and discussed other elements of human biochemistry that I could barely remember), and I was struck again by how much more the octospiders know about us than we know about them. As always, it was never necessary for me to repeat an answer.
What a day! It began with the pain of discovering that the octospiders were not going to be able to help Benjy. Later on I was reminded of how resilient the human psyche is when I was actually lifted out of my despondency by the stimulation of learning more about the octospiders. I remain astonished by the range of emotions we humans possess-and how very quickly we can change and adapt.
Eponine and I were talking last night about our life here in the Emerald City and how our unusual living conditions will affect the attitudes of the child she is carrying. At one point Ep shook her head and smiled. “You know what’s so amazing?” she said. “Here we are, an isolated human contingent living in an alien domain inside a gargantuan spacecraft hurtling toward an unknown destination… Yet our days here are full of laughter, elation, sadness, and disappointment, just as they would be if we were still back on Earth.”
“This may look like a waffle,” Max said, “and it may feel like a waffle when you first put it in your mouth, but it damn sure doesn’t taste like a waffle.”
“Put more syrup on it,” Eponine said, laughing. “And pass the plate over here.”
Max handed the waffles across the table to his wife. “Shit, Frenchie,” he said, “these last few weeks you’ve been eating everything in sight. If I didn’t know better, I would think that you and that unborn child of ours both had one of those ‘intake buffers’ Nicole was telling us about.”
“It would be handy, though,” Richard said distractedly. “You could load up on food and not have to stop work just because your stomach was calling.”
“This cereal is the best yet,” little Kepler said from the other end of the table. “I bet even Hercules would like it- “
“Speaking of whom,” Max interrupted in a lower voice, glancing from one end of the table to the other, “what is his, or its, purpose? That damn octospider shows up every morning two hours after dawn and just hangs around. If the children are having school with Nai, he sits in the back of the room—”
“He plays with us, Uncle Max,” Galileo shouted. “Hercules is really a lot of fun. He does everything we ask. Yesterday he let me use the back of his head as a punching bag.”
“According to Archie,” Nicole said between bites, “Hercules is the official observer. The octospiders are curious about everything. They want to know all about us, even the most mundane details.”
“That’s great,” Max replied, “but we have a slight problem. When you and Ellie and Richard are gone, nobody here can understand what Hercules is saying. Oh, sure, Nai knows a few simple phrases, but nothing that’s involved. Yesterday, for example, while everyone else was taking the long nap, that damned Hercules followed me into the crapper. Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to do my business even with Eponine within earshot. With an alien staring at me from a few meters away, my sphincter was absolutely paralyzed.”
“Why didn’t you tell Hercules to go away?” Patrick said, laughing.
“I did,” Max answered. “But he just stared at me with fluid running around in his lens and kept repeating the same color pattern that was totally unintelligible to me.”
“Can you remember the pattern?” Ellie said. “Maybe I can tell you what Hercules was saying.”
“Hell, no, I can’t remember it,” Max replied. “Besides, it doesn’t make any difference now-I’m not sitting here trying to shit.”
The Watanabe twins broke into howls of laughter and Eponine frowned at her husband. Benjy, who had said very little during breakfast, asked to be excused.
“Are you all right, dear?” Nicole asked.
Benjy nodded and left the dining room in the direction of his bedroom.
“Does he know anything?” Nai said quietly.
Nicole shook her head quickly and turned to her granddaughter. “Are you finished with your breakfast, Nikki?”
“Yes, Nonni,” the little girl replied. She excused herself and moments later was joined by Kepler and Galileo.
“I think that Benjy knows more than any of us give him credit for,” Max said as soon as the children were gone.
“You could be right,” Nicole said softly. “But yesterday when I talked to him, I saw no indication that he—” Nicole stopped in midsentence and turned to Eponine. “By the way,” she said, “how are you feeling this morning?”
“Great,” Eponine replied. “The baby was very active before dawn. He kicked hard for almost an hour-I could even watch his feet moving around on my tummy. I tried to get Max to feel one of his kicks, but he was too squeamish.”
“Now, why do you call that baby ‘he,’ Frenchie, when you know damn well that I want a little girl who looks just like you.”
“I don’t believe you for a moment, Max Puckett,” Eponine interrupted. “You only say you want a girl so that you won’t be disappointed. Nothing would please you more than a boy you can raise to be your buddy. Besides, as you know, it’s customary in English to use the pronoun ‘he’ when the sex is not known or specified.”
“Which brings me to another question for our octospider experts,” Max said after taking a sip of quasi- coffee. He glanced first at Ellie and then at Nicole. “Do either of you know what sex, if any, our octospider friends might be?” He laughed. “I certainly haven’t seen anything on their naked bodies that gives me a clue.”
Ellie shook her head. “I don’t really know, Max. Archie did tell me that Jamie is not his child, and not Dr. Blue’s either, at least not in the strictest biological sense.”
“So Jamie must be adopted,” Max said. “But is Archie the man and Dr. Blue the woman? Or vice versa? Or are our next-door neighbors a gay couple raising a child?”
“Maybe the octospiders don’t have what we call sex,” Patrick said.
“Then where do new octospiders come from?” Max asked. “They certainly don’t just materialize out of thin air.”
“The octospiders are so advanced biologically,” Richard said, “they may have a reproduction process that would seem like magic to us.”
“I have asked Dr. Blue about their reproduction several times,” Nicole said. “He says it’s a complicated subject, especially since the octospiders are polymorphic, and that they’ll explain it to me after I understand the other aspects of their biology.”
“Now, if I were an octospider,” Max said with a grin, “I would want to be one of those fat slobs Nicole saw yesterday. Wouldn’t it be great if your only function in life was to eat and eat, storing food for all your brethren? What an existence! I knew a pig farmer’s son back in Arkansas who was like a replete. Only he kept all the food for himself. Wouldn’t even share it with the pigs. I think he weighed almost three hundred kilograms when he died at the age of thirty.”
Eponine finished her waffle. “Fat jokes in the presence of pregnant women show a lack of sensitivity,” she said, feigning indignation.
“Oh, shit, Ep,” Max replied, “you know that none of that crap applies anymore. We’re zoo animals here in the Emerald City, and we’re stuck with each other. Humans only worry about what they look like if they’re worried about being compared with someone else.”
Nai excused herself from the table. “I have a few more preparations to complete for today’s school lessons,” she said. “Nikki will be starting on consonant sounds-she has already breezed through the alphabet drills.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Max said. After Patrick left the dining room, leaving only the two couples and Ellie at the table, Max leaned forward with a mischievous smile on his face. “Are my eyes deceiving me,” he said, “or is young Patrick spending a lot more time with Nai than he did when we first arrived?”
“I think you’re right, Max,” Ellie said. “I have noticed the same thing. He told me he feels useful helping Nai with Benjy and the children. After all, you and Eponine are engrossed with each other and the baby that is coming, my time is completely occupied between Nikki and the octospiders, Mother and Father are always busy—”
“You’re missing the point, young lady,” Max said. “I’m wondering if we have another cup-el forming in our midst.”
“Patrick and Nai?” Richard asked, as if the idea had just occurred to him for the first time.
“Yes, dear,” Nicole said. She laughed. “Richard belongs to that category of genius with very selective
