"There's no shame in trying to change the inevitable," I repeat The Atmosphere Man's words, searching for understanding, but Anise thinks that I'm talking to her. She moves her hand on top of mine, and the void between us feels a little warmer at least.
When we make love that night, it's like there's a stranger in the room with us. I taste him in her mouth--her saliva like a spray of napalm scorching my tongue. I try to ignore him, but with each passionate breath I take, the soot of dead bodies tickles my lungs. Tears stream down Anise's cheeks. She writhes underneath me and calls out my name, but from the distant look in her eyes, I can tell it is the stranger she holds most dearly in her heart.
Tenderly, I kiss her cheek, her bitter tears tasting of acid rain. "Happy Anniversary, Love," I whisper, ready to fight the good fight, and hoping beyond hope that I'm not a few years too late.
###
Return to Table of Contents
BREVA
BY NICKY DRAYDEN
First Published by Daily Science Fiction, 2013
Dr. Gianna Nero played the recording back for the fifth time, noting the odd inflections and guttural clicks in Breva’s message. A smile curled up at the edges of her mouth as she caught the double entendre that no one on Earth would notice except her. In less than twenty-four hours, twelve billion people would hear Breva’s message--a message of peace, hope, friendship and excitement over the impending meeting of their two races. He expressed his desire to extend gratitude for humanity’s generous offer to share their planet with the sSuryn, who’d lost theirs to a fungal blight that decimated their ecosystem.
Gratitude was the word that snagged Gianna’s attention. In addition to the literal translation, it was also a colloquialism for the sSuryn’s biological equivalent of a female orgasm. Breva had never explicitly said that, of course, but Gianna had gathered as much from their conversations over the last decade. Establishing a rapport between the sSuryn and humans required unprecedented tact from both sides, but they still managed to express their feelings for each other in buried messages. Yes, behind his dignified demeanor, chiseled features, and sharp tongue, Breva Harathla was nothing but a flirt.
“Dr. Nero, you’re blushing,” Mark Johansson said, eyeing the translation from over Gianna’s shoulder.
Gianna stiffened and swiped her hand across the soft glow of the translated text, feeling like a schoolgirl hiding her diary beneath her mattress. The avi-screen faded to black, taking Breva’s recording with it. For the briefest of moments, his raspy voice echoed against the walls of her lab.
“Can I help you, sir?” Gianna said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. Technically Mark was her supervisor, somewhere above her on the tangled bureaucratic web that had spun off from SETI when the sSuryn made first contact, but her interactions with Breva were a mystery to him. His expertise lay in engineering and the hard sciences, and Mark had difficult enough of a time dealing with the social mores of humankind.
“Just checking on your progress. The Powers That Be are getting antsy.”
“This isn’t something that can be rushed,” Gianna said. “There are cultural subtleties that need to be carefully assessed. I need to capture not just his words, but also his intent.” She stood her ground, kept her eye contact firm, but it was true that she hadn’t been working as quickly as she should have. Perhaps her mind was digging too deeply for hidden meaning beneath Breva’s words.
It’d been six months since she’d received Breva's last communication, in which he’d covertly expressed his interest in kissing her, and for six months straight she’d imagined his thin, pale blue lips against hers, and his long, sticky tongue flicking inside her mouth. It made it hard to concentrate, but Gianna knew her efforts would lay the groundwork for integrating the sSuryn into society upon their arrival, a mere eight years from now. She’d be fifty then. And Breva would still be his handsome self, tight skin that glowed like moonlight, yellow-gold eyes that had seen the cradle of the galaxy, and long, padded fingers on red-palmed hands--hands that had found themselves in Gianna’s dreams since she was just a girl in college, hands adept at doing very inappropriate things ...
“Earth to Dr. Nero!” Mark said abruptly.
Gianna startled. “Sorry. I was just working through a difficult translation. In my mind.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” Mark said without conviction. “So as I was saying, we’re bringing in someone for you to train. Someone to help you get through your work a little faster.”
“You want me to train someone? Sure. How about I make some flashcards on the one hundred forty-seven honorifics? Or the twenty-two different meanings of the word JuHal-Langh? Or how the degree to which you raise your chin at the end of a sentence can mean the difference between a compliment, a verbal assault, or an invitation to mate. Or better yet, in all this spare time that you think I must have, I’ll just write up a whole series of books. sSuryn for Dummies!”
“I’m not saying that it will be easy. Or quick. But Treven has already mastered Breva’s introductory messages. He’s bright, and I promise he’ll be helpful. I know your stance on this, but it just isn’t prudent to have one expert on sSuryn culture.”
“That’s exactly what being the ‘foremost expert’ means. I’ve poured my soul into this project. You don’t get bags like this under your eyes by working forty-hour weeks.” Gianna pressed her lips together, her mind racing through cusses in a dozen Earth languages, and when she’d run through those, allowed herself to say a few of the more colorful sSuryn ones under her breath. Neither of them said it, but she’d be training her replacement. “Mark, I simply don’t have the time to waste on some snot-nosed brat who thinks being able to string a couple of sSuryn phrases together will pass for fluency.”
“This isn’t up for negotiation. Not this time. And I’m sure you’ll find Treven to be more than capable. It took him three months to master Mandarin. Four for Russian. Six weeks for Swahili. Think of him as an apprentice. Give him grunt work, I don’t care. Just throw him a bone here and there. Access to your notes, that sort of stuff. I’ll tell him not to get in your way.”
“He’d better not,” Gianna nearly spat, and she had to stop herself from jutting her chin at that angle that meant she’d wring the kid’s throat if he did.
* * * * *
Nineteen
Gianna balanced on the edge of the curb while her fellow students darted past her and crossed the street in the last seconds before the traffic lights turned green. She clutched her empty backpack to her chest, rocked heel to toe as she saw a campus shuttle bus barreling towards the crosswalk, bobbing on worn shocks. She waited until she could make out the expression on the bus driver’s face--dull eyes, slacked jaw--the look that comes from going in circle after meaningless circle. Gianna understood that look.
Her heart thudded in her chest. Her old life was a thousand miles away, now reduced to a string of empty long-distance relationships--infrequent emails from her high school friends in Chicago, aloof text messages from her boyfriend, passive-aggressive letters from her father scribbled on stationary smelling of his Tuscan cigars. None of it mattered. It’d all be over soon.
She leaned forward, lifted a leg.
“Whoa there, space cadet,” a voice said from behind her. A hand came down on her shoulder and reeled her away from the oncoming traffic and back onto the curb. The bus whooshed by, taking her breath with it as it passed. “You gotta wait for the little white man to tell you to walk.”
It was what’s-his-face, from Applied Thermodynamics, sat a couple rows ahead of her and spent most of his time playing FreeCell on his laptop instead of taking notes. He was always eating oranges and guzzling Topo Chico. What was his name? Hector? Juan? Jose?
“Oh, hey,” Gianna muttered, rubbing her sweaty palms against her jeans.
“You watching the address on the Main Mall?”
“The what?”
“The Presidential Address. Have you been buried under a rock the past two days or someth
ing?” Hector-Juan-Jose reached into his backpack and pulled out a cheap plastic alien mask. The rubber band snapped loose as he tried to stretch it around his head. “Shit!” he grumbled, then sucked at his finger. “Anyway, word on the ‘net is that it has to do with aliens. Real aliens. Not like some microscopic fossils they found on Mars or anything. So you going, or what? I want to get a good spot before things get crazy.” He pushed his thick bangs out of his face and looked at her intently, a crooked smile on his lips. Hector-Juan-Jose was the first person who’d said more than two sentences to her all week. He was nice, but a little weird, like he was trying too hard. Still, Gianna trembled at the thought of being alone right now.
“Okay,” she said softly, but when the crosswalk light turned again and the students resumed their migration, Gianna stood there petrified. Hector-Juan-Jose extended his hand, soft and moist in hers.
“Come on. White man says it’s okay.” He nodded up at the walk figure on the crossing light.
The crowd thickened considerably by the time they reached the Main Mall, a thousand strangers pressing against her, many wearing aliens masks--a typical mish-mash of Sci-fi pop culture, plus a few that Gianna didn’t recognize. She kept her fist clenched around the tail of Hector-Juan-Jose’s t-shirt as he wedged deeper into the student body, towards the steps in front of the bell tower. Gianna thought she would suffocate from the mix of perfume and B.O. reeking in the late August heat.
A projection screen was set up at the top of the stairs, bearing an image of the President of the United States washed out by the noontime Texas sun. His words, however, blared from several sets of speakers--words deep and foreboding. “WE ARE NOT ALONE.”
She took Hector-Juan-Jose to bed that night. The sex was awkward--more weird than nice, sort of like he was trying too hard. But she didn’t regret it. Half the planet was probably screwing right now. Gianna guessed that’s just what people did after seeing alien life for the first time, and learning that in 30 short years they’d be living among us. Fear. Excitement. Uncertainty. But for all of the emotion on the surface, Gianna figured it all came down to one primal thing: Gotta make sure there’s more of us than them.
Sweaty and stinking of each other, they stretched across the length of his twin-sized bed and watched the rebroadcast on his laptop. The message had taken eighteen months to reach Earth, and promised the sharing of knowledge and technology in exchange for asylum. At least that’s what they’d figured out from the wet clicks and whistles of the aliens’ language. There were large gaps in the translations, during which Gianna would concentrate on the alien’s mouth. Breva was his name. If she squinted really hard, he might pass for human. He had the sharp features of a rocker, almost feminine. She noticed hints of amphibian ancestry here and there--rubbery skin that glowed ever so slightly and a long tongue that didn’t seem to want to fit completely inside his mouth. She guessed that he was probably handsome to his own kind.
“Do you know how lucky we are?” Hector-Juan-Jose said, face lit up by the screen. He placed his hand at the small of her back. “We’re majoring in aerospace engineering on the cusp of all of this alien technology. We’ll be creating things that we never could have imagined!”
“I want to shake Breva’s hand,” Gianna blurted out, surprising herself. “Or however the Sussurine greet each other. I want to welcome them to Earth. Akuotraaam sur dekpth Fevcha.” She’d memorized the first line of Breva’s message ... the words were so alien in her mouth, like she was trying to gargle with a bad sinus infection, but she thought she did a pretty decent imitation.
Hector-Juan-Jose laughed. “We’ll be what? Fifty years old then? That’s a long time to wait just to say hello.”
Gianna sat up, pulling the sheets over her chest. Fifty. She tried to imagine herself at fifty. Wrinkles. Gray hair. Achy joints. Hot flashes. Gianna realized this was the first time she’d thought about her future in a long, long time. She exhaled sharply.
Maybe she’d look into changing her major to linguistics in the morning.
* * * * *
Fifty
Gianna assessed herself in the mirror, chin tucked, posture erect, bloodshot eyes narrowed, and lips futilely trying to get out of the way as she uttered a consonant-heavy sSuryn word, twelve syllables long.
“Careful,” Treven said, taking her side. Their shoulders touched, and in his reflection Gianna saw the man she still thought of as that snotty-nose brat who’d walked into her lab nearly ten years ago. “The way you said appreciate could take on a sexual connotation if you tilt your head like that. Maybe you should use uklala suasi instead. It’s easier to say, and has a more exact meaning.”
“Are you telling me how to do my translations?” Gianna said, half chiding, half mocking. She tapped the mirror and it returned to the default backlit display that had practically ingrained itself into her brain. Gianna fanned her eyes until they teared up, offering a bit of relief from the burn.
“I’m worried about you, Gee. You’ve been at this for fifteen hours straight.” He gave her back an open-palmed rub. “I can help if you let me.” With his free hand, he swiped away pages of the avi-screen until his custom display appeared.
Gianna grunted, too tired even to yell at him for messing with her controls. A true-to-life holo-projection appeared in front of them, a female that looked suspiciously like a younger, prettier, sSuryn version of Gianna. “Akuotraaam sur dekpth Fevcha,” she greeted them with a cross-armed bow, pronunciation impeccable. The technology was alien, but the English to sSuryn language conversions were concocted by Treven. Gianna furrowed her brow.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Treven said. “But I’ve made significant modifications to the translation algorithms.”
The last time Treven had shown her the holo-projection, it had done well on the exchange of customary pleasantries, but when Gianna had tested its knowledge with simple verb conjugations, it promptly told her that her statement was teeming with ass muffles, and would she please repeat it. The only reason Gianna encouraged Treven’s obsession was that this little project kept him out of her hair. A simulation would never be sophisticated enough to understand all of the nuances of sSuryn culture--a civilization where custom, language, and impeccable manners were inseparable.
Treven started up a demonstration of the use of honorifics, and the holo-projection didn’t trip on a single one. Gianna put it to the test, trying to break it with covert inflections and declensions. It held up to her satisfaction, not just with words, but its physical responses as well.
“Color me impressed,” Gianna said with a smile, and Treven heaved a sigh of relief. “Though you may have just put us both out of a job.”
“You can’t be replaced, Gee. All the translation algorithms in the world aren’t a match for your brain.” Treven looked at her with the wide eyes of a pupil who had not yet realized his knowledge had surpassed that of his teacher.
Gianna fanned him away. Treven gave her a sly grin, then left the lab, promising to fetch strong coffee and dark cherry cannolis. Caffeine would be nice. She needed to get this translation done. It would likely be the last she sent before the sSuryn’s arrival. It’d be her last chance to say what she needed to say to Breva before they were caught up in the storm of politics, biology, and media. Should she tell him the truth? It scared her that soon their conversations wouldn’t span months and years. No longer would she have endless hours to craft the perfect flirty lines.
Gianna fidgeted with the controls on Treven’s custom interface until the holo-projection of the female sSuryn was replaced with that of Breva. He stood a mere four feet tall, barrel-chested with powerful legs that accounted for half of his height, but Gianna had long ago learned to look past all that. She looked into his golden eyes and expressed her undying appreciation for his friendship, not bothering to mask any of the sexual undertones.
The skin at Breva’s throat bulged, glowing hot white like he’d swallowed a miniature sun. It was a magnificent display of arousal that
left Gianna with a tight chest and her heartbeat ringing in her ears. She reached out to touch him, but the holo-projection merely pooled around her fingers, breaking the perfect illusion. She’d seen that reaction from Breva once before, seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d been Treven’s age, just barely out of her twenties. They’d called her a prodigy then, but compared to Treven, she was just a bumbling idiot with a barely functional grasp of sSuryn grammar.
The door to her lab hissed open behind her. She turned to scold Treven for being so clingy, but instead her boss stood there looking disconcerted. “Dr. Nero, we’ve received another message from the sSuryn,” he said solemnly.
“What? Well give it here.” It was too soon for another message. Something had to be wrong. She swiped her avi-screen to default and brought up the translation application.
Mark shook his head. “We already know what it says.”
“Treven?” she said, a touch of spite catching in her throat. It was her job to translate, not his.
He shook his head again. “It was a short automated message. Audio only. We didn’t need to consult. It said ‘Systems failure, ship disabled. Send help.’”
* * * * *
Thirty-one
Gianna beamed inside as she stood at the head of her class, tapping symbols onto her pad with her stylus. She kept her brow furrowed, trying not to look so pleased with herself. The other students in her small cohort already hated her for being so much better at this than they were. So she held back, pretended that she was as dependent on the translation app as they were, though for the most part, Breva’s words were clear in her mind.
The Three stood on either side of Breva’s recorded projection, dressed in their drab sweaters and jeans, permanent thought lines etched into their foreheads. Gianna felt like a trespasser in their cramped, cluttered lab, and she tried to avoid brushing against the precariously stacked towers of computer equipment and recording devices.
A worldwide contest had identified the up-and-coming talent in sSuryn linguistics. Thousands had applied, ten were accepted into an advanced training class, and one had excelled above all others, earning herself a brief conversation with Breva as reward.