"Fred?" Alex spluttered. Understandably. The Dushaynese could not possibly have looked less human; he had a square, flat head, literally. Flat on top, flat face, flattened sides. He was bright green and had no mouth, just a tiny hole below his nostril slits. Dushaynese were vegetarian to an extreme; on their homeworld they lived on tree sap and fruit juice. Out in the larger galaxy they did very well on sucrose-water and other liquids. They had, as a whole, very good senses of humor.
"Fred?" Alex repeated.
"Fred," she said firmly. "Very few humans would be able to reproduce his real name. His vocal organ is a vibrating membrane in the top of his head. He does human speech just fine, but we can't manage his." She blanked her screens. "I'll spare you their speeches; they are very eager, very typical young grad students and this will be their first dig."
"Save me." Alex moaned.
"Be nice," she said firmly. "Don't disillusion them. Let the next two years take care of that."
He waved his hands vigorously. "Far be it from me to let them know what gruesome fate awaits them. What was the chance of death on a dig? Twenty percent? And there's six of them?"
The chance of catching something non-fatal is a lot higher," she pointed out "Actually, the honor of being the fatality usually goes to the post-docs or the second-in-command; they're the ones doing the major explorations when a dig hits something like a tomb. The grad students usually are put to sifting sand and cataloging pottery shards."
Alex didn't get a chance to respond to that, for the first members of the team arrived at the lock at that moment, and he went down the lift to welcome them aboard, while Tia directed the servos in storing most of their baggage in the one remaining empty hold. As they came up the lift, both the young 'men' were chattering away at high speed, with Alex in the middle, nodding sagely from time to time and clearly not catching more than half of what they said. Tia decided to rescue him.
"Welcome aboard, Fred, Aldon," she said, cutting through the chatter with her own, higher-pitched voice.
Silence, as both the grad students looked around for the speaker.
Fred caught on first, and while his face remained completely without expression, he had already learned the knack of displaying human-type emotions with his voice. "My word!" he exclaimed with delight, "you are a brainship, are you not, dear lady?"
As a final incongruity, he had adopted a clipped British accent to go along with his voice.
"Precisely, sir," she replied. "AH One-Oh-Three-Three at your service, so to speak."
"Wow," Aldon responded, dearly awestruck. "We get to ride in a brainship? They've actually put us on a brainship? Wow, PTAs don't even get rides from brainships! I've never even seen a brainship before. Uh, hi, what's your real name?" He turned slowly, trying to figure out which way to face.
"Hypatia, Tia for short," she replied, tickled by the young beings' responses. "Don't worry about where to look, just assume I'm the whole ship. I am, you know. I even have eyes in your quarters," she chuckled at Aldon's flush of embarrassment, "but don't worry, I won't use them. Your complete privacy is important to us."
"I can show you the cabins, and you can pick the ones you want," Alex offered. "They're all the same; I'm just reserving the one nearest the main cabin for Doctor Hollister-Aspen."
"Stellar!" Aldon enthused. "Wow, this is better than the liner coming in! I had to share a cabin with Fred and two other guys."
"Quite correct," Fred seconded. "I enjoyed Aldon's company, but the other two were, dare I say, spoiled young reprobates? High Family affectations without the style, the connections, or the Family. Deadly bores, I assure you, and a spot of privacy will be welcome. Shall we, then?"
The two grad students were unpacking their carryon baggage when the two post-docs arrived, this time singly. Treel arrived first, accepted the greetings with the calm, intense demeanor of a Zen Master, and took the first cabin she was offered.
Les Dimand-Taylor was another case altogether. It was obvious to Tia the moment he came aboard, without the automatic salute he made to her column, that he was ex-military. He confirmed her assumption as soon as Alex offered him a cabin.
"Anything will do, old man," he said, with a kind of nervous cheer. "Better than barracks, that's for sure. Unless, Lady Tia, you don't have anything that makes an unexpected noise in the middle of the night, do you? I'm," he laughed a little shakily, "I'm afraid I'm just a little twitchy about noises when I'm asleep. What they euphemistically call 'unfortunate experiences'. I'll keep my door locked so I don't disturb anyone but-"
"Give him the cabin next to Treel, Alex," she said firmly. "Doctor Dimand-Taylor,"
"Les, my dear," he replied, with a thin smile. "Les to you and your colleagues, always. Pulled me out of a tight spot, one of you BB teams did. Besides, when people hear my title they tend to start telling me about their backs and innards. Hate to have to tell them that I'd only care about their backs if the too, too solid flesh had been melted off the bones for the past thousand years or so."
"Les, then," she said. "I assume you know Treel?"
"Very well. A kind and considerate lady. If you have her assigned as my neighbor, she's so quiet I never know she's there." He seemed relieved that Tia didn't press him for details on the 'tight spot' he'd been in.