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Coming from the blessed darkness of her own quarters, Teleya blinked in the bright light of the corridor. It wasn't the only difficult thing about living on a human ship, but it certainly was the most constantly annoying. Was it really necessary to keep everything so glaringly lit?
She caught herself frowning over it, and plastered a smile on the strangely wide mouth of this character she was playing. Janel Tyler always smiled. She was cheerful and friendly—even while contemplating the utter destruction of every one of her current shipmates.
Teleya had managed the smile just in time—as she turned a corner, she found the doctor and a small human child coming toward her. Dr. Finn, she remembered.
"Lieutenant Tyler! How are you settling in?" the doctor asked, coming to a stop in front of her.
"Very well, thank you. This is a … really comfortable ship," she said, catching herself and remembering the casual human speech patterns she had studied so extensively. She smiled down at the child, a more genuine smile than usual. Determined as she was to take her revenge on the humans and on Captain Ed Mercer specifically, she missed being a teacher more than she had imagined possible. "And who is this?"
"This is my son, Ty. Ty, this is Lieutenant Tyler."
"Ty, Tyler. We're the same. Kind of," Ty said with a shy smile.
"Kind of."
"Lieutenant Tyler is the dark matter cartographer the captain brought aboard."
"Really?" The boy's eyes were wide and excited. "So you must know all sorts of secrets about the galaxy."
"More than you can possibly imagine." She had slipped a bit into her natural voice in the pride and triumph of knowing her own superiority over these soulless beings.
"Can you tell me about some of them?"
The child's enthusiasm brought the most genuine smile Teleya had yet managed aboard this ship. "Maybe sometime. If your mom says it's okay."
"We'll see. Now, don't you have some homework, young man?"
"Yes, ma'am." He went along with his mother willingly enough, but Teleya, watching him over her shoulder, saw him turn and wave, and waved back without thinking.
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Hurrying back from a meeting, desperate to regain the darkness of her own quarters, Teleya wasn't watching where she was going as she turned a corner, and she collided with someone else with a force that knocked the other person off his feet.
Looking down, nearly ready to snap at the clumsiness of this human in her usual fashion, Telaya recognized the doctor's child. Ty. He was blinking rapidly, trying not to cry from the suddenness and the pain, and she took pity on him, plastering Janel Tyler's smile on her face and reaching down to help him up. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"
"I'm—I'm fine, thank you. I'm sorry. I'm late for my piano lesson, and Isaac hates it when I'm late."
"The Kaylon is teaching you piano?"
"Oh, yes. Isaac's great."
"Really." Teleya was skeptical. Kaylon were not known for mingling with other species. She wondered if he was experimenting on the child. But if so, that was the fault of the child's mother, for allowing it to happen, she told herself. None of her concern. Her business on this ship was clearly defined. She would stick to it. "Well, run along now. Or maybe walk."
"Right." He smiled at her, and she found herself smiling in return. Teleya's smile, not Janel's.
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Teleya entered the mess hall, looking around for somewhere to sit. It wasn't necessary that she ingratiate herself with the Orville's crew, but there was always the possibility she might learn something to her people's advantage, so she forced herself to come here and eat their food and make 'small talk' as often as she could stomach.
She didn't see any of Janel's usual eating partners at the moment, though, and for a moment thought about turning and leaving, before she saw an arm shoot into the air and start waving to get her attention.
"Lieutenant Tyler! Over here." It was Ty, looking eager and excited to see her.
Teleya was touched. She had always had a good rapport with children, and she had missed that since she had made vengeance her primary goal. She approached the table, smiling. "Only if you call me Janel."
"Okay. Janel, do you know Isaac?"
"I believe we have met, Ty."
Teleya nodded, confirming. They had met as seldom as possible. While she didn't entirely believe in the claims of the Kaylon's exceptional intelligence, she believed enough to feel that it was wise to limit her exposure to this one. His primary goal was to observe humans—what if he saw something different enough in her reactions to alarm him? But she masked the apprehension as she sat down. "How are your piano lessons coming, Ty?"
He shrugged, looking trustingly up at the Kaylon. "What do you think, Isaac?"
"Ty is an adequate student. For a human."
"That's a big compliment," Ty translated, smiling. "Thanks, Isaac."
"You are welcome."
"Discover any cool new planets, Janel?"
"No planets, but I did find a fascinating patch of dark matter that appeared to be changing shape. Growing."
"Really?" Ty's eyes went wide. "How did you find it?"
She started telling him about it, finding him an attentive and enthusiastic listener. When the meal was over, for the first time she was almost sorry to return alone to her quarters. And when the doors closed behind her, she found she was still smiling, thinking of the child's eager barrage of questions. As the Kaylon had said, Ty was adequate, for a human. And it was definitely a compliment.
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The next time she saw him was in the corridor again. He was walking along carrying a book in his hands, deeply absorbed in its pages. So much so that he almost didn't see her until she was nearly on top of him.
Teleya put out a hand to stop him before he ran into her. It was the first time she had initiated physical contact with any crew member other than her target, Ed Mercer. "We have to stop meeting like this," she said, smiling, quoting a movie Ed had made her watch.
"Oh, Janel. I didn't see you there."
"Good book?" She hadn't seen many books on the ship, and she missed them. Missed the way the paper felt and the sound the pages made when they turned and the scent that rose from them.
"Really good. It's this old book from Earth called Dracula. You ever read it?"
She shook her head.
"It's about a vampire. You know what that is?"
"I'm afraid I don't."
"It's a creature of the night. They can't go out in the daylight or they burn up."
Teleya swallowed hard against the pain and rage the image brought up, thinking of what Ed Mercer had done to her shipmates. "Is this a … well-known book?"
"I think so. I mean, it's really old." Ty looked around them at the brightly lit corridor. "I wonder if a vampire would be affected by the artificial light."
"I doubt it."
"So maybe there are vampires on this ship." His voice was hushed with excited apprehension.
"Could be."
Ty twisted his face into a frown. "Nah. Vampires aren't real. My mom said so."
"Well, she would know."
He went on his way with his book, and Teleya continued down the corridor, thinking that the doctor's view of the galaxy was quite limited. One thing she had learned—the universe was too vast for any one person's imagination to contain it.
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It was possible that Teleya had learned the child's schedule. It was possible that she happened to be outside his classroom when school let out for the day. It was possible she missed teaching, missed the children.
It was possible that Ty Finn was the only part of this ship that actually meant anything to her.
His face lit up when he saw her. "Janel!"
"Hello, Ty. I wanted …" She cleared her throat. Above all, she could not let this feel like what it was—good-bye. "I found this book and I thought you might like it." She held it out. It was a human book, one she had seen on Ed Mercer's shelf and tracked down in the ship's library. She knew nothing about what it might actually contain, but the title spoke to her: Stranger in a Strange Land. She handed it to the boy. "I thought you might read it and then sometime we could … talk about it."
"Oh, wow. Thanks!" He turned the book over in his hands reverently. "That'd be great."
"It would," Teleya said wistfully, knowing that by the time he cracked the covers, she would be light-years away, and not just in distance. She wanted to tell him that he had taught her more about humanity than the rest of the ship combined; she wanted to tell him that he was the only person on this ship she would be sorry to leave behind. But to tell him anything would be to betray her mission, and that she could not do. "Take care of yourself."
He looked up, puzzled, but saw her smile and returned it with one of her own. "You, too, Janel."
Teleya walked away, the too-bright light of the human ship stinging her eyes and causing them to water. That was all it was.