Chapter 657

The crew is eating supper outside the cave.

...”But what’s that got to do with me?” Morales asked. “I barely know how to spell those words, let alone be able to ask pertinent questions.”

“But you’re married to a physical anthropologist, and if I’m not mistaken, she has a minor in cultural anthropology, too. Highly educated people seem to enjoy attending dress up/cocktail parties on Earth, and I’ll bet that advanced alien societies have their version of academia that isn’t that different. We might both need to have a suit or two, and maybe even a tux. You wouldn’t want to have your wife go by herself, would you? Or you could go in uniform.”

“What uniform? I’m not in the military.” Morales asked with a puzzled look.

“Still, we could have a Ship’s uniform so we would all look professional. The crew will certainly be in uniform, as well as my Assault Team. Jasmine would fall into the professional category, as would your other wives. We’ve talked about your Primitive Survival Tactics. How would we label it? How about something like Primitive Survivalist? We can’t have you running around on duty in blue jeans, so we need a uniform for you, too. Hey, that would go well with Jasmine’s title when you go with her.”

“Shit, Jeff, how do you think up this crap? If I went with her, I would come across as a blithering idiot when they started talking about ancient societies. But ... since I’ve been using the reading program, my speed has tripled at least, and I retain more as well. Bottom line, I’ve read two of her basic physical anthropology texts — not that I remember a tenth of the names of all those bones, nor much about genetics, either, but I just might be partially able to understand what they would be discussing.”

“I would just about bet they would be more interested in a big Primitive Survival Specialist than they would an Anthropologist — particularly the females.”

For a long moment, Morales just stared at him.

They went back to shelling as Jeff watched, knowing his friend was thinking. Finally, “When you first mentioned the trip, I envisioned you would be going from star system to star system looking for the race that built Ship’s brain. I guess it was later when you were talking about it that I finally realized just how much time had passed, or at least had some glimmer of the tremendous time span, not to mention finding the correct dimension. You don’t really expect that the race continues to exist, do you?”

Jeff was also slow with his return comment. “Actually, I think I do,” he drawled out, “at least to some degree, but I worry. On the one hand, Ship could find her race and ... what? Would they still have records and want to take her away from me? On the other hand, Ship says that’s impossible — that once she chose her Prime — me — I am locked into her core, never to be changed. I asked her what would happen if I were killed or died of natural causes, but she refused to answer me.

“I suppose there is a part of me that hopes we will never find her race. Truthfully, I think Ship knows the likelihood of finding them is next to zero, but she is ... morally bound to try. She was created to help with their defense, but I honestly think their having never returned for her shows, to me at least, that it is an almost certainty they didn’t win the war they were losing when they decided to have her create a battleship to end all battleships. Still, I ... feel that some part of their race has survived.”

“So what happens if the impossible occurs and Ship finds the race that built her brain? What if they’re alive and well, and ... need her?”

“I will not give her up, even if she could remove me from her system so that her race could put someone else in as her Prime. She says it’s impossible, and by damn, they will have to kill me to do it.” Jeff sat thinking for a couple of moments. “Morales, I’m going to tell you something that I have never even told Diana — yet. At least not straight out. Somehow, I’ve fallen in love with Ship. Yeah. Yeah, I know. It sounds crazy, but I swear I can feel her in my mind even when we aren’t physically close to each other. I can feel her love for me, just as I can Diana’s or Little One’s or any of my wives. And don’t you fucking laugh.”

“Jeff,” Morales said with a chuckle, despite his trying to hold it back, “if you could see your face right now, you would know I would never seriously laugh at what you said.” I want to keep on living, he didn’t say aloud.

The conversation had captured Selina’s rapt attention. She continued shelling peas at the other end of the table, but her mind, now in full extrapolation mode, was way ahead of what the men were discussing. I like Ship. Hmmm, maybe it is even more than that, and Ship said she likes me. I can work with that. If I help her, maybe she will return the favor.

The shadows were growing long, and full darkness wasn’t far away, but a number of overflowing baskets remained to be processed. Tired, the women had agreed to stop for the day and had moved their completed canning farther down the main passage of the cave where the jars would remain in total darkness, besides being out of the way. After they moved the canning equipment aside, a brief discussion ensued, followed by a period of cooking. In only a little while, they brought out bowls and platters of food to place on the tables that had been shoved together under the nearest big tree. There were fresh beans, peas, carrots and a garden salad in addition to two enormous platters of bison steaks cooked to taste. Jasmine had been determined not to run short of food this time, and with what Diana had brought, there was food aplenty and then some.

Just as everyone sat down to eat, Arlene and Ann seemed to pop into existence as Ship’s inertialess tractor beam put them near the others.

After joyful greetings were exchanged, the girls were soon seated with food in front of them.

At Morales’ insistence, Diana said grace before they began their feast.

Morales spoke up. “With the wolves gone, we could never sit out here to eat comfortably without Ship to guard us, particularly this late in the day. I wish she could be here with us.”

Jeff glanced above them, and a moment later, one of Ship’s small, disk-shaped mechanicals drifted down to land on the table near Jeff. “I am humbled that you would want me to be with you, Mr. Morales,” Ship said, her voice mellow even through the mechanical.

Morales took a second before finally managing to say, obviously sincerely, “You are doubly welcome. I just wish you could enjoy our grand feast.”

“Perhaps, one day,” Ship wistfully returned.

Unnoticed by the others, Jeff’s stare locked onto the mechanical for several long seconds.

Earlier, Morales had asked if they might check on Lobo and Lila, but Ship said that both animals had requested he wait until later in the day. Ship now directed her attention to him.

“Mr. Morales,” she said through her mechanical, “both Lobo and Lila have requested more training before they approach you and your family, but I think their hesitancy is more from bashfulness than lack of functionality. Although the Miadax equipment worked, unlike humans, the program had nowhere to map English into, since the wolves had no spoken language of their own. They now have an extensive vocabulary and have been given the rules of English, but they have to ‘find’ the words and use them while at the same time utilizing the rules of grammar that I have installed. They are progressing nicely, and I have repeatedly told them that they will continue to learn for the foreseeable future. Imagine how long it would take the average individual to learn a new language if they had no language of their own to base the new language on. To you, they have only spent two days studying, but remember, they have been involved in my time-dilation instruction facilities. To them, they have spent approximately two months learning to speak after starting from the very basics.

“Also, remember that their vocal cords, tongue and even the design of their throats and mouths differ greatly from a human’s, even after my partial reshaping of those aspects of their affected physiques. Again, I caution you that they remain very self-conscious of their language and speech abilities, but I insisted that it was time to regain their places in your family.”

Lobo and Lila suddenly appeared a few feet from the table. There was a second where no one did anything before Morales almost upended his folding chair in his hurry to stand. In seconds, he was hugging both animals. “Damn, I’ve missed you two,” he quietly said as he blinked back tears of joy.

“We have missed you, too,” the wolves said, alternating every couple of words.

They were having trouble with certain sounds. Too sounded a little like “foo.” We sounded a bit like “ve.” Some words, however, were perfectly pronounced. Their speech, overall, was discernable, but it was as if they had a heavy accent.

Morales was moved aside as the women hugged and made over the wolves, bragging on their speech, although they had heard very little of it. When Jasmine tactfully asked why they had alternated what they had said, the wolves looked at each other as if they hadn’t realized what had happened. Indeed, this would be a continuing thing in the future, even after their “accents” became almost unnoticeable. One wolf would start a sentence, and the other would finish it.

Although the Morales family had expected the wolves to be continually talking, now that they could, that didn’t seem to be the case if they were speaking to each other. Part of their hesitation was because they knew they weren’t pronouncing words perfectly. However, they had never been able to talk, and even with the new ability, they still had little reason to speak aloud between themselves because of their mental abilities. They didn’t communicate mentally word for word, but rather somewhat like Little One did with Jeff. They tended to think and communicate with each other in concepts rather than word for word the way human’s tend to do when they talk.

“We have been missing you,” Diana told them as she hugged their necks.

“We miss you,” Lila got out, distinguishable, but her diction was slow.

“Can we go ... now?” Lobo asked, embarrassed by everyone making over them.

“Well, certainly,” Jasmine responded, “but don’t you want a steak or two, first?”

“That sound...” Lobo got out.

“Good,” Lila helped her mate.

“So, did you two enjoy Ship’s classes?” Christine asked as she and Ashley put steaks on two plates for the wolves.

“Talk ... long,” Lobo hesitantly said.

“Hard to remember ... everything,” Lila hesitantly added.

“I can’t believe you’re talking,” Jasmine enthused as Ashley and Christine put plates in front of the wolves.

Ashley hurried inside the cave to return with the wolves’ bowls filled with water and ice cubes. (As soon as the Morales family had a refrigerator, and they began to have cold drinks with their meals, the wolves had fallen in love with ice water.)

“Thank you for food and water,” Lila stumbled out, then nudged her mate.

“Thank you,” he managed. At least that’s what it sounded like, but between eating and learning to talk, it was anybody’s guess.

Jeff noted that the wolves sucked the water similar to how a horse drinks, instead of lapping it the way a dog or wolf would on Earth.

The young wives had cut the steaks into bite-sized pieces so the wolves wouldn’t have to hold the steak down with a foot to tear off a piece.

They must have been hungry, because they each asked for another steak.

“Are you guys going to spend the night?” Jasmine quietly asked Diana. “You know that you are more than welcome, but I need to know so I can send my husband to the ice cave to get more meat for breakfast.”