Failing
<[Okay, I know I’ve said it a bunch already, but psionics are really cool,]> Nora said.
<[But can you translate that into Starspeak?]> I asked.
I could practically see her attention flit across her copy of the Starspeak dictionary, compiling sentences piece by piece. It was translation via brute force, but with the speed at which psionics could operate, it hardly mattered.
Nora was good at psionics. Better than Nai even.
It made sense. From what I knew—and Nai had seen—of her Adeptry, Nora was as precise or more than I was. There was also the distinct possibility that psionics would come easier to humans.
The jury was out on that.
But whatever the reason, her psionic skills made her popular in our Adept workshop. Even without being able to talk with her directly, every member of the class was eager to trade constructs with her and compare her versions of what we made.
“[Wait, wait, slow down,]” she said. I could imagine her furiously poring over the dictionary in her head, figuring out just what was said.
<[He wants to know how much front-end adjustment there was,]> I told her. <[You’re technically the second psionic human ever.]>
“Screeching,” I corrected.
<-ing! Screeching,> “[Thank you Caleb,]” she said.
It wasn’t the most detailed answer, but the Farnata seemed satisfied with it.
I think they were trying to find excuses to actually ask her things…
Nora’s introduction to psionics had more or less coincided with her introduction to new aliens. Interestingly enough, she learned more about both in tandem. She was proving to be quite popular for coming up with a myriad of new constructs as well as learning to adapt them to Casti or Farnata psyches.
Nora was diving into the furthest conceptual corners possible. She didn’t have my intuition about them, so she had to figure out what was or wasn’t possible through experimentation.
Most notably, just how psionics connected to the consciousness, the brain, and most importantly, both at once.
Because, best we could tell, psionics were abstract. Not physical in any tangible way. But then again, consciousness seemed to be similar. But both of those things were at least related to our very material brains. Somehow.
All of the constructs Nora made were tied into the user’s body somehow.
It was still in the design phase, but she mentioned working with Nerin to make some form of pain monitor for patients. Maybe even a full body tracker.
There was also a gyroscope she’d improvised to help her when her legs gave out—happening less and less every day now. That one was especially popular for the half of the class that hadn’t gone through zero-g combat certification yet.
These Adepts were going to be the ones who taught the rest of the Coalition about psionics. Constructs were getting more complex, more advanced. They were growing, becoming more unwieldy to share casually.
They were becoming more specialized. More valuable.
It wasn’t hard to imagine. Soon the Coalition would have psionic expertise, psionic technology worth having. Worth classifying.
But even with my invention’s takeover, this was still supposed to be more than just a psionic workshop.
With the first half of our class time about to pass, it was time to move from psionics toward Adept stress testing and spars.
And I was on the block today. It was my chance to redeem myself against one of only three Adepts who’d beat me more than once.
Specifically, Leb, the wet’n’wild Adept who liked to create huge amounts of water as a spacing strategy.
“Sudden death,” Tiv said, explaining the rules, “the stakes are higher in real combat. One point is all you need to win.”
“Sorry, Leb,” I said. “You don’t get to beat me a third time.”
“You’re not going to have a say in it, Human,” she joked.
“But today I’ve got an audience,” I told her, nodding toward Nora. “It’s a time-honored tradition which means I’m going to have to show off a little.”
Leb didn’t waste time before shooting at me. She pulled the trigger as quickly as I could even process that she’d even created the weapon.
It more or less confirmed my hypothesis that Adepts could lean on psionics to increase the consistency of their creations. Most of the workshop’s sparring-friendly firearms shot pellets instead of paint, but I was prepared to block either.
I’d been building up my mass limit for months now, and I could make a whole shield now.
True to my personal style and lack thereof, I was cribbing Sendin Marfek. She’d made translucent blades that could cut through concrete, but she’d also mashed them together to form a shield.
And it was that transparent shield that I mimicked now. It wasn’t the same substance, but it was still strong enough to shrug off real bullets. Leb’s pellet gun didn’t even make me flinch.
I charged at her because I needed her to default back to her preferred trick.
She did.
A fifty-gallon curtain of water shimmered into existence between us, blocking my advance. The water just fell, caught by gravity. But where she tried to push me away with sheer mass, I could overcome it with sheer force.
I couldn’t get the force I needed without utilizing my entire limit, so I needed to drop my shield and risk being shot.
It paid off. Her own water pushed her shots off course.
My kinetic bomb was simply creating matter already at a pressure high enough to immediately explode once it actually existed.
Pressure was behind bombs, but also rockets. My new fancy new rocket-knife trick worked off the same principle. But small knives were not the only thing I could launch…as long as I was willing to risk some pain.
I was basically using a bomb-turned-rocket to cannonball myself through her waterfall. It hurt about as much as it sounds.
But the burst caught her by surprise, and I bowled the two of us over. I was quicker on my feet though—it was why she’d tried to keep me away.
I’d expected for the impact to be called a point. But since it wasn’t, I had to improvise something new, fast.
Luckily, Leb had forgotten the last trick I’d shown. I was close enough now to create a blunt rocket knife aimed at her throat.
My knife struck her neck before she could raise her gun.
“Point!” Tiv called.
The whole spar had lasted no more than ten seconds.
“Koeviwalta,” my opponent swore, rubbing where she’d been struck. “The flying knife. I forgot you could do that.”
“I almost forgot to blunt it,” I admitted. “It takes a lot of concentration to aim, even if I’m close.”
“Glad you remembered. It’s a nasty attack,” she said. “Its trajectory wasn’t collinear with you. It comes from a completely unexpected angle.”
“I first got the idea from Four-arms,” I grinned, nodding toward the Adept in question.
Leb broke off to talk with Tiv about what she could learn, and I decided to wind down before I wore myself out more. I still needed to drag Nora to one of our abduction investigation meetings.
Nora had materialized a very large cushion to sit on while the rest of the class had split up for sparring. I walked over, not quite processing the fact that she looked a little uncomfortable.
“[Did you see that?]” I said, ecstatic.
“[I did,]” she said.
“[What did you think?]” I asked breathlessly. “[I wasn’t sure I could propel myself like that, but I’m pretty happy with the result.]”
“[I was translating what you said,]” Nora said awkwardly. “[Were you really showing off for me?]”
“[That Farnata’s beat me twice before,]” I told her. “[I was absolutely showing off.]”
It was hard not to be excited. It felt like I wasn’t relying on whatever Nai had left in my head as much. Or maybe I was making it my own. I wasn’t sure which, if either, of those fit.
But whatever the reason, I was feeling less helpless than expected. Marshal Tispas had basically declared me ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’, and for most of the rocket ride back here, I’d been wracked with dread.
Having another human around was brilliant. For the first time in months I had someone to talk about home.
“[Seeing you fight again makes me feel a little better about not realizing you were human the first time,]" Nora said. “[It’s like watching Spider-Man.]”
“[I can stick to walls,]” I mused. “[All I gotta do now is start slinging webs and start kissing upside down in the rain.]”
“[No thanks—]” she started, “[—wait, you can stick to walls? How?]”
“[Magnets,]” I simplified, putting a hand on the wall and pulling myself off the floor.
“[Weird…wait, that’s how you used the Force!]” she said.
“[What?]”
“[On the moon—Archo—it seemed like you were doing telekinetic stuff. You yanked me right off the ground. That was just making a magnet?]”
“[Materialized on your spacesuit,]” I nodded. “[I guess it is kinda ‘Jedi’ huh?]”
I materialized a quarterstaff a few meters away from me, with a charge diffused through it, and created an opposing charge in my palm.
The quarterstaff flew at me, and I caught it with a twirl.
“[Cool right?]”
“[Very,]” Nora said. “[It…seems like you’re trying really hard to impress me.]”
“[…I’m just…trying to make a good impression,]” I said.
Getting her shot wasn’t a great first one.
“[Then…I think it would be really unfair of me to let this conversation continue without telling you… I’m gay, Caleb…I’m just not interested.]”
I blinked, going through several reactions at once.
First, wait, really?
Second, why just tell me like that?
Had she thought I was trying to flirt?
“[I…wasn’t hitting on you…]” I said, suddenly very self-conscious of the number of aliens within earshot.
“[Oh. Okay,]” Nora said. Very, definitely convinced.
“[I wasn’t!]” I said.
“[Okay,]” she repeated, “[I believe you.]”
“[…Please tell me you didn’t just say you’re gay as an excuse…]” I said.
“[Wow. First, rude,]” she said, trying to flick my forehead. “[Second, I thought you said you weren’t flirting.]”
“[I wasn’t!]” I protested. “[But you thought I was, and the first thing out of your mouth was ‘I’m gay’. Kinda hard not to take that…]”
Nora huffed. “[People don’t just make up being gay. Is it an issue?]”
“[Well—]”, I started. My brain leapt to say the first thing on my mind, but months among aliens with no other humans held my tongue.
“[…No,]” I lied. “[Not at all.]”
“[Then let’s drop it for now then,]” Nora said. “[We’ve got other stuff to get to right? The schedule says, ‘Talk with Serral’. They’re important right? I’ve been waiting to talk with someone in charge about exactly where my campers might be.]”
“[Yeah. Yeah, of course]” I said, eager to take the excuse to focus on something else.
·····
Nora and I enjoyed a very awkward tram ride across High Harbor base with Nai in tow. Serral was in the admin building with a very retro audio recording setup awaiting us.
I’d been driving myself crazy anticipating this. With how awkward it had just been with Nora, I was probably overeager, sitting myself down right in the middle of the table. Serral was at one end, Nora the other.
Nora’s knowledge of the other human abductees would be invaluable. Hopefully it would be the first step in figuring out just how we’d all wound up in the jaws of the Vorak, and just what the otters had been up to since.
Nai and Serral would be asking questions, I’d be translating, and Nora would be answering.
“Thank you for joining us, Miss Nora,” Serral said. “It’s a privilege to meet another Human like Caleb.”
<[He said: ‘thank you for joining us, Miss Nora’.]> I translated. <[Then: ‘it’s a privilege—]>
<[You don’t have to say the ‘he said’ part,]> Nora advised. <[I think it’s simpler if you just repeat exactly and only what he does.]>
I could watch Nora searching through the psionic dictionary, trying to translate on her own, but she still wanted me actively translating to catch what she thought she would inevitably miss.
“[It’s Miss Clarke , technically,]” Nora said. “[Nora isn’t my surname, and this seems formal enough to qualify for it.]”
Translating in real time was hard. Psionics had a strange tendency to not preoccupy one’s attention, leaving you able to focus on two conversations at once. But when the two were actually related?
It left me with a lot to keep track of.
“Miss Clarke, I apologize,” Serral said.
“[Don’t worry about it. I get why Caleb went by his first name,]” she replied.
“Thank you. Then I’d like to proceed and formally debrief you about your stay with the Vorak. I and my peers compiled an exhaustive list of questions. I’d like to confirm that you’re willing to be interviewed now; it could be a time-consuming process.”
“[Willing and ready,]” Nora said.
“Some background then…” Serral began.
The first hour of questions was all confirming what we thought we already knew. She had spent roughly six months under Vorak confinement. The rak had worn quarantine measures for more than half that time. The uniforms they’d seen were green with red accents, so we weren’t crazy.
The Red Sails had been holding onto Humans for as long as the Coalition had.
And a little bit more, I was beginning to understand how they could panic so much over me.
I’d gone public when I’d agreed to help out with the malfunctioning storm shelter outside Demon’s Pit. In hindsight, it had felt like such an insignificant step.
But if the Red Sails really weren’t involved in our abductions, then they were just as clueless about the facts as the Coalition. Nobody knew anything about where we humans had come from, or how.
Ergo, they were just as anxious as Laranta and the Coalition. Nobody knew anything.
…And both sides are desperate to keep the other from realizing that they’re just as out of the loop, I thought.
Everything Nora told us supported that theory.
Unlike me, they hadn’t forced any medical procedures on them. In fact…
“[The first month or two was almost perfectly evenly split between Halax and Shakri trying to learn English, and also trying to convince us to volunteer to give blood samples,]” Nora said. “[I was the first one to risk it. Not many more people did after, but they also said they didn’t need much.]”
“…Then they did attempt to establish communication,” he said.
“[Yes, though we were very unsatisfied with their pace. They dragged their feet on it so much, things almost turned violent a few times. Largely because they didn’t budge about keeping us confined.]”
“[You said Halax almost shot you,]” I recalled, translating the same phrase psionically for Serral’s benefit.
She nodded. “[We were seventy kids. We’ve had more than a few panic attacks about it all, especially when someone triggered Enumius— Adept powers, I mean.]”
“Were there any notable instances of violence breaking out? Not just posturing, I mean: injuries,” Serral asked.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Nora’s had waffled. “[Sorta…there were some scuffles after Dustin first triggered. He was really aggressive in testing out his Adept…ing? Adeptics?]”
“[Adeptry,]” I supplied.
“[I was one of the first people to pop their Adeptry,]” Nora said, “[Halax almost shot me trying to stop me from experimenting. I had to look at where he was standing to get it. He put himself between me and the campers because I didn’t know what I was doing—still don’t, really—and wanted to keep me away from them until I understood the risks.]”
“But Halax was the same rak to later smuggle you away from the Red Sails? Or, at least Marshal Tispas’s confinement of you?”
“[He and I negotiated about it,]” Nora confirmed. “[He made sure I knew the risks, and he only went along with it because I said I’d try anyway even without his help. We were desperate for information and when Halax confirmed that he was being kept in the dark too, I decided it was worth the risk.]”
“I encountered him on my way out of there,” Nai told Serral. “If he’s as good of an Adept as I think, we might have a record on him—even if he isn’t filed as an active combatant.”
“We’re looking into him,” Serral said. “Pivoting topics, how much can you tell us about where you were confined?”
“[It was…a very large structure. Tall ceilings—rafters really—almost a quarter mile long, maybe half that wide? It was comparable to…an airplane hangar. The building itself was basically one massive room.]”
“That’s significant,” Serral noted. “Something that size should be visible from orbit if it’s on the surface. Were there any windows? If not, were you underground?”
“[Definitely not underground,]” Nora said. “[There weren’t any windows in either place, but the walls weren’t that thick. We figured out how to…feel things remotely with our Adept powers. I don’t know, it probably has a proper name. I’m not too good at it.]”
<[Tactile cascading,]> I said.
<[Tactile… Tascading,]> she grinned.
In a way, I was a little grateful to just be translating here. I wasn’t sure how to interact with Nora right now, and performing a strictly passive role felt insulating.
“Either place,” Serral noted, catching me slacking on the translation. “You said you were moved. And notable differences between the two locations? Do you know what prompted the move?”
“[No,]” Nora replied. “[They were very unforthcoming about any of their motivations. Halax and Shakri both said they weren’t told, and I tend to believe them. I don’t think it’s possible for them to fake that kind of frustration for that long. As for the two hangars themselves, they were veritably identical. But the otters didn’t move any of our cabins or other accommodations.]”
Nora had explained the prefab structures that the Vorak had just plopped in the middle of the empty hangars. The rak had apparently been quite diligent at giving Nora and her campers their privacy. They even tubed a water supply into the cabins for plumbing.
“You marked them,” Serral guessed.
“[Not intentionally, but yes. We rotated bunks every now and then, just to mix things up and reduce conflict. We wound up paying attention to each cabin’s quirks. Scratches, dents, that kind of thing.]”
“Then they built new accommodations for them. If they moved the abductees, why not move the accommodations too?” I asked Serral.
“On average, Vorak fabricators are superior to Casti and Farnata reproductions,” Serral said. “That includes their material recycling functions. Vorak tend to cannibalize structures rather than move them, because it’s simply easier to move raw materials to build new fixtures on site than to move them whole.
“The timing of it strikes me, though,” he continued. “They moved you from one place to another in just a few hours, and the living accommodations were already built when you arrived?”
“[Mmm…half-built,]” Nora replied. “[Halax tried to take feedback from us on where we wanted certain things like the doorways or showers, but this was multiple months ago. The language barrier was still up.]”
“But these ‘cabins’ were at least partially built before you arrived?”
“[Yes.]”
“That’s odd. You’d think if the move was planned, the structures would have been already finished, waiting. But if it wasn’t planned at all, then why were they only half built?”
“Maybe the plan had to change?” I suggested. “They could have arrived sooner than expected.”
“…Could be,” Serral mused. “It’s difficult to conclude anything without knowing more about why you were moved.”
“[We had a lot of theories, but nothing solid,]” Nora said. “[Our best guess was that they wanted to put us somewhere safer because of how many of us showed Adeptry.]”
“How many?”
“[Well one of the first…killed herself. Not counting her, the cumulative number when we were moved was eleven. I told them to keep it to a minimum, but when I left with Halax, there were nineteen of us doing Adeptry…is that a lot?]”
Nai had first quoted me some very canted numbers. One in ten Vorak, one in four Farnata. But those were strictly the portion of people who showed signs.
Measuring Adeptry got complicated when you started looking at the weakest of the weak end of powers. There sometimes people who ‘half’ activated, exhibiting the barest signs of Adeptry for months or even years, only for something to fizzle out and see them materializing nothing at all.
The practical numbers were maybe half what Nai had quoted me.
But that was with detailed equipment, detecting microscopic changes in mass around the candidate, or finding associated radiation patterns coming from them.
Nora’s alien summer camp didn’t have that.
They were doing it by eye. Anyone who could consciously make an amount of matter big enough to see or touch was an L1.
And twenty out of her seventy-two total had broken into the L1 bracket?
The surprise was visible on everyone’s face.
“[That many?!]” I asked her, forgetting our earlier awkwardness for a while. “[In just six months?! It’s…it’s not just going to stop at twenty. How many more are there going to be?]”
“…There are two possibilities,” Serral decided. “Either you abductees were selected at random, and Earth has an unprecedented Adept rate…”
“Or you were targeted on Earth somehow for your Adeptry,” Nai said.
It shouldn’t have been wholly surprising. I’d thought of the idea in passing; both Daniel and I had coincidentally been Adept.
It was cathartic.
This was the first real evidence we had of even a possible motive for the abductions. Adeptry.
Two hours translating between Nora and Serral and I was exhausted. But I’d learned more in those two hours than four weeks of going over Korbanok computer data.
“Hey, hang back for a minute,” Nai told me as we wrapped up for the evening.
“Can’t we talk on the tram?” I asked. “Or back home? This has been a big day.”
I started walking toward the door, about to follow Nora and today’s pair of chaperones: Deg and Nikrim.
“Wait,” Nai said, tone deadly serious. “Tell her Nerin is waiting for her at home.”
“Uh…is she?” I asked.
Nai paused only for a second, sending a message to her sister.
“Yes.”
“[Okay…Nora, Nai says you should go meet Nerin at the apartment?]”
“[…Sure,]” Nora said, eyes darting between Nai and I. “[I’ll…I can practice some Starspeak with her.]”
Yeah, that had been smooth.
“[Later,]” I said.
Nora nodded, leaving with my two bodyguards.
I frowned. They were supposed to follow both of us. Nai was with me…but she wasn’t technically a replacement for them. They would only leave me like this if Nai asked specifically.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You’re going to talk to me about you and Nora,” she said simply. “Come, walk.”
She took us toward the building’s rooftop. The evening view of the colony was brilliant.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “About anything in particular?”
She shot me a dark look.
“I know Serral didn’t notice, I’m not sure if Nora herself did or not, but you…” she pointed at me, “are acting skittish around her all of a sudden. Did she say something to you today?”
“No,” I said. “Well, yes. But don’t worry about it. I’ve just gotta…”
To what?
Figure out how to bring up awkward and inflammatory topics like sexuality? With aliens?
“I have a better read on you than most of them,” she said. “If this is a problem, then I want to stop it before it starts. Don’t pretend nothing has happened. I can tell. ”
She gave a psionic ruffle, tracing the same connections my mysterious mega-construct had wrought between us.
“It’s nothing,” I insisted. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Liar,” she accused.
It was my turn to shoot her a dirty look.
“Why bring this up now?” I asked.
“Because it takes two people to bury a feud. Come on…”
Neither of us was very good at hiding our feelings from each other. I didn’t want to talk about this kind of Earth topic.
“There’s no feud,” I insisted.
“But there will be,” she said. “And they’re much easier to settle if denied time to grow.”
“But there is no f—”
“Hivivi, Caleb,” Nai cut me off.
“That’s unfair,” I accused her.
But… “It always is,” we both said.
I took a deep breath. This was going to be a very difficult conversation. One I’d been procrastinating successfully ever since I first started telling aliens about Earth.
“I’ve been avoiding topics,” I admitted. “Blatantly. You guys…I don’t know if it’s because your mass communications are more limited, or if alien societies are just less tumultuous. But Earth has a lot of controversial topics that breed a lot of conflict.”
“You think we don’t have controversy too? A war wasn’t enough tumult—never mind, I’m getting off topic. You’ve been keeping those controversies from creating conflict around you?” Nai followed.
I nodded.
“But Nora makes that harder; she’s involved in one.”
Another nod.
“So which is it? Ethnicity? Spiritualism?” Nai asked.
“You’re being awfully casual about this,” I said.
“What? Those are the usual suspects. Vorak, Casti, Kiraeni; all of our homeworlds have a civilization’s history behind them. You think Humans are the first aliens to conflict with themselves?”
“Spiritualism,” I said. “You mean like beliefs, or traditions about…I don’t know the word. Creators. Cosmic ones.”
“God,” Nai clarified. I recognized the root words, translating them. “Religions.”
I added the words to my dictionary. It was much slower growing these days.
“You haven’t struck me as the religious type,” Nai admitted. “Is that what this is about?”
“No, I’m…I don’t know what—” I stuttered. “It’s not a religious thing. I think.”
“You can’t just keep dancing around the topic,” she said. “What exactly does Nora bring up?”
“I don’t know the word again,” I said. “It’s…intimacy. What kinds of people…other people are…interested in.”
“Wait, are you talking about a caste system?” she asked. “Are Humans not allowed to—”
“What? No, no,” I huffed. “It’s about what gender people are drawn— attracted to."
It had taken me a moment to find the right word.
“Oh, sexuality,” Nai said.
It didn’t occur to me to add the word to my dictionary.
“Yeah, that,” I said, recognizing the root word again.
She nodded, “Okay. I would have been really surprised if I somehow missed a planetary caste system in your memories. So, what? You’re from a place that doesn’t look keenly on mirroring?”
“Mirroring?” I asked.
“Two that are the same,” she clarified. “Reflecting.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“You guess?”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “Some places think it’s great. Some don’t.”
“Quit avoiding,” she said. “Own it. I’m not going to bite your head off.”
“You really think it’s that easy?” I snapped at her.
“Yes,” she said without missing a beat. “Because…if it isn’t, then I think you haven’t thought it through that much.”
“Fine, I’m… uncomfortable with Nora being [gay]. Happy?”
“Are you?” she asked coolly. She had a way of looking right into my soul. Her unblinking expression just…picked at me.
Was I? Happy about that?
“I ask because, I’m surprised at you, Caleb. It feels like you’ve talked yourself into this position just in the last few hours. Not once have I heard you broach it before.”
“Well like I said, I’ve been avoiding the topic. It’s not something I think about at all, even back home,” I said. “Nor is it something I’ve had occasion or reason to out here. I had some topics that I avoided because of how controversial they could be back home. You already listed most of the big ones.”
“Keep talking. Elaborate,” she said. “I want to exhaust you.”
“That’s dismissive,” I accused.
She just stared at me expectantly.
“Fine,” I huffed. “I haven’t brought it up because I don’t know what any of your stances would be on it. The first few weeks I was worried aliens might have some kind of ritualized murder or some other appalling practice. I had no frame of reference. I’ve got a better one now, but it doesn’t encompass everything.”
Nai nodded along, eminently patient with me.
“I see. You might think it was funny: I said almost the same thing when you were quarantined at the university. Well, you’re adding to your frame of reference now. What do you think I think?”
“I think…you think I’m wrong.”
Nai nodded. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” I said. “You’re an alien. It’s different.”
“Should it be?” she asked. “What if I’m attracted to Farnata girls? Why wouldn’t that bother you?”
“You’re not,” I said. “I can tell too.”
She was leading me. Provoking me with hypotheticals. But I could tell that’s all they were.
“So what? What if I were?” she asked. “You said it’s different because I’m an alien. I want you to explain what’s makes it so different.”
“I…I don’t know,” I said. “But it would be. It just…would be. I put it into words right now.”
“That seems comparable to not having a good reason for thinking so,” Nai said.
“Alright, maybe I just can’t put a good reason into words right now.”
“I am putting you on the spot,” Nai conceded. “But if you still don’t have a good reason after a while of really thinking about it, change your mind.”
“…What’s your point?” I asked.
“Be honest with yourself,” she directed. “You could be wrong.”
It wasn’t a question.
Even I wasn’t going to pretend there was no chance otherwise.
“I know I can be wrong,” I said. “But wrong about what exactly?”
Nai scowled.
“Ugh, I did let you get away from the question when I told you to own it. You said you’re uncomfortable. Do you think being…”
She gestured at me, prompting for the word.
“[Gay,]” I supplied.
“Do you think being [gay] is wrong? Immoral?”
I couldn’t answer her. “…I don’t know,” I finally said.
“Okay. Then look at you and your priorities,” she said. “Even if you think Nora’s inclinations are bad somehow, are you really going to refuse to work with her just because she’s mirrored?”
I shook my head. She was right about that at least. She’d been abducted just like me.
Just like the rest of us.
“[Gay]…[Gay]…That could be a Faranata name,” Nai mused. “Probably is somewhere.”
“It’s not like it would mean the same thing,” I said.
“No, I suppose not,” she said. “…So, why don’t you know?”
What?
“…Why don’t I know if I think it’s wrong?”
“Exactly,” she said.
“I don’t think they’re bad, exactly… ” I said. “It’s just…I don’t know…I never had the same investment in it as other people.”
“That’s apathy,” Nai disagreed. “And you’re not apathetic about Nora. You said you were uncomfortable.”
“It didn’t make sense to me,” I said. “Other people acted like it was the most important thing in the world. I didn’t. And that was enough to make them hate me. I didn’t even have to disagree with them for them to come down on me.”
“Children can be harsh…” Nai hummed, looking right at me. “Especially without realizing it.”
“You’re making me feel like I’m whining,” I said. “[Boo hoo], some kids [bullied] me. That’s not related. I don’t…it’s not…that simple.”
“Why not?” she pressed. “What’s so difficult about the topic to talk about?”
“I don’t know,” I huffed again. “I just can’t help but think that there’s something…I don’t know, different about it.”
“Would you say ‘unnatural’?” Nai asked leadingly.
“Maybe…maybe…yeah,” I said. “It just doesn’t make sense why people would wind up that way. It doesn’t seem natural...it’s just… off —”
My train of thought slammed on its brakes, completely tipping off the tracks. I’d been on the other side of this exact conversation just a few weeks ago.
Not ill , I’d said.
Ahead of the plot.
“Ah, there we go,” Nai said, recognizing my expression.
“Tasser,” I said.
She nodded. “Makes you angry doesn’t it? Hearing what Tasser’s people thought of him?”
It had.
It still did.
“I’m not saying your peers on Earth were right to be harsh,” Nai said. “But are you beginning to understand a bit more why they were?”
I didn’t have to answer that one aloud.
“…Well, I think I got you to the right perspective. I think you can talk yourself the rest of the way there,” she said, looking at the view of the colony. “…You okay?”
“…Yeah, I—I don’t know,” I said.
Nai gave a huff. “Oh, I’ve heard that plenty today. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you’re a bad person. You’re young. We both are. People—kids and adults both—are complicated.”
“I’m not that young,” I protested.
“Aren’t you?” she said. “I know I am, and you’re younger than me. You’re young enough to make the mistake of thinking you’re being more empathetic than you actually are.”
“That’s not exactly a mistake unique to kids,” I said.
“No, but it’s the trap of experience. We’re old enough to have some, but still young enough to think we have…enough.”
“…It’s been a really long time since I interacted with another human,” I said, not truly complaining.
“And you said you were never that comfortable with it,” Nai recalled. “Even before you were abducted.”
“…That’s right,” I said. “But I can’t screw this up. I can’t.”
“You figured out how to keep an open mind about us spooky aliens,” Nai pointed. “Even the Vorak. Even after everything the Red Sails did, you still saved Umtane’s life. Maybe you just need to figure out how to remind yourself that your fellow Humans are aliens too.”