Earth Husbands are Odd (Earth Fathers #2) - Lyn Gala Page 0,58
main room.
The judge shouted. “We will discuss questions of husbanding.” The high-tone cut through Max’s head.
“I need to check on Dee,” Max said firmly.
“I’m here.” Dee came out of the cell that was opposite the exit. A few of the aliens around Bundy turned toward them, but then Bundy left and his entourage followed. Dee walked over, stopping several feet away. “I’m fine.”
The judge came striding up the aisle with a rolling gait similar to a human. Funny, but the two-legged walk looked strange after months of watching Rick and the kids glide about on their walking tentacles. The judge trumpeted. “I require clarification.” And here the rest of the universe complained about Rick’s people being too loud. Pot and kettle. Pot and high-pitched, annoying kettle.
“About husbanding. Right. Okay, ask away.” Maybe relief was making Max a little punch-drunk because that was not the way to address a judge, not even an alien one. The Chosen judge pushed his lips forward so that his line of nostrils all opened into teardrop shapes. After a second, the face relaxed again.
“I require clarification of human social structure. Are humans required of groups?”
The business translator made language a lot clearer, but the judge had a stilted, wrong quality to his language, even with the improved translation.
Max answered. “Humans do require some sort of social connections. Sometimes they live in isolation, but usually they will have one person they pair bond with or one family member. People who live completely isolated usually end up odd.”
Dee snorted. “They end up insane,” she corrected him. “It damages their brains.” She tapped the side of her head. Given that Dee had been the one abandoned on the planet, Max had avoided saying that. Dee shook her head. “I should have been able to follow his math on those weapons modifications. I have the same background. But I couldn’t. But that’s not evidence that Max didn’t do the work. We were both working on a translation interface, but Max got ten times farther than I did in the same amount of time. And the longer I was alone, the worse my productivity got.”
The judge studied Dee and Max. “Both humans were isolated.”
“No,” Dee said. She smiled at Max before she gave Rick a fond look. “Max had a husband and children. He is a lucky man.”
Max pulled Rick closer. “I am.”
“Gregariousness can include species not human?” the judge asked. “Odd.”
“Humans are odd,” Kohei oh-so-helpfully added. The judge ignored him.
“Why did you not seek gregarious group?” the judge asked Dee.
“Because no one would talk to me,” she said. “I tried to get to know a few of the people who lived in the same area, but they ignored me.”
Max remembered how much it had hurt when he had thought Rick’s friendship wasn’t real. The sense of loss and the loneliness had nearly eaten him alive. A day of that had nearly broken him. She’d been alone the whole time. “God, Dee, I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s not like you abandoned me. Hell, I walked away from you to take the job with Carrington because I believed all that shit about Hidden ones being parasites. The last I checked, parasites don’t risk coming to court to defend their families. Rick, I’m sorry I listened to these assholes.”
Rick loosened his hold of Max’s arm enough to rotate.
Dee continued while Rick was still rotating back and forth. “I should turn in my POC card. I mean, I know what it’s like to have people judge me because of the color of my skin, and I go making assumptions about other people because of where they have their eyes. I am a horrible human being.”
Max hated the disgust he heard in her voice. She was a damn good pilot and a good person. Some of the guys from the unit—Max wouldn’t want to spend time with them. But Dee was kind and quiet and she would laugh with people without laughing at them. “I probably would have believed what people told me if the translator had worked well enough for my social worker to say anything other than Rick’s people were loud and unpopular,” Max told her. But he didn’t want to go further into the topic of discrimination in front of a judge. This might not have been a trial, but important rulings still had to get made.
He turned to the judge. “Can I sell the navigation program or not?” Maybe his con had backfired a bit, but he still wanted to