Prologue

“[Okay…]” the alien began, “[where, when I guess, should I start?]”

It was speaking its native language, called ‘Inglish’, according to Tasser.

“All… start…” the alien said, switching tongues. It looked toward Tasser, checking if it had made any mistakes with the words. Tasser waffled a hand back and forth, but said nothing. The soldier wasn’t supposed to say anything.

“This. All. Start…when…’I’,” it gestured to itself, “stop. Being. On. Planet.”

Serralinitus gave Tasser an appalled look. How had he managed to communicate with this thing at all? The Ase held up a hand to quiet the alien when it looked like he might continue.

“Tasser, how much will it understand if I ask a question?”

“He.” The alien corrected, “Caleb. ‘He’.”

“Depends entirely on the question.” Tasser said honestly.

Serralinitus scrunched his face into a Casti scowl. He’d given the soldier an incredible amount of leeway because of his rapport with the Caleb-alien. It might have gone to Tasser’s head.

“Venturing onto dangerous ground there,” Serralinitus warned, “What’s your impression of its general intelligence? Math? Science? Language? What can we expect from it?”

“Most of that didn’t really come up during the trip here, but he’s intelligent enough to recognize things like telescopic zoom, germs, and other scientific concepts. He’s been picking up stray pieces of vocabulary so quickly, it’s actually creepy.”

“[Show the words.]” Tasser said in Caleb’s language.

“Hello, I’m Caleb. I am not hostile.” He replied. The grammar was flawless.

“He has no idea what that means does he?” Serralinitus sighed.

“Well, he has some idea.” Tasser started to protest, “But—”

Serralinitus cut him off.

“This debrief was premature. Hunt around the borough for educational materials. We have an accredited school on the other side of town. There has to be someone who can teach it—” he saw Caleb about to say something and corrected himself before, “—him, how to speak more than one syllable at a time.”

There wasn’t anyone, in fact.

·····

Tasser was stuck with the job. For no other reason than he had a few more hours experience with the alien than anyone else. Rapport, even just a sliver, carried weight.

“Okay, you’re skipping over some of the important words.” Tasser said.

“What I skip?” Caleb asked brokenly.

“Well, the tense conjugation for one…” Tasser said. Caleb rolled his eyes and Tasser nodded having realized what he’d said. They both knew he didn’t know the word ‘conjugation’.

“There’s ways to change verbs, just a tiny bit, that changes their meaning.” Tasser said, “What you said should have been ‘what did I skip’. Because you’re talking about something from the recent and relevant past.”

“Past, I get it.” Caleb nodded along.

“Alright then, back to the actual question, ‘if Thahira gives twelve blocks to Olegk, and she’s left with three, how many did she start with?’”

Caleb took his time, thinking through each word entirely in his head before he said anything aloud. “Thehira started…” Caleb emphasized the past tense, “with fifteen blocks. Which is just excessive number; who need fifteen block?”

Tasser smiled a bit. Commentary and humor like that was good. It was exactly what they were looking for. Even if he was likely stitching together phrases he’d heard in context rather than completely understanding each word, his comprehension was improving. Caleb had struggled for the first few days with Casti arithmetic. The human used base-ten, just like the Vorak did.

Casti and Farnata knew base-10 counting, it wasn’t that much of a challenge to go up to a larger base. But teaching their base-8 counting to Caleb had been difficult. In this case, they weren’t actually working on his math right now. It was a multi-purpose grammar and problem-solving test where there was a very limited list of acceptable forms for the response.

He was learning in all subjects, but every book Tasser had picked up on teaching said that usage was a better metric of progress than sterile tests. And tests had been their only option for a couple weeks now.

Still, Tasser had found Caleb to be frighteningly quick on the uptake. It was almost binary; Caleb would either be completely stumped on a new word or concept, or he would make rapid and steady progress. And over time, the alien was trending much more toward the latter than the former.

Vocabulary was one that stuck out. His understanding of individual words wasn’t perfect, but after hearing a word repeated carefully, Caleb remembered it. Tasser had not yet had to reteach any words to Caleb.

They’d started with a vocabulary list of ten words per week, but he’d memorized the whole thing practically on the spot. He’d only accelerated from there. Caleb was memorizing about thirty words a day.

Using them properly and intuitively? Not so much.

Even if he could memorize the word and how to say it, he couldn’t instantly connect it to a meaning.

“He doesn’t forget things.” Nai noticed.

“I know,” Tasser said, “I don’t think it’s normal for him though. He’s talked about something in his head, but we aren’t far enough along for me to know what he means.”

Nai glowered at the alien. She didn’t take her eyes off him if they were in the same room. Caleb and Nai had put up with each other on the road, but the Vorak hadn’t come anywhere near them since attempting to storm Demon’s Pit. Weeks without a common enemy nearby had forced more of their attention onto each other.

“What about him has you willing to chip in like this? You don’t have to be the one to teach it.” Nai said.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Tasser retorted, “Caleb isn’t even close to fluent, but he still managed to convey why he doesn’t like you: you scare him. But he didn’t just save my life, you know. Yours too.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I guess not,” Tasser admitted, “you’re Adept, so you probably don’t have as much exposure to grunt logistics, but Nemuleki and I don’t fit into the duty rosters here. This keeps me busy, and it needs to be someone. I have the rapport. Who else would do it?”

Nai narrowed her eyes at him and Tasser flinched. He thought that would have sated her.

“Fine.” Tasser said, “It’s important. This work matters. And I like the work itself. I like Caleb.”

“He’s an alien that you know nothing about.” Nai scoffed, “His people could be unabashedly evil, enslaving each other or something. For all you know, betrayal could be a virtue in their culture.”

Tasser actually laughed at that, “Yes, because every member of our species’ are paragons of virtue.”

Nai rolled her eyes. She was being melodramatic, but Tasser didn’t actually think she was wrong. He could imagine plenty of ideas Caleb’s species could bring that would make it painful to connect with him.

“Still, because I know you’re just trying to look out for me, I will endeavor to be careful. Okay?”

Nai deigned to pause her scrutiny of Caleb long enough to meet Tasser’s gaze. She didn’t like it, but Nai had made plenty of hard decisions far worse than this one. She reluctantly nodded at Tasser.

“Alright now…” Tasser said, turning back to resume working with Caleb.

“I got…every sixth word.” Caleb said, looking between the two of them.

Tasser didn’t miss the alarm on Nai’s face. She was too used to being able to talk freely around the alien without being understood.

“That’s actually progress; quite the accomplishment,” Tasser said frankly.

·····

A few weeks later Caleb had improved enough to start negotiating basic requests.

Some were more important than others.

“Need. Garment.” Caleb said, “These are… fthbt…” The human made a squelching sound with his mouth gesturing to his worn and shoddy clothes. He was wearing the frayed clothing that he said didn’t fit him, but Tasser didn’t quite have the eye to know if he was correct or not.

Humans, like Farnata, seemed to need clothes more than Casti. Nai had bundled up in a heavy jacket every time she’d gone outside.

“Your species just can’t handle the cold as well, can they?” Tasser asked, maybe a bit smug.

“Yes. Too cold for humans.” Caleb said.

“Well no Casti clothes are going to fit him.” Dyn said, fiddling with a box apparatus, “Here, keep this still.”

The Faranata physician put a finger on Caleb’s forehead, making him lie down, and held the side of the box with a series of plates to Caleb’s chest.

“Don’t move for a moment.” Tasser told Caleb.

He did so, warily eyeing Dyn’s device. It whirred and hummed for a few moments before falling silent. The Farnata withdrew it and slid his chair over to a desk with a much larger machine apparatus.

The small box fitted into a slot on the apparatus, and it began talking to the other machine, decoding the reading it had taken from Caleb’s torso.

“All that’s left for today is a blood draw.” Dyn said, enunciating the words so Caleb wasn’t caught off guard “Blood. Draw. Ready?”

Caleb glowered, but presented an arm to Dyn.

“Not a fan of needles?” Tasser asked.

“[Otters] did this,” Caleb said, “Did not permission ask me. Violent about it.”

“Bad grammar, but I think I understand what you mean.” Tasser nodded.

“That’s odd.” Dyn murmured, “First Contact procedures bar that kind of thing, explicitly.”

“Well, a lot of First Contact hasn’t been followed very closely. I’m curious about how he wound up on a Vorak station in the first place.”

“Yes,” Caleb nodded along, “How on a Vorak station?”

“So is he, apparently.” Dyn said, right before sticking a needle into Caleb’s arm. He winced, and visibly fought the reaction to tense his arm. This wasn’t the first sample of his blood they’d taken.

Dyn was running a regular battery of tests, trying to anticipate what illnesses might befall the alien.

Their quarantine had been a failure from the start, and after it had been literally torn apart, there hadn’t been much point keeping him isolated. No one on base had fallen gravely ill yet, and no one in town had reported any alarming symptoms either.

Odds were good that Caleb wasn’t the concern here. The longer time dragged on without anyone reacting adversely to him, the more they had to be concerned about the other way around.

Luckily, Caleb was definitely Enumius. It was a point in their fortune.

“Here, show him his blood. The meta-microbes.” Tasser suggested.

“Will he know what he’s looking at? If I didn’t know what I was looking at, I’d probably be disturbed seeing those in my blood.” Dyn noted.

“I think I can explain it.” Tasser said.

“You’re just making it up as you go along aren’t you?”

“I was personally selected for my peerless wisdom by Ase Serralinitus to teach Caleb our alien ways,” Tasser said serenely, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Dyn chuckled, but beckoned Caleb to come over to a microscope on one of the countertops. The physician extruded a single drop of blood onto a glass slide and put it in a slot on the microscope.

“Take a look,” Dyn gestured for Caleb to look through the eyepiece.

“[Whoa…]” Caleb said, “[What, literally, not on Earth are those?]”

After a second, he seemed to remember that he was looking at his own blood.

“Little… moving shapes… is those bad?” Caleb asked Tasser.

Tasser went out of his way to try and shake his head. It wasn’t an intuitive gesture for Casti, but Farnata and Human both seemed to recognize it. “They’re safe. You made them, unconsciously.”

“I don’t know what unconsciously means.” Caleb said. That was a phrase he’d had endless practice in.

“It’s part of being Enumius . Without thinking, your body creates them in your blood. It’s automatic, just like you don’t have to think about your heart beating.”

“Odd.” Caleb said, “They safe?”

“Yes,” Tasser said, “They’re anti-germs, even better than your body’s natural immune system.”

“Anti-germs?” Caleb asked.

“Meta-microbes, specifically.” Dyn added, “They’re one of the first signs an Enumius has activated.”

“Very odd.” Caleb said, trying to participate, “Is cool to see, but I need garments.”

“I’ll see if there’s any Farnata stuff on base that might fit you.” Dyn said, “But don’t get your hopes up. There’s not a lot of us around here. We’ll find something to work short term and get you to someone who can actually make you a sensible wardrobe.”

“Thanks.” Caleb said, “Why can’t you be helpful so, Tasser?”

Dyn looked a bit shocked the alien had been so rude with the Casti, but Tasser brushed it off.

“It’s in good fun, he thinks he’s being funny.”

“I am funny.” Caleb said.

“Well, since we’re all done with medical for today, we’re going back to [skool] now. You talk with Ase Serralinitus next week.”

Caleb grinned at Tasser using an Inglish word, even badly. But then he heard the second part of what Tasser had said.

The human’s mood was often relaxed, even easygoing at times. Tasser had watched him slowly become less tense as the weeks passed since the Vorak’s last attack. But mentioning talking with Serralinitus brought Caleb right back to sharp focus.

“I’m ready. Let’s more speak some Sasat.”

Dyn nearly broke out laughing as the two of them left the medical ward.

·····

“I was on a spaceship. There were twenty-four of us…” Caleb trailed off as he tried to search for the right word. He wasn’t eager to talk about the experiences leading to their encounter on Korbanok. Still, this would be the third debrief in as many months. Their last one had revealed some important details about his experiences before running across Nai, but there were still too many gaps, things Caleb was visibly eager to communicate, simply unable.

Namely, that he hadn't been alone.

“The Vorak have twenty-four of you?” Serralinitus asked.

Caleb visibly hesitated, “No. No… not… any longer. They are…” He looked to Tasser for help.

“You. Me. Nai.” Caleb said, pointing to his own body, “We are whole, okay, good. What’s the word for someone… not like that? Someone… like orange Vorak. Not okay, never again okay.”

The ‘orange Vorak’ had been identified as Ramsten Sendin Marfek of the Red Sails. Tasser had shot the Vorak Adept before she could kill the human. Tasser knew Something about watching the Vorak die in front of him affected Caleb. He didn’t like to talk about that day any more than he did Korbanok.

“Dead?” Tasser asked.

Serralinitus froze, waiting to see Caleb’s reaction to the word.

“Dead,” Caleb said, sounding the word out. Tasser recognized what he was doing. He did the same thing when Tasser went over vocabulary with him. He was committing it to memory, one sound, one letter, one syllable at a time.

“Someone dead, they… don’t get up again. Right? Forever? Dead?”

Tasser nodded gravely.

“The twenty-three others,” Caleb nodded, voice quiet, “they’re dead.”

“How?” was all Serralinitus asked. Tasser leaned forward too, eager for the answer. Up until know, there had been no indication from Caleb about anyone similar to him. These were the first answers they might receive about his species beyond just Caleb himself.

“I… don’t know. Air. They did not breathe.”

“Wait, ‘did’ or ‘could’?” Tasser asked. He’d mostly learned the difference, but Caleb still mixed them up occasionally.

“They…weren’t able to. ‘Could’ not breathe.” Caleb corrected.

“I don’t understand,” Serralinitus said, “The ship, it was how you came to Korbanok?”

Caleb nodded, “The ship was… it didn’t have any Vorak. Just me, dead humans, and one—” He snapped his jaw shut.

“One… what?” Serralinitus asked.

“…One more human.” Caleb said, “At first… just twenty-two dead.”

“This other human,” Serralinitus said, “it died too?”

Caleb didn’t visibly react, but that was answer enough.

His commander wasn’t familiar enough with the alien’s demeanor to catch Caleb’s stress, but Tasser had watched him go barehanded against a Vorak Adept with barely any hesitation. Serralinitus didn’t have the tools to recognize the problem, but he did recognize that Tasser saw something concerning.

“Should we revisit this another time?” He asked Tasser.

“Done?” Tasser relayed to Caleb.

The human nodded to him, “Done. No more right now.”

·····

“[A, B, C…]” Caleb said, pointing out diagrams on a sheet he’d etched with a pen. His grasp of Sasat was improving enough to impart some of his own language.

“Your language is ridiculous,” Tasser protested.

“Correct,” Caleb said, “But, so is Sasat .”

“Okay,” Tasser sighed, turning his attention back to ‘Inglish’. “What does the name of your language even mean?”

“[English?] I mean, the [ish] part just means… ‘of’, I guess. [England] was the homeland of the language.”

“So the language’s name just means ‘of this one spot’?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said this was spoken all over your planet.”

“It is. I’m not even [English], they… well, I don’t know the word for it, but they were in charge of us a few hundred years ago. We fought. They lost. We still speak their language though.”

“Colonization.” Tasser said, “you’re talking about colonization.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Caleb said dryly, “Why’d you even want to know what the name of the language was?”

“I was curious to see how you translated the name for Sasat .”

“What does it mean?” Caleb asked.

Tasser just looked at him expectantly.

“[Oh come on,]” Caleb complained, “you’re going to make me do the word root stuff?”

“Fifty-one days ago you said, ‘Tasser, I’m going to hate this, but you need to make sure I do it. It’s important.’ Here I am, making sure.”

“[Hate it when I do that…]” Caleb muttered. Tasser assumed it was some sort of ‘Inglish’ expletive.

“What other words do you know that have the same component roots?”

“Literally, dozens. But I don’t know what they mean.” Caleb sat down and put his fingers to his temples like he was trying to focus on something he was imagining.

“If I give you a similar word I don’t know, can you talk around it some, give me meanings?”

“Sure.”

“Satrusc, ” Caleb said.

‘Starlight’ was the word, but repeating it back to him would be pointless. He wanted to compare definitions.

“Light made by exploding balls of gas scattered throughout the void,” Tasser shared.

“Satinessti.” Caleb said.

“Uhh, that one is actually a bit misleading… but it’s a rock that would fall from the void onto a planet, and the air would heat it up and make it glow while it fell.”

“Satunefi .”

“That’s not quite one word. Satune is one of those big exploding balls of gas, but specifically one that has planets orbiting it. The term is used very loosely and widely though, it’s called—”

“A metaphor, I know.” Caleb said, “Dyn had to help me out with that.”

Tasser shrugged, “Sorry. Casti just don’t take to comparison like you.”

“Funny,” Caleb deadpanned, “but I think I got the roots.”

“Both of them?”

“Well I knew ‘Sa’ had something to do with talking. ‘Sasat’ means something like ‘star talking’? [Starspeak]?”

“I’ll have to take your word on the ‘Inglish’.” Tasser said, trying to hide Caleb’s paper with the [alphabet] on it. Caleb's hand snapped forward, snatching it back and keeping it between them.

The human was so fast. It boggled Tasser's mind.

“Nice try. I’ve spent months learning how to speak this, now you have to learn some of my language,” Caleb insisted.

“I have other assignments to do besides just watching you. Besides, I can’t absorb words like you do. How do you do that anyway?”

“It’s an Enumius thing,” Caleb said, “I don’t even know how to describe it in English, much less Starspeak.”

“…Err… how? I might not have the ability, but I do know the theory extensively. Call me crazy, but I haven’t seen you materialize anything when you memorize words.”

“It’s not something I ‘materialize’. It’s just in my head.”

“Caleb, ‘materializing’ is what being Enumius is about. If it doesn’t involve making a material, it’s not Enumius related.”

“You’re not getting out of homework, Tasser. I’ve suffered under your [tyranny] too long! This is payback.”

Tasser bit off a few choice insults for the sake of interspecies rapport. Even months in, they were still technically under First Contact protocols, such as they remained at least.

“Fine, I wasn’t going to tell you this until later, but you’re being rude. We’re sitting down with Ase Serralinitus again. Are you ready?”

Caleb’s demeanor switched like a light, suddenly dead serious. That was uncanny; he'd gone through precisely the same switch in attitude almost a month ago. Tasser had perhaps hoped for a bit of antipathy, even just for show. But Caleb always took these debriefs seriously.

If Tasser understood one thing above all others in regard to Caleb, it was that he wanted to know what happened to him every bit as much as the Coalition did.

·····

The most recent of Caleb’s debriefs was making far better progress. The human had come a long way in the last month. A few of the glaring questions and miscommunications were finally being cleared up.

Finally getting some answers would only help the situation.

Caleb had had a rough time of it though, even before running afoul of the Vorak.

“I didn’t know then, but it was Enumius stuff. Blades and needles coming out of the walls. I don’t know how to describe the thing I made, but I’m learning more and more.”

“The…’flash’ you said, it was preceded by rumbling?” Serralinitus asked.

Caleb nodded.

“It sounds like you skipped. You’re sure the craft was automated?”

“…No. I’m not sure. We couldn’t get through the sealed sections, but no one else showed themselves, even when the whole ship started falling apart. Why is an automated ship so surprising?”

“For going on a trajectory, it’s not.” Tasser explained, “But those flashes you experienced were probably the ship space-skipping.”

Caleb just raised an eyebrow curiously. Tasser didn’t even miss a beat, ready to explain.

“It’s super advanced technology that’s how ships move from star to star,” he said, “It’s also been observed to be universally detrimental to experience while you’re unconscious.”

“But why it so surprising to see an automated ship do it?”

“A computer can easily maintain a ship’s course with basic corrections. But it takes some very context-sensitive planning to successfully execute a skip. No machine could do so consistently…” Tasser continued.

“Or so we thought.” Serralinitus finished. “You’ve mentioned that some of the devices you have are supposed to be powerful computers?”

“Yeah, even just one of them is a better computer than the entire moon landing. Is it really that surprising?”

“Yes.” Tasser said frankly, “The way you describe your planet’s computer technology sounds… far-fetched, to say the least.”

“Do you have any idea if your people’s ship was meant to enter skipspace?” Serralinitus probed.

“Wait, what? ‘My people’s ship’?” Caleb asked incredulously.

Serralinitus frowned, “You said the Vorak detained you and your ship.”

“No…” Caleb said, “I misspoke, or you misheard.”

“Well, this is why we’re debriefing like this. Eliminate ambiguity,” Tasser said.

“The ship I was on wasn’t from Earth. It came to our planet, took us into space, and a few weeks later, I’m in a Vorak cell on… what was it, Korbanok?”

Tasser nodded, stunned.

“You’re sure it wasn’t a human ship?” Serralinitus asked carefully.

“I wound up on that ship after I got pulled a few dozen feet into the air by an invisible force and thrown in a box. Earth has rockets, sure. But ours can’t just leave the system on a whim. We made it to our planet’s moon, and we’ve put devices on the closest planet, but we’re not casually travelling ‘the void’.”

He put a bit of extra emphasis on the Casti label for outer space.

“You were taken, directly from your home, against your will?”

“Yes.”

The two Casti stared at the alien, the abductee .

Oh, this was so much worse.