“I have a preference for seeing them,” Max said slowly. He carefully chose words he knew would be in the translation matrix.
Rick’s tentacles curled tighter. “Query. Reason for seeing offspring.”
“I don't know. So I know what they look like? I want to look at the children and see if they have your eyes.” Max leaned closer.
“They develop their own eyes. They will not require donation of mine.”
That had gone right over Rick's head. Max tried again. “I want to see how big the children are. I want to know what they look like. Human offspring have heads and eyes that are larger proportionally. We consider that combination of traits cute.”
“Query. Clarify cute.”
“Answer. Cute. Causing no harm. Attractive. Inspiring touch.” Max had grown strangely good at this game of trying to define things which should not require definition.
A few of Rick’s tentacles relaxed a little, but he still looked like a tense little ball of octopus. “All species find offspring of own cute. Humans, no will find my offspring cute.”
“Don't bet on it,” Max muttered before he organized his words more carefully. “Humans find many offspring cute. We find most offspring cute. Even when offspring are of dangerous predators, humans find them cute.”
“Predators are not cute.”
“Show me your children.”
Rick’s tentacles curled up again. The asshole thought Max would hurt them. Max took a step back and tried to rein in his anger. Whatever history Rick’s people had with the rest of the aliens, it wasn’t good. Hell, Max’s alien social worker had hated the idea of Max taking this job. So maybe the babies weren’t cute.
Another cramp hit Max’s side and he pressed his hand to it and groaned.
Rick darted closer, wrapping his tentacles around Max. “Yes. You see offspring. I check health of offspring and you see.”
The pain distracted Max, so Rick was urging him toward the exit before the words filtered down to the important parts of Max’s brain. He stopped and nearly pulled Rick off balance. For a second, Rick’s considerable weight leaned into Max before he righted himself. “We’re going to see the offspring?” Horror swept through Max. “Rick, where are your offspring?”
Rick tilted his head and considered Max out of another grouping of eyes. For a minute, they stared at each other. Then Rick’s tentacle slid over Max’s wet skin and curled over Max’s side. “Offspring here,” Rick said.
Fuck. Another cramp struck, and Max gritted his teeth.
“Come. Check health offspring and Max,” Rick said, and then he used considerable strength and more speed than Max realized he possessed to hurry Max toward the medical bay. The fucking alien had knocked Max up. Horror washed through him, and his memory provided a montage of chest-bursting aliens. However, Max couldn’t imagine Rick allowing his alien kids to kill him. He couldn’t. So the horror passed and a healthy dose of anger took its place. As soon as the pain was over, Max definitely would tie one of Rick’s tentacles into a knot. He just needed to figure out which tentacle had done the impregnating so he could damage the one that would hurt the most.
Chapter Seven
Max stared at the holographic image of his gut. Or more precisely, he stared at the three blobbish forms that lit up bright white on the scan. Triplets. He was carrying triplets. Fucking aliens. Max had grown to accept many things about aliens. They were illogical. Their ships were claustrophobic. They had a bad habit of putting tentacles where tentacles shouldn't be. But this was the peak of the creepy mountain. He had baby aliens in his gut.
“Offspring difficulty moving.” Rick hovered a tentacle near the largest of the three white blobs. The image enlarged, and Max got his first view of the actual alien child. He had his big head pointed up, but only a couple of his short, stubby tentacles pointed down. The rest were shoved in there next to his head, and as Max watched, the offspring wiggled, struggling to get a tentacle free. At the same time, a horrible cramp nearly doubled Max over. He drew his knees up and groaned. “Oh God. Oh God. That does not feel good.”
“Offspring turning. Offspring choice for making turn poor.”
Max corrected him. “Your offspring is making a poor choice. I agree with that.” Max took a deep breath as the pain faded. “He does not have room to be doing yoga.” Max wasn’t sure he had room to breathe, not that breathing would be a good choice for a creature living in someone’s intestines.
As Max watched the screen, the largest tentacles slipped free and eased down into the intestine under the head. Max collapsed back against the bed. “Okay. We need to talk about the word nanny.”
“You nanny in return for compensation,” Rick said quickly.
Max stared at the boring ceiling. That was much better than watching the alien lifeform on the scanner. He hadn’t grown into his tentacles yet, so he was all head and eyes. If the thing were anywhere other than Max’s lower intestinal tract, he would call it cute. “This is not nanny. Nanny is protecting offspring after they are born.”
Rick was silent for a long time before he said, “Query. Born?”
“Born. Clarification. Outside another’s body. Free in the world. Biologically independent.” Max was going to spend considerable time in the translation matrix making sure this mistake never, ever happened again.
Rick’s tentacles drew up. “You nanny for compensation,” he repeated.
Max groaned as a smaller cramp rolled through him. Two more small tentacles slipped free of the cramped space up next to the alien head. Now that the largest tentacle was free, apparently the kid would go back to causing normal cramps. Normal. Max needed his head examined if he thought any of this was normal. He probably did need a good examination and a short commitment to a nice place in the country for a “rest.”
“Offspring outside is a nanny. Offspring inside is surrogate,” Max explained in the simplest terms possible.
“Query. Surrogate?”
“This.” Max pointed to his belly and then he pointed to the bright image of the largest of the three children. “This is surrogacy. Your genetic offspring inside my body. Surrogate.”
Rick’s tentacles quivered and then drew up closer to his body. “Query. Correlation nanny and surrogate?”
“No correlation,” Max answered. If anything, he would think that a nanny wouldn’t want to be a surrogate because she would want to a connection with her child. But what the hell did Max know? Dark laughter bubbled up when he considered his last Facebook fight with this father. His father was ranting about some new court decision which had made abortion easier, and Max had told him that neither of them got to have an opinion on the matter until they got pregnant. That logic had gone in an unexpected direction now.
Rick's tentacles drew up even farther. The smallest ones were like little balls of tentacle with tiny fingers undulating madly. Max was fairly sure that meant he had an unhappy tentacle monster on his hands. Too fucking bad. If Max was unhappy, he wanted to share his general state of misery, and Rick was the available victim.
He couldn’t even go grab a beer and complain with his friends. His friends. That would be a fun conversation. Hey guys, guess what? I got knocked up by a tentacle monster! Yeah, that would go over great. Only about half of Max's friends even knew he was gay. Now he was gay and pregnant. Not cool.