Earth Husbands are Odd (Earth Fathers #2) - Lyn Gala Page 0,42

of curly fry and stiff outrage.

“We’re going to go for a walk and talk,” Max said. “Go back and check with your brother.”

Kohei placed two tentacle tips against Max’s leg. “It’s fine,” Max promised. “Go back inside.” Kohei’s tentacles pulled up a little tighter, but he did turn back toward the elevator, and Max headed out of the ship. Only then did it occur to him that he wasn’t armed. The news of a human visitor had knocked the common sense out of him. Well, they didn’t have to go far, and if Max knew his family—and he did—they would be watching as long as he was in sight of the cameras. But the cultural taboo against listening in public would come in handy because Dee was about to say some heinous shit. He could tell from her expression.

In the air, she was focused, aggressive, direct. And that tended to be her conversational style, too. When she looked up from her book, she was grotesquely honest. They called her Ditzy because she was the polar opposite of that term.

“Let’s go lean awkwardly against the informational kiosk,” he suggested. Names, mass transit, and chairs. Aliens didn’t know what they were missing.

Dee chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve spent lots of time wandering the streets, and I haven’t yet found a decent place to sit. Do you think they do that to prevent people from congregating?”

“Or tentacles don’t get tired like boned tentacles do.”

“Boned tentacles. Yeah. I’ve heard that one.” She leaned against the kiosk Max had pointed out and stared at Rick’s ship. Max cleared his throat and tried to compose his thoughts. He thought it was hard communicating with aliens, but humans left him equally tongue-tied.

“Hey, I get it,” she said. “You do what you have to do. Isn’t that what they taught us in those survival classes? I’m not judging.”

Funny. Her promise not to judge made him feel pretty damn judged. “When I took the job, the translator said I would be a nanny.”

She snorted.

“It was the only job that paid enough that I would have some hope of getting home.”

Her face contorted. “Yeah.” Her sigh was soul-deep. “I would have taken the job, too. Up until two days ago, I was working as a translator for pennies. Of course, that was before I was told the work was no longer necessary because someone had a much more complete human translation interface than the sad attempt I had made. Now I’ll have to find another crap job. If someone told me that I could get home by acting as a surrogate for one of those parasites, I would have.”

The word hit Max like a punch. “Whoa. Rick and the kids are not parasites.”

Dee’s expression turned slightly pitying. “They lay eggs in the bodies of other animals. I'm fairly sure that's the technical definition of parasite.”

“They ask before laying eggs and pay quite well. Humans hire surrogates all the time. Are we parasites?”

“Um, we have the ability to have our own children. The Uglies literally can't give birth to their own children. And if one wanted to have a child and couldn’t pay a surrogate, don’t you think they would put their eggs in someone anyway? In fact, as I understand it on their home planet they raise animals specifically for the purpose of carrying their young.”

Max crossed his arms over his chest. “As I understand it,” he said, mirroring her words, “humans raise animals for the sole purpose of killing them, ripping their bodies apart, and then eating pieces.”

She had the grace to look chagrined. “That does sound bad.”

“I'm fairly sure that every sentient species is going to sound psychopathic if you describe them honestly enough.” That did not say good things about the nature of sentient life, but Max was pretty sure he was right. Maybe it took a certain level of aggression to reach space. But of all the species Max had read about, the Hidden ones were the least psychotic of the bunch. Either that or Rick was hiding the really embarrassing informational tapes.

“Okay, okay. I am working on the required mental adjustments here,” she promised. “They’re sort of creepy. I mean, if you have one, it can have sex with itself and then drop hundreds of eggs in hundreds of different animals and the next thing you know, the planet is buried in Ug— Hidden ones.”

“Have they done that?” Nothing in Rick’s nature suggested that he would shove eggs into an animal and walk away. He had hovered