“They possibility hurt Max,” Rick corrected him.
“I won’t let them,” Max promised.
Rick tightened his tentacle around Max’s wrist. “Do not make with more violent words.”
No one could do guilt like Rick. He was a master of the art. Max curled his fingers around Rick’s tentacle and held on. He couldn’t make promises, not when he wasn’t sure how Carrington was going to treat him. Now that he had broken them out of the fallacy of believing humans harmless.
Rick headed after the kids. Feeling slightly worthless as a father and more stressed than ever, Max headed into the muggy morning air. This morning, the planet smelled of something sweet and earthy, like a strawberry that had gone off. Max sneezed, and Xander’s tentacles flew up in the air.
“Max Father!” he bugled.
“It’s a sneeze.” Some days Max did not understand the family. They’d heard him sneeze dozens of times, and it never failed to freak them out. Apparently the idea of losing control over breathing ranked right up there with spiders and heights. Worse even. None of them could understand the fear of spiders at all, which had turned a night of watchingBig Ass Spiderinto a week-long running joke about human illogic. Max never wanted to see a spider again, because then he would have four obnoxious family members pointing out the ridiculousness of being afraid of one. “I sneeze all the time.” He headed down the empty boardwalk that led to town and the nicer part of the docks. Carrington had her ship in that section.
“Disturbing!” Xander said as he followed.
Max ignored the complaint. “I wish you would be more understanding with your brother.”
“James is poop head.”
“James is frustrated that he doesn’t get to help. Look at it from his point of view—you get to help and he’s left behind.”
“Kohei and Rick Father are left behind.”
“And he probably expects them to be equally frustrated.”
“I never acted like poop head when you spent time with James. His work with weapons were of benefit, so I worked my project. I was not a poop head.”
Max stopped and caught the cart to force Xander to stop, too. “Did I ignore you?”
Xander did a quarter turn. “Max Father spent most of his time with me when I was small. I was not small when Max Father worked with James.”
That was definitely not an answer. “I spent too much time with James, didn’t I?”
“You spent enough time to make James all, ‘Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.’” Xander even raised his voice to mimic a girl’s voice.
“Now you sound like Rick Father,” Max said dryly.
“I sound more like Max Father, who loves human entertainment. My words are still truth. James is spoiled. Kohei never becomes poopy head.” Xander started the cart moving again, leaving Max to stare at his retreating back.
Now Max felt worse. After a second, he ran to catch up. “I didn’t mean to make any of you unhappy.”
“James is unhappy because he is James,” Xander said without an ounce of sympathy. “Max Father does not make offspring unhappy. He is like a brother in making me happy.”
Max was almost sure that Xander was trying to say that Max spent lots of time teaching them, but that didn’t assuage his guilt. “With humans, parents are supposed to treat children equally.”
“Marsha, Marsha, Marsha,” Xander repeated. “Humans have unreasonableness for parents.”
Max snorted. “Asking parents to treat children equally isn’t unreasonable. And I’ve hurt James, so I need you to be a little understanding.” No wonder Kohei was being so supportive. As the offspring most likely to get ignored, he could probably sympathize. Max sucked at fatherhood. Sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked.
“Did your parenthoods always treat you and co-offspring equally?”
Max judged the length of the empty boardwalk between them and the ships in the posher end of the port. They had time, especially with the cart slowly bumping over the lines set in the walk. “My parents tried. I think my brother was frustrated because I got to do more than he did. He is six years younger, so it frustrated him that I got to go out on my bike and run around with friends when he had to stay with the babysitter.”
“Did he torture the babysitter?” Xander asked.
“What? Of course not. Why would you ask that?”
“In entertainment, the offspring often torture the babysitter.”
