Earth Husbands are Odd (Earth Fathers #2) - Lyn Gala Page 0,49

to run. That sounds like danger, and as someone who was stationed very briefly in a war zone, I know what danger sounds like.”

“No one was shooting or threatening to shoot.” Dee grimaced. “I might have overreacted, but I had a gut feeling.”

Given that they were under guard and walking toward the city center like the universe’s slowest, saddest parade, her gut was in good working order.

“An alien I was working with showed me a new program, and it had weird-ass mathematical symbols. When I asked the computer to clarify them, I got back essentially gobbledygook. I told them the math didn’t exist on Earth.”

Max already knew that much. Even when Rick tried to explain in simple terms, all Max ever got was belches and whale song and aspersions about human intelligence in general, which Rick would then immediately follow up by repeatedly saying that Max was a not-moron, even if his species couldn’t find space with a dozen tentacles. “That doesn’t explain why you believed I was in danger.”

“One of the aliens turned to another, and said, ‘I knew it. Go tell him before the human leaves the ship.’”

Well, that ended any lingering hope that this was a big misunderstanding fueled by alien confusion over why Max had tried running. Now he needed to figure out how to minimize the legal liability.

He hoped aliens had some version of Miranda rights. After all, they did have some sense of justice as evidenced by the fact that they had given him a social worker of sorts. But that sense of justice was limited. Dee had been on the same ship with him, and they had never seen each other. That had been a dick move on the crew’s part. Serious dick move, and Dee had suffered for that way more than Max. It wasn’t lost on him that she wasn’t even trying to name aliens or have relationships with individuals.

And then there was the whole shady habit of discriminating against Hidden ones. The universe had no problem screwing people over on a monumental scale. And since Max allied himself with Hidden ones, he suspected some of the perceived cooties were going to land on him. That was the way it worked in racist societies. Straight people could love the Queer Eye guys and tell people to sashay away without any repercussions, but gay guys were effeminate or flaming or shoving their sexuality in other people’s faces if they did the same damn things. Sentient life sucked. The longer Max lived, the more he joined team Thanos.

“Don't say anything to anyone until we figure out what the legal recourse is,” Max whispered as he spotted uniformed aliens standing outside a building that had impractical spires and fantastical angles.

Her eyebrows went up. “Legal recourse?” She leaned closer. “What the hell are you involved with?”

“Nothing unethical.” He couldn't claim nothing illegal since he didn’t know the wider universe’s views on running cons. If they were on Earth, nothing he had done would be illegal. Of course, given that Nathan Ford would have approved of these schemes, there was an implication that he was skirting the edges of the law a bit. He was about to find out how this part of the universe viewed scofflaws.

“Great,” Dee muttered sarcastically.

The guards ushered them up a set of shallow steps toward a metallic blue building. Max couldn’t have agreed with her more.

Chapter Eighteen

Max paced the length of the narrow room where he'd been placed. Compared to a spaceship, it was downright palatial; however, he still didn't have room to do more than pace twelve steps in one direction before he had to turn and pace the same twelve steps back.

A narrow slot window gave him a view of most of the sprawling city, but they were up high enough that Max couldn’t see any detail. Even the ships were tiny models fit only for grasshoppers and ants, that was how far up he was. The misty clouds were a beauty filter over the entire sprawling metropolis.

Cables ran from one tower to another, and small cars zipped along. Max suspected they were as much to support the great heights of the inner towers as to provide transportation for people who didn't feel like going down a mile to the ground to walk a few hundred feet and then go another mile up into the air. He might be exaggerating with a mile, but it felt like it.

On the good side, he had finally seen what he thought was