12

 

 

QUURZID, the language the Quurzod speak, is a mixture of six different languages we’ve encountered in this sector. Only the Quurzod have toughened up the words, shortened the syntax, added guttural sounds and some glottal stops that none of the other languages have.

Yet the Quurzod language flows, like music, even with the harshness. Almost because of the harshness—atonal and oddly beautiful, spare, austere, and to the point.

I can hear the Quurzod talking all around me, even though I am not with them. I am sitting in that awful testing room. Coop walked me inside, his arm around my back. His presence reassures me, even though it shouldn’t, even though we shouldn’t get along. We’re not a couple any longer.

Yet some vestiges of couplehood remain.

Coop has left—he’s on call, which means if I need him, and he’s not handling some emergency, he’ll come. But my sister sits outside this room. My twin sister, Deirdre.

We no longer look alike, she and I. We’ve lived our lives so differently that what once looked identical now just looks familial. If I had lived her life, I would look like her—heavier, settled, smile lines around her mouth. Her hair flows around her face, and her eyes are soft.

Deirdre waits for me in the waiting room, even though she knows this might take a day or more. She doesn’t care. She acts as if I’m dying of some dread disease, and for all we know, I am.

Some mental disease.

I have already settled onto the floor of this strange room, but it hasn’t curved around me yet. It’s waiting for me to give the go-ahead. Because I balked the first time, I get an extra five minutes to reconsider my choice.

I’m not going to change my mind.

The Quurzod whisper around me. If I close my eyes, I’ll be able to see them. They met us on a broad plain, the sun setting behind them. It was a dramatic and powerful introduction, the sky blood-red as the light died.

The Xenth warned us that the Quurzod would be dramatic. The Xenth warned us that the Quurzod would lie.

My arms are pressed against my side. Something has punctured the skin in my wrist. My eyes flutter open for a moment, and it becomes clear that the room has absorbed me.

My breath catches in complete panic. My heart races. I want to claw myself out, I want to climb, I need to—

—get out. Escape. I could die in here. I will die in here if I’m not careful. I will disappear and no one will know what happened to me in this bloody silence, this stench, this heat and the pressure and the horrible, horrible—

“No,” I whisper. It takes me a moment to realize I whisper in Quurzid. Unlike most human languages which use simple words, often words of one syllable, for no, Quurzid uses seven syllables for no—a long, complicated word, one that requires a lot of effort to speak correctly. You can’t involuntarily finish the word “no” in Quurzid, like you can in Standard. “No” in Standard slips out. In Quurzid, you know what you’re saying by the third syllable, and you can leave the word unfinished.

The Quurzid word for “no” is the most deliberate word for “no” in any language I’ve encountered.

And that’s the word I spoke. A deliberate word, one shows I do not now—or ever—want to revisit those memories.

For a moment, I imagine screaming for help, thinking of escape, like they told me to, so that the room will release me. But then I will see my sister’s face as I leave, filled with disappointment and fear and concern.

My sister, the caretaker, knows that she will be responsible for me, because she can’t not be responsible for me, no matter how much I try to keep her out.

I close my eyes as the whispers start again, the Quurzod, talking among themselves as they stood on that ridge. They were half naked, only their arms and legs covered with some kind of paint, a bit of armor across their genitals. The women as well as the men are bare-chested. They show no shame in revealing their bodies, unlike some cultures we’ve encountered.

Unlike the Xenth.

The Xenth should have been the musical ones. Their language is all sibilants intermingled with soft “ch” sounds and the occasional sighing vowel. But the effect isn’t musical. It’s creepy, as if something is hissing with disapproval or anger.

Three of our people quit at the prospect of facing the Quurzod, but it was the Xenth who terrified me. The Xenth with their too-thin women, wearing long sleeves and high-neck collars and tight pants that sealed at the ankles, even in the heat. The Xenth, whose men looked at me as if I were not just dressed improperly but suggestively.

I wore a uniform that covered everything except my neck, and I considered coming back to the ship just so that I could get the proper clothing. But our Xenth hosts assured me there was no time. They wanted us to broker some kind of resolution to a fight with them and the Quurzod, a fight over a genocide that had occurred a year before, a fight that could—in the opinion of the Xenth—lead to planetwide war.

We had studied everything, or so we thought. Sixteen different cultures existed on the only continent on Ukhanda. Sixteen different cultures with only two that had the military might to dominate—the Quurzod and the Xenth. The Xenth controlled the plains, but the Quurzod held the mountains. They also controlled most of the airways, giving the Xenth the seas. Both had space flight, but the Quurzod used it to their own advantage.

How the Xenth contacted us, I am not certain. They didn’t contact the Ivoire. They contacted one of the other ships in our Fleet, and decisions went up the chain of command. The Ivoire got involved because of me. Because I am—was—had been—the best linguist in the Fleet.

My heart twists. I open my eyes. The room is the color of that twilight, blood-red and gold, with shadowy figures lining the walls. My stomach turns.

I can’t do this. I can’t do it. I can’t.

But if I don’t, I’ll die.

I have no idea if the words I’m thinking come from the meeting or that horrible memory of the bodies or come from now. I hate the way my arms press against my sides. I shift, and am surprised that the floor shifts with me. I can—if I want—pull that thing from my wrist, the thing that is going to keep me hydrated and nourished, and flee this place. Go on my own, figure things out by myself. Live my own damn life.

Alone.

Becalmed.

I take a deep breath.

I have never fled from a battle in my life.

I force my eyes closed and let the memories overtake me.