The Hokule'a passed its shakedown flight without issue. Made the loop in about an hour, which was a perfectly reasonable length of time for 700 kilometers of flight in atmosphere. All the systems checked out just fine, though they were running the captured telemetry through the main computer system just to make sure there weren't any oddities hiding somewhere.

Alex was doing a little less well.

Sure, he had done the flight by hand with only a few warnings from the ATC system - ones he had ultimately set off on purpose - and parked it manually with zero issues. But that conversation with the Lieutenant was lingering in his mind. He replayed it again for himself, jaw working as he performed the post-test inspection on the shuttle and silently tried to will Carbon to come over and ask how things went, without an entourage.

He had tried checking in with the group shortly after he had landed but they were deep in the process of inspecting the drone. Their mission had shifted a bit - being made for exploration where you didn't necessarily want to send living people meant its systems had been hardened against radiation way more than the Hokule'a was, and radiation in its various forms were how scans were taken. So there were large portions that couldn't be scanned without radiation sources that were much more powerful than they had on hand.

So when Alex and Williams returned, Carbon and Zheng were both halfway in the drone, manually inspecting the areas they had removed a whole bunch of plating to get into.

This was clearly interfering with his mental signaling to Carbon to come talk to him. Privately. Not that he believed in such things, but it was better than second guessing everything he had spilled to Williams, again. Alex was still pretty sure that he hadn't done too bad. Just stuff that was generally well known among both the Humans and Tsla'o.

Probably.

He had his head stuck into the Ground Support Panel, a holdover from a long time ago that he had been trained to use anyway. He poked the sensor pen from the tablet into an audio connector, the box next to the item in the list filled in with a checkmark. Plug in power and comms, if you could believe it. Sure, it was important if you had a reactorless ship or had to do a black start on the reactor, or on the very slim chance you were taking off from an airport that hadn't been upgraded in a couple of centuries and the ground crew had to put on wired headphones on to talk to the pilot.

He still hadn't needed to use any of the functions that were in there, but he'd only been flying for a bit over a decade. There was still time.

Alex checked off the GSP manually and latched the door closed just in time to hear the distinct sound of Tsla'o footsteps approaching. Yes, he got his hopes up. He had successfully communicated to Carbon using fully contactless telepathy that no Human had ever shown the ability to...

Oh, it was just Amalu.

"Alex? Do you have a moment?" Amalu asked, quietly and almost timidly, as he stood next to Alex and watched him prod a pitot tube with the sensor pen.

He nodded, a little curious as to where this was going. Alex had a suspicion already, particularly considering the last thing Amalu had sought him out specifically to ask about. "Yeah, I reckon as long as you don't mind me working while we talk. About half done with this thing and I want to get it done before dinner."

"Oh, that is perfectly fine." Amalu had managed to also sound nervous now as he stared at the pitot tube with deadly intensity, as though he was also working on the shuttle as well. "I have some questions that I want to ask a Human but do not necessarily trust Crenshaw to answer truthfully... I am sure he will eventually but there will be a span where he is - what is the phrase, giving me trouble?"

"Yeah that's Crenshaw for you." Alex nodded in agreement. Crenshaw just had that feel to him, he'd take jokes too far and just not treat things as seriously as someone else would, at least when he wasn't on the clock. Alex had known a couple of those guys over the years. "Could always ask Abbot or Williams... Or Zheng."

That little choking noise that Amalu made when suggested asking Zheng cemented what this was about in Alex's mind.

"I would... I would like to ask someone that I know is..." Amalu hummed almost silently, stopping himself before he said something that he was not supposed to. "That I know has some experience with Human women. In a nonprofessional setting."

"Ask Williams. She's got loads of experience actually being a woman in a nonprofessional setting. That's a Marines joke." Alex said, ushering Amalu a step over as he slid the sensor pen over the forward starboard comm antenna, pausing for a moment to give the short Tsla'o a little smirk and a wink. "Now that I'm done giving you trouble, what's your question? Or questions? I can't say I've had a lot of luck with Human women in a nonprofessional setting in my past, but that's been on me."

A spectrum of emotions washed over Amalu as he recovered from that. Annoyed, surprised, a bit mad, then simply unsure. "Well... I was wondering how Humans signal that they're interested in entering into a relationship that is more personal."

"When you say personal..." Alex checked his tablet, moving on to the forward starboard sensor cluster. "Do you mean friendly or romantic?"

This question was enough to factory reset Amalu, which was not a great sign. His silver eyes widened, antenna and ears both raised in alarm. "I- I, ah. I- I think-"

Romantic. "Out with it man, you have to know your own intentions in life." There was no other possible answer here other than romantic. Alex didn't think it would really change the approach very much, but that much stammering could only lead down one path.

"I think romantic, yes." The gray furred male exhaled hard and smoothed out his face, practically forcing his antenna back down, ears popping back up after he tried to get them under control, too.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Alex fought the urge to advise him to just shoot his shot. It would have amused him to no end to do so, simply because Amalu's reaction to inane, Human specific advice would be funny. That smirk came back as he enjoyed the thought but set it aside, finishing the starboard side check and moving on to the nose cone area. "Okay. Walk me through how you'd do that for a Tsla'o."

"Oh, well, first I'd get a kerchief and tie it around my wrist so that she knows..." He petered out, a little confused at the face Alex was making. "What does that look mean?"

He hadn't really intended to be giving Amalu so much side eye, not such an incredulous glance towards the younger Tsla'o. But he was. He absolutely was. "A kerchief?"

Amalu nodded, painfully earnest as always. "Yes. I had noticed that Humans have them, Karras wears one on his head regularly. I assume he is not seeking a relationship of any sort, given it seems to be more decorative."

"Oh, like a bandana. Ok, that's... Better than what I was imagining." He had gone straight to handkerchief, which, of the two, he assumed would be best kept in the pocket where no one would see it after having blown your nose in it. Tsla'o have plenty of nose, so it stood to reason that they had handkerchiefs, at some point. "So you would use that to signal interest in someone... somehow?"

"One might wear it openly to signal that they are considering pursuing a relationship. The color and even the fold can communicate information about what one is seeking... or if you are interested in a specific person you would keep it hidden in your sleeve until you are talking to that person." Amalu was relaxing, slowly, as he described this process. "Optimally they would see you reveal it and understand the intent."

Alex pondered that whole operation as he swept the sensor over the bottom of the windshield. "That seems... Very luck based." How had they managed to maintain a population? Maybe Alex was missing something here, maybe the Tsla'o were socialized to be more mindful of such things. Alex was sure he would require a slightly... a much more blunt approach to catch someone's romantic interest than a scrap of cloth sticking out of their sleeve.

This information also left him scrambling to see if he could recall anybody flaunting a kerchief at him and having that sail safety over his head. He assumed not, but you never know. Maybe being a prince made you a hot commodity even with the proximity to The Butcher and her niece that he was married to, before you even counted the whole 'other species' thing.

"That is not the only way. But it is the first path one walks." He said, starting to gesture as he spoke. "It is very informal but a denial or acceptance at that step should be considered a closed matter for some time, at least a year. Obviously if one attempts to court someone via their family, a denial is much more permanent."

"Well yeah, of course." Ok, going through someone's family felt slightly more direct, and more harrowing depending on the family. "So... Given that a Human is not going to pick up on that kerchief thing unless you sit them down and tell them about it while putting it on, you're probably going to have to be the one that takes the step over the divide. I'd recommend being more direct."

"How direct?"

"You walk up to them and look them in the eye and say something like: hey, would you like to go out with me? You can ask if they'd want to go out for coffee or tea. Whatever, just to make the offer a little more specific so the imagination doesn't run wild... That's gonna be hard here, we don't have a coffee shop or anything, and very little privacy." Alex tapped the nose cone check as complete and moved on to the port checks. He could already hear Karras yelling encouragement across the mess hall. "I get the feeling that is very much not a Tsla'o way of doing things, but it'll make your interest plain."

Amalu was not reacting well to any of this. "I do not know if that is something I can do."

"Bro." Alex paused his inspection and looked at Amalu with a critical frown. "You joined the military and have willingly walked onto an alien dyson sphere we know nothing about via a portal device that should not be able to work by our current understanding of physics. This was fantasy until a dozen weeks ago, and yet here you stand. Putting yourself out there sucks, it can hurt, but I know you can do it."

"I had not thought of it like that." He stood up a little straighter and nodded, looking up at Alex with a touch of resolution in his eyes... for a moment. "Is there... Is there a way to judge a Human's interest in you before doing that?"

Alex glanced over his shoulder at the drone, both Carbon and Zheng still at work in it. "Ok - just so I'm not guessing anymore, it's Zheng, right?"

Amalu followed suit, making sure he was not being watched before nodding vigorously.

He had just the thing for this instance. "Alright. So remember yesterday afternoon when she was spinning tracks... Playing music for you three?"

"Oh yes." The reply came instantly. "I do."

Not a big surprise there. "And she was sitting right next to you despite there being enough room that physical contact wasn't necessary?"

His ears shifted down and outward slightly as he glanced away, a move Alex was familiar with enough to read as a blush without thinking about it. "It- I- Yes. She was."

"Did she lean on you?" Alex moved down the port side of the shuttle faster than the starboard, there were just fewer things to scan on this side. He was still mindful of their proximity to the person being discussed, keeping his voice low. "For that matter, has she touched you, maybe your arm or hand, for no professional reasons you could discern?"

Amalu's eyes widened. "I had been warned that humans were just more inclined to initiate physical contact than Tsla'o are, so I took that to mean that... That was just what she did."

Alex hummed and shook his head. He hadn't seen Zheng get chummy with anybody, not like that. Except maybe Carbon. Huh. "Look, it's not a guarantee. Some people are more touchy than others, but I haven't seen her do that to anyone else. I think she's been pretty reserved, actually."

He took a really deep breath here, exhaling slowly as he got his ears back in order again. "So you believe that she has been displaying interest in me?"

Alex closed his eyes for a moment. Amalu was new to this. He wouldn't get annoyed at the younger Tsla'o for being overly cautious when he was out of the loop on how Humans signaled interest in others with nonverbal cues. It was perfectly reasonable to be careful in that situation and not just get a little drunk and then kiss somebody. "Yeah, I think so."

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