He tipped his head in the direction of the mess hall.
“Would you bring me some, then?”
“You need more music?”
“Actually, I’d like to read more about the Dark Anomaly, please. Here...” I grabbed one of the slates lying around. We’d left the frame behind while escaping the mess hall, and without the frame, the slate wouldn’t work. I blew a breath on the smooth surface then drew two words in the condensation with my finger. “This is how Dark Anomaly is spelled in the Universal language.”
He threw a sideway glance at the words.
“What is it that you need to know about this place? Knowledge won’t affect your life in any way.”
In some ways, he was right. My life here was not much different than that of a caged animal, let out only for the entertainment of others. However, knowledge was power that could potentially enable me to change things.
There could be a way for me to make Wyck more interested in those changes, too.
I wiped the slate off with my sleeve, then blew on it again.
“Have you ever seen your name in writing?” I asked, tracing the letters in the fog on the slate. “Here, this is how it looks in Universal.”
This time, he studied the slate a little longer.
“That’s my name?” He took the slate from my hands to take a closer look at the word.
“Yes.” I nodded. “These are letters—the written record of each sound in your name. By rearranging the letters, we write words.”
“What does your name look like?” He handed the slate back to me.
“Here is mine.” I wrote it quickly. “See? We have the same sound in yours and mine, which in the Universal language corresponds to the same letter. There it is.” I pointed at the letter that in Universal stood for both sounds that the letters y and i made in his and my names, respectively.
“We share a letter?” He seemed especially pleased by that fact.
“Right.” I smiled.
“Is it the same in my language?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t speak Hexolian. There might not be. There are no common letters in our names in either English or Russian—the two Earth languages that I speak. Both have more complicated structures. But that’s the point of Universal—it simplifies things. It was created to unite people of many planets by making communication easier. That’s why it’s one of the easiest languages to learn, if not the easiest one of all.”
He kept staring at the slate until the condensation evaporated and the letters disappeared.
“I can teach you how to read,” I offered quietly and held my breath in anticipation of his answer.
“Why?” he said after a short pause.
To me, his inability to read was an impairment that could be easily fixed. There was no downside to it. Wyck didn’t need to continue going through life in ignorance. I sensed a keen interest about the world in him. He wanted to learn more about it, but he couldn’t do so independently.
“Because we have some time to kill,” I replied casually. “And being able to read is handy, even around here.”
He slid his gaze aside, biting down on that plump lower lip of his.
“I don’t think I can learn. Crux used to say I was too dumb for that,” he said it simply, without bitterness, as if stating a fact.
Suddenly, I wished Crux was still alive, so I could slap him.
“Crux obviously had no desire to bother teaching you.”
Knowing what I did about the men responsible for Wyck’s upbringing, there might be more to it. Having Wyck grow up unable to learn things for himself must’ve made it easier for them to control him. The only truth he’d ever known was whatever they’d told him.
“Knowledge is a kind of power, Wyck.”
He rolled his shoulders back, flexing the bulging muscles in his arms.
“I’ve got enough power as it is.” He gave me a crooked grin.
“Physical strength is only part of it. Your captain is not as big or as strong as an errock, yet he holds the authority over all of you.”
“Because he is smart,” he replied slowly.
“See? Knowledge is power,” I said with conviction. “It’d give you the ability to think for yourself and to make your own decisions based on the information you’d be able to access on your own if you could read.”
He kept quiet for a little while. I could almost see the thoughts running through his mind.
“You may think you’re one of them,” I continued. “But you are your own person, first and