Just ask, Lila.
“What did you do to me?”
“I only helped you sleep. You had not dreamed properly in days, and your anxiety was manifesting as heart arrhythmias. Your body needed assistance,” he shrugged, “and I provided it.”
I choked on my coffee, sputtering my protest. “Y-you can’t do st-stuff to people without their permission!”
He eyed me as if I was having a mental breakdown. “I did nothing wrong.”
“Yes! You did!”
“Why do you think so? Do you not feel better?”
“That’s not the point!”
“Why is it not?”
“Sal, you can’t just do things!”
He glowered, and took the coffee from my shaking hands, setting it beside him on the floor. “I merely wanted to help.”
I pointed to my grandmother’s throw. “I had blankets on the shelf.”
He fingered the ivory crocheted loops as he passed it to me. “There is sometimes an energy to things once loved.”
“But how did you . . . ?” I grunted. “Nevermind.”
His forehead creased, and I was surprised to see an apology in his eyes.
“It is an awful sensation. Being watched. Having every measurable detail of your life cataloged and available for inspection.”
“And you know this from personal experience?”
“Of course I do.”
I sighed, but had to admit my body felt refreshed, and my spirit was too weary to argue. “Coffee, please.”
His mouth twitched as he transferred the mug back to my eager hands.
“Don’t think this means you’re off the hook, buster. Don’t ever do that again.”
I took another sip and watched him over the rim. His eyes were clear gray, but soft. The crystalline coldness had disappeared with the vicious machines that had devoured part of what made him so unique.
“You do realize that once I process, I’m going to need better answers than the tidbits you dangled this morning. There’s a lot more to this story than you’re letting on.”
“There is a lot more to your story as well.”
I ignored his taunt and pressed my point. “Twelve adults, eighteen children, and a hundred slaves? For what . . . a missionary expedition? Unable to fend for yourselves, yet able to control human lives with technology that—the way you described it—must include a vast, complex network with multiple ships and a hell of a lot more than a hundred and thirty people.”
“People?” He raised his eyebrow, but I ignored that, too.
“What the hell are y’all doing here?”
“It is—”
“I’m going to start screaming if you say it’s complicated. And you know I’ve got a pretty bad temper.” My tone was light, but he took my warning seriously. Smart m—alien. “Is your name really Sal?” His beatific smile could’ve been on a saint. “I knew it! You made it up that night!”
“If I had known at the time that you were so fascinated with names, I would have chosen more wisely. Unfortunately, my inspiration was rather insipid. The glass container of tomato-based—”
“Salsa? And let me guess . . . sitting on a stone countertop?”
“Stone-ground tortilla chips. The composition of the counter—”
“That’s stupid. Even for someone who takes a run in a hurricane.”
He flushed. “There is no excuse for that. It has been a very long time since I applied myself. Hundreds of your years can slip by and to me . . . ” He studied the way his hands were clasped around his bent knee. “And to me it is the same.”
The quiet loneliness in his voice was unexpected.
“Don’t you have your fam—don’t you have friends? Among your kind?”
“It is different for us. It is compl—”
I cleared my throat. “How is it different?”
“Lila, I . . . there is so much to explain and . . . ” His eyes looked everywhere except at mine, and then they rested on my chest.
I moved my coffee into his line of sight and he looked back up at me.
“Your shirt.”
Oh, that . . . “Come on, Sal. That’s a bit of a cop out, don’t you think? There’s only a hundred and . . . ” A frown started to form and I held up a hand. “Okay, okay . . . I forgot you were racist,” I muttered. “But still, there’s only thirty of you! How can you not trust each other? I mean . . . it’s the whole stranded on a desert island scenario!”
“Desert island scenario?”
“You know what I mean. Stop evading.”
“Lila, we cannot trust each other. Whatever ties we had . . . they have weakened. Dissolved.”
“That’s sad.” He flinched, and I leaned forward. “No, I mean it . . . that’s really sad.”
He heaved a wry laugh. “It is ironic. We sought out your planet to share our superior intelligence and social engineering wisdom, and yet at the first challenge, we failed. And at subsequent challenges we fought each other. And eventually we . . . ” He twisted his lips and fought back whatever he’d been intending to say. “We still have a common goal, but we have very, very different views on how to achieve it.”
The determination in his voice was unmistakable. It was raw and . . . fresh. He hadn’t always felt this way.
“So this whole saving-our-existence-thing. Is that really your team’s common goal?” His nod was terse. “But some of you don’t think humans need to be a part of that existence.” I didn’t bother to phrase it as a question, and as his eyes closed, I figured I had my grim confirmation.
“It is complicated,” he murmured.
“Is it complicated for you?” I was rather proud of how ambivalent I sounded.
“Not anymore.” His eyes opened, and my cheeks warmed at the emotion in his eyes.
“Sal, I . . . ”
“You do not need to say anything, Lila.”
“Of course, I do! I’m . . . well, okay . . . I’m not as old as you, but I’m not young!” That sounded stupid even to me, and I tried again. “What I mean is, I’m human! We’re inferior, remember?”
A smile crept back across his face. “I did not realize you were such a racist.”
“Species-ist, then.”
He took my forgotten mug, placing it carefully on the floor beside him, and then gathered both my hands in his. His touch was hot, but comfortingly so, even as I fretted about letting him be so close.
“Lila, I just want to be clear. If I may . . . ?”
I braced
