27

When they arrived at school the next morning, Josef was gone. The instructors wouldn’t say where he was, just that they needed to come back after school. So they put up with another day of the same-old. Which was an amazing way to look at transiting between planets. But still. All they saw of their destinations was another windowless room, each with a symbol of some sort planted on the wall. Their destination points, the symbols were called. A lot of the class time was given over to memorizing these symbols for various worlds. More was spent on the cultures they didn’t get a chance to see, and the laws governing the civilizations they had no contact with.

But that day held a difference. The school was filled with an undercurrent of tension, which Sean at first assumed was just him being excited over what Dillon had started calling spook-speak. But his brother caught him between classes and asked, “What’s going on around here?”

“No idea.”

“Maybe they’re finally getting ready to revolt, break down some walls, and take a good look around.”

“Either that or there’s a party we haven’t been invited to,” Sean replied.

Transit practice took up the entire middle of every day. Then it was back to the classroom for the final lecture. Sean was so whipped he fought constantly against a serious case of the nods. A half night lost to sleep, running around in the dark with his brother, shooting off thought bombs, then into class and all the transits . . . His eyelids had fifty-pound weights attached. He was close to dozing off when his brother messaged, Incoming at two o’clock.

Dillon was seated to his left. Sean turned and looked at him. Just too weary to fashion a decent thought. He mouthed the word, What?

Dillon pointed to Sean’s opposite side and shot back, The class hottie is checking you out.

There were several girls in their course who were standouts. But the one Sean found most striking was a younger version of Tatyana. Same white-blonde hair, same amazing eyes, same sharp features. Only on her the sternness was not imprinted. Most people probably found her imposing, for the girl normally walked in her very own isolation bubble. Sean thought she was amazing.

When he turned around, he found her staring. At him.

Sean didn’t have any trouble staying awake after that.

When class was done, he held back. She leaned across the desk separating them and asked, “Is class really so boring, Sean?”

He took a risk and responded in Serenese. “How do you know my name?”

She rewarded him with the first smile he had seen her give. Her features were not classically beautiful, they were too sharp, too intelligent, too intense. But the smile had a softening effect, almost like she had opened an unseen door and invited him in. “I know because I made it my business to know.”

In her mouth, Serenese came into its own, a song meant to be shared by good friends. Sean felt his heart flutter as he slipped into the next desk, closing the distance. “What’s going on around here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everybody is so, I don’t know, intense.”

“Ah. The summer equinox is tomorrow.”

“So?”

“I will tell you if you ask me again, Sean. But I would prefer to . . .” She stopped as Dillon approached. “Yes?”

“Um . . . I need to take off.”

Sean didn’t look up. “Okay.”

“Weren’t we going to talk to Josef?”

“Not now.”

“Isn’t that more important?”

“No.”

“So . . . I’ll see you back at the place?”

“Sure.”

“Right.”

When Dillon was gone, she asked, “What is your language called?”

“English.”

“Where is this spoken?”

“The United States. Well, a lot of places.” Then he realized what she meant. “Oh. I’m from Earth. It’s an outpost planet.”

“Your world is not joined to the Assembly?”

“Nobody on Earth has any idea that other human civilizations exist. But if they did, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Why do you say that, Sean?”

“Can I ask your name?”

“Of course. I am Elenya.”

For some reason, he shivered. “Nice to meet you, Elenya.”

“And you, Sean. Will you answer my question?”

There was a formality to the language that left Sean talking in a manner he never had before, and doing so comfortably. As though he always managed to express himself in chants that shared hints of emotions as well as words. And what he felt just then was shame. “I don’t know exactly what is required to join the Assembly. But if unity and peace are two conditions, Earth doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Don’t be so sure. There are stories of many planets that have struggled and grown despite themselves.”

“Including Serena?”

She smiled a second time. “No. My planet has not known a war in over two thousand years.”

“Wow.”

“Yes. Some might call that boring.”

“Not me. I’d love to see a planet that’s forgotten what war is.”

She made a strange sort of gesture, like she was opening an invisible portal and bowing, all while seated. “Then you should come. Be my guest.”

“Really? We can do that?”

“We must ask Josef. But he says yes. Sometimes.” She smiled a third time. “Perhaps you should let me make the request.”

“Absolutely.”

“I can be very persuasive.”

“If you smile like that, I bet you can wrap Josef around your little finger.”

Elenya laughed, and the room shivered with him. “That is something I would like to see.”

She rose then, and he felt a very deep regret that the moment was over.

They walked down the empty hall toward the transit chamber. When they stepped inside, Elenya said, “Let us meet here tomorrow, yes? Allow me to share with you the reason why all of Lothia is excited.”

Sean wasn’t normally so glib with girls, especially one so lovely. But the words came almost unbidden, as though he had waited all his life to have the chance to tell her, “I don’t know if I can stand much more excitement than being with you again.”

She graced him with the finest smile of all, and was gone.

Sean stood there a long moment, looking around the matte-grey walls with the lone symbol and the narrow bench and the bland lighting. The air held a faint trace of some fragrance, gentle as a summer wind. He wanted to lock everything that had just happened down where he would never forget, not a single fragment. He realized that by switching to Serenese he had caught a glimpse of the woman behind the words. And what defined the emotion carried in her words was warmth. Affection. Invitation.