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He was actually quite eager to see how people responded to the initial invitation.

“They will not believe the email, I think,” Khoth stated as he meticulously cut the meat of some creature that looked similar to a chicken off the bone.

“No, they’ll probably think it's one of those Nigerian prince scams that even I got on my military email,” Thammah joked. “Remember that, Jack?”

“What I remember is you leading that poor con artist on for days. He was ready to meet you to exchange money for his royal jewels,” his father laughed.

He, too, had a steak, baked potato and salad. From his reaction to the food, the space paste was going down well. He hadn’t told his father that’s what this was considering what happened last time.

He won’t get sick again! Gehenna assured him. I had the Osiris rework the formula for humans. He’ll be totally fine.

That’s good, because we can’t have the human crew incapacitated after every meal, Jace told her.

That would be bad, Gehenna agreed and sent him a puking emoji that actually showed the little smiley face throwing up repeatedly.

He grinned and shook his head.

“It’s when they realize that it’s true that the real fun begins,” his mother said. She tilted her head to the side as she clearly remembered when she’d found out. “I was dazed for days, weeks really. I would touch the skin of the Osiris just to remind myself it was real. I still do it. And now that it’s up and running, or flying, I should say, I am having that feeling all over again.”

“What about the first time you met one of us?” Thammah gestured between herself and Khoth.

“I had been trained,” his mother placed air quotes around “trained”, “for what to expect when I met a Thaf’ell. I studied all of our manuals on your culture, your language, and the customs.”

“And it was all a bust was it?” Thammah chuckled. “Of course it was. Khoth can tell you that one of the way Thaf’ell prove their superiority even among themselves is to be rude.

Jace turned to Khoth who was seated opposite him at the table again. He avoided the head of the table again. “Is that true? You weren’t rude to me!”

“You had killed a whole battalion of Khul, if you recall,” Khoth said with a faint smile.

“Didn’t want to make me angry, huh?” Jace chuckled.

“I have no doubt that any Thaf’ell assigned here would have attempted to dominate by pretending your knowledge of us was inferior or wrong,” Khoth told his mother.

“I figured that out after a time.” His mother nodded, not seemingly annoyed by it. “But that, in fact, is something we should have put in the manuals. It now is.”

“You’re going to great on Haseon. You’ll seriously enjoy yourself, I think. Managing people is your bag, is it not?” Thammah asked as she ate something that wriggled on her plate by spearing it with a two-tined fork.

“Gehenna has been kind enough to fill me in on the personalities on the Council as well as other species we’ll be meeting,” his mother said with a smile at Gehenna.

If Gehenna had been able to blush, Jace was sure her cheeks would have been a nuclear red.

“Giving my mom the low down, huh, Gehenna?” Jace lifted an eyebrow at his AI.

“Yes! Wait… was that bad? She’s your mom and I know you want her to do well! But maybe I should have asked and--”

Jace held up a hand to stop the flood of recriminations. “No, you did great. I was teasing.”

But if you’re going to give info, please let me know, he sent privately. I do want to help my mother and humanity, but we’re supposed to be neutral. Well, just slightly aligned.

Yes, yes! Of course, next time I’ll remember it! Gehenna assured him and sad smileys bubbled up in an unending stream.

It’s okay. I know you wanted to be helpful and… you do have a crush on my mother, he pointed out.

You make it sound so silly, but I respect and admire your mother so very much and she was so pleased when I helped her. I truly thought you would be pleased to, but now I see I went beyond the proper parameters, Gehenna sighed.

We’re learning this as we go, Gehenna, he assured her. There’s no training for every single situation we encounter--

Oh, but there is! If we take into account--