City of Ruins

FIFTY-ONE



The ship’s door opens. It rises upward, and a small staircase eases out, sliding its way to the floor. I’ve seen the doors open like that on Dignity Vessels we’ve found, but I’ve never seen the staircase. It makes my breath catch again. The magic and mystery of the Dignity Vessels. I’m so overwhelmed, I have to remind myself to remain calm.

A woman emerges. She holds herself rigidly. She’s wearing an environmental suit without a helmet, but an environmental suit unlike any I’ve ever seen. It’s more like a membrane than a suit, and beneath it, I can see a black uniform—or what I’m imagining to be a black uniform.

Her gaze meets mine, and she holds it as she comes down those stairs. She’s already figured out that I’m in charge, and she’s coming directly for me.

“Boss,” Rea says, sounding nervous.

I signal him to remain quiet with my right hand. In fact, I hope my entire team got that signal. I want to be the one doing the talking here. I should have told them that.

Behind the woman comes an entire group of people. Men, women of varying heights and appearances. Some are spacer thin, but some aren’t. Some look like they were raised in real gravity.

I wonder how that’s possible, given what I’ve heard about Dignity Vessels. Then I have to remind myself: everything I’ve heard might be wrong.

The group lines up in front of us, two deep, with the woman who came first only a few meters from me. She’s taller, and looks stronger. She’s also younger. Her eyes are dark brown, her chin raised slightly.

Her posture is military.

Finally, a woman emerges not wearing an environmental suit. She’s wearing a black uniform with gold decorations down the sleeves and along the shoulders. Her hair is red, her skin unlined, her bones large and strong from being raised in gravity.

The door closes behind her. She’s the one who walks up to me.

She nods and says something completely incomprehensible.

I’ve done this a few times before, usually on a space station, usually in a bar where someone else can identify the language and save me from myself.

But I’m here alone with my team, and all of my people who can understand various languages don’t have the damn genetic marker.

“I’m the boss of this crew,” I say. “We’re explorers. We didn’t expect to find your ship. Is this your base?”

The woman tilts her head slightly, and I can tell from the expression in her eyes that she doesn’t understand me any more than I understand her.

She nods at me, holds up a band as if to say, Let’s try this again, then taps herself. She makes four distinct sounds.

Then she points to me.

I don’t say anything, not yet.

She repeats the gesture and the sounds.

Her name and/or her rank. Her identification, at any rate.

I tap myself. “Boss.”

She repeats that. Then taps herself a third time, and repeats the four sounds.

I say them. She smiles. Communication of a sort.

She glances at the rest of my team, then says something very slowly. I don’t understand a word of it, but I make sure I’m recording it all. Maybe someone back at the hotel will understand.

I shrug, and feel someone near my side.

Al-Nasir has joined us. I glance at his hands, worried about his laser pistol. It remains in its holster.

“I think I understand them, Boss,” he says.

How can he, when I don’t?

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I had fifteen years of linguistics in school,” he says. “We went backward, looking at the way Standard evolved. I think she’s speaking a variation of it.”

“Give it a shot,” I say.

She’s watching us closely, as if she’s trying to understand.

He nods at her, then extends his hand toward her and repeats those four syllables.

She nods.

Then he taps himself and says, “Fahd Al-Nasir.”

She repeats his name. Then she says very clearly, “Boss,” and I jump.

“Yes,” I say.

She looks at me sharply. She seems to understand yes.

“Yes?” she repeats, but her emphasis is odd.

“Yes,” I say.

“Good,” Al-Nasir says, but he says it oddly, almost unrecognizably. “You speak Standard.”

His inflection is weird.

She frowns at him and says something in return.

“Yes,” he says.

“You’ll have to translate for me,” I say.

“I think she said, You’re speaking Standard?”

“You think?” I ask.

“I think,” he says, looking at me.

She’s watching closely.

Al-Nasir taps himself again. “I am Fahd Al-Nasir.” Then he puts his hand on my arm. “And she is my boss.”

The woman’s eyes light up. “Boss,” she says just as clearly. “Title?”

At least, I think that’s what she says. Al-Nasir seems to understand it that way, too.

“Yes,” he says, and gives me a sideways glance. He’s not going to explain that it’s also what everyone calls me. Probably too confusing anyway.

He looks at her, then at the ship. “Are you the boss?”

“No,” she says.

Even I understand that. So there’s someone else in charge.

“May we speak to your boss?” Al-Nasir asks.

She says something in response. Al-Nasir repeats the question. She slows down what she says. At least, I think it’s the same thing she said. I don’t have a facility with language. Clearly, Al-Nasir does.

He repeats the question a third time, and this time she says, simply, “No.”

My heart sinks. “Do they want us to leave?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says testily. “I can barely understand her as it is.”

“Try this,” I say. “Tell her we’re recording the conversation. Tell her that we’ll find someone to translate her message if she just repeats it a few times.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, “with my magical ability to speak a variation of Standard I’ve never heard before.”

She’s looking at us.

I sigh. I hold up my hands and say, “We would like to figure out a way to communicate. Does anyone on your ship speak Standard?”

She answers me. Al-Nasir says softly, “She says she is speaking Standard.”

“Let me try again,” I say to her, ignoring Al-Nasir. “Does anyone on the ship speak the version of Standard that I know?”

“No,” she says. I swear she’s understanding more and more as the conversation goes on.

“We would like to have some kind of dialogue. Is there a way we can do that?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. Then she says something else rapidly. I don’t understand any of it. Al-Nasir doesn’t seem to, either.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small device. It looks official. I watch as she clicks it on and off. My heart soars for a moment.

She’s recording us, too. She’ll work on our language, just like we’ll work on hers.

She puts the device back in her pocket. Then she reaches toward me, slowly, and carefully takes my hand. On my arm is my wrist guide. She taps it, and says one word slowly.

Al-Nasir repeats it. It sounds almost familiar.

She smiles at him. Her smile is lovely. “Yes,” she says.

“Yes,” he says, and they nod at each other.

Then she looks at her team, says something in a different tone, and they file back up those stairs into the ship, leaving us standing outside. As the last woman goes inside, the stairs disappear.

“What was that?” I ask Al-Nasir.

“I think she wants us back tomorrow at the same time.”

“You think?” I ask.

“You saw her,” he snaps. “What do you think?”

I smile at him. I’m suddenly giddy. We just met people from a Dignity Vessel. In uniform. And they seem official.

It’s like a dream.

“What do I think?” I say, grinning like an idiot, glad no one can see it under the mask. “I hope to hell you’re right.”

* * * *