Sitting in their shuttle, me and three Gennies. They were talking in their unknown tongue.
No urgency or emotion, they could be describing how they would broil me for lunch.

I knew Firebird wanted to escape with her Priam, I didn’t know what these characters
intended. I wasn’t afraid, the Terran Mil out there, having me on their connect.

They’d expect an official report sooner or later. This adventure outweighed the possible disaster.

Right now I was the center of the Universe.
My ego was growing to match.
Every where in the galaxy they were singing Doug Hooker.
Good thing both divorces final, and wifey number three quiet.

As we flew, the only thing that had me off center were the Priams…the clones…
and Firebird’s Priam. He, that Priam hadn’t appeared to be greeting his wife,
he was grabbing on to a life rope.

I’d seen it, Firebird had to pick it up. I wouldn’t judge what these guys saw, cause
they didn’t pay the least attention to the lovers.

Since no one on the shuttle is paying me any note, I ring Firebird on my wrist com,
speaking as I would to a girlfriend. I was giving her an out, a way to run with Priam.
She was bright enough to pick it up.

I glanced at the three Priams, they didn’t react. I wonder sometimes if they understand,
or if they don’t care.

On Tellur, the Gennies were at home and accepted me as one of them, so I can’t balance the encounters.

I don’t know if these Sags trusted me or having so much power didn’t need to. Or were so
ignorant, they didn’t know I wasn’t talking to my hand.

That’s the thing with these Sags.
I’d seen it with Priam.
A brain-deadness.
Silence bordering on the inability to form words, remarks a few beats behind the original statement.

With Norms you expect a response, immediate or instant. With Gennies, using my
time on Tellur as measure, I’d started sentences, which they’d finish.

On Tellur, I’d looked around the town, and asked: “Cap sit?” (Is this the Capital City?)
and more than one of them chorused “Ni,” before the ‘t’ sound was out of my mouth.

If I thought Priam especially ’slow’ on the uptake, his brothers were making him the grundnorm.

We were pulling into their ship now. I was glad I’d bathed and had a Gennie flavour.

I noticed I was taller than the Priams, but they had weight on me cause they were over built.

Having been on one of their ships before I had expectations, but they weren’t fulfilled.
This ship was crowded, seemed less than spotless and every single Gennie I saw…
was Priam…..
I didn’t have much time for sightsee; I was marched into a room.

The lights were on near the wall where I stood, the rest of the room slipped into shadow.
I couldn’t tell whether I was in the length or width, only view twenty feet to either side,
then shadows which melded into blackness. Ahead, I had maybe eight clear feet.

“Sit there…” came a deep calm voice somewhere ahead of me. I couldn’t tell if the voice
came from twenty, forty or eighty feet away, due to the acoustics.

There was a long plastic topped table five feet from the door to my right, a bench
running the length of it. I slid in, guessing this was the galley.

The voice came again;

“My brothers suggest you see advantage for us in this event, explain it to me.”