He ended the conversation, turning away, and Dr. Finn couldn't process what she had just heard; she, her sons were boring a robot incapable of emotion? The crowds around them seemed to squeeze a little tighter, pushing Issac, her, Ty, and Marcus into an static island adrift from the mostly human crowds running around Arboreus 1's main park—Timeless WaterWorks Water Park. Nearby, next to a directory, toddlers playing in a splash pad were the only possible suppliers of her feeling of being waterlogged since the electro-static force field keeping out the rain above. Ty's face seemed wetter than anyone's though he was angled away from the spray. Both he and Marcus tried not to look disappointed at what Issac had just announced. Her youngest son burrowed his head into the inflatable ring Dr. Finn had carried around all day.
She tried to convince Issac.
"The Orville isn't returning for another twelve days. How are you even going to leave?" she countered.
"That was not my intent."
"Do you not want to hang out with us anymore?" Ty asked him, still turned away.
"Precisely." said Issac. Ty pressed harder against his mother who felt warm teardrops rolling down her leg.
Dr. Finn voice was as sharp as a 20th century scalpel in response, "Issac! Can you please try not to be so blunt." She cradled Ty's head. Issac considered her words.
"I will try Doctor." He turned to Ty. "My remark was not meant to indicate an emotional reason for discontinuing my observations of your family, but rather to indicate the fact that you no longer yield data worth analyzing."
"That's you not being blunt?" countered Dr. Finn.
Issac's response was quick, "Your reactions towards how I speak is another reason I believe observing Moclan family dynamics would be a better use of my time."
His words weren't anything she could argue. And she couldn't argue against that Bortus and Klyden seemed to bear Issac's pull-no-punches style better than anyone else on the ship. But remembering the second officer and his mate eating at the hotel's breakfast bar that morning, telling Topa to eat or die of hunger, observing the beige paint job with admiration, talking about everything from the weather to their sex lives with the same lifeless tone-how could Issac think that watching them would be more interesting? She couldn't stop herself from saying so.
"You're going to watch Bortus and Klyden for twelve days?"
"Indeed—Klyden has informed me of major changes in Bortus' behavior since arriving to this play planet."
"What, is he refusing to leave his hotel room?"
"No; he appears to be having fun." That was a surprise to Dr. Finn. Even more surprising was seeing him rush past lugging a surfboard with tropical flowers painted all over it.
He had appeared from the scenery to her, parting the crowds by way of his menacing expression and that long surfboard he cradled. Seeing him, Ty coughing back tears, Dr. Finn was hit with a sense of duty. Issac had followed him, so Dr. Finn fell behind him, her focus on getting to Bortus first. This trip was supposed to make up for their first attempt at a family vacation turning into a horror show, she reminded herself; she wouldn't let it descend into a conversation about Issac's abandonment not being a reflection of his feelings towards her sons since he couldn't feel anything at all. She was not a robot scientist.
Since Issac's only stakes were his mild interest in biological life, Dr. Finn rushed past him and planted herself in front of Bortus with a look of plastered concern. The look turned from plastered to real seeing in Bortus's eye something she recalled being there during the tribunal.
She wasn't sure he really saw her as he answered, "Doctor, Topa and I are working on his surfing. He has proven talented in water sports and has shown no fear of this park's contraptions. But like Rudolph and his red nose I believe surfing is where we build his talents."
Dr. Finn recalled her prior two visits to Moclus.
"Surfing? That's odd for a Moclan. I didn't realize there was any water left after your people decided to industrialize the whole planet."
"There are no major natural sources left. Was there anything else you wished to discuss with me doctor?"
Bortus's sudden obsession with surfing left Dr. Finn close to letting him walk off so she could process how strange it was.
An attendant in the store they were in came over with a bag slung over his back.
"Hey man, tell your friends. We get mostly humans interested in this stuff but I always love spreading the love when in comes stuff I love, right?" the attendant said, handing the bag to Bortus.
He replied, "You are correct but I have no great love for surfing being Moclan."
The attendant looked disappointed, "Aww man; well why are you so hot to have your son loving it?"
"I am hot to have him love surfing as he has shown a unique talent for the sport. My son has always been…" he trailed off for a moment, his eyes looking away, "special. We have been amiss it not cultivating his talents as Santa Claus did with Rudolph." And suddenly she recalled trying to keep Bortu's heart going after Klyden stabbed him in a rage.
"It's good to hear you are making time for Topa but you and Klyden aren't out of the frying pan just yet." Dr. Finn asked as the attendant walked off to try and sell Issac, who was hovering by the wind sails with his arms raised in hesitation, an automatic windsurfing board.
"I am afraid Klyden has been resistant to embracing the water park as Topa and I have."
That worried Dr. Finn. "Bortus, have you talked to him? Part of my asking the captain to let you guys tag along was so you both could work on communication."
Silent for a moment, letting Issac's protest to the attendant's peddling and Ty and Marcus' pleading for him to stay with them, Bortus gave the answer Dr. Finn was afraid she would hear: "I have not."
He moved out of their path quickly, but for the rest of the running children, rudely shoving their way through, Klyden was steadfast. Pushing on him hard enough where a human of his stature would have at least shifted his stance did not phase him, and some of the taller human children looked up at him confused as their parents came running up to grab them away quickly, apologizing but also hiding the brattier ones behind them with concern. Klyden had proved his point so he did not react much to what the parents said beyond a thin smile, his focus entirely on the wave pool.
Since Bortus' request to raise the difficulty level, no one but his mate and son were in it.
When the waves broke mid way down the pool, their height artificially towered as high as a few of the rollercoasters, gravity dampeners helping them along. The sound of the water was deafening even from far away. The sprays from the wave pool attracted families running from ride to ride in the three-sun heat that was still lightly dampened by the earlier rainstorms. And after finishing up their apologizes, the parents who'd tucked their kids away from Klyden's sight went to the side of the wave pool too to cool. Their youngest pointed up to the top of a breaking wave and started to scream. Klyden only caught the last bit.
"No Denny. He's Moclan, if you did that you'd be hurt." He watched along with the disappointed boy.
Topa was surfing along a wave high enough to make him look like a baby again. The look on his face seemed like then. His eyes were opaque, focused on a thousand different moments that did, would, and were occurring but his stance was rigid to keep a grip on the board; Topa did not smile but Klyden knew he was enjoying himself. Bortus watched from the steps to the wave pool.
Topa flowed down with the water.
Bortus, clapping, met him as he bobbed up after being pushed below a curling wave. He guided Topa with a hand on his head to the cluster of seats they'd claimed today for rest, unstrapping the ankle leash and laying Topa's new soft green surf board over the arms of a lounger to let him sit for a while.
A small table to the side was covered in empty ice cream bowls that was where Klyden had been sulking. He had left his five-foot by five-foot square fortress when he'd finished off his seventh bowl of ice cream.
"Another round of rocky road done and done!"
"Lower your voice." Klyden said sternly, having marched up to the small cart and ripped the bowl from the attendant's hands that put up no fight. Watching the crowds gathered around it for popsicles and the other cold treats the cart could materialize per the holographic sign displayed on the front of the cart, Klyden hoped somewhat that Bortus had been nearer to hear, to notice the copious amounts of what Commander Grayson had called depression food he had been consuming since surfing had started consuming Bortus.
At least it is real surfing and not a simulator program, Klyden thought bitterly, eating ice cream as he walked, trying to freeze off the reminder.
And for the next while Klyden felt his stomach succumb to the torture of too much ice cream, the endless dairy and sugar pushing his Moclan metabolism to its limits, but he didn't stop shoveling it down as it kept him occupied from the sight of his husband falling away from him once again. This time he'd taken Topa with him.
Topa had gotten back on the board and his form improved quickly enough that every bit of it all, the balancing act and occasional handstands that were unnecessary embellishes Bortus frowned on, looked too easy. The little still watched with rapt attention with his mother. Most of the onlookers had moved on, disappointed at Topa's skill.
It took several hours for Topa to wear down and had the day previous as well. Then Issac had been there to keep Klyden company but today, he'd only seen the Kaylon from a distance, seeming to watch them for a moment, seeing his notice, and with that disappearing again. Dr. Finn did seem more pitying than usual, Klyden thought, remembering the previous night as they came back to the hotel. Was there was a reason for Issac's interest then avoidance of them; Klyden simply wanted someone would tell him outright whether they'd wished he had come along to this play planet. He had spent most of his time today with the ice cream cart man.
For the last hour they spent practicing the attendants had been lowering the waves slowly. Topa was skimming the surface on ripples towards the end of their practice and the attendants made a show of not knowing what was causing it. Bortus's gestured for Topa stop and they weaved back through the loungers and chairs. Coming up to Klyden's table this time instead of their little fort, his mate and his son had come out of the wave pool in deep discussion, not outright excluding him but forgetting for the majority of their conversation that he was there. They glanced over occasionally as if to see by his expression Klyden's thoughts, but kept talking without change at his furrowed face. It irked Klyden, who slammed his fist against the table.
"We will to do an activity that involves us all," he stated.
Bortus had begun to remind Topa to wax the board while putting it back in its cloth bag when he took notice of Klyden who wanted to take the board from Bortus' hands and smash it. Instead he pointed to a nearby pirate themed merry-go round. Dr. Finn's children had described it as dull and uninteresting. Perhaps with such a contraption, I can raise their esteem of myself, Klyden thought bitterly.
Topa and Bortus chose two pirate ships side by side and discussed Topa's rowing technique while Klyden road on a mermaid well away from them with all the mermaids, ships, birds, or crocodiles taken nearer to his mate and child. He hated the ride. They moved on to the log flume, keeping the surfboard with the attendant as Klyden refused to babysit it. It had only one interesting point and once ridden, the log flume held no more interest. They tried the fun house but the hall of mirrors returned no equal rewards to the frustration. He'd thought he'd seen Issac's glowing eyes reflected behind him several times.
Towards the edge of the water park, coming up to the entrance for the Zero Gravity Arcade—people screamed with glee when suddenly their foot falls had them bouncing up to the food court floating just below the force field that held gravity at bay—Klyden's attention was caught by an old earth style shooting game. Between a row of vintage machines, the game was a long shooting gallery with a wall to the side that had a wide selection of toy weapons and a blank screen as wide and as long as the gallery. There was a bucket as though one had to pay to play and in it was mostly pebbles from the street. It rattled in a manufactured breeze pushed by environmental simulators throughout the park, and the sound underscored the smacking axes, guns, swords, and such it sat next to.
Klyden confidently selected the tommy gun off the wall.
Bortus stepped up with a Moclan submachine gun, nodding confidently and right then, the screen now showing a zombified union ship, they anchored their guns to their shoulders and looked down their barrels, both expecting the other to preform excellently. When their virtual bullets ran low one held off the attacks as the other ran to stock up on virtual ammo. Topa watched happily. He was happier than when he'd been surfing just watching them. His parents ran through the fifteen-minute game with all their lives in tact though the scores proclaimed Klyden the better shot.
"You have preformed admirably," said Bortus. Klyden gave him a hidden smile.
"I was a weapons tester at a factory that made mostly these weapons. The smith and wesson too was popular."
"I knew of no other place where you had worked than the cryonic explosives research lab," Bortus replied.
He looked at Klyden distantly and suddenly Klyden was reminded of that day on Moclus, of the great change it still affected on their relationship, and the shame. He put back the tommy gun and turned away from the simulator, now searching for a thrilling ride. It was clear log flumes and merry-go-rounds would not help with this feeling of neglect.
Bortus was still distant but seemed to finally take notice as they came to the foot of a long staircase to a funnel shaped ride—The Watery Wormhole. Topa tried to steer them to the lift as though the time spent going up the stairs would take too long. Bortus was oblivious. He faced Klyden.
"I am glad Dr. Finn asked the captain to allow us to join her on this trip," he stated.
Klyden's response was biting, "You have spent this trip training Topa to become a fish." Bortus straightened his back though his eyes left Klyden's, his head turned away as he had burned his eyes looking into the sun. They stood each other down with different sides of two separate conversations, both driven by a sense of what their endless conflicts were about. Both their jaws were clenched, straining to hold back their anger.
Topa spoke up before they could start shouting, grabbing Klyden's arm, reaching to push Bortus back too but shyly withdrawing, instead pulling Klyden away.
"Papa, let's go check out the Watery Wormhole. Marcus was saying it's really cool."
Feeling guilty, Klyden followed Topa, silently hoping Bortus would join them. He stood back, not moving an inch as they worked their way up the stairs to a long platform.
"Can you explain the nature of your fight," Klyden heard a robotic voice off to the side addressing him.
Issac stepped up to them from the railing that would have overlooked his and Bortus's argument. Topa pulled Klyden forward, trying to drag his attention to the quickly moving line, stepping around to block Issac from coming closer.
"Papa; they still be upset if we keep up the line."
Klyden hesitated, locked in to the beginning of a conversation he had been bursting to have all day. But Issac was not the person whom he wanted to have that conversation with.
"We will speak with you at the hotel," Klyden said.
He didn't expect Issac to stay with them.
Though a line had formed behind them, Issac snuck in, keeping close to Klyden and Topa. Those waiting were not pleased with Issac's seeming to cut in, as he'd appeared on the platform without any sense of progression to it, and his lack of discernable expression punctuated the blunt tone with which he continued to badger Klyden. It drove everyone mad. The line began to shove against all three of them as Issac continued to ask such personal questions even friends wouldn't. They hated Issac's perceived gaming of the system and Klyden's and Topa's saying nothing to move him out of the line. A few of the attendants as they came to the lip of the giant funneling ride zeroed in on them with complaints from people towards the top of the line. At first they only glared, but as the three made their way up and Klyden's face grew more and more annoyed at Issac's pestering, one of the attendants held them back. People began to cheer.
"I'm gonna have to ask you to get to the back of the line, yeah?" the attendant's tone was mocking. His eyes drooped down so much Klyden thought he was sleepwalking to be talking to him so disrespectfully and he continued with the line, ignoring him. Then the attendant planted himself in front of Klyden with the same sleep deprived look that didn't do justice to his high sense of self-righteousness as the people around them cheered even louder. His lips twisted into as much of a smile as his thin face could manage. Not yet feeling justice had been done, the people closest to them starting to push against Klyden, Issac, and Topa, moving them back. They patted the attendant on the back who was steadfast. Klyden shrugged them off as though he were only walking along, but his hand twitching reflexively into a fist at seeing one woman put on a motherly face of disapproval as she tried to twirl Topa by his shoulders to the back of the line. Klyden pushed her hard enough to send her sliding for the staircase on the water soaked metal platform. Around them everyone was shocked and let them continue without a word, Issac finally silent, looking around at the carnage, to the front of the line and onto the ride.
Klyden hated it as much as the merry-go-round. The whirlpool of water disoriented him and he could not tell which way to glare at the people that had capped off day four of what promised to be twelve more horrible days.
And at the end, Topa and Klyden having been thrown into a shallow pool and having waddled to the edge to get out, park security, Bortus, and Dr. Finn with her two impressed sons waited for them.
Klyden squirmed with shame, having gone against his promise to the captain to abstain from violence. Technically he hadn't as the Orville was half a galaxy away and he hadn't shoved that obstinate human on its decks, but the spirit of his promise had been broken and growing up reading Gondus Elden on Moclus had given him an appreciation for the spirit of something to be that which truly mattered. And he had gone deeply against his promise's spirit, falling to his anger over neglect once again. He blinked away a rising sense of hopelessness that was working its way into his eyes.
He had been one of Moclus' finest weapons testers; now he was confined to his room, listening to Dr. Finn's children scream at each other over the last piece of whatever candy they'd synthesized. He felt like he was on the Orville in a way. The cage like feel of the room reminded him of his and Bortus's quarters.
Topa was sitting silently across from him but not from nothing to say.
"Are you going to divorce Papa again?" he asked.
"No Topa. I promised Captain Mercer."
His son kicked out his legs and played his fingers along the ridges of his head, pressing them hard into his skull at points. He pressed very hard against his temples and the pressure pushed out a thought that must've wedged itself hard into his mind.
"I know I was born a girl Papa." It was a statement so simple, Klyden didn't really consider it for a while. It was like a continuation of a conversation about the weather. Topa stopped pressing against his temples and stood up, coming up to Klyden, looking into his eyes deeply and Klyden looked back to see himself in his son where before he would have had him be more like Bortus. He tried, and for a long while in which Dr. Finn kids finally crashed from their sugar rush, to blink away that sensation that haunted him since he'd found out he was born female. But some of the light came through the curtains from the planet's three suns and forced his eyes to tear up and once he'd started his eyes decided to continue. Topa moved next to Klyden, laying down on the wide bed like he was going to take a nap, only bored, nothing else.
He was listening and waiting.
Klyden gave him his answer, "I too was born female Topa."
Like Topa was talking about the weather once more he responded, "I heard Papa mention it once during your arguments." Klyden nodded. He didn't want to explain everything, and he felt Topa understood part of it so he only spoke of his fears.
"My life would have been different and I did not want my life to be different. I love Bortus. I love the peacefulness of feeling like a true Moclan, of not having to defend who I am. That feeling was why I asked for the procedure to be done. In truth I do not know if your life would have been difficult—or mine— had it not been preformed, I just did not want you to feel what I did when I found out. I do not wish my child to feel that."
Still curled up next to Klyden, Topa's breaths slowed. His lips shuttered like a motor not quite turning over. But they dripped out then poured out his own fears.
"The way you and Papa talk to each other about me makes me feel like more of a freak than staying a girl ever could have. I want to be enough for you and Papa."
Now he was staring bluntly at Klyden who couldn't turn away from the look.
The moment was suspended. He could not tell if Topa's breathing had slowed or if he had become so fixated on every twitch that the focus took away any sense of time. Around his son's eyes he could see the veins become enflamed from a heat below the surface. He could see him waiting for Klyden's response so he told him only that which would have brought him comfort to hear—that which Bortus had whispered to him from time to time since finding out:
"You are enough for us Topa."
Topa seemed to drift off in response, but he whispered after a while, "Will we get to stay at the park?"
"Yes."
His answer seemed to soothe him completely and Topa dozed off. Klyden stayed put and rested his hand over Topa's crossed arms.
There were three more days until the Orville would return to Arboreus 1. Dr. Finn watched her boys from the long board she was stretched over, exhausted and bobbing with the waves without shifting at all on the board, though she propped herself up, lifted her sunglasses, and eyed Marcus for jumping into the wave pool, splashing water all over Ty and Klyden's Rocky Road.
"Marcus—get over here now!" He paddled over to his mother reluctantly.
Klyden watched; Ty laughed, choking a bit on his bite of ice cream as his mother sat up on her board to rip into his bother. Bortus and Topa drifted lazily in the waves that remained little more than ripples on the water—they didn't seem to notice the argument a few feet away. Klyden had not seen Bortus pushing Topa to improve his surfing since the Watery Wormhole. He'd been tempted to question Bortus about the change but held back, wanting to let the rest of the trip pass by peacefully. Then the Orville would return and the opportunity would be left behind him on Arboreus I. Klyden looked up at the sky at a point between the suns. Patting Ty a bit on the back to help him force down the chunk of rocky road that had gotten stuck in his throat, he moved the bowl away from the boy and gestured for him to play in the pool.
"I will go for a walk." Issac had been sitting nearby watching everything with interest and gave no sign he wanted to follow Klyden or know why he was going off on his own.
After sometime, as he wandered down the main path that linked the parks, Klyden stood in front of the same shooting gallery from several days ago.
"Do you wish to go for round two?" It was Bortus's voice that asked. His mate stepped up, handing him the tommy gun Klyden had shot with before though Bortus chose a smaller handgun this time. He took the tommy gun and went through the virtual zombie attack, this time at a Xelayan university, without focus. At the end of the game, he put the tommy gun back and walked away, not waiting for his mate or acknowledging him. But Bortus kept up and turned him around to face him before Klyden could cross through to the Zero Gravity Arcade. He held his grip on Klyden's arm for a moment. Then he let go, hunching his shoulders as he did.
"I have been a bad mate."
"Please; let us enjoy the rest of our time here," Klyden replied.
"I cannot."
"And why is it that you cannot?"
"Because, I wish to explain what I have been experiencing these past days." Bortus stepped back, far enough that he beyond the reach of even Klyden's shadow.
"When we first came here I did not believe we could enjoy such a place. I did not expect our son to enjoy swimming, yet he showed such aptitude and surfing," Bortus's eyes lit up then faded, "he exceled at. I sensed a chance to show that he was still unique."
Klyden countered, a flash of defensiveness lighting up remembering his conversation with Topa during his detainment, "Our child is who he is."
"Yes; and we mutilated him for it."
"We did what we thought best—in truth it was beyond either of us to prevent once the tribunal was called. Let us move on Bortus."
"No; we will listen to Dr. Finn—we will acknowledge this. We will communicate as we did crushing the zombie attacks. We will work together."
Klyden did not respond. It was the conversation he had wanted to have but ran from every time it came up. But this time? He remembered his son curled up asleep finally free of the weight of imagining what his parents thought of him. Of how he thought their conversation that day in their hotel room would go.
Laughter exploded from the Zero Gravity Arcade—people flew through the air to catch drifting blue, green, and violet slush with their tongues—while Klyden tried to think of where to begin.
Finally, "I have not spoken to you of that day when I first found out about my own operation, Bortus. I think it is time that I do."
Was the gravity dampener fluctuating, Klyden wondered-he felt lighter.