Kit ducked into his puptent and pulled together a selection of snacks, avoiding the saltines, which really were seriously diminished; he was going to have to take inventory to see what he had left and start rationing them. Instead he fished out the box of Ritz crackers, along with some more of the spray-can cheese and a can of deviled ham and one of deviled chicken (so that he wouldn’t keep hearing his Mama yelling at him in his head, “Man is not meant to live on carbs alone, eat some protein!”). There was also some of the regular, plastic-wrapped sliced yellow cheese that his Mama sniffed at and pronounced “barely worthy of the name”. But Kit liked it, and it was protein, so for the time being he pulled out some slices of that too and decided to see what Cheleb and Djam made of it.
When he got out again, Djam already had his floating holographic screen display up and running, and had laid out some of his own homeworld’s food and drink. His people were essentially vegetarian as far as Kit could tell, and what he set out on a few hovering trays was a batch of strange-shaped fruits and giant berries and drupes patterned in a rainbow of colors, and slabs of processed fruit and vegetable snacks. There was also a large product-labeled jug of something that looked so much like Star Wars “blue milk” that Kit burst out laughing when he saw it. “Did you bring this out on purpose after yesterday? What is it?”
“Sekoldra juice,” Djam said. “Extremely healthy, or so my parents insist.”
“Any truth to rumor?” Cheleb said.
Djam shrugged. “Could be,” he said, “but I’d be slow to admit it. They run too much of my life as it is. No point in letting them think I agree with their food choices.”
The three of them laughed together, each after his or haes own fashion, and shared some of the blue milk, which Kit took to immediately. It tasted a lot like a Creamsicle might have if you melted it down, and had a slight fizz. “So, ready for more entertainment now?” Cheleb said as they pooled the rest of their various foods and started divvying them up.
“Absolutely. At the very least we can finish up the first trilogy,” Kit said. “…Though as I said, actually it’s the second. But it came out first.”
Cheleb threw haes arms up in a shrug-like gesture. “Temporal discontinuities,” hae said, “story of our lives for wizards. Got some questions before we start, though.”
“Sure, shoot,” Kit said, getting himself comfortable on the cushion he’d brought out to the Stone Throne and reaching for his manual to bring the streaming-video linkage up.
Cheleb gave him a bemused look. “With what? Not armed.”
“Sorry,” Kit said. He’d dropped into English for the moment. “It’s an idiom. Ask away.” He started pulling up the streaming-video settings on his manual so that Djam could screen the content from them as they had yesterday.
“Humanoid people we saw in first two entertainments yesterday,” Cheleb said, “main characters; some localized hominomorphism there perhaps? Guessing they’re based on some of your species’ major physical/gender arrangements.”
“Safe guess,” Kit said. He guessed that this was more of Cheleb’s ongoing inquiry into the biology of every species hae ran into. It had something to do with haes specialty, which was life-science based, Kit knew; but the small amount of research he’d done on it so far had just confused him.
“So,” Cheleb said. “Those were all ‘he’?”
“Well, not all. A lot of them.”
“But the Wookiee was one?” Djam said. He had taken an interest in the character and had started casually referring to him as his “counterpart.”
“Uh, he’s a male, yeah. Everybody calls him ‘he’, anyway.”
“And person we saw in white clothes all the time,” Cheleb said, “small one with hair like wheels in the first entertainment, arguing with vested fellow all the time—that was a ‘she’?”
“That’s right,” Kit said, wondering where this was going.
“Your errantry-partner also,” Cheleb said, “similarly a ‘she’?”
“Uh, yeah,” Kit said.
“Aha!” Cheleb said. “Thought so. Reminds me; meant to ask you. Conducted traditional fertility-confirmation ritual as yet?”
Kit stared at him, taken aback. “Sorry?”
“Impregnation,” Cheleb said. “You’re ‘he’, that one’s ‘she’, both well past latency now according to Knowledgebase, both of you entering prime fertility period, when does impregnation ritual happen?”
“Uh,” Kit said, as his brain more or less whited out. Immediately after that came the thought, I have got to keep Neets away from here somehow till I get this guy settled or we are going to have such a demonstration of Callahan’s Unfavorable Instigation…!
“Researched your species/culture in Knowledge last night,” said Cheleb with considerable relish, and exuding that particular kind of satisfaction that comes of having done your homework and of being absolutely ready to give a report on it. “Many highly nuanced traditions and rituals for such a simple sex/gender setup, most creative from culture to culture, all delightfully inventive.”
“What?”
“And all interleaving to greater or lesser extent with Earth-human fertilization procedure,” Cheleb said. “Some ambiguities in Knowledge material. Perhaps explain how works? Just highlights of course.”
“Uh,” Kit said again, as his brain threatened to overload again at the very thought of where even to begin such an explanation. And one not aimed at a three-year-old whom you could foist off with a vaguely third-person when-two-people-love-each-other-very-much explanation, either, but a curious fellow wizard who was going to want the details from an intelligent adult of another species. Just the highlights! All of a sudden the inside of Kit’s head sounded like the outline for a sex-ed course. Sperm, ova, gametes, zygotes, developmental stages, gestation, labor, childbirth, no, nope, no way! I have got to get him off this line of inquiry. Otherwise there’s going to be so much trouble.
And at the same time, backing completely away from the whole concept seemed somehow like cowardice. Also, Kit suspected it might just make Cheleb more eager to find out what was really going on. There has to be a way I can spoof haem into thinking hae’s found out everything he needs to. But somehow I’ve also got to do it without haem realizing hae’s being spoofed… and without fibbing. Lying in the Speech was, after all, even when possible, very, very unwise.
Yet Kit knew that if you were careful, it was possible to tell someone something in the Speech and allow them to draw the wrong conclusions from it… And all the wrong conclusions, I hope. Oh please.
He was well into several interminable seconds’ worth of desperate mental flailing among ineffective possible solutions when, completely without warning, the idea came to him—so quickly that at first Kit mistrusted it. But a moment later he found himself having to actually had to hold his face still to keep his jaw from dropping at how good the idea was. It could… It could just work.
Kit took a deep breath and said, “Well… let me tell you.”
He lowered his head conspiratorially close to Cheleb’s. “It just so happens there’s a really important ritual coming up shortly. We call it Valentine’s Day. And a lot of our kind feel it’s really important for two people who’re, you know, interested in each other to give each other special presents then. Otherwise there won’t be any…” He waggled his eyebrows at Cheleb, hoping the gesture would be read correctly. “Satisfaction.” He’d spent a few moments hunting around for a word in the Speech that would both accurately complete the sentence and yet have a completely different meaning from what Cheleb was considering… without seeming to.
“Truly,” Cheleb breathed, fascinated.
Kit grinned. “And we have these special tokens that we exchange…” He jumped up. “Wait, I’ll show you.”
He trotted across the stone circle, waved open the portal in the stone and headed into his puptent, where he spent a few moments digging hurriedly through his supplies until he finally found the little package that he’d thrown in here so casually while packing. Oh I am glad I brought this, so glad so glad so glad…