“Yeah, yeah.” She renounced all our labors with a dismissive twirl of two stalks. “Sure, it was fun working on that stuff during winter, when we had to sit indoors anyway. Especially when it looked like it’d never actually happen. We had a great game of pretend.

“But things are getting serious! Pincer talks about actually making a deep dive in a month or two. Didn’t we agree that’s crazy? Didn’t we, Alvin?” Huck rolled closer and did something I’ve never heard another g’Kek do. She rumbled an umble at me, mimicking the undertone a young hoon female might use if her big, handsome male was having trouble seeing things her way.

“Now wouldn’t you rather come with me to see some uttergloss writings, so burnish and ancient they were written with computers and lasers and such? Hr-rm? Doesn’t that beat drowning in a stinky dross coffin, halfway to the bottom of the sea?”

Time to switch languages. While I normally find Anglic more buff than smug old star-god tongues, even Mister Heinz agrees that its “human tempos and loose logical structure tend to favor impetuous enthusiasms.”

Right then, I needed the opposite, so I shifted to the whistles and pops of Galactic Two.

“Consideration of (punishable) criminality — this has not occurred to thee?”

Unfazed, she countered in GalSeven, the formal tongue most favored by humans.

“We are minors, friend. Besides, the border law is meant to thwart illicit breeding beyond the permitted zone. Our gang has no such intent!”

Then, in a quick flip to Galactic Two—

“—Or hast thee (perverted) designs to attempt (strange, hybrid) procreation experiments with this (virginal female) self?”