“ Sorry!” Tikaya grabbed his arms. “You have no idea how much this helps. I mean, this could be the key to translating this whole language. You’re amazing!” She kissed him on the cheek, then danced back to her chalkboards. Now that he had pointed out the structures so cunningly crafted into the symbols, she could pick out ten or twelve she remembered from school. That was enough to get her started. Although…
“ Actually, yes, I could use a book with your table in it.” She turned back and was about to ask him to look, but he was staring at her, his fingers touching the cheek she had kissed.
“ Yes, of course.” He lowered his hand.
She bit her lip, tickled at his reaction. “Do you not get praised often?”
“ It’s been a while,” he admitted. “And before Krychek, uhm, more often by men than women.”
“ Not even your wife?”
He snorted. “Especially not by her.”
They shared a chuckle, and she admitted herself curious about the woman, though it should not matter. Rias’s past relationships were none of her business, and they had more important things to worry about. Besides, he had left her anyway. Tikaya blinked. Or had he? Maybe she was something, like his land and his name, that the empire had taken from him as punishment. Still, he did not sound disappointed.
“ Horrible woman?” she asked, fishing.
“ No, but we weren’t a good match from the start. It never would have lasted as long as it did if I hadn’t been away at sea so much of the time. She had my home, my money, and the freedom to spend time wherever-” he winced, “-with whomever, she pleased.”
Tikaya grimaced in sympathy. Like her, Parkonis had not been perfect, but he had always been faithful. “How’d you end up together to start with?”
“ I was twenty, she was pretty, and our parents thought it would be a good idea.” Rias laughed ruefully. “But mostly I was twenty and she was pretty.” He waved away further discussion. “I’ll get that book.”
“ Be careful.”
He waved an acknowledgment on his way out, and Tikaya shifted uneasily, as worried for him as for herself. Agarik had walked out, and she had not seen him since. Rias was only going to search this building, she told herself, and settled into work.
A few moments later, Tikaya had three chalkboards lined up, all full. She listed the translations for the atoms she recognized. Also, she listed runes she remembered from the rubbings, those displaying what she now recognized as molecular structures. The elements came up surprisingly often in what she had assumed was normal writing. Perhaps the subject was always science. Or maybe these people-this race? — had a language specifically for scientific matters. The Herdoctans had a different written language for religion, so why not?
A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped, dropping her chalk.
“ Sorry.” Rias held a book with his finger marking a page.
“ No, don’t apologize. My fault for not paying attention.” Tikaya picked up the chalk and accepted the book. She glanced at the cover. “ Torture and Interrogation Methods Technical Manual?”
Rias cleared his throat. “Yes, ah, just stick to the chapter on chemical applications.”
“ Oh, I will. I don’t want to chance upon any Turgonian brutality secrets.” Or pictures more gruesome than the bodies on the floor.
He surveyed the chalkboards with bemusement and scraped at dried blood on the corner of one. “You know, some women wouldn’t be willing to work in a room full of corpses.”
She had already started writing and almost missed the comment. “What?”
Rias chuckled. “Nothing. Continue your work. I’ll stand guard.”
Tikaya straightened, wincing at the ache in her lower back. She stretched her arms toward the ceiling and shook out a cramp in her hand. Midnight had to be near, maybe past. Her stomach growled. Fatigue numbed her brain, and her mouth battled unsuccessfully against yawns. Even if the lighting had been better, her notes and the symbols on the device would have blurred and swam before her bleary eyes.
Rias stood guard by the door, checking the hallway from time to time, but mostly staying silent and letting her work.
A scream raced down the street below the hill. What if she translated the writing too late? After the entire team killed each other? She eyed the bodies in the corner. Rias had dragged them out of the way, muttering something about funeral pyres in the morning, but she worried about getting to morning. If enough people attacked at once, she and Rias could end up like that before dawn.
No, she decided, watching him standing with his ear cocked. Despite the hour, he was alert, rifle across his arms, hand on the stock, finger near the trigger. Not tense but relaxed and ready. She imagined he could fight off superior odds for a long time, but he would not want to do so. He’d be shooting his own people, the very men they were supposed to help later on.
Rias saw her watching him and lifted his eyebrows.
Tikaya felt silly to have been caught gazing at him. “I was wondering if you could get my mind off this for a moment.”
Rias joined her. He set the rifle butt on the floor and rested his forearms across the muzzle. He surveyed her, and she felt a self-conscious twinge. No doubt she had strands of hair sticking out in all directions and dark smudges assailing her eyes. And her baggy Turgonian uniform and parka did not flatter her form under any circumstances.
“ A question.” Rias’s gaze rested on a chalkboard, though he did not seem to focus on anything. “If someone from Kyatt were to decide to marry a Turgonian, would they be allowed to live on your island?”
Tikaya was not sure what she had expected him to ask, but that was not it. “That wasn’t a marriage proposal, was it?”
He coughed. “No, no, just hypothetical. If it were a proposal…” He offered his half smile. “There’d be soft music, excellent food, romantic ambiance…” He tilted his head toward the corner. “Fewer corpses.”
“ Ah, I wasn’t sure how they did it in the empire. Given your people’s reputation, I thought bloodshed and mangled bodies might be standard at social gatherings.”
“ Bloodshed perhaps.”
Rias watched her, waiting for an answer to his question, she realized.
“ The Kyatt Islands are major trade ports and learning centers, and we have numerous foreigners living there, either temporarily or permanently,” Tikaya said. “I can think of numerous Turgonians who studied at the Polytechnic over the years. And there have been cases of foreigners marrying natives and staying on the islands.”
“ Turgonian foreigners?”
“ Well, you would have been more welcome before your people tried to take over the islands.” She smiled, but no humor lightened his expression. “The president might ask you to leave if he found out you were among those sinking our ships and slinging cannon balls at our harbor, but if you said you didn’t take part in the war, I’m sure you’d be allowed to stay.”
“ So.” Rias laid the rifle across his shoulders and draped his forearms over the ends, reminiscent of a man in a pillory. “Refuge, if one was willing to lie for the rest of one’s life.”
“ Or just dodge questions about one’s name and one’s past. You’re good at that.”
She had not meant the statement to sound accusatory, but he flinched.
“ Listen,” Tikaya said, “I don’t mean to insult you, but whatever you did, or whoever you are to those marines, you’re probably less important than you think to the rest of the world. Chances are my people have never heard of you.”
“ Oh?” Leave it to the Turgonians: he looked faintly offended.
“ You could tell me your name-” Tikaya wriggled her eyebrows suggestively, “-and then I could let you know whether or not you’d be welcome on my island.”
She thought he might remind her that his original question had been hypothetical and that he was not asking about his own future, just some imaginary person’s. He did not. He took a deep breath. “You’re right. I don’t know if we’re going to survive the next couple weeks and, even if we do, I’m guessing Bocrest has orders to make me disappear afterward, but either way it’s not honorable of me to keep truths from you. I-”