negotiating over my body. That made me frightened. Maybe it was true that aliens harvested Humans. That was the rumor on Earth. My interactions with aliens so far made me not believe it. We Humans were disliked, it was true, but this was because of the Human wanderers. We colonists were different than they were, and I had seen no evidence that aliens were the monsters that Brother Blue or ignorant Earthlings said they were.
“Dead?” I understood that word, it was said by the one who seemed to be in charge.
When my mother first committed us to becoming colonists on the Prairie Rose , I would often steal away to the library and listen to all the data reels of Universal Galactic I could find. I had learned some in spite of the language’s difficulties, but the accents were tricky and varied. Meaning could be altered by an inflection or a pitch.
I only understood snippets of what the other alien said. I could tell from his clicks and thrums that he was a bug-like creature. The clicks and thrums made his Universal Galactic even harder to understand without the nanites.
“… not an expert on Human … from the state of it … usually one solid color … blues and reds and yellows … puffiness … normal … eyes are closed … sleep or death…”
It was too hard. I wanted to be where I should be—in a bunk on a colony ship—uncomfortable, but heading toward a new home on Beta Granade with my family. If I had not made myself so useful to Brother Blue with my limited language skills, then I could have soon been standing on a new planet, with dirt in my hands, planting seeds, building a new home. Instead, I was crumpled and broken on a cold space station floor.
As I struggled to follow the conversation happening above me, I couldn’t help but think that not giving the translator and breathing nanites to the colonists or letting us learn Universal Galactic was another way for Brother Blue to keep us all under control. If we could not understand, then we could do nothing but follow. I was too inquisitive. I had always been so. My father had said it was a gift. My mother had warned me when we joined the Children of Earth to keep it in check.
The aliens were speaking quickly and using slang, so I couldn’t be sure of anything I was hearing but finally I was able to follow again.
“You weren’t working the docks, looking for work?” the one with the more melodic voice said.
“No … Humans came at once … Ship … airlock … the way that they sound … vibration … voices … my ears … I left … they were gone … cargo … others … then nothing … gone…”
I tried to open my eyes; they barely moved, but through the blur I could see a few of the aliens as they moved toward me. Pain flooded my body as they lifted me onto a stretcher. This was my only chance to do something. My tongue felt too swollen to form words. I wasn’t even sure that I would be understood. But I had to try.
“Wait,” I said in thick Universal Galactic. “Wait.”
To my ears it sounded less like a word and more like an undead moan.
“Ahhh!” the bug-like alien screamed. “That frequency! Terrible. I hate them. I hate Humans.”
“That thing is alive,” the other alien said. He was leaning in very closely to me. He was looking in my eyes, touching my skin, and he felt that I was still warm. He was a Loor, one of the Major Species. I could tell by his antennae. They were folded toward my face, almost touching my skin. “Get the doctor.”
I could feel the aliens’ mood change. Whereas before they were just doing their job, they now moved around with new urgency. I sank back into the stretcher. I’d announced myself. Everyone I knew in the Children of Earth said that aliens were not to be trusted. But it was out of my hands now. They would either finish me off, or save me.
The Loor put a nose mask on my face, and when the air hit me, I could breathe easier. It felt sweet. My mind cleared, and I was