negative.” Hopefully Rick understood that was an apology.
“Feelings exist. The others have feelings about asymmetry. Illogical feelings. Query. Would you dislike me if I had an even number of tentacles?”
“Of course not.” Max hadn’t ever counted the tentacles.
“Logical.” Rick gave a little bounce.
Max shook his head. Aliens. So weird. “I do have one question about staying, though.”
Rick stilled. “Query. You doubt staying?”
“No. No I will stay. But I have one query. Query. Will you give me the information and authority to make sure that no one ever gets on the ship again?”
“Query. Clarify to circumscribe request.” Rick tilted his head to the side.
“Clarify language. Explain the parameters of the request,” Max corrected the translation. “Clarify request. I need access to any security you have on the ship because it is not enough. Someone got on the ship and I didn't hear a single alarm.”
“Alarm interrupts difficult mathematical calculations.”
For a second, Max lost the ability to form words. After several false starts, he demanded, “Are you saying you turned the alarms off?”
“Alarms are distracting.” Rick leaned away.
Max shivered at the idea of floating through space with absolutely no warning system. “Okay. That won’t happen again. We can reroute the alarms so only I hear it, but if someone docks with this ship, I need to know.”
“Acceptable. I underestimated the ability of others to detect my movements.”
“Yes. You did. In fact... query. Do we have some sensors that would tell us if another ship was near?”
“Query. Clarify near.”
Max’s military training kicked in and he started wondering about the operational specs of the weapons enemies might use. He had learned to fight in airspace defined by gravity and the physics of propulsion systems in Earth atmosphere. The underlying understanding of strategy would be similar, but all the specifics would be different in space. “I don't know how near. I need to study warrior information in the ship's computer. I need to know what species are out there and which ones are dangerous. I need to know what weapons are most common and which ones will give me horrible burns in close proximity.” Max’s arms tingled. “I need to know the vulnerabilities of various spacecraft and of different species. To protect my family, I need information, and I need you to let me make changes required to protect this family.” Max braced himself for any number of counter arguments. After all, humans didn’t even possess space technology, so giving Max that sort of information could be seen as irresponsible.
Instead, Rick simply said, “Acceptable.” He walked out.
Max dashed after him. “Query. Clarify. Acceptable. What part are you accepting?”
“All. I am not warrior. You know warrior needs more than I. I will open all information and resources so you may be warrior.”
“No questions?”
“You may ask questions,” Rick said as they got into the lift. “But I have no warrior skill. You should not trust my words on warrior craft. I am good with computer command systems.”
“Yeah, I figured out that first part,” Max said. He still couldn’t believe Rick had turned off the damn alarm. Rick had no tactical sense, none at all. The lift doors opened, and Max followed Rick as they headed toward the control room.
“Computers in upper ship give access unallowed to...” The computer lost the last word, but it confirmed Max’s assumption that the area below the control room was for the hired help or maybe paying passengers. “Computer in the room of Max or rooms of study on levels will give full warrior information.”
They passed through the control room and headed toward the pool room. “Why is the pool in the area with less access?” Max asked.
“Offspring are small. They cannot learn skill for compensation now. They will want to swim in faster waters faster than they should.”
“Awwww. You’re an overprotective father.” Max shoulder-bumped Rick.
Rick curled his tentacles around Max’s arm. “You are father even more overprotect. Earth fathers are weird.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Is worth saying multiple times,” Rick said. He pulled Max close enough that Max’s legs brushed his tentacles with each step. When they walked into the pool room, Kohei and Xander were swimming, but James was nowhere to be seen. The boy was probably off exploring or getting himself in trouble. Or both. He was going to give Max gray hair before he was grown.
“Rick father! Max father!” Xander called. He zipped to the edge of the pool. “Come swim with us.”
“Come swim,” Kohei echoed.
“What do you say, Rick. Query. Would you like to swim?” Max asked.
“Yes.” Rick