7. Claw, Paw, Draw

It wasn't easy to track the passage of time on Planet Stupid, but Gary figured they'd been stuck about two weeks when he noticed a pattern, and began to pay close attention.

It was pretty simple. Every time Little Cato and Avocato were within talking distance, one or the other would snap a word, they'd both throw out a quick gesture and more times than not, Little Cato let out an increasingly loud, increasingly frustrated sound that had started out as a grumble and was well on its way to being a scream. This was accompanied by appropriate teenage dramatics and the occasional sigh out of his father.

He resolved to watch their antics today to see if he could figure out what was going on. Gary wanted to be sure the interactions weren't something serious, for one, and watching his family was better than dreaming about coffee or listening to Tribore ramble endlessly about soap operas.

Both Ventrexians had bolted their breakfast – the only way either could manage to get the torpedo worms down and keep them there – and were now practicing a martial arts form on a patch of level ground just outside the entrance of the shelter. They moved in tandem, slow and graceful, with Avocato offering the odd correction here or there on his son's technique.

Gary was surprised to recognize the routine they were doing, as it was one Avocato had been teaching him back on the Galaxy 1. He felt a pang of nostalgia for those last few weeks of being a carefree prisoner, back when his responsibilities were non-existent and his food had been boring but dead.

"Drop your stance a little lower . . . keep your tail out of range . . . That's it - draw!"

"What are they doing?" wondered Sheryl as Little Cato threw his head back and let out a growl, all without breaking the flow of the workout. She was trying to eat her breakfast of a torpedo worm and tepid water, and the Catos were the only thing to watch on this otherwise monotonous planet.

"I dunno," said Gary, guessing she meant what had Little Cato so exasperated and not the martial arts.

"Draw!" snapped Little Cato a few moves later. "Argh! How do you do that?"

Laughing softly, Avocato continued with the form, keeping an eye on his son all the while. Seeing them side-by-side, Gary could appreciate Avocato's sheer strength and fluid grace. He knew Little Cato was a powerhouse in his own right, but Gary could tell the younger Ventrexian was doing a scaled-down version of the form Avocato was executing. Waiting until his father struck a particularly tricky pose, balanced on one foot while the simplified routine allowed for two feet on the ground, Little Cato attacked.

"Draw!"

Avocato flashed an open-handed gesture, his palm to the ground, before returning to position. Little Cato angled his hand so it looked like a shadow puppet snake.

"Force field?" squawked Little Cato in disbelief, suddenly struggling to maintain his balance. "You threw a force field at me? At your own son? That is the most basic, juvenile move on record!"

Avocato smiled serenely. "Effective, too. Now focus. Deep step back. Keep that tail down and . . . finish."

They ended the form together, and exchanged a formal bow.

"Draw!"

Avocato held out his pinkie. Little Cato made a fingers-spread, downward clawing motion at the same moment. A second later, he let out a howl.

"Slug? DAD!"

"Beats your net."

"You threw a slug at me?"

"You threw a net at me!"

"Fox, any idea what they're playing at?" Sheryl asked as the Tryvuulian joined them in wrestling down googly-eyed worms.

Clearly glad for the distraction, Fox said, "Oh, that's the Ventrexian version of Scrum, Niblits, Tittlepops."

"Huh-wha?" wondered Sheryl.

Gary frowned, trying to remember where he'd heard that name before. Fox spared him.

"Remember? You wiped the floor with Fraskenhaur. You threw out that niblits like a champion player. He never expected that."

"Ah," said Gary, memory returning. "It's like Rock, Paper, Scissors, Mom. Dunno what they call it on Ventrexia."

"Me either, but being Ventrexian, their version has to be a lot more complex than most other places," said Fox, not without some bias. "I don't know how they can keep the rules straight. They have, like, thirty different symbols or something."

Gary could hear the underlying judgement in Fox's voice. Ventrexians and Tryvuulians were traditional enemies going back millennia, and until ten years ago, they'd been at war for a thousand-odd years. Though he'd met just a tiny handful of Ventrexians, Gary had been told by plenty of non-Ventrexians that they were a bunch of racial snobs who held themselves and their technology to be superior to most every other intelligent life form out there. Considering they were an ancient race of warriors who had been in space far, far longer than almost every species they met, and, yeah, sorry, but their tech was way better than everyone else's, Gary figured a bit of snobbery was well earned. He'd never seen it himself, but then, he was married to one and biased in his own way.

"Draw!"

Little Cato went for the slug. Avocato went for the snake-thing.

"Argh! Lizard beats slug!"

"Hey!" called Gary before junior tempers could flare. "What are you guys playing?"

Glad for the distraction, Avocato joined them, stoically ignoring them trying to eat their worms as he said, "It's a Ventrexian game. We call it Claw, Paw Draw."

"It's like . . . Scrum, Niblits, Tittlepops with a drop drive engaged, huh?"

Avocato took a moment to consider Gary's unique way of putting things. "Yeah, you could say that. It's pretty universal on Ventrexia. Mostly it's just a kit's game now, but historically it's been used to settle a few duels and disputes."

Gary tried not laugh at the mental image of General Avocato in all his smoldering, murderous glory squaring off against General Cataloupe in full flirtation mode, bloodthirsty armies ranged behind them, throwing out force fields and lizards and slugs to settle a score.

"Flowers beat poison. I win," Cataloupe purred smugly from behind his mustache in Gary's scenario. "That means we're dining out tonight, Mr. Cranky. Candlelight and wine and full uniforms."

Gary's brain screamed in horror right along with Avocato in his musings. God, why had he gone there? Poor imaginary Avocato. Poor Gary's brain.

"Scrum, Niblits, Tittlepops is pretty basic," Avocato said with a shrug, not noticing the glare he generated from Fox. "Claw, Paw, Draw has thirty possible hand gestures, and each can wipe out ten other shapes. We're playing at random, but some rules only let you use each shape once in a game."

"How the hell do you keep them straight?" wondered Sheryl.

Avocato grinned. "That's part of the game."

"So what's with the kid?" Gary asked softly, gesturing at Little Cato.

"It's a zero-chance game," Avocato replied in kind, looking guilty. "I keep trying to lose, but he . . . he's losing harder."

"Turn off the general stuff, General. Keep throwing out slugs or something."

"You don't think I tried that? He picked everything a spear beats."

"Is there, like, any kind of strategy to this?"

"No. Like I said, it's zero-chance." He saw Gary's blank look. "There're no odds of winning. It's purely random."

"Lemme guess. He's determined to beat you."

A sigh was answer enough. They both knew their son too well.

"Okay. Listen. Maybe it's a you thing. I'm gonna ask him to teach me to play. He'll beat the pants off me and won't get bent out of shape. Win, win. Hopefully, literally."

Avocato didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue, either. It's not like they had anything better to do with their time. "If you say so."

OoOoOoOoOoO

Okay, maybe Avocato was on to something.

Little Cato sucked at this game.

By all rights, Gary should have sucked a thousand-plus times worse than this Ventrexian kid who'd been playing this Ventrexian game all his Ventrexian life, but he didn't. Straight out of the gate, Gary wiped the floor with Little Cato, so badly that after just a few hours, he had to stop playing. Gary could remember approximately twelve of the symbols used and what they beat, and even then, he won most rounds. Instead of cheering up Little Cato, Gary left him even more bummed than before and convinced he'd been born cursed.

"Come up with something extremely important that only you and I can get done right now because I told Little Cato you were expecting me," Gary said tightly, standing before Avocato.

By his tone, Avocato could tell Gary needed to talk, and it was easy to guess about what. Decades of military service equipped him better than anyone on making mountains out of molehills, and without skipping a beat, he held out his hand.

"What took you so long, Goodspeed?" he demanded, feigning impatience. He gestured sharply. "Give me your blaster. I'll check it."

Gary gratefully handed over his weapon and sat down opposite his husband.

"Did you drop this thing?" demanded Avocato, gaping at the blaster.

"Maybe. A little. It was just off a cliff."

"I take it your plan backfired?" Avocato asked softly, focusing on the blaster as if fixing it had been his intention all along. They had tools, some salvaged, some improvised, and the Ventrexian spread them out on the ground. He frowned at the gun and looked down the sights before getting to work on it for real.

"It blew up in my face." Gary let out a long breath. "I mean, my plan, not my gun. Clearly not my gun or you'd have a lot more to fix and I'd be in pieces. I didn't even know what I was doing with the Claw thing, and I beat the pants off him. Now he's determined to beat me, too. He's a competitive little sprocket."

"He's Ventrexian," Avocato stated, as if that explained all. In a lot of ways, it did. Fighting was bred into them. Surrendering was most definitely not. Watching his husband work, Gary briefly wondered what kind of kid Avocato had been. Impossible to beat, stubborn, and relentless seemed pretty safe assumptions. He knew Avocato was of noble blood and a close cousin to Ventrexia's king, so Gary mentally added 'well dressed, insufferably polite, and revoltingly self-controlled as he beat the stuffing out of you' to Baby Cato's attributes.

"Well, his confidence took a hard hit."

"Ooooh, we checking blasters?" asked Sheryl, passing by.

"Only in the family-friendly sense, Mom."

"Shame," teased Sheryl. "Join you anyway?"

"Why not?" Avocato responded, waving her over.

"How'd the scrumpet pops go, Gar?" she asked, picking out a tool to clean her weapon.

"Disaster."

"Did anyone else give it a go?"

Gary put a hand to his head at the painful memory. "Oh, yeah. Fox cried. Ash got pissed and blew up a rock formation. KVN lasted about two seconds. Mooncake doesn't have fingers. HUE's thumb fell off when he tried to make the lightning sign. Like I said. Disaster."

"Huh. Sounds it." She smiled in sympathy. "Maybe it's time to change the playing field."

"What do you mean?"

Sheryl shrugged. "If he can't play that game, play something different."

"Mmm." He glanced over at Avocato, who was busy adjusting the site on the blaster, and realized he was anxious about encountering that infamous Ventrexian superiority complex for the first time. "Rock, Paper, Scissors seems primitive by comparison."

She shrugged again. "Primitive doesn't make it worthless. Maybe the Ventrexian version has too many options. Sometimes less is more, kiddo."

Gary checked with Avocato, saying, "Worth a try, maybe. You think?"

"Not like we have anything else to do," said Avocato with a wry expression. He handed back Gary's blaster. "Here. Don't drop it again."

"No promises."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Standing between his mother and Tribore, trying not to think about the torpedo worm he clutched that was his lunch, Gary watched his son wriggling with delight as he bested Quinn in an all-or-nothing Rock, Paper, Scissors match. The quick, simple play clicked with Little Cato, and overnight he'd become the Rock, Paper, Scissors whiz kid. By the barely-there smirk on Quinn's face, Gary had the feeling she was going easy on Little Cato.

That was fine. He was glad just to see both of them laughing. Little Cato needed the boost, and Quinn had been too closed of late despite Gary's efforts to get her to talk. He couldn't help but suspect that despite her assurances otherwise, his marriage to Avocato had thrown her for a loop. Heck, it had thrown him for a loop. Avocato, too. Even though he and Avocato hadn't really had a chance to sort out or define what being married meant, outside of a backup dad for Little Cato, it definitely drove a wedge between Gary and his he-hoped girlfriend. Who was actually getting along with Avocato pretty well. Yeah, he definitely had a lot of relationship work to do. The whole, jumbled situation made him miss his pigeon friends back on Kanopis Prime.

"I've created a monster."

"Maybe," Sheryl replied. "But as monsters go, he's pretty cute. And he's having fun."

"Or as much fun as anyone can have without access to three hundred channels and no shoe stores," Tribore allowed.

Gary resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure we were all hoping Final Space would be one never-ending outlet mall with a food court the size of Jupiter."

Tribore snorted just as Little Cato let out a triumphant hoot. "Please. That would be heaven."

With a sigh, Gary looked down at the stupid, wide-eyed worm looking back at him. "It sure as hell would."