Dandelion: Chapter 9, Part II

Amber Houston

Roy groaned. “Really?” he whispered.

Amber could feel herself about to burst into flames from embarrassment. “I couldn’t think of anything else!” she hissed back. To her delight, however, the shorter, better-dressed alien in the nicer clothing stepped forward a pace and spread his fingers wide to reciprocate her Vulcan salute.

He even did a passable, though mangled, imitation of the words.

“Lee…leevlahng. Anprasper.”

Amber heard Nikki snort through her earpiece. “Well, holy shit! I guess if it’s dumb but it works, it ain’t dumb…”

Roy somehow managed to keep a straight face. He must have retreated into whatever corner of his mind gave him his infinite reserves of stoicism.

“Language…” Amber muttered for Nikki’s benefit, took another step forward, and gestured to the ground in between them. The alien captain stepped forward, too, and together they left their bodyguards behind to meet in the middle.

As he—she assumed he was a he—got closer, Amber found herself looking up, and then up some more. The aliens were tall, incredibly tall and skinny. Amber had always seen herself as a beanpole, but next to the native sailor she felt like a McKay. Most of his height was legs, oddly curved so that he seemed to teeter around on his toe-tips, counterbalanced by a long, strong tail. He was covered head to toe in a short coat of sandy fur, except for a thick ruff around his throat that crept up over the top of his head and between his pointed ears.

The overall effect was a bit like somebody had combined a kangaroo and a lion, though he had sharp, calculating eyes and a face expressive enough to be human. He wore a thick woollen tunic dyed a rich wine red, cinched at the waist by an elegantly embossed and bejewelled leather belt, and accessorized by his finger rings and ear piercings. His hand strayed to his throat as they met, and he fidgeted with a small medallion as he considered her with an expression of fascination that mirrored Amber’s own.

What to do next?

Oh. Yeah. The food. A meal pack cinnamon roll wasn’t exactly the finest cuisine, but it was sweet and tasty, and hopefully a good gift. The alien accepted it politely when she handed it over, then sniffed at it. He glanced over his shoulder at his bodyguard, who gave a very human shrug and gestured as if to say go ahead.

The expression on the alien’s face when he nibbled a corner of it was pure comedy. His eyes went wide, his ears flew back, and he took a much larger second bite as if he couldn’t believe what he was tasting.

This was probably the first time he’d ever had processed sugar, Amber realized. She smiled, taking care to keep her mouth closed and her teeth hidden just in case that could be seen as threatening or rude, and knelt on the ground.

After a moment, the alien handed the roll to his bodyguard, spoke a few words in their language, then folded his legs underneath him to sit in a kind of weird cross-legged posture a human would have found hideously uncomfortable.

He put a hand to his chest and spoke a word. It ended with a weird hissing sound that Amber knew she was going to have the worst time pronouncing, and sounded a bit like “Syee-vutl.”

It was followed by a slightly easier word. “Wool-der-your-shahn.”

Okay. See-vul Woolder-your-shan. That was easy enough. She raised a hand to her own chest like he had and shared her name. “Amber. Houston.”

“Ember.” He rolled the r, but that just made it sound…charmingly soft, actually.

“Close enough for me, See-vutl,” she replied with a nod. He made a kind of hiccupping noise that was…maybe a laugh? His ears were up, and his tail curled into a question mark shape behind him, so hopefully that meant he was amused.

“See-yee-vu-[hiss],” he repeated.

Amber sighed and tried her best at the hissing sound. What came out was more of a quack, but it made him hiccup even harder, especially when she spread her arms and shrugged. Thank goodness they had that gesture in common.

She turned and gestured behind her. “Roy. McKay.”

See-vul looked up at Roy, who balled up his fist and smacked his chest very loudly. “Rroyee.” Again he rolled the r. Whether that was accent or just how their tongues worked, Amber couldn’t tell. “Hmm. Drin-[hiss]-av Gwel-in-see-are.”

He gestured at the large one with the sword, and Amber tried not to grimace. If that hissing sound was everywhere in their language, she was going to have a real tongue-twisting time of it. Either way, Drin-tlav tilted his whole body in what was maybe a shallow bow at her, but otherwise continued to watch Roy.

Okay. So they had “hmm” in common. And bowing. And shrugging. So far so good, they’d been getting to know each other for a few minutes, and there didn’t seem to be any imminent murder…

But she was out of ideas again. Playing for time, she plucked her water bottle from her belt and took a swig, then offered some to See-vul. He accepted it with what seemed like grace and thanks, took a modest swig of his own, then made an approving noise and waggled it at her, miming drinking some more. She waved a hand, trying to convey “please, be my guest,” and he drank half the rest before returning it.

Drin-lav spoke up and offered what sounded like advice, to which See-vul jerked his head—Amber got the impression that was maybe their version of a nod—and replied with what sounded like a command. The men behind Drin-lav moved to obey, whatever it was.

See-vul cocked his head and stared at Amber for a few seconds, then seemed to reach a decision. He pointed at the sky, balled a fist, and brought it swooping down while making a shoooom! sound effect with his mouth. Finally, he pointed at Amber and made an interrogative noise.

Amber did her best to imitate their head-jerk nod. “Yes.”

He sat back and considered her for a few seconds longer. She could feel him itching with questions and having no way to ask them, and could totally sympathize. And again, she was out of ideas.

Sjívull Wylderrjorssían

Sjívull was out of ideas. He liked this strange creature; he’d decided that quickly. And the sweetbread she’d given him was the sweetest thing he’d ever eaten. But how could he even begin to ask her all the things he wanted to know? She’d definitely said yes to the question of whether she was associated with the fireball in the sky, but that could mean anything! Had they caused it? Summoned it? Ridden in it like a boat?

Okay, that last one was ridiculous, but there was no way of asking!

At least she was having the same problem. There was nothing for it but to…go over the basics, he guessed. “Yes” and “no,” and the words for “name” and “rock” and “ship,” and work up from there, slowly and painfully.

It was an age-old problem seafarers had long talked about, but Wylderrjor had never thought to educate his son in how to handle it. Sjívull couldn’t blame his father; the old man had no way of knowing this would happen—in fact he was pretty sure Wylderrjor had never had this problem himself. But it would have been nice to know how to handle a situation like this.

Actually, Sjívull realized, he was probably lying to himself. No doubt he’d have found such lessons boring and taken the first excuse to escape from Fforthri the scribe’s clutches to go do something more interesting, like sword practice with Drynllaf. Maybe he even had, and didn’t remember.

He stole another glance at the big stranger, Roí. He’d never seen a man with shoulders so broad or muscles like that in his life, which had been spent surrounded by soldiers and bjerkars. Roí was at least twice as wide as Drynllaf and made him look as fine and fragile as a little girl, despite that Drynllaf was much taller.

Then again…Ember was a stocky, strong thing, too. Only the fact that she had Roí for company made her look small; by any other standard, she was the most…imposing woman he’d ever met. If he looked down at her bare legs, he could see the way the muscles creased, and her bones looked as thick as a mokug’s.

He’d always imagined Otherfolk would be slim and delicate. These people had a solidity to them that was very much of this world.

There was a…noise. It was totally unlike anything Sjívull had ever heard before, a short, pure note and a ringing sound that didn’t match any chime he’d ever heard. It came from Ember’s pocket.

She gave him a…Sjívull wasn’t sure what kind of look it was. She did that strange mouth-tightening thing again, which seemed to be a friendly kind of gesture, but…

She stood up and raised a finger while backing off. The impression Sjívull got was do you mind waiting? Sorry! as she retreated several steps to Roí’s side, pulled something from her pocket, and turned away to inspect it in private. Sjívull glanced over his shoulder at Drynllaf, who shrugged.

“If we’re staying here, maybe we should make camp,” he suggested.

“Carefully. My opponent might be skittish.”

“Hmm…” Sjívull took the advice with a nod. “Yes. Carefully. But get started.”

“Aye, young lord.”

Sjívull returned his attention to Ember and Roí, who were both studying the little thing Ember had taken from her pocket. He nearly fell over backwards when it spoke.

Amber Houston

DANI’s message was, naturally, full of advice.

Hopefully this message will reach you before you make contact, but considering the light delay, that seems unlikely. The best advice I can give at this juncture would be to be friendly and reasonable, but not a pushover. Share some small food-based treats and clean water—

Roy slapped Amber on the shoulder and managed to be both boisterous and quiet at the same time. “See! Way better’n a dumb ‘ol meathead like me.”

He either knew exactly what to say, or he got lucky. Either way, Amber felt buoyed by it. DANI’s message, of course, ignored him.

—trade names and establish a rapport. Don’t be afraid to give them some room if things get awkward. I took the liberty of compiling an intelligent software tool for you. It should be downloading into Launch 732 alongside this message. I have done my best, but please do not hesitate to send bug reports or feature requests. Hopefully it should expedite the language process.”

There was a brief pause, and then a different voice spoke:

Miss Houston, this is Captain Torres. I’m aware this is probably a daunting moment, but both DANI and my husband speak highly of you, which is as much a vote of confidence as I’ll ever need. I’m sure you’ll do us proud, and I promise that as much support as we can provide from up here is behind you every step of the way. Good luck.

The message ended with a beep.

“Short and to the point, I guess…” Amber muttered. “Wonder what this tool is DANI sent down?”

She found a text message with an attachment in her inbox, and opened it experimentally. She was rewarded with the words “Limited Intelligent Translation Assistant beta v.0.1.1” and below those the slightly smaller words “Connecting to local compute cluster...”

Finally, DANI’s signature—a smiling face with an intricate musical chime.

“Okay…” Roy muttered. “DANI and his acronyms, huh?”

Amber shrugged at him and then, feeling more than a little foolish, spoke to her U-Tool. “Uh…hello LITA?”

LITA’s voice was female but flat, artificial and uninflected. “Hello Amber. I Am Ready To Begin Assembling An Alien Glossary.”

“Right, ‘cuz that’s not gonna freak them out.” Roy eyed Drin-Lav warily.

“Uh…can you do listen mode only for now?” Amber asked.

“Command Accepted. Muting Audio Output. Please Refer To Graphical Interface For Prompts And Suggestions.”

On the screen, LITA showed suggestions about what it would be most interested in learning, along with prompts to indicate if Amber thought the point had been successfully communicated.

“Okay…” Amber breathed. “I guess I just have to explain a U-Tool to them now.”

“Piece of cake,” Nikki volunteered over the comms.

“Hmm.” Amber studied the screen for a second. LITA was asking her to go over most basic things, right down to pointing at a rock and saying “Rock.” But it was a place to start. She took a deep breath, turned around, and returned to See-Vul.

He eyed the U-Tool with interested incomprehension as she put it down in front of her and said something. Amber saw LITA record the phrase as [untranslated].

Oh well. Time to begin.

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Did you enjoy it? As I said at the beginning, we intend to publish the entire story free-to-read over the coming months. That said, if you're impatient…

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You could order the eBook from Amazon, and skip the wait. There's a hardcover and paperback version available too. It's also available from Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers of quality books. Finally, the book can be ordered at any local bookstore by ISBN: 978-1-7358787-0-6 for the hardcover, 978-1-7358787-2-0 if you prefer paperback.

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In any case, we're simply happy to share the story with you, and we think you'll like it very much indeed.

Anyway. Thank you very much for your attention and time. It means a lot to me, it really does.

Thank you.