Page 94 of Seeded By Two

But they would never lower themselves to learning the specifics of an alien culture.

If you were a superior species, why would you want to know the inner workings of insects?

Instead, they preferred their superficial level of understanding.

Still, they were industrious and they would not hesitate to take advantage of whatever leverage they could uncover.

And that was perhaps the reason they were taking us to the Captain’s quarters.

The moment we entered the larger quarters, the ankle restraints were placed back on us once more.

The guards dragged over two chairs, placed them back-to-back, and dumped us into them.

They did not lash us down.

There was really no point as there was no way we could launch an effective attack with our wrists and ankles restrained the way they were.

To one side, there was some commotion as the lead guard berated a Ukmat member who did not wear the same disguise as the others.

The only Ukmat that hadn’t morphed into the visage of a Jizzik was their captain—or leader—as these creatures did not follow the same hierarchy system as the Krev.

His hard outer brown shell was marked with tiny dimples that allowed them to alter their shape, size, and color, and was what gave them their unique ability to morph into the appearance of any alien species of a similar size to themselves.

He was busy making plans and issuing orders in his ugly clicking, screeching language.

Despite their best attempts at resisting their language becoming part of the translator’s library, we had managed to ascertain enough to be able to understand it.

They were a secretive lot and did not wish for other species to be able to converse with them.

And for good reason.

Few wanted to deal with an unreliable species that did not follow through with its promises.

And so, with the discovery of the logic of their language, we had unearthed the truth of their insidious nature and exposed it to the rest of the galaxy.

It had been a powerful and decisive blow and made other aliens as distrusting of them as we were.

It was one of the reasons they hated us so much.

Our honesty.

Finishing up with his business, which served as a way to show he was not particularly bothered about discovering who the true prince between us really was, he peered closely at us, his large black rod-like eyes running over our features.

Although, it was impossible to really tell what he was looking at as there was no pupil or iris to speak of.

“It’s nice to see you again, Aslas,” he said. “I had hoped it would be under… friendlier circumstances, but alas, we are where we are.”

He addressed the two of us, never favoring one or the other, and walked around us in a circle, two pairs of his six arms tucked behind his back.

It’s nice to see you again, Aslas.

I couldn’t tell the Ukmat apart so I supposed he must have been one of the participants from our earlier negotiations.

As neither Feon nor I responded, the creature was at a loss as to which of us it was supposed to speak with.

Finally, he came to a stop. “I think what you’re doing is commendable.”

These creatures had zero understanding of what “commendable” really meant.

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