This uses Tenchi TV continuity.  Don't say "that can't happen, because _____
happened in the OAV series".  Also, it's been renamed from when I posted the
prologue.

                            PRINCES OF THE UNIVERSE
                                by Ken Arromdee

                                    Prologue

    I'm Masaki Tenchi, age 17.  An ordinary Earth boy who discovered his true
heritage as a prince of Jurai, fleeing through space with a group of new
friends until I defeated Kagato and could return home.  After it was over, we
had all separated and gone our ways.  But soon, everyone came back together,
and they were all here on Earth with me again,  Still, I've tried to live as
normal a life as I could; I turned down the throne, and there I was, riding
the bus to school like lots of other high school boys in Japan.

    "Hello, Tenchi.  Any luck with that spiky-haired wild girl?" asked
Amagasaki-kun as I got off in front of the school.  He had heard of Ryouko; I
did tell my classmates that much.  "I saw how Ryouko hugged you at lunchtime
last week, how far have you gotten with her Tenchi?"  He was referring to the
time she teleported in to give me a special lunch; I'm glad nobody saw her
at the exact moment she arrived.

    The teacher took attendance and then handed us all index cards.  "Write
your name on these and pass them forward and to the right."  I hadn't the
faintest idea what this was for, but I obeyed.  He collected the cards and
put them in a box.  The explanation was soon coming, but when I heard it, I
had wished I had asked some questions first no matter how much that would
embarrass me.

    "We've got an exchange student coming here next week", he explained.  "From
the United States of America.  He's going to be living at one of you students'
homes; it's a great honor."  When the school year started, we had all filled
out a bit of paperwork, and it included a form asking if we were willing to
put up an exchange student in our homes.  Everyone wanted to help, even me,
but that was before everything...  happened.  If an exchange student lived in
my house now, he'd find out that I was living with four females from outer
space with regular visits by two more.  I prayed, to whatever ancestors were
listening in the Masaki shrine, that someone else would be chosen.

    The teacher reached into the box and looked away from it.  He swirled his
hand around...  maybe he'd pick Amagasaki-kun?  Or Atsuko-san?  The chance
was really pretty small, since it was a big class.  He picked out a card as
everyone waited, breathless.  He looked at the card and pointed...  to the
other half of the room, slowly moving his finger around.  "The lucky student
is..." he said, stopping for a dramatic second.

    I let out a sigh of relief until our teacher, with a flourish, spun sixty
degrees and aimed his finger directly at me.  "Masaki Tenchi!  Congratulations!"
My friends patted me on the back and congratulated me too, and as others
followed them, soon the whole class was smiling and treating me as if I had
won the lottery.  They didn't know.  They just didn't know.

    "Cheer up", said Amagasaki-kun, spotting the frown on my face.  "I thought
you wanted to be in the program."

    "Yes, but..."

    "Say, maybe the student's a pretty blonde girl.  Bet Ryouko would get
jealous."

    "Or it's a guy, who might try to get Tenchi's girl", said another friend.
"But you can make sure that doesn't happen, right, Tenchi?  Just treat Ryouko
like you should treat a lover."

    "No!  It's...  well, I have to ask Dad and Grandpa.  Something's come up."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    My teacher gave me an information sheet that the exchange student had
filled out months ago.  It was a guy, after all.  Seventeen years old, about
my age.  He seemed like an okay sort of person, and judging from the paragraph
he wrote, his Japanese was very good...  ah, there, he even mentioned it.  He
said that his mother pestered him to learn Japanese because it's used in more
places than he'd think.

    Anyway, I thought, got to talk to Dad and figure out what to do.  I
took off my shoes as I entered the house and looked on the floor for a pair of
slippers.  Then I noticed a shadow on the ground, not my own, and looked up
again.  I was met by a smiling face in spiky blue hair.  "Oh, hi, Ryouko."

    She seemed a little disappointed when all I did was say "hi".  Ryouko
is very affectionate, sometimes too much, and if I hugged her she'd get the
wrong ideas.  Heck, she gets the wrong ideas anyway.  Besides, Aeka had to be
right behind her.

    "That's no way to greet Tenchi-sama", said Aeka.  Right on cue.  The
purple-haired princess stepped forwards, shoved Ryouko aside, and picked up
the slippers and handed them to me.  "Welcome home, Tenchi-sama", said Aeka.

    I shook my head.  "Ryouko, Aeka, please don't fight.  I need to go ask Dad
something.  It's very important."

    Ryouko looked at me, waiting to hear my every word.  "Uhh, Ryouko...", I
told her.  "All right, I'll tell you first.  Here's the deal.  There's going
to be an exchange student coming here.  We can't have an exchange student
coming here with you hovering around."  I pointed to Aeka.  "Or you, making
force fields and talking about being a princess.  I'm going to talk to Dad to
find out what to do."

    "Are you saying that I have no restraint?" asked Ryouko.  She looked as if
she was about to cry, a look I've seen a dozen times before and which usually
meant, not that she was really upset, but that she wasn't getting her way.

    "Tenchi-sama, I can keep Ryouko from causing trouble when our exchange
student guest comes along", said Aeka.

    Ryouko threw a force bolt at Aeka; she responded by summoning little
mechanical logs to create a shield around herself.

    "Stop!" I yelled.  "This is why I'm asking Dad, not just talking to you.
I'm not so sure you _could_ stay out of trouble.  It's going to be for at
least several months, and we can't have _one_ energy bolt or floating log in
that time.  I'd like to have him come over too, but the consequences of
messing up can be pretty bad."  I walked away to talk to Dad.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "Why don't you wait for dinner?" he had suggested.  I did, and as soon as
everyone was seated, I cleared my throat and spoke.

    "Ahem...  everyone, I have an announcement.  There's an exchange student
who's going to be living here for a little while.  As you all know, this house
has a lot of room for guests, and finding the space for him won't be a problem.
The problem's something else.  I need to convince him that nothing strange or
unusual is going on around here.  Will everyone cooperate?  I don't want to go
back and tell my teacher that I'm going to bow out of the program and leave it
to someone else."

    Washuu applauded and answered "Fine with me.  My lab's out of view
anyway, and if anyone wants to fight while we have a guest, I can prepare a
special arena for it."

    "No, Washuu-chan, that won't be necessary", said Aeka.  "Why, you would
think that I am not as elegant and refined as I am, to boorishly fight like
that."

    Ryouko looked into my eyes and said "For you, Tenchi...  I'll do it."

    "Tenchi-oniichan", said Sasami, "I promise."

    "No, it's okay, Sasami", I said.  "I mostly wanted to hear it from Ryouko
and Aeka and Washuu, in front of everyone.  I needed to get across just how
important it is not to do anything unusual, and I needed to be sure that you
know just what everyone expects of you.  I'm glad it worked out...  and thanks
Dad."

    I walked over to the phone and called up Kiyone, leaving a message on
her answering machine.  There was always the problem of Mihoshi, but she
and Kiyone shouldn't be visiting too much, and it would be manageable.

    "So who's this exchange student anyway?" asked Grandpa.  From the looks
of him, you'd never guess he was lost royalty of the planet Jurai.

    "Oh, he's from this place called Newport, and his name is David Carter."


                                    Chapter 1

    The teacher introduced David to the class.  He bowed, and even wrote his
name on the board in kana.  "It's nice to meet you", he said.  "I'm David
Carter."  Everybody in class started asking him questions.  How does he know the
language so well, does he eat sushi, does he live in a big house?  He tried to
ignore most of them, but I saw an unhappy expression on his face at the last
question.

    "So, uh, hello, Tenchi-san.  It's nice to meet you too...."

    I decided he looked a little tense and tried to make him feel more welcome.
I introduced him to my friends and gave him a quick rundown on some of the
better-known rumors about the school, which girls were unattached, stuff like
that.  He still acted like something really bad had happened, and finally I
asked him outright.  "What is it?  You can't be homesick after just a
day...."

    "I was very lucky to come here at all, Tenchi-san", he explained.  "There
was...  well, a disaster.  That meteor shower that hit the United States a few
weeks ago, one of those meteors hit my house.  My mother's gone, and my father
was ready to take me far away to safety until this chance came up."

    "That's terrible", I said.  "You don't have a home to go back to?"

    "I do of a sort, but I've been through a lot.  It's not your fault at all.
Living here will probably be the most normal life I've had in a while...."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    We talked some more on the bus home.  There was something he wasn't telling
me, but his life was obviously full of troubles and I wasn't going to make him
feel at home by pressing the point.  He explained how he was on the run from
looters and how he found refuge with his friend in Massachusetts.  If you
don't know where that is, it's on the northeast coast of the USA.  Before the
disaster he lived in a house, which he described to me in detail.  "I know
that houses are generally pretty small around Tokyo", he explained as the bus
let us off.

    True, true, but that was only on the average.  Where I lived was much
bigger, much more able to handle guests.  I smiled at him and pointed out the
shrine once we got off the bus and started down the path home.  "That's the
Masaki family shrine.  The lake is ours, those hills over there are ours...
and our house is down there.  You could take a nice hike without ever leaving
Masaki land."

    David looked around himself as we walked home.  "Yosh..." he said.

    "No, that's 'sugoi'.  'Yosh' is when you want to agree."

    "Huh?  Oh, right, right.  Yosh, yosh", he said.  He must have gotten
confused; I had to remind myself that he wasn't a native speaker, and he
probably hadn't ever spoken this much Japanese in one day before.

    "Hi, I'm home!" I shouted, sliding the door open.  "And I'm here with Mr.
Carter from America.  You've already seen his luggage... we hope."  In the
living room, Ryouko and Aeka were sitting on the couch, battling over the
remote control to the TV.  Ryouko got up, threw the remote hard at Aeka, and
ran to me.  Good, I thought, she didn't teleport.  She was keeping her
promise.  Aeka picked it out of her royal robes, where it had landed, a grin
of triumph on her face, and ran to me too.

    Ryouko tripped and fell.  I think it was because she was trying too hard
not to teleport and not hard enough to watch where she was going.  When I
helped her up, she embraced me.  "Tenchi..." she said.

    Then, Aeka put her arms around me from the other side.  All in all, a
typical coming-home, but no powers, and with one big exception.  My guest was
watching.

    "I see...  you have some interesting guests already", said David, looking
between the two girls who each wanted me to share my life with them.  They let
go of me as he watched.  He bowed once.  "I'm David Carter.  You must be
Ryouko and Aeka.  Boy your girlfriends are cute, Tenchi."  He winked.

    I took David aside and whispered to him the truth.  "David, they like me,
but I'm not sure about them.  They're not my girlfriends, but I can't just
turn them down.  We've been through a lot together."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    At dinner, I introduced him to everyone else.  Sasami, Aeka's younger
sister, about age ten.  Wasyuu, a short, redheaded, scientist; when David
wanted to know what branch of science, she warned him to be more polite to his
elders and never answered the question.  Dad and Grandpa.  "And last but not
least, Ryo-ohki."  I lifted up the meowing half-cat, half-rabbit creature to
show her to David.  "She really belongs to Ryouko but Sasami-chan likes her a
lot.  Don't ask what she is, I'm not sure I know myself."  The cabbit meowed
at me, in indignance.  Imagine, not knowing what Ryo-ohki was.  Of course, I
couldn't very well explain that she turned into a full-size spaceship.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    David fell asleep at eight at night, right on the couch.  Of course...
jet lag.  He came from the plane directly to school.  How many hours had he
stayed awake?  Ten, twelve?  It was a wonder he had lasted this long.  He cried
out in his sleep for his mother, which I understood.  I had lost my own mother
a long time ago.

    Ryouko teleported in, behind the sleeping teen, and held a finger to her
lips.  "Shush", she said.  "I'll bring him upstairs, and then we can be alone
here."

    Aeka walked in, mad at Ryouko, like usual.  "And who said _you_ could move
around like that just because David's not watching?  I'm warning you, miss
pirate girl, that..."  I frowned, and the attitude just melted off her face.
"I'm sorry, Tenchi-sama, we couldn't have Ryouko reveal everything to David."
Aeka pouted at me demurely.

    At about this time the noise awoke David, who scrambled to his feet,
reaching his hand into his pocket.  "What...  what...?!" he exclaimed,
suddenly far more alert and wary than he really needed to be for a little
domestic dispute.

    "It's okay", I told him.  "It's just Ryouko and Aeka arguing.  We have a
room for you, you don't have to sleep on the couch.  You must be a really
light sleeper."

    "Just...  yeah, I am.  I didn't use to be one, but in the past few weeks,
things have changed.  I'm sorry, I was just a little startled."

    Once again I felt that he had to be hiding something from me.  You don't
suddenly act like someone's about to shoot you just because you got woken up,
unless something's really wrong.

                                    Chapter 2

    David was a lot better-rested the next morning.  While we were going to
school, I asked him why he was startled so easily.  Maybe it was something I
could help with.  "David?  I hope you don't mind if I asked you something."

    "It's cool, go ahead."

    "Why is it you're acting like someone's going to kill you?"

    "I don't know what you're talking about", he said.

    I'd probably hate myself for doing this later, I thought, and shouted
"David, get down!"  In an instant he was under a bush, scanning the area for
trouble.  His hand was halfway to his pocket, probably reaching for a weapon of
some sort.  I sighed and motioned for him to stand up.  "I'm talking about
that, David."

    He looked at me, assessing me like a mouse would a cat.  Then, he shook his
head and said, "You wouldn't understand."

    "Look", I said, "I've been through a lot of strange things myself.  I know
what it's like to have people chasing me.  Please, explain it.  There's nothing
I wouldn't believe, and I really don't think that it can be anything too
dangerous.  You're no older than me; what could anyone want from a 17 year
old?"  It had to be something embarrassing, maybe a little threatening, but
I've been on the run through outer space from an empire covering hundreds of
solar systems.  There was no way his situation could be as bad as that.

    David shook his head harder.  "Believe me, Tenchi, you don't want to know.
It's something I have the responsibility to handle.  Nobody else...  nobody."
I gave up and decided to talk about baseball for the rest of the trip.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    At lunch I tried to speak to David about his problem again, but he
steadfastly refused.  Maybe it was none of my business.  After all, there were
still some things at home that looked a little suspicious--just what species
was Ryo-ohki, for instance--and I surely wouldn't appreciate him bugging _me_
about them.  So I stopped.  But it didn't matter, since that weekend it all
came to a head.

    I was just showing David the shrine when I heard a loud roar overhead.  I
instantly recognized it, because this wasn't the first time it had happened.  A
white form, unlike any airplane, streaked across the sky and uncertainly
descend towards the ground, trailing smoke.  David watched it as it landed, his
eyes widening.  "Tenchi, I've got to go.  I'm not sure what's going to happen,
and I hope I'll be back soon, but I can't stay.  You're all going to be in
danger if I stay here."  He mumbled something about losing his mother and
losing Rafe.  Then he ran away back to our house.

    Great, I thought.  Mihoshi lands a _little_ roughly and she sends David
into a panic.  I wondered what he thought it was, a plane crash?  A missile
aimed at him?  I couldn't imagine what would lead a normal teenager, even an
American, to worry about being targeted by missiles.  Anyway, I had to chase
after him.  If he tracked down Mihoshi, he'd see it wasn't a plane or a
missile; it was a spaceship of the Galaxy Police.  Mihoshi was tanned, blonde,
ditzy, and very unpredictable.  There was no telling what would happen next.

    David ran as if his life depended on it.  He made it into the house first
and slammed the door; when I opened it, a surprised Ryouko and Aeka had pointed
me up the stairs.  I heard him doing something in the guest room, revving up a
motor of some kind, and when I got up there I saw that the largest box in his
luggage had actually held a motorcycle.  David got on it and fiddled with the
controls; its wheels pivoted to the horizontal.  "Wait!" I shouted as he rode
the cycle right out the window.  I watched as it descended and stopped, hovering
a few feet off the ground.  What was that thing?

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Up until then, I'd never asked Ryouko to teleport me anywhere.  It makes
me a little dizzy, anyway, and it just wasn't fair to take advantage of her
special abilities as if she was a taxi driver.  Now was another story.
"Ryouko", I asked, "could you do me a favor?  I need to chase after David;
something odd's happening.  I need you to tel--"

    She teleported onto me and hugged me so tightly that my chest squeezed her
breasts, and leered at Aeka, then turned away.  Before I could blink, we were
right in front of the ship.  Mihoshi was standing outside the hatch, which
was jammed up against a tree root, trying to pull it completely open.  Kiyone--
she's Mihoshi's partner in the Galaxy Police--was leaning against the ship,
watching Mihoshi.

    "Mihoshi", I said, "you don't need to open the hatch any farther.  You're
already outside."

    "Oh!", she exclaimed.  "That's why Kiyone's not helping me get it open!"

    "Mihoshi, Kiyone", I said, "David's coming here.  David Carter, the guy I
left a message for you about.  Do you have a distortion field or something like
that to hide your ship?"

    "Naaah", said Ryouko, licking my ear.  "I'm pretty familiar with the
defenses of Galaxy Police ships; I had to be.  They don't have that kind of
equipment."

    "We've got to do something!" I said loudly.  "He's going to find out about
everything."

    "Too late", said David as he zoomed in on his cycle.  "I never expected
that you were working with them, Tenchi."  He had a strange glove on his hand
and there was a blue glow in the iris of his eyes.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "Put that weapon down!" said Mihoshi.  She drew her gun on David, who
tried to stare her down.  Mihoshi began to look dizzy.  "You're...  under...
arrest", she managed to mumble.  I grabbed a handful of mud and threw it at
David's face, letting Mihoshi recover.  "You're under arrest!  For brandishing
a deadly weapon at an officer, for resisting arrest.  You have the right to
remain silent, if you choose not to do so your words are acceptable as
evidence in a court of law..."

    "Funny.  I never knew Tyrusians to read Miranda rights before", said
David.  He held up his gloved hand and Mihoshi's gun went flying.

    Ryouko whispered "Should I?" into my ear, holding up her own hand, but I
shook my head.

    Mihoshi cried for a second and then added another charge.  "And for
feloniously assaulting a Galaxy Police officer with intent to injure."

    "David", I yelled.  "It's a mistake!  Mihoshi's not out to get you!
She's not a Tyrusian, whatever that is.  I know it seems like some kind of
fantasy, but she's exactly what she says she is.  She's from outer space.
That's a spaceship."

    "I know it's a spaceship!  Don't you get it, that's what I've been worried
about all this time.  I'm under arrest for treason."

    Mihoshi pulled a holographic card out of her pocket, holding it up
by the corners.  She pressed some buttons, then shook her head.  She turned
the card upside down and pressed some buttons again.  "If you want...  I'm
sorry, I can't arrest you for treason.  It doesn't say that in here!  I can
only arrest people for crimes that I see committed or crimes in the Galaxy
Police database.  Will you accept my apologies, Mr. Carter?"

    She seemed to have forgotten about the charge for brandishing the glove,
which was just as well.  David looked at her in disbelief and said "Sure."

    Kiyone explained.  "Sometimes Mihoshi is very eager to do her job."

    "Yeah!" exclaimed Mihoshi.  "I want to do my best!"

                                *   *   *   *   *

    We went to my house and everyone sat down while David explained his whole
story.  His father was from outer space, it seems, a planet called Tyrusia.
David was heir to the throne of Tyrusia, and the people running it now didn't
like that very much.  That's what had caused the meteor bombardment that took
out his home; it wasn't some random space storm that just happened to hit
America.  The glove was a weapon associated with the ruling family of Tyrusia,
called the Exotar.

    "So", I asked David after he finished his tale, "you're a long lost
part-alien prince on the run from an empire run by a relative of your father's?"

    "Yeah.  Considering that you weren't very surprised at _that_", he said,
pointing to Mihoshi and her ship, "I suppose you have a story of your own to
tell."

    "Right", I told him.  "It's really pretty similar to yours in some ways.
Only it's not Dad, it's Grandpa, and the empire is Jurai, the relative was
Kagato, and I managed to beat him.  I suppose I'm the prince of Jurai, but
I'm not really doing anything princely here.  Just trying to go to school and
live with everyone."

    "What I don't understand", noted Washuu, "is why that space storm was
ever believed to be natural.  It was obvious that those were ballistic
trajectories that started on the far side of the moon."  Hmm, had she been
keeping tabs on them?  "It's not as if they had rocket motors attached so that
they could move and hide their path.  Anyone with even a lowly Earth computer
and an astronomy book could figure out where they came from.  Covering up
something like that would be impossible."

    "Maybe we just don't have smart astronomers in America", replied David.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    I reintroduced everyone, this time not leaving anything out.  "Everyone,
this is David Oosha.  He's the lost crown prince of Tyrusia.  David really is
an exchange student, but a very lucky one.  America is pretty dangerous for him
at this moment.

    "And David...  this is everyone who lives with me."  I pointed to Ryouko.
"She's Ryouko, a space pirate.  Oh, and that's her pet Ryo-ohki, a cabbit who
turns into a spaceship.  We can show you later if you want."

    "That's okay", answered David.

    "Aeka and Sasami are princesses of Jurai.  Washuu is perhaps the greatest
scientist in the galaxy."

    Two puppets popped into view on Washuu's shoulders.  "No perhaps!  She's
the greatest!" they squeaked, and disappeared again.

    "Kiyone and Mihoshi you've already met.  My Dad is human.  Grandpa is
really the legendary Yosho."

    "Really?  I've heard of him", said David.  I wasn't sure whether to believe
that, though he had no reason to lie.  Anyway, he explained it further.  "Rafe
told me all about it before he died.  Yosho was a legendary prince of a nearby
empire, who could do truly amazing things with his power.  One day he
disappeared, never to be heard from again, but he was famous throughout the
galaxy.  Ever since then Tyrusians use a version of his name to mean
'amazing'."

    "Yosh", I responded.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Washuu held a scanner up to David's face.  He kept bumping into it as he
moved around, once stopping just before he impaled his nose on it.  When David
had gotten annoyed enough that I half expected to see his eyes glow blue again,
Washuu explained.  "You have 36 teeth!"

    "36 teeth?"

    "Tyrusians have more teeth than Earthlings.  I just needed to take some
readings."

    "You could ask."

    "Okay", replied Washuu.  "Mind if I count your teeth?  I realize you're
in a bad bargaining position because I've already done it..."

    An idea crossed David's mind.  "Washuu-_chan_, in exchange for that, why
don't you go look for signs of Tyrusian activity.  If you can find their
bases and their fleets _before_ they start killing thousands of people again,
it would do me a lot of good.  Okay?"

    "Well, since you called me Washuu-chan, I'll do it this once."  She summoned
her keyboard and typed madly.  Shortly she came up with a list of several sites.
"There's a base in the US in the desert."

    "Uh", said David, looking at the map, "I already took care of that one."

    "There's another one on the moon.  If you're not careful they could destroy
Washington DC with that!"

    "Yes, I know, I took care of that one too.  Could you find me something
_new_?"

    "Well", explained Washuu, "bases are easier to find after large explosions
have happened in them than before.  If I were Tyrusian, I'd put a base in
orbit around the sun a few million kilometers from Earth.  I could easily throw
meteors from there, and there's no danger of any Earthlings blowing my base
up since Earth technology can't travel that distance."

    "Is there one there?"

    "Do I look like I have cameras a few million kilometers from Earth?"

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Aeka sat down beside David, who was watching the opening of "Brain Powerd"
on TV in the living room.  His nose was bleeding slightly.  "David-sama?" she
asked.

    David-sama?  This was odd.

    "Here, looks like you need some help", she said, wiping most of the blood
off his nose with a tissue and tossing it away.  "Are you really a prince?"
asked Aeka.  Oh-ho.

    "Yeah", he replied.  "It hasn't done me any good, though.  Just got me shot
at a lot."

    "Would you like me to show you around the grounds here?  I'm royalty, you
know.  It would really be quite appropriate."

    Ryouko's voice whispered into my ear as she faded into view.  "Ssssh.  
It was my idea.  I told her that your grandfather wanted her to show him around,
and she _believed_ me."

    "That's not nice, Ryouko", I said.  Hmm, something wasn't right.  "Ryouko...
just how did you get her to call him -sama and point out that they're both
royal?"

    "I'm not sure.  I think I got lucky.  Say, let's follow them around."
Ryouko and Aeka have been at odds since they were kids.  I never could get a
straight story as to why.  When they dropped in on me, it had been one more
reason to continue their feud.  A feud which I was sure I was about to be made
a pawn in again.  On the other hand, if I didn't follow Ryouko, she'd just go
anyway and cause further mischief, and David would be caught in the middle of
all that.  I nodded at Ryouko's suggestion, and she smiled back at me.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    We tiptoed through the woods as Aeka took David to the shrine, and then to
the cave.  Outside, it was just barely possible to hear them talk.  "Oh!"
cried Aeka, "because I'm a princess it's terribly hard to have a relationship...
nobody likes me for myself."  Not again, I thought.  Ryouko took my hand and
before I could say anything, teleported both of us in right in front of them.
Aeka was embracing him, her kimono was loose, and she was trying to kiss him.

    At the sight of us, she turned an angry red.  David stammered "I can
explain...  You said she's not your girlfriend, anyway, right?"

    "How dare you interrupt a perfectly peaceful moment, Ryouko?" yelled Aeka.
"Get away from here!"

    "Well, since you're not Tenchi's girlfriend and since you seem to be
occupied, I can have Tenchi all to myself, right?" replied Ryouko, kissing
my cheek.

    "Get off of Tenchi-sama!"

    "Well, it seems like you sort of gave him up already, right?"

    "Girls, girls", I yelled.  "Please...  don't do this.  And David...  I'm
not mad at you."

    "You're not jealous?" asked Aeka, disappointment sounding in her voice.

    "No...  Aeka, I don't have a hold on you.  I understand what you were
saying about royalty.  It must be terribly lonely when everyone likes you
only for your position, because it's a step towards a throne.  There aren't
many people who you can really trust.  Go ahead.  You two can go out together.
I approve."

    Aeka started crying.  "How can you say that...  rejecting me like that,
Tenchi-sama!"  She zipped over to me and pushed Ryouko away, letting her tears
fall on my shoulder.


                                  Chapter 3

    "So this is Akihabara", said David, as we walked down from the train
platform.  "It's so...  so big."  Ryouko followed on my left and Aeka on my
right, between me and him.

    "Yeah."  I smiled at him.  "You probably don't see a lot of places like
this where you come from, in America."  Akihabara is the place where everything
electronic gets sold.  The recession might have affected it a little, but it's
still full of people and stores, both large and small.  "Maybe you can get
some spare parts for your bike here.  What kind of motorcycle is that anyway?"

    "I'm not sure", he replied.  "It's something I got from Doc.  It's a
Tyrusian motorcycle, but I think they designed it so that it can use a lot of
local parts.  I'm really not sure how it runs."

    "Maybe you could ask Washuu?"

    David shook his head.  "I asked her.  She said she was very interested in
studying it because she wanted to know how far Tyrusian technology advanced
while she was stuck in your cave.  She promised to treat it very well, and she
was sure she knew how to put it together, and she was even willing to pay me
its full cost in the event of an emergency.  I decided the bike would do me
more good than the knowledge."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    While David was standing in line waiting to pay for some Dreamcast games,
a loud beeping came from his jacket pocket, accompanied by a bright glow
visible through the fabric.  "Uh, Tenchi?" he asked briskly.

    "Hai?"

    "Um, I have to go.  Something's come up.  Would you mind taking my place in
line?"

    I recognized what that was.  He had a device which was used by other
Tyrusians to contact him.  This "Doc" guy, for instance.  He brought it along
with him on the trip just in case it was needed, and it seemed that he was
right.  I waited for David, while glancing through the items he bought.  They
were on sale, but I hoped he'd be back soon, because I wasn't sure if I had
enough money on me.

    As David walked away, pulling the glowing orb from his pocket, he suddenly
yelled in surprise "What are you doing here?"  He ran back to me, showing me
the image; Washuu.  I glanced around to see if anyone noticed what we were
doing, but we didn't seem to be attracting much attention.  Of course that's
how things are in a big city; people mind their own business.  It gives big
cities an impression of rudeness, but it might help us now.

    I leaned over to the orb and whispered "What _are_ you doing on David's
frequency?"

    "Oh, I just found out some stuff that I thought both of you might want to
know", said Washuu.  "By the way, you know that your device transmits using
a very simple encryption scheme?  Easy to break with a little application of
science.  Only 56 bits."

    "Go ahead, Washuu-chan."  I ignored the encryption comment.

    "Well, I just detected an energy surge descending from low Earth orbit.
Either the people from your planet have suddenly invented fusion drives, or
else it's a Tyrusian shuttle heading your way.  Now, I'd better turn this off
before you really attract attention, but I have one last thing to say..."

    "What's that?" asked David.

    "The Playstation 2 will be out soon.  I'd advise waiting to see it before
buying any Sega games."  She waved and her image winked out.

    Ryouko shook her head.  "Ignore that part.  She doesn't know what she's
talking about."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    We all had pizza for lunch.  Ryouko gobbled it down.  David looked at his
slice and started picking pieces of squid off.

    "No, no", said Aeka.  "I have a passing familiarity with the cuisine of
your mother's planet, and though pizza is certainly an informal food, there is
a specified way to eat it.  It should be eaten whole."

    David looked at Aeka and then at me.  He shrugged and tried a bite of the
pizza.  "Not bad, really", he said.  "It just seems a little strange..."

    "Oh!" replied Aeka.  "Forgive me.  I should be making a guest welcome, not
criticizing his preferences.  Would you like some of mine to make up for it,
David-sama?"  She broke off part of her own slice, on which she had piled all
of the olives from two slices.  I recalled that Aeka didn't like olives.

    David nodded politely.  Aeka lifted up the slice to his mouth and said
"Chew down."  She glanced at me, as if expecting me to stop her.  I didn't
have any control over her, though.  If she liked David, then she liked David.

    I looked the other way and David bit down on the pizza slice.  Aeka was
ready to feed him another bite when a bolt of energy blasted by us,
incinerating the mound of olives and making Aeka drop the remains of the slice
onto our table.  Over where the bolt came from was a man, with strange eyes,
and too many narrow teeth in his mouth.  He was holding a gun in his hand, not
an Earth gun but some kind of energy weapon, and with him was an animal, whose
slavering mouth was full of even more, sharper, teeth.  It looked streamlined,
and very deadly.

    A woman screamed and the customers ran, as the alien man gave his order.
"I want David Carter", he said, pointing to David.  His Japanese was almost
as good as David's.  "Give yourself up.  Everyone else...  I just want the
boy.  He's a dangerous criminal.  I won't hurt anyone, but I can't guarantee
the Mangler will leave you in one piece if you don't do as I tell you."  He
patted the ferocious beast's head.

    "Do you realize who you're threatening?" asked Aeka indignantly.  "I'm..."

    "Forget it, Aeka", said Ryouko, planting a hand over Aeka's mouth.  "He
doesn't need to know who you are."  Ryouko added, in a whisper, "and known
princesses of Jurai make great hostages."

    Aeka looked even more indignant, but stopped trying to negotiate, and
created her force field, as little logs appeared in the air around her.  "Get
back, Tenchi-sama, David-sama."

    David hid behind her field and put on his glove, which he had had in his
pocket along with the sphere.  I fell back with him and, noticing Ryouko about
to attack the creature, gave a suggestion.  "The gun, David.  Get the gun away
from him!"

    The man fired his weapon at Aeka.  Of course, the blasts never made it
through her force field.  Aeka struggled to keep it active, but in the meantime
David had reached for the glove I saw before, and was putting it on.  David's
glove glowed.  The man struggled as an invisible force pulled the gun out of
his hand.  Meanwhile, Ryouko shot several bolts of energy from her hands right
at the leaping creature, then formed an energy saber in her hands.  Before it
could land on her, she had chopped cleanly through its neck, sending green
blood everywhere.

   The man's eyes widened in panic and he fled the scene.  David used his glove
again, and telekinetically slammed the door shut just as the man ran through.
He collided with it and fell to the ground.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    As soon as the man fell, Ryouko teleported over to me and hugged me,
whispering "Are you hurt, Tenchi?"

    Aeka immediately followed.  "Tenchi-sama?"

    "Oh, I'm fine..."

    "See, he's fine", said Ryouko.  "Why don't you go over see to David's
welfare, Princess?  That power he used must be very stressful."

    "You should", I said to Aeka.

    "I should?"  There was a slight skeptical tone in her voice.

    Aeka went over to him anyway.  "Thank you for saving me, Aeka", he said.
"If I was alone...  who knows what could have happened?"

    "Well, yes", said Aeka.  She faced me and asked innocently, "I did save
David-sama.  Wasn't that so brave, Tenchi-sama?"

    "Uh, Aeka?" said David.

    "Oh, yes.  Are you okay, David-sama?"

    "It's not that", he answered.  "You seem to like Tenchi a lot.  Sometimes
you seem to like me, but at other times, I wonder.  What do you think of me?"

    Aeka paused in thought, as if she'd never really considered that question
before.  "You are a prince, David-sama, and that's a very rare thing.  And I
am a princess.  But I met Tenchi before I met you, and besides I will not be
beaten by that...  that _pirate_."

    "Hey, hey", I said.  "I'm not a prize.  Aeka, David, please.  I don't want
to stand in your way."  I wanted Aeka to go with her heart, not continue some
ridiculous feud with Ryouko with me stuck in the center.

    "Hmph", said Aeka.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    We waited to pay for David's games.  Since the crowd was gone, it didn't
take long at all.  Meanwhile, Ryouko quickly searched the man, stripped him
down to his underwear, and dumped him in front of the nearest police officer
she could find.  Looking in the man's clothes, she took out some unfamiliar
coins, an electronic card, and an energy gun, which she tossed to David.
"Here, I don't need this, you want it?" David shook his head.

    "Never thought I'd see you go to the police, Ryouko", I said.

    "Oh, I'm not wanted on this planet.  Besides, if we can find it, I get to
loot his ship."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "Let's go find them!" exclaimed David.

    He was right, of course.  We had to go track these people down.  We had
to at least do what we could to see that David was safe.  "Yeah, we should", I
answered.  "I know how it feels.  Never a moment of peace.  Well, we're going
to help you.  Right, Ryouko?  Right, Aeka?"

    Ryouko nodded a bit, and Aeka said "Hai, Tenchi-sama...  David-sama....",
putting on an exaggerated noble face, as if assisting us was a great sacrifice
that only a princess could make.  At least she recognized that this wasn't a
time to argue.

    "But first, we have to go home", I said.  David had to get his cycle, and
we all had to see if Washuu knew anything about what to do next.  David also
needed to try to get in touch with his contacts in America.  Then we should
think it over a bit and rest; true, the Tyrusians could have attacked us at
any time, but we had all been half-expecting an attack anyway ever since David
explained his background.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    We didn't sleep well that night.  At least I didn't, and I don't think
David did.  He's prone to nightmares, anyway.  In the morning I went to Washuu
to hear her advice.

    "So what do you think, Washuu-chan?" I asked, while Ryouko floated in
mid-air by my shoulder.  "We need to track down where this Tyrusian came
from.  Find his mother ship, find the guys who he's working for.  At the very
least.  Is there some way you can help us?"

    "Well", replied Washuu, "I know what orbit the shuttle descended from.
Assuming that the orbit is that of an unpropelled object, it's..."  She
pressed several keys on her transparent, floating, keyboard.  "This!"  An
image appeared in front of her.

    "Of course", added Washuu, "most spaceships are propelled."  She pushed some
more buttons and the image disappeared.  "So I'm sorry to say I can't help you.
I could give you something to detect the ship, but Ryo-ohki's sensors would be
just as useful.  Though if you want to wait for them to throw meteors, it would
be simple to find the source of..."

    "Thanks anyway", I replied, and exited her hyperspacial lab, walking back
out onto the wood floor and into the dining room.  I didn't want to be late for
breakfast.  As I entered I saw that I had, in fact, been late, and everyone had
began to eat.  Except David and Aeka.  David's orb was perched between him and
the miso soup, while he frantically wrote on a piece of paper.  In the orb was
the image of a Tyrusian man, who was reading him a list of numbers; as the man
finished, David folded up the paper and pocketed it.  Aeka was snuggled up
against David's shoulder.

    "Uh, good morning", I said.  "How's everyone?"

    Upon hearing my voice, and seeing Ryouko floating near me, Aeka let go
of David like a hot potato and ran to me to give me a hug.  It felt
pleasant, but a little insincere.  Ryouko glared at her.  "You have your
boyfriend.  Go back to him and leave Tenchi to me!"  The two girls faced off
against each other in a staring contest.

    I really hate it when they do that.  It makes me feel like some kind of
prize.  Don't they realize that I'm not going to hurt their feelings by
choosing one when I don't absolutely have to?

    "Aeka, where are you going?" said David.  He seemed a little uncomfortable
at Aeka's actions towards me but I smiled slightly, trying to get across that
he didn't have to worry about my getting angry at him as if I was some character
in a bar in a cheap American movie.

    "Ignore her", I replied.  "Who's that in the ball?  Doc, right?"

    David seemed satisfied by my remark about Aeka, and leaned over to me to
explain the orb, keeping his voice low.  "Right, that's Doc in there.  Want to
talk to him?  I told him you can be trusted but I didn't say anything else.  I
figured you might want to keep some of your secrets too."

    "Ah, so you're Tenchi", said the image, in English.  "I'm known as Doc.
Nice to meet you.  You do speak English, right?"

    "Nice to meet you too, I speak enough."

    "Well, David says you can be trusted, so here's the deal.  I told him all
of this already.  Agents Stark and Romar have contacted me...  oh, they're US
government agents.  It seems that the US government really doesn't like when
people impersonate the President.  Anyway, they've been helping track down the
Tyrusians as a threat to national security.  They got this tip, from one of
the government's asteroid tracking programs; seems something was moving, but
it was a bit too near and moved a bit too oddly to be an asteroid."

    "That was a shuttle, right?  I think a guy from it attacked us yesterday",
I said.  "But we took care of him."

    "It was a shuttle, and they found out where it landed.  Funny, that's the
first time that anything from Tyrusia had ever landed outside US borders.  Even
the meteors stayed inside the country.  But anyway, they not only know where it
landed, they know where it came from.  There's a base in an orbit near the
Earth's orbit.  We know where it is, but there's no way to get there.
Unless..."

    "Unless?"

    "Unless David can find the shuttle.  It could make the trip back, but you'd
probably need a recognition code to get inside it.  And then when you land at
their base, they'll undoubtedly have security in the landing bay that you'd
have to get through.  It'd be a hundred to one shot against."  He seemed to
have been guessing at the number, but sounded pretty sincere about the overall
idea.  "Oh, and you wouldn't be able to escape in the shuttle again if the
mission goes wrong.  You'd have to refuel it at the base first, since they
don't carry enough fuel for two trips."

    "Another longshot job", said David.  He turned to me.  "Tenchi, I helped
blow up Tyrusian bases twice already.  I got lucky, very lucky.  I'm still not
sure how I managed to get through that alive, and I don't know if I can do it
another time.  I'm glad you're helping, but we're going to need a _lot_ of
good fortune."

    "Never mind the longshots", said Ryouko.  "And as for fuel, this is all we
need", she continued, holding up a bundle of carrots.


                                  Chapter 4

    "So are you serious?" asked David, pointing to Ryo-ohki.  "That little...
pet is really a spaceship that can take us all the way to an orbit around the
sun?"

    "Yeah", I said.  "It used to be hard for me to believe too.  The way people
like us are, the harder it is to believe something, the more likely it seems to
be to happen.  Just watch."

    David stared as Ryouko tossed Ryo-ohki up into the air.  The little cabbit
just kept on going straight up.  Her fur turned into spikes, which grew, and
grew, as mass from somewhere flowed into the now-spaceship creature.

    "Yosh", said David, awed by the transformation.

    Washuu walked up to us and interrupted.  "I don't mean to disturb your
contemplation of the wonders of the universe, but I must ask you if you've
figured out a plan.  You're not going to blow them up, are you?  They haven't
done anything."

    "They did do _something_", retorted David.  "They sent a man to kidnap
me at gunpoint.  You're right about blowing them up, though.  We can't just do
that for no reason.  But we can find out what they're up to and see if it's a
military base.  If it is, then we _might_ have to blow it up.  At least the
meteor launchers.  I don't want to blow up the base proper and kill any more
people; too many have died already."

    "Really, it will be okay", said Aeka.  "David-sama knows what he's doing."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    All four of us--me, Ryouko, Aeka, and David--stepped into Ryo-ohki's
transport beam.  Washuu pulled a two foot wide wooden box out of nowhere, and
tossed it to me as we left.  "Here, supplies", she said.  I barely caught it
before the beam took effect; what was she trying to do?  The scenery around us
blurred and vanished, and we appeared an inch or so above the floor of the
bridge, just enough to startle David, who had never been transported like this
before.

    Ryouko read David's coordinates off to Ryo-ohki.  There was a loud "myah",
and we were off.  Our view of the sky faded to black, and slowly rotated until
it was possible to see a view from the air...  but to our left.  The image of
Tokyo contracted without any perceptible motion on the ship, moving away from
us.  Soon it became an image of the Earth.  David looked at it and waved.
"It's so...  so _fast_", he said.

    "Fast?" I wondered.

    "Yeah, fast.  When we were on an Earth ship it took days to get to the moon,
but you're doing it in just a few minutes.  I guess we still have a long way to
go before we're as advanced as everyone else."

    "Your people should be proud of their achievements", said Aeka.  "Jurai
and its provinces were not always like you now know them, where even peasants
might have ships like this."  Ryouko fumed a bit, but Aeka didn't seem to
notice her.  It wasn't even a put-down, it was just how Aeka talked.  "We,
too, started out as the lowest of the low, a pirate guild" (Ryouko fumed even
more), "and achieved galactic glory for ourselves starting from nothing.  Your
Earth still has great potential."  Stars appeared in her eyes.  "Perhaps after
Tyrusia is no longer ruled by the Dragit you, David-sama, can be the one who
brings Earth and Tyrusia together to become an honored empire second only to
Jurai."

    "Thank you, Aeka...  it's the thought that counts", said David.

    "What, you don't like her speeches?" interjected Ryouko.  "How like a
stuck-up princess to give you hope by putting her own planet on a pedestal."

    Not again.  I considered whether to wait out the argument or try to
intervene.  It would die down eventually, I know.  Aeka _did_ seem to mean
well, and she did seem to really like David.  This gave me a lot of mixed
feelings.  I didn't want to lose Aeka, not as a girlfriend, but as family.
Even though we weren't really related.  But I felt as if a burden was being
removed; if Aeka liked David, I was free to explore how I felt about Ryouko
without hurting anyone's feelings.  And maybe without me to argue over they
would get along a bit better though, considering that they've been at it since
they were kids, it was more likely to become a battle of who has the best
boyfriend.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "So what was in that box?" asked David.  "We've got a few hours to go with
nothing to do; may as well look inside it now."

    "I don't know", I replied.  I walked around the box and tried to find a way
to open it, but there was nothing obvious.  "How do you open this thing up
anyway?"

    Ryouko disappeared from her position over my shoulder and reappeared in
front of the box, waving her energy sword menacinly.  She swung it down at the
side of the box, chopping away a panel of wood, which fell off.  Out of the
box spilled several bags of Big Macs and fries, along with a half dozen cans
of soda.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Several hours and one junk food meal later, the base appeared on the view
screen.  It was a metal structure, half embedded in the side of a real
asteroid.  "See anything that looks like another meteor launcher?" I asked
David.

    "Not yet", he answered, "but I think I see something else we should be
worried about."  David pointed to a group of faraway objects hovering near the
base.  As we watched, they moved and brightened, apparently coming towards us.

    "Well", said Ryouko, "there are several light cruisers coming our way.  I'd
suggest that..."

    "That we open hailing frequencies and let David-sama negotiate from a
position of strength?" replied Aeka.

    "They wanted to kidnap me", said David.  "I don't think they're very
interested in negotiating."

    "Ohh...  that is so cruel.  To run a regime of such brutality and to
deprive royalty of Tyrusia of their just dues...."

    David looked at Aeka.  "You don't know the half of it.  Cruel is when my
friends die, and I never know if I'm going to see my mother again, and when my
father's away fighting a war and I've never seen him since I was four.  Cruel
is when I shoot people's hearts out and watch them twist in pain before death
overtakes them, only it doesn't matter because I have to help kill everyone
around them anyway, with my help, or else watch my country's capital get
burned to the ground."

    Aeka embraced David at this point.  "I understand, David-sama.  My father
was killed by Kagato.  I've been on the run, going from a happy life as a
princess, to running for my life in the real world, when you never know if
you're going to live through the next day...  but there's always some hope.
Please, have hope, David-sama."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "Fickle, isn't she, Tenchi?" whispered Ryouko into my ear.  "Well, anyway
you and I can now...."

    I waved her away.  "No, Ryouko."

    "No?  But I can see you're not running after Aeka trying to get her back.
It's just you and me, Tenchi."

    "Ryouko, don't you get it?  All your arguing was for nothing.  You two
have been great people but I never was either your boyfriend or Aeka's.  And
you should know that.  You're acting like you're already intimate with me,
when you're not.  You know, I really still don't know where you're from, or
how you became a pirate, or what kind of music you like, or when your birthday
is, or... anything.  We've never even seen a movie or gone to a festival
together.  We just live in the same house, and sometimes you like to hug me
and keep me away from Aeka like a piece of pirate loot."

    "Tenchi!"  Ryouko started to cry.  This time, I figured, I'd better leave
her alone.  It took Aeka liking someone else to get me to do it, but I should
have done it a long time ago.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    It dawned on me that the screen and speakers were active.  A man on the
screen was reading off a page of unintelligible gibberish, over and over again.
By now, it had been the fourth or fifth time.  Ryouko seemed to be trying to
listen to it, and I looked at her.

    "He's saying that if you don't respond in five minutes they'll start
shooting", she said.  "More than that, but that's all I got.  I only know
a few words of Tyrusian, like 'start shooting'."  She seemed less upset than
just a moment ago; I hoped that she'd think about what I said later, though.
And I also hoped that I wouldn't lose her completely because of it.

    "Hello, this is the ship Ryo-ohki", I said, standing in the right place so
that my face and words could be transmitted over.  "I'm Tenchi Masaki.  We're
not familiar with your language.  Can any of you speak Japanese?  Or
English?"  The man stopped, and walked away.  I could hear several people
yelling out orders and calling for someone.

    A few minutes later another Tyrusian appeared on the viewscreen.  He seemed
about forty years old, and had an odd, short-cut, hairstyle.  "Welcome,
Ryo-ohki", he said.  "I'm the Dragit, of the Tyrusian Empire.  I should warn
you that you're in Tyrusian space at the moment, and this isn't a public
outpost.  What is your business here?  Please put this message through to your
leader."

    "There's no real leader here", I responded.  "I'm here because my friend
wanted to talk to you.  And it seems you wanted to talk to him."

    "Your friend?"

    "David Carter."

    "Ah, David Oosha.  Is he with you?"

    David asked, "Ryouko, are a pirate ship's weapons enough to handle the
ships out there?  Just in case.  I hope we don't need to use them."

    "It's plenty", she answered.

    At that, David walked to near where I was, so the Dragit could see him, and
answered.  "Yes, it's me.  I understand you wanted me to bring me in.  Well,
I've come to you.  What is it you want?"

    "I apologize for the rough treatment.  My agent was only sent to take you
into our custody.  If you were treated badly, I assure you it was
overzealousness on the part of my agent.  I wanted you here because I wanted
to make an offer to you.  Join us.  You still can, and I assure you personally
that your world will not be harmed."

    "And my family?"

    "They can join us too.  We are Tyrusians, David.  We shouldn't be fighting
among ourselves."

    "How dare you!" said Aeka.

    "What?" said Dragit.

    "I said, how dare you!  You've killed David-sama's friends, kidnapped his
mother, attacked a helpless planet, and _then_ you try to kidnap David-sama when
we're out enjoying ourselves and he'd rather not even _think_ about you.  Now
you ask him to go against his own people.  Not only the Earth.  I know that
not all Tyrusians are on your side."

    "Who are you?"

    "Who am I?  How could you not recognize me?"

    "No."

    "I'm princess Aeka, of the planet Jurai!  If you don't let us go, you'll
start an intergalactic incident!"

    "Oh really?" said Dragit.  He fingered his chin for a moment, thinking, and
then said "Well, you yourself are of course free to go, but the boy with you is
wanted by the Tyrusian government.  Assuming you are who you say you are, if
you, a princess of Jurai, refuse to relinquish him to our custody, you'll have
interfered in our affairs and that'll start quite the intergalactic incident
all by itself."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "We've found the meteor launchers and we're getting in range", said Ryouko.

    "Well, that settles that", said David.  "Figured this base would be meant
to attack the Earth...  meteor launchers wouldn't be any good against moving
targets, just planets."

    Ryouko pointed to the launchers.  "Get them, Ryo-ohki!"  It was only a
single motion, not enough, it looked like, to communicate a whole plan to the
ship, but from around us came a loud "MYAU!"  The communications screen fizzled
out.  Ryo-ohki suddenly swooped down on the magnetic generators and rings and
tubes and began firing on them.

    "Wait!" shouted David.  "Are you sure you want to...?"

    "I'm positive.  This base is never going to be as undefended again.  Now
that they know that we have a ship they'll keep some heavy cruisers here so
it'll be a real fight next time."  Huge metal structures turned into clouds of
melted metal fragments as Ryo-ohki fired on them again and again.  The
smaller Tyrusian ships that were at the base did attack us several times, but
the shots mostly missed, and those that hit barely hurt Ryo-ohki.

    We all watched, especially David, as launcher after launcher was destroyed.
He kept looking at the viewscreen, holding his breath, hardly able to believe
what we were doing.  As the launchers all fell, his relief grew greater and
greater.  

    "We're all clear!" shouted Ryouko.  "Let's go back to Earth!"

    "I...  I can't believe it", said David.  "It was so... so _easy_."

    Aeka hugged him.  "It was, David-sama, even though we had to have the help
of a", she said, and grimaced as she finished her sentence, "space pirate".
"Sometimes it is possible to win without there being a disaster, without losing
everything first.  Your world's safe, at least until they build another base.
Your struggle against the Dragit will go on, but I know you can succeed in
that too."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Washuu attached a funny antenna to our television set.  Jurai Planetary
News wasn't broadcast on the same frequency as Earth television, it didn't use
the same aspect ratio or refresh rate (whatever those are), and we were eight
times the distance at which it could be received anyway, even through subspace
relays.  Considering all that, her antenna gave us pretty good reception,
although we were still getting the signals about a day and a half behind the
Juraians.

    "This just in..." said the anchorman.  "The empire of Tyrusia sent a formal
diplomatic protest to Jurai over a supposed Jurai-led attack on a Tyrusian
military base in the Sol system."  Ryo-ohki was plainly visible in a grainy
gray square on the screen.  "While Tyrusia has claimed the involvement of
Princess Aeka, it is believed that the attack was really a pirate raid, since
the space pirate Ryouko is known to operate in the area, and Galaxy Police
records clearly indicate the identity of the ship shown in this footage.
Tyrusia has been assured that the government of Jurai is not responsible, and
that efforts have been under way for months to catch this criminal...."

    "You knew that this would happen?" asked David.

    "Hai", replied Ryouko.  "This isn't the first time.  Why do you think that
I've been able to get away with being a pirate for so long?  Nations have
always looked the other way while pirates attacked targets that they had to
officially stay neutral about.  As long as me and Ryo-ohki attack a few enemy
bases, nobody except the locals and a few bounty hunters ever bothers us over
robbing banks."


                                  Chapter 5

    Ryouko passed me in the hallway, glanced at me, and continued on her way.
"Wait!" I shouted.  "Ryouko...  please."

    She stopped and turned to face me, sobbing.  "Tenchi, you don't..."

    "Wait.  Ryouko, it's not that I don't like you.  It's just that you were
too, well, strong."

    David walked by and pat me on the back, whispering.  "I think you should
ask her out.  I would."  I looked at Ryouko.  Did she hear that?  But maybe
David was right.

    "Ah, er, Ryouko..."

    "Yes, Tenchi?" she asked eagerly.  Whoops, she had heard.  Now I _had_ to
ask her.

    "Since Aeka, I mean...  would you like to go see the Queen Emeraldas movie
with me, Ryouko?  I know you really like that kind of stuff...  and since it's
only playing in the city maybe we could get dinner somewhere...  I mean we
have to go back there to look for the shuttle anyway."

    "I'd love to!"  Ryouko's eyes lit up.  She zoomed up to me and gave me the
biggest hug and kiss I had from her in a long time.  Which is to say, really
big.  I'd have fallen down just from being tackled if she wasn't able to fly.
But what was I going to say, slow down?

    At this time, Aeka walked by.  Probably she was looking for David.  I
instinctively prepared to back off in anticipation of the usual fight, but
that didn't happen.  "The nerve of that woman", she said, "showing such crude
displays of affection in public."  She grabbed David's hand hard, while trying
to appear dainty, and pulled him away around the corner.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    I was looking through movie listings in the newspaper, Ryouko besides me.
Washuu was tapping away on her keyboard for some experiment or other, and
David and Aeka were in the dining room.  The phone rang, and I picked it up.
"Hello?"

    "Hello", said the voice, a female one, in English.  "My name's Sonia.  Is
David Carter there?  This is very important, and private.  I need to get only
him on the line."

    I covered the speaker and shouted "David!" a few times.  He ran in with
Aeka from the dining room.

    "David-sama, a phone for you?  One of your friends in America might be in
trouble!", she exclaimed.

    "Yeah", I said, "it's a girl calling."

    "She's not your girlfriend, is she?" asked Aeka.

    "She says her name is Sonia", I replied.

    "She's not my girlfriend.  She's a...  well, a genetic hybrid, part
Tyrusian.  The project she's from is destroyed, I bet she's on the run."  David
picked up the phone, speaking in English that I struggled to figure out.
"Hello, Sonia?...  But you can't, if you do, Simon will trace you here... yes,
that's true, he should know already...  Uh, could you hold on a moment?  No,
that's okay.  I'm here with Tenchi, the guy I'm staying with... you'd be
surprised, they have a lot of room in the house.  Yeah, I should still be here
then.  Goodbye and good luck."  David hung the phone up.

    "What happened to your friend?" I asked.

    David explained.  "I was right.  She is on the run.  She was working with
the US government, but she doesn't really trust them, and anyway she just got
attacked by the Dragit.  She thinks that her brother Simon's working with them.
He and she have a sort of link that lets her know where he is.  She wants to
come where I am, because I'm the best hope of keeping her safe.  I'm the only
one in the whole world who has a chance against them."

    "Oh really?" asked Aeka.  "A girl wants to come all the way from another
continent just to see you?  Well, of course it's none of my business what
relationships you've had before we met.  But if she's going to stay _here_...."

    "Aeka", he said, "if I don't help her, she's going to be killed.  The
Tyrusians are after her.  And she didn't know it, but if she comes here, she's
got the best defense in the galaxy.  If you're all willing to help, that is.
What do I tell her?"

    "David, I'll help", I said.  "She can come here, if it's okay with Dad and
Grandpa.  Like you were saying on the phone, they might attack us anyway; we're
not going to be safe just because she doesn't come.  And we're both supposed to
be princes here.  The good kind, not like Kagato or Dragit.  If the prince of
Tyrusia asks for help from the prince of Jurai, how can the prince of Jurai
refuse?

    "Ryouko?" I asked.  "What do you think?  If David's friend Sonia comes
here, would you help her?"

    "I'll do whatever you want", she answered.  I never really doubted her,
anyway.  Pirate or not, she had been willing to help Aeka when we were all on
the run, even though they actively hated each other in everyday life.

    I was about to ask Aeka, but David did it first.  "Please, princess.  Sonia
needs the help."

    "I know, David-sama", said Aeka.  "I must ignore my jealousy and give
assistance to someone in need.  What sacrifices a princess of Jurai must make!
But I must properly explain the situation to Sasami later."  I didn't really
doubt her either.  She still talked like a spoiled kid, but she'd grown a lot
since I met her.

    "Washuu-chan?" he asked.

    "Yes, I'll help, now stop interrupting my research."

    I asked Grandpa and Dad as soon as I could find them.  They had no problem
agreeing, but then they weren't going to do all that much anyway except provide
the room.  We did have an awful lot of rooms.

    An hour later, the phone rang.  It was almost lunchtime...  almost midnight
in America.  David picked it up, since he was expecting it.  "Hello, Sonia?
Yeah, Tenchi asked around.  You can stay here, and you're not going to believe
what we have on our side...."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Ryouko loved the movie, and the food, even though I had to explain to her
that sake was not available in Italian restaurants.  I was really nervous about
whether I was dressed right, how I should act... but it dawned on me that there
was nothing I would ever be able to do to make myself look silly to Ryouko.
She loved me, and I could do no wrong.  I hoped I could live up to that for
her.

    Still, I couldn't help think of Aeka.  I hoped that everything would work
out okay between her and David.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "How was your weekend, Tenchi?" asked Amagasaki-kun.  "Did you have any
luck with Ryouko?"

    "Yes, I took her out on a date."

    "So how far did you go?  She has such fully formed breasts, and... did you
at least get to see her naked?  You're so lucky."

    "Er, no, maybe someday.  Look, you don't ask someone to take off all their
clothes on a first date in high school.  And if we ever do go farther, I'm not
going to tell you.  It's private between us."

    The questions stopped after that.  The rumors, of course, went out of
control.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    The bell rung indicating the end of the school day.  "Well, school's out",
said David as we left the building.  "Looks like it's about time to pick up
Sonia.  She doesn't know a whole lot of Japanese, and she's going to get lost
in the city otherwise.  See you later."

    I waved.  "Bye, David."  I noticed another familiar face waiting in the
yard.  "Hello, Aeka."

    Aeka?  What was she doing here?  I didn't understand.  I hope she didn't
suddenly decide that I had abandoned her for Ryouko or something like that....
Maybe I was getting a little too paranoid.  Everything would be okay.

    "Oh, hello, Tenchi-sama", she said.  She didn't seem mad at me, which was a
relief.  "Hello, David-sama.  I'm sure...  that you could use the company on
your trip.  After all, you wouldn't want any appearance of impropriety from
being left alone with an...  ahem...  old friend."  She took David's hand,
which turned red from the pressure, and politely said "We will see you later,
Tenchi-sama."

    I got on the bus and went home.  Ryouko, of course, was waiting for me when
I got back.  Everything was going okay.  It was nice and peaceful, for once.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Ryouko and I were snuggled up on the couch--not doing anything, just
watching TV--when there was a knock on the door.  "Hello?" I shouted.

    "It's us", said David, opening the door.  Not that a lot of other people
would be coming all the way over here to the shrine.  With him were Aeka, on
his left, and a blonde girl only a bit older than us, on his right.

    "You must be Sonia", I said in English.

    "You're right", she replied in the same tongue.  "I...  I suppose I'm very
grateful to all of you for helping me.  Believe me, I am on David's side now.
I don't really have much choice."  David translated it for Aeka.

    "If it wasn't for that", said Aeka while David translated back, "one would
be hard-pressed to find the generosity to believe in your good intentions."
She turned her brow up and faced away from Sonia.

    "Bitch", muttered Sonia.  David didn't translate that, but I think Aeka
understood it anyway.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "So you'd better meet everyone", I said to Sonia.

    "Wait", said Washuu, appearing out of a door in front of the television.
"Your guest is here...  good.  Here, take this."  Washuu tossed what looked
like a radio to Sonia.

    "Pardon?" said Sonia in English, looking down at the 'radio'.

    Washuu repeated the sentence, word for word.  So did the radio,
automatically translating into English.  "I had planned this for David but he
speaks the language well enough anyway.  Have fun, and don't ever use it in
public, since you _really_ don't want to attract attention.  By the way, I'm
Washuu, but you can call me Washuu-chan.  I'm the greatest scientist in the
galaxy."

    The translator said the words in English and Sonia responded the same way.
"You want me to call you Little Washuu?"

    "Oh, let me have that", said Washuu, taking the translator back.  She
opened it up and fiddled with some settings, then closed it and handed it back
to Sonia.  "There.  Now, I'm Washuu, but you can call me Washuu-chan."

    "Washuu-chan?" said Sonia.  "That makes a little more sense."

    "Anyway", I said, "this is Ryouko."  Ryouko gave Sonia a little wave.  "Now
Aeka..."

    "We, and this woman who is _not_ David's girlfriend, have met", said Aeka.

    "Uh, okay.  Dad and Grandpa you'll meet later."  I shouted out "Sasami!",
and when she came I introduced her too.  Sasami bowed to Sonia.  "This is
Sasami", I explained, "Aeka's sister.  And I'm Masaki Tenchi."

    Sonia bowed.  "Nice to meet you", she said.  "You know, David, I never knew
you had a girlfriend."

    "Umm..." said David.  "Well, she's not really."

    "Then that's okay.  You know, I really need someone to show me around town.
How about Thursday after school?"

    "The Luna Varga movie opens Thursday", said Aeka.  "I was _hoping_ that
David-sama would take me to see it..."

    "Well, that's just fine", said Sonia, a gleam in her eye.  "Too bad you
didn't get him to ask you instead of just hinting at it.  Wednesday, then?"

    David looked to me, worried.  "What do I do?" he mouthed.  I shrugged in
reply.  Who was I to give advice about a situation like this, anyway?

                                *   *   *   *   *

    David did end up showing Sonia around town.  Well, David and Aeka, since
Aeka had been in Japan longer and actually could point a few landmarks out.
"You're just afraid I might have a private moment with David", objected Sonia.

    "Of course David-sama would not give in", said Aeka, but it is always
possible you might make the attempt."

    "Well, you're right.  I'm part Tyrusian and part human like David, and
you're not.  And I speak his language.  Why shouldn't we have more in common?"

    "_He_ is a prince and _I_ am a princess, and _you're_ an interfering
commoner."

    I considered helping David--I lived in Tokyo all my life and I really
_could_ show someone around town with some chance that they'd get something
useful out of it--but Ryouko and I stayed home playing video games instead.
She really likes video games and taught me a bunch of secret moves I didn't
know (on the screen, stop thinking like that.)  My guess is we had a lot more
fun than David did that afternoon.  Heck, anyone doing anything would.


                                  Chapter 6

    It was a bright sunny day.  Just perfect to go out for a walk.  Of course,
school schedules take little notice of bright sunny days.  I waited with David
at the bus stop, and as the bus appeared in the distance, Ryouko kissed me
goodbye.  Aeka and Sonia looked at us, then at David, and collided with each
other in front of him.  Sonia's eyes glowed and a force suddenly pushed Aeka
away.  Only to be met by the sudden appearance of an energy field around Aeka,
generated by a bunch of floating miniature logs.

    "Hey, the bus'll come soon.  That's not such a good idea.  If you fight,
people will see you", said David.  A laser shot flew past his shoulder,
charring a few tree leaves where it hit.  "Stop shooti--  wait, since when did
anyone around here carry a gun?"

    Everyone turned to face the source of the shot.  Five men in Tyrusian
uniforms, including the Dragit, appeared out of the bushes.  Each had a Mangler
accompanying him.  There was another man in regular clothes with him.  He had
bishonen-like long blonde hair and a maddened look on his face.  I guessed that
he must be Sonia's brother Simon.  Sonia had warned us that he was a little
unstable.

    "All right", said the Dragit, "I want you to come with me, David Oosha.
And the rest of you are all under arrest too.  You'll be taken away
separately."

    There was a nasty grin on Simon's face.  "You've betrayed me, Sonia.
You're coming with us too.  Nice of you to be in the same place as David, to
make it more convenient for us."  He walked up to her and tried to grip her
shoulder.

    There was a sad look on Sonia's face as she said "I'm sorry, Simon", then 
stepped on his foot.  Simon screamed for a second and let her go.  One of
Dragit's men raised his weapon, but Simon warned him "No, don't shoot just
yet.  I don't want to kill her."

    "Simon, there's no need to work with the Dragit", said Sonia.  "He's not
really interested in our well-being.  It was the Tyrusians who killed our
mother!  And there _are_ people who can protect us.  That's why I came here,
so David can help."

    "So David can help?  Hah.  He's a wanted criminal.  He killed hundreds of
people in that base on the moon.  And as for the Dragit, I have no illusions
about what he wants.  He accepts me because I can help him in the conquest of
the Earth.  I don't care either way, but I'd be a fool not to do what I need to
have an ally and to survive."

    Ryouko disappeared and reappeared behind Simon.  She slammed her fist down
on Simon's head, knocking him to the ground, dazed.  The Tyrusian troops fired
at us, but Aeka stood in their way, deflecting energy bolts with her force
shield.  "Our guns are useless!" cried one of them.  "Send in the Manglers!"
Damn.  We had to get the one group of troops that had some idea of tactics.

    I pulled out Tenchi-ken, the royal sword.  This weapon, in my hands, had
defeated Kagato; ever since I learned about David's background, I started
carrying it around again, hoping that I'd never have to use it, but knowing
that I might.  This was the time.  I held the sword up and summoned a blade of
light from it.  I swung at the Manglers again and again, trying to avoid even
one hit, because if I went down, they could get their jaws on me and it would
all be over.  All those years of lessons with Grandpa paid off, as my weapon
took off the head of one monster and blew away the guts of another.  Green
blood sprayed all over the place.

    Sonia concentrated.  A tree branch to our side flew off and hit the
Manglers hard, distracting them for a moment.  Ryouko disappeared and
reappeared again over them, with an energy blade in her hand.  Another monster
died in a pool of blood from her attack.

    "Run!" shouted David.  David ran back towards the house.

    I wasn't sure how much good it would do to run unless we could hide.  Well,
maybe we could find Washuu or Grandpa to help us out.  It didn't matter,
though, because the Dragit shouted out an order, and another two dozen troops
appeared from the woods.  David stopped abruptly.  There was no way we could
handle so many troops.

    Or was there?  When I was fighting to free Jurai from Kagato, we'd been
badly outnumbered many times, outnumbered as badly as we were now.  But we
survived.  It was touch and go and we almost lost Ryouko, but in the end we
survived; we didn't even have any casualties.  There had to be some way out of
this.  "David, there has to be something we can do!" I shouted.

    "There might not...  wait, I know!  Aeka", shouted David, "Put that shield
up, on all of us."  From his pocket he retrieved the glove that was his own
weapon, the Exotar, wearing it on his right hand.

    Aeka obeyed and a shimmering field appeared around us.  But this wouldn't
do any good.  We couldn't go anywhere in the shield, and they'd just wait until
Aeka got weak enough from the exertion to drop it.

    "Sonia!  Help me!" he yelled in English.  "I'm going to try to make an
explosion, like I did that time in Washington that I told you about."  The
soldiers looked at each other, confused.  Both David and Sonia concentrated
behind Aeka's shield, and David's glove glowed a bright blue.  There was a
flash of light all around us outside the shield and a huge shockwave which we
couldn't feel, but which threw around rocks and uprooted the smaller trees and
shrubs.  It scattered the soldiers, Manglers, and Mangler bodies around like
twigs in a tornado.

    Aeka stumbled from the strain, her shield vanishing.  David pulled her to
her feet and we all ran away towards the house.

    Simon and the Dragit chased us.  They understood David's English, so
they'd have had some warning of the attack, and they had some power of their
own, so they were able to avoid the full brunt of the blast.  Besides, the
Dragit wouldn't have come here if he was vulnerable enough to be taken out by
just one attack from David.

    The house got closer as we ran through the path in the woods.  Simon and
the Dragit continued to chase us, at least until the Dragit made some kind of
comment in Tyrusian.  It was only a few words and Simon seemed to understand
it.  Maybe he had been learning Tyrusian.  They veered off into the forest,
disappearing from our sight.

    We all caught our breath and went home, half walking and half running, and
very shaken.  It's not every day you manage to escape from someone who wants to
kill you.

    I fumbled for my keys and unlocked the door.  "Grandpa!  Washuu-chan!
There's trouble!" I shouted.

    "You don't have to shout", said Grandpa, who was in the living room.  "What
kind of trouble?"

    "It's finally happened.  The Tyrusians are attacking us here.  We hurt a
lot of their soldiers and managed to escape.  But there's still the Dragit, and
Simon, and they're probably going off to get reinforcements.  Maybe Washuu-chan
has some sort of weapon we can use."

    "No, it's not reinforcements", said Sonia.  She clutched her head.  "I can
still feel Simon...  they're still around, doing something in the woods.  Now
Simon's going up...  coming this way..."

    Above the trees rose several flying motorcycles, much like David's.  They
must have left them in the woods in their shuttle, and gone back to get them.
The Dragit had a larger version of the Tyrusian hand-held guns mounted on the
front of his cycle, and was blasting meter-wide holes in the carrot fields.
Simon had his gun and his telekinetic ability and was supplying fire to cover
him.

    "Go outside.  Try to hold them off!" said Ryouko.

    "Are you going to get Ryo-ohki?" I asked.

    "No, Ryo-ohki wouldn't do much good against a few one-man vehicles.  I've
got a better idea.  Remember that shuttle that the first guy from Tyrusia left
behind?  I know where it is."

    We dove for cover as the Dragit shot away a section of our wall.  Then
Sonia stood up and concentrated.  The shots were moving in mid-air somehow,
missing us.  Aeka created her force field.

    "You can't protect yourselves like this forever", announced the Dragit.
"And you can't run away from us this time, not on foot.  Surrender!"

    Simon stopped shooting and started at Sonia.  Sonia stared back at her
brother.  As they locked eyes, Sonia had to stop using her power, leaving only
Aeka for protection.  I drew Tenchi-ken, just in case I needed to use it again.

    David used his glove again, sending objects flying, and trying to pull the
gun away from the Dragit, but it seemed to be fairly well mounted, and he
wasn't able to use it to affect the whole cycle.

    One of Dragit's shots hit the force field and came through.  It struck me
directly on my leg.  I hardly felt anything, and when I looked down my pants
were barely torn.  The field must have absorbed most, but not quite all, of the
energy of that bolt.  Aeka was getting weaker, though, and soon we would be
getting hit by more than stings.

    We heard a loud roar.  There was a shuttle, a Tyrusian shuttle, nearby.
Ryouko stuck her head right out of it--not using a window, just sticking her
head right through the metal--and shouted "Watch out, everyone!  I did find the
ship the first guy came in after all!"

    The Dragit and Simon glanced at her and laughed.  "Our shuttles are
shuttles, not warships", said the Dragit.  "They're used for transport, they
don't carry weapons.  Your friend's not going to be able to do anything unless
she lands on us, and it doesn't land that fast."

    The vehicle swooped above the Dragit and Simon.  The Dragit's eyes followed
it for a few seconds, and he told Simon "Don't get distracted.  That's not
going to hit us."

    Ryouko flew the vessel to two meters over the Dragit and Somon's heads,
when all of a sudden...  the shuttle exploded.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    The battle was over, then.  There might be a soldier or two, or a Mangler,
recovering in the woods, but the Dragit and Simon were badly hurt by being so
close to the fireball.  They were lying on the ground, with shrapnel wounds.

    "I'll...  I'll try to heal them", said David.  "This glove does more than
just throw things.  Not very well, but it'll serve until we can get them to
medical treatment.  But Ryouko...  I don't see her around anywhere.  She must
have been vaporized in the explosion."

    Sonia looked at the wreckage.  She seemed almost about to cry, but didn't.
Aeka glared at her.  "Think, commoner", she said.

    I shook my head at David.  "Ryouko's a lot more resilient than that."

    Ryouko suddenly teleported in, in front of us.  "Miss me?" she asked.

    "But how...?" asked David.

    "It was simple.  I set the ship for self-destruct and teleported out a few
seconds before the blast.  I _do_ know how to use my own abilities, and I
really didn't care about losing a stolen ship."

    David used his glove on our two allies, as Aeka and Sonia stayed with him.
"Thank you for helping Simon", said Sonia.  "After all this you'd have had good
reason to kill him."

    "He's doing it because he's a caring person, he's not doing it to help
you!" said Aeka.

    "Oh, stop it, princess.  All you did was stand around and take a few pistol
shots..."

    I walked away as they continued to argue.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Kiyone landed her ship right outside the house.  This time, it landed
perfectly, and David was pretty happy to see it.

    "So where are the prisoners?" asked Kiyone?

    "Oh", answered David, "they're both in Washuu-chan's lab.  She says
they'll survive.  You can take them now if you have any medical equipment on
your ship."

    "You know the Dragit's bound to have some kind of diplomatic immunity", I
said.  "You can arrest him but it's never going to get to trial."

    "Still", noted David, "this is going to be pretty embarrassing for him, and
he'll know better than to keep attacking me and Sonia here in the future.
What if he gets Jurai angry enough to start putting sanctions on his
government?"

    "Let's hope that you win your fight before it becomes one between our two
empires", said Aeka.  "Wait a minute, David-sama...  you and Sonia?  She's
going to stay here?"

    "Why not?" replied David.  "Her mother's dead.  Her brother's going to be
in a prison light years away.  And there are still elements of the US
government working for Tyrusia, elements to which she's an embarrassment.
She'd be much better off staying with us in Japan."

    "I always wanted to learn more Japanese", said Sonia.

    "The language _should_ be referred to as _Juraian_", said Aeka.  "Even
though it is also spoken on a backwater planet like yours."

    "Backwater planet?  Tyrusia _is_ interested in it.  There's obviously
_something_ here that's worthwhile."

    "Maybe so, but your greatest cultural export to space is the Moldiver
television show."

    "That's because Earth keeps to itself.  We don't export much."

    "That's because you _can't_ export much...."

    "Please, girls..." said David.  "Stop fighting, okay?"

    "It's no use", I said, walking away with Ryouko.  "Still, you'll get
accustomed to it.  Bye, I'll see you at dinner."

The end.  (For now.)