02
Linguistic Skills
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In a corridor just twenty meters away from Stephen's impromptu medical room, John Malakhi had just left his own room. He had not managed to sleep well last night, although eventually, exhaustion overtook him. He was tired, and a little heart-sick. Marlon had been his mentor and friend for a very long time, despite their age differences.
He couldn't even face Helen at the moment. She was probably tearing herself to shreds right now, and John had no idea what to do to make her feel better. He sure as hell didn't want to make her feel any worse.
He didn't have long to dwell on it once he had left his quarters, however. Edward Mensar, the old stalwart of the surviving refugees that they had picked up from Arizona, had just approached him.
"Hello, young man," he said politely, using that rather puzzling English accent that John was surprised had survived down on the surface.
John nodded. While he didn't really feel like talking much at the moment, Edward was one of the most civilized and friendliest of the survivors John had encountered so far. He would make time for the man. "How you doin' man?"
"Good, thank you. Err..." Edward hesitated for a brief moment, brows frowning slightly in concentration. "Jonathan, isn't it?"
"Call me John, please!" John quickly corrected. His parents never gave him such a convoluted variety of name, and he wasn't about to start adopting it now. "Edward, right?"
"Indeed," Edward replied. "I wonder if I might trouble you for some advice?"
John frowned. What possible advice could he give to an older man who had managed to survive in the deepest and darkest hell on Earth with his civility and humanity intact? "Sure, let's take a walk. What's up?"
As they began walking to one of the centralized areas of the lunar complex, Edward took a moment, seemingly to formulate his thoughts. Eventually, he asked "How difficult is it to learn the dialect that your friends use?"
John suppressed a laugh. "You mean our Tau Cetian friends?" At Edward's nod, John continued. "It definitely don't have Latin at it's roots, I can tell ya!"
Edward frowned a little. "No, I wouldn't have thought so, considering they are from another planet."
John nodded. "I gotta ask man... Why the sudden interest?"
Edward pulled gently to stop John from walking any farther. "I fear that my usefulness as a tinkerer and occasional armchair therapist is mostly at an end. I need to find some other way to occupy my mind, and I would like to see if I can help when one of you aren't around to translate what your friends are saying."
John suspected that might not be the whole reason. Trust was a scarce commodity among the refugees of Earth, and even he could see that. Still, there likely was no harm in it. "I'll discuss it with the others, and we'll see what we can pull together. Gotta say, it's not gonna be easy!"
"I suspect it won't be," Edward replied equably. "Still, nothing worth doing ever is."
That was a sentiment that John had complete agreement with. "Sure. I'll go-"
"I gotta talk to you!"
Both John and Edward were surprised to hear that weird English-Arizonan accent. Neither were pleased, each for similar, yet not completely identical reasons. Jason Mensar, Edward's son, was standing at the end of the corridor, opposite the direction they had started walking. The lanky, awkward and gangly teenager was in a defiant pose, as though he was somehow a victim for being effectively shut out of all interaction between himself and his father.
John felt no sympathy for the boy. Ever since his vicious and unprovoked assault on Stevie yesterday, John wanted nothing to do with the kid, and he suspected Edward was not happy with his son either. He was about to ask what Edward wanted to do, when Edward turned on his heel and started walking away from Jason.
"Hey, no fuckin' way, pops! That ain't fair!"
"What's not fair," John snapped back at the boy. "is you assaulting someone without a reason!"
"What the hell did I do for you to stop talkin' to me?" Jason demanded of Edward, completely ignoring John.
"Don't ignore me, you little shit," John stood in Jason's way, barring him from going near Edward.
"Outta my way!" Jason started pushing at John, ineffectively given the difference in strength between the two.
"I don't think so," John stood his ground. "He clearly isn't interested in talking to you right now-"
"I don't give a fuck-" Jason started, but John interrupted him.
"So what?" The question had clearly brought the boy up short.
"So I DON'T GIVE A FUCK!" he screamed.
"What difference does that make?" John asked, in an edged yet moderate tone. "Great, you don't give a fuck. Now who are you again?"
"What?" Jason frowned, growing more irritated that neither of these men were responding to his behavior as he had expected them to. "No, FUCK YOU, MAN! I'M NOT SOME NOBODY-"
"Actually, you are..." John said quietly, which he didn't expect would work quite so quickly. "Just a nobody, that is."
Edward frowned a little, and John surmised he might have a bit of explaining to do later. Jason was winding up to strike out at John, but while John was not a fighting man, he nonetheless knew enough combat techniques to know when to side step an attempted blow to the face. The guttural roar that Jason had given off was suddenly cut off as a Tau Cetian guard, who none of them had realised was in the area, had suddenly arrested Jason in a choke-hold that prevented him from moving anywhere or waving his arms around, but did not impede his ability to breathe.
"BITCH!" Jason screamed out at the woman holding him. "GET OFF ME!"
John spoke quickly in the Klankharii language in a low voice to the guard, asking her to sequester Jason in a room down the hall, and to keep it under guard until Edward - and he gestured to the man as he told her his name - requested he be released. The guard quickly replied that she did not know their language, and John quickly told her that Edward would know a brief phrase she would understand by that point. The guard took her prisoner off to the indicated room, leaving Edward and John in the corridor while Jason screamed blue murder all the way to his impromptu cell.
"Edward, I hope you didn't take offence at the way I just spoke to your son," John began.
Edward was still frowning somewhat. "I admit, I am a bit concerned, yes."
John nodded. "I get it. He's your son, but he's also got this idea in his head that he can do and say whatever he likes, and that everyone around him needs to get it."
A slow nod was all the reply Edward gave him for a moment. "But to so harshly tell him he's not even worth the value of a piece of dirt on the ground?"
John sighed. He was worried about this. "Edward, that's not what I meant. Will you please gimme a chance to explain?" Edward nodded sharply. "Alright. Here it is. So, right now, Jason has this idea in his head that he can go around doing what he wants. He doesn't seem to care much about the effect it has on others. Maybe, deep down, that's not true. Maybe he does care, but when he gets all defensive with that weird chip on his shoulder... Well... You know how it is.
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"So what I did was to give him a short, sharp shock to the system. Edward, you should understand, and I hope you already do, but we're individually nothing at all in the grand scheme of things. I'm nobody. You're nobody. Every single person alive on this base is nobody. The people that rescued us, they're all nobodies. When we stand alone, we're nothing, nobody, and meaningless."
John stopped at that point, not wishing to patronize Edward, instead preferring to allow the man to adjust to the concept that John was putting forth.
"Alright, I'm with you," Edward replied quietly.
"You put us all together, working as a whole, and we have a shot. It's..." John stopped, taking a breath. Marlon's death was a very difficult thing to process, especially as it was only yesterday he had died, but he needed to make the point to Edward, and to do that, he needed to talk about it. "It's hard, sometimes, when you realize it, but we all, as individuals, can just suddenly..." He swallowed, averting his face for a moment, grinding his jaw. Now wasn't the time to allow his grief to overwhelm him, so he mastered it, and while it coursed through him, he remained in control. Later, in private, he would get it out. He'd done it many times before. "You met Captain Greenf-field," he stopped, clearing his throat. "Right?"
"John," Edward gripped the younger man's shoulder. "I get it. And I think I get the point you are making. Allow me?" Unwilling to trust his voice at that moment, John merely nodded, swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat and the intense heat in his eyes. "At a universal scale, every individual life form is but a speck, a mote, insignificant and fleeting." Edward smiled sadly at that point. "I once saw an old documentary on stellar nucleosynthesis. No idea why I would remember that quote, but it resonated with me."
John nodded sadly, allowing the tears to fall. "Kinda screwed up my explanation there, huh?" he gave a shaky laugh.
Edward squeezed his shoulder again. "You remind me of my oldest son," he added, a hint of nostalgic sadness in his tone. "But I digress. You're trying to make it clear that Jason needs to learn that he is not the center of the universe. You are also trying to clarify for me, that while in universal terms we really are nothing, that we all mean something to someone, and to certain people, we do mean everything... Right?"
John nodded again. "Yeah," he said, letting out a shaky breath, finally able to control himself better.
By this point, the Tau Cetian guard had come back. She noticed John's face, a fleeting look of concern crossing hers before the sheen of professionalism resumed itself, and quickly told John that the young man was now sequestered in a holding area, that he would only be released at the instruction of the elder that was stood next to them both. John suppressed a snicker at Edward being referred to as an "elder", and simply nodded, expressing his thanks to her, before she politely excused herself and resumed her original post down the hall.
"So, Edward," John turned back to the older man, wiping his eyes in the process. "About those language lessons, when do you want to start?"
Edward's face cleared of any lingering sadness. "As soon as possible!"
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Dammit, Walter Davidson thought to himself. He was exhausted, had little sleep as it was, and had just been advised that some little punk kid just tried attacking John in a corridor off of the primary octagonal near the surface elevator. It didn't matter that John was more than able to sidestep the kid's attack. This had to stop, and he needed to get a handle on it, right now. Mira had already had to go off doing some ship-board stuff, leaving him on the surface with all this shit.
He was just getting on a fresh vest and jump suit, when the door to his temporary quarters resounded with a knocking pattern.
"Yeah, who is it?" he barked.
"Kovira," the female guard at his door replied. "Ship Commander Miradima has asked I alert you to her impending arrival at your location in the next two minutes. She has some announcements to make and wanted to discuss them with you first."
Davidson sighed. Mira, can't this wait? he thought to himself.
She didn't take two minutes to arrive. She didn't even take half a minute. She arrived in a yellow-flash of the Tau Cetian's teleportation technology the moment he had completed his thought.
Here was Miradima, the Ship Commander in charge of the frigate named Kl'Deesius. That ship was simultaneously the setting of some of Davidson's most treasured, and also some of his most dreaded, memories. It was a tough ship, one that had seen combat in their space in just the last half-a-week alone, and one of the only survivors. She, along with a single massive Tau Cetian destroyer, were the only two active ships left in the Sol system, and only the KlT'Horsukais had escaped relatively unscathed, having arrived at the last moment to assist with an enemy destroyer that had been intent on impacting the lunar complex to kill the survivors.
The Kl'Deesius herself had been badly damaged in the defense of Earth's last remnants, and would need time to complete repairs before she was capable of returning to Tau Cetian space.
That meant Miradima, or as Davidson affectionately referred to her, Mira, would remain in their presence for a while longer.
At this particular moment, he was ambivalent. On the one hand, he had this bullshit to deal with regarding this unwarranted attack by Earth survivors against his own crew... Yet on the other, he had an incredible, strong, intelligent, witty, honest, loyal, and dominant force of will that was his equal in all things save for she had command of his heart and soul.
She won out with little resistance. How could she not? Mira was tall, powerfully-built with the kind of commonplace muscle definition that Tau Cetian people tended toward, and strangely soft all at once. It always amazed him that despite the clear strength and definition Tau Cetians had, women among their people still possessed a feminine curvature that female bodybuilders on Earth tended to lose when they piled on the muscle.
The unfortunate comparison reminded him that there would be no such people among Earth's population for a long time, if ever again. Practically everyone left alive was in a critical state of malnourishment, yet another of those problems he needed to discuss with Mira and the others. They all needed to get their shit wired if they were going to stand a chance of preventing humanity's extinction.
That was most likely why she was standing in the room with him now, though she could have easily pinged him a message to meet her anywhere in the complex.
No, she was here, because she wanted some privacy before they had to deal with the pressing issues of the day.
"I'm sorry I arrived unannounced, Walter," she greeted him softly, approaching him at a leisurely pace. "I wanted to have some time with you before we had to get to work."
Her command of the English language was not always perfect, but it was always with a certain degree of fluency. At her most calm and centered, Mira could speak English as well as anyone Davidson had ever met. Only when she was under distress, tension, or angered, would she lose some degree of ability. It was with a great deal of embarrassment, that Davidson remembered the first time she had come close to losing her cool with him. It was entirely his own doing, and caused him to snort.
Mira frowned, bemused. "Why the snort?"
Davidson sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just remembering how we met."
Mira almost barked a laugh out. She no doubt had a complex and conflicting view of those early days. "You were a real jerk, in those days," she laughed, though it was tinged with regret.
The incident in question was during their first meeting aboard the Kl'Deesius. The vessel had greeted them as they approached the inner Tau Cetian system, and the Captain, Marlon Greenfield, had already conversed with Mira on many occasions. The first time Davidson had seen an image of Mira on screen, with her emerald-green eyes and slight purple-red tinged pale skin, he had not been ready to confront the reality that humans were not alone in the universe. The striking similarities to humans was so pronounced, the first thought that Davidson had entertained, was that someone from Earth had managed to break the Faster-Than-Light barrier and sent ships ahead of them to intercept. Then, when he realised that these people were not from Earth, his ability to be rational was somewhat messed up.
The first time they were in a room together, Davidson had attempted to take Mira hostage, an act that he at first had justified as necessary, then accepted was not, then as he got to know Mira, had distressed him immensely, but has now settled into being a rather unpleasant and embarrassing episode he had almost wished never happened.
Almost.
After all, had he not attempted to do what he did, she might not have tried to reason with him in her own unique way, a way that had led to one-on-one sessions with him that allowed the two of them to get to know each others' worlds, then each other personally. Neither of them suspected that they would ever reach the understanding they did, much less go beyond friendship, but it nonetheless happened, and their bond was now unshakeable.
The incident also reminded Davidson of the man they had lost.
Marlon was his Commanding Officer. He was also someone that Davidson did not always see eye to eye with. In those early days of the mission, Davidson had been unreasonable, and he could see that now. He had ben that way with all of the crew of the Tau Ceti.
And in looking back on what had happened, it was easy to claim that making friends among the crew had cost them all dearly, now that the man was dead.
But Davidson realised that such uncharitable thoughts were cowardly, and counter-productive. Marlon had continued to offer him friendship right up to the point of his death, and though Davidson had accepted before coming back to Earth, he found himself wishing he knew what he did now, so that he hadn't been a jerk for so many months.
Mira seemed to know what he was thinking, as she stepped up to him, and rubbed the side of his face.
"I miss him too," she said gently. "He was the foundation that allowed us to build the trust that now holds us all together, and while he is no longer with us," she choked slightly on that last word, but valiantly continued anyway. "Everything he did to bring us all together will continue in what we do from now on."
Davidson squeezed his arms around Mira's shoulders as she rested her head against his. These moments they shared were even more precious to him, knowing that at any moment, they may never come again. Unbidden, he spoke a gentle phrase in Klankharii that he barely understood, yet memorized from a conversation he had heard between two Tau Cetian crew members... Crew members who were "unified", the Tau Cetian secular equivalent of marriage.
Mira looked a little surprised, but that surprise gave way to a gentle smile. "I love you too, Walter."
He sighed, relieved that he had guessed the translation correctly.