[Disclaimer 1: The following is a rough draft from a fictional work in progress. Names and details are subject to change. Terms such as “hours” and “people” are used for convenience.]
[Disclaimer 2: The genre could be described as “science fiction” but follows the Laws of Funsies rather than the Laws of Physics. Please forgive the mangling of mother nature.]
Tsaxlei was not sure how much time had gone by since she and Kawe had been unceremoniously shoved down what she first imagined was a garbage chute and later realized was a dank sub-basement, although judging by the smell, it was likely used for storing kitchen trash at least temporarily. Her eyes, naturally well-suited to seeing in low light, had only taken a few minutes to acclimate to the blackness, and she now could make out shapes, such as what appeared to be precariously stacked crates all around the wooden trunks she and Kawe were sitting on. She pondered whether they might contain some sort of exciting contraband, or possibly detailed records of transactions between slaves and their masters back home on Hir that she could borrow just long enough to scan for her thesis. The logistics of the aft colony were not something she had spent much time contemplating; perhaps the crates were simply full of empty wine and liquor bottles that would be swapped out for fresh ones and loaded on an outbound shuttle.
The air felt heavy with dust, dampness, and the pressure of staying silent, not knowing whether the guards were still searching for them, what had happened to Kawe’s companions, or if things would ever be the same again. In that quiet pause, Tsaxlei began to notice a curiously metallic scent underlying the sour smells that had assaulted her nose upon first tumbling down the crude, uneven steps. Perhaps this area of the asteroid, which had been dug out and fashioned into the base for the colony, was rich in a certain type of ore. This stirred up a brief reverie in Tsaxlei’s heart, as she daydreamed of metal inexorably close to organic matter but for a few code switches, evolving to produce soil, then plants; life. But for a few changes in input or direction, be they through free will, external forces, or pure happenstance, how different everything might be. She imagined fantastic animals moving freely over the surface of the asteroid, aglow in the reflected sunlight that beamed day and night off the shimmering surface of Apix. And she, the golden-cloaked planet, would be radiant in their heavens for what amounted to their eternity.
Muffled noises from upstairs broke Tsaxlei from her idle thoughts, and she sensed a shift in her companion’s stance. Suddenly, there was a light rap on the door, then a louder bang, and in the darkness, she saw him move his hand to something under his uniform’s chest covering, no doubt a weapon or possibly an explosive, as Faarkwari were infamous for blowing themselves or their ships up, although they tended to do so in a way that inflicted maximum casualties on the other side. “Hey, it’s Gonzhe-” There was faint giggling. “Sorry, this door is really fucking heavy, give me a sec-” Tsaxlei then heard a male voice, but he spoke so low it was impossible to make out his words, and then the door was slowly pushed in. Kawe stood, ready to take whatever action was required, but all they saw was Gonzhe tip-toeing partway down the stairs, still wearing her slinky dress but now in slippers. “Sorry, the coast’s not clear yet, but we thought you guys might get hungry. Oh, and there’s a translator thing since they took your computer.” Gonzhe blythely dangled a basket at them, which Tsaxlei stepped up to collect.
“Thanks.” Momentarily overwhelmed with renewed outrage at having lost her computer, Gonzhe was heading back up the stairs before Tsaxlei thought to inquire, “what kind of translator thing?”
“Oh, we accidentally stole it from a Spreng-“
The male voice, who turned out to be the bartender Thassov, shushed her, and told them all to keep their voices down and to rap three times, slowly and loudly, if they needed something, but to only do so if it was an emergency. They were going to block and cover the entrance to the cellar so it was not obvious to outsiders.
“Thank you,” Kawe said in Naepreu language, the first words he had spoken in nearly an hour. This was despite the fact that the entire conversation had been in Yslani.
“Wait, you stole it from a Spreng?! How-“
“Yeah, Xüdth thought it was a bottle – just talk into it! There’s a screen too if you can read-” And then the door heaved shut again.
Tsaxlei set the basket beside her on the trunk and scanned its contents with a thoughtfully provided flashlight. There was a small container packed with some sort of cooked food, two Yslin-style spoons, two empty bottles (the purpose of which dawned on Kawe first), two cups, a jug of liquid she assumed was water, and a sort of clear cylinder with gold and crimson edges, a funnel-like hood at its top and a panel attached to the front at its base, slightly wider than the cylinder itself. Upon examining the cylinder further, the inscriptions were clearly in the Spreng language, and the unnecessarily opulent detailing and enameled casing for the typical Spreng low-tech, self-replenishing “air battery” made its owner so apparent that Tsaxlei could not begin to imagine how a bunch of bar workers in a dingy mining colony’s even dingier entertainment district aft colony encountered a Spreng, let alone got their hands on one of their prized tools of intergalactic diplomacy.
“It’s a Spreng converter, alright,” Tsaxlei said, but there was no response from Kawe, who spoke barely any Naepreu, zero Yslani, and without this device, would be completely unable to provide any hint as to what had taken place upstairs an hour ago. Tsaxlei was not very familiar with Spreng technology besides what was divulged in the general media on Hir and the Ryviu colony, both of which diverged widely in their portrayals of the Spreng, alternately depicting them as gentlemen poet-philanthropists or bloodthirsty, carnivorous monsters, but she could understand his potential reluctance to using it – one thing she did know was that Sprengs liked everything to be multi-functional, so it was very unlikely that this machine was merely a translator. Faarkwari, meanwhile, were both obsessed with espionage and planetary defense and subjected to surveillance in almost all aspects of daily life.
“I’m going to use the machine,” Tsaxlei announced in Faarkwari, or at least she hoped she said that. Kawe looked at her and furrowed the small part of his brow that could move; the rest was covered with thin plating which had a similar texture to skin but did not move in the same way. Tsaxlei somehow heard the cheery voice of her foreign language teacher echoing in her head, saying something like: “Remember, in everyday life the Rem b’thaal son [what the Faarkwari call themselves collectively] use insular and constantly evolving dialects to communicate with people in their gender, occupation, and rank in-groups. This class only provides a general overview of the grammatical structure, so don’t assume you can speak Faarkwari after you study it for a year or two!” Yeah, Tsaxlei rolled her eyes in the dark, everybody likes to talk about how easy Faarkwari is until they actually have to understand it beyond skimming brief declarations from their top officials.
She tried again. Maybe “thing” was a different category of object, so she needed to change the verb prefix. Tsaxlei glumly remembered she got an A in that class and ought to know if “thing” was classified as air, fire, earth, or water, and yet here they were. “I {generic female form} {air category modifier-}use machine,” she said, hoping she got the right “use” this time. Maybe she should have spent more time in undergrad reviewing what she studied and less time debating with Naepreu idiots.
“Don’t do,” Kawe said, in Naepreu, which Tsaxlei found vaguely irritating since she was making an effort and he didn’t exactly know “her” language better than she knew his. In fact, she realized, she was more than irritated. Was she just supposed to sit down here in silence, waiting to be found and summarily executed as a spy by his Faarkwari superior officers? His little gang was obviously up to something, and now she had been caught up in it. Sure, it wasn’t exactly his fault, she was the one who’d had the bright idea to go and interview a bunch of mine workers from a famously repressive and militaristic alien society in a dive bar, but at the very least, the guy owed her an explanation.
“Well, I’m just going to use it anyway,” Tsaxlei said breezily in Naepreu. Kawe did not move to pull out a weapon, blow himself up, strangle her, or otherwise object more strenuously to her proclamation, so she recalled Gonzhe’s advice – “just talk into it” – and held the top of the funnel toward her face, not wanting to actually insert any part of her body inside of it, because god only knew what was about to happen. If the tabloids were accurate, she’d somehow be sucked straight into a Spreng’s gullet.
“Hello, do you understand me?” she said.
The machine produced a cacophony of hissing, choking and clicking sounds which they both recognized as the uniquely uncomfortable sounds of the Spreng language. She noted, however, that the screen displayed the slanted, right-to-left Spreng writing on the top half and below it, the rune-like, left-to-right letters of Naepreu, transcribing her words precisely. It also read, presumably in both languages, “Speech input recognized: Naepreu language/Hir planet/Hon Heia star/” and then a long series of numbers.
So far so good, Tsaxlei thought. She wondered idly if the converter was programmed for Yslani, her other native language, but it only responded with a series of humiliating beeps and a bunch of Spreng writing on the screen. And thus, as was generally the case, for instance in all of her university studies, she had to use what she considered the language of her hated oppressors in order to do anything more than chit-chat with other Yslin or sing along with Yslani pop music.
“Please translate from Naepreu to Faarkwari, using voice and text.”
The cylinder produced what sounded to Tsaxlei like perfect Faarkwari, a stately-sounding language that tended to rise gently in long sentences and then slowly flatten before dropping to a low, barely-voiced register to signal completion, as she had heard it spoken in speeches made at assemblies and other broadcasts. Yslani was more melodious, breathy and blurred, and both Yslani and the related Naepreu language included guttural sounds and complex consonant and vowel clusters, whereas Faarkwari was generally composed of clear, staccato syllables. While the language always sounded soothing to Tsaxlei in its predictable rhythm, the transcripts of these official briefings came off as dry, formulaic, and utterly lacking in the usual political pomp and flattery.
On the screen, there were two options for displaying the vertical Faarkwari text, the numerical codes which Kawe had emblazoned on several areas of his uniform and the elegant script of the old phonetic alphabet which her teacher said was still taught on Gondil, albeit only in the capacity of a cultural asset. She turned the cylinder to show Kawe the screen, and he leaned forward and selected the numerical codes with a cybernetic finger which then retracted partway back into its sheath. Vaguely illuminated in bluish-purple hues by the backlit screen, delicate black eyelashes blinked rapidly over his two natural eyes, an anomaly for the Faarkwari she was determined to find a moment to ask him about, and if she was not mistaken, Kawe let out a small breath, as though he had been holding it inside himself for some time.
“There, now we can communicate,” Tsaxlei said.
“Everything we say will be transmitted and used in ways we cannot imagine,” said Kawe. “Are you prepared to accept this reality?”
Caught a bit off guard by the tone and content of Kawe’s first real words to her, Tsaxlei reacted with sarcasm, her most common first line of defense.
“I was just going to ask if you were hungry.”
There was a pause, she regretted being so patronizing, and then came another answer she would never have expected:
“Certainly, let’s eat. We must be grateful for the blessings of nature.”