It was cramped inside the transport. Nick had not chosen Rockhunter's design with passengers in mind. There was only the one seat, and Kathy basically had to sit on the pile of silver ore or else curl up at Nick's feet.

  They worked on language lessons, naturally. Actually being present with the other did make some things easier, but it was also distracting. Nick finally got to see what a fuakala was like up close.

  Kathy was a grayish-green, with a few brown patches here and there. Her shape was fairly similar to human, aside from her head, which was decidedly odd-looking. Her ears were huge like an elephant's, and she seemed able to move them around at will—to cover her own face, spread out to look bigger, or fold back, possibly for better listening. There was no nose he could see, and there was something unnerving about her mouth such that Nick avoided looking too closely at it.

  He got Rockhunter under way, and Kathy exclaimed quietly, clutching at the ore pile and the closest wall, looking very tense. “We go,” Nick explained. He worked the controls to show the exterior forward view on the wall, as if it were a windshield.

  “Yiiiiiii!” Kathy sort of squeaked, clutching harder at the wall, bracing herself. She stared hard, her eyes wide. “Yii yii yii yii yi!”

  “Yi” meant “fast,” it turned out, once they described words for fast and slow. After a couple of minutes, Kathy gradually loosened her death grip on the wall and rocks. She took some deep breaths.

  In a calmer voice, she asked, “Nick, we fly now?” Petra was translating almost instantly, so Nick could basically pretend she was speaking plain English, just with a limited vocabulary.

  “Fly very small,” Nick answered, holding up his thumb and forefinger a few inches apart. That seemed to confuse Kathy greatly, and he realized that the gesture probably had a different, specific meaning for her people that was throwing her off. He tried again, holding both hands flat and horizontal, again a few inches apart. Then she got it.

  “Fly small, go fast,” she murmured.

  Slowly, she moved closer to the screen as she began to peer at the details of the countryside. She made a clicking sound, then a few seconds later a couple of clicks. Not long after that, Kathy was clicking continuously, sounding kind of like a woodpecker, or maybe some odd tropical bird. Nick looked at her curiously. She mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “All...die...” She started clicking again. “All...die...”

  Nick blew air out, thinking. She's bawling her eyes out, looking at her whole world, dead and bleached. If she were human, he would be hugging her already, but he didn't know whether that would even work with a fuakala. He moved one hand slowly, getting close to her arm but not touching. He just held it there, offering touch if it was wanted, saying nothing.

  “All die...” She repeated.

  “No. Not all die. Twenty-six is very small, but twenty-six is,” Nick stressed.

  Kathy turned and saw his hand near her but not touching. She shrank away from it, and Nick pulled it back.

  “I'm sorry.” That sounded painfully inadequate, so he added, “I go, I see more fuakala, I get fuakala.”

  There was a long pause. “Ank you...” Kathy said finally. She went back to staring at the screen for a long while. Nick felt rude just watching her, so he busied himself typing a log entry, since he could do that silently. He had a lot to write about, and it occupied him for a while. Then, he flipped through older entries. After that, he started browsing through the seemingly endless blueprints Petra had available.

  Finally, Kathy turned away from the view. She took a deep breath, clearly trying to re-orient and think about something else. She regarded Nick for a moment.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Nik!eh, I see you?”

  Nick turned in his seat to face her as best he could. “You see me?”

  Kathy moved her face closer. “I see you?”

  What, does she want me to strip? Like a medical exam? Nick lifted his shirt a little, and she held out her hands to stop him.

  “No. I see you minute, minute, minute?” Kathy tried.

  Is she asking me whether I am okay with her staring at me?

  “Yes. You see me.”

  She did the little bow and sway thing. “Ank you.”

  Then Kathy came around to the side of his chair, and moved her face slowly all over him, as if she were scanning him. “I...” She brought fingers of opposite hands together lightly. “Fege?”

  “Touch,” Nick supplied. “Fege is touch.”

  “I...tuckk?”

  Close enough. “Yes.” He held out his hand. Kathy stared at it very closely, and then lightly pressed his palm with one of her fingers. After a couple of seconds, she pulled her finger away. “You are day.” She sounded surprised.

  Nick was confused. “I am day?”

  “Day.” Kathy spread her arms out and accidentally smacked one wall of the cabin. “Kazz!” She shook the injured hand a moment. “Day,” she repeated, spreading her arms with more care. “Night,” she continued, and hugged herself, getting small and shivering.

  “Oh! Hot. Cold.” They got a bit more vocabulary sorted out. Apparently, Nick felt very warm to her touch. He hadn't noticed her feeling cold, though.

  “I see?” Kathy asked again, pointing at his arm. Nick held it out. She ran her fingertip back and forth along a spot on his forearm, her face only a few inches away. He wondered whether she was studying his hair or skin color or something else. She gave an odd little cough and turned her head away quickly. Uh-oh, is she getting sick of me already, literally?

  Nick checked, and there were still a couple of hours left until the Death Star rose. He made a pit stop on a small ridge, and explained, “I, water out. I need go. Five minutes. I go this way. You need go, you go there.” He pointed down the other slope.

  “I understand. Yes, I water out.” They both left Rockhunter briefly, and were back aboard well before the five minutes were up. Nick started them moving again.

  “I sleep,” Kathy announced a few minutes later. Nick offered her the chair but she declined, tucking her legs under her and leaning against one wall. In moments, she was still, and somehow he could tell she had relaxed.

  I don't think I could sleep if roles were reversed, but hey, it's been an exciting day, and a day is only fourteen hours for her, so this must be like pulling an all-nighter. I'll let her sleep until we arrive, I guess.

  Nick found it a little constraining to avoid making noise. He hadn't had to adjust to anyone else in his living space in several months. It was a little annoying, but weirdly, he felt really nostalgic and happy just to have—well, not human contact, but another person, at least. Someone else around, at any rate.

  On a whim, he typed, “Kathy's status,” and Petra responded with a short status sheet.

  Name: Kathy (Ktheg!lik)

  Level: 1

  Class: Adventurer

  Species: Fuakala (Fuak!a)

  Gender: Unknown

  Languages: Galactic 1%, English 7%, Kthufu 100%

  Nick stared at it for a few moments. She's an adventurer and I'm a boss monster, huh? I'd better make sure Petra understands that Kathy is a friendly, and doesn't try to kill her with traps or warbots. It took him a minute, but thinking about how it was displayed in Argoroth Dragon Hunters 9, he figured out how to set her status to “Ally.”

  Once that was done, he worried for a moment. I really hope she's not here to kill me and take Petra.

  I wonder how worried she is about the reverse. Probably not very, since I didn't have to get in touch and I've been giving them food. Desperate people do desperate things, though. I'll have to remember to be careful.

  It wasn't worth the obvious danger of having Kathy not set to “Ally” when they went inside Petra's dungeon.

  He looked at the Gender entry with some amusement. It's true, Kathy could be a guy with a high-pitched voice. Do they even have genders? Sexes? Whatever? It'll be a while before I can ask her about her pronouns, he thought, suppressing a snort.

  Then Nick looked again at the status and felt a bit of jealousy. Seriously? She's got 7% English already? I've barely got 1% in Kthufu. Then he remembered the difference in motivation.

  I've got my basic needs sorted. I've got games to play, music to listen to, and a pool to swim in. She's had a dirty silver mine she's been sharing with over twenty other people, probably with nothing to do. I guess I'd be a lot more motivated to learn her language if it was the other way around, out of boredom if survival wasn't enough.

  Abruptly Petra beeped. Kathy startled awake, looking in every direction as if disoriented. Nick had told Petra to be quiet, but he had also told her not to let him arrive somewhere without waking him with a noise, after that time he'd gone mining and slept for hours after arrival. They had nearly reached Petra's dungeon.

  I wonder what Kathy will think of the place.