Chapter Text
"Welcome home, and have a wonderful time, Doctor Zyrrs!" The ship chirped as the boarding doors opened out to the dock.
I stepped out, holding my face, my luggage hovering not far behind me. I thanked the ship out of habit and approached the mover at the far end. I saw the stacked bays beyond the glass and the precipitous height at which I stood. This was only halfway up the structure. Dozens of ships buzzed in and out of their cells, each one as big as the ship I'd just disembarked, each little more than specks in the distance.
The transport tube pulled me down. Tirotiro wasn't the largest hub planet, but it wasn't the smallest by any means. I should've felt more relief at coming home, but right now I was feeling anything but. The moment the tube sank into solid wall I yanked my kit down and let it fall.
I felt my heart pounding as I scrabbled through my things. There weren't any cameras in these tubes. It was unlikely that anything interesting would happen in the trip between here and there, but that's exactly what I was planning to exploit. I really should've organized this better.
As I grabbed my scanner, I thought about just how much unscrupulous knowledge I possessed. It's not like I could help it. There's just a perverse fascination to learning the limits of the rules. The only difference between me and anyone else was how frequently my field work brought me to places with less than stellar reputations. It was purely incidental that I learned some things here and there, but never did I think I'd actually use any of it.
I swabbed my saliva and inserted it into the decoder. I'd already set up the necessary algorithms beforehand and so it was only a matter of moments. The data rod popped out of its slot. I grabbed it and quirked my palps. Fifty years of incarceration between my fingertips.
I tucked it away and grabbed my laser projector. Normally I'd use it for microsurgical dissections, but today was a little different. My hands shook. If I'd had more time I would coded in some kind of termination gene, or chemical weakness, but this was all I had. If only the scanners on Tirotiro were as poor as the ones on Luoma.
Come on, Zyrrs...
This is going to hurt a whole lot less than getting caught...
The pain exploded into my head. Nerves screamed and muscles clenched. It was like biting the sun. My palps locked against the agony as the beam scorched through flesh. I could smell the sickening scent of burning Fyrix through my greatly obtunded senses. My hands shook with the effort as I struggled to keep the beam steady.
Burn it out...
The taste of blood replaced the taste of agony, and then silence. I doubled over, dropping the laser to the ground. Little flecks of flash-dried blood and skin drifted to the floor. I wiped my mouth, feeling the pinpoint pain dilute across the whole left side of my face.
Well...
It wasn't as bad as the time I lost an arm to a Slynx, but it was definitely up there on the (unfortunately) long list of things I never wanted to experience again. I used some medigel on my burns and tried to collect myself. The tube opened and my luggage drifted into the air. I went back to holding my face, but this time I wasn't pretending.
I fell in beside all the other creatures of different shapes and sizes as we filed into the scanners. My luggage went in before me. It was quick. The arm swept around me as it had thousands of times before. I remained calm when it chimed and directed me into one of the booths. It was routine.
I sat inside. An interface appeared, displaying all the discrepancies and oddities. My baseline mental state, my level of stress, the unregistered data which bore the Fyrix key signature, as well as the burns on my face.
Classified, Classified, Classified, Laboratory Accident. Contact Fyrix command if nature of discrepancy must be obtained. I sent the form and the machine hung, spinning its chevrons as I tried to suppress my stress. How did smugglers do this for a living...?
It kept spinning. It was *actually* contacting the Fyrix, wasn't it? I hadn't expected that. I massaged my face out of nerves and waited. It chimed, and then the door opened. I stopped myself from sagging in relief. That had all been legitimately classified information, so it wasn't a surprise they didn't catch the one thing out of place. I didn't enjoy having that on file, but it would be fine as long as I disposed of the actual data later.
I stepped into the greater swarm of bustling travelers with a perverse glee spreading through me. It's a good thing there weren't any Fyrix here. They'd know I'd been up to no good. I was a good citizen, and this was a good cause, but still. I didn't expect pulling one over on the Sovereignties to feel this good!
The familiar sights and diminished scents came flooding back to me. It's hard to believe it'd only been about 150 standard spans since I'd taken off. Gone was the clean homogeneity. The buildings were tall and industrial, the walkways filled with various shapes and figures bobbing, skittering, and lurching in their various ways.
I hailed down an autolift and stepped inside, forgetting for a moment to swipe my piece and charge it to my account. In those short six Luoman days I'd become quite accustomed to simply taking things. The concept of currency was repulsive to the Fyrix. To them money, power, and influence were all one and the same. You could take anything so long as it would sufficiently aggrandize its owner.
We swept over the city and all the bright lights that streaked by down below like a second sea of stars. That being said, the Fyrix controlled an alarming amount of chips. They saw it as a lesser form of value used only between the lesser races, but even they couldn't deny its utility completely.
The lower castes were so desperate to raise themselves that they would subject themselves to all kinds of miserable tasks. Because of that it wasn't difficult at all for them to raise funds that any race outside of the major 21 would balk at. Ethics committees had attempted to intervene many times in the past, but they were all rebuffed when the 'abused and neglected workers' they came to help had shouted at them to go warp into the nearest sun.
I checked my account and twisted my palps wryly. The full payment for thirty Luoman days of specialist consulting. You'd sooner solve the origin equation than see that from a Denurian.
I rolled the data rod around in my fingers. I'd been too nervous to leave it with my other things. It was widely hypothesized that the Fyrix could grow to contend with the Arborans and the Klett if only they'd embrace some more open-minded positions on trade and travel. Fortunately for the rest of the universe, they repeatedly refused.
The autolift swooped down and stopped over a rooftop pad. I jumped out and took my things, curling my tarsi in the cool vegetation. I might not be the most exemplary Fryix, but I still loved fresh foliage. The scanner saw me and announced my presence. Moments later the door swung open.
"Zyrr?!" The Vextrid's eyes swirled, her nictitating membrane sweeping across the blue expanse in surprise, "I thought you were still on Luoma!"
"Hey, Chaxa."
I opened my arms. Her actual name was Chaxalonnurith Massaronious Khemler, but there were very few beyond the Vextrids themselves who had the patience. She took my open invitation and bumped the bottom of my chin with her nose. Just something they did.
"What's that you're holding?" She asked.
"Oh, this is..." I waved it around nervously, "It's a little... Hey, you used to do linguistic analysis for the Contact and Survey Office, right?"
Chaxa tilted her head, "Yeah...?"
"You still, ehh... Any good?"
Her blue orbs shifted, eyeing me suspiciously, "Alright, what's this about? Zyrr, you're being really weird."
"Yeah, sorry..." I squeezed the rod with both hands and walked inside, suddenly a little nervous being out in the open like that, "It's just... I need a little bit of a favor."
"Of course!" She shut the door, "Are you okay...? Ohmyheart, Zyrrs! What happened to your mouth?!" She asked, suddenly panicked.
The usual Chaxa. I quirked my palps, feeling a strange comfort in her distress, "It's nothing. Don't worry about it. I just had a bit of an... experience back on Luoma."
"How was it?" She asked, wringing all four of her slippery hands as she hovered behind me, "It must've been weird visiting your home planet after so long!"
"It was a lot worse than I remembered, and I don't remember it being particularly pleasant."
She nodded silently. I opened the cooler and took out some bottled hisk nectar. The only thing I missed about Luoma was the near omnipresence of fresh stuff.
"Yeah, it's been... Gosh, how long...?"
"Maybe seventy years. I'd barely finished my final molt before the caretaker sent me off planet because of my disability, so I didn't really get a good look at it, and after my stint at the institute I came down with that stereotypical yearning and decided to explore my roots. Learn more about my heritage and all that... Well, you know the rest."
I upturned the bottle into my palps. It stung my burns, but it filled me with a deep warmth. I thought about all those other species with their varied diets and felt something close to guilt. For all their rituals around meals, if they had hisk they wouldn't even want anything else. Of course, I was biased. My body was uniquely dedicated to metabolizing the stuff. It was quite poisonous, and the nanthe it produced in my ducts was officially classified as a biological hazard.
"I still can't believe they think you've got a 'disability!'" Chaxa said, trying to cheer me up as she often does, "Your sense of smell is better than mine!"
"Well to the Fyrix I might as well be deaf, blind and dumb." I sat down, continuing to play with the data rod, "It is what it is..."
"How did your parents feel about that...?"
"The Fyrix don't really do the whole, 'parental love' thing. They'll have pride, sure, but most of the time they just have offspring in the hopes that they'll go on to raise their own prominence by proxy." I paused, "Mine... Well, they were the ones who arranged for me to be sent off planet, and now I realize that that was their love..."
"I'm sorry Zyrrs..." Chaxa bumped the bottom of my chin again, "Those snooty little jerks wouldn't know a good person if they came and kicked them up their stupid butts! You could descend as a demi-god and solve all conflict and they'd just say, 'pretty good for a non-Fyrix'! You're the best person I know, so... Fuck em!"
Then she seemed to recall something, "P-present company excluded of course...!" she added a nervous little laugh.
I laughed back and squeezed her hand, "Thanks."
"...So, ready to tell me what that's all about?"
"Oh, this?" I held it up, "It's a bunch of data for a bit of secret project that I want you to look at. I need some linguistic help."
"Okay---" She said and snatched it out of my hands. I immediately snatched it back and clutched it to my chest. She tilted her head.
"My machine's already set up, so it'll be easier if we just use mine." I stood and rummaged through my luggage. I couldn't tell her that it's because I'd severed my machine's telemetric connection. Just another one of those things you pick up.
Chaxa watched patiently, but was clearly a little worried, "I thought you only worked with animals. Since when are you interested in linguistics?"
"I've found an... interesting creature, and it might be more intelligent than it first appeared." I slid the rod in and booted it up, "I think it might be using an unregistered language."
"Oh!" Her eyes twisted in excitement, "Like some kind of radix semaphore, or neural impulse emission?"
"No, nothing that complicated. It's..." I pulled up the files, hiding everything else, "It would be faster if you just listened."
Chaxa accepted the computer and tuned the output to her implant. She flinched as the audio started, but after that, leaned in, "Didn't you say this was something you thought *might* be intelligent. This sounds like standard air-resonant communication."
"I told you, it's complicated..." It wasn't strange of me to assume the howler wasn't intelligent, was it? She hadn't seen the thing in action, "The creature in question is very wild and unpredictable. This is what their voice sounded like, but there weren't any indicators of intelligence besides speech."
I chose to keep the following incident to myself. She gripped her face with all four hands as her eyes nictitated in concentration. Even though the sound was going directly into her bones, the sounds of that creature were playing out clearly in my mind.
"...It's a predatory creature, so one hypothesis was that it learned to mimic language as a means to draw out a specific kind of prey." Her eyes swiveled to stare at me and I put up my hands, "It wasn't my theory!"
"Hmm..." She said, and then paused for a long time, "I don't think so. I'm identifying some repeated morphemes..." She paused again, nodding, "Yes, yes... There's different inflections. It's modulating up or down depending on context. It seems consistent. I doubt a creature could do that without also understanding the syntax."
I felt a little stupid. It sounded obvious when she put it like that, and almost instantaneously too, "Do you recognize the language?"
"Oh, Zyrrs, I wish!" She said with an apologetic expression, "I could think of a few it's similar to, but that's no help."
"Can you translate it?"
"This...?" She showed me her hands, "This is just a bunch of sounds...! Without any semantics there's no way I could decode the syntax."
"Please!" I said, leaning in, "This is important."
She leaned back, "Zyrrs, what's this all about...?"
"Okay, wait---" I snatched the computer and loaded up some images, "Does this help? I think it's the written language."
Her eyes roamed over the image, the ruined guts of an interstellar vessel. The waste and desolation, the hanging vines partially obscuring the scrawlings in the walls. I knew they were special. They weren't the idle scratchings of a predator. They were sharp, slanted, and maddeningly awkward, but there was something to them.
"What is..." She said, suddenly a little afraid, "Zyrrs, please. I-I don't know what's going on...!"
"It's important!" I repeated, "Anything! Even a single word would be enough!"
Chaxa stared at me, "O-okay, I'll try...!" She looked at the computer and flicked through the images, "Zyrrs...?" She asked, eyes screwing, "Why are there Fyrix in military uniforms in all these pictures?"
I remained silent and she swallowed, shaking a little bit, "Zyrrs...?!" She stared, "W-Why is there b-blood on the floor...?!"
I looked away, feeling ashamed, but desperate, and then I saw her dive into the data's signature. I felt my heart stop.
"Wait---!"
She threw the computer off her lap and screamed, "WHY DO YOU HAVE STOLEN SOVEREIGN DATA ON YOUR COMPUTER?!"
She leapt up and I dove to catch the computer, "Ohmygosh-ohmygosh---OHMYGOSH, ZYRRS WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"Calm down!" I should've expected this, "J-just breathe! I had no other choice, okay? I'll explain everything!"
"I-I'm going to prison!" She paced around hyperventilating, her hands stretching her silky green face, "Ohmybeatingheart!"
"No you're not!" I said seriously, "No one else knows I have this, and even if they did, you wouldn't be the one they'd take! It's going to be okay...!"
She looked at me, confused, hurt, and terrified, "W-what's gotten into you...? Th-this is insane..."
I collected myself and kneeled, grabbing one of her hands with both of mine, "There's this creature... The one making those noises... That's what they called me to Luoma to study. The Fyrix think he's a mindless beast, but he's not... He's intelligent, some kind of uncontacted race that's been exploited and tortured by some sick government, and if we don't do anything, they're going to kill him..."
I looked at her, pouring all of my heart into pleading expressions my physiology was never meant for, "It's my fault too... If I'd only been smarter." I squeezed hard, "But if I can find some way to communicate with it, I might be able to fix this! So please... Chaxa, if there's anything you can do, I'm begging you..."
She stared at me for a long time, two hands over her beating heart which was slightly visible through her semi-translucent flesh.
"Okay..." She said, breathing hard, "It's... It's a lot to take in."
"I know." I quirked my palps apologetically, finally standing up and letting go, "Thank you, Chaxa... I don't know how much time I have, but the sooner I can get any kind of evidence, the better."
"It would help if I knew what it looked like. There's a lot of clues I might be able to tease out if I knew the mechanics of its speech."
Fortunately the computer wasn't damaged, "Okay, but... Promise you won't freak out or anything. It's a little intense."
She shivered and took a fortifying breath, but ultimately nodded. I pulled up one of the pictures and spun the computer towards her. It was a simple capture of the howler sitting with his legs folded beneath him, staring at the camera. One of the rare moments he'd actually seemed aware of his surroundings.
"O-oh my!" Chaxa put only *one* hand to her heart, "It is quite intense!" She looked directly into the howler's eyes, "That's a predatory stare for sure! Oh, and look at how long and thick those arms are! There's no way I'd want to be near one, but with the way you were talking, I was expecting something made entirely of teeth or something...!" She laughed nervously.
"Oh, well it might not be so obvious from that picture..." I leaned over and chose a different file, one of the Fyrix leading him by collar and chain.
"OHMYGOSH!" Two hands to her heart, "It's enormous! I-I-I've never...!" She looked at me, "T-this thing is intelligent...?"
"I'm certain it is."
Chaxa filled her air sacks with another series of measured breaths before answering, "I'll do what I can."
"Thank you, Chaxa..." I bumped the bottom of her chin with my palps, trying to quell the worries in my heart that threatened to consume me.
I hoped he was still alive.