He swallowed, then bit into the bar again.
I let him take a third bite, swallow that, and reach for the water again before I stirred and said, “Lyssa, ask him what happened to the ship. Gently.”
“Maybe start by asking his name and telling him ours,” Dalton added, with a glance at me.
I grimaced. “We don’t have endless time to coddle him into cooperating.”
“A few kind words won’t take too long,” Dalton chided me.
Lyssa launched into a speech that seemed to go on forever. The boy paused in his chewing to look at the panel, then at each of us once more. Then he chewed and swallowed. He spoke in the same choppy language, which sounded smoother, coming from him.
“His name is Ophir,” Lyssa announced. “His father calls him Ophie.”
I gave a winding up gesture with my hand. “And?”
“And I’m getting to that,” Lyssa said patiently. “You said to be gentle,” she reminded me.
I sighed.
Lyssa spoke more Uqup.
Ophir lowered the bar, his eyes growing big. Fear bloomed in them. He began to tremble.
I patted his arm, as he moaned and hunched in on himself, the food and water forgotten. Fiori only just got her hand underneath the tumbling canteen.
He covered his head with his arms and spoke in a panic-filled voice. I could hear the repetitions of sounds. “What is he saying?” I demanded.
“He says monsters came and took everyone, but he hid. Bad monsters. Black monsters.”
“Monsters?” Dalton said. He rolled his eyes. “To a five-year-old, that could be anyone but his father.”
Lyssa said something. It was a question, for her voice flexed upward.
The boy didn’t lower his arm, but he spoke from beneath it, breathlessly, the fear making his voice shake.
“I might be interpreting him incorrectly,” Lyssa said. “It is a difficult language—context and intonation change meanings. He insists it was monsters. Let me try again.” She spoke again.
So did the boy.
“Lyssa?” I asked, when she did not immediately interpret.
“I think…it is possible he might have meant…”
“What?” Dalton demanded.
“Aliens,” Lyssa finished, sounding embarrassed for having said it aloud. “Bad ones.”
—11—
We took Ophir with us. Fiori pulled on her suit gloves and held out her hands. “Give him to me. A little pee won’t hurt me.”
It was more than a little pee, but I handed him over as instructed. He settled on Fiori’s hip and clung to her suit with two tight fists, his eyes still enormous and fear-filled.
I ignored how that made me feel. “Just hurry,” I urged. “I’m starting to feel claustrophobic.” Which was a flat out lie. I’d felt hemmed-in since I stepped aboard the Ige Ibas. I was anxious to leave.
“Lyssa, status update,” Dalton murmured.
“Nothing,” she said calmly. “It’s as empty out here as it was when we arrived.”
It wasn’t reassuring.
“Still jumpy, boss?” Dalton asked softly.
“More than ever,” I admitted and pushed on Fiori’s shoulder to get her moving. We crossed the maze-like engineering compartment, stepping around banks of mechanized and motorized whatevers. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for where things sat. At least on the Lythion there were labels and heads-up displays, along with full step-by-step explanations about how to fix things. And there was always Lyssa with her construction bot strength to tackle the heavier jobs.
I climbed the steep metal steps ahead of Fiori, my shriver out. “Hurry,” I repeated, as we rounded the railing at the top of the stairs and moved down the central corridor.
Every speaker on our suits and the ones inside our helmets blasted out a warning klaxon at full volume. Ophir screamed and I winced and put my spare hand over my ear.
“Incoming! Incoming!” Lyssa shouted at us. “They appeared out of nowhere! No warning! They’re right on top of us!”
“Run!” I screamed and pounded down the corridor.
The two wolves stayed with me, whining at the loud noise, which had to be painful for them to listen to with their sensitive hearing.
“Shut the alarm off!” I screamed.
“I’m coming in!” Lyssa shouted back. “They’re fast! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
The klaxon shut off abruptly.
“Analyze later!” I shouted back. I turned into the entry foyer. The two airlock doors were still locked open, for which I was profoundly grateful. I ran at them, fumbling for my helmet. Then I gave up on it. No time.
I paused at the edge of the outer door. The tunnel was still in place, the lights around the doorframe on the shuttle glowing green—but I didn’t need the lights to know the tunnel was still there. We would be experiencing explosive decompression if it wasn’t.
I waved Dalton and Fiori on. “I’ll steer Vara!”
Fiori didn’t hesitate. She sprinted through the two lock doors and launched herself across the tunnel with a grunt of effort, with Ophir clinging to her, his face buried in her shoulder. She sailed across, letting inertia do the work.
Dalton and Darb pounded after her. Dalton thrust his fingers into the fur behind Darb’s neck as he pushed off with a powerful thrust of his legs.
I didn’t wait to watch them make the crossing. I gripped Vara by the scruff and hurled her out into the tunnel and pushed off myself. I dared to glance to the right and then the left. The unnamed blue sun was lifting up over the edge of the planet behind us. Its cold light glinted off a sight I will never forget.
The ship was unlike anything I’d ever seen, and in my lifetime, I have seen hundreds of starships, some of them highly experimental and futuristic. This ship looked like it had been created from the ground up by deliberately eschewing every sensible ship design decision.
I had no time to stare at it. I got a single, startled glimpse of unfocused details, including the huge size of the thing—it was easily three times the size of the Lythion—then the nose of the shuttle
