Daughter of Time 1: Reader by Erec Stebbins

their seats. The fear of them had begun to leave me. Somehow, I knew that these creatures had purposefully taken what was left of us off that ship, and that they had cared for me. Why, I did not know. Fear still remained for what they might want with me.
    “Welcome back, Ambra Dawn,” said one of them before I could muster any courage for interaction. Its translator was strung about its strange head like a necklace, lights flashing across the surface as words were spoken. “Please, do not be afraid. We are medics of the Xix. We have tended you since our forces retrieved you from the smugglers.”
    “Smugglers?” I managed to croak out. My throat was very sore.
    “Barbarians,” spoke the other in an identical pitch, identical accent, although a different personality came through the cadenced inflection of the words.
    “You were nearly beyond our aid. Many of your companions already were,” continued the first one.
    “Where are they all?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
    “Those that survived are well cared for at a rehabilitation facility.”
    “Rehabilitation?”
    “Yes. We are a division of Xixian forces devoted to identifying groups that violate the laws in place ensuring the proper treatment of underdeveloped creatures. Too often more advanced species abuse their power and resort to treating humans in unconscionable ways, simply to maximize profit. Too many do not believe in your ability to suffer, or do not care. Our job is to police such abuses. Your shipmates will be healed as much as we are able to heal them, and then reassigned to more, shall we say, humane, employments.”
    My mind attached a soft smile to the words. Of course, the Xix had no teeth or mouths that I ever saw. They never dined with us and it was always my theory that they absorbed their food through their rough skin. I’m clueless about how they interfaced with the translators.
    “Why am I here?”
    The eyestalks swiveled around and settled on me. “Because you are special, Ambra.”
    “How do you know my name?”
    “You have spoken much in your delirium. We have been careful to record and study everything about you once we understood your value. Shortly after we brought you to medical services, our scans of your body identified items of interest beyond the illnesses and damage to your body that we sought to repair.”
    “My tumor.”
    “Yes, Ambra. But I don’t think you fully appreciate your condition.”
    “I hate it.”
    “Yes, that is understandable. But we often hate things we do not understand.”
    The second one spoke, its many eyes focusing on both me and the other Xix. “Ambra, who modified you? Was it Earthlings? Or others?”
    “Modified me? Oh. You mean the surgeries.” I turned away from them. For some reason, I felt ashamed. “Humans did it. They wanted the tumor to grow. I think my Reader powers come from it.”
    “Yes, Ambra, they do. Did you know that many humans have such tumors?”
    I turned back around. “They do?”
    “They are much smaller. All humans with Reader powers have this growth in the brain. It is a recent alteration of your neural physiology, within the last fifty thousand of your Earth years. In most it is no larger than the tip of your finger.”
    “But in me?”
    “Your genetics combined to create a benign tumor in this tissue, accelerated in growth by hormones at puberty. The surgeries modified your brain tissue, your skull, vasculature – all to allow the tumor to grow uninhibited. It gives you special abilities.”
    “I don’t want to be special.”
    “But you are, Ambra.” I turned away again. Several seconds passed in silence until the first one continued the conversation.
    “We know you are blind.”
    “Yes.”
    “The scans revealed the damage from the growth to your brain tissues involved in processing visual information. And yet, Ambra, you see.”
    I remained silent, turned away from them. I didn’t know what to say. Most of the conversation had been from the