Max tried to pull his hand away, but Rick had a good hold on his wrist.
“Max desires return to Earth.”
Max had to clear his throat before he could get words out. “Query. What are you saying?”
Rick leaned closer. “Clarify. Max desires to return to Earth.”
“Rick, I know what I want. I'm asking why you say I'm only going to be here three weeks.” Max’s heart pounded at the idea being dropped at some alien port of call. Of course he should find another job and start earning money. He had an obligation to return to Earth and to the Air Force. There were even rules about it. And sure, the surrogate job was over, but he hadn’t expected Rick to leave him. He wasn't sure how he had gone from being part of the family and getting invited into the inner sanctum to getting his ass dropped off at some space station because the job was over.
Rick uncurled his tentacle from around Max's wrist. “Ship reaches the Earth planet in three weeks.”
The bottom fell out of Max’s world. “What? This ship? Query. Will this ship be at Earth in three weeks?”
“Yes.”
Max froze. His brain just stopped working. For months now, all he had thought about was learning to function in the universe to earn enough credits to be able to get back home. He’d damn near cried from homesickness, and he had never been one of those guys that talked about home the way Forrest Gump’s buddy talked about shrimp. Nope. Not him. But now that he was faced with the prospect of going home in three weeks, he didn't know how he felt. He knew he didn't feel particularly good. Home. His brain couldn’t process the word.
“I take Max to Earth,” Rick said, and the bastard sounded proud of himself.
Chapter Twenty-One
Max shifted away, but Rick’s tentacles followed, pulling at him. “Query. Physiological changes in your bodily function?” Rick asked.
“That's a good question. As soon as I figure out what I'm feeling. I'll let you know.” Max laughed weakly.
“Query. Do you seek to see more better?” Rick asked.
“What?” Max blinked at Rick, not sure he was following the conversation, but then this whole day was turning out to be one long exercise in confusion and frustration.
“Clarify. The window of your eye has increased. You breathe more rapidly and eye movements have increased. Query. Do you seek to see more better?”
Ignoring Rick’s question, Max asked, “Why are we going to Earth?”
Despite the fact that Rick normally stuck to his questions with the tenacity of a two-year-old, Rick answered. “I believed I camouflaged my identity. I failed. I must take ship away until offspring are older. I cannot risk them. Earth is isolated. Quiet.”
That was disturbingly logical. Fatherly. Uncondemnable, and yet Max wanted to find some reason to attack Rick for making such a precipitous decision. “Earth had a high-speed intergalactic chase through their backyard,” he pointed out.
“Isolated incident. No one visits that part of space. No trade. Quiet,” Rick said, “for offspring.”
For offspring. Max couldn’t argue against any action that would protect them. Max stared at the far wall. It was so damn logical, and Rick did like his logic. Three weeks. He had three more weeks to father the children and play with the translation computer. And then he would go back to being Captain Max Davis, Air Force.
Or not.
The world would be different, and Max would be the man who came back from alien space. With an alien. He’d be a bigger
freak than when he’d been the only openly gay kid in his high school. He’d be on the outside again, like when he’d first joined the Air Force at the tail end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Even after the President had lifted the policy, Max had lived in fear that someone would reverse the reversal or that some superior officer would punish him for being gay.
Now he would be the freak who had lived with aliens. Who had given birth to aliens. He suspected the whole process had caused one or two physical changes. And the sort of exam the human doctors would subject him to would spot them.
So he had all sorts of reasons to avoid Earth, but those weren’t the worst. His chest hurt at the idea of leaving the children behind, at leaving Rick behind. He’d grown used to getting in water fights, fights he lost spectacularly because beings with umpteen tentacles had far more splash power than a human. Yet the second Max surrendered, Rick would stop. He would reach out and touch him as if to make sure that Max was okay. And that closeness had continued after the children were born.
If anything, Rick had been more solicitous after the children came. He trusted Max to hold Xander, to keep him warm. Hell, he used the names Max had chosen. When the kids called one another “Xander” and “James” and “Kohei,” Max expected indignation or hurt feelings if not outright anger. Instead, Rick had asked what the names meant. Each of the kids had been quick to tell their father the stories Max had shared with them.
And Rick had been interested. It drove home the point that Max had dated too damn many men who cared about sex but didn’t give a shit about talking. Max liked having a shipmate he could talk to.
Rick tightened his hold on Max’s arm. “Query. Physiological responses?”
Max’s laugh was low and rough. “I'm not sure.” The joy he’d expected at the idea of going home was MIA.
“Query. How can you ignorance your physiological responses?”
