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Because it would cost the ship more of its precious power to communicate.
I sank back—but I wouldn’t have lied, even if the ship hadn’t been in my head.
“It is not.” I took a moment to show it what had happened on the ’qa—how a situation that we thought we might have had in hand was now wildly off-center: Elle trapped, and the other two-legged demanding tribute. “But if you can get a message out to others of my kind telling them that Cepharius needs them, I know they will come to help us.”
The ship did not respond—and for the first time since it’d interfered with my ’qa, I was angry at its lack.
“You know me,” I said, spinning slowly beneath its shifting colors. “You know my whole life! You wrote it on your walls!” I shouted. “And you know if I make a promise, I will do my best to keep it!”
Everything was quiet between us and then I felt a burst of sensation, rippling all over my skin.
“Your > is >”
I sagged. “Thank you.” Before I could recuperate—a hexagonal slab separated itself from the matrix of the wall and started floating toward me, like a strange crystal, the width and length of my arm.
“Take > back with you. It will > you have >” The walls of the “crystal” went clear, revealing Elle’s little Snout inside. The end plate opened, and the alien swam out.
“I can’t,” I refused. My pearl would never forgive me.
“It is not your > They are > and > It is their > They want to >” the ship told me. “Return with >”
I took hold of the hexagonal box the alien creature had brought with him. “I will try my hardest,” I said, then paused. “But before I go—where did you put the suits of the other men who came here?”
chapter 56
ELLE
I bolted the access panel back into place, then hid the multitool up my sleeve, walking back into my room with my shoulders slumped like someone who was upset and crying. I’d left the shower running behind me, like Donna was now taking her turn, and pretended to rifle through a drawer, looking for something I couldn’t find.
I made a show of being helpless, because I assumed Hargrave’s men were watching via the cameras, and after a while, I wrapped Marcus up as best I could in my sheets, while making sure to act disgusted and sad, before going to the window where I hoped I’d feel Cepharius.
About half an hour later, I did.
“Elle.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered on our ’qa. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, you?” he asked instantly, although I knew he could feel me. And I could feel him, too, which was why he said, “Do not be disappointed in me.”
“What. Are. You. Doing,” I thought at him, after grasping that one of the aliens was swimming back alongside him.
“I tried to send him away, Elle. He wouldn’t let me. And I tried to out-swim him—I couldn’t. Don’t ask me how, but he’s incredibly fast.”
“Cepharius!” I said. “He’s a child.”
“I know that—but I couldn’t very well tie him down to a rock. And the ship said he wanted to come. It is his right.”
“You cannot give humans an alien baby!” I thought out the plot to every shitty show I’d ever watched in college on the Discovery channel at him—all the autopsies and conspiracy ones.
“But none of that’s real!” he said, in confusion.
“Most of it isn’t, but I wouldn’t put anything past them!” I thought out at him. “Or us, I mean—goddammit. Just—read my memories and see what happened since you went away!”
I felt his mind brush against mine, and then sensation flowed over me like electricity.
“So she will be bringing a battery to the dock?”
“Yes. But do not give this man an alien baby, Ceph. If you do, I will never forgive you.” I made sure to send that thought to him with the appropriate intensity.
