Second Contact [Alien Nation #2] (#Wattys2019)

15

Rikar pushed her cart of food ahead of her, cursing under her breath each time her long robes got caught in the wheels. There wasn't another sacrifice due for a while, but apparently the scouts had spotted a group of vulnerable locals and just hadn't been able to resist. Since they'd noticed the locals had a tendency to fight among themselves when left alone for too long, they'd been put into individual holding cells while they awaited their fate. It avoided bloodshed, but it also turned her minor task of feeding the prisoners into a chore.

The human food stank, too. She didn't know how they ate it so hungrily.

At last, she came to the final cell. Rikar unlocked the door and stepped into the windowless room, lit only by a thin strip of light along the ceiling.

The prisoner sat upright along the middle of the wall that faced the door, with her limbs bent in a way that looked painful. She – and Rikar was fairly certain that this one was female, though it was sometimes hard to tell – watched as Rikar approached and set the bowl down within the prisoner's reach, should she decide to get up and test the boundaries of the electromagnetic cuffs on her wrists. Rikar wondered if she had moved at all since the sedative had worn off – unlike the last cell she'd visited. The female Rikar thought could be the leader had already been trying to break free of her restraints when Rikar entered.

The prisoner's eyes never left Rikar's as she set the bowl down. They were a strange colour, a kind of greenish brown that reminded her of some parts of their planet she had been able to see from the window in her dorm.

Unlike the others, even the leader, this prisoner did not seem afraid or even vaguely surprised. Not by her situation, but most strangely, not by her. She didn't seem the least bit intrigued by the being from another planet standing only a few feet away.

It was downright eerie.

As she turned to leave, the prisoner spoke. Rikar looked over her shoulder, and the prisoner was standing now, watching her. She took a few steps forward and bared her blunt teeth when the restraints jerked her back, then she repeated the words, more agitated now.

"I don't understand you," Rikar said, coming to stand a few feet away from the boundary, but the prisoner didn't try to lunge at her like the last one had. Instead she stood there, staring with her strange eyes, as if willing Rikar to understand her.

Rikar looked up at her face – she only came up to the local's chin. "I will return," she said quietly as she left the cell.

xXx

It was a few more hours before Rikar could finish with the rest of her work, find what she needed, and return to the prisoner's cell with a scanner holding a copy of the prototype translator hidden in the folds of her robes. As a priestess she passed the guards without a second glance, and slipped into the strange prisoner's cell unobserved.

The prisoner had been sleeping, but she sat up when Rikar entered, watching her warily.

"It's all right," Rikar said, showing her the scanner, but it didn't seem to reassure her. "You obviously had something to say to me," she chattered, partially out of nervousness, as she set up the translator. "And I can tell there's something different about you. So now I'm going to find out what."

It took a few moments for the translator to load, and the prisoner watched her the whole time, taking a few curious steps forward.

Once the translator was ready, Rikar held the scanner up so the prisoner could see the screen. "Can you understand this?" she said.

After a moment, her words were repeated back to her in Maia's voice, though Rikar could no longer understand them. The lines of short hair above the prisoner's eyes raised.