Title: Alien Us
Author: Philippe de la Matraque
Part: 23/? (in progress)
Series: ENT
Rating: R (for violence and torture)
Pairing: R/S light
Archive: Yes to Trekiverse.org, otherwise, please ask.
Contact: pdelamatra
...@kc.rr.com
Web:
http://gabrielle.sytes.net/Trek/pdelamatraque.html
YahooGroup: AlienUsCollaboration.YahooGroups.com
Summary: For Reed and Hoshi, this is their Roswell, and they are the aliens.
Archivists: Please replace the previous chapter 23 post with this one.
Note: Typos fixed. I think I'll wait a day after posting to fanfiction.net
from now on. That way I should have a cleaner copy to post here.
Alien Us
by Philippe de la Matraque
Chapter Twenty-Three
"We have the permission of the Council," Major Zhenah said, stepping
forward until he was only inches from Burha's face. "You were there."
"He's the only one we have," Burha argued. Baezhu was impressed by the
doctor's courage but he realized none of this boded well for Samwize. Burha
wasn't done. "What are you going to do when you kill him, as for Buftanis
to hand us one of the clones--if they ever manage to make one?"
Zhenah bared his teeth. "Your job is to make sure it doesn't die!"
Dr. Bishtae tried to get between them. "I read the orders from the
Council. Our job is to glean scientific information, which we can't do if
you kill him. So we'll just have to work together to get the strategic
information you want and the scientific information we need."
He'd let Baezhu read the orders, too. The Council approved more aggressive
investigations without anesthesia, such as his tolerance for water,
pressure, and any number of things that completely contradicted what Dr.
Bishtae had told him before. They hadn't been cruel up until now.
Admittedly, things hadn't always been pleasant for Samwize, but they'd never
purposely caused him pain. Even the recent forcing of him to speak had been
painless.
Now that was going to change. And Baezhu couldn't think of any way to help
Samwize short of releasing him, and it wasn't like he could do that. Even
if he could, there was no where to release him to. He wasn't a wild animal
from the woods or the ocean. He was an alien from outer space. Samwize was
stuck and so was he.
Kenu stepped forward. "We're going to start with making him say these
words." He help up a stack of cards. "In one language."
"Give them to him," Bishtae suggested. "Let's see if he'll tell us those
words without forcing him. He's probably intelligent enough to know we're
on to him. And what lows we'd stoop to."
Zhenah was still angry but he nodded. "He's got one hour to decide. And
you've got one hour to decide which lows we'll stoop to if he doesn't do it
voluntarily."
Dr. Bishtae sighed but he, too, nodded. He took the stack from Kenu and
passed them to Baezhu. "Take these to him. You have a connection with him.
See if he'll tell you."
Baezhu didn't relish what he had to do. Neither was a good choice for
Samwize. He'd have to give up his one area of control or have it taken from
him. Baezhu didn't want any part of it, but he couldn't just refuse. That
wasn't how life was. He grabbed some blank pages and a pen. This wouldn't
be very easy to convey.
*It's Smeagol,** Malcolm thought to Hoshi. *He's alone. I might need your
insight here.**
"I'm here," she replied. "Let me see?"
Smeagol carried some large cards and a pen. He came all the way to the bed
and sat down on it. On top of the cards were some empty sheets of paper.
On it, he drew what appeared to be a clock. Malcolm had seen enough alien
computers to recognize a time-keeping device, even it wasn't Earth-style.
Then Smeagol drew another under it. The symbols on each had to be numbers
and only on changed from the top clock to the lower. A change of time. But
how much and why?
Smeagol wrote some other symbols below the clocks. He help up a fist with
one hand and pointed with the other to the first symbol under the clocks.
"Euk." He moved his pointing finger to the next symbol and raised one of
the fingers from his fist. "Ak" He pointed to the third symbol and raised
his second finger.
Malcolm had it figured out before Smeagol raised the thumb. *He's
counting.**
"Yes, and the clocks are showing one hour. The first clock's number for
the hour is zero. The second's is one."
Malcolm nodded slightly. It was enough for Smeagol to catch. He put the
paper aside and laid out the cards on the bed.
Smeagol spoke more openly then and Malcolm tried to block it out. Besides
he was distracted by the cards. Because what he saw on them was a shock to
his system: ENTERPRISE, EARTH, UNITED, STARFLEET, RATION, REED, SATO, and
FIELD.
"He says you have one hour to decide to read them or they're going to hurt
you. He said 'they,' Malcolm. Not 'we.'"
*That's why I don't call him 'Gollum,'** Malcolm replied. *So they're on
to our little trick.** To give Smeagol a clue that he got the gist of the
conversation, Malcolm picked up the STARFLEET card and pretended to study
it. Smeagol took the hint and left. **One hour. What am I going to do?**
Hoshi took a minute before answering. "It's only 14 letters. They can't
learn a whole language from that, not when we use 26. But they can catch
inconsistencies. So we'll have to work out a pattern that fits our names.
REED has to be either 'Samwise' or 'Gamgee.' And SATO has to be 'Frodo.'
So what if we make those the sounds of the letters? S for 'fr', A and O are
'oh' and T is 'd.' All those letters are in the other words so we can put
the sounds in them, too."
Malcolm looked at the card with his own name. **But mine isn't so easy.
The two E's have to have consonants in them for either 'Gamgee' or
'Samwise.'**
"Two letters, especially two vowels, can change sounds in combination.
Still, I think it works best with 'Samwise.' The R is an 'es' and the D a
'z.' So the two E's would have to represent 'amwhy.'"
*Isn't that a bit of a stretch?**
Hoshi's voice sounded almost playful. "Why? We're making up a language
here. We don't need English rules."
*Okay, so there are two E's in 'Starfleet.' That would have to end in
'amwide?'**
"And begin with 'frdos.' We just have to decide what the FL will be. And
both of those are in 'field' so we have to repeat them there. What about
'frdoskgamwide?'"
*Easy for you to say.** He felt her smile at that. *Would it be better
just to keep frustrating them?**
"And have them hurt you, Malcolm?" The smile was gone. "Things are
changing. The army guy came to your room. There's something going on here,
too. The female's are acting strange. Some of them were moved to a
different holding area. We have to live or die, Malcolm. If we can't do
the latter, we have to do the former, and there's no reason to invite
torture."
*There is a reason,** he argued. *Maybe two.**
"I think I know the second. But they've shown themselves quite capable of
keeping you alive. The first isn't such a big deal. We can still tell them
lies in one language. So practice: 'Frdoskgamwide'."
She was right. Malcolm sighed and then said it, silently, of course. He
tried it out a few more times.
"Now the others. We only need to decide the H in 'Earth.' But who's to
say it has to be a consonant. Let's make it a vowel. 'Aosdeh.'"
*How do you figure? Never mind. I'll take your word for it.**
"Say it a few times: 'Aosdeh.' It's like the 'ao' in 'tao.'"
Malcolm tried that one out a few times and went back to 'Frdoskgamwide' to
keep it fresh in his memory.
"Good." She was smiling again.
They spent the rest of the hour working out the other for words. "United"
was the last one and it came out as "pludaz."
*At least that one's easy to say. I have to sell these if they're to
believe me. They're mostly the words on our uniforms.**
"I'll help you."
When the hour had passed, Hoshi had just moved to another sidewalk. It was
a large complex and so, depending on how much snow had fallen, she had a lot
of work to do. It made her wonder what they did for this before they got an
alien to do the work. It was cold, even with the fur, ill-fitting coat and
moccasins. But at least shoveling snow didn't take much of her cognitive
abilities. She could focus more on Malcolm. Things were becoming more
desperate there. They were threatening to torture him.
He opened video to her as before, so she saw the first two in were Kenoo
and Zhenah. The former picked up the cards and turned the
first--STARFLEET--toward Malcolm.
"'Frdoskgamwide,'" Malcolm spat out. A clue to them that he was not doing
this willingly.
It wasn't good enough for the linguist. He pointed to the first letter.
Malcolm huffed and then said, "'fr.'" They went on letter for letter until
the double-E. At that Malcolm raised two fingers and pointed at both
together before saying "'amwhy'" then finished by pointing one finger at the
T and labeling it "'d.'"
'Aosdeh' was sounded out next as 'ah-oh-s-d-eh.' She was proud of him. He
was handling their made-up language well.
Then he hesitated at ENTERPRISE. It was quite long. "'*Aldastsufra**,'"
she reminded him.
"'Aldastsufra,'" he repeated, trying to add a bit of anger into his voice.
He sounded out each letter in staccato. He was a good actor, overall.
A little prompt then at the start of each other word got them through
'kuagz,' 'sodowl,' and 'pludaz.' She helped him sound out the latter.
Kenoo scribbled on each card after it was finished. Pronunciation notes,
presumably. Then he promptly left the room. They'd given him something to
work with.
*For all the good it
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