The Forbidden Zone Read Free

and I felt like the song was sucking the life from my bones. Perhaps I should have known that Valeria's idea of etiquette was nothing like our own - but that's the oddness of being a stranger on a strange world. I lived according to the rules of Earth and applied them to an alien culture without even realizing my error in understanding the way things worked, the framework of society. As a scientist, I should have known better than to assume the way that anything worked would match my own theoretical assumptions.
    I must have dozed for a while, because I was startled awake by the sound of air brakes and the doors to the bus sliding open. The Valerians stood and stepped to the side, making a perfect line in their matching grey jumpsuits before they marched off the bus, leaving me sitting alone. Assuming I should follow, I stood and stepped off the bus. They must have wondered what an undisciplined individual I was, slouching down the steps, stretching my stiff back and legs while trying to keep my backpack of vital supplies on my shoulder.
    "This is the Science Building." The leader of the group turned to me, and I realized there had been no introductions beyond the nodding. I didn't know her name, or the names of any of the others who had accompanied me on my journey.
    I looked ahead of me at the concrete building. Plain, lifeless, a block without any kind of architectural flair stood before me. The bus pulled away and I turned to look behind me at the city we had arrived in. Every building, every skyscraper, was the same. It reminded me of the pictures I had seen in Earth History class of Soviet Russia. These buildings had not been fashioned from any kind of love of architecture or design, but as functional constructs. I had to say, at that point I was more than a little unnerved. There was so little individuality that it frightened a lone wolf like myself. I had spent my whole life understanding my inner self and honing my individual skills; it bothered me to see such uniformity, as if it might eat away at my own soul. I also realized that it was an odd double standard on my part. The Foundation was pretty famous for its matching uniforms, and news articles often spotlighted us as scientists who lacked flair and imagination. Yet something about me wanted to stand apart from these people as much as possible. There was more than a lack of imagination here; a total absence of freedom was visible even in the way they walked in step.
    I wondered with a sheer drop in my gut how I was going to survive five years living in a place so artless. It's true that the sciences are based on facts and figures. They were my sole love until Lankis introduced me to music and art. I would have given a fortune in that moment to stand in the Foundation's courtyard and see the sunlight bouncing off that mirrored glass. To see the roses growing in the atrium. To admire the double-helix art fixture in the reception area, where you could place your hand and see the function of every gene in the human body. Lankis taught me that science has always held a creative element. Creation and imagination give rise to new theories, which are then tested and proven, or disproven, by method.
    I was curious how Valeria could have the greatest claim to science in the universe with a landscape so uninspiring and a culture so flat. I theorized that perhaps science was in fact an outlet for repressed creativity in a society where every sign of individuality was seen as a possible threat.
    I realized that every eye was on me. I had drifted into a daydream while they had been waiting for my response. With several sets of large, glossy eyes boring into my skull as if they could read my every thought and sense my disapproval of the concrete jungle around me, I found myself suddenly tongue-tied.
    "I'm looking forward to seeing the labs," I managed to say, licking my lips. The air was dry in a way Earth's wasn't, and while the high the oxygen had given me was wearing off as