While they were talking, the children all finished their lunches, and Euri ordered them all crepes with mixed fruits and custard, which she deemed the optimal combination from the menu she was presented with.
It wasn't until they finished their dessert that anyone realized that the Innu children had never really experienced sugar before. For all her permissiveness, Euri was big on an all-natural diet at home, so they didn't eat many sweets other than fruit, and Lucy's children rarely even went that far, as their mother's hired nutritionist deemed treats an inefficient ingestion of calories.
In layman's terms, that meant that they had six very hyper Innu children who were more than a little eager to see the sights of a human cruise ship and try out the Gravity Slides for themselves.
"Would you like me to assign a crewman to accompany them?" Max asked when the children's pleading began to make a vein on the side of Lucy's head twitch.
"No, she caused it so she can deal with it." The woman declared, looking at her youngest sister.
"In that case, there are swimsuits available at the kiosk by the entrance to the gravity slides. Be sure to check the map well, as they all end up in pools, but not all on the same level. The gravity manipulation makes the actual direction of travel irrelevant, and more than a few guests have found themselves sidetracked by taking the wrong tunnel branch." Max informed her.
Medusa's eyes lit up at the proposal. "Excellent, you can keep them busy for a few hours, and I will have a long visit with these wonderful human children so that they can teach me about the ship's best features, and I can learn a few more things about how young humans work. How does that sound?"
She directed the last bit at Sasha and Sandy, who gave her a thumbs up and flagged down the server to order one of the fruit teas that this particular cafe specialized in.
They weren't standard replicator items. They were hand mixed from multiple drinks, so you could only find them at this particular location, though you could make them yourself with a little creativity or knowledge.
"Oh, that's good. The school will need a cafeteria. Will Terminus be able to provide these replicators in large enough numbers?" Medusa asked, unfamiliar with human technology beyond the fact that it was known that they were barely past the status of a primitive culture by Alliance standards in the official database.
"We can, and any furniture and building materials that you require can also be produced on board unless they are a material that isn't known to humanity. We have a fairly large supply available, and we will be terraforming a planet in the near future, so we will have an abundance of raw materials coming in."
"That's even better. Might I borrow these two darlings for a while? I presume you have better things to do than to hang out with us all day, given your position." She suggested.
"I will contact their guardian, so she can come and keep an eye on them, as well as show you around the ship. But I cleared most of my schedule for the day for your arrival, so I'm not so strapped for time as I would usually be." Max agreed.
Lucy and her husband looked relieved and excused themselves to their room for a bit of alone time, now that Euri was watching the kids for a while, while Max messaged Molly to meet them right here, so she could accompany them to Medusa's room and take care of the kids in case Max had to leave suddenly.
He might be planning on hiring her to run the academy, but Max still hadn't fully vetted Medusa, so leaving his own sisters alone with her wasn't going to happen today. He would do the full verification of her credentials and history tonight while she worked on the design and determine if she was the right person to be running the school as well as building it.
"Hi, sorry for the wait. How are the girls? Not ready for their nap yet?" Molly asked as she came into the Cafe.
"Not yet. They just had a crepe, so they've got some energy left. Meet Medusa. She will be designing and leading the construction of an Academy here aboard Terminus and quite possibly running it as well.
Medusa, this is Molly, a former social worker and professional in the care and raising of human children, as well as dealing with troubled kids from difficult backgrounds." Max explained.
"Just the sort of person I needed to meet among the humans. It is a pleasure to meet you and your children." Medusa replied, giving Molly a very professional handshake.
"It is a pleasure to meet you as well. I would be very interested to know how the Innu treat education, given their unique advantages in interacting with technology."
The conversation got immediately deep and technical, so Max distracted the girls with crayons and coloring pages grabbed from Molly's purse. She carried convenient distractions everywhere she went, a habit learned many years ago at work, where the kids often needed distractions while very upset parents dealt with Social Services.
The technical talk just dragged on and on until both girls were beginning to nod off, so Medusa agreed to get her information from Molly, who was eager to help design a new facility for the ship, and Dave was called in to collect the girls.
That left Max free for a few hours, so he headed to the Development labs to see how the new Cloaking device was coming along. The technicians would have moved on to other projects already since they had so much to do to prepare for the terraforming, but they could spare a few minutes to go over the technical jargon in the live stream that Max couldn't follow.
As usual, once things started happening aboard Terminus, they all happened at once.
The 𝘮ost uptodat𝑒 novels are pub𝙡ished on fre(e)webno(v)el.𝒸𝑜𝘮