“One spawning fertilizes millions of eggs. The best will fight to survive.”
“Or is it just the lucky?” Kris asked.
Ron barked a laugh. “Oh, so you are one of those radical ones who question the workings of harmony and order.”
Kris had no idea she’d walked into an ongoing debate among the Iteeche. She held up both hands to claim innocent ignorance.
Ron laughed again. “Do not fear. I am not so sure the radical ones are not right. Spending time among you strange ones is giving me more questions . . . and my chooser says that I have always asked too many questions.”
“Honestly, I was not attempting sedition.”
Ron reached out and ran his hand through Kris’s hair. She found his touch surprising. Electric. She held her breath and tried not to shiver.
“I liked the first time I did that. You humans are so strange.”
Kris took a step back and settled cross-legged on the floor mats. She needed a distance between them until she could figure out the strange feeling he created in her.
He put down his paints, wiped his hands of one or two stray drips, and settled onto the bench a few feet from Kris.
“I cannot tell you how much you humans make me wonder about everything I know.”
“I didn’t think we had said all that much. All we talked about was the way our mutual war actually went. By the way, my great-grandfather did not disagree with anything we decided.”
“That is . . . interesting. So, where has your chooser sent you and us? I know we are under way again.”
“He asked me to help him solve a problem he has.”
“And so he sends you and me far away where we cannot foul his fins as he swims in troubled waters, huh?”
“That is pretty much it.”
“How does it come to happen that he has a problem for you to swim at just at the moment I and mine arrive? I thought all was going so well in the sea you humans swim in.”
“You must know that we are hiding a lot from you.”
Ron took in a deep breath. “Just as we are hiding much from you. Open your mouth, I want to see how big your teeth are.”
Now it was Kris’s turn to laugh. “You are a bit big for me to fillet.”
“In the war, we killed a lot of you, and you us.”
There was no way to joke about that. Suddenly serious, Kris shook her head in agreement. “So many died because we were ignorant of each other.”
“I wish you could spend a few seasons in the Palace of Learning. It’s not easy to learn how to be civilized when all you’ve known before was fleeing the bigger fish and eating the smaller fish.”
“I can’t go there, and you can’t go to my schools. And I assure you, though we are raised by our mothers and fathers who gave us life, it is still hard to teach our young the rules.”
“Oh, now shall we compete to see who was the most uncivilized in our youth?”
“No, no,” Kris said. “I was taught to fit into my own civilization. Being trained for a completely alien race must have been much harder for you. No, I have something better for us to do.” She pulled out the computer from her satchel.
“This is for you,” she said, handing it up to Ron.
“What is it?” he asked, then almost dropped it when it translated his question as quickly as Nelly did.
“It is your own computer and translator,” Kris said, and heard herself echoed twice.
“Nelly, let Ron’s computer do the talking. Holler if it gets something wrong.”
“Will do, Kris.”
“So,” Ron said, turning the machine over in his large hands. “You are not giving me something as smart as your Nelly?”
“I wouldn’t be that mean to you. No one should have to put up with Nelly’s arguing.”
“I resent that,” Nelly said in both tongues.
“Besides,” Ron said, “I know you humans are far ahead of we Iteeche in making tiny calculating machines, though your Nelly is a surprise for me.”
“You are a gentlemen and a scholar,” Nelly said, “unlike some, who never did get educated enough to be civilized.”
“Nelly, I know where that off button is.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Ladies, ladies, please. I have asked many questions and been patient when you deftly avoided them, but this bit of human handiwork excites me. What can I do with it?”
“Nelly, instruct the gentleman.”
“As you can see, the face of the computer is a reader. I have loaded a small portion of the ship’s database into it, and you can either read it or have it spoken to you in Iteeche. It’s on. Please feel free to page through the contents.”
Ron’s fingers were twice as thick as Kris’s. The old computer, though large to Kris’s eye, seemed suddenly diminished in his hand. Nevertheless, he used a finger on the screen to move through the available reading material.
“Oh ho, you give me Shakespeare. We have heard of him. Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing. Now there is a title that says something. Are they all here?”
“Yes. A professor I once had insisted that the mere reading of his work is an education in the human condition. I was too young to realize how right he was. Maybe I still am. Grampa Trouble says you should reread Shakespeare every ten years.”
“And you will see more each time. My chooser and your grampa Trouble have much in common.”
“For our sake, I’m glad each let the other one live.”
“Yes,” Ron said, and his eyes gleamed as he flipped through more of the information on his new and ancient computer. “So, is this all that I and mine will be allowed to see from your huge storage in the ship’s main computer?”
“No, there is more, if you want. Ask Nelly, and she will clear off what you’re done with and download more from the ship.”
“And if I don’t want to give up what I have, but want more?”
“Ah, Nelly, what about that?”
“That will be a problem, Kris. This is the oldest computer on the boat.”
“No dishonesty intended,” Kris said to Ron.
“None taken.”
“But its old age presents us with a problem,” Nelly said. “The cook only had one extended memory device, and there isn’t a similar device on the Wasp.”
“Could the scientists or Chief Beni knock something together?” Kris asked.
“They could, Kris, but they’d clearly be using more advanced technology to do that. They advise against doing that.”
“I’ll have to talk to them.”
“Kris, they aren’t going to budge. Take my word for it. Neither you nor even Cara could twist them around her little finger on this one.”
“I understand,” Ron said. “It was a long and bitter war.”
“However,” Nelly went on, “we are headed for Texarkana, and they are rumored to be even more backward than an Iteeche, if you’ll pardon me, sir.”
“Call someone as backward as a human some places, and you’re likely to get socked with four fists faster than you can blink four eyes,” Ron said.
“You think we can buy some memory cards for this computer there,” Kris said.
“That is the betting, the chief says.”
“Then, Ron, I will leave you and yours with the translator and its database. Nelly has put it on her comm net. If you need anything, just ask. But that leaves the boffins lurking at your door. If I’m showing you mine, I’d like to see yours.”
“Something tells me that that translates more than one way. Would you care to go for a swim with me, young lady?”
“Are you propositioning me, or do you really want to go swimming?”