Rift in the Races by John Daulton Page B

sounds quickly from her two co-conspirators, if accented—though she hardly knew that herself—and from that had been able to do a great deal of work on her own.
    But now it was time to try it for real. She was so nervous, her palms began to sweat.
    “Hello,” she said, shaping the word carefully in her mouth. “I am Orli, and I taught myself your language.” She laughed a self-conscious laugh, then added, “I think.”
    Speaking it was much harder with him standing there than it had been sitting by the creek with Pernie giggling at her mistakes. Definitely more difficult than doing it alone. She’d been practicing for this moment for months, even risking disciplinary action by leaving her com badge in her quarters and sneaking off to the bathrooms on the base to practice sheepishly in the mirror. She’d felt really comfortable with the words only just a few days ago. She watched for his reaction anxiously.
    For a moment he looked confused. She thought her accent must be terrible. But then his eyes flickered off to the distant rock and back. The smile that followed brimmed with pride, and tears of joy began to glimmer in his eyes.
    “You have, you have!” he proclaimed. “You speak beautifully. Speak again. Say something else, I beg of you.”
    “What?” she asked, suddenly unable to think of a thing to say.
    “Anything.”
    “How about, I love you.”
    The great chasm in the Sandsea Desert could not have contained the rhapsody that filled him then. Forgetting himself, he hugged her to him, uncaring of propriety. But then, excitedly, he pushed her away and held her back at arm’s length again. “And I love you. You are magnificent. Your words are magnificent. Listen to you. You must never stop talking.”
    She laughed, and said, “Don’t be silly. Of course I can’t talk forever.” Or at least that’s what she thought she said. But not quite.
    His eyes narrowed and his grin went sideways some as he repeated back what she had said. “I stocking. Don’t be a dog bait?” His grin grew, looking as if it might break free and wrap clear around his head. His throat flashed white like the belly of a fish as his head tipped back in laughter. “I’ll certainly try not to be.”
    She realized she’d said something wrong and blushed.
    Seeing the color come upon her sweet face, the laughter died upon his tongue, his expression somewhere between horror and shame. “No! No! Please, don’t be embarrassed. It’s brilliant what you’ve done. And somehow your voice is even more beautiful than it already was. I’m not sure how that can even be possible, but it is.” He held her firmly in his hands, stared deeply into her eyes. “You must never be ashamed. And I will help you learn the words from now on.”
    She smiled, reluctantly at first, but then happily, the giddiness of the whole day returning now that the scary part of trying this had passed. She was still embarrassed, but differently, embarrassed at having thought he might judge her or laugh at her. She drew in a breath of courage and tried again, taking her time to concentrate and shape each sound. Many words in the common tongue were spelled similarly but made different by the slight changing of a sound—an emphasis on a middle syllable rather than the first and you had the difference between goat milk and a woman’s breast. Such were the things of nightmares when it came to speaking in polite company.
    “It’s a beautiful language,” she said. “It’s so musical. It’s so much different when I can catch a few phrases without my com badge on. It’s wonderful when I actually understand.”
    His smile continued to challenge his cheeks for acreage. “You see,” he declared. “You got that all entirely correct.” He couldn’t hide his teeth if he had tried. “How did you manage it?”
    She blushed again, this time with happiness. “I scanned as much as I could into our language banks on the ship. I had Pernie’s lessons and a few books