ALT PLOT 2: "STRANGE PLANET" - Part 2 of 3

Upon being smooched, Mr. Barnes flailed his arms, pushed the young woman away. "See, Pillow? Do you see what I'm dealing with? She has no sense of boundaries!"

"Perhaps someone else should kiss her goodnight from now on," Thonwa suggested.

Pillow nodded, face green with anger. "Amen to that!"

As Sarah sank back into the gel, she looked at David and said, "You know, I wouldn't mind waking up pregnant after this...as long as the baby is yours, and I can keep it."

"That's not going to happen!" Pillow growled.

Sarah grabbed David's hand, clutching it tightly as the organic machine latched onto her face.

At long last, the human female entered a state of suspended animation.

Pillow turned her attention to her insectoid marital counselor. "Thonwa, I need your advice."

"Do you call a Xasmisla(1)?"

She nodded. "I do. Nennop Thonwa, I feel I must stay out here in case the egg hatches, so that I can immediately nurse the baby, but I have spent countless hours brooding anyway. My husband really needs to do his part..." (2)

Thonwa shrugged. "He can always wake you..."

"Yes, but..."

"...But..." the Cijmabsa prompted, crossing her arms.

"That girl..."

Thonwa sighed through her proboscis. "You're afraid he'll wake the girl up and guzz with her while you're hibernating."

"I wouldn't do that!" David cried.

Pillow put her hands on her hips. "David, I know enough from my parents' nennop sessions to know that the spouse is supposed to listen and wait their turn before speaking. I will extend the same courtesy."

David reddened. "Sorry, I'm not used to-"

Thonwa shushed him, forcing him to listen to something or another the wife was saying in Wava.

David bit his tongue, turning a degree redder.

Pillow switched back to English. "I admit, she's not much competition, but she's a human being his age with fully developed sexual equipment. She doesn't require an appliance to have babies. That threatens me."

"You mean, it makes you feel threatened, don't you?"

Pillow swallowed. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

"You admit she's not much competition, yes? From what I saw, it seems it is she who is making all the sexual advances."

"But you didn't see what happened earlier. It could have been different. Maybe my husband spurred her on!"

David clenched his fists, gritted his teeth.

"...Perhaps," said Thonwa. "Tell me. Do you still want David to rear your children and be your husband?"

"Yes. I wouldn't nearly be so upset if it were otherwise." She whimpered like a dog. "I'm just afraid that Sarah really will come out of stasis with my husband's baby!"

David was furious now. He tried to march out, but Thonwa barked, "Listen! It is part of the asmubdu, the nennop process!"

I thought I saw steam coming out of David's nostrils, but he nodded and stayed put. He kept wringing the corners of his skirt.

Pillow and the Cijmabsa spoke to each other in Wava for a few moments. Thonwa muttered something to Mrs. Barnes. She nodded.

"Perhaps you should keep David in stasis for the remainder of the voyage."

"Or until we find a suitable home for Sarah," Zadoori suggested.

"Is this standard for Xasmisla?" David blurted. "Letting anybody within earshot to comment?"

"I am a kindred friend," Zadoori answered. "Briocnuwo are permitted within the sohnicag, the inner circle of allowables. I withheld my commenting to the offering of helpful advice, as Lorzazam did in scripture Ozaheja 20:12 or Baz in Oxazek 32:50."

David frowned.

Zadoori shook his head. "Very well. If you need me, don't hesitate to wake me."

He kissed Naumona, opened a tank, and put himself under. Upon seeing him successfully frozen, the female refrigerated herself in the machine adjacent.

Thonwa cleared her throat. "The fact remains. That you, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, do not exist in a vacuum. Well, technically we're in space, so the situation is very close to a vacuum, but my point is that other males and females exist, and you must both understand that there are ones that seem better, or worse than you, individuals that could potentially tempt you away from your partner...And I think you know what to do in the face of temptation."

Both husband and wife nodded. "Pray."

They did.

"Can I talk now?" David asked (3).

Thonwa glanced at the man's wife. Mrs. Barnes sighed, giving a slight nod.

David opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again after a moment's thought. "You want me to step up and be the husband? Be the wife and trust me. Let me brood your, our egg. I know there's nothing I can do to convince you to trust me, so all I can do is tell you I never once came on to Sarah, and waking her is the last thing I want to do. It was difficult enough as it is to get her to go under, but hey, if you don't believe me, have fun brooding for six months or whatever. I'm only trying to make you happy."

Pillow put her hands on her hips, snapping her tail. Her face flushed green with anger.

Since David had paused for a moment, Thonwa said, "Pillow, either I or Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik will be awake the whole time your husband is brooding. Mara will also be present."

"You want cameras too?" David asked. "I'll ask Mara to set some up if you're that worried."

Pillow sighed, shook her head.

"David, have you finished speaking your bonyukam (4)?"

Mr. Barnes nodded.

"And Pillow, have you as well?"

The Abreya sighed. "Will Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik know how to wake me the moment Sarah escapes stasis?"

"I will do my best," I said.

Pillow wasn't happy with me saying that, but still said, "I conclude this Xasmisla."

Thonwa nodded. "Then let us finish with prayer."

David knelt and asked God to make Pillow trust him.

"David," Thonwa scolded. "Do not use prayer as a weapon against your wife."

This prompted him to also pray for God to make him worthy of trust.

Pillow prayed something in Wava.

"The Xasmisla is concluded with a tuvulo, or sign of affectionate unity."

David gave Pillow a hug, but she responded with a wild passionate kiss, her hand sliding up the back of his skirt. When she pulled away, David gasped, "Maybe it is better that you go first. I think if I went under now, I'd melt the coolant."

Grinning, Pillow removed her clothes in a slow, suggestive manner, giving him another steamy kiss.

As his hands started to explore, she stepped away, opening a pod, her tail making teasingly suggestive movements.

"Yeah," David stammered. "Now I'll definitely thaw out."

"Good!" she giggled. "Our egg is going to need a lot of warmth to hatch!"

"After those kisses, I think Junior is going to hatch fast!"

She climbed into the pod. "Wake me if you need a reminder. I'll be glad to help." (5)

David leaned over the machine. "How long should I brood, honey?"

Pillow paused and thought a moment. "I think you owe me two weeks, but I'm afraid you'll jut put my egg in the umgesoy every day."

Her husband responded with a mischievous snicker. "What if I only put it in there part of each day?"

Pillow groaned. "You know how I feel about that."

"Right. You're a cakpurga parent."

"It's our first one. I want to do this right."

"I'm going to get egg marks."

"I love egg marks," she purred. But then she rolled her eyes. "Taking breaks is okay. I just don't want it left alone for hours."

"Afraid a snake will eat it?" David teased.

Pillow flung some of the purple glop at him.

[Page 5]

"Hey, don't waste coolant."

She blew a raspberry at him, closed the lid of her cryogenic tank.

David kissed the glass. A hand touched the spot his lips touched, gave him a wave.

So now it was just us three.

Thonwa gestured to the big cryogenics unit in the floor. "We only have one of these, so we'll have to take turns. Shall we flip a coin?"

I shrugged. "I confess I'm not much of a relationship counselor. Perhaps I should go first."

"I'll let you in on a secret, sister Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik: I'm not much of a relationship counselor either. I mainly serve in nennop capacity due to my lack of sexual attraction to either party in the Barnes marriage. Nennops, as a rule, are eunuchs."

"I think I may need some instruction from you before volunteering for such a sacred duty."

Thonwa nodded. "Let's talk upstairs. It will not take long for me to explain, but I believe visual aids could be helpful."

"I'm going to brood now," David announced.

The Cijmabsa chuckled. "Let me know when your red hot warmth hatches the egg."

"Believe me, Thonwa. Once this thing hatches, the whole galaxy will know."

Thonwa led me to the main living area, showing me a holographic `cartoon' that compared an Abreya family conversing with a strange, vaguely sexed individual with that same family lacking the stranger.

"Marriages thrive on communication. When a spouse stops listening and starts making assumptions, that's generally how a divorce happens."

The first cartoon family cried and hugged each other, but the second one mainly did a lot of shouting and throwing objects. The latter had a lot more crying going on.

"A nennop regularly presents Xasmisla, or the nennop communication session. David tells me that the most important step a human does to determine marital compatibility is meeting the parents, then the pastor. An Abreya, however, begins by opening a dialog with the family nennop, requesting the assignment of a mizhuhar from the Nennkowoy, the nennop guild."

She brought up a three dimensional image of a large starfish shaped building, the starfish in question laying upside down, exposing its sensitive underbelly. "Nennkowoy Bencap, the largest guild on Pathilon. The mizhuhar, from places like these, will become the official family nennop if and when the child finds a compatible mate.

"A nennop instructs the young on how to find a mate, advises them on what to do and what not to do around the opposite sex. David tells me that the Abreyas do not have the expression `forever alone', at least not in the human sense, because nennops never let their charges grow too repulsive to attract a mate."

"Never?" I asked.

"Well, some do fail to follow their nennop's advice, or join a cult. And things happen that prevent a family from having a nennop, but other nennops teach Abreyas to pity them, and be understanding. The majority enjoy the benefit of a nennop's guidance, the setting of realistic goals, the tutoring on presentation."

"Humans have a similar thing. It is called `charm school' or `school of etiquette,' I believe."

Thonwa chuckled, waving a dismissive claw. "Balancing books on your head, telling you how to use a fork and saying how do you do. They charge large sums of money, but teach you nothing about love, or how not to misread romantic interest into a given social situation."

Thonwa made the image of an Abreya with a sheep-like face appear before us. "Here is a nennop. Genetic modification plus chemical castration and hormone suppressants. David compares them to something called `Vulcans' from the Star Trek program."

"Why not use an android?" I asked. "There would be an ideal amount of emotional and sexual detachment..."

"There wouldn't be enough heart. Sometimes you need an answer that doesn't make logical sense, but makes the family happy."

"So how did they happen to assign you?"

"Pillow's family disowned her because of her faith, and for her choice of husband. The Nennikowoy was understandably hesitant to get onboard with it. Even Wojholap raised their registration fee to an unreasonable amount. So we resorted to the ancient practice of qebbiknenno or pulonau-nenno, a nennop formed by a group of individuals. It is not recommended. David was fortunate to find me, an unemployed individual who does not possess compatible reproductive equipment."

"So I can do your job because I do not reproduce by traditional binary means."

"Exactly. Now, there's a required confidentiality, of course. You can share only with family members, unless permission is otherwise given. In some circles, individuals need to have tattoos, scarification, or the presentation of ceremonial objects. You don't need to worry about that. Our family is less formal, you just need permission."

She waved her claw. Pictures of the Barnes family appeared in the air, photographs from David's side of the family, holograms from Pillow's. "By extension, this is my family, and as a sister in the faith, if you're willing, it can be yours as well, complete with the associated emotional baggage that is the nennop's burden."

"I'd be honored. They seem wonderful."

It was hard to tell if she were smiling with that proboscis. "They are."

"So what do I do?"

"Just be a friend, listen to both parties extremely carefully, and think about how to make them love each other more...of course, you want to make them feel like they came up with the ideas, so you should listen more than comment. Like a psychologist."

"That sounds difficult."

"It is difficult. They have nennop schools for a reason. I've been studying human and Abreya psychology. It helps a little. You saw what we did in the gojibi room. It's not always as complicated as it sounds, if you have an idea how to help...We should do an introductory Xasmisla with the husband."

"It would be good to make sure we have David's permission."

We again found the man in a rather undignified manner of undress, body pressed against his egg.

When we entered the room, he let out a startled cry. "Oh my God! You scared the piss out of me!"

"Apologies, David," Thonwa said. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik and I have been discussing how we'll need to take turns in gojibi, and how you may need help in the interim."

David sighed and rubbed his face. "So we're doing a Xasmisla."

"Does that bother you?"

"I don't want to impose," I said. "I understand you may need some sort of formal introduction into this sort of thing, or a tattoo."

David chuckled. "I'd like to see you with a tattoo. I think I'd be laughing my ass off."

He frowned when I didn't laugh. "Look, I'm...probably supposed to get up to do this, but I'm brooding." He took a deep breath. "Nennop Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik, higofudteb gastmoqo yenrezi de Tindase Barnes coz nennop de scrumsaarg, cesebteb kai kacielteb de bri foqipi. Nennop Ernie, I offer entry into the yenrezi of Tindase Barnes (that basically means Family Barnes), as lifelong mentor and guide to my marriage, the brooding and raising of hatchlings..."

"What's yenrezi?" I asked.

"It's a little hard to explain in English. It's an all inclusive term about relationships. Anyways, Nennop Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik, do you agree to serve and maintain the yenrezi of Tindase Barnes for as long as I and my spouse shall live?"

I swallowed. "I'm not sure. What if I wish to travel?"

David grinned. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik, it's like family. I have godparents I haven't spoken to in years, but they're part of the family, technically, right? The important thing is, you're here for me for the duration of this flight, you know, keeping my marriage stable, and act as counselor whenever I need it."

"Does a nennop get nennoped too? What happens if they have a problem?"

"We're here for each other, bud. We share our food, our home, and whatever wisdom we might have."

Thonwa snickered at this, but said nothing.

David put his hands on his hips, giving her an accusatory look, but this only made her laugh out loud.

"Okay," I said. "I...accept."

"Cowlavi. Ceho nennop Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Welcome, Nennop Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Nennop Thonwa, Nennop Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik, do you have Zoras Malnidi to present?"

My mentor nodded. I hesitantly did the same.

"I would like to Zugowod," Thonwa said. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik, that means to study and evaluate, as in a spouse's mental condition or mood or emotion."

David sighed. "My rillom or psychological mood state is sad. Pillow misread the situation with Sarah, and now she thinks I'm going to cheat on her."

"Are you?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then you must relax, and stay distant from the human female."

"I know. I'm trying." He sighed. "You know, honestly, I...kinda want to be Sarah's dad. I feel sorry for her, you know? I mean, she's handicapped. I want to raise her, and teach her stuff...Plus she's kinda cute."

"I would not mention the cuteness to Pillow," Thonwa said. "But I believe she will appreciate your sentiments regarding disabilities."

[Page 10]

"Perhaps Pillow can adopt Sarah," I suggested.

Both Thonwa and David laughed at this.

"My wife doesn't want me near Sarah. I don't exactly blame her, but I do think she needs some family to adopt her."

Thonwa rubbed her proboscis thoughtfully. "Perhaps Zadoori could...?"

"Guess we'll have to ask him when he wakes up."

"We're all technically in the family of God," I said. "I suppose it's a moot point."

David wrinkled his face. "Yeahhh, but there's something to be said for family family. Not every church is up for the task of raising someone who is, um, late developing. Honestly, I developed late romantically, and I didn't get much help from that quarter..."

Thonwa made a churring sound. "If you did, you wouldn't be with us right now. God has a plan...But you're right, she does need a close mentor. We'll have to discuss this later...Anything else on your mind?"

David sighed. "I miss my folks. Haven't seen them since Christmas."

"And why is that?" I asked.

"We're missionaries. It's part of the job. Of course, ever since I married Pillow, there's a lot they had trouble understanding or accepting. I mean, it's not every day that your son marries a space alien."

"Can you...call them?"

David laughed. "Sometimes we can transmit messages across long distances in space, but earth isn't networked." His mirth vanished. "It's depressing how old they're getting. Our ships exploit natural pockets of space that sort of pause time, but there's still sort of an Interstellar thing going on, you know, people getting real old while you're away."

He looked despondent. "I guess the same kind of thing happens when you're on earth and leave the country to do mission work, but it seems a lot slower."

"There's a need for your human perspective on the faith," said Thonwa. "You have a lifetime of Christian scriptural experience. Things would get lost in translation without you. Nobody at the Vedranav knew what a Jew or a Roman was until you talked to them about it."

"I know. It's just hard, that's all."

David told me about his family. His father worked in a car factory, his mother a teacher in a private school. They liked to take in stray pets. David said his mother wanted grandchildren, she took in strays to fill a void.

I myself had some questions about Jews and Romans, so I asked him about it.

"I think you two should get better acquainted," Thonwa said. "If you don't mind, Bilo Barnes, I believe I'll go into stasis for awhile."

He waved her away. "I'll let you know when the egg hatches."

And so she went into cold storage.

David showed me a map of the stars surrounding the ship, frowned when he noticed where we were. "Not quite in the region we need to be in yet. It's really too bad, because I wanted to show you some constellations...Do you know how to cook?"

I shrugged. "Not...really."

He set his baby in the padded incubator. "Pillow said I could take breaks."

David took me into the kitchen, showing me how to use the devices. "Remember what I'm doing, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Until my egg hatches, I'm going to need you to bring stuff to me. And cook. It's only for the baby, you understand. I'd gladly do the same for you."

I laughed. "You don't know what you're talking about, but I'd be glad to help. I've spent most of my life in small prisons being handed food. I'll enjoy the freedom of actually preparing and serving it. An ordinary human would never let me get near a knife."

David swallowed. "I don't like how that sounded."

"Sorry," I stammered. "I..."

"It's fine. Just make sure you only cut food with it...God, I wish Abreyas knew how to make beef and bean burritos...Have to make do with jecgaxam, I guess."

He showed me how to do just that, then went back to brooding.

As he held his egg and sang to it, I quietly worked on sewing and quessing projects.

Oqruxi 5

I and David have had much time to converse. He knew quite a few things about me from my biography, but since it wasn't nearly as complete as the one you've just read, I filled him in with some details I hadn't mentioned before. Likewise, I found out a great deal about him.

He had been a Boy Scout, which, according to him, did not flatter the organization, as he now wore an alien skirted dress. For employment, he worked at something called a `pharmacy,' promoted to a position due to one of the employees getting sick and asking him to take over, rather than actual schooling. He left that job to join the alien missionaries.

The midwest was bitterly cold in the winter, boiling hot in the summer. I asked him if he'd seen snow.

"Yeah, had it a few times, never liked it. I know people need a hard freeze to kill crop destroying insects or something, but it's so damn cold sometimes that you don't want to leave the house. Also, if the heating in your place is all electric, a fallen branch on a nearby power line will pretty much reduce you to a popsicle in only a couple days." He sighed. "Granted, Pathilon has winters too, but I usually find myself at the equator whenever I go there.

"Snowmen and snow angels are a lot less fun when you lose sensation in your toes, or a tree falls on the power lines and you don't have heat."

He told me about an ice storm that hit his city: He'd been driving a few yards behind his father's Jeep when a log truck came screeching through an icy intersection, knocking over a semi. Unable to see much with all the falling snow, the wreckage, and fallen logs in the way, David genuinely believed his father had been mortally injured until he drove around the block and found the man fueling his Jeep at a nearby gas station.

"He stared at me when I hugged him, like it was no big deal to escape all that unscathed."

Since I'm not human, he essentially had to ruin the anecdote by explaining very ordinary things like filling stations, the design of log trucks and American traffic laws.

Mr. Barnes' history is a fascinating one, but to include it here in its entirety would require another book, so I must leave it out for the sake of brevity. In the future, I may compile his memoirs for others to read, including the account of what happened to him on the planet Wuxrinus (6).

As he warmed the egg, he sang, so I learned many tunes, both hymns and classic oldies. Singing is supposed to imprint the sounds upon the infant, so that when they hatch, they come out singing. I considered doing the same whenever I laid my next egg.

Oqruxi 7

David compared our living situation to The Odd Couple. He was the tidy one, and I was the slob who couldn't quite handle domestic tasks ("Despite what my wife says"). Although I knew how to sew, I accidentally melted things with my saliva, I ruined a load of laundry, and wasn't that great in the kitchen.

Junlixi, a bread-like thing you cooked like a pancake, I always ended up burning or serving with a doughy undercooked texture. He ended up taking stomach medicine after one of my experiments. Pretty much everything I made was either burnt or undercooked. When I brought him meals, he limited me to `sandwiches' crafted from bread-like muloyi or tortilla-ish josdele.

We had access to a variety of nutritious pastes, some meat flavored, some with a sweet taste that David described as "Almost like peanut butter, but not even close to the same flavor." I could melt a cheese-like substance to approximate a grilled cheese sandwich or quesadilla.

For my own needs, I had access to a wide variety of meats and meat-like substances.

We played a complicated holographic game called Rupxuve. David said it reminded him of Candyland or Uncle Wiggly, but the board changed every time you played it, and your game pieces sometimes got eaten by predators. There was also a 3D movie we watched, Jana Naka, designed for aliens with incredibly long attention spans. Something about farmers and monks. I lost consciousness after the first ten minutes.

Throughout all this time, Mara and Big Bird whiled away the hours silently conversing through wireless communication systems. From what they told me, these discussions were deep and covered a wide range of topics, such as the meanings of love, free will, or if sports have moral implications. One interesting point their logical electronic minds brought forward: The argument that God created evil cannot work in a world where free will exists, unless free will itself is evil.

From time to time, Big Bird would make a holographic appearance in the egg hatching room, making bizarre modifications to our board games (I should write about this later to save space), amusing us with her musical stylings, interpretive dance, or sometimes borrow Mara's body to play ball.

Sometimes Big Bird would feel inclined to use Mara's body to cook a recipe from the ship's database, or help me cook it, but in between lacking a tongue for substituting flavors when you run out of ingredients, and wanting to assert her free will by practicing laziness, I often had to figure things out on my own.

The egg hatched so suddenly that David thought he'd broken it.

"Oh my God!" he cried in a way that made me wonder if he'd murdered the child, but then he peeled part of the shell away, and his tone got calmer. "My God...he's so...hairy!"

The child was supposed to help itself out of the shell, so he was mostly just giving it encouraging noises. "We've got to wake Pillow!"

He glanced at me and frowned. "Ernie, I can't leave the egg. Can you get your android friend to wake Pillow?"

I nodded. "My pleasure."

As I was leaving, I heard him muttering, "Gosh, he doesn't look human at all..."

Big Bird and Mara, connected to the ship, had been monitoring the progress of the egg, but since they couldn't pinpoint the exact date of conception, they seemed to be surprised as I when it actually occurred, though not as quite as dramatic in their emotional responses.

The android was already in the gojibi room by the time I arrived in the control room to summon her, and then I found myself colliding with a damp furry body when I went to check elsewhere.

In her haste to see the infant, Pillow hadn't dressed, she merely draped herself in a long towel, a paper thin textile that trapped liquid like the thickest of sponges. She dried herself off as she rushed to the nesting chamber.

[Page 15]

"Alatiga!" she cried when she saw David kneeling before the egg. She kissed her husband on the lips.

"My mouth is going to get frostbite," he muttered.

"Sorry. I'd make it warmer, but I'm too excited about the baby."

He threw an arm around her. "Me too."

He drew back when he noticed how cold she was with all the gel. "Brrr! It's like I'm hugging a frozen turkey!"

She gave him a playful punch, dried herself off a little more.

"C'mon," David begged the infant. "Come to geben!"

Pillow shook her whole body like a dog, spraying cold gel everywhere.

"Hey," the husband joked. "Watch the baby. Get him cold and he'll never want to come out. I know I wouldn't."

She knelt next to the egg. "So it's definitely a boy. Just like the scans."

"That's definitely not a yuxhauba between his legs."

The new parents coaxed the baby out of its shell. It looked humanoid, but its body was covered in white fur, it had a tail, a split lip, and goat eyes like its mother. The face kind of looked like a kitten combined with a baby.

When the boy saw me, he screamed. I backed away, to make him more at ease.

"Is his coat supposed to be that white?" David asked.

"Dodompu(7), you saw our babies before. That's just an egg coat. He'll take on my coloration eventually."

A washing station, similar to the ones they have at dog groomers and pet stores, stood off to one side of the ship's living area. Pillow took the child there, rinsing egg residue out of his pelt with a warm water sprayer.

David grinned at the child. "Dusaq, little guy! I'm your dad! Can you say dah dah?"

The child grunted, moving its guinea pig mouth like it intended to say it. Instead, it sneezed in his face.

Mr. Barnes chuckled, wiping his face clean. "Pillow, this is great! I'm so happy!"

A tense expression crossed Pillow's face. "I'm glad to hear it."

David ran his hand through the child's fur. "It's so amazing! He doesn't even look human!"

"I...I'm not sure he is."

David backed away from the washing station, staring at his wife in dismay. "What the hell do you mean?"

Pillow took a deep breath. "David...I have a confession to make." She swallowed. "A few months before you proposed to me, I...I was with another male. In a moment of weakness, we...guzzed. I'm sorry."

David's face flushed red. "So this one could be his."

Pillow literally had hackles, and they raised as she spoke. "Yes, but he's gone."

David glanced over his shoulder, as if Zadoori had done something behind his back.

"David, Zadoori's cute, but not that cute."

The human scrunched his face in disgust, turning his anger back on his wife. "It was Glombo, wasn't it?"

"David..." It sounded like a yes.

Her husband stewed in silence for a few moments.

"It explains why there aren't any human features..."

"Dammit, Pillow!" David yelled. "All that work, and it's not even mine!"

"It can be yours."

The man just stared at her coldly.

David turned and marched out of the room, punching a wall panel with his fist as he went.

He then cursed and waved his hand, trying to shake away the pain.

Feeling as if I'd failed my assignment, I followed him into a bedroom at the far end of the craft. "David, I volunteered to be your nennop, but I confess this is difficult for me to..."

"Imagine how difficult it is for me!" I just learned there's another man in my woman's life!"

"Do Abreya females not have male family members?"

David reddened. "Is that supposed to be a joke? It's not funny."

"I meant no-"

He let out a heavy sigh. "I was talking about a sex partner, Ernie. She had someone besides me."

I frowned. "I was guessing that's what you meant."

David rubbed his face in frustration.

"I think Pillow desires to keep you as a husband. I do not think I would have to try very hard to encourage her to love you."

"Yeah? Well just wait until we go back to Pathilon, and we run into Glombo again! Bet you anything she'll kick me to the curb and go running after him again! At least he has a real wumloq!"

"I'm...not quite sure what kicking a curb means, but I've heard that a human child needs both a mother and a father figure to build proper psychological development."

"Some parents make a child psychologically stunted, Ernie. Sometimes they might actually be worse off."

"Are you saying your, this child would be psychologically stunted?"

"Well..." David stammered.

"Pillow seems desperate to have you as the baby's father. She said the baby can be yours..."

"I don't want that baby, Ernie. If your wife kills someone, do you grab a shovel and help her bury the body?"

"It is more morally acceptable to bury a human carcass than to consume it."

"What!" David cried. "Oh my God, Ernie! And I thought Thonwa needed to attend nennop school!"

"Perhaps we should wake her."

We had to pass through the living area in order to reach our cryogenically frozen mentor. Both mother and infant sat crying on a couch, the child as a sympathetic response to his mother's sadness. Pillow, by this time, had dried off and dressed herself, but no towel can dry a dampened spirit.

"She does not seem to be happy about you refusing to care for the infant," I said. "Are you certain she still has a romantic attachment to this `Glombo' person you discussed?"

"I don't know, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik," Pillow whimpered. "I thought I loved my husband, but if he has this attitude toward me and my children, I can't help but wonder if Glombo would be more understanding about my feelings, if he'd treat me like a real ubrobu."

David's face turned red. "So now I'm going to be living under Glombo's shadow, is that it?"

"Would you like me to...connect your minds together?" I asked.

The two stared at me until I showed them my worms. "I admit you may need to take turns, but the shared experiences..."

Pillow grimaced in disgust. Pillow paled.

"You are more alike than you are different," I said.

"We need to wake Thonwa," the Abreya groaned.

David sighed, giving me a look that said, `I knew you didn't know how to do this.'

And so we brought the Cijmabsa out of cold storage.

"Oh how lovely! It actually hatched!" David's primary nennop exclaimed when she saw the baby. "You must be so proud! Couldn't wait to wake me and show him off!"

Pillow sighed. "Actually..."

The Cijmabsa rolled her eyes. "What happened."

[Page 20]

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1. Nennop session.

2. I probably could have done some shorthand with this and just said "The married couple debated something in Wava" and skipped to the next scene, but David is comfortable with English.

3. I wrote a better version of the text that follows this part, but I can't find the piece of paper I wrote it on anywhere, so I had to make up a different version that isn't as good.

4. Emotional information statement turn.

5. Here ends the missing section.

6. I've already posted the Wuxrinus account in a previous chapter - this is just to establish where the extra story comes from. If I get any feedback on this chapter, and if there's actual interest in David's history, I might actually write it.

7. "Outsider." The Spanish equivalent would be "gringo."