Achingly lonely and stranded a thousand miles from home, college freshman Gianna Nero nearly takes her own life by stepping in front of an oncoming bus. A stranger saves her from that grisly fate, in the form message sent by a soggy-mouthed alien, s...
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Dr. Gianna Nero played the recording back for the fifth time, noting the odd inflections and guttural clicks in Breva's message. A smile curled up at the edges of her mouth as she caught the double entendre that no one on Earth would notice except her. In less than twenty-four hours, twelve billion people would hear Breva's message--a message of peace, hope, friendship, and excitement over the impending meeting of their two races. He expressed his desire to extend gratitude for humanity's generous offer to share their planet with the sSuryn, who'd lost theirs to a fungal blight that decimated their ecosystem.
Gratitude was the word that snagged Gianna's attention. In addition to the literal translation, it was also a colloquialism for the sSuryn's biological equivalent of a female orgasm. Breva had never explicitly said that, of course, but Gianna had gathered as much from their conversations over the last decade. Establishing a rapport between the sSuryn and humans required unprecedented tact from both sides, but they still managed to express their feelings for each other in buried messages. Yes, behind his dignified demeanor, chiseled features, and sharp tongue, Breva Harathla was nothing but a flirt.
"Dr. Nero, you're blushing," Mark Johansson said, eyeing the translation from over Gianna's shoulder.
Gianna stiffened and swiped her hand across the soft glow of the translated text, feeling like a schoolgirl hiding her diary beneath her mattress. The avi-screen faded to black, taking Breva's recording with it. For the briefest of moments, his raspy voice echoed against the walls of her lab.
"Can I help you, sir?" Gianna said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. Technically Mark was her supervisor, somewhere above her on the tangled bureaucratic web that had spun off from SETI when the sSuryn made first contact, but her interactions with Breva were a mystery to him. His expertise lay in engineering and the hard sciences, and Mark had a difficult enough time dealing with the social mores of humankind.
"Just checking on your progress. The Powers That Be are getting antsy."
"This isn't something that can be rushed," Gianna said. "There are cultural subtleties that need to be carefully assessed. I need to capture not just his words, but also his intent." She stood her ground, kept her eye contact firm, but it was true that she hadn't been working as quickly as she should have. Perhaps her mind was digging too deeply for hidden meaning beneath Breva's words.
It'd been six months since she'd received Breva's last communication, in which he'd covertly expressed his interest in kissing her. For six months straight she'd imagined his thin, pale blue lips against hers, and his long, sticky tongue flicking inside her mouth. It made it hard to concentrate, but Gianna knew her efforts would lay the groundwork for integrating the sSuryn into society upon their arrival, a mere eight years from now. She'd be fifty then. And Breva would still be his handsome self, tight skin that glowed like moonlight, yellow-gold eyes that had seen the cradle of the galaxy, and long, padded fingers on red-palmed hands--hands that had found themselves in Gianna's dreams since she was just a girl in college, hands adept at doing very inappropriate things...
"Earth to Dr. Nero!" Mark said abruptly.
Gianna startled. "Sorry. I was just working through a difficult translation. In my mind."
"Mmm-hmmm," Mark said without conviction. "So as I was saying, we're bringing in someone for you to train. Someone to help you get through your work a little faster."
"You want me to train someone? Sure. How about I make some flashcards on the one hundred forty-seven honorifics? Or the twenty-two different meanings of the word JuHal-Langh? Or how the degree to which you raise your chin at the end of a sentence can mean the difference between a compliment, a verbal assault, or an invitation to mate? Or better yet, in all this spare time that you think I must have, I'll just write up a whole series of books: sSuryn for Dummies!"
"I'm not saying that it will be easy. Or quick. But Treven has already mastered Breva's introductory messages. He's bright, and I promise he'll be helpful. I know your stance on this, but it just isn't prudent to have only one expert on sSuryn culture."
"That's exactly what being the 'foremost expert' means. I've poured my soul into this project. You don't get bags like this under your eyes by working forty-hour weeks." Gianna pressed her lips together, her mind racing through cusses in a dozen Earth languages, and when she'd run through those, allowed herself to say a few of the more colorful sSuryn ones under her breath. Neither of them said it, but she'd be training her replacement. "Mark, I simply don't have the time to waste on some snot-nosed brat who thinks being able to string a couple of sSuryn phrases together will pass for fluency."
"This isn't up for negotiation. Not this time. And I'm sure you'll find Treven to be more than capable. It took him three months to master Mandarin. Four for Russian. Six weeks for Swahili. Think of him as an apprentice. Give him grunt work, I don't care. Just throw him a bone here and there. Access to your notes, that sort of thing. I'll tell him not to get in your way."
"He'd better not," Gianna nearly spat, and she had to stop herself from jutting her chin at that angle that meant she'd wring the kid's throat if he did.
