Family Choices

resting spot at the end of the table. "Easy," he said. "Just say 'no thanks.'"

  The pain on Carter's face told Hadtec that, for some reason, it wasn't that easy. Karecat saw it too, "There are still a few sparks of wander lust left over aren't there? Did this letter just fan them into a flame?"

  Carter seemed not to want to look at Karecat anymore. Once again, it looked to Hadtec like he was trying to find something deep in his coffee.

  Suddenly, for no apparent reason, every bit of conversation in the bar came to a stop. Hadtec looked over at Karecat and saw her staring at the door. "What the Hell!" asked Karecat, "is that!"

  Hadtec followed Karecat's gaze, focusing his eyes on the bar entrance. Standing in the entrance was a Coorbaty. Hadtec knew this particular Coorbaty by sight. Its name was Tar'c. Standing just under four feet high with skin the same grayish brown as his home-worlds mud, Tar'c had two very large round black eyes. Where a human's nose would be, a boney ridge ran all the way to the top of his bald head, connecting with a hollow horn through which were blown the musical notes of his native language.

  With their home planet in-system, Coorbaty were not really an unusual sight on station. What was unusual was to see one standing between a young naked man, and a six foot tall cake floating just off the floor. Looking around the bar, Tar'c at last saw the three friends sitting together. His face broke into a large grin, an expression that Coorbaty and humans shared. He grabbed a small control box off his belt and punched some buttons. The male nude began to dance, the candles on the cake lit up, and all three began moving towards the table. "I bring stripper. I bring cake. Carter, you jump in cake now. We begin congratulation party!" His three friends just stared at him along with the rest of the bar. This brought Tar'c at last to a full stop. "Did I not right get? Miss do some?"

  "You want it in chronological or alphabetical order?" muttered Karecat.

  Hadtec didn't think Karecat very diplomatic. He knew how hard Tar'c tried to understand his human hosts. A struggle Hadtec could fully relate to. Fortunately, it seemed Carter understood too. He stepped in before the Coorbaty could become even more confused. "First off Tar'c, the stripper usually goes in the cake, not the bachelor. Then later the stripper comes out, and then usually takes HER clothes off. It's usual to have a female stripper at the bachelor party and a male at the bachelorette's party."

  Tar'c pushed a button on his control box and both cake and dancer disappeared, confirming Hadtec's suspicion that they were holograms. They just hadn't sounded right. "But now you have two wife-female-lovers, don't you need wife-male-lovers?" asked Tar'c.

  "They're called husbands." Karecat broke in, "Males are called husbands. He's getting one of those too actually, Donald. Donald and Marseena are already married, so they come as a team. That makes Donald a husband-male. Though I don't know about the lover part." Here she looked questioningly at Carter. "I've never really found a polite way to ask..."

  "Good!" Carter shot back. "Anyway Tar'c, it may be a bit early to start this party yet."

  "Oh good! Give time me rent really stripper female and get bake into cake." With a happy smile he turned to leave.

  "No!" All three friends spoke at once.

  Tar'c turned back to look at his friends, puzzlement written all over his face. "I still right not?"

  "What I mean to say Tar'c," Carter went on more carefully this time, "is that I'm not sure there should be a party at all. Look, sit down and Hadtec can fill you in. I don't know, maybe you can give a fully alien perspective on this?"

  "That can." Tar'c nodded sitting across from Carter. "Do not know good though. Hard me tell what one sex all time like. Mine change often."

  "How often are your sex changes?" asked Hadtec. "About every ten station months, right?”

  Tar'c smiled. "Every 9.9613 month maybe." Human time and numbers, unlike human language, was something with which the Coorbatys had no trouble. In fact they liked to use them whenever they could. "Now what trouble?"

  Hadtec could fill in Tar'c using his native language. Dolphin language was much closer in pitch and grammar to the Coorbaty's own language than English, and Tar'c did well in it. Carter was trying to learn the language from Hadtec and so wanted to listen, but Karecat wanted to continue working on Carter's problem. "You're a child of a generation marriage yourself, aren't you?"

  "Yes," answered Carter. "but, even today, monogamy is still more common."

  "I've heard this said before," Hadtec said breaking off his dialog with Tar'c. "Then I read that monogamy is only 40% of all human families. How can both be true?"

  "Well, there are more types of human families than I could possibly name," Carter answered, "but the three big ones, at least sexually, are monogamy, one mate with one mate and no one else, as you said about 40%; group, a small group all about the same age all mated to one another, I've heard that is about 30%; and generation, two or three couples usually about a generation apart, about 25%."

  "5% more make miss 100?" complained Tar'c.

  "Oh, that 5% is everything else. There are men with multiple wives and no other men, women with more husbands, and so on," Carter answered, "but, to me, a family is made up of pairs living with pairs. It's what I grew up with, and it's what I want my kids to grow up with."

  This time even Hadtec failed to notice when another friend joined the group. This one was more polite than the rest. He was also older. A musical tone was the Cyborg's equivalent of clearing his throat. It got much the same effect. Everyone looked up. "Arthur!" Carter exclaimed, "I didn't see you there."

  Arthur Moteve looked like a middle aged man who was in the process of getting himself bronzed. Much of his body was covered with a skin of dark metal. The pupils of his eyes looked like camera lenses. He smiled at the group. "I can see I'm not the first, but still, let me add my own congratulations to the others."

  "Good God!" Carter put his head in his hands. "Did someone take an ad out or something?"

  "Well, yes actually, I thought you did," answered Arthur with a frown. "I saw it in Ping-dot-com, and I think it was in Social-dot-news as well."

  "What?!" Carter exclaimed.

  "Also Friend-dot-new-dot-all," chimed in Tar'c. "Even go small strip broadcast advertisement change T.V. show all time channel..." He lost his smile as he saw the look of horror on Carter's face. "Miss one?"

  "The New York Times." muttered Karecat.

  Before Tar'c could become even more confused Arthur stepped in. "Tar'c, did you ask Carter or Janit before you wrote these announcements for them?"

  "No," said Tar'c.

  "Well, remember to do so next time. Sometimes things are not as simple as they seem."

  "That's sure the case this time," remarked Hadtec.

  "Why's that?" asked Arthur looking at Hadtec.

  "Say, why don't you get in on this help Carter session?" Karecat asked. "You're the only one in this group already happily married."

  "I married." corrected Tar'c.

  "You are?" Carter said in disbelief.

  "All Coorbatys, that is the continent Tar'c comes from," Arther filled in for the others, "are married on the day they are born. Have you ever actually seen your mate, Tar'c?"

  "Pictures!" Tar'c said merrily.

  "That's what I thought," said Arther. In Hadtec's own language Arthur asked Hadtec to fill him in. But he also began reading Carter's letter and talking all at the same time. Hadtec wished he had multi-processors in his brain so that he could do things like that with as much ease.

  "I will, of course, help," said Arthur "but I should warn you if it's a problem with sex, I'm really out of practice."

  Arthur went on talking casually as if he did not see the shock on the others' faces. Hadtec could hear the shock in their breathing, all except maybe Tar'c, who understood less than a fourth of what was being said. Hadtec recognized it as happy
shock. It had been hard for Hadtec to grasp the idea of different kinds of shock.Good happy shock that made you laugh, good wake up shock that taught you things, and bad shock that stopped you from doing almost everything. Arthur was particularly good at getting people to experience happy shock. Hadtec wished he had a talent like that.

  Arthur went on in his most casual of voices. "Both Memma and I prefer to interlink straight into the sex centers of the brain. We have so little use for the actual body organs, and getting as many upgrades and replacements as we do, well we kind of needed the space." Arthur finished the letter and remarked, "This looks more like a career problem, to me."

  "Well, career versus family." suggested Karecat,

  "Raising a family is a career, believe me," said Arthur.

  "My life wasn't always as simple as it is now. You should see our place when the grand-kids and great-grand-kids come around."

  "But at least that problem wouldn't come up here," put in Hadtec. "Donald and Marseena only have one child, and she is at university on Earth."

  "True enough," answered Arthur, "but that would mean they are getting close to being able to apply for another license. And unless I am mistaken, both Janet and Carter here are old enough for a child license of their own?" Arthur turned the statement into a question.

  "We've talked about it, a little," answered Carter.Arthur held Carter's gaze for a long second. "Ok, maybe more than a little. But we still haven't