"We assumed that was why you had us stay with him," Hickory said.
"Well, yeah," I said. "But if I knew he was a general, maybe I wouldn't have given him such a hard time." I pointed to my parents. "I don't want them getting any grief because I thought it would be fun to mess with this guy's head."
"I think someone of his rank would not come all this way to be deterred by you," Hickory said.
A list of snappy retorts popped in my head, begging to be used. I ignored them all. "You think he's here on some serious mission?" I asked.
"He is a general," Hickory said. "And he is here."
I looked back through the binoculars again. General Rybicki - as I now knew him - had turned just a bit, and I could see his face a little more clearly. He was talking to Jane, but then turned a bit to say something to Dad. I lingered on Mom for a minute. Her face was locked up tight; whatever was going on, she wasn't very happy about it.
Mom turned her head a bit and suddenly she was looking directly at me, like she knew I was watching her.
"How does she do that?" I said. When Jane was Special Forces, she had a body that was even more genetically modified than the ones regular soldiers got. But like Dad, when she left the service, she got put into a normal human body. She's not superhuman anymore. She's just scary observant. Which is close to the same thing. I didn't get away with much of anything growing up.
Her attention turned back to General Rybicki, who was addressing her again. I looked up at Hickory. "What I want to know is why they're talking in the sorghum field," I said.
"General Rybicki asked your parents if there was someplace they could speak in private," Hickory said. "He indicated in particular that he wanted to speak away from Dickory and me."
"Were you recording when you were with him?" I asked. Hickory and Dickory had recording devices in their collars that recorded sounds, images and emotional data. Those recordings were sent back to other Obin, so they could experience what it's like to have quality time with me. Odd? Yes. Intrusive? Sometimes, but not usually. Unless I start thinking about it, and then I focus on the fact that, why yes, an entire alien race got to experience my puberty through the eyes of Hickory and Dickory. There's nothing like sharing menarche with a billion hermaphrodites. I think it was everyone's first time.
"We were not recording with him," Hickory said.
"Okay, good," I said.
"I'm recording now," Hickory said.
"Oh. Well, I'm not sure you should be," I said, waving out toward my parents. "I don't want them getting in trouble."
"This is allowed under our treaty with your government," Hickory said. "We're allowed to record all you allow us to record, and to report everything that we experience. My government knew that General Rybicki had visited the moment Dickory and I sent our data query. If General Rybicki wanted his visit to remain secret, he should have met your parents elsewhere."
I chose not to dwell on the fact that significant portions of my life were subject to treaty negotiation. "I don't think he knew you were here," I said. "He seemed surprised when I sicced you on him."
"His ignorance of us or of the Obin treaty with the Colonial Union is not our problem," Hickory said.
"I guess not," I said, a little out of sorts.
"Would you like me to stop recording?" Hickory asked. I could hear the tremble on the edge of its voice. If I wasn't careful about how I showed my annoyance I could send Hickory into an emotional cascade. Then it'd have what amounted to a temporary nervous breakdown right there on the roof. That'd be no good. He could fall off and snap his snaky little neck.
"It's fine," I said, and I tried to sound more conciliatory than I really felt. "It's too late now anyway." Hickory visibly relaxed; I held in a sigh and gazed down at my shoes.
"They're coming back to the house," Hickory said, and motioned toward my parents. I followed its hand; my parents and General Rybicki were indeed heading back our way. I thought about going back into the house but then I saw Mom look directly at me, again. Yup, she'd seen me earlier. The chances were pretty good she