The two females had been watching the proceedings with great interest. One of them looked at me and asked, “She struck a male. Will she not be punished?”
I asked, “Don’t you think he deserved it?”
“Well, yes, but such things are not allowed.”
I replied, “I guess we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Bob Wilson, the Master of this vessel. As such, I get to decide what is and isn’t allowed. I think he richly deserved everything he got.”
Her friend fainted dead away. I looked at Jane. “We’re even. Should we go for a tiebreaker?”
She replied, “I think this one is made out of sterner stuff, Boss. I don’t think she’ll be as easy to put down.”
“You scared my friend so bad that she passed out, and you joke about it? What kind of people are you?”
I said, “Those scary monkeys your Mama warned you about.”
She replied, “Those stories are just as silly as the shows that say you are all idiots. Nobody with any sense believes either one.”
Jane said, “Well, at least she believes she has sense. It’s a start, at the very least.”
“A start on what?”
“Having a conversation with you. Learning something about your people, and your culture.”
“You’re not fooling me, you just want to know where our defenses are, so you can attack us.”
I said, “If I had wanted to do that, I would have when we were at Oak a couple of days ago.”
She wilted a little, but she acted like she didn’t believe it. “You were at Oak, and you lived? How can that be?”
“I studied hard, to be the best Captain I can. I used my skills, and the skills of my crew, to get in and out quickly, before your people could respond.”
“You really expect me to believe you went to Oak? How dumb do you think I am?”
“I don’t expect much of anything from you. From what I’ve seen of your people so far, I don’t have high hopes.”
Angus asked, “Are you ready for us to take them to interrogation, Boss?”
I replied, “Go right ahead, Angus. I’m not getting anywhere with this one.”
The Micks collected the three of them, and headed out. The male was only pretending to be out, and tried to get feisty with Ian. He got stunned for his effort. The female we had been talking with asked, “Why did they do that?”
Jane replied, “Controlling him while he was actively resisting would have run too much risk of injuring him. As much as we might enjoy that, we don’t endanger prisoners unnecessarily.”
The Squirrel sputtered for a minute, and then asked, “You would enjoy hurting him?”
Dingus said, “He’s been a pain in our butts. Seeing him get a little pain back would be enjoyable, yes.”
“Wait, let me get this straight. You only want to hurt him to pay him back for being annoying?”
I said, “Exactly. What did you think our reason would be?”
“You are warlike monkeys. Don’t you want to torture us to find out how to conquer our worlds?”
Jane said, “There are people like that, I suppose, but we’re not that way. We’d rather find a way to do business with you, be friends. If the Captain was interested in conquering your worlds, he would have already woken up the rest of the Navy. One ship isn’t going to be enough to take on a whole civilization.”
“Why did you wake up this ship, then?”
I said, “I didn’t. We found it, adrift and wrecked. The bots patched it up for us.”
“You expect me to believe you just found this ship?”
I replied, “I can’t say as I do. There are a lot of mornings I wake up and have to convince myself.”
Angus said, “This way, please, Ma’am. It would take more time than we have to convince you that the Captain has done all the things that he has. You can believe him or not, but we need to get you situated.”
He led her off to the brig. Dingus said, “I don’t know how much luck we’re going to have, trying to get through to this bunch.”
I replied, “And these are the ones that were supposed to be easy to talk to. Imagine if we had just grabbed a couple at random.”
Jane said, “We’ll do what we can, but I hope you’re not expecting great results.”
“So far, I haven’t seen anything to lead me to expect anything but their total refusal to cooperate. I’m hoping you’re going to give me a pleasant surprise, but I can’t say I have a lot of faith.”
Jane replied, “At least you have realistic expectations. That’s better than most people I’ve worked for.”
Dingus said, “We’ll get Lakki and Tikki to help, and see if we can make any progress. One of us will get ahold of you if one of them decides to play nice.”
I said, “Good luck with that.” The two of them headed toward the transit. Nikki asked, “Am I doing good enough at staying out of the way, and letting you be Captain?”
I replied, “You’re doing that on purpose? I thought you were just worn out from being pregnant. You know I value your input, right?”
“I do, but I don’t want to interrupt and mess with you being clearly in command. I don’t want it to seem like you have to clear your orders through me.”
“Thanks, but please speak up if I’m being stupid. I may be better at being Captain than I was, but I still don’t know all that much about it.”
“I will, Caveman. You should know you don’t have to worry about that. I’m
