the arrogant voice Max knew and hated. And here he thought that only people with ranks of lieutenant colonel and up could be that obnoxious. Apparently he was wrong.
“You introduce me, and I will impress them and get them to buy the weapons. You don’t have to get involved at all.”
“I have no profit in introducing my buyers to potentially useless designer of useless weapons. Five thousand credits.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Max said. “When we sell these weapons to your buyers, you can keep twenty percent of the sale as your profit for making the introduction.”
“I need eighty percent. Buyers are more valuable than weapons design.” The trader moved closer, which left Max wanting to grab the asshole and shake him until all his tentacles flopped. Maybe he was putting off some sort of aggravation vibes because Rick slid between them.
“Without weapons, buyers are not buyers because they do not buy. You may have thirty percent.”
“Buyers always buy something. To risk displeasing buyers on untested weapon from a moron species is dangerous. I need seventy percent.” The two of them continued fast-paced negotiations until they settled on the trader taking sixty-four percent of any sales.
As soon as they had reached that agreement, Rick retrieved his computer, and Max followed him back down the ramp. The trader pursued from a distance, giving Max the feeling that he didn’t trust them not to steal merchandise on their way out.
They were outside in the humid air before Rick said anything. “Danger. Other peoples lack a desire for weapons. A diamond is forever; weapons are not.”
“People want to defend themselves.”
“Not with weapons bought from assumed moronic people.”
“I can change their minds. People see what they want to see.” If Max could offer them a good product, they would change their minds at light speed.
“I see you.” Rick curled tentacles around Max’s wrist.
“Awww. I love you too,” Max said. Rick was a closet romantic. And it turned out that Max was too because he found he would’ve done anything and risked anything to get Rick the respect and compensation he deserved. And as a side effect, he wanted their children to have more opportunities in a universe that was a little less unfair than the one they’d been born into.
Funny enough, it turned out the universe wasn’t all that different from Earth.
Chapter Six
Max was packing the equipment he wanted to take to the buyer meet-and-greet when Rick burst into their room all flailing tentacles and belches. “I dislike with vehemence,” the computer translated. The computer voice was weirdly calm even though Rick was loud and a bit screechy.
Max sighed. “I understand that.” The second he got the message that the trader wanted Max to come without Rick, he knew it was going to cause drama. Maybe Rick had never joined the military, but he understood what it meant to have someone’s six.
“Dislike with very much vehemence,” Rick added. His outer tentacles were all curled up.
“I know that. But the trader is right. If I have an adult Hidden One with me, people will figure out that I’m lying.”
“No. You are not lying about creation of new weapon, so I can go with without fear of perception of lying.”
Max sighed. Rick was, in his own way, being sweet and protective and supportive, but this time he was also wrong. The trader understood intergalactic politics and psychology. At least, Max assumed he did because it matched what Max knew of greedy, selfish, soul-sucking human beings. “They will assume you did the work even though James and I worked together.”
“They are non-assuming with Xander, so they can non-assume with me.”
Max went back to packing the samples he planned to take with him. If nothing else, maybe they could get resources to replace the ones he and James had spent on making the prototypes. “Xander is a child.” And boy wasn’t that making Max feel guilty, but he needed help. Since Xander spoke English even without the translator, they could even use English like a secret decoder ring if Max turned off his computer translation program.
“My attendance is equality to Xander’s attendance. The people of the Hidden People do not have cognitively immature youth.”
“But the rest of the universe do,” Max said. “They will dismiss Xander as unimportant.”
“He is much very important!” Rick nearly bellowed.
Max whirled around to find a very curled up, angry ball of octopus near the foot of their bed. “Of course he is,” Max assured Rick. Abandoning his packing, he sat near Rick and