Alien Tango

on the intercom. “Time to land. I think we want to buckle in, lord knows what kind of welcome we’re going to get.”
    We moved the seats back to their full, upright positions and strapped ourselves in. I held Martini’s hand, rather more tightly than usual. Landing had never made me feel comfy when I had no idea how to fly. Now that I did, I knew exactly how many things could go wrong. Reader was our best pilot as well as best driver, but I couldn’t keep the nerves at bay.
    Martini stroked the back of my hand with his thumb. “It’ll be fine, baby,” he said quietly.
    I leaned my head on his shoulder. “I’m sure. We’ll manage at your parents’, too. I promise.”
    He kissed my head. “I hope you’re right.”
    I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then we were going down. Landing was smooth as glass, Reader’s usual. I kept my eyes closed. Thoughts had managed to enter my brain, and I wanted to hold onto them.
    “Jeff, what does your father do at the Space Center?”
    “He’s the head of their ET Division.”
    “So, shouldn’t that mean he knows my dad?”
    “If he does, he’s never mentioned it.” Martini sounded confused. “But your father’s a cryptologist. Mine works on the building of the actual spacecraft.”
    “So, did he help design the long-range spacecraft that got hit with the unidentified creepy from outer space?”
    “Probably. Our people have the most experience with spacecraft, even more than Earth scientists.”
    “How so? I thought you used gate technology to get here.”
    “We did, but we’d already explored our entire solar system effectively. There just wasn’t time to build a long-enough-range spacecraft to get us here in time to stop the parasitic threat.”
    More thoughts. And I’d only had one soda since last night’s dinner. Amazing. “How many inhabited planets are there in your system?”
    “More than half, so ten.”
    “How many of them have long-range space flight?”
    “Not sure. When we were exiled, there were two others. Three of the planets weren’t advanced enough and weren’t in contact with the rest of us. Two of the planets had no interest in anything outside our solar system, and one had no interest in anything outside their own planet.”
    “What about the tenth?”
    He was quiet for a few long seconds. “They were warlike, more so than the rest of us. More so than Earth.”
    “So?”
    “So, the rest of our planets, at least the ones advanced enough, got together and removed their ability for space travel.”
    “How could you do that?”
    He sighed. “No idea. That’s all we were taught in school.”
    I considered this. “You’ve never asked for more information?”
    “Nope.”
    “Um, why not?”
    Martini shrugged. “Why would our teachers, who are our parents, grandparents, and other relatives, lie to us about things like this?”
    I managed not to bite through my tongue. “Oh, I can think of a few reasons.” I contemplated how to approach this. “So, doesn’t anyone question things when you’re all young and learning?”
    “Sure. Scientific theory, talent boundaries, control techniques, how to function at human speeds when you don’t want to, why we can’t be more like humans, things like that.”
    I reminded myself they had a whole different range of issues than humans did. Didn’t make this any less disconcerting. “So, it’s an A-C trait not to question your elders?”
    “I suppose.” He sighed again. “I know where you’re going with this. Everyone lied about who Ronald Yates really was, and maybe if we hadn’t, we could have found a way to stop Mephistopheles sooner.”
    “Something like that, yeah. It just seems kind of . . . unusual. That you get into adulthood without a lot of questioning of accepted truths. Or that you’re the head of everything, and yet they haven’t necessarily told you everything.”
    “What they did on our home world doesn’t matter for how we live here. Besides, if the lie is good enough . . . ”
    I got his point. I sure hadn’t figured out my parents were lying about their entire life histories. I’d cared a lot more about getting to stay out past midnight. “Point taken.”
    “If it really matters to you, my father might know how that race was contained.”
    “Think he’ll tell me the truth?”
    “I think you’ll badger it out of him, so probably.”
    “Does Richard know?” I found the Pontifex rather easy to badger for information these days.
    “He