CHAPTER 5
ELLIE
No archaeological finding is a personal possession; knowledge discovered is part of the archaeological record, meant to be shared. Unless, of course, you’ve got a really good reason not to.
I would say I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m walking down the streets of Paris shoulder-to-shoulder with an alien wearing contacts, so all bets are off.
“A deal?” Zarek asks as he keeps up with my quick pace, and I can’t help the twitch of my lips at the excitement in his voice. He’s earnest, I’ll give him that.
“You need help getting to the repair shop and fixing your…computer thing,” I reply with a wave of my hand, dodging a group of twenty-somethings with selfie sticks extended high in the air. “And I have a professional interest in some of the information it holds.”
Professional interest might be overstating things, but it sounds better than admitting I’m obsessed with a very specific era of human pre-history, and now I have the opportunity to uncover truths my colleagues and their predecessors have been pondering for generations.
So what if technically it’s not my actual area of research for my dissertation?
The most important paper I’ll ever write seems pretty underwhelming when compared to the secrets of human evolution.
“It is against the bylaws of my position to divulge any information to you that humans don’t already know,” Zarek hedges, but I can still hear the edge of excitement in his tone.
“I imagine talking to humans at all is against the rules,” I argue, pleased when he doesn’t refute my claim. “And anyway, if you want to get technical about it, humans do know the information I want. Just not any still living today.”
Zarek scoffs, and I almost turn with how human it sounds. But I catch a glimpse of Gare de Lyon up ahead and pick up my pace instead.
“You teach me what you know about my area of interest, and I’ll get you to the suburbs and make sure your laptop gets fixed,” I promise, my heart beating faster with the idea that very soon, I could know not only when the human capacity for language evolved, but how it happened.
What cosmic confluence of biology, sociology, ecology, and physiology collided to give us the mechanical structures and social pressures we needed to develop speech as we know it.
Why our communication differs so much from other species who can—
“No.”
The word is so shockingly final that I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, and Zarek’s chest slams into my back. Parisians roll their eyes and mutter under their breath as they make their way around us, probably mistaking us for tourists who have no sense of spatial awareness.
“Excuse me?” I ask incredulously, turning just as Zarek steps back. Still, we’re pretty close, and I have to crane my neck to stare at him.
“I decline your offer of a deal,” he answers smoothly, with a little furrow in his brow, like my reaction is ridiculous.
“You think you’re getting around the Parisian suburbs alone? The city center may cater toward English-speaking tourists, but the rest of the country does not.” No need for him to know that my French is conversational at best.
“Of course not,” he replies, shuffling us to the edge of the sidewalk so we’re out of the flow of traffic. “I said no because I would like to propose different terms.”
Mustering every last ounce of my limited reserves of patience, I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose. As I exhale slowly, I open my eyes to Zarek looking concerned once again.
“What are your terms?”
“I tell you what you want to know, but you must make sure that no one ever knows you got the information through…non-traditional means,” he says, stumbling over his words as he glances at the pedestrians walking by.
“You could never publish this information academically, never use it as a basis for research. It would be only yours to know. In exchange, I would like you to accompany me to the French Alps to retrieve an edelweiss bloom.”
For what feels like the thousandth time today, I’m totally caught off guard. I try to come up with a mental picture of the flower, but all that comes to mind is Julie Andrews and a bunch of pre-teens in petticoats.
“What could an alien archivist of human history possibly want with a flower?” I ask under my breath, my words clipped with annoyance. This is turning out to be one of the more complicated days of my life, and I’m still about fifteen percent convinced I’m hallucinating it all.
“They are…” Zarek starts, picking at his fingernails as he scans the crowd over my head.
It would almost seem like he was checking for anyone listening too close to our conversation, but something tells me he’s stalling.
“Important. Yeah, important to human history. They held cultural significance to ancient humans in this region. Part of my job is to document them for a thorough archival record.”
For a moment, I think about arguing, because something deep in my gut tells me he’s not telling me the whole truth. But what does it matter? He doesn’t owe me anything, and I’m certainly not going to explain myself to him.
“The French Alps are a pretty large area to search for a flower, and I don’t even know if they bloom this time of year,” I argue. The contacts keep his expression eerily neutral, but the way he nearly jumps to provide an explanation tells me just how much he wants this.
“They are. In bloom, I mean. And I know the exact coordinates of where to find them.”
I slip my phone out of my pocket and open my map app before handing it over to Zarek with one eyebrow raised.
“Where?”
And even though I haven’t agreed to this deal, a smile still splits his face.
He fumbles with the screen for a few moments, hovering and swiping his fingers through the air in front of it before I take pity on him and show him how to utilize a touch screen. Eventually, he drops a pin to where he needs to go.
“There. You help me fix my DIRC, and get me to the edelweiss, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Every single part of this is beyond comprehension. Any person—especially a scientist—of sound mind would walk away from this nonsense and never look back, and maybe get checked out by a medical professional along the way.
But I have wanted to discover this tiny truth of human history for so long, it feels like a missing puzzle piece inside of me.
Like this feeling, this yearning for knowledge, will finally quiet when it’s fed by the answer to this mystery.
It’s not about publishing or getting credit or even sharing this knowledge with the world.
It’s about understanding a little part of what makes us human.
“Deal.”
“Fermé? Comment?”
The attendant raises a well-groomed eyebrow at me, obviously unimpressed by my admittedly-shitty French accent.
“Ma’am, the direct line to the Alps is closed for the next six weeks for repairs.
It has been all over the news for months,” she speaks in slow, accented English, and I can’t tell if the cadence is due to her knowledge of the language, or because she thinks she needs to enunciate for me to understand.
Americans don’t have a wonderful reputation here.
“Is there an alternate route available?” Zarek asks from behind me, and I kick back directly into his shin, earning a soft grunt. We agreed he would let me do the talking.
“There is a scenic route. Five nights of travel, stopping in various cities for route touristique,” she answers with a disdain only the French can truly master.
“But the direct route is under six hours,” I reply, rather ineptly. Of course she knows that. She sells the tickets.
“Does the scenic route go through Nevers?” Zarek asks, despite my heel still being pressed into his shin. I’m regretting this more and more with every passing minute.
“Oui, it is one of the scheduled stops,” the attendant replies, her tone much kinder to my companion. Maybe he gives off less American energy than I do. Which would make sense, since he’s distinctly not from the United States.
She slides a map under the plexiglass separating us, and Zarek and I lean over to stare at the route. It’s dotted with little stars for stops and departure times. A curving, wayward line travels south through France, until coming to a very ceremonious end right near the Swiss and Italian borders.
“This is not what I agreed to,” I mutter to Zarek, who I can already tell is totally on board with this change of plan. “I have a job to do, research to complete.”
I thought he would immediately try to convince me. Maybe offer more information from his fancy little computer. Instead, he’s quiet for long enough that I turn my head back over my shoulder to look at him.
“I’m so close,” he whispers to himself, his eyes locked on the snowflake icon that marks the end of the train route.
Even with the slightly creepy contacts hiding eyes, I can recognize that look. The pure, undiluted joy that comes from understanding. The pursuit of something greater.
Goddamn it.
“Okay look,” I start, tapping his shoulder to unglue his attention from the route map.
I angle myself away from the attendant and lower my voice, even though it looks like she couldn’t care less about our conversation.
“If we do this, you’re going to have to help me come up with a pretty convincing story for my research team about why I have to suddenly disappear for a week.
And you’re answering any question about human history that I come up with the whole time we’re on the train. ”
Zarek smiles like I’ve just given him the world’s greatest gift, and nods so hard I worry he’ll scramble his brain. I turn back to the attendant.
“Two tickets for the scenic route.”