Six breaths. Six more. Six again.

Of course, Amber never would bend her neck.

Six breaths. Lashraq. His brunt. Uyane, father of his own line. Mykrm. Oyan. Thaliszr. And back to the Prophet.

Unless she were looking at her boots. Then she might, but then she wouldn’t care what he thought about seeing the back of her neck. And she certainly would never make that sound. She didn’t know anything about how to be a real woman, and that more than anything bothered him, because what did it say about him that he still wanted to have sex with her?

This was part of the ordeal. It had to be. Sheul had made the humans to test his resolve, his patience and his resourcefulness, and He had made Amber specifically to test his self-control. He needed to stare that down, own it, conquer it, and get on with his damned life.

Six breaths, like rising stairs. Meoraq climbed them over and over, determined to find peace at the top. He had almost done so—almost—when out of the pure black nothing, he suddenly thought, ‘You don’t like her in spite of the way she acts, you know. You like her because of it.’

‘I don’t like her at all,’ he thought back defiantly. At once he felt the Sheulek in him judge that for the lie it was. He may hate the feelings he had—they felt dangerous and deviant, even when they were not wholly anchored to his loins—but he couldn’t pretend he didn’t have them.

And sometimes…he wasn’t even sure he hated them.

10

And that was how the time passed for Amber. Days that had seemed hellishly interminable when there was nothing to fill them but wind and rain, hunger and cold, now flew by. Even when Meoraq wasn’t there to give her his blank, silent stares as she pleaded with him to say her name, say hello, say fuck off, say anything, the time slipped away from her. If it wasn’t for Scott’s regular reminders that she’d wasted six days trying to teach a lizard how to talk…ten days…twelve…she would have lost track of them completely.

Which wasn’t to say that they hadn’t made any progress. Meoraq still had not said one word of English, but he responded to it. Of course, his responses were all in lizardish, which stubbornly resisted all of Amber’s attempts to decipher. Oh, she thought she was picking some up. She thought that every day until she actually tried to talk and inevitably insulted him. She didn’t even know how half the time. She’d just be there, clumsily coughing up lizard-words, and suddenly he’d stiffen and glare at her. If he felt like giving her another chance at that point, he might correct her (invariably with the same exact word she’d just said). More often, he just told her to be quiet and went on with what he was saying. Sometimes, he got up and left, muttering to himself and to his god on high, which was an open invitation for Scott to come over and illustrate all the ways in which she was a failure.

She tried not to let it worry her. Whether or not Meoraq ever learned to talk, Amber didn’t really think Scott would throw him out (and only partly because she didn’t think he could). She hadn’t seen a ration bar since Meoraq had started feeding them; she thought the last of them had probably been eaten in a celebratory binge during an extra-long, extra-quiet debriefing several days ago. Scott may not like the lizard, but he had no trouble recognizing the benefits of having him around.

He was off hunting at the moment, Meoraq. She’d heard him leave a little before dawn and even though the sun was now well up over the horizon, he might be gone for hours yet. Regular meals had done wonders for the morale here at camp, but steady predation had definitely made the saoqs skittish. They were nowhere to be seen anymore, not even from the top of the ridge. Meoraq never came back without one, but whatever secret tracking technique he used to find them, he kept it to himself.

And that bothered her. A lot. Amber knew her first hunt hadn’t exactly been the sort of thing to inspire confidence, but she sure wasn’t going to get any better at it without practice. She couldn’t understand how everyone could just sit around, day after day, waiting for Meoraq to come back and feed them, and sometimes even bitching to each other about how much time he took to do it, like he was a waiter slow-poking himself out of a tip.

And Meoraq, who should have been the first person to insist on some effort, was no help at all. The first time Amber had snatched up her spear and tried to go with him on his morning hunt, he’d actually laughed at her (she was pretty sure that gargling hiss was a laugh). Now he just said no, or occasionally, “No, damn it! Sit down!”

She refused to quit trying to go with him, though. Which was probably why he snuck out today before dawn. Big scaly jerk.

“How are those English lessons coming, Miss Bierce?” Scott called as Amber and Nicci came back from the bushes to join the others.

“Fine,” she said curtly and sat down. She didn’t want to sit down. She didn’t want anything to do with these people, but the alternative was just to sit by herself wrapped up in her blanket and wait for Meoraq alone. She still might do that, but Nicci wanted to be with people, so she sat.

“That’s good. When do you think you could arrange a formal debriefing?”

“It could take a while. I don’t think he has a tux,” said Amber, which was about as witty as she got first thing in the morning.

A few people laughed. Scott wasn’t one of them.

“Is that your way of saying a debriefing would be…premature?”

“Look, I’m working on it, okay?”

“No,” said Scott. “No, it’s not okay. Do you realize it’s been two weeks already? Two weeks. Now I think that I’ve been very patient with you, Miss Bierce, but it’s obvious that there’s a problem on someone’s end. Is it with him or with you?”

“Maybe it’s with the person who thinks two weeks is enough time to learn a new language.”

“I wasn’t expecting him to be fluent. A simple yes or no would be enough to answer most of my questions. Do you think he can manage that?”

Amber went back to rubbing her face.

Scott nodded as if that were the answer he’d expected. “I can’t help but think that any cognizant being would have managed some kind of communication by now.”

“We communicate.”

“You mean it grunts and hisses and you imagine you hear words.”

“I dare you to say that to his face. I fucking dare you.”

“Be cool,” Eric said.

“I don’t need to hear the profanity,” Scott agreed, smiling. “And you don’t need to be so sensitive. I admit that the idea had some merit, but communication is never going to be possible without a certain level of intelligence.” He paused, then added, “I mean the lizard’s intelligence, of course.”

Some of the Manifestors laughed.

“What exactly are you saying?” Amber asked. “That he’s not smart enough to talk? He talks all the time!”

“It vocalizes,” Scott agreed. “But an animal vocalizing is not the same as a person talking. I’m beginning to wonder if you know the difference.”

“Yeah? I’m beginning to wonder how Meoraq’s going to feel about bringing you food every goddamn day if he hears you saying he’s not a fucking person.”

Scott quit smiling. “I’m not going to tell you again about the profanity.”

“Oh what now? You going to wash my mouth out with soap?”

“Be cool, Bierce,” Eric said again. “We’re just trying to figure things out.”

“It is amazing to me,” Scott added, “that you are the only one who seems to think that you don’t need to make any effort to get along with the rest of us.”

“Just you, Scott. Just you.”

In the crowd, Dag leaned over and whispered something in Eric’s ear. Eric nodded and ran a hand through his hair. “Take a walk, Bierce. Cool off.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

He raised his head to look at her. His gaze was steady. “I said, take a walk.”