Oh yeah, Rick was intentionally playing up the language barrier. Max could play this game. “Query. What is going on?”
Rick shimmied and sank lower on his curling walking tentacle. Dee cleared her throat and said, “I think I need to do my laundry. I don’t remember doing my laundry today.” She retreated down the hallway in the opposite direction of her sleeping quarters.Subtle.
“I’m your husband,” Max said.
“Unnecessary information to repeat. We are covenant husbands,” Rick said.
“Yeah, well you’re supposed to tell me what’s going on because we’re married.” He almost felt guilty about the abject misery causing Rick’s tentacles to curl tighter than ever. But if he had to make his husband miserable to get information, he would.
“More than one person has claim to ship of Rick,” Rick said after an awkward silence. More than one...
“Clarify. The ship’s co-owner is on the planet?”
Rick made a tiny chirp that might have been a “yes” or a burp. It was hard to tell. “And we want to get off the planet before he can reclaim his ship,” Max guessed. Yeah, that could be a major problem. “Who has a better claim for possession of the ship?”
“Neither,” Rick bellowed; then he said softer, “The alternate owner of ship is more popular than Rick.”
Well, shit. “Kohei will make sure James returns quickly. We’ll take off as soon as the kids are back. We don’t even have to get off the ship at all,” Max said. He knew Rick wanted to explain the recent changes to his people, but if they liked this other person more than Rick, then fuck ‘em. Max felt no need to be helpful or reasonable with people who didn’t respect his husband. And that was ignoring potential issues of grand theft spaceship.
“I will never become more popular if I hide,” Rick said.
Max hadn’t thought Rick wanted popularity. “You don’t need your people to like you, so if you want to go meet them, great. If you want to hide in the ship and work on your navigation program, that’s great, too,” Max said. “You don’t owe your people any explanations.”
Rick shrunk, his walking tentacle picking up a strong clockwise twist. “Hidden ones will be confused by new attitude of others.”
“Their confusion is not your problem,” Max insisted. “You’re welcome to leave them confused. You don’t owe them anything.”
“To avoid contact is to miss opportunity for sales in contravention of embargo.”
Max did want to go around that damn embargo the rest of the universe put on Hidden ones. One microscopic politicaldisagreement and an anti-navigation net over this part of the universe, and everyone overreacted. However, family meant more than sticking it to ‘the man’ or even ‘the universe.’ He caught Rick’s tentacles, holding tightly and feeling the involuntary contractions as stress coursed through Rick’s body. “Do we need money?” he asked, knowing the answer. He kept a closer eye on their accounts after Rick let them go nearly broke before cutting James off from the expensive raw materials.
“We register pair bonding and announce children before we leave quickly quickly quickly quickly quickly,” Rick said, using his greater strength to free his tentacles.
Max sighed. “I’m going with you.” At least Xander and Kohei had orders to make sure someone was on the ship at all times. If someone wanted to repo it, they would have to navigate upgraded security features–the strongest he and James could come up with.
By the time they reached the exit, Kohei and James were nowhere to be seen. But Max didn’t have the spare brain cells to worry about that. The planet distracted him.
They were on a flat-topped hill that gave Max a view of the crescent shaped peninsula the spaceport sat at the end of. The sea roiled beneath a sky stretched out like a canvas painted with clouds, the colors shifting in a mesmerizing pattern. Every hue from pastel blues to deep crimson reds and brilliant oranges and yellows glowed with the light of an unseen sun.
The clouds were spun like cotton candy in the lower atmosphere with huge flat bottomed darker clouds above. It was alien. Well, obviously it was alien, but the last two planets he’d been on hadn’t been this beautiful and unique and utterly alien. There wasn’t another word for it. The air was heavy and fragrant with the scent of exotic flowers. And in the distance, tall spikes and spires marked the alien city. From this distance, the cable cars connecting the upper levels resembled spider webs.
It was too delicate to be real, giving Max the feeling of imminent danger, like the city might topple at any moment.
Other alien cities he’d seen felt like human cities, only impossibly advanced ones. But this... nothing like this would ever exist on Earth, and it took Max’s breath away.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered.
“It is home,” Rick said. “The children deserve to know home.” If this had been his home, Max would have done anything to come back to it.
Once the initial shock was over, Max studied the immediate area and nearly got aesthetic whiplash. The ground was unpaved, scorched and lifeless. The dirt was packed so hard Max’s boots didn’t disturb more than a few motes of dust. And to the right were squat gray buildings.
“Query. Is it me, or is the spaceport sort of...” Max looked around.
“Ugly,” Rick finished. “Ugly for outsiders. Traders live there,” Rick gestured with a tentacle to a spot halfway between the spaceport and the city.
Where the city was bright with greens and blues that made it look like it was Atlantis rising from the waves, the trader’s village was squat and gray with squares and pentagons clustered around narrow roads.
Yep, that was an “unwelcome” mat if Max had ever seen one. The rest of the universe might treat Hidden ones unfairly, but they retaliated with a little unfair treatment of their own. If Max saw that stunning city while being forced to live in alien versions of Army barracks, he’d be cranky.
