“I’ll preen later. Right now, let’s check out this cool space station. Wheatles or Grentix, which one of you wants to do the running commentary?” Hoped it would be Kreaving—he had the best voice of those from the Eknara.
“I will,” Kreaving said. He proceeded to tell us all about the station, which planets in their system had worked to build it, how they’d brought along the other planets in the system, and how the ones that weren’t spaceworthy yet were on their way. The inhabitants of their system were all humanoids that seemed to have evolved from animals similar to those on Earth. Tim had had Mother show Wheatles and Grentix our known allies, starting with Earth and the Alpha Centauri system.
Kreaving had had their system’s information uploaded to Mother, so we could see what the folks on their various planets looked like. While none in this system were exactly like those we knew best, they were all similar.
“I wonder if interspecies breeding would take,” Tito mused, more to himself than the rest of us.
“Why would you wonder that?” Grentix asked.
“A-Cs and humans breed well,” he replied. “Your canine-based people look shaggy and more muscular than the Canus Majorians, but the overall structure looks familiar. Same with the feline-based race versus the Feliniads. There are other similarities, including those between you and us.”
“I think we might be rushing the Apatan’s acceptance,” Jeff said. “As in, Tito, stop freaking them out.”
Wheatles shook his head. “It’s a shocking suggestion to us because it’s not something we’ve ever considered.”
“No one’s fallen in love with someone from another planet?” Surely humans couldn’t be the only ones.
“Not that we know of,” Grentix said. She grinned. “But we’ll make a note that humans will mate with anything.”
This got a tension-reducing laugh, and Wheatles went back to his Space Station Tour Monologue.
The space station was impressive. Per Drax, not as big as those in some of the busier solar systems and those that were scattered around the galaxy for emergencies, but still, it could dock a dozen ships of any size at one time.
It looked like a giant, spiky, spinning top with a long spindle at the bottom. And it was spinning slowly to help the gravity generators or some such. Kreaving was happily using a lot of scientific and engineering speak and my ears politely shared that they were bored and wanted to either just listen to Kreaving’s voice without having to try to comprehend the words or to hear music. Probably a good thing I was on the command deck and not being the worst example ever for the kids.
Knew better than to put my earbuds in at this time, however. It would be rude to the Ignotforstans and there was no desperate need. At least, I hoped.
The docking took a while and, interestingly enough, was the most complex of any landing we’d done so far. Made the comment that apparently parallel parking was hard for many to master—even though I, personally, happened to be great at it—and received a lot of “shut ups” from the guys, either via expressions or out loud, depending on the guy.
Of course, the real issue was that our ship was a lot bigger than any ship in the Apatan system, so getting our main airlock to line up with the corresponding airlock on the space station wasn’t as easy as it would have been for the Eknara.
After some serious complaining on the part of the guys at the controls, Mother did Tito a solid and allowed Randy to take his place. Tim and Reader, however, were stuck, which was obviously a huge disappointment to Joe, since he was hovering behind Reader, ready to offer suggestions at any given second. To his credit, Reader didn’t complain about this. Much.
Hughes remained cool as a cucumber, and, despite us having to veer off and try again a couple of times, we managed in the end, and without anyone getting flung around.
Once docking was complete, though, the next part of Mission: Split Up went into action.
Kreaving did his fist-to-pec salute. “As the official representative for Apata on the Distant Voyager, I would like to formally invite King Jeffrey and Queen Katherine to be our guests for the Festival of Thanks being prepared in your honor.”
I was standing closest to Kreaving, so I did the bow. “We are honored by your invitation. However, the king and I are required to go on to the next planet that needs our assistance. With your permission, however, we would like to ask that we have some of the Royal Family and many of our retainers of highest importance remain to participate in our stead.” The Washington Wife class continued to pay dividends in the strangest of places.
Kreaving looked a little disappointed. “You can’t remain?”
“No. But we can return, once we are victorious. And, since we will be leaving over a third of our crew with you, many of them close blood relatives, you can be assured that we will return.”
“The Festival takes many days,” Grentix said. “If your next mission completes quickly enough, the Festival may still be going.”
“See?” Smiled at Kreaving. “It will all work out. But we have to go—we gave our word that we would be coming to help, and Jeff and I don’t go back on our word.”
Kreaving nodded slowly. “You promised me you would find us and save us, and you did. I cannot ask or expect you to not do the same for others, regardless of our protocols.”
“We’re leaving my closest advisors, and the next people in line to protect our world if something happens to me and Kitty,” Jeff said. “They can speak for us.”
Kreaving grinned. “Based on my short experience with you, while they may indeed speak for you, I’m quite clear that no one else speaks for Kitty.”
“I knew I liked you.”
CHAPTER 93
OF COURSE, there was some pomp and circumstance we had to get through at the space station, though not nearly what was coming for those of our crew who were sticking around.
We had the full Festival described to us and it made any exceptional Earth religious holiday or sporting event victory celebration look pathetic by comparison. Even if our trip to Ixtha lasted longer than our stay on Cradus, the chances that this Festival would still be going on when we got back were hella high.
The folks we were leaving at the station were all introduced as vital to the running of our planet and solar systems, including Alpha Centauri, in part to make everyone sound even more impressive and in other part because Jeff and I were the Regents so it was kind of true.
Planetary leaders had come to the station to meet us, so by the time all the intros were done and our explanation for why the rest of us were leaving so fast was given, a few hours had passed.
Those of us traveling on began saying our good-byes, giving last minute instructions to those staying behind, and getting back on the ship. Christopher spent a lot of time running around and making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be, while Chuckie, Brian, Mossy, and Hacker International spent a lot of time asking Drax every question about the ship they could possibly come up with.