CHAPTER 17
ELLIE
Archaeologists are encouraged to share their findings with those who have cultural, social, governmental, legal, or educational interest in their work, which I really hope doesn’t apply to extraterrestrials.
The moment we’re behind closed doors, Zarek sheds his disguise and heads right to the en suite to remove his contacts.
Despite the ease with which I mentioned it earlier, I am actively avoiding facing the reality that we have so few days left together. At least, emotionally I am. It’s my go to self-care tactic—plan for all the logistics, and bury my feelings so deep inside me they die from oxygen deprivation.
This isn’t a problem I can solve. It’s not a mystery I can uncover.
Zarek is from another planet, and I am from this one.
Eventually, despite his somewhat overly grand declarations, we will have to separate, and I will have to go back to my normal life of dusting off bones and transcribing measurements. And he will go back to…
Observing Earth? Will he watch our planet from afar and keep an eye on me? Or will his government remove him from his mission since he’s so obviously compromised? Will he get to continue watching me, even though I won’t be allowed to see him anymore?
“Ellie?”
I look up from my clasped hands, which I was apparently staring at in my dissociation, and see Zarek in all his sapphiro blue, opening up the DIRC.
“Hm?” I ask, kicking my feet where they hang off the bed. I hate feeling like this—small and unsure and unmoored. This is why feelings suck.
“I thought we should keep researching?” He says it like a question instead of a suggestion, and the corners of my lips tick up in a sad smile.
He’s so intent on us finding what we’re looking for.
I should probably be more committed as well, but every day this research feels like more of an excuse to spend time with him than an actual scientific inquiry.
“Yeah, of course,” I reply, pushing myself off the bed and making my way toward him. He pulls the chair next to him out for me to sit.
“I was thinking…” Zarek starts, his eyebrows furrowing at the screen as I take my place next to him, leaning over to see what he’s focusing on. “I haven’t tried to reset my connection to our version of the internet. It would be easier to search by keyword if we could get reconnected.”
Suddenly, all the excitement about this discovery floods back into my system. My leg starts bouncing of its own accord as I watch Zarek navigate the system.
“Why haven’t we tried that?” I ask, my tone far less accusatory than it would be with anyone else, or even Zarek about a week ago. He just bites the inside of his cheek.
“There is a risk that connecting to a larger network would alert my government to my location,” he replies, trying to cover up the nervous tick to his voice. “They don’t usually actively monitor our activity during missions, but considering how long I’ve been out of contact, they could be now.”
“What would happen? If they were monitoring?” I ask, unsure if I want to know the answer.
“Most likely, they would try to initiate contact, which I could ignore.” Zarek rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, pressing hard enough that it looks like it hurts. “There is a small chance they could show up immediately, though.”
“What, here?” I ask, my eyes flashing between the DIRC screen and Zarek’s troubled face. “They could just materialize on this train?”
“No,” Zarek laughs, glancing at me with a look that can only be described as fond.
“If they’ve sent a search and rescue mission to orbit Earth until they find evidence of my location, they could theoretically land a pod on top of the train.
But I think that would draw too much attention.
More than likely, they would wait until we stop and intercept me there. ”
The landscape is muted by the fading light outside the window, but I can still tell we’re chugging along rather quickly. It will be two or three hours until we arrive in Avignon.
“Okay, so what if we connect while we’re moving, but disconnect before we arrive at our next stop?” I suggest, trying to read the feasibility of that plan in Zarek’s expression. “They probably don’t know we’re on a train, or what our route is.”
“That is what I was thinking as well,” he says, navigating to an application thing that, once opened, displays an endless stream of data in what must be Terilian.
Unlike code I’ve seen in human computers, it doesn’t read left to right, top of screen to bottom, but instead rotates in a circle in the top left corner of the screen.
“I think if I adapt this stream of code to read the new chip correctly, we might be able to connect.”
Without thinking, I lay my hand on top of his, stopping his work abruptly.
“Are you sure?” I ask, blinking at the screen to avoid showing him the nervous expression on my face. “What if they show up and take you now?”
Zarek is quiet for a few moments, before he turns over his hand and laces our fingers together.
“It is the most efficient way of finding your information. Of me holding up my end of our deal.”
I can’t help but meet his gaze at that. He must see the anxiety welling tears in my eyes, because his grip on my hand tightens.
“It’s not worth it if you’re taken from me even sooner,” I whisper, barely able to breathe through the fear that’s taking up all the space in my lungs.
So this is what happens when you let those feelings breathe.
Zarek’s other hand comes to rest on my cheek, and I feel surrounded by his warmth. It’s comforting.
I’ll miss it.
“I would not do this if I was not confident in our plan, and if I did not know my government would rather leave me here to rot than expose themselves to humans,” Zarek promises, a sad sort of humor coloring the smile he gives me. “Trust me.”
And I do. Despite not knowing him long enough to, despite my inability to trust anyone but myself, and despite my cloying terror at this being our last moment together, I do trust him.
So I nod. And he lets go of my face and hand and turns back to the screen.
I thought it would be instantaneous, like a scene from a movie, but in reality it takes Zarek a few minutes to find the appropriate line of code in the rotating, swirling data on the screen.
He mutters under his breath about this not being his area of expertise, and even I recognize an error code or two flashing across the screen.
But after a few minutes, new lights shine on the screen. A flashing red dot appears at the bottom right corner. Zarek smiles, and turns to me in celebration.
And then a high-pitched series of dings sounds. Zarek’s face pales.
“What? What is that?” I ask, terrified that I was right, and he’s about to be sucked up through the ceiling by a green beam of light, even though I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.
“Someone is trying to contact me,” he says, turning the screen more toward himself, like he’s trying to keep me out of view. “Oh, it’s…it’s Zul!”
He says that like it’s a good thing.
“Your best friend?” I ask, trying to peek around the screen. Zarek puts a firm hand on my shoulder, pushing me away.
“Yes. I should have anticipated Zul monitoring my devices, he is probably more worried about me than my own government,” he says, mostly to himself, with an amused smile on his face. “I am going to answer him.”
“What?” I yell, startling Zarek enough that he turns to me fully with his eyebrows in his hairline. “What if he turns you in? Or if his communications are being monitored?”
“Zul and I are closer than most sapphiro are,” Zarek explains, that happy look back on his face despite my obvious anxiety.
“The government would not think to track associates’ communications.
And Zul won’t turn me in. Although…” he murmurs, shifting further around the table so we’re nearly on opposite sides.
“You should not make your presence known. Zul is more of a stickler for the rules than I am, and interaction with humans is a…there’s not an English translation, but sort of like a capital crime.
He would have a hard time getting over that. ”
I want to argue, to tell Zarek that it’s a bad idea and we should disconnect from the network and pretend this never happened. But he presses a finger to his lips in an adorably-human effort to keep me quiet, and answers the call.
Zul’s voice pours out of the speakers, obviously Terilian, but the relief in it is so potent, I can feel it without even seeing his face. Zarek smiles at the screen, gesturing wildly with his hands as he talks over his best friend.
I haven’t had the opportunity to hear Zarek speak a lot of Terilian, but now I soak up the cadence and tone, knowing it might be my only chance. It feels like there are a lot of consonants, and some clicks in the back of his throat that I don’t think I could emulate.
Zarek and Zul keep their conversation up for a few minutes, and if I could take a guess, I would assume that the tone was positive, if not a little worried. I’m so focused on interpreting this discussion I can’t understand, that I don’t notice the tickle in my nose until it’s too late.
I sneeze.
I try to mask it, to keep most of the noise in, but Zarek and Zul’s discussion ends abruptly. Zarek’s eyes catch mine over the screen, and I hear a much slower, more deliberate set of Terilian words come from the other end of the conversation.
It seems like Zarek tries to blow it off, to cover, but after a few moments his shoulders sag, and he waves me over. I shake my head vehemently, shaking my arms in front of my chest like it’ll stop anything. But Zarek reaches across the table and grabs my elbow, tugging me to his side.
Zul looks…well, like Zarek. I haven’t seen enough sapphiro to tell them apart yet.
He does maybe look broader than Zarek, and his eyes have fewer glittering stars in them than Zarek’s do, but maybe that’s because of the video quality.
His expression is far more severe than anything I’ve ever seen on Zarek, though.
“Nous passerons au francais, puis,” Zul says in French that is even more broken than mine. Zarek huffs a laugh, and squeezes my arm.
“English, actually,” he says, smiling sheepishly at his friend. “Zul, this is Ellie. Ellie, meet Zul.”
My smile must look crazed as I waggle my fingers at the screen. Even across galaxies, Zul looks unamused.
“I should have known,” Zul sighs, his arms crossing over his chest and his fists gripped tight. “Why stop at crash landing in an unauthorized location? Might as well break our most sanctioned laws while you’re at it.”
Zarek shuffles uncomfortably in his seat, and suddenly I feel a lot braver than I did a moment ago.
“It’s not Zarek’s fault,” I say, earning a very surprised and disapproving look from Zul at my outburst. Wow, he is like me. “I found him at his crash site and his disguise was not activated.”
“Ah yes, and the protocol for sapphiro unintentionally interacting with humans is certainly to join them on a multi-day train ride to…where exactly are you going?”
At the question, Zarek perks back up, leaning forward toward the screen.
“I’ve identified an Earth plant that can be used…” Zarek stumbles, looking at me with apology. “Sorry Ellie, this is easier to explain in my native language.”
I nod, and Zarek takes off at an impressive cadence, explaining what I can only imagine are the qualities of the edelweiss that can be used to help his people. Zul’s expression does not soften, but there’s a glimmer of understanding in his dark eyes that gives me a little bit of hope.
“We just need a few more days,” Zarek says, switching back to English for my benefit. “Can you stall?”
Zul purses his lips, glancing down at something in front of him before staring back at Zarek.
“Well, you’re going to need a miracle if you ever want the Tetheh to allow you off-world again,” he says, glaring at me like it’s my fault Zarek collided with my dig. Zarek’s arm comes protectively around my waist, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Zul. “And this would be a miracle.”
“A few days,” Zarek pleads, glancing at me sadly before turning back to his friend. “You could meet us where the edelweiss grow. Then I can explain.”
Zul takes a few deep breaths, and only someone as much of a control freak as me can recognize the calculation in his eyes as he weighs the severity of covering for his friend against his affection for him.
I recognize it as the same look I got when Jo asked me to borrow my lab to analyze a tuft of hair she was certain came from Bigfoot.
It was from a black bear.
“I can erase the record of this conversation. Mask your connection, and falsify the geolocator ping from your DIRC to the coordinates you give me. It will take us a few days to arrive to your solar system anyway.”
“Thank you,” Zarek and I say together, and he presses me closer to his body.
Something tears at the inside of my chest, even though I’m grateful.
Probably the knowledge that this has signed our fate.
We have a few more days together, and then all of this will be a distant memory.
A hallucination. No one in the world but Jo would believe me, even if I told them.
“Zarek,” Zul says, his eyes flashing to me before he asks a question in Terilian. Zarek’s fingers tighten against my arm, and when I look at him, I think I see tears lining his eyes.
Is this what heartbreak feels like?
Zarek replies in his mother tongue, and Zul looks even unhappier than he did upon first seeing me.
“Be careful,” he says to both of us. “And you better get that flower.”