Page 75 of Invasive Species
What is this place? I call, “Gara, come on out now.”
A voice rumbles behind me. Turning, head spinning, I look up into Gara’s concerned face.
Or, what looks like Gara.
I know his little tells, the subtle movements of his expression, how his scales play along his face and arms. Most of all, I know the glow that lights in his eyes when I meet his gaze.
And it's not there. This guy doesn't recognize me at all.
“The… fuck?”
The other Gara—a Selthiastock, that's what Gara said hisclone type was called—utters something in a guttural foreign language I can’t understand.
Peering up at him with a frown, it's like I’m playing spot the difference: his eyes are more lined, mouth locked in a grimace, and his hair is much longer. And his scales harden like Gara's used to, as if to protect himself from me.
He gets onto his knees and presses his forehead repeatedly against the shiny floor. Slowly he gets up, not looking at my face, and hands me a set of what look like silver headphones.
My memory pings; Ellen mentioned headphones to understand what people were saying on Oloria. And, yeah, I'm slow on the uptake but not that slow. Looking at the desert outside and the fuck-off great big building, not to mention the exotic plants, I can tell I'm definitely not in Bristol anymore.
Sliding them on, what he's saying suddenly comes to me as if I had started focusing on his words.
“—Great female, my apologies again. It is best that you rest in bed and allow the nutrient waters to support you. Without them, you will collapse again.”
“Where's Gara?” I demand.
He shakes his head, still not looking me in the eyes. “I do not understand you yet, although I hope you understand me. Please, if you wish me to communicate with you, speak more and my nanites will adjust to your variation of trade standard.”
That was how it’d worked when the guys crash landed on Ellen's farm, not able to understand each other for a few hours until the tiny things in their brains started translating.
So, I guess I have to talk. “Okay, so, I wake up after, what, weeks asleep, and I'm on Oloria, another freaking planet, and this room is pretty but where the hell am I? And I really want Gara back now please, he can speak my language, not to mention my blood is on fire just thinking about him.” TMI perhaps, but this guy can't understand me yet.
He gestures to the bed. “Please, female, I must beg you toreturn. The nutrient pad is the only thing supporting your unique physiology while we try to isolate the pathogen causing you distress.”
That all sounds bad, but I don't know if I can trust this alien who looks like Gara but isn't. I mean, Gara told me he was a clone, but seeing a literal copy and paste is disorienting, like I’m in a dream.
But I should just roll with it for now, as my legs are shaking like they ran a marathon and need a rest. Maneuvering myself over to the bed, I put my hands either side of the mattress ready to lift myself up and sit on it.
“Eurgh.” My hands sink in like it's thick jello, but when I pull them back out, there's no goop on my hands.
“The nutrient bed is necessary, female,” the guy says, getting onto his knees again like I’m going to yell at him. Or worse. “I am sorry, but if you cannot get on yourself, I will assist you. I live to serve you.”
Those words in Gara’s dour, serious face would normally make me giggle like he'd said another quotable Planet of the Pirate Prince line, but this is too weird, even for me. Gara’s the only one I want to hear that kind of thing from, not a stranger with his face.
“I… I got it.” I hop onto the jello bed, which doesn't rock as I feared it might, but does collapse under me a little so my butt is covered and my arms and legs are half engulfed in goo. It's warm at least, and the pressure on my spine and lower back eases. Suspended, all I can do is stare up at the colored lights stroking across the ceiling in slow spirals.
“This humble one thanks you.” The Selthiastock gets up, comes over and… sniffs. He actually scents the air above me, mouth half open like he's sampling a wine.
“Um. What are you doing?”
“I regret, female, I still can't understand you. Please, speak more.” He taps at the wall behind me, which lights up into awhole complicated flat screen panel filled with scrolling information, charts and what even I recognize as my heartbeat, thumping away.
The latter is not a simple pattern as I'd expected, some lines going way up higher than the others. The alien frowns at the information, but when he faces me again his face is bland, not friendly but not forbidding either.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Your… life beat. It is irregular. Is that common for your species?”
Clearly he can understand me a lot better at last, hooray. “I don't think so. Look, Gara will know, please go get him.”
