Proximal Flame's Fiction

Natalya ran her fingers through her hair, trying to sort out her thoughts. At least they were hers this time. The medics expected a full recovery, but they didn’t know if Natalya continued to talk with the prisoner, whether each time would be better or worse. Would whatever was ‘wrong’ with her brain acclimate to the Lefu’s speech, or would the damage keep piling up? None of them knew. The young woman rubbed her temples. She’d have to talk with the pilot again. So far, she was the only one who could communicate with her. Since the Lefu still refused to speak, there was nothing for the translation programs and linguists monitoring her to work with. Some BXA personnel were trying to teach her English – a process to which she was nothing if not disinterested. Accordingly, progress was slow. Other medics were speaking with the other personnel who’d reported migraines, waking dreams and nightmares but so far none of them had shown the kind of sensitivity that she had. Why me? What was so special about her that she, out of tens of thousands of men and women, was the only one that could do it?

The Lefu was standing on one hand, her legs and other arm sticking out to the sides, moving in slow arcs in some exercise ritual. If she had noticed Natalya’s arrival in the cell bay, she gave no sign of it. “Give me a moment,” she asked of the guards. They exchanged a quick look before acquiescing, stepping just outside the door, letting it hiss shut. “So you’re what’s scaring the Concord,” Natalya said aloud as she shifted the window from one-way to two-way, turning on the comm. The Lefu raised her legs together, toes pointing up at the ceiling of her cell. Her muscles rippled in a wave from her calves down to her forearms as she stretched. The tattoos on her exposed flesh glinted under the fluorescent lights. “You’re what’s killing us. Our own damned species,” her voice was rough, her throat tightening with revulsion, aching with each word. “But you’re not, are you? Not really. You might look like us, but there’s nothing inside that makes you human. I wonder if you even bleed.”