“Projecting my fears. And no, I’m not. I’m not scared of needles, and I have no problem with you injecting nanites into me. What I’m concerned about is the fact that the water is really choppy out in the direction N’kal was headed.”
“Perhaps he is showing a boat for you.”
“Showboating.” I turned away from the lake with a sigh. “Maybe that’s all it is. Go ahead. Shoot me, doc. Maybe then I can turn the tables and be the one with the mixed-up phrases and weird syntax.”
“My syntax is strange?”
“Do not worry. Most non-native speakers have strange syntax. Even some who were raised on my language have strange syntax.”I laughed at my own joke.“Now, as I said, you may inject me. I am prepared.”
Themoyashot me a strange look.“Interesting.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.“What is so interesting?”
“I have already injected the nanites, while you were discussing rotating furniture. It is done.”He rubbed his chin scales.“I say it is interesting because there is usually a slight delay between the injection and the activation of the nanites, yet you already speak and understand Xalanite quite fluently.”
Huh? What was he talking about? Was this some kind of reverse psychology? I never felt a poke, and I would think I’d notice if I was speaking a different language!“I believe you are mistaken, doctor.”
He lifted a small device and pushed a button. My voice played back to me, and while I understood the words, once I heard them repeated, I realized they were not the words I thought I’d been speaking.
“Noye i’inah mlye k’ah fry’jaa, moya.”
My jaw dropped. I stammered and sputtered for a few seconds, dumbstruck in both languages.
It wasmyvoice, but the words were Xalanite!
“H-how … B-but, I-I …”
Once I started listening to what I said, it hit me that I hadn’t said a word in English since I first mentioned syntax.
It also hit me that I didn’t know how tostopspeaking Xalanite.
“Doctor … What’s going on? How do I turn it off?”
He let out a loud belly laugh, and I’d never wanted to deck someone more than I wanted to deck him just then.
“There is no ‘turning it off.’ The nanites are constantly active. They work in your brain stem to automatically translate any Xalanite you hear into words that you understand. Simultaneously, they feed you Xalanite words for what you want to say. Functionally, it is like you have known Xalanite since you were very young. You simply have to use the words that you want.”
Easy for him to say! I didn’t even know I was speaking Xalanite to begin with. How was I supposed to switch back to English if I didn’t know what language was coming out of my mouth until I was already speaking?
One of the AARO agents standing on the shore with me snickered, and I shot him a nasty glare. He must have been one of the agents who’d volunteered to have nanites implanted for ease of communications with the Xalanite visitors. It was the only way he’d know what was going on. I opened my mouth to chew him out in whatever language happened to slip out, but before I could lay into him, I heard panicked shouts in the distance.
I turned around to face the lake, and the sight was enough to make my stomach churn.
Right in the same area where the water had started to get choppy was a large, dark pool of Xalanite blood … and it was spreading.
“N’kal!”
I screamed his name and rushed into the water, kicking off my shoes as I ran. I dove in, not even thinking about my neatly pressed slacks or my clean button-down shirt. All I cared about was getting to him as quickly as possible.
The assassin must have followed us; that was the only explanation. We vetted the Xalanite guards thoroughly, and they both came back with squeaky-clean records from Xalan and Earth.
Frigid water engulfed me, and my heart thumped wildly in my chest as I swam for the spot. I cursed my stupid human body for needing air and having terrible vision underwater. Everything was murky and blurred, and I knew if I’d been a Xalanite, I could have seen where I was going. As it was, I had to keep resurfacing to breathe and redirect myself when I got off course. It seemed like it was taking me an eternity to swim a few hundred meters.
The third time I popped up for air, I got knocked back under by a massive wave. I fought to reach the surface, and when I did my heart sank.
Hovering several feet above the surface and dripping lake water was a small ship. The design marked it as Xalanite in origin, all smooth, sleek lines, clear glass, and shiny metal. I watched in horror as the scarred Xalanite grinned at me through the front pane before the ship spun around and took off in the opposite direction. Was N’kal on board, or was his body in the blackened, blood-laced waters of Lake Ontario?
Further out in the lake, several AARO agents scrambled to put on SCUBA gear before they dove into the water. We’d brought the gear just in case, but everything had been sopeaceful that no one had bothered to put it on ahead of time. After all, they’d secured the area themselves. How were they to know the assassin had stashed a ship underwater? He had to have planned this ahead of time.
