Page 40 of Ava Greasemonkey

At least it wasn’t a silent walk back. Lirell seemed to have an insatiable appetite for hearing about the differences between Humans and themselves. Ava waited for a break in his questioning to ask one of her own.

“Lirell?”

Lirell tilted his head and looked questioningly at Ava.

“How does the reading my mind thing work? Can you see everything I know?”

He smiled, generous with his information. “Ah, no. We can only see what you are currently thinking of unless we break your mind. I’m not as good at reading present thoughts as the others even. I can only do very short range and can lose the meditative state easily unless I focus. I’m still learning, I can not break yet. Breaking is a new skill our people have learned . . .”

“Breaking . . . ?” Ava’s voice tripped over the word.

“You don’t need to worry about that. We would never do it to you,” Lirell rushed to assure her. He even went so far as to pat her on the shoulder, hand moving stiffly as if he was unsure how to touch her.

Ava held her tongue questioning him on that. Wert and the brutality toward the others was still fresh in her mind. “Are you scanning my mind all the time? Or only when you start glowing?”

“Only when we are lit up. We need to focus to access that part of us. Like right now, since I am walking with you, I can not access it. My companions can access the meditative state while walking, but they are much better than I am. If we need to focus on anything else, then we can not do it as effectively.” He stopped in the middle of the hall, changing the subject. “Wait, now I have a question for you.”

“Okay.” Ava stopped again and looked over at him, trying to avoid glancing down the rest of the hall. The sheer casualness of this discussion in the middle of a ship with bloodstains all over didn’t help her nerves.

He leaned forward eagerly, hands expressive when he talked. “So, you needed the sedative patch earlier. What does it look like when you sleep? Do you remain alert but relaxed like we do?”

“No, when I sleep I’m actually pretty much unconscious. Time passes and then I wake up. Um . . . sometimes I have dreams.”Ava flushed, glad he couldn’t see what she was thinking right then as she remembered her recent dreams. She dreamed of Vox a lot when he first came on board.I don’t want to dream right now. If she closed her eyes, she was worried she would see the blood and bodies again.

Lirell shook his head, not deterred by her brief answer. “But you could be hurt so easily like that. Does no one stand guard?”

Ava shook her head. “No, but we need to feel relaxed to fall asleep. At least I do. If I don’t feel safe then I have a hard time.”Like right now. She didn’t add the last thought.

Lirell nodded, seemingly satisfied with that and asked another question, “Do you know what planet you came from initially?”

Ava shook her head again, wearying of his questions. She answered willingly though, hoping it would make him more likely to answer her questions when she asked. “Not really. My mother said it was called Earth. I didn’t see any pictures at all of it until I came to the Phor ship and they had a few in their files. My mother . . . she didn’t like to talk about it. Earth looked like the solarium here, with plants that grew in the ground. They had funny-looking animals too, you should look in the logs. What about your planet . . . Xai?”

Lirell corrected her pronunciation, stretching out theain the word. “It is amazing. Full of jungle. These fruits, the yavi, we have fruits like this growing from every tree. So many birds and wildlife. The Tuxa . . .” Lirell flushed a deep purple at the mention of their name. Ava noted the different color, which she was starting to attribute to intense emotions, as he continued, “They didn’t just take the women. Before they took them, they came to our planet and took our animals to resell. We didn’t . . . back then we didn’t understand things coming from the stars, and they were taking creatures from places uninhabited by us. Our planet is very large, and we only occupy a small portion of it.”

“How did you find out they were stealing from you?” Ava’s eyes narrowed as she took in the information.

“We captured some Tuxa. They traveled too close to one of our outposts. After exploring their minds, we learned everything. It was an easy enough task to take over one of their ships and begin to fight back after that happened. We learn fast. The knowledge of others helped leap us forward.”

Ava didn’t need to ask how they obtained the knowledge needed to fight back. “And the women? How were they taken?”

“The Tuxa came and took them before we had our planet’s defenses online. The women liked to live in communal housing when the males were away. We didn’t leave enough warriors at home; we were distracted by attacking them at their outposts. It was a mistake we are rectifying now.”

He shook his head before elaborating, pain evident on his face, “We also didn’t understand how to use our minds as weapons until recently either. Our planet was peaceful. We never needed to do that before.”

He took her hand. “Ava, I do not like killing. We do it fast because we feel their pain. We had to learn to do this. Not all the Vorbax at home are trained like this. It goes against our nature. We mostly eat plants and the eggs of birds.”

Ava didn’t know what to say as he looked at her wide-eyed, seeming to long for understanding. The feelings down in the cargo hold he keyed into must have been overwhelming for him, along with knowing he caused that grief. Unfortunately, Ava could offer no absolution.Death is death.

“We were arrogant,” came a voice from above. Ava looked up at Erox, who was waiting outside of the med bay, listening in on their conversation. “The females paid for our arrogance and ignorance. We assumed that if we left the stars alone, then we would be left alone as well. The Tuxa also swarm in numbers greater than we can break. That is why this mission to retrievethem is dangerous. We can be swarmed if too many appear at once.” He took a breath then spat out, “They compensate for their stupidity with their numbers.”

Vox answered from inside the med bay, door open. “All our male youths have been taught to break minds since birth now. Not all of them are able to get in a deep enough mental state to, but enough can. We are not able to breach all minds either; some species elude us. Regardless, it is enough that we will all be able to protect ourselves and each other going forward.”

Ava startled at his rumbling tone. “Can the females . . . break minds?”

Vox answered, shaking his head slowly, “No. They have tried, but . . .” His voice died off. “It is still being worked on back on Xai. Come, Ava. You have learned more about us. It is time we learn more about you.”

He gestured for Ava to follow him into the med bay. She hesitantly did, her feet making a soft scuffle on the tile floor.

Rhutg was inside the room, already waiting. He wore a scowl as he leaned against the metal shelving, his muscles tensed. Vox and Erox appeared to have washed themselves and put on other clothing, jumpsuits similar to hers. Where they had found them, Ava didn’t really want to know. Not Rhutg though. He remained bloodstained and in the same prisoner outfit Ava had seen when she first met him.He has no remorse.She gave him a wide berth as she walked in the room, knowing he was watching her intently. She tried to ignore he was there.

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