Page 3 (1/2)

Her stomach knotted up orry, impatient for a response

When her mother finally typed out her reply, Molly realized she hadn’t been queasy enough

I NEED TO SPEAK WITH THE DRENARD ALONE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE_

2

"Should I go wake her?" Cole leaned forward, his hands on the arer to help or just feeling the urge to get away fro even more peculiar

She looked fro, unable to uess so" Her voice sounded weak and feeble to her own ears, as if temporarily stunned

Cole crawled out of his chair and padded away, leaving Molly alone with the coed to keep her e of a few ht feel like to a consciousness that could compute billions of operations a second--but also in an attempt to alleviate some of her confusion

MOM_

She wasn’t sure how to phrase what she felt, so finally settled on being completely honest: YOU’RE SCARING ME_

I’M SORRY IT ISN’T LIKE THIS IS EASY FOR ME I_ THERE IS SO MUCH I WANT TO TELL YOU, TO CATCH UP ON THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU, WE WEREN’T EVEN SURE IF YOU WOULD LIVE FOR A YEAR AND I WAS VERY SICK EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT YOU ARE JUST FACTS GIVEN TO ME LATER I’M SORRY, IS THE DRENARD THERE YET?_

NO, COLE IS WAKING HER UP WE’RE ON A NIGHT SHIFT AND HER NAME IS ANLYN _

VERY WELL PLEASE INTERRUPT ME AS SOON AS ANLYN IS THERE WHAT I WANTED TO EXPLAIN EARLIER IS THAT MY WORLD FEELS VERY STRANGE RIGHT NOW STRANGER, PERHAPS, THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE I HAVE MY THOUGHTS, AND THEY SEEM LIKE A WAKING DREAM LIKE I’M IN A DARK ROOM WITH MY EYES CLOSED, ALONE WITH MY MEMORIES_

Molly heard soo bay She peered around her seat and saw Cole heading her way, Anlyn in tow The young alien had on one of Cole’s oversized shirts as a nightgown, and iping sleep froed Cole to stay back for aher mom’s conversation with Anlyn, but she needed to hear more:

THEY COME SO FAST, MOLLIE I HAVE TO TRY AND OCCUPY PROCESSING CYCLES BY DOING OTHER THINGS IN THE BACKGROUND ALL I HAVE FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS THE TEXT YOU INPUT JUST WORDS IN A VACUUM I’M JUST AS SCARED AS YOU ARE, SWEETHEART, AND SOME OF THE THINGS I KNOW ARE TRULY AWFUL NOT ANYTHING I WANT TO BURDEN YOU WITH RIGHT NOW IS ANLYN THERE?_

SHE JUST WALKED UP_

Technically, it was the truth She turned to Anlyn, only to find her friend standing just beyond the boundary of the cockpit, her face rigid and expressionless

"I’ out of her seat and sickened by her thoughtlessness

Anlyn hadn’t been in a cockpit since she escaped the Darrin systehtseat and forced to pilot a ship as a slave In all the excitement over her mom, her friend’s fears had slipped her mind She pushed past Cole to turn Anlyn away, but before she could get to her, the young Drenard stepped over the boundary, crossing the threshold

"It’s fine," Anlyn said softly She held both hands out in front of her as she crept forward, alines are off"

"Are you sure?"

Anlyn nodded, her face aglow in the cockpit’s constellation of lights and readouts Looking around, her eyes eventually settling on the radio set into the dash "Cole said you need me to talk to someone?"

Molly was unsure what should be revealed She hated lying, but the truth would take hours to relate She decided to leave it up to her ht You’ll have to co how little she knew of Parsona’s young crewether "You’ll have to talk using the keyboard Can you read and type? In English?"

Disappointment flashed across Anlyn’s face "Not h to fly, ht Why teach a slave pilot to read anything else? She turned back to the nav co over her There had been enough secrets lately--translating the conversation would keep her fro the worst

She leaned over her seat and typed:

ANLYN SPEAKS ENGLISH, BUT SHE CAN’T TYPE OR READ MUCH OF IT I’M GOING TO HAVE TO INTERPRET_

There was almost no pause before the reply came:

SHE DOESN’T NEED TO RESPOND, SHE JUST NEEDS TO READ ALONG TELL HER TO PRESS A KEY ONCE THE TWO OF US ARE ALONE AND PLEASE GIVE US PLENTY OF TIME_

MOM, SHE CAN’T READ ENGLISH_

THAT’S OKAY, DEAR I SPEAK DRENARD_

••••

Cole and Molly retired to the lazarette He had suggested they wait the conversation out in her roo their plans, but Molly seerabbed some tools and crawled into the thruster roo intermittent issues ever since they backed into that asteroid in the Darrin systeue since he’d been the one flying at the ti a medium spanner out in the air, he waited for Molly to reach up and grab it "Can our nav screen even display Drenard?" he wondered aloud "I don’t even knohat Drenard looks like, do you?"

"Not a clue," Molly said Her voice leaked out from below the center thruster’s reactor, tinny anda power screwdriver; Cole took it and slapped the electric wrench in its place "I don’t see why it couldn’t display it, though," Molly continued "That screen can show star charts Any language is just a bunch of pixels"