Chapter Eight
Al Bundy led them upthe back stairs without even glancing back to see if Xander needed help guiding the sample cart. He didn’t, but Max resented that Bundy hadn’t even checked. Asshole.
Instead of leading them toward the office where he’d talked to Max and Rick, Bundy turned in the opposite direction and headed deeper into the building. The hallway widened and the clutter vanished from the corners, so Max wasn’t surprised when Bundy opened the door to reveal a room full of aliens. Pajekh and Chosen and People of Red, oh my. Max still thought it weird that the People of Red were sort of lavender-purpley, but he assumed “Red” referred to something less literal than skin color.
“This is quite the gathering.” Max studied the gathering.
A Chosen slid forward. They were more humanoid than most aliens with an oversized upper lip and too many nostrils. If any species deserved to get called ugly, this one was up there. “Introduce person from undeveloped planet,” it said in a wailing voice. The business communicator was on because the voice pitched up and down. However, since Max hadn’t given Bundy access to the English database, the modulations were all translated into Hidden People whale song.
“That’s me,” Max said cheerfully. “Bundy, would you like to connect the English translator to the business communication facilitator? I brought the computer.” He turned to get the equipment from the cart, and he heard several hisses and thumps behind him. Xander flinched back and his tentacles stiffened in a desperate attempt to avoid curling them. Only one thing would inspire that reaction, and Max didn’t need a translation computer to figure it out.
Max whirled around. “Do not insult Xander.” Max searched the crowd for someone to challenge him. He’d expected this. Every time he’d gone to a new base, he’d needed to prove himself to a room full of assholes who didn’t trust him. Max had never backed down, and most of the time, those people had become his closest friends—the men and women he’d trusted at his back. He assumed any species that could become the dominant species of their planet would have a similar urge toward challenging each other. The aliens all stared back, silent and unmoving.
“Xander, plug in the English translation program,” Max ordered.
“Yes, Max Father,” Xander said. He came as close as any Hidden One could to whispering.
“It calls you father,” the larger pith helmet Pajekh said.
That caused several tentacles to twitch, although none of them curled the way Rick’s or the kids’ did when they were upset. Either they weren’t upset or they didn’t have the same sort of physical reactions. Well if they weren’t upset now, Max needed to make them worry a little. As long as they dismissed him as a moron, they wouldn’t credit him with the ability to engineer anything, much less a complex navigational system. If they thought he was a bigger asshole than they were, he could pull this con off.
“He calls me father because I am his father.” Max rested his hand on his weapon, and then his translator gave the distinctive chirp that meant it had connected to a new database.
“You were Ugly surrogate,” a Chosen said, and the new translation computer was definitely working because the disgusted tone was unmistakable.
Max took a step toward the Chosen alien. “Among my people, someone who is a surrogate for a child or who adopts a child is considered a parent. Genetics does not define parenthood.”
Bundy moved carefully between Max and the buyers. “Some species do accept parental roles outside of genetic lines, but I don't know of any species who accepts offspring of another species.”
Max channeled his best Snidely Whiplash and sneered at the crowd. “I don’t care what others do. Humans make their own rules.”
The Tribes alien made a grunting noise. “Why would you accept responsibility for the Ugly One?”
“You are a bitch.” Max mentally labeled this one Alexis Carrington, although part of that was the floppy hat. That was an eighties fashion statement if Max had ever seen one. “You had to go there, didn't you?”
“I state the obvious.”
