was supposed to say to a father who'd been forced to watch a child die. Aliens had all this advanced technology and spaceships and intergalactic drives, or at the very least, interstellar drives, but they couldn't save one premature baby.
Max wondered if that was some philosophical stand on medical intervention. Maybe aliens were Christian Scientologists. Or maybe Rick didn't have enough money to buy the right medical equipment. Maybe he had spent his last dollar hiring a surrogate.
The thought inspired the intense levels of guilt that usually required his mother and a major national holiday, but it made sense. It wasn't as if Rick had a lot of crew around to draw salaries, so whatever he did, maybe he didn't make enough to have underlings. And Max assumed medical equipment was expensive in any culture.
Max wandered to food storage and grabbed a couple of the bars that had an almost chocolatey black bean flavor to them. Those were not two foods Max would've put together, but the combination worked. It was better than the small round discs that tasted like someone had chemically joined an asparagus and a fart.
He had finished one bar on his way to the infirmary. Since Max had woken up naked, Rick must have left Max’s clothing somewhere. Max normally swam in his underwear, so the swimming pool was the most likely place to find his pants and shirt; however, Max wasn’t ready to deal with a grieving father yet. And since the children needed water, Rick was going to be there. As long as Max didn’t track Rick down, he could hope the third offspring was alive. Once Rick told him the child had died, it would be real.
The exam room was empty, but a half dozen tools were scattered on the floor and table. Rick was usually meticulous about putting everything away, which made sense in an environment where an emergency could lead to zero gravity or unexpected acceleration that would turn objects into projectiles. Max gathered the tools off the floor and grimaced at the slime that had pooled around a few. It smelled like urine and had the viscosity of dog slobber. Using two fingers, Max carried them over to the cleaning unit. When he opened the drawer, he found his underwear.
A little grossed out at the alien wash-all, Max took his underwear out and put the medical equipment in the same drawer before securing it again.
With his underwear on, he felt a little less vulnerable, although he doubted he would feel normal anytime soon. Kohei had been incredibly cute, and now Max wondered if he would be welcome around the children he had given birth to. If Rick didn't want Max near his children, Max couldn't blame him. From Rick's point of view, Max was a strange alien from an unrecorded species. That was not an ideal situation for a nanny. Which was another reason why Max should have figured out the truth long before he had.
Walking toward the pool felt like a funeral march. Max hated himself for getting too fucking involved. He always led with his emotions, even when common sense warned him to avoid getting too invested in someone who didn’t feel the same.
Max walked into the pool room with his stomach churning. He spotted Rick in the water. He had taken his hat off, something he didn't do unless he feared getting in a splash war. Before Max had introduced him to the concept of horseplay, Rick had always floated upright with his weird fisherman's type hat in place. Right now he was floating so low in the water that only a few of his eyes were visible above the surface.
Max spotted the rest of his clothing in the corner, but he ignored it for the moment. He edged closer to the water, stopping when he was ankle-deep. “Rick?”
Calling Rick's name caused three or four of his tentacles to flail and splash. Rick rotated, and Max spotted the first child. He was the size of a football but beige with a few streaks and spots of mint green. All the gray had vanished. He spun in mad little circles, and his tentacles waved faster and faster until his head resembled a top. Max was guessing that was Kohei. Either that or Rick had two insanely athletic gymnasts for children.
“Query. How are the offspring?” Max left the question generic so if Rick chose to avoid talking about the third child he could.
Rick floated toward him. “Offspring One,” he