He stirred, ready to protest, but I wouldn’t let him.
“When they all lunged at me back there, ready to rip me to pieces, you got me to safety. You’ve held me, almost completely naked, in your arms and you let me go without causing me any harm. Would any one of those over six hundred males have done the same?”
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I had too much faith in him and not enough in the others, but he no longer tried to argue.
“You’re not like them, Wyck. You don’t have to be.”
Chapter 12
“SO, THIS GUY HERE...” Wyck shifted into a more comfortable position on the floor, in his usual place in the doorway. The tablet frame with an orange slate was in his lap. “He invented the medicine that cured a large portion of the population of a themul country on Nofoi.”
Leaning against his side, I nodded. “Hundreds of thousands of lives were saved. More than that, though, the process the errock Professor Lercur created has been used to make life-saving medicine for other species, too, not just the themul.”
“And that’s why he is celebrated as a hero everywhere.”
“Right.”
It had been three days since I started teaching Wyck how to read Universal. His nearly photographic memory allowed him to memorise entire words, which proved a hindrance sometimes. I had to force him to break the words into letters, so he could then learn to read words yet unknown to him, too. Despite some slight setbacks, once he had grasped the concept, he was moving forward with astounding speed.
Wyck had been spending most of the days here with me, leaving only to get us food and to exchange slates from the library. I’d noticed he was especially eager to read biographies of famous men. I believed he loved learning about the many ways in which a person could distinguish themselves in the modern world. At first, he listened with fascination and admiration when I read the stories to him. Now, he had slowly started reading them himself.
“Has Professor Lercur ever visited Earth?” he asked.
“No. I don’t believe he has.”
“Do you know anyone who has been to Hexol?”
“Not personally. No.” I shook my head.
“Would you like to go there one day?”
I snapped my gaze up to his face. It was impossible to tell whether his question was purely hypothetical. I hoped he might be considering the possibility of traveling beyond this place one day.
Other than this mission, I hadn’t travelled much. Until now, my life plan had focused on settling down, then creating and raising my family. Now, when I imagined myself taking a trip to Hexol, in Wyck’s company, it seemed extremely appealing.
“I’d love to see Hexol,” I replied sincerely then added, “If it were possible, that is.”
We sat in silence for a while, each lost in our own thoughts.
“Did you have to learn how to dance?” Wyck spoke first, changing the subject, for which I was grateful. “Or are humans born knowing how to do that?”
“No, that’s not a born ability. I took dance classes for many years. Though, I did love dancing probably from the day I was born.”
“Why?”
I blinked at him in confusion. Why did people like dancing? Or art in general? How could I best explain it to him? And was an explanation even possible?
I often had to adjust my way of thinking around Wyck. He questioned many things I took for granted, forcing me to look at the world from a different perspective. For him, so many things I grew up with were new as he learned about them for the first time.
Dancing seemed to be one of them.
“I always loved it.” I shrugged. “While in school, I considered becoming a professional dancer, but when I got a little older, film production attracted me more as a career. Dance just stayed a hobby for me.”
“Do you dance at home, when you’re alone?”
“Sometimes,” I confessed. “But I also go out with friends. I’ve done a few dance competitions, too. It’s been fun. You see, dancing is both my way to relax and revitalize.”
It didn’t escape me that we both were talking about my life in the present tense, as though I still had that life.
“How so?” he asked. “I’m sure it’s a strenuous exercise, though you do make it look easy.”
I smiled wider.
“True, after a performance I feel tired, but also energized. There is a sense of accomplishment—satisfying and fulfilling. Don’t you wish you could express yourself through something bigger than