Kohei blew bubbles.
Rick was a little more sympathetic. “If authorities accuse you of wrong doing, a judgment or liability takes many, many months. On Earth television, trials move slow. They keep going and going and going.” Rick and his love of commercials.
“This looked like a courtroom. I thought...” Max closed his eyes.
“Max Father, I am sorries for not explaining,” Kohei said now that he had finished laughing at Max. “Rational creatures cannot judge so fast.”
“Sentient and rational are not the same.” Max noticed that neither of them disagreed with him. “So, did the hearing go our way?”
“Authority believes Max is not moron species. Navigation program is not sold,” Rick said. More and more aliens were leaving the courtroom... or evidentiary hearing room.
“Where’s Dee?” Max asked.
“Other room. Same hearing.” Kohei gestured toward the side Max couldn’t see from his current position.
“We should go find her.”
Dee hadn’t known that Carrington was using her. If the universe was just, Carrington was going to have to pay a fine or at the very least, look like an idiot. Bitch. Max realized both his family members were watching him. Rick was motionless, and Kohei was rotating in confusion. Max stood, or at least he tried to. Rick was heavy. He lifted Rick an inch and then they collapsed back down onto the bunk.
Rick untangled his tentacles.
Max tried to find the words that would allow him to explain why he worried about Dee. From their point of view, it didn’t make sense, but he didn’t want his family to blame her for any of this mess. “She warned me and tried to get me out before the guards showed up.”
“How would leaving Carrington’s ship have made improved evidence?” Kohei asked.
Well, shit. Kohei had a valid point. Max was in the middle of a con, so whether the authorities caught him there or later, it didn’t matter. Eventually they would have found him outside the ship, with or without Dee’s warning. Hiding wouldn’t have improved their legal position, but Max had an instinct to run for home. Max stood and tightened his hold on Rick's tentacle. “Let’s go see if she is all right.”
Rick didn’t say anything, but he did start toward the main room. His tentacles didn’t even curl much. Most of the aliens had left now. Bundy and his entourage hovered near the exit, but everyone else had gone. The judge came off the table once Max stepped into the main room.
The judge shouted. “We will discuss questions of husbanding.” The high-tone cut through Max’s head.
“I need to check on Dee,” Max said firmly.
“I’m here.” Dee came out of the cell that was opposite the exit. A few of the aliens around Bundy turned toward them, but then Bundy left and his entourage followed. Dee walked over, stopping several feet away. “I’m fine.”
The judge came striding up the aisle with a rolling gait similar to a human. Funny, but the two-legged walk looked strange after months of watching Rick and the kids glide about on their walking tentacles. The judge trumpeted. “I require clarification.” And here the rest of the universe complained about Rick’s people being too loud. Pot and kettle. Pot and high-pitched, annoying kettle.
“About husbanding. Right. Okay, ask away.” Maybe relief was making Max a little punch-drunk because that was not the way to address a judge, not even an alien one. The Chosen judge pushed his lips forward so that his line of nostrils all opened into teardrop shapes. After a second, the face relaxed again.
“I require clarification of human social structure. Are humans required of groups?”
The business translator made language a lot clearer, but the judge had a stilted, wrong quality to his language, even with the improved translation.
Max answered. “Humans do require some sort of social connections. Sometimes they live in isolation, but usually they will have one person they pair bond with or one family member. People who live completely isolated usually end up odd.”
Dee snorted. “They end up insane,” she corrected him. “It damages their brains.” She tapped the side of her head. Given that Dee had been the one abandoned on the planet, Max had avoided saying that. Dee shook her head. “I should have been able to follow his math on those weapons modifications. I have the same background. But I couldn’t. But that’s not evidence that Max didn’t do the work. We were both working on a translation interface, but Max got ten times farther than I did in the same amount of time. And the longer I was alone, the worse my productivity got.”
The judge studied Dee and Max. “Both humans were isolated.”
“No,” Dee said. She smiled at Max before she gave Rick a fond look. “Max had a husband and children. He is a lucky man.”
Max pulled Rick closer. “I am.”
“Gregariousness can include species not human?” the judge asked. “Odd.”
“Humans are odd,” Kohei oh-so-helpfully added. The judge ignored him.
“Why did you not seek gregarious group?” the judge asked Dee.
