“Oh.” Max grimaced. Gravity trapped some cultures. “Are there large planets with big civilizations that can't get off?”
“Yes. They trade in information or communication. They send up ships too small for a pilot. Sometimes traders drop materials into gravity well. They do not travel space.”
“Okay. That makes sense. That also sort of sucks. My people have wanted to visit the stars ever since we looked up.” Max doubted that Rick had understood much of that, so he added. “My ancestors who could not yet make ships and rode horseback wanted to find a way into the stars.”
“Query. Clarify horseback.”
Max groaned and slid back into the water. His arms were turning to goose flesh in the chilly air anyway. Rather than swimming laps, he did a slow, modified backstroke, enough to keep himself warm. Rick swam next to him, his tentacles graceful in the water. “What about small planets? Shouldn't they be able to reach space easily? They would have light gravity.”
“Small planets lack metals of many electrons. They lack...” Rick's explanation devolved into whale song and belches. Whatever small planets lacked, it was more technical than anything Max had taught the computer to translate.
A cramp caught Max under his lowest rib and he rubbed his side as he floated in the water. “So are you saying that all space going species have roughly the same gravity?”
“Limited range, yes. All ships in space have creatures of comparable size and mass. Few outliers at extreme range.”
Max thought about the range of alien bodies he’d seen at the space port. He’d seen some that must have topped out at forty or fifty pounds, and others that would probably weigh several hundred if their mass/weight ratios were similar to humans. Now that Max thought about it, that was a limited range. Hell, adult humans had that much variety. The port had lacked any fairy- or dinosaur-sized aliens.
“If everyone evolved on planets with similar gravity, I guess that makes sense. Are there other similarities?”
Several of Rick’s tentacles brushed against Max’s leg and led certain of Max’s parts to pay entirely too much attention. Max made a mental detour into the land of Cornelius Stirk, the psychic cannibal who wanted to eat Batman’s heart, and that did the job. The touch of heat in Max’s cock vanished, leaving him nothing but gas to worry about. He should get out of the pool before he blew air bubbles of massive proportions and had to explain flatulence.
Rick answered. “All intelligent species have a central point for processing senses—a head. All intelligent life have tentacles.”
“Wait a minute.” Max flipped back over into a dog paddle. “I’m intelligent, and I don't have tentacles. In fact, a number of tentacle-less aliens were walking around that spaceport.”
Rick curled a long tentacle around Max's wrist, lifting it out of the water. “Tentacle,” he said.
“Correction. Clarify. Arm,” Max responded. Maybe the rest of the universe had tentacles, but red-blooded human beings wouldn’t appreciate that particular label.
“Tentacle with interior bone structure.”
Max considered that. Rick had a point. Unfortunately. “It resembles a tentacle,” Max compromised. He needed to spend some extra time with the translation matrix because if aliens ever bothered visiting the backwoods of Earth, earthlings would get a little cranky over the distinction. At least Americans would. Hell, Max had grown up around people who considered dark skin or sexual orientation tragedies worthy of wailing and a prayer group. Max didn’t even want to think how those people would handle tentacles.
Max gasped as another cramp hit.
Rick still had his tentacle curled around Max’s wrist, and he pulled their bodies together. “Query. Health?” Even with the translator, Rick’s bugling sounded worried. Max’s body chose that moment to cramp again, and this time Max let out a giant fart that bubbled up to the surface with a weird smell, like an eraser that had grown hot from too much scrubbing across the paper.
“Human digestive microbes create gas. It sometimes hurts. My health is fine.” Max tried to extricate himself from Rick’s tentacles. For every one he pulled free, another found a new place to latch onto. Max was not thinking about how the watery wrestling match was causing tentacles to brush over his cock, but he was insanely grateful for cold pool water.
“Query. Assist I in removing gas?”
Max did not even want to think about what Rick might do to get gas out of the intestines. However, whatever plan he came up with, Max preferred to stick with the tried and true method. A little fart party and he'd be fine. “No. It’s natural. I appreciate your concern, but I've been dealing with human intestines for a while. Sometimes it's best to let them be gassy.”
Rick swam toward the edge of the water, pulling Max with him. “Translation matrix failure.”
Max was not getting that message as often as he used to, but it was no less annoying. “I’m healthy. You don't have to worry about me so much. I'm not sure what assumptions you're making about humans, but we’re not fragile.”
Rick pushed him toward the edge and Max got his feet under him as another bout of gas tried to escape. With Rick guarding the water, Max decided to stage a retreat and find the nearest toilet. As he went for his shirt, Rick followed. “I respect human strength. I would not compensate you for offspring without evidence of human strength. I wish to check health.”
Max ignored the request for a checkup. The last thing he needed was a tentacle up his ass. Given the current state of his intestines, that introduced entirely too much opportunity for humiliation. So he changed the subject. “Oh? Are we talking about offspring?” This was the one subject Rick avoided. Most of the time, bringing up the offspring led to Rick’s quick retreat, which was evidence of trouble in his domestic life. However, this time Rick hovered near Max, even as Max headed for the door.
“Probability of healthy offspring is high.”
“Good. I'm glad to hear it.” That was more information than Rick had ever offered on his children up to this point. Max still didn't know how many Rick had, when the ship would pick them up, how old they were, how much care they would require, or even how many eyes they might have. But now he knew they were probably healthy. “When can I see them?”
“Most accepting compensation avoid seeing offspring.” Rick had several of his tentacles curled up.
Something was wrong. “That must make it awkward when they're supposed to take care of them.”
“Care does not require seeing.”
Max narrowed his eyes. If the translation matrix worked well enough for them to have a discussion of the comparative pros and cons of developing a civilization on a large planet, even if it was a rudimentary conversation, they should be able to discuss kids. In fact, Max knew for a fact he had done a whole translation unit on identifying family relationships.
The poor computer had glitched when Max had labeled large numbers of genetic relationships as simply “cousin.” He got the feeling that other species liked to have different words to suggest how much genetic material any two individuals shared. Despite once seeing an Internet chart that explained the difference between a third cousin twice removed and a second cousin three times removed, Max couldn't explain any of those more nuanced relationships. So once he got past grandparents, children, siblings and uncles, he pretty much called everything else cousin. Despite all of the time Max had invested in family dynamics, Rick still seemed unable to have a conversation about the children Max was supposed to care for.