Chapter 2

Apparently, Earthlings had different languages depending on where on the planet they lived. Strange creatures.

Why they couldn’t decide on one language was beyond Zenon. Communication would be much easier if everyone understood each other. On Negudade everyone spoke the same language. The name—how he and his crew all were named Scoreceds—told others what area they were from, not the language.

“Brace for impact.” The greenery came closer and closer, and Zenon steered the ship to the dark water, coiling like an unruly tail over the land.

The shuttle shook as it hit the surface, making Zenon grit his teeth. He disliked landings and takeoffs. Or dislike might be a too strong word—they were an inconvenience.

Unbuckling the seatbelt, he turned to his crew. They were only four, and Ghurva hardly counted. So three able warriors and one linguist.

“We take ten. This is a first try. If it works, we might come back. If it’s worth the effort.” They’d been on the ship for months, and it wasn’t a trip Zenon would volunteer for again, but the planet’s future depended on it.

The others nodded.

“We go in, quiet and unseen. We take the fertile and healthy-looking and bring them back here.” He glanced at Ghurva. “Once we’re on our way, you install the language chip.”

Ghurva nodded, and Zenon hoped it would work. They had had no one to try the chips on other than themselves, and Earthlings were fragile beings—or so he’d been told. He wasn’t sure if he could trust the information.

Negudade wasn’t a big planet, about half the size of this—Earth. He’d tried to say the word in the Earthling’s language, how Ghurva had claimed it was pronounced by the inhabitants, the Earthlings, but he wouldn’t try it again.

Since Negudade was such a small planet, they only had one leader—Qheks Hannaek Koruts. Zenon didn’t dislike her, but she’d been the leader for almost a decade, and it was time for her to step down and make way for someone else.

Koruts, like any politician, did what she could to remain in office, and securing the planet’s survival had been a cause she’d pushed for the last two-three years.

Zenon didn’t say the information they got was faulty, and if it was, he didn’t think it was a deliberate mistake, but…

It was a little too good to be true to find a species compatible with them. A species who could bear their offspring, andwho possessed all the traits they’d lost.

Too good to be true.

The teams who had surveilled the Earthlings were linguists and scientists, not warriors. He wanted to believe their intelligence was true, but how much could you learn from circling a planet and listening to their information flow? He didn’t trust the scientists when they said the species was harmless, and he wasn’t sure mixing their genes would be enough to bring back normal levels of dopamine and whatever else it was that they’d lost these last generations.

He understood their excursion could gain Koruts another decade in power should it succeed, but he wasn’t sure it would. Still, they had to try something. Their population had halved during the forty-eight years he’d lived. Another forty-eight and the Negudade people might be extinct

“Do all four of us go or do we split up two and two? They’re small and weak.”

Zenon peeled back his lips and showed Ghurva his teeth in warning. They’d gone through the operation over and over, and he had some understanding for Ghurva being a civilian, and not knowing the routine. You did not change an operation the moment before you went in, that he should know.

“All four.” Brox stared at Ghurva, who shrugged.

Ghurva was the most emotion-ruled person Zenon had ever met. He’d never seen Brox or Anek shrug—henever shrugged. It was an unnecessary motion.

“It would go faster if we split up—”

Zenon snarled.

Ghurva quieted and widened his eyes. Zenon shouldn’t stare, but…who wasted energy on widening their eyes? He tried telling himself it was a natural reaction, some of them still expressed natural emotional responses in communication. It made him tingle, which was strange.

Rubbing his chest, he nodded at Brox to take the lead out of the spaceship.

A quick in and out, and then the trip back to Negudade.

* * * *

Carlo stumbled on the even road. “Shots were a bad idea, Gracie.”

She giggled and hooked her arm in his. “They were. I want pizza now, and I know I’m gonna have a headache tomorrow.”

Carlo sighed. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow. What the fuck would he do with his life? He had no place to stay since Ryan owned the apartment. He didn’t have a job since Ryan owned the restaurant where he’d worked andhad been fired from. He didn’t have any money since, well, he’d worked as a waiter in a restaurant.