“It would be handy, though,” Richard said distractedly. “You could load up on food and not have to stop work just because your stomach was calling.”
“This cereal is the best yet,” little Kepler said from the other end of the table. “I bet even Hercules would like it— ”
“Speaking of whom,” Max interrupted in a lower voice,
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glancing from one end of the table to the other, “what is his, or its, purpose? That damn octospider shows up every morning two hours after dawn and just hangs around. If the children are having school with Nai, he sits in the back of the room—”
“He plays with us, Uncle Max,” Galileo shouted. “Hercules is really a lot of fun. He does everything we ask. Yesterday he let me use the back of his head as a punching bag.”
“According to Archie,” Nicole said between bites, “Hercules is the official observer. The octospiders are curious about everything. They want to know all about us, even the most mundane details.”
“That’s great,” Max replied, “but we have a slight problem. When you and Ellie and Richard are gone, nobody here can understand what Hercules is saying. Oh, sure, Nai knows a few simple phrases, but nothing that’s involved. Yesterday, for example, while everyone else was taking the long nap, that damned Hercules followed me into the crapper. Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to do my business even with Eponine within earshot. With an alien staring at me from a few meters away, my sphincter was absolutely paralyzed.”
“Why didn’t you tell Hercules to go away?” Patrick said, laughing.
“I did,” Max answered. “But he just stared at me with fluid running around in his lens and kept repeating the same color pattern that was totally unintelligible to me.”
“Can you remember the pattern?” Ellie said. “Maybe I can tell you what Hercules was saying.”
“Hell, no, I can’t remember it,” Max replied. “Besides, it doesn’t make any difference now—I’m not sitting here trying to shit.”
The Watanabe twins broke into howls of laughter and Eponine frowned at her husband. Benjy, who had said very little during breakfast, asked to be excused.
“Are you all right, dear?” Nicole asked.
Benjy nodded and left die dining room in the direction of his bedroom.
“Does he know anything?” Nai said quietly.
Nicole shook her head quickly and turned to her granddaughter. “Are you finished with your breakfast, Nikki?”
“Yes, Nonni,” the little girl replied. She excused herself and moments later was joined by Kepler and Galileo.
“I think that Benjy knows more than any of us give him credit for,” Max said as soon as the children were gone.
“You could be right,” Nicole said softly. “But yesterday when I talked to him, I saw no indication that he—” Nicole stopped in midsentence and turned to Eponine. “By the way,” she said, “how are you feeling this morning?”
“Great,” Eponine replied. “The baby was very active before dawn. He kicked hard for almost an hour—I could even watch his feet moving around on my tummy. I tried to get Max to feel one of his kicks, but he was too squeamish.”
“Now, why do you call that baby ‘he,’ Frenchie, when you know damn well that I want a little girl who looks just like you.”
“I don’t believe you for a moment, Max Puckett,” Eponine interrupted. “You only say you want a girl so that you won’t be disappointed. Nothing would please you more than a boy you can raise to be your buddy. Besides, as you know, it’s customary in English to use the pronoun ‘he’ when the sex is not known or specified.”
“Which brings me to another question for our octospider ex-perts,” Max said after taking a sip of quasi-coffee. He glanced first at Ellie and then at Nicole. “Do either of you know what sex, if any, our octospider friends might be?” He laughed. “I certainly haven’t seen anything on their naked bodies that gives me a clue.”
Ellie shook her head. “I don’t really know, Max. Archie did tell me that Jamie is not his child, and not Dr. Blue’s either, at least not in the strictest biological sense.”
“So Jamie must be adopted,” Max said. “But is Archie the man and Dr. Blue the woman? Or vice versa? Or are our next-door neighbors a gay couple raising a child?”
“Maybe the octospiders don’t have what we call sex,” Patrick said.
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“Then where do new octospiders come from?” Max asked. “They certainly don’t just materialize out of thin air.”
“The octospiders are so advanced biologically,” Richard said, “they may have a reproduction process that would seem like magic to us.”
“I have asked Dr. Blue about their reproduction several times,” Nicole said. “He says it’s a complicated subject, especially since the octospiders are polymorphic, and that they’ll explain it to me after I understand the other aspects of their biology.”
“Now, if I were an octospider,” Max said with a grin, “I would want to be one of those fat slobs Nicole saw yesterday. Wouldn’t it be great if your only function in life was to eat and eat, storing food for all your brethren? What an existence! I knew a pig farmer’s son back in Arkansas who was like a re-plete. Only he kept all the food for himself. Wouldn’t even share it with the pigs. I think he weighed almost three hundred kilograms when he died at the age of thirty.”
Eponine finished her waffle. “Fat jokes in the presence of pregnant women show a lack of sensitivity,” she said, feigning indignation.
“Oh, shit, Ep,” Max replied, “you know that none of that crap applies anymore. We’re zoo animals here in the Emerald City, and we’re stuck with each other. Humans only worry about what they look like if they’re worried about being compared with someone else.”
Nai excused herself from the table. “I have a few more preparations to complete for today’s school lessons,” she said. “Nikki will be starting on consonant sounds—she has already breezed through the alphabet drills.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Max said. After Patrick left the dining room, leaving only the two couples and Ellie at the table, Max leaned forward with a mischievous smile on his face. “Are my eyes deceiving me,” he said, “or is young Patrick spending a lot more time with Nai than he did when we first arrived?” ^
“I think you’re right, Max,” Ellie said. “I have noticed the same thing. He told me he feels useful helping Nai with
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Benjy and the children. After all, you and Eponine are engrossed with each other and the baby that is coming, my time is completely occupied between Nikki and the octospiders, Mother and Father are always busy—”
“You’re missing the point, young lady,” Max said. “I’m wondering if we have another cup-el forming in our midst.”
“Patrick and Nai?” Richard asked, as if the idea had just occurred to him for the first time.
“Yes, dear,” Nicole said. She laughed. “Richard belongs to that category of genius with very selective observational skills. No detail from one of his projects, no matter how small, goes unnoticed. Yet he misses obvious changes in people’s behavior. I remember once in New Eden when Katie started wearing low-cut dresses—”
Nicole stopped herself. It was still difficult for her to talk about Katie without becoming emotional.
“Kepler and Galileo have both noticed that Patrick is around every day,” Eponine said. “Nai says that Galileo has become quite jealous.”
“And what does Nai say about Patrick’s attention?” Nicole asked. “Is she happy with it?”
“You know Nai,” Eponine replied. “Always gracious, always thinking of others. 1 think she’s concerned about how any possible relationship between Patrick and her might affect the twins.”
All eyes turned toward the visitor who appeared in the doorway. “Well, well. Good morning, Hercules,” Max said, standing up from his chair. “What a pleasant surprise! What can we do for you this morning?”
The octospider stepped into the dining room as the colors streamed around his head. “He says that he has come to help Richard with his automatic translator,” Ellie said. “Especially the parts outside our visible spectrum.”
2
N
Iicole was dreaming. She was also dancing to an African rhythm around a campfire in an Ivory Coast grove. Omeh was leading the dance. He was dressed in the green robe he had been wearing when he had come to visit her in Rome a few days before the launch of the Newton. All of her human friends in the Emerald City, plus their four closest octospider acquaintances, were also dancing in the circle around the campfire. Kepler and Galileo were fighting. Ellie and Nikki were holding hands. Hercules the octospider was dressed in a bright purple African costume. Eponine was very pregnant and heavy on her feet. Nicole heard her name being called from outside the circle. Was it Katie? Her heart raced as she strained to recognize the voice.