Chapter Two
The kids left him alone, but Dee tracked him down in the small workshop Max had claimed for himself.
It wasn’t as elaborate as Rick’s control room or as crowded with various bits and bobs of mysterious technology as James’s lab, but it was his.
Max was working on a new design for interior security locks when the door slid open for Dee.
Without preamble, she asked, “Can you explain what’s going on with James and Rick?”
“Nope,” Max said. He could have added more, but he lacked the energy.
He immediately regretted it because Dee seemed offended. “I suppose it’s a family secret,” she said with a touch of bitterness.
“If it is, no one has let me in on the secret,” Max explained. “Rick won’t tell me anything about his family.”
The aggravation on Dee’s face vanished, replaced by confusion. “What? Rick tells you everything. Over the dinner table, Rick complements your asymmetrical intestines. I didn’t think Rick had any personal boundaries.”
Max snorted. “You’d be amazed at how many times my asymmetrical intestines get brought up.
He is also fond of the placement of my heart and irregular human eyes.
” As much as Max appreciated having an expressive husband who was comfortable giving compliments, what Rick chose to complement was. .. odd.
“Eyes are irregular?”
Max shrugged. “Apparently the color is unevenly streaked. Rick likes to flatter me, but humans are too symmetrical for traditional compliments about the size, shape and placement of my many eyes. And I lack the handsome red tips of the best tentacles.” He wiggled his fingers, which Rick still had a habit of calling boned tentacles.
“Don’t kid yourself. Rick thinks you’re perfect. But why is he so tight-lipped. Is there something dangerous on the Hidden planet?”
Max rolled away from the designs laid out on his desk. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
She frowned. “What do we know about the political situation? Are there civil wars? Is the planet unstable and their sun about to go supernova leading to us being turned into a cinder? I’m reaching for science fiction plots here, but there has to be some reason why Rick is being so weird, even for Rick. ”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a family issue.”
Dee wrinkled her nose. “So you have shitty in-laws? Welcome to the club. My mother-in-law refuses to eat anything I cook. She says it tastes like jet fuel, probably because she hates my job. That’s not a reason to panic.”
Again, Max shrugged. “I genuinely don’t know.”
“Do the kids know?”
“Not a chance. Kohei is picking up on his father’s discomfort, and Xander realized today that Kohei and I were both trying to convince Rick not to land.”
Dee threw her hands in the air in unvarnished frustration. “Why does James get to outvote everyone? Why didn’t you tell me there was a problem with Rick’s family before I volunteered to postpone the trip to Earth? Why do I feel like we’re walking onto a battle ground?”
Max leaned back in his chair and stretched his spine. “James wants to swim on his home planet, and Rick is determined to be a perfect father.”
“That’s a disaster in the making. He does realize by definition all parents suck, right? I mean, even wonderful parents objectively suck a large percentage of the time.” Dee’s expression twisted.
“I’ve tried to tell him. He’s the good parent; I’m the one who sucks.
I set up James and Xander to resent each other because I spent so much time with Xander when he was born premature.
Then I spent so much time with James to fix it.
And I’m pretty sure Kohei only tolerates me.
” Max was carrying more than fifty percent of his parental load on the sucking front.
“At least you’re parenting them. I’m not sure Rick does anything to interact with the kids.”
“For Hidden ones, that’s desirable. Kids are supposed to independently explore the world.
Parents protect them from life-threatening dangers and provide educational materials, but for Hidden ones, parenting is getting out of the kids’ way.
And that’s why Rick won’t say no. If James wants to explore, then in Rick’s Ward Cleaver ‘perfect father’ universe, he has to make that happen. ”
Dee sat backwards on a second chair, straddling the narrow back.
“Ward Cleaver? Really? Can’t you at least find a more modern example of fatherhood?
I don’t trust people who never lose their temper.
That family is creepy.” She shuddered. “So, what contingency plans do we have if everything goes FUBAR?”
“What do you mean?”
“Escape plans if you do something illegally stupid again.”
Max narrowed his eyes. “Are we going to ignore the fact I never would’ve been arrested if you hadn’t given Carrington information on human technological levels?”
“Only if you ignore the fact you were trying to pull a con. And actually, I might’ve supported you, but you didn’t even tell me what you were doing. I couldn’t afford to turn down a job.”
She had a point. Max had lucked out with a social worker who had helped him find a good job. She had some schmuck who had shoved her in front of the computer before disappearing. Lazy public sector workers were ubiquitous. He had evidence now. “We should talk to Xander and Kohei about any plans.”
She hesitated before answering. “I hate the idea of pulling your children into this discussion.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I get it. They’re not even two years old. They should be babbling and learning how to walk, but they’re Hidden one children, and they have grown up watching educational videos about their home planet. If we need to make contingency plans, we should involve them.”
“And not Rick?” Dee asked after an awkward silence.
Guilt clawed up Max’s spine. “I would love to include Rick, but every time I mention his family, he runs off to repair some imaginary damage. If I push too hard, he’ll crawl into an alien version of a spacesuit and hammer the rivets on the outside the ship.
Rick’s people are called Hidden ones because their first reaction to danger is to hide. ”
“Do you think there’s physical danger?” Until now Dee had projected aggravation and annoyance, but her fear was now on display. They were two humans alone in a universe that wasn’t designed for them, and she didn’t even have the benefit of having an alien family.
“Rick wouldn’t land the ship if there were real danger,” he assured her. “He would cut off his own tentacles before endangering the kids.”
Max should stop there. He was pretty sure there was something in the Husband Handbook about having each other’s backs and never sharing embarrassing stories about each other.
And he always swore to himself he would live by his own internal Good Husband Handbook when he got married, but Dee deserved to have all the information.
“But he sucks at threat assessment. When Rick was finishing the navigation program we sold, the proximity alert alarm kept going off. He didn’t immediately see the pirate ship on radar, so he assumed it was a malfunction.
” Max took a deep breath before admitting, “He turned off the alarms. That’s how we got boarded right after the kids were born. ”
Dee stared at him.
Max stared back.
Eventually she tangled her fingers in her tightly curled hair. “Your husband is a moron,” she announced.
“My husband is brilliant. He’s kind. He’s thoughtful and funny and patient. But yes, he is slightly a moron. Rick not seeing potential danger is not the same as us being safe.”
Dee sagged. “Well shit. If things go as FUBAR like on the last planet...”
“You have to admit, that ended well. You got reparations for being isolated, Rick’s people got relabeled as Hidden ones and the rest of the universe learned to respect that Rick, and his species, has some mad programming skills. That’s not a bad outcome.”
Dee stared at the ceiling before turning a withering glare on him. “And humans are now officially listed as Unbalanced ones because every time someone insults your husband or children you go a bit psychotic.”
He had stomped a lot of tentacles. “I’ll send a request for Xander and Kohei.
But honestly, we’re probably being paranoid.
I’m sure this is a family issue and it will turn out Rick is trying to avoid me being dragged to family dinner where I’ll be regaled with stories of his exes.
” Max winced as he thought about what that would be like.
He continued in a much whinier voice, “I don’t want to hear about my husband’s exes. ”
“Better safe than sorry, so call your kids,” Dee said without any sympathy.