“You must admit, pet, that we know a few more things about men than you do,” Gill said, smiling.
“Human men, yes, but Aari is Linyaari,” she said. “And we are friends. Nothing more.”
“Not-yet?” Gill asked.
“No, nor will we be until he’s-”
“Until he’^f ready, darlin’?” Gill pressed. “What about you? Are you going to crew on a salvage ship until the guy makes up his mind whether or not he could stand being mates with a beautiful, intelligent, funny, talented, warm, and loving girl? You must excuse us, but it’s a no-brainer. Which makes us wonder about how intelligent or warm he is.”
“Frankly, we thought you’d get snatched up by some young stud the minute you landed on your homeworld,” Calum said. “We’re a bit surprised at this turn of events.”
Acorna dimpled at them suddenly. “Is this one of those situations where you are going to ask me when I’m going to settle down and give you grandchildren?”
“Yes,” Rafik said, “Usually mothers do it, well, used to, but you have no mother and we weren’t sure your aunt would think of it, besides which she’s not around, is she? So we thought-that is, Calum and Gill thought-maybe between us, we should discuss this.”
“HaŁz started it, really,” Calum said. “Hey, we did pretty well, I think. Gill “was all for calling the guy outside and asking him what his intentions were when we saw how he-how you-how things were. But then we figured a guy -who tackled a Khieevi bare-handed might be the sensitive type, so we decided asking you-”
“Was safer,” Rafik finished with an impish grin.
Acorna laughed. “You’ve asked. We’ve discussed it,” she said, giving them each a hug. “And I have nothing more to say-honestly, there if nothing more to say right now. Meanwhile, when am I going to get to give my fathers away in marriage is what I’d like to know? Judit and Mercy will not wait forever while you busy yourselves speculating about my love life.”
“Actually,” Calum said. “We um, have an announcement to make. But I will wait until she can-”
The other two started thumping him on the back. Talk turned to how the nuptials were to be handled and then all of them began to feel the need to talk to their mates and Acorna slipped away, back to her assigned pavilion.
Maati was not there. Acorna thought perhaps the girl was spending more time with her parents. That was fine. It would be nice to be alone for a while. As light as she had made of her dear friends’ questions, they echoed questions in her own mind, and she didn’t want a youngling new to thought-speech to read her, even accidentally.
Du) she care for Aari simply because she had pitied him, or was there more to it than that? How would she know? She had never chosen a mate before. She knew her uncles had only her best interests at heart and it was quite true that she hadn’t noticed all that much difference between human and Linyaari males. And she felt, being raised by men, that she understood them as well as a female could. At this point in her life anyway. But she couldn’t say she understood Aari at all. She could read his mind when he let her and she knew he cared for her. She could empathize with his pain. But she hadn’t a clue why he behaved as he did. She wished Grandam Naadiina or Aunt Neeva “were here to consult with. She would have asked Gill, Calum, or Rafik about the matter but they seemed to be predisposed against Aari.
With a sigh, she settled down to an uneasy and dream-filled sleep in which she -was being courted by a Khieevi.
Aari, on the other hand, was getting no sleep, nor was he able to progress very far in the book he had chosen from the Condor’s ancient hardcopy library, a collection of ancient European literature by various authors. Aari was currently reading an excerpt from a play called Romeo am) Juliet by William Shakespeare. The language was not easy but Aari had read another book that referred to Shakespeare as inventing the language of love, so he thought it might be interesting to see what the Bard of Avon had to say. Although he could not imagine why a cosmetics firm from the twentieth century (the ship’s library also contained a number of small brightly colored pamphlets from this company) would choose to sponsor an ancient poet unless it -was because he “was also an actor and they, as Aari was learning, also used makeup.