Mr. Oahuapedal was my business partner in Kirk, Dixon, and Oahuapedal Solutions, and my right-hand man on the frontier in Kirk and Dixon Shipping in a matter of speaking … if I had a few hundred tentacles on my right side, it would be accurate.
Mr. Oahuapedal was a sentient molluscoid by human standards, and amphibious … in the water he moved much like an octopus of ridiculous size and strength, and on land he adapted that so well he swam across ground surfaces at far greater speed than a human or humanoid bipedal would expect, with even more strength relative to his surroundings.
Imagine my surprise when he told me there were molluscoid bipedals!
“Oh, certainly,” he said to me. “You think of your snails and squids and octopuses, but there is a lot more going on that is outside the human mind for beings like myself, and even yourself.”
So: my wife and children came out to visit me a few months after I got settled on Ventana 5 at the frontier post for Kirk and Dixon Shipping, and after looking around a little with the children and considering how close she was to true semi-retirement age in the fleet, my wife started doing nesting things, and I realized: my family was moving out to be with me.
Of course I was overjoyed – I am not ashamed to say that I am that one man who values his family above all other temporal pursuits, and anywhere is home with my wife and five children.
But things start to happen when your wife is a full fleet admiral, looking like 35 but really 74 years old – Vlarian Triefield Kirk had literally been around the frontier as the fleet's highest-ranking science officer in the already 54 years of her career. She was a quarter-Vulcan, and so had looked 30-35 when I met her at age 55 and been smitten – but she was 31 years older, and although her appearance and youthfulness made it easy to forget much of the time, she was still an experienced old soldier deeply interested in the well-being of her husband, her family, and both my companies.
My wife was from the colony on Spica 5, and so her nesting was like having a Spican Royal Harpie nesting with her children – it was a good thing I was her mate, because to have her married to any of my competitors would have been the end of everything. I was outcompeting my competitors anyway by means of being willing to boldly ship where nobody had shipped before, but once she married in the gaps began to be ridiculous without the slightest bit of favoritism because of her fleet status. V.T. was meticulous about such things; she has never uttered a fleet secret to me in 25 years of marriage. She didn't need to – she saw things that I just didn't in my working environment and steered things and people to me that I wouldn't have thought of.
Which brings me to the incredible creature above – a whole business tycoon having done a procurement deal that needed to get to humanity, and desperately looking for a human partner. My wife had met his lovely wife while out shopping for groceries –
– and I got home to find them coming over the threshold of my door and chatting up a storm with V.T.
“Oh, yes, Kirk and Dixon Shipping has a fantastic record, but more to the point, I'm a whole admiral and I have entrusted my life and my children to Capt. Marcus Aurelius Kirk. His integrity is spotless, his courage is magnificent, his honesty is impeccable, and his sense of justice and fairness is unmatched. If he can't get you a good shipping deal to near-Earth and Earth itself, nobody can.”
I don't have 800 tentacles or even a few dozen like my guests of the moment, but I didn't feel the novelty of meeting such partners until much later. My wife let me walk through that door and do business from 20 feet tall – and she was right. I got our guests the right deal and had it shipped in style, and my company still has that very lucrative contract.
“Well, yes they are spectacularly tentaculous,” I heard her say to Marcia our teenaged eldest daughter, “but there's still only one Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr., and that's your dad, so of course he is not taken aback by them.”
I forgot to be taken aback. That is what Vlarian Triefield Kirk did for me, in the face of these magnificent creatures that otherwise would have had me standing there with my mouth open, mind blown, Ventanan blow flies flying in and out of my mouth, and the deal slipping my grasp forever
Mr. Oahuapedal was pleased when he heard about it, turning the rich color that to him was a smile.
“I expected that you would have called me to deal with that, Captain,” he said, “but I'm proud of how your mind expanded to fit the situation.”
“I can't take that credit – Vlarian set it up,” I said.
“She set it up, Captain, but it is like your game of basketball: she threw a fabulous pass, and you dunked the ball, and she knew you would.”
I sighed and smiled.
“You all believe in me when I'm not sure of things myself,” I said, “and that keeps me living up to my billing.”
“Now that the admiral is here,” Mr. Oahuapedal said, “I expect that as usual, we will find our minds and paychecks expanding.”
“You know, I haven't thought of it in those terms.”
“Capt. Dixon has run the figures based on both companies being able to model best practices in training, safety, and benefit packages on the fleet model the admiral knows well, in addition to the credibility and connections the admiral brings by her mere presence to both companies by virtue of being your wife. Anything you and Capt. Dixon did would have succeeded, sir, but your best move in addition to your pure leadership of the company is in your choice of wife.”
“I didn't plan on all that,” I said, “but let's just say the Creator is good, my friend.”
“He is,” Mr. Oahuapedal said, his color turning to the deep blue of awe and worship.
These two pure fractals made in Apophysis 2.09 are separated by ONE iterated stroke pattern -- and thus the suggestion of masculine and feminine down to those cute pointed shoes and heels on Mrs. Spectacularly Tentaculous!