Getting off of Temura had been a whirlwind, as we’d grabbed Hirri and bolted out to a waiting vehicle. The car sped off to the landing pad to retrieve our spaceship; I wondered whether we should try to rescue more civilians. Back at the resort, Vanare had seemed distraught about leaving his family and panicked about being carried on foot at such high speeds. I felt a little bad for the chef, noticing that he was frantically texting again. It was already going to be a tight fit, but surely we could squeeze in a few more tiny birds? However, this wasn’t the only craft on the planet, and I was in a bit of a hurry.

  Suffice to say, the running and the spicy food pushed me to some hasty bathroom trips once we got to the spacecraft. We should not have gone running at those speeds right after eating those firebombs. Once the urgency of my internal processes was addressed, I could turn my attention to the frightened birds. I didn’t want anything to happen to the Derandi. It was obvious they didn’t believe that we sought an honest friendship.

  I saw some explosions in the distance, and I’m hopeful Larimak will get his ass beat just like at Jorlen. We did the right thing to save these Derandi civilians, I hope. Jetti and Vanare are petrified of us, but we couldn’t just leave a mother and a sick child, as well as a culinary mastermind and loving father, behind.

  I hoped this wasn’t humanity’s future: aliens being afraid of us like a coffee barista listening to a customer order a half-soy, half-nightshade milk macchiato with twenty pumps of low-fat syrup and fifteen shots of espresso put into whipped cream, shaken but not stirred. We were not all maniacs to be appeased.

  “No, no.” Vanare stared at the faint orange flashes from the system’s fringes, which I suspected were from Larimak’s weaponry; at least the incendiary strikes were far off from the planet’s circumference. “I cannot bear not knowing what’s happening to my wife and children. Why take me away? Why did you do this?”

  Sofia bit her lower lip. “We just tried to save the people in our immediate vicinity. You can trust humans to protect the Derandi with all of our hearts. I was horrified that Larimak threatened Jetti for the crime of hearing us out.”

  “Why would you care at all? You’ve been to Temura once! You are…above us.”

  “If you knew how we thought about you, finding aliens in general, you wouldn’t say this. We have so much to learn and share with you. Humanity has been alone while you’ve had all of Caelum; you’ve seen so much. Everything we knew a year ago was erroneous and wrong. You are above us in knowledge of many things, and that…is humbling.”

  “To some people,” I remarked. “We are pretty cool. We have lovely inventions like pepper spray; we could put some Derandi chilies in a Sol bottle, and squirt it right in Larimak’s eyes from the fifty-yard line. It’ll go super far, because physics or some bullshit.”

  Sofia rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to reassure Vanare. I don’t like this line of thinking: us as superior beings.”

  “Superior to Mikri the dunce: I mean, you’re already smarter than the tin can, Vanare. I can’t believe his cap got destroyed while we were running!”

  “You think this is time for nonsense and jokes?” the Derandi spat bitterly.

  “When life is at its most silly and unfair, that’s the perfect time to laugh in its face; to choose to be upbeat in spite of everything. And look, if we didn’t care about the lives of an entire civilization on Temura, we’d be sociopaths. I know we’re friends with robots, but do we really come off as that robotic to you?”

  “No, but your bodies…”

  “Baked in a different oven. You get cooking metaphors. I’m confident that it all will be okay. If you want to think of humanity as above someone, think of our military as sixty-nine infinities above Larimak’s bitchass ships. I took down one of ‘em with my bare hands—hell, a Sol fly swatter could probably bat them down.”

  Vanare gave me a blank stare. “You did what?!”

  “That did actually happen, and it went to his head,” Sofia sighed. “You know intuitively who has the best chance at thwarting this attack. We went to war to save our first friend, and we’ll go the same lengths for the Derandi. There’s no need to fear us.”

  “Believe that we’ve got you, and there’s nothing to worry about for your loved ones. Channel positivity. Mikri often says shit like, ‘It’s illogical to hold a belief without any evidence to support it.’” I gestured with a thumb toward the android’s seat, and noticed he was leaning back against the window—far enough that his mane was pressed to the pane. “The inverse is true. You have plenty of evidence to support our power level and our concern for your welfare. Therefore, it’s logical to believe Temura is safe.”

  “You want to spit out arguments like an AI? Then why did we take off running from the planet?”

  “Because Anpero was just overly cautious, and wanted us out of harm’s way because he feared what would happen if we died,” Sofia answered for me. “If any bombs did get through, the first targets are the government, and anywhere they heard humans were. You’d have been in danger. There’s nothing you or we could’ve done for your family, but your kids want Daddy to be safe. To come back to them.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, and you’ll know everything we know, once we get in touch with our people. You won’t be left in the dark.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I’ve always been proud of my success, my cooking shows, living in a thriving democracy and rising to the top. I had everything I wanted,” Vanare said. “My deepest fear isn’t even what you dimension-hoppers could do to us, but losing all of that. Without what I left behind on Temura, I am nothing.”

  Sofia fixed him with a stern look. “You are the person who achieved all of that. Your skill spoke for itself at the banquet. You’ll never be nothing.”

  “Just like if you took away her mumbojumbo degrees, Fifi would still be drawing diagrams and selling dimensional DLCs to our military generals. You can’t fix terminal nerditis,” I sighed, with a disapproving head shake. “Even Mikri can’t cure it; that’s why he’s not even researching it.”

  “I figured out how the portals work. You could acknowledge that’s at least half as badass as you KO’ing that spaceship.”

  “But it’s not.” I noticed that Mikri was curling into a ball, wrapping his arms tightly around himself, and felt immediate worry. I thought he’d be less stressed, since we actually got out of harm’s way in advance this time. “The tin can looks constipated. I’m going to check on him.”

  I tiptoed past a snoozing Jetti, who had been exhausted after a day quaking in terror of humans. Despite the fact that I’d rested during my spa treatment, my own brain was starting to get a bit fogged by tiredness. I didn’t dare to sleep around the Derandi though, for fear that I might terrify them with collateral damage from a PTSDream. Mikri’s arm was replaceable, but the squishy avians weren’t humanproof at all. I hovered by the Vascar’s seat, noticing the sound of high-pitched, faint chirps.

  “Wires!” Hirri cheered. The child had noticed the hole in the Vascar’s chassis, and was trying to peck the internal mechanisms. Maybe this would convince Mikri to abandon his symbolic gesture and get it fixed. “I think I can fit in there. Let me!”

  The android shot me a miserable look, much like the time when we’d forced him to dance on Kalka. “Preston, help! The organic is exhibiting…nesting behaviors. I do not see why humans have an aptitude for children when their behaviors qualify as a ‘nuisance.’”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “You two make a nice pair!” I couldn’t help but giggle, seeing how paralyzed Mikri looked because of a Derandi chick. After the ice bucket incident, I was more than happy to let the android squirm. “Simply put, polycarb, kids are adorable. And get up to all kinds of mischief. Hey, Hirri, I have an idea.”

  “What’s that?” the Derandi child squawked.

  “You should stand on his leg and jump up and down! That’s how robots like to be greeted. Show Mikri you’re excited to meet him!”

  “Okay!”

  The Vascar whirred with distress and aggravation, as Hirri began bouncing like a kangaroo and flapping his wings excitedly—hitting Mikri’s snout a couple times. “Make it stop, Preston! Please! Do anything to me but asking that I suffer like this. I will let you do anything to free me.”

  “Anything? Bet.” I grinned with malice. “You want me to give you a lap dance instead?”

  “What’s that? I could do that!” Hirri chirped.

  “Um, no you can’t. It’s a human-only thing: a, um, cultural thing with our bodies,” I stammered hurriedly. “I just want to grind his gears.”

  Mikri’s eyes switched to red. “Your remarks are understood. I have studied crass terminology in the hopes of understanding organic impulses as well as your language usage. However, I am not capable of desiring you in this base, physical way; you would only annoy me with these animalistic rituals, and fluster yourself.”

  “Who taught you this?!”

  “The internet. There were many educational videos.”

  “Oh no; you poor thing. Maybe we can find a way to wipe just that part of your memory.”

  “I like educational videos!” Hirri giggled excitedly, clapping his wings. “Show me, Mikri! I like the movies Mama plays with the animals and the songs. Blue glider goes to school, purple robe a doctor wears. Like that! Teach me a lap dance song!”

  “Uhhh…” The nursery song rhymed in his language, but my cheeks were turning very red for other reasons. What happened when his mother heard him ask about this? “Why don’t you relax while I think of a good one?”

  Hirri cuddled up next to Mikri, leaning his head against the android’s side. “Okay.”

  I pressed a hand to my mouth. “Psst. Sofia, help! Code red!”

  “What’s a greater emergency than what’s going on with Temura?” the scientist sighed with exasperation.

  “Mikri knew what a lap dance was without me explaining.”

  “Dear God. I…hope this wasn’t more ‘research’ that he shared with the network.”

  The Vascar did not respond. “Humans are an anomaly. I seek to learn all facets about you so that I may reach an accurate scientific explanation of your behaviors. Not accounting for biological factors could lead to a critical oversight and subsequent miscalculation.”

  “We’re lucky he still wants to be our friend, Fiefs,” I grumbled. “At least he’ll know if someone’s flirting with him, or um, not miss out on jokes. Maybe there’s a silver lining.”

  “You are the one who said I needed to learn, if I was going to be around humans. I do not see why you are upset.” Mikri finally dared to uncurl his arms from around himself, and draped one around a mercifully snoozing Hirri. I hoped the child forgot all of this when he woke up. “This topic seems much more provocative for you than me. I am amused. Perhaps I should raise it more often.”

  “No,” Sofia and I said in unison.

  I wagged a threatening finger at the android. “I’ll report you to HR. Unsafe work environment. Bad Mikri.”

  The scientist scoffed. “Preston, I bet there’s a whole chapter in the Space Force’s sensitivity training devoted exclusively to the things you say.”

  “Sure, as examples of the greatest human that everyone loved to work with. The way I talk is only part of my magnetism. I know you swoon every time I call you X-Chromosome.”

  “Yes, I’m all hot and bothered. No one’s ever reduced me to my genetic information before! Only you.”

  “Not only him,” Mikri said deviously. “I have adopted the—”

  I heard a fluttering of wings, before Jetti tumbled out into the aisles in a panic. “Hirri? Where’s Hirri?!”

  “Over here,” I called out.

  The Derandi ambassador rushed over, horrified to see her son snuggling with the killer AI; it was delightful to me, in hindsight, to think that Hirri was curious about and unafraid of Mikri. My Vascar friend might’ve been put off by a child’s enthusiasm, but I hoped he had noticed that factor. Organics didn’t carry any natural hatred for androids. Our kids could accept them as something new and cool without a second thought. Jetti snatched her offspring away, and scolded the chick. I studied the machine’s reaction closely, wondering if he had any affinity for Hirri.

  Mikri was never taught basic things himself, so I’m sure he must see value in raising a child and caring for them. The tin can learned how to play games with us; if he saw value in spending time with Hirri, he could mess around with the adorkable Derandi.

  “Tell your mom about the wires, and how nice Mikri is!” I coaxed Hirri, quietly hoping to push him toward that line of conversation. “It’s weird that he walks around with a hole in his chest, right? I’ve tried to tell him.”

  The Derandi child giggled. “Yeah! I wanted to look around inside. I wonder what I’d look like with a hole in my chest. It feels like I have one all the time.”

  “Let’s not try to rip yourself open,” Jetti croaked. “The machines do not think the same as we do, Hirri. It’s dangerous to bother them. They don’t like most organics and could hurt you for any reason. You have to listen to me!”

  “Mikri wouldn’t hurt me, Mama. He’s funny, and nice! I can see it.”

  Jetti didn’t slow down in her efforts to whisk her son away. Hadn’t she been the one telling Anpero that Mikri was friendly? Wherever Hirri was involved, the ambassador became overprotective—and desperate to keep him away from any “unpredictable” creatures. The android stared at the spot where Hirri had been, moving his paw absently and frowning.

  I nudged the Vascar with an elbow. “Hey, c’mon Mikri. Tell me you don’t think Hirri’s a little cute.”

  “The Derandi child appears to have few inhibitions and a very limited understanding of the world around him. I have not decided how to feel. I prefer communication on an intellectual level,” the goofy tin can decided.

  “But he loved you, Mikri. Don’t you appreciate the innocence, not jaded by any…biases? That acceptance and curiosity: it’s only with the kiddos. So vulnerable, but with hearts of lions. They soak up information like sponges.”

  “I liked that Hirri did not hate me, if that is what you are asking. I can appreciate the fact that he is happy in spite of his degenerative lung condition, which causes much suffering, and for many organics, would overwhelm their enthusiasm.”

  “Degenerative lung condition? Wait, how do you know what’s wrong with Hirri?”

  “Crestlung appears similar to a human disease called Cystic Fibrosis. As for how I’m aware, I tapped into the Derandi’s public databases to run checks on all persons in the resort with us, to ensure they were not a threat to you. I wished to protect you.”

  Sofia’s eyebrows arched with alarm. “Mikri, you can’t do that with every person we meet. I know your intentions are good, but there are boundaries about things people wish to share; to violate the expectation of privacy is a breach of trust.”

  “If you need an example, think about how…I reacted when Jetti told everyone about Larimak’s torture. It can be hurtful to people to have their worst secrets outed or broadcast,” I added.

  Mikri folded his arms. “Organics do background checks to ensure the safety of important people. You are important people to me. What I checked is not private; it is in government records. I know better than to share any serious incidents.”

  “I…what they want shared and what you think is okay might be different. Remember about respecting people’s wishes, not deciding for them?”

  “Fine. I will not state any more of my findings. They—and you—-will never know.” Not the lesson we wanted Mikri to learn. “What I meant is that I do feel sorry for Hirri. It is sad to see organics in pain, who have done nothing to deserve it.”

  “I agree. You know how you’re studying human diseases to find a cure? If you can prioritize one that’s close to my heart, why don’t you look at Crestlung? It would mean a lot to me to see Hirri have a better quality of life.”

  The android emitted a quiet beep. “I will do what I can to fix this factory defect. I would do anything just to see you smile, Preston. I wish for you to be happy.”

  “You make me happy, Mikri. Always.”

  I cozied up next to the Vascar, replacing Hirri in the spot snuggled up to his side; I wrapped him in a tight hug. It wasn’t clear if Mikri needed the sign of affection, but I wanted him to know that he was never inadequate—whatever our differences were. I felt safe from the madness of this war and this dimension next to him, and couldn’t fathom thinking he was dangerous in the slightest. In that moment, I knew that Temura would emerge safe and sound once we got back to the base, and that Hirri’s illness could be solved.

  Mikri was my rock, the most loyal friend a man had ever known—and I never wanted to let him go.