"Ax, what do you know about –"
"Do you speak French?" Ax interrupted.
I gaped at him. We all did. Over his shoulder I saw Cassie's mouth twitch, and then saw her hand fly up to cover it.
Ax just looked at me.
I frowned. We didn't have time for whatever this was. "Do I what?"
"Do you speak French?" he repeated.
"No," I said, trying not to sound exasperated. "No, Ax, I don't speak French. Now what can you tell us about this –"
"What about Spanish?"
"What?"
"Do you speak Spanish, Prince Jake?" Ax rocked back dangerously on his heels, opened his arms wide. "Do you know the traditions of every human community, culture, and subculture in England, Wales, Peru, Finland, Costa Rica, China, Lebanon, Egypt, Italy? Do you know where all of those places are located, relative to here? Relative to each other? Could you name the tennnn most sought after resources across all of your world, in descending order of market valll-yew? Can you identify every brand and model of vehicle on this planet, civilian and otherwise? Could you, given access to all the component parts, build a... a... a 'pickup truck'? Could you discern the difference between two microwave ovens built by different companies, on sight, with all identifying labels removed? How familiar are you with the occupants of the neighborhood ten - ten blocks? - ten blocks, yes, ten blocks north of yours? What type of television set would you say is the most commonly owned there?"
I stared, anger and impatience momentarily kept at bay by confusion. Behind Ax, Cassie was now doubled over on a bale of hay and laughing too hard to hide behind her hands.
And Ax was glaring at me.
"Jake, buddy," Marco said, patting me on the arm and gesturing down at the pile of mystery tech at our feet. "I think he's trying to say he doesn't know what this is."
I blinked. "Oh. You could have just said so."
Ax shrugged, and looked away.
And see, I would have loved to leave it at that. At Marco and Cassie both laughing and Rachel rolling her eyes and Ax having said his piece, but it - I mean that's just it. It was a piece. It sounded rehearsed. It sounded like something he'd been waiting to say.
And I didn't miss the fact that he and Tobias weren't laughing. Not even a little bit.
Like she was reading my mind, Cassie straightened up and met my gaze. I raised an eyebrow at her, tilted my head. Your turn.
She rolled her eyes. Fine. Next time we draw straws.
"Ax," she said kindly, walking up to lay a hand on his arm. He didn't look at her. "We ask you about these things because you're the most likely member of the group to know anything."
Member of the group. Deliberate. Smart.
Maybe a little too obvious. Ax twitched his arm out of her grasp. "I do not know everything," he said, voice clipped. He was speaking mostly to the floor. "I am not some expert on all life and civilization outside of Earth, I cannot be expected to provide endless answers!"
"We don't expect that, Ax," I said, trying to match Cassie's tone.
"We definitely don't." Marco, of course, chose a slightly different tactic. "I mean, not that I'm keeping count or anything, but there's kinda been a lot of stuff you haven't known about. Like, a lot a lot. Like on a scale of-"
"Thank you, Marco," I said loudly, recognizing my cue, and stepped on his foot.
Rachel crossed her arms. "It's like Cassie said, you're just the most likely one here. It's not like we're gonna turn to Marco or Tobias and ask 'hey, do you recognize this thing from another planet?'"
{But you'd turn to Jake or Cassie and ask if they recognize this thing from 18th century France?} Tobias cut in sharply from the rafters.
Tobias snapping at Rachel, of all people. Oh boy.
The situation was getting tenser than it needed to be. Than we had time for it to be.
Cassie was watching Ax's face. And I was watching Cassie's.
So I saw the moment when she suddenly got it. What the rest of us - except Tobias, apparently - hadn't yet grasped.
"Ax," she said gently. "We didn't mean to make you feel like that's - like that's what you're here for. Like that's why we keep you around."
You could have heard a pin drop. Rachel said oh, really quietly, and Marco sucked in a sharp, deep breath, and I felt rooted to the spot. Nobody said anything. Nobody moved.
And then Ax laughed.
Just a soft, involuntary huff. (I could tell it was involuntary, because Ax trying to laugh in human morph is, uh. Noticeable.)
"I think," he said, "perhaps I have made me feel this way."
"I'm sure we weren't exactly helping," Cassie said evenly, patted his shoulder, and stepped away.
I cleared my throat. "So now that that's resolved..."
And it wasn't. Not completely. I knew I'd have to talk to Ax later. Make sure I still could turn to him and ask questions, because as presumptuous as it might be, he was constantly doing the same thing right back at us: assuming we understood alien concepts that none of us had ever even heard of. It wasn't like I could trust that he would just explain everything he knew, unprompted.
One problem at a time, though. (Yeah, right.)
I nodded down at the still unidentified metal scraps. "What do we want to do about this?"
!
Notes: So I really really really wanted to write a scene of Jake and Cassie doing that tag team thing they sometimes do, where they zero in on an Inconvenient Emotional Problem another group member is having and then work together to salvage the situation.
And I'm not exactly counting, but the number of times the basic exchange of "Ax what is this alien thing" "i don't know" has happened is rapidly increasing the further i read
Anyway this isn't based on any particular book. If it turns out later Jake does speak French or I missed that detail somewhere already, I'll just, uh, quietly come back and edit this.