Rick froze. For a second he was like a giant stuffed octopus sitting on the bed. Only his eyes moved as they slowly rotated in their sockets. Then his tentacles all twitched. “Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!” Rick bugled.
“You watch too much television.”
More tentacle twitching. “Television truths are still truths.”
Max studied Rick. When they’d talked before, Rick had said he was fine with this plan, but something had changed. Max toed off his shoes and pulled his feet up under him. “Okay, tell me in small, simple words why you believe I am a moron.”
“You are a moron.” Rick sank onto the bed.
“So you say.” Max sighed. “Clarify. Query. Why do you believe I am a moron?”
“Max presents self as violent.” The smaller tentacles curled.
Max held a hand out, but Rick kept his tentacles to himself. “I can be.” He kept his tone gentle.
“Nature of you not is violent. You could have given away my program to Hunters. You only are violent with Hunters when Hunters only say threat of violence against offspring.” Rick trumpeted again.
Max was starting to think that Rick’s grammar in his own language went to shit when he got upset. Either that or his accent got thicker or something because the computer struggled to get a coherent sentence out of Rick’s more dramatic proclamations. “I see that you’re upset,” Max said slowly. He wasn’t good at handling relationship conflicts. Hell, he wasn’t even minimally competent at it; however, for Rick he had to try.
“You are moron,” Rick said when Max took too long to finish his thought.
“Probably. I missed how much this would upset you, and I regret that.”
Instead of soothing Rick, that made all his tentacles curl. “You planned threat of violence!” The voice was so loud that Max flinched away from the sound.Damn.
“I had to convince them I wasn’t a moron.”
“You are moron! You intent perception violence!”
Max caught Rick’s tentacle and worked his fingers inside the tight curl. “They had a certain impression of what humans are like.”
“Correct impression. Morons.”
“Incorrect impression. Harmless. Helpless.”
Rick’s tentacle relaxed a tiny fraction. “The danger is that they will underestimate humans. You saw the television shows from Earth. You know the truth.”
When he spoke, Rick’s voice was as soft as Max had ever heard it. “Soap operas. Science fiction. Westerns.”
It would be so easy to allow Rick to deceive himself, but Max didn’t want to feel like a fraud, not with Rick. “News. Documentaries. War. Atrocities. Pol Pot. Hitler. Rwanda. Riots.”
Rick’s tentacles balled up again. “That humans are not Max human.”
Max sighed. “No, and I hope I never see the sort of violence I’ve watched on the news, but I am trained to fight. My grandfather fought people who followed Hitler, and my family is proud of how many he killed. I’m proud of protecting my family against Hunters.” Max swallowed a knot of fear and asked, “Are you frightened of me because I’m human?” Max couldn’t blame Rick if he was. Television broadcasts of the chaos after the Nish invasion made humans look slightly psychotic.
“No fear.” Rick flowed forward, his tentacles everywhere at once, and Max fell back onto the bed, and Rick’s weight pinned him to the mattress. “I do fear nothing with you. I fear for you.” The computer missed the next bit of whale song. “If others peoples believe humans are to be feared, they will treat you poorly. They hate Hunters almost as much as Uglies.”
“Hidden people,” Max corrected him. “I assume they hate Hunters in part because they hunt. I am not hunting. I am trading.”
“Trading weapons,” Rick said.
Max wished they had a copy of the trading translator and its ability to translate tone. Without knowing how Rick felt when saying that, Max was a bit in the dark. It was like trying to have a conversation through text—one where the other person didn’t know how to use emojis. The tentacles helped, but there was a wide range of unhappy, and Max wasn’t sure which variation was turning Rick into a side order of curly fries. “Trading weapons brings in resources,” Max said softly. “James helped make those weapons and Xander helped me sell them. I am proud that we’re working together to beat these assholes.”
“I would prefer to hide.”
Max spread his fingers and waited while Rick curled tentacles around them. “I will protect you.”
“Who will protect Max?” Rick asked.
