by Lyn Gala
“I agree. I just hope he doesn't break something before he figures out where those boundaries are.” It was probably a good thing that Rick's people didn't have bones because the middle child would've already broken a couple. He was precocious for a one-day-old.
Rick ran a tentacle along Xander’s back, and Xander reached for his father without letting go of Max’s hand. Rick might have a warm body, but his tentacles were far too chilly to keep Xander healthy. That was why Rick had to hold his son close to his belly.
“Query. Are humans born with full cognitive abilities?” Rick asked.
Max snorted. “No. Not even close. Humans are born with the potential for intelligence, but we pretty much roll around, cry, and eat for the first several months.” He frowned. “Actually, we can’t even roll for the first few weeks. And then it takes years before real cognitive processing skills develop.” Max had to assume Rick was trying to make a point, so he waited for Rick to continue.
“Query. How long is required between birth and attainment of cognitive processing skills?”
“Query. Clarification. Any cognitive processing skills or reasonably well-developed skills? Because those will have different answers.”
Rick floated closer. “The people are born with cognitive skills, but they lack experience to contextualize knowledge or apply innate instinct to universe.” He curled his tentacle so it surrounded Xander.
“Are you saying they’re born smart? I mean, are they born able to understand cause and effect?” Max asked.
“Yes.” Rick shifted his tentacle away from Xander and curled it around Max’s wrist. The contact caught Max off guard. A flash of connection—of longing—made Max ache even more when Rick then used his tentacle to wave Max’s hand through the water. Of course. He wanted to keep Xander fed and healthy.
Max tried to appreciate the break from the endless movement and his sore muscles, but the touch reminded him of a hard ache in his soul.
“It makes the people unfamiliar compared to other beings,” Rick said, and Max realized that Rick was trying to explain his species as a whole. “Others believe in raising young, but our young only need protection in order to learn context and language.”
Max studied Xander as he clung to Max's ring finger and pinky. No matter what Rick said, Max refused to think of Xander as anything other than a helpless child.
Rick didn’t say anything else, and Max started feeling like he was letting his half of the conversation down. “Okay,” he said.
Rick kept using his tentacle to propel Max’s hand. “I wish to contextualize information on human preference.”
“Query. What sort of preference?”
“Preference regarding entertainment.”
Max hoped that Rick was about to ask about some inconsistency in the Star Wars movies. Max didn't remember the prequel as well as he should have, so he had no doubt that he'd screwed up any number of details. However, if this was about to turn sexual, Max would rather avoid inappropriate conversations, and that went double when children were present. It went triple when he needed time to patch a few rough spots on his own soul.
Rick gently reclaimed his smallest son, shifting Xander to the side. However, he continued to hold Max’s wrist. The red-tipped end of Rick’s tentacle even curled around Max’s fingers in an alien version of holding hands that came too close to Max’s feelings for comfort. No way did Rick understand that the sort of respect and care and patience Rick had shown would trip Max’s trigger, and holding tentacles probably meant something like gratitude. Max just wished it didn’t hit so close to what he wanted. If Rick had been a human male, Max would’ve climbed him like a tree. But he wasn’t. He was a bit of a helicopter octopus who didn’t understand human feelings and why it hurt to hold hands.
“Query. What prerequisites are required for the activation of the reproductive system?”
Shit. Max had hoped the conversation wouldn’t go there. “Query. Why do you require this context?” he countered.
“I wish to understand why I activated the reproductive system the time I touched you for implanting of offspring.”
Max closed his eyes. The universe hated him. It did. However, he didn’t want to verbally strike out at a guy who had suffered a shitty week. “It's like I said. If I'm in pain, you can’t activate the reproductive system because I won't enjoy it. I don't like being in pain.”
“Avoidance of pain is a universal trait.” Rick seemed remarkably sure of that, and Max chose not to strip him of his illusions. Avoiding pain was not universal. Sometimes it scared Max how many people liked trading a little pain with sex.
“Well then, you have your answer. The required prerequisite is lack of pain.”
Rick didn’t answer for some time, but he also didn’t let go of Max’s wrist. “Query. Is there no other prerequisite?”
“What you mean? That was a query, by the way.”
“If a law enforcers from ship had put a tentacle inside your body, would that have activated your reproductive system?”
Max so wanted to avoid this. And if he couldn’t, he wished he could treat the whole thing like a joke, but his words about being an ambassador echoed in his head and mocked him. He was an officer. He had an obligation not to fuck this up royally. That meant he had to choose his words carefully. “Hell no. I didn't understand what was going on, and those guys were rude. They yanked me out of my plane and then acted like I was unreasonable for requesting that they put me back where they found me.”
“Query. Why would law enforcers remove you from your mode of transportation?”
“There was something about my plane being about to blow up.”
Rick’s tentacles all twitched, and the one holding Max’s wrist jerked hard enough to pull Max through the water a short distance. Now he and Rick floated mere inches apart. “Query. You wished to return to the plane before it blew up?”
“No. But I wished to be in my plane and not have my plane blow up. I wished I was still on Earth. I wished many things, and the law enforcers were not good at explaining anything.”
“Query. Clarification. Pain and confusion preclude the activation of reproductive system.”
Max had never thought of it that way, but it was weirdly accurate. “Yes.”
“Query. Are any other conditions required?”
Max sighed. He didn’t normally reflect on feelings this much. Being gay meant he had the freedom to opt out of certain “manly” activities. Peer pressure had never convinced him to play football or engage in middle school games that had involved punching friends. However, Max was guilty of avoiding emotion. And when he didn’t avoid it, he sucked at it. The military hadn’t exactly discouraged the trait. “You're asking me a question I can't answer. Human beings are all different. Some people's reproductive systems turn on for different activities or in different circumstances. I can't give you an answer for why a human's reproductive system turns on.”
“I do not ask about humans. I understand individuals are different within a species. I ask about you.” Rick shifted so his tentacles floated around Max in a mock almost-hug. They brushed across Max’s arms and back, and shivers ran up Max’s spine.
“Are there other prerequisites for turning on the reproductive system of Max?” Rick asked.
Max focused on Xander curled around his father. When he was right up against Rick, the contrast in colors was more noticeable. Xander had no green at all. From the top of his head to the end of each tentacle, he was a creamy beige. Rick tightened the circle of his tentacles and increased the gentle touches. “Query. Why are you asking for the reasons my reproductive system turned on?”
“I require context. I do not understand Max Davis.”
Max snorted. “Join the club.”
“Query. Clarify club.”
“Sex is not easy to explain. I dislike that my reproductive system turned on that first time. You should not have to deal with me spilling genetic material.”
“Query. Would that be gross?�
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Max laughed. “Yes. It was gross. And I am old enough that I should not be gross.”
“Query. Does that imply you were in pain or confused when I examined you for implantation of offspring?”
Max pulled at his hand. Rick held on for a time before letting go. Max did a backstroke to retreat from the area, but Rick followed. When Max was near the water filtration island, Rick caught his ankle. Damn aliens and their ability to hang on to umpteen things at once. Max caught the edge of the filtration island, and Rick drifted close enough to hold Xander in the currents.
Rick floated a few feet away and withdrew his tentacles. “Query. Did I harm or confuse you?”
“No,” Max answered quickly. He watched Kohei spinning closer.
“Query. Would you want reproductive entertainment again?”
“What?” Max spun around to stare at Rick with horror. “Why would you ask that?”
Rick floated and stared at Max so long that Max thought the lack of a “Query” marker in front of the question confused him, but then Rick said, “I am without context.”
“For our sex? Simple, the computer mistranslated surrogate for nanny and you did things that caused my reproductive system to turn on.” And that was the unsexiest description of tentacle sex Max could manage.
“Confirmation. You said humans enjoy sex.”
“Yes,” Max said, feeling a little like he was walking in a minefield.
“Clarify. Query. Why would you avoid sex if you enjoy it and I meet the prerequisite conditions?”
Max closed his eyes and leaned back. Lord help him. He was about to lose his mind trying to explain shit that should be repressed and forgotten. However, he wanted to avoid miscommunication. Besides, if Rick’s people found their way to Earth, he didn’t want them all offering sex based on Max’s unhelpful descriptions.
“Sometimes sex is all about the body. When I'm only thinking about how body parts fit together, it's quite easy for my reproductive system to turn on. But that sort of sex doesn’t get talked about.”
“Query. Why would entertainment involve silence?”
Max opened his eyes and tried to figure out how he was supposed to explain shame and Puritan ideals and parents and guilt, and all the garbage that went along with “easy” sex. And then there was the more complicated issue of gay sex. Without pregnancy to worry about and with the free-love sixties still driving the youth culture, a whole generation of men had rejected the idea that they should feel shame, and the lack of birth control in a population that literally didn’t have to worry about birth had contributed to the AIDS epidemic. Max had barebacked once, and the guilt had congealed into a hard, crusty edge on his conscience for months. And that was still better than some of the guys who insisted AIDS wasn’t any big deal. They barebacked and never got tested and pretended the seventies and eighties never happened.
How could Max translate any of that into terms that would make sense for an alien? “Answer. I don’t know,” Max said. He expected Rick to demand answers, but he floated next to Max with his tentacles hovering around Max. They were silent for a long time, and Kohei swam toward his brother who was, once again, experimenting with walking in the shallowest part of the pool.
“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.” At least it had always been one for Max. His relationships fell into two categories—short, hot, and likely to die faster than an advent candle, or long, messy, and emotionally damaging. “Emotions are harder than allowing the body parts to line up.”
“Query. Does that imply you feel emotions?”
Now the universe was mocking Max. “Yes.”
“Query. Positive emotions or negative ones?”
Max sighed. If he were honest, he would say both. He liked that Rick listened and that he explained and he wanted to know about Max. He appreciated the care he used around Max. He respected Rick as a father and felt sympathy for the way he’d suffered. But he also had a big dose of fear that he was getting too involved and that Rick didn’t understand how much he was asking of Max. He was fucking terrified that he relied on Rick too much, and he had no idea what would happen when the time came for them to separate. And under that, he didn’t want to hurt Rick because Rick had made enough comments about the shittiness of the universe in general that Max recognized how fragile he was. And that last truth convinced Max to give the simple lie instead of a more complicated truth.
“Positive emotions, Rick. I feel positive emotions.”
Rick floated near him, his tentacles barely moving to keep him from drifting off in the current.
“Now go get something to eat and take at least an hour or two to recover before coming back and giving me time to get some food.” Max extricated Xander from his father’s tentacles. Xander grabbed onto Max’s fingers and held tight.
“Yes.” Rick turned and swished all his tentacles the same way Xander did. It shot him across the pool and he hurried toward the exit.
Max looked down at the baby clinging to his hand. “What am I going to do with your father?” he asked sadly. The worst part was that he suspected Rick would take far fewer emotional hits than Max would, in the end. Well, he could only handle one day at a time. The rest would have to sort itself out.
Chapter Thirteen
“James,” Max called, “spaceships are on display again.”
From the far side of the pool, a beach-ball-sized object streaked through the water so fast that when he hit Xander, he sent Xander tumbling in the water. Bold and obsessed with spaceships—the name “James” fit when it came to Offspring Two.
In the past month, James had more than quadrupled in size and had become possessive of the underwater instructional display that Rick had set up. Rick streamed everything from nature videos to detailed instructions for the building of spaceships. Xander was obsessed with the nature documentaries.
Max had learned a lot about Rick’s people.
They had huge buildings that jutted out of a green ocean. Their haphazard cities featured towers that rose straight up, but also ones that shot out at odd diagonals. It looked like a supersized version of the crazy crystal formations that Max’s brother had grown for his fifth grade science class. Thick cables joined the tallest towers, creating one huge structure, and small cable cars would zip from one tower to another. Max liked those scenes, but James was all about the spaceships.
Hopefully, James wouldn't turn out to be quite as much of a man-whore as the character he was named after, not that Max had a problem with man-whores. In fact, he was rather fond of them in certain circumstances.
Max returned to his work on the portable computer station Rick had set up when Max refused to leave the offspring, not even after Xander insisted he could swim alone. While Rick knew his species, Max knew he couldn’t concentrate if the children were alone.
After all, every once in a while Xander would still call out that he was cold.
Max wanted to be there to get in the pool with him when that happened. Xander's brothers were not the best at cuddling for warmth. Kohei would for a short period of time, but that child was still as hyperactive as ever. After a few minutes of snuggling with Xander, he wanted to go find some open space where he could twirl and generally show off his ever-lengthening tentacles.
And James was even less likely to cuddle. That boy was an adrenaline junkie. He would be the first to leave the water full-time. According to Rick, none of them could live on land until they were large enough to develop a complete digestive system, but James was trying to push the timeline.
Kohei would explore the room for short periods, and Xander would come as far as Max's computer workstation where he would watch Max work on the translation program for a few minutes before retreating to the water, but James was already going where no offspring had gone before. No corner was safe from his tentacles, and Max dreaded the day
he could reach the door controls. The little monster would be impossible to corral. That wouldn’t worry Max too much, except that their skin could dry out and as long as they were in this insane growth period, that would lead to their skin splitting.
Luckily for Max, a video on spaceships, or any sort of engineering would command James's interest pretty darn quick.
It was as if they had gone from being infants to being annoying tweens in a matter of a few weeks. Well, James had. Kohei was more like a teenager with an eating disorder trying to dance off calories, and Xander was still his little boy. According to Earth biology, the more complex an animal was, the longer the length of its upbringing. Rick's people seem to break that rule. Rather spectacularly.
“Hey there buddy,” Max said as Xander lurched out of the water and stumbled toward him. After shutting the translation computer off, Max reached down so Xander could wrap his tentacles around his wrist. Xander was still smaller than the other children, but he had grown significantly. Kohei and James were both beach-ball size, and Xander was a little less than half that, but his tentacles were nearly as long as his brothers’. It gave him a long, lean look compared to his brothers’ rounder bodies. Max thought the two older ones were cuter now. Xander had entered a gawky growth spurt stage where none of his body parts were quite in proportion.
But he was still Max’s boy. Max had been a weird, gawky kid himself. Xander stretched his tentacles toward the computer, and Max held him close enough that he could push buttons. He repeated the startup sequence Max used for a new session, although Max wasn’t sure if that was intentional or if Xander was simply repeating what he’d seen Max do. “Will you grow up to be a translator?” Max asked.
“Translator,” Xander replied. In English no less. The other two spoke Rick’s language and Max had instructed the computer’s translator voice to use different pitches so Max could tell who was speaking, but Xander was learning his own language and Max’s.
“You should learn a more useful language,” Max said.