Page 35 of Crash Landing
Barefoot, I padded into the building to see Saleuk hard at work on one of his little projects. When he heard my quiet steps, he looked up, his expression instantly changing. His eyes roamed over me like I’d just strutted in naked and it made me feel like I wasn’t wearing anything.
“What?” I said, crossing my arms over myself.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I just… you’re just…”
“Look, you’re walking around without a shirt. It’s hot here and my clothes need to dry.”
“Of course. I just meant...” He swallowed his words. “Nothing. You should be comfortable.”
“If it really makes you uncomfortable—”
“It doesn’t.”
…I doubted that.
14: Saleuk
“Of course. I just meant…”You’re sjeking beautiful. “Nothing. You should be comfortable.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable—"
“It doesn’t.”
Sam shrugged off my comment and then sat down across from me, filling my space with her scent. Without the sweat and grime, she smelled fresh as the river and sweet as moon melon. It instantly affected my concentration. I started to fiddle with the water filter only to lose track of what I was doing. From that point, I was just pretending to twist wires and rearrange filter plating.
“So,” Sam said, clearly bored. “Your English has gotten better since I saw you last.”
“My English was perfect last time you saw me.”
“It was. But your accent is better. What other languages do you speak?”
“Not as many as Vahko. Obviously, I speak Takesh. I also know English and conversational Spanish and Mandarin. I speak Lohnria to a degree and I know a few phrases in Jiraki, though that is only so I can interrogate gek in the event of imprisonment. Otherwise, I would never dirty my tongue with their words.”
“They really did a number on your race. I would hate to speak their language, too. Although, I think your idea of not knowing many languages is a bit skewed. At least compared tohumans. You know more than I could imagine learning in my lifetime. You all really watched humanity long enough to know our languages before we even got to space, huh?”
My lip quirked as I nodded. “We know a lot more than your languages.”
“Like what?”
“We studied your governments. Most of your religions. Your tech.”
“What else? What’s something you like about us?”
I hesitated a beat and suddenly Sam’s brows knitted like she was concerned there was nothing favorable about her people.
Putting down the water filter, I leaned forward on my elbows, pinning Sam with my eyes.
“I like your hope. Your creativity. Your artists are particularly intriguing. I like that, throughout your history, you’ve never failed to fight for your beliefs, no matter how small your numbers were. I’ve read about countless rebellions in your people’s past and I think that’s admirable.”
“There haven’t been rebellions in your history?”
“Oh, there’ve been plenty,” I scoffed. “But it’s different seeing someone else do it. And humans are still confined to one world. Valerians are across multiple. There are times that we won’t find out about a war on Valer until many cycles after it’s done. Territories change hands in our absence. New leaders are elected.”
“That’s so strange. What about citizenship? Is that a thing when you inhabit multiple planets?”
“You are a citizen of the place you are born. But people like me have been grandfathered in. We are citizens of many places.”
“People like you?”
