Chapter 1 #2
I sighed, feeling bad for losing my temper like that.
Normally I was phenomenal under pressure, but I had spent too much time in a career with men who tried to use my talents as a stepping stool for their own success.
I couldn't compare this alien male to human men; it wasn't fair.
He didn't have the slightest control over his own life until Sara operated on him.
"Sherlock is a fictional character, an early human example of what we call an OP character, an overpowered one. He was clever, able to understand nuances of situations by noticing the small details of the environment around him, which led to him being exceptional at solving mysteries," I said.
"That is a good name," he said, giving a firm nod. "I will be Sherlock."
"Oh, ok," I said. I hadn't meant to name him. The other alien males had taken on names the women had given them, including one going by Big Guy because Andrea was not the sharpest cookie in the jar.
Though that thought was unfair, especially because of how quickly and efficiently Big Guy made her every whim manifest into reality.
She was smart enough to grab onto someone who was delighted to handle everything she didn't want to deal with in life, so I couldn't begrudge her that.
Intelligence wasn't a static element measurable by a single test. The only true marker of genuine intelligence was how a person handled what life put before them.
"You know, this moss reminds me of the episode where Garlithian goes to-" Sherlock began, clearly about to go full tilt into another monologue about his favorite show.
"I'd love to hear about your show in a moment," I interrupted.
The one thing I learned about working with men a lot was you had to interrupt them if they lacked social skills.
Being patient and gentle and waiting for them to notice they were being boorish wouldn't work at all.
Worst of all, they wouldn't respect you for it either.
"For right now, let's focus on cutting a strip of this turf to take to the ship," I finished. I hesitated, realizing I hadn't brought any tools with me, not even a bag like Saoirse's, stuffed full of random vegetation and fruit. "I don't suppose…"
"I have the right tool for that," he said, following where my thoughts were leading another time. He reached down to his belt and grabbed a small cylindrical device.
"Oh, good," I said, and sat back on my heels as he clicked the device and a small laser shot down into the turf, cutting a clean line in the ground. "While you work on that, I'll scan more things with the tricorder."
I held out my hand.
"What's a tricorder?" he asked as he paused his cutting to the small scanner in my hand. "This one doesn't have a screen; it transmits data directly."
"Directly to what?" I asked, not wanting to explain what a tricorder was as I might trigger another launch into a Garlithian story.
He stared at it for a long moment, completely silent. Right when I was about to speak up to ask what he was doing, he dropped it into my hand.
"I've recalibrated it to give a summary to the implant you have," he said. "I can have it read off the full reports if you want, but I assumed you would rather have a quick yes or no on what to take back to the ship."
That was thoughtful.
My mental image of him readjusted at the demonstration of this moment of thoughtfulness.
He wasn't asking what needed to be done or just watching as I worked on my task without asking to help; he just identified it and did it.
That's what I looked for when I hired for my restaurant: people who see what needs to be done and do it.
"You mean the translator implant?" I asked.
Not every woman that was in the cage when I woke up spoke English, but I could understand everything they said.
That and the exercise machinery in that room yelled at me if I didn't work out enough.
Lyssa said it still did that when she went back into that hellhole for her leg days.
I preferred to take long walks through the maze rather than go anywhere near that room ever again.
"Translation is the most basic of its functions," Sherlock said. "But you can call it that if you want."
I rose to my feet.
"Get one roll of turf into the collection bin in the airlock and report back to me for your next task," I said, eyeing the mutated kale.
I couldn't wait to get the safer plants into my kitchen and start working with them, though Sara insisted they would have to go through decontamination and be broken down into usable materials.
There had to be at least one ingredient I could use as-is without removing additional toxins or heavy metals.
All I had to do was find it.
"This is just like the episode where Garlithian has to infiltrate a penal colony and ends up being assigned to work on a farm where he meets the female of the episode who is regularly beaten to unconsciousness by the overseer for failing to meet quota," Sherlock said.
I crouched down in front of the kale, pointed the scanner at it, and didn't bother interrupting him this time. Now that we both had our tasks, I didn't mind the chatter. It was only a problem if it interrupted figuring out what to do next.
"If she is regularly beaten unconscious, how is she supposed to work and meet a quota?" I asked, engaging with him on what was clearly his favorite subject. "Sounds like bad management. Unhappy, stressed, and overworked employees cost more than they make."
Edible, with traces of arsenic. said a voice in my head.
"Exactly!" Sherlock said. "Garlithian ends up doing such a good job because of how motivated he is to help the female that he is promoted to the overseer's position, and those privileges allow him to sabotage the whole place and complete the job."
"What happens to the woman who was beaten?" I asked as I gave the kale a light tug, pleased when it came up easily, roots intact. It wasn't enough to just get material to work with; I needed a proper kitchen garden.
"The entire next episode is devoted to Garlithian helping her get home, which gets really complicated because…" he continued, and I listened as I pointed the scanner at the next plant.
I hadn't noticed any of the other alien males that Sara had rescued so far being chatty.
I wasn't expecting it from the silent hulk that had followed me out here onto the surface of this world, but it was pleasant, like listening to a video of someone explaining a plot of a movie I never wanted to watch while focusing on other work.
If I needed to focus, I could ignore him, and he went on without missing a beat, not requiring my undivided attention for his monologuing.
This was nice.
I glanced over to see him lifting a massive roll of turf onto his shoulder, his muscles flexing in the light of the red dwarf sun as he labored to gather new ingredients for me to experiment with.
This was really nice.