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“Yes, but… as you said, change is hard.”

Jace nodded and leaned against Khoth’s front. “But change is also wonderful.”

They had kissed slowly, deeply, fully. Khoth felt his Xi wanted to merge with Jace’s Xi. He wanted to feel and know every thought and feeling that Jace had. He wanted to share his burdens and his joys. It was overwhelming and exciting. It made it incredibly difficult to leave Jace even for a breakfast with Jace’s parents. But he had, offering to handle the influx of military recruits and the first civilian arrivals, though Jace should be coming soon as he wanted to greet them, too. But he was leaving Khoth with the responsibility of choosing who among the general’s chosen should come aboard.

“Jace, I am honored you are entrusting me with this. But, as you have so adroitly shown me, what you are looking for is not necessarily what I would choose,” Khoth reminded him.

He had confessed his prejudices on this point and Thammah’s wisdom in showing him what he was not seeing.

“First, I trust you to choose wisely. Second, you’ve seen what I’m looking for and I bet you can guess who I will like. Third, most of these are going to be soldiers. I don’t think there’s anyone more qualified than you to choose who can handle the Khul,” Jace had answered.

That had led to another of those Xi-strengthening kisses. And it really had been difficult to drag himself away. But he was here now. And he had a mission. He needed to see who the general had picked out. He should have brought them someone other than the hanger bay so he could interview them individually, but he did not want them coming further into the ship anymore than they already had.

“Osiris,” he said quietly in the high form of Thaf’ell, though the ship would have no problem hearing him. “I need dossiers on each of the individuals in front of me.”

Holo-screens appeared next to each and every recruit, which indicated their name. Startled, many of the recruits looked up at the “tag” that had been assigned to them. In front of Khoth, another screen appeared. It showed him the picture of the first recruit in line whose name was David B. Hayter.

Khoth tapped on his face and pages upon pages of information was provided to him from medical records to grades throughout his schooling to every social media post he’d ever made or was ever made about him. Khoth blinked. While he wished to dig deeply into every recruit with the amount of information provided and the amount of people he had to interview it could be months before they left Earth, and that was not the plan.

“Can you highlight any… concerns?” Khoth asked softly.

Two bullet-pointed lists were suddenly before him. One labeled “pros” and the other “cons”. David’s basic information was provided above it. Khoth lifted an eyebrow.

“Thank you. That will do nicely,” Khoth told the Osiris.

Though it did not respond to him, he had a feeling the Osiris was pleased.

David B. Hayter was 42 years old and had a Ph.D in linguistics, which he understood was the human science of studying language. David spoke twenty-one languages fluently and he had a basic mastery of one of the Thaf’ell languages. It was the common tongue of his planet, but still, that a human had learned it with very little exposure to his people was impressive.

And here I was told that humans were incapable of ever understanding, let alone speaking Thaf’ell, Khoth thought dryly.

Other points in the “pro” column listed David as highly intuitive with great emotional intelligence. He had low prejudice scores which would indicate he would get along well with other species. He was naturally inquisitive and took great pride in his work.

In the “con” column, his high sensitivity would lead him to a greater “horror” of the Khul. His empathy for the beings they captured and devoured could paralyze him. He was also in no way a martial specimen. Weapons of all sorts were an anathema to him despite having served in the military. Training had made him proficient with them, but he showed a great abhorrence to them. His desire when he had joined the military was to travel to different places and experience the people.

Jace thought I would be interviewing mainly soldiers, but this man is anything but!

“Commander, are you communicating with the Osiris?” David asked.

He had warm, inquisitive brown eyes and sandy thinning hair. He had a slight paunch and rounded shoulders giving him a searching appearance as if he were constantly looking for answers.

“I am speaking and it appears to be listening and responding,” Khoth responded.

David bounced a little on the balls of his feet. “You’re communicating in Amdaric, or High Thaf’ell, yes?”

Khoth lifted an eyebrow. “Yes, that is clever of you to recognize that.”

“I don’t know much of it. The Thaf’ell who have come here--well, except Flight Commander Pyrrhus--weren’t very chatty, but I’ve put together bits and pieces here and there. The long vowels are unmistakable though!” David beamed some more.

“Were you merely asking me this in order to show your skills, Dr. Hayter?” Khoth asked.

David laughed. “Oh, no, I’m just a language nerd. And… well, I did wonder if the Osiris responded with more or less alacrity and understanding to your language than to human languages.”

Khoth blinked. “I have not noticed any difference myself. But the Osiris responds best to the Pilot.”

“Yes, mind to mind, which is really quite fascinating, because human and Thaf’ell thought might very well be quite different! I find I think differently myself when I speak in something other than my mother tongue. The other languages I know are aunts, to be sure, in terms of closeness, but my mind makes different intuitive leaps. Fanciful sounding, I know!” David continued to beam, clearly excited to talk to him about his pet subject.

Khoth nodded and crossed his arms. “Dr. Hayter, are you aware that you will be implanted with a universal translator chip as part of your basic onboarding as crew for the Osiris.”