“You’re in no danger,” I hurried to assure her.All the humans I’d met on Earth already had turoch mates, but this one clearly had never seen a turoch before.Her mouth kept opening and closing and she skittered behind the strange table like she expected me to attack her.
“What are you saying?”she demanded.“What are you doing here?”I stepped forward again and she clutched the edge of the table and swayed.“Don’t-don’t come any closer!”
I froze, my hands still raised.The female was shaking with fear, I was terrifying her, but I couldn’t exactly leave, not with the percer circling the building.
“I’m not your enemy,” I said slowly.“Please, do not be afraid.”
Her chin trembled and she blinked at me, tears slowly filling her eyes.
“Please don’t kill me.”
She couldn’t understand me, of course.My shoulders sagged as I realized I had no way of convincing her I wouldn’t hurt her.
Wait.My hand fell to the small pouch at my waist.Penny insisted we all took emergency supplies with us when we left camp, even though no one ever went anywhere alone.Thanks to her insistence, I had a med pack and a scavenged translator.
Keeping an eye on the trembling female, I felt around in the pouch until I found the tiny lump of metal.There was no guarantee it would work, but Uriish had inspected all the syto tech we’d collected and was reasonably sure it was all functional.
The prickly syto captain had not been happy that Adak and Penny wanted to keep all the translators intact instead of letting him tear them apart to repair his slowly failing shuttle.
I slowly lifted the translator and showed it to her.
“I have a translator,” I said gently, knowing my words would be useless but still wanting to explain.“It needs to pierce your ear to work, but you will be able to understand me.”
“What is that?”she asked nervously, her wide eyes darting between my hand and my face.
I swiveled one of my ears forward and pointed at the matching metal post that sat in the thick cartilage.
“It’s an earring?”
I shook my head and offered it to her, holding my hand out in the stretch of open space between us.
“For me?”She didn’t look interested in taking it and I pointed to my ear again and nodded.
The female swallowed hard, her body still wracked with terrified shivers as we stared at each other.Neither of us moved for a long moment before it became clear she wasn’t going to take my offering.
This wasn’t helping her calm down, if anything she was breathing harder the longer I waited for her fear to pass.Keeping my movements slow and unthreatening, I reached back into my pouch, searching for anything that could reassure her.
Something crinkled against my roaming fingers and I grinned triumphantly when I realized what it was.Ancestors bless Adak’s mate and her preparedness.I pulled the translucent bag from my pouch, it’s small paper note sealed safely from the elements.
“Here,” I said, striding toward the trembling female.“For you.”
The female cringed away from me and I quickly grabbed her hand and shoved the note into her limp fingers.
