by Lea Linnett
“She?” Bree couldn’t help but ask. She recognized it as the nightmarish shadow she’d seen when she ran through the corridors upstairs, and it scared her as much now as it had then. It was like the hellish demons in her people’s more fanciful stories, except this was real.
“They are fascinating,” Marek replied. “You will not meet a male xylidian. Their bodies are incompatible with all climates except their home planet. Only females may travel.”
“I… see.” She turned back to the railing, gripping it tightly while Marek watched her, acutely aware of how he analyzed her reactions. “How many species are there in your Constellation?”
“Many. Some must keep to their own colonies, some choose to. Some are very old, like cicarians, and have spread to every corner of the Constellation. Some are new, and cannot.”
“It’s all more… normal than I expected,” she admitted, gazing out at the workers.
“I do not understand.”
“Like, there’s all these aliens from all corners of the galaxy, but they all walk on two legs? They all have two eyes, two hands and feet, faces I can understand. And the reason that you’re here, on our planet? You’re just after the same materials my people used way back when. You’re different, but not so different. Know what I mean?”
He chuckled, leaning his weight on the railing beside her. “There are many beings and materials in the Constellation that are more… how do you say? Exciting. Beings with wet skin and extra limbs, beings with vast intellects in the bodies of beasts. There are stories of materials that change their shape and properties, and even species that do the same.”
“My people have stories, too. Doesn’t mean all of them are real.”
“I once worked with a material that could blend technology with the body—with the brain. Such things are rare, but they exist.”
“I thought you studied humans?” Bree asked, her brow furrowing.
“This is my—what is the word? My hobby.” He smiled sadly. “My work was very different. I studied a rare material called mesilisi. To have the chance to see it… I was very lucky.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“I enjoy every chance to learn,” he said. “There is much to discover in this world.”
“So why stop and come here? Why leave that life?”
Something flashed across the levekk’s face too fast for Bree to see, and he looked out over the loading bay. “Often, life does not allow choices.”
Bree frowned, her curiosity piqued, but before she could ask what he meant by that, Marek turned toward her.
“Why did you watch the mine?” he asked. Her gaze drifted to his clawless fingers gripping the railing while she considered his question.
“I wanted to find my mother. I couldn’t give up on her.” But even as she said it, she knew that wasn’t the whole truth. “I was also… curious.”
“About what?”
“About the aliens on my doorstep,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’d heard stories about your kind, most of them horrific, but they also talked about flying spaceships and alien technologies. About people unlike anyone I’d ever seen before. Wouldn’t you be interested, if you learned that there was something new out there? Undiscovered?”
“I would be very interested.”
He still stared at her, but an odd look had entered the levekk’s eye, his cat-like pupils dilating into round circles within his bright, blue-violet irises. Something about it made Bree’s stomach flip nervously, and she rushed on. “Right. Of course you would. You’re a scientist. You know, I think you and my mom would have gotten along well. She was always so fascinated by the mine and the aliens coming and going. My dad used to get so frustrated with her…”
“He did not approve?” Marek asked, and Bree laughed.
“No way. He called her reckless—he still does sometimes, when we fight.” She bit her lip. “He likes to bring up the fact that Mom used to bring me here to see the mine when I was little. He goes on about how stupid it was, and I guess he’s right, but…”
She chanced a glance at Marek, who cocked his head curiously.
“That was the first time I saw one of you,” she admitted. “A flash of golden scales in the sunlight one summer.”
Marek’s heavy brow rose in surprise, and it took him a long moment to reply. “That is unusual. Even in summer, it is too cold to show our scales.”
“I know. I never saw anything like it again. Not until I…”
Bree stepped back, her lips pressing tight, suddenly embarrassed at having revealed so much. This alien wasn’t her friend or her guide—he was her captor. She was supposed to be using him, not telling him her life story.
“I am sorry.”
She looked up to find the levekk’s brow furrowed, his pupils gently oscillating in a way that was entirely inhuman, and was he closer than before? She twisted away. “Not much you can do to help me, right? You said it yourself.”
Marek’s lips parted, his hand sliding closer on the railing—
“Gharres, Marek!” a voice boomed behind them, making Bree jump.
Beside her, Marek looked flustered as he turned to the newcomer. “Gharres, Silas.” The words were deep and guttural, spoken from low in his throat, and they sounded nothing like the rhythmic language she’d grown used to hearing from her captors.
When she turned around, she saw why. A solayan approached them, his huge form moving quickly across the balcony and his fangs glinting in the light as he bared his teeth. He pulled up short when Peris—whom Bree had almost forgotten about—stepped into his path, already spitting some kind of warning in the levekk language.
It was strange, watching an alien so much larger than Peris duck his head at her words, but stranger still when Marek rushed forward. The two levekk argued while the solayan watched on silently, his yellow eyes flicking between them and Bree often enough to make her sink back against the railing.
Up close, the solayan was terrifying, his skin mottled with tones of silver and gray that made his eyes all the brighter. He towered over the sub-species surrounding him, and she could tell just by looking at his thick arms that he could crush her spine with barely a thought. She was so shocked by his appearance that she missed the end of the levekk’s argument, and she blinked in surprise as Peris stepped back with a huff.
After a few shared words, Marek brought the huge solayan closer, and Bree gripped the railing with white knuckles.
If she had thought him tall compared to the levekk, it was nothing to how he dwarfed Bree. She wasn’t short, but he was easily a foot and a half taller than her, maybe more. He bared his teeth at her again, the sight horrifying, and Bree was shocked when Marek allowed the larger alien to thump him in the back in a belated greeting.
The solayan looked from Marek to Bree and back again, choking another few words out in that strange language. Then, he extended a hand towards her, his palm sideways.
Bree’s jaw dropped. “W-what’s he doing?”
“He wishes to shake your hand,” Marek quickly supplied. “This is a human custom, yes?”
“It is.” She stared up at the hulking alien, her hand quivering at her side. Of course she knew what a handshake was, but she’d never expected one from an alien. One who was waiting patiently as if she hadn’t rudely questioned his intentions, his teeth still on display.
She took the hand with a jerking motion, her skin zinging as it braced for what the alien’s skin might feel like. The solayan’s palm was rough, weathered by hard work, and it engulfed her hand, making her feel like a child.
“H-hi there,” she said nervously, before kicking herself. It wasn’t like anyone but Marek could understand her in this place.
Her heart almost stopped when the solayan opened his mouth, and heavily accented but recognizable words rumbled from his chest like an earthquake. “Hello, human. I am Silas,” he said, still shaking her hand. Up and down, up and down. “Name?”
Bree’s jaw dropped. It was one thing for Marek to
speak her language, but from the hulking solayan, it was shocking enough that she almost forgot the question. “B-Bree.”
“Babri?”
“No! It’s… just Bree,” she corrected, her face flushing.
Marek looked between them, hiding a smile. He said something to Silas, nodding at their still-joined hands, but the solayan’s grin—because that’s what it had to be, she supposed—only widened, and the handshake continued. Bree pulled away in sudden panic, but the alien didn’t try to hold on. His yellow eyes twinkled, as he spoke to Marek, causing the levekk to roll his eyes.
“What’s he saying?” Bree asked suspiciously.
“He says that you must be very happy to meet him because you touched his hand for so long,” Marek explained, shaking his head. “He also says I am a boring guide, and that he must rescue you.”
“He said… all that?”
“It is a robust language.”
The solayan made an impatient sound, snapping the backs of his fingers against Marek’s arm hard enough to make Bree wince. But the levekk took it in stride, replying shortly. Bree watched them interact with nothing short of surprise. Marek seemed looser. More relaxed. Before, he’d walked around both the mines and the upstairs with a kind of strangled discomfort, as if he were trying not to look too hard at anything—except her. But with Silas, he appeared at ease.
The solayan’s behavior intrigued her as well. She’d seen none of the sub-species upstairs acting so familiar with any of the levekk. Her heart had leaped into her throat when Silas first laid his hands on the levekk, expecting a team of guards to pop out of nowhere and march him off or something.
But Peris did nothing but scowl at their interaction, and to Bree, it almost seemed like Marek and the solayan were… friends. Could sub-species and levekk be friends? It hadn’t sounded like it, from Marek’s explanation.
A large hand tweaked Bree’s sleeve, jarring her from her thoughts. “Clothes, I like,” Silas said, baring his teeth again. “Animal?”
“Y-yeah. It’s mostly from deer…”
“Dhii?”
“Ah—um.” Bree stumbled, before raising her palms above her head and waggling her fingers. “Like… with antlers?”
Silas’ eyes lit up. “Yes! I see in…” he paused, making a noise that Bree could barely comprehend, let alone replicate. “In tree. Tree-group.”
It took a moment for her to understand what he meant, her eyes widening. “I-in the forest, you mean?”
“Yes, I see in forest.” He said something to Marek, and this time she recognized the words as being from the levekk’s language.
“W-what’s he saying?” she asked.
Marek’s smile was soft. “He says you are a good teacher. I agree.”
“Oh.” Bree’s stomach flipped, warmth trickling through her chest. “Thank you.”
The solayan grinned and said, “Marek good teacher.”
“Did he teach you?”
“Yes. We trade language. He teach Ancient Human. I teach Solaghyarren. Learn in long hours.”
Bree frowned. “You have that much time to spend teaching each other?”
Marek shifted uncomfortably. “My… duties often bring me to the mine. More than others.”
Silas said something then in the levekk language, and Marek replied testily, his eyes narrowing. Bree’s ears pricked, her interest piqued. There was a secret there…
The two aliens seemed to have lost interest in her, talking quietly between themselves, and for a moment, Bree considered trying to slip away. Far below, the workers were loading their cargo onto huge platforms attached to each tower which rose up into the ceiling and disappeared. Could that be her ticket out of here?
But as she peered down at the loading bay, she caught Peris’ ever-present glare over Marek’s shoulder and squashed that idea. If she wanted out of here, she’d have to get Marek alone. And for that, she needed to stick to the plan. Gain his trust, pick his brain. Simple.
She turned back to Marek and the solayan, interrupting their conversation to ask the larger alien, “So, you work down here in the mine?”
Marek’s expression tightened at the question, but he relaxed when Silas said, “Yes. All solarren work in mine.”
“Do you… like it?”
“No, but…”
The solayan hesitated, and then spoke to Marek, who translated carefully, “Here is better than other places. It is cold, and…” He narrowed his eyes at Silas before continuing, “there are few levekk to annoy him, he says.”
Silas only flashed his teeth in that terrifying grin.
“There may only be a few levekk,” Bree said cautiously, “but I think Urek might count as five people, if we’re judging by how annoying they are.”
The two aliens exchanged a look while Marek translated for her, and then the solayan coughed out a thick laugh.
“He says levekk come and go, but his people are always here,” Marek relayed dutifully, although a small smile now crossed his features. “He says Urek’s stink will fade one day.”
That surprised a laugh out of Bree. “He can say that? To you?”
“I have little love for Urek,” the levekk said, waving a hand dismissively. “He can speak as he wishes.”
“Huh.” Bree’s eyebrows rose, but then she registered something that the solayan had said, and turned to him. “Wait, you said your people have always been here? Since the mine was built?”
Silas nodded, and Bree’s heart leaped. That meant…
“Were you here then? Do you remember anything strange happening? Anything…” She bit her lip, before forging on. “Do you remember any humans coming here from the north? A human like me?”
The solayan’s yellow eyes sharpened, and he angled his head in thought before speaking this time. “He has only been here for fifteen planet years,” Marek translated for him. “But he can ask his elders.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, a smile breaking out on her face. “The human is my mother. She went missing here.”
“I find,” Silas said, and then a huge hand clapped her on the back and sent her rocketing forward a couple steps. He looked over her head at Marek. “And Marek help, too.”
“He has helped me,” she said tentatively, glancing at the levekk, who shifted from one foot to the other. “It’s thanks to him that I’m down here walking around instead of locked up in my room.”
“Marek good levekk,” Silas agreed. “Not like Urek.”
“Silas—”
“You know,” she said, interrupting Marek’s hissed denial. “I’m starting to think the same thing.”
Marek’s eyes widened as the solayan laughed again, and Bree averted her gaze. That had been too much, even for the plan, but shockingly, she thought that maybe a part of her… meant it. Marek was better, compared to the others. He was kind.
But better didn’t mean much when the competition was as abysmal as Urek, she reminded herself. This alien wasn’t really her friend.
Stick to the plan, Bree.
She interrupted the aliens again to ask more questions, until eventually, Silas informed them that he must return to his duties. They said their goodbyes and returned to their tour, but not before the solayan insisted on shaking Bree’s hand once again before leaving.
And as they walked, Peris’ dark shadow following them through the underground, Bree did her best to keep her attention on her goal. She was here to learn about Marek’s world, to locate any weaknesses or exits that she could possibly exploit.
But still, her eyes wandered, again and again drifting back to the captivating levekk at her side.
9
Bree never did find an escape route, but her tour of the mines fascinated her, nonetheless. If she thought the winding corridors upstairs were confusing, they were nothing compared to the warren-like maze that made up the underground. Wide thoroughfares gave way to small and circuitous pathways, each squirreling off into different enclaves for different species, and all of those ended in dead e
nds where the sub-species’ sleeping quarters were located.
The mining tunnels themselves had been off-limits, but Marek described them as being even darker and more winding than the sub-species’ quarters. It would take days to navigate them on foot, and workers had gotten lost in them before when they strayed from their equipment.
That meant that the only way of escaping the lower levels was via the stomach-turning elevators, which would put her right back where she started.
And yet, when she was deposited back in her room, she felt a weird sense of longing for the underground. She’d thought the atmosphere down there would be airless and claustrophobic, full of beings trapped under the thumb of their levekk masters, but there was something… freeing about the place. The halls hummed constantly with activity and conversation, and the sub-species seemed more alive than the ones she’d seen ducking through corridors upstairs. In some ways it reminded her of the Barracks, and although she’d always preferred the forest, any likeness to her home was welcome after the few days she’d spent trapped within alien territory.
So, it was to her great disappointment that Marek slipped into the observation room after her the next day, a disgruntled look on his face, and said that Urek had forbidden them from going on any more excursions.
Well, that explained the smug grin on Peris’ face when she’d collected Bree from her room, at least.
Even worse was Marek’s genuine sorrow as he told her this, as if he was as disappointed as she was. Bree didn’t know what to make of that. She tried to tell herself that it meant her plan was working, but…
They spoke daily after that. Every day, Bree was escorted to the observation room by Peris, and every day, she and Marek sat on opposite sides of the deactivated forcefield and swapped stories.
Bree was careful never to mention anything that might reveal her people’s location, but she had to give him something. So, she talked about how they preserved their crops in the winter, how they built their homes, and the precise method with which to approach a deer that you were hunting for that week’s meals. In return, Marek described cities he’d visited on far-flung planets, recounted run-ins he’d had with species she could hardly imagine, and put new names to stars that Bree had been using to navigate the land since she was a child.