“Why would people mislabel reality?” Xander, and all the kids, had an innocence that Max envied. They believed the world was fair, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Even James with his love of weapons design still had that childlike nature. For him, improved targeting was an academic problem, or at least he pretended it was. Max still worried that he had changed obsessions from ships to weapons after the pirate attack.
“In the case of the translation program, it might be so that they can protect their profit. Other times people want to believe things are impossible so they don’t have to feel inadequate when they can’t accomplish them.”
“That assumes very, very much self-deception.”
“Oh, hell yes.” For a few minutes, Max focused on darting around a large group of Pajekh. The pith helmets were hard enough to hurt when one caught Max on the shin, and they had more tentacles than any one creature needed. They were navigational hazards on the sidewalk, and when they were in a group, they did not leave enough room for anyone else.
Max “accidentally” stepped on the smallest tentacle of one that pushed too close to Xander and the cart. Xander made a sound like a baby blowing a wet raspberry.
For a time, Max concentrated on making himself large enough to intimidate others out of his path so Xander had enough room for the cart. Max found that tentacle aliens were fairly nervous around stomping boots, so he made the most of his advantage. Eventually the sidewalk widened and Xander moved to Max’s side.
“Why do you assume self-deception?” Xander asked.
Max glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to them. “My people lie to themselves all the time. Don’t you think your people lie to themselves?”
“Query. The last statement was a query?”
“Yes, it was.”
Xander curled different tentacles around the cart’s handle and rotated so his largest eye was pointed toward Max. “The Hidden People believe that to hide requires an individual to know where all one’s individual tentacles are.”
That was an interesting way to see the world, but Max wasn’t so sure he believed it. “You’ve only met your father and brothers. How do you know what your people in general believe?”
“When Max Father is sleeping, Rick Father shows videos of Hidden Planet people.”
So Rick was hiding videos of the home planet. That was curious. Max would have to poke that weirdness at some point. Maybe Rick thought he would freak out at the sight of too many tentacles, but Max had achieved “tentacles normal” status. “Maybe your people don’t lie to themselves, but I think most people do.” Max didn’t have a lot of evidence for that, but he trusted his gut. Even during his encounter with the Hunters he had the feeling they were psychologically far more like humans than Rick’s people were.
Xander didn’t comment, which was probably a sign that he thought Max was stupid. Well, time would tell. If these aliens weren’t as greedy and self-centered as humans, this con was not going to end well. If Max had learned one thing fromLeverage, it was that the easiest mark was the asshole who was trying to con everyone else. You couldn’t con an honest man.
Max led them through the arched entrance to the alleyway. He had thought he should go to the main door, but apparently the trader didn’t want a moron human or his ugly assistant cluttering up the front of his shop. If Max hadn’t needed this guy to make the con work, he would’ve loved to tell him to shove his head up his ass.
“Did you look at the files from the first meeting with the trader?” Max asked as he waited for a driverless delivery vehicle to pass them in the alley.
“Yes.”
“Were you able to get the name of the trader from those files?” It annoyed Max that no one in this universe introduced themselves with a name. No doubt it said something about human culture that he needed a name when aliens didn’t. After all, Rick had been willing to call the children Offspring One, Two and Three until the children themselves decided to keep the names that Max had chosen.
“The trader's name does not translate from his language. I can use the designation embedded within the recording to identify him for delivery of messages and packages.”
They weren’t far from the trader now, and Max started down the alley again. “Great. So we're going to have to resort to calling them Trader One, Trader Two, and Trader Three.”
“If you choose an appropriate name, I can have the translation computer link the human name with the official designation within his own language,” Xander offered.
Oh, that was so tempting. There were so many names that Max could assign this asshole. His sarcasm button itched. However, the aliens had managed to grab samples of earth languages during their little drive-by police chase. And Max couldn’t afford to offend anyone that he might still need to manipulate.
So he needed something subtle. Nuanced.
He needed something that other people wouldn’t recognize, but something that would let Max get enough sadistic pleasure that he could curb his urge to punch the asshole’s oversized lips. Oh, there were so many possibilities. Max finally settled on his favorite. “Let's program his name as Al Bundy.”
Xander blew a huge raspberry into the air, and little spittle spots appeared on the sidewalk underneath him.
“Don't you start,” Max warned.
“Max Father is unkind.” After a second, Xander added. “I like unkindness.”
“You’re more and more like your namesake every day,” Max said. “But it’s not technically unkind. It's sarcastic.” He stopped in front of a familiar door. “This is it,” he said. Then he turned his translator unit on before he touched the screen to request entrance. Cinnamon Carter fromMission Impossiblehad always looked so cool and collected when she was working undercover as a super-secret spy. But Max was fairly sure he was going to throw up. He hadn’t been this nervous the day before his first solo flight. Come to think of it, he’d thrown up that morning, and right now he regretted not taking a detour down a less populated alley so he could privately vomit.
However, Al Bundy was opening the door, so it was too late for his Linda Blair impression.
