CHAPTER 9
ELLIE
The archaeological record—both documentation and in-situ—should be maintained as carefully as possible. A tenant that apparently all researchers do not share.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but my days keep getting stranger and stranger.
As the rideshare pulls up to the train station, I place all the strangeness into categories in my mind, a tactic I’ve used in grad school to absorb lots of information presented in classes or course readings.
Bucket of Strange #1: I’m spending time with an alien.
This, oddly enough, is becoming more manageable by the minute.
Once I got over the insurmountable odds that I would be the first human to interact with extraterrestrial life, the rest felt almost logical.
Because of course we are, statistically and objectively, not the only intelligent life in the universe.
And of course they’re just as interested in us as we are in the idea of them.
Bucket of Strange #2: This alien has access to the complete encyclopedia of the truths of humanity, and is going to share it with me in exchange for a tour of southern France.
I shake my head in disbelief as Zarek and I trudge up the steps of the station. This might be the most unbelievable part of it all. That I’m hanging out with an alien who might make my researchy dreams come true.
Bucket of Strange #3: Zarek is…complicated.
I guess this shouldn’t be surprising, but Zarek’s motivation and decision making is complex and flawed and emotionally driven, just like mine.
He feels human to me, in a way that has nothing to do with his disguise.
The way he gazed at the petals and leaves of the kaleidoscope of life at the botanical gardens, the embarrassed way he admitted to his fib.
I don’t know why I assumed aliens would be more logical and less impassioned than myself—probably a lifetime of crappy movies—but it really is shocking to see how real Zarek is.
The fuzzy feeling I got under the palm of my hand when he sensed my heartbeat—well, it was almost enough for me to forget about Bucket of Strange #2. But as we slide into our compartment and pull the drapes closed, I find my focus again.
Zarek silently holds out his hand, and I pull his computer out of my satchel.
As he sits down at the little square table and starts opening the device, I can’t help the way my fingers tap against my thighs in anticipation.
I’m so distracted by my spiraling thoughts about humankind and the miracle of language that I almost miss his expectant look.
“The chip?” he asks, not unkindly. I blink for a few moments before realizing what he’s asking for, and pull the little plastic square from my pocket.
“Are you sure Earth technology is going to work for this?” I ask, slipping the processing chip into his hand as I take the seat across from him. The space is small enough that our knees almost touch.
“Not really,” he murmurs, flipping the device over and furrowing his brow.
“I’m not an…I think you call them engineers.
Words with so many vowels are difficult to translate.
” The corner of my lips twitches into a smile despite myself, but Zarek doesn’t even notice, too focused on prying his fingers gently but firmly inside his computer, adjusting something I cannot see.
“But many of the elements used in computer processing on Earth are similar on Terilia. I think if I just make some slight changes…”
His voice trails off, and I watch him in silence as he works, my attention split between my excitement at the fact that I’m about to know the unknowable and on how Zarek’s hands can make such delicate adjustments despite their size.
Which is an odd thing to focus on when I’m about to be the only living human to understand the nuances of our species’ language acquisition.
“Would it—” I start, and Zarek startles a bit, his eyes flying up to meet mine, like he forgot I was here. “Would it be easier if you didn’t have to maintain the disguise?”
He seems to really think about it, placing the computer on the table and flexing his fingers.
“Maybe. But it’s more the contacts. They’re infuriating, but they also make my vision worse. I can see more details without them.” He and I share a grimace.
“I’m sorry you have to wear them outside, but you can take them off in here,” I say quietly, nodding my head at the closed drapes. “No one will bother us.”
There’s a moment of hesitation before he nods and stands, navigating to the small bathroom.
He doesn’t shut the door, but he turns on the light, which casts a warm glow over him as he leans toward the mirror.
Like I taught him, he pulls down the skin under his eye with his middle finger and pinches the disc between his thumb and forefinger, visibly relaxing as soon as he has both out.
I feel a little more guilty that they obviously make him so uncomfortable, even though I know it’s a necessity.
Maybe I’ll make more of an effort to keep us in this room. For his comfort.
The rest of his disguise shimmers away as he makes his way back to the table. It’s still a sight to behold, the cyan of his skin and strange fabric of his less familiar clothing shifting over his frame like water over a shore.
“Thank you,” he says, leaning back over the device with less of a furrow between his brows now. “This helps.”
It still takes him a bit of time, but eventually he releases a satisfied hum as the chip fits into place. I feel my heartbeat kick up as I realize this is it. It’s happening. A lifetime of dreaming about this moment is coming to fruition.
I thought maybe I would feel guilty about learning this little truth of humanity this way.
Like it didn’t count if I hadn’t toiled among bones and spent decades pouring over evidence.
But that’s not how discovery works. You can walk onto a site and on your first day, make a discovery that changes anthropology for the rest of time.
Or you can spend half your life researching a topic that ends up being discarded by a two-ounce piece of pottery.
History is a crapshoot. I have no qualms about using all the resources at my disposal.
Zarek kindly turns the computer toward me as he twists the top in a strange motion.
Through some mechanism I can’t see, the device pops open, looking startlingly like my own laptop.
Blue and green characters in a language I obviously can’t read fill the screen, and a projection of something round and blinking hovers out from the screen before flickering out.
“Is it working?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at Zarek as he continues to stare at the screen, passing his hands in various shapes over what I thought was a keyboard.
“Partially. It seems like I can access information locally stored on my device, but I cannot connect to the…” He tilts his head back and forth, considering.
“Like a search engine. I cannot see any information saved by other researchers that I did not download locally before I left for my expedition.”
“Oh,” I respond dully, selfishly wondering what that means for my inquiry. How much information can one of these devices hold? I feel like my laptop has tens of thousands of documents for my dissertation, organized in strangely labeled files.
“Don’t worry, I was required to have local copies of most of human history in case of a technology malfunction,” Zarek assures me, waving his hand across the screen a few times, making characters blur as they fly by.
“But there is no keyword search function within locally stored files. We will have to manually go through my files to find what you are looking for.”
Watching the screen flicker and glow, I have a feeling that is going to be even harder than it sounds. And knowing Zarek…
“I imagine you don’t have the most well-organized filing system,” I mutter, more fondness in my tone than even I expected. Zarek may be chaotic and disorganized and easily distractible, but his earnestness and our mutual love of learning has softened me toward him.
“I know where most things are. I think,” he admits, his eyes flickering toward me as he bites the inside of his cheek. “We’ll find it.”
“Can we find it in English?”
Finally, Zarek’s focus breaks. He’s got a full-fledged smile on when he turns toward me, and for the first time, I’m not intimidated by his strange, starry eyes. I feign annoyance as I roll my eyes, nudging him back toward the computer.
“Let’s see if the translation is working,” he says, joy evident in his tone. Outside our window, a whistle from another nearby train blows. Zarek seems unperturbed, navigating through his systems like it’s second nature.
“Good news and bad news,” he says, turning the screen to face me fully. I squint at what looks like two documents side by side, though the formatting I am used to is nowhere to be found. However, I at least recognize some English words.
“Anything I translated before I left, or was originally transcribed in your language, is available in English. But the rest is going to be in Terilian.” He sounds almost apologetic, like he should have planned for a deal with a nosy human.
“You can translate for me?” I ask, more an assumption than a question. For a second, I think I see his eyes flicker to my mouth, but it’s over before I’m even sure it happened. He nods, shifting his chair around the table so we’re shoulder to shoulder in front of the screen.
“Yes. Okay, let’s get to work.”
Eight hours later, we are no closer to finding the root of human language.