Once the dinner was finished, the evening turned into dancing and catching up with old friends, as almost everyone in the room knew each other, but they often couldn't get together outside the public eye on any sort of regular basis.
The Alliance paparazzi were still upset at the Reavers for their policy on unauthorized photos, but the ability to walk through the World Ship and have dinner with friends without being subjected to constant media attention was considered a blessing by the many dignitaries that visited the ship, and Felicity was exceedingly skilled in making sure that no media members got on board without prior authorization.
They were about to retire for the evening when a small body collided with Max, and then he saw a chocolate covered hand grab his pant leg as the child moved to hide behind him. It wasn't one that he recognized, it was the child of a Black Market merchant that Mary had invited for the evening so that she could securely pass him documents without anyone questioning the situation that brought them together.
Officially, he was here as the representative of his Space Station that moved a lot of human goods to local trading ships for final distribution, so it was perfectly normal for him to have a business dinner with the Reaver leadership. It could be considered a bit above his pay grade, if you didn't know about his other connections, but it certainly wasn't enough to seem odd when there were over a dozen other businessmen and politicians here from all over the Alliance.
"What are you hiding from, little one?" Max asked the child behind him.
"Shh, you haven't seen me. Father has prohibited me from eating sugar." The boy whispered as he frantically licked the cake frosting from his hands.
"I can give you a napkin if you need." Max suggested.
"And waste all this? I think not. Just warn me before he gets over here, if you know who he is." The boy whispered back.
His father was not headed their way, he was behind Max, and the unimpressed state of his thoughts said that he could already see the child.
It was slowly turning to amusement as the boy carefully watched the last spot that his father had been seen while he carefully cleaned his hands of the last bits of sweet frosting. What the boy hadn't counted on was the fact that his father was a black marketeer. He had abundant experience in people trying to hide from and deceive him, and as soon as the boy hid from him, he had anticipated where the little one was headed and moved to intercept.
Currently, he was leaning against the far wall directly behind them both, waiting to see if the boy would notice him at all.
"Don't you think that you're missing spots in your search? You need to do a full 360 to get a proper grasp of the situation." Max whispered.
"But he was over there talking to a business partner and I haven't seen him move past us. He should still be there." The boy replied.
"He could have moved while you were running. I would check anyhow." Max suggested.
The boy tried to act natural and stepped around Max like he was going to talk to him, but instead he was searching the room.
It was almost smooth, for a five-year-old.
Max sensed the moment that the boy spotted his father, who was smiling at the boy, who knew instantly that he had been caught sticky handed. He froze, unsure if he should try to run again and hope that his father hadn't seen anything, or to just face the music instead.
"How long has he been there?" The boy whispered to Max, certain that the Commander had known all along.
He got there just before you circled around behind my legs. You have had your back to him this whole time, but you were only scanning in front of you. Two out of ten on situational awareness." Max replied.
The boy's father walked up as they talked, and extended a hand to greet Max.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Commander Max, and thank you for humouring my son. I am Lam Davos of the Davos Seven Station. You are generous to give him two out of ten. If he had actually mistaken one of the others for me, I would give him a point, but he assumed that I hadn't moved because he hadn't seen me.
He even thought that I didn't see him grab the cake from the waiter, or hide the other two slices in his flat space storage." The father explained.
"Oh, that is a critical failure, young man. If you're going to pocket merchandise, you need to be absolutely sure that nobody sees you do it. It doesn't matter if you're the merchant removing the valuables before questionable customers come in or if you are the cheating customer. Getting caught is never acceptable." Max laughed.
The father reached down and grabbed a hold of the boy's ear, then bowed to Max and escorted the boy out of the room. It was getting later in the evening, and it was time for the kids to go to bed, which was part of the reason that sugar had been prohibited, and the move seemed to be a signal to the other parents to head out for the evening.
After that, it was only the last few who were still drinking and talking business, but there was nothing serious left to do for the evening, other than make sure that they let everyone here on the ship know that they were headed off to Terminus in the morning and out into the unexplored regions of space.
As the room cleared, Max noticed that Mary was clinging to Nico, trying to convince her that she really should stay nearby and give moral support, since all the other kids were off at school. It wasn't working, and Mary knew that it wouldn't, but the theory was that it would soften Nico up for when she switched to the [If only I had grandchildren] pitch in about three minutes.
"You know, it wouldn't be so lonely if I had more little ones to raise. How is that body renovation going? Any good news for me?" Mary asked, confirming Max's assessment of her plans.
Her thoughts were like Nico's fathers, almost always hidden from him, though hers were a bit easier to see through, it was just her poker face and determination to keep everyone in the dark, not a system skill keeping him from gleaning useful surface thoughts.
"No good news yet, but I'm working on a theory that should let me begin an ex-utero self-contained incubation unit for reproduction." Nico replied.
Max laughed to himself as Nico declared that she was intending on creating a method for humans to lay eggs, but Mary seemed extra skeptical at the announcement.
"That doesn't sound like you plan to give me grandchildren at all." Mary complained.
Max stepped up and gave Mary a hug. "On the contrary, it sounds like she intends to hand them directly to you, possibly inside an egg."
The few remaining dinner guests laughed as they realized what Nico had been referring to. Not all of them had realized that Nico was a cyborg, as it wasn't widely practised among most planets of the Alliance. But she was a well known scientific mind, so they associated her with the Innu, who put research before everything else, so test tube babies wasn't all that shocking of a thought.
"How can that count? Well, maybe that could count. Now I'm actually kind of interested in seeing what sort of hybrid augmented human infant she might produce in that research lab of hers." Mary chuckled, as she decided that she was being pranked by her oldest daughter.
"How about we talk about it once we get back from our little expedition? With some luck, we will have new toys for everyone, so we will have to come back for at least a little while." Max suggested.
"Fine, I suppose that we can put this off for at least a few more months. I might be getting old, but my Nico is still young." Mary sighed.
Max gave her a hug in consolation, though Mary was far from getting old. With her high system compatibility, and the amount of advancement she had likely done in secret, it was quite probable that she had at least two centuries ahead of her, but even if she didn't have a system at all, modern medicine had made fertility viable until nearly the hundredth birthday, and she wasn't even halfway there yet.
Nico would be older than she was now before it was too late for her to have more children, but Mary Tarith was never known for her endless patience. She preferred to get things done the moment that she thought of them, and she had been thinking about grandchildren ever since her husband said they had enough children of their own.
"Alright, we are off to the Commander's quarters here on Absolution, and we will transfer over to Terminus in the morning, once we have had a final briefing with the Board, and set up everything for another extended departure.
My only real concern is that we don't know how long it will take before the Great Enemy returns, and that it will be both more sudden and more violent than we had prepared for when it does happen."
