I slowly inch my way down the hall, stopping and listening carefully every few minutes. Finally, I hear a low, mournful sound up ahead. The doors down this hall have windowpanes in them, unlike the doors in the other halls I’ve walked down.
I creep on silent feet up to the door where the noise is coming from. Pressing my ear against the surface, I hold my breath, listening intently.
I hear something, but it’s so quiet I can’t be sure. Plugging my opposite ear with my finger, I listen to the sound, trying to figure out what I am hearing. It sounds like someone is whispering on the other side of the door. The words are murmured so rapidly, they are tumbling over themselves. Creepy.
Inch by inch, I slink up the surface of the door to peek into the window. At first, all I see is a white room with a small bed and a toilet. It looks like a room from a psych ward.
Shit. Or a prison.
A small movement catches my eye making me realize there is a person in a white coverall squeezed in a small space between the foot of the bed and the wall. As I watch, they rock back and forth in rhythm to their whispering, chanting words.
The shape of the person makes me think it’s a man. He is hunched over his knees and has his arms curled over the top of his head, gripping the back of his neck as he rocks. My nose scrunches in confusion because, for some reason, he is wearing full-length gray gloves.
I stare at his hands for a few minutes, trying to figure out why they look so weird. Something’s not right. Suddenly, the man drops his hands between his knees and lifts his head. That’s when I see his gray-skinned, bald head. Those weren’t gloves. His skin is slate gray. He tilts his head back and moans a low, mournful cry to the ceiling.
When I gasp, silver eyes snap up to the window. They narrow when he sees me, and he surges out of his corner in my direction.
I jump, scrambling away from whatever the fuck is inside the room, forgetting for a moment that he’s separated from me by a thick door. He’s not human or a Cerastean. He’s a type of alien I’ve never seen before.
My brain swirls around until it stops on the description Sara gave me of the Ostium who hurt her.
“Human female!” a male voice calls out from the room. “Human female, come back.”
Backing away, I cross the width of the hall while keeping my eyes on the small windowpane.
“What. The. Fuck,” I whisper under my breath.
The alien’s face appears in the window. I swallow the urge to scream. He places his open palm against the window, next to his face, pressing it flat against the glass.
“Talk to me, human female,” he requests.
“Uh…” is all I’m able to get out of my clogged, frozen throat.
“I’ve lost my queen, human female. She made everything okay, and now she’s gone. I can’t find my queen.” He sounds like a child who has lost his favorite stuffed animal. I stare at this creature’s sharp-boned face, cast in shades of slate gray and lavender undertones. He reminds me of a praying mantis with his big pupil-less silver bug eyes.
“Your queen wants to destroy my people,” I say when I get my vocal cords working. I’m pleased by how firm and strong my voice sounds. Inside, I’m quivering like a leaf in a tornado.
“Queen Diamalla said it was necessary. She needed me for her crusade. I was to save my people from the scourge of the Cerasteans. They are a blight. Humans are only a means to eradicate the Cerasteans.”
“Well, isn’t that fucking nice. My people are just a necessary but unfortunate casualty?” I snark. Pausing for a second, I stare at this alien man’s woe-be-gone face. “Did your queen say why Cerasteans are a scourge? What did they do to your people?”
It’s harder to read the Ostium’s facial expressions with his silvery-opaque eyes, but based on the way they widen and his hairless brows raise, I’ve caught him by surprise.
“They just are. My queen said so.”
“She didn’t give you a reason? She just said they’re a ‘scourge’ then killed an entire planet? Men, women, children – it didn’t matter because Cerasteans are a scourge. Your people killed millions of innocent beings, and the queen didn’t even give you a real reason.”
The alien drops his gaze down, and I watch as he blinks his silver eyes rapidly.
“What’s your name?” I ask, deciding to change tactics. “I’m Trinh. Trinh Le.”
“I’m Vorto.”
My burgeoning sympathy for him evaporates when I realize he’s the one who tried to kill Sara and D’Annon.
“You tortured my friend Sara,” I say, taking a step towards Vorto, my hands fisting in sudden rage. “You hurt her and then left her to die in the desert!”
“It was my queen’s bidding. It was my queen’s bidding,” Vorto says, chanting the words over and over again. Fisting his hands in front of his eyes like he’s trying to press out his vision, he starts knocking his knuckles against one temple.
