CHAPTER 16
ZAREK
The Intergalactic Unity Senate forbids all species from conquering other planets. Hearts, however, go unmentioned.
As we walk to the train station, Ellie keeps looking back toward the lake and tree-lined canals with a deep gaze, biting her inner lip.
“Is there a problem?”
“Problem? No, there’s no problem,” she answers, but the yearning still lingers as she turns back to face me.
I take her hand in mine, stopping us from continuing. Narbonne isn’t as pink as Toulouse, but it’s equally beautiful. “You know…we do not have to go back right now. The train departs at ten tonight, you said?”
She nods contemplatively.
“Is there something here we didn’t do that you wanted to try? I know we have to limit our excursions, especially since it feels like we’re getting closer to finding the information you desire, but I enjoy adventuring across France…with you,” I confess.
Ellie lets go of my hand and shrugs, and for a moment I think she won’t say anything.
But then there’s a gleam of excitement that crosses her features, and both corners of her mouth turning up.
“I know we should do research, and I actually like being alone with you on the train, because you look like you—”
“But?”
“But had you ever been on a boat before today?”
I shake my head. “No, access to the oceans on Terilia is incredibly limited.”
“See! Have you even seen a beach?” she asks, and I sigh, realizing I have shared a lot about Terilia’s government and workforce, but less about the geographical features themselves.
“Negative,” I answer.
“We’re so close to some. We have to go. This might be your last opportunity to see Earth’s oceans,” she says, and grabs me by the hand, dragging me away from the bustling sounds of the train station.
Once we get back toward the center of town, Ellie pulls out her phone, and we order a ride to the nearest beach, which the app shows is fifteen to twenty minutes away.
Consistently, with each passing moment I’ve spent on Earth, I have been both impressed and disappointed with their transportation systems. And maybe it isn’t fair, and only France is this way, but my studies of the United States lead me to believe otherwise.
Drivers will show up to take you places in minutes, and the convenience of that is surreal, but there are also so many humans choosing to drive places that are a ten-minute walk away.
And there are almost zero free transportation services for those who are unable to walk or need assistance.
“How far of a walk?” I ask.
“Five hours? There’s a bunch of inclined terrain.”
Well. That is not walkable, at least not if we’re going to make it back on time. “Nevermind, driving it is.”
She grins. “Agreed.”
A tan-colored sedan pulls up, and I open the door for Ellie and I to step inside.
“Bonjour,” the driver says, in a way that sounds distinctly not French.
“Bonjour,” Ellie parrots. When she usually speaks, it’s with clear and concise effort, working hard to get the accent right. This time, it sounds like she wants him to know she is American.
“Where are you from?” he asks, cutting straight to the point. He looks straight at me in the little mirror hanging in the front of the vehicle. “Italy?”
Her brows furrow at me in disbelief, as though she could not fathom me being Italian, and I stifle a laugh. “No, I’m from America.”
“And you?”
Oh fuck. Why did she not include me? Where should I say I am from? Surely not Terilia.
“I’m from Canada,” I answer, my eyes squinting as I try to recall what a Canadian sounds like, before drawing a blank. I think they sound…sort of American?
“That’s so cool! I’m Yousef, I’m from Morocco. I am getting my master’s in Tourism Economics. Are you two on vacation?”
“Yes.” “No.”
Ellie shoots me a deadly glare before continuing. “I am an archaeologist, doing my research in Paris. He’s on vacation, and we became frie—”
“Research partners. Well, I am on vacation, but I am also a plant scientist, and she is assisting me with some research,” I chime in, much to Ellie’s chagrin.
“Plant scientist? Really?” she whispers, and I shrug.
“Do people generally know the word phytologist?”
“You could’ve said botanist?”
“Right, apologies.”
Yousef goes on to tell us about his roommate, Blake, who is from Australia and used to volunteer at a kangaroo sanctuary. I have no idea what a kangaroo looks like, but Ellie listens with full interest until we pull up to a shop right near the shore.
Ellie smiles. “Bye, thank you so much.”
“Good luck with your research!” he says as we exit the vehicle.
There are tourists buzzing about, but it feels calm in comparison to some of the other cities we have visited. Ellie opens the front door, and a little bell rings.
“What are we doing here?” I ask as we step inside.
There’s a small family picking out matching t-shirts, the siblings clearly in a disagreement over which color to choose, their French coming out loud and passionate.
“Grab a swimsuit and something to drink, and we’ll change in the bathroom after we pay,” Ellie says, and I follow her instructions.
There is a display stand with piles of neatly folded swim trunks, and I stare at each one, feeling indecisive. The banana print is too loud, the plain black pair too plain, and I almost settle on a deep green, when I see white with blue flowers, and decide that one is the most me.
Grabbing two water bottles, I walk toward the counter, and the teenager at the cash register waves me to come up.
“Non,” I say, shaking my head. How do you say, I have no money and I need my trusted human to return, in French?
“Okay, I’m ready,” Ellie’s voice comes from out of nowhere, and I feel the relief flood my system, every happy chemical returning to its rightful place.
She’s holding a thick pile of fabrics, as well as a net bag with plastic toys inside.
“What is that? Do we have the currency for all of this?”
“You’ll see. And yes, it’s fine,” she answers, and checks us out before entering the bathroom to change.
I do the same, grateful I am alone this time. Some of the public bathroom experiences on this trip have been…peculiar.
We exit the store and walk in comfortable silence, heading for the shore. Ellie and I put down towels on the soft, golden sand, and she finally opens the net bag.
“I want to show you how to build a sandcastle,” she tells me. “Is that silly?”
I shake my head, my heart warmed by her thoughtfulness. “Not at all.”
Sandcastles feel like a core part of the human childhood experience, at least for those who live near coasts or could afford to travel to one.
While Terilia is leaps ahead in education and technology, I think humans have more fun and nostalgia.
Things seem more casual here, and many children are allowed to be exactly that. Children.
Ellie and I start to build a giant series of sandcastles, trying to make a small-scale replica of Machu Picchu, which Ellie confesses is her favorite archaeological site outside of the ones she chose to study.
“Do you miss Terilia?” she asks as we pack lightly damp sand into the molds, the golden color of the grains darkening.
“Honestly? No. I mean, I love my people, but Terilia was a means of survival for the sapphiro. A sanctuary, but it was never meant to be home.”
“Why is that?” she asks as we put more water and sand into the molds, perfectly forming the structures of the citadel.
It makes me wonder why Earth and humanity can’t be a part of the Intergalactic Unity Senate when it seems they really are caring and understanding of other lifeforms. But maybe this is just Ellie, and not all of humanity is this kind.
Some of the other humans have been cool—Jo, Yousef, the woman who took our photograph—but many have been strange, too.
Getting to know Ellie has made me want to understand humans on a deeper level.
Not just study them from a far, but also observe and even experience them.
Not in the way I experience Ellie, though. That part of me belongs to her and her alone.
“We were from a planet called Sapphiron. Think of Earth, but where technology blended with nature, instead of fighting against it. Everything we developed was with the natural world and its health in mind. It was green, lush, and beautiful. But our star was at the end of its lifetime, and we had to seek habitat elsewhere, so we went to planet A9HQ, which is near what humans refer to as Barnard’s Star,” I begin to explain.
We continue digging out the miniature fields and walkways, and I feel exhilarated every time our hands touch, the electric pulses of her heart flowing through me, reminding me just how real and alive she is.
“This was before even my parents’ time, but essentially, on A9HQ, there was a tiny zone known as the twilight ring, where sapphiro could mostly survive.
This is where we went. We named the planet Terilia, after our largest language—Terilian—and that was that.
For a long time, the rest of the planet was mostly barren desert, boiling water, or icy glaciers. ”
I go and get the last bit of water we need, and hand the mold to Ellie.
“What changed?”
“We built artificial tectonic plates that created seismic waves, which helped even the temperature enough to make the planet relatively habitable. We still mostly reside near the twilight ring, but now there’s more biodiversity, and we’re at a lower risk of famine,” I say.
“That’s actually wild. Why didn’t you guys just…take Earth? Or another more habitable planet?”
“Because that would be considered an intergalactic war crime?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, but you also see how we treat Earth. Many wouldn’t have blamed you. And besides, we could share, could we not?”
“Maybe. I mean, if it were up to me, you would share your planet with at least one sapphiro permanently,” I say with a smile.