he’d thought.
“You are warrior,” Rick said, and Max got the feeling that Rick used that word to mean something between a comic book hero and a super soldier. Max wasn’t either.
“I can still hurt. Hell, you’re a lot stronger than I am,” Max said. Some days Max felt like a windshield with a tiny spider web crack in the corner. One bit of pressure on the wrong point and he would shatter.
“Max stronger. Rick better with computers,” Rick said.
Max laughed. “That you are.” His whole body felt stiff and sore. Giving up Earth had sapped him of all his strength. His stomach bruising felt worse than ever and his head was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. “I think I should go lie down,” he said. “Maybe in that nice new bed of mine.”
Max stood, and Rick held onto his leg for a few extra seconds. Feeling about a thousand years old, Max moved toward his new quarters. Later he would have to get the one pair of spare pants that constituted his worldly possessions, but for now, all he wanted was sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Max woke to find a heavy weight on his left side. He cracked his eyes open to find Rick taking up at least two thirds of the mattress. All those bright, black inquisitive eyes were closed and most of his tentacles were curled up under him, which gave him a squat look that hit Max's cute button. Something was different. When Max touched his stomach, most of the bruising was gone. Rick had been using his healing trick again; he had missed his calling as a professional mother hen.
Two of Rick's smaller eyes opened and then all the others followed.
“Good morning,” Max said.
“Healthy awakenings,” Rick returned.
“Query. Did you happen to fix any swelling and bruising while I was asleep?”
“Beds contain medical facilities equivalent to the lower lab.” Rick touched the overhead controls, and alien script filled the screen. “Technology remove toxins and reduced blood pooling at site of injury.”
That sounded like a cure for bruising. Technology for the win.
“The window of Max's eye has returned to normal,” Rick said.
“Correction. The pupil of my eye is not dilated.” It had never occurred to Max that Rick could read his emotional state as easily as Max could track those curling tentacles. Max had never yelled or panicked, yet Rick had known. He had taken one look at the “window” of Max's eye and known how much Max feared going home. “I still need to send them a message. I don't want them afraid.”
Rick was silent for a time. “I can move ship close enough to transmit sound. Query. Will they listen?”
“I think they have every bit of technology they own pointed at the skies to listen. But even if they aren’t listening, I have to try.”
“Acceptable,” Rick agreed. “I do not hope for fear in humans. I like humans.”
“Unfortunately, humans would probably be afraid of you. You have too many limbs.” Max had pretty well let the cat out of the bag, so he didn't feel any need to hide the worst of humanity.
“To evaluate on appearance is common.”
Max huffed. He knew Rick was trying to make him feel better, but Max was more than a little embarrassed to have come from a planet where someone as kind as Rick would be dismissed as a monster.
“Others evaluate the people as undesirable for lack of symmetry. Humans are much symmetry more.” Rick ran a tentacle over Max's forehead and then down his nose.
“My symmetry is superficial. Inside, I am not symmetrical,” Max pointed out.
“This I know. This others know. But humans’ exterior appearance symmetrical. Others find symmetry pleasing.”
“And how do you find symmetry?” Max asked. “That was a query.”
Rick pulled more tentacles out from under his body and draped several over Max’s stomach. “Symmetry is predictable. It lacks surprise or element to inspire exploration.”
Max supplied the word Rick struggled to express. “Boring. You find symmetry boring.” That did make some sense. Every time Rick turned his head, a whole new pattern of eyes and colors appeared. From a distance, he appeared light green, but up close, Rick’s skin had streaks of greens and beiges. And then the undersides and ends of the tentacles were vivid reds and oranges. If someone took a hundred pictures of Rick, no two would look the same. There was a lot to explore.
“Max is not boring,” Rick said. He wrapped his tentacles around Max’s middle and squeezed.
“I am symmetrical, at least externally.”
“But internally asymmetrical. Rick