“I will leave supplies up by the hydro station. When you free him, go with him. Find somewhere to hide out. Don’t use your tech until day five. By then we should know how things are going, so Mandy or I will send you a message."
“And what if you die before you can message me? This is not a great plan.”
“It doesn’t need to be great. We have been waiting for some magical moment, or the perfect plan, before we do anything. What if there is no right time and no right plan, and we just need to take a chance to make a change?”
“We wouldn’t be discussing this if they hadn’t decided that I needed to have a baby.”
He presses his lips together and watches me for several heartbeats. “We would be discussing it, but after they killed your alien. This way he gets to live, and you get to be happy, and that’s a better outcome than revealing the truth out of rage and grief.”
I lower my gaze to the floor. I have been caught in rage and grief all afternoon. “How long will it take for Mandy to put everything together?”
“A few days.”
I rake my teeth over my lip. That’s not long. But if we wait any longer, then the doctor will be ready to attempt conception.
“Okay, let’s make a mess, and hope we are around to clean it up.”
19
TIRIL
Ihave become resigned to living without ever seeing the stars again, but I hope the banished warriors who came before me can still find me and watch over me. I should also be resigned to remaining with the humans until such time they decide I am no longer useful and kill me.
Every time a soldier enters the room, I expect death.
So far, all they have done is deliver food. They place the containers close enough that I can reach them through the bars. Unlike Chloe, they do not dare to open the cell door. Nor do they talk to me, which is fine, as most of the time I do not wear the whisperer.
What is the point?
Chloe set up a screen outside of the cell which plays the lessons in English that the humans all receive—she gave me the control for it so I can pause it when I sleep. The humans are trying to get everyone speaking the same language. She told me how when the ship left Earth there were twenty different languages being spoken and how not everyone spoke English. That explains why they used the whisperer. But the whispereralso allows humans to communicate with each other over distances, much like the Honey do with our kam.
I have taken to practicing human letters on the bars of the cage, so I do not waste wall and floor space. I have matched most English sounds with Honey sounds. I do not know how useful it is, but it gives me something to do.
I need more to do. My body needs to do more than pace a cage.
The sparks form too readily and anger spikes beneath my skin too fast. No amount of pacing or fighting drills helps.
I pause the lesson, sensing Chloe's approach. Already I can tell something is wrong because her signal is wrong.
I watch the door, waiting for her to enter. I don’t like to appear too excited to see her, but most of the time I can’t help it. I love the way she explains her findings and shows me, as if she believes I deserve to know each new finding. I like the way she looks at me, as if she is one heartbeat away from reaching out and touching me.
I want her to touch me, yet at the same time, I’m glad of the distance.
She is a temptation I cannot have.
She has not chosen me. And she is not mine no matter how often I imagine she is. Even though it’s foolish, I keep hoping that she will find a way for me to leave this cage.
If I had known that I would be locked up, I wouldn’t have been so quick to volunteer. My brothers may not have let me, because this is not a life…but then neither was the one we were living, barely scraping by. Even though Edilk has a mate, we still can't make boots or cloth because we cannot settle anywhere.
The door swings open and Chloe steps inside. She is vibrating with tension, and she has that forced smile on her lips. “How are you going?”
“The same.” I use her words.
“Can you put the whisperer on for a bit?” She seems to like my name for the device as when she’s with me, that’s what she calls it. She uses the English word for whisper though, not my word.
I do as she asks, hooking it over my ear. It turns on when it contacts my skin. I only wear it if she is discussing science, as I do not know enough of the English words to make sense of what she is saying…not yet, anyway. “Are you okay?”
“No…um…” She sits on the stool and tugs on her braid.
