Indentured (Book 2 of the Dana Halliday series)

DOWN GOES HALLIDAY. LITI. TAPHTHLI IBIRRAN.

I woke, sort of, horrendous pain in my head and face making me want to drop right back into unconsciousness. I was still in some kind of darkness, and I became aware that there was a freezing weight pressing across my eyes and nose. "Uhhh," I groaned, my voice sounding clogged and snuffly in my ears, and as I tried to roll over I realized I was in a bed. "Down goes Halliday."

Immediately there was a warm hand on my ankle, and a soft, musically flavored voice said something. The words were Sturv Standard, but there was nothing in my ear to translate, and my rattled brain refused to make any effort to recognize them.

Something in the cadence and timbre of the voice caught my attention, and rage warred with curiosity in my head. It was a Fenn voice, of that I was sure, but it couldn't be Flynt's; currently, he was being murdered or tortured in some hideous way by the Pemlo'hban. I pulled the cold pack off my face and opened my eyes a prudent millimeter.

I was back in the Earther suite, on the round bed where I'd slept earlier, and it was now dim and cool. Near my feet, the Fenn girl sat, legs curled beneath her in an achingly familiar posture.

She was watching me with the same sort of unblinking gaze as Flynt, but it was even more piercing than his. Her eyes were a fabulous jade-green, striking even in the dimness. "Visbri." Despite her eyes boring holes in me, her tone was all reserve and neutrality. "Volshoth ter?"

My brain started to track a bit better. This much Sturv Standard I recognized, at least. Hello. What is your name?

"Volshoth, Dana." I grumbled out a curse as I turned and reached for the light over the bed. It was cruelly bright on my addled eyes, and I cursed again before I got the lights dimmed a bit. Then I gestured vaguely at her. "Volshoth ter?"

The girl trilled out a word that sounded like a long snippet of birdsong.

I opened my eyes fully and gave her an exasperated look. I had attempted Flynt's name a few times; even if he said it slowly I couldn't get past the first few syllables without cracking him up.

The Fenn girl sighed and put a hand to her chest. "Liti."

I nodded. I couldn't stop comparing her to my friend, and I felt tears sting at my eyes. She was much smaller than he was, put together even more delicately. If Flynt was an alley cat, she was a lithe Siamese, all long, elegant angles. Her hair was chin length and sapphire blue, the same intensity as the green of her eyes. I thought she was lovely, and I thought a lot of Earthers would agree, even if she didn't have anything like feminine curves. Put some Spock ears and a pair of gauzy wings on her, and she could go to a Halloween party as an elf or fairy or something.

"Liti." I swallowed the emotion in my voice. "Pleased to meet you."

Her forehead wrinkled in incomprehension, but I just shook my head, which wailed in protest at the movement. I fumbled for my Earwig. At least I'd be able to understand her, though she'd be stuck with my floundering Sturv Standard.

Liti regarded me, tilting her head from side to side and flaring her nostrils daintily. Her antennae, slender whips that seemed too long for her head, lashed the air. She picked up the ice pack and held it out to me, speaking with more force than before. My Earwig was working fine. "You need this. It will help with the pain."

I took it. It was a flat cloth tube with a freezing, viscous substance in it, and it reminded me of what had happened just before I'd lost consciousness. "Oh geez." I gingerly touched my jaw, then my cheek and nose and eye. Everything was tender and very sore. My tongue felt swollen. "I'm afraid to look in the mirror. How bad is it?" I pushed a little too hard at my nose and swore.