by Lyn Gala
“Query. You're calling me a moron for not knowing how I'm feeling, aren't you?”
“Max not moron,” Rick said sharply, using questionable grammar. He then wrapped two additional tentacles around Max's arm.
That made Max smile despite his foul mood. “Sometimes I am.” Max sighed. He missed his parents and Pete the way he would miss a limb. He missed pizza and soda and football and figure skating. He’d had tickets to Hamilton, and he’d hated missing that.
And music. He missed the hell out of music. He even missed being an Air Force pilot. Sure, he’d bitched about the hours and the paperwork and the annoying people he worked with, but he loved flying, and he was proud of the work he did for his country. He wanted all those back, but he didn’t want Earth.
“I don't know if I want to go home to Earth,” Max confessed. He hated the idea that the planet probably thought they had been invaded by an enemy armada. His parents would have mourned him and now lived in fear that the invaders could return any time. He didn't want humans to live in fear. People deserved to know that they were in the boring end of the universe and no one would bother with them. But did he want to be the person who lived on Earth all the time? That wasn’t even a close call. “I am a horrible person for not wanting to go home.”
“Query. Clarify horrible. Query. Do humans required a return to birth place?” Rick pressed close.
“You mean, are we like salmon?” Max asked. He had an image of a fish with a man’s head. Or maybe that should be a man with a fish head. “Clarify. Humans are not required to return. However, good humans care about their home and do want to go home. I do not want to go home. Conclusion. I am horrible.”
Rick was silent for a time, and Max stewed in his own guilt. He had lied to Rick because he was required to go home. The Code of Conduct required him to escape as soon as possible and return to the nearest American military facility. When he’d taken this job, that’s what he had been trying to do. Only now he found that three weeks was far too soon for him to return.
“The people do not return to the place of birthing. We move with waves. On and forward and on,” Rick said. “When Kohei and James and Xander grow large enough, they will leave and not return.”
“I hate that idea,” Max said.
“I am in agreement,” Rick said. “I am happy the offspring will require several years of tending before offspring have skills to earn compensation other places.”
Anger caught Max like a knife under his ribs. Rick got years; Max got three weeks.
Rick shifted closer until his tentacles spilled over Max’s thigh and his stupid, floppy hat hit the side of Max’s head. “Query. Is human fathering an imperative, motivating you to stay with offspring?”
“That's part of it,” Max admitted. “I know they’re cognitively mature, but they're so small, and they don't understand how shitty people can be.” Although they had gotten an unfortunate crash course during the invasion.
“Clarify. Query. Do not all creatures produce excrement?”
Max's brain was locked in first gear, because it took him a second to connect excrement to shittiness. Rick’s literalness would have made him a great foil on some sitcom. “Clarify. Shitty means horrible and undesirable. It implies a person's actions are as disagreeable as fresh excrement in plain sight.”
“That is wonderfully descriptive.” Rick’s tentacles shimmied. “Shitty. I approve.”
Despite his foul mood, Rick’s delight made Max smile. “I'm glad you like my profanity.”
“I like much of you Max, although Earth fathers are weird.”
“It is not weird to protect offspring.”
“No.” Rick leaned against Max. “I came to this space because I too wish to protect offspring. But protecting offspring is genetic for the people. Human fathers attach genetic imperatives to emotional connections.” Rick hesitated before adding, “I like weird.”
“Then you'd love Earth,” Max said dryly.
“Earth quiet. I can camouflage offspring on Earth. Max can protect offspring.”
Horror stole all Max’s words for a moment before he shouted. “What? No!”
Rick jerked all his tentacles away.
“You can’t come to Earth. People are so quick to judge.” Max burst up and made it to the door before he whirled back around. “You have to promise you will never take the boys to Earth. People hate each other for having the wrong skin color or being born on the wrong continent or for believing something different about supernatural beings that can’t be proven to exist at all. If you come in with your tentacles and your... tentacles. No. You have to stay away.” Max ran out of air, but the panic still raged through his guts.
Rick slid off the bed and approached slowly. “Query. Clarify. Humans’ feelings toward the people.”
Fuck. Max hadn’t wanted to get into any of his planet’s irrational responses. However, if he had to out the assholish nature of humans to protect Rick and the boys, he would. “Humans fear. A lot. Before the ships came to Earth, my people believed they were alone. Maybe they hoped they were alone. But now... I don’t know how they have reacted since I left, but I know you will never be safe there.”
“I am not warrior. Human planet one of warriors. I will keep away,” Rick said. The translator voice didn’t sound any different, but Rick’s voice was softer than normal, more burp than belch.
“Clarify. It’s not because you aren’t a warrior. My planet would be dangerous for a warrior with tentacles.” Any alien would be in danger, but Max had never gotten the computer to spit out a name for species outside one’s own, so he had no way to say “alien” in alien-speak.
Rick did the half turn thing that meant he needed to study Max through a different set of eyes. Maybe different eyes tracked different wave lengths. Maybe they connected to different parts of the brain and Rick was trying to find some half-baked logic in Max’s words.
Max caught Rick’s tentacle in both his hands. “Query. Do you remember our discussion about why other species avoid the people?” Max asked, using Rick’s name for his own species.
“Yes. They disapprove of the growing of offspring inside the body. They find us unsanitary. They are more group oriented and find our individual orientation unsettling. They question the cognitive complexity of offspring who are formed cognitively mature. They disapprove of volume and range of tones used for communication. They disgust at the people’s lack of symmetry in form of body.” Rick listed all the reasons as casually as someone might list ingredients in a pie.
Ironically, humans wouldn’t have a problem with most of that. The belch-talking would be a huge hit on certain college campuses, although Rick did have a point about the lack of symmetry. That and the lack of a neck had made Max uncomfortable when he’d first taken the job. Now he liked Rick’s appearance. The pale green of his skin contrasted the red-orange of the tips and undersides of his tentacles. And his eyes were freaky, but that lack of symmetry moved them away from spider-like creepy to an oddly constructed stuffed-toy aesthetic. But none of that would prevent humans from hating Rick. “My people don’t need reasons to avoid others. They make reasons up.”
“Correction. Max does not. Max is of his people. Logic is missing from the statement.”
Max sighed. “I have hated illogically,” he said, and when he thought about his own ridiculous hatred of all things touching on jock popularity, he knew he was right. He’d been uncomfortable with Pete even being on the football team because Max had looked down on the whole Neanderthal clique. He headed back to the bed and collapsed. “Some humans might accept you, but you will never be safe on Earth because some warriors will stop at nothing to kill you. They will be afraid. You will challenge their beliefs, but that has nothing to do with you. Those people would hate anyone who came to the planet for the same reason.”
“Query. The safety of you.” Rick moved close again.
That was the crux of the matter. Max sighed. “I don’t know.”
Rick’s tentacl
es jerked and then curled into tight balls. “I change ship course.” Rick twitched several times before he uncurled his tentacles enough to let go of the edge of the bed he had grabbed. And then, with most of his tentacles still tightly balled, he headed out.
“Wait.” Max followed.
“No wait. No go Earth. No danger for Max.” Rick was making pretty good time down the corridor, and Max ran after him.
“Wait a second. Just listen.”
Rick reached the lift. “No listen. Max avoids pleasure to remain autonomous. Acceptable. Guards offspring. Acceptable. Puts himself at risk. Not acceptable.”
“What?”
The lift opened, and Rick got in. The doors damn near closed before Max could get in with him. “Query. Clarify avoids pleasure.” The lift jerked downward with far more speed than Max was used to.
“You produced seed when I activated your reproductive system.”
Max blushed. “Yeah, I remember.” Tentacle porn did live up to its name. It was the only kind of porn that did.
“You said to avoid sex because of emotions involved.”
“I did not,” Max protested.
A recording of Max’s voice came through the computer. “However, sometimes sex involves how bodies fit together and the emotions that people feel for one another. That sex becomes complicated, and turning on the reproductive system too quickly can be a problem.”
Max cringed. Okay, he had said that. The lift opened and Rick moved damn fast for a one-legged tentacle monster that imitated a snail’s propulsion system. “I said the sex was complicated, not that I was avoiding it.”
Rick didn’t answer. He headed straight for the control room, and even when Max caught a couple of tentacles, Rick didn’t stop. He dragged Max along for the ride.
“Will you talk to me?”
“Unacceptable risk. I will not allow Max to return to planet of danger.” Rick touched the computer screen and a complex set of symbols projected out in three dimensions.
“We need to talk about this. You don’t get to make decisions for me.”
“You cannot reprogram ship for navigation, so I can make decision,” Rick said.
Max ducked under a cluster of tentacles so he stood in the middle of the hologram. The light made him squint, but at least Rick stopped working the controls. “My people need to know the truth. My parents are back there. My brother is back there. I need to tell Earth that they were caught on the edge of a spaceship chase, not ground zero for an invasion.”
“Illogical. Query. Logic of organized units to invade small, undeveloped planet in isolated territory.”
Max sighed. “Because people fear. I have to tell them they can stop being afraid.”
“They inspire fear. They have danger.” Rick’s whale song was loud enough to make Max’s bones ache, and his tentacles were still curled. “Unacceptable.”
“I have an obligation to my people.”
Rick gave a huge belch before he backed away. “Reprogram navigation. I not stop. You fill obligation without me to navigate.”
Max frowned. “You know I can’t.”
“I stop ship. You can restart when you learn navigation to navigate.” A few of Rick’s tentacles loosened, although he still was curled up enough to make his distress pretty damn clear.
“Rick,” Max said softly.
“No! No move ship. You move ship.” As if to make a point, Rick backed farther from the controls.
Max dropped onto the couch. Rick might have been impressed by Max’s background as a military man, but not enough to listen. And Rick was right about one thing: Max couldn’t fly the ship. He put his hands to his face. After a few minutes, Rick touched him. A tentacle slid over Max’s shoulder and then encircled his upper arm. Max looked up.
“Sorries. Many sorries. No danger to Max.” Rick crept closer.
Max sighed. “I understand the danger.”
“You warrior. Warriors never protect enough self.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Max said. Service members were people, and in the end, most did put insane amounts of energy into saving themselves. Those who earned military honors garnered so much respect because self-sacrifice was the exception—not the rule.
“Not returning to Earth Max.” Rick stretched his tentacles out stiffly.
“I don’t think I even want to go back, not now,” Max said. “But I still have to tell Earth the truth. They need to know they’re safe. My parents need to know I’m alive.” Max definitely planned to skip the part where they were sort of grandparents.
“Query. Explain.” Rick stopped after those two words.
Max wasn’t sure where to begin. “I miss parts of Earth. You would like music. I think. You would like our oceans. I like to think you and my parents would get along.” Max frowned. That might be pushing it. His parents were supportive, but his father got a sour expression any time Max brought up being gay. Gay and fathering tentacle babies would probably push their tolerance too far.
“Query. Max prefers to return.”
“No.” The Air Force would court martial him if they found out he was choosing Rick over the service, but Max didn’t care. He might if the Office of Special Investigations had a branch in space, but it was human ignorance for the win on that front. If they wanted to charge him with being a deserter, they would have to build the space ship that could find him first. And really, considering how he had left Earth, they would have listed him as Missing in Action.
Rick’s tentacles uncurled.
“I like the ship and you and the offspring. I like protecting the ship, and I want to know how those invaders managed to get onboard without any alarms going off, and we are going to fix that problem,” Max said. Rick curled a few tentacles around Max’s arm. “But I want to get close enough to Earth to send them a message.”
More tentacles curled around Max’s leg.
“And I am not trying to avoid sex. I didn’t want to have sex when I liked you. I was afraid you only wanted me for the offspring and I wanted to avoid having my feelings shredded.” Max was fairly sure the translator would choke on that bit of emotional bloodletting.
Rick pressed forward, claiming a space between Max’s knees. “You fear tangling tentacles. You fear damage.”
Max huffed. Maybe the translator worked better than he’d thought.
“You are warrior,” Rick said, and Max got the feeling that Rick used that word to mean something between a comic book hero and a super soldier. Max wasn’t either.
“I can still hurt. Hell, you’re a lot stronger than I am,” Max said. Some days Max felt like a windshield with a tiny spider web crack in the corner. One bit of pressure on the wrong point and he would shatter.
“Max stronger. Rick better with computers,” Rick said.
Max laughed. “That you are.” His whole body felt stiff and sore. Giving up Earth had sapped him of all his strength. His stomach bruising felt worse than ever and his head was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. “I think I should go lie down,” he said. “Maybe in that nice new bed of mine.”
Max stood, and Rick held onto his leg for a few extra seconds. Feeling about a thousand years old, Max moved toward his new quarters. Later he would have to get the one pair of spare pants that constituted his worldly possessions, but for now, all he wanted was sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Max woke to find a heavy weight on his left side. He cracked his eyes open to find Rick taking up at least two thirds of the mattress. All those bright, black inquisitive eyes were closed and most of his tentacles were curled up under him, which gave him a squat look that hit Max's cute button. Something was different. When Max touched his stomach, most of the bruising was gone. Rick had been using his healing trick again; he had missed his calling as a professional mother hen.
Two of Rick's smaller eyes opened and then all the others followed.
“Good morning,” Max said.
“Healthy awakenings,” Rick returned.
“Quer
y. Did you happen to fix any swelling and bruising while I was asleep?”
“Beds contain medical facilities equivalent to the lower lab.” Rick touched the overhead controls, and alien script filled the screen. “Technology remove toxins and reduced blood pooling at site of injury.”
That sounded like a cure for bruising. Technology for the win.
“The window of Max's eye has returned to normal,” Rick said.
“Correction. The pupil of my eye is not dilated.” It had never occurred to Max that Rick could read his emotional state as easily as Max could track those curling tentacles. Max had never yelled or panicked, yet Rick had known. He had taken one look at the “window” of Max's eye and known how much Max feared going home. “I still need to send them a message. I don't want them afraid.”
Rick was silent for a time. “I can move ship close enough to transmit sound. Query. Will they listen?”
“I think they have every bit of technology they own pointed at the skies to listen. But even if they aren’t listening, I have to try.”
“Acceptable,” Rick agreed. “I do not hope for fear in humans. I like humans.”
“Unfortunately, humans would probably be afraid of you. You have too many limbs.” Max had pretty well let the cat out of the bag, so he didn't feel any need to hide the worst of humanity.
“To evaluate on appearance is common.”
Max huffed. He knew Rick was trying to make him feel better, but Max was more than a little embarrassed to have come from a planet where someone as kind as Rick would be dismissed as a monster.
“Others evaluate the people as undesirable for lack of symmetry. Humans are much symmetry more.” Rick ran a tentacle over Max's forehead and then down his nose.
“My symmetry is superficial. Inside, I am not symmetrical,” Max pointed out.
“This I know. This others know. But humans’ exterior appearance symmetrical. Others find symmetry pleasing.”
“And how do you find symmetry?” Max asked. “That was a query.”
Rick pulled more tentacles out from under his body and draped several over Max’s stomach. “Symmetry is predictable. It lacks surprise or element to inspire exploration.”
