Earth Fathers Are Weird (Earth Fathers #1) - Lyn Gala Page 0,24

entertainment broadcasts. They are interrupted by persuasive and informational transmissions. Traditionally, those interrupting transmissions are either thirty or sixty seconds.”

“Confirm correlation between persuasive and informational transmissions and commercials,” the computer asked.

“High correlation,” Max said. The computer began running through commercials so quickly that Max could barely recognize a few famous jingles played at supersonic speeds. Then the computer went silent. “Unit one second confirmed,” the computer said. Max almost wept with joy. He pushed the emotions aside and focused on using that one unit to explain time units in English. Sixty seconds in a minute. Sixty minutes in an hour. Twenty-four hours in a day. Three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days in a year. One-twelfth of a year in a month. Max stopped there. If he needed to count time in decades, he was throwing himself out an airlock. Just as soon as he found one.

The computer tried to restart a number of time-related questions regarding human lifespan and development, but Max slapped his hand on the master control to shut it down in the middle of a word. Then he turned around to face Rick.

“Query. Remaining time for surrogacy of offspring.”

Rick inched closer. “Clarify. Minimum time of survival, optimal time of survival, required time for compensation or average time based on biological precedent?”

That was an excellent question. Well Max had never done a job half-assed in his life, at least not after that one summer when he’d been stupid enough to think that a lawn-mowing job in the heat was a good idea. “Optimal time of survival,” Max said.

Rick relaxed so much that he shrank a couple of inches as his central tentacle sagged. This time when Rick gave his whale song, the translator offered, “Six and three quarter months.”

Max rubbed his stomach. “Query. Will all offspring come out at once?” It sure seemed like Kohei was more developed than his siblings.

Rick rotated clockwise a half turn. “If large offspring must pass smaller offspring, then smaller offspring are pushed out.”

That meant that they might appear at different times. Max was still a little worried about what happened when the offspring were large enough to create a blockage, but for now, he would assume that if Rick’s species went around shoving eggs up other creature’s asses they knew how to do it without causing harm.

“Query.” Rick said slowly. The translator might use a constant speed, but the belch Rick used for that word was cartoonish in length. “Surrogate for compensation?”

“Yes,” Max said. “Surrogate for compensation. I should make you drive me home afterward.”

“Clarify. Home.”

Max almost cried. Some sadistic part of him wanted to confuse Rick by defining it as the place Max would never see again. It would be like the liar’s paradox during a Star Trek episode. One of the crew, either Spock or Kirk, had told an android that Mudd could only tell lies. Mudd then announced, “I am lying.” Max wondered if it would send Rick into the same sort of tailspin if Max told him to take Max home and then defined home as a place he would never see. However, the more logical part of him knew that Rick had never meant to lie to Max or even confuse him. In his alien, octopussy way, he’d been as honest as he could.

“It’s a place where a person belongs,” Max said. He didn’t know if that would translate, but clearly Rick had understood some part of it.

Rick rushed to say, “Agreed. I will return you to Central Trading City Nineteen-Sector Twelve.”

Max blinked. Rick’s offer was perverse. Well-intentioned, but no less painful for all his altruism. At least Max knew there would be computers he could use and a central government organized enough to send out social workers for randomly kidnapped members of pre-space flight civilizations. “Okay.” Max stared at Rick, not sure what to say after that. For the first time since he came on the ship, he felt like an employee or maybe a junior officer trapped in a room with a general.

Rick did another quarter turn. “Query. Correlation humans and willingness to surrogate for compensation.”

Max leaned against the computer. The sloping chairs weren’t comfortable, but he didn’t want to stand as if Rick were a superior officer. Nope. He wasn’t. He was Max’s boss... and the father of the children Max was carrying. Max was so going to need boatloads of therapy. Big old super freighters full of the stuff. And booze. Lots of booze. “It’s not common, but some human