“Because.” That answer wasn’t going to satisfy him, and she knew him. She squared her shoulders and faced him directly. “Do the names on your planet have meanings?” she asked.

He looked somewhat unpinned by the shift in conversation. “Yes.”

“What does Tagen mean?”

He was obviously expecting the question because he’d started to look irritated before she’d even finished asking it. He searched the ceiling for several seconds, formulating his reply and aligning his English. “It is…a straight line. In definition, it is the same base word as to mean ‘wind’, but it refers in fact to…to point…” He suddenly mimed the drawing and firing of a gun, so effectively that Daria flinched.

“To shoot,” she said shakily.

But he shook his head, looking frustrated. “To hit…no. To intend to hit…to…”

“To aim,” she said.

He seized on the word, visibly testing it, and finally nodded. His hand returned to his side. “Yes. Good aim.” He regarded her with his watchful eyes. “What does Lindaria mean?”

“I’ll show you.” She slammed the chicken into the oven and turned it on, and then marched from the room.

He followed her outside and around to the herb garden. It was mostly dead now, a victim to the drought and her determination not to pay higher water bills than she already had to, but there was still a little green. Some rosemary sprigs, some sage, and of course, the thing she wanted him to see, the only thing she hadn’t planted. It was growing up through the decorative rock wall, despite the weather and every other effort to kill it off.

“That’s lindaria,” she said, and grabbed hold of the ivy vine skulking into the sun. She pulled it free with a pop and showed it to him, her lip curling. “This ugly, sneaky little weed. It gets in everywhere. It chokes out everything. You can’t kill it. You can’t contain it. It’s worse than blackberry bushes, because at least those give you fruit once in a while and make a decent pie. This is poisonous. It’s just an ugly, awful, useless plant.”

His eyes went to the rock she’d pulled it from and came back to her. He said nothing.

“So don’t call me Lindaria,” she said, crushing the ivy in her fist. “I’d rather you go back to calling me ‘human’ than Lindaria. At least humans have some good qualities.”

She headed back to the house, dropping her weed into the trashcan on the way.

He was silent all the way back to the kitchen and he did not resume his place at the table. He stood behind her, his hands behind his back and that brooding line between his eyes as he watched her wipe down the counters. “I did not think it an ugly plant,” he said at last.

“Yeah, well, you’re an alien and you don’t know any better, but it is.” Her hand found a way up to rub restlessly at her cheek, and she forced it to her side in a fist. “Now can we please talk about something else? Preferably something to do with you for a change?”

His frown deepened. “What should I talk about?” he asked warily.

“What’s Jota like?”

He cocked his head. “What is Earth like?” he countered, but then rolled one shoulder in his careful, clumsy shrug. “Jota has…forests and oceans and deserts, like Earth. The trees are…similar. Somewhat. The cities…are cleaner, I think. Cleaner and quieter than those shown on your tee-vee.” He paused and ran his eyes around the room. “I was young in a house much like this. Uncivilized.”

“My house is uncivilized?”

He must have sensed her defensiveness. “Perhaps it is the wrong word. It is…apart from others. Apart from cities. Without…comforts. That is not the right word, either,” he sighed, and rubbed at his brow.

“I think I understand,” she said. “You mean I’m out in the wilderness.”

“Wilderness,” he echoed, still frowning.

“And you grew up in a place like this?”

“Yes.” His mouth tightened. “My…father, I think you would say…moved away from the city to raise me. He believed the wilderness was a better place.”

“Lots of parents think that,” Daria said.

“Do they.” It was not a question. He watched her put groceries away. “The food is different,” he remarked suddenly. “Although the food is very different in many places around Jota, I suppose. I am accustomed to simpler foods.”

“Simpler than soup or frosted flakes?” She glanced at him and saw he wasn’t kidding. “What could possibly be simpler than that?”

“Perhaps it only feels simpler,” he said, and approximated another shrug. “Soldier’s fare tends to be so.”

“Soldier, huh?” She turned all the way around to look at him. “You said you were a cop. Were you in the army, too?”

He considered the wall behind her rather than her. “The distinction is, I think, that police are for immediate crimes and soldiers for…exterior ones? Yes, I am in the army. Or have been. The terms are served aside of each other. I am a soldier for one term and a police one term, so.”

“That’s a handy way to do it,” Daria said, and poured herself a glass of iced tea. “Soldiers don’t get too battle-fatigued and cops don’t get too bored. I imagine there’s not a whole lot of crime on your planet.”

“Not…as much as Earth would seem to have. But space is a far hiding place for criminals, and there are many conflicts.” He shrugged again. He was getting better at it. “Now I am police. I should be on Jota, but I am also sek’ta. This makes me a very special police. Like…like your Mulder and Scully.”

She blinked, the glass frozen to her lips.

“I have special assignments,” he continued, oblivious to her surprise. There was a certain rueful emphasis on the word ‘special’.

“Does that mean this E’Var fellow of yours is a flukeman?” she asked.

Tagen’s mouth quirked up in half a smile, indicating that even if he’d missed that episode, the show had made enough of an impression to make the reference relevant. “No,” he said, proving it, “But he is an alien.”

Daria laughed, startling herself.

“Your tee-vee fascinates me,” he said. “We have something similar on my world, but our programming is very different. Very.”

“Yeah, I don’t suppose you’d need so many shows like The X-Files once you actually knew aliens were real.”

“Mm.” His attention had shifted. Grendel had wandered into the kitchen and was nosing indignantly at his empty bowl. As soon as the cat made eye contact with him, Tagen walked over to the cupboard and brought down a tin of cat food.

“You’re going to spoil him, you know that.”

“Ah well.” Unrepentant, Tagen opened the tin and shook the food into Grendel’s dish, and then stroked down the cat’s back several times as Grendel noisily devoured it. “I would mind him better if I were in danger of making him fat. As he is already fat, I may as well keep him happy.”

Daria was caught out in snickers again, and muffled them against the back of her hand. “Right,” she said. “That’s kind of been my thinking all along. I tried to put him on a diet once, but the only thing he lost was his sense of humor and it only took him about ten minutes.”

Tagen smiled faintly, watching Grendel eat.

“Do you…No, I suppose you don’t have cats on your planet.”

“No, but we have something similar. Truly, we are not so different.” He gave Grendel’s ears a rub, and then looked at Daria, his eyes taking on a certain caution. He stood. “But in some ways, we are very different,” he said firmly. “On Jota, no male would do what that one—” His eyes flicked dismissively toward the kitchen door as though Troy were still standing there. “—meant to do. And no female would allow him to try.”

“Yeah, well.” Daria started wiping down the counters again, mostly as an excuse to turn her back on him. “Some guys just have a hard time hearing ‘no’. It’s not a big deal. He wouldn’t have actually done anything.”

“He made you think otherwise.”

“No, he really didn’t.” Daria scrubbed a little harder.