"I'm telling you! I don't know where they went!" Ro slammed her hands on the steel table.
"Why did the humans tell you to stay behind?" one of the Lii across the table asked.
"They didn't."
"Was it their way of making sure Losker warned us about, and I quote 'not to get in our way,' unquote?"
"I've already told you —"
"Ro." Laura put her hand on the dancer's arm.
Ro breathed in through her nose and leaned back in her seat. She had promised herself that she wouldn't lose her cool during the interrogation.
"If you were not told to stay behind? Then why did you?"
Ro clenched her jaw, said nothing. Laura replied, thinking quickly.
"I'm to pregnant to move. Ro didn't want me by myself."
"And you stayed behind because...?"
"I didn't want to slow down the group."
"I see." The Lii leaned back, finished with his questions. Another spoke up.
"And you can offer no insight to where the humans might go?"
Neither woman answered.
"We're done, then."
Two Lii guards — real guards with real weapons and real uniforms — began to steer the women out of the little room. Ro glanced at Losker, who had been silent, sitting in the corner with a face full of hurt, betrayal, and anger. She wanted to explain to him that she thought she was doing the right thing, thought that she was protecting her people. She wanted to apologize for not thinking of his.
The English speaking linguists closed the door behind them, and Ro had no choice but to let herself be steered away. She was lead out into the blistering green sunlight and across a field barren of plants. In the distance she could see the demolished metal maze, overrun with plant life. It had been fenced in, and the signs in Scrixs seemed to say WARNING. DO NOT ENTER. KILL ZONE. Once across the field, the two women were directed towards a narrow river where a little boat sat.
Laura's breath was coming out in sharp pants, and she held her stomach carefully.
Ro tried to wiggle away from her guard. "Slow down! Hey!"
She was shoved forward forcefully.
"Guelki!" she shouted. It was a word Losker had taught her, and it meant "wait."
As the guard jumped in surprise, Ro wiggled from his grasp and ran to Laura's guard. She punched his hand and he hissed in pain. Ro grabbed Laura.
"Here, here. Sit down."
Laura kneeled in the dirt, breathing hard. "I'm about ready to pop." She laughed breathlessly.
"You bet."
"Thanks."
"Of course."
"Help me up? I'm better now."
Ro hooked her hands under Laura's armpits and hoisted her up.
"You're strong," Laura grunted.
"Dancer," Ro replied. She turned to the two Lii. "Slow," she stressed.
At a tortoise's pace, they made it to the little boat. There was just enough room for all of them to sit on the boat's two benches. A guard pressed a button on the boat's console, and a purple forcefield covered the top. Ro reached up to touch it, and her hand passed through.
Kind of pointless, she thought.
The boat roamed leisurely down the river for a few minutes before the water came to an end. Ro squinted in front of them as the boat turned around. How could a river just end? The boat spun in another slow circle, then another slightly faster one, and a faster one, and a faster one....
A whirlpool. They were going down a whirlpool.
"Kwaselas," a guard said calmly. He pointed to the seatbelt like things attached to the bench. Ro clicked hers in place and Laura followed quickly.
"We can't breath underwater, you know!" Ro said helplessly as the water rose higher on the boat. "And there's something wrong with this forcefield."
The Lii ignored her, and spoke into a walkie talkie looking device. Ro held her breath as the water spilled into the boat.
Only...it didn't spill into the boat. The water lapped against the purple forcefield, but didn't pass it.
"That's smart," Laura murmured.
The boat descended into the narrow, vertical tunnel, the only light coming from the console.
Laura laughed a little fearfully. "Sorry. It's just, I can't swim. Always been scared of the water."
Ro squeezed her hand. The tunnel leveled out, became horizontal, and then opened into a huge, deep, blue lake. Galida Lii with their flippered feet and hands were for once graceful as they twisted and turned and bolted through the water like birds in the sky. Ro was mesmerized by their silklike clothing, rippling as they moved. Losker always dressed like a human, and the guards had been dressed just to scare them. She practically stuck her head out the forcefield to get a better look at the four-foot-long silkworm caterpillars that had fins instead of legs. A young child sat on the back of one, and her gleeful laugh echoed in the water.
"They're looking at us," Laura whispered.
Everyone but the child were watching the boat with fear and, or, worry.
"Remember in those science fiction movies when the alien was always placed in the midst of New York or something, and everyone would gasp and scream when they saw it?" Ro asked. "And then the army would come and take the alien captive and lock it up?"
"Yeah?"
"I think we're the alien."
