That did explain why Rick would get so twitchy when Max called the offspring children. “Clarify. Child means offspring when they are small.”
“Clarify. Child means offspring who lack cognitive ability or species who lacks cognitive ability.”
Max rubbed a hand over his face. He had screwed up that bit of translation. “Clarify. Child is only for offspring.”
“Query. The word for those who lack cognitive ability.”
Max thought about that for a moment. He was tempted to shoot off at the mouth and say idiot, but then if Rick’s people ever reached Earth, they’d call some baby an idiot, and that would not end well. “If the individual will grow into cognitive ability later, they are immature. If they will never grow into cognitive ability we would say they are...” Max mentally sorted through his many, many choices. “Simple,” he settled on. “Unless we don’t like them. Then we call them a moron.”
“Earth children are immature. Query. Correct or not?”
“Correct,” Max said. “Query, were they offering me payment based on my language being simple?”
“They offered compensation for language of morons.”
Max blinked. They invaded his fucking world and then assumed his people lacked cognitive abilities? That was illogical and just plain rude. “They visited my world. They saw jets and cities and civilizations based on cognitive abilities. They had to know that humans are intelligent creatures.”
“Their logic is...” Rick’s last word was lost in translation, but Max could fill in the blanks. “If you as individual could not solve problems, then you as individual is a moron.”
“I want to go back and punch Heetayu.” Max leaned back, bracing himself on his elbows as he lounged. Maybe he was being a little obvious—making himself look less dangerous—but he needed Rick to see nothing had changed. He wasn’t kidding about Heetayu, though. Those bastards had invaded his world, and when he had been confused and panicked, they assumed that made him a moron. They deserved an ass kicking.
“I would rather overcharge them for gathering of new translation matrix.” Rick moved to the side of the bunk and rested several tentacles on the edge of it. “They will pay for translation of language with warriors. Not all species produce warriors.”
“Few humans are warriors,” Max said. Some days he questioned his own suitability. Back on Earth, he had been ashamed of how grateful he was that the advent of drones meant that he was less likely to pull the trigger on an enemy. He hadn’t wanted to take a life. He had, but he hadn’t wanted to. And his shame came from his relief that some poor drone pilot sitting at a computer in the Midwest would have to push the button, and that poor schmuck wouldn’t even get combat pay for doing it.
“You are one,” Rick said. He lowered himself by curling his leg tentacle into a neat coil on the floor. “Warriors do not respect me.”
Max blew out a long breath. That was a rather broad and depressing statement, one that broke his heart a little. When those invaders had held Rick at gunpoint, Max had been nearly homicidal. He hadn’t understood how much he cared about Rick until that point, and now Rick questioned whether Max respected him at all.
“I respect you,” Max said slowly so the translator would get every word. He needed Rick to understand this. “I respect how you exhausted yourself caring for Xander. You are an incredible father. I respect your skills that allow you to afford such a nice ship. However you earn your compensation, you are effective. I respect you for being so honest and having so much patience with me. When I got here, I didn’t understand much, and you helped me with the computer and how to use the bathroom and how to open doors. At one point I thought you didn’t care about me, that you only cared about the offspring I carried, and it hurt,” Max confessed. He remembered sitting in the access shafts crying. Not his finest moment.
“Clarify pain.”
Max closed his eyes. “I hurt because I do like you. I respect you. I thought you liked me, but then when I found out about the surrogacy, I thought I was wrong. I thought you didn’t like me. It turns out, you thought I was a liar.” Max laughed. His feelings were one big tangled mess. He didn’t know what he felt. He did know Rick’s touchy-feely period hadn’t ended when Max had given birth. Rick had been just as quick to touch or to share conversation after the offspring were born. And now Rick wouldn’t come close.
Max wondered if this was what the soldiers from Vietnam had felt like when they’d come home and had been called baby killers. Rick acted as if Max was suddenly someone different—someone dangerous and unstable.
“I was wrong. You are not lying. You are a warrior,” Rick said. He reached out as if he wanted to touch Max, but then he pulled his tentacle back.
Max grimaced. He hated this new distance between them, but he would never regret protecting the family. Now that he had nearly lost them, Max could admit to himself that he felt like these people were his family just as much as Pete and his parents were.
Rick rotated his whole body to watch Max out of a different set of eyes.
Maybe it was time to change the subject. Max leaned forward. “Query. What did invaders hope to take?”
“Query. Reason for knowing.” Rick had his paranoia dialed up to ten, and his reluctance didn’t make Max feel any more warm or fuzzy.
“Answer. I want to know what to defend. I want to know who else might come.”
Rick inched closer, but the silence was pretty telling. He didn’t want to tell Max what the bad guys wanted.
“Query,” Max asked, “do you have something illegal on this ship? Something dangerous?”
“No,” Rick said immediately. “No additional ships will come. I move ship farther from developed planets. Too expensive to pursuit. You do not need to be a warrior.”
Max was starting to form a few hypotheses. “I am always a warrior. I can’t stop being one, even when I have offspring in me. I will always protect you and the offspring.”
Rick’s tentacles twitched. “You protected offspring. Humans have imperative with surrogate offspring.” He had left himself out of that list of people Max would protect. And actually, he had reduced all of Max’s efforts to a biological imperative. Max had issues with that.
