Aisha looked over Jim’s sleeping body remorsefully. She couldn’t stop feeling bad for letting Jim get hurt by her neglect. She knew that she had no way of knowing about the dangers, or that even a Ctarl-Ctarl could be there, but she couldn’t stop feeling guilty. There was something else bothering her, what the heel was a Ctarl-Ctarl doing on this planet? As far as Aisha knew, the embassy had no business being on this planet at all. Only those that had abandoned the home planet, like her, were here. Did that mean that the two Ctarl-Ctarls she met were not part of her home world or was something more sinister going on?

“Hey, you still with us?” Aisha snapped back to reality when she heard Gene. She looked over at him at the door to Jim’s hospital room; he had a cup of coffee in one hand and a magazine under his arm. Pulling out a chair, he sat down on the other side of Jim’s bed and took his magazine out.

“I know that you don’t want to leave Jim’s side, but they’re is a guy in the waiting room that you can let your frustrations out on.” Gene didn’t look up from his magazine as he talked to Aisha, he just kept looking through it without looking up.

“But who will look after Jim?” Aisha asked off hand.

“I’m not here for the scenery, you know?” Gene let Aisha see the tiny grin in the corner of his mouth before turning back to his magazine. Smiling herself, Aisha got to her feet and headed for the door, but before she left, she turned to Gene.

“Thanks,” she muttered softly.

“What?’ Gene said looking up again from his reading. “I just want you to lose some of that aggravation so I don’t have to spend all night with you pacing like a mad Ctarl-Ctarl.”

“Heh,” Aisha said with a wag of her head. “Maybe you aren’t a totally worthless pervert after all.” She left then, leaving Gene alone with his magazine and Jim.

“Well, I ain’t worthless,” Gene said before returning to his issue of better butts weekly. He kept reading for a awhile, taking a few seconds out of looking at his magazine to make sure Jim hadn’t awoken. Jim had to smile at his youngest friend every time he looked at him. Out of the whole crew, Jim had been with him the longest. Before Hilda and the Outlaw Star, before Starwind And Hawking Enterprises. Jim had been there to get his fat out of the fire every single time, Gene knew that he would have been killed on nearly a dozen separate occasions if not for his ‘sidekick’. Gene represented the chaos in Starwind And Hawking Enterprises, while Jim was the order that completed it. Yin and yang, bread and butter, jam and peanut butter; they completed one another.

“Get better little guy, Starwind Enterprises is a crappy name,” Gene said holding back his tears at seeing his unconscious friends face. At that moment, the door opened and Suzuka walked in. She looked at Gene and a tiny smile broke past her icy exterior. Gene realized that one of his tears had gotten through and Suzuka had noticed.

“gaaaaahhhhh!” Gene cried holding his side in pain. “One of my old injuries are acting up, God it hurts.”

“Sure it does,” Szuka said, her eyes rolled at the obvious ploy. Why was it that always the handsome ones had to be so macho and stupid at the same time?
“We have to talk about what we are going to tell Aisha,” Suzuka said, returning to her ice queen persona.
“I already told here everything,” Gene said with a grunt. He tucked his magazine behind his back, no reason for Suzuka to see what he had been reading.
“Including the fact that the Ctarl-Ctarl she killed was pregnant?” Suzuka asked narrowing her cold eyes at Gene, who remained not intimidated by Suzuka in the least.

“No,” he said simply.

“Then don’t, we don’t need that weighing on her mind.” Anything else Suzuka was going to say had to wait because Aisha just walked into the room looking very disturbed.

“Did you get anything?” Gene asked, standing up he gave Aisha his full attention. Aisha remained silent for another minute, then sighing she looked at everyone in the room individually. Her eyes lingered on Jim before she returned her awareness to Suzuka and Gene.

“He told me what they were doing.” She paused for a second, she seemed to be struggling to say something but she finally said it after a few seconds.

“They were having the children mix the herbs and spices that they would be baste in before being sold to Ctarl-Ctarls as food.”