Page 58 of Leviathan

"You got him to safety," I repeated, knowing she needed to hear the words again. "You made that happen."

"You saved me," came a soft, familiar male voice, as if waking up from a long sleep.

"Eun!" Leija cried out and flung herself out of the view of the camera.

"Lyrien, how do I turn this off?" I asked, doing my best to ignore the sounds now coming from out of sight.

The connection turned off, and the screen went blank.

"We can build a control system for the view screen in the manufacturing lab that makes sense for you," Lyrien said. "In the meantime, as you are already aware, Eun has woken up. He will have a long recovery period, but will be better able to attend to his mate's immediate needs now. I've already sent him a list of structures he needs to build internally and put all of the materials within his reach."

"So they will be able to come out soon?" I asked.

I was so excited to have another human on board.

"He is in a fragile state," Lyrien said. "And likely will be anxious for her to leave him. His shell lock was violent and sudden, and given his repeated history of damage to his neurofilaments, he might have more difficulty breaking free of it. I will create a social gathering area near where he is docked so that she can spend time with you initially without going far."

"He doesn't get to control her just because he is anxious," I pointed out.

"Do you think she will want to go far from him right now?" Lyrien asked.

"No," I shook my head. "But rather than set up a new area near him, why don't you just move him closer to all of my things. Wouldn't that be faster?"

I’d taken a walk back to the ship to check on Eun and Leija in person and discovered that the distance had almost tripled. Lyrien had moved us farther apart when I was sleeping.

I didn’t blame him, given how nervous he was about me being near a hostile member of his species, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to ignore that entirely.

"I will talk to him once he is available for a conversation," Lyrien said. "Right now, he is sitting on the metal plates of my docking bay. I'd have to touch him to move him, and I don't want to do that without a clear conversation about it beforehand."

"Okay," I said. "Then, in the meantime, I have some ideas for what I want to do with this room."

"I'm sure you do," Lyrien said, a delighted note in his voice.

TWENTY-THREE

MARIA

A shudder ran through the ship, the couch cushions translating the vibration in a soft hum, as the picture of Earth I had painted and hung up on the wall rattled like someone had slammed a door particularly hard.

"What was that?" Leija asked from the view screen from where she lounged on a carbon copy of my design, just with red cushions that showed up beautifully behind the gold shimmering silk-like pantsuit she had on. I'd designed and manufactured a large, cozy couch that I had set back at the perfect distance for movie nights, or for chatting with Leija. I loved hanging out with her, and we had regular hangout dates in person, but sometimes it was nice to chat from the comfort of our own spaces.

"You felt that?" I asked as I slid off the couch. I went to the door, which opened up into the hallway. Lyrien wouldn't 'enter' my private suite unless I invited him in, so I stepped out into the hallway where I knew he would see and hear me easily. "Lyrien? Is everything okay?"

"We are not under attack," Lyrien said, his voice tense and short. "But there was a collision."

"What kind of collision?" I asked.

"One caused by bad manners," Lyrien replied, his tone still curt. "I need to focus on this."

I waited for a moment, then went back inside to talk to Leija. As much as I would like to know what was going on, Lyrien had earned my trust to the point that I would wait for him to sort out whatever was going on without insisting on immediate details. If it was something I could help with or if it put us in danger, he would let me know. Once he could focus on talking to me, I'd have the whole story.

"Lyrien said that something collided with us, but it wasn't an attack," I said, informing my friend of the situation, as I slid back onto the couch, happy about the way the fabric felt soft and supple against the bare skin of my legs. Leija enjoyed designing clothing, as well as dressing other people, so she had me trying out new outfits all the time, which was fantastic. I was so sick of boring clothes, and as fun as it was to wear no clothing, it was even more fun to have Lyrien peel me out of outfits..

Eun had set up an entire design studio for her with both replication of the types of earth machines she was used to using, as well as some other pieces of alien equipment for working with fabrics. The most recent outfit she made me was the one I had on. It was a comfortable slip of a dress that had huge splits up the sides. "He said it was caused by a collision, but whatever is going on is taking up his attention so that is all I know."

"Do you think it is another Vaurelcar?" Leija asked as she leaned towards the viewscreen. "If that other one you ran into had humans on it, they could have convinced it to come after us."

"That's... entirely likely..." I picked up my cup of as close to coffee as I could get on an alien ship in space and took a sip of the rich, sweet liquid. "The shudder was a lot like the time we attacked it, but more gentle from what I recall. It could be stray debris, though."