Two Moons of Sera (12 page)

“Reveal,” Vaughn said in Erdlander, and I responded in
Sualwet. Instead of translating the exact word, I would tell him another,
similar word like
show
. We did this over and over.

The small testing room had a high ceiling, which kept it
from feeling too claustrophobic. The floor was bright white, while the walls
were a pale gray, making them appear to evaporate. It gave the room a sense of
great space, but I still couldn’t lose the awareness that I was trapped deep
underground.

Dr. Vaughn was delighted at my translations, but what he
didn’t know was that I was learning more about him than he was about me. This
was the head of the Decryption Team? His Sualwet sounded clunky and thick, as
if he had eaten jellyfish tentacles and his tongue had swollen. No Sualwet
would speak as he did. His words were difficult to decipher, and I found it
easier to understand him when he spoke in Erdlander.

We sat at a table in the middle of the room. Between us was
nothing but two glasses of water and a withering flower. It seemed cruel to
bring a flower down here and deny it sun, but I guess it was dead as soon as
someone picked it, so what difference did it really make?

Recording devices and screens surrounded us, hanging from
the walls and attached to panels. Vaughn would turn them on and make me watch
someone give a speech in a mangled accent and then summarize for him. Or he
would force me to listen to sample recordings of Sualwets speaking underwater.

“Swim,” he recited.

~
Float
,~ I translated, only to see the excited spark
in his eye as he concluded how fluent I was.

I watched as he wrote on a flexible screen, typing out his
observations and conclusions about me. I curled my toes inside my shoes, bored,
terrified, and anxious all at once. The contradicting emotions exhausted me,
and I needed to move or walk or do something to keep my sanity. Instead I took
another sip of water, finishing my glass. His untouched glass sat, mocking me.
My tongue was dry, and my face hurt from so many forced smiles.

“Your fluency is remarkable,” Vaughn said, setting down his
screen and folding it up into the small black item it had originally seemed to
be. “There are a number of translations that are not as specific as they could
be, but they’re not inaccurate, per se. Regardless, you are one of the best
Linguistics workers we’ve had here in a long time.”

“Thank you.” I tried to smile, but the most I managed was a
grimace.

The small man leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands
behind his head. The buttons of his jacket strained across his chest, his broad
physique not intended for such confining clothing. “So, where do you think you’d
fit in here best?”

His smile was sincere, but the gleam of artificial light against
his dark skin reminded me of the children’s stories I’d heard growing up.
Erdlanders
have skin like ash, which will fall away if you touch them, leaving nothing but
bone and claws. They are small and slow, but their grip is like the great squid
and will tear you from the sea without hesitation.

“Um....” I hesitated, lost in my thoughts.

“Well, what division were you in before Iaera?”

“Oh, I—”

“With your skill and level of comprehension, I’d like to put
you right into the Hub. Usually it’s restricted access to those who have
clearance beyond the camp, but you can do it. That’s all right, isn’t it? I can
be honest with you, can’t I?” Vaughn spoke more to himself than to me, jumping
from thought to thought without waiting for my response.

“I... of course.”

He sat forward and folded his hands on the table. His brows
came together as he spoke. “The war has gotten worse. The Fish have come on
land, and they are no longer swimming in schools.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Sualwet did not swim in
schools like guppies: they had a community, a society more complex than mere
swimming patterns. I dipped my head and looked at my hands, trying to contain
my annoyance. This need to defend them, to explain, made no sense. The Sualwet
never did anything for me, but they were my mother’s people, and no matter what
they may have done, I loved her.

“I know it’s upsetting.” Vaughn’s voice softened as he took
in my posture. “But that’s why we need to be even more vigilant. The Hub isn’t
an easy place to work. It can get very emotional. You’ll be on the front line
of communications, listening in real time to Sualwet chatter. By the end of the
day, your head will be cluttered with their ridiculous songs, and it’s hard not
to take it home with you. Do you think you can handle that? Can we count on
you?”

“Yes.” I clamped my mouth shut, grinding my teeth to keep
from saying any more as I looked up at him. What may have looked like
determination in my features was actually an almost uncontrollable anger, but I
didn’t quite understand why I felt so mad. I didn’t want to help these people.
I didn’t want to be a part of their war or anywhere around it.

All I wanted was to go home, to lie in the sun and hope my
biggest problems would be if Mother would be home before dark and if Tor would
visit. Instead, I kept my face impassive and yearned for another glass of
water.

“Good.” Vaughn beamed and slapped the palms of his hands
down on the desk. The vibration of the impact rocked through me. “It’s been a
long day. You should get some rest and come back in the morning.”

“Sir?”

“Vaughn, just call me Vaughn.”

“Okay, um, Vaughn, I don’t really know where I am.”

“Right! I’m sorry, Sera. You are such a natural that I
completely forgot you’ve never been down here before.”

He stood, scraping his chair legs against the white floor.
His brown suit bunched around his chest until he pulled the jacket down. “As
long as I’m walking you out, let’s give you the grand tour.” Vaughn smiled and
turned toward the opening we had come through.

It was only a second, a fraction of a breath, but the moment
alone was so beautiful, so precious, I almost cried out for it to never end.
Rather than savoring it, rolling it around on my tongue like slowly melting
hard candy, I stood and followed the Erdlander who would surely kill me—or
worse—if he knew my genetic makeup.

The panel-door opened, and I joined Vaughn as he walked out
of the room and back into the white hallway with the gray floor. The air in the
hall wasn’t as well circulated as in the testing room. It was stuffy and dry,
and my skin itched so badly I thought it would flake away.

“Down here we have the best access to Sualwet
communications,” Vaughn began as he turned right and walked along the ashen
path. “Most of our research is done aboveground, where we can work with windows
and sunshine. Being down here is too much like being underwater with the
jikmanae
Fish for most of us.” He laughed at his joke, and my chest constricted.

This was more like being buried alive than being in the
water. I longed for the open freedom of the sea; even just to swim in my small
cove would be like breathing.

“The more sensitive information is kept in this area. This
room holds the Archives.” He gestured to his left, where a white panel pressed
against the white wall. When he passed his hand over it, the panel slid aside
and revealed a console, like the one he had used to open the testing room.

“Your password will get you into all of the rooms, once I
process your clearance. The Archives aren’t very interesting, so with the
exception of the Culture department, almost no one goes in there.”

“Culture?” Traz had said he worked in Culture. The resident
Sualwetarian, as Ash had put it. I wondered what they would need from the
Linguistic Archives.

Vaughn nodded and opened the door with a quick entry of his
code. Inside, only one flickering light glared from overhead.

“In here, we keep all of our translations of the texts we’ve
found, recordings we’ve made—everything. I don’t know what use it is: we’ve
already compiled our dictionary from what’s in there and what Rhine learned.
But the folks in Culture seem to find it all fascinating, so we keep it.”

I peered into the room past Vaughn’s square frame. Inside,
file cabinets and shelves with boxes stacked in neat rows. The air coming from
the room was stale and dry, and I heard the thick silence of a space long
unused.

“What are in the boxes?” I ventured, taking advantage of his
verbosity.

With a shrug of his shoulders, Vaughn ignored me, closed the
door, and continued onward.

By the time Vaughn had shown me the underground facility and
suggested waiting to visit the Hub until tomorrow, I was completely lost. The
white walls blurred together, leaving me with a kind of sun blindness. All I
could do was focus on the back of his head and try not to let my peripheral
vision get lost in the infinite brightness.

Vaughn stopped on a black rectangle, which I now recognized
as an inactive transportation chamber. At last, we were going somewhere else. I
had lost my sense of time, direction, and space. Hunger bit into my gut, but I
had nothing to eat. Had I missed lunch? Was it night? I was so tired, I
imagined it was already another day and I’d been walking the whole time. I
developed an absolute hatred for the underground facility I was going to be
spending my days in. When the chamber walls surrounded us and the platform
began moving, my anxiety level dropped in proportion to our speed.

Before long, we whisked past levels without the penetrating
whiteness until we burst aboveground. The sun from the windows streaked across
us as we continued to ascend.

“The administrative offices are on the eleventh floor,”
Vaughn said as the platform slowed. “Up here is where I’ll be if you need me.”

When the chamber rose, the noise of the open room filled the
space. Everywhere I looked, someone was speaking, either into a microphone or
to another person. I picked out the Erdlander language, mangled attempts at
Sualwet, and the familiar cadence of my native language crackling over
speakers. My brain contracted, trying to pick out each voice, each language,
from the din.

“This is the main room, where the translators work on the
recordings we have picked up from our various outposts. Most of these will give
us conversational or cultural information.” Vaughn strode through the
collection of desks and people as if so many bodies in such a small space were
completely normal.

I dug my hands deep into my pants pockets and pulled my
shoulders in tight to keep from touching anyone as I maneuvered behind him. It
was all I could do to remember to breathe.

The open room was lined with windows, except for one wall,
which housed a row of doors. The desks were organized into columns. Sometimes
two faced each other; sometimes there was just a large table with multiple
people sitting around it. The faded green carpet and wooden furniture of the
warm room contrasted the whitewashed spaces we had just emerged from.

“This is my office,” Vaughn announced when we reached the
door on the left end of the wall. “The rest of the offices are for the head of
Linguistics, deputy of Vocabulary, and deputy of the Written Word.”

He opened the door and motioned for me to enter. Walking
inside, I was relieved to find two of the walls were made completely out of
windows. Vaughn’s desk stood in the middle of the room. Books and papers piled
on the desk, cascading to the floor around his chair like an overflowing pond.

“I’ll introduce you to everyone at some point; they are all
occupied with the recent turn of events in the war,” he said as he stepped in
behind me and closed the door. “Please, sit down.”

“Thank you.” I forced my hands from their protective
position in my pockets and tried to relax my fists. I eased into one of the
stiff, high-backed chairs facing the desk while Vaughn poured himself a glass
of water from a pitcher sitting on a side table and then sat at the desk. I
didn’t dare get up and pour water for myself. Sualwets had rules about those
kinds of things: never take without being offered, and never ask for something
that is not yours. But I watched the glass sweat and drip on the paper beneath
it while Vaughn ignored its presence.

“So tell me, Sera, are you staying long, or will you be
requesting to go back to your home camp?” Vaughn’s voice invaded my
concentration and pulled my attention away from the water. He continued before
I was able to reorganize my thoughts. “You see, this is the best place to be as
a young person. Once you leave and move to the City or one of the villages, you
can continue working here. Unlike other, more remote camps, you don’t have to
leave everything behind when you start your family. Am I correct that you are
Matched?”

“Yes, with Tor... Torkek.”

“Wonderful. Yes, a solid Match is a wonderful thing.”

I tried to smile as Vaughn leaned back in his chair and
crossed his hands behind his head, pushing the boundaries of what his suit
jacket should be asked to handle. He swiveled his chair away from me, looking
out the window. I could almost taste the cold water in the glass before me. It
was so clear, it would be fresh and crisp.

“Well, it’s been a long day,” he remarked, turning back to
smile at me with the same friendly manner I had first encountered in the
testing room.

Standing, he gestured to his door. “We’ll have plenty of
time to talk more as you get settled in at the Hub.”

I turned away from him to leave and paused when I felt him
step closer. His presence was dense, like a tree or a boulder, and there was
something immovable about him. After opening the door, I stepped out, and the
battering sounds of the main room assaulted me. Out of the din, one voice sang:
~
We’ve been attacked. They knew where the Domed City was. We’ve destroyed
their ships. Kill all Erdlanders you see!
~

The Sualwet words drifted from nearby speakers, pulling my
attention away from the stocky man. A woman with her back turned to me repeated
the sentence, trying to mimic the singsong flow of the Sualwet battle cry.

Her accent was grating, and as I approached, I saw she was
not only trying to emulate the sound but also working from a translation from
someone else.

Written on a piece of paper before her were the words:
We
are attack. City place is domed. We are destroy ships. Erdlanders see and kill.

“We received this message during the battle a few nights
ago,” Vaughn said from behind me, his breath against my shoulder. “They were
all repeating it, like some kind of mass hysteria. This is the kind of thing
you’ll be doing in the Hub.”

My hands shook, and my stomach clenched down on my need to
scream. This was the siren song of the night my mother died, the night some
Erdlander speared her like she was nothing more than a trout. She hadn’t been
fighting, only trying to take care of me. Once again, I was the reason for
every bad thing that happened, and now here I was, standing among her enemies.

Everything about this place was wrong. Everything they were
doing was wrong! My fists tightened in my pockets as I fought the urge to run
from this building, straight to the sea. Instead my nausea mounted as I spoke.

“You have the grammar wrong. It’s ‘We’ve been attacked,’ not
‘We are attack.’”

“Let me see that.” Vaughn stepped around me and snatched the
paper away from the woman who was so focused that she hadn’t noticed us looming
behind her.

“What are you...?” she protested, until she saw who had
taken her sheet. The look of fear and submission in her face told me everything
I needed to know about Vaughn. He may have been nice to me so far, but there
was more to him than I’d seen.

“No, we have this right,” he laughed, turning to me, holding
the paper out so I could see it. “It clearly says, ~
We’ve been attacked
.~”
He said the words in his clumsy accent, making me want to grab the paper and
shove it down his throat.

“What you have written here translates to, ‘We are attack,’”
I said. “It should be ‘We’ve been attacked.’”

Vaughn studied the paper again, periodically looking up at
me with squinted eyes and a new look of concentration on his face.

“Well, I can see why you would want to translate it that
way. I suppose both could be correct,” he conceded.

My ego and pride wanted to argue with him, to prove I was
right, that he was the one who had no idea how to translate the intricacies of
a language as complex as Sualwet, but I forced myself to smile, hoping I looked
like I was grateful for the compliment.

“Kit, this is Serafay. She’ll be working with me in
Decryption.”

I looked down at the young girl whose work we had been
discussing. She was young, no older than thirteen or fourteen, with rounded
cheeks and long brown hair.

“Hi,” I greeted her and received a shy smile in response.

“Back to work, Kit. Your accent is getting better every day.”

“Thank you.” Kit’s voice was barely a whisper, and when
Vaughn returned her paper, she quickly turned away from us and sat back down.

“Now let’s get you home to your pod,” Vaughn announced
before striding back to the platform.

I followed him, getting used to the abrupt way Erdlanders
parted. I looked around the room, realizing this was just another day for the
people working here, nothing special, nothing profound.