Earth Husbands are Odd (Earth Fathers #2) - Lyn Gala Page 0,24

there is no territory to claim here.”

“Sure there is. Compensation is a form of territory. With more compensation, one may claim more ships and more land. Compensation is the core of territory. It is my desire to have a more stable territory with adequate fuel. That drives me to share my weapon design. My instinct says I should keep it to myself. After all, if no one else has my weapon, then I am unique and no one else can build a defense system against it.”

“That is a violent way of seeing the world,” one of the Pajekh said.

“I can be a violent man. I was chosen by my people as a defender. I was in a machine attempting to engage the Nish because of it. I was specifically chosen because of my accuracy in using weapons to kill others and I was trained to improve that skill.”

Another Pajekh pulled all his tentacles up under his pith helmet like a hermit crab pulling all the vulnerable bits into the shell. That was a rather unambiguous sign of distress.

“But I would rather sell my inventions. Fighting is never my first choice,” Max said before he freaked out the aliens any more. He wanted to be taken seriously, not to have everyone assume he was a psychopath. “But when I came to talk to Bundy here, I found out that you all assume that humans are morons, and that I was one more moron on the family tree.”

“I have not said that,” Carrington said. She drew up to her full eight feet and then did that neck fold trick to look him in the eye.

Max shrugged. “You’re thinking it loudly.” One alien twitched his tentacles and two more shrunk down the way Rick sometimes did when he was so upset the center tentacle curled. Maybe Max shouldn’t have made jokes about telepathy. However, stress had broken his humor button back when he had first joined the Air Force, and the assholes that ruled the universe were not going to improve his ability to control his mouth.

“Humans are morons,” an alien Max hadn’t seen before said. He resembled a fringed purse, complete with two impossibly long “arms” that could pass for the handle. But Max had never seen anyone with bad enough taste to carry goose poop-green accessories. “They have not yet achieved space flight.”

“Well, no. We haven’t.” Max had prepared an answer for this. “As near as I can figure, the dinosaurs were roaming the Earth when the rest of you found space. My people weren’t even on the horizon. So considering that we started the race after the rest of you had finished and left that part of the galaxy, I don’t think we’re doing so bad. We have, after all, visited other planets in our solar system.”

“Clarify dinosaurs,” the purse demanded.

“The dominant life form on the planet when your ancestors were still in that part of the universe. They were all killed by a meteor strike that damaged the environment and killed all large lifeforms.”

Carrington said, “Then the dinosaurs were the morons for not reaching space before the disaster. That is why reasonable species reach for outside their one planet. Accidents happen.” She sounded very proud of that proclamation.

“Well, not really. You see, there had been three or four extinction level events that had already destroyed the environment before that. Our planet is a dangerous neighborhood.” Max hadn’t thought about it before, but knowing that life had to keep restarting did make him wonder why people hadn’t panicked about having to reach space earlier. It shouldn’t have taken a high-speed Nish pursuit to convince people that the planet was fragile.

Now aliens were looking at each other and tapping away on computer pads. Max had stirred them up.

“Now maybe we can discuss your complete inefficiency at developing weapons,” Max said. “The wide scatter focus on the laser weapon that I confiscated off a certain Hunter that invaded my ship was completely inefficient. The targeting system is so inadequate that I couldn't fire from a distance at all, and even up close, it failed to adequately deliver the one thing I expect from a weapon—the ability to kill.”

Oh yeah, Cinnamon Carter had nothing on him.

Chapter Nine

Bundy waited until all the aliens had left before he said, “Humans might not be morons.”

“That is probably true,” Max said.

Xander made an amused burbling, but then he’d watched enough American television to know why Max felt the need to qualify that statement. After all, politicians were