Chapter 12

It was probably fortunate that the Dromat did not understand a single word of what James had said. Although it was under compulsion to stand there and do nothing that might be interpreted as threatening, odds were good that it would have been insulted to learn that it had been compared to a comedic character from a situation comedy. One of the Slatherns it was carrying started making noises which the Dromat couldn't understand.

The same couldn't be said for the humans in the room. All of them jumped when the Slathern said, "Hello, Captain Klein. It is nice to finally be able to talk with you."

Stunned, everyone looked at Cousin Itt holding the two slugs in its hands. Surprised at the fact that the alien knew English, James commented, "Well, I'll be damned. All of those television shows were right. Space aliens do speak English. Of course, they were wrong about them having perfect American accents. Who would have thought they'd speak with Dutch accents?"

No one else had picked up on the language, just the fact that the alien knew the Captain's name. No one was more surprised by that rather significant fact than the Captain. It seemed that a long time passed before he recovered enough to ask, "How did you know my name?"

"I'm Siegfried," was the answer.

"Siegfried? Who is that?" the Captain asked staring at the slug-like creature from which the sounds were originating. He had to admit that if an alien creature hadn't been holding it in his hand; he would have probably squashed the slug without giving it a second thought until it had started speaking at him.

"I'm the Quatyl standing beside you. You've been my pet for years, Otto," the Slathern answered.

Confused that the slug was claiming to be his Quatyl, the Captain looked down at his pet only to find Siegfried looking up at him. All thoughts about the big ship fled his mind at the idea that his Quatyl was talking to him through the slug held in the hand of Cousin Itt. His eyes drifted over to the Slathern as he asked, "What's going on here?"

The other Slathern started making some noises. These noises the Dromat did understand since it was speaking Quatyl. Somewhat amused by the desperation in the voice, he listened as the Slathern said, 'This is Captain Beac of the Quatyl Space Exploration Agency. What is going on?"

Siegfried answered Captain Beac using the Slatern on the other ship to explain that they were taking a moment to speak to their pets. While he was doing that, Starman used the other Slathern to say, "James, you have been a very good pet."

"Thank you, but I think you have the relationship backwards. You're my pet," James said looking down at his Quatyl.

"I adopted you for a pet," Starman said well aware of his pet's attitude about which one of them was the pet and which one of them was the owner.

"No, I adopted you for a pet," James said with a smile. He figured that they were going to have lots of fun discussing the matter for years.

Ann was staring at Stardust thinking about the implications of what she was witnessing. It dawned on her that the Quatyl could very well want to get on the other ship and leave. With tears threatening to well up in her eyes, she asked, "You're not going to leave us, are you?"

"No, I won't leave you Ann," Stardust said surprising everyone with the feminine tone in the voice coming from the Slathern.

Still upset that the Quatyl had growled at her, Kim looked down at Ice and asked, "Will you be leaving me?"

Rubbing against her leg, Ice answered, "No."

"You growled at me," Kim said. Her feelings were still hurt.

"I'm sorry I growled at you. We were just so excited to see one of our ships here. The fact that you wanted to go out and attack it was a little upsetting," Ice answered.

"I can see why," Kim said. She reached down and picked up Ice. With tears in her eyes, she said, "I love you, Ice. The thought of losing you was just too much to bear."

That news seemed to have released a little of the tension in the room and the rest of the humans picked up their Quatyl. The Dromat watched with wide eyes as the creatures stroked the backs of the Quatyl and heard the noise emitted by the little things. He had never heard a Quatyl purr.

Having dealt with Captain Beac, Siegfried said, "The Quatyl Captain wants to talk with you, Otto."

The next few hours turned into a rather interesting discussion concerning the future of the Quatyl/Human relationship. The conversation had been made a little more complicated by the fact that some of the Quatyl participating in it had adopted Humans as pets and weren't willing to give them up. It was nice to have a creature that willingly took care of you and occasionally surprised you with treats.

Captain Beac had a nagging suspicion that the Humans had some kind of mental or physical control over the Quatyl, but didn't voice that concern. The communications channels back to the headquarters of the Space Exploration Agency were busy while he was trying to get clear instructions on how to proceed. None of the scenarios put forth by the Gnord had included the possibility of what had happened with the original Quatyl crew.

The Dromat had followed the Quatyl side of the discussion with interest even though the only part of it that it could hear was the words from Captain Beac. It kept looking at the Humans and trying to figure out why they weren't affected by the Quatyl. For the first time in its life, it actually felt a little hope that life in the galaxy was about to change.

When the long exchange with Captain Beac was over, James and Ann went to their quarters with their Quatyl. All four of them were exhausted. Ann dropped onto their bed and said, "I'm glad that Stardust is going to stay with me."

"I know what you mean," James said. He sat down on the bed beside her and said, "I wish my grandfather was still alive. I think he'd be very proud to learn that all of the Quatyl consider him to be the first pet."

Starman looked up at James from the floor. Looking down at his pet, James winked and said, "Now that you can't argue back, we can all agree that we adopted you as pets. So there!"

Starman just looked back at James taking in the fact that the beast's tongue was stuck out at him. There were times when James reminded him so much of the first pet. He had a feeling that there were going to be a lot of interesting conversations in the future. James was a remarkably clever pet.

The thought also dawned on him that over the past hundred years, the Quatyl on Earth had developed a sense a humor. He had thought it was rather funny when James had declared the Dromat to be Cousin Itt. When his pet had watched the television show, he had watched it as well. It wasn't until the Dromat had been standing in the landing bay that he had realized that Cousin Itt was remarkably similar to a Dromat.

Still struggling with the idea that the Quatyl were a space faring race and not an overly intelligent animal, Ann said, "I still find it hard to believe that a Quatyl is in charge of that huge ship."

"I think there are going to be a lot of scientists who are going to be very embarrassed," James said with a smile. He thought about all of the studies that had proved that Quatyl intelligence was instinct.

"You can say that again," Ann said.

"You do know what this means?" James asked.

Seeing the twinkle in his eyes, Ann was almost afraid to ask. She asked, "What?"

"The next time some psychologist says that they've scientifically proven that I'm crazy, I can point to the Quatyl and tell them that science doesn't know everything," James said.

Laughing, Ann said, "That won't stop them from locking you up."

"Probably not," James said snapping his fingers to indicate another great plan foiled by the vulgarities of reality.

She yawned and said, "I've got to get some sleep. Why don't you put out some food for the Quatyl?"

James looked over the edge of the bed and saw that the Quatyl had already gone into their den. They would wake up in the middle of the night and find the food that James had left for them. James thought for a moment that redefining the relationship with the Quatyl wouldn't be that bad of an idea. The thought of waking up in the morning to find breakfast waiting for him was rather intriguing. He grinned at the idea of using that argument on Starman.

The Dromat in the landing bay had basically been ignored during the entire discussion. When the discussion was nearing completion, it was decided that it would remain on board of the ship. Under control of a Quatyl, it was directed to the cafeteria where it took a position in the corner of the room under the watchful eye of one of the crew members.

This might seem like a rather indifferent treatment of the Dromat, but it was used to it. In fact, the Dromat was actually having the best time of its life. The one thing that amazed the Dromat was that once the Quatyl that had been controlling it had left the cafeteria it was under the extraordinary condition in which it wasn't being controlled. Rather than create a problem, the Dromat decided that it was in its best interests to just wait and watch. While the entire trip had been spent doing very little, it had watched the humans and found them to be very fascinating.

About three hours after arriving at the cafeteria, it had figured out how things worked in the room. It went over to the line and picked up a tray. At the silverware station, it picked out a spoon. The Dromat recognized the spoon for what it was since spoons are one of the few universally common eating utensils unlike the spork which is a uniquely human invention.

Pushing the tray along the little ledge like the humans had, it examined each of the foods trying to figure out what to get. Not knowing what would be good, it finally pointed to a white puree.

The guy behind the counter looked at the Dromat and just dished out a serving of mashed potatoes. Without missing a beat, the guy said, "There you go, Cousin Itt."

The Dromat took the tray over to a table and sat down in one of the chairs. It was actually rather nice not to be standing. It took a taste of the mashed potatoes under the watchful eyes of everyone in the room. Everyone in the room watched it eat since they all wondered what it would think of the food. The Dromat leaned forward and, in a very dainty manner, it used the spoon to shovel a mouthful of food into its mouth.

It must be admitted that the Dromat found the mashed potatoes to be a rather bland and uninteresting dish, but it finished the serving that was on its plate. Having observed others return their trays to a conveyor belt, the Dromat disposed of his tray in the same manner.

The Dromat returned to the corner and stood there watching the activity in the room. It was slowly picking up some details of the language. It figured out pretty quickly the words of greeting and parting. It took a little more time to determine that a laugh was a verbal reaction to humor. The Dromat had heard of humor, but the time spent under the control of the Quatyl had made very few things seem funny. The interactions among the people seemed to be rather complex.

From time to time a person approached and tried to talk to the Dromat. Not understanding what was said, the Dromat just stared at the person. After a few attempts to get a reaction, the person would give up leaving the Dromat to work out what it was the person was trying to communicate.