All the ports the Goldaskians knew of were several weeks away, closer to the Empire. Geh!kin proposed searching more nearby stars, in the hopes that a starfaring race turned up. Nick couldn't understand why any such race wouldn't have already explored everywhere near them, and Sana was kind enough to talk it through with him.

"Interstellar travel is not cheap, not even for the Empire. The very advanced races, yes, they likely can fly around inspecting any star they want. In fact, the Group has probably checked over every star in the galaxy already."

"I'm sorry, the 'Group'?" Nick asked.

"Um...the set of all artificial people. You should pick a name for it in your language, it will come up."

Nick considered. Group, System, Overlords, Gang, Organization, Collective...? "The Collective." Then he thought over what Sana had said. "Wait, so the AI Collective has been everywhere? Even to Earth?"

"Probably."

"Why didn't they say hi?"

"You have not created artificial people yet, right? What you call AI?"

"That's right."

"So, they probably just don't care about you."

"Wow." Rude! Nick thought. "And the other advanced races?"

"It's hard to be sure, but since they don't appear to know everything, they probably just haven't bothered with a lot of systems yet, unless there's something of particular interest. Who knows? Maybe they asked the Collective to look for certain things while they were out cataloging, and only got relayed the information requested."

"Well..." Nick tried to think of what to ask next. "What about the Goldaskians? You must have a bunch of ships, why haven't you examined the whole galaxy?"

"As I said, interstellar travel is very expensive. This ship cost a lot of credits, Nick. Fueling it up costs a lot of credits. That's something we're going to have to deal with, now that we don't have a military paying the bills.

"And there are a lot of stars in the galaxy, Nick. The Empire has only eight systems. The Big Four only have twenty to fifty each. There just isn't much that is worth the cost of going out to find it."

"What about...?" Nick tried to recall the reasons in Earth science fiction why a race would spread out among the stars. "Population pressure?"

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"I don't think that translated. Petra gave me the words for 'population' and 'pressure'."

Looks like another disconnect. Nick thought about how to rephrase. "Your populations grow, right? Of different races?"

"Sometimes, why?"

"What do you mean, 'sometimes'?"

"I mean, population goes up and down. What...?" Sana's eyes widened. "Oh, I think I get it. Your race is still young. You haven't finished expanding yet?"

Nick thought about it. "I know the birthrate is falling, but our population is still going up. It never goes down."

"Oh, wow, and you beep...you...saw that and saw the future...and thought, 'we need more room', is that it?"

"Yeah."

"And you thought going to other stars would help?" Sana looked as if she were trying hard to keep from laughing.

"Um, some of us, I guess, yeah."

"Have fewer babies," Sana advised. "It's a lot easier than going to other stars. A lot easier."

"Not as much fun, though," Nick countered with a grin. Sana did laugh that time.

"Oh, speaking of fun and growing population, I was hoping you would stop by Sickbay sometime soon."

Nick blinked at the shift in topic. "Um, okay. Do you need more blood?"

"Not exactly. I would like a beep beep sample." She tugged on one horn and tried again. "Baby...batter?"

Nick didn't know whether to crack up laughing or freeze in shock. His body kind of tried to do both at once, and he had to cough; it felt as if he were managing to choke on air. "You want...?" He stopped and wheezed. "Um..." He stared at the Goldaskian doctor, who was observing him with clinical interest.

"You're changing color, Nick."

"Yeah, no shit."

"Was that sarcasm?"

"Yes."

"Nick, are you preparing to mate? I didn't mean right this minute..."

Nick slammed back into a bulkhead and doubled over laughing, holding his gut. "Oh my God..." he wheezed. "Oh my God..." He sank down to the deck.

The doctor waited him out until he got his breath back. Translation errors had been funny enough to incapacitate members of each race more than once. Once he'd regained his composure, he considered her request. He cleared his throat.

"So...why do you need a sample of my...the technical word is 'sperm'. Why do you need a sample of it?"

"I'm comparing human and Goldaskian life systems."

"Are we that similar?"

"Yes."

Nick had an alarming thought. "You aren't...going to make babies with it, right?"

"No. I do not do that without beep...without you say yes."

"All right."

"Thank you. Come to Sickbay when you are ready to give a sample."

Nick worked his mouth a moment, trying to figure out what to say to that.

"Oh, does it require a female? We don't have any female humans aboard, yes, but I think Goldaskian females are similar enough to help. I can ask Polla—"

"Ah, no. I can manage...without a female."

"Is there another problem?"

"I'll take care of it."

"All right. Well, let me know if I can help."

"I will."

Nick got out of that conversation and sighed. If we're so similar, are you just trolling me, Sana?

Or did bad translation accidentally make it sound as if you were flirting?

Or were you actually flirting with me, and it got lost in translation?

Nah. She was trolling me.

Nick shook his head. I bet NASA doesn't have a briefing for this situation, either.

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