“You can understand me now.”
You can understand me now...The words came to him slowly, like lava over cool ground, and he repeated them in his head. His mouth parted, uncertain about this new angle, unsure because he knew she wasn’t speaking his language, but also because he understood her. The spot behind his ear ached even more as he concentrated on it.
“What you’re feeling is a hybrid translation device. Popped one in you while you were out.”
Her words seemed to flicker behind his eyes and speak directly into his head, it wasn’t unlike how he and his brothers communicated telepathically.
“Unless you’re dumb and your species can’t grip language.” She laughed and squatted in front of him. Her dark eyes shadowed within the silhouette of the rising sun.
“I—” he coughed out the translated word, “understand.” It was all jarring but the less he fought it, the easier it became.
“Good. That’s good.”
“What have you done to me?” He didn’t like how sour his mouth was or the pain streaking straight to his head from his shoulder. “What have you done?”
“Shot you in the shoulder. Knocked you out soon after. Then I dragged you back to the ship and damn fucking god, it was hard... Might’ve kicked you a few times in frustration. After that I got some... help... tying you up. Once that was done, I sourced out Brailen’s translator, and daaamn was digging through his brain gruesome, cleaned that shit up as best I could and stuck it in you. Well,” she waved her rod at him, all of him, “then waited for you to wake up. That’s if, if you would.”
Galan squinted his eyes against the headache breaking open his skull. “You stuckwhatin me?”
“A not-so-tiny microchip that attaches to your ear canal and brain tissue right here.” She pressed the tender spot on his head and he groaned. “That little piece allows you to speak my language so I wouldn’t go pulling it out if I were you,” she said as he tried to rub his shoulder into the spot. “Understandingis a privilege and right now, human-alien-moth whatever-the-fuck-you-are, you’re the only alien who understands me at this moment. That makes you important, cause, well, you see, when there’s one bug, there’s another. And when there are two bugs, you might be in for an infestation and I don’t like infestations. You get me?”
He didn’t. Not quite. But he got the gist. Galan nodded.
“Good.” She rose and looked about her with a sigh before facing him. “Sorry about shooting you.”
He narrowed his eyes in response.
“Brailen’s had his prick in me a few times now but damn was I getting sick of it, ya know? So thank you for that as well. And,” she showed him her rod, “thank you for this! I haven’t had one of these bad boys in over four years. Came in handy when I got you back to the ship—er—ship parts.”
Words and pairings for those words flew through his head as she spoke. Between listening to the female, trying to understand her, and having to deal with the translations behind his eyes, he was falling from the sky. One word kept coming back to him. One he didn’t understand but wanted to.
“Infestation?”
A thickly shadowed smile appeared across her darkened features. “What about it?”
“I don’t understand.”
She could lie to me...but that was a chance he had to take.
“It means when there’s a lot of something, like,” she looked around and shook her head, “like those screeching monsters in the forest. An infestation is when there are so many of them in one place, they overwhelm that place. It usually takes a fair amount of effort to... get rid of that infestation. Are you part of an infestation,moth?”
Galan studied the wiry female as she shifted from foot to foot, the stench of blood and body odor came off of her in waves. “And if I am?” he shot back.
Her eyes briefly widened before the shadows fell back into place. “Then you and I have a problem.”
“Let’s say I’m not,” he coughed out, his voice gruff. “Would you let me go?”
“No.”
“And if I am?”
“I’d come to an agreement with you for safety.”
He laughed, oddly charmed. “If the roles were reversed? Would you help me out?”
“Only if I could gain something from it, from you.”
“Hmm...”
