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Gavin walked in behind me. “Um, am I interrupting?”
Could Asteran hear my heart somersaulting? Did he think my erratic spatter was normal for humans? Or could he tell I was reduced to a flurry of light atomic particles in his presence? “No. I think this is how his culture says hello.”
“He didn’t say hello to me that way.”
“Maybe you weren’t as nice.”
Gavin sat in a plastic visitor seat across the room and pulled up a table. “All the more reason why you should be here and not me.”
Asteran was still holding my hand against his chest, and I wasn’t about to pull it away. You know, bad for diplomacy.
“I guess I tested higher in chemistry.”
Gavin turned on his lapscreen. “I can’t imagine how.”
I turned and gave him a mean stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He held up both hands. “Whoa, only that you’re excelling right now in linguistics.”
As much as I liked to think Gavin was right, and I did have a hidden talent for linguistics, I knew there was more to my connection with Asteran than my language skills.
I studied the alien’s angular face, watching the spirals twist up his hard-edged cheek and around his arched eyebrow. Perfection. “We’re here to help you.”
Asteran spoke again in a lilting musical phrase of beautiful words that could be gibberish, for all I knew. I shook my head and bit down on my upper lip. “No clue. Sorry.”
His gorgeous face tightened, and he pulled away, speaking more lyrical nonsense at the back wall. Grabbing his long hair with both hands, he collapsed on the bed.
“Did you get all that?” I turned to Gavin.
“Yup. The computer has been analyzing his speech patterns all day and has come up with nothing.”
“Have you tried single words?”
Gavin smiled sadly. “I’ve tried everything. Watch.”
The so-called linguist picked up a plastic cup with blue and green stripes and held it to Asteran. “Name this.”
Asteran held his hand out as if it was the easiest question in the world. “Polafaris.”
“Okay.” Gavin typed the word on his lapscreen. He held up another cup, this one clear glass. “Now name this.”
Asteran nodded. “Luitenway.”
Gavin held his finger in the air. “That sounds nothing like the last word he said even though it’s clearly the same object. The syntax is all jumbled.”
“Which means?”
He massaged his temples. “For instance, in English, we’d say striped cup then clear cup. Both answers would have some part of the same word. But his language is too mercurial to pinpoint.”
Asteran pointed to the lapscreen and raised his eyebrows. “Kuluhara.”
Gavin sighed. “We’ve been over this before. It’s a lapscreen. It’s helping us communicate with you.”
Asteran shook his head and made some sort of sign with his hands twirling in the air. For an instant, he reminded me of Leo playing his imaginary piano. It was a practiced gesture that looked crazy, but was really a highly complicated and evolved talent.
Realization hit me in the face. “He knows what it is. Just because he’s an alien doesn’t mean he’s of a primitive culture. He’s asking you if he can use it.”
Gavin’s mouth dropped open. “How can you be so sure?”
“Give it to him and see for yourself.”
“I don’t know, Lyra. Commander Crophaven ordered me specifically not to show him any of our technology in case he posed a threat.”
“He’s not an arachnid.”
Gavin turned off his screen as if talking about giving it to Asteran would blow it up. “Yes, I can see that, but danger comes in all shapes and sizes. What if he’s playing nice to get out of here and hit some button on a faraway spaceship to disintegrate our planet?”
“You’ve been reading too much about Old Earth. Now, do you want to establish communications or not?”
Behind me, Asteran must have guessed what we were arguing about, because he started up with another train of beautiful words and pointed adamantly to the lapscreen.
“Enough arguing.” I grabbed the screen before Gavin could protect it and held it away from him.
“What are you doing?” Gavin rushed up from his chair and swiped at me to take it back.
I whirled around, hiding it behind my back. “I’m doing your job. Crophaven told you not to give it to him, but he didn’t say anything to me. You can blame me when Armageddon hits.”
Before he could protest any more, I handed the thin screen to Asteran. “Do your stuff.”
Asteran took the screen and bowed ceremoniously in front of me, making me blush. “Ingatar, Lyra.”
He held the screen in front of him, and the device flashed on without him even pressing the key. His long fingers wrapped around each side. The room brightened. I checked to see if Gavin had played with the wall panel, but he sat unmoving in his plastic seat with his eyes bugging out. Azure light emanated from Asteran’s hands, engulfing the computer, growing stronger with each second.
The supposed linguist picked up his chair. “If this isn’t the biggest I-told-you-so of the century, then I don’t know what is.”
“Wait. Don’t hurt him.” I grabbed his arm. “Give him a chance.”
Gavin placed the chair down but didn’t let go. I circled Asteran. Gavin wouldn’t throw the chair at me. I peeked at the screen. Images from our history, the demise of Old Earth, the voyage of our ship, the landing ceremony here, and the arachnids in containment cells flashed by in milliseconds.
Asteran’s eyes traveled over each image as his face reflected our joy, triumph, and pain. After several minutes, the blue light faded, and he placed the screen on the table and turned to me.
“You must listen. Your colony is in grave danger.”
Wait one nanosecond. “Did you just speak English?” It wasn’t awkward, halting English, either. The words flowed, smooth and purposeful, off his tongue.
His eyes changed from aquamarine to amber with glowing sparks of red. “There is no time to explain. You must alert your leaders of the coming threat.”
My nightmare came back to me, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. He’d spoken in English then too. Coincidence? My stomach clenched. “What threat? We crashed the arachnid ship. The only survivors are the ones in the containment cells.” Had I seen the future in my dream? Would the arachnids escape and terrorize the ship?
“That ship was a scout ship. It is one of many.” He gazed at the ceiling. “There will be more.”
Gavin finally found his voice. “What do you mean more?” He still hadn’t let go of the chair. His fingers had turned white.
“An entire fleet will come to harvest the crystals on this planet. Now they know you are here, they will harvest your people too.”
I shook my head in denial. “We defeated them. Surely they’d fear sending more ships.”
Asteran tilted his head. “No. They’ve already sent information concerning your weapons capacity, along with your colony’s numbers, to their leader. They know exactly how many ships it will take to defeat you.”
Gavin growled in disbelief. “We beat them before, and we’ll do it again. Lyra, we don’t have to stand here and listen to this nonsense.” He moved to the door. “I’m getting Crophaven.”
“Wait.” I yanked Gavin back and turned to Asteran. “How do you know this?”
Asteran’s hands dropped to his sides. His face fell into the deepest, darkest sorrow I’d ever seen, a regret so profound I wasn’t sure I could save him from it. “It happened to me.”