Jak’ri was a quiet sort. He enjoyed peace. And her presence in his life had swiftly denied him that. He also abhorred the spread of negative, unfounded rumors, something that had led to a boyhood friend being ostracized to such an extent that his family had moved to another province. So until Jak’ri had finally convinced Shek’ra that he wanted to end their brief relationship, he had frequently fled to his meditation spot.
“Was it Ray’ku?” Ziv’ri asked curiously.
He shook his head at the mention of another former lover, one who had been far kinder than Shek’ra. “The woman wasn’t Purveli.”
Now both of his brother’s eyebrows rose. “What was she?”
“She looked Lasaran.”
Ziv’ri smiled. “Ah. The forbidden.”
Jak’ri chuckled. “I said she looked Lasaran. But she said she was Earthling.”
Ziv’ri’s brows drew down in puzzlement. “Earthling?”
“Yes. She said she hailed from a planet called Earth.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”
“Nor have I.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just convince yourself she wasn’t Lasaran so you could touch her?”
Jak’ri smiled. “I’m sure.”
“But you did touch her.”
He laughed. “Not in the way you think. I saved her from falling and she embraced me afterward.”
“I’m still thinking she was Lasaran.”
“She couldn’t have been. She spoke a language my translator didn’t recognize.”
“Truly?”
He nodded.
“Then how did you communicate?”
“Alliance Common. But her grasp of it was that of someone new to the language.”
“How odd.”
“Yes.”
Even Gathendiens, Akseli, and other alien races who weren’t part of the Aldebarian Alliance spoke Alliance Common so they could conduct business with those who didn’t use translator implants.
Jak’ri glanced around his cell. “It felt so real,” he murmured. Even as he said it, he heard Ava say with heartbreaking fervency, I wish this were real. “She said she and her friends from Earth were traveling with Prince Taelon to Lasara and had become separated. She couldn’t remember how she had come to be on Purvel and was afraid. And…”
“And what?” Ziv’ri prodded.
He met his brother’s eyes. “After the ship’s alarm woke me, I heard her call my name.”
Ziv’ri’s fevered gaze sharpened. “After you woke?”
“Yes. And it wasn’t just once. I heard her call my name three times.”
His brother’s face sobered. “Are you having hallucinations again?”
“Not visual. Just…”
“Her voice in your head?”
“Yes.”
A moment passed. “Did you hear that?”
Jak’ri listened intently. “No. What was it?”
“I tried to speak to you telepathically.”
Understanding, Jak’ri shook his head. “The nahalae is still blocking our telepathy.”
“Then that’s concerning.”
“Having auditory hallucinations? Most definitely.”
Ziv’ri reached through the bars and rested a hand on his arm, his worry palpable.
“I was dreaming about her again when you woke me,” Jak’ri admitted softly.
“You were?”
He nodded. “She was injured.” He motioned to his forehead. “A dark bruise marred most of her forehead. And when I asked her what had caused it, she said a Gathendien had slammed her head into a ladder rail.”
“What the drek?”
“She also had a bad bruise on one of her arms and said he pushed her down the stairs.”
Ziv’ri stared at him a long moment. “So even in dreams, the Gathendiens are grunarks.”
Jak’ri forced a smile. “Apparently.”
Silence encapsulated them, broken only by his brother’s jagged breaths as chills induced by fever shook him.
“What was her name?” Ziv’ri asked many long moments later.
“Ava.”
One of the guards entered the lab long enough to grab two nutrition packs and toss them into Jak’ri and Ziv’ri’s cells. The brothers gave their empty canteens shoves that sent them skipping across the rough floor and under the gate. The guard retrieved them and dropped them into the decontamination receptacle, then took two new canteens from a cabinet and hurled them at the prisoners.
Jak’ri caught his easily.
Ziv’ri’s movements were so sluggish that his canteen hit him in the chest before he could get his hands up to try to catch it.
Snorting a laugh, the guard dimmed the lights and left, sealing the door behind him.
Jak’ri’s concern grew as he watched his brother fumble, trying to get the lid off his canteen. Even his grip appeared weaker. “Here.” Removing the seal on his own canteen, Jak’ri passed it through the bars.
But Ziv’ri stubbornly shook his head. “I can do it.” And he did, the slight effort nearly robbing him of what little strength he had. Hand shaking, he raised the canteen to his lips, drank a few swallows, then lowered it to the floor. A weary sigh left him as he slumped against the bars and closed his eyes.
“You should eat,” Jak’ri told him softly.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need the energy it will provide.”
Ziv’ri said nothing.
Jak’ri drank from his own canteen, then tore open the nutrient packet. The small cubes inside were chewy, like some of the treats he enjoyed on Purvel. But they lacked flavor. As usual, he grimaced while consuming them. The semi-clear morsels had no taste at all. So it was a bit like chewing on shoe fastenings. The green ones tasted like he imagined a soldier’s boot would after two years of hard training and no decontamination. He couldn’t decide whether the Gathendiens intentionally made the nutrition cubes unpalatable or if they just enjoyed the taste of mildew and sweat.
Eliana!
Jak’ri sucked in a startled breath and vuan near choked on the cube he’d been in the process of forcing down.
On the other side of the bars, Ziv’ri grunted and jerked, his eyes flying open.
Simone!
Jak’ri stared at his brother when the female voice bellowed in his head again. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.
Ziv’ri nodded, eyes wide.
Michaela!
“It’s her,” Jak’ri said.
“The woman from your dreams?”
Dani!
He nodded. “It’s Ava.” And she was in distress.
Rachel!
Ziv’ri swallowed. “Are we both hallucinating?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Then how are we hearing her?”
Elianaaaa!
There was only one way he could think of. “She must be on the ship.”
A slew of words he couldn’t understand flooded his mind then.
Ziv’ri stared at him. “What language is that?”
“I don’t know. Our translators must not include Earth languages.”
A handful of Alliance Common curse words began to pop up in the strange diatribe.