Lacuna Read online

  *****

  Emergency Surgery Ward

  TFR Beijing

  Space near Jupiter

  One hour later

  “WILL IT LIVE?”

  LIAO STOOD, arms crossed, watching through the glass shielding the surgical ward from the rest of the medical bay.

  The creature that lay on the other side was, for lack of a better word, completely alien. It was bipedal as far as they could tell, with two arms, two legs, and a head, but that’s where the similarities to Humans ended.

  Its entire body was covered in sleek, black fur. It had short, distinctly feline, rounded ears that stood on top of its head; large, flared nostrils; and a long, thin tail that limply hung off of the surgical table.

  It had six breasts and vaguely female genitals. Although it was unconscious, their examination had found it had brilliant golden eyes with slit pupils.

  The doctor Liao was talking to, a bald Iranian man on loan from the TFR Tehran, Amir Saeed, shrugged his shoulders. “Who can say? Its biology is completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen, obviously, so all we can do is very basic things. Treat her wounds, try to stabilize her. To be fair, though, she doesn’t appear to be that badly injured. Some burns, some radiation poisoning, probably a concussion. Nothing we can’t handle.”

  Liao worried, placing her finger on her lower lip. “Do your very best, doctor. This creature represents a huge, huge wealth of intelligence. Just think what it could tell us.”

  Saeed nodded. “We will, Captain. As I said, its prognosis is good so far, but I’ll keep you posted.”

  Liao paused, staring through the glass. Despite its wounds, she could see the creature was nearly seven feet tall and very muscular—its physical power was undeniable. She did not want to take any chances.

  “Have it shackled,” she ordered a nearby marine, “hands and feet. A muzzle, too. I don’t like the look of those teeth. Have one of the engineers fabricate one if you have to. I want round-the-clock supervision. Allocate your best men to the task. Pull manpower from other divisions; I don’t care. Just make sure it doesn’t hurt anyone or itself.” Liao watched it breathe, unconscious and unmoving. “It’s valuable to us.”

  The hours passed while the creature remained unconscious. Liao wanted to stay there until it finally woke up, but the duties of a ship’s captain were too much for her to ignore, especially without an XO to take care of the details.

  When she returned after several hours of meaningless paperwork, Rowe had joined them in the surgical ward. The redhead had her face pressed up against the glass, watching the alien curiously.

  “What do you think they eat?”

  Liao blinked. “Who knows? I’m certain that whatever we have will be fine.”

  Rowe shook her head. “No, really. I mean, you want to keep it alive, right? I mean—Humans have to drink every few hours or so. She’s been in there for, like, four hours now, and she’s hurt. She’ll probably want a drink, you know, but we don’t even know what they drink or if they drink at all.”

  It was a good point. Liao crossed her arms.

  “I’m sure that doctor Saeed is doing what he can to find out.”

  Liao knew that was true, but the statement was as much a prayer as it was anything else. Rowe, seemingly unconvinced, continued to stare at the creature.

  “I suppose we’ll have to learn its language. Do you think they can even speak English? Or any of our languages? I mean, are they even physically capable of doing so?”

  The demons had left behind a message in Chinese, but analysis of the recording had suggested it was generated by a machine, not by a living tongue. Liao shrugged. “We’ll find out eventually. As it stands, I’ve already tapped Lieutenant Yu to be our translator, and I don’t know how they communicate. Maybe it’s not even the same way we do. I had hoped for Jiang to do it, but we need her in operations. She did a damn fine job during the engagement, and I’d like to keep her there as much as possible.”

  A far better job than some others, Liao mused to herself, thinking of Sheng.

  Rowe chuckled. “Yu’s smart, I’ll give him that. Let’s hope he’s up to the task.”

  A silent moment passed as the two women observed the doctors changing the bloodstained bandages on the creature’s left arm. The alien's blood, it seemed, was dark purple.

  “Do you think we’ll always be at war?” Rowe turned to Liao, raising a red-haired eyebrow. “I mean, we don’t have any solid idea why they attacked us. Their message indicated that it might have been the jump drive we were about to test, but what if it was for some other reason? What if they just wanted to fight, wanted to kill us for the sheer fun of watching us burn from orbit?”

  “I don’t know.” Liao's voice was quiet. “I wish peace were possible, but I don’t hold out much hope for that even if they do have peaceful intentions. The demons are powerful, but well, it’s one of those things. It’s been a constant of Human history that, no matter how well intentioned, when a more advanced civilization meets a less advanced civilization, it never ends well for the less advanced civilization.”

  Rowe nodded. “Can’t say I disagree. Look what happened to the Australian Aborigines… Native American Indians… indigenous Japanese…”

  Liao grinned, a tad sardonically. “Unfortunately, this time the less advanced civilization is us. I intend to buck the trend in regard to unfavourable outcomes.”

  The redhead glanced at her. “Isn’t it a bit late for tha—”

  A smash and a loud, feline snarl came from behind the glass. Both women jumped back from the window, startled. The eyes of the alien creature were open, and the thick, strong digits of a black-furred hand were wrapped tightly around the neck of the nurse attending it, crushing the life from him. The broken shackles were still around its wrists; Liao was stunned by its strength.

  The marines raised their rifles, and Liao shouted as loudly as she could.

  “HOLD YOUR FIRE!”

  Fortunately, they didn’t immediately shoot. Liao unbuckled and drew her sidearm, glancing at Rowe.

  “Stay here and lock the door behind me.”

  “But—”

  “Stay.”

  With that, she pushed open the door and rushed into the surgical ward. Emitting a deep growling noise, the alien held the nurse up by his throat. It seemed weak from its injuries, its other hand propping itself up against the metal operating table, but despite its disorientation, it regarded the three marines and Liao with angry, golden eyes. It saw their weapons and uniforms, and it observed the way the marines obeyed the newcomer’s orders. Liao could instantly tell that its seemingly bestial nature belied a deep, calculating intelligence.

  And then it spoke. The language sounded like nothing Liao had ever heard. It was a growling tone, articulated with speed and significant tonal differences, as though someone had mashed together various phonetic sounds from languages nobody had ever spoken before. It was distinctly non-Human, as though it was the product of a computer program.

  “I don’t understand,” Liao answered, her tone charged, “but you’re in no danger as long as you do not harm anyone.”

  The creature jabbered again in its strange tongue, angry and fearful. It seemed to tighten its grip around the nurse’s windpipe, causing him to flail feebly at the much-stronger alien’s arm. In response, Liao raised her pistol, pointing it at the creature’s chest.

  “Down! Put him down!”

  With comprehension that seemed to exceed the language barrier between the two species, the alien seemed to consider what it was doing, and then roughly pushed the nurse away. The man slumped against a wall, gasping raggedly for breath.

  Calm silence pervaded the standoff. Liao stared into the alien’s yellow eyes. Slowly, but surely, the creature pointed at its chest with its now free hand.

  “Saara.”

  At least, that’s what Liao heard. The name was hard to tell through the bizarre creature’s growling tone. Liao slowly lowered her sidearm, motioning for the marines
to do the same.

  She pointed at her chest, as it did. “Liao.”

  Melissa slowly pointed to the marines, each in turn. “Human. Human. Human.” Then to herself. “Human.”

  Seeming to understand, Saara blinked her yellow eyes, pointing again at herself. “Toralii.”

  So the demons had a name now. The Toralii. It wasn’t a perfect translation, but it would do for now. Liao reached for her radio. Saara’s eyes widened, and she growled, low and threatening. Carefully, Liao holstered her sidearm. Then slowly, slowly, she reached down for the radio and clicked “talk.”

  “This is Captain Liao to operations.”

  “Operations, this is Jiang.”

  “Please inform Lieutenant Yu that his services are required in the medical bay. The alien has awoken. Liao out.”

  She ended the conversation, looking at the strange alien, who stared back at her with eyes Liao found quite clear, intelligent, and fearful.

  Engineering Bay Six

  TFR Beijing

  Deep Space

  The next day

  Liao folded her arms and listened as Rowe droned on. The woman was practically in a frenzy, as if she were two people crammed into one body. She scarcely paused for breath as she spoke in one huge unbroken sentence that leapt from topic to topic such that Liao couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Her red hair billowed around her head as she described every single thing she and her team had discovered about the alien wreckage, most notably the almost intact strike craft that they had recovered.

  Rowe brandished a short, stubby, thick, black device that had bright-pink cables pouring out of it like the head of some mutant squid. She gave it a rough shake, continuing to babble on.

  “And this part, well, fuck me. We don’t even know what it does or what subsystem it’s part of. All we know is that if we run an electric current through it, it grows and expands based on the voltage. For all we know, it’s a giant space dildo! I mean, whaaaaah? Who knows why they would keep this thing in the cockpit.”

  She tossed it away and picked up a rectangular box that seemed to be missing a side, revealing all manner of strange glowing circuits inside. When Rowe tipped it over, a navy-blue goo slopped out, which she utterly ignored.

  “Now there’s this thing. We think it’s part of the weapon system since we found it right next to the energy projector there. I mean… maybe… but it’s cool no matter what it is. See that blue shit? See how it’s just running everywhere? That stuff’s wonder-goo. It absorbs electricity—if you touch a battery to it, it drains it completely flat as fast as the device can discharge it. Where does that power go? How much can it take? No idea! And if you stomp on it—”

  The woman raised a sneaker and slammed it down on the puddle of liquid. Instead of splashing, the liquid immediately glowed a bright yellow and hardened, returning to its blue-liquid state when her foot stopped.

  “Isn’t that just the coolest, most awesome thing you’ve ever seen? We think it’s designed with a dual purpose, to absorb the heat energy of the weapon when it’s firing and as a safety device. If the weapon explodes, well, this stuff goes super hard and prevents the explosion from taking out the whole ship. We reckon that’s what prevented this little bugger from blowing up with the rest of them when its beam emitter overheated. These giant, fuzzy fuckers are clever, I’ll give them that!”

  So they hadn't recovered the alien’s energy weapon or their jump drive. Blowing out a disappointed sigh, Liao put her hands on her hips. Rowe reached for her pen and instinctively pressed the clicker. Liao shot her a dark look, and Rowe shrugged her shoulders.

  “Put that damn thing away. The way you hold it, you’re going to put someone’s eye out.”

  “Ugh… fine.” Fortunately, the pen went away again.

  Liao tried to get Rowe to focus. “What else did you find?”

  “Ray gun.”

  Rowe bent over, fumbling around in the debris for a moment, and triumphantly pulled out a small device with a pistol grip.

  “It was on the alien we cut out of the wreckage. We think they’re for self-defence.”

  Liao tilted her head to one side. “Why would you think that?”

  With a shrug, Summer casually aimed the device at a bulkhead—

  “Wait, WHAT ARE—”

  She depressed the trigger. A bright-orange orb the size of a baseball leapt from the tip of the weapon and struck the bulkhead, leaving a trail of sparkling energy behind. The metal immediately sagged and melted like a block of cheese in the microwave, the impact zone glowing a grim, fiery red.

  “See? Ray gun. Can you imagine how much this shit would get on eBay?”

  With what Liao thought was a shocking disregard for personal safety, Rowe tossed the device over her shoulder and jumped on top of a three-metre-long, suspiciously bomb-shaped object—sans fins—which she straddled, waving an imaginary cowboy hat above her head.

  “Check it out, I’m Major Kong!”

  The image of Rowe riding the eerie device caused Liao's blood to run cold. She recognized the reference—Doctor Strangelove, a black-and-white movie about the Cold War. Workmen began to dismantle another section of the ship in the background, slicing it into pieces, and Liao had to shout over the noise of workmen cutting, drilling, disassembling. “That… that thing’s a bomb?”

  “It’s a breaching charge,” Summer clarified, “we think. Basically, we reckon that these little fighters have two primary weapons; their energy weapons heat and soften the hull of target ships, and when it’s all nice and melty, they drop this right on the weakened area. No idea how much energy they output or what the trigger mechanism is. But hey, so cool.”

  Liao frowned darkly. “You mean you don’t know… if it’s safe? That thing could be a live ordnance?”

  “Ha ha, we have absolutely no fucking idea!” Laughing, Rowe gave it a firm pat, rubbing her palm in circles over the front of the horrid device, seeming unconcerned and grinning like a kid in a toy store.

  Liao was not impressed. “I want that thing moved to a different cargo bay. If it goes off in here we could lose—”

  Summer laughed dismissively. “Captain, Captain, Captain. We have nukes that can fit inside a suitcase, and this thing is big enough for me to sit on. I’m pretty sure that if it goes off here, nobody on this whole ship is going to have time to shit their pants before they’re dead.”

  “That… is not reassuring.”

  “Oh, lighten up, Captain tight-pants! You really need to get laid. You’d be much more relaxed about space aliens and their loot. Hey, maybe I can lend you the space dildo.”

  Rolling her eyes, Liao could bear no more of the excitable woman’s idiocy. She turned on her heel and left, calling as she went.

  “I expect your report within the week, Rowe.” She stopped, glancing over her shoulder. “And Summer?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you discharge any weapon on board my ship without authorization, ever again, I will throw your body out an airlock.”

  Brig

  TFR Beijing

  En route to the lunar colony

  Three weeks later

  They had learnt so much about the creature in three weeks. Their first and most pressing concern was Saara’s survival. They placed a number of potential food objects in her cell, including water, along with models of the chemical composition of the stuff drawn on a whiteboard. They included other documentation as well—sketches of a large lake, a raindrop, pictures of clouds and rain.

  Liao and Yu left her with a bright blue marker and a whiteboard, with the intention that she could draw anything she required. Saara, it seemed, grasped the concept quickly. The Humans were afraid she wouldn’t understand. Fortunately she did, and feeding her was even easier. Her diet seemed very broad. She ate the dried fish, rice, assorted vegetables, and red meats they gave her, all without verbal or physical complaint. Her wounds were healing much faster than a Human’s would, and by the third day, her bandages were removed entirely. By the sec
ond week, there was no indication she was injured at all.

  The marines on board, who detested her presence, didn’t like that one bit.

  Liao was stunned by the careful manner in which their prisoner ate. She expected the Toralii to eat like some kind of bogeyman, tearing at her meal with savage abandon, but this was not the case. Saara used her claws to separate meat from bone and skin from fruit, dexterously placing food in her mouth with surprising care. She cleaned up any dropped morsel or crumb, at first with the back of her hand and then later with the napkins they provided.

  Clothing her turned out to be difficult. They did not have a tailor on board and only a limited supply of uniforms. The clothing she had worn when she arrived, some kind of skin-tight spacesuit, had been cut to ribbons by the surgical team, and Rowe was doing her best to analyse the strange fabric. As a short-term measure, several of the crew, under Liao’s instructions, cut and crudely sewed several towels together to form a sort of large, oversize bathrobe for her to wear. It wasn’t stylish, but at least Saara wasn’t naked. Two were made, and they were washed every alternate day. More permanent clothing, Liao was told, was to be expected in the next resupply shipment.

  Their language and communication progressed as well, and Liao worked with Yu to study as much as they could. In the end, although she could spend far less time with Saara than Yu was able to, Liao’s talent for languages allowed her to keep up. The two of them discussed the Toralii language at length, always with Saara present so they could learn from her.

  Most tellingly, Liao subtly shifted the way she referred to the alien as well. Instead of being an “it,” Saara became “she,” a change that had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the crew.

  The Beijing was still without a first officer, but Jiang had admirably stepped up as the de facto XO. She couldn’t stay there, of course, and Liao would have to find a replacement for Sheng. There were hundreds of potentials out there, most of them from the other nations of the world, but she hadn’t found the time to go through them yet. About a week after the battle, though, she learned she wouldn’t have to.

  During one of her daily reports to Earth, she was told that the TFR Sydney would not be ready to launch for another four months due to issues with its navigation system. The work crews had, for months, blamed Iranian steelworkers for the issues with the structural defects in the ship’s superstructure interfering with the long-range radar, but it was discovered that it was the long-range radar system itself—designed by the PRC—that was at fault. The ship’s core systems would require extensive rework.

  Accordingly, the Tehran’s first officer, Commander Kamal Iraj, was offered to Liao to replace Sheng. The move was entirely political, an effort to save face and appease their allies. When the truth was discovered, the Iranians threw wild accusations back and forth until the PRC finally offered to make the Beijing’s first officer one of their own. The Australians hadn't cared about whose fault it was.

  Liao didn’t care about the nationality of the officer, though. She wanted someone who spoke good English—like all her crew—who was skilled and dedicated to the job, and who could give her advice but not get his or her nose out of joint if she refused it.

  Mister Iraj seemed to fit the bill quite nicely. His operational history showed that he had served with distinction in a number of fields, and most importantly to Liao, wasn’t driven to command. He had only been offered the position due to his outstanding performance in his role as logistician, and he had even admitted that he was only accepting the job because he was the most logical choice for the position.

  But the appointment of Mister Iraj seemed like a lifetime away. Liao and Yu were partaking in another round of language exchange with Saara in her cell as the marines looked on. Liao couldn’t help but feel vaguely uncomfortable with their serious, dour faces as they studied the Toralii female. Many continued to be angry about her presence. Liao knew that, but they were there to follow orders.

  “Where do you come from?”

  Liao had asked this question before, but it was an important one. The Toralii could not physically speak their language and they could not speak hers. Instead they took turns, each speaking their own language.

  ["From… star."]

  It had taken Liao a number of days to become accustomed to the phonetic structure, but she could understand what the creature was saying fairly well. They had learned the words of each others’ languages by pictures; they would show Saara a picture and then say the word until she learned it. Then she would say her language’s word until the humans learned it.

  “Which star specifically?”

  Saara shrugged helplessly. Liao knew it was a hard question. How could Saara possibly give them the exact location of her home system? The language barrier aside, it was clear that this information was something she did not want to divulge even if she knew it.

  Liao tried another question.

  “Why did you attack us?”

  Another shrug.

  Liao and Yu had prepared sketches for today’s lesson, which they produced. The first sketch was a variety of human foods that Liao named. Both Yu and Liao were startled by how quickly Saara grasped their language. She usually only required them to show her a new concept once or twice before it was stamped into her brain. It was a remarkably quick process, although due to the nature of it, abstract concepts such as “economics” or “honour” proved difficult.

  This was a two-way street, as well. Saara was unable to produce the sounds of any human language, so Yu and Liao had to learn Saara’s strange Toralii tongue so they could understand what she was saying back to them. This proved easier than Liao had imagined. The Toralii dialect Saara spoke—at least, this is what Liao thought she was trying to say—was specifically designed to be as easy to learn as possible.

  Even so, Liao observed that Saara learned as fast as she healed, which was almost supernaturally fast.

  ["Apple. Pear. Peach. Plum."]

  “Apple. Pear. Peach. Plum. Very good. The apple—how does it taste?”

  ["Sweet."]

  “Sweet. And the tomato?”

  ["Tomato… savoury."]

  “Savoury. Again, very good.”

  And so it went on for weeks as the Beijing hid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Liao and Yu broadened their knowledge of Saara and taught her their own. Liao and Yu found that Saara was outpacing them both. She could hold a basic conversation within no time, and, when they grew close to the Moon, her fluency was startling. When her language skills improved enough, they gave her a dictionary, which she spent every last second devouring with a surprising voraciousness.

  Three days before their arrival at the lunar colony, Liao and Yu stepped into Saara’s cell to begin their daily lessons. As they did, they heard Saara muttering quietly to herself—a kind of a chant or incantation, based on the rhythmic nature of her intonations.

  “Are you alright?” Liao asked, causing Saara to jump—obviously she had not been expecting anyone to listen.

  ["Yes. I was merely reciting one of the stories of my people."]

  “Stories?” The Toralii’s grasp on English improved daily, and Melissa remained impressed with Saara’s progress.

  ["That is correct. Of the Toralii, my people are called the Telvan, much as you are Chinese, from within the humans. The Telvan… we are documentarians and academics. We document and record what we can about everything we find. A useful way to store this information, and the way many lessons are taught in our…"] she struggled for a moment, ["education buildings for children… is that we retell them as a story."]

  “Education building for… you mean a school.”

  ["Yes… school."]

  On a wild impulse, Liao smiled. “Perhaps our lesson today could take the form of a story then? You talk, and we’ll listen.”

  Saara’s eyes widened in confusion. ["You wish to hear one of my people’s stories?"]

  Yu chimed in. “Of course. We want to hear everything you have t
o say. Everything we can learn from you is something valuable for us. Stories are an important transmitter of cultural values. It is from your stories that we can judge you, much as you have no doubt judged us.”

  Saara seemed impressed, but her eyes cautiously flicked to the watching marines. Nevertheless, she seemed to smile with her eyes more than her lips, her ears perking up.

  ["Perhaps you would hear the story of our greatest treasure, then.

  ["Back before our people united under a single cause, we were fractured, warlike, quarrelsome people who grouped in nation-states and fought constantly with our own kind. The hills of the Kaater Mountains, they say, saw so much fighting that they were forever stained the colour of dried blood.

  ["Eventually, as these things tend to do, the strongest of all the armies, the Neralan, broke through the battle lines and pressed on through the defenders’ homelands. They were intent on plundering and pillaging, and the stories they heard as they moved through the ruined townships near the battle lines excited them to no end—tales of Evarel's most beautiful and most precious treasure, held by the Autiellans.

  ["The more they heard about this treasure, the more they desired it. Moving beyond the barren wastelands of the battlefield and into the lush, fertile farmland of Autiella, whose armies were broken and no longer able to defend their land, they heard little else. Eager for conquest, and with their bloodlust stoked to a roaring flame, the Neralanese wanted the treasure… and at first they tried the direct approach.

  ["The first village the Neralanese raided was slaughtered save a single survivor. When they interrogated her, she told them that the treasure had previously been there, yes, but was there no longer. The village over the mountain had it. She would say no more despite their best efforts, so they executed her and moved on.

  ["The raid on the second village, the one over the mountain, was more carefully planned. In a lightning raid, the farmhouses were torched and the entire population of villagers rounded up and captured. But these Autiellans too insisted that the treasure had fled the village when the Neralanese arrived. Once again, the Autiellans would not say what the treasure was. But looking around them at their fertile lands, happy and fat citizens, and many children, the Neralanese reasoned it must be powerful indeed.

  ["After executing the population of the second village and moving on, the Neralanese took even more care with their next raid; it was conducted under the cover of darkness, and the Autiellan guards were disabled by darts filled with sleeping poison. It looked as though this raid, like the last, would be a success, but the Neralanese had driven too far into Autiellan territory. As the main army approached the village, seemingly unopposed, the Autiellans’ reserves sprang their ambush, and the surprised Neralanese were butchered.

  ["The leader of the Neralanese was brought before the Autiellans and, in a voice approaching that of madness, he asked the Autiellans if the treasure was in this village. They responded that it was. Before her execution, she was asked if she had any last requests. The leader said that she wanted to know what the treasure was.

  ["The Autiellans explained that the greatest treasure their people could ever have… was peace. It had brought them bountiful crops and happy lives. Some say the Neralanese leader realized the folly of her actions before she was executed, while others insist that she went to her grave cursing and spitting at the Autiellans for their ‘lies.’ What is certain, though, is that the Neralanese never invaded Autiella again."]

  Liao could barely believe that the species that had attacked her home planet would have such complex morals, especially ones that would hold peace, of all things, in such high esteem. It was like meeting Genghis Khan, only to have him pontificate about the joys of monogamy.

  “It’s… certainly an interesting story.”

  ["It is."]

  Liao considered it for some time, holding her chin in her hands. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and reserved.

  “Since you claim that peace is the greatest treasure a society can have, do you think there will ever be peace between our people?”

  It was Saara’s turn to be introspective. Her yellow eyes flicked between Yu and Liao, examining each of them in measure, the Toralii female ever so carefully considering her response.

  [“Yes, assuming you abandon your efforts to develop Voidwarp technology.”]

  The two humans exchanged a confused glance. “Voidwarp.” Saara had used a word which they didn’t understand but which used the roots of two other words they had learned together.

  Liao looked to Yu, nodding her head in encouragement. “Voidwarp? You mean the jump drive?”

  [“Yes, what you would call ‘jump drive.’ Agree to abandon it, and we may have peace. The Toralii have diplomatic relations with many species who take this path, especially the Telvan, who are not warlike. Trade alliances, social alliances… military alliances are theoretically forbidden by our laws, but we protect our allies in practice. However, again, this is assuming they make no moves to possess Voidwarp technology.”]

  Liao shook her head. Her tone was understanding and a little sad but resolute. “Unfortunately, that won’t be possible. Could you share your knowledge with us? We could work together, move beyond what has happened and—”

  [“Then I believe our peoples will always be at war, Captain, until one of us is defeated.”] Saara turned away from both of them, staring absently at the plain metal of the bulkhead. [“I am sorry, Captain Liao. What you say makes sense, of a sort, but if you understood, you would not ask such a thing.”]

  “Tell me what we need to learn,” said Liao, “and perhaps we might surprise you.”

  For a moment Saara considered, but then she shook her head, still avoiding Liao's gaze. [“It is too complex and yet too simple. I am sorry.”]

  “I'm sorry, too.”

  Saara finally looked at her. [“For what it is worth, you strike me as a kind and noble person even if you are my enemy. In another life, I think you and I could have been… good friends.”]

  “Agreed…” Liao answered softly, her voice tinged with regret, “in another life.”

  Chapter VI

  Beginnings and Ends