Ralph gave a little chuckle. "Uh, thanks?"
"Oh, don't take it personally. Of course we value you as an individual. But you have to admit that your value to...well...all of humanity lies largely in what you've seen, what you've learned, what you know...and what we can see and learn and know from studying you."
Ralph had no problem with being an experiment. Of course not. It's exactly what he signed up for. Me? I was still trying to come to terms with it. "I have anomalies," I said.
Reginald didn't answer. Christophe looked at me for a moment before he did. "In all sincerity, Jake, we cannot know if your anomalous biology is a result of wormhole jumping, or simply an effect of having a life mostly in a low gravity situation. From fetus to seven, was it?"
"Was what?"
"The first time you set foot on a planet with gravity. Well, what we would consider real gravity, anyway."
"Yes, he was about seven." I looked at Ralph who was giving me that fatherly half smile. "I can't tell you how hard it was to rig up a space suit for him. And forget a TrekMan. The kid would have fallen out even if we could get him strapped into one leg like we tried. We tied him with belts right to Lance."
"You tied me to Dad?"
"You don't remember? Of course you do. It was the purple people planet."
Christophe quirked an eyebrow. "I don't remember anything in the reports talking about purple people."
"That's because they weren't really people. They were these long worm things," I said. "I didn't know that was the trip. I don't remember being strapped to Dad."
"You were little."
"Tell me about these purple worms."
Ralph told a scientific account, consisting of theoried evolutions, basic cell structure differences, moisture and solar accounts. All the boring things that Christophe ate up like protein mash after a trip soil-side. I prefer to remember it my way. Big purple worms crawled all over the landing site from under rocks that had blueish and greenish tints. It was so murky there that Mother was shocked there was life at all. I remember her going absolutely nuts gathering samples. I don't remember really what she was saying, but I know Mother and my memory fills in the possibilities. "Lance, can you believe the biometric impossibilities" and things like that. I just wanted to touch the purple squiggles. I remember that I couldn't. Now I realize that must have been the straps to Dad. Maybe they were poisonous, thinking back. I had a suit on, so I would have been alright. I just remember wanting to play with them. I wanted one and couldn't get it. And then when I cried to Dad about it later, he sang me an old song about purple people. Or something that ate purple people? I never really got it. I do remember.
"I didn't know you were a man of science, Christophe," Ralph said after Christophe asked a very geeky question.
"Christophe is a man of many talents," Reginald said. His eyes were twinkly. Ralph said later that it was because he drank all that alcohol. He seemed very happy and relaxed.
"So why are you the public relations head instead of a squeak?"
"I didn't qualify for the StarTech science program."
Ralph didn't know what to say. "Oh."
"My family couldn't afford it, and weren't willing to indenture me." He gave a small shrug. "What are you going to do, eh? So they handled my schooling enough to get me in the door in the public relations tech center. I worked my way up the old fashioned way. And now my position lets me sit in on any 'squeak' meeting, as you say."
"Nothing wrong with working your way up. I didn't get to be a sergeant in the army without a little work myself."
"Tell that to the squeaks," said Reginald almost bitterly.
"I take it they don't like a press-monkey playing at science?" asked Ralph.
It sounded rude, but Christophe didn't take it that way. In fact, he flashed a quick grin. "You could say that. But there's nothing they can do. There's only one person that outranks me, and he's given me carte blanche."
Reginald pointed to me. "Listen to that, kid. No matter what they say about me on Earth, I'm a fair boss. You do a good job, I give you your due."
Christophe called for Charles.
"Are we ready for dining?" said the bot.
"I think a little food would be wise." He stood and we followed. "This way, please. Reginald, leave the drink."
Reginald put his arm around my shoulders as we walked through a door and down another glass hallway. "I mean it, kid. I'm actually very good to my employees. I don't know why they hate me. My goddamned father, that's why!"
"Reginald, why don't you take the head chair," said Christophe as he smoothly guided Reginald's arm from around my shoulder and pointed him to the table.
It was beautiful. Everything was crystal and glittered like the sands on Purema, the world of crystal and lava Dad had us land on many times, even after it was discovered there was not even a bacteria on the entire small planet. Ralph must have been thinking the same thing.
"Take a holo for your dad of this place," he said.
Dad would love to eat his meals surrounded by crystal. I was glad Ralph told me I could take the pic. Dad would flip when he saw. If we could ever crack the fah'ti and send it, that was. Almost as soon as we sat, the food began.
I can't get used to this food. I have lived a life of different mashes derived from both the vegetation we grew and waste products that were purified, converted, and enhanced with vitamins. To Ralph and the rest of the crew, it was awful. A price to pay for space travel. But it's all I knew until I was allowed to eat some of the plants that grew on Laak'sa. Those we ate as a novelty. Something new and different. It was never our diet. Just a snack, as Ralph said. Now I had to eat all this food all the time. Real food that needs chewing all the time. Real food that is in no way digested like the mash. Half the pain of the first couple weeks here was my body learning how to constantly break down the chunks and try to pull nutrients from it. It was constant agony in the bathroom. I've adjusted, at least to that part.
They had me eating meat. That was the hardest adjustment. It was stringy. And tough. And if you didn't chew chew chew until your jaw ached, you wouldn't ever be able to swallow it right. Some meat was better than others. Jillian assured me that the meat on Earth was fresh, and much better. I didn't believe her until the dinner with Reginald and Christophe. We were served a pile of what looked like beef. I sighed and got ready for the chewing chewing chewing, but as soon as I put it in my mouth, I knew it was different from what I had been eating. It took almost nothing to chew it up. And it tasted...well...good. That was the first meal I'd ever had that tasted like I wanted more and more.
"Slow down, kid," Ralph said chuckling.
"This is great!" I was talking with my mouth full. I knew it was rude. "Can I have some more?"
Reginald laughed. "He's a born aristocrat! Charles! Hit us again!"
"...sir?"
"Another round of the tartare for our young friend."
"Yes, sir." The bot sounded grateful for the clarification.
"Don't be rude," Ralph hissed.
I swallowed. "I'm sorry. Thank you." Charles came in with another plate. "What is this called?"
"Tartare. It's uncooked beef in seasonings."
Uncooked. Raw meat. Raw animal? Ashnahta would have been beside herself with anger. But I couldn't stop eating it. After the second plate Ralph gave me the warning look again, so I didn't ask for another. But I'd remember tartare, and if I ever got the chance again, that's what I'd have. Other plates of food were brought, "courses" Ralph told me later, each with more and more different and delicious food. Most of it, anyway. Somewhere in there was a plate of something that looked like phlegm and was hard and rubbery. I ate a few bites to be polite enough to make up for my earlier rudeness, but when I noticed Ralph couldn't eat more than a few bites himself, I put my fork down as well and didn't feel bad.
"I've never been one for escargot either," whispered Reginald loudly.