by Lea Linnett
Then, she looked up, and found another scaled face peering down at her, its eyes wide with shock.
Bree skittered back with a yelp, staring at the alien—another levekk. Except, it didn’t look like the others. It had no crest, for one thing, and no mushroom-shaped plate adorning its head. Instead, its scaled brow was thick and rough, its ridged head gleaming with golden scales and snatches of white bone. With its square jaw and long, straight nose, its features seemed almost human, but then she saw its eyes.
Cat-like, the pupils slitted just like the others’ as it looked her up and down with as much interest as she studied it. Its eyes were blue, almost violet towards the center, and for a moment, it made her think of the firestone she’d had in her pocket.
Was it a juvenile?
It certainly didn’t look it as it towered over her, its broad shoulders filling the narrow corridor. Then, it opened its mouth to speak.
“Salak narehni?” it said, its voice coming out as a deep rumble.
Okay, definitely not a juvenile. And definitely male. The voice sent a shiver down Bree’s spine, and she thought about running, but the alien hadn’t moved to grab her yet. She shook her head, eyeing him warily.
When she didn’t respond, his blue-violet eyes dropped to the ground, and then, “Ça va?”
Bree’s eyes bugged. The words didn’t sound quite right, his accent colored by alien vocal cords, but if Bree was hearing right, that sounded like French. Did this one know human languages?
“I, uh… Je parle pas…” she tried, sifting through her memories for the only useful phrase she remembered before giving up. “I don’t understand French.”
The cat-like eyes flashed, and the alien audibly swallowed. “You know… English?”
Bree’s heart stopped. It was impossible. There was no way she’d heard what she thought she’d heard, but despite the strange accent, the words were clear. And definitely English.
He could understand her.
“You speak my language?” she asked quickly, drawn closer to the alien as if pulled by that invisible string again. “Where’s the exit? Your people attacked me and I have to get out of here. Will you help me leave? Or at least stall them while I make a run for it—”
The not-levekk stared at her, his thick brow furrowing in confusion.
Calm down, Bree.
In the distance, she heard a shout that set her teeth on edge, but she forced in a deep breath, focusing on the alien. She tried to speak slower this time. “Is this a spaceship? Is there a way out?”
“Spaceship…?” he echoed, blinking rapidly. Then, his chin ticked upwards, as if maybe he’d understood her. He didn’t speak, just gestured loosely with his hand and backed away, obviously wanting her to follow.
Glancing behind her, she couldn’t see her pursuers yet, but she could hear them thundering along, approaching as inexorably as the storm outside had.
Fuck it. It wasn’t like she’d had any luck finding a way out by herself.
She followed the odd-looking alien down the corridor, seeing now that his feet were flatter than the other levekk. His legs were straight, too, more like her own and the huge Giants’ she’d seen outside.
Her eyes widened as they rounded the corner and were faced with floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, the world was dark, snow and sleet rushing around in thick flurries above a blanket of white snow, the sky roiling up above.
She was still on the ground, still on Earth, and that was more of a relief than she’d expected. But in the distance, she could see the dark scar of the ravine as it cut across the earth, and the mountains rising beyond it.
And she was stranded on the wrong side.
“Please,” she said, turning to the alien, who had been studying her the entire time. “You have to help me. They attacked me.”
His brow dipped, and now the corridor was full of the thumping of feet and the scratching of claws, the other levekk so close that Bree’s stomach turned to acid. If this one didn’t help her…
He reached for her without warning, making her flinch, but the hand that turned her head to the side was gentle, and no claws gleamed on his fingertips. He studied her neck with an analytical gaze, making her swallow self-consciously.
“Did they do something to me?” she asked, unable to keep the tremble from her voice.
The alien frowned silently, and instead of replying, his hand dropped to her wrist.
“Hey, wait—”
“I keep you safe,” he said, tugging her behind his back just as her levekk pursuers hurtled around the corner. His grip was loose—so loose that she could have slipped out of it and fled halfway down the corridor in the time it took to breathe in—but Bree allowed his large hand to stay curled around her wrist.
It was the weight of his gaze, not his hand, that really pinned her. He watched her over his shoulder, undisguised fascination evident in his piercing, blue-violet gaze, and yet, Bree didn’t feel unsafe. Not like with the others.
It was worth a try, right?
“Will you help me get out of here?” she asked, her heart in her throat. “Please?”
Something flitted through his eyes, too quick or too alien for her to grasp, but she hoped it was sympathy. He was quiet for a long moment, until that deep voice rumbled through her yet again.
“I keep you safe,” he repeated.
It sounded like a promise. Not exactly the one she wanted, but…
As the male with the angry eyes stalked down the corridor towards them, Bree decided she’d take whatever help she could get.
3
Marek’s mind raced as he put himself between the human and the oncoming levekk. Minutes earlier he had been making his way to Urek’s office, under the assumption that his brother had ordered him up from the mines to help fix the power outage in the tower.
Now, he stood within inches of a human that he could barely believe existed, despite the pulse beating against his fingers and the human warmth spreading through his palm.
She was an impossibility. Her body was clothed in animal hides and furs, her neck bore the marks of a three-pronged auto-injector full of vaccine, and the words she spoke were of a language that had been dead for hundreds of years. All evidence suggested that she came from outside the mine, but there was nothing outside the mine.
They were on the northernmost edge of levekk civilization on Continent 2, a land formation that ancient humanity had once called North America. Everything further north was uncharted and wild, and inhabited only by beasts. Or at least, that was what the Guides of this planet had always insisted.
The idea that humans, with their inferior technology and weak bodies, could have survived out there…
It was impossible. Completely impossible. And it brought up a score of questions in Marek’s analytical mind: How had the humans survived? Were they living as a group, or as nomads? Had they escaped a levekk city south of here—New Chicago, maybe—and traveled north?
What if they had been evading the levekk ever since CL-32—or Earth, as it was once called—was first Settled? What if this human was the last free descendant of the ancient humans who had once called this planet their own?
For the first time in years, Marek felt the spark of curiosity that he’d nurtured when he was still a student at the great Levekk-Cicari Peace University on CL-6, back before he’d lost everything. He yearned to pepper the human with questions, to study her, but there was no time.
Urek stalked towards them, his thick brow plate furrowed in a familiar scowl that Marek had often been on the receiving end of. His head of security, Peris, trailed behind him, twisting a set of restraints between her clawed fingers.
“Ah, you caught it,” Urek said. He spoke in Levekk Trade, the common language that their people used when interacting with both levekk and the sub-species that they had conquered. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Like does attract like, after all.”
The words extinguished the spark of excitement in Marek’s chest. “She only came to me b
ecause I bothered to speak to her, rather than chase her through the mine like a raging teniisa.”
Urek’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he allowed Marek’s insult to slide as he eagerly said, “You can speak with it?”
“Her. I can speak with her.”
His brother sneered. “My apologies. These humans all look the same when they’re covered in animal skins and mud. Now, step aside. We must restrain ‘her.’”
The human stiffened as Urek and Peris advanced. She was scared—she had to be, with the way her pulse fluttered against his fingers.
But when he glanced back at her, she had taken on an almost supernatural calm. Her knees were bent, her body completely still apart from the flicker of her gaze as she sized up the aliens surrounding her. She met his eye, her wrist flexing in his hand and her fist clenching.
Then, the flat of her palm rested boldly upon his back, and Marek fought down a wince. He did not enjoy being touched there, where his scales were gnarled and disfigured beneath his bodysuit. But the human made no sign that she’d noticed, and of course she wouldn’t, if she truly was from outside the Constellation.
Marek’s differences had haunted him since his birth, but to her, he and the others were all the same.
The human’s fingers tensed against his back when Peris snapped the restraints, and all of a sudden, Marek understood her plan. She wasn’t cowering behind him; she was preparing to use him as a weapon, to push him into her pursuers at the first sign of attack and use the distraction to flee. Even now, she was calculating her escape, and the realization shocked Marek to his core.
Humans had a reputation within the Constellation. They were supposed to be small, weak, submissive—a people that were easily conquered, if one believed the propaganda, but Marek was not so sure. He had once combed through the histories, procuring texts and records that suggested the fight was much harder than the Guides would care to admit.
He’d often wondered where that fight had disappeared to amongst Constellation humans, but as the human tested his grip on her wrist again, he almost dared to think he might have found it.
He briefly squeezed her wrist, hoping she would understand his silent instruction: Trust me.
To Urek, he said, “You do not need to restrain her. I believe she will come quietly if asked.”
“The human is wild, like the rest of its kind,” Urek snapped. “It will run.”
“She will not,” Marek insisted, and then he took a chance. Releasing the human, he stepped aside, watching her reaction carefully as she stared at him questioningly.
“I tell Urek you do not run,” he said in English, dredging up the words that he had read and listened to so many times, but never spoken aloud. “I tell him do not bind you.”
She turned to Urek, who had stilled Peris with a signal already, and frowned dubiously.
“You do not run?” Marek asked, holding his breath. “I keep you safe.” He said the words like a mantra, but he meant them. If she really was from outside, then he couldn’t begin to imagine how terrifying it must have been for her to wake up in their world, and he wanted to ease her fears if he could. This human could be the most important scientific discovery of the century, and Marek intended to look after her.
But beneath his scientific curiosity, Marek felt something else. An intrigue unlike any he’d ever felt. He had to know more about this human, and for that, he needed her to stop running.
Relief swept through him when the human finally nodded, although she still glared at Peris and Urek.
“She will cooperate,” Marek told them in Levekk Trade. He glanced at Peris. “Put the shackles away.”
Her bright green eyes flared. “You do not order me around halfbreed—”
“Do it, Peris,” Urek commanded. The human went rigid as he circled her, but she did not run, standing tall even as her fists shook at her sides.
Marek did his best to concentrate on her, rather than the lance of pain that went through him at that familiar word: halfbreed. It was a sharp reminder of why he found himself working in the dark depths of a cerithisi mine on the outskirts of a fringe planet, rather than amongst scholars and scientists as he had in the past.
“We will not shackle her,” Urek said, “but I’m not letting her walk around freely. Get her back to the observation room, or I’ll drag her there myself.”
“You intend to interrogate her?” Marek asked.
“Shall I offer her a bottle of Pindarro and a private room, instead? We must find out where she came from, and how many of her kind are out there, lying in wait.”
“So she is from outside?”
“That is what I expect you to confirm,” Urek snapped, gesturing angrily with his claws.
Sighing, Marek turned toward the human, who looked up at him with trepidation. He felt guilty suddenly, for speaking over her head in a language she couldn’t understand, but it was too late now.
She surprised him by asking, “What’s going on?” Her speech was fast, her words running together, but he understood her.
“My people wish…” He hesitated, exhaling in frustration. Although it had not been his official area of study at the university, he had pursued knowledge of ancient humanity in his spare time. Through that, he had spent hours learning the extinct human languages, to the point where he suspected he was the only being in the Constellation that could speak any of them well enough to be understood. It was vexing, that the words should still elude him despite all that.
“My people wish conversation,” he finally managed, and waited with bated breath for her reply.
She raised an eyebrow. “They want to speak to me?”
“Yes. They do not hurt you.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she looked as if she wanted to argue. But then she subsided. “It’s not as if I have a choice, right?”
Marek’s stomach curdled at her words, but she allowed him to take her by the elbow and direct her back the way she’d come. She kept Peris and Urek within sight at all times as they flanked them, her gaze lingering on their sharp, bone-white claws.
Unable to help himself, Marek tapped the human’s elbow with a finger, drawing her attention. “They do not hurt you,” he said again, and she sighed.
“They will not hurt me. And yeah, right. I don’t trust them.”
He blinked, her vernacular confusing him, but more than that… “You correct my words.”
“So what if I did?” she asked defensively.
“I am not angry. I wish improvement.”
She eyed him, as if waiting for some trick. “You wish to improve.”
“Thank you.”
That reply seemed to catch her off guard, and she fell silent, although he did notice her looking up at him a little more often as they moved through the halls.
They soon arrived back at the observation room, and Peris ushered the human inside. Before he could follow, Urek caught his arm in a harsh grip and hissed, “You will translate my questions, understand? We need to know where they are hiding.”
“And you think she will tell you after you captured her and made her fear for her life?” Marek shook his head in dismay. “How did you find her, anyway?”
An uncharacteristic grin spread across Urek’s features, and he said excitedly, “Can you believe that she fell from the sky, little brother? That we were outside inspecting the power outage when she rolled down off the ridge and landed at our feet?”
“And you think there are more of them? We have never found evidence of humans to the north before.”
“The evidence is right before your eyes. She was watching us—spying on us—and I want to know why.”
Marek’s heart sank. “Urek, I do not think…”
“Just go.”
He didn’t bother to argue any further, just entered the observation room to find the human trapped behind the forcefield that his people used to isolate experiments and unknown materials. It was one of the laboratories, he realized, its tables and instruments pushed haphazardl
y up against the walls to make room for the human.
And she was eyeing those instruments with open discomfort, her shoulders up around her ears as if she expected them to come alive and attack her.
“Do not be afraid,” he said instinctively, and she whirled on him.
“You try waking up in a friggin’ torture room surrounded by this,” she said, gesturing around. “I thought they were going to…”
“These are for our work,” he explained. “They do not harm you.”
“Then, why am I here?”
Urek chose that moment to interrupt, saying, “I told you to translate! Now, ask her why she was spying on us.”
Marek sighed, relaying the question in halting English and hating the way the human’s dark, fuzzy eyebrows furrowed.
“I wasn’t spying,” she said, strangely calm. “I came across the mine while exploring and went for a closer look.”
“You do not wish to attack us? You do not tell your people about us?”
Her lips thinned. “No.”
He communicated this to Urek, who immediately spat, “She’s lying. Ask her where her people are located and how many of them there are.”
When Marek translated this, the human crossed her arms and remained silent. She glared daggers at Urek, who growled in frustration.
“Make her speak!”
“I cannot force her, Urek,” Marek snapped. “I am your translator, not your torturer.”
Without warning, Urek kicked at a nearby table, sending its instruments flying, and the human retreated back against the far wall, braced for an attack.
“If she won’t speak, she will be punished,” Urek said sharply, approaching the controls for the forcefield, but Marek intercepted him.
“Give me a short time alone with her?” he said. “Please. I think she will speak to me if she feels safe.”
His brother gritted his teeth, a muscle jumping in his jaw, but he relented. “Do not make me wait long.”